The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “Oh, perfectly distinctly.”

  “Could you see the cottage from where you stood at the time?”

  “No; the bend in the road and the high shrubbery hide it completely until you are almost on top of it.”

  “Then you don’t know whether it was lighted when you heard the scream?”

  “No; I only know that it was dark when I reached it a moment or so later.”

  “What did you do when you reached the cottage?”

  “I noticed that it was dark as I ran up the steps, but on the off chance that it might have been the gardener that I had heard, I rang the bell half mechanically and tried the door, as I wanted to explain to him about Mr. Conroy’s visit in the morning. The door was locked.”

  “You had the key on the ring, hadn’t you?”

  “Yes; but I had no reason in the world for going in if the gardener wasn’t there.”

  “You heard no sound from within?”

  “Not a sound.”

  “And nothing from without?”

  “Everything was perfectly quiet.”

  “No one could have passed you at any time?”

  “Oh, certainly not.”

  “Mr. Thorne, would it have been possible for anyone in the cottage to have heard you approaching?”

  “I think that it might have been possible. The night was very still, and the main drive down which I was walking is of crushed gravel. The little drive off it that circles the house is of dirt; I don’t know how clear footsteps would be on that, but of course anyone would have heard me going up the steps. I have a vague impression, too, that I was whistling.”

  “Could anyone have been concealed in the shrubbery about the house?”

  “Oh, quite easily. The shrubbery is very high all about it.”

  “But you noticed no one?”

  “No one.”

  “What did you do after you had decided that the house was empty?”

  “I put the keys under the mat, as had been agreed, and returned to the main house. As I got into my roadster, I looked at my wrist watch by one of the headlights. It was exactly ten minutes to ten.”

  “What caused you to consult your watch?”

  “I’d had a vague notion that I might run over to see my sister for a few minutes, as I was in the neighborhood, but when I discovered that it was nearly ten, I changed my mind and went straight back to Lakedale.”

  “Mr. Thorne, you must have been perfectly aware when the news of the murder came out the next morning that you had information in your possession that would have been of great value to the state. Why did you not communicate it at once?”

  Douglas Thorne met the prosecutor’s gaze steadily, with a countenance free of either defiance or concern. “Because, frankly, I had no desire whatever to be involved, however remotely, in a murder case. I was still debating my duty in the matter two days later, when my sister and Mr. Bellamy were arrested, and the papers announced that the state had positive information that the murder was committed between quarter to nine and quarter to ten on the night of the nineteenth. That seemed to render my meager observations quite valueless, and I accordingly kept them to myself.”

  “And I suppose you fully realize now that you have put yourself in a highly equivocal position by doing so?”

  “Why, no, Mr. Farr; I may be unduly obtuse, but I assure you that I realize nothing of the kind.”

  “Let me endeavor to enlighten you. According to your own story, you must have heard that scream between nine-thirty and twenty-five minutes to ten, granting that you spent three or four minutes on the cottage porch and took ten minutes to walk back to the house. According to you, you arrived at the scene of action within three minutes of that scream, to find everything dark, silent and orderly. It is the state’s contention that somewhere in that orderly darkness, practically within reach of your outstretched hand, stood your idolized sister. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “It is quite a coincidence that that should be your contention,” remarked Douglas Thorne, a dangerous glint in his eye. “But I know of no scandal attached to coincidence.”

  “Well, this particular type of coincidence has landed more than one man in jail as accessory after the fact,” remarked the prosecutor grimly. “What time did you get back to Lakedale that night?”

  “At ten-thirty.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “My wife was on the porch when I arrived.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “That’s all, Mr. Thorne. Cross-examine.”

  Mr. Lambert approached the witness box at almost a prance, his broad countenance smoldering with ill-concealed excitement. “Mr. Thorne, I’ll trouble you with only two questions. My distinguished adversary has asked you whether you noticed anything unusual in the neighborhood of the cottage. I ask you whether in that vicinity you saw at any time a car—an automobile?”

