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The White Moll
By Henry Leverage
Bradshaw, the D. A., was a born framer—and he was getting away with it until The White Moll decided to clear up a couple of things—including the innocence of Grace Darling, a young widow, who was sentenced to hang for murder!
IN CENTERVILLE, as in many other cities, there was the usual saying that there were more crooks in the courthouse and the district attorney's office than there were in the county prison.
In the mind of the public that statement was merely a rumor over which it was polite to smile, and about which nothing was ever done. To the thoughtful attaches in courthouse circles and the district attorney's office there was a suspicion of truth in the saying. To Alice Cosgrove the statement was a fact.
For more than a year Alice Cosgrove had bided her time, waiting for the chance to prove to herself, and any other persons who were not totally blind mentally, that the oft-repeated statement was true of the district attorney's office. The chance came in the case of the State vs. Grace Darling.
As District Attorney Jason Bradshaw's private secretary, Alice Cosgrove was in a position to study the evidence which Bradshaw and his assistant, Elliot, presented in court. But the very nature of her position made it dangerous for her to openly oppose the ruthless tactics of Bradshaw.
From the day he took office, Bradshaw had set out to make a record of convictions. His one ambition was to be a judge, a hanging judge. In his present capacity he had started several men on their way to the scaffold, and had obtained a long list of convictions on various minor charges.
That part of his record was public. What was not generally known was that the tyrannous Bradshaw framed evidence and grafted on the side—selling suspended sentences or seeing that indictments were quashed for a price. And the price was never low.
SEVERAL times Alice Cosgrove had suspected that prisoners who had been prosecuted by Bradshaw had been convicted on framed-up evidence. In other cases, she was certain that Bradshaw had received large sums to allow known gangsters to escape the punishment decreed by law.
But knowing those things and being able to prove them were two different matters. And Alice Cosgrove had no desire to lose her job. Bradshaw paid her thirty-five dollars a week and as an employee of the district attorney's office, she had free run of the county prison which adjoined the courthouse.
So she kept her thoughts to herself and dispensed kindness and cheer to those prisoners who seemed worthy of a better break than they were apt to get from Bradshaw, if they couldn't pay his prices for freedom or light sentences.
Late afternoon often saw Alice Cosgrove in the prison, taking a book to one prisoner, some fruit to another, and sometimes cigarettes to those men who lacked the little money necessary to buy even that slight luxury. But she never said anything about her visits while in the district attorney's office.
For through her kindness Alice Cosgrove had become known to the prisoners as a White Moll—a square shooter who tried to temper injustice with kindness. Secretly Alice was proud of the name— the White Moll. But she made no open accusations until Grace Darling was arrested for the murder of Robert Ames.
Grace Darling was a young widow, attractively pretty, but practically penniless. Robert Ames was the orphan son of rich parents, a playboy around town, and known as the most genial host in the city.
At one time he had lavished attention upon Grace Darling, but for several months prior to his death he had seen her only occasionally, usually when she attended one of the frequent parties that he gave at his sumptuous home on Dexter Street.
It was after one of those parties that Ames had been mysteriously shot and killed. Testimony of servants and other guests placed Grace Darling as the last person to leave Ames' house that night.
Questioned by detectives, the woman had admitted that she had left Ames shortly before two o'clock the morning of the murder. Doggedly she insisted that she had returned immediately to her own home in the northern part of the city.
Mrs. Darling's housekeeper, however, told the detectives that her mistress had not returned that night until four o'clock. The housekeeper was certain of the time, declaring emphatically that she heard a clock strike four just after Mrs. Darling had entered the house.
District Attorney Bradshaw, seeing a chance to further enhance his reputation for convictions, ordered Mrs. Darling's arrest, and she was held in the county prison without bail.
To Bradshaw it was an open and shut case. Ames had been shot sometime after three-thirty in the morning. The night watchman on his estate had seen him at that time. Grace Darling was the only one of the guests who could not account for her movements from the time she left Ames' house until she arrived at her own home at four o'clock as stated by her own housekeeper.
With Mrs. Darling in prison, Bradshaw was jubilant. Here was a case to his liking. There was a plain motive—the woman scorned. The evidence was not very strong at first, but Bradshaw's detectives manufactured enough to convict the most innocent person.
And as the crowning point of his case there was Grace Darling's own housekeeper's testimony. It was open and shut—and Jason Bradshaw would add the crowning glory to his career by sending a woman to the scaffold.
