“From the first step that each took toward the dark way that was to lead them to the room in the gardener’s cottage, we will trace them—to its very threshold—across its threshold. There I will leave them, my duty will have been done. Yours, gentlemen, will be yet to do, and I am entirely convinced that, however painful, however hateful, however dreadful, it may seem to you, you will not shrink from performing that duty.”
The compelling voice with its curious ring fell abruptly to silence—a silence that lingered, deepened, and then abruptly broke into irrepressible and incautious clamour.
“Silence! Silence!”
Ben Potts’s voice and Judge Carver’s gavel thundered down the voices.
“Once and for all, this courtroom is not a place for conversation. Kindly remain silent while you are in it. Court is dismissed for the day. It will convene again at ten tomorrow.”
The redheaded girl dragged stiffly to her feet. The first day of the Bellamy trial was over.
II
The redheaded girl was late. The clock over the courtroom door said three minutes past ten. She flung herself, breathless, into the seat next to the lanky young man and inquired in a tragic whisper, “Have they started?”
“Nope,” replied that imperturbable individual. “Calm yourself. You haven’t missed a single ‘hear ye.’ Your hat’s a good deal over one eye.”
“I ran all the way from the station,” gasped the redheaded girl. “Every step. There’s not a taxi in this whole abominable place. And you were gone last night before I had a chance to ask you what you thought of the prosecutor’s speech.”
“Perhaps that’s why I went.”
“No, truly, what did you think of it?”
“Well, I think that boys being boys, jurors being jurors, prosecutors being prosecutors, and Mrs. Patrick Ives being Mrs. Patrick Ives, he did about as well as could be expected—better than I expected.”
“He can’t prove all those things, can he?” asked the redheaded girl, looking a little pale.
“Ah, that’s it! When you get right down to it, the only things of any importance that he claimed he was going to prove were in one last sentence: That Bellamy and Sue Ives met and went to the front parlour of the gardener’s cottage, to confront Mimi Bellamy—that’s his case. And a pretty good case, too, if you ask me. The rest of it was just a lot of good fancy, expansive words strung together in order to create pity, horror, prejudice, and suspicion in the eyes of the jury. And granted that purpose, they weren’t bad words, though there were a few bits that absolutely yelled for ‘Hearts and Flowers’ on muted strings somewhere in the background—that little piece about going through the starlight to her lover. …”
“I thought the idea was that the prosecutor was after truth, not a conviction,” said the redheaded girl gravely.
“The ideal, not the idea, my child. You didn’t precisely get the notion that he was urging the jury to consider that, though there was a pretty strong case against Mrs. Ives and Stephen Bellamy, there were a whole lot of other people who might have done it too—or did you?”
“He certainly said most distinctly that he wasn’t any bloodhound baying for a victim.”
“Well, if he isn’t, I’ll bet that he gives such a good imitation of one that if Eliza should happen to hear him while she was crossing the ice she’d take two cakes at one jump. What did I tell you about Mr. Farr and the classics? Did you get ‘she loved not wisely but too well’? That beats ‘I could not not love thee, dear, so much.’ ”
Ben Potts’s high, clear voice pulled them abruptly to their feet. “The Court!”
Through the little door behind the dais came the tall figure of Judge Carver, his spacious silks folding him in dignity—rather a splendid figure. The jury, the counsel, the defendants—Mrs. Ives was wearing the same hat …
“Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All those having business before this honourable court draw near, give your attention, and you shall be heard!”
The clear singsong was drowned in the rustle of those in the courtroom sinking back into their seats.
“Is Mr. Conroy in court?”
“Mr. Herbert Conroy!” intoned the crier.
All heads turned to watch the small spare figure hurrying down the aisle toward the witness box.
“You do solemnly swear that the testimony that you shall give to the court and jury in this case now on trial shall be truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do.”
Mr. Conroy’s faded blue eyes darted about him quietly as he mounted the stand, as though he were looking for a way out.
“Mr. Conroy, what is your profession?”
“I am a real-estate broker.”
“Is your office in Rosemont?”
“No, sir; my office is in New York. My home, however, is in Brierdale, about three miles north of Rosemont.”
“Have you the agency of the Thorne property, Orchards?”
“I have.”
“To whom does that property belong?”
“It was left by Mr. Curtiss Thorne’s will to his two sons, Charles and Douglas. Charles was killed in the war, and it therefore reverted to the elder son, Douglas. He is now the sole owner.”
“And he placed it with you to sell?”
“To sell or to rent—preferably to sell.”
“Have you had offers for it?”
“None that we regarded as satisfactory; it was too large a property to appeal to the average man in the market for a country home, as it consisted of more than eighty acres and a house of twenty-four rooms. On the afternoon of the , however, I showed the