  “I saw no sign of a car.”

  “No sign of a small Chevrolet, for instance—of Mr. Bellamy’s, for instance?”

  “No sign of any car at all.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Thorne. That will be all.”

  Over Mr. Lambert’s exultant carol rose a soft tumult of whispers. “There goes the state’s story!” “Score 100 for the defense!” “Oh, boy, did you get that? He’s fixed the time of the murder and run Sue and Steve off the scene all in one move.” “The hand is quicker than the eye.” “Look at Farr’s face; that boy’s got a mean eye____”

  “Silence!” sang Ben Potts.

  The prosecutor advanced to within six inches of the witness box, his eyes contracted to pin points. “You assure us that you saw no car, Mr. Thorne?”

  “I do.”

  “But you are not able to assure us that no car was there?”

  “Obviously, if a car was there, I should have seen it.”

  “Oh, no, believe me, that’s far from obvious! If a car had been parked to the rear of the cottage on the little circular road, would you have seen it?”

  “I should have seen its lights.”

  “And if its lights had been turned out?”

  “Then,” said Douglas Thorne slowly, “I should probably not have seen it.”

  “You were not in the rear of the cottage at any time, were you?”

  “No.”

  “Then it is certain that you would not have seen it, isn’t it?”

  “I have told you that under those circumstances I do not believe I should have seen it.”

  “If a car had been parked on the main driveway between the lodge gates and the cottage, with its lights out, you would not have seen that either, would you, Mr. Thorne?”

  “Possibly not.”

  “And you don’t for a moment expect to have twelve levelheaded, intelligent men believe that a pair of murderers would park their car in a clearly visible position, with all its lights burning for any passer-by to remark, while they accomplished their purpose?”

  “I object to that question!” panted Mr. Lambert. “I object! It calls for a conclusion, Your Honor, and is highly____”

  “The question is overruled.”

  “Very well, Mr. Thorne; that will be all.”

  Mr. Lambert, who had been following these proceedings with a woebegone countenance from which the recent traces of elation had been washed as though by a bucket of unusually cold water, pulled himself together valiantly. “Just one moment, Mr. Thorne; the fact is that you didn’t see a car there, isn’t it?”

  “That is most certainly the fact.”

  “Thank you; that will be all.”

  “And the fact is,” remarked the grimly smiling prosecutor, “that it might perfectly well have been there without your seeing it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that also is the fact.”

  “That will be all. Call Miss Flora Biggs.”

  The prosecutor’s grim little smile still lingered.

  “Miss Flora Biggs!”

  Flora Biggs might have been a pretty girl ten
years ago, before that fatal heaviness had crept from sleazy silk ankles to the round chin above the imitation pearls. Everything about Miss Biggs was imitation—an imitation fluff of something that was meant to be fur on the plush coat that was meant to be another kind of fur; an imitation rose of a washed-out magenta trying to hide itself in the masquerading collar; pearls the size of large bone buttons peeping out from too golden hair; an arrow of false diamonds catching the folds of the purple velvet toque that was not quite velvet; nervous fingers in suede gloves that were rather a bad grade of cotton clutching at a snakeskin bag of stenciled cloth—a poor, cheap, shoddy imitation of what the well-dressed woman will wear. And yet in those small insignificant features that should have belonged to a pretty girl, in those round china-blue eyes, staring forlornly out of reddened rims, there was something candid and touching and appealing. For out of those reddened eyes peered the good shy little girl in the starched white dress brought down to entertain the company—the good, shy little girl whose name had been Florrie Biggs. And little Florrie Biggs had been crying.

  “Where do you live, Miss Biggs?”

  “At 21 Maple Street, Rosemont.” The voice was hardly more than a whisper.

  “Just a trifle louder, please; we all want to hear you. Did you know Madeleine Bellamy, Miss Biggs?”

  The tears that had been lurking behind the round blue eyes welled over abruptly, leaving little paths behind them down the heavily powdered cheeks. “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Intimately?”

