Farr rose casually from his chair, his hands in his pockets, his head cocked a trifle to one side. “Mr. Ives,” he said leisurely, “I’m going to ask you the one question that Mr. Lambert didn’t. Did you murder Madeleine Bellamy?”
After a pause that seemed interminable, Pat Ives lifted his eyes from their scrutiny of his hands, locked at the edge of the witness box. “No,” he said tonelessly.
“No further questions,” remarked Mr. Farr, still more leisurely resuming his seat.
Lambert glared—swallowed—glared again, and turned on his heel. “Mrs. Ives, will you be good enough to take the stand?”
She was on her feet before the words were off his lips, brushing by him with her light, swift step and a look of contemptuous anger that was bright and terrible as a sword.
“Looks as though his precious Sue was going to give Uncle Dudley a bad half hour,” murmured the reporter exultantly.
“Why?” whispered the redheaded girl. “Why did she look like that?”
“Because I rather fancy that Lambert has just a scrap exceeded his authority in his efforts to speed Pat Ives to the gallows. The old walrus made out a fairly damaging case against him, even if he did snort himself purple. If—”
“Mrs. Ives, I’m going to ask you to tell us in your own words just what occurred on the evening of the , from the time that Mr. Farwell spoke to you at the club. I won’t interrupt unless I feel that something is not quite clear. At what time did the conversation with Mr. Farwell take place?”
She looked so small, sitting there—so small and young and fearless, with her dark, bright eyes and her lifted chin and the pale gold wings of her hair folded under the curve of the little russet hat. She had no colour at all—not in her cheeks, not in her lips.
“It was a little after five,” said Sue Ives, and the redheaded girl gave a sigh of sheer delight. Once or twice in a lifetime a voice like that falls on our lucky ears—a voice clear and fresh as running water, alive and beautiful and effortless. The girl in the box did not have to lift it a half tone to have it penetrate to the farthest corner of the gallery. “We got in from the links just at five, and Elliot came up and asked me if he could bring me something to drink. I said yes, and when he came back he suggested that we go over and sit on the steps, as he had a splitting headache, and everyone was making a good deal of a racket. We hadn’t been there more than five minutes before he told me.”
“Before he told you what?” prompted Lambert helpfully.
“Before he told me that Pat was having an affair with Mimi Bellamy.” She did not vouchsafe him even a glance, but kept the clear, stern little face turned squarely to the twelve attentive ones lifted to hers. “At first I thought that it was simply preposterous nonsense—I told him so. Everyone knew that Elliot was absolutely out of his head over Mimi, and I thought that he really was going a little mad. I could see that he’d been drinking, of course, and I wasn’t even as angry as I ought to have been, because he was so unhappy—dreadfully unhappy. And then he said that he’d spied on them—that he’d seen them go to the cottage together. Well, that—that was different. That didn’t sound like the kind of thing that you’d invent or imagine, no matter how unbalanced you were.”
“You believed it?”
“No, not at first—not quite. But it bothered me dreadfully all the way home from the club—all the time that we were standing around in our living room waiting for the cocktails. I couldn’t get it out of my head. And then Pat came in.”
She paused, frowning a little at the memory of that sick perplexity.
“You say that Mr. Ives came in?”
“Yes. He was looking dreadfully tired and—excited. No, that’s not the word. Keyed up—different. Or perhaps it was just that I expected him to look different. I don’t know. Anyway, Elliot started to go then, and I went into the hall after him, because he’d been drinking a good deal more, and I was afraid that he’d talk as indiscreetly to someone else as he had to me. I couldn’t think very clearly yet, but I was quite sure that that ought to be stopped. So I asked him to be careful, and he said that he would.”
“Did you notice Melanie Cordier in the library?”
“No. I was watching Elliot. He looked so wretchedly unhappy that I was really worried about him. Well, anyway, he went off without even saying goodbye, and I went back toward the living room. Just as I came up to it I heard George Dallas say, ‘We can count on you for the poker party tonight, can’t we?’ And Pat said, ‘I’ll surely try to make it, but don’t count on me.’ Something inside my head went click, and all the pieces in the puzzle fell into place. I walked straight into the room and up to where he was standing. He’d gone over to the table and was pouring out another of those new cocktails. Everyone was making a dreadful racket, laughing and talking. I said, ‘Nell Conroy wanted us to go to the movies tonight. Don’t you think that it would be rather fun?’ And he said, ‘Sorry, but I told George that I’d run over for a poker game. Tell Nell that you’ll go, and then I won’t worry about you being lonely.’ I said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ And Pat said, ‘Be back in a minute. I have some papers I want to get rid of.’
“He went across the hall; I could hear his steps. I felt just exactly as though I’d taken poison and I stood there waiting for it to begin to work. Someone came up to me to say
