The announcement appeared in the papers that the government was intending to ask for the dismissal of the case against Hansi Robin on the ground of insufficient evidence. Lanny waited to learn what was going to happen after that, but nothing happened that he heard of. He was afraid to ’phone Hansi and didn’t want to force himself upon either of the government officials. If they needed him they knew where to reach him.
Lanny wasn’t attending the trial. As brother of the principal defendant he would attract attention, and the newspaper reporters would besiege him for comment. He and Laurel would get the news over the radio and from the newspapers twice a day. Rose was going; so far as anybody knew she had nothing to do with the case, and there wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t satisfy her curiosity. She had been to see her publishers, and they, of course, had grabbed her and were proceeding to use her for publicity purposes. She was to have a luncheon to which the prominent critics would be invited; she was to have a literary tea party for the smaller fry. As soon as the publishers learned that she meant to follow the boilerplate-papers case in court, they got busy with the newspapers, and Rose found herself signing a contract to report the case for one of the tabloids at five hundred dollars a day as long as the trial lasted, or as long as Rose lasted.
So she had a perfect excuse to be present and had a seat right up in front and a table on which to scribble notes. She could study the faces of the four defendants: the poor little rich girl who had been born with a gold spoon in her mouth and had spit it out; the Danish working man who had been embittered by being beaten in a strike; and the couple who kept a stationery shop and had not been able to make money as fast as they wanted to.
The time came when she interviewed Hansi Robin, and that was one of the oddest comedy-dramas that Lanny and Laurel had ever come upon. Rose wrote seriously, because Hansi was a great artist; she said she knew because she had both heard him and watched him in a concert hall in San Diego. She reported him now as repeating the tricky Commie phrases about peace and brotherhood and civil liberties; but she believed that, unlike most of the Commies, he really meant them. What had happened to him was that he was being led by a mistaken sense of loyalty to his wife—and Rose wondered, Would that loyalty still hold him in the event that the wife was given a long term in a federal penitentiary? Lanny and Laurel commented upon one especially amusing aspect of this case: that after the Nevada divorce was granted and Hansi and Rose were married, the readers of newspapers would take it for granted that the ‘romance’, as they would call it, had been the consequence of this interview.
VI
The government proceeded to unfold its case, and Lanny’s curiosity about it was gradually satisfied. The beginning was peculiar. Of the two women servants in Bess’s home one was a middle-aged woman, who, while not a party member, sympathised with communism and had been employed for that reason. She was loyal, but at home she had a niece, a high-school girl, who disliked the strange people who came to the aunt’s home and talked politics all the time; she disliked them especially because food had to be prepared for them, and she had to wash the dishes when she wanted to go to a movie. The girl’s name was Lindy, and she was thinking her own thoughts. When her aunt fell ill she took up the aunt’s duties in the Robin home, and there she heard arguments going on between husband and wife.
They were prominent, and in her eyes very wealthy people and objects of intense curiosity. She listened through door cracks and behind curtains and remembered everything. Presently she heard the husband warning the wife that the things she was doing would get her into serious trouble with the government. The girl’s curiosity was thoroughly aroused. In her high-school class on current events she had been assigned to write a paper on the Canadian case in which a prominent atomic physicist had been accused and convicted of furnishing data to a Soviet spy. The importance of this had been impressed upon her, and here she found herself in the midst of such a case in actuality. She took to opening Bess’s handbag, taking out papers and carrying them off and copying their contents. In that way she got the name of Dumbrowsky, the Russian, to whom the microfilm was being delivered. She listened to Bess’s telephone conversations, all carefully guarded but containing mysterious hints.
One thing she learned was that Bess was crossing on the ferry to Long Island and going to a place called Jonesville. Knowing her own ignorance, Lindy went to the woman librarian of the town and asked about Jonesville and learned that it was the site of the Jones Electrical Works; that it was a carefully guarded place surrounded by a high steel fence and reportedly doing secret government work. Little by little she put things together and made up her mind that Bess was lying to Hansi and that he didn’t realise the seriousness of what she was doing; she thought the proper thing to do was to warn him. From the reading of a paper-backed detective story she had learned how to prepare a communication without handwriting, by cutting out letters from a newspaper or magazine and pasting them on to a sheet. So she had composed the message ‘Bess is courier for Russ spy’. On the envelope she had cleverly written the letter ‘n’ wrong, to make it appear the work of a foreigner. She had mailed it in New York for safety.
She waited several weeks but nothing happened that she knew of, so she mailed a similar letter to Lanny Budd, whom she had seen in the home and had heard over the radio. In her testimony in court she did not mention this second letter; the F.B.I. had taken up from the first.
