PART TWO

THE GROWTH

I believe that I have succeeded in giving you a rough résumé of the events which preceded my homecoming from France. I have not gone into any great detail; firstly, because it might in some way confuse the main issue; and secondly, because many of the less important incidents have blurred in my mind with the passing of the years.

I have neither invented anything nor colored the events to favor myself. I have not tried to find any excuse for the things I did or the emotions I experienced. You will admit that the portrait I have painted of myself in no way depicts a hero or a martyr. But I do pray that you will credit my outspoken truthfulness—which I am essaying at any cost—by learning the whole story before you turn thumbs down.

I must confess that there was no malicious plot brewed to ruin me and mark me a murderer; and I do not consider myself a victim of circumstance. My trial on an indictment of First Degree Murder was the essence of fair play; the jury that convicted me was composed of very honest, unprejudiced citizens who, after hearing the preponderance of unfavorable testimony in the case, voted the only plausible verdict. I daresay had I myself been a member of that jury and somebody else been on trial, I would have been quite in accord with that decision.

Really, there is only one person to be blamed: myself. Of course when you have learned of Anita's actions, you may form the opinion that she did a frightful thing—and you will be quite right. However, if I had not been such a blind idiot, the whole thing might never have happened. And although I blame her for permitting me to marry her, I blame myself more. Certainly, any half-witted child could have detected something mighty peculiar about my marriage from the very first; and there is nothing quite as inexcusable as utter stupidity.

The entire voyage—from the time the ship left Havre until we sighted the Statue of Liberty—I spent in trying to disperse the growing doubts and fears which assailed me. If the war had done much to injure me—and it undoubtedly had—it also did something to help. By virtue of my long absence from her side, I was able to view Anita more objectively. I was able to pick out motives for this and that which I had never noticed before. The clearer insight, unfortunately, was not very pleasant because not only could I see Anita less obscurely, I also took frank stock of myself. What could she possibly have seen in me?

It may be that I have an inferiority complex; a neurologist who visited the prison during my term told me that I have. The fact that I always have felt self-conscious in a new hat or overcoat seems to bear him out in this contention. But whether it is true or not, when I married Anita the successful outcome of my suit at once inflated my ego and I began to feel that I was somebody. How could I have felt subservient to anyone when I had the most sought-after woman in town as my wife? It was not until the war took some of the wind out of my sails and I had read and re-read several of her friendly letters that I began to seriously wonder if she really did love me. If she did, I reasoned, it was a very cool sort of love and not at all like the fierce passions of the French.

Much to my dismay, she substantiated this dark thought of mine by the way she greeted me at the dock. Surrounding us on all sides were lovers, families and close friends being reunited, openly kissing and embracing one another. But when I spotted Anita—looking perfectly beautiful—and hugged and kissed her, she turned her face away to preclude the possibility of any repetition. Not only that, she murmured in a slightly irritated tone of voice: "Oh, please. Must you do that here?"

I laughed, though not very convincingly. "Darling, I don't care if the whole world knows I love you! I want them to know!"

I kissed her again, over and above her protests and she said, "Well, that's very sweet of you and all that, Peter. But must you...?"

At that moment a Customs officer interrupted the scene and I was grateful. Her marked indifference to my happiness at seeing her hurt me no end and, had we been alone, I think a scrap would have started. As it was, an hour later in a taxicab my repressed anger cooled and I slid an arm about her shoulders. She was far too exquisite to fight with and since she did not draw away from me or try to remove my arm, any suspicions I might have had—that she no longer cared for me—fled.

We checked in at the Martinique Hotel, having decided to stay in the city overnight before taking the train for Ithaca. The desk clerk, a war veteran himself, kept me in conversation—much to Anita's disgust—while I registered. Although I was very tired from the ordeal of the dock formalities, she insisted that I immediately go out and purchase some civilian clothes.

"That uniform will be the death of me," she complained. "While you've got it on, anyone, even a street-cleaner, feels he's your equal. Besides, you're not an officer."

At this, I demurred. "I want to bathe and take a nap for a few hours first, darling. It's much too hot to shop in this sun. The stores stay open until seven and I can buy them then. Right after I've put on the new duds, we can eat dinner."

Anita sighed wearily, as though I was some idiot whom she was eternally fated to humor. "You're hopeless but I suppose there is nothing that can be done about it. All right. Have your nap. But be sure you wake up and get your shopping done in time for an early dinner. I want to go to the theatre tonight."

I stared at her stupidly.

After having been separated from her husband for almost two years, she wanted to spend the first night of the reunion in a theatre!

Because I was unable to finish my medical course due to the sudden death of my mother, I am not a doctor; neither am I a psychoanalyst or a physiologist; but I am of the opinion that the sexual appetite of a person is the thermometer by which the degree of his or her love can be measured. By this I do not mean to infer that love is mere animal lust; certainly not. I do believe, though, that if a person is in love, sex follows naturally and continues to fire both parties only just so long as mutual adoration remains.

All this, of course, is but a prelude to my telling you that Anita had to be coaxed.

I write of this in embarrassment for I cannot conquer the feeling that I am revealing secrets rightfully belonging not to me alone, but to a sacred partnership. As a matter of fact, this entire tale is difficult to tell since the greater part of it concerns a woman now dead and unable to admit or deny its implications.

This self-consciousness comes not from reviewing events which cannot be confirmed by concrete evidence, but because I realize that I am, in part, admitting the charges against me as set forth in the indictment. My attorney has pleaded with me to discontinue the writing of this manuscript, warning me that should it find its way into unfriendly hands it might be used against me. Despite everything he says, I have decided to ignore this potential danger. It is far more important to me that I be understood. Blame this on the newspapers which labelled me an insane killer and deliberately misquoted and misconstrued everything I said to reporters.

Perhaps my digressions confuse; if they do it is unintentional. Remember that I am only a druggist, temporarily borrowing the pen. If this work is ever completed, I am sure that the desire to write anything else will never infect me. As it is, I don't feel at all at home writing and, were it not for the fact that I wish to offer my side of the story, I would remain silent.

I have said that Anita had to be coaxed; and while some of you will disdainfully make the observation that I am hardly a person to arouse in any woman the warm efflux of genuine passion, at least I can lay claim that if this is so, I have always been the same. If Anita had been in love with me once—and she must have been to have married me—there was no plausible reason why she should suddenly change.

Be this as it may, when we returned to the hotel from the theatre that night, she manifested an obvious disinclination to retire to our room. She hung back in the lobby.

"Let's not go up yet," she begged. "I don't want to go to bed. We're in New York so seldom, you know."

"But we have a very long train ride tomorrow, Anita. We'll be all worn out...."

"Let's not, Peter. We can doze on the train."

I looked at my watch. "But Anita darling! Don't you realize it's almost one o'clock! Where would you want to go at this hour of the morning?"

She hesitated and bit her lower lip. "You had a nap this afternoon so you shouldn't be tired. We might," she suggested after a brief moment of thought, "try one of those funny little cabarets below Fourteenth."

Even with the nap I was feeling rather spent and I firmly objected to this whim, trying to laugh her out of the notion. Moreover, having been deprived of my wife for so long a time, I had eagerly anticipated the moment when I might once more have her to myself. I do not think that it was unreasonable of me to suppose that she shared this feeling. If she loved me, as I was sure she did, she, too was thirsting for me.

"But I do want to see the Village, Peter!"

