The Bellamy Trial

ease against the railing that hedged in the majesty of the law, suggested a curious cross between a promising light of Tammany Hall and the youngest and handsomest of the Spanish Inquisitioners. Black hair that deserved the qualification of raven, a pale regular face that missed distinction by a destructive quarter of an inch, narrow blue eyes back of which stirred some restless fire, long slim hands⁠—what was there about him that wasn’t just right? Perhaps that dark coat fitted him just a shade too well, or that heavily brocaded tie in peacock blue⁠—Well, at any rate, his slim elegance certainly made Lambert look like an awkward, cross, red-faced baby, for all his thatch of graying hair.

“Here they come!” Even the reporter’s level, mocking voice was a trifle tense.

The little door to the left of the judge opened and two people came in, as leisurely and tranquilly as though they were advancing toward easy chairs and a tea table before an open fire. A slight figure in a tan tweed suit, with a soft copper silk handkerchief at her throat and a little felt hat of the same colour pulled down over two wings of pale gold hair, level hazel eyes under level dark brows, and a beautiful mouth, steady-lipped, generous, sensitive⁠—the most beautiful mouth, thought the redheaded girl, that she had ever seen. She crossed the short distance between the door and the chair beside which stood Mr. Lambert with a light, boyish swing. She looked rather like a boy⁠—a gallant, proud little boy, striding forward to receive the victor’s laurels. Did murderesses walk like that?

Behind her came Stephen Bellamy, the crape band on his dark coat appallingly conspicuous; only a few inches taller than Sue Ives, with dark hair lightly silvered, and a charming, sensitive, olive-skinned face. As they seated themselves, he flashed the briefest of smiles at his companion⁠—a grave, consoling smile, singularly sweet⁠—then turned an attentive countenance to the judge. Did a murderer smile like that?

The redheaded girl sat staring at them blankly.

“Oh, Lord!” moaned the reporter at her side. “Why did that old jackass Lambert let her come in here in that rig? If he had the sense that God gives a dead duck he’d know that she ought to be wearing something black and frilly and pitiful instead of stamping around in brown leather Oxfords as though she were headed straight for the first tee instead of the electric chair.”

“Oh, don’t!” The redheaded girl’s voice was passionate in its protest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, what are they doing now? What’s that wheel?”

“That’s for choosing the jury; it looks as though they were going to start right now. Yes, they’re off; that’s the sheriff spinning the wheel. He calls the names⁠—”

“Timothy Forbes!”

A stocky man with a small shrewd eye and a reddish moustache wormed his way forward.

“Number 1! Take your seat in the box.”

“Will it take long?” asked the redheaded girl.

“Alexander Petty!”

“Not at this rate,” replied the reporter, watching the progress toward the jury box of a towheaded little man with steel-bowed spectacles and a suit a little shiny at the elbows.

“This is going to be just as rapid as the law allows, I understand. Both sides are rarin’ to go, and they’re not liable to touch their peremptory challenges; and they’re not likely to challenge for cause, either, unless it’s a darned good cause.”

“Eliphalet Slocum!”

A keen-faced elderly man with a mouth like a steel trap joined the men in the box.

“It’s a special panel that they’re choosing from,” explained the reporter, lowering his voice cautiously as Judge Carver glanced ominously in his direction. “Redfield’s pretty up and coming for a place of its size. All the obviously undesirables are weeded out, so it saves an enormous amount of time.”

“Caesar Smith!”

Mr. Smith advanced at a trot, his round, amiable countenance beamingly exposing three gold teeth to the pleased spectators.

“Robert Angostini.”

A dark and dapper individual with a silky black moustache slipped quietly by Mr. Smith.

“Number 5, take your place in the box.⁠ ⁠… George Hobart.”

An amiable-looking youth in a brown Norfolk jacket advanced briskly.

“Who’s that coming in now?” inquired the redheaded girl in a stealthy whisper.

“Where?”

“In the witnesses’ seats⁠—over in the corner by the window. The tall man with the darling little old lady.”

The reporter turned his head, his boredom lit by a transient gleam of interest. “That? That’s Pat Ives and his mother. She’s been subpoenaed by the state as a witness⁠—God knows what for.”

“I love them when they wear bonnets,” said the redheaded girl. “What’s he like?”

“Pat? Well, take a good look at him; that’s what he’s like.”

The redheaded girl obediently took a good look. Black hair, blue eyes, black with pain, set in a haggard, beautiful young face that looked white to the bone, a reckless mouth set in a line of desperation.

“He doesn’t look very contented,” she commented mildly.

“And his looks don’t belie him,” the reporter assured her drily. “Young Mr. Ives belongs to the romantic school⁠—you know⁠—the guardsman, the troubadour, the rover, and the lover; the duel by candlelight, the rose in the moonlight, the dice, the devil and boots, saddle, to horse and away. The type that muffs it when he’s thrown into a show that deals in the crude realism of spilled kerosene and bloody rags and an Italian labourer’s stuffy little front parlour. Mix him up with that and he gets shadows under his eyes and three degrees of fever and bad dreams. Also, he gets a little irritable with reporters.”

“Did you interview him?” inquired the redheaded girl in awestricken tones.

“Well, that’s a nice way of putting it,” said the reporter thoughtfully. “I went around to the Ives’ house with one or two other scientific spirits on the night after Sue Ives and Bellamy were arrested⁠—June twenty-first, if my memory serves me. We rang the doorbell none too optimistically, and the door opened so suddenly that we practically fell flat on our faces in the front hall. There stood the debonair Mr. Ives, in