Never in her life had Alma Chrysler known such excitement. The excitement began each morning at six, sometimes earlier, when the matrons awakened her. There was never any way of knowing what each day would bring—visits from attorneys, officials of the jail, famous writers, photographers, even ministers.
At first, when she had been a nobody, just another prisoner, she had been very sad, suffering from the blues all day, regretting her foolishness in falling for Tomiskey’s trick. It had been a very miserable trick, the way he’d told her that Ward Green had been arrested and that he’d confessed, making her so angry that she said things she shouldn’t have. Tomiskey had lied. Ward hadn’t been arrested until much, much later and he hadn’t told the police anything for hours and hours.
But now, of course, everything was so different. Now she was a celebrity. Now she had a cell of her own, a very comfortable one with good light, where she could pore over her newspapers and magazines as long as she wished. It was really remarkable how much differently the matrons treated her now, letting her visit with her mother every day, bringing her coffee almost whenever she wished, bringing her chewing gum, bringing her the gifts from her admirers.
And she had many, many admirers—men knew she was an unfortunate woman, a woman terribly wronged by her lover and terribly tricked by the police. The gifts were very nice—flowers, candy, black lingerie, and many of the packages contained notes from perfect strangers, very affectionate, some with proposals of marriage. She had more gifts than she could possibly use, and the matrons loved her for the packages she turned over to them. Even the matrons knew how wronged she had been, how badly she had been treated by the police. The matrons were experts in these matters and as the days went by they became more and more certain that she would get off.
“They’ll never convict you, honey,” said Mrs. O’Rourke every morning when she came with the papers. “Everybody knows that terrible Ward Green did it. And, besides, honey, you’re too pretty to be convicted. You’re a mighty pretty gal, honey.”
And that’s what made it so exciting. Her attorneys, young Mr. Whitcomb and old Mr. Strawn, were positive, too. “Everything’s on your side, Alma,” Mr. Whitcomb told her. “Ward Green’s confession will win it for us. And thank God for all this publicity. Do you realize, Alma, that your name is in the papers these days more often that President Coolidge’s?”
Oh, she knew it, all right. At first, right after her arrest, the headlines had frightened her with their blackness, their exclamation points. She couldn’t understand it then, any of it. She couldn’t understand how one day she was just a housewife, just another mother of a nine-year-old girl, living like other women. And the next day she was famous, with mobs thronging to get a glimpse of her, with reporters pressing in to catch her every word and write it down, and photographers, her every expression.
When the trial started, her picture was in all the papers every day. Even in the papers in Chicago and in Miami and way out in San Francisco. And now it was no longer so difficult to understand. People were extremely interested in her. Thev were interested because she was pretty, because the trial promised to have plenty of sexy testimony, and because the reporters said she was fighting for her life. The reporters loved her, all right. They winked at her and openly admired her figure. They were very brash, some of them. “Look at those hips,” she heard one sav loudly right in the courtroom. “Je-sus! No wonder Ward Green had the hots for her!”
On the morning of the eleventh day of the trial, she awoke in her cell long before six, chilled with excitement. Because this was it—this was the day she was to take the stand and testify in her own behalf. She was so nervous she was unable to eat her breakfast and she didn’t drink more than half a cup of coffee. She’d been drinking too much coffee lately and her nerves were suffering because of it, twitching in the night sometimes and making her perspire even in the mornings when it was cool.
She was cross when Mrs. O’Rourke finally arrived with the papers. Mrs. O’Rourke apologized for being late, explaining that she’d run into two female reporters in the jail corridor who’d badgered her for details about how her famed prisoner brushed her teeth and asked how she obtained bleach for her hair.
“I didn’t tell them,” said Mrs. O’Rourke. “I might have got into trouble.”
“Thank you,” said Alma crisply, pulling the papers from the matron’s hand. “Thank you very much!”
The papers were full of predictions about what she would testify. The eleventh chapter of her biography, “By Alma Chrysler,” was in the morning Press-Bulletin. The New York Union-Telegram printed another article by Fannie Hurst and there was comment by David Belasco in the Daily Express. Mr. Belasco’s words were very kind, calling her a poor, unfortunate woman—“drawn into this mess as she embarked on what she thought was to be the great romance of her life!” And, of course, there were the usual insults in some of the papers, calling her the blond sinner, the marble woman, the tiger woman. The News-Press had a new phrase this morning, a terrible one, calling her the bloody blonde. She promptly tore the copy to shreds and vowed not to read the News-Press any more.
