“Mr. Keyes,” the elderly Moderator said, “the panel will now present its rationalization of the evidence against you with respect to the charge of Aiding and Abetting Moral Degeneracy. As with the previous charge, you will be given an opportunity to defend yourself after the panel has been heard. Is the procedure clear to you? ”
Keyes did not answer, but merely stared dully at the aged speaker wearing the now familiar wilting carnation.
“Very well,” the Moderator said after a moment. He looked down the panel table. “Mr. Investigator, may we hear from you first, please?”
The Investigator rose at his place at the opposite end of the table and opened a manila folder.
“This is a current report on the subjects Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt. The period of coverage begins shortly after Miss Carlyle aborted her unborn child and married Mr. Merritt. Both had completed their respective films prior to their wedding and neither was under contract for any further work at that time. They honey-mooned in Acapulco and travelled around southern Mexico for two months, then returned to Hollywood and established residence in Miss Carlyle’s apartment.
“For awhile after that they went through the usual routine of posing as newlyweds for fan magazine layouts, doing personal appearances on daytime television and radio shows, that sort of thing. Then they fell out of the public eye and little was heard about either of them for six months or so. Eventually a line or two began appearing here and there in various gossip columns hinting that all was not well with their marriage and that they were on the verge of separation. The customary denials were issued to the columnists by the couple’s respective agents, but it was generally accepted by the entertainment colony that the marriage had become a failure.
“Shortly thereafter, Dan Merritt began showing up at various Hollywood parties without his wife. He usually arrived in the company of several other young actors, all of whom, with the exception of Merritt, were unmarried and comprised part of what was referred to as the swinging set. These parties, naturally, were showplaces for the starlets, and usually couples paired off during the course of the evening. When Merritt began letting himself be seen in the company of these various young ladies, the columnists then pulled out all stops and openly reported that the Carlyle-Merritt marriage was all over.
“Molly Carlyle, who had not been seen in public for some time, finally emerged along enough to file for divorce. Her attorney in the action was Everett Simmons, who is also legal counsel for Keyes Enterprises. The attorney for Dan Merritt was Simon Cobb, a close friend and business associate of J. Walter Keyes. The business end of the legal action—that is, the pre—trial agreement regarding division of property and other financial matters—was handled by Keyes himself; the lawyers were little more than figureheads whom Keyes cut in for part of the money involved in the settlement. Each attorney received fifteen hundred dollars as a fee; this is six times the customary fee of two—hundred—fifty dollars.
“The divorce itself was a routine, uncontested affair. Miss Carlyle made a brief appearance in court, the settlement papers were approved, and the divorce was granted. After that, the two parties went their separate ways.
“In the period which has elapsed since, Dan Merritt has become one of the accepted leaders of the so-called swinging set. He has become completely Hollywoodized: he wears his hair long, dresses in the ultra-mod style of clothing, is suspected of using various drugs, and is generally considered to be one of the most accomplished seducers in the film colony. He specializes in virgins: the newly arrived girls who are beauty contest winners and such, and have been brought out under starlet contracts.
“As for Molly Carlyle, her professional career has regressed to the point where she does little or no work at all anymore. She has become something of a recluse, lives alone in a small apartment, is rarely ever seen in public, and since the divorce has developed a serious problem of alcoholism. It is rumored that she may have to be committed to a sanitarium if her affinity for liquor continues at its present rate.”
The tall, young investigator closed his manila folder and placed it back on the table.
“That, gentlemen, is a resume of the facts concerning the two subjects up to the present time.”
“Thank you, Mr. Investigator,” the Moderator said from the other end of the panel. He shifted his glance to one of the other men at the table. “Mr. Psychologist, may we hear from you now, please?”
The Psychologist rose and buried one hand deep in a coat pocket, already misshapen by repeated similar acts. In his other hand he held his ever-present ornate pipe, its bowl for the moment dry.
“The psychological aspects of the Merritt-Carlyle case are quite involved,” he began slowly. “Quite complicated—with respect to both parties. I will, as usual, try to explain those aspects in as simple language as possible; however, if I lapse into professional terms which anyone does not understand, please don’t hesitate to interrupt.”
The rumpled, somewhat untidy doctor, raised his pipe and stared thoughtfully at it for a moment, as was his habit when momentarily organizing his thoughts. Before continuing, he softly cleared his throat.