"You will," I promised. "We'll come down here soon again, you and I. And when we do," I added with forced gaiety, "we'll do New York up brown." I took her elbow and gently urged her away from the revolving door. "But not tonight, dear."

"Is that a promise?" she asked skeptically.

"Cross my heart!"

Anita seemed to come along reluctantly and she was pouting as we entered the elevator and shot up to our floor. I put the key into the lock and kicked the door open with a bang. Happy that we were at last by ourselves for the remainder of the night, I became jubilant as a schoolboy. I lifted her slim body, kicking, in my arms and staggered with her over the threshold. Still weak from my long convalescence in France, I am afraid that I was breathing heavily as I deposited her on the double bed. She sprang to her feet as though rebounding from the bed-springs.

"Peter!" she protested testily. "What under the sun has gotten into you? You know better than to try that! You're certainly in no condition to...."

But I stopped the rapid flow of her words by covering her mouth with kisses. With my mouth pressed hard against hers, I forced her back onto the bed. Our feet in dusty shoes soiled the pillows. So tightly were we together that I could feel her pelvis bones against me and her teeth behind her closed mouth and her full, hard breasts.... With one hand I felt for the snaps at the side of her dress.

"I love you, Anita," I groaned.

"You're hurting me," she answered.

Some time later, as we lay on our backs and stared up at the dim expanse of the ceiling, Anita touched my arm. "Peter dear," she whispered softly.

I thrilled at the affection in her tone. It at once brought to me a sense of contentment which complemented the delightful tranquil state that was now my body's. "Yes, sweetheart? What is it? Can I get you anything?"

Her voice came back to me, wistfully out of the shadows. "Can we live in New York after the store is sold? You know how much I love it here and ... well, Ithaca has never seemed like home to me."

I sat up in bed with a start. Anita was taking it for granted that I intended to sell out! Such, you may be sure, was not my plan. The thought of disposing of the thing I had dreamed about and worked for since its humble beginning four years before had not once merited my consideration. My store was now the largest of its kind in Ithaca and, since receiving Anita's letter informing me of Great Eastern's offer, I had been playing with the idea of opening a branch. Maybe I, too, would someday operate a chain of drugstores!

Something cautioned me, however, and I held my tongue. Everything was peaceful now; why spoil it? "We'll talk about it tomorrow," I said and pounding my pillow with a fist, I dropped back and closed my eyes.

"You're a darling, Peter," Anita went on and I felt cool fingers pass over my face in a soothing caress. "I just know you will. We can have a much better time here. Did you know that most of your friends have moved away since you left? Mrs. Burtleson and the Crespis and Walt Mandeville have all gone. Joe Crespi has a job selling Packards down here. Doing very well, too, I understand. And Myra Parsons got married to a Brooklyn man. He manages a factory or something. And she has a baby almost a year old, too. What do you think of that! Somehow I never thought of her becoming a mother! Always liked to gad about when I knew her. And oh, yes. Harvey Bond—you remember him, don't you? Tall, funny-looking fellow with glasses and red hair? Sure you do. He used to live right next door to the Carpenter place on the Heights...."

She stopped short. I could almost hear her teeth snap shut. I am positive that she had not meant to mention that name. But though I opened my eyes in the darkness, I made sure not to move a muscle. I was certain that if I showed any sign that I had noticed the slip, she would be embarrassed or uncomfortable.

In a second, to cover up, she went on with a show of defiance. "Yes, and by the way, I hear that Leo Carpenter is down here somewhere. Somebody—I think it was Tom Murphy—said that he plans to go to Vienna soon to study. Lucky dog! His father left him a mint of money. He's about the only thing I've got against New York and he won't be here long, thank God." She paused for a few minutes until I thought that she had gone to sleep. Just as I was congratulating myself that such was the case, she recommenced the one-sided debate. "So you see. Peter, about the only people left in Ithaca whom we know at all well are Mrs. Michaelson and that awful Turnbull person. And you couldn't call them friends very well, now could you?"

I did not answer her. I pretended that I had fallen asleep.

The next morning, much to Anita's disappointment, we boarded a train for Ithaca. I was in a state of high spirits; for returning to the town of my birth—which many times during the war I had never expected to see again—was a prospect both pleasant and exciting. I am one of those, I guess, whom the Cornell students slurringly refer to as "native sons." I have rarely had the desire to go to the big city with its stale smells, its filthy streets and its unbearable noises; preferring to remain peaceful and perhaps slightly bored in the country areas. Anita, on the other hand, was moulded from different clay. But she didn't reveal her restless spirit until after we had been married.

To this very day, I don't know whether it was Ithaca or my own poor company that fired her with the wish to live in New York ... or whether it was the desire to be near Leo Carpenter. The whole thing is as vague now as it was then. At times I am sure that her mind never toyed with thoughts of infidelity; and, whatever the world may think, I still accept Anita's statement that she was never untrue to me while I was away at war at its face value.

But I am forgetting myself and speaking of her as though she were still alive and not lying so stiff in her coffin.

The train had scarcely pulled out of the station when Anita introduced the subject I had this far managed to evade. I tried my utmost to be indefinite, reminding her that I had not as yet interviewed the agent for The Great Eastern and that I could not possibly decide one way or the other until a thorough examination of the terms they offered was made.

"Unless it is something extraordinary," I said, "I think it might be wise to hold on to the place. The store has been newly equipped, you know. Besides, the lease I hold is very favorable and still has quite a long time to run. We don't need money badly enough to throw away a good thing, do we? The Great Eastern wouldn't be interested in the place if they didn't know it was a live investment."

"Oh, you'll like the offer they're making, all right," predicted Anita confidently. "Young Murphy couldn't believe his ears when the man approached him and named a tentative sum. How long do you think it will take before we can move, Peter? I've already spoken to the Carpenter Realty Company about putting the house on the market. They don't believe we'll have much trouble getting rid of it."

I winced but said nothing. Fearful lest my face reveal disapproval of these high-handed measures, I turned and looked out of the window at the racing scenery. We were somewhere in Pennsylvania. The train was whipping around sharp bends and the low mountains on either side of us were studies in contrasting shades of green. Now and then we would plunge into short tunnels and when we would emerge, the sunlight was blinding. I had a headache.

"Well?" persisted Anita.

"Well what?" I asked without taking my eyes from the window. I have never been much of an actor—my eyes give me away—and pretending not to be aware of the subject being discussed would never get by if I faced her.

"Are we going to live in New York or not? Really, Peter, you're not paying much attention. Have I been talking to myself this last half hour?"

"Eh? ... er, no, of course not, dear. Live in New York? Well ... if we sell out, we'll talk about it. There's no great hurry, is there? After all, I'm not even home yet!"

She said no more about it after that. A colored nurse came to occupy the seat opposite us leading one little girl of about five or six and carrying a baby in her arms. Both Anita and myself amused ourselves by playing with the tot until I whispered to Anita: "She's so cute! I wouldn't mind having one like her myself."

Anita dropped the little girl's hand as though it was red-hot and with a wave sent her back to her nurse-girl.

"Wouldn't you?" I stammered.

She looked at me for a moment before replying. There was something cold and piercing in her stare that I didn't like. I couldn't imagine what I had said so wrong.

"No," she said flatly, "I wouldn't."

We had no sooner reached the front gate of our house when I stopped in astonishment. The way the little place looked—run down, the garden choked with weeds, the lawn grown up—was enough to bring tears of disappointment to my eyes. The gate, usually so trim and bright, was covered with rust and hanging crazily on a single broken hinge. I looked toward Anita speechlessly.

