The Case of Whiffle

It was a balmy spring evening in 1951, just like any other April 21st that year. On that evening, motorists driving along a mid-American highway saw a squat little man standing in the street, followed by a little man squatting in the street, which caught their attention. Finally, one motorist stopped and asked, "Do you know the way to Carnegie Hall?" to which the little man, fighting the urge to deliver the time-honoured punchline, kept repeating over and over: "Help!"
"What's the matter?" he was asked.
"Help!" he repeated, and then, pulling himself together, added: "My wife has been shot dead. She's over there parking the car."

Investigation revealed the man to be one Norman Whiffle. His wife, Gert, was indeed dead. She had a bullet hole in her right temple, which despite Norman's protests, was not "only a birthmark". Police declared that the shot had obviously been fired at close range, and then at Gert. After preliminary questioning, Whiffle suddenly announced that he needed to return home to water his geranium. His vicious pronunciation of the word "geranium" raised suspicions.

The autopsy was very revealing: there were a number of bullet holes in the head, which the doctor, a Christian man, immediately covered with a cloth. Whiffle claimed he was innocent, and the officers mostly agreed: he was innocent, right up until the moment he shot his wife dead. Informal questioning of friends revealed that the marital life of Mr. and Mrs. Whiffle was unhappy—some even stated Whiffle was a wife beater and heavy drinker. Another added he was a wife drinker and heavy beater, and a third asserted he only drinks beets and has a heavy wife.

During Whiffle's first grilling by the County Attorney, he exhibited a terribly poor memory. When asked if he owned a pistol, he said, "What's a pistol?" An officer attending the interogation produced his own pistol, to which Whiffle could only gasp. The officer was suspended on sight and now works in the red light district.

Meanwhile, a pawnbroker identified Whiffle as a customer who had purchased a .32-caliber pistol at his shop. Whiffle said he had bought the gun for his wife as a reconciliation gift after a quarrel. "She was a complicated woman and roses never cut it," said Whiffle, and then added, bitterly, "She never did water the gun."

Unconvinced by Whiffle's defense, the County Attorney felt no hesitation in filing a murder charge against him. He went on trial shortly after. The County Attorney rose to question Whiffle. The judge ordered him to get down from the table.
"Whiffle," the County Attorney began. "You claim you were driving on the night your wife was slain?"
"Yes, sir." replied Whiffle.
"Isn't it true you quarreled on that night?"
"What's a night?"
The County Attorney persisted: "You parked on the roadside, pointed the gun at her head and shot her in the temple. Then you shot her in the church, and finally delivered the coup de gras in the mosque."
In support of this theory, the defense exhibited a picture of a .32-caliber pistol.
Whiffle interjected: "That's not a pistol, sir. I just saw one. The owner works in the red light district and will give you a peek for twenty dollars."

After a week, the case went to the jury for a verdict. The verdict was unanimous: Whiffle was not an attractive man. Also, he was guilty. The court accepted the verdict. Whiffle was brought before the judge and sentenced to thirty years to life. Whiffle jovially quipped, "It's a run-on sentence, then." And, as he was escorted from the free world, wondered out loud: "What's a prison?"

The judge made a hasty retreat to the exit, stopping only to ask the County Attorney for directions to the red light district.