“Your Honour, may we ask where all this is leading?” Mr. Lambert’s tone was tremulous with impatience.
“You may. The Court was about to make the same inquiry. Is this exhaustive questioning necessary, Mr. Farr?”
“Absolutely necessary, Your Honour. I can assure Mr. Lambert that it is leading to a very interesting conclusion, however distasteful he may find both the path and the goal. I will be as brief as possible, I promise.”
“Very well, you may continue, Miss Page.”
Miss Page raised limpid eyes in appealing deprecation. “I’m so frightfully sorry. I’ve absolutely forgotten where I was.”
“You were telling us that there was a telephone in the flower room.”
“Oh, yes—that is in the first room to the left as you come in. It’s really part of the hall.”
“You mean that it has no door?”
“No, no, it has a door. I simply meant that you came to it before you entered the left wing. It balances the cloakroom on the right-hand side. They’re rather like very large closets, you know, except that they both have windows.”
“What do the windows open on to?”
“The front porch. … Shall I go on with the rooms?”
“Please, and as briefly as possible.”
“The first room in the left wing is Mr. Ives’s study. It opens into the dining room. They form the ground floor of the left wing. Above them are Mrs. Daniel Ives’s room and bath and two guest rooms and another bath. Above these on the third floor are the servants’ quarters.”
“How many servants were there?”
“Let me see—there were six, I think, but only the four maids lived in the house.”
“Please tell us who they were.”
“There was the cook, Anna Baker; the waitress, Melanie Cordier; the chambermaid, Katie Brien; and Laura Roberts, Mrs. Ives’s personal maid and seamstress. They had four small rooms in the left wing, third floor. James and Robert MacDonald, the chauffeur and gardener, were brothers and lived in quarters over the garage. Oh, there was a laundress, too, but I don’t remember her name. She didn’t live in the house—only came in four days a week.”
“You have described the entire household?”
“Yes.”
“And the entire layout of the house?”
“Yes—well, with the exception of the service quarters. You reached them through a door at the back of the big hall—kitchen, laundry, servants’ dining room and pantry, which opened also into the dining room. They ran across the back of the house. Do you want me to describe them further?”
“Thanks, no. We can go on with your story now. Did you see anyone but Mr. Ives on your way to the sandpile?”
“Not in the house. I passed Mrs. Daniel Ives on my way through the rose garden. She always used to work there after dinner until it got dark. She asked me as I went by if the children were asleep, and I told her that Mr. Ives was with them.”
“What did you do then?”
“I found the book in the swing by the sandpile and went back across the lawn to the house. As I was starting up the steps, I heard Mrs. Patrick Ives’s voice, speaking from the flower room at the left of the front door. She was speaking very softly, but the window on to the porch was open and I could hear her distinctly.”
“Was she speaking to someone in the room?”
“No, she was telephoning. I think that I’ve already said that the downstairs phone is in that room. She was giving a telephone number—Rosemont 200.”
“Were you familiar with that number?”
“Oh, quite. I had called it up for Mrs. Ives several times.”
“Whose number was it, Miss Page?”
“It was Mr. Stephen Bellamy’s telephone number.”
The courtroom pulsed to galvanized attention, its eyes whipping to Stephen Bellamy’s tired, dark face. It was lit with a strange, friendly, reassuring smile, directed straight at Susan Ives’s startled countenance. For a moment she stared back at him soberly, then slowly the colour came back into her parted lips, which curved gravely to mirror that voiceless greeting. For a long moment their eyes rested on each other before they returned to their accustomed guarded inscrutability. As clearly as though they were shouting across the straining faces, those lingering eyes called to each other, “Courage!”
“You say that you could hear Mrs. Ives distinctly, Miss Page?”
“Very distinctly.”
“Will you tell us just what she said?”
“She said”—Miss Page frowned a little in concentration and then went on steadily—“she said, ‘Is that you, Stephen? … It’s Sue—Sue Ives. Is Mimi there? … How long ago did she leave? … Are you sure she went there? … No, wait—this is vital. I have to see you at once. Can you get the car here in ten minutes? … No, not at the house. Stop at the far corner of the back road. I’ll come through the back gate to meet you. … Elliot didn’t say anything to you? … No, no, never mind that—just hurry.’ ”
“Is that all that she said?”
“She said goodbye.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“What did you do then?”
“I turned back from the porch steps and circled the house to the right, going in by the side door and on up to the nursery.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t want Mrs. Ives to know that I had overheard her conversation. I thought if by any chance she saw me coming in through the side door, it would not occur to her that I could have heard it from there.”
“I see. When you got up to the nursery was Mr. Ives still there?”
“Yes; he came out of the night nursery when he heard me and said that the children were quiet now.”
“Did he say anything else to you?”
“Yes; he still had the boat in his hand, and he said there was something that he wanted to fix about the rudder, and that he’d bring it back in the morning.”
“Did you say anything to him?”
“Yes.”
“Please tell us what you said.”
“I told him that I had just overheard
