There was another long pause. The judge stared out of the window. Graham prodded a sheet of paper before him with the point of a pencil. The district attorney referred to some documents in a cardboard file at his elbow. The faint swish of pencils racing across copy paper, catching up, was audible from the press rows. The jury regarded Orme with strained attention. He seemed to be calling upon some inner reserve of strength, gathering together his resources. At last he moved slightly, sitting up very straight in the witness chair.

  “One night,” he said in a low, penetrating voice, “she told me that she did not believe I had ever been a real musician. She said I had never been good for anything but to rub sheets of sandpaper together, She cast slurs on my music—on music! I lifted my fist”—Orme glanced down at his clenched hand as if it belonged to someone else—“and struck her down. Then I left.”

  Suddenly he slumped back in the chair, his head falling forward on his lifted hand.

  “We will take a recess for ten minutes. The jury will bear in mind the admonition of the court not to discuss this case with others or among themselves——”

  With a clatter of hinged seats, the reporters stampeded for the door.

  Chapter XLIV

  WHEN ORME resumed his place on the witness stand, a splotch of colour on each cheek had replaced his deadly pallor. If he was aware of an approaching crisis, this was his only tribute to it.

  “On the fifteenth of March of this year I discovered that my wife had entered into a bigamous marriage with Mr. Ellsworth.” His tone was studiously detached, as if the statement referred to nothing more disturbing than a mortgage or a bill of sale. “I wrote her a letter—a hurt and angry letter. I will admit that I even had the strange idea that if I could talk with her she would come back to me. On the evening of March 18th I did see her.”

  A sigh of excitement, of many breaths exhaled at once, rustled through the courtroom.

  “We walked along the street, talking. It was soon made absolutely clear to me that whatever feeling for me Sheila had once had was as lost, as forgotten, as one of her last year’s costumes. I don’t know just why, but the idea of this bigamous marriage was more revolting to me than anything that had gone before—a queer kind of pride, of self-respect, perhaps. It seemed utterly humiliating to throw our marriage into the garbage can, as if it were of no significance whatever. I offered to allow her a divorce, but she did not want Mr. Ellsworth to know that legally she was still married to me. I don’t recall clearly what we said. It is all rather confused in my mind. I remember that we stood on a street corner. And then I left her and went out to the auto camp where I had been staying. That is all.” The expression on Graham’s naturally sunny countenance was almost comically disconsolate. He looked as acutely uncomfortable as a dog who finds a tin can tied to its tail and sits tight with the realization that the slightest movement will let loose a hideous concatenation of sound. His reproachful gaze flickered for a moment across the inscrutable face of the judge. Very evidently the defence attorney considered that a punishment was being inflicted upon him which he didn’t deserve; but he wisely decided to let bad enough alone. He forced his voice to a tone of jaunty indifference.

  “No questions,” he said.

  “You may cross-examine.”

  The district attorney softened his habitual roar to a dulcet reasonableness.

  “There are a few points in your recital, Mr. Orme, which the People would like to have further elucidated. I will ask you to look at this letter, entered in evidence as People’s exhibit A.”

  “The defence stipulates that the letter in question was written by Mr. Orme,” Graham said wearily.

  “Well, then, I will ask you, Mr. Orme, is the wording of this letter that of a man actuated by affection for the recipient?”

  “I’ll say it wasn’t,” the A twin commented in a sibilant whisper.

  “No talking in the courtroom, please!” barked the disciplinary bailiff.

  “I told you I was angry when I wrote it. And ‘affection’ is hardly the term I should use for my feelings toward Sheila O’Shay. I loved her—terribly.” Orme spoke with tremulous intensity.

  “Quite so. And this lady whom you ‘loved terribly,’ ” the district attorney sneered, “you first knocked down, then abandoned, and then disregarded so completely that you did not learn of her subsequent marriage until almost a year after it had taken place.” Although he merely leaned forward across the table, the district attorney seemed fairly to spring upon the man before him. “And what, may I ask, were you doing in the meantime?”

