The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “Sergeant, was Mr. Bellamy under suspicion at the time that you telephoned him?”

  “I didn’t do the telephoning,” corrected Sergeant Johnson dispassionately; and added more dispassionately still; “Everyone was under suspicion.”

  “Mr. Bellamy no more than another?”

  “What I said was,” remarked the sergeant with professional reticence, “that everyone was under suspicion.”

  Mr. Farr met the imperturbable blue eye of his witness with an expression in which irritation and discretion were struggling for supremacy. Discretion triumphed. “Did you discover any tracks on the cottage road?”

  “I surely did.”

  “Footprints?”

  “No; there were some prints, but they were too cut up and blurred to make much out of. What I found were tire tracks.”

  “More than one set?”

  “There were traces of at least four sets, two of them made by the same car.”

  “All equally distinct?”

  “No, they varied considerably. The ground in the cottage road is of a distinctly clayey character, which under the proper conditions would act almost as a cast.”

  “What would be a proper condition?”

  “A damp state following a rainstorm, followed in turn by sufficient fair weather to permit the impression to dry out.”

  “Was such a state in existence?”

  “In one case—yes. There was a storm between one and three in the afternoon of the nineteenth. We’ll call the tire impressions A, B 1 and 2, and C. A showed only very vague traces of a very broad, massive tire on a heavy car. It was almost obliterated, showing that it must have been there either before or during the downpour.”

  “Would those tracks have corresponded to the ones on Mr. Farwell’s car?”

  “There were absolutely no distinguishing tire marks left; it could have been Mr. Farwell’s or any other large car. C had come much later, when the ground had had time to dry out considerably. They were the traces of a medium-sized tire on fairly dry ground. They cut across the tracks left by both A and B.”

  “Could they have been made by Mr. Conroy’s car?”

  “I think that very likely they were. I checked up as well as possible under the conditions, and they corresponded all right.”

  “What about the B impressions?”

  “Both the B impressions were as sharp and distinct as though they had been made in wax. They were made by the same car; judging from the soil conditions, at an interval of an hour or so. We made a series of tests later to see how long it retained moisture.”

  “Of what nature were these impressions, sergeant?”

  “They were narrow tires, such as are used on the smaller, lighter cars,” said Sergeant Johnson, a slight tinge of gravity touching the curtness of his unemotional young voice. “Two of the tires—the ones on the front right and rear left wheels had the tread so worn off that it would be risky to hazard a guess as to their manufacture. The ones on the front left and rear right were brand new, and the impressions in both cases were as clear cut as though you’d carved them. The impressions of B 2 were even deeper than B 1, showing that the car must have stood much longer at one time than at another. We experimented with that, too, but the results weren’t definite enough to report on positively.”

  “What makes you so clear as to which were B 2?”

  “At one spot B 2 was superimposed on B 1 very distinctly.”

  “What were the makes of the rear right and left front tires, sergeant?”

  “The rear right was a new Ajax tire; the front left was a practically new Silvertown cord.”

  “Did they correspond with any of the cars mentioned so far in this case?”

  “They corresponded exactly with the tires on Mr. Stephen Bellamy’s car when we inspected it on the afternoon of June twentieth.”

  ‘“No possibility of error?”

  “Not a chance,” said Sergeant Johnson, succinctly and gravely.

  “Exactly. Had the car been washed at the time you inspected it, sergeant?”

  “No, sir, it had not.”

  “Was there mud on the tires?”

  “Yes, but as it was of much the same character as the mud in Mr. Bellamy’s own drive, we attached no particular importance to it.”

  “Was there any grease on the car?”

  “No, sir; we made a very thorough inspection. There was no trace of grease.”

  “Did you find anything else of consequence on the premises, sergeant?”

  “I picked up a kind of lunch box in the shrubbery outside, and in the dining room, on a chair in the corner, I found a black cape—chiffon, I expect you call it—a black lace scarf and a little black silk bag with a shiny clasp that looked like diamonds.”

  “Did you keep a list of the contents of the bag?”

  “I did.”

  “Have you it with you?”

  “I have.”

  “Let’s hear it, please?”

  “ ‘Contents of black purse found in dining room of Thorne Cottage, June 20, 1926,’____” read Sergeant Johnson briskly, “ ‘One vanity case, pale green enamel; one lip stick, same; one small green linen handkerchief, marked Mimi; leather frame inclosing snapshot of man in tennis clothes, inscribed For My Mimi from Steve; sample of blue chiffon with daisies; gold pencil; two theatre-ticket stubs to Vanities, June eighth; three letters, written on white bond paper, signed Pat.’ ”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Are these the articles found in the dining room, sergeant?”

  Sergeant Johnson eyed the contents of the box placed before him somewhat cursorily. “Those are the ones.”

  “Just check over the contents of the bag, will you? Nothing missing?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “I ask to have these marked for identification and offer them in evidence, Your Honor.”

  “No objections,” said Mr. Lambert unexpectedly.

