The Valentino Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

hotel property. Weeks asked if she had not later returned the ring to the jewelry store—Charlton & Co., on Fifth Avenue—for eight thousand dollars and purchased a still more expensive ring? She said, “When I got the divorce I offered the ring back to Mr. Heckscher, and he refused to accept it.”
    “Then you kept it?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you later turned it in to Charlton’s for a still more expensive ring?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much did that one cost?”
    “Twenty thousand dollars.” 50
    There was a gasp in court. Uterhart leapt to his feet, shouting that his client was being misled, that there were extenuating circumstances regarding the ring. “I’m mixed up,” said Blanca, looking puzzled.
    “We don’t want any mixing up,” 51 soothed Justice Manning, who then took over the questioning himself. He brought out that the ring she had received from Heckscher was appraised by Charlton’s at forty-five hundred dollars; that she had turned it in with other money to make up ten thousand dollars; that her brother had added another ten thousand dollars; and that they had bought a twenty-thousand-dollar ring for Blanca to wear.
    Weeks ambled through some other general financial transactions for a while and then suddenly his tone hardened. “When did you first learn that you had shot your husband?”
    Blanca hesitated for some time. “When Dr. Wight told me.”
    “When was that?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Did he give you any details of the shooting? Did he tell you you shot your husband in the back?”
    “I do not remember.” 52
    Weeks then took her on to the night of the shooting and the arrival of the taxi driver. “When Donner came did you have the revolver in your pocket?”
    Another long pause. “I do not remember. I think it was in the pocket of my coat or sweater.”
    “Was it your habit to carry a revolver?”
    “When I was alone.”
    “You weren’t alone this night, were you? Weren’t you with the maid Suzanne?”
    “Yes.” She recalled slipping the revolver into her side pocket when she went upstairs to fetch her hat, prior to the trip
    “Do you remember when you were driving across the plains you said to take a shortcut?”
    For some reason this question vexed Blanca and she snapped, “Yes, I remember—but not—very specifically.”
    “You remember that you had the revolver with you?”
    “I must have had.”
    “You remember arriving at The Box?”
    “Yes.”
    “When you went into the house whom did you see first?”
    “The baby.”
    “Do you recall having the revolver in your pocket when you went into the house?”
    “I wasn’t thinking anything about the revolver.”
    “I know, but was it in your pocket?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “You remember what pocket it was in?”
    “N-n-n-no,” she stammered.
    Weeks asked if her hands were in her pockets, and Blanca replied that she customarily walked this way.
    “You say you saw the baby first at The Box. You didn’t speak to him at all, did you?”
    “No.”
    “But you spoke to Mrs. Degener, didn’t you?”
    “I think I did.” 53
    “You made no attempt to take the baby?”
    “I don’t think so.” 54
    Weeks had scored a potent point for the prosecution. If, as she claimed, Blanca came just for the boy, she could have grabbed him then and run. Instead, she went gunning for her ex-husband. “You got into the living room before you saw John De Saulles, didn’t you?”
    “I think so.”
    “Do you remember his offering you his hand?”
    “No.”
    “Do you remember his speaking to you . . . his saying that you couldn’t have the boy?”
    “No,” followed by, “I couldn’t possibly say.”
    “What is the last thing you remember—what part of your husband do you remember seeing?”
    A long hush ensued, as though Blanca was struggling to recall. Then she said in a barely audible voice, “His eyes.”
    This was the cue for Nixola Greeley-Smith—a columnist for the Evening World and one of the four