“We’ve got to lose money, pay out money, hand the second Mrs. Leigh publicity which will be meat for her, because she has accused you of something you didn’t do. Ain’t law humorous! Wish old Scott were on the job.”
“I don’t, Terry. I am thankful that he won’t be in court to hear the bones of our family skeleton rattled.”
“Will Father be called to testify?”
“Only if our side needs him. Phineas Carr wants to keep him out of it if possible, though he admitted acidly to me that nothing would please him more than to force his ancient enemy to the witness stand and put him through the third degree. He has warned me time and again not to let him talk with anyone about the case. Think I’d better tell Father that it goes on today?”
“Sure, Pam. It will give him time to mull over his testimony. Maybe the defense will be reached tomorrow. You’d better get going.”
Pamela glanced at the clock. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Good luck to you, Terry.”
She hastily changed from her morning frock to her last year’s slim little tailored outfit of navy blue crepe printed with white for jacket and skirt, with a smart sash of green, and a blouse of finely tucked net. She pulled on a hat of knitted straw which matched the sash in color, caught up a green bag. She critically regarded the ensemble in the long mirror. Her navy shoes and stockings might not be the last word in fashion but they were effective.
She was too colorless. Her anxious eyes were like black glassies in her white face. It wouldn’t do for the jury to get the impression that the defendant was frightened at the start. She deftly deepened the red of her lips, added a tough of rouge to her cheeks. Better, much better.
She caught up Scott Mallory’s letter. Her father was adjusting a stamp in a book as she entered his room. She laid the envelope on the table.
“Here’s a letter from Mr. Mallory. He has sold some of your securities for a better price than he hoped. I believe he is getting stamp-minded. He thought you would be interested in an auction he attended where a ten shilling, King Edward stamp — I think it was — sold for two thousand dollars!”
“What!” Harold Leigh’s eyes blazed at her from a livid face. What a fanatic he was about stamps! “What did you say it was?”
“Look at the letter. I can’t stop to read it to you. I am due at the court-house in fifteen minutes.”
“The court-house! Does the trial start today?”
“Yes. I hope, Father, that you will feel able to testify if we need you.”
He looked down at the sheet of paper in his shaking hand. There was a sardonic glint in his eyes as they met his daughter’s.
“I’ll be there, if I never do anything else in my life.”
Pamela ran down the backstairs, dashed through the kitchen explaining as she went.
“The case is called for this morning, Hitty. Cancel all reservations for today and tomorrow and don’t make any more. Business as usual after the trial. Keep an eye on Father. Don’t forget you will be called to testify.”
Mehitable Betts wiped her bony hands on a towel as she followed to the drive.
“Forget! I guess Phineas Carr hasn’t drilled me in what I’m to say for nothing! If ’twan’t goin’ to be trouble for you I’d be tickled —”
The engine of the sedan drowned her voice. Pamela waved to her as the car coasted down the drive. She glanced at her watch. What did the law do to a person who was late when summoned to court?
She flashed past charming old houses, glimpsed fragments of gardens: some weeded and ordered, patched with stately tulips, starred with narcissus, bordered with purple, orchid and white lilacs; some as devil-may-care as a village ne’er-do-well, yet with a rakish charm. She passed orchards like great drifts of pinkish snow. A southerly wind sprang up. Petals fell like flakes, platoons of little clouds quick-stepped across the blue infinity of sky. When the breeze was not blossom-scented it was laden with the tang of the sea.
She parked her car in a crooked lane which had strayed from the highway arched with fine old trees. Her breath quickened as she approached the gray stone court-house. What was that across the street? In an interstice between automobiles she made out the letters NEWS. A sound wagon! Phineas Carr had been right. His return to the arena was not only of front-page importance, it was news-reel material. How had she dared ask a man, whose appearance in court started a horde of reporters on his trail, to take what must seem to him a trivial case? What a break for Cecile! She was being handed publicity worth its weight in gold.
“Stts!” A hand jerked Pamela behind a tree.
“Phil! Oh, Phil, I’m so glad you are here.”
