“So that she would have been perfectly able to have made that incision of that tire herself?”
“I should think so.”
“She did not at any time suggest that you accompany her either to the movies or the Conroys, did she?”
“Oh, no.”
“She countered such suggestions on your part, did she not, by saying that you would have to walk back, that it would be awkward for you to get away, and other excuses of that nature?”
“Yes. My wife knew that the pictures hurt my eyes, and she never urged me to—”
“No, never mind that, Mr. Bellamy. Please confine yourself to yes or no, whenever it is possible. It will simplify things for both of us. It would have been entirely possible for your wife to injure that tire in order to keep you from accompanying her, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Mr. Bellamy, I want to get this perfectly correctly. You claim that at nine-thirty you were on the River Road twelve miles from Orchards. Do you mean twelve miles by way of the back road, Rosemont and the Perrytown Road?”
“Yes.”
“Retracing your way over the route that you had previously taken?”
“Yes.”
“But surely you know that there is another and shorter route from Lakedale to Orchards, Mr. Bellamy?”
“I know that there is another route—yes. I was not aware that it was much shorter.”
“Well, for your information I may state that it is some three miles shorter. Can you describe this route to us?”
“Not very well, I’m afraid. I’m not at all familiar with it. I believe that it is the road that Mr. Thorne was speaking of having taken that night, leading into the back of Orchards.”
“Your supposition is entirely correct. Now, will you tell us just how you get there?”
“As I said, I’m not sure that I can. I believe that you continue on down the River Road until you turn off down a rather narrow, rough little road that leads directly to the back gates of Orchards. It’s practically a private road, I believe, ending at the estate.”
“What is its name?”
“I’m not sure, but I believe that it’s something like Thorne Path, or Road, or Lane—I’m pretty clear that it has the name Thorne in it.”
“Oh, you’re clear about that, are you, in spite of the fact that you’ve never been near it?”
“You misunderstood me evidently. I never said that I had never been near it. As a matter of fact, I have been over it several times—two or three anyway.”
“And yet you wish us to believe that you have no idea of either the name or the distance?”
“Certainly. It’s been a great many years since I’ve used it—ten, perhaps. It was at a time that I was going frequently to Orchards, when Mr. Thorne, Senior, was alive.”
“And you have never used it since?”
“No. It’s not a road that anyone would use unless he were going to Orchards. It’s practically a blind alley.”
“Again I must ask you to refrain from qualifications and elaborations. ‘No’ is a reply to that question. The fact remains, doesn’t it, that here was an unobtrusive shortcut to Orchards that you haven’t seen fit to tell us about?”
Stephen Bellamy smiled slightly—that gracious and ironic smile, so oddly detached as to be disconcerting. “I’m afraid that I can’t answer that either yes or no—either would be misleading. I had completely forgotten that there was such a road.”
“Completely forgotten it, had you? Had Mrs. Ives forgotten it too?”
“I’m sure that I don’t know.”
“Mr. Bellamy, is not this road, known as Thorne Lane, the one that you and Mrs. Ives took to reach Orchards the night of the murder?”
Mr. Bellamy frowned faintly in concentration. “I beg your pardon?”
“Did you not use Thorne Lane to reach Orchards on the night of the murder?”
The frown vanished; for a moment, Mr. Bellamy looked frankly diverted. Were these, inquired his lifted brows, the terrors of cross-examination? “We certainly did nothing of the kind. I thought that I’d already explained that I hadn’t been over that road in ten years.”
“I heard your explanation. Now, will you kindly explain to us why you didn’t use it?”
“Why?” inquired Stephen Bellamy blankly.
“Why, consumed with anxiety as you were for the safety of your wife, didn’t it occur to you to go to this gardener’s cottage, where you were assured that she was having a rendezvous with another man?”
“I was not assured of any such thing. I was most positively assured that Mr. Ives had not gone there to meet her. Nor was I in anxiety at all about my wife during my drive with Mrs. Ives. I believed that she had gone to the movies.”
“Very well, when you found out that she wasn’t at the movies, why didn’t you go then to the cottage?”
“Mrs. Ives gave me her word of honour that Mr. Ives was at home. It seemed incredible to both of us that she would have waited there for over two hours.”
“Incredible to both of you that she could have waited? I thought you wished us to believe that you had such entire confidence in her love for you that you were perfectly convinced that she had never been near the cottage.”
“I”—the whitened lips tightened resolutely—“I did not believe that she had been. It was simply a hypothesis that I accepted in desperation—a vain attempt to believe that she might be safe, after all.”
“It would have consoled you to know that she was safe in the gardener’s cottage with Patrick Ives?”
“I would have given ten years of my life to have believed that she was safe and happy anywhere in the world.”
“Your honour meant nothing to you?”
“My honour? What had my honour to do
