The Case of the Queenly Contestant

“That’s what I am doing. I’m answering questions,” Maxine Edfield said. “But I know what he’s going to try to do. He’s going to try to discredit me because he ran this ringer in on me and I identified her. And then he trapped me into making the identification absolutely positive when, actually, I only felt the woman I had identified as Ellen was Ellen. I wasn’t completely sure of it.”

“But you said you were sure?” Mason asked.

“All right, I said I was sure, and I said I was just as certain of my identification as of any other part of my testimony. You trapped me. That’s an old lawyer’s trick. I know now because Mr. Lovett told me. But I didn’t know it at the time. I hadn’t had any experience with lawyers.”

Judge Elwell said, “I’m going to ask the witness to just answer questions and stop — just answer what is required in order to give the information requested.”

“Your expenses were paid by Mr. Lovett?” Mason asked.

“Yes, they were. Mr. Lovett came to me all open and aboveboard, and he wanted me to come out here with him, and I told him I was a working girl, and he said he would take care of my expenses.”

“And he gave you money to cover expenses?”

“He gave me some money, yes.”

“And you used that to pay expenses?”

“Well, some of them, and some of them he paid.”

“You came with Mr. Lovett on the plane?”

“Yes.”

“Who purchased the ticket for your transportation?”

“Mr. Lovett.”

“When you came here you went to a hotel.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Lovett is staying at that same hotel.”

“Yes, he is.”

“And who is paying the hotel bill at that hotel?”

“Why, Mr. Lovett, I suppose.”

“And what about meals?”

“I either sign for meals in the hotel restaurant or I have my meals with Mr. Lovett or sometimes they are sent up to my room.”

“Then how much actual expenses have you paid from the money Mr. Lovett gave you?”

“Well... just incidental expenses.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you kept an account?”

“Not a detailed account.”

“And what are the incidental expenses?”

“Oh, little things that you can’t charge — newspapers, beauty parlors, and little things like that.”

“You haven’t paid out fifty dollars in incidental expenses, have you?”

“Well, perhaps not.”

“You haven’t paid out twenty-five dollars.”

“Perhaps not.”

“You haven’t paid out ten dollars.”

“Well, perhaps not, but it probably is around that vicinity somewhere.”

“And how much money did Mr. Lovett give you for expenses?”

“I don’t know that has anything to do with it. That’s a private matter between Mr. Lovett and me.”

“How much money did Mr. Lovett give you for expenses?”

Maxine Edfield turned to Judge Elwell. “Do I have to answer that question?”

“I think it’s a proper question. I have heard no objection to it. I think the prosecution considers it as proper cross-examination.”

“All right,” she blazed. “If you have to know, he gave me five hundred dollars.”

“Five hundred dollars for incidental expenses,” Mason said.

“Yes, that’s right,” she flared. “I had to leave my job and come out here.”

“You got a leave of absence from your job, didn’t you?”

“Well, I had a vacation coming.”

“How much of a vacation?”

“Two weeks.”

“And did Mr. Lovett arrange with your employer to extend your two-week vacation if necessary?”

“I don’t know what he did. I know I’m out here on my own on a vacation.”

“Then you are getting paid for your time out here?”

“All right, I’m entitled to it. If I want to spend my vacation out here, that’s my business.”

“Now, then,” Mason said, “did Mr. Lovett offer you some sort of a bonus in case he was successful in his contention and in case your testimony was instrumental in winning his case?”

“He did not!”

“Didn’t he tell you that if your evidence stood up in court his clients would be—”

“Well, that’s different,” she said. “That’s something else again. You asked me about Mr. Lovett.”

“But Mr. Lovett told you that his clients would be grateful?”

“Something like that.”

“Very grateful?”

“Well, they certainly should be. There’s a two-million-dollar estate involved, and they couldn’t ever have found out the truth if it hadn’t been for me and what Ellen told me.”

Mason said, “You say there’s a two-million-dollar estate involved?”

“That’s right. Ezekiel Haslett, Harmon Haslett’s father, died and left all of the stock in the Cloverville Spring and Suspension Company to Harmon. Then Harmon was on a yachting trip and the yacht was wrecked and there have been no survivors. There are two half brothers, Bruce and Norman Jasper, and I believe there’s some funny sort of a will in which Harmon Haslett stated that he had reason to believe he might be the father of an illegitimate child and if that was the case he left all of his estate to the illegitimate child.

“Now, that’s what you were going to try to drag out of me on cross-examination,” the witness said defiantly. “Now I’ve told you all I know, and I’ve told you the truth.”

The witness got up, preparing to leave the witness stand.

“Just a moment, just a moment,” Mason said. “I haven’t yet come to the point I wanted to bring out. Were you acquainted with Agnes Burlington in her lifetime?”