PERHAPS Alice Cosgrove would have continued to remain the passive White Moll that she had been for more than a year, if she had not witnessed a little scene in a cell in the women's ward of the county prison.
The day before Grace Darling was to be brought to trial for the killing of Robert Ames the district attorney's secretary had crossed over the "Bridge of Sighs" that connected the courthouse with the huge stone prison. To Alice it was to be merely another brief visit to an aged woman who was being held on a vagrancy charge.
But when she had started down the prison corridor on her way out of the women's ward she had been attracted to one of the dark, dreary cells by the earnest words of a whispered prayer.
Pausing silently outside the barred door, Alice Cosgrove had discerned the dim form of Grace Darling. The woman was kneeling beside her cot. Her head was raised. Her eyes were closed. And clasped devoutly to her breast was a small ivory cross which she fingered reverently while her lips moved in prayer.
Alice Cosgrove did not interrupt the praying woman. With silent steps, she continued down the corridor and left the prison. And for the first time since the case had come to her attention she felt that Grace Darling was innocent of the murder charge that had been lodged against her.
Perhaps at the moment the softer sentiments in the young girl were touched by the scene she had witnessed. But Alice knew Grace Darling had not been posing for publicity or sympathy. Alice had come along the corridor silently and had surprised the woman in a sincere attitude of devotion.
The following morning the trial opened. From the courtroom across the corridor, Alice Cosgrove could hear the strident tones of Jason Bradshaw while she worked at her desk.
Eager for glory, Bradshaw was handling the Darling case personally. And while she listened to his booming voice while he questioned talesmen in the course of selecting the jury, Alice resolved to take a hand in the case herself.
In a cursory way she was familiar with the evidence that Bradshaw was going to use to secure Grace Darling's conviction. But at the first opportunity Alice obtained copies of exhibits A to X, the reports of Bradshaw's detectives, and the sheaf of stenographic notes that already had been taken on the case.
During the day Alice spent every free moment she could get looking through the evidence that was to be presented to the jury. And out of the mass of papers and exhibits she obtained one ray of hope.
This was a square of cardboard upon which had been pasted a group of playing cards. And in the grouping of the cards she saw a chance to explode Bradshaw's case, at least partially.
But when the district attorney returned to the office late that afternoon Alice did not accost him. While she was certain that she had discovered a flaw in his case, she wanted to give him time to present Exhibit C, which was the array of cards.
THREE days later during the morning session of court, Elliot came into the office from the courtroom, his pinched mouth spread with a cruel smile. Elliot was a pimply-faced, foppish man who dressed as a sport and followed blindly in Bradshaw's footsteps.
"Well, girls," announced Elliot in an oily voice to the office at large, "the Chief s one step nearer that judgeship. That C exhibit made a big hit with the jury. The case is on ice now."
The three other stenographers giggled with pleasure at Elliot's remarks. Alice Cosgrove remained silent at her desk far back in the room by the window. She did not appreciate Elliot's taste in humor.
A few minutes later Elliot sauntered over to her desk, swung a leg over one corner, and puffed expansively on a big cigar while he smiled down at her.
"Well, little one," he said softly, "what's on your mind—frowning around here like Jupe Pluve himself?"
Alice looked up from her typewriter and met the beady eyes of the assistant district attorney.
"Listen, Mr. Elliot," she said impulsively. "The Chief s making a big mistake. He's riding for a fall."
Elliot stopped smiling.
"Where did you get that idea?" he asked sharply.
"From the evidence on hand in the Darling case," she went on quickly, her voice trembling with excitement. "Listen! That woman didn't kill Ames. She's innocent. Exhibit C proves it!"
Elliot laughed softly, patronizingly. "Don't kid yourself. Didn't I just hear the Chief make his point with that exhibit? Well, take it from me, Bradshaw knows his stuff."
"But—" began Alice, but Elliot interrupted her.
"Let me give you a tip, little one. You can play the White Moll among the prisoners, but don't try that stuff around here. The Chief can't use it— and neither can I. Remember that!"
"Oh, you just don't care what happens to prisoners once you get them in that courtroom," exclaimed Alice heatedly. "You—you're just like Bradshaw—heartless, cold, just plain inhuman!"
"Cut it!" snapped Elliot harshly. "You white molls are all the same— blubbering all over the place when you can't have your own way. Better use your head. Bradshaw's going to get his appointment as judge out of this Darling case and I'll get his job. And I won't have any white moll in my office. Get that?"
