She sat staring with that curious, intent rigidity at that far-off spot beyond the other closed door, and the courtroom followed her glance with uneasy eyes.
“And then?”
“Yes. And then when we got in there wasn’t any light, of course. Steve asked, ‘Do you know where the switch is?’ And I told him, ‘There isn’t any switch. Douglas has always been talking about putting electricity in these cottages, but he never has.’ Steve said, ‘Well, there must be a light somewhere,’ and I said, ‘Oh, of course there is. There always used to be an old brass lamp here in the corner by the front door—let’s see.’ It was right there on the same table. There were matches there, too, and I struck one of them and lit it. Steve had stepped by me into the room; he was standing by the door, and he stood aside to let me pass. There was a little breeze from the open door, and I had put up one hand to shield the light and keep it from flickering. I was looking at the piano, because I’d never remembered seeing a piano there before. I was halfway across the room before I—before I—” The voice shuddered slowly away to silence.
After a long pause, Lambert asked, “Before you did what, Mrs. Ives?”
She gave a convulsive start, as though someone had let fall a heavy hand across the nightmare. “Before I—saw her.”
The voice was hardly a whisper, but there was no one in the room beyond the reach of its stilled horror.
“It was Mrs. Bellamy that you saw?”
“Yes, I—” She swallowed—tried to speak—swallowed again, and lifted a hand to her throat. “I’m sorry. Might I have a glass of water? Is that all right?”
In all that room no one stirred save the clerk of the Court, who poured a glass of water with careful gravity and handed it up to her over the edge of the box. She drank it slowly, as though she found in this brief respite life itself. When she had finished it, she put it down gently and said, “Thank you,” in a voice once more clear and steady.
“You were telling us that you saw Mrs. Bellamy.”
“Yes. … I must have dropped the lamp immediately; all I remember was that we were standing there in the dark. I heard Stephen say, ‘Don’t move. Where are the matches?’ He needn’t have told me not to move. If I could have escaped death itself by stepping aside one inch I could not have moved that inch. I said, ‘I have them here—in my pocket.’ He said, ‘Strike one.’ I tried three times. The third time it lit, and he went by me and knelt down beside her. He touched her wrist and said, ‘Mimi, did it hurt? Did it hurt, darling?’ The match went out and I started to strike another. He said, ‘Never mind. She’s dead.’ I said, ‘I know it. Dead people can’t close their eyes, can they?’ He said, ‘I have closed them. She’s been murdered. I got you into this, Sue, and I’ll get you out of it. Where are you?’ I tried to say, ‘Here,’ but I couldn’t. And then I thought that I heard something move—outside—in the bushes—and I screamed.
“I’d never done that before in my life. It didn’t sound like me at all. It sounded like someone quite different. Steve whispered, ‘For God’s sake, be still.’ I said, ‘I heard someone moving.’ He said ‘It was I, coming toward you. Give me your hand.’ His was so cold on my wrist that it was horrible.
“I put my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming again, and he pulled me through the hall and on to the porch. I said, ‘Steve, we can’t leave her there like that—we can’t.’ He said, ‘She doesn’t need us anymore. Get in the car.’ I pulled back, and he said, ‘Listen to me, Sue. It doesn’t make any difference how innocent we are, if it is ever known that we were in that room this evening, we’ll never be able to make one human being in God’s world believe that we aren’t guilty—and we’ll have to make twelve of them believe. I’ve got to get you home. Get into the car.’ So I got in, and he drove me home.”
She was silent, and the courtroom was silent too. To the redheaded girl, it seemed as though for a space everyone had foregone even the habit of breath and held it suspended until that voice should finish its dreadful tale. She could see Patrick Ives in his corner by the window. A long time ago he had buried his black head in his hands, and he did not lift it now. His mother had placed one small gloved hand on his knee. It rested there lightly, but she was not looking at him; her eyes had never wavered from Sue Ives’s white face. Long ago the winter roses had faded in her own, but it was as gravely and graciously composed as on that first day.
“Did you drive straight home, Mrs. Ives?”
“Straight home. Stephen spoke two or three times; I don’t remember saying anything at all. He told me to say that we’d driven over to Lakedale, and then he said that everything would be all right, because no one would know that Elliot had spoken to me, and no one could possibly know that we had gone to the cottage. I remember nodding, and then we were at our gate. Stephen said, ‘You might as well give me that signal that we decided on before to let me know whether Pat’s there; will you, Sue?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You might ask him whether he heard from her this evening.’ I said, ‘Steve, it isn’t us that this is happening to, is it? It isn’t us—not Pat and you and I and
