The confessions were being typed up, he said. There was only one basic difference between them, and he chuckled at the predictable. “Each says the other struck the fatal blow.”

Soon we had their own words. Artie had pictured himself as driving. “I pulled up alongside of Paulie and said, ‘Hey Paulie’, and Paulie came over and I asked, ‘Want a ride?’ and Paulie said no, he was only a block from his house, and then I said, ‘I want to talk to you about that tennis racket you had the other day’, so Paulie said okay and Paulie got in beside me. I introduced him to Judd, who was in the back seat, and I asked Paulie, ‘You don’t mind if I drive around the block?’ and Paulie said okay, and I pulled away from the curb and as I turned the corner the blow came from behind, three or four quick blows on the head, and the hands were over Paulie’s mouth before he could yell, and then he was dragged into the back seat and a cloth stuffed into his mouth.”

For several minutes, Artie said, Judd had lost his nerve, crying, “Oh this is terrible, terrible!” And Artie had had to talk fast, make wisecracks, until Judd got hold of himself.

“This is terrible, terrible,” echoed to me. It was no extenuation. But what did it mean, there at that moment? That the reality broke in, for one of them at least?

For himself, Artie said, he noticed his pulse racing, he felt exhilarated, his blood beating intensely, from the moment the boy got into the car.

The way Judd told it varied mainly on the question of who was driving. He had been at the wheel, Judd insisted, with Artie in the back seat; the blows had come from the tool in Artie’s hand.

At the time, in the immense excitement of having the story, the dual accusation was only an ironic sidelight to the crime, and the fact that each accused the other only made them more alike in our minds. It was only later that the simple realization came that one of them must have been telling the truth.

To this day, the crime has been thought of as a deed in which they were organically joined, like Siamese twins. This may be true as to legal guilt. But understanding will never come through such an assumption. And if we see them as two beings who became wedded in the deed, then it does become momentous that one, here, had been telling the truth while the other had been lying.

I knew I had to phone Ruth. She should learn it all from me and not from the papers. In some shameful way, whatever I said would sound like a personal triumph. I procrastinated, telling myself I didn’t want to wake her with this news. Then when I finally called, she had already learned it, from a Tribune extra in the streets. Then she asked, “Sid, will you see him?”

“Maybe.”

“Sid, Sid.” It was as though she were crying, “Judd, Judd.”

We rushed out to interview the families. They had been wakened with the news, and the Strauses let us all in, begging for us to tell them – hadn’t it been the third degree? As soon as the boys had rested, and had some sleep, they would repudiate the story. It was absurd, insane!

Artie’s father left the room. Mrs. Straus held herself upright. “I won’t believe it,” she declared, “unless I hear it from Artie’s own lips.”

And at Judd’s house, his father, in his measured voice, repeated to us only, “No, no, this is some mistake, it cannot be true.” His brother Max told us, “It must be the boys’ idea of a joke. They must be sore at the cops for keeping them so long.”

After his confession Judd felt, if anything rather proud, as after making an unusually comprehensive report in class. He wished only that Artie had been there in the room – forgetting, momentarily, his rage at Artie for breaking down and talking. The crime had a certain altitude, he told himself; the action had a wholeness – the word was consistency. Now, through a trial, through an execution, he would maintain the same consistency, the same dignity of living and dying by a set of ideas. Even with the blunder, even with being caught, he and Artie had somehow achieved their aim. They had demonstrated something that was beyond the ordinary mind.

The State’s Attorney, to his credit, had carried out the interrogation in exactly the proper tone, with respectful curiosity. Thus when it was all over Judd had been asked if he would like to rest. He stretched out on a couple of chairs, and, the tension gone, for a tumultuous second imagined himself and Artie mounting the scaffold together. Repeating to himself that he had no fear, that he was consistent, Judd presently slept.

When Judd awoke there was coffee, and Horn was back, looking newly shaven. Then Padua came into the room with Artie.

Artie was wearing a hiding, self-conscious grin. The nearness of Artie had brought in Judd the automatic throb of mind and heart together, but now there came an emptiness as he recalled what Artie was doing. In trying to twist the story, Artie was deserting their togetherness, killing it.

Mr. Horn was amiable. “Now, boys, we want to read you your statements. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to give us your corrections.”

Padua handed Judd a copy of Artie’s statement. At once Judd saw the little mistake about when they first planned the thing, and even that small error was incomprehensible to him. How could Artie have forgotten that night ride after raiding the frat? He read on, until there came the part about who was driving the Willys.

This was the second moment of shattering for Judd, after having been told, the night before, that Artie was confessing. Now, Artie was breaking their union.

Judd fixed his eyes on his friend, who had been reading Judd’s own confession. At that moment, Artie flushed and leaped up, talking angrily. “In the first place, he says the chisel was wrapped by me. It was wrapped by him, Judd Steiner, in Jackson Park. He wrapped that chisel while waiting there in Jackson Park on that little nine-hole golf course. All right.”

Artie’s objection was partly true. Sitting next to each other in the car, Artie had said, “I’ll show you,” and started the tape around the hard blade, then handing it to Judd to wrap.

“In the second place, he mentioned the idea of the thing, well, the main thing was to get the burial place, and the means of throwing that package. The place was his, and he struck on that idea of the train.”

That was it, then – Artie wanted step by step to put the full blame on him, his idea, his burial place, his chisel, his killing! Artie would make himself out as only an accessory. For one instant the scene of their planning, the chummy evenings in the house, came back to Judd, and he felt grief. But he listened on. “He doesn’t mention the method of killing,” Artie declared. “He had that very well conceived and planned out, as evidenced by the ether in the car, which was absolutely the notion to be followed through. The boy was to be etherized to death, and he was supposed to do that because he had a number of times chloroformed birds and things like that, and he knows ornithology. I don’t know a damn thing about that.”

“Yes, but the ether wasn’t used, was it?” Horn asked. “Who hit him with the chisel?”

Artie snapped, “He did.”

“Who is he?”

Judd tried again to catch Artie’s eye, to look him straight in the eye. Artie affirmed, “Judah Steiner, Jr. He was sitting up in the front seat-” and then he caught himself.

At Artie’s terrible slip, a double impulse of pity and of exultation, like some reversible electric current, went through Judd, and as Artie floundered Judd even felt an anxiety for his partner, now at last proven the weaker.

“I mean I was sitting up in the front seat,” Artie started again. “This is obviously a mistake. I am getting excited.” The prosecutors scarcely concealed their smiles. “This Kessler boy got up in the front seat. He didn’t see Judd till he was inside the car.” Artie was fully recovered now, and despite his own powerful desire to intervene and contradict, Judd felt a satisfaction that Artie was doing better. “I introduced Judd to this Kessler boy and then took him into the car.”