"Oh, I know things look pretty bad," she admitted with a shrug in answer to my wordless question. "But you must remember that I was all alone here. And don't forget that you haven't been here in two years. Things change."

"They certainly do," I remarked with ill-disguised meaning and she flashed me a sharp look as we picked our way through the shabby yard to the front door. Here, too, I found evidence that struck me as strange. Before the door, rolled up but with the dates visible, were four copies of The Journal-News. None of them had been opened.

Before I could comment upon them, Anita sighed, "Oh, dear. I've been so busy these last few days that I haven't even had time to read the paper! And you, complaining about the grounds!"

I let this pass and did not question her further although I was totally innocent of what it was that occupied all of her time. Before the war she had always been faced with the problem of how to while away her leisure hours.

A few days spent in examining the books of my store and conferring with the man from The Great Eastern definitely decided me that I would be unwise to sell. Business was booming with prices right. The Ithaca Drug Company was doing so well that I offered Tom Murphy the permanent job of my assistant which he joyfully accepted. The store swarmed with customers from the time we opened each morning until we reluctantly closed the doors. I began to deliberate seriously the advisability of inaugurating an all-night policy.

As yet I had not informed Anita of my decision to refuse Great Eastern's offer. I knew that she would be very disappointed and I wished to delay as long as possible the verdict which she would undoubtedly consider foolish and quite inconsiderate of her feelings in the matter.

After the passage of a week, however, I felt that I could not decently withhold the news longer. I was not afraid of Anita in any sense of the word, mind you, but I dreaded to see her unhappy. If only I had suspected that the store was the match which would eventually cause the terrible conflagration of our marriage, you may be sure that I would have disposed of it at any cost! You see, before I married, my life belonged exclusively to that store; afterwards it became entirely Anita's.

Just as I was about to put on my hat and go home to tell her, Doc Turnbull entered the place and we got to talking.

"You're doing a wise thing, boy. Those city fellers are a shrewd bunch and no mistake. They'd skin the eye-teeth out of their own grandmothers. Hold on to this joint if it's the last thing you do. At the rate you're going now, Ray Cavender can't last much longer across the street and this section will all be yours."

"Yes," I said, "but Doc, suppose they buy out Cavender and try to break me by under-selling? You know I can't buck a rich company like that."

Doc spit. "It would take a hell of a lot of under-selling to make the townspeople desert you in favor of them, son. The Great Eastern knows that. If they can't work out a fair deal, they won't try to push their way in. Don't worry."

We chatted a while longer until I happened to notice the clock above the soda fountain. "Good heavens! I've got to run now, Doc. Say, why don't you drop around to the house tonight? Weather looks nice and clear so there won't be many mosquitoes. We'll sit down by the lake and chew the fat."

Doc sighed profoundly. "You know, I miss that garden of yours, son. Haven't set foot in it for over two years, would you believe it? But I won't be able to make it tonight, I reckon. Too many patients are yelling for pills."

I laughed. "Now don't try to tell me that you deserted your favorite spot just because I was away! Didn't you drop in on Anita?"

Turnbull picked up his instrument case. "When? You know the only time I can get around to paying social calls is on Friday or Saturday. Hell. And you know your missus ain't shown hide nor hair around town during weekends since you left for the other side." He grunted and mopped his damp face with a pocket handkerchief. "I suppose because she bought one of them week-end special commutation tickets on the railroad she just felt she had to use it up. Every Friday afternoon, regular as the clock, she'd be on the train."

Together we left the store. I think the old man must have seen something in my face because, as we separated, he asked: "What's eating you, son? Anything the matter? You're not looking so chipper tonight."

"Oh, nothing, Doc, I guess," I hurriedly reassured him. "I suppose this business about the store has got me going. Anita wants me to sell out."

Doc shook his head. "Now don't you listen to her, Pete. Mind what I say. You've got a nice living here. Lots of fellers would like to be in your shoes. Me, for one."

"'Night, Doc."

"'Night, Pete."

The information that Anita had spent every week-end away from home during my absence, occupied my mind as I walked home that evening, completely driving the business of the store from my thoughts. It was not until I was seated at the dinner table that I remembered what I would be forced to tell her. I was pondering the problem or what was the easiest way to break the news when—as on previous nights—Anita herself brought up the subject of the proposed transaction.

"Well, Peter? Did you get the papers?"

To forestall her, I had invented the story that they were drawing up contracts for my approval or rejection. In the meantime, I was supposed to be making a thorough investigation of the store's books, the value of the stock on hand, and of business conditions in general.

I forced myself to be direct. "Anita," I said, looking her squarely in the eyes, "I'm not going to sell out."

As I said this, she was pouring the iced tea. Pitcher in hand, she leaned forward with a frown darkening her face. "You're what! You're not going to sell?"

"No. I think I'll hold on to the place."

Her breast heaved as though she had suddenly become short of breath and her lips tightened into that thin, white line I had come to dread. "But I want you to sell," she said evenly. I could feel the wealth of fury repressed in those six simple words.

"I'm sorry, Anita," I replied quietly, trying not to look ashamed of myself. "I've already turned the offer down." Then her eyes began to blaze and I half-rose from the table. "Now look here. There's no call for you to take on. That store is all we've got and the best thing we can do is to keep it."

I will never forget her lip curling into a sneer as she brought the tea pitcher down onto the table with such force that a great crack appeared in its heavy pottery from base to spout. "So that's how much you love me, is it?" she cried. "You know I hate it here! Do you expect me to slave for you in this dirty little hovel all my life? Well, I won't! I won't, I tell you!"

I can't remember my exact words but I made the rather caustic remark that the house had always been presentable until she commenced taking weekly trips to New York in my absence. As soon as I uttered this, I was sorry for it. The sneer faded from her lips, leaving her quite pale and defeated looking. Both of us remained silent for what seemed to be a long time.

At length, seeing that she made no retort in defense of herself, I reseated myself and poured out the tea. Although I did not look up at her, I could feel her heavy breath on my forehead. "I'm keeping the store, Anita," I reiterated as though to put an end to the whole dispute.

Anita silently left the room and I had to finish my dinner alone.

I imagine a good many husbands would have insisted on knowing more about the regular (or irregular?) week-end excursions of their wives; and perhaps if I had done so I would not have had to spend so many years in prison; but I was so confident that the trips were merely in the category of mischievous outings, spent mainly in theatres that I did not press the subject. Anyway, I did not want to further irritate Anita. The turning down of the offer had done quite enough harm.

For three days following the scene described, she would not speak to me. The house became as gloomy and silent as a tomb. On the fourth day she contracted a severe toothache. Her jaw was actually swollen and it looked as if it might be terribly painful. Anita swathed her face in napkins and at frequent intervals grudgingly employed the preparation (chloroform, oil of cloves and creosote in equal parts) I had brought her from the store. Although it was impossible for her to eat anything, she flatly refused either to visit the dentist or to allow me to summon one.

"You never asked me why I went to New York almost every week-end," she announced acidly out of the good side of her mouth, "so I never mentioned my teeth. They've been giving me trouble for some time. But of course you wouldn't be interested in that!"

Her bitter sarcasm made me feel guilty and in the wrong. I made haste to assure her that such was not the case and that indeed I was interested in her health. My obviously earnest sympathy seemed to placate her somewhat.