They had put skilled agents on Bess’s trail and also in Jonesville to hunt up the Communists and watch for spy work going on. Having permeated the Communist party, they had no trouble in getting the names of members and sympathisers in the town and also in locating a Russian Communist named Dumbrowsky in New York. One of the first things they did was to have the Jones people take away from their plant all documents concerning the proximity fuse that were really important and put in their place a mass of others having to do with their groping and abortive attempts. On this basis they let the spying go on for a considerable time. They didn’t tell this in court because they wanted the Soviet authorities to go on working from these false leads. Suffice it that they caught Johanssen in the act of taking documents from the safe, and they had taken his fingerprints from the safe on previous occasions; they arrested him in the act of leaving the photograph studio, having in his possession microfilm of material which had come from the Jones plant. Also, they investigated the families and friends of the Hansibess servants and came upon Lindy and quickly got acquainted with her.
VII
And then there was presented the evidence concerning Bess’s automobile. It came out in court that the F.B.I. had got impressions of the tyres of Bess’s car; they had also found, by chemical analysis of the earth in the tyre treads, material which they had spread at the place where Bess was accustomed to keep her rendezvous with Johanssen. They had taken photographs and impressions of the markings in the earth after Bess’s car had left, so they didn’t have to depend upon the testimony of agents who had observed her car at the place.
More important yet was the fact that in their search of the car they had found a single piece of microfilm, not much bigger than a postage stamp, which had slipped down into the crevice between the seat and the back. This material had not come from the Jones Electrical Works. The government produced a leading physicist who testified that it was a formula concerning the production of plutonium; and the F.B.I. agents testified that Bess had refused to say a word about how it had got into her car. She just said it was a frame-up.
And then the boilerplate papers! That had been easy, because the gardener was a Finn, and the Soviets had attacked Finland and seized part of its territory. Another Finnish working man had shown up in the neighbourhood and made friends with the gardener; he had pointed out to him the fact that he was in the employ of a notorious Communist and that it might be worth while to keep his eyes open and see what those people were doing. The gardener promised, and, coming back from a week-end holiday, he noticed that somebody had been dig
ging under the seckel pear tree. You can take up sod and put it back ever so carefully, but you cannot conceal the traces from a gardener. If you leave the earth in the cracks the earth will show, and if you wash it out the hollows will show. The gardener had only to take hold of the grass with his two hands and lift out the squares of sod. He was sure that something had been buried there—possibly a dismembered human body. He had told his friend, and that was the news which had brought the half-dozen F.B.I. agents with court warrants to search the house and grounds.
The government produced a list of the papers that had been found in that capacious washboiler. They were membership records of the Communist party, accounts of its receipts and expenditures. The government introduced samples of the papers as evidence, but it did not claim that any of the papers had anything to do with the spying. It was just evidence that Bess was a trusted party member.
VIII
Such was the government’s case, and the public in general agreed that it was a good one. Nobody could imagine what the defence would be; but one of the highly paid mouthpieces told them at the next session of the court. This gentleman made a speech to the jury in which he informed them that this whole thing was a dastardly frame-up by the F.B.I. It was part of an effort to discredit the Communist party, which was a legal party and had the right to exist under our free and glorious American system. It was an effort to intimidate Americans who ventured to defend the rights of that party, and at the same time to awaken prejudice against a friendly foreign power, the Soviet Union, our gallant ally in the recent war against nazism and fascism. This conspiracy of the redbaiters would be exposed to the jury and ultimately to the American public.
The first witness for the defence was the accountant Johanssen. He admitted that he was guilty of stealing, but not of spying. A man whom he had never met before had come to him and said that he wanted the papers for the benefit of a rival corporation. He had offered Johanssen five hundred dollars, and Johanssen had got the papers. Subsequently the man had come again, and Johanssen had attempted to get more papers and had been caught. He said he had never had anything to do with Communists or with Russians in the Consulate; he had never met either Bess or Hansi Robin, had never even heard of them. He stuck to his story through the cross-examination. He couldn’t describe the man very well because the man had come to him at night and they had talked while walking in the dark.
And then the two people of the photographing studio testified. That was their business, the way they earned their living, or part of it. It was their practice to do any developing work that was brought to them, and they had no interest whatever in what they handled; they looked at it only to see that it was clear and perfect work. In the case of microfilm, they magnified one page and examined it for flaws; that was all that was necessary, because it was all developed together. They saw that it was some kind of technical material, but it was far over their heads and they didn’t try to understand it. They knew that the man who brought it to them and took it away again was a foreigner, but they didn’t know he was a Russian, and it didn’t make any difference to them. They were not Communists and had no interest in communism. And that was that.
IX
Bessie Budd Robin was saved until the last, she being a person of prestige, both musical and social. Her lawyers brought out the facts about her family, her upbringing, her education, her musical career; about her husband and where she had met and married him. They asked about her political ideas, her belief in civil liberties and true democracy, in social justice, in peace. She was there to make political speeches, as many as she was allowed to, and they were all upon this noble and exalted plane. The judge stopped her many times, but she went on trying. Above all things it must be got over to the jury that she was an idealist, a person who had sacrificed a great deal and was ready to sacrifice more for a cause in which she ardently believed. Was she a member of the Communist party? Yes, and proud of it, because peace and democracy were the things for which the party stood.