  “I don’t know,” Orme said dully. “I seem to have been just wandering around.”

  “Oh, yes, wandering around. And your wanderings, I take it, were conducted by automobile?”

  “I have never had a car.”

  “Yet you made the public automobile camp your headquarters. Can you explain that discrepancy?”

  “Someone must have given me a lift on the highway as far as the auto camp. Then, when I was there, I stayed. I had no money, you see.”

  “Quite so, no money. And having thus belatedly discovered your wife’s marriage to a rich man, you doubtless saw an opportunity to recoup your finances by threatening to make the illegality of her marriage known.”

  “I would not have taken a cent from Sheila if I had been dying!” Orme’s face, which had paled to the gray-white of dead ashes at the opening of the cross-examination, suddenly flamed.

  “Of course not! And yet your earnings as a sandpaper artist could scarcely have supported your menage during the period of your married life.”

  Graham half rose to object, thought better of it, and relapsed into his seat.

  “I did not think of money then one way or the other. I did not dream that she thought of it, either. I loved her.”

  “So you have told us. And yet you made no effort to keep in touch with her affairs—affairs which were rather widely published—until three days before her death?”

  “I have told you that I did not know of her marriage to Ellsworth.”

  “And can you explain this singular ignorance?”

  “I have no explanation to make. I have already stated the fact.”

  “And having had your little chat with the lady, you left her on a street corner—having made no attempt to follow up the threats conveyed in your letter to her—and fled back to the auto camp, where you concealed yourself under the assumed name of Daniel Osgood?”

  “It was the name by which I was known there. I adopted it after I left Sheila.”

  “Oh! And just why did you find it necessary to adopt an alias at all?”

  “I—don’t know.”

  The district attorney dropped his air of elaborate sarcasm. He half rose from his chair, pointing his finger menacingly at the man in the witness chair. His voice boomed through the courtroom.

  “David Orme,” he roared, “I suggest that you deliberately waited until Sheila O’Shay was in a position which you could threaten. I suggest that you used threats of exposure in order to wring money from her, and that, when she refused to submit to blackmail, you struck her down in a rage—you had done just that before, I believe you said—and killed her. I suggest that you were in possession of an automobile in which you drove the body to the marsh and which you afterward junked or ran into the bay; that you then very astutely thought to lose yourself in the floating population of the auto camp, hiding under an assumed name, in order not to arouse suspicion by attempting to flee from the scene without funds. I suggest, David Orme, that you did wilfully and feloniously murder Sheila O’Shay!”

  Orme rose to his feet, his eyes fixed in a fascinated stare on the face of the prosecutor. He was trembling violently from head to foot, but he steadied himself with both hands on the arms of the chair behind him. Graham’s protesting hand, lifted to signal an objection, was unheeded.

  “Before God, I don’t know whether I killed her or not!” he screamed in the high shrill voice of hysteria. “But I don’t see how I could have done it—because I loved her more than my music, more than anything else on earth!”

  Chapter XLV

  AFTER THE emotional stress of the morning session, the quiet urbanity of Dr. Cavanaugh, as he settled himself comfortably in the witness chair, restored an atmosphere of normality to the tense courtroom. Dr. Cavanaugh was very much at ease and completely at home, and he showed it. He distinctly conveyed the impression that murder trials were no treat to him. He took the oath with the careless nonchalance of a caller presenting himself to a familiar hostess, and awaited developments with a manner that subtly combined a willingness to be helpful with a patient acceptance of inconvenience to himself in thus being summoned.

  Graham had regained something of his former optimism.

  “Will you tell the jury, Doctor, something of your professional career?”

