The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“Well,” Maxine said, “you’re looking at it one way. Now try looking at it the other Way. Here was Ellen, who had been within an ace of landing the most eligible bachelor in Cloverville. She probably counted on it pretty strong.

“When the affair began to cool off, she decided to stake everything on the turn of a card. She pulled this pregnancy gag and wanted to see if it would work.

“It didn’t work.

“She woke up with the realization that she had irrevocably lost the man she wanted. Personally, I think she was really in love with him. I mean really and truly. But a girl has to look out for herself, and Ellen had been around enough to know that.

“Anyway, she had been to Hollywood. She’d taken her screen tests. She thought she was going to hear from them for a while, but she was beginning to wake up to the fact that this was one of these situations where they say, ‘Don’t call me; we’ll call you.’

“In other words, provision had been made for a couple of screen tests. The people who were obligated to furnish those screen tests had carried out their share of the contract, which consisted of doing nothing more than putting Ellen up in front of a camera, letting her recite lines from a script, portray certain emotions to the best of her ability, and then step down.

“It was fun while it lasted, and, of course, she had high hopes. She thought she did a swell job of registering rage, hatred, love, astonishment, terror, and all that stuff. Actually, from the standpoint of Hollywood studios, which are accustomed to judging professional actresses, all Ellen was doing was standing up in front of a camera and making faces.

“As soon as they saw the tests they knew the answer, but they didn’t dash Ellen’s hopes all at once. They told her, ‘Go on back to Cloverville and we’ll evaluate the tests. Don’t call us; we’ll call you.’

“That was when Ellen began to see her little house of cards falling apart; and right at that time she thought that her boyfriend was beginning to cool off, that he was still ardent and impetuous but he was beginning more and more to think about what was going to happen when his father, old Ezekiel Haslett, found out that his son had been playing around with one of the girls in the organization, that the affair had gone a lot further than the father would approve of, and that Ellen had her hopes set on marriage.

“When Harmon Haslett was with Ellen he was all enthused, but as soon as he’d leave Ellen he lost his enthusiasm mighty fast.”

“You think Ellen knew this?” Mason asked.

Maxine laughed. “She’s sitting right there beside you. Why don’t you ask her? Of course she knew it. That’s the trouble with you smart lawyers; you know all about law but you don’t know enough about human nature. You underestimate women.

“When a man is with a woman he portrays his inner thoughts by a thousand and one little things — emotions, glances of the eye, the tone of voice in which he says things, the spacing of his words... Of course Ellen knew it.”

“How do you know she knew it?”

“Because she told me all about it. All about how Harmon was having spells of moody silence, how he wasn’t calling her quite as frequently as he used to, how — when he would be with her — he would try to keep things under control so he could gradually break away. But, of course, he couldn’t, and then he’d be affectionate and pleading and loving and all that. But the handwriting was there on the wall.

“So when Ellen found she’d lost him — and by that time realized that she was going to be humiliated by not having any of the Hollywood contracts materialize — Ellen was a pretty disillusioned young woman.

“Then she suddenly had a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills handed to her with no strings attached, and Ellen just up and took off. It’s what I’d have done under similar circumstances. It’s what anyone would have done.”

“You knew Ellen quite well?”

“Of course I knew her well. One girl doesn’t confide about tier love affairs and her idea of working the pregnancy racket to a complete stranger.”

“I didn’t suggest you were a complete stranger,” Mason said. “I wanted to know how well you knew her.”

“Well, I knew her just as well as one girl can know another.”

“And this is the woman sitting next to me?”

“That’s the woman sitting next to you, and don’t try to deny it,” Maxine said. “She’s changed a lot, but she’s the same Ellen Calvert.”

“And this is the girl that told you all these things about trying to trap Harmon Haslett by pretending to be pregnant?”

“That’s the one,” Maxine said, “and don’t let her try to lie out of it or pull the wool over your eyes.”

“Now just a minute, just a minute,” Duncan Lovett said. “The identity of this woman doesn’t enter into the situation at the present time. She hasn’t denied her identity.”

Mason said, “In a situation of this kind questions looking to the accuracy of the recollection of the witness are never out of order.”