“Did you ever talk it over with him?”
“I never spoke to him in my life,” Kelsey said. “I knew him when I saw him because he had a room in the same building where I was staying, but he was Gilly’s friend, not mine. He didn’t know me from Adam.”
“But Gilly knew you.”
“Sure, Gilly knew me. I had a reputation for... Well, we’re not going into that, but Gilly wanted to put a bite on the Bancrofts and he figured I could tell him how to do it.”
“And you told him how to do it?”
“I’m not denying it.”
“And you were actually in Gilly’s room on the night of the murder.”
“That’s right. A little before seven o’clock. Sometime between six-thirty and seven.”
“And what was Gilly doing?”
“I told you, he was eating his dinner; gulping it down pretty fast because he had to leave. He told me he had everything all fixed, that he was going to get three grand to take the place of the money that had slipped through our fingers and he’d be back with it before midnight.
“Like I told you, he was eating canned beans and bread.”
“Coffee?” Mason asked.
“No, he had some milk. He didn’t go much for coffee at night. He drank it in the morning, I think. I tell you, Mr Mason, the man wasn’t my partner. He was just a... Well, he just came to me to help him out, that’s all.”
“Then you went out on this expedition of your own and what time did you get back?”
“I don’t know. Probably... oh, maybe around nine or nine-thirty.”
“And you stayed in your room thereafter?”
“No, I didn’t. I went from my room over to Gilly’s room — oh, half a dozen times — trying to see if he was in.”
“Did you go in?”
“I didn’t have any key. He had the door locked. I looked to see if there was a light in the place and then a little after midnight I tapped on the door to see if he’d come in, hadn’t gone to my place, and had gone to bed instead. Then about one o’clock in the morning I tried it again. By that time I’d come to the conclusion he’d given me another double-cross, had collected the three grand and had decided to dust out. Well, that was all right with me. I figured I could take care of myself in dealing with a cheap, two-bit crook like Gilly.”
“And how did you figure you’d take care of yourself?”
“Like I told you, first I’d make Eve Amory make a statement that the whole thing had been a publicity stunt. That would show she had title to the money. They’d have to give it back to her. I figured that the Bancrofts weren’t going to come forward and say it was their money, because then they’d have to tell the police all about the blackmail deal and they couldn’t afford to do that. So I figured it was all right. Gilly could double-cross me and take the three grand, and I’d double-cross him and get the other three grand and we’d be even. Then I’d take over the blackmail deal and handle it the way it should be done. These were just the first preliminary touches. Before I got done, I was going to put a ten-grand shakedown on the Bancrofts. And then the next time I ran into Gilly I’d make him kick through for the half he’d held out on me.”
“What about the half that you’d held out on him?” Mason asked.
“The way I was playing it, that was a separate deal with Eve Amory. That was none of his business.”
“And how did you intend to make him give you the half of the three thousand dollars he’d collected from the defendant?”
“Well,” Kelsey said slowly, “there are ways and ways. Take my line of business, you have ways of insuring that people who give you a double-cross pay up afterwards.”
“What is your line of business?” Mason asked.
Kelsey grinned and said, “Now we’re getting back to where we started. I told you I’m not going to talk about my line of business. Nobody’s giving any immunity for anything except this one blackmail deal.”
“And you get immunity for that.”
“That’s right.”
“Provided your story stands up,” Mason said.
Kelsey said, “You just try to punch a hole in it, Mister. I’m telling you the truth and you just try to find a loose joint in what I have told you. I’m not foolish enough to make a deal with the DA and then try to hold out anything and get my neck in a noose. If my story stands up, I get immunity. If it doesn’t stand up, I don’t. They can say lots of things about Kelsey but they can’t say he’s too dumb to know which side of the bread has the butter.”
“So you have quite an interest in bringing about the conviction of the defendant in this case,” Mason said.
“I have quite an interest in being sure I tell the truth,” Kelsey said. “I don’t care what effect it has. If it ties Mrs Bancroft up with murder, that’s her hard luck. But on the kind of a deal I have, I’m telling the truth and I don’t care who gets hurt.”
“You know Gilly was going down to the yacht club to meet Mrs Bancroft?”
“I knew what he told me, yes.”
“And when he didn’t show up you didn’t make any attempt to go down there to the yacht club?”
“I did not. I stayed right in that house and waited for him to come back. I figured I’d give him that much of a chance to shoot square.”
“And if he had given you half of the three thousand, would you have given him half of the three thousand you were going to get from Eve Amory?” Mason asked.
“Oh, Your Honour,” the district attorney said, “I think this question is argumentative and is entirely outside the field of legitimate cross-examination. I’ve given the defendant every latitude with this witness because I realize the man is one whose background makes his story open to question.
“If there’s any loophole in his story I’m just as anxious to find it out as defence counsel. But certainly, asking him about what he intended to do in the event he’d been successful in blackmailing Miss Amory into giving him a document on which he could subsequently collect the three thousand dollars that was in the hands of the authorities, is hardly within the issues in the present case.”
“I think it’s argumentative,” Judge Hobart ruled. “However, I felt that in a matter of this sort, and dealing with a man of this sort, defence counsel should have every latitude. I think I’ll overrule the objection. Answer the question.”
“Well,” Kelsey said, “I’ll put it this way. If Gilly had played square with me, I think I’d have cut him in on that other three grand. Yes, I think I would have. I’ve got a reputation to sustain — but I was pretty suspicious of Gilly after he’d tried to double-cross me by boosting the ante from fifteen hundred to three thousand and figuring that he’d get the first crack at that coffee can, dip out the extra fifteen hundred and destroy the note... Well, I didn’t feel too friendly toward the boy. I just made up my mind he was a chiseler and I’d even up with him on this deal and then I didn’t want any more to do with him.
“We have a code of ethics in my business, the same as any other, and the people I’m doing business with are entitled to rely on my reputation — only, I’m not going into my business, Mr Mason. I’m just talking about this one deal and that’s all.”
“Thank you,” Mason said, smiling. “I think I have no further questions.”
District Attorney Hastings said, “I will call as my next witness Dr Morley Badger, the coroner’s physician and autopsy surgeon.”
Dr Badger took the stand.
Mason said, “We will stipulate Dr Badger’s professional qualifications subject to the right of cross-examination.”
“Very well. Thank you,” the district attorney said.
He turned to the witness. “Dr Badger, you were called on the eleventh of this month to perform an autopsy?”