Both Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. Strawn arrived early at the jail and they spent another hour going slowly over the questions and answers. “Excellent,” said Mr. Whitcomb when they finished. “You’ll do fine, Alma.”
She spent the time from eight-thirty to nine on her nails and hair, changing from the drab jail frock into a dress which Mr. Whitcomb had chosen for her. It was entirely black, severely fashioned, with a high neck. Around her throat she wore a black rosary from which dangled a crucifix. She used just a touch of lipstick and no rouge or powder, leaving her face pale and becomingly sallow.
Outside the courthouse, the street and sidewalk were alive with people waiting to see her arrive. The officers had to drive the people back as she was taken to the entrance. Some of the more excited ones darted in between the officers, pleading for her autograph, and all around her there was a murmuring, a humming of voices and occasionally an insult shouted by some idiot on the fringes of the crowd.
“Gangway!” cried the uniformed lieutenant who directed her escort of officers. “Let Mrs. Chrysler through! Let Mrs. Chrysler through!”
In the corridor directly outside the courtroom, the crowd was more disgusting. People had been lined up since dawn waiting for seats inside, some paying as much as ten and twenty dollars to be among the first in line. But the most sickening by far were those who wore stickpins in their lapels, those dreadful miniature sash weights that were sold on every corner around the courthouse for ten cents each.
When she arrived at the counsel table, Ward was already there, sitting in the same chair that he occupied every day, less than a dozen feet from her own chair. His cheeks were very pallid, there were circles under his eyes and as usual his fingers held a black prayer book.
She did not speak to him. She had not spoken to him since the trial began and she did not intend to speak to him.
She gave him a single glance, the one that Mr. Whit-comb approved, a glance of hatred for the man who had killed her husband, but with a touch of pity for him so the people in the courtroom could see that her feelings were only human. He did not raise his eyes to look at her as she sat down.
She had expected to testify almost at once, steeling herself mentally for the ordeal. But much of the morning session was devoted to legal procedures and a long suspenseful statement by Mr. Whitcomb, who spoke in a low, intelligent voice, giving the jury the background of the Chryslers’ unhappy, quarrelsome home life, telling why he and his legal colleagues had decided she must take the stand to explain how she was dragged into the crime. A noticeable murmur swept the jammed courtroom when Mr. Whitcomb added that he and his assistants would not deny that an adulterous relationship existed between Mrs. Chrysler and Ward Green, and that they would prove Ward Green had used that relationship for his own selfish, damnable purposes.
A much greater murmur, a wave of excited comment and whispers, rolled through the courtroom when the bailiff at last called her to take her place in the witness chair.
She walked very slowly. When she seated herself, she was careful to keep the skirt of her black silk dress from revealing more than the lower part of her calves. She looked once at the judge and once at the jury box and then she kept her eyes averted, her fingers touching the rosary beads once and then coming to rest, clasped, in her lap.
It was not nearly as trying as she had expected. Mr. Whitcomb smiled at her, giving her confidence, and his questions were easy, exactly the same as those they had gone over during their meetings in the jail conference room. Daring the preliminary questions, the crowd was restless, but as soon as the name of Ward Green was mentioned the courtroom became silent with expectation.
“Now, Mrs. Chrysler,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “you were unfaithful to your marriage vows with Ward Green, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“Was he the only man who ever knew you carnally or knew you in that manner?”
“Yes.”
At once a loud hum spread through the room and there was a shout from somewhere in the back which she couldn’t understand.
“Excepting your husband?” continued Mr. Whitcomb.
“My husband,” she said.
“Where was it that you first met Ward Green?”
“In Truzzillini’s restaurant on Thirty-sixth Street.”
“When was it that you met him there?”
“About two years ago.”
“Who introduced you?”
“A gentleman by the name of Ralph Shrank.”
“After that when was it that you met him again?”
“I should say it was two months later, possibly in August or September of that year.”
“Do you recall the conversation you had with him the first time?”
“It was principally on getting a garment from his concern.”
“What type of garment?”
“A corselet.”
