The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

“Were you familiar with that number?”

  “Oh, quite. I had called it up for Mrs. Ives several times.”

  “Whose number was it, Miss Page?”

  “It was Mr. Stephen Bellamy’s telephone number.”

  The courtroom pulsed to galvanized attention, its eyes whipping to Stephen Bellamy’s tired, dark face. It was lit with a strange, friendly, reassuring smile, directed straight at Susan Ives’s startled countenance. For a moment she stared back at him soberly, then slowly the color came back into her parted lips, which curved gravely to mirror that voiceless greeting. For a long moment their eyes rested on each other before they returned to their accustomed guarded inscrutability. As clearly as though they were shouting across the straining faces, those lingering eyes called to each other, “Courage!”

  “You say that you could hear Mrs. Ives distinctly, Miss Page?”

  “Very distinctly.”

  “Will you tell us just what she said?”

  “She said”—Miss Page frowned a little in concentration and then went on steadily—“she said, ‘Is that you, Stephen? . . . It’s Sue—Sue Ives. Is Mimi there? . . . How long ago did she leave? . . . Are you sure she went there? . . . No, wait—this is vital. I have to see you at once. Can you get the car here in ten minutes? . . . No, not at the house. Stop at the far corner of the back road. I’ll come through the back gate to meet you. . . . Elliot didn’t say anything to you? . . . No, no, never mind that—just hurry.’____”

  “Is that all that she said?”

  “She said good-bye.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I turned back from the porch steps and circled the house to the right, going in by the side door and on up to the nursery.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I didn’t want Mrs. Ives to know that I had overheard her conversation. I thought if by any chance she saw me coming in through the side door, it would not occur to her that I could have heard it from there.”

  “I see. When you got up to the nursery was Mr. Ives still there?”

  “Yes; he came out of the night nursery when he heard me and said that the children were quiet now.”

  “Did he say anything else to you?”

  “Yes; he still had the boat in his hand, and he said there was something that he wanted to fix about the rudder, and that he’d bring it back in the morning.”

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please tell us what you said.”

  “I told him that I had just overheard a telephone conversation that his wife was having with Mr. Bellamy, and that I thought he should know about it.”

  “Did you tell him about it?”

  “Not at that moment. As I was about to do so, Mrs. Ives herself called up from the foot of the stairs to ask Mr. Ives if he still intended to go to the poker game at the Dallases. . . . Shall I go on?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Mr. Ives said yes, and Mrs. Ives said that in that case she would go to the movies with the Conroys, who had asked her before dinner. Mr. Ives asked her if he couldn’t drop her there, and she said no—that it was only a short walk and that she needed the exercise. She went straight out of the front door, I think. I heard it slam behind her.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I said, ‘Your wife has gone to meet Stephen Bellamy.’ ”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Mr. Ives said, ‘Don’t be a damned little fool.’____”

  Miss Page smiled meekly and appreciatively at the audible ripple from the other side of the railing.

  “Did you say anything to that?”

  “I simply repeated the telephone conversation,”

  “Word for word?”

  “Word for word, and when I’d finished, he said, ‘My God, somebody’s told her.’____”

  “I object. Your Honor, I ask that that be stricken from the record!” Lambert’s frenzied clamor filled the room. “What Mr. Ives said____”

  “It may be stricken out.”

  Judge Carver’s tone was the sternest of rebukes, but the unchastened prosecutor stood staring down at her demure face triumphant for a moment, and then, with a brief expressive gesture toward the defense, turned her abruptly over to their mercies. “That’s all. Cross-examine.”

  “No lunch to-day either?”

  “No, I’ve got to get these notes off.”

  The red-headed girl proudly exhibited an untidy pile of telegraph blanks and a much-bitten pencil. The gold pencil and the black leather notebook had been flung contemptuously out of the cab window on the way back to the boarding house the night before.

  “Me too. We’ll finish ’em up here and I’ll get ’em off for you. . . . Here’s your apple.”

  The red-headed girl took it obediently, a fine glow invading her. How simply superb to be working there beside a real reporter; such a fire of comradeship and good will burned in her that it set twin fires flaming in her cheeks. The newspaper game! There was nothing like it, absolutely. Her pencil tore across the page in a fever of industry.

  It was almost fifty minutes before the reporter spoke again, and then it was only in reply to a question: “What—what did you think of her?”

  “Think of whom?”

  “Of Kathleen Page.”

  “Well, you don’t happen to have a pat of the very best butter about you?”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To see if it would melt in her mouth.”

  “It wouldn’t,” said the red-headed girl; and added fiercely, “I hate her—nasty, hypocritical, unprincipled little toad!”

  “Oh, come, come! I hope that you won’t allow any of this to creep into those notes of yours.”

  “She probably killed Mimi Bellamy herself,” replied the newest member of the Fourth Estate darkly. “I wouldn’t put it past her for a moment. She____”

  “The Court!”

  The red-headed girl flounced to her feet, the fires still burning in her cheeks, eyeing Miss Page’s graceful ascent to the witness box with a baleful eye. “I hope she’s headed straight for all the trouble there is,” she remarked between clenched teeth to the reporter.