"I've been going down there to visit a dentist," she went on, after a sullen moment of silence. "The old fool we have in town here doesn't know a tooth from a toe! If I'd let him, he'd yank them all! But this man in the city is simply wonderful. I can't recall who it was that recommended him to me, but he never hurts me with the drill."

This voluntary explanation of her trips tore the veil of mystery which had surrounded them and made me feel a suspicious idiot. I must confess that for a time I had been harboring frightful thoughts: dreams of Anita in alien arms. Now, with her story convincingly illustrated by a badly swollen jaw, I could only curse myself inwardly for having so filthy a mind. I was totally unworthy, I silently told myself, to be the recipient of such a fine woman's love.

All that night she tossed and turned in agony. Several times I was at the point of dressing and going down to the store for a powder which might induce her to sleep; but by the time I had made up my mind to do this, she would fall into a light doze and I was afraid to awaken her.

In the morning, at her suggestion, I put her aboard the eastbound train for New York. She promised that she would return the same evening in time to get me some dinner. I knew that that would not leave her much time in the city but I didn't like the idea of her travelling at night or, worse yet, spending the night in some city hotel.

My day at the store was singularly eventful. Usually the hours would pass filling prescriptions, interviewing pharmaceutical salesmen, or chatting with the steady customers. But on that day the agent for The Great Eastern reappeared upon the scene, hot and irritable and offering fully a thousand dollars more than he had previously been authorized to give. I took luncheon with him at the Ithaca Hotel and informed him that I would consider his offer only upon the express agreement that I would be given the management of the store. This, he assured me in no uncertain terms, was a ridiculous demand. We parted, both of us decidedly in bad temper. In my ears rang his farewell words: "Thatcher, you are the most pig-headed son of a bitch I've ever met!"

This anger of mine was very unfortunate as I later found out. It made me three enemies: Mrs. Wainscott and the parents of that incorrigible little brat, Jackie Mackintosh. The former, when she sidled nervously up to the counter and whispered a confidential something in my ear, I brusquely answered: "What? For heaven's sake, madam! Can't you ask for anything in a normal tone of voice? What are you afraid of? If you want a box of suppositories, ask for a box of suppositories!" Of course Mrs. Wainscott grew red in the face and abruptly left the store with the muffled guffaws of the loungers at the soda fountain burning in her ears. I did not see her again until she testified against me at the trial.

Not five minutes later, I administered a hearty spanking to Jackie, whom I caught red-handed with both his pockets filled with chocolate-covered cherries. He must have run home immediately to his mother and complained of this treatment for later in the afternoon she called upon me at the store, accompanied by her equally irate husband. All of my patient explanations that Jackie's behaviour was not without precedent made no impression and, at last, I flew into a rage and ordered the trio from the store. As they departed, Mr. Mackintosh flung back over his shoulder, "You'll pay for this, Thatcher. Mark my words!"

But, angry as I was, I was more incensed at my own bad conduct. Never before had I insulted customers with such abandon. I had always been careful, despite any emotional upheavals among my clientele, to maintain an imperturbed exterior. Sadly, on the day in question, I bridged this self-imposed gap with a vehemence born of my knowledge that neither Mrs. Wainscott nor the Mackintosh clan were valued patrons. Little did I suspect at the time that those petty squabbles would help to dig the grave I was soon to inhabit for many, many years.

As a precaution, just before I started for home on that never-to-be-forgotten night of August 20, 1919, I asked Tom Murphy to make up an effective sleeping draught and bring it around to my house on his way home. I realized that Anita might suffer further pain in spite of, and with all due respect to, her city dentist. In any event, I reasoned, it would do no harm to have something of the kind in the house. Murphy agreed to deliver the stuff not later than nine o'clock.

When I sat down at the dinner table that night, Anita impatiently waved aside my solicitous inquiries regarding her teeth and thrust a letter into my hands:

"This came for you today. I can see it's from some woman. You'd better read it."

From her tone of voice and the look in her eye, I gathered that Anita was deriving some huge satisfaction from the letter. She was gloating and nowhere, strangely, was I able to detect a sign of jealousy. Ordinarily, I would say that these signs were the usual masochistic antics of the wife who has caught her husband in some nefarious practice; but in Anita I determined a note of triumph—like the exclamation of a soldier who has just impaled the enemy on his bayonet.

I realized immediately from the handwriting and the postmark that the letter was from Gilberte. I ripped open the envelope with a show of innocence. It wasn't a very long letter but I could not have read it then or at any other time. It was in French.

I will not ask you to believe me in this; the jury didn't. After nearly two years in France, sojourning for the most part with people who spoke no English, it doesn't sound plausible that I had not picked up enough French to decipher Gilberte's simple message. Nevertheless, it is so. I have never been good at learning languages and, except for a few choice idioms of profanity garnered at the front, I am hopelessly incapable of translating anything more than drugstore Latin.

After a glance at it, I passed the letter across the table for Anita's inspection. "What does it say?" she asked coldly. "Or is it too personal for your wife to know?"

"I don't know myself," I replied with a shrug.

"Really!"

"You can see for yourself. It's in French."

She sniffed. "And you can't read it, eh?"

"No."

Anita turned the letter over and read the signature. "Gilberte. Who's she?"

"She was one of the nurses in the hospital. A nice old lady who was kind to me," I lied for no other earthly reason than perhaps to divert her attention from the letter. "I'll get someone to translate it for me tomorrow. I think Mr. Ottavio, the Italian shoemaker, speaks a little French. Or maybe one of the professors from up on the hill might come into the store."

And with that, I stuffed the letter into my pocket and promptly forgot about it. There was nothing farther from my mind at that time than Gilberte; and while I had come to miss her, other and more important things kept cropping up before I had time to evoke any more than a few pleasant memories. Like Doctor Carpenter, Nurse Monet was only a shadow of the past, occasionally looming up to loiter near the more remote fringe of the present.

We continued to eat the meal in silence, Anita chewing cautiously in one side of her mouth. As she brought in the dessert—a gelatin pudding topped with whipped cream—I asked her what the dentist had accomplished. As an answer, she reached into her apron pocket and rolled two very large molars onto the table. The roots of the teeth were still dark with traces of dried blood and the sight of them at the dinner table was almost enough to make me ill. With difficulty, I mastered my nausea and turned what I hoped were sympathetic eyes in her direction.

"Poor kid," I murmured and going over to her I took her in my arms. She turned her back to me so that it was impossible to see her face, but the gelatin in the dish she was holding trembled and almost bounced to the floor. "Darling, I didn't know. It must've been awful."

"Much you care!" she said, bursting into tears. I held her as close as I could and straining myself, I managed to kiss the side of her mouth.

"Now, now. You know I care!"

"I ... I thought you ... loved me!" she whimpered.

"But what an idea! Of course I love you! Have I ever said that I didn't? Come now, Anita. What is it? Have I been nasty to you?"

"You ... you don't care how I feel! You won't do the one thing in the world I want you to do! You know I'm rotting here! You know everyone in town hates me!"

I tried to laugh her out of the idea although I suddenly realized how few friends Anita really had. None of the other young married women ever came to call on her. I had taken note of this once before and, after much thought, had put it down as rank jealousy. Anita was far too beautiful. But it was unnatural that she should not have at least one friend among her own sex.

