The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “Yes. School had closed on Friday, and we—Mr. Phipps thought that perhaps it would be better if we didn’t see each other any more. It was my fault that we went to Orchards that night. It was all my fault,” explained Miss Dunne carefully in her small, clear voice.

  “Your fault?”

  “Yes. You see, Mr. Phipps thought that I was very romantic indeed, and that I was getting too fond of him, so that we had better stop seeing each other. I am very romantic,” said Sally Dunne gravely, “and I was getting too fond of him.”

  “How often have you seen Mr. Phipps since that evening, Miss Dunne?”

  “Twice; once on the Tuesday following the—the murder—only for about five minutes in the park. I begged him not to say anything about our having been there unless it was absolutely necessary. And again last night when he said that it was necessary.”

  “Yes, exactly. Thank you, Miss Dunne; that will be all. Cross-examine.”

  “It was not the state that is responsible for the pitiless publicity to which this unfortunate young girl has been exposed,” said Mr. Farr, looking so virtuous that one sought apprehensively for the halo. “And it is not the state that proposes to prolong it. I ask no question.”

  Judge Carver said, in answer to the look of blank bewilderment in the clear eyes, “That will be all. You may step down, Miss Dunne.”

  The red-headed girl, who thought that nothing in the world could surprise her any more, felt herself engulfed in amazement.

  “Well, but what did he let her go for?”

  “He let her go,” explained the reporter judicially, “because he’s the wiliest old fox in Bellechester County. He knows perfectly well that while he has a fair sporting chance of instilling the suspicion in the twelve essential heads that Mr. Phipps is a libertine and a bribe taker and a perjurer, he hasn’t the chance of the proverbial snowball to make them believe that Sally Dunne could speak anything but the truth to save her life or her soul. That child could make the tales of Munchausen sound like the eternal verities. The quicker he can get her off the stand, the more chance he has of saving his case.”

  “Save it? How can he save it?”

  “Well, that’s probably what he’d like to know. As the prosecutor is supposed to be a seeker after truth, rather than a blood-hound after blood, he has rather a tough row to hoe. And here’s where he starts hoeing it.”

  “The state has no comment to make on the testimony that you have just heard,” Mr. Farr was saying to the twelve jurors with an expression of truly exalted detachment, “other than to ask you to remember that, after all, these two last witnesses are no more than human beings, subject to the errors, the frailties, and the weaknesses of other human beings. If you will bear that in mind in weighing their evidence, I do not feel that it will be necessary to add one other word.”

  Judge Carver eyed him thoughtfully for a moment over the glasses that he had adjusted to his fine nose. Then, with a perfunctory rap of his gavel, he turned to the papers in his hand.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, the long and anxious inquiry in which we have been engaged is drawing to a close, and it now becomes my duty to address you. It has been, however painful, of a most absorbing interest, and it has undoubtedly engaged the closest attention of every one of you. You will not regret the strain that that attention has placed upon you when it shortly becomes your task to weigh the evidence that has been put before you.

  “At the very outset of my charge I desire to make several things quite clear. You and you alone are the sole judges of fact. Any comment that the Court may make as to the weight or value of any features of the evidence is merely his way of suggestion, and is in no possible way binding on the jury. Nor do statements made by counsel as to the innocence or guilt of the defendants, or as to any other conclusions or inferences drawn by them, prove anything whatever or have any effect as evidence.

  “It is not necessary for any person accused in a court in this county to prove that he is not guilty. It devolves on the state to prove that he is. If you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the state has proved his guilt, it is your duty to return a verdict of not guilty. That is the law of the land.

  “Now, having a reasonable doubt does not mean that by some far-fetched and fantastic hypothesis you can arrive at the conclusion of not guilty because any other conclusion is painful and distasteful and abhorrent to you. There is hardly anything that an ingenious mind cannot bring itself to doubt, granted sufficient industry and application. A reasonable doubt is not one that you would conjure up in the middle of a dark, sleepless, and troubled night, but one that would lead you to say naturally when you went about your business in clear daylight, ‘Well, I can’t quite make up my mind about the real facts behind that proposition.’ Not beyond any possible doubt—beyond a reasonable doubt—bear that in mind.

