CHAPTER V

“He couldn’t look so cocky and triumphant and absolutely sure of himself as that if he didn’t actually know that everything was all right,” explained the red-haired girl in a reasonable but tremulous whisper, keeping an eye in desperate need of reassurance on the portly and flamboyant Lambert, who was prowling up and down in front of the jury with an expression of lightly won victory on his rubicund countenance and a tie that boasted actual checks under a ruddy chin. Every now and then he uttered small, premonitory booms.

“He could look just exactly like that if he were a God-forsaken fool,” murmured the reporter gloomily. “And would, and undoubtedly does. Whom the gods destroy they first make mad. Look out, there he goes!”

“Your Honour,” intoned Mr. Lambert with unction, “gentlemen of the jury, I am not going to burden you with a lengthy dissertation at this moment. In my summing up at a later time I will attempt to analyze the fallacious and specious reasoning on which my brilliant opponent has constructed his case, but at present something else is in my mind; or perhaps I should be both more candid and more accurate if I say that something else is in my heart.

“We have heard a great deal of the beauty, the charm, the enchantment, and the tragedy of the young woman whose dreadful death has brought about this trial. Much stress has been laid on her appalling fate and on the pitiful horror of so much loveliness crushed out in such a fashion. It is very far from my desire to deny or to belittle any of this. Tragic and dreadful, indeed, was the fate of Madeleine Bellamy; not one of us can think of it unmoved.

“But, gentlemen, when its horror grips you most relentlessly, I ask you to think of another young woman whose fate, to my mind, has been bitterer still; who, many times in these past few days, would have been glad to change places with that dead girl, safe and quiet now, beyond the reach of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that have been raining about her own unprotected head. I ask you to turn your thoughts for one moment to the fate of Susan Ives, the prisoner at the bar.

“Not so many weeks ago there is not one of you who would not have thought her an object of profound envy. Sue Ives, the adored, the cherished, the protected; Sue Ives, moving safe and happy through a world of flowers and blue skies that held no single cloud; Sue Ives, the lucky and beloved, the darling of the gods. There she sits before you, gentlemen, betrayed by her husband, befouled by every idle tongue that wags, torn from her children and her home, pilloried in every journal in the land from the most lofty and impeccable sheet to the vilest rag in Christendom, branded before the world as that darkest, most dreadful and most abject of creatures—a murderess.

“A murderess! This girl, so loyal and generous and honest that those who knew her believed her to be of somewhat finer clay than the rest of this workaday world; so proud, so sensitive and so fastidious that those who loved her would rather a thousand times have seen her dead in her grave than subjected to the ugly torture that has been her lot these past few days. What of her lot, gentlemen? What of her fate? What has brought her to this dreadful pass? Lightness or disloyalty or bad repute or reckless indiscretion or evil intent? Your own wife, your own daughter, your own mother, could not be freer of any taint of scandal or criticism.

“Accusations of this nature have been made in this court, but not by me and not against her. Of these sins, Madeleine Bellamy, the girl for whom all your pity has been invoked, has stood accused. She is dead. I, too, invoke your pity for her and such forgetfulness as you can mete out for the folly and dishonour that led to her death. For if she had not gone to that cottage to meet her lover, death would not have claimed her. She met death because she was there, alone and unprotected. Whether she was struck down by a thief, a blackmailer, an old lover or a new one, is not within my province to prove or in yours to decide. My intent is only to show you that so slight is the case against Susan Ives and Stephen Bellamy that a stronger one could be made out against half a dozen people that have been paraded before you in order to defame her.

“What is this case against her? I say against her, because if you decide that Mrs. Ives is not guilty, the case against Stephen Bellamy collapses automatically. It is not the contention of the state that he committed this crime. The evidence produced shows, according to the state, that he and Mrs. Ives were together throughout the evening, at her instigation. If she had nothing whatever to do with the crime, it follows inevitably that neither did her companion. I again, therefore, turn your attention to Mrs. Ives, and ask you once more what is this case against her?

“This: You are asked to believe that this girl—many of you have daughters older than Susan Ives—that this girl, gently born, gently bred and gentle-hearted, upon receiving information from a half-intoxicated and infatuated suitor of Mimi Bellamy’s that Mimi was carrying on an affair with her husband, Patrick Ives, dined peacefully at home, rose from the table, summoned Mrs. Bellamy’s adoring husband to meet her down a back lane, procured a knife from a table in her husband’s study and straightway sallied forth to remove the encumbrance that she had discovered in her smooth path by the simple and straightforward process of murdering her—murder, you note, premeditated, preconceived, and prearranged. Roughly, an hour and a half elapsed between the time that Susan Ives set out and the moment that the scream fixes as that of the murder.

“Presumably some of that time was occupied in convincing Mr. Bellamy of the excellence of her scheme and some of it in idle conversation—the time must have been occupied somehow; the actual rise and fall of a knife is no lengthy matter. Mr. Bellamy, we gather, was so entertained by the death of his idolized wife that he yielded to hearty laughter—Mr. Thorne has told you of that laugh, I believe.