“And when did you become intimate with Mr. Green?”
“The third time we met. In September, at the Hotel Raleigh.”
“And did you have other visits to hotels with him?”
“Yes.”
The crowd became so noisy the bailiff called for order. From the rear of he room, a woman’s voice shouted, “Shame! Shame!” but Alma did not let it upset her because Mr. Whitcomb had warned her that such outbursts might occur.
“Did Ward Green ever speak to you about leaving your husband and marrying him instead?”
“No.”
“Did he ever say anything about getting rid of your husband?”
“Yes.”
“When was the first time he said that?”
“In the early months of this year.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“Well, he said lots to me. Once he sent me some poison and told me to give it to my husband. And many times he talked about how much insurance my husband had and how he would like to have some of that money. Of course, I never believed he meant anything by it then.”
“You lent him money occasionally?”
“Yes.”
“And he kept wanting more?”
“Yes, he said he wanted much more, that he needed a lot more. And he said if I didn’t let him do what he wanted to do to my husband he would do something far worse.”
“What did he mean?”
“He said he would kill me—and himself, too.”
“Did you think he meant it?”
“Yes, I began to see that he might be serious. He had threatened before—last summer—to do the same thing.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Mr. Whitcomb went to the counsel table, consulted some papers and then returned. His face, handsomely framed with prematurely gray hair at the temples, was very calm and again he smiled at her. She sat back in the chair and let herself relax slightly.
“Now, Mrs. Chrysler,” he said, “would you describe the package Mr. Green gave you one day at the restaurant?”
“Yes. It was about two feet long and very heavy.”
“And what was in that package?”
“A letter and a sash weight.”
“And what did he say in the letter?”
“He said, ‘I am coming over Friday night.’ I do not recall exactly whether he said ‘to do the job’ or ‘finish the Governor.’ I cannot just recall, because those sayings had been said in so many of his letters.”
“Were there any powders in that letter?”
“Yes, there were. He said I should give my husband one of those powders just before bedtime.”
“And what did you do with those powders?”
“I threw them down the sink.”
“What did you do with the sash weight?”
“I put it in the cellar.”
“And did Ward Green come out to your house on Friday night?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he had “come to finish the Governor.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘Ward, you can’t do such a thing.’ And then he got very upset and after a few minutes he left. But he said he was coming back again.”
“Did he come back?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“About a week later, Saturday night. When we came back from the party, Norman and Eileen went right to bed because it was late and I was very upset to find Ward in my mother’s bedroom. He was very excited, almost crazy the way he shook and shivered.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘If you don’t let me go through with it tonight I am going to get the pair of us.’ And he had my husband’s revolver that he’d gotten from the drawer and he said, ‘It’s either him or us.’ So I grabbed him by the hand and I took him downstairs to the living room.”
“When he went down with you did he have his hat and coat on?”
“No, he left them on my mother’s bed.”
“Did you put the weight under the pillow that night?”
“No. I put a bottle of liquor under the pillow. No weight.”
“After he got downstairs did you and he have any
“We did. We talked and talked and talked. I was trying to plead with him to get the idea out of his mind. He kept getting more and more excited and I became very upset and I felt like I had to go upstairs to the bathroom.”
“Did you go to the bathroom?”
“I did. And while I was in there I heard this terrific thud. I immediately opened the bathroom door and ran to the bedroom and saw Mr. Green leaning over my husband.”
“Was your husband lying down or was he up?”
“My husband was lying down. Mr. Green was kneeling on his back.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran in and I grabbed Mr. Green by the neck. I pulled him off and in the wrestling with me he pushed me to the floor and I fainted, and I remembered nothing until I came to again and saw my husband all piled up with blankets. I pulled the blankets off—”
She hesitated. She drew in her breath and began to weep. It was difficult at first, but she remembered how bad she had felt and how terrible Norman had looked and suddenly the crying was easier and it even relieved some of the tension she’d felt all during the questioning. She heard another series of murmurs run through the spectators, but these were different, murmurs of sympathy for her. She heard the judge clear his throat and ask the courtroom to be quiet, and she wondered if he meant her. But she continued to weep, genuine tears that she really could not stop for more than a minute.
