The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  The even voice hesitated—was silent. Mr. Lambert moved forward energetically. “And what did Mrs. Ives say to that?”

  “She said—she said, ‘No, that’s no good. He’s not at the Dallases’; he’s home.’ I said, ‘Then let’s call him up there.’ Sue said, ‘No, I’d rather not do that. I don’t want him to know about this until I decide what to do next. I give you my word of honor that he’s there. Isn’t that enough?’ I said all right, then, I’d call up the police court and the hospital to see if any accidents had been reported. I remember that Sue said something about its being premature, but none of her business. Neither the station nor the hospital had any information.”

  “Did you give your name?”

  “Naturally. I asked them to communicate with me at once if they heard anything.”

  “And then what, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “Then—then, after that, I don’t remember much. All the rest of it was sheer nightmare. I do remember Sue saying that we might retrace the route that Mimi started over toward the Conroys, on the bare chance that she had had some kind of collapse at the roadside. But that was no good, of course. And finally we decided that there was nothing more to do till morning, and that I’d better get Sue home. I drove her back to the house____”

  “To your house?”

  “No, no; the Ives’ house. I dropped her at the front gate. I didn’t drive in. I asked her to let me know if Pat was there, and she said that if he were she’d turn on the light in the study twice. I waited outside by the car for what seemed a hundred years, and after a long time the light in the study went on once, and off, and on again and off, and I got in the car and drove away.”

  “What time was that, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “I’m not sure—about quarter to eleven, perhaps. Mrs. Ives had asked me what time it was when we stopped at the gate. It was shortly after ten-thirty.”

  “Did you go straight home?”

  “Not directly—no. I drove around for quite a bit, but I couldn’t possibly tell you for how long. It’s like trying to remember things in a delirium.”

  “But it was only after you heard that Mrs. Bellamy had not been at the movies that you were reduced to this condition—before that everything is quite clear?”

  “Oh, quite.”

  “And you are entirely clear that at the time fixed for the murder you and Mrs. Ives were a good ten miles away from the gardener’s cottage at Orchards?”

  “Nearer twelve miles, I believe.”

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

  Mr. Farr arrived in the center of the arena where sat his victim, pale and patient, with a motion so sudden that it suggested a leap. Not once had he lifted his voice during that long, laboriously retrieved narration. Now the courtroom was once more filled with its metallic clang, arresting and disturbing.

  “Mr. Bellamy, you’ve told us that the tools in the garage belonged to Orsini. They were perfectly accessible to anyone else, weren’t they?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Was Mrs. Bellamy in the garage at any time before you left?”

  “Why, yes, I believe that she was. I remember meeting her as she came into the house just as I came downstairs to dinner—I’d gone up to wash my hands. She said she’d been out to the garage to see whether she’d left a package with some aspirin and other things from the drug store in the car. They weren’t there, and she asked me to call up the club the next day to see whether she had left them there.”

  “So that she would have been perfectly able to have made that incision of that tire herself?”

  “I should think so.”

  “She did not at any time suggest that you accompany her either to the movies or the Conroys, did she?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “She countered such suggestions on your part, did she not, by saying that you would have to walk back, that it would be awkward for you to get away, and other excuses of that nature?”

  “Yes. My wife knew that the pictures hurt my eyes, and she never urged me to____”

  “No, never mind that, Mr. Bellamy. Please confine yourself to yes or no, whenever it is possible. It will simplify things for both of us. It would have been entirely possible for your wife to injure that tire in order to keep you from accompanying her, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, Mr. Bellamy, I want to get this perfectly correctly. You claim that at nine-thirty you were on the River Road twelve miles from Orchards. Do you mean twelve miles by way of the back road, Rosemont and the Perrytown Road?”

  “Yes.”

  “Retracing your way over the route that you had previously taken?”

  “Yes.”

  “But surely you know that there is another and shorter route from Lakedale to Orchards, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “I know that there is another route—yes. I was not aware that it was much shorter.”

  “Well, for your information I may state that it is some three miles shorter. Can you describe this route to us?”

  “Not very well, I’m afraid. I’m not at all familiar with it. I believe that it is the road that Mr. Thorne was speaking of having taken that night, leading into the back of Orchards.”

  “Your supposition is entirely correct. Now, will you tell us just how you get there?”

  “As I said, I’m not sure that I can. I believe that you continue on down the River Road until you turn off down a rather narrow, rough little road that leads directly to the back gates of Orchards. It’s practically a private road, I believe, ending at the estate.”

  “What is its name?”

  “I’m not sure, but I believe that it’s something like Thorne Path, or Road, or Lane—I’m pretty clear that it has the name Thorne in it.”

  “Oh, you’re clear about that, are you, in spite of the fact that you’ve never been near it?”

  “You misunderstood me evidently. I never said that I had never been near it. As a matter of fact, I have been over it several times—two or three anyway.”