“The lamp has gone out, so in total darkness they proceed to collect the jewels and wait peacefully until Mr. Thorne has put his keys under the doormat—the door is locked; they have thought of everything, you see—when once more they venture forth, enter an automobile that has the convenient quality of becoming either visible or invisible as serves them best, and return promptly and speedily to the house of Mr. Stephen Bellamy.

“Possibly you wonder why they do that. It is barely ten, and almost anyone might see them, thereby destroying their carefully concocted movie alibi, but possibly they thought that the Bellamy house would be a nice place to hide the pearls and talk things over. We are left a trifle in the dark as to their motives here, but undoubtedly the prosecutor will clear all that up perfectly. Ten minutes later they come out, and still together start off once more, presumably in the direction of Mrs. Ives’s home so that everyone there can get a good look at them together, while Mrs. Ives still has the knife and the bloodstained coat in her possession. There they part, Mrs. Ives to straighten up a little before she takes some fruit up to Mrs. Daniel Ives, Mr. Bellamy presumably to return to his own home and a night of well-earned repose.

“In the morning Mrs. Ives rises sufficiently early to pack up the blood drenched garments in a large box for the Salvation Army; she turns them over to a maid to turn over to a chauffeur, requests a fresh pair of gloves and sets forth to early church—the service which she has attended every Sunday of her life since she was a mite of six, with eyes too big for her face, hair to her waist, skirts to her knees and little white cotton gloves that would fit a doll if it weren’t too big. The prosecutor leaves her there telling her God that last night she had had to kill a girl who was liable to make a nuisance of herself before she got through by cutting down Sue Ives’s monthly income considerably. Of course it all may seem a trifle incomprehensible to us, but it’s undoubtedly perfectly clear to God and the prosecutor.

“I think that that is a fair and accurate statement of the state’s case, though Mr. Farr undoubtedly can—and will—make it sound a great deal more plausible when he gets at it. But that’s what it boils down to, and all the specious reasoning and forensic and histrionic ability in the world won’t make it one atom less preposterous. That’s their case.

“And on what evidence are we asked to believe this incredible farrago? I’ll tell you. We have the word of a hysterical and morbidly sensitive girl with a supposed grievance that she overheard a telephone conversation; we have the word of a vindictive young vixen who is leading nothing more nor less than a life of sin that she planted a note and failed to find it again; we have the disjointed narrative of an unfortunate fellow so far gone in drink, and love that he was half out of his senses at the time that he is supposed to be reporting these crucial events and has since blown his brains out; we have the word of an ex-jailbird who might well have more reasons than one for directing the finger of suspicion at a convenient victim; we have a trooper, eager for credit and prominence, swearing to you that he can as clearly recognize and identify a scrap of earth bearing the imprint of a bit of tire as though it were the upturned countenance of his favourite child—a bit of tire, gentlemen, which undoubtedly has some hundreds of millions of twins in this capacious country of ours.

“It is on this evidence, fantastic though it may sound, that my distinguished adversary is asking you to condemn to death a gentle lady and an honest gentleman. On the testimony of a neurotic, a love thief, a jailbird, and a drunkard! These are plain words to describe plain truths. I propose to produce witnesses of unimpeachable record to substantiate every one of them.

“It is, frankly, a great temptation to me to rest the case for the defense here and now; because in all honesty I cannot see how it would take any twelve sane men in this country five consecutive minutes to reach and return a verdict of not guilty. Remember, it does not devolve on me to prove that Susan Ives and Stephen Bellamy are innocent, but on the state to prove that they are guilty. If they have proved that these two are guilty, then they have proved that I am. I believe absolutely that one is not more absurd than the other.

“On that profound conviction I could, I say, rest this case. But there is a bare possibility that some minor aspects of the case are not so clear to you as they are to me—there is a passionate desire on my part to leave not one stone unturned in behalf of either of my clients—and there is also, I confess, a very human desire to confront and confound some of the glib crew who have mounted the steps to that stand day after day somewhat too greatly concerned to swear away two human lives. It will not be a lengthy and exhausting performance, I promise. Four or five honest men and women will suffice, and you will find, I believe, that truth travels as fast as light.

“Nor shall I produce the hundreds upon hundreds of character witnesses that I could bring before you to tell you that of all the fine and true and gallant souls that have crossed their paths, the most gallant, the finest and the truest is the girl that this very sovereign state is asking you to brand as a murderess. In the case of the People versus Susan Ives I shall call only one character witness into that box—Susan Ives herself. And if, after you have listened to her, after you have seen her, after you have heard her tell her story, you do not believe that society and the law and the people themselves, clamouring for a victim, have made a frightful and shocking error, it will be because I am not only a bad lawyer but a bad prophet as well. Gentlemen, it is my profound and solemn conviction that whatever I may be as a lawyer, I am in very truth a good prophet!”