"And I hate them, too!" she continued in that little, choking voice. She had moved over to the table and, disregarding the dishes, some of which were dangerously close to the edge, buried her face in her arms. Her position reminded me of that night—July 2, 1917—when she had shed alcoholic tears in almost the same spot.

How long she continued to sob there and how long I stared blankly at her quivering breasts and at the delicate tendrils of blonde hair that curled at the nape of her neck, I do not know. For it was then that I began to weaken a little in my resolution. As this was happening to me, I became conscious of the fact that I was speaking, backing up my gradually dying decision not to sell with forceful words of refusal. Just exactly what I said and precisely what she replied to me, I am unable to remember. It may be that a touch of my old shell-shock malady came back and seized my memory for a little, twisting it out of focus.

Because the next thing I can vividly recollect is Anita standing on her two feet, pale and furious, with mother's discolored steel carving-knife in her hand. On the floor around the legs of the table were several chipped and broken dishes which her sudden leap must have knocked down.

"You're killing me!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. The shrill quality of her voice sent a shuddering response through me. My heart constricted, leaving me as cold as ice and dead certain that something awful was about to happen. I could feel the hairs rise on me. "Don't you know that you're killing me, you fool? Every day, every minute I have to stay here! ... Oh, I can't stand it any longer!"

Risking a nasty cut, I went toward her, hoping to get the knife away from her; but she moved off a few paces as I approached. "Don't be childish, Anita," I pleaded. "And stop that screaming. Do you want the neighbors to hear?"

It may seem silly that at a trying moment like that I should be concerned about anyone other than the two of us; nevertheless, such was the case. I have always secretly dreaded that my personal affairs someday might be aired in public. This fear was born of a life spent in a small town. I have seen too many people broken and unable to hold their heads up after the malicious work of gossipers and scandal-mongers.

I continued to try to quiet her but she would not be hushed. "Why are you doing this to me? You hate me, don't you? Oh, don't deny it! I know you hate me! Well ... I hate you, too!"

"Anita!" I gasped.

"Yes, I do! I hate you! I can't stand the sight of you! You bore me, see? You didn't know that, did you? Well, now you do!"

The tears were drying on her face and in her eyes, leaving them rimmed and reddened. The rouge on her cheeks stood out against her dead white skin in round, uneven splotches. With her hair in disarray, she looked almost mad and, I must confess, horribly ugly. Seeing her this way after once having witnessed her beautiful, frightened me. It also hastened me in my decision to do what she wished.

I managed to get my hand on the hilt of the knife and I began to twist it from her grasp. Struggling to retain it, Anita commenced to shout again with still more rage. "Let me alone! Let me alone, do you hear? I'll kill you if you take that away! Oh ... you're hurting me! God damn you! I'll ... I'll ..." And here her words ran into one another, becoming unintelligible expostulations of hatred.

I suppose I did hurt her a bit; but it was absolutely necessary. In the mood she was in, I was afraid either that she might attack herself with the knife or use it against me. In any case, her being in possession of the thing was a decided menace.

To anyone outside who might have heard Anita's words, it would undoubtedly seem that she really and truly despised me; I myself put no stock in them. I was sure that her fit of temper was but a phase of her physical condition and that she didn't mean any of the mean things she said about me. You must know then that Anita was menstruating that night and do not forget that earlier that very day she had had two teeth extracted. What she had gone through was enough to make any woman fly off the handle.

I thought that if I could get the knife away from her and put her to bed, in the morning everything would be peaceful again. She was still screaming and clawing at my chest like some enraged lioness when I finally managed to remove the dangerously sharp knife from her fingers.

Then, to my dismay, the doorbell rang.

Anita stopped her noise at once. Together we looked stupidly at one another. Then she nodded that I should go and see who was outside. The ringing of the bell evidently calmed her hysteria for, as though thoroughly done in, she sank into a chair as I moved reluctantly toward the front door, absent-mindedly dangling the captured knife from one hand.

Well, young Tom Murphy saw that carving-knife and he could not have helped hearing all the screaming as he came up the walk. He gave me a searching look as he handed me the package containing the sleeping draught.

"Here you are, Mr. Thatcher," he said. "This ought to do the trick."

I accepted the package with the hand that held the knife, thanked him in a hollow voice, and he hurried away as though he was anxious to get out of the vicinity.

When I got back to the kitchen, Anita was opening a large bottle of beer which we were accustomed to drink after dinner during the hot weather. She poured out two glasses recklessly, the foam spilling onto the tablecloth.

"It's a sleeping powder, Anita," I said, opening the packet and placing the little fold of paper near her hand. "Your tooth may ache. Good idea to drop it in your beer."

She gave no sign that she heard me. Although she had stopped crying, there was a wet shine to her eyes that I didn't like. In her silence I could feel repressed a stony hatred for me and it absolutely took away what few regrets I had regarding the store I was now so firmly resolved to sell. Why I didn't tell her of my change of heart, I do not know. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently. However, I thought that if I waited until morning, Anita would be in a more receptive mood. At the moment she was in a very unbalanced state and the subject was one which would have to be handled delicately. If I came right out and admitted defeat she might think that her weeping and wailing had affected me. I did not want her to know that; she might employ those tactics to wheedle me in the future.

I made my way into the living-room in search of the evening paper. Somehow it had found its way under one of the sofa pillows so that it was almost five minutes before I returned with it to the kitchen. Anita was no longer in the room. One of the beer glasses was empty and the sleeping powder paper was crumbled into a tiny ball beside it.

"Ah, she has taken it," I thought to myself, glad that the remainder of the evening would be unspoiled by such scenes as had taken place at dinner.

Through the back window I could see Anita sitting woodenly on a camp-chair, facing the lake. It looked so very peaceful out of doors with the soft hand of twilight caressing the great trees, the ragged lawn and the lake itself. It reminded me of the war, strangely enough. After a heavy bombardment, when the firing ceased an unearthly stillness seemed to shriek in one's ears and the relief of it all was enough to drive one mad with happiness. And as I stared out of the window, I was happy. The storm had blown over and, if I had anything to do with causing it, it would never come again.

With my glass of beer and my paper, I retired to the living-room. I would have liked to sit outside with Anita but I did not wish to risk any repetition of the quarrel. I was sure that she wanted to be alone and I knew how unpleasant it was to have one's solitude trespassed upon. So I made up my mind to let her alone. In the morning I would tell her of my surrender, trying to make it sound as if it were my own wish and not hers, and everything would be forgotten. We would dispose of the store, the house, and all of the furniture which was sadly out of date anyway. In New York we would start our lives all over again.

Curiously, I began to anticipate making this fresh start with pleasure. After all, Ithaca had not been very kind to us. True, we had made a good living there, but we had had our scraps as well; and since our marriage the war had forced its way between the two of us, brandishing its most cruel weapon: estrangement.

And the business I had built up out of nothing and struggled to keep; what had it brought me? Trying to hold on to it in the face of Anita's objections was a pyrrhic victory, a triumph as empty as the war. My most precious possession, I told myself, was Anita's love. The rest was only just so much baggage.

These thoughts ran through my mind, bringing with them a conviction that I had been a fool. When I took Anita as my wife I promised myself that I would make her happy.

Before I finished my beer or as much as read two columns of the newspaper, I dropped into a deep sleep.

Now I come to the part of the story that is difficult to relate. During the following hours I was still drowsy and feeling quite ill; then again, it all happened so suddenly that before I actually became aware of what was taking place, I found myself cooling my heels in the Ithaca jail.

