Calamity Town

pretty convinced Haight’s innocent . . . And others replied: Go on. The Judge is John F. Wright’s best friend, that’s why . . . Well, I don’t know . . .

The whole thing was calculated to create an atmosphere of dignity and thoughtfulness, in which the raw emotions of the mob could only gasp for breath and gradually expire.

Mr. Ellery Queen approved.

Mr. Queen approved even more when he finally examined the twelve good men and true. Judge Martin had made the selections as deftly and surely as if there were no Bradford to cope with at all. Solid, sober male citizens, as far as Ellery could determine. None calculated to respond to prejudicial appeals, with one possible exception, a fat man who kept sweating; most seemed anxiously thoughtful men, with higher-than-average intelligence. Men of the decent world, who might be expected to understand that a man can be weak without being criminal.

* * *

For students of the particular, the complete court record of People vs. James Haight is on file in Wright County?day after day after day of question and answer and objection and Judge Newbold’s precise rulings. For that matter, the newspapers were almost as exhaustive as the court stenographer’s notes.

The difficulty with detailed records, however, is that you cannot see the tree for the leaves.

So let us stand off and make the leaves blur and blend into larger shapes. Let us look at contours, not textures.

In his opening address to the jury, Carter Bradford said that the jury must bear in mind continuously one all- important point: that while Rosemary Haight, the defendant’s sister, was murdered by poison, her death was not the true object of defendant’s crime. The true object of defendant’s crime was to take the life of defendant’s young wife, Nora Wright Haight?an object so nearly accomplished that the wife was confined to her bed for six weeks after the fateful New Year’s Eve party, a victim of arsenic poisoning.

And yes, the State freely admits that its case against James Haight is circumstantial, but murder convictions on circumstantial evidence are the rule, not the exception. The only direct evidence possible in a murder case is an eyewitness’s testimony as to having witnessed the murder at the moment of its commission. In a shooting case, this would have to be a witness who actually saw the accused pull the trigger and the victim fall dead as a result of the shot. In a poisoning case, it would have to be a witness who actually saw the accused deposit poison in the food or drink to be swallowed by the victim and, moreover, who saw the accused hand the poisoned food or drink to the victim.

Obviously, continued Bradford, such “happy accidents” of persons witnessing the Actual Deed must be few and far between, since murderers understandably try to avoid committing their murders before an audience. Therefore nearly all prosecutions of murder are based on circumstantial rather than direct evidence; the law has wisely provided for the admission of such evidence, otherwise most murderers would go unpunished.

But the jury need not flounder in doubts about this case; here the circumstantial evidence is so clear, so strong, so indisputable, that the jury must find James Haight guilty of the crime as charged beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever.

“The People will prove,” said Bradford in a low, firm tone, “that James Haight planned the murder of his wife a minimum of five weeks before he tried to accomplish it; that it was a cunning plan, depending upon a series of poisonings of increasing severity to establish the wife as subject to attacks of ‘illness,’ and supposed to culminate in a climactic poisoning as a result of which the wife was to die.

“The People will prove,” Bradford went on, “that these preliminary poisonings did take place on the very dates indicated by the schedule James Haight had prepared with his own hand; that the attempted murder of Nora Haight and the accidental murder of Rosemary Haight did take place on the very date indicated by that same schedule.

“The People will prove that on the night under examination, James Haight and James Haight alone mixed the batch of cocktails among whose number was the poisoned cocktail; that James Haight and James Haight alone handed the tray of cocktails around to the various members of the party; that James Haight and James Haight alone handed his wife the poisoned cocktail from the tray and even urged her to drink it; that she did drink of that cocktail and fell violently ill of arsenic poisoning, her life being spared only because at Rosemary Haight’s insistence she gave the rest of the poisoned cocktail to her sister-in-law after having merely sipped . . . a circumstance James Haight couldn’t have foreseen.

“The People will prove,” Bradford went on quietly, “that James Haight was in desperate need of money; that he demanded large sums of money of his wife while under the influence of liquor, and sensibly, she refused; that James Haight was losing large sums of money gambling; that he was taking other illicit means of procuring money; that upon Nora Haight’s death her estate, a large one as the result of an inheritance, would legally fall to the defendant, who is her husband and heir-at-law.

“The People,” concluded Bradford in a tone so low he could scarcely be heard, “being convinced beyond reasonable doubt that James Haight did so plan and attempt the life of one person in attempting which he succeeded in taking the life of another, an innocent victim?the People demand that James Haight pay with his own life for the life taken and the life so nearly taken.”

And Carter Bradford sat down to spontaneous applause, which caused the first of Judge Newbold’s numerous subsequent warnings to the spectators.

* * *

In that long dreary body of testimony calculated to prove Jim Haight’s sole Opportunity, the only colorful spots were provided by Judge Eli Martin in cross-examination.

From the first the old lawyer’s plan was plain to Ellery: to cast doubt, doubt, doubt. Not heatedly. With cool humor. The voice of reason . . . Insinuate. Imply. Get away with whatever you can and to hell with the rules of cross-examination.

Ellery realized that Judge Martin was desperate.

“But you can’t be sure?”

“N-no.”

“You didn’t have the defendant under observation every moment?”

“Of course not!”

“The defendant might have laid the tray of cocktails down for a moment or so?”

“No.”

“Are you positive?”

Carter Bradford quietly objects: the question was answered. Sustained. Judge Newbold waves his hand patiently.

“Did you see the defendant prepare the cocktails?”

“No.”

“Were you in the living room all the time?”

“You know I was!” This was Frank Lloyd, and he was angry. To Frank Lloyd, Judge Martin paid especial attention. The old gentleman wormed out of the newspaper publisher his relationship with the Wright family?his “peculiar” relationship with the defendant’s wife. He had been in love with her. He had been bitter when she turned him down for James Haight. He had threatened James Haight with bodily violence. Objection, objection, objection. But it managed to come out, enough of it to reawaken in the jury’s minds the whole story of Frank Lloyd and Nora Wright?after all, that story was an old one to Wrightsville, and everybody knew the details!

So Frank Lloyd became a poor witness for the People; and there was a doubt, a doubt. The vengeful jilted “other” man. Who knows? Maybe?

With the Wright family, who were forced to take the stand to testify to the actual events of the night, Judge Martin was impersonal?and cast more doubts. On the “facts.” Nobody actually saw Jim Haight drop arsenic into the cocktail. Nobody could be sure . . . of anything.

But the prosecution’s case proceeded, and despite Judge Martin’s wily obstructions, Bradford established: that Jim alone mixed the cocktails; that Jim was the only one who could have been certain the poisoned cocktail went to Nora, his intended victim, since he handed each drinker his or her cocktail; that Jim pressed Nora to drink