Harvey raised his clipped blond head and addressed the witness: “Mr. Cave, we were attempting to establish the reason behind your – ah – misunderstanding with your wife. Did you and Mrs. Cave have words on the evening of May nineteenth?”
“We did. I’ve already told you that.” Cave’s voice was shallow, with high-pitched overtones.
“What was the nature of the conversation?”
“It was more of an argument than a conversation.”
“But a purely verbal argument?” Harvey sounded as if his own witness had taken him by surprise.
A sharp-faced man spoke up from the prosecution end of the attorneys’ table. “Objection. The question is leading – not to say misleading.”
“Sustained. The question will be stricken.”
Harvey shrugged his heavy tweed shoulders. “Tell us just what was said then, Mr. Cave. Beginning at the beginning.”
Cave moved uncomfortably, passing the palm of one hand over his eyes. “I can’t recall it verbatim. It was quite an emotional scene–”
Harvey cut him off. “Tell us in your own words what you and Mrs. Cave were talking about.”
“The future,” Cave said. “Our future. Ruth was planning to leave me for another man.”
An insect-buzzing rose from the spectators. I looked along the row where I was sitting. A couple of seats to my right, a young woman with artificial violets at her waist was leaning forward, her bright dark eyes intent on Cave’s face. She seemed out of place among the frowsy old furies who surrounded her. Her head was striking, small and boyishly chic, its fine bony structure emphasized by a short haircut. She turned, and her brown eyes met mine. They were tragic and opaque.
The D.A.’s voice rose above the buzzing. “I object to this testimony. The witness is deliberately blackening the dead woman’s reputation, without corroborative evidence of any kind, in a cowardly attempt to save his own neck.”
He glanced sideways at the jury. Their faces were stony. Cave’s was as white as marble. Harvey’s was mottled red. He said, “This is an essential part of the case for the defense. A great deal has been made of Mr. Cave’s sudden departure from home on the day of his wife’s death. I am establishing the reason for it.”
“We know the reason,” the D.A. said in a carrying undertone.
Harvey looked up mutely at the judge, whose frown fitted the lines in his face like an old glove.
“Objection overruled. The prosecution will refrain from making unworthy comments. In any case, the jury will disregard them.”
But the D.A. looked pleased with himself. He had made his point, and the jury would remember. Their twenty-four eyes, half of them female, and predominantly old, were fixed on Cave in uniform disapproval.
Harvey spoke in a voice thickened by emotion. “Did your wife say who the man was that she planned to leave you for?”
“No. She didn’t.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“No. The whole thing was a bolt from the blue to me. I don’t believe Ruth intended to tell me what she had on her mind. It just slipped out, after we started fighting.” He caught himself up short. “Verbally fighting, I mean.”
“What started this verbal argument?”
“Nothing important. Money trouble. I wanted to buy a Ferrari, and Ruth couldn’t see any sense in it.”
“A Ferrari motor car?”
“A racing car, yes. I asked her for the money. She said that she was tired of giving me money. I said that I was equally tired of taking it from her. Then it came out that she was going to leave me for somebody else.” One side of Cave’s mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. “Somebody who would love her for herself.”
“When did she plan to leave you?”
“As soon as she could get ready to go to Nevada. I told her to go ahead, that she was free to go whenever and wherever she wanted to go, with anybody that suited her.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I packed a few clothes and drove away in my car.”
“What time did you leave the house?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Was it dark when you went?”
“It was getting dark, but I didn’t have to use my headlights right away. It couldn’t have been later than eight o’clock.”
“And Mrs. Cave was alive and well when you left?”
“Certainly she was.”
“Was your parting friendly?”
“Friendly enough. She said goodbye and offered me some money. Which I didn’t take, incidentally. I didn’t take much of anything, except for bare essentials. I even left most of my clothes behind.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because she bought them for me. They belonged to her. I thought perhaps her new man might have a use for them.”
“I see.”
Harvey’s voice was hoarse and unsteady. He turned away from Cave, and I could see that his face was flushed, either with anger or impatience. He said without looking at the prisoner, “Did the things you left behind include a gun?”
“Yes. A twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun. I used it for shooting rabbits, mostly, in the hills behind the house.”
“Was it loaded?”
“I believe so. I usually kept it loaded.”
“Where did you leave your shotgun?”
“In the garage. I kept it there. Ruth didn’t like to have a gun in the house. She had a phobia–”
Harvey cut in quickly. “Did you also leave a pair of driving gloves, the gloves on the table here marked by the prosecution as Exhibit J?”
“I did. They were in the garage, too.”
“And the garage door – was it open or closed?”
“I left it open, I think. In any case, we never kept it locked.”
“Mr. Cave,” Harvey said in a deep voice, “did you kill your wife with the shotgun before you drove away?”
“I did not.” In contrast with Harvey’s, Cave’s voice was high and thin and unconvincing.
“After you left around eight o’clock, did you return to the house again that night?”
“I did not. I haven’t been back since, as a matter of fact, I was arrested in Los Angeles the following day.”
“Where did you spend the night – that is, after eight o’clock?”
“With a friend.”
The courtroom began to buzz again.
“What friend?” Harvey barked. He suddenly sounded like a prosecutor cross-examining a hostile witness.
Cave moved his mouth to speak, and hesitated. He licked his dry lips. “I prefer not to say.”
“Why do you prefer not to say?”
“Because it was a woman. I don’t want to involve her in this mess.”
Harvey swung away from the witness abruptly and looked up at the judge. The judge admonished the jury not to discuss the case with anyone, and adjourned the trial until two o’clock.
I watched the jurors file out. Not one of them looked at Glenway Cave. They had seen enough of him.
Harvey was the last man to leave the well of the courtroom. I waited for him at the little swinging gate which divided it from the spectators’ section. He finished packing his briefcase and came towards me, carrying the case as if it was weighted.
“Mr. Harvey, can you give me a minute?”
He started to brush me off with a weary gesture, then recognized my face. “Lew Archer? What brings you here?”
“It’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“This case?”
I nodded. “Are you going to get him off?”
“Naturally I am. He’s innocent.” But his voice echoed hollowly in the empty room and he regarded me doubtfully. “You wouldn’t be snooping around for the prosecution?”
“Not this time. The person who hired me believes that Cave is innocent. Just as you do.”