I suppose I even looked guilty. Real emotions hardly ever seem real. Stage performances have taken the edge off of them and stylized both physical and mental reactions to such a degree that if a faint is not executed in a certain way it looks bogus. My shocked expression, throughout these proceedings I here set down, no doubt impressed the police as being a very amateur affectation, attempted by me to conceal my obvious guilt. I even heard one of the cell attendants informing someone that I was "going to play nuts."

If the following account of the morning I woke up sounds like a falsehood, remember that it has since been proved the truth.

It seemed to me that I had merely drifted off for a few minutes but when I finally opened my eyes a bright morning sun was shining. So brilliant was it that I was momentarily blinded and confused. I started to rise from the chair but succeeded only in stumbling to the floor. My legs were numb and my head felt inflated, like some child's balloon. Before I could pick myself up from where I had fallen, I became conscious that the doorbell was ringing. It was an insistent ring, as though someone was belaboring the button in short, angry jabs.

Still half asleep, I staggered to the door and opened it. I rubbed my eyes, squinting up into the ruddy face of one of the town's constables. It was Richter.

"Sorry to get you up, Thatcher," he greeted me with apologetic gruffness. "Say! You must have had one too many last night, eh?"

"Hello, Captain. My God, what time is it?"

"Almost ten. Young Murphy's going crazy down there at the store. Business is certainly good this morning." He paused and fumbled in his cap for a paper. "Say, Thatcher, I've got some bad news for you. I'm afraid I'll have to bring you around to the station."

This opened my eyes. Please believe that up until that time I had never had any encounters with the police, having always been careful not to violate any of the ordinances with the possible exception of Prohibition. "What have I done, Captain? Murdered someone?" I asked.

He laughed good-humoredly. "No. But you should have, while you were at it. It's that Mackintosh kid. His old man swore out a warrant for your arrest on a charge of assaulting his brat. I don't know if it's true or not, but by God I'd like to assault him myself sometimes."

"But look here, Captain," I protested. "I only..."

"I know it's a damned nuisance. But orders, you know. The judge is a pretty decent sort and he'll probably give you a medal. Better get your hat."

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly and told the constable to make himself comfortable on the porch while I got myself ready. Since I was so late for work anyhow, a little longer would make no difference. I was positive, that when I made it clear to whomever was going to hear the case exactly why I spanked Jackie, everything would be all right.

As I turned to go inside, I felt Richter touch my sleeve. "Good Lord, Thatcher! What did you do? Cut yourself?"

"Why no," I answered, puzzled. "What makes you say that?"

He pointed a finger at my trousers and, looking down at them, I saw that they were stained with red! I stood there dumbfounded with my mouth hanging open.

"That's blood all right," I heard the policeman mutter. "Yes, sir. That's blood. But where in hell did it come from?"

Instantly I thought of the night just past. My mind was quick to grasp the situation and it evoked a vivid picture of Anita, standing with the carving-knife in her hand and threatening....

"Anita!" I shouted hoarsely and with my heart in my mouth I ran into the house. I could hear Richter behind me, his ponderous weight making the old floor-boards vibrate under my feet.

I saw then that the living-room was a shambles. A table was overturned, two lamps lay shattered on the carpet and everywhere were reddish smears that looked suspiciously like bloodstains. In the kitchen we found still more blood and a bloody apron of Anita's lying on the table, still set with the dirty dinner dishes. On the apron we found the carving-knife ... its blade a mess of crusted blood!

In the face of all this horror, it is a wonder I didn't faint. However, even so, it is impossible for me to describe my feelings of that morning. Of course I was certain at once that Anita had committed suicide, had severed her veins or something equally terrible. But on racing through the rooms of the house, we could find no trace of her. Only some clothes and the two teeth she had tossed onto the table during dinner the night before spoke of her ever having been there.

My frantic fear for Anita temporarily dulled my wits so that it was not until the constable and I had picked about in the dark cellar for some time that I remembered seeing Anita last sitting in the garden. I seized the policeman's arm and all but pulled him up the stairs, through the back hall and outside.

But Anita was nowhere to be found. We searched the grounds thoroughly. The camp-chair, where last I had seen her, was empty, the canvas back of it still sagging from the weight of her shoulders. But, to our horror, from the back porch to the very edge of the lake ran a dark, repulsive trail of what was undoubtedly blood! In places there were merely a few drops on the taller tufts of grass, hardly visible to the eye; but mostly the awful trail ran wide....

"She's thrown herself in!" I gasped. "My God, Captain! What can we do?"

I burst into tears, something I hadn't done for many, many years. The constable waited in silence for me to control myself. He didn't try to comfort me.

"Oh, Anita!" I cried. "Why did you do it? Oh, why did you do it?"

Richter spit into the lake. "That's what I'd like to know, Thatcher," he said curtly. He was looking at me closely, his brows knit into a frown.

"Why, what do you mean, Richter?" I asked.

"Oh, cut out that innocent stuff!" he growled disgustedly. "You know damned well what I mean."

I assured him that I did not. He surely wasn't insinuating that I... Why the idea was absurd! Nevertheless, absurd or not, I saw the constable's face stubbornly set.

"You don't believe that she committed suicide?" I asked in confusion. "Is it possible that she's still alive?" I stepped toward him and seized the front of his uniform blouse. "Tell me what you're thinking!" I demanded hysterically.

"Alive hell!" was his comment and I suddenly felt my wrist encircled by a steel cuff which clicked shut and pinched my skin. "I don't know where you've hidden her, Thatcher, but she didn't commit no suicide!"

"No?"

"No. You better get yourself an alibi. How did you get that blood on your pants?"

"I don't know!"

"Well for your own good you'd better find out."

"But Anita...."

"Oh, we'll fish her out all right. But not now." Richter tugged at the bracelets. "I ain't got my water-wings with me. Come on," he added out of the corner of his mouth as he led me away from the lake shore.

I went along with him dazedly. There was nothing else I could do.

My trial was held in the Tompkins County Court house in Ithaca. The State was represented by an obnoxious little Assistant District Attorney who, nevertheless, I am forced to admit, handled his side of the case magnificently. Point by point he scored tellingly until he had almost convinced even me that I had done away with Anita.

For the terrible part of it all was that I couldn't be quite sure whether I had or not. As Assistant District Attorney Blackman pointed out, I could very easily have committed the crime during one of my unfortunate lapses of memory. True, this souvenir of the war had not recurred since I was discharged from the hospital months before, but there was no evidence to prove that it couldn't recur.

So when old Doc Turnbull, who visited me in my cell before the trial, remarked kindly that he was sure I hadn't done it, I replied in despair: "But that's just it! How can you say I didn't kill her when I don't even know myself?"

Unless my periodic amnesia was coupled with an unreasonable dementia, there was no motive for my killing Anita—as far as I was concerned. Gilberte's letter which I never read and which the State offered in evidence, had had nothing to do with it. I certainly did not murder Anita for Gilberte or for any other woman. Nevertheless, the translation of the letter in court did sound bad. Blackman read it aloud, punctuating each sentence with a knowing glance toward the jury and stressing certain words and phrases which, I am sure, Gilberte had never meant to be stressed.

