“I could have saved my breath. He didn’t even hear me. He did finally rouse himself to telephone the police and the hospital; the rest of the time he just sat there staring and shivering. He wanted me to call up Pat and the Dallases, and of course I knew that that wouldn’t do any good—Pat was locked up two stories away from a telephone. Finally I asked, ‘Did you see what direction she was going in when she left?’ He shook his head. I said, ‘But she told you that she was going toward the Conroys’?’ He nodded. I said, ‘Well, maybe she turned her ankle and fainted somewhere along the side of the road—she always wears such dreadfully high heels. We might take the car and turn the headlights along the edge of the road and see if we can get any trace of her. Come on!’
“I knew that that was perfect nonsense, but I was desperate, and I thought that there was just a chance that it might rouse him. It did. It was exactly as though you’d put a galvanic shock through him. He jerked out of his chair. He was out in the hall without even waiting to look back at me, and I had to run to get to the car before he started it.
“We got off with such a jerk that it nearly threw me out of the car, and I was really afraid that he was going to dash us against one of the gateposts. I said, “If we’re going to find Mimi, Steve, we must go slowly, mustn’t we? We must look carefully.’ He said, ‘That’s right!’ And after that we literally crept, all the way to the Conroys’.”
“How far was that?”
“Oh, not far—not half a mile—just a little way. It wasn’t until after we got past their entrance that we decided that____” She paused for a moment, her eyes dilated strangely in her small pale face; then she wrung her hands together more closely as though in that hard contact she found comfort, and continued steadily in her low voice. “We decided that we might as well go on.”
Lambert, paler than she, said just as steadily, “Might as well go on where, Mrs. Ives?”
“Go on to the gardener’s cottage at Orchards,” said Susan Ives.
In the gray light of the courtroom, the faces of the occupants looked gray, too—sharpened, fearful, full of an ominous unease. More than one of them glanced swiftly over a hunched shoulder at the blue-coated guardians of the door, and then back again, with somewhat pinched and rueful countenance, at the slight occupant of the witness box. The figure sat so quietly there in the gathering shadows; to many who watched it seemed that there slanted across her lifted face another shadow still—the shadow of the block, of the gallows, of the chair. . . .
“Is she confessing?” asked the red-headed girl in a small colorless voice.
“Wait!” said the reporter. “God knows what she’s doing.”
Judge Carver leaned suddenly toward Lambert.
“Mr. Lambert, it is already considerably past four. Is this testimony likely to continue for some time?”
“For some time, Your Honor.”
“In that case,” said Judge Carver gravely, “the Court considers it advisable to adjourn until ten to-morrow. Court is dismissed.”
The small figure moved lightly down from the witness stand into the deeper shadows—deeper still—she was gone. The sixth day of the Bellamy trial was over.
CHAPTER VII
THE reporter cast an anxious eye at the red-headed girl. “You’ve been crying,” he said accusingly.
The red-headed girl looked unrepentant.
“Of all the little idiots! What’s Sue Ives to you?”
“Never mind,” said the red-headed girl with dignity. “I can cry if I want to. I can cry all night if I want to. Keep quiet. Here she is!”
“Mrs. Ives, what made you decide to go on to the cottage?” Lambert’s voice was very gentle.
“I think that it was Stephen’s idea, but I’m not absolutely sure. I was at my wit’s end by this time, you see. But I believe that it was Steve who suggested that maybe she had been taken ill or perhaps even fallen asleep at the cottage. I remember agreeing that it was stupid of us not to have thought of that before. At any rate, we both agreed to go on to the cottage.”
She stopped again and sat for a moment locking and unlocking her fingers, her eyes fixed on something far beyond the courtroom door.
“What time did you arrive at the cottage?”
“At about quarter past ten, I believe—twenty minutes past perhaps. It isn’t more than a five-minute drive. We drove the car up through the lodge gates and then turned off the little dirt road to the cottage. We drove it right up to the front steps, and then I said, ‘It’s no good; there’s no light in the place. She isn’t here.’ Steve said, ‘Maybe she left a note saying where she was going,’ and I said, ‘That’s perfectly possible. Let’s go in and see.’ He helped me out, and just as we got to the door, I said, ‘Well, we’ll never know. The place will be locked, of course.’ Steve had his hand on the door knob, and he pushed it a little. He said, ‘No, it’s open. That’s queer.’ I said, ‘Probably she thought that he might come later.’ And he opened the door and we went in.”
She sat staring with that curious, intent rigidity at that far-off spot beyond the other closed door, and the courtroom followed her glance with uneasy eyes.
“And then?”
“Yes. And then when we got in there wasn’t any light, of course. Steve asked, ‘Do you know where the switch is?’ And I told him, ‘There isn’t any switch. Douglas has always been talking about putting electricity in these cottages, but he never has.’ Steve said, ‘Well, there must be a light somewhere, and I said, ‘Oh, of course there is. There always used to be an old brass lamp here in the corner by the front door—let’s see.’ It was right there on the same table. There were matches there, too, and I struck one of them and lit it. Steve had stepped by me into the room; he was standing by the door, and he stood aside to let me pass. There was a little breeze from the open door, and I had put up one hand to shield the light and keep it from flickering. I was looking at the piano, because I’d never remembered seeing a piano there before. I was half-way across the room before I—before I____” The voice shuddered slowly away to silence.