When her composure returned, the judge spoke again. “You may proceed, Mr. Whitcomb.”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Chrysler, when you came to, was Mr. Green in the room?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I tried to pull the blankets off my husband’s head and help him. But Mr. Green came running in from the hall. ‘What are you trying to do?’ he screamed. ‘Are you trying to ruin everything?’ And he dragged me out of jhe room, back to my mother’s room, and he said that if I didn’t help him he would kill me, too. He insisted that I had to help him make it look like burglary and he ran back to the master bedroom, pulling out drawers and upsetting things, acting like a crazy man. He asked for my jewelry, saying it would look like burglary if he took it, but I wouldn’t give it to him. And then he made me hide my jewelry under the mattress where the police found it. Afterward he insisted on tying me up ana then, just before he left, he said I wouldn’t hear from him again until I had the insurance money, and then he left.”
“I see.” Mr. Whitcomb paused and looked at her carefully. “Now tell me one more thing, Mrs. Chrysler. Did you, that night, strike your husband with any weight?”
“I did not.”
“Did you draw a wire about his neck?” “I did” not.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Chrysler. That will be all.”
She did not step down immediately from the witness chair. For a moment she remained, gazing with repugnance at the man who had killed her husband. Again murmuring comment came from the spectators and she knew it was because Ward Green did not return her gaze but simply sat, head bowed like the cowardly, guilty criminal he was.
Alma slept well that night, even though Mr. Whitcomb warned her that the next day’s testimony would be much more difficult. And before she went to sleep she thought a great deal about Mr. Whitcomb and the way his prematurely gray hair was combed in waves at his temples. She decided that after it was all over she would have an affair with Mr. Whitcomb, perhaps at the Waldorf or Imperial some place nice where they could have plenty of parties and spend lots of money on the finest foods and champagnes.
The papers the next morning were jammed with columns and columns about her, repeating everything she had said in detail. She particularly liked the enormous page-one headline in the Daily Express which declared: WARD DID IT ALL, ALMA SAYS. Most of the editions were full of dark predictions about the tremendous court battle shaping up between Ward’s attorneys and her own, the Union-Telegram stating that the “two former lovers will go to all lengths to lay blame for the appalling crime at one another’s door.”
Her cross-examination by Ward’s attorneys began promptly at ten A.M. Mr. Morgan led the assault, bringing up immediately the question about the bottle of liquor she had admitted placing under the pillow for Ward. But she was ready for him, because Mr. Whitcomb had warned her that she would be asked about that and she fended him off by explaining that she had put the whisky there because Ward had asked her to.
Mr. Morgan did not seem dissatisfied with her reply. Putting his hands in his pockets, he gazed at her mildly, a partial smile on his thin lips. He was a very ugly-looking man with a twisted nose and excessively hairy, black eyebrows.
“Now then, Mrs. Chrysler,” he said, “you have stated that Ward Green told you he planned to kill your husband. Did you ever warn your husband?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid of the disgrace if he found out about Ward and me.”
“In other words, Mrs. Chrysler, if we are to believe your story we must accept the fact that vou knew your husband was in danger, but. you did not try in any way to help him. You did not—”
At once Mr. Whitcomb was on his feet, shouting his objection.
“Counsel is putting words in the mouth of the witness!” exclaimed Mr. Whitcomb. “He is making assumptions!”
“Objection sustained,” said the judge.
It was the first of many successful objections by Mr. Whitcomb. Obviously nettled, Mr. Morgan hesitated, then began a new line of questioning.
“Tell me, Mrs. Chrysler,” he said, “when you knew afterward that your husband was dead, did you cry out?”
“I was too frightened.”
“Did you immediately notify any of the neighbors?”
“No, I did not.”
“You simply sat there and listened to Ward Green plan a method of throwing the police off the scent?”
“I didn’t know what it was all about. I was too confused.”
“But you helped him make it look like burglary, did you not?”
“I had to.”
Mr. Morgan smiled his dim, thin-lipped smile, turned to the jury, and then turned back to her.
“One more question, Mrs. Chrysler. When Ward Green left your house that night after the murder, did you give him another bottle of liquor to take with him on the train?”
“No, I did not.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Chrysler.”
Mr. Morgan then withdrew to the counsel table and did not ask any more questions. Alma sighed, a sigh too faint to be heard by the jurors or spectators, and sat back a little more comfortably in the chair.