  Mr. Farr eyed him incredulously for a moment, as though he doubted the evidence of his ears. Then, rather thoughtfully, he produced another object from the inexhaustible maw of his desk and poised it carefully on the ledge under the sergeant’s nose. It was a box—a nice, shiny tin box, painted a cheerful but decorous maroon—the kind of a box that good little boys carry triumphantly to school, bursting with cookies and apples and peanut-butter sandwiches. It had a neat handle and a large, beautiful, early English initial painted on the top.

  “Did you recognize this, sergeant?”

  “Yes. It’s a lunch box that I picked up back of the shrubbery to the left of the Orchards, cottage.”

  “Had it anything in it?”

  “It was about three-quarters empty. There was a ham sandwich and some salted nuts and dates in it, and a couple of doughnuts.”

  “What should you say that the initial on the cover represented?”

  “I shouldn’t say,” remarked the sergeant frankly. “It’s got too many curlicues and doodads. It might be a D, or it might be P, or then again, it mightn’t be either.”

  “So far as you know, it hasn’t been identified as anyone’s property?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It might have been left there at some previous date?”

  “Well, it might have been; but the food seemed pretty fresh, and there were some new twigs broken off, as though someone had pressed way back into the shrubbery.”

  “I offer this box in evidence, Your Honor, not as of any evidential value, but merely to keep the record straight as to what was turned over by the police.”

  “No objections,” said Mr. Lambert with that same surprising promptitude, his eyes following the shiny box somewhat hungrily.

  “Very well, sergeant, that’s all. Cross-examine.”

  “Did you examine the portion of the drive to the rear of the cottage, sergeant?” inquired Mr. Lambert with genial interest.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Find any traces of tires?”

  “No
, sir.”

  “No further questions,” intoned Mr. Lambert mellifluously.

  Mr. Farr turned briskly to an unhappy-looking young man crouching apprehensively in a far corner. “Now, Mr. Oliver, I’m going to get you just to read these three letters into the record. I’m unable to do it myself, as I’ve been subjected to considerable eye strain recently.”

  “Do I start with the one on top?” inquired the wretched youth, who looked as though he were about to die at any moment.

  “Start with the first in order of date,” suggested Mr. Farr benevolently. “May twenty-first, I think it is. And just raise your voice a little so we’ll all be able to hear you.”

  “Darling, darling,” roared Mr. Oliver unbelievably, and paused, staring about him wildly, flame colored far beyond the roots of his russet hair. “May twenty-first,” he added in a suffocated whisper.

  DARLING, DARLING:

  I waited there for you for over an hour. I couldn’t believe that you weren’t coming—not after you’d promised. And when I got back and found that hateful, stiff little note____ Mimi, how could you? You didn’t mean it to say, “I don’t love you”? It didn’t say that, did it? It sounded so horribly as though that was what it was trying to say that I kept both hands over my ears all the time that I was reading it. I won’t believe it. You do—you must. You’re the only thing that I’ve ever loved in all my life, Mimi; I swear it. You’re the only thing that I’ll ever love, as long as I live.

  You say that you’re frightened; that there’s been talk—oh, darling, what of it? “They say? What say they? Let them say!” They’re a lot of wise, sensible, good-for-nothing idiots, who haven’t anything better to do in the world than wag their heads and their tongues, or else they’re a pack of young fools, frantic with jealousy because they can’t be beautiful like Mimi or lucky like Pat. If their talk gets really dangerous or ugly we can shut them all up in ten seconds by telling them that we’re planning to shake the dust of Rosemont from our heels any minute, and live happy ever after in some “cleaner, greener land.”

  Do you want me to tell them that I’ve asked you fifteen thousand and three times to burn all our bridges and marry me, Mimi? Or didn’t you hear me? You always look then as though you were listening to someone else—someone with a louder voice than mine, saying “Wait—not yet. Think again—you’ll be sorry. Be careful—be careful.” Don’t listen to that liar, Mimi—listen to Pat, who loves you.

  To-morrow night, about nine, I’ll have the car at the back road. I’ll manage to get away somehow, and you must too. Wear that frilly thing that I love—you know, the green one—and the slippers with butterflies on them, and nothing on your hair. The wickedest thing that you ever do is to wear a hat. No, I’m wrong, you can wear something on your hair, after all. On the two curls right behind your ears—the littlest curls—my curls—you can wear two drops of that stuff that smells like lilacs in the rain. And I’ll put you—and your curls—and your slippers—and your sweetness—and your magic—into my car and we’ll drive twenty miles away from those wagging tongues. And, Mimi, I’ll teach you how beautiful it is to be alive and young and in love, in a world that’s full of spring and stars and lilacs. Oh, Mimi, come quickly and let me teach you!

  PAT.

  The halting voice labored to an all too brief silence. Even the back of Mr. Oliver’s neck was incandescent—perhaps he would not have flamed so hotly if he had realized how few eyes in the courtroom were resting on him. For across the crowded little room, Sue Ives, all her gay serenity gone, was staring at the figure by the window with terrified and incredulous eyes, black with tears.

  “Oh, Pat—oh, Pat,” cried those drowning eyes, “what is this that you have done to us? Never loved anyone else? Never in all your life? What is this that you have done?”

