"Night of January 16th" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rand Ayn)

STEVENS:Ready, your Honor.
JUDGE HEATH:Mr. Clerk, draw a jury.
[TheCLERKsteps to the proscenium with a list in his hand, and addresses the audience]
CLERK: Ladies and gentlemen, you are to be the jurors in this case. Twelve of you will be drawn to perform this duty. You will kindly step up here, take your seats, and receive your instructions from Judge Heath.
[He reads twelve names. TheJURORStake their places. If some are unwilling and do not appear, theCLERKcalls a few more names. When the jurors are seated, the lights in the audience go out. JUDGE HEATHaddresses the jury]
JUDGE HEATH:Ladies and gentlemen, you are the jurors who will try this case. At its close, you will retire to the jury room and vote upon your verdict. I instruct you to listen to the testimony carefully and pronounce your judgment to the best of your ability and integrity. You are to determine whether the defendant is Guilty or Not Guilty and her fate rests in your hands . . . The District Attorney may now proceed.
[DISTRICT ATTORNEY FLINTrises and addresses the jury]
FLINT:Your Honor! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury! On the sixteenth of January, near midnight, when the lights of Broadway blazed an electric dawn over the gay crowd below, the body of a man came hurtling through space and crashed -- a disfigured mess -- at the foot of the Faulkner Building. That body had been Sweden's great financier -- Bjorn Faulkner. He fell fifty stories from his luxurious penthouse.A suicide, we were told. A great man unwilling to bend before his imminent ruin. A man who found a fall from the roof of a skyscraper shorter and easier than a descent from his tottering throne of the world's financial dictator. Only a few months ago, behind every big transaction of gold in the world, stood that well-known figure: young, tall, with an arrogant smile, with kingdoms and nations in the palm of one hand -- and a whip in the other. If gold is the world's life blood, then Bjorn Faulkner, holding all its dark, hidden arteries, regulating its ebb and flow, its every pulsation, was the heart of the world. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the world has just had a heart attack. And like all heart attacks, it was rather sudden. No one suspected the gigantic swindle that lay at the foundation of the Faulkner enterprises. A few days after his death, the earth shook from the crash of his business; thousands of investors were stricken with the paralysis which follows an attack, when that monstrous heart stopped beating. Bjorn Faulkner had had a hard struggle facing the world. But he had a much harder struggle to face in his heart, a struggle which this trial will have to uncover. Two women ruled his life -- and death. Here is one of them, ladies and gentlemen.
[Points atKAREN]
Karen Andre, Faulkner's efficient secretary and notorious mistress. But six months ago Faulkner came to America to get a loan and save his fortune. Fate sent him a means to save his own heart -- in the person of the lovely girl who is now his widow, Nancy Lee Faulkner, only daughter of John Graham Whitfield, our great philanthropist. Faulkner thought he had found salvation and a new life in the virtuous innocence of his young bride. And the best proof of it is that two weeks after his wedding he dismissed his secretary -- Karen Andre. He was through with her. But, ladies and gentlemen, one is not easily through with a woman like Karen Andre. We can only guess at what hatred and revenge smouldered in her heart; but they leaped into flame on thenight of January sixteenth. Bjorn Faulknerdid not kill himself. He was murdered. Murdered by the very delicate and capable hands which you see here before you.
[He points atKAREN]
The hands that helped to raise Bjorn Faulkner high over the world; the hands that threw him down, from as great a height, to crash into a pavement cold as this woman's heart. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we are going to prove.
[FLINTpauses; then calls]
Our first witness will be Doctor Kirkland.
[DR. KIRKLAND,elderly, kindly, and indifferent, makes his way toward the witness stand ]
CLERK: You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
KIRKLAND: I do.
FLINT:Kindly state your name.
KIRKLAND:Thomas Kirkland.
FLINT:What is your occupation?
KIRKLAND:Medical examiner of this county.
FLINT:In the course of your duty, what were you called upon to do on the night of January sixteenth?
KIRKLAND:I was called to examine the body of Bjorn Faulkner.
FLINT:What did you find?
KIRKLAND:A body mangled to an extreme degree.
FLINT:What did you establish as the cause of death?
KIRKLAND:A fall from a great height.
FLINT:How long had Faulkner been dead when you examined his body?
KIRKLAND:I reached it about half an hour after the fall.
FLINT:Judging by the condition of the body, could you say exactly how long it had been dead?
KIRKLAND:No, I could not. Owing to the cold weather, the blood had coagulated immediately, which makes a difference of several hours impossible to detect.
FLINT:Therefore, it is possible that Faulkner had been dead longer than half an hour?
KIRKLAND:It is possible.
FLINT:Could his death have been caused by anything other than this fall?
KIRKLAND:I found no evidence of it.
KIRKLAND:No. Owing to the condition of the body, it would be impossible to determine.
FLINT:That's all, Doctor.
STEVENS:Did you find any trace of any such earlier wound in your examination of the body, Doctor Kirkland?
KIRKLAND:No, I did not.
STEVENS:Did you find any indication that death might have been caused by anything other than the fall?
KIRKLAND:No, I did not.
STEVENS:That's all.
[DR. KIRKLANDleaves the stand and exits]
FLINT:John Hutchins!
CLERK:John Hutchins!
HUTCHINS:[Entering]Yes, sir.
CLERK:You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
HUTCHINS:Yes, sir, I do.
FLINT:What is your name?
HUTCHINS:[Timidly]John Joseph Hutchins.