“The next day, toward evening, while the nurse was putting on her hat and coat preparatory to leaving for home, Dr. Estep came out of his office, with his hat on and a letter in his hand. The nurse saw that his face was pale – ‘white as my uniform,’ she says – and he walked with the care of one who takes pains to keep from staggering.
“She asked him if he was ill. ‘Oh, it’s nothing!’ he told her. ‘I’ll be all right in a very few minutes.’ Then he went on out. The nurse left the house just behind him, and saw him drop the letter he had carried into the mailbox on the corner, after which he returned to the house.
“Mrs. Estep, coming downstairs ten minutes later – it couldn’t have been any later than that – heard, just as she reached the first floor, the sound of a shot from her husband’s office. She rushed into it, meeting nobody. Her husband stood by his desk, swaying, with a hole in his right temple and a smoking revolver in his hand. Just as she reached him and put her arms around him, he fell across the desk – dead.”
“Anybody else – any of the servants, for instance – able to say that Mrs. Estep didn’t go to the office until after the shot?” I asked.
The attorney shook his head sharply.
“No, damn it! That’s where the rub comes in!”
His voice, after this one flare of feeling, resumed its level, incisive tone, and he went on with his tale.
“The next day’s papers had accounts of Dr. Estep’s death, and late that morning the woman who had called upon him the day before his death came to the house. She is Dr. Estep’s first wife – which is to say, his legal wife! There seems to be no reason – not the slightest – for doubting it, as much as I’d like to. They were married in Philadelphia in 1896. She has a certified copy of the marriage record. I had the matter investigated in Philadelphia, and it’s a certain fact that Dr. Estep and this woman – Edna Fife was her maiden name – were really married.
“She says that Estep, after living with her in Philadelphia for two years, deserted her. That would have been in 1898, or just before he came to San Francisco. She has sufficient proof of her identity – that she really is the Edna Fife who married him; and my agents in the East found positive proof that Estep had practiced for two years in Philadelphia.
“And here is another point. I told you that Estep had said he was born and raised in Parkersburg. I had inquiries made there, but found nothing to show that he had ever lived there, and found ample evidence to show that he had never lived at the address he had given his wife. There is, then, nothing for us to believe except that his talk of an unhappy early life was a ruse to ward off embarrassing questions.”
“Did you do anything toward finding out whether the doctor and his first wife had ever been divorced?” I asked.
“I’m having that taken care of now, but I hardly expect to learn that they had. That would be too crude. To get on with my story: This woman – the first Mrs. Estep – said that she had just recently learned her husband’s whereabouts, and had come to see him in an attempt to effect a reconciliation. When she called upon him the afternoon before his death, he asked for a little time to make up his mind what he should do. He promised to give her his decision in two days. My personal opinion, after talking to the woman several times, is that she had learned that he had accumulated some money, and that her interest was more in getting the money than in getting him. But that, of course, is neither here nor there.
“At first the authorities accepted the natural explanation of the doctor’s death – suicide. But after the first wife’s appearance, the second wife – my client – was arrested and charged with murder.
“The police theory is that after his first wife’s visit, Dr. Estep told his second wife the whole story; and that she, brooding over the knowledge that he had deceived her, that she was not his wife at all, finally worked herself up into a rage, went to the office after his nurse had left for the day, and shot him with the revolver that she knew he always kept in his desk.
“I don’t know, of course, just what evidence the prosecution has, but from the newspapers I gather that the case against her will be built upon her fingerprints on the revolver with which he was killed; an upset inkwell on his desk; splashes of ink on the dress she wore; and an inky print of her hand on a torn newspaper on his desk.
“Unfortunately, but perfectly naturally, one of the first things she did was to take the revolver out of her husband’s hand. That accounts for her prints on it. He fell – as I told you – just as she put her arms around him, and, though her memory isn’t very clear on this point, the probabilities are that he dragged her with him when he fell across the desk. That accounts for the upset inkwell, the torn paper, and the splashes of ink. But the prosecution will try to persuade the jury that those things all happened before the shooting – that they are proofs of a struggle.”
“Not so bad,” I gave my opinion.
“Or pretty damned bad – depending on how you look at it. And this is the worst time imaginable for a thing like this to come up! Within the past few months there have been no less than five widely advertised murders of men by women who were supposed to have been betrayed, or deceived, or one thing or another.
“Not one of those five women was convicted. As a result, we have the press, the public, and even the pulpit, howling for a stricter enforcement of justice. The newspapers are lined up against Mrs. Estep as strongly as their fear of libel suits will permit. The women’s clubs are lined up against her. Everybody is clamouring for an example to be made of her.
“Then, as if all that isn’t enough, the prosecuting attorney has lost his last two big cases, and he’ll be out for blood this time – election day isn’t far off.”
The calm, even, precise voice was gone now. In its place was a passionate eloquence.
“I don’t know what you think,” Richmond cried. “You’re a detective. This is an old story to you. You’re more or less callous, I suppose, and sceptical of innocence in general. But I know that Mrs. Estep didn’t kill her husband. I don’t say it because she’s my client! I was Dr. Estep’s attorney, and his friend, and if I thought Mrs. Estep guilty, I’d do everything in my power to help convict her. But I know as well as I know anything that she didn’t kill him – couldn’t have killed him.
“She’s innocent. But I know too that if I go into court with no defence beyond what I now have, she’ll be convicted! There has been too much leniency shown feminine criminals, public sentiment says. The pendulum will swing the other way – Mrs. Estep, if convicted, will get the limit. I’m putting it up to you! Can you save her?”
“Our best mark is the letter he mailed just before he died,” I said, ignoring everything he said that didn’t have to do with the facts of the case. “It’s good betting that when a man writes and mails a letter and then shoots himself, that the letter isn’t altogether unconnected with the suicide. Did you ask the wife about the letter?”
“I did, and she denies having received one.”
“That wasn’t right. If the doctor had been driven to suicide by her appearance, then according to all the rules there are, the letter should have been addressed to her. He might have written one to his second wife, but he would hardly have mailed it. Would she have any reason for lying about it?”
“Yes,” the lawyer said slowly, “I think she would. His will leaves everything to the second wife. The first wife, being the only legal wife, will have no difficulty in breaking that will, of course; but if it is shown that the second wife had no knowledge of the first one’s existence – that she really believed herself to be Dr. Estep’s legal wife – then I think that she will receive at least a portion of the estate. I don’t think any court would, under the circumstances, take everything away from her. But if she should be found guilty of murdering Dr. Estep, then no consideration will be shown her, and the first wife will get every penny.”