The Valentino Affair Read Online Free PDF

know you have to do that.” 39
    A couple of exchanges later, Weeks said, “When you said that you didn’t mean any disrespect to me, I hope?”
    “Oh, no,” 40 she said innocently. On this note, the morning session ended.
    During the lunch recess, members of the public gallery exchanged views about the morning’s testimony. Reactions were mixed. Some thought Blanca had withstood Weeks’s admittedly bland cross-examination with admirable panache. Others were more critical. For the first time Blanca’s highly developed sense of entitlement was beginning to grate. The incident with the customs man, in particular, had raised hackles, with one woman marking Blanca down as “a frightful little snob.” 41 And then there was the tactless remark that had driven her own mother from the court. All in all, the prosecution had just about shaded the session, but not by much.

    After the recess, Weeks sharpened his focus, taking aim at Blanca’s finances and defense claims that Jack had been a mercenary predator content to sponge off his wife’s inheritance. “Is it not the law in Chile that when a woman marries, her goods and all she owns belong to her husband?”
    “Yes.”
    “I object,” interrupted Uterhart, “and ask that the answer be stricken out. When this lady married the American, even down in Chile, she became an American citizen too, and her property was subject only to the American laws.” 42 Uterhart was skating on the thinnest of ice, legally, and he knew it, and his objection was swiftly quashed by Justice Manning. When the question was restated, Blanca repeated that such was the case under Chilean law. And was it not also the case, said Weeks, that at the time of the divorce, Jack signed back his interest in your Chilean property? Again Blanca agreed. And what about the diamond stickpin that he gave you? “It belonged to me,” 43 she protested. More dispute over expenses followed, in which Blanca grudgingly admitted that even in her current allegedly impecunious state she was still able to afford three maids.
    With these questions about domestic finances, Weeks finally found some chinks in Blanca’s armor. Previously, her allegations of Jack’s abusive behavior had been largely unverifiable; now they were moving into an area that left paper trails. Her face tightened when Weeks pointed out that in 1916 she had borrowed twenty-five hundred dollars from the New York Trust Company and turned the money over to Jack, who had repaid her with three checks. In another transaction she gave the same trust company a note for three thousand dollars.
    “You never paid it, did you?”
    “Part of it.”
    “How much?”
    “What he didn’t pay.” 44
    Weeks showed that all of the checks that cleared the loan were signed by Jack. “Your husband paid all those, did he not?” he said, clinching his point.
    “Yes.” 45
    There then followed a heated exchange over household expenses, who paid what, and so forth. When Weeks claimed that, on one occasion, Jack had paid bills for Blanca’s expenses, amounting to $4,990.80, Blanca just shrugged. Eventually the judge tried to clear the air, “Do you dispute the payment by Mr. De Saulles for these things?” 46
    “Oh, I wouldn’t dispute a small amount like that,” 47 she said. A groan from the public gallery showed that, once again, Blanca had misjudged the general mood. Such flippancy might play well at a cocktail party, but in this grim setting her levity succeeded only in setting teeth on edge.
    “When you went to Chile in 1915, didn’t your husband pay your fare?”
    “Possibly.”
    “Didn’t your husband give you $200 for the Chile trip and send you a $2,000 letter of credit?” When Blanca hesitated, Weeks pressed hard, “Do you not remember?” 48
    “I wouldn’t deny anything that I don’t remember.” 49
    Weeks next turned to a ring given to her by August Heckscher, who had been greatly pleased by Jack’s work in finding a purchaser for a Manhattan