Alice Cosgrove lowered her eyes to her notebook. The shorthand notes on the paper became blurred as tears of anger welled in her eyes. She waited until Elliot went back to his desk across the room. Then she brushed the tears from her eyes with a wisp of lace handkerchief and continued her typing.
Elliot's rebuff and threat to fire her as soon as he got the chance had not killed the conviction in her mind that Grace Darling was innocent. And while her fingers tapped the keys of the typewriter Alice Cosgrove resolved to do all in her power to free the accused woman.
At the noon recess of court, Bradshaw stalked pompously into the office, a bulging brief case under one arm. He walked the length of the outer room and passed into his private office without a word.
With wildly beating heart, Alice noticed that Bradshaw had left the door of his office slightly ajar. Elliot leered across the room at her when she suddenly got up from her desk and went into Bradshaw's private office.
The district attorney was a short, thick-set man with a massive head, florid face, bulldog jaw, and close-set gimlet eyes. In the courtroom and out he acted the part of a Robespierre in forensic logic.
When Alice Cosgrove entered his office and closed the door, Bradshaw was sitting at his desk, preparing to light a cigar. At the click of the latch he swung around in his swivel chair and glared at the slip of a girl who had entered unannounced.
FOR a moment Alice wavered. Then, returning the piercing glance of her chief, she came forward until she stood beside his desk.
"Well, what is it?" snapped Bradshaw, and puffed fire into the cigar.
"Mr. Bradshaw, I think you are making a mistake in prosecuting Grace Darling," began Alice in a steady voice.
The district attorney looked up quickly. "What are you trying to do?" he asked, pulling black brows low over his eyes. "Kid me?"
"No, no. I'm serious, Mr. Bradshaw," she said quickly. "Just give me a chance to explain. Please!"
Before Bradshaw could reply, the door opened and Elliot strolled into the office and came over to the desk.
"What's she feeding you, Chief?" asked Elliot. "The same song and dance act she tried on me?"
The district attorney's wide mouth spread in a smile. "What's the game, Alice? Make it snappy. I'm busy—got a luncheon engagement in a few minutes. Tell me all about this mistake I made."
He leaned back in his chair and puffed heavily on the cigar. Alice Cosgrove talked quickly.
"It's about Exhibit C—that group of cards, you know."
"Yes, I know. What about those cards?" "They prove that Grace Darling is innocent!"
Bradshaw jerked the cigar from his mouth, threw back his head, and roared with laughter. Elliot joined him.
"Please!" appealed Alice. "I'm not joking. A woman's life is at stake! Can't you be serious— listen, to reason?"
The district attorney suddenly became serious. He waved the wet end of the cigar at the girl beside his desk.
"Young lady," he said in a deep voice, "you shouldn't worry your pretty head about things that don't concern you."
"But this does concern me—and you and Mr. Elliot," Alice hurried on. "You submitted Exhibit C this morning as evidence that Robert Ames was killed while he was playing cards. That was right as far as you went. But Ames wasn't playing cards with another person when he was killed. He was playing solitaire."
"Solitaire!" Bradshaw jerked his thick body erect in the chair. Elliot frowned with annoyance.
"Yes, solitaire," repeated Alice, talking rapidly to push the slight advantage she had gained with her surprising statement. "The arrangement of the cards in Exhibit C shows that Ames had two decks of cards on a table, and you arranged the cards in your exhibit just like they were taken from the table."
"That doesn't mean that the Darling woman didn't shoot him," sneered Elliot. "That's just womanly logic—all cock-eyed."
"But he was playing solitaire," persisted Alice. "You can't deny that. The defense hasn't seen that point yet, Mr. Bradshaw, so you've still got time to correct your statement about the cards before the defense attorney, Abe Jacobson, snaps it up and makes you look ridiculous."
Bradshaw bristled. "No punk lawyer like Jacobson can ridicule me. That exhibit stands as is. It's evidence—convicting evidence."
"I know it is," the girl pleaded. "That's why I want you to change it before it's too late. You're trying to convict an innocent woman.
"It stands to reason that a man like Robert Ames wouldn't be playing solitaire if a beautiful woman like Grace Darling was alone with him at that hour of the morning."
"AMES was shot, wasn't he?" snapped Bradshaw, impatiently.