“I don’t believe he’s a bad lawyer,” said the red-headed girl breathlessly. “He’s a good lawyer. He is! He makes everyone see just how ridiculous the case against them is. That’s being a good lawyer, isn’t it. That’s making a good speech, isn’t it? That’s——”

“He’s a pompous old jackass,” said the reporter unkindly. “But he loves his Sue, and he did just a little better than he knows how. Not so good at that either. You don’t make a case ridiculous by jeering at it. If——”

“Call Mrs. Platz!” boomed the oblivious object of his strictures.

“Mrs. Adolph Platz!”

Mrs. Platz, minute and meek, with straw-coloured hair and straw-coloured lashes and a small pink nose in a small white face, advanced toward the witness stand with no assurance whatever.

“Mrs. Platz, what was your position on June 19, 1926?”

“I was chambermaid-waitress with Mrs. Alfred Bond at Oyster Bay.”

“Had you been formerly in the employ of Mrs. Patrick Ives?”

“Yes, sir, I was, for about six months in 1925. I just did chamber work there, though.”

“Was your husband there at the time?”

“Yes, sir. Adolph was there as what you might call a useful man. He helped with the furnace and garden and ran the station wagon—things like that.”

“How long had you been married?”

“Not very long, sir—not a year, quite.” Mrs. Platz’s lips were suddenly unsteady.

“Mrs. Platz, why did you leave Mrs. Ives’s employ?”

“Do I have to answer that, sir?”

“I should very much like to have you answer it. Was it because you were discontented with your work?”

“Oh, no, indeed, it wasn’t that; nobody in this world could want a kinder mistress than Mrs. Ives. It was because—it was because of Adolph.”

“What about Adolph, Mrs. Platz?”

“It was because——” She shook her head despairingly, fighting down the shamed, painful flush. “I don’t like talking about it, sir. I’m not one for talking much.”

“I know. Still, the only thing that can help any of us now is truth. I’m sure that you want to help to give us that.”

“Yes, sir, I do. All right then—it was because of the way Adolph was carrying on with Mrs. Ives’s waitress, Melanie.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, I think they wanted me to know it,” said Adolph Platz’s wife, her soft voice suddenly hard and bitter. “He was more like a lunatic over her than a sane, grown-up man—he was indeed. I caught him kissing her twice—once in the pantry and once just behind the garage. They wanted me to catch them.”

“What did you do when you made this discovery?”

“The first time I didn’t do anything; I was too scared and sick and surprised. I didn’t know men did things like that—you know, not the men you married—not decent ones that were your brother’s best friends, like Adolph. Other men, might, but not them. I didn’t do anything but cry some at night. But the next time I saw them I wasn’t so surprised, and I was mad right through to my bones. I jumped right in and told both of them what I thought of them, and then I went right straight to Mrs. Ives and told her I was leaving the minute she could get someone else, and I told her why too. I told her she could keep Adolph, but not me.”

“What happened then?”

“Then she sent for Melanie and Adolph and they both said it wasn’t so.”

“Your Honour——”

“Never mind what anyone said, Mrs. Platz; just tell us what happened.”

“I couldn’t do that without telling you what we were all saying, sir. We were all talking at once, you see, and——”

“Yes. Well, suppose you just tell us what happened as a result of this conference?”

“Adolph and I left, sir. I wouldn’t have stayed no matter what happened after all that—not with me a laughingstock of all those servants for being such a dumbbell about what was going on. And Mrs. Ives didn’t want Adolph without me, so he came too. There wasn’t any way Mrs. Ives could tell which of us was speaking the truth, so she didn’t try; but all the same, she gave Melanie as good a dressing down as——”

“Yes, yes, exactly. Now just what happened after you left Mrs. Ives, Mrs. Platz?”

“Well, after that, sir, we had a pretty hard time. We weren’t happy, you see. I couldn’t forget, and that made it bad for us; and I guess he couldn’t either. Maybe he didn’t want to.”

The flood gates, long closed, were open at last. The small, quiet, tidy person in the witness box was pouring out all her sore heart, oblivious to straining ears, conscious only of the ruddy and reassuring countenance before her.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Platz, but we aren’t permitted to learn the opinions that you formed or the conclusions that you reached. We just want the actual incidents that occurred. Now will you just try to do that?”

The frustrated, troubled eyes met his honestly. “Well, I’ll try, but that sounds pretty hard, sir. What was it you wanted to know?”

“Just what you did when you left Mrs. Ives.”

“Yes, sir. Well, first we tried to get a job together, but we didn’t get much of a one. It was a family of seven, and we did all the work, and Dolph didn’t like it at all; so when spring came he decided to take a position as gardener on Long Island at Oyster Bay, where they wanted a single man to sleep in the garage. We fixed it up so that I was to take a job at Locust Valley as chambermaid, and we’d spend Sundays together, and evenings, too, sometimes. It looked like a pretty good plan, the way things were going, and it didn’t work out so bad until I got that letter.”

