The Snare

10. THE TRIAL

10. THE TRIAL When the trial date came round, not as many people showed up as one might have expected. The courtroom was not air-conditioned; this was one reason. For another, newspaper coverage of the whole affair had been overdone for a while, it was felt, and so had fallen off. The search for Wilma Wharton, for instance , had been given a lot of space in the Picayune, but once she was located, she turned out to be a champion witness of the underworld variety, for she could and did, on every occasion, give the police completely differing sets of testimony. She was evidently convinced that each of these sets was completely true at the time she was giving it. Everything she said, wherever it crossed paths with what could be factually verified, turned out to be true. But the inside stories, which only she and perhaps Jake Springland could know, conflicted wildly. It seemed a kind of talent she had. "Invaluable," murmured Tommy Arnold, "like old half-witted men who can remember the exact dates of everything from the fall of the Bastille to the biggest hailstorm ever to hit Tuscaloosa, day, month, year, hour, minute. Then they suddenly tell you they remember it because they were there too. She should be an international spy. She's being wasted here, like all great talent, mine included. However, since so much depends on the mood she's in, how could anybody count on her?" She was given a lie-detector test and her statements were dutifully analyzed. It turned out scientifically that she was telling the truth even when she contradicted herself. There was not even an inverse proportion of reaction indication to be charted, as she sometimes gave a 92 Elizabeth Spencer 93 magnificent lie reaction when she simply hadn't heard the question. Over in AudubonPlace, all this was being read about daily. "That's what dope will do, in time," said Isabel Devigny, who followed the case. "That's the trouble with her. Isn't it clear to you?" "Oh, I don't know," said Maurice. Tve heard you tell one story over six different ways." "Yes," said Isabel, "but what the Wharton woman tells over is not the same story. In one story she married Ted Marnie; in another she was never married to him. In one version she was there the night he disappeared because she wanted to see the Springland man, in another she came because she wanted to see about Mamie's dinner, in a third she wasn't there at all, though she had thought about going, but came in later and found he had got drunk and fallen down and cut himself. In one story she didn't know any doctors in Gretna because she had never been there; in another, she had lived there five years ago in order to be near a doctor who was helping her, but she couldn't think of his name; then again she could think of his name but he had moved to Shreveport. But she and Ted Marnie never got to the doctor that night of the fight because, she says, Marnie woke up in the car and said he was perfectly all right. In a final interview the police report her as saying she gave Springland the address of the doctor who wasn't there any more and left both him and Marnie in the car because she didn't know anything about Gretna at all and didn't want to go there. There is no record of her having lived in Gretna and the house address she refers to has burned down. But she succeeded in throwing more suspicion on Springland, though after she's said so much of a contradictory nature he will probably not be harmed by it. ... "And . . . oh, here's some more: Wilma Wharton was suspected insane until tests were given her which 9 4 T H E S N A R E show a remarkably high I.Q. with especial reference to mathematical reasoning. She is well up-to-date on recent European history, especially as regards the NATO countries and Common Market economics. Rather better read than average." "Clearly an addict," said Maurice. "Why don't they come out and say so?" "But once they get them off it, can't they go back to making true statements? Don't they know...