  “I was graduated from the Harvard Medical School, and after my interneship was for several years on the staff of Graham Hospital for Nervous and Mental Diseases. I then spent four years in study abroad. I was a member of the Viennese Psychoanalytic Society, which met with Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna in the first study of psychoanalysis. I also spent a year with Dr. Jung in Zurich. I may say that I am not an adherent of any one school of psychoanalysis—in fact, I think I may be said to have made my own original contributions in the field. On my return to this country, I established my own psychiatric hospital and clinic. For the last six or seven years, I have retired from active practice, although I am still sometimes called into consultation and have taken such cases as have interested me from the point of view of research.”

  “You are a specialist in nervous and mental diseases?”

  “Psychopathology is my particular field—yes.”

  “And have you written anything for publication on the subject?”

  “I have contributed articles too numerous to mention to the medical journals of America, France, England, Austria, and Germany. I am the author of several books: Abnormal Aspects of Genius, Abnormal Behaviour in Relation to Medical Jurisprudence, The Criminal Mind, and Autistic Thinking in Normal Life are probably those best known to the layman.”

  “And you have, I think, served as alienist in a number of criminal cases?”

  “As alienist, or sometimes rather as a psychological investigator—yes. I was expert witness for the prosecution in the case of the People versus James Kelly, the case of the People versus Edwards and Edwards, the case of the People versus Mary Emerson, the case of the People versus Watson and Eaves. Kelly was condemned to death; Edwards was condemned to death and his sister to life imprisonment; Mary Emerson was convicted but died before the date set for execution; Eaves was too young to receive the death sentence, and Watson, after conviction, was killed in an attempted jail break. I was witness for the defence in the trials of Edna Raleigh, Hubert Smith, Everett and Laura Connelly, and John Potts. Raleigh, Smith, the Connellys, and Potts were acquitted. I may add that in-numerous instances my services have been requested to conduct a preliminary investigation which in some cases prevented the accused from coming to trial and in others identified the criminal who was being sought. Many of these investigations were such as not to require my presence in court, but I believe they have been more or less a matter of public knowledge.”

  The jury was obviously impressed. The cases mentioned by Dr. Cavanaugh included a group of the most spectacular trials of the last decade. His name had gone forth in magazines and newspaper stories as a wizard who pulled amazing white rabbits of truth out of the black hat of mysterious circumstance, and his books were written in a strikingly vivid though by no means sensational style which had brought them readers far beyond the circle of his professional confreres. It was quite true that so far as was known he had never been engaged to investigate a case which he had failed to solve, and that the side which secured his services in a trial had invariably received a favourable verdict.

  “I believe, Doctor, that you have been popularly referred to as ‘The Man Who Makes No Mistakes’?”

  “Oh, my dear Mr. Graham,” Dr. Cavanaugh protested amiably, “we must concede a good deal to popular exaggeration. Perhaps”—he took the jury into his confidence with a deprecating smile—“it is only that my mistakes have never found me out!”

  Graham, beaming like an impresario whose star performer is capturing the audience, waved the point aside.

  “You are acquainted with the defendant, David Orme?”

  “I am.”

  “You have examined him professionally?”

  “I have.”

  “Will you kindly explain to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury the circumstances and results of that examination?”

  “I have seen the defendant more than once.”

  Graham looked slightly surprised, but recovered himself promptly.

  “Very well; go right ahead, Doctor.”

  “I will be as brief and as nontechnical as possible. If your honour and the jury will bear with me”—Dr. Cavanaugh glanced upward at the judge’s bench—“I will go over the entire circumstances of my dealings with the defendant.”

  “You have all the time at your disposal that you need, Doctor.” Even the judge treated this witness with marked and courteous respect. He no longer stared out of the window or gave his bored attention to the wranglings of Graham and the district attorney. It happened that this was the first case he had tried in which the great Dr. Cavanaugh appeared as expert witness, and he obviously looked upon it as an opportunity full of interest.

  “Thank you,” Dr. Cavanaugh nodded affably. “I will begin, then, with the early afternoon of a day last month, when I returned to my house from a morning round of golf and found a man whom I now know to be David Orme sitting on the doorstep of my office, blocking my entrance.”