  “To convict either of the defendants under this indictment, the state must prove to your satisfaction beyond reasonable doubt:

  “First, that Madeleine Bellamy is dead and was murdered.

  “Second, that this murder took place in Bellechester County.

  “And third, that such defendant either committed that murder by actually perpetrating the killing or by participating therein as a principal.

  “That Madeleine Bellamy is dead is perfectly clear. That she was murdered has not been controverted by either the state or the defense. That the murder took place in Bellechester County is not in dispute. The only actual problem that confronts you is the third one: Did Mrs. Ives and Mr. Bellamy participate in the murder of this unfortunate girl?

  “The state tells you that they did, and in support of that statement they advance the following facts:

  “They claim that on Saturday the nineteenth of June, 1926, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Ives received information from Mr. Elliot Farwell as to relations between Mr. Ives and Mrs. Bellamy that affected her so violently and painfully that she thereupon____”

  “I can’t stand hearing it all over again,” remarked the red-headed girl in a small ominous whisper. “I can’t stand it, I tell you! If he starts telling us again that Sue Ives went home and called up Stephen Bellamy, I’ll stand up and scream so that they’ll hear me in Philadelphia. I’ll____”

  “Look here, you’d better get out of here,” said the reporter in tones of unfeigned alarm. “Tell you what you do. You crawl out very quietly to that side door where the fat officer with the sandy moustache is standing. He’s a good guy, and you tell him that I told you that he’d let you out before you fainted all over the place. You can sit on the stairs leading to the third floor; I’ll get word to you when he’s through with the evidence, and you can crawl back the same way.”

  “All right,” said the red-headed girl feebly.

  The reporter glanced cautiously about. “It’ll help if you can go both ways on four paws; the judge doesn’t like to think that he’s boring any member of the press, and if he sees one of us escaping, he’s liable to call out the machine guns. Take long, deep breaths and pretend that it’s day after tomorrow.”

  The red-headed girl gave him a look of dazed scorn and moved toward the left-hand door at a gait that came as close to being on four paws as was compatible with the dignity of the press. The fat officer gave one alarmed look at her small, wan face and hastily opened the door. She crawled through it, discovered the stairs, mounted them obediently and sank somewhat precipitately to rest on the sixth one from the top.

  Down below, she could hear the mob outside of the great center doors, shuffling and grunting and yapping____ Ugh! She shuddered and propped up her elbows on her knees and her head on her hands, and closed her eyes and closed her ears and breathed deeply and fervently.

  “If ever I go to a murder trial again____ What happens to you when you don’t sleep for a week? . . . If ever—I—go____”

  Someone was saying, “Hey!” It was a small, freckled boy in a messenger’s cap, and he had evidently been saying it for some time, as his voice had a distinctly c
rescendo quality. He extended one of the familiar telegraph blanks and vanished. The red-headed girl read it solemnly, trying to look very wide awake, and intelligent, as is the wont of those abruptly wakened.

  The telegram said: “Come home. All is forgiven, and he’s through with the evidence. It’s going to the jury in a split second. Hurry!”

  She hurried. Quite suddenly she felt extraordinarily wide awake and amazingly alert and frantically excited. She was a reporter—she was at a murder trial—they were going to consider the verdict. She flew down the white marble stairs and around the first corner and through the crack of the door proffered by the startled guard. There were wings at her heels and vine leaves in her hair. She felt like a giant refreshed—that was it, a giant. . . .

  The reporter eyed her with his mouth open. “Well, for heaven’s sake, what’s happened to you?”

  “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?” she demanded feverishly. “They won’t be out long, will they? There’s nothing____” A familiar voice fell ominously on her ears and she jerked incredulous eyes toward the throne of justice. “Oh, he’s still talking! You said he was through—you did! You said____”

  “I said through with the evidence, and so he is. This is just a back fire. If you’ll keep quiet a minute you’ll see.”

