“When was that?”
“In August of 1957. I’ve been with him a year and a half.”
“Let’s get back to Joan Simpson.”
“Yes, but meeting her was accidental.” He covered his face with his hands briefly. “That was a real bad accident! What happened was I called at her place one night selling Lady Alma stuff. She had a couple of roommates, but they were out and we struck up our old acquaintance again. After that I saw quite a bit of her. At first it was fun, like we used to have, and when I’d have time or when I was selling around Townsend and felt like some excitement, I’d call up and see her. The trouble was, she’d changed. I didn’t know it at first, but along about the end of last summer it was getting obvious. She was starting to make demands on me and she was starting to talk about marriage. It hadn’t been like that before. When she was young she didn’t care about marriage. Now, the first thing I knew she was talking divorce and me marrying up with her. And more than that, she was telling me when her roommates would be out so I could see her. She was expecting things.
“So, I wasn’t going to put up with that. I quit coming around. That was November or December sometime but the trouble was, when I first ran into her, I let down my hair a little for old times’ sake and told her I lived in Ashmun. When I stopped seeing her, she made inquiries of the Lady Alma company. She found out there was no John Lawrence working there, but she learned a Raymond Watly lived in Ashmun and that did it. One day in January, damned if I don’t come home and find her in front of the house waiting for me. She’d taken the bus over and I quick took her for a ride around and drove her home and tried to set her straight that the whole thing was no go. She wouldn’t listen to me. First she pleaded, then she threatened. She said she’d go to my wife if I didn’t see her. So I saw her again and she kept after me. She said we were right for each other and I needed her and she wanted to prove it. She said the only way she could prove it was for us to live together as man and wife. I didn’t want that, but she wouldn’t listen to reason and I was scared she’d go to my wife and I finally gave in. I thought maybe the best way to make her leave me alone was to go along with it. I figured after a month or so she’d be satisfied.”
Fellows said, “You had her believing it was for three months.” Watly was momentarily flustered. Then he said, “Well, she wanted it for three months and I agreed, but I only rented the house for one month. I thought that would be enough to convince her. If it wasn’t, then I could renew the lease.” He glanced around the circle of faces, trying to measure the amount of feeling against him.
“I rented the house in the name of John Campbell because, of course, I couldn’t let anybody know it was me. This was all right with her and she called herself Joan Campbell.”
“So you set her up in a house and came to see her.”
“Yes, sir. I told my wife I was going out selling as usual, but I couldn’t sell. She made me come see her every night and one night, one Friday, she insisted that I come for dinner. She bought the things herself and made a big fancy production and I had to come to it because if I didn’t do what she said, she’d tell my wife. So I had that dinner with her and I brought her groceries the other nights after work and I came to see her every evening but still that didn’t satisfy her. The next thing I knew she wanted me to spend a weekend with her. She said it wasn’t like being married when I didn’t stay overnight so I had to tell my wife I was going away on business for a weekend and I went there.
“That was a Friday night. That was February twentieth. That was the night I decided I couldn’t stand it any longer. We had a fight. I told her it was the end, that even if she went to my wife I wasn’t going to go on with it. So she got very angry and she grabbed a carving knife out of the kitchen and came at me.” He buried his face. “I didn’t know she was going to do this, otherwise I would have run. But she came at me and I tried to get out of the way and I stumbled and fell over backwards and she was rushing at me so hard that she tripped over me and fell against the fireplace and hit her head.”
Watly looked up with a tortured expression. “I thought she was just knocked unconscious. I put the knife back and carried her into the bedroom, but I couldn’t revive her and then I examined her and found out she was—dead.” He put his face in his hands again. “She’d hit her head and done something and she was dead.”
He looked up pleadingly. “You’ve got to believe me. I
