“It never entered your head?”
“Not for a moment.”
“You were perfectly satisfied with your situation in every way?”
“Oh, perfectly.”
“No cause for complaint whatever?”
“None whatever.”
“Miss Page, is this your writing? Don’t trouble to read it—simply tell me whether it is your writing.”
Miss Page bent docilely over the square of pale blue paper. “It looks like my writing.”
“I didn’t ask you whether it looked like it—I asked you if it was your writing.”
“I really couldn’t tell you that. Handwriting can be perfectly imitated, can’t it?”
“Are you cross-examining me or am I cross-examining you?”
Miss Page permitted herself a small, fugitive smile. “I believe that you are supposed to be cross-examining me.”
“Then be good enough to answer my question. To the best of your belief, is this your writing?”
“It is either my writing or a very good imitation of it.”
The outraged Mr. Lambert snatched the innocuous bit of paper from under his composed victim’s nose and proffered it to the clerk of the court as though it were something unclean. “I offer this letter in evidence.”
“Just one moment,” said the prosecutor gently. “I don’t want to waste the Court’s time with a lot of useless objections, but it seems to me that this letter has not yet been identified by Miss Page, and as you are evidently unwilling to let her read it, for some occult reason that I don’t presume to understand, I must object to its being offered in evidence.”
“What does this letter purport to be, Mr. Lambert?” inquired the judge amiably.
Mr. Lambert turned his flaming countenance on the Court. “It purports to be exactly what it is, Your Honour—a letter from Miss Page to her former employer, Mrs. Ives. And I am simply amazed at this hocus-pocus about her not being able to identify her own writing being tolerated for a minute. I—”
“Kindly permit the Court to decide what will be tolerated in the conduct of this case,” remarked the judge, in a voice from which all traces of amiability had been swept as by a cold wind. “What is the date of the purported letter?”
“.”
“Did you write Mrs. Ives a letter on that date, Miss Page?”
“That’s quite a time ago, Your Honour. I certainly shouldn’t like to make any such statement under oath.”
“Would it refresh your memory if you were to look over the letter?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“I think that you had better let Miss Page look over the letter if you wish to offer it in evidence, Mr. Lambert.”
Once more Mr. Lambert menacingly tendered the blue square, which Miss Page considered in a leisurely and composed manner in no way calculated to tranquillize the storm of indignation that was rocking him. Her perusal completed, she lifted a gracious countenance to the inflamed one before her. “Oh, yes, that is my letter.”
Mr. Lambert snatched it ungratefully. “I again offer this in evidence.”
“No objection,” said the prosecutor blandly.
“Now that you have fortified yourself with its contents, Miss Page, I will ask you to reconcile some of the statements that it contains with some later statements of yours made here under oath this afternoon:
“My dear Mrs. Ives:
“I would like to call your attention to the fact that for the past three nights the food served me has evidently been that discarded by your servants as unfit for consumption. As you do not care to discuss these matters with me personally, I am forced to resort to this means of communication, and I ask you to believe that it is literally impossible to eat the type of meal that has been put before me lately. Boiled mutton which closely resembled boiled dishrags, stewed turnips, and a kind of white jelly that I was later informed was intended to be rice, and a savoury concoction of dried apricots, and sour milk was the menu for yesterday evening. You have made it abundantly clear to me that you regard me as a species of overpaid servant, but I confess that I had not gathered that slow starvation was to be one of my duties.
“Kindly reconcile your statement that it had never entered your head that you were being treated as a servant with this sentence: ‘You have made it abundantly clear that you regard me as a species of overpaid servant.’ ”
“That was a silly overwrought letter written by me when I was still suffering from the effects of a nervous and physical collapse. I had completely forgotten ever having written it.”
“Oh, you had, had you? Completely forgotten it, eh? Never thought of it from that day to this? Well, just give us the benefit of that wonderful memory of yours once more and tell us the effect of this letter on your relations with Mrs. Ives?”
“It had a very fortunate effect,” said Miss Page, with her prettiest smile. “Mrs. Ives very kindly rectified the situation that I was indiscreet enough to complain of, and the whole matter was cleared up and adjusted most happily.”
“What?” The astounded monosyllable cracked through the courtroom like a rifle shot.
“I said that it was all adjusted most happily,” replied Miss Page sunnily and helpfully, raising her voice slightly.
Actual stupor had apparently descended on her interrogator.
“Miss Page, you make it difficult for me to credit my ears. Is it not the fact that Mrs. Ives sent for you at once on receipt of that note, offered you a month’s wages in lieu of notice, and requested you to leave the following day?”
“Nothing could be farther from the fact.”
Mr. Lambert’s voice seemed about to forsake him at the calm finality of this reply. He opened his mouth twice with no audible results, but at the third effort something closely resembling a roar emerged: “Are you telling me that you did not go on your knees to Mrs. Ives in floods of tears and tell her that it would be signing your death warrant to turn you out then, and implore her to give you