“Are you, Pam? Then that makes it worth while.”
Made what worth while, Pamela wondered, even as she approved the Panama in his hand; it had exactly the right slant to its brim. His gray suit was a masterpiece of tailoring; his shirt, tie, socks, the boutonniere of bachelor buttons achieved a harmony in blue; his brown eyes glowed with a curious light. As she met them, Pamela felt as if she were being swirled along on a tidal wave of excitement, much as she had felt last night when she was with him, only to a lesser degree. What did it mean? Milly Pike couldn’t be responsible for this mood.
He caught her arm. “This way, hurry. I’m rescuing you from the cameras. We’ll beat it to the rear door.”
“I feel like a conspirator sneaking in like this,” Pamela protested as they entered an ante-room. “Have they taken any pictures?”
“They snapped Carnation Carr and the plaintiff. Not together, of course. She was keen for it. She would be.”
“This trial will be a grand advertisement for her just before she appears in your revue.”
“It isn’t my revue and she isn’t appearing.”
“Phil! Did you really turn her down?”
“I didn’t, but I made it plain to the producer that he would have to choose between her and me. He cocked his ear to the siren clink of gold, took my backing and my stage-sets.” His voice broke on the last word.
“Phil! What has happened? Beneath your concern for me you are all twinkle, twinkle. I feel as if I had been dropped into a fireworks demonstration with sparks flying in all directions.”
“You won’t wonder that I twinkle when you hear. Didn’t mean to intrude my affairs while you are so anxious about this infernal case, but I’ve got to tell you, Pam, I’ve got to tell you.” His breath caught in a gulp. “My work for the revue has gone over big.”
“Really! Phil, how marvelous! When did you hear?”
“Phone an hour ago. Show opened out of town last night. Didn’t tell you it was imminent, didn’t want you to know if it was a flop.”
“Last night!” He had known that his work was being tried out. No wonder his nerves had been jumpy. And she had suspected him of being emotionally upset by vapid Milly Pike. Her spirit was on its knees in apology as she demanded, “Why weren’t you at the premiere?”
He avoided her reproachful eyes. “Well, you see, I knew this case might be called any minute and I thought — I didn’t know but what in some way I might help. Mouse and lion stuff, with Carnation Carr as your counsel, but you never can tell. Mother was there.”
“Phil, what a dear you are! Tell me quickly what you heard about your work in the revue.”
“One dramatic critic of parts wrote: ‘The settings by Philip Carr furnished a sure-fire combination of economy and illusion. That young man will go far.’”
“Isn’t it wonderful! Now you will tell your father, won’t you?”
“Not until he is through trying your case. He will be too absorbed to take it in.”
Her case! Apprehension swept Pamela in a suffocating tide. Phil didn’t realize that by his ultimatum to the producer he had strengthened Cecile in her determination to humiliate her stepdaughter. Oil on smoldering coals! Cecile! She pulled Philip Carr nearer by the lapel of his pocket to prophesy shakily:
“The second Mrs. Leigh will make every man on that jury believe her a martyr. Gettin
g emotional effects is her profession.”
“Beat her at her own game. Pack a little IT into your voice and eyes when you face the twelve good men and true.”
“When I do that, you may expect to see our sand dunes shed their tin-can fringed petticoats and dive into the bay in a swimming contest. It isn’t my line.”
The lightness of her tone belied the turmoil within her. Suppose — suppose Cecile won a verdict for thirty thousand dollars? She looked at the gilt lettering on the frosted glass in front of her as she laid her hand on the knob below it.
SUPERIOR COURT
JURY SESSIONS
Her throat tightened, she moistened suddenly dry lips. Was success or was defeat waiting for her on the other side of that door.
Chapter XVII
As Pamela entered the court-room, Phineas Carr, with a white carnation in the lapel of his perfectly tailored morning coat, a lustrous black pearl in his gray four-in-hand, beckoned to her. His dark eyes were reassuring, the clasp of his hand was steadying as he met her at the opening in the railing and led her within the bar.