  And as though in answer to that despairing cry, the man by the window half rose, shaking his head in fierce entreaty.

  “Don’t listen! Don’t listen!” implored his frantic eyes. . . .

  “Now the next one, Mr. Oliver,” said Mr. Farr.

  ROSEMONT, JUNE 8TH.

  MIMI DARLING, DARLING, DARLING:

  It’s after four o’clock and the birds in the vines outside the window are making the most awful row. I haven’t closed my eyes yet, and now I’m going to stop trying. What’s the use of sleeping, when here’s another day with Mimi in it? Dawn—I always thought it was the worst word in the English language, and here I am on my knees waiting for it, and ranting about it like any fool—like any happy, happy fool.

  I’m so happy that it simply isn’t decent. I keep telling myself that we’re mad—that there’s black trouble ahead of us—that I haven’t any right in the world to let you do this—that I’m older and ought to be wiser. And when I get all through, the only thing I can remember is that I feel like a kid waking up on his birthday to find the sun and the moon and the stars and the world and a little red wagon sitting in a row at the foot of his bed. Because I have you, Mimi, and you’re the sun and the moon and the stars and the world—and a little red wagon too, my beautiful love.

  Well, here’s the sun himself, and no one in Rosemont to pay any attention to him but the milkman and me. “The sun in splendor”—what comes after that, do you remember? Not that it makes any difference; the only thing that makes any difference is that what will come after that in just a few minutes will be a clock striking five—and then six and then seven and it will be another day—another miraculous, incredible day getting under way in a world that holds Mimi in it. Lucky day, lucky world, lucky, lucky me, Mimi, who will be your worshipper while this world lasts.

  Good morning, Beautiful.

  YOUR PAT.

  The eyes of the Court swung avidly back to the slim figure in the space before them, but for once that bright head was bowed. Sue Ives was no longer looking at Mimi’s worshipper.

  “And the next?” murmured Farr.

  ROSEMONT, JUNE 9TH.

  MY LITTLE HEART:

  I went to bed the minute I got home, just as I promised, but it didn’t do much good. I did go to sleep for a bit, but it was only to dream that you were leaning over me again with your hair swinging down like two lovely clouds of fire and saying over and over in that small, blessed voice—that voice that I’d strain to hear from under three feet of sod—“It’s not a dream, love, it’s not a dream—it’s Mimi, who’s yours and who’s sweeter than all the dreams you’ll dream between here and heaven. Wake up, Wake up! She’s waiting for you. How can you sleep?” And I couldn’t sleep; no, it’s no use. Mimi, how can I ever sleep again, now that I have you?

  It wasn’t just a dream that between those shining clouds that are your hair your eyes were bright with laughter and with tears, was it, Mimi? No, that was not a dream. To think that anyone in the world can cry and still be beautiful! It must be an awful temptation to do it all the time—only I know that you won’t. Darling, don’t cry. Even when you look beautiful and on the edge of laughter, it makes me want to kill myself. It’s because you’re afraid, isn’t it—afraid that we won’t be able to make a go of it? Don’t be afraid. If you will come to me—really, forever, not in little snatched bits of heaven like this, but to belong to me all the days of my life—if you will believe in me and trust me, I swear that I’ll make you happy. I swear it.

  I know that at first it may be hideously hard. I know that giving up everything here and starting life all over somewhere with strangers will be hard to desperation. But it will be easier than trying to fight it out here, won’t it, Mimi? And in the end we’ll hold happiness in our hands—you’ll see, my blessed. Don’t cry, don’t cry, my little girl—not even in dreams, not even through laughter. Because, you see, like the Prince and Princess in the fairy tale, we’re going to live happy ever after.

  YOUR PAT.

  “That concludes the letters?” inquired Judge Carver, hopefully, his eyes on the bowed head beneath his throne.

  “That concludes them,” said Mr. Farr, removing them deftly from t
he assistant prosecutor’s palsied fingers. “And as it is close to four, I would like to make a suggestion. The state is ready to rest its case with these letters, but an extremely unfortunate occurrence has deprived us so far of one of our witnesses, who is essential as a link in the chain of evidence that we have forged. This witness was stricken three weeks ago with appendicitis and rushed to a New York hospital. I was given every assurance that he would be able to be present by this date, but late last week unfavorable symptoms developed and he has been closely confined ever since.

  “I have here the surgeon’s certificate that he is absolutely unable to take the stand to-day, but that it is entirely possible that he may do so by Monday. As this is Friday, therefore, I respectfully suggest that we adjourn to Monday, when the state will rest its case.”

  “Have you any objections, Mr. Lambert?”

  “Every objection, Your Honor!” replied Mr. Lambert with passionate conviction. “I have two witnesses myself who have come here at great inconvenience to themselves and are obliged to return at the earliest possible moment. What about them? What about the unfortunate jury? What about the unfortunate defendants? I have most emphatic objections to delaying this trial one second longer.”

  “Then I can only suggest that the trial proceed and that the state be permitted to produce its witness as soon as is humanly possible, in which case the defense would necessarily be permitted to produce what witnesses it saw fit in rebuttal.”