Mr. Lambert eyed her savagely and moved heavily on: “You say that you were cut off from escaping through the hall by the fact that you saw that it was occupied by Mr. Farwell and Mrs. Ives?”
“That is so.”
“Why didn’t you go back through the dining room to the pantry?”
“Because I hear Mr. Dallas and Mr. Burgoyne talking from the dining room, where they try one more cocktail.”
“Why should they have thought it unusual to have you come from the study?”
“I think it more prudent that no one should know I have been in that study.”
“You were simply staying there in order to spy on Mrs. Ives, weren’t you?”
“I could not help see Mrs. Ives unless I close’ my eyes.”
Mr. Lambert was obliged to swallow twice before he was able to continue:
“Did you tell Mr. Ives that Mr. Farwell was in the hall also at the time that you saw Mrs. Ives there?”
“I do not remember whether I tell him or whether I do not.”
“Mr. Farwell was facing you, was he not?”
“Yes.”
“What made you so sure that it was Mrs. Ives who took the note, not Mr. Farwell?”
“Because, when I hear the door close, then I know that Mr. Farwell he has gone.”
“And how did you know that?”
Once more Miss Cordier raised eloquent shoulders. “Because, monsieur, I am not stupid. I look out, he is standing by the hat stand; I go back, I hear a door close, I look out once more, and he is not there. But that is of the most elementary.”
“You should be a detective instead of wasting your time waiting on tables,” commented her courtly interrogator. “The plain truth is, isn’t it, that anyone in the house might have gone out and closed that door while Mr. Farwell went back to the living room with Mrs. Ives?”
“If you say so, monsieur,” replied Miss Cordier indifferently.
“And the plain truth is that Mr. Farwell was frantically infatuated with Mrs. Bellamy and was spying on her constantly, isn’t it?”
“It is possible.”
“Possible! Mr. Farwell himself stated it half a dozen times from this very witness box. It’s a plain fact. And another plain fact is that any one of a dozen other people might have passed through the hall and seen you at work, mightn’t they?”
“I should not believe so—no, monsieur.”
“Whether you believe it or not, it happens to be the truth. Six or eight servants, eight or ten guests—What reason have you for believing that Miss Page herself did not notice something unusual in your attitude and turn back in time to see you place the note after you believed that she had passed?”
“No reason, monsieur—only the evidence of all five of my senses.”
“You are a highly talented young woman, Miss Cordier, but you can’t see with your back turned, can you?”
“Monsieur is pleased to jest,” remarked Miss Cordier, in the tone of one frankly undiverted.
“Don’t characterize my questions, please—answer them.”
“Willingly. I do not see with my back turn’.”
“So it comes down to the fact that ten—twelve—fourteen people might have seen you place this urgent and mysterious note that you so boldly charge Mrs. Ives with taking, doesn’t it?”
“That is monsieur’s opinion, not mine.”
Monsieur glared menacingly at the not too subtle mockery adorning the witness’s pleasing countenance.
“And furthermore, Miss Cordier, it comes down to the fact that we have only your word for it that the note was ever placed in the book at all, doesn’t it?”
“Monsieur does not find that sufficient?”
Monsieur ignored the question, but his countenance testified eloquently that such was indeed the case.
“Just how did you happen to select a book in Mr. Ives’s library as a hiding place for this correspondence?”
“Because that is a good safe place, where every night he can look without anyone to watch.”
“What made you think that someone else might not take out that book to read?”
“That book? Stone on Commercial Paper, Volume III? Monsieur is pleased to jest!”
Monsieur, scowling unattractively at some openly diverted members of the press, changed his line of attack with some abruptness. “Miss Cordier, you know a man called Adolph Platz, do you not?”
Miss Cordier’s lashes flickered once—twice. “Of a certainty.”
“Did you see him in the afternoon of the ?”
“Yes.”
“How did you come to know him?”
“He was for a time chauffeur to Mrs. Ives.”
“Married, wasn’t he?”
“Married, yes.”
“Mrs. Platz was a chambermaid in Mrs. Ives’s employ?”
“Yes.”
“They left because Mrs. Platz quarrelled with you, did they not?”
“One moment, please.” The prosecutor lifted an imperious voice. “Are we to be presented with an account of all the backstairs quarrels, past and present, indulged in by Mrs. Ives’s domestics? To the best of my belief, my distinguished adversary is entering a field, however profitable and entertaining it may prove, that I have left totally virgin. Does the court hold this proper for cross-examination?”
“The Court does not. The question is overruled.”
“I ask an exception, Your Honour. … Miss Cordier, when you were turning out the lights that night, did you go into all the downstairs rooms?”
“Into all of them—yes.”
“Did you see Mr. Patrick Ives in any of them?”
“No, monsieur.”
Sue Ives leaned forward with a swift gesture, a sudden wave of colour sweeping her from throat to brow. Mr. Lambert looked diligently away.
“You have placed great stress on your skill, experience, and training as a waitress, Miss Cordier. Are you a waitress at present?”
“No.”
“Just what is your present occupation?”
“At present I have no occupation. I rest.”
“In the boarding house in Atlantic City where you have been occupied in resting for the past three or four months, you are not reposing under the name of Melanie Cordier, are you?”
The black eyes darted toward the prosecutor, who stood leaning, shrewd and careless, over the back of a tilted chair. “Is it particularly germane to this inquiry whether Miss Cordier chooses to call herself Joan of Arc,