She was conscious of the stir, the hum of interest as he pulled out a chair for her behind the table at which he had been sitting. She swallowed hard, attempted an imitation of complete indifference to the human element in her surroundings. Her feature work had taken her into court but never before had the Stars and Stripes on the wall above the judge’s bench assumed such dramatic significance. Her eyes traveled from the flag, past shelves of books, to the patch of blue sky visible through the tall window, on to her stepmother, Cecile Mortimer Leigh, seated at a table, the twin of the one over which Carnation Carr was bending. With a nice sense of values the morning sun shot a shaft of light straight at the plaintiff’s face. Her black suit was lissome, very French and very costly; though the jury, being men, would think it simple because it was black. Her white turban, gloves, bag, were the latest word in fashion. Her lips were delicately accented, her green eyes set in brilliantined lashes held an appealing hint of wistfulness. They sharpened as they met Pamela’s but only for an instant; they softened so quickly that the girl wondered if the flash had been the product of her own tricky imagination. Whether it had been or not, the second Mrs. Leigh was a shrewd and dangerous woman.
Terrence’s quotation from Dombey and Son recurred to her as she studied the man beside Cecile. He might be forty, he might be fifty; no youth left in his face.
“He’s tough ma’am, tough is J.B. Tough and devilish sly.”
He shook his mane of black hair as he talked to his client, gesticulated with a plump hand on which his glistening nails gave the large diamond on his finger a hard run in the matter of brilliance. His teeth flashed whitely between heavy lips; his eyes were too small, his nose too large. He might have stepped from the Well Dressed Man page, so immaculately and smartly was he apparelled. Cap’n Iry Crockett’s word, “natty,” fitted him as perfectly as did his spats.
A brass-buttoned, blue-coated sheriff rapped with his striped wand of office, announced in a stentorian voice:
“Court!”
Attorneys, clients, jurymen, spectators who filled every available seat, rose. The black robed, white haired, fresh skinned judge entered. Pamela regarded him curiously, wondering what a judge thinks when he first steps into the court-room into which virtue and viciousness, crime and expiation, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, have been pitched for trial.
“Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye!” intoned the sheriff and court was open. The jury was impaneled. Pamela thoughtfully observed the men as they took their seats. Strangers to her, all of them. One of the two smoothly, sleekly, conspicuously urban jurors wore an elk’s tooth on his chain. They must be city men who paid taxes and kept their residence in the county. She knew by their appearance that they were preordained champions for Cecile. The others were farmers, small storekeepers. Phineas Carr’s gray brows almost obliterated his dark eyes as he scrutinized each man as he took his place. The business of impaneling the jury finished, counsel for the prosecution opened his case.
“May it please the Court, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen of the jury.” Hale made a few suave comments and explanations before he called the plaintiff.
Cecile approached the witness-stand with the rhythm and dignity fashionable at the moment. Pamela stole a glance at the jury. To a man they were impressed by her pink and white femininity, by the wistful sweetness of her long green eyes. The minor note in her voice was bound to rouse the protective instincts of the male — if he had any. The judge sat with elbows on the arms of his chair, the tips of his long, nervous fingers pressed together. The blue-coated, brass-buttoned sheriffs slumped in their seats on platforms on either side of the room, their red and white striped wands of office resembling nothing so much as lean and hungry barber poles. In their time they had seen too many pink and white plaintiffs and defendants with wistful eyes come and go, to have their spines unkinked by the specimen now before the court.
Under the skillful questioning of her attorney, Cecile told a story of neglect and hardship and shaken nerves — the result of her stepdaughter’s machinations — of the effect of a heartless letter on her already bruised heart. Adroit questioning by her attorney brought out the story of the vicious attack of the dog, deliberately set on her by the defendant. Spectators reacted. A murmur of indignation swept the courtroom like the preliminary mutter of an oncoming storm. Phineas Carr looked at a sheriff from under bushy gray brows. That dignitary rapped smartly on his desk.
“Order! Order! Order!”
