“Did you notice anything else in the bag when Mrs. Bellamy opened it?”
“Oh, positive. The eyes of Luigi they miss nothing what there is to see. All things they observe. In that bag of Miz’ Bell’my there are stuff, stuff in two, three letters—I dunno for sure—maybe four. But they make that small little bag bulge out so—very tight, like that.” Mr. Orsini’s eloquent hands sketched complete rotundity.
“You never saw Mrs. Bellamy again?”
“Not evair—no, no more—not evair.”
For a moment the warm blood under the swarthy Southern skin seemed to run more slowly and coldly; but after a hasty glance at the safe, reassuring autumn sunlight slanting across the crowded room, the colour flowed boldly back to cheek and lip.
“You say that you missed the train to New York. What did you do then?”
“Then I curse myself good all up and down for a fool that is a fool all right, and I go back to my room in the garage and get into my bed and begin to read a story in a magazine that call itself Honest Confession about a bride what—”
“Never mind what you were reading. Did you notice anything unusual on your return?”
“Well, maybe you don’t call it nothing unusual, but I notice that the car of Mr. Bell’my it is no longer in the garage. That make me surprise’ for a minute, because I have heard Mr. Bell’my tell Nellie, the house girl, that it is all right for her to go home early to her mother, where she sleep, because he will be there to answer the telephone if it should ring. But all the same, I go on to bed. I just think he change his mind, maybe.”
“What time did you get back to the garage?”
“At twenty-two minutes before nine I am in my room. That I verify by the alarm clock that repose on the top of my bureau, and which is of an entire reliability; I note it expressly, because I am enrage’ that I have miss’ that train by so small an amount.”
“Orsini, do you know what kind of tires Mr. Bellamy was using on his car?”
“Yes, sair, that, too, I know. There are three old tires of what they call Royal Cord make—two on back and one on front. On the left front one is a good new Silvertown Cord, what I help him to change about a month before all these things have happen. For spare, he carry a all new Ajax. And that is all there is.”
“You’re perfectly sure that the Ajax wasn’t on?”
“Oh, surest thing.”
“When did you last see the car?”
“When I go down to the gate, round half-past seven.”
“And the Ajax was still on as a spare?”
“That’s what.”
“Did you see Mr. Bellamy again on the evening of the nineteenth?”
“Yes, that evening I have seen Mr. Bell’my again.”
“At what time?”
“At five before ten.”
“Was he alone?”
“No; with him there was a lady.”
“Did you recognize her?”
“Yes, sair, I have recognize’ her.”
“Who was this lady, Orsini?”
“This lady, sair, was Miz’ Patrick Ives.”
At those words, pronounced with exactly their proper dramatic inflection by that lover of the drama, Mr. Luigi Orsini, every head in the courtroom pivoted to the spot where Mrs. Patrick Ives sat with the autumn sun warming her hair to something better than gold. And quite oblivious to the ominous inquiry in those straining eyes, she turned toward Stephen Bellamy, meeting his startled eyes with a small, rueful smile, lifted brows and a little shake of the head that came as near to saying “I told you so” as good sportsmanship permitted.
“You are quite positive of that?”
“Oh, without one single doubt.”
“How were you able to identify her?”
“Because I hear her voice, as clear as I hear you, and I see her clear as I see you too.”
“How were you able to do that?”
“By the lights of Mr. Bell’my’s car, when she get out and look up at my window, where I stand and look out.”
“Tell us just how you came to be standing there looking out, please.”
“Well, after a while, I began to get sleepy over that magazine, and I look at the clock and it say ten minutes to ten, and I think, ‘Luigi, my fine fellow, tomorrow you rise at six to do the work that lies before you, and at present it is well that you should sleep.’ So I arise to turn out the light, which switch is by the window, and just when I get there to do that I hear a auto car turn in at the gate. I think, ‘Ah-ha! There now comes Mr. Bell’my.’ And then I look out of that window, for I am surprise’. It is the habit of Mr. Bell’my to put away that car so soon as he come in, but this time he don’t do that. He stop in front of the house and he help out a lady. She stand there looking up at my window, and I see her clear like it is day, but it is all dark inside, so she can see nothing. Then she say, ‘I still could swear that I have seen a light,’ and Mr. Bell’my he say, ‘Sue, don’t let this get you. I tell you that there is no one here—I saw him headed for the train. Maybe perhaps it was the shine from our own lamps what you see. Come on.’ And she say, ‘Maybe; but I could swear—’ And then I don’t hear any more, because they go into the house, and me, I stand there like one paralyze’, because always I have believe Mr. Bell’my to be a man of honour who love—”
“Yes—never mind that. Did you see them come out?”
“Yes, that I see, too. In five-ten minutes they come out and get quick into the car, and drive away without they say one word. They start off very fast, so that the car it jump.”
“Do you know at what time Mr. Bellamy
