The Bellamy Trial

girl was having more trouble with her ear. That’s why I started to go in without knocking, but after I’d been standing there a minute, I heard that it was Miss Page crying herself, fit to break her heart. I never heard anyone cry so dreadful in all my life. It fairly gave me a turn, but the moment I knocked there wasn’t a sound, and then after a minute she called out that she wouldn’t need me, just as I told you, sir. So I went on my way, of course, though I was still a bit worried. She’d been crying so dreadful, poor thing, that I was afraid she would be right down sick.”

“Yes, quite so. Very much upset, as though she’d been through an agitating experience?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, sir.”

“You were mistaken about the voices weren’t you? It was just Miss Page crying?”

“No, sir⁠—I thought I heard voices, too.” The soft voice was barely audible.

“The little girl’s?”

“No, sir. It sounded⁠—it sounded like Mr. Ives.”

The prosecutor stared at her blankly.

“Mr. Patrick Ives?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You could hear what he was saying?”

“No, sir, I couldn’t; it stopped as soon as I tried the door. I thought he was talking to the little girl.”

Mr. Farr continued to contemplate her blankly for a moment, and then, with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders, dismissed Mr. Ives, Miss Page, and the locked door for more fruitful pastures.

“Now, Miss Roberts, your duties included the care of your mistress’s wardrobe, did they not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are quite familiar with all its contents?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Will you be good enough to tell us if it contains today all the articles that it contained on the nineteenth of June, 1926?”

“No, sir, it doesn’t. Mrs. Ives gives away a lot of her things at the end of every season. We sent a big box off to a sick cousin she has in Arizona, and another to some young ladies in Delaware, and another to the⁠—”

“Never mind about the things that you sent at the end of the season. Did you send anything at about the time of the murder⁠—within a few weeks of it, say?”

The roses in Miss Roberts’s cheeks faded abruptly, and the candid eyes fled precipitately to the chair where Susan Ives sat, playing idly with the crystal clasp of her brown suede bag. At the warm, friendly, reassuring little smile that she found waiting for her, Miss Roberts apparently found heart of grace. “Yes, sir, we did,” she said steadily.

“On what date, please?”

“On the twentieth of June.”

The courtroom drew in its breath sharply⁠—a little sigh for its lost ease⁠—and moved forward the inch that separated suspense from polite attention.

“To whom was the package sent?”

“It was sent to the Salvation Army.”

“What was in it?”

“Well, there were two old sweaters and a swiss dress that had shrunk quite small, and a wrapper, and some blouses and a coat.”

“What kind of a coat, Miss Roberts?”

“A light flannel coat⁠—a kind of sports coat, you might call it,” said Miss Roberts clearly; but those who craned forward sharply enough could see the knuckles whiten on the small, square, capable hands.

“Cream-coloured flannel?”

“Well, more of a biscuit, I’d call it,” replied Mrs. Ives’s maid judicially.

“The coat that Mrs. Ives had been wearing the evening before, wasn’t it?”

“I believe it was, sir.”

“Did you see the condition of this coat before you packed it, Miss Roberts?”

“No, sir, I didn’t. It wasn’t I that packed it.”

“Not you? Who did pack it?”

“Mrs. Ives packed it herself.”

“Ah, I see.” In that sudden white light of triumph the prosecutor’s face was almost beautiful⁠—a cruel and sinister beauty, such as might have lighted the face of the youngest Spanish Inquisitionist as the stray shot of a question went straight to the enemy’s heart. “It was Mrs. Ives who packed it. How did it come into your hands, Miss Roberts?”

“The package, sir?”

“Certainly, the package.”

“It was this way, sir: A little before eight Sunday morning Mrs. Ives’s bell rang and I went down to her room. She was all dressed for church, and there was a big box on her bed. She said, ‘I rang for you before, Roberts, but you were probably at breakfast. Take this down to MacDonald and tell him to mail it when he gets the papers. The post office closes at half-past nine.’ ”

“Was that all that she said?”

“Oh, no, sir. She asked me for some fresh gloves, and then she said over her shoulder like as she was going out, ‘It’s those things that I was getting together for the Salvation Army. I put in the coat I was wearing last night too. I absolutely ruined it with some automobile grease on Mr. Bellamy’s car.’ ”

“Nothing more?”

“Well, then I said, ‘Oh, madam, couldn’t it be cleaned?’ And Mrs. Ives said, ‘It isn’t worth cleaning; this is the third year I’ve had it.’ Then she went out, sir, and I took it down and gave it to MacDonald.”

“Was it addressed?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“How?”

“Just Salvation Army Headquarters, New York, NY.”

“No address in the corner as to whom it came from?”

“Oh, no, sir. Mrs. Ives never⁠—”

“Be good enough to confine yourself to the question. You are not aware, yourself, of the exact nature of these stains, are you, Miss Roberts?”

“Yes, sir, I am,” said the pink-cheeked Miss Roberts firmly. “They were grease stains.”

“What?” The prosecutor’s startled voice skipped half an octave. “Didn’t you distinctly tell me that you didn’t see this coat?”

“No, sir, no more I did. It was Mrs. Ives that told me they were grease stains.”

The prosecutor indulged in a brief bark of mirth that indicated more relief than amusement. “Then, as I say, you are unable to tell us of your own knowledge?”

“No, sir,” replied Miss Roberts, a trifle pinker and a trifle firmer. “Mrs. Ives told me that those stains were grease stains, so I’m certainly able to say of my own knowledge that it was absolutely true if she said so.”

There was something in the soft, sturdy voice that made the grimy courtroom a pleasanter place. Sue Ives’s