Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE DUKE “ Ex-excellency, | may have dimly heard a sound. But, what goes on upstairs is not in my duties.” ‘Why do you use the word ‘excel- lency ’?” ‘“My father taught me to be respectful to those in authority.” “What nationality are you?” “ American born, of Portugee parents.” He stated that his father had always been a gardener. There was no cross-examina- tion. Acting Captain Overton was called. He told of the arrival of O’Brien with Mr. Fitch and the chauffeur, of questioning the chauffeur, and of telling him to go home but be on hand when wanted. Meanwhile, Mr. Fitch was suddenly taken very. ill be- fore a word was said to him. He was in a cell downstairs. Overton told of telephoning for Dr. Shumway, surgeon to the police de- partment, and that was practically all his evidence. Dr. Shumway followed. He described Mr. Fitch, on his arrival, as “ suffer- ing from violent nausea, spasmodic in character, with pulse and heart beat abnormally low, eyes very much contract- ed, and features covered with a profuse cold sweat.” Myers here showed a real cloven hoof. “The symptoms were typical of toxic poisoning?” ‘“T object.”” Howard leaped up, his face black with wrath. ‘I move to strike that question from the record. It is infamous. This is an effort, through inference and in- nuendo, to create the impression without legal evidence, that after shooting the mayor, Mr. Fitch took poison before the police arrived. Every effort of this kind is contrary to law and equity. I see now why Mr. Myers insisted upon O’Brien’s testi- mony, that Mr. Fitch’s expression was ‘ like a bat-out-of-hell.’ I won’t permit such per- version of law!” There was a wordy wrangle, concluding by Howard’s insistence that if any tangible evidence existed in support of the poisoning theory the police physician was present, the man in custody, and only an analysis could determine if it were founded on fact or con- jecture. OF DISDAIN. 197 He won his first and only point, then and there. Dr. Shumway next told of conducting the autopsy. ‘“ The bullet entered the left breast of the deceased at a slight angle with reference to the horizontal axis of the body, just above the heart, penetrating the lung, traversing it, entering the muscular tissue surrounding the spine, and flattened out against the vertebre there. Death ensued from traumatic shock and internal and ex- ternal hemorrhage.” He next identified the lethal bullet and testified to extracting and weighing it. Then — to weighing one of the bullets he had re- moved from one of the five unexploded cartridges found in the pistol. The weights were almost identical, so nearly so that every one knew Mayor Marshall had been shot to death by a bullet of thirty-two cal- iber. He was not cross-examined. Inspector Long of police headquarters was next. He identified finger-print photographs of Mr. Fitch and enlargements of them; he testi- fied he picked up the thirty-two caliber pistol from the rug; he then showed photo- graphs of the metallic surface of it, with corresponding “definitions,” uncanny in their symmetry, even to laymen, with Mr. Fitch’s finger-prints. One was from the trigger itself. The only possible inference was that Claude Cutler Fitch had person- ally fired that pistol the last time it was discharged. : Like a relentless bloodhound of aveng- ing justice, Mr. Myers kept linking up evi- dence. He next called: ‘‘ Mrs. Cora Mere- dith,” and a court officer went to the door of an adjoining room, opened it, and es- corted an aged and infirm woman with gray hair to the stand, after carefully closing it. She trembled when she was sworn and at first her voice cracked constantly, with nervousness or grief. But Myers was very, very considerate of her, and by degrees she grew more confident. His tact elicited whis- pers of praise among the audience. But Claude Cutler Fitch only sneered the more the net closed around him. Mrs. Meredith was Mr. Fitch’s aunt, she said; she told of admitting Ordway Mar- shall to the Fitch home and of escorting him Gomichooks (E@)