“My wife was on the porch when I arrived.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“That’s all, Mr. Thorne. Cross-examine.”
Mr. Lambert approached the witness box at almost a prance, his broad countenance smouldering with ill-concealed excitement. “Mr. Thorne, I’ll trouble you with only two questions. My distinguished adversary has asked you whether you noticed anything unusual in the neighbourhood of the cottage. I ask you whether in that vicinity you saw at any time a car—an automobile?”
“I saw no sign of a car.”
“No sign of a small Chevrolet, for instance—of Mr. Bellamy’s, for instance?”
“No sign of any car at all.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thorne. That will be all.”
Over Mr. Lambert’s exultant carol rose a soft tumult of whispers. “There goes the state’s story!” “Score 100 for the defense!” “Oh, boy, did you get that? He’s fixed the time of the murder and run Sue and Steve off the scene all in one move.” “The hand is quicker than the eye.” “Look at Farr’s face; that boy’s got a mean eye—”
“Silence!” sang Ben Potts.
The prosecutor advanced to within six inches of the witness box, his eyes contracted to pin points. “You assure us that you saw no car, Mr. Thorne?”
“I do.”
“But you are not able to assure us that no car was there?”
“Obviously, if a car was there, I should have seen it.”
“Oh, no, believe me, that’s far from obvious! If a car had been parked to the rear of the cottage on the little circular road, would you have seen it?”
“I should have seen its lights.”
“And if its lights had been turned out?”
“Then,” said Douglas Thorne slowly, “I should probably not have seen it.”
“You were not in the rear of the cottage at any time, were you?”
“No.”
“Then it is certain that you would not have seen it, isn’t it?”
“I have told you that under those circumstances I do not believe I should have seen it.”
“If a car had been parked on the main driveway between the lodge gates and the cottage, with its lights out, you would not have seen that either, would you, Mr. Thorne?”
“Possibly not.”
“And you don’t for a moment expect to have twelve levelheaded, intelligent men believe that a pair of murderers would park their car in a clearly visible position, with all its lights burning for any passerby to remark, while they accomplished their purpose?”
“I object to that question!” panted Mr. Lambert. “I object! It calls for a conclusion, Your Honour, and is highly—”
“The question is overruled.”
“Very well, Mr. Thorne; that will be all.”
Mr. Lambert, who had been following these proceedings with a woebegone countenance from which the recent traces of elation had been washed as though by a bucket of unusually cold water, pulled himself together valiantly. “Just one moment, Mr. Thorne; the fact is that you didn’t see a car there, isn’t it?”
“That is most certainly the fact.”
“Thank you; that will be all.”
“And the fact is,” remarked the grimly smiling prosecutor, “that it might perfectly well have been there without your seeing it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that also is the fact.”
“That will be all. Call Miss Flora Biggs.”
The prosecutor’s grim little smile still lingered.
“Miss Flora Biggs!”
Flora Biggs might have been a pretty girl ten years ago, before that fatal heaviness had crept from sleazy silk ankles to the round chin above the imitation pearls. Everything about Miss Biggs was imitation—an imitation fluff of something that was meant to be fur on the plush coat that was meant to be another kind of fur; an imitation rose of a washed-out magenta trying to hide itself in the masquerading collar; pearls the size of large bone buttons peeping out from too golden hair; an arrow of false diamonds catching the folds of the purple velvet toque that was not quite velvet; nervous fingers in suede gloves that were rather a bad grade of cotton clutching at a snakeskin bag of stenciled cloth—a poor, cheap, shoddy imitation of what the well-dressed woman will wear. And yet in those small insignificant features that should have belonged to a pretty girl, in those round china-blue eyes, staring forlornly out of reddened rims, there was something candid and touching and appealing. For out of those reddened eyes peered the good shy little girl in the starched white dress brought down to entertain the company—the good, shy little girl whose name had been Florrie Biggs. And little Florrie Biggs had been crying.
“Where do you live, Miss Biggs?”
“At 21 Maple Street, Rosemont.” The voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“Just a trifle louder, please; we all want to hear you. Did you know Madeleine Bellamy, Miss Biggs?”
The tears that had been lurking behind the round blue eyes welled over abruptly, leaving little paths behind them down the heavily powdered cheeks. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“Intimately?”
“Yes, sir. I guess so. Ever since I was ten. We went to school and high school together; she was quite a little younger than me, but we were best friends.”
The tears rained down quietly and Miss Biggs brushed them impatiently away with the clumsy gloved fingers.
“You were fond of her?”
“Yes, sir, I was awful fond of her.”
“Did you see much of her during the years of and ?”
“Yes, sir; I just lived three houses down the block. I used to see her every day.”
“Did you know Patrick Ives too?”
“Yes, sir; I knew him pretty well.”
“Was there much comment on his attention to your friend Madeleine during the year ?”
“Everyone knew they had a terrible case on each other,” said Miss Biggs simply.
“Were they supposed to be engaged?”
“No, sir, I don’t know as they were; but everyone sort of thought they would be.”
“Their relations were freely discussed amongst their friends?”
“They surely were.”
“Did you ever discuss the affair with either Mr. Ives or Mrs. Bellamy?”
“Not ever with Pat, I didn’t, but Mimi used to talk about it quite a lot.”
“Do you remember what she said during the first conversation?”
“Well, I think that the first time was when we had a terrible fight about it.” At memory of that far-off quarrel Florrie’s blue eyes
