Stephen Bellamy focussed his weary eyes intently on the sardonic face only a few inches from his. “I’m sorry—I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Don’t you? I’ll try to make it clearer. Wasn’t the reason that you didn’t go home the perfectly simple one that you knew that your wife was lying three miles away in a deserted cottage, soaked in blood and dead as a doornail?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” At the low, despairing violence of that cry some in the courtroom winced and turned away their faces from the ugly triumph flushing the prosecutor’s cold face. “I don’t know, I tell you, I don’t know. I was half crazy; I wasn’t thinking of reasons, I wasn’t thinking of anything except that Mimi was gone.”
“Is that your best answer?”
“Yes.”
“At what time the next morning did you hear of the murder of your wife, Mr. Bellamy?”
Slowly, carefully, fighting inch by inch back to the narrow plank of self-control that lay between him and destruction, Stephen Bellamy lifted his tired voice, his tired eyes. “I believe that it was about eleven o’clock.”
“Who notified you?”
“A trooper, I think, from the police station.”
“Please tell us what he said.”
“He said that Mrs. Bellamy’s body had been found in an empty cottage on the old Thorne estate, and that while it had already been identified, headquarters thought I had better go over and confirm it. I said that I would come at once.”
“And did so?”
“Yes.”
“You saw the body?”
“Yes.”
“Identified it?”
“Yes.”
“It was clothed?”
“Yes.”
“In these garments, Mr. Bellamy?”
And there, incredibly, it was again, that streaked and stiffened gown with its once airy ruffles, dangling over the witness box in reach of Stephen Bellamy’s fine long-fingered hand. After the first convulsive movement he sat motionless, his eyes dilated strangely under his level brows. “Yes.”
“These shoes?”
Lightly as butterflies they settled on the dark rim of the box, so small, so gay, so preposterous, shining silver, shining buckles. The man in the box bent those strange eyes on them. After a moment, his hand moved forward, slowly, hesitantly; the fingers touched their rusted silver, light as a caress, and curved about them, a shelter and a defense.
“These shoes,” said Stephen Bellamy.
Somewhere in the back of the hall a woman sobbed loudly and hysterically, but he did not lift his eyes.
The prosecutor asked in a voice curiously gentle: “Mr. Bellamy, when you went into the room, was the body to the right or the left of the piano?”
“To the left.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Oh, God!” whispered the reporter frantically. “Oh, God, they’ve got him!”
“It’s strange that you should be so sure, Mr. Bellamy,” said the prosecutor more gently still. “Because there was no piano in the room to which you were taken to see the body.”
“What?” The bent head jerked back as though a whip had flicked.
“There was no piano in the dining room to which they had removed the body, Mr. Bellamy. The piano was in the parlor across the hall, where the body was first discovered.”
“If that is so I must have seen it when I came in and confused it somehow.”
“You couldn’t very well have seen it when you came in, I’m afraid. The door to the parlor was closed and locked so that the contents of the room would not be disturbed.”
“Well, then—then I must remember it from some previous occasion.”
“A previous occasion? When you were never in the cottage before?”
“No, no, I never said that. I never said anything like that.” The desperate voice rose slightly in its intensity. “I couldn’t have; it isn’t true. I’ve been there often—years ago, when I used to go over to play with Doug Thorne when we were kids. There was a playhouse just a few hundred feet from the cottage, and we used to run over to the cottage and get bread and jam and cookies from the old German gardener. I remember it absolutely; that’s probably what twisted me.”
“But the old German gardener didn’t have any piano, Mr. Bellamy,” explained the prosecutor patiently. “Don’t you remember that Orsini particularly told us how the Italian gardener had just purchased it for his daughter before they went off on their vacation? It couldn’t have been the old German gardener.”
The red-headed girl was weeping noiselessly into a highly inadequate handkerchief. “Horrid, smirking, disgusting beast!” she intoned in a small fierce whisper. “Horrid____”
“No? Well, then,” said the dreadful, hunted voice, “probably Mimi told me about it. She____”
“Mrs. Bellamy?” There was the slightest inflection of reproach in the soothing voice. “Mrs. Bellamy told you that her body was lying to the left of the piano as you entered the room? It isn’t just the piano, you see—I’m afraid that you’re getting a little confused. It’s the position of the body in relation to the piano. You’re quite correct about the position, of course—quite. But won’t you tell us how you were so sure of it?”
“Wait, please,” said Stephen Bellamy very clearly and distinctly. “You’re quite right about the fact that I’m confused. I can see perfectly that I’m making an absolute mess of this. It’s principally because I haven’t had any sleep since God knows when, and when you don’t sleep, you____”
“Mr. Bellamy, I’m sorry that I can’t let you go into that. Will you answer my question?”
“I can’t answer your question. But I can tell you this, Mr. Farr—I can tell you that as God is my witness, Susan Ives and I had nothing more to do with this murder than you had. I____”
“Your Honor! Your Honor!”
“Be silent, sir!” Judge Carver’s voice was more imperious than his gavel. “You are completely forgetting yourself. Let that entire remark be stricken from the record. Mr. Lambert, be good enough to keep your witness in hand. I regard this entire performance as highly improper.”