“In Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt we have a young couple with an abundance of personal talent but a very definite lack of maturity. Molly was in love with Dan and desired to marry him and, as we have heard, his feelings were reciprocal. Under normal circumstances—circumstances, that is, removed from their professions as motion picture stars—they might have gone ahead and been married before Molly’s untimely pregnancy had a chance to occur. As the situation was, however, they were prevented from doing so by respective professional commitments. This undoubtedly placed a great deal of strain on their emotions and contributed in some measure to their decision to partake of the physical benefits of marriage prior to the wedding. Immaturity, you see, has many psychological off-shoots, and one of them, a very important and often quite troublesome one, is impatience. The couple wanted to be married, they wanted to begin sharing all the little intimacies of married life: the living together, eating together, sleeping together, and all the rest. And to the immature, what they want—as opposed to what is best or proper or even possible—is the most important thing in the world. Immature people are very shallow, very narrow; their emotions focus on only a single goal at any one time. And that goal, as I have indicated, is something that they want.
“Now, in any case of gross or exaggerated immaturity, this want that they have can very easily evolve from a simple desire into a psychological need—and a very demanding one. It may develop to the point of obsession, to the point where the subjects become so emotionally desperate to have this want, whatever it may be, that they will sacrifice any promise of future satisfaction simply in order to have what they want immediately.
“So in the case of Molly and Dan, since they could not have all of what they, to them, urgently desired, they decided, quite subconsciously, you understand, to take part of it at once and reserve the rest for the future. The part they chose, obviously, was sexual intercourse. They simply let down their barriers, their concept of what was right and wrong under the circumstances, and allowed their natural physical instincts to do the rest—and thus they were able to satisfy, temporarily, the demands of their own immaturity.”
The Psychologist began filling his pipe now, scooping tobacco out of a leather pouch he took from his pocket. Remarkably, and in direct contradiction to what his appearance flagrantly predicted, he managed his task without dropping so much as a grain on the table before him. Producing the battered Zippo from the same pocket, he manufactured its usual enormous flame and once again filled the Blue Room with the pungent odor of his sole vice.
“So,” he began anew, “having now a little insight as to how this young woman became pregnant, we shall better understand how easily she followed, with her partner’s consent, the path that led them to an abortionist. Here we have them now, young, immature, and in a very perplexing situation. At this stage they would have been, as you can imagine, quite desperate to find a solution which would eradicate their problem, but since neither of them was mature enough to make a definite decision in any direction, they followed the normal course and sought advice from a third party. That, of course, was simply another way of avoiding responsibility: finding someone to share in the outcome of future events.
“So the troubled young couple divulged their predicament to this third party, at the same time indicating half-hearted plans of their own to elope and marry as soon as possible, et cetera. What they really wanted, however, was for this third party to condone their plans, to become a conspirator with them in what they had done. In this instance, however, the person they selected as their confidant was much stronger emotionally than either of them, and used that advantage to dissuade them from their original course and lead them ultimately to the abortionist. We needn’t, I think, go into the manner in which this was accomplished, since the taped remarks of Miss Daniels dealt fully with that aspect.
“As for the ultimate results of the abortion, they are easily explained simply by taking the emotional maturity levels of both Molly and Dan, and compounding them with a new psychological ingredient: guilt. Molly, over a period of time, began to suffer pangs of conscience; she had, in her function as a female, conceived a child in her body, and she had done this, to her way of thinking, not through any immature snatching of something to which she was not yet morally entitled, but rather because of love, true love, for Dan. And then, to her honor, she suddenly realizes that she has killed this child. Naturally, she blames Dan: he should not have let her do it. By now, of course, she is married to him, and it is perfectly acceptable for them to be engaging in sexual intercourse; but now, with these new thoughts in her head, this new guilt all mixed up with her old immaturity, she subconsciously withdraws from that very activity, that very thing that prior to marriage she so urgently snatched. In short, she becomes cold, frigid.
“Dan, on the other hand, begins to develop a guilt complex also, but his is not wholly—perhaps not even partially—the result of having consented to the abortion; rather it is a psychological off-shoot of Molly’s feelings: she is, by her new attitude, making him feel guilty. By physically withdrawing from him, she causes him to feel somehow dirty and undesirable; she stirs sensations of shame within him, eventually bringing him to the point where it is embarrassing for him to make sexual overtures toward her; and humiliating when he forces himself to do so and is rejected.
“During this period, the two begin cementing a wall between themselves. Shunning Dan, Molly probably broods a great deal and lapses into spells of melancholia. Being shunned, Dan will naturally seek other outlets for his emotions: he might begin to masturbate frequently—which, of course, will serve to further complicate his guilt feelings—and he will reach the point where he finds it increasingly uncomfortable to even be around Molly.
“From here on they simply move away from one another. Molly’s brooding lures her toward alcohol where she is able to numb her guilt. Dan’s rejected status ultimately incenses him to assert his maleness through some positive sexual activity, and he begins looking for a woman. The progression from then on is obvious: Molly becomes an alcoholic; Dan becomes a sex-driven psychopath.