  Graham’s head jerked back, his startled gaze seeking the doctor’s face. The district attorney’s chair made a scraping sound as he pushed himself back from the table with both hands. But Dr. Cavanaugh, apparently oblivious of the sensation his statement had caused, was turned toward the jury box, his eyes studiously regarding the toe of his shoe as he crossed one knee over the other and leaned back at ease in the witness chair.

  “Behold the Ethiopian emerging from the woodpile!” Harry chortled to his twin in gleeful excitement.

  “Just cast your eyes on Graham—he’s getting something he didn’t bargain for,” the other twin urged, digging an elbow into his mate’s ribs for emphasis.

  “No talking in the courtroom, please!”

  Abandoning his futile attempt to catch Dr. Cavanaugh’s eye, Graham, with an obvious effort, schooled his voice to noncommittal formality.

  “And on what date, Doctor, did this—this meeting occur”

  “On the fourth of March of the current year.”

  The district attorney’s chair scraped sharply again—forward, this time.

  “I beg your pardon? I—I think I must have misunderstood.” Graham was clutching the edge of the table before him with both hands. “Will you repeat that date, please?”

  Dr. Cavanaugh turned and surveyed his agitated questioner with mild amusement.

  “I said”—he raised his voice, as if he had just discovered that Graham was slightly deaf—“March 4th, of this year.”

  “But that—that was before Mrs. Ellsworth disappeared!” Graham seemed hardly able to credit the testimony of his senses.

  “The inference,” Dr. Cavanaugh assented smoothly, “is quite correct.”

  Chapter XLVI

  “PROCEED.” IN that one word Graham gave it up and abandoned himself and David Orme to Dr. Cavanaugh. He was no longer directing the examination—he was merely a part of the audience. He glanced briefly at the district attorney, hoping that the prosecutor was too absorbed in his own astonishment to notice that his surprise was shared by his opponent.

  “Mr. Orme was at that time in a state of extreme agitation. He told me that in passing the house he had recognized my name on the door plate. The maid told him that I was out, and saw patients only by appointment. Nevertheless, he settled himself on the doorstep to wait. He told me at once that he was without funds, but begged me to help him in what he described as a ‘terrible extremity.’ I admitted him to my office, gave him a mild sedative, and, when he was somewhat quieter, asked him the nature of his trouble.

  “I will summarize his statement as succinctly as possible, in order not to weary you.” Dr. Cavanaugh paused and glanced at the jury with his smile of courteous apology. Every face was turned toward him with strained interest. Even the judge leaned forward.

  “Mr. Orme told me at that time that he had been, for almost a year, suffering from a complete loss of memory for preceding events. His memory, that is, was clear for the period between last April and the present. For events preceding that time his mind was a total blank. As perhaps you know, this state of amnesia is technically called a ‘fugue.’ ”

  The jury didn’t know, but they appreciated the implied flattery, and tried to look as if they did.

  “I went back rather carefully over the patient’s personal history for the last eleven months. If I may be allowed to use an imperfect analogy, it was as if the strip of continuity, of the stream of memories which makes us conscious of ourselves as unbroken personalities, had been cut off at a particular point, with no way of uniting the severed edges. He had found himself walking along a country road, hatless and without luggage. If he had had a wallet containing money and a means of identification, he had lost it or it had been stolen from him. The only clue to his identity which he could discover was a fountain pen in his pocket, with the initials ‘D. O.’ engraved on a gold band around the barrel. From that time on, for a period of eleven months, he had worked as a casual ranch hand, using the name of Daniel Osgood, which was suggested to him by the initials on the pen. He had kept moving, in the hope that eventually some scene or circumstance would recall his past life to him. On the day when I saw him, he had received his first hint—the first stimulus which seemed to have aroused a response connected with his past life. I hope I am not being too detailed—taking up too much of your time with all this?”