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Canada's Favourite Tea "SALADA msmM ™ 507 Û* .. . ...THE... WITNESS CHAIR BY REITA WEIMAN A Vivid Story of Trial For Murder, Packed with Excitement And Suspense While Fourteen Witnesses Give Their Testimony CHAPTER I. "It is impossible for anyone in the witness chair to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Judge MacKenzié's even voice always always explodes a bomb with the effortless effortless aim of a pebble flipped into a pool. We were seated before the library fire, just the two of us. The Judge does not play bridge and neither do I. Our respective life partners are enthusiasts. Thus whenever the MaeKenzies dine with us, I arrange a table of contract and have the Judge to myself for the evening. Hands folded over an expanse of black satin waistcoat, he looked a genial round-faced crude. His small searching eyes, so accustomed to reading human emotions, wore the wise smile of one who faces a responsive responsive audience. He was amused by my amazement or excitement, or both. "You mean to say you discount the testimony of every witness on the stand as possible perjury?" Not Deliberate Perjury "Not at all, dear lady. Not. deliberate deliberate perjury by any means. If a ;man has anything to conceal, he's cagy. But let's take a witness who desires to he truthful. In the first place, the average man in the witness chair is nervous. He may want to bend over backward in his effort to tell the whole truth, but that only increases increases Ms nervousness. The prosecutor's prosecutor's determination to get out of Mm information which must convict often gives him a sense, of guilty knowledge when he doesn't know a thing of importance. Then, too, his recollection of time and place is apt to be faulty. Look here--answer me --where were you on the night of December 14th, 1934?" He shot tiie question at me. "Heavens, how should I know? Unless you let me check up in my date book." "Yet that was less than two months ago and an occasion you shouldn't forget. You and your good husband gave a party in my honor. Fine dinner. Excellent Chateau Yquem." "Of course I remember." "Only when 1 reminded you. And if, just as you stood at your door that night saying goodbye to us all, you'd heard a thud in the next apartment apartment and a minute later had seen a. man come out and go down the. hall to the elevator, you wouldn't be able to give a positive description of him, would you? What he looked like? What color clothes he wore ? Whether he was tall or short, had a mustache or was clean-shaven? Weren't you too interested in what you were doing to pay any particular attention to what was going on around you?" "Probably." "There you have my point. We want the whole truth from people who are humanly too absorbed in their own concerns to be concerned about others In any but a casual way. Nine cases out of ten, events outside don't register," "Then how expect a jury to give a fair verdict?" "Ah, my dear girl, that is one of the great hazards of the jury system. We must depend upon 12 men with 12 varying viewpoints to weed out doubtful testimony and set at fact. Difficult, particularly a£ ;. both (lefe f e / ri Art n lin V 1 n ~rn V» gravest failing of i-he human race is egomania." . "How do you dfbne egomania?" "Self-glorification or self-justification. self-justification. in either foiiii, it colors evsry- thing we humans think or feci or do." Try It Oat Neither of us spoke for a moment. As he clipped off the end of a cigar: "How would you like," he proposed, "to come to court and sit through a murder trial? Oh, not the way you used to as a newspaper woman, but td try to get inside the heads of witnesses. witnesses. What's hack of their testimony. testimony. Their mental processes. The things they don't tell. Not exactly what they try to conceal, hut that substratum of thought they aren't quite conscious of. Ought to he interesting interesting to a writer." He beamed down on me. "By the glint in your eye; 1 can see that it would be." "Just say when!" "In two weeks I'm presiding at the Julian Trent trial. Ever hear of him?" "I recall reading something about the case last autumn." "Well, forget what you've read- Come without prejudice, without theory. And when you enter the courtroom, turn your mind into an X- ray." * * * The courtroom was stil as a tomb. Against the stillness the district attorney's attorney's words reverberated like drum-beats. He concluded his opening opening address: . . . Gentlemen of the Jury, the people of the State of New York will prove that Stanley Whittaker could not possibly have committed suicide as at first indicated and credited by press and public. We will present Easy to Make.Home Frock Xmas Gift Edited by Lavra I. Baldt, A.M. It costs so little . . . 