  For the moment it looked as though her wish were about to be gratified.

  Mr. Lambert lumbered menacingly toward the witness box, his ruddy face grim and relentless. “You remember a great deal about that evening, don’t you, Miss Page?’’

  “I have a very good memory.” Miss Page’s voice was the prettiest mixture of pride and humility.

  “Do you happen to remember the book that you were reading?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Give us the title, please.”

  “The book was Cytherea, one of Hergesheimer’s old novels.”

  “Was it your own book?”

  “No, it came from Mr. Ives’s study.”

  “Had he loaned it to you?”

  “No.”

  “Had Mrs. Ives loaned it to you?”

  “No one had loaned it to me; I had simply borrowed it from the study.”

  “Oh, you were given the run of the books in Mr. Ives’s study? I see.” Miss Page sat silent, eyeing him steadily, only a slight stain of color under the clear, pale skin betraying the fact that she had heard him. “Were you?” demanded Mr. Lambert savagely, leaning toward her.

  “Was I what?”

  “Were you given the run of Mr. Ives’s library?”

  “I had never stopped to formulate it in that way. I supposed that there could be no possible objection to taking an occasional book.”

  “I see. You regarded yourself as one of the family?”

  “Oh, hardly that.”

  “Did you take your meals with them?”

  “No.”

  “Spend the evenings with them?”

  “No.”

  Miss Page’s fringed eyes were as luminous and steady as ever, but the stain in her c
heeks had spread to her throat.

  “You resented that fact, didn’t you?”

  The prosecutor’s voice whipped out of the brief silence like a sword leaping from the scabbard: “I object to that question. To paraphrase my learned opponent, what possible relevance has Miss Page’s sense of resentment or contentment got to do with the murder of this girl?”

  “And to quote my witty adversary’s reply, Your Honor, it has everything to do with it. We propose definitely to attack Miss Page’s credibility. We believe we can show that she detested Mrs. Ives and would not hesitate to do her a disservice.”

  “Oh,” said the prosecutor, with much deliberation, “that’s what you propose to show, is it?”

  Even the clatter of the judge’s gavel did not cause him to turn his head an inch. He continued to gaze imperturbably at the occupant in the box, who, demure and pensive, returned it unswervingly. In the brief moment occupied by the prosecutor’s skilful intervention the flush had faded entirely. Miss Page looked as cool and tranquil as a little spring in the forest.

  “You may answer the question, Miss Page,” said the judge a trifle sternly.

  “May I have the question repeated?”

  “I asked whether you didn’t resent the fact that you were treated as a servant rather than as a member of the household.”

  “It never entered my head that I was being treated as a servant,” said Miss Page gently.

  “It never entered your head?”

  “Not for a moment.”

  “You were perfectly satisfied with your situation in every way?”

  “Oh, perfectly.”

  “No cause for complaint whatever?”

  “None whatever.”

  “Miss Page, is this your writing? Don’t trouble to read it—simply tell me whether it is your writing.”

  Miss Page bent docilely over the square of pale blue paper. “It looks like my writing.”

  “I didn’t ask you whether it looked like it—I asked you if it was your writing.”

  “I really couldn’t tell you that. Handwriting can be perfectly imitated, can’t it?”

  “Are you cross-examining me or am I cross-examining you?”

  Miss Page permitted herself a small, fugitive smile. “I believe that you are supposed to be cross-examining me.”

  “Then be good enough to answer my question. To the best of your belief, is this your writing?”

  “It is either my writing or a very good imitation of it.”

  The outraged Mr. Lambert snatched the innocuous bit of paper from under his composed victim’s nose and proffered it to the clerk of the court as though it were something unclean. “I offer this letter in evidence.”

  “Just one moment,” said the prosecutor gently. “I don’t want to waste the Court’s time with a lot of useless objections, but it seems to me that this letter has not yet been identified by Miss Page, and as you are evidently unwilling to let her read it, for some occult reason that I don’t presume to understand, I must object to its being offered in evidence.”

  “What does this letter purport to be, Mr. Lambert?” inquired the judge amiably.

  Mr. Lambert turned his flaming countenance on the Court. “It purports to be exactly what it is, Your Honor—a letter from Miss Page to her former employer, Mrs. Ives. And I am simply amazed at this hocus-pocus about her not being able to identify her own writing being tolerated for a minute. I____”

  “Kindly permit the Court to decide what will be tolerated in the conduct of this case,” remarked the judge, in a voice from which all traces of amiability had been swept as by a cold wind. “What is the date of the purported letter?”

  “May 7, 1925.”

  “Did you write Mrs. Ives a letter on that date, Miss Page?”

  “That’s quite a time ago, Your Honor. I certainly shouldn’t like to make any such statement under oath.”

  “Would it refresh your memory if you were to look over the letter?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “I think that you had better let Miss Page look over the letter if you wish to offer it in evidence, Mr. Lambert.”

  Once more Mr. Lambert menacingly tendered the blue square, which Miss Page considered in a leisurely and composed manner in no way calculated to tranquillize the storm of indignation that was rocking him. Her perusal completed, she lifted a gracious countenance to the inflamed one before her. “Oh, yes, that is my letter.”

