The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-20
BLOW TO 0RPET
Telephone Operators Knock Big
Hole in His Defense.
Two Heard Him Talking to
Marion Lambert.
TELL STORY ON THE STAND
Both Heard Him Offer to Give
Her Something.
He Begged Her to Come Out
and Meet Him.
TELL STORY ON THE STAND
By wINIFRED BLACK.

en- in the low voices of girlish embar
rassment, tore a gaping hole in the
great wall of defense which Orpet
lawyers have built up around nun
Hello, Marion, this is BllI-Blil
Orpet, come on out-Ive got some
thing for YOU"
| That's what little Edith Kennedy
heard over the telephone wires when
she listened in" the night before
Marion Lambert died in the snow.
! Little Mary Dunn heard more of the
conversation over the wire-Orpet
begging Marion to come out, Marion
refusing Orpet beseeching her to
! take a chance" and Marion saying
! that she had already taken one chance
too much-and then the fatal SEN
tence I've got something for YOU
| And both of the girls told their
story on the stand-the strange, al
most magical story of voice coming
in over the wire through the black
dark and overheard - curiously
| enough-and remembered and spoken
of the next day to the telephone su-
perintendent.
One a Bride Now.
Edith Kennedy isn't a telephone girl
anv longer She's a bride now-mar-
ried three months and keeping house
with her husband in the good old fasn-
toned way that was the custom when
people would have shut you up in the
hint that sometimes anybody on earth
could hear people talking together
over a wire
She's pretty and gentle and serious.
is Mrs. Edith Kennedy. and she knows
lust what she's talking about-or, at
least, she did Monday-and not all the
questions Mr.. Potter could think of
had the fainteSt effect upon her
straightforward. plain. simple story.
Yes she listened in. Yes. it was
against the rules. No. she didn't 90
it oftent Yes. she knew Marion's
voice and her telephone number, too,
and once Will Orpet followed her
home and tried to speak to her, and
she knew him that way Yes, she tolo
about il when she heard about Mar
ions mysterious death she told her
mother and she told the chief oper-
ator of the telephone number, and she
| talked il over with Mary Dunn, VINO
had listened in at the same time
Mary Dunn is little, too, and gentle
! and low voiced and rather timid in
! her manner. She was little fright
ened by the staring crowd, and there
was a crowd and it was staring. for
somehow the news got out that the
/ telephone girls were on the stand and
1 the courtroom was damned to sufto-
cation.
Mary Dunn was as plain spoken and
( as honest and as natural and as I'M
possible to doubt as ever witness was
on any stand anywhere in the world
And not all Mr.. Potter's sarcasm
or his bitter cross-examination could
shake either of these girls testimony
NOT for one single letter of one
single syllable
/ And Will Orpet's face, grown conf
1 dent and of a good color in the last
| few eventless days, was as livid as
the face of death itself.
| Afterward came Chief Mcclure, of
Lake Forest, bluff and hearty as a
| character out of an early English play.
! He started in to tell what Will Orpet
! told him in the Jail on the night he
arrested him and took him to prison,
| but Orpet'S attorneys objected-it was
incompetent, irrelevant and imna-
terial, they said. to know what Will
Orpet told anybody, any time, any
, where.
| But the attorneys for the state
would not give up SO easily and they
all began quoting authorities and
arguing round and round in a circle
till every non-legal head in the room
was dizzy. And just as we all began
| to wish that somebody would alter a
few of our hard and fast rules of evil
| dence and give US a little of the
French leeway in the matter of find
ing out a few things that we really
want to know instead of letting the
lawyers hide everything under any
convenient busheI they can find
court adjourned.
Orpet's Mother Pale.
Will Orpet sat whispering to his
| father and mother. His mother 5
resolute face was pale and she looked
frightened and depressed
His father tried to laugh the matter
off. poor manEand the attorneys for
the defense laughed with him as best
they could.
But when the Orpets were gone, Mr..
Wilkerson and Mr.. Potter walked out
of the courtroom looking like anything
but men to whom life was at that par
ticuIar moment nothing but joke.
In the morning a fresh checked boy
testified he had seen Will Orpet at
half past 10 on the morning Marion
disappeared. He had spoken to Orpet,
he said
He didn't answer me; I don't know
whether he heard of not
And several of Narion's girl friends
testified during the day how happy
she was and what fine party she had
and how they couldn't see how any one
could believe she was Respondent.
But now that I think the day over
all / can remember is:
Hello. Marion. this is Bill-Bill Or
pet I've got something to give you. -
| If viii Orpet is convicted of muir
dering Marion Lambert, believe those
words he spoke over the telephone will
have something very important to dc
with the verdict.