Pamela bit her lips till she tasted the sickish sweetness of blood. Cecile’s story would bring an acceptance by wire, were it submitted to a confessional magazine, she appraised bitterly. Cheapness unbelievable. How could the woman — if it were true, which it wasn’t — bear to advertise her unhappiness, send the details shrieking across the country by wire, by radio, by the printed page? — Bear it! Wasn’t the desire for publicity one of her reasons for bringing the suit?
Hale, counsel for the plaintiff, waved his large smooth hand dramatically in the direction of counsel for the defendant, smiled his flashy smile, patronized in his large smooth voice:
“Your witness, Mr. Carr.”
Phineas Carr rose. He touched the carnation in his coat lapel as if to make sure it was there before he looked down at a slip of paper in his right hand. At the first sound of his rich resonant voice, the jury, which had been noticeably lolling, straightened to a man. With counsel-trained expertness the plaintiff answered his questions. Then he seemed to draw himself together like a panther about to spring.
“Mrs. Leigh — you have entered complaint in this court in that name, though outside it you have resumed your maiden name, I understand — you are an actress, are you not?”
“Yes, I have acted.” Plaintiff’s voice and eyes were wary.
“I understand that you are a most convincing actress.”
Pamela choked back an appreciative “Marvelous!” Clever of him to set the jury to wondering how much of Cecile’s testimony was real, how much histrionics. Hale fidgeted in his chair. Phineas Carr went on serenely.
“You testified under oath that since you left your husband on June first of last year you have made a bare living, that you had received no money from him.”
“I said, except what he sent me a short time ago for an operation.”
“And that amount was?”
“I said eight hundred dollars.”
Counsel for the defense toyed with the carnation, apparently refreshed his memory from the paper in his hand before he asked suavely:
“Mrs. Leigh, you testified that because of the strain on your nerves occasioned by your husband’s neglect you had been unable to earn money for some months. My brother Hale will correct me if I am wrong.”
As his “brother” merely answered with a glare, Phineas Carr continued:
“Yet, two weeks ago, you bought stock and gave a check for seventeen hundred and fifty dollars in payment, did you no
t?”
The plaintiff gave an excellent imitation of a victim contemplating a yawning trap. Her counsel blinked as if from a knock-out blow. Was he surprised? Through Pamela’s mind echoed Scott Mallory’s words:
“That client is a menace who, before trial, wilfully or in ignorance, withholds facts from his lawyer which are brought out in cross-examination.” It was quite evident that Hale had not known of the seventeen hundred and fifty dollar payment. The effect was but momentary. He was on his feet with a catlike pounce.
“Your Honor, I object. The fact that my client bought stock has no place in this evidence.”
“Your Honor, considering that the plaintiff has testified that she has been almost in a state of destitution because defendant wilfully and maliciously diverted the flow of money from husband to wife, I insist that the fact that Cecile Mortimer Leigh had seventeen hundred and fifty dollars to invest, has a place in this evidence.”
“The question stands.”
“Your Honor —”
“Sit down, Mr. Hale.”
Hale sat down. Phineas Carr patiently repeated:
“Mrs. Leigh, two weeks ago, you bought stock and gave a check for seventeen hundred and fifty dollars, did you not?”
The green eyes wistfully sought the jury as if imploring them to observe one poor little woman being heckled by a big strong man.
“I think I —”
“I don’t want to know what you think. I want to know what you did.”
The judge reminded patiently:
“Answer yes or no, Mrs. Leigh.”
“Yes.”
“That will be all.”
Phineas Carr sat down. Pamela’s thoughts sifted and resifted like the golden dust in the shaft of sunlight as she looked at him in consternation. Did he intend to ignore Cecile’s accusation that her step-daughter had — with malice aforethought — set a dog on her? Would he ask no questions about the letter which counsel for plaintiff had read with such devastating effect?
Hale, who had gripped the edge of the table as if ready for a spring, stared at counsel for the defense; his lower jaw sagged. The jury registered disappointment, for all the world like small boys who had gathered for a fight only to see the champion walk out on them. Pamela caught a twinkle in the judge’s eyes, a twitch at the corner of his lips. Had he seen Carnation Carr in action before?
Fair Tomorrow Page 17