Chiefly the investigation focused around the Brownsville clinic raid. I denied emphatically that certain contraceptives for use by men only had ever been there; they were of a type which I did not recommend, and had been brought in by the police themselves.
“Do you mean to say, Mrs. Sanger,” went on Mr. Lahey, “that this statement of the police officer as written into the records was untrue?”
“I do.”
Mr. Lahey lifted an official finger to an attendant. The door of the anteroom opened and Mrs. Whitehurst, who had been the leader of the raid, was dramatically framed before us.
“Do you say that if she,” he waved to her, “made the statement referred to in the police records, she lied?”
“She did,” I affirmed. This was the first time in all my life that I had ever called a person a liar. I felt as though I had stepped down into the lower brackets of common decency, but the police are accustomed to such words, and I had to meet the circumstances.
Mrs. Whitehurst was instantly dismissed. I, too, was dismissed, and Juliet took my place. She had learned from her husband and other lawyers how witnesses could protect themselves, and tossed off her answers readily, now and then returning, “I don’t know,” and, frequently, “I don’t remember.” The black-coated gentleman who had hoped to trip her up but was getting nowhere, became exasperated and said roughly to Mr. Lahey, “Oh, stop this! Ask her if she’s read the law.”
Juliet admitted she had read Section 1142, but, to further questioning, replied she did not recall when, she had not read it in my presence, she might or might not have talked it over with me.
Mr. Lahey rose and left the room. Then the Unknown shouted to a young Irishman who had been busily taking notes, “Arrest that woman!”
We could not have been more astonished if a thunderbolt had struck the place. For a few seconds, which seemed longer, everyone was paralyzed. At last Mr. Marsh asked, “On what grounds is Mrs. Rublee arrested?”