“Thus you have, gentlemen,” he concluded, “the results of immaturity coupled with guilt. Guilt, I might add, conceived of ill advice.”
The rumpled, untidy man sat down, and suddenly finding his pipe without fire, lighted it again.
“Thank you, Mr. Psychologist,” intoned the Moderator. He turned to the table opposite him where sat the Examiner. “Do you think we have time tonight to hear from our Theologian?”
“I would like to, if no one has to leave,” the dignified, grey—haired Examiner replied. “As all of you are aware, time has become of the essence now, and I feel that we should continue the proceedings with as much dispatch as possible. Can all of you remain a while longer?”
The panel nodded its assent and the Moderator bowed his head toward the Theologian.
“My remarks will be brief, gentlemen,” the Theologian assured them. Rising, his broad shoulders expanded widely and his erect head and square jaw assumed the aura of authority that had made him virtually a legend on the pulpit. But when he clasped his large hands before him and began speaking, he seemed almost to be praying, so quiet and humble was his voice.
“My concern in this matter,” he said softly, “is not so much what has been done to Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt, although God knows that in itself is terrible enough; but rather what has been done to the human life which they, in their godless ignorance, were led to destroy.
“As I’m sure all of you are aware, there are wide differences of opinion among the various religions concerning the status of an unborn child. Some religions support the belief that from the very instant of conception the embryo becomes a human being, and that any subsequent destruction of that embryo amounts to murder. Other sects take a completely opposite stand and maintain that the embryo is not a living human being at all until it is separated from the womb and has its first independent breath spanked into it.
“It goes without saying, of course, that each religion is sincere in its belief that its own particular viewpoint on this issue is the true one. As a member of the clergy, I naturally have my own opinion on the subject, but at the same time I certainly respect the prerogative of others, both clergymen and laymen, to disagree with me.
“For the purpose of this hearing, however, I would ask that each of you put aside for the moment your own personal beliefs and approach the destruction of Molly Carlyle’s unborn baby from an entirely realistic premise. I ask you, all of you, to put one simple question to yourselves. That question is this: Is it fair to humanity to allow an unborn child’s birth to be prevented? ”
He paused for a moment to search the faces on either side of him, squinting slightly, frowning, as if not quite certain he was fully reaching the minds which lay behind those faces.
“Let me pose this theoretical question, gentlemen: Suppose the birth of Dr. Joseph Lister had been aborted through the encouragement of a person like this Mr. Keyes? Suppose this great man had never walked the earth at all, never lived to give to civilization the principle of antiseptic sanitation. Perhaps no other human would have been able to uncover the secret of germs as he did. If this were so, we would all still be living in dread fear of simple bacteria, and countless millions of humans would have lost their lives due to the lack of simple antiseptic solutions.
“I use Lister only as an example. Select any well-known scientist or inventor or statesman, and if you subtract that person’s contribution to the advancement of civilization, just look at what a void it would leave in our lives.
“So who can say how much humanity loses when we permit even a single unborn child to be aborted. Our destinies here on earth, in a life that is all too brief, are controlled by many things: many unknown factors, many quirks of fate. Can we as human beings, in the face of all that is deadly in our world today, chance throwing away even a single human life, when that very life might possibly be the salvation of us all?”
He paused again to scan the faces of his peers. His voice lowered almost to a whisper, brief and urgent in its utterance of his final question.
“Is it possible, my friends,” he asked solemnly, sadly, “that the unlived life of Molly Carlyle’s child might have brought us the cure for cancer, the solution to the mysteries of mental illness, or even more encompassing, the source of permanent world peace?”
He stood for a moment, looming over them, his large, usually genial face almost tragic in the reflection of his inner grief. Of all in the room, it was obvious that this man of God suffered more than any other what was being said and done there in the name of humanity. The others in the room, save Keyes, stared at him with an intentness that mirrored their understanding of what he had said, and their compassion for how he felt.
“Thank you, Mr. Theologian,” the Moderator said, breaking after a moment the spell of silence in the room. Then, clearing his throat, he directed himself to the prisoner.
“Mr. Keyes you now have heard the Movement’s evidence against you with respect to the charge of Aiding and Abetting Moral Degeneracy. It is your privilege at this time, if you care to exercise it, to deny that evidence, or to show mitigation of any kind which you feel might reflect on the extent of your guilt. You are reminded again that the Examiner is allowed to rebut, if he can, anything you say in your defense. Do you wish to speak in your own behalf at this time?”