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Issue No. 49--*37 " B :_2 IN PACKAGES . tOc POUCHES • 15c Î44LTINS- - 70c «lb ■*- 1 WWM Cock-a-DOUBLE-doo Here's satisfaction true This DOUBLE Automatic Book Gives DOUBLE value too/ iiiïllflllk mÊàÊâmÈÊiiÈmmSêmêsàzw "DOUBLE AUTOMATIC BOOKLET - xr- ! j*r&\ facts to substantiate our contention that he was shot to death by this defendant. defendant. On the evidence, gentlemen, which, the State will put before yon, we ask you to find Julian Trent guilty of deliberate, premeditated, coldblooded coldblooded murder," His jaws snapped on the last word with the click of a lock. He sat down. "Great adjective, cold-blooded," whispered Ollie Barnes. "Always draws a picture." I had chosen my place in the press section next to Ollie star journalist and sports writer because some years before we had sat together at a famous famous trial in New Jersey. It had been my first experience in covering a murder trial and 1 had learned from Ollie's shrewd comment much about the tricks of legal pyrotechnics. His keen analysis seldom failed. "Well, the little girl scout is back on the job," had been his greeting. "What's up ? Tired of married bliss?" "Nothing like that. I'm here for a story of my own. And you're going going to help me." "How come?" A Special Case 'T£ I ask you questions about the witnesses, just whisper whatever inside inside stuff you've got." "You fiction sharks," he whipped out, "s'help me, nobody's safe. You eat 'em alive." We grinned mutually- "As advance information," he observed observed when we were seated, "our eminent district attorney is out for the gubernatorial nomination. He means to have this case do the trick if he has to use dynamite to get a conviction." District Attorney Finley Peterson's face in repose was bland and pleasant. pleasant. His smile, in fact, was so bland that it might' have been worked on wires. He was about 50 years of age, of stocky build, neither tall nor short. His cheeks were puffy and pink with health. He probably rode horseback every morning to keep in condition. A half-circle of graying hair slicked to the back of his head. ; The front, bald and shining, was Pickwickian. His eyes were black beads. His clothes were immaculate, blue suit, pale blue shirt, figured blue tie. Very likely a valet selected them with an eye to his appearance in. court . "Why," I asked Ollie, "why dynamite dynamite this case more than any other?" "Position of the principals. Backbone Backbone of the nation stuff. Peterson's out to prove this particular backbone has curvature of the spine. Always makes a hit with the masses-" , "Is public sympathy for or against Julian Trent?" "Haven't you been reading the editorials?" editorials?" "Not a thing. Didn't want to be influenced. " "Say, who invited you to the show, anyway?" "His Honor." "Well, don't forget the lessons you learned when you were one of us," Ollie advised. "Divide what you see and hear by two and then believe only half of that." Complete Control As each man had come under fire, I looked at Julian Trent . He was flanked on either side by his counsel, former State Senator Bart and Mr. Max Conrick. I wished somehow that the distinguished senior attorney had not chosen to wear a, delicate yellow bachelor button in his brown coat lapel, as though he had wandered in the garden of his country estate that morning and picked a posy weighted with dew. At the counsel table, that frivolous little flower was so conspicuous conspicuous as a chrysanthemum. It gave the fat senator an air of opera bouffe. I half-expected to see him followed by a cluster of chorus girls. Clothes unpressed and sallow face furrowed in concentration, Max Conrick, Conrick, undersized, narrow-shouldered, knife-lipped and homely, was a sharp contrast to his impeccable partner. How, I wondered, had the two ever joined forces? At some time or other, Max, for many years a power in Tammany politics, must have kept the senator out of trouble. Head and shoulders above them, Julian Trent gave a curious impression impression of detachment. Impossible, of course, that any man on trial for his life could actually be detached. Yet during those first three days I wondered wondered often how anybody in the midst of such an ordeal could so completely control his features. Occasionally the granite jaws worked under the skin and his eyes took fire like r steel thrust in flame. But in less than a second the thin face was held in a vise again and told nothing. Smoke screen, that control must be, to veil from ferreting, eyes and possible hint of emotion ; the fear of parading naked and afraid before the gaze of the mob. (To be Continued.) > sîÜkS JS» --| THE INVIGORATING DRINK OF REAL BEEF FLAVOUR SmI THE 'WORLD'S Finest ANTHRACITE IS COLOURED Its *13 LUE colour is your guarantee of quality . : ; 1 of superior heating efficiency ; . of a warmth and comfort comfort you have never known before at such low cost. 1 Order 'blue eo»F today. 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