Translated, it ran something like the following:

August 8, 1919

Dearest Peter,

Perhaps I should not write to you ... but you forgot to forbid it. It seems so long ago that we parted in the garden! I sit there seldom nowadays because invariably it evokes sad memories and I do not wish to think about you. That would be sheer masochism, nothing more. Oh, Peter, if only you knew how wretched I am! By now you are with your wife, pretending that you are happy. For you are pretending, you know. You can't possibly be happy with that woman. From what you have told me about her, I am sure that she doesn't care for you ... at least not half as much as I do. That is the terrible part about life: the people who love are rarely loved in return. Sometimes I find myself dreaming that one morning you will awake and find her gone ... run off with another man or—yes, you've guessed it—dead. With her out of the way, I know that you'd come back to me, wouldn't you, Peter? But it is just a dream. I cannot hope for so simple a solution to my problem ... the problem that is turning me from a young girl into a sour old woman. I suppose it is useless to ask you to write. You will, as always, follow the dictates of your heart.

Your miserable, Gilberte.

Sitting there day after day in court, I watched the chain of circumstantial evidence grow stronger. After each witness testified, I saw the worried frown upon the face of my lawyer deepen. He was a very conscientious chap, Mr. Bristol; and I am sure he believed me absolutely innocent. If this was so, he was the only person, aside from Doctor Turnbull, who did.

They subpoenaed my assistant, Tom Murphy, who grudgingly admitted that he had heard Anita and me quarreling; had seen the carving-knife—State's Exhibit C—in my hand when I answered the door; and that he had delivered to me, at my request, a potent compound of sodium amytal upon the night in question.

"Did you hear any of the words, Mr. Murphy?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I did. I heard her scream...."

"Go on, Mr. Murphy. What did she scream?"

"I heard her yelling that he was hurting her."

The prosecution then went on to establish that I had been in a rare fury all through the day of August 20th. They called Mrs. Wainscott and Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh to the stand. The last mentioned witness so deftly misused her words that the jury was left with the impression that I had drawn and quartered her precious Jackie instead of mildly spanked him.

Next, to my astonishment, Anita's extracted teeth were offered in evidence. The prosecution suggested that I had knocked them loose from her mouth with an angry blow!

Photographs depicting the scene of the crime, the wrecked kitchen and living-room, the preponderance of blood and the gory trail to the lake shore made the jury shudder and glance at me as though I were some grotesque curiosity. The blood-encrusted carving-knife; a torn, blood-soaked dress of Anita's which I had not been shown before; and my own stained trousers completed the major points of the State's case.

But they were unable to produce a corpus delicti.

Counsellor Bristol made much of this; it was his entire case, in fact. "How can there be a murder," he demanded, "without someone getting killed? And if someone was killed, who has seen the body? Lord Hale and Sir Edward Coke, those world-famous interpreters of law, positively forbid convictions unless the fact of murder has been proven. A corpus delicti must be established! And to establish the same, there must first be a body and proof that the deceased perished by a criminal agency. It is easy to understand why these precautions must be taken. To quote Blackstone: 'It is far better that ten guilty escape than one innocent man be punished and made to suffer for naught.' In this case, there were no eye-witnesses to the crime ... if such a crime did actually take place. How then can we assume that on the night of August the twentieth this man did feloniously assault and kill his wife? The State has produced slim evidence indeed that this man was in love with another woman! From the letter, State's Exhibit B, it is admitted that the woman was in love with the Defendant. But by what evidence can the State prove that my client reciprocated her feelings? As a matter of fact, is it not more logical to suppose that, if my client really loved this woman, he would not have returned to his wife at all? The State has proved nothing of any importance. They have placed many articles in evidence but they have not proved, within the faintest shadow of a doubt, that these were used to commit a crime. The very weapon, this blood-stained knife, which the State presumes was the death agent; by what right can my worthy opponent claim such was the case? How does he know that death was not brought about by poison, by strangulation, by a pistol? How does he know there has been a death at all? Certainly there is nothing more innocuous than a sleeping powder! How has the State shown that it was used to drug a victim in order that murder might be done without a struggle? And regarding the heated quarrel the State makes so much of: does every petty argument between husband and wife always lead to violence and homicide? Show me the man who has never had words with his wife! And take note of this, gentlemen of the jury. A man administers a much-deserved spanking; does that label him a potential killer? If that were so, how many parents would now be languishing in prisons! I have said before, and I will say again, that it is up to the prosecution to prove my client guilty. He is not required to prove his innocence! Has the State done so? Have they proved that Peter Thatcher lies when he says that the teeth, marked State's Exhibit D, were extracted by a New York City dentist? There is no case here!"

When my lawyer had finished summing up, Assistant District Attorney Blackman got to his feet. "The overwhelming evidence of murder in this case," he began, "is quite sufficient for us to presume death. By the trail of blood leading down to the shore of the lake, we can be certain, within the faintest shadow of a doubt, that the body was dragged there and thrown in, perhaps weighted down with stones. It is difficult to recover a body thus disposed of. The shifting currents of any large body of water, particularly a so-called bottomless lake like Cayuga, will ofttimes carry whatever has been thrown in, back and forth. If the body is weighted, it is possible that it may never be recovered." Blackman paused, pointed an accusing finger in my direction, and then went on in a grand manner. "Are we to allow a murderer to go unpunished because he has been clever enough to successfully destroy the evidence of his guilt? Picture for yourselves, gentlemen of the jury, what chaos would come if we established such a precedent here in this courtroom! A fiend could commit a murder on the high seas, before a hundred witnesses, and, tossing his victim over the rail, laugh at our courts if the body was not recovered! Here we have a man, a person known to have suffered mental relapses due to shell-shock; known to have engaged in a furious battle with his wife; seen with this same knife, now covered with blood, in his hand by one of the witnesses who inadvertently interrupted the fight; caught by an officer of the law, whose testimony you heard; and clad in these bloody trousers! What more can you ask? You have heard read a passionate appeal from this man's mistress that he kill his wife and return to her side. The Defendant swears that he was unable to read that letter. Do you believe that? Would that woman have written so dangerous a letter to him in a language she knew he could not understand—without getting someone to translate it for him? You know that the Defendant sent his victim into New York City on the afternoon of August the twentieth. Isn't it logical to suppose that, in view of the evidence, he did this to get her out of the way so that he might more carefully set the scene for his heinous deed? You have heard sworn testimony to the fact that Peter Thatcher ordered a sleeping powder—ostensibly because his wife's teeth were giving her trouble. Yet, we are unable to extract from him the name of the dentist he claims she visited! Is it logical to suppose that a man would be ignorant of the identity of his wife's dentist? Can we not safely assume that the sleeping powder was intended—no, was actually employed—for quite another purpose? We must not overlook the fact that the Defendant was making use of a potent drug, the use of which is forbidden unless upon a physician's written prescription. And furthermore, gentlemen, remember that the Defendant, when I frankly questioned him, did not even bother to deny that he was guilty of the charges as set forth in the indictment! To the question, 'Peter Thatcher, didn't you drug and kill your wife on the night of August the twentieth, using this knife as a weapon and later disposing of the body, by throwing it into the lake?' he replied: 'I don't know! I really don't know! There was no reason why I should have killed her!'" Here, the Assistant District Attorney waxed violent. He pounded emphatically upon the jury-box rail. "Is that the answer an innocent man would make? Is it? Can we, as citizens engaged in meting out justice, possibly free a man who is not himself convinced of his own innocence? How can there remain the slightest doubt but that somewhere in the chill waters of Lake Cayuga floats submerged the ghastly remains of the young wife Peter Thatcher so ruthlessly slew in order that he might return to the obviously depraved woman he really loved! Are we to permit this? You have noticed that the Defense is based only upon one detail: that the forces of Nature have prevented us from establishing the missing corpse. With the body of the woman, we would have a clear case. But, are we so blind, so idiotic, so unwilling to be intelligent that we must, like Doubting Thomas, peer into the very wounds? Cannot even a child perceive that a murder has been committed and that the perpetrator has been apprehended and brought to justice? This man, Peter Thatcher, claims that he loved his wife and that she loved him. If this is so, and he did not brutally murder her, I ask the Defense just one thing: Where is Anita Hunt Thatcher?"