“You haven’t told us about any letter, Mrs. Platz.”

“No, sir, I haven’t, that’s a fact. Do you want that I should tell you now?”

“Well, I don’t want you to get ahead of your story. Before you go on, I’d like to clear up one thing. What was the date on which your husband took this position?”

“It was the first of April, 1926. I didn’t get mine till about two weeks later.”

“Did you consider that he had left you for good at that time—deserted you, I mean?”

“I certainly didn’t understand any such a thing.” A spark shone in Mrs. Platz’s mild eye. “He came to see me every Sunday of his life just like clockwork, and about once a week besides.”

“He had talked of leaving you?”

“He certainly didn’t, except once in a while when both of us was mad and didn’t mean anything we said—like he’d say if I didn’t quit nagging he’d walk out and leave me cold, and I’d say nothing would give me any more pleasure—you know, like married people do sometimes.”

Mr. Lambert permitted himself a wintry smile.

“Quite. Divorce was not contemplated by either of you?”

“No, sir, we couldn’t contemplate anything like that. Divorces cost something dreadful; and besides, we hadn’t been married no more than a year about.” Mrs. Platz blinked valiantly through the straw-coloured lashes, her mouth screwed to a small, watery smile.

“So, at the time you were speaking of, your relations with your husband were amiable enough, were they?”

“Yes, sir; I don’t have any complaints to make. Everything was nicer than it had been since the fall before.”

“What changed your relations?”

Mrs. Platz, the painful flush mounting once more, fixed her eyes resolutely on the little patch of floor between her and Mr. Lambert.

“It was that——”

“Just a little louder, please. We all want to hear you, you know.”

“It was that waitress of Mrs. Ives’. She sent for him to come back.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, I’ll tell you how I know it.” Mrs. Platz leaned forward confidentially. It was good, said her quick, eager voice—after all these weary months of silence, it was good to find a friend to listen to this ugly story. “This was the way: Sunday evening came around and he hadn’t never turned up at all.”

“Sunday of what date?”

“Sunday, June twentieth, sir. I didn’t know what in the world to make of it, but Tuesday morning, what do I get but a letter from Dolph saying that——”

“Have you still got that letter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you got it with you?”

“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Platz dipped resourcefully into her shiny black leather bag and produced a soiled bit of blue notepaper.

“This is the original document?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“In your husband’s handwriting?”

“Yes.”

“Your Honour, I ask to have this note marked for identification, after which I offer it in evidence.”

“Just one moment, Your Honour. May I ask on what grounds the correspondence of the Platz family is being introduced into this case?”

“If Your Honour will permit me, I’ll explain why these documents are being introduced,” remarked Mr. Lambert briskly. “They are being introduced in order to attack the credibility of one of the prosecutor’s star witnesses; they are being introduced in order to prove conclusively and specifically that Miss Melanie Cordier is a liar, a perjurer, and a despoiler of homes. I again offer this letter in evidence—I shall have another one to offer later.”

Judge Carver eyed the blue scrap in Mr. Lambert’s fingers with an expression of deep distaste. “You say that this proves that the witness was guilty of perjury?”

“I do, Your Honour.”

“Very well, it may be admitted.”

Mr. Farr permitted himself a gesture of profound annoyance, hastily buried under a resigned shrug. “Very well, Your Honour, no objection.”

“The envelope containing this letter is postmarked Atlantic City, June 20, 1926,” remarked Mr. Lambert with unction. “It says:

“Dear Frieda:

“Well, you will be surprised to get this, I guess, and none too pleased either, which I am not blaming you for. The fact is that I have decided that we had better not see anything more of each other, because Melanie and I, we have decided that we can’t get along any longer without each other and so she has come to me and I have got to look after her.

“The reason that I did not come to see you this week-end was that I went out to Rosemont to see her and she had got in wrong with Mrs. Ives and she was in a dreadful state about this Mrs. Bellamy being killed, and she is very delicate, so I am going to see that she gets a good rest.

“I hope that you will not feel too bad, as this is the best way. Melanie does not know that I am writing, as she is of a very jealous nature and does not want me writing any letters to you, so no more after this one, but I want everything to be square and aboveboard, because that is how I am. It won’t do you any good to look for me, so you can save yourself the trouble, because no matter how often you found me, I wouldn’t come back, as Melanie is very delicate and needs me. Hoping that you have no hard feelings toward me, as I haven’t any toward you,

“Yours truly, “Adolph Platz.”

Adolph Platz’s wife sat listening to this ingenuous document with an inscrutable expression on her small, colourless face. It was impossible to tell whether, in spite of the amiable injunctions of the surprising Mr. Platz, she yielded to the indulgence of hard feelings or not.

“Have you ever seen Mr. Platz since the receipt of this letter, Mrs. Platz?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ever try to find him?”

“No, sir, I didn’t; but my brother Gus did. He was set on finding him, and he spent all his holidays looking in Atlantic City. He said that he hadn’t any hard feelings against him, but it certainly would be a real treat to break every bone in his body.”