  “Yes, sir. I guess so. Ever since I was ten. We went to school and high school together; she was quite a little younger than me, but we were best friends.”

  The tears rained down quietly and Miss Biggs brushed them impatiently away with the clumsy gloved fingers.

  “You were fond of her?”

  “Yes, sir, I was awful fond of her.”

  “Did you see much of her during the years of 1916 and ’17?”

  “Yes, sir; I just lived three houses down the block. I used to see her every day.”

  “Did you know Patrick Ives too?”

  “Yes, sir; I knew him pretty well.”

  “Was there much comment on his attention to your friend Madeleine during the year 1916?”

  “Everyone knew they had a terrible case on each other,” said Miss Biggs simply.

  “Were they supposed to be engaged?”

  “No, sir, I don’t know as they were; but everyone sort of thought they would be.”

  “Their relations were freely discussed amongst their friends?”

  “They surely were.”

  “Did you ever discuss the affair with either Mr. Ives or Mrs. Bellamy?”

  “Not ever with Pat, I didn’t, but Mimi used to talk about it quite a lot.”

  “Do you remember what she said during the first conversation?”

  “Well, I think that the first time was when we had a terrible fight about it.” At memory of that far-off quarrel Florrie’s blue eyes flooded and brimmed over again. “We’d been on a picnic and Pat and Mimi got separated from the rest of us, and by and by we went home without them; and it was awfully late that night when they got back, and I told Mimi that she ought to be carefuller how she went around with a fellow like Pat Ives, and she got terrible mad and told me that she knew what she was doing and she could look after herself, and that I was just jealous and to mind my own business. Oh, she talked to me something fierce.”

  Miss Biggs’s voice broke on a great sob, and suddenly the crowded courtroom faded. . . . It was a hot July night in a village street and the shrill, angry voices of the two girls filled the air. Once more Mimi Dawson, insolent in her young beauty, was telling little Florrie Biggs to keep her small snub nose out of other people’s affairs. All the injured woe of that far-off night was in her sob.

  “Did she speak of him again?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, she certainly did. She used to speak of him most of the time—after we made it up again, that is.”

  “Did she tell you whether they were expecting to be married?”

  “Not in just so many words, she didn’t, but she used to sort of discuss it a lot, like whether it would be a good thing to do, and if they’d be happy in Rosemont or whether New York wouldn’t work better—you know, just kind of thinking it over.”

  Mr. Farr looked gravely sympathetic. “Exactly. Nothing more definite than that?”

  “Well, I remember once she said that she’d do it in a minute if she were sure that Pat had it in him to make good.”

  “And did you gather from that and other remarks of hers that it was she who was holding back and Mr. Ives who was urging marriage?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” said Miss Biggs, and added earnestly, “I think she meant me to gather that.”

  There was a warm, friendly little ripple of amusement, at which she lifted startled blue eyes.

  “Quite so. Now when Mr. Ives went to France, Miss Biggs, what did your circle consider the state of affairs between them to be?”

  “We all thought they was sure to get married,” said Miss Biggs, and added in a low voice, “Some of us thought maybe they was married already.”

  “And just what made you think that?”

  Miss Biggs moved restlessly in her chair. “Oh, nothing special, I guess; only they seemed so awfully gone on each other, and Pat was always hiring flivvers to take her off to Redfield and—and places. They never went much with the crowd any more, and lots of people were getting married then—you know, war marriages____” The soft, hesitant voice trailed off into silence.

  “I see. Just what was Mr. Ives’s reputation with your crowd, Miss Biggs? Was he a steady, hard-working young man?”

  “He wasn’t so awfully hard-working, I guess.”

  The distressed murmur was not too low to reach Patrick Ives’s ears, evidently; for a brief moment his white face was lit with the gayest of smiles, impish and endearing. It faded, and the eyes that had been suddenly blue faded, too, back to their frozen gray.

  “Was he popular?”