  “I wish simply, therefore, to remind you,” the weary voice was saying, “that however unusual, arresting and dramatic the circumstances surrounding the testimony of these last two witnesses may have been, you should approach this evidence in precisely the same spirit that you approach all the other evidence that has been placed before you. It should be submitted to exactly the same tests of credibility that you apply to every word that has been uttered before you—no more and no less.

  “One more word and I have done. The degrees of murder. I have defined for you. You will govern your verdict accordingly. The sentence is not your concern; that lies with the Court. It is your duty, and your sole duty, to decide whether Susan Ives and Stephen Bellamy are either or both of them guilty of the murder of Madeleine Bellamy. I am convinced that you will perform that duty faithfully. Gentlemen, you may consider your verdict.”

  Slowly and stiffly the twelve men rose to their feet and stood staring about them uncertainly, as though loath to be about their business.

  “If you desire further instruction as to any point that is not quite clear to you,” said Judge Carver gravely, “I may be reached in my room here. Any of the exhibits that you desire to see will be put at your disposal. You may retire, gentlemen.”

  They shuffled solemnly out through the little door to the right of the witness, the small, beady-eyed bailiff with the mutton-chop whiskers and the anxious frown trotting close at their heels. The door closed behind them with a gentle, ominous finality, and someone in the courtroom sighed—loudly, uncontrollably—a prophecy of the coming intolerable suspense.

  The red-headed girl wrung her hands together in a despairing effort to warm them. Twelve men—twelve ordinary, everyday men, whose faces looked heavy and stupid with strain and fatigue . . . She pressed her hands together harder and turned a pale face toward the other door.

  Susan Ives and Stephen Bellamy had just reached it; they lingered there for a moment to smile gravely and reassuringly at the hovering Lambert, and then were gone, as quietly as though they were about to walk down the steps to waiting cars instead of to a black hell of uncertainty and suspense.

  Those in the courtroom still sat breathlessly silent, held in check by Judge Carver’s stern eye. After a moment he, too, rose; for a moment, it seemed that all the room was filled with the rustle of his black silk robes, and then he, too, was gone, with decorum following hard on his heels.

  In less than thirty seconds, the quiet, orderly room was transformed into something rather less sedate than the careless excitement of a Saturday-afternoon crowd at a ball park—psychologically they were reduced to shirt sleeves and straw hats tilted well back on their heads. The red-headed girl stared at them with round, appalled eyes.

  Just behind her they were forming a pool. Someone with a squeaky voice was betting that they would be back in twenty minutes; someone with an Oxford accent was betting that they’d take two hours; a girl’s pleasant tones offered five to one that it would be a hung jury. Large red apples were materializing, the smoke of a hundred cigarettes filled the air, and rumor’s voice was loud in the land:

  “Listen, did you hear about Melanie Cordier? Someone telephoned that she’d collapsed at the inn in Rosemont and confessed that Platz had done it, and about one o’clock this morning every taxicab in Redfield was skidding around corners to get there first. And she hadn’t been there since last Friday, let alone collapsed!”

  “Well, you wouldn’t get me out of my bed at one in the morning to hear Cal Coolidge say he’d done it.”

  “Did you hear the row that Irish landlady was setting up about a state witness taking her seat? Oh, boy, what an eye that lady’s got! It sure would tame a wildcat!”

  “Anyone want to bet ten to one that they’ll be out all night?”

  The voice of an officer of the court said loudly and authoritatively, “No smoking in here! No smoking, please!”

  There was a temporary lull, and a perfunctory and irritable tapping of cigarettes against chair arms. The clock over the courtroom door said four.

  “Have some chocolate?” inquired the reporter solicitously. The red-headed girl shuddered. “Well, but, my good child, you haven’t had a mouthful of lunch, and if you aren’t careful you won’t have a mouthful of dinner either. Lord knows how long that crew will be in there.”

