“I’m not sure—possibly a year or so before that.”
“Were you a child nine years ago?”
“A child? I was over twenty.”
“I thought you told us that it was as a child that you went to the cottage.”
“I went occasionally after I was older. I was very fond of the old gardener and his wife. They were German and very sensitive after the outbreak of the war. We all used to go down from time to time to try to cheer them up.”
“Very considerate indeed—another errand of mercy. But about this lamp, now, that you remembered so providentially after nine years. You are quite sure that it wasn’t in the front parlour?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“It couldn’t have been standing on the little table that was overturned by Mimi Bellamy’s fall?”
“How could it possibly have been standing there?”
“I was asking you. You are perfectly sure that it wasn’t standing on that table, lighted, when you came in?”
“I see.” The unwavering eyes burned brighter with that clear disdain. “I didn’t quite understand. You mean am I lying, don’t you? I have told you the truth; the lamp was on the table in the hall.”
“Your Honour, I ask to have that reply stricken from the record as unresponsive.”
“It may be stricken from the record to the point where the witness says, ‘The lamp was on the table in the hall.’ ” Judge Carver stared down with stern, troubled eyes at the clear, unflinching face lifted to his. “Mrs. Ives, the Court again assures you that you do yourself no service by such replies and that they are entirely out of order. It requests that you refrain from them.”
“I will try to, Your Honour.”
“Mrs. Ives, you have told us that when you were standing in darkness you heard a sound that frightened you. Was it someone trying the door?”
“Oh, no; the door was open. It wasn’t anything as clear as that. I thought first that it was someone moving in the bushes, but it was probably simply my imagination.”
“You didn’t hear anyone whistling?”
“No.”
“You are quite sure that neither of you locked the door?”
“Absolutely. Why should we lock the door?”
“I must remind you again, Mrs. Ives, that it is I who am examining you. Now, you say that you went into the room ahead of Mr. Bellamy?”
“Yes.”
“How far were you from the body when you first saw it?”
In the paper-white face the eyes dilated, suddenly, dreadfully. “I don’t know. Quite near—three feet—four feet.”
“You suspected that she was dead?”
“I knew that she was dead. Her eyes were wide open.”
“You did not go nearer to her than those three or four feet?”
“No.” She forced the word through her lips with a dreadful effort.
“You did not touch her?”
“No—no.”
“Then how did the bloodstains get on your coat?”
At the sharp clang of that triumphant cry she shuddered and turned and came back to him slowly from the small, haunted room. “Bloodstains? There were no bloodstains on my coat.”
“Do you still claim that the coat that you smuggled out of your house Sunday morning was stained with grease from Mr. Bellamy’s car?”
“No—no, I don’t claim that.”
“That’s prudent of you, as Sergeant Johnson has testified that there was no grease whatever on the car.”
“I meant to explain that before,” said Sue Ives simply. “Only there were so many other things that I forgot. It was kerosene from the lamp—the coat was covered with it. I didn’t know how to explain it, so I thought that I had better get rid of it.”
“I see,” said the prosecutor grimly, “You’re a very resourceful young woman, aren’t you?”
“No,” said the clear, grave voice. “I don’t think that I’m particularly resourceful.”
“I differ from you. … Mrs. Ives, you didn’t intend to tell this jury that you had been in the gardener’s cottage on the night of the , did you?”
“Not if I could avoid doing so without perjuring myself.”
“You decided to do so only when you were literally forced to it by information that you found was in the state’s possession?”
“It is hard for me to answer that by yes or no,” said Susan Ives. “But I suppose that the fairest answer to it is yes.”
“You had decided to withhold this vitally important information because you and Stephen Bellamy had together reached the conclusion that no twelve sane men could be found to accept the fantastic coincidence that you and he were in the room in which this murder was committed within a few minutes of this crime, and yet had nothing whatever to do with it?”
“I think that again the answer should be yes.”
“You are still of that opinion?”
“I no longer have any opinion.”
“Why should you have changed your opinion that twelve sane men could not possibly believe your story?”
“I do not know whether they will believe me or not,” said Sue Ives, her eyes, fearless and unswerving, on the twelve stolid, inscrutable countenances raised to hers. “You see, I don’t know how true truth sounds.”
“I should imagine not,” said the prosecutor, his voice cruelly smooth. “No further questions.”
And at that Parthian shot the white lips in the white face before him curved suddenly and amazingly into the lovely irony of a smile, a last salute over the drawn swords before they were sheathed.
“That will be all,” said Lambert’s voice gently. “You may stand down.”
For a moment she did not move, but sat staring down with dark eyes to which the smile had not quite reached, at the twelve enigmatic countenances before her—at the slack, careless young one on the far end; the grim elderly one next to it; the small, deep-set eyes above the heavy jowls of that flushed one in the centre; the sleek attentive pallor of the one next to the door. She opened her lips as though to speak again, closed them with a small shake of her head, swept up gloves, bag and fur with one swift gesture, and without a backward glance was gone, moving across the cluttered space between her chair and the box with
