“Your Honour,” said Lambert, in the quiet, tired voice so many leagues removed from the old boom, “in view of Mrs. Ives’s evidence, I would like to have Mr. Bellamy take the stand once more. I have only one or two questions to put to him.”
“He may take the stand,” said Judge Carver impassively.
He took it steadily, the white face of horror that he had turned from the day before schooled once more to the old courtesy and quiet.
“Mr. Bellamy, you have heard Mrs. Ives’s evidence as to the circumstance that led up to your visit to the gardener’s cottage and of the visit to the cottage itself. Is her description is accord with your own recollection?”
“In complete accord.”
“You would not change it in any particular?”
“No. It is absolutely accurate.”
“Nor add to it?”
“Yes. There is something that I believe that I should add. Mrs. Ives was not aware of the fact that I returned to the cottage again that night.”
If Lambert also was not aware of it, he gave no sign. “For what purpose?”
“I had no definite purpose—I did not wish to leave my wife alone in the cottage.”
“At what time did you return?”
“Very shortly after I left Mrs. Ives at her home. I actually didn’t know what I was doing. I took the wrong turn in the back road and drove around for a bit before I got straightened out, but it couldn’t have been for very long.”
“How long did you stay?”
“Until it began to get light; I didn’t look at the time.”
“You did not disturb the contents of the cottage in any way?”
“No; I left everything exactly as it was.”
“Nor remove anything?”
“Nothing—nothing whatever.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bellamy. That will be all, unless Mr. Farr has any questions.”
“As a matter of fact, I have one or two questions,” remarked Mr. Farr, leisurely but grim. “You, too, are highly resourceful, Mr. Bellamy, aren’t you?”
“I should hardly say that I had proved myself so.”
“Well, you can reassure yourself. That extra set of automobile tires had to be accounted for, hadn’t they?”
“I should have accounted for them in any case.”
“Should you, indeed? That’s very interesting, but hardly a responsive answer to my question. I’ll be grateful if you don’t make it necessary for me to pull you up on that again. Now, you say that you didn’t touch anything in the cottage?”
“I said that I did not disturb anything.”
“Oh, you touched something, did you?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I touched her hand.”
“I see. You were looking for the rings?”
“No. I didn’t think of the rings.”
“They were still there?”
“Until you asked me this minute I had not thought of them. I do not believe that they were there.”
“Mr. Bellamy, I put it to you that you returned to that cottage with the express purpose of removing those rings, the necklace, and any traces that you or Mrs. Ives may have left behind you in your previous flight?”
“You are wrong; I did not return for any of those purposes.”
“Then for what purpose?”
“Because I did not wish to leave my wife alone.”
“You consider that a plausible explanation?”
“Oh, no; simply a true one.”
“She was dead, wasn’t she?”
“She was dead.”
“You knew that?”
“Yes.”
“You knew that you couldn’t do anything for her, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure.” The voice was as quiet as ever, but once more the ripple of the clenched teeth showed in the cheek. “She was afraid of the dark.”
“Of the dark?”
“Yes; she was afraid to be alone in the dark.”
“She was dead, wasn’t she?”
“Yes—yes, she was dead.”
“You ask us to believe that you spent hours in momentary danger of arrest for murder because a woman who was stone dead had been afraid of the dark when she was alive?”
“No. I don’t ask you to believe anything,” said Stephen Bellamy gently. “I was simply telling you what happened.”
“You say that you didn’t touch anything else in the cottage?”
“Nothing else.”
“How could you find your way about without a light?”
“I had a light; I took the flashlight from my car.”
“So that you could make a thorough search of the premises for anything that had been left behind?”
“We had left nothing behind.”
“But you couldn’t have been sure of that, could you? A knife, perhaps? A knife’s an easy thing to lose.”
“We had no knife.”
Mr. Farr greeted this statement with an expression of profound skepticism. “Now, before I ask you to step down, Mr. Bellamy, I want to make sure that you haven’t one final installment to add for our benefit. That’s all that you have to tell us?”
“That is all.”
“Sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“This continued story that you have been presenting to us from day to day has reached its absolutely ultimate installment?”
“I have already said that I have nothing to add to my statement.”
“And this is the same story that you were so sure that no twelve sane men in the world would believe, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It isn’t necessary to prove to me that I have been the fool of the world,” said Stephen Bellamy quietly. “I willingly admit it. My deepest regret is that my folly has involved Mrs. Ives too.”
“You have had no cause to revise your opinion as to the skepticism that your account of that night’s doings would arouse in any twelve sane men, have you?”
“Oh, yes, I have had excellent reason completely to revise it.”
The low, pleasant voice seemed to jar on the prosecutor as violently as a bomb. “And what reason, may I ask?”
“At the time that I arrived at that conclusion I had naturally had no opportunity to hear Mrs. Ives on the witness stand. Now that I have, it seems absolutely impossible to me that anyone could fail to believe her.”
“That must be extremely reassuring for you,” remarked Mr. Farr in a voice so heavily charged with irony that it came close to cracking under the