  “And yet you wish us to believe that you have no idea of either the name or the distance?”

  “Certainly. It’s been a great many years since I’ve used it—ten, perhaps. It was at a time that I was going frequently to Orchards, when Mr. Thorne, Senior, was alive.”

  “And you have never used it since?”

  “No. It’s not a road that anyone would use unless he were going to Orchards. It’s practically a blind alley.”

  “Again I must ask you to refrain from qualifications and elaborations. ‘No’ is a reply to that question. The fact remains, doesn’t it, that here was an unobtrusive short cut to Orchards that you haven’t seen fit to tell us about?”

  Stephen Bellamy smiled slightly—that gracious and ironic smile, so oddly detached as to be disconcerting. “I’m afraid that I can’t answer that either yes or no—either would be misleading. I had completely forgotten that there was such a road.”

  “Completely forgotten it, had you? Had Mrs. Ives forgotten it too?”

  “I’m sure that I don’t know.”

  “Mr. Bellamy, is not this road, known as Thorne Lane, the one that you and Mrs. Ives took to reach Orchards the night of the murder?”

  Mr. Bellamy frowned faintly in concentration. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you not use Thorne Lane to reach Orchards on the night of the murder?”

  The frown vanished; for a moment, Mr. Bellamy looked frankly diverted. Were these, inquired his lifted brows, the terrors of cross-examination? “We certainly did nothing of the kind. I thought that I’d already explained that I hadn’t been over that road in ten years.”

  “I heard your explanation. Now, will you kindly explain to us why you didn’t use it?”

  “Why?” inquired Stephen Bellamy blankly.

  “Why, consumed with anxiety as you were for the safety of your wife, didn’t it occur to you to go to this gardener’s cottage, where you were assured that she was having a rendezvous with anot
her man?”

  “I was not assured of any such thing. I was most positively assured that Mr. Ives had not gone there to meet her. Nor was I in anxiety at all about my wife during my drive with Mrs. Ives. I believed that she had gone to the movies.”

  “Very well, when you found out that she wasn’t at the movies, why didn’t you go then to the cottage?”

  “Mrs. Ives gave me her word of honor that Mr. Ives was at home. It seemed incredible to both of us that she would have waited there for over two hours.”

  “Incredible to both of you that she could have waited? I thought you wished us to believe that you had such entire confidence in her love for you that you were perfectly convinced that she had never been near the cottage.”

  “I”—the whitened lips tightened resolutely—“I did not believe that she had been. It was simply a hypothesis that I accepted in desperation—a vain attempt to believe that she might be safe, after all.”

  “It would have consoled you to know that she was safe in the gardener’s cottage with Patrick Ives?”

  “I would have given ten years of my life to have believed that she was safe and happy anywhere in the world.”

  “Your honor meant nothing to you?”

  “My honor? What had my honor to do with it?”

  “Do you not consider that when a man’s wife has betrayed him, his honor is involved and should be avenged?”

  “I believe nothing of the kind. My honor is involved only by my own actions, not by those of others.”

  “You would have let her go to her lover with your blessing?”

  Something flared in the dark eyes turned to the prosecutor’s mocking blue ones, and died. “I did not say that,” said Stephen Bellamy evenly.

  Judge Carver leaned forward abruptly, “Mr. Bellamy is entirely correct,” he said sternly. “He said nothing of the kind.”

  “I regret that I seem to have misunderstood him,” said the prosecutor with ominous meekness.

  “You would have prevented her?”

  “I would have begged her to try to find happiness with me.”

  “And if that had not succeeded, you would have prevented her?”

  “How could I have prevented her?”

  The prosecutor took a step forward and lowered his voice to that strange pitch that carried farther than a battle cry. “Quite simply, Mr. Bellamy. As simply as the person who drove that knife to Madeleine Bellamy’s heart prevented her joining her lover—as simply as that.”

  Judge Carver’s gavel fell with a crash. “Let that remark be stricken from the record!”

  Stephen Bellamy’s head jerked back, and from somewhere an arm flashed out to catch him. He motioned it away, steadying himself carefully with an iron grip on the witness box. His eyes, the only things alive in his frozen face, met his enemy’s unswervingly.

  “I did not drive that knife to her heart.” His voice was as ominously distinct as the prosecutor’s.

  “But you did not raise a hand to prevent it from striking?”

  “I could not raise a hand—I was not there.”

  “You did not raise a hand?”

  “Your Honor!”

  Bellamy’s eyes swung steadily to the clamorous and distracted Lambert. “Please—I’d rather answer. I have told you already that I was not there, Mr. Farr. If I had been I would have given my life—gladly, believe me—to have prevented what happened.”

  Farr turned a hotly incredulous countenance to Judge Carver’s impassive one. “Your Honor, I ask to have that stricken from the record as deliberately unresponsive.”