The jury went out on September the second. They remained locked up for five and a half hours. During this time, I was taken back to my cell where my lawyer, Mr. Bristol, gave me a good talking to.

"You see," he ranted. "What did I tell you? When the District Attorney asked you if you killed her, you should have denied it!"

"But how do I know I didn't?" I asked him.

"How do you know you did?" he countered sourly. "It's a good thing that they're not entitled to convict without establishing the body ... or you'd be sunk!"

I looked up into Bristol's face anxiously. "Can't they do anything to me?"

The lawyer pulled at the roots of his hair and rolled his eyes upward in despair. "Don't be an ass, Thatcher! Anything can happen if the jury wants it to. If they take a fancy to you or believe that you're innocent; the State can produce a hundred bodies, your signed and notarized confession, even a picture of you committing the crime! You'd still be acquitted!" He began to pace the floor distractedly. I really believe that he was more nervous about the verdict than I was.

This might be a good time to mention how I happened to engage Mr. Bristol to handle my defense. He came to me, highly recommended by my old friend Mrs. Michaelson, who was taking a great interest in the case. Knowing very well that I had never had any large amount of ready cash, she informed me that Bristol would be willing to represent me without a retainer. I gratefully clutched at this opportunity, you may be sure; and I at once engaged him. However, Mrs. Michaelson's information proved quite inaccurate. Before the trial came up on the calendar of Judge Foley, Counsellor Bristol was in possession not only of four hundred dollars of my money, but of the deed to my home as well.

I did not begrudge him this. First of all, I knew that with Anita gone, I could never bring myself to enter that house again. Under its roof brooded a secret which I might never be able to uncover. Every nook and cranny of the place would taunt me. If I tried to live there in the future, I would most certainly go mad. In the event that I was exonerated of the charges against me, I was only too keenly aware that my life could not continue without some radical change of course. Ithaca would never accept me again; there were bound to be people who would think me guilty; and my business was sure to suffer commensurate losses. Then, too, I would be faced with memories there: persons who had known her, walls which had once enclosed her, shops she had been accustomed to patronize.

It was of no use, you see. Anita's passing carried me along as though in an unbreakable death hold; and so bewildered was I, that I was almost wishing that I would not be acquitted. I would be at a loss what to do.

Of course the people from my home town were all very nice to me. Mrs. Michaelson and Doctor Turnbull and several others came down to see me, bringing little gifts of candy and cigarettes, and trying their utmost to cheer me up. But these few were really the only friends I had. To most of Ithaca's inhabitants, I was merely a familiar face, an inanimate object that fetched what they demanded, like a retriever.

The newspapers did not make much of the case. On the evening of August 21st, the day of my arrest, a short column was all that appeared in the New York City sheets. The local paper, of course, came out with banner headlines which read: DRUGGIST HELD FOR HOMICIDE. In the sub-headings, and there were fully four of them, came the usual journalistic hyperboles, and reading about myself and my affairs was quite puzzling. Yes, indeed. To my amazement, I was described as prosperous, handsome and popular! My little house and unpretentious grounds were declared an estate! In fact, the only thing that the papers did not grossly exaggerate and distort out of all proportion was Anita's loveliness. "The body of beautiful Anita Thatcher has not as yet been recovered," the Journal-News announced, "but the police are confident that within twenty-four hours ... etc., etc...."

While my mind wandered back over the events that had transpired since my sudden arrest, my lawyer continued to pace up and down, striking his hands together frequently and muttering under his breath. "Yes," he would reiterate, as though to convince himself, "they're not entitled to convict you without a corpus delicti. How can there possibly be a conviction for murder without proof that someone died?" He came to a halt in front of me and looked down at me as I lay full-length upon the cot. I could see that his eyes were troubled. "The worst they could do would be to find you guilty of manslaughter. They haven't established the weapon; neither have they proved premeditation. But juries are funny," he went on, shaking his head dubiously from side to side. "They do what they want."

"Oh," I murmured, although I could not understand why that should be permitted. It did not seem quite right that humans should judge humans and wield the power of life and death which, according to the theologians, should be vested solely in Divinity.

"Blackman scored a good point," glumly admitted my attorney, "when he demanded to know the whereabouts of your wife. I'd give a thousand dollars to know that! Look, Thatcher, can't you try and think...."

I sighed wearily. He had asked me the same thing at least ten times before. "It's no use. I've tried, Mr. Bristol. There was absolutely no reason for her to disappear. Besides ... how about that blood?"

Bristol grunted his disappointment. "Yes, that's right. I keep forgetting. Oh, no doubt she's dead all right. But who killed her? You didn't."

"No?" I asked earnestly.

"I give up! You're impossible, man! How in hell can I defend you if you talk like that?" The lawyer strode angrily to the cell door and shouted for the turnkey to let him out.

"Are you going up?" I asked disinterestedly. The way I was feeling then, I didn't care what he did.

"I suppose so," was the vexed reply. "The jury can't stay out much longer. There's a rumor circulating in the court that they stand eight to four for acquittal. But you know how those things are. Only God and the jury can verify it."

When the cell door had clanged shut behind him and his footsteps had died away in the distance, I got up from the cot and began to pace a bit myself. I felt utterly miserable. Anita's face kept coming back to haunt me. Although I could not be certain that I was guilty, I felt like a murderer. I felt like one of those ugly newspaper portraits plastered under, above and between the lurid headlines I had so often read during the quiet evenings in my garden. I began to think that I must have killed her. For I had taken a life once before, if you remember. Was it not logical to suppose that I had plunged the carving-knife into Anita just as I had done to the German boy a year before?

But why?

Why indeed! Must there be a reason for everything, I asked myself. If I had worn my uniform would I have been legally entitled to kill Anita? If the knife had not been a carving-knife, but a trench-knife or a bayonet stamped: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, would I now be freed? Would Carter have nodded his head and the Sarge patted me on the back?

These hysterical thoughts, these unanswerable questions, these incoherent emanations of a tortured brain kept me occupied while I waited for twelve strange men to decide my fate.

But, unbelievable as it sounds, I was not so much interested in the verdict—which might even mean my execution—as I was in finding out whether or not I had been instrumental in bringing about my beloved wife's end. That she was dead, I had no doubt. But was I her murderer?

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. They approached and stopped before my cell. "Come on, Thatcher," I heard the turnkey say. "The jury's come in." When, at last, he had delivered me into the custody of two tall deputies, he added: "Good luck, buddy. And whatever it is, take it standing up."

"Gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, Your Honor."

"Please read it."

The sound of a throat being cleared reached my ears through a peculiar ringing noise I was unable to catalogue. The courtroom began to spin before me and only a vague impression of strange faces and dark wooden benches remains even now.

"We, the jury, find the Defendant, Peter Thatcher...."

I took it standing up.