Mr. Lambert, a pale ghost of his rubicund self, advanced haltingly from where he had sat transfixed during the last interminable minutes. “I ask the Court’s indulgence for the witness, Your Honor. He took the stand to-day against the express advice of his physicians, who informed him that he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As it is now almost four, I ask that the court adjourn until to-morrow, when Mr. Bellamy will again take the stand if the prosecutor wishes to continue the cross-examination.”
Judge Carver leaned forward, frowning.
“If it please Your Honor,” said the prosecutor, briskly magnanimous, “that won’t be necessary. I’ve finished with Mr. Bellamy, and unless my friend wishes to ask him anything on redirect____”
“Nothing on redirect,” said Mr. Lambert hollowly, his eyes on the exhausted despair of the face before him. “That will be all, Mr. Bellamy.”
Slowly, stiffly, as though his very limbs had been wrenched by torture, Stephen Bellamy moved down the steps from the box, where there still rested Mimi Bellamy’s lace dress and silver slippers. When he stood a foot or so from his chair, he stopped for a moment, stared about him wildly, turning on the girl seated a little space away a look of dreadful inquiry. There she sat, slim and straight, with color warm on her cheeks and bright in her lips, smiling that gay, friendly smile that was always waiting just behind the serene indifference of her eyes. And painfully, carefully, Stephen Bellamy twisted his stiffened lips to greet it, turned his face away and sat down. Even those across the courtroom could watch the ripple in his cheeks as his teeth clenched, unclenched, clenched.
“If Your Honor has no objection,” the prosecutor was saying in that smooth new voice, “the witness that I spoke of yesterday is now in the court. He is still under his doctor’s orders, but he had an unusually good night, and is quite able to take the
stand; he is anxious to do so, in fact, as he is supposed to get off for a rest as soon as possible. His testimony won’t take more than a few moments.”
“Very well, let him take the stand.”
“Call Dr. Barretti.”
“Dr. Gabriel Barretti.”
Dr. Barretti, looking much more like a distinguished diplomat than most distinguished diplomats ever look, mounted the stand with the caution of one newly risen from a hospital cot and settled himself comfortably in the uncomfortable chair. A small, close-clipped gray moustache, a fine sleek head of graying hair, a not displeasing touch of hospital pallor, brilliant eyes behind pince-nez on the most inobtrusive of black cords, and the tiny flame of the Legion of Honor ribbon lurking discreetly in his buttonhole—Dr. Barretti was far from suggesting the family physician. He turned toward the prosecutor with an air of gravely courteous interest.
“Dr. Barretti, what is your profession?”
“I believe that I might describe myself, without too much presumption, as a finger-print expert.”
There was no trace of accent in Dr. Barretti’s finely modulated voice, and only the neatest touch of humorous deprecation.
“The greatest authority in the world to-day, aren’t you, Doctor?”
“It would ill become me to say so, sir, and I might find an unflattering number to disagree with me.”
“Still, it’s an undisputed fact. How long has finger-printing been your occupation?”
“It has been both my occupation and my hobby for about thirty-two years.”
“You started to make a study of it then?”
“A little before that. I studied at the time, however, with Sir Francis Galton in England and Bertillon in France. I also did considerable experimental work in Germany.”
“Sir Francis Galton and Bertillon were the pioneers in the use of finger prints for identification, were they not?”
“Hardly that. Finger prints for the purpose of identification were used in the Far East before history was invented to record it.”
Mr. Farr frowned impatiently. “They were its foremost modern exponents as a means of criminal identification?”
“Perfectly true. They were pioneers and very distinguished authorities.”
“Shortly before his death in 1911, did Sir Francis Galton write a monograph on some recent developments in fingerprint classification?”
“He did.”
“Did the dedication read ‘To Gabriel Barretti, My Pupil and My Master’?”
“Yes. Sir Francis was more than generous.”
“Are you officially associated with any organization at present?”
“Oh, yes. I am very closely associated with the work of the Central Bureau of Identification in New York, and with the work of the Army and Navy Bureau in Washington.”
“You are the court of final appeal in both places, are you not?”
“I believe so. I am also an official consultant of both Scotland Yard and the Paris Surete.”
“Exactly. Is there any opportunity of error in identification by means of finger prints?”
“Granted a moderately clear impression and an able and honest expert to read it, there is not the remotest possibility of error.”
“The prints would be identical?”
“Oh, no; no two prints are ever identical. The pressure of the finger and the temperature of the body cause infinite minute variations.”
“But they do not interfere with identification?”
“No more than the fact that you raise or lower your voice alters the fact that it is your voice.”
“Precisely. Now, Dr. Barretti, I ask you to identify these two photographs and to tell us what they represent.”
Dr. Barretti took the two huge cardboard squares with their sinister black splotches and inspected them gravely. The jury, abruptly and violently agog with interest, hunched rapidly forward to the edges of their chairs.
From over Mr. Farr’s shoulder came an old, shaken voice—the voice of Dudley Lambert, empty of its erstwhile resonance as a pricked drum: “One moment—one moment! Do I understand that you are offering these in evidence?”