“And did he?”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t believe that he broke any bones—not actually broke them.”

“I mean—did he find him?”

“Oh, yes, sir, he found him in a very nice boarding house called Sunrise Lodge.”

“Yes, exactly. Was Miss Cordier with him?”

The colourless face burned suddenly, painfully. “Yes, sir, she was.”

“Now did you ever hear from this husband of yours again, Mrs. Platz?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In September—over a month ago.”

“Have you got the letter with you?”

“I have, sir—right here.”

“I offer this in evidence too.”

“No objection,” said Mr. Farr bitterly. “I should appreciate the opportunity of inspecting these letters after Court adjourns, however.”

“Oh, gladly, gladly,” cried Mr. Lambert, sonorously jocose. “More than happy to afford you the opportunity. Now the envelope of this letter is postmarked New York, September 21, 1926. It says:

“Dear Frieda:

“Well, this is to say that by the time you get this I will be on my way to Canada. I have a first-class opportunity to get into a trucking business up there that has all kinds of possibilities, if you get what I mean, and I think it is better for all concerned if I start in on a new life, as you might say, as the old one was not so good. Melanie thinks so, too, as she is very sensitive about all these things that have happened, and she thinks that it would be much nicer to start a new life too. She will join me when she is through being subpœnaed for this Bellamy trial, which is all pretty fierce, wouldn’t you say so too. She doesn’t know that I am writing you, because she is still jealous, but I thought I would like you to know for the sake of old times, as you might say, and also so that you can let Gus know that it won’t do him any good to go looking for me any more. He will probably see that if you explain how I am starting this new life in Canada. Hoping that this finds you as it leaves me,

“Yours truly, “Adolph Platz.”

“Have you ever heard from your husband since you received this letter, Mrs. Platz?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever heard of him?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, that will be all. Cross-examine.”

“No questions,” said Mr. Farr indifferently, and the small, unhappy shadow that had been Adolph Platz’s wife was gone.

“Well,” said the reporter judicially to the red-headed girl, “you have to grant him one thing. He knows when to leave bad enough alone.”

“Call Mrs. Shea.”

“Mrs. Timothy Shea!”

Mrs. Timothy Shea advanced belligerently toward the witness box, her forbidding countenance inappropriately decorated with a large lace turban enhanced with obese violets and a jet butterfly. She seated herself solidly, thumped a black beaded bag on to the rail before her and breathed audibly through an impressive nose.

“Mrs. Shea, what is your occupation?”

“I keep a boarding house in Atlantic City—known far and wide as the decentest in that place or in any other, as well as the most genteel and the best table.”

“Yes. Just answer the question, please. Never mind the rest. Were you——”

“I’ll thank you to let me be after telling the truth,” said Mrs. Shea, raising her voice to an unexpected volume. “It’s the truth I swore to tell and the truth I’m after telling. The decentest and the——”

“Yes, undoubtedly,” said Mr. Lambert hastily. “But what I wanted to know was whether you were in court at the time that Miss Cordier was testifying?”

“I was there. It will be a long day before I forget that day, and you may well say so.”

“Had you seen her before?”

“Had I seen her before?” inquired Mrs. Shea with a loud and melodramatic laugh. “Every day of my life for close on three months, mincing around with her eyes on the ground and her nose in the air as fine as you please, more shame to her.”

“Did you know her as Miss Cordier?”

“I did not.”

“Under what name did you know her?”

“Under the name she gave me and every other living soul in the place—the name of Mrs. Adolph Platz, that ought to have burned the skin off her tongue to use it.”

“She and Mr. Platz lived with you as man and wife?”

“Well, I ought to have lived in this world long enough to know that no man and his wife would go on forever playing the love-sick fools like those two,” remarked Mrs. Shea grimly. “But I thought they were new wed and would soon be over it.”

“Was Mr. Platz staying with you regularly?”

“Seven days and nights of the week.”

“Did he pay you regularly?”

“He did that!”

“Did he seem to have a regular profession?”

“Well, that’s all whether you’d call bootlegging a regular profession.”

“Now, Your Honour,” remonstrated Mr. Farr, who had been following this absorbing recital with an air of possibly fictitious boredom, “I don’t want to indulge in any legal hairsplitting, but surely a line should be drawn somewhere when it comes to this type of baseless slander and innuendo.”

“Do I understand that you have evidence of Mr. Platz’s activities?” inquired Judge Carver severely.

“The evidence of two eyes and two ears and a nose,” remarked Mrs. Shea with spirit. “Goings and comings and doings such as——”

“That will do, Mrs. Shea. The question hardly seems material. It is excluded. You may take your exception, Mr. Lambert.”

Mr. Lambert, thus prematurely adjured, stared indignantly about him and returned somewhat uncertainly to his task.

“Is it a fact that Mr. Platz’s relationship with Miss Cordier during their sojourn under your roof was simply that of a friend?”

