The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “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 endeavoring 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. Mim
i 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 Dallas’s 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 did. I noticed him particularly, because he had the reddest hair that I’ve ever seen on a human being. We were at the station about ten minutes, and I looked at my watch just as we left. It said twenty minutes past nine.”

  “Was your watch correct, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “Absolutely! I check it every day at the station.”

  “How long a drive is it from Lakedale to Rosemont?”

  “Under half an hour—it’s around nine miles.”

  “And to Orchards from Lakedale?”

  “It’s close to twelve—Orchards is about three miles north of Rosemont.”

  “Quite so. Now will you be good enough to continue with your story?”

  “We hardly talked at all on our way back to Rosemont. I remember that Sue asked whether we wouldn’t get there before the film was over, and I said, ‘Probably.’ But as a matter of fact, we didn’t. We got to Rosemont at about five minutes to ten, and the theatre was dark. There were no cars in front of it and the doors were locked. I said, ‘She’ll probably be at the house,’ and Sue said, ‘If she isn’t, I think that it will look decidedly queer to have me dropping in there at this time of night.’ I said, ‘There’ll be no one there to see you; Nellie’s gone home to her mother and Orsini went to New York at eight-fifteen.’

  “It takes only three or four minutes from the theatre to the house, and just as we started to turn in at the gate Sue said, ‘You’re wrong; there’s a light in the garage.’ I looked up quickly, and there wasn’t a sign of a light. I laughed and said, ‘Don’t let things get on your nerves, Sue; I tell you that I saw him going to the train.’ And I helped her out of the car. There was a light in the hall, and as I opened the door I called ‘Mimi!’ No one answered, and then I remembered that I’d left it burning when I went out. I said, ‘Come in. She must be over at the Conroys’. I’ll call up and get her over.’____”

  “So far so good,” said the reporter contentedly. “If Mr. Stephen Bellamy isn’t telling the truth, he’s as fertile and resourceful a liar as has crossed my trail in these many moons. Do you feel better?”

  “Better than best,” the red-headed girl assured him fervently. “Only I wish that Bellamy girl had died a long time ago.”

  “Do you indeed?”

  “Yes, I do indeed—about twenty years ago, before she got out of socks and hair ribbons and started in breaking men’s hearts. Elliot Farwell and Patrick Ives and Stephen Bellamy—even that little bus driver looked bewitched. Of course I ought to be sorry she’s dead—but truly she wasn’t good for very much, was she?”

  “Not very much. The ones who are good for very much aren’t generally particularly heartbreaking.”

  “You’d probably be as bad as any of them,” said the red-headed girl darkly, and relapsed into silence.

  “I’m universally rated rather high on susceptibility,” admitted the reporter with modest pride. “Did you sleep better last night?”

  “Not any better at all.”

  “Look here, are you telling me that after reducing me to a state of apprehension that resulted in my spending six dollars and thirty-five cents, and two hours and twenty minutes of invaluable time in a hired flivver in order to cure you of insomnia, you went back to that gas log of yours and worked half the night and had it again? Didn’t you solemnly swear____”

  “I’m not ever solemn when I swear. I didn’t work after twelve. If you paid six thousand dollars for it, it was a tremendous bargain. It was the nicest ride I ever took. That was why I didn’t sleep.”

  “Mollifying though mendacious,” said the reporter critically. “Are you by any chance a flirt?”

  The red-headed girl eyed him thoughtfully. After quite a lengthy period of contemplation she seemed to arrive at a decision. “No,” she said gravely, “I’m not a flirt.”

  “In that case,” said the reporter quite as gravely, “I’m going to get you some lunch. And if Sue Ives decides to confess to the entire newspaper fraternity that it really was she who did it, after all, I’m not going to be there—I’m going to be bringing your lunch back to you because you’re not a flirt. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said the red-headed girl.

  She sat staring after him with round bright eyes that she was finding increasingly difficult to keep open. What was it that she had said that first day—that day that seemed so many, many days ago? Something about a murder story and a love story being the most enthralling combination in the world? Well____ The red-headed girl looked around her guiltily, wondering if she looked as pink as she felt. It was frightful to be so sleepy. It was frightf
ul and ridiculous not to be able to sleep any more because of the troubles and passions of half a dozen people that you’d never laid eyes on in your life, and didn’t really know from Adam and Eve—or Cain and Abel were better, perhaps. What’s he to Hecuba or Hecuba to him? What indeed? She yawned despairingly.

  No, but that wasn’t true—you did know them—a hundred times—a thousand times better than people that lived next to you all the days of their lives. That was what gave a trial its mysterious and terrible charm; curiosity is a hunger in everyone alive, and here the sides of the houses were lifted off and you saw them moving about as though they were alone. You knew—oh, you knew everything! You knew that little Pat Ives had sold papers in the streets and that he carved ships, and that once he had played the ukulele and had taken Mimi Dawson riding on spring nights.

  You knew that Sue Ives had gone to church in little cotton gloves when she was six years old, and that she had a coat of cream-colored flannel, and poor relations in Arizona, and a rose garden beyond the study window. You knew that Stephen Bellamy dined at quarter to seven and had a small car, and flowering almonds in his garden, and a wife who was more beautiful than a dream, with silver slippers and sapphire-and-diamond rings. You knew that Laura Roberts turned down the beds on the chambermaid’s night out and had a gentleman friend in the village and that—and that____

  “Wake up!” said the reporter’s voice urgently. “Here are the sandwiches. I broke both legs trying to get back through that crowd. . . . Oh, Lord, here’s the Court! Too late—hide ’em!”

  The red-headed girl hid them with a glance of unfeigned reluctance.

  “Mr. Bellamy,” inquired Mr. Lambert happily, “you were telling us that you went into your house. What occurred next?”

  “I went straight to the telephone and called up Mrs. Conroy. She answered the telephone herself, and I said, ‘Can I speak to Mimi for a moment, Nell?’ She said, ‘Why, Steve, Mimi isn’t here. The show got out early and we waited for about five minutes to make sure that she wasn’t there. I thought that she must have decided not to come.’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what she must have decided.’ And I rang off. That same terror had me again; I felt cold to my bones. I said. ‘She’s not there. I was right the first time—something’s happened to her.’ Sue said, ‘Of course she’s not there. She went to the cottage.’ I said, ‘But you say that Pat didn’t go. She’d never wait there two hours for him. Maybe we’d better call up Dallas and make sure he’s there.’____”