  Mr. Lambert snatched it ungratefully. “I again offer this in evidence.”

  “No objection,” said the prosecutor blandly.

  “Now that you have fortified yourself with its contents, Miss Page, I will ask you to reconcile some of the statements that it contains with some later statements of yours made here under oath this afternoon:

  “MY DEAR MRS. IVES:

  “I would like to call your attention to the fact that for the past three nights the food served me has evidently been that discarded by your servants as unfit for consumption. As you do not care to discuss these matters with me personally, I am forced to resort to this means of communication, and I ask you to believe that it is literally impossible to eat the type of meal that has been put before me lately. Boiled mutton which closely resembled boiled dishrags, stewed turnips, and a kind of white jelly that I was later informed was intended to be rice, and a savory concoction of dried apricots, and sour milk was the menu for yesterday evening. You have made it abundantly clear to me that you regard me as a species of overpaid servant, but I confess that I had not gathered that slow starvation was to be one of my duties.

  “Sincerely,

  “KATHLEEN PAGE.”

  “Kindly reconcile your statement that it had never entered your head that you were being treated as a servant with this sentence: “You have made it abundantly clear that you regard me as a species of overpaid servant.’____”

  “That was a silly overwrought letter written by me when I was still suffering from the effects of a nervous and physical collapse. I had completely forgotten ever having written it.”

  “Oh, you had, had you? Completely forgotten it, eh? Never thought of it from that day to this? Well, just give us the benefit of that wonderful memory of yours once more and tell us the effect of this letter on your relations with Mrs. Ives?”

  “It had a very fortunate effect,” said Miss Page, with her prettiest smile. “Mrs. Ives very kindly rectified the situation that I was indiscreet enough to complain of, and the whole matter was cleared up and adjusted most happily.”

  “What?” The astounded monosyllable cracked through the courtroom like a rifle shot.

  “I said that it was all adjusted most happily,” replied Miss Page sunnily and helpfully, raising her voice slightly.

  Actual stupor had apparently descended on her interrogator.

  “Miss Page, you make it difficult for me to credit my ears. Is it not the fact that Mrs. Ives sent for you at once on receipt of that note, offered you a month’s wages in lieu of notice, and requested you to leave the following day?”

  “Nothing could be farther from the fact.”

  Mr. Lambert’s voice seemed about to forsake him at the calm finality of this reply. He opened his mouth twice with no audible results, but at the third effort something closely resembling a roar emerged: “Are you telling me that you did not go on your knees to Mrs. Ives in floods of tears and tell her that it would be signing your death warrant to turn you out then, and implore her to give you another chance?”

  “I am telling you,” said Miss Page equably, “that nothing remotely resembling that occurred. Mrs. Ives was extremely regretful and considerate, and there was not a word as to my leaving.”

  Apoplexy hovered tentatively over Mr. Lambert’s bulky shoulder. “Do you deny that two days before this murder your insolence had once more precipitated a scene that had resulted in your dismissal, and that you were intending to leave on the following Monday?”

  “Most certainly I deny it.”

  “A scene that
arose from the fact that during Mrs. Ives’s absence in town you ordered the car to take you and a friend of yours from White Plains for a three-hour drive in the country, and that when Mrs. Ives telephoned from town to have the car meet her, as she was returning that afternoon instead of the next day, she was informed that you were out in it and she was obliged to take a taxi?”

  “That is not true either.”

  “It is not true that you went for a drive with a young man that afternoon?”

  “Oh, that is quite true; but I had Mrs. Ives’s permission to do so before she left.”

  For a moment Mr. Lambert turned his crimson countenance toward Susan Ives. She had lifted her head and was staring, steadily and contemptuously, at her erstwhile nursery governess, whose limpid eyes moved only from Mr. Lambert to Mr. Farr and back. Even the contempt could not extinguish a frankly diverted twist to her lips at the pat audacity of the gentle replies. Evidently Mr. Lambert could find no comfort there. He turned back to his witness.

  “Miss Page, do you know what perjury is?”

  “Your Honor____”

  Miss Page’s lightning promptitude cut through the prosecutor’s voice: “It’s a demonstrably false statement made under oath, isn’t it?”

  “Just wait a minute, please, Miss Page. Your Honor, I respectfully submit that this entire line of cross-examination by Mr. Lambert is extremely objectionable. I have let it go this far because I don’t want to prolong this trial with a lot of unnecessary bickering; but, as far as I can see, he has simply been entertaining the jury with a series of exciting little episodes that there is not a shred of reason to believe are not the offspring of his own fertile imagination. According to Miss Page, they are just exactly that. They are, however, skilfully calculated to prejudice her in the eyes of the jury, and when Mr. Lambert goes so far as to imply in no uncertain manner that Miss Page’s denial of these fantasies is perjury, I can no longer____”

  “Your Honor, do you consider this oration for the benefit of the jury proper?” Mr. Lambert’s voice was unsteady with rage.

  “I do not, sir. Nor do I consider it the only impropriety that has occurred. I see no legitimate place in cross-examination for a request for a definition of perjury. However, you have received your reply. You may proceed with your cross-examination.”