“Fact!” Mrs. Shea snorted derisively. “’Tis a black-hearted lie off a black-hearted baggage. Friend, indeed!”

“That will do, Mrs. Shea,” said Judge Carver ominously. “Mr. Lambert, I request you to keep your witness in hand.”

“It is my endeavour to do so,” replied Mr. Lambert with some sincerity and much dignity. “I will be greatly obliged, Mrs. Shea, if you omit any comments or characterizations from your replies. Will you be good enough to give us the day when you first discovered that Mrs. Cordier and Mr. Platz were not married?”

“September seventeenth.”

“Have you any way of fixing the date?”

“You may well say so. Wasn’t it six years since Tim Shea died, and didn’t that big tall Swede come roaring down there saying that the two of them was no more married than Jackie Coogan and the Queen of Spain, and that he was going to beat the life out of his dear brother-in-law, Mr. Adolph Platz? And didn’t he go and do it, without so much as by your leave or saving your presence, and in the decentest and——”

“Madam!” Judge Carver’s tone would have daunted Boadicea.

“And are those what you call comments and characterizations?” inquired Mrs. Shea indignantly. “Well, God save us all!”

“That will be all, thank you, Mrs. Shea,” said Mr. Lambert hastily. “Cross-examine.”

“No questions,” said Mr. Farr with simple fervour. Mrs. Shea, looking baffled but menacing, moved forward with a majestic stride, leaving the courtroom in a state of freely expressed delight. Across the hum of their voices boomed Mr. Lambert’s suddenly impressive summons.

“Mr. Bellamy, will you be good enough to take the stand?”

Very quietly he came, the man who had been sitting there so motionless for so many days for them to gape their fill at, moving forward now to afford them better fare. Dark-eyed, low-voiced, courteous, and grave, he advanced toward the place of trial with an unhurried tread. In the lift of his head there was something curiously and effortlessly noble, thought the red-headed girl. Murderers should not hold their heads like that.

“Mr. Bellamy, where were you on the night of June nineteenth at nine-thirty o’clock?”

The proverbial dropped pin would have made a prodigious clatter in the silence that hovered over the waiting courtroom.

“I was in my car on the River Road, about a mile or so from Lakedale.”

“You were not in the neighbourhood of the Thorne estate, Orchards?”

“Not within ten miles—twelve, perhaps, would be more accurate?”

“Was anyone with you?”

“Yes; Mrs. Patrick Ives was with me.”

“You have a way of fixing the time?”

“I have.”

“I will ask you to do so later. Will you tell us now at what time you left the Rosemont Country Club?”

“At a little before six, I think. We dined at quarter to seven, and my wife always dressed before dinner.”

“Had you noticed Mr. Farwell in conversation with Mrs. Ives before you left?”

“Yes; my wife had called my attention to the fact that they seemed deeply absorbed in a conversation on the club steps.”

“Just how did she call your attention to it?”

“She said, ‘Oh, look, El’s got another girl!’”

“Did you make any comment on that?”

“Yes; I said, ‘That’s clear gain for you, darling’——” He caught himself up, olive skin a tone paler, teeth deep in his lip. “I said, ‘That’s clear gain for you, but a bit hard on Sue.’”

“You were aware of Mr. Farwell’s devotion to your wife?”

Behind Stephen Bellamy’s tragic eyes someone smiled, charming, tolerant, ironic—and was gone.

“It was impossible to be unaware of it. Mr. Farwell was candour itself on the subject, even with those who would have been more grateful for reticence.”

“Your wife made no attempt to conceal it?”

“To conceal it? Oh, no. There was nothing whatever to conceal; his infatuation for Mimi was common property. She laughed about it, though I think that sometimes it annoyed her.”

“Did she ever mention getting a divorce in order to marry Farwell?”

“A divorce? Mimi?” His eyes, blankly incredulous, met Mr. Lambert’s inquiring gaze. After a moment, he said, slowly and evenly, “No, she never mentioned a divorce.”

“If she had asked for one, would you have granted it to her?”

“I would have granted her anything that she asked for.”

“But you would have been surprised?”

Stephen Bellamy smiled with white lips. “‘Surprised’ is rather an inadequate word.” He sought for one more adequate—failed—and dismissed it with an eloquent motion of his hands. “I should have been more—well, astounded than it is possible for me to say.”

“So you had no inkling that your wife was contemplating any such action?”

“Not the faintest, not the——” Once more he pulled himself up, and after a moment’s pause, he leaned forward. “That, too, sounds ridiculously inadequate. I should like to make myself quite clear; apparently I haven’t succeeded in doing so. I believed my wife to be completely happy. You see, I believed that she loved me.”

He was pale enough now to gratify the most exigent reporter of emotions, but his pleasant, leisurely voice did not falter, and it was the ruddy Lambert, not he, who seemed embarrassed.