  “It is not strictly responsive,” conceded His Honor dispassionately. “However, the Court feels that you had already received a responsive answer, so were apparently pressing for an elaboration. It may remain.”

  “I defer to Your Honor’s opinion,” said Mr. Farr in a tone so far from deferential that His Honor regarded him somewhat fixedly. “Mr. Bellamy, what reason did Mrs. Ives give you for believing that Mr. Ives was at home?”

  “She did not give me a reason; she gave me her word of honor.”

  “You did not press her for one?”

  “No; I considered her word better than any assurance that she____”

  “Your Honor, I have repeatedly requested the witness to confine himself to yes and no. I ask with all deference to have the Court add its instructions to that effect.”

  “Confine yourself to a direct answer whenever possible, Mr. Bellamy. You are not permitted to enter into explanations.”

  “Very well, Your Honor.”

  “Nothing was said about an intercepted note, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “No.”

  “You were perfectly satisfied that she had some mysterious way of ascertaining that he had not gone out at all that evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “But at some time during the evening that assurance on your part evaporated?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I’ll be clearer. By the time you reached Mrs. Ives’s home—I believe that you’ve told us that that was at about ten-thirty—your confidence in her infallibility had so diminished that you suggested that she signal to you if Mr. Ives were actually there?”

  “I believe that that was her suggestion.”

  “Her suggestion? After she had given you her word of honor that he was there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wish that to be your final statement on that subject?”

  “Wait a moment.” He looked suddenly exhausted, as though he had been running for a long time. “I told you that things were very confused from the time that I found that Mimi hadn’t gone to the movies. I’m trying to get it as straight as possible. It was some time after we had left my house—after ten, I mean—and before we got to hers, that I suggested there was just a chance that she was mistaken and that Pat had gone to meet her after all. Sue said she couldn’t be mistaken, and that, anyway, they’d never dare stay at the cottage so late—it wouldn’t fit in with the movie story. I suggested then that possibly she had been right in her idea that they had been planning to run away together. Possibly that was what they had done to-night. She said, ‘Steve, you sound as though you wish they had.’ I said, ‘I wish to God they had.’ Then she said, ‘I know that Pat hasn’t been out, but I’ll let you know definitely when we go home.’ It was then that she suggested the lights.”

  “It all comes back very clearly now, doesn’t it, Mr. Bellamy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very convenient, remembering all those noble bits about how you wished to God that they’d eloped, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know that it’s particularly noble or convenient. It’s the truth.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly. Mr. Bellamy, at what time____”

  “Your Honor, I protest these sneers and jeers that Mr. Farr is indulging in constantly. I____”

  “I simply remarked that Mr. Bellamy was undoubtedly telling the truth,” said Mr. Farr in dangerously meek tones. “Do you regard that as necessarily sarcastic?”

  “I regard your tone as sheerly outrageous. I protest____”

  “It might be just as well to make no comments on the witness’s replies, of either a flattering or an unflattering nature,” remarked Judge Carver drily. “Is there a question before the witness?”

  “No, Your Honor. I was not permitted to complete my question.”

  “It may be completed.” There was a hint of acerbity in the fine voice.

  “Mr. Bellamy, at what time, after you left Mrs. Ives at her house, did you return to your own?”

  “I don’t know.” The voice was weary to the point of indifference.

  “You don’t know?”

  “No; the whole thing’s like a nightmare. Time doesn’t mean much in a nightmare.”

  “Well, did this nightmare condition permit you to ascertain whether it was after twelve?”

  “I believe that it was later.”

  “After one?”

  “Later.”

  “H
ow do you know that it was later?”

  “I don’t know—because the sky was getting lighter, I suppose.”

  “You mean that dawn was breaking?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You are telling us that you drove about until dawn?”

  “I am telling you that I don’t remember what I did; it was all a nightmare.”

  “Mr. Bellamy, why didn’t you go home to see whether your wife had returned?”

  For the first time the eyes fixed on the prosecutor wavered. “What?”

  “You heard me, I believe.”

  “You want to know why I didn’t go back to my house?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t know—because I was more or less out of my head, I suppose.”

  “You were anxious to know what had become of her, weren’t you?”

  “Anxious!” The stiff lips wrenched themselves into something dreadfully like a smile.

  “Yet from eleven o’clock on you never went near your house to ascertain whether she had come home or been brought home?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t call up the police?”

  “I told you I’d already called them up.”

  “Nor the hospital?”

  “I’d called them too.”

  “Where were they to notify you in case they had news to report?”

  “At my house.”

  “How were you to receive this information—this vital information—if you were roaming the country in an automobile?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Weren’t you interested to know whether she was dead or alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you go home?”

  “I have told you—I don’t know.”

  “That’s your best answer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see whether I can’t help you to a better one. Isn’t the reason that you didn’t go home or call up the police or the hospital because you knew perfectly well that any information that anyone in the world could give you would be superfluous?”