"Yes, but—"
"Well, I'm convicting the woman who shot him. Now get—"
"But," interrupted Alice, "think! think! Grace Darling went home when she said she did—twenty minutes after the party broke up. That was almost two o'clock. I'm sure she got home then.
"After she left his house, Ames pushed aside the bottles and glasses, slipped on a lounging robe, and sat down at the table and began to play solitaire. Somebody came in and shot him after the night watchman saw him alive at three-thirty. And it couldn't have been Grace Darling!"
"That's enough out of you!" snapped Bradshaw, getting up and glowering at her. "I don't need any advice from you about how to conduct a murder trial. And until I ask you for advice, it's none of your business what I do. Remember that!"
"But I thought—" Alice began in a small frightened voice.
Bradshaw broke in brusquely. "Don't think! You'll get into trouble. Now get out of here!"
Alice Cosgrove bit her lower lip hard as she turned and moved toward the door.
"And," added Bradshaw when she paused with a hand on the knob, "don't let me hear any more cracks about the Darling woman. She's guilty. Her housekeeper's testimony tomorrow will prove that. One more crack out of, you, you White Moll, and I'll fire you! Get out!"
Completely cowed by the district attorney's threats, Alice Cosgrove sat at her desk throughout the lunch hour. She gave no thought to food. She was angry with herself for having failed to convince Bradshaw that he was doing a great injustice to Grace Darling.
At the same time she was frightened for her own sake. If she lost the job in the district attorneys office—
She refused to think about that, for suddenly she was convinced that even the loss of her job would mean nothing to her if she could save an innocent woman from the hangman's noose.
Bradshaw's blustering words had told Alice plainly that he had framed Mrs. Darling for the killing, and now he was going to buy his appointment to the coveted judgeship with her life. The injustice of the act caused Alice Cosgrove to resolve to try to save Grace Darling at all costs.
The remainder of the day passed in a haze. During the afternoon, Alice was vaguely aware of the sound of Bradshaw's voice which rose at intervals in great bursts of sound while he bellowed and browbeat witnesses in the courtroom across the corridor.
Several times she felt the beady eyes of Elliot on her. She did not turn her head, but she knew he was leering at her across the room from his desk. Neither Bradshaw nor Elliot had spoken to her when they returned from lunch, and their cold hostility only made her more firm in her determination to do what she could to free Grace Darling.
When Alice left the office that night, she had decided to visit the prison and interview Mrs. Darling. There was only a slight chance that the accused woman would be able to add something new to her story, but it was a chance that Alice could not overlook.
But when she crossed the Bridge of Sighs, she discovered that she no longer could come and go as she pleased around the prison. The warden himself, a tall, gray-haired man with kindly blue eyes, met her at the entrance and informed her that he could not admit her.
To all her questions and entreaties he had the one stock answer:
"I'm sorry, Miss Cosgrove. The district attorney's orders were to admit no one from his office."
AS SHE turned away and retraced her steps over the arching floor to the courthouse, she was white with rage against the warden. Then as quickly as it flared, her anger against the warden died, giving way to a cold fury against Jason Bradshaw.
The warden had merely carried out orders from a man more powerful in political and official circles than himself. And that man was District Attorney Jason Bradshaw. But, she told herself as Henry Leverage The White Moll Prison Stories, May-June, 1931 she left the courthouse, Bradshaw couldn't stop her by resorting to such petty tactics as forbidding her entrance to the prison.
She walked absently along in the evening crowds that hurried through the streets, her mind busy with thoughts of Grace Darling and the fact that Bradshaw would clinch the case against the woman when he called her housekeeper to the witness stand the next day.
That would be the decisive point in the trial for Bradshaw, and it was doubtful that the defense could overcome the advantage the prosecution would gain by that testimony. The one thing to do, Alice decided, was to see the housekeeper.
If she could find a flaw in the housekeeper's story, Grace Darling might be saved. If there was no other way, Alice told herself, then she would call Abe Jacobson's attention to the arrangement of the cards in Exhibit C. Bradshaw would know that she had gone to Jacobson, but he could do no more than fire her.
After a frugal dinner in a quiet restaurant, Alice Cosgrove boarded a Broad Avenue streetcar. Twenty minutes later she left the car at the end of the line in the northern part of the city.
A five minute walk brought her to a small, two-story frame house that was owned by Grace Darling. Alice looked at her wrist watch while she mounted the steps to a trim, vine-clad porch. It was ten minutes of seven.