“Yes, quite so—naturally. I wished simply to establish the fact that you were not in her confidence as to her—er—attitude toward Mr. Ives. Now, Mr. Bellamy, I am going to ask you to tell us as directly and concisely as possible just what happened from the time that you and Mrs. Bellamy finished dinner that evening up to the time that you retired for the night.”

“I did not retire for the night.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said that I did not retire for the night. Sleep was entirely out of the question, and I didn’t care to go up to our—to my room.”

“Naturally—quite so. I will reframe my question. Will you be good enough to tell us what occurred on the evening of June nineteenth from the conclusion of dinner to, say, eleven o’clock?”

“I will do my best. I’m afraid that I haven’t an especially good memory for details. Mimi had said on the way home from the club that she had told the Conroys that she would join them after dinner at the movies in Rosemont. Quite a party were going, and I asked if they were going to stop by for her. She said no; that she had arranged to meet them at the theatre, as there was no room in their car. I suggested that I drive her over, and she said not to bother, as I’d have to walk back, because she wanted to keep the car; but I told her that I didn’t mind the walk and that I wanted to pick up some tobacco and a paper in the village.

“After dinner we went out to the garage together; the self-starter hadn’t been working very well, and just as I got it started, Mimi called my attention to the fact that one of the rear tires was flat. She asked what time it was, and when I told her that it was five minutes to eight, she said that there wouldn’t be time to change the tire, but that if she hurried she could catch the Conroys and make them give her a lift, even if they were crowded. They lived only about five minutes from us.”

“North of you or south of you, Mr. Bellamy?”

“North of us—away from the village, toward the club. I wanted to go with her, but she said that it would be awkward for me to get away if I turned up there, and it was only a five-minute walk in broad daylight. So then I let her go.”

He sat silent, staring after that light swift figure, slipping farther away from him—farther—farther still.

“You did not accompany her to the gate?”

Stephen Bellamy jerked back those wandering eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“You didn’t accompany her to the gate?”

“No. I was looking over the tire to see whether I could locate the damage; I was particularly anxious to get it in shape if I could, because we were planning to motor over next day to a nursery in Lakedale to get some things for the garden—some little lilacs and flowering almonds and some privet for a hedge that we——” He broke off abruptly, and after a moment said gently, “I beg your pardon; that’s got absolutely nothing to do with it, of course. What I was trying to explain was that I was endeavouring to locate the tire trouble. In a minute or so I did.”

“You ascertained its nature?”

“Yes; there was a cut in it—a small, sharp cut about half an inch long.”

“Is that a usual tire injury?”

“I am not a tire expert, but it seemed to me highly unusual. I didn’t give it much thought, however, except to wonder what in the world I’d gone over to cause a thing like that. I was in a hurry to get it fixed, as I said, and I remembered that I’d seen Orsini standing by the gate as we went by to the garage. I went out to ask him to get me a hand, but he’d started down the road toward Rosemont. I could see him quite a bit off, hurrying along, and I remembered that we’d given him the evening off. So I went back to the garage, took my coat off and got to work myself. I’d just got the shoe off when I heard——”

“Just a minute, Mr. Bellamy. Did you see Mrs. Bellamy again when you went to the gate?”

“Oh, no; she’d been gone several minutes; and in any case there is a jog in the road two or three hundred feet north of our house that would have concealed her completely.”

“She was headed in the general direction of Orchards?”

“In the direction of Orchards—yes.”

“It was along this route that the Perrytown bus passed?”

“Yes.”

“Please continue.”

“As I was saying, I had succeeded in getting the shoe off when I heard the telephone ringing in the library of our house. I dropped everything and went in to answer it, as there was no one else in the house.”

“Who was on the telephone, Mr. Bellamy?”

“It was Sue—Mrs. Ives. She wanted to know if Mimi was at home.”

“Will you give us the conversation, to the best of your recollection?”

“Yes. I said that she was not; that she had gone to the movies in Rosemont with the Conroys. Mrs. Ives asked how long she had been gone. I told her possibly ten or fifteen minutes. She asked me if I was sure that she had gone there, and I said perfectly sure, and asked her what in the world she was talking about. She said that it was essential to see me at once, and asked if I could get there in ten minutes. I said not quite as soon as that, as I was changing a tire, but that I thought that I could make it in fifteen or twenty. She asked me to meet her at the back road, and then—yes, then she asked me if Elliot had said anything to me. I said, ‘Sue, for God’s sake, what’s all this about?’ And she said never mind, to hurry, or something like that, and rang off before I could say anything more.”

“What did you do next, Mr. Bellamy?”

“Well, for a minute I didn’t know what to do—I was too absolutely dumfounded by the entire performance. And then, quite suddenly, I had a horrible conviction that something had happened to Mimi, and that Sue was trying to break it to me. I felt absolutely mad with terror, and then I thought that if I could get Mrs. Conroy on the telephone there was just a chance that they mightn’t have left yet, or that maybe some of the servants might have seen Mimi come in and could tell me that she was all right.

