“I shouldn’t say,” remarked the sergeant frankly. “It’s got too many curlicues and doodads. It might be a D, or it might be P, or then again, it mightn’t be either.”
“So far as you know, it hasn’t been identified as anyone’s property?”
“No, sir.”
“It might have been left there at some previous date?”
“Well, it might have been; but the food seemed pretty fresh, and there were some new twigs broken off, as though someone had pressed way back into the shrubbery.”
“I offer this box in evidence, Your Honour, not as of any evidential value, but merely to keep the record straight as to what was turned over by the police.”
“No objections,” said Mr. Lambert with that same surprising promptitude, his eyes following the shiny box somewhat hungrily.
“Very well, sergeant, that’s all. Cross-examine.”
“Did you examine the portion of the drive to the rear of the cottage, sergeant?” inquired Mr. Lambert with genial interest.
“Yes, sir.”
“Find any traces of tires?”
“No, sir.”
“No further questions,” intoned Mr. Lambert mellifluously.
Mr. Farr turned briskly to an unhappy-looking young man crouching apprehensively in a far corner. “Now, Mr. Oliver, I’m going to get you just to read these three letters into the record. I’m unable to do it myself, as I’ve been subjected to considerable eye strain recently.”
“Do I start with the one on top?” inquired the wretched youth, who looked as though he were about to die at any moment.
“Start with the first in order of date,” suggested Mr. Farr benevolently. “, I think it is. And just raise your voice a little so we’ll all be able to hear you.”
“Darling, darling,” roared Mr. Oliver unbelievably, and paused, staring about him wildly, flame coloured far beyond the roots of his russet hair. “,” he added in a suffocated whisper.
Darling, darling:
I waited there for you for over an hour. I couldn’t believe that you weren’t coming—not after you’d promised. And when I got back and found that hateful, stiff little note—Mimi, how could you? You didn’t mean it to say, “I don’t love you”? It didn’t say that, did it? It sounded so horribly as though that was what it was trying to say that I kept both hands over my ears all the time that I was reading it. I won’t believe it. You do—you must. You’re the only thing that I’ve ever loved in all my life, Mimi; I swear it. You’re the only thing that I’ll ever love, as long as I live.
You say that you’re frightened; that there’s been talk—oh, darling, what of it? “They say? What say they? Let them say!” They’re a lot of wise, sensible, good-for-nothing idiots, who haven’t anything better to do in the world than wag their heads and their tongues, or else they’re a pack of young fools, frantic with jealousy because they can’t be beautiful like Mimi or lucky like Pat. If their talk gets really dangerous or ugly we can shut them all up in ten seconds by telling them that we’re planning to shake the dust of Rosemont from our heels any minute, and live happy ever after in some “cleaner, greener land.”
Do you want me to tell them that I’ve asked you fifteen thousand and three times to burn all our bridges and marry me, Mimi? Or didn’t you hear me? You always look then as though you were listening to someone else—someone with a louder voice than mine, saying “Wait—not yet. Think again—you’ll be sorry. Be careful—be careful.” Don’t listen to that liar, Mimi—listen to Pat, who loves you.
Tomorrow night, about nine, I’ll have the car at the back road. I’ll manage to get away somehow, and you must too. Wear that frilly thing that I love—you know, the green one—and the slippers with butterflies on them, and nothing on your hair. The wickedest thing that you ever do is to wear a hat. No, I’m wrong, you can wear something on your hair, after all. On the two curls right behind your ears—the littlest curls—my curls—you can wear two drops of that stuff that smells like lilacs in the rain. And I’ll put you—and your curls—and your slippers—and your sweetness—and your magic—into my car and we’ll drive twenty miles away from those wagging tongues. And, Mimi, I’ll teach you how beautiful it is to be alive and young and in love, in a world that’s full of spring and stars and lilacs. Oh, Mimi, come quickly and let me teach you!
The halting voice laboured to an all too brief silence. Even the back of Mr. Oliver’s neck was incandescent—perhaps he would not have flamed so hotly if he had realized how few eyes in the courtroom were resting on him. For across the crowded little room, Sue Ives, all her gay serenity gone, was staring at the figure by the window with terrified and incredulous eyes, black with tears.
“Oh, Pat—oh, Pat,” cried those drowning eyes, “what is this that you have done to us? Never loved anyone else? Never in all your life? What is this that you have done?”
And as though in answer to that despairing cry, the man by the window half rose, shaking his head in fierce entreaty.
“Don’t listen! Don’t listen!” implored his frantic eyes. …
“Now the next one, Mr. Oliver,” said Mr. Farr.
Rosemont, .
Mimi darling, darling, darling:
It’s after four o’clock and the birds in the vines outside the window are making the most awful row. I haven’t closed my eyes yet, and now I’m going to stop trying. What’s the use of sleeping, when here’s another day with Mimi in it? Dawn—I always thought it was the worst word in the English language, and here I am on my knees waiting for it, and ranting about it like any fool—like any happy, happy fool.
I’m so happy that it simply isn’t decent. I keep telling myself that we’re mad—that there’s black trouble ahead of us—that I haven’t any right in the world to