After a long pause, Lambert asked, “Before you did what, Mrs. Ives?”
She gave a convulsive start, as though someone had let fall a heavy hand across the nightmare. “Before I—saw her.”
The voice was hardly a whisper, but there was no one in the room beyond the reach of its stilled horror.
“It was Mrs. Bellamy that you saw?”
“Yes, I____” She swallowed—tried to speak—swallowed again, and lifted a hand to her throat. “I’m sorry. Might I have a glass of water? Is that all right?”
In all that room no one stirred save the clerk of the Court, who poured a glass of water with careful gravity and handed it up to her over the edge of the box. She drank it slowly, as though she found in this brief respite life itself. When she had finished it, she put it down gently and said, “Thank you,” in a voice once more clear and steady.
“You were telling us that you saw Mrs. Bellamy.”
“Yes. . . . I must have dropped the lamp immediately; all I remember was that we were standing there in the dark. I heard Stephen say, ‘Don’t move. Where are the matches?’ He needn’t have told me not to move. If I could have escaped death itself by stepping aside one inch I could not have moved that inch. I said, ‘I have them here—in my pocket.’ He said, ‘Strike one.’ I tried three times. The third time it lit, and he went by me and knelt down beside her. He touched her wrist and said, ‘Mimi, did it hurt? Did it hurt, darling?’ The match went out and I started to strike another. He said, ‘Never mind. She’s dead.’ I said, ‘I know it. Dead people can’t close their eyes, can they?’ He said, ‘I have closed them. She’s been murdered. I got you into this, Sue, and I’ll get you out of it. Where are you?’ I tried to say, ‘Here,’ but I couldn’t. And then I thought that I heard something move—outside—in the bushes—and I screamed.
“I’d never done that before in my life. It didn’t sound like me at all. It sounded like someone quite different.
Steve whispered, ‘For God’s sake, be still.’ I said, ‘I heard someone moving.’ He said ‘It was I, coming toward you. Give me your hand.’ His was so cold on my wrist that it was horrible.
“I put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming again, and he pulled me through the hall and on to the porch. I said, ‘Steve, we can’t leave her there like that—we can’t.’ He said, ‘She doesn’t need us any more. Get in the car.’ I pulled back, and he said, ‘Listen to me, Sue. It doesn’t make any difference how innocent we are, if it is ever known that we were in that room this evening, we’ll never be able to make one human being in God’s world believe that we aren’t guilty—and we’ll have to make twelve of them believe. I’ve got to get you home. Get into the car.’ So I got in, and he drove me home.”
She was silent, and the courtroom was silent too. To the red-headed girl, it seemed as though for a space everyone had foregone even the habit of breath and held it suspended until that voice should finish its dreadful tale. She could see Patrick Ives in his corner by the window. A long time ago he had buried his black head in his hands, and he did not lift it now. His mother had placed one small gloved hand on his knee. It rested there lightly, but she was not looking at him; her eyes had never wavered from Sue Ives’s white face. Long ago the winter roses had faded in her own, but it was as gravely and graciously composed as on that first day.
“Did you drive straight home, Mrs. Ives?”
“Straight home. Stephen spoke two or three times; I don’t remember saying anything at all. He told me to say that we’d driven over to Lakedale, and then he said that everything would be all right, because no one would know that Elliot had spoken to me, and no one could possibly know that we had gone to the cottage. I remember nodding, and then we were at our gate. Stephen said, ‘You might as well give me that signal that we decided on before to let me know whether Pat’s there; will you, Sue?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You might ask him whether he heard from her this evening.’ I said, ‘Steve, it isn’t us that this is happening to, is it? It isn’t us—not Pat and you and I and Mimi?’ He said, ‘Yes, it’s us. I’ll wait right here. Hurry, will you?’
“I went into the house. All the lights were out except one in the hall, but I went out through the study and the dining room to the pantry. It connects with the servants’ quarters, and I wanted to make sure that none of them were about, as I had to go up and unlock the day nursery, and I was afraid that Kathleen Page might make a scene. It was all dark and quiet; there wasn’t anyone there. I passed the ice box as I came back, and I could see the fruit through the glass door. I remembered that Pat couldn’t have taken it to Mother Ives, and I put some on a plate and went upstairs. Her door was open; she always left it open so that we could say good-night if we came in before eleven.”
“Were you with her long?”
“Oh, no, only a minute. I told her that Steve and I had driven over to Lakedale instead of going to the movies, and kissed her good-night. Then I went around the gallery and on up to the nursery wing. I unlocked the door and pushed it open, but I didn’t go in. Pat was sitting by the table, reading. The door to Miss Page’s room was closed. He sat there looking at me for a moment, and then he stood up and came into the hall, pulling the nursery door to behind him. He said, ‘I didn’t know that you had it in you to play an ugly trick like that, Sue.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know it either.’ I went down to the study and lit the light—twice. I waited until I heard the car start, and then I went up to my room and took off my clothes and went to bed. There were several lights in the room, and I kept every one of them burning until after the sun was up. In the morning I got up and dressed and went to church, and it was just a little while after I got home that we heard that Mimi’s body had been found. And Monday evening both Stephen and I were put under arrest.”
