Free Phantom lady by Cornell Woolrich Page B

right now through no fault of her own. We're in general agreement on that one point, all of us, defense as well as prosecution. Her name and identity is known to us, but we've called her The Girl' throughout, and we'll continue to do so.
    "Very well. He was already dangerously in love with The Girl by the time he remembered to tell her he was married. Yes, I say dangerously—from his wife's viewpoint. The Girl wouldn't have him on those terms. She was, and is, a decent person, a fine human being; every one of us who has spoken to her feels that way strongly about her. I do myself, ladies and gentlemen; she's a lovely, unfortunate person who happened to meet the wrong man. So as I say, she wouldn't have him on those terms. She didn't want to hurt anyone else. He found he couldn't have his cake and eat it too.
    "Very well, he went to his wife and he asked her to divorce him. Cold-bloodedly, just like that. She refused him a divorce. Why? Because, to her, marriage was a sacred institution. Not just a passing affair, to be broken off short at a whim. Strange wife, wasn't she?
    "The Girl's suggestion, when he told her this, was that they forget all about one another. He couldn't see it that way. He found himself caught between the horns of a dilemma. His wife wouldn't give him up, and he wouldn't give The Girl up.
    "He bided his time and then he tried once more. And if you'd speak of the first method as cold-blooded, what would you say of the way he went about it the second time? He put himself out to entertain her the way a customer's man enter-

    tains an out-of-town buyer with whom he is trying to transact a business deal. That should give you a good insight into his character, ladies and gentlemen; that should tell you what caliber man he is. That was all a scrapped marriage, a broken home, a discarded wife, were worth to him. An evening's paltry entertainment.
    "He bought two tickets for the theater, he reserved a table at a restaurant. He came home and told her he was taking her out. She couldn't understand this sudden atten-tiveness. She mistakenly thought, for a moment, that perhaps there was a reconciliation in the air. She sat down at her mirror and she began to get ready.
    "A few moments later he returned to the room and he found her still sitting there at her dressing table, without going any further in her preparations. She understood a little better what his purpose was now.
    "She told him that she wouldn't give him up. She told him, in effect, that she valued her home higher than two orchestra seats and a full course dinner. In other words, without giving him time to ask her, she had refused him a divorce a second time. That was one time too many.
    "He was at the final stage of his own preparations. He had his necktie open in his hands, measured off, ready to insert it under his collar. Instead, in a blind ungovernable rage at being outguessed and outgeneraled, he dropped it over her head as she sat there at her mirror. He tightened it around her neck, he twined the ends together with unimaginable cruelty and strength and will to kill. The police officers have told you how it had to be cut off, practically pared off, it was so imbedded in her soft throat. Did you every try to tear one of these seven-fold rep silk ties between your hands, ladies and gentlemen? It can't be done; the edges will slice your fingers like a knife, but you can't sever them.
    "She died. She flung her arms out once or twice, just in the beginning, and then she died there, between her husband's hands. The man who had sworn to cherish and protect her. Don't forget that.

    "He held her like that, upright at her own mirror, letting her look on at her own death struggles, so to speak, for long minutes. Long, long minutes. So that she was dead long before he let her fall over from that upright position he'd held her in. Then when he was sure that she was dead, that she was good and dead, that she was dead beyond recall, that she was out of his way