No lights showed in the front of the house when Alice pushed a bell-button. Presently light flared up in the hall and through the plate glass partition in the front door Alice saw a short, elderly little woman descending the stairs from the upper floor.
The woman opened the door and peered out at Alice.
"Are you Mrs. Darling's housekeeper?" the girl asked.
"Yes. Won't you come in?"
The woman opened the door wider and moved back. Alice Cosgrove stepped into the hall and faced the woman while she closed the door. Then the housekeeper turned and looked at Alice with wide, sad eyes.
"Were you wanting to see Mrs. Darling?" she asked.
Alice shook her head slowly. "No. I came to see you."
"Me?" The housekeeper looked frightened. She asked in a thin voice, "Are you one of these investigators— a detective?"
"Not officially. I'm just—well, I'm interested in Mrs. Darling's case. I don't think she is getting a square deal and I thought perhaps you could help me."
"But I'm a witness in the case, Miss," the woman explained in an awed voice. "I'm not allowed to talk."
Alice Cosgrove smiled faintly. "Don't say that. You wouldn't want to see Mrs. Darling hang, would you?"
The woman shook her head quickly.
"Well," continued Alice, "she is very near the scaffold now. The district attorney is depending upon your testimony tomorrow to clinch this case. Your testimony will send her to her death."
"My testimony?" asked the woman, incredulously.
PLAINLY the housekeeper did not realize the importance of her part in the trial. Her honest face became pale while Alice went on.
"Yes. Mrs. Darling is being tried for murder—a murder which she did not commit. I can't prove that statement right now, but I'm sure of it. I came here to help Mrs. Darling and I want you to help me. Will you?"
"But how—" began the woman.
"By answering a few questions," Alice explained quickly. "Perhaps we can't help her, but we have to try. I can't see an innocent woman hanged, and I don't think you want to, either. Am I right?"
The housekeeper nodded. "But, miss, I don't know you. Mr. Bradshaw told me to talk to nobody about the case."
"Well, I'm Mr. Bradshaw's private secretary!"
The housekeeper's jaw fell for a moment. Then she smiled.
"I'm glad to meet you, Miss—" she began and hesitated.
"Miss Cosgrove," supplied Alice. "But I must ask a favor of you. Don't let anyone know that I came here and talked to you. I'm not here officially, you know."
"I think I understand. I'm Miss Graham. Won't you come in and sit down?"
The housekeeper motioned toward the living room that opened off the hall at the left. Alice turned and started toward the door, but as she caught sight of a tall, grandfather's clock at the far end of the hall she paused.
"Is that the clock you heard strike the night of the murder, Miss Graham?" she asked. "Yes. I didn't know then that Mrs. Darling was being accused of murder or I wouldn't have told—"
"Of course, you wouldn't have said anything to the detectives," interrupted Alice. "You agree with me, don't you, that Mrs. Darling is innocent?"
"Oh, I don't know," murmured Miss Graham, moving her gray head disconsolately from side to side. "Mrs. Darling has always been such a gentle soul, and yet—" She stopped and looked at Alice with her big, sad eyes.
"Yet you think she might have killed Ames. He treated her pretty rotten, didn't he?"
"Yes," nodded the woman. "They were engaged to be married—secretly. That was two years after Mr. Darling passed away. Then suddenly Mr. Ames just broke it off. It almost killed my mistress, but then they remained friends."
"I see what you mean," smiled Alice, ruefully. "I saw Mrs. Darling in prison the other day. I don't think she would harm anybody knowingly."
"I'm sure she wouldn't, Miss Cosgrove." The housekeeper paused, looked down at the floor for a moment, and then glanced up at Alice again. "Really, Miss Cosgrove, I don't want to go into court tomorrow and face Mrs. Darling. I—I'm afraid she will think—"
"That's nonsense," interrupted Alice. "I'm sure she understands that you will merely testify to what you believe to be true—that she didn't get home the night of the murder until four o'clock. You heard the clock strike four just after she came in. She can't blame you for that."
"But I don't want to send her to her death!" protested Miss Graham.
ALICE did not voice her thought aloud, but she felt that Miss Graham had little or nothing to add to her first story. So she tried a new angle of questioning, while she walked the length of the hall and stopped in front of the grandfather's clock.
"Does this clock keep good time?"
"Yes, I think so. We had some trouble with it when Mrs. Darling first got it, but the man came out from the store and fixed it. That's been several months ago."