She was silent for a moment, and then said in a small, exhausted voice, “That’s all. Must I wait?”
Lambert said gravely and gently, “I’m afraid so. When was the first time that you told this story, Mrs. Ives?”
“Night before last—to you—after they found my finger print, you know.”
“It is the full and entire account of how you spent the evening of the nineteenth of June, 1926?”
“Yes.”
“To the best of your knowledge, you have omitted nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Thank you; that will be all. Cross-examine.”
Mr. Farr advanced leisurely toward the witness box and stood staring thoughtfully for a long moment at its pale occupant. Under those speculative eyes, the sagging shoulders straightened, the chin lifted.
“You were perfectly familiar with the gardener’s cottage, were you not, Mrs. Ives?”
“Perfectly.”
“You remembered even where the lamp stood in the hall?”
“Yes. I used to go there often as a child.”
“Nothing had been changed since then?”
“I don’t know. I was only there for a few seconds.”
“Not long enough to notice a change of any kind whatever?”
“There was the piano; I remember that.”
She sat very straight, watching him with those wide, bright eyes as though he were some strange and dangerous beast.
“Were you familiar with the back entrance from the River Road—to the Thorne estate, Mrs. Ives?”
“Yes.”
“You could have found it at night quite easily?”
“You mean by the lights of the automobile?”
“Exactly.”
“Yes.”
“Were you aware that it was a shorter way to reach Orchards than going back by way of Rosemont?”
“Oh, yes; it was about three miles shorter.”
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“Because when we were in Lakedale we had no idea of going to the cottage. We didn’t think of it until long after we had returned to Rosemont.”
“But why didn’t you think of it before? You knew that in all probability Mrs. Bellamy was waiting for your husband at the cottage, didn’t you?”
The question was asked in tones of the gentlest consideration, but the sentinel watching from the dark eyes was suddenly alert.
“No, I didn’t know that at all. In the first place, I wasn’t sure that she had gone there; in the second place, I wasn’t sure that she had waited, even if she had gone.”
“There was no harm in making sure, was there?”
“I thought there was. My idea in seeing Stephen was to get him to talk to Mimi; I hadn’t the faintest desire to take part in the humiliating and painful scene that would have been inevitable if I had confronted her.”
“I see. Still, you were willing to confront her in her own home, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” She bit her lip in an effort to concentrate on that. “But that wouldn’t have been tracking her down and spying on her, and by then____”
“ ‘Yes’ is an answer, Mrs. Ives.”
“You mean that it’s all the answer that you want?”
“Exactly.”
“You didn’t really want to know why I did it?”
Under the level irony of her glance the prosecutor’s eyes hardened. “For your own good, Mrs. Ives, I suggest that you do not attempt to bandy language with me. You were not only willing to see her in her home but not long after you went to seek her in the cottage, did you not?”
“Yes. By that time we were both desperately worried and I put my own wishes aside.”
“You wish us to understand that you went there on an errand of mercy?”
“I am not asking you to understand anything. I was simply telling you why we went.”
“Exactly. Now, when you got to the cottage, Mrs. Ives, you say there was no light?”
“There was no light.”
“But you fortunately remembered that this lamp was in the hall?”
“Fortunately?” repeated Susan Ives slowly, “I remembered that there was a lamp in the hall.�
��
“How long has it been since you were at Orchards?”
“I have not been there since my marriage—not for seven years.”
“How long since you were in the cottage?”
“I’m not sure—possibly a year or so before that.”
“Were you a child nine years ago?”
“A child? I was over twenty.”
“I thought you told us that it was as a child that you went to the cottage.”
“I went occasionally after I was older. I was very fond of the old gardener and his wife. They were German and very sensitive after the outbreak of the war. We all used to go down from time to time to try to cheer them up.”
“Very considerate indeed—another errand of mercy. But about this lamp, now, that you remembered so providentially after nine years. You are quite sure that it wasn’t in the front parlor?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“It couldn’t have been standing on the little table that was overturned by Mimi Bellamy’s fall?”
“How could it possibly have been standing there?”
“I was asking you. You are perfectly sure that it wasn’t standing on that table, lighted, when you came in?”
“I see.” The unwavering eyes burned brighter with that clear disdain. “I didn’t quite understand. You mean am I lying, don’t you? I have told you the truth; the lamp was on the table in the hall.”
“Your Honor, I ask to have that reply stricken from the record as unresponsive.”
“It may be stricken from the record to the point where the witness says, ‘The lamp was on the table in the hall.’____” Judge Carver stared down with stern, troubled eyes at the clear, unflinching face lifted to his. “Mrs. Ives, the Court again assures you that you do yourself no service by such replies and that they are entirely out of order. It requests that you refrain from them.”
The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) Page 26