  “Oh, everyone liked him fine,” said Miss Biggs eagerly. “He was the most popular fellow in Rosemont, I guess. He was a swell dancer, and he certainly could play on the ukulele and skate and do perfectly killing imitations and—and everything.”

  “Then why did you warn your friend against consorting with this paragon, Miss Biggs?”

  “Sir?”

  “Why did you tell Mimi Dawson that she shouldn’t play around too much with Pat Ives?”

  “Oh—oh, well, I guess, like she said, I was just foolish and it wasn’t none of my business.”

  “You said, a ‘fellow like Pat Ives,’ Miss Biggs. What kind of a fellow did you mean? The kind of a fellow who played the ukulele? Or did he play something else?”

  “Well—well, he played cards some—poker, you know, and red dog and—well, billiards, you know.”

  “He gambled, didn’t he?”

  “Now, Your Honor,” remarked Mr. Lambert heavily, “is this to be permitted to go on indefinitely? I have deliberately refrained from objecting to a most amazing line of questions____”

  “The Court is inclined to agree with you, Mr. Lambert. Is it in any way relevant to the state’s case whether Mr. Ives played the ukulele or the organ, Mr. Farr?”

  “It is quite essential to the state’s case to prove that Mr. Ives has a reckless streak in his character that led directly to the murder of Madeleine Bellamy, Your Honor. We contend that just as in those months before the war in the village of Rosemont, so in the year of 1926, he was gambling with his own safety and happiness and honor, and as in those days, with the happiness and honor and safety of a woman as well—with the same woman with whom he was renewing the affair broken off by a trick of fate nine years before. We contend____”

  “Yes. Well, the Court contends that your questioning along these lines has been quite exhaustive enough, and that furthermore it doubts its relevance to the present issue. You may proceed.”

  “Very w
ell, Your Honor. . . . When Mr. Ives returned in 1919, were you still seeing much of Miss Dawson?”

  “No, sir,” said Miss Biggs in a low voice. “Not any hardly.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Well, mostly it was because she was starting to go with another crowd—the country-club crowd, you know. She was all the time with Mr. Farwell.”

  “Exactly. Did you renew your intimacy at any later period?”

  “No, sir, not ever.”

  Once more the cotton fingers were busy with the treacherous tears, falling for Mimi, lost so many years ago—lost again, most horribly, after those unhappy years.

  “Thank you, Miss Biggs. That will be all. Cross-examine.’’

  Mr. Lambert’s heavy face, turned to those drowned and terrified eyes, was almost paternal. “You say that for many years there was no intimacy between you and Mrs. Bellamy, Miss Biggs?”

  “No, sir, there wasn’t—not any.”

  “Mrs. Bellamy never took you into her confidence as to her feelings toward Mr. Ives after her marriage?”

  “She never took me into her confidence about anything at all—no, sir.”

  “You never saw her after her marriage?”

  “Oh, yes, I did see her. I went there two or three times for tea.”

  “Everything was pleasant?”

  “She was very polite and pleasant—yes, sir.”

  “But there was no tendency to confide in you?”

  “I didn’t ask her to confide in me,” said Miss Biggs. “I didn’t ask her for anything at all—not anything.”

  “But if there had been anything to confide, it would have been quite natural to confide in you—girls generally confide in their best friend, don’t they?”

  “I guess so.”

  “And as far as you know, there were no guilty relations between Mrs. Bellamy and Mr. Ives at the time of her death?”

  “I didn’t know even whether she saw Mr. Ives,” said Florrie Biggs.

  Mr. Lambert beamed gratefully. “Thank you, Miss Biggs. That’s all.”

  “Just one moment more, please.” The prosecutor, too, was looking as paternal as was possible under the rather severe limitations of his saturnine countenance. “Mr. Lambert was just asking you if it would have been natural for her to confide in you, as girls generally confide in their best friends. At the time of this murder, and for many years previous, you weren’t Mrs. Bellamy’s best friend, were you, Miss Biggs?”