Mr. Orsini dismissed his penal career with an eloquent shrug. “Ah, well, for what thing do you not go to jail in these days? If you do not have money to pay for fine, it is jail for you! You drink beer what is two and three quarter, you shake up some dice where you think nobody care, you drive nine and one-half mile over a bridge where it say eight and one half—”
“That will do, Orsini. In did you or did you not serve eight months in jail for stealing some rings from a hotel room?”
“Ah, that—that is one dirty lie—one dirty plant is put on me! I get that—”
From under the swarthy skin of the erstwhile suave citizen of the world there leaped, sallow with fury, livid with fear, the Calabrian peasant, ugly and vengeful, chattering with incoherent rage. Lambert eyed him with profound satisfaction.
“Yes, yes—naturally. It always is. Very unfortunate; our jails are crowded with these errors. It’s true, too, isn’t it, Orsini, that less than three weeks before the murder you told Mr. Bellamy that the reason you hadn’t asked your little Milanese friend to marry you was that you couldn’t afford to buy her an engagement ring?”
“You—you—”
“Just one moment, Orsini.” The prosecutor’s low voice cut sharply across the thick, violent stammering. “Don’t answer that question. … Your Honour, I once more respectfully inquire as to whether this is the trial of Mr. Bellamy and Mrs. Ives or of my witnesses, individually and en masse?”
“And the Court has told you once before that it does not reply to purely rhetorical questions, Mr. Farr. You are perfectly aware as to whose trial this is, and while the Court is inclined to agree as to the impropriety of the last question, it does not believe that it is in error in stating that it is some time since you have seen fit to object to any of the questions put by Mr. Lambert to your witness.”
“Your Honour is quite correct. It being my profound conviction that I have an absolutely unshakable case, I have studiously refrained from injecting the usual note of acrimonious bickering into these proceedings that is supposed to be the legal prerogative. This kind of thing causes me profoundly to regret my forbearance, I may state. About two out of three witnesses that I’ve put on the stand have been practically accused of committing or abetting this murder. Whether they’re all supposed to be in one gigantic conspiracy or to have played lone hands is still a trifle hazy, but there’s no doubt whatever about the implications. Miss Page, Miss Cordier, Mr. Farwell, Mr. Ives, Mr. Orsini—it’ll be getting around to me in a minute.”
“I object to this, Your Honour, I object!” The choked and impassioned voice of Mr. Dudley Lambert went down before the clear, metallic clang of the prosecutor’s, roused at last from lethargy.
“And I object, too—I object to a great many things! I object to the appalling gravity of a trial for murder being turned into a farce by the kind of thing that’s been going on here this morning. I’m entirely serious in saying that Mr. Lambert might just as well select me as a target for his insinuations. I used to live in Rosemont. I have a good sharp pocket knife—my wife hasn’t a sapphire ring to her name—I’ve been arrested three times—twice for exceeding a speed limit of twenty-two miles an hour and once for trying to reason with a traffic cop who had delusions of grandeur and a—”
“That will do, Mr. Farr.” There was a highly peremptory note in Judge Carver’s voice. “The Court has exercised possibly undue liberality in permitting you to extend your observations on this point, because it seemed well taken. It does not believe that you will gain anything by further elaboration. Mr. Lambert your last question is overruled. Have you any further ones to put to the witness?”
Mr. Lambert, looking a striking combination of a cross baby and a bulldog, did not take these observations kindly. “Am I denied the opportunity of attacking the credibility of the extraordinary collection of individuals that Mr. Farr chooses to produce as witnesses?”
“You are not. In what way does your inquiry as to Mr. Orsini’s inability to provide a young woman with an engagement ring purport to attack his credibility?”
“It purports to show that Orsini had a distinct motive for robbery and—”
“Precisely. And precisely for that reason, since Mr. Orsini is not on trial here, the Court considers the question irrelevant and incompetent, as well as improper. Have you any further ones to put?”
“No.” The rage that was consuming the unchastened Mr. Lambert choked his utterance and bulged his eyes. “No further questions. May I have an exception from Your Honour’s ruling?”
“Certainly.”
Orsini, stepping briskly down from the witness box, lingered long enough to bestow on his late inquisitor a glance in which knives flashed and blood flowed freely—a glance which Mr. Lambert, goaded by frustrated rage, returned with interest. The violence remained purely ocular, however, and the obviously disappointed spectators began to crawl laboriously to their feet.
“Call for Turner.”
“Joseph Turner!”
A bright-eyed, brown-faced, friendly-looking boy swung alertly into the box and fired a pair of earnest young eyes on the prosecutor.
“What was your occupation on , Mr. Turner?”
“I was bus driver over the Perrytown route.”
“Still are?”
“No, sir; driving for the same outfit, but over a new route—Redfield to Glenvale.”
“Ever see these before, Turner?”
The prosecutor lifted a black chiffon cape and lace scarf from the pasteboard box beside him and extended them casually toward the witness.
The boy eyed them soberly. “Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Two or three times, sir; the last time was the night of the .”
“At what time?”
“At about eight-thirty-five.”
“Where did you pick Mrs. Bellamy up?”
“At about a quarter of a mile beyond her house, toward the club. There’s a bus stop there, and she stepped out from some