  “How long?” inquired the red-headed girl fiercely. “Why, for heaven’s sake, should they be long? Why, for heaven’s sake, can’t they come out of there now and say, ‘Not guilty’?”

  “Well, there’s a good old-fashioned custom that they’re supposed to weigh the evidence; they may be celebrating that.”

  “What have they to weigh? They heard Mr. Phipps, didn’t they?”

  “They did indeed. And what they may well spend the next twenty-four hours debating is whether they consider Mr. Phipps a long-suffering martyr or a well-paid liar.”

  “Oh, go away—go away! I can’t bear you!”

  “You can’t bear me?” inquired the reporter incredulously. “Me?”

  “No—yes—never mind. Go away; you say perfectly horrible things.”

  “Not as horrible as you do,” said the reporter. “Can’t bear me, indeed! I didn’t say that I thought that Phipps was a liar. As a matter of fact, I thought he was as nice a guy as I ever saw in my life, poor devil, even if he did read the Idylls of the King aloud. . . . Can’t bear me!”

  “I can’t bear anything,” said the red-headed girl despairingly. “Go away!”

  After he had gone, she had a sudden overwhelming impulse to dash after him and beg him to take her with him, anywhere he went—everywhere—always. She was still contemplating the impulse with horrified amazement when the girl from the Louisville paper who sat three seats down from her leaned forward. She was a nice, cynical, sensible-looking girl, but for the moment she was a little pale.

  “There’s not a possibility that they could return a verdict of guilty, is there?” she inquired in a carefully detached voice.

  “Oh, juries!” said the red-headed girl drearily. “They can do anything. They’re just plain, average, everyday, walking-around people, and average, everyday people can do anything in the world. That’s why we have murders and murder trials.”

  The girl from the Louisville paper stood up abruptly. “I think I’ll get a little air,” she said, and added in a somewhat apologetic voice, “It’s my first murder trial.”

  “It’s my last,” said the red-headed girl grimly.

  The officer of the court had disappeared, and all about her there were rising once more the little blue coils of smoke—incense on the altars of relaxation. Why didn’t he come back. . . . The clock over the courtroom door said five.

&n
bsp; On the courtroom floor there was a mounting tide of newspapers, telegraph blanks, leaves from notebooks and ruled pads—many nervous hands had made light work, tearing, crumpling, and crushing their destructive way through the implements of their trade. There was an empty pop bottle just by the rail, apple cores and banana skins were everywhere, clouds of smoke, fragments of buns, a high, nervous murmur of voices: a picnic ground on the fifth of July would have presented a more appetizing appearance. Over all was a steady roar of voices, and one higher than the rest, lamenting: “Over two hours—that’s a hung jury as sure as shooting! I might just as well kiss that ten dollars good-bye here and now. Got a light, Larry?”

  The door to the left of the witness box opened abruptly, and for a moment Judge Carver stood framed in it, tall and stern in his black robes. Under his accusing eye, apples and cigarettes were suddenly as unobtrusive as the skin on a chameleon, and voices fell to silence. He stood staring at them fixedly for a moment and then withdrew as abruptly as he had come. While you could have counted ten, silence hung heavy; then once more the smoke and the voices rose and fell. . . . The clock over the courtroom door said six.

  The red-headed girl moved an aimless pencil across an empty pad with unsteady fingers. There were quite a lot of empty seats. What were those twelve men doing now? Weighing the evidence? Well, but how did you weigh evidence? What was important and what wasn’t? . . . And suddenly she was back in the only courtroom that she could remember clearly—the one in Alice in Wonderland, and the King was saying proudly, “Well, that’s very important.” “Unimportant, Your Majesty means.” And she could hear the poor little King trying it over to himself to see which sounded the best. “Important—unimportant—important____” There was the lamp—and the date on the letters—and the note that nobody had found—unimportant—important. . . . There was a juryman called Bill the Lizard. She remembered that he had dipped his tail in ink and had written down all the hours and dates in the case on his slate, industriously adding them up and reducing the grand total to pounds, shillings, and pence. Perhaps that was the safest way, after all.