"Tell me, Miss Graham, exactly how you happened to hear the clock strike just as Mrs. Darling came in that night."
"I was in my room on the second floor rear," began the housekeeper. "I usually wait up for Mrs. Darling when she goes out in the evening, but that night my neuralgia was bothering me and I went up and lay down about midnight."
"Did that ease the pain?"
"Yes. I was tired, but the pain seemed to go right away. Then I must've slept, because the next thing I knew Mrs. Darling was coming in the house. The door of my room was open and I heard her unlock the front door, come in, and then close and lock the door again. Then I heard her turn off the hall light and start up the stairs. I started to get up and just then I heard this clock strike: one.... two.... three.... four. Just like that."
"Did Mrs. Darling say—" Alice began, and then suddenly stopped.
A soft whir of movement sounded within the clock beside her. Then the mellow notes of a low- pitched bell sounded as the minute hand hovered perpendicularly at the hour of seven. Alice Cosgrove counted the pulses of sound, and as the clock stopped striking she turned to the housekeeper.
"Are you sure you heard this clock strike four that night?" she asked earnestly. "Think hard!"
The housekeeper wrinkled her furrowed brow in thought. Then she looked helplessly at Alice.
"Yes, Miss Cosgrove. I heard it. I can't deny it."
"Then there's no hope," said Alice slowly, a tragic note in her voice. "Mrs. Darling swears she left the Ames house shortly before two o'clock and came right home. That's the crux of the case and I'm afraid after all we can't do anything to help her. If she came home when she said she did, she is innocent. If she didn't, she—"
With a little gasp Alice stopped and whirled toward an open door at her right. In the light from the hall she saw that it was the dining room. And from that room came the soft, clear notes of a second clock striking the hour of seven!
For a moment she frowned, bewildered by this sudden turn in the case. Then a smile lit her face. Turning back, she grasped the housekeeper by the arm.
"I've got it! I've got it!" she repeated, a fresh note of hope in her voice. "The two clocks!"
Miss Graham looked blankly at her as though she thought the girl had lost her mind.
"Don't you see?" demanded Alice excitedly. "Grace Darling is innocent!"
"Miss Cosgrove—" began the housekeeper, but Alice interrupted her.
"Never mind. Answer my questions. Was this dining room door open the night of the murder?" "I think so—yes. It's almost always open. Why?"
"TELL you in a minute. Do both clocks keep good time?"
"Yes."
"But you said a few minutes ago that you had trouble with this grandfather's clock," Alice reminded her. "Did it run fast or slow when you got it?"
"Why, it ran all right at first. Then it started to gain and a man from the store came out and looked at it. He said he fixed it and that it gained because it was near that radiator along the wall and gets warmer than the other clock."
"And this grandfather's clock hasn't been moved?"
"No. It's always stood there."
"Good!" beamed Alice. "We've saved Mrs. Darling!"
The housekeeper's eyes lost their sad expression. "You—you mean those clocks—"
"Yes!" broke in Alice. "Listen! Those clocks sound almost alike when they strike, don't they?"
Miss Graham nodded quickly, her face lightning with a happy smile.
"Well, when Mrs. Darling came home that night you were up in your room, away in the rear of the house. From that distance you probably couldn't distinguish between the two clocks. This grandfather's clock was running a little fast—ten seconds or less, maybe—and when it struck two the other clock took up the toll without a pause, making it sound like only one o'clock. That's logical, isn't it?"
The housekeeper nodded again, her eyes had filled and with one gnarled hand she wiped away a tear that coursed down her withered cheeks.
"And to think I might've—" she whispered. "Why didn't I think of that? Oh, Miss Cosgrove, that's exactly what happened! I'm so happy!"
"Nobody can blame you for not thinking of that," Alice consoled her. "I almost didn't see it myself. This grandfather's clock has gained a minute or more, and if there hadn't been such a long pause between the two clocks tonight I might not have noticed the similarity myself."
For a moment the two women were silent. Then Alice said:
"I see now why there was a longer pause between the two clocks tonight. Mr. Ames was shot the last week in February. It was cold then and the radiator was hot, and you probably had heat all during March. Now it's the middle of April and the big clock hasn't lost the time it gained when the radiator was hot during the cold weather."
"Oh, I'm so glad," breathed Miss Graham fervently, "that we've saved Mrs. Darling. I won't have to go to court now."