At once the assault was continued by the chief assistant district attorney, a fortyish man named Mr. Luft, who was tall and almost as good-looking as Mr. Whitcomb, except that he was redheaded and considerably freckled.
The courtroom buzzed excitedly as Mr. Luft came forward and Alma especially noticed three women in the front row whispering among themselves as if over some savory secret.
And as soon as Mr. Luft began his questioning, she knew why the courtroom had buzzed and why the women had whispered. Because Mr. Luft had the most prying mind, the filthiest mind she had ever encountered.
“Mrs. Chrysler,” he began, “did you have sexual relations with the defendant, Green, in September 1925?”
“Yes.”
“That was only the third time you met him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you had sexual relations with him many times after that—in fact dozens of times?”
“Yes.”
“And did your small daughter accompany you to the hotels on some occasions and wait for you in the lobby?”
“Yes.”
Instantly the courtroom erupted with a roar of disapproval and one of the women down front called “Shame! Shame!” so many times the bailiff had her ejected from the building.
It was several minutes before order was restored and as Mr. Luft’s filthy prying continued, the courtroom echoed again and again with noisy laughter, with unconcealed snickers and shouted insults. Again and again Mr. Whitcomb objected but was overruled.
“Is it not true, Mrs. Chrysler,” said Mr. Luft, “that you have had among your acquaintances in recent years quite a few gentleman friends?”
“A few, I suppose.”
“Do you know a Mr. Ralph Shrank?”
“Yes.”
“Did you on August 12, 1924, have sexual relations with Mr. Shrank at the Hotel Middleton?”
“I did not.”
“Do you know a Mr. Scotty McNally?”
“Yes.”
“Did you on March 2, 1923 and again on March 3, and also on March 4 of that year have sexual relations with Mr. McNally at the Lafayette Hotel?”
Before she could reply, the courtroom exploded with reaction and now she realized fully for the first time why they had been there in the spectator seats day after day, packing the courtroom row after row. Scores of them with minds as filthy as Mr. Luft’s, scores and scores of them waiting for moments like this, waiting to participate in this sickening carnival of prying lust directed by Mr. Luft. She felt weak, felt the blood rushing away from her brain, but she knew she mustn’t faint; she must keep her wits about her through it all, the way Mr. Whitcomb said she must.
Finally the noise abated. Mr. Luft repeated the question, his voice larded with insinuation and sarcasm.
“I did not,” she said, but her voice was not nearly as firm as she tried to make it.
“And do you know a Mr. James Van Der Most, a Mr. Robert Crenshaw, a Mr. George Cline, a Mr. Middleton, a Mr. Lipscomb and a dozen others? And is it not true that at varying times you had sexual relations with them all?”
“No, no, no!” she cried, but her voice was lost in the uproar, the shouts of the bailiff for order, the pounding of the judge’s gavel.
It took longer, this time, to restore order and for the remainder of the session the courtroom was never really quiet. As Mr. Luft’s voice went on with its sarcastic accusations, she knew she should do something to stop him, begin to weep, or shout at him, but she felt powerless and could only watch fearfully as he took up a fistful of legal papers and advanced to the jury box.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, and now his voice was subdued and filled with respect and dignity. “T have here in my hand records of investigations made by the Police Department, records which prove conclusively that-”
“I object!” shouted Mr. Whitcomb. “I object!”
Once more he was overruled.
Mr. Luft raised the papers triumphantly high.
“These records,” said Mr. Luft, “give the dates and
Elaces of dozens of trysts and rendezvous Alma Chrysler ad with many men. And now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, how can you accept the word of this woman when she says she had nothing to do with killing her husband? How can you accept the word of a female who was unfaithful with not just one man—as she would lead you to believe—but with over a dozen different men! Possibly as many as eighteen different men!”
The noise in the courtroom was so tremendous it hurt her ears. She cried out, she screamed that Mr. Luft spoke lies, but no one heard her. The judge and bailiff shouted orders, clearing the court, and then she fled to the counsel table and fell weakly against Mr. Whitcomb.
His arms were strong and very masculine as he steadied her and spoke soothing phrases close to her ear.
“It’s all right, Alma,” he said. “Believe me, everything’s going to be all right.”