“I don’t know whether you understand it or not,” remarked Mr. Farr irritably. “It’s certainly what I intend to do as soon as I get them marked for identification. Now, Dr. Barretti____”
“Your Honor, I object to this—I object!”
“On what grounds?” inquired Judge Carver somewhat peremptorily, his own eyes fixed with undisguised interest on the large squares.
“On the grounds that this entire performance is utterly irregular. I was not told that the witness held back by the prosecutor was a finger-print expert, nor that____”
“You did not make any inquiries to that effect,” the judge reminded him unsympathetically.
“I consider the entire performance nothing more or less than a trap, Your Honor. I know nothing about this man. I know nothing about finger prints. I am not a police-court lawyer, but a____”
“Do you desire further to qualify Dr. Barretti as an expert by cross-examination?” inquired His Honor with more than his usual hint of acerbity.
“I do not, Your Honor; as I stated, I am totally unable to cross-examine on the subject.”
“I am sure that Dr. Barretti will hold himself at your disposal until you have had the time to consult or produce fingerprint experts of your own,” said Judge Carver, bending inquiring eyes on that urbane gentleman and the restive prosecutor.
“Oh, by all means,” said Mr. Farr. “One day—two days—three days—we willingly waive cross-examination until my distinguished adversary is completely prepared. May I proceed, Your Honor?”
“You may.”
“They represent two greatly enlarged sets of finger prints, enlarged some fifty to sixty times—both the photographs and the initialled enlargements are in the lower left-hand corners—by my photographer and myself.”
“Both made at the same time?”
“The photographs were made at the same time—yes.”
“No, no—were the finger prints themselves?”
“Oh, no, at quite different times. The set at the right is a photograph of official prints—prints made especially for our file; the one at the left, sometimes known as a casual print, was obtained from a surface at another date entirely.”
“A clear impression?”
“A remarkably clear impression. I believe that I may say without exaggeration—a beautiful impression.”
“Each shows five fingers?”
“The official one shows five fingers, the casual print shows four fingers distinctly—the fifth, the little finger, is considerably blurred, as apparently no pressure was exerted by it.”
“Only one finger print is necessary in order to establish identity?”
“A section of a finger print, if it is sufficiently large, will establish identity.”
“These prints are from the same hand?”
“From the same hand.”
“It should be obvious even to the layman in comparing them that the same hand made them?”
“I should think that it would be inescapable.”
“No two people in the world have ever been discovered to have the same arrangement of whorls or loops or arches that constitute a finger print?”
“No two in the world.”
“How many finger prints have been taken?”
“Oh, millions of them—the number increases so rapidly that it would be folly to guess at it.”
“I’m going to ask you to give these prints to the jury, Dr. Barretti, so that they may be able to compare them at their leisure. Will you pass them on, Mr. Foreman, after you have inspected them? . . . Thanks.”
The foreman of the jury fell upon them with a barely restrained pounce, the very glasses on his nose quivering with excitement. Finger prints! Things that you read about all your life, that you wondered and speculated and marvelled over—and here they were, right in your lucky hands. The rest of the jury crowde
d forward enviously.
“Dr. Barretti, on what surface were these so-called casual prints found?”
Through the courtroom there ran a stir—a murmur—that strange soaring hum with which humanity eases itself of the intolerable burden of suspense. Even the rapt jury lifted its head to catch it.
“From the surface of a brass lamp—the lamp found in the gardener’s cottage on the Thorne estate known as Orchards.”
“Will you tell us why it was possible to obtain so sharply defined a print from this lamp?”
“Certainly. The hand that clasped the lamp was apparently quite moist, either from natural conditions of temperature or from some emotion. It had clasped the base, which was about six inches in diameter before it swelled into the portion that served as reservoir, quite firmly. The surface of the lamp had been lacquered in order to obviate polishing, making an excellent retaining surface. Furthermore, the impression was developed within twenty-four hours of the time of the murder, and the surface was at no time tampered with. The kerosene that had flowed from it freely flowed away from the base, and, in any case, the prints were on the upper portion of the base. All these circumstances united in making it possible to obtain an unusually fine print.”
“One that leaves not the remotest possibility of error in comparison and identification?”
“Not the remotest.”
“Whose hand made those two sets of impressions, Dr. Barretti?”
“The hand in both cases,” said Dr. Barretti, gravely and pleasantly, “was that of Mrs. Patrick Ives.”
After a long time Mr. Farr said softly, “That is all, Dr. Barretti. Cross-examine.”
And as though it had travelled a great distance and were very tired, the old strange voice that Mr. Lambert had found in the courtroom that afternoon said wearily, “No questions now. Later, perhaps—later—not now.”
The fifth day of the Bellamy trial was over.
CHAPTER VI
THE reporter looked from the clock to the red-headed girl and back again, with an expression in which consternation and irritation were neatly blended. The red-headed girl’s hat was well over one eye, her nose was undeniably pink, she had a fluff of hair over her ear, a fiery spot burning in either cheek and two or more in her eyes. The clock said ten-thirty-five.
The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) Page 22