“Yes,” J. Walter Keyes said very quietly, “yes, I do.” He lowered his head slightly and manufactured a forlorn, worried look with which he favored only the Examiner and the Moderator. He had decided by now that in those two lay the power of the panel, and had during the past day prepared himself to try a new approach with them. It was useless, he had found, to try dissuading them with splendid shows of personality or professions of sincere innocence or, even more so, forceful reminders of his wealth and position. None of these tacts, it was brilliantly clear to him, impressed them in the least, and it behooved him, he had realized with not a little nervousness, to find some course of action that did.
So for the purpose of his defense to this second ridiculous indictment, he became—but only temporarily—a humble J. Walter Keyes.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed himself exclusively to the Examiner and the Moderator, “I cannot deny the things that have been said about me by poor Abby—Miss Daniels—and I admit that I did aid Molly and Dan in their scheme to get rid of that baby. But I ask you, I even beg you, to believe that it was not my idea alone, that I am not exclusively to blame in—”
“We have not said you were, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner interrupted. “You are charged only with aiding and abetting; it is not necessary to defend yourself against any act more serious in nature.”
Here the son of a bitch goes, Keyes thought, interrupting me before I can even make a point. Well, let him. It won’t work tonight, not with the humble J. Walter Keyes.
“Yes,” he said in the same quiet voice, “I see. Thank you.” He paused intentionally. “Well, since you know that it was their idea as much as mine, may I tell you why I went along with it?”
“You may.”
“All right. Now, I’ll admit at the very beginning that part of my motive was to protect a financial interest; I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that right off. I could explain my reasons for that, too, if it mattered. I mean, I worked hard, very hard, building up the clientele I have, and it’s only natural for a man to try and protect what he’s labored years to make. But I won’t go into that part of it because that’s not the real point of it.
“The truth of it, the whole truth, is that I liked those two kids; I felt sincerely sorry for them and didn’t want to see them hurt by having to make it known to their friends and families and the public that they had done what they did—”
“Are you saying, Mr. Keyes,” the Examiner asked, “that your justification for the part you played was primarily the fact that you wanted to protect Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt from the harmful consequences of their wrongdoing?”
“Exactly.”
“Then why did you advise them in a course of action that involved an even greater wrongful act and possible consequences of a much more serious nature?”
“What?” Keyes frowned. “Oh, well, I didn’t—I mean, I couldn’t see any other way out. Anyway, I didn’t know they’d take it so hard. Other people who—”
Keyes halted his words sharply, gently biting down on his lower lip.
“Yes, Mr. Keyes?” the Examiner asked calmly. “You were about to say—?”
Keyes did not answer. Goddamn it! he raged silently.
“Were you about to compare Molly Carlyle and Dan Merritt with others for whom you have arranged abortions?”
“Look, what is it you want from me, anyway?” the captive suddenly blurted out. He twisted in his confining chair to let his angry eyes sweep the heretofore ignored members of the panel. “What do I have to do to satisfy you people?” he demanded. “I’ve admitted that I did everything you say I did. I’ve admitted that part of my motive was the money that was at stake. And I’ve tried to explain the rest of it as best I can. Now, you can’t put all the blame on me for what’s happened to those two! I had no way of knowing that things would turn out the way they did. I can’t see into the future, you know, anymore than you can!”
The Examiner leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands on the table before him. His face was composed; his words, when he spoke, calm.
“No one here is charging you with the lack of ability to foresee the future, Mr. Keyes. But we do place upon you the responsibility for reasonable awareness of the possible consequences of your premeditated acts. You are not an ignorant person, Mr. Keyes; on the contrary, you are quite knowledgeable, quite intelligent; your obvious perception of the strengths and weaknesses in other individuals is very keen; your capacity for exerting control over others has developed, either naturally or by training, almost to perfection; and your cleverness, diplomacy and versatility all combine to form a most accomplished cunning.
“In short, Mr. Keyes, you are, to say the least, a very capable, competent individual—and it is because of that status that you sit before this panel tonight. If you were a person of low intelligence, a person of weakness, the justification you offer for your evil deeds might be in part acceptable, and the acts you have committed mitigable to some degree. But as it stands, there is no doubt at all, at least in my mind, that everything you have done, you have done wantonly, and with full awareness that the consequences of your various acts might not only possibly, but indeed probably, be tragic.
“The charge against you in this portion of the hearing is Aiding and Abetting Moral Degeneracy, Mr. Keyes—and just as surely as there is good and evil on this earth today, you are wholly and clearly guilty of that crime.”
Keyes felt his body go almost limp in the chair. His chin lowered slowly to his chest and he let his eyes close.
It’s no use, he thought, no use at all. No matter what he said, what excuses he offered, they ripped them apart. They meant to persecute him and nothing was going to stop them. They were insane, insane—