"Yes, you will," contradicted Alice. "The case isn't quite that simple. Your testimony is doubly important now. But you've changed sides. You'll be the witness for the defense—the star witness."
"But Mr. Bradshaw—"
"Never mind about him," snapped Alice, a grim but happy smile spreading over her face. "Where's your telephone?"
"There's one in the alcove under the stairs here, and there's an extension up in Mrs. Darling's bedroom."
"I'll use this one," said Alice, stepping into the alcove off the hall and seating herself before the instrument in the little room under the stairs.
A few minutes later she had obtained the number of Abe Jacobson's club from the telephone directory, and sat tensely waiting for Jacobson himself while he was being paged at the club. Finally the soft voice of a man came over the wire.
"Mr. Jacobson?" asked Alice excitedly. "Never mind who this is. I've got a hot tip for you on the Darling case.... Yes, the Darling case. It's straight. What?.... Listen, Mr. Jacobson! Your client is going to be convicted. You know it. You can appeal the case to high heaven and back again, and it won't get you a thing. I'm giving you a chance to save Grace Darling. Will you take it— oh, you've got to!"
Alice's hopes sank while she listened to the questions the lawyer asked over the wire. When he stopped she said:
"Well, if you must know, I'm the White Moll .... No, that's all I'll tell you .... Yes, the White Moll. Miss Graham, Mrs. Darling's housekeeper, knows me. I don't want my name connected with the case. You'll know why when it's all over .... Fine! Now, here's what I want you to do. Ready?"
Ten minutes later Alice Cosgrove joined Miss Graham in the hall again. The housekeeper's face was wreathed in smiles, but her eyes still held traces of the tears of happiness.
"Now, remember," cautioned Alice as she paused at the front door. "Don't mention my name at all. Not even to Mr. Jacobson. You'll take the stand for the prosecution just like Mr. Bradshaw plans. That clear?"
"I won't forget," promised Miss Graham. "I don't know how to thank—"
But Alice didn't wait to hear the old woman's parting words.
AT THE noon recess of court the following morning, Jason Bradshaw strode into his office, eyes ablaze with anger. In his wake came Elliot, his pimply face a sallow reflection of the fury that gripped the district attorney.
In the center of the outer office Bradshaw suddenly stopped and whirled on his assistant.
"You sap!" shouted the district attorney, waving a huge fist under the weak chin of the smaller man. "Letting Jacobson smash our case with that cross examination and a surprise witness!"
"How could I help it?" squirmed Elliot in a frightened voice. "I didn't know anything about two clocks! I couldn't stop Abe from calling that clock expert to the stand and verifying all that stuff the housekeeper told about how one clock ran faster than the other and—"
"Well, if you'd used your head," snapped Bradshaw, "you'd have fallen against those clocks—broken them when they were brought into the courtroom. And you might have fixed that Graham hen!"
"But—"
Elliot stopped in the midst of his protestations and looked obliquely at Alice Cosgrove who was Prison Stories, May-June, 1931 working at her desk across the room. Then he leaned close to Bradshaw and whispered. A moment later the two men walked over to her desk. Alice looked up at them stolidly.
"Well, Miss Cosgrove," said Bradshaw in a menacing tone, "you've succeeded in playing the White Moll long enough. Mrs. Darling will be convicted when I get a new chance."
Alice tried to meet his stony stare, but failed. Her eyes widened with fear. She opened her mouth, but Bradshaw laughed harshly.
"That's all I wanted to know," he sneered. "You White Moll! Tipped Jacobson about those clocks, didn't you?"
"Then Mrs. Darling was acquitted?" she asked eagerly, ignoring Bradshaw's question.
"No," spoke up Elliot. "She hasn't been acquitted, but she will be when the case goes to the jury this afternoon, thanks to you—you lousy White Moll!"
Alice Cosgrove got to her feet slowly and faced the two men defiantly.
"If Mrs. Darling was innocent, as the clock testimony you mentioned seems to prove," she asked in a low voice, "why should you want to see her convicted? Aren't you sending enough people to prison without having to frame innocent women?"
"Eh?" Bradshaw's heavy brows shot up in surprise.
"You heard me. Why should you try to jail— or hang—an innocent woman?"
"Because—" Bradshaw started to bluster. Then he glared at Alice. "You—you're—"
"Oh, no I'm not fired," Alice interrupted quickly. "I resign—effective immediately. I've seen enough of your crooked work in getting convictions. I'm going to an office where the air's clean!"
And she did.