“Anyway, I rang up, and Nell Conroy answered the ’phone, and said no, that Mimi hadn’t turned up; and that anyway they had told her not to meet them till eight-thirty, because the feature film didn’t go on till then. I said that Mimi must have made a mistake—that she’d probably gone to the theatre—something—anything—I don’t remember. All that I do remember is that I rang off somehow and stood there literally sweating with terror, trying to think what to do next. I remember putting my hand up to loosen my collar and finding it drenched; I’d forgotten all about Sue. All I could remember was that something must have happened to Mimi, and that she might need me, and that I didn’t know where she was. And then I remembered that Sue had told me to hurry and that she could explain everything. I tore out to the garage and went at the new tire like a maniac; it didn’t take me more than about eight minutes to get it on, and not more than three or four more to get over to the back road where I was to meet Sue. I didn’t pay much attention to speed limits.”

“Just where is this road, Mr. Bellamy?”

“Well, I don’t know whether I can make it clear. It’s a connecting road out of Rosemont between the main highway—the Perrytown Road, you know—and a parallel road about five miles west, called the River Road, that leads to Lakedale. It runs by about a quarter mile back of the Ives’ house.”

“Did you arrive at this back road before Mrs. Ives?”

“No. Mrs. Ives was waiting for me when I got there. I asked her whether she had been there long, and she said only a minute or two. I asked her then whether anything had happened to Mimi. She said, ‘What do you mean—happened to her?’ I said an accident of any kind, and added that I’d been practically off my head ever since she had telephoned, as I had called up the Conroys and discovered that she wasn’t there. Sue said, ‘So Elliot was right!’ She had been standing by the side of the car, talking, but when she said that, she looked around her quickly and stepped into the seat beside me. She said, ‘I’d rather not have anyone see us just now. Let’s drive over to the River Road. Mimi hasn’t been hurt, Steve. She’s gone to meet Pat at Orchards.’ I was so thunderstruck, and so immensely, so incalculably, relieved that Mimi wasn’t hurt that I laughed out loud. That sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. I laughed, and Sue said, ‘Don’t laugh, Steve; Mimi’s having an affair with Pat—she’s been having one for weeks. They don’t love us—they love each other.’ I said, ‘That’s a damned silly lie. Who told it to you—Elliot Farwell?’”

“Were you driving at the time that this conversation took place?”

“Oh, yes, we were well up the back road. I’d started the minute she asked me to. Shall I go on?”

“Please.”

“Do you want the whole conversation?”

“Everything that was said as to the relations of Mrs. Bellamy and Mr. Ives.”

“Very well. She told me that unfortunately it was no lie; that for several weeks they had been using the gardener’s cottage at Orchards for a place of rendezvous, and that Farwell had even seen them going there. I said that it made no difference to me whatever what Farwell had seen—that I wouldn’t believe it if I had seen it myself. I asked her if Farwell hadn’t been drinking when he told her this, and she said yes—that unless he had been he wouldn’t have told her. I asked her if she didn’t know that Elliot Farwell was an abject idiot about Mimi, and she said, ‘Oh, Stephen, not so abject an idiot as you—you who won’t even listen to the truth that you don’t want to hear.’ I said ‘I’ll listen to anything that you want to tell me, but truth isn’t what you hear—it’s what you believe. I don’t believe that Mimi doesn’t love me.’

“She said, ‘Where is she now, Steve?’ And I said, ‘At the movies. She probably met someone on the road who gave her a lift; or else she decided to walk straight there, as she knew that the Conroys’ car would be crowded.’ She said, ‘She’s not at the movies. She’s waiting for Pat in the gardener’s cottage.’ I said, ‘And has Pat gone to meet her?’ And she said, ‘No, this time he hasn’t gone to meet her.’ I said, ‘What makes you think that?’ Sue said, ‘I don’t think it; I know it.’ I said, ‘Oh, yes, he was going to Dallases to play poker, wasn’t he?’ And after a moment she said, ‘Yes, that’s where he said he was going. I happened to know that there’s been a slip in their plan to meet to-night.’

“Then she told me that she believed they were planning to run away, and that the reason she had wanted to see me was to tell me that she would never give Pat a divorce as long as she lived, and she thought if I told Mimi that before it was too late it might stop her.

“We’d reached the River Road by this time, and were well on our way to Lakedale, and I said, ‘Sue, we’ve talked enough nonsense for to-night; I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’re running low on gas, and when we get to Lakedale we’ll get some, turn around and head back for Rosemont. We can see whether the movies are out as we go through the village, and if they aren’t, you can come back to our house and wait for a minute or so until Mimi gets there. Then you can put the whole thing up to her and take your punishment like a lady when you find what a goose you’ve been. Is that a bargain?’ And she said, ‘All right, that’s a bargain.’

“We’d been driving pretty slowly, so that it was after nine when we got into Lakedale; there were two or three people ahead of us at the gas station—Saturday night, you know—and Sue was very thirsty, so we asked the man at the gas pump if he could get her some water, and he