Then they got down to business. Had she ever done any spying for the Communist party? Absolutely never. Had she ever carried any stolen documents? Absolutely never. Had she ever engaged in any secret work? Never! Everything that she had done had been open and aboveboard; she had studied and thought and expressed her opinions about the course on which the country was being led, a course of aggression and ultimate war. So there came another Communist speech.
Had she ever handled any documents belonging to the Jones Electrical Works? She insisted that she had not. She said that her trips to Jonesville had been on party business and also on social pleasure. She had friends among the workers there, and they had had friendly gatherings on Saturday evenings and she had attended them. Had she ever got any documents of any sort in Jonesville? She had not. Had she ever driven on Second Street? She said she couldn’t be sure because she didn’t know the names of the streets; she only knew the way to her friend’s house. She said she had never met Johanssen and never heard of him. She looked at him now and said she had never seen a man in any way resembling him until he had been brought into court with her. She gave the names of the friends she had visited and of several persons she had met there.
Then she was asked about the boilerplate papers. She said of course she had consented to their being buried in her garden. The Communist party was a legal political party and had a perfect right to have membership lists and records and accounts. The party was being slandered and persecuted, and it had a right to protect these papers from being seized and misused. That started Bess off on another speech and then another. It was rather hard to stop her—she was so much in earnest and so firmly convinced of her own rightness. She was dignified and ladylike about it, and no one could find any fault with her manner of speaking. She was looking at the jury all the time and trying to convince them of the fact that this was her form of religion—not the same as theirs but held with the same conviction.
And through the cross-examination she kept the same firm and serene manner. Mr. Stuyvesant didn’t ask anything about her political ideas; he asked about that bit of microfilm that had been found in her car, and she answered that she hadn’t even known what microfilm was and had never seen a bit of it in her life. Obviously if it had been found in her car it had been planted there by someone trying to get her into trouble. She said the same thing about the trace of chemicals which had been found on the tyres of her car; it would obviously be very easy for her enemy to have fixed that up. She was not in the habit of making chemical analyses of the dirt in the streets over which she drove. As to the government agents who had traced her from these excursions and had seen her receive packages and carry them to New York, she said they were simply not telling the truth. She had driven from Jonesville to New York on party business; she often met friends of her cause in the city late at night.
She was questioned in great detail about the parties and the social affairs she had attended in Jonesville. She described the house and everything in it, the members of the Berger family who had entertained her and the guests who had been there. She said she had been there on a number of Saturday evenings because they were old friends and she enjoyed their company. Her husband did not go because he preferred to practice his art, at which he worked tirelessly.
Then came the witnesses to her story. The persons she had named told about their old-time friendship and their pride in knowing a great musical artist like Bessie Budd Robin. They described the entertainments they had given for her and the guests who had been present; they were ready with the details, even of the conversations they remembered and the food they had eaten. Yes, they were Communists, they all said, and were proud of it; it was no crime to be a Communist; it meant that you believed in peace, social justice, and freedom of speech—they all got in their little free speeches.
One by one these persons were cross-examined, and they stuck to their stories. They told what they remembered, and when they were asked if they remembered other things they usually said they didn
’t. When they were asked if they had compared their stories they all said they had been tremendously interested in the case and naturally had talked about it among themselves. They were quite sure that Mrs Robin was innocent because they knew her so well and knew she was a great idealist and teacher and no spy or secret agent.
X
So then it was time for rebuttal. About ten days had passed since Post and Stuyvesant had got the tip as to what the defence was to be. They had gone right to work on the proposition and they now produced the neighbours who lived on each side of the Berger family and across the street. They testified that the Bergers were people who went out frequently but very seldom had company at home and then not more than two or three persons at a time. No such parties were held as had been described; it was impossible that such a number of cars could have been parked, or such a lot of piano playing done, or such a number of persons assembled in the house without attracting the attention and curiosity of the neighbourhood. One such Saturday evening party might have been forgotten, but a series of parties every week-end would certainly have changed everybody’s ideas about the Bergers, who were known to be Communists and distrusted by their neighbours. One woman said, ‘If I had seen such parties I would have reported them to the police’. Such gatherings had taken place during the last few days and it had been assumed that they had to do with the coming trial.
Then came a government witness, a youngish woman who gave her name as Mary Huggins, and the moment she stepped to the stand you could see dismay in the faces of the Communist witnesses, and whispering went on among them and their lawyers. Mary Huggins testified that she had been a Communist party member for three years and had been in the service of the F.B.I. all that time. She had been sent by the party to interview Communists and sympathisers in Jonesville and to put to them very tactfully and carefully the idea of their appearing and testifying to the effect that they had attended parties and met Bessie Budd at the Bergers’. She named those who had just testified as persons who had agreed to do so and who had been assembled at the Bergers and been taught from a written list of statements exactly what they were to say. They had all spent an hour or two together rehearsing these statements. Furthermore she named two persons whom she had approached and who had refused her request. When she was through the government put these two persons on the stand, and they testified how they had been approached by Mary Huggins and had turned down the request.
The Return of Lanny Budd Page 49