“Miss Dunne, I just want you to tell us one or two things. You heard Mr. Phipps’ testimony?”
“Yes, sir.” A child’s voice, clear as water, troubled and innocent.
“You were with him on the night of June nineteenth from eight until one or thereabouts?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was his testimony as to what happened accurate?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Mr. Phipps,” said the little voice proudly, “has a very wonderful memory.”
“You were with him on his first visit to the cottage?”
“I was with him every minute of the evening.”
“You saw no car near the cottage?”
“There wasn’t any car there,” said Miss Dunne.
“You saw Mr. Bellamy and Mrs. Ives on your second visit to the cottage, some time after ten o’clock?”
“Just when they came out,” said Miss Dunne conscientiously. “I didn’t see their faces when they went in.”
“Did you hear them speak?”
“I heard Mr. Bellamy say, ‘Sue, no matter how innocent we are, we’ll never get one person to believe that we aren’t guilty if they know that we were in that room, much less twelve. I’ve got to get you home.’
“Yes. Are you engaged to be married, Miss Dunne?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Dunne simply. “I was engaged, but my—my fiancé didn’t want me to testify in this case. You see, he’s studying for the ministry. I think perhaps that he doesn’t consider that he’s engaged any longer.”
“Were you yourself anxious to testify?”
“I was anxious to do what Mr. Phipps thought was right for us to do,” said Miss Dunne. “But I am afraid that I was not very brave about wanting to testify.”
“Were you in the habit of going on these—these picnic expeditions with Mr. Phipps?”
“Oh, no, sir. We had taken only two or three quite short little walks—after school, you know. He was helping me with my English literature because I wanted to be a writer. The party that night was a farewell party.”
“A farewell party?”
“Yes. School had closed on Friday, and we—Mr. Phipps thought that perhaps it would be better if we didn’t see each other anymore. It was my fault that we went to Orchards that night. It was all my fault,” explained Miss Dunne carefully in her small, clear voice.
“Your fault?”
“Yes. You see, Mr. Phipps thought that I was very romantic indeed, and that I was getting too fond of him, so that we had better stop seeing each other. I am very romantic,” said Sally Dunne gravely, “and I was getting too fond of him.”
“How often have you seen Mr. Phipps since that evening, Miss Dunne?”
“Twice; once on the Tuesday following the—the murder—only for about five minutes in the park. I begged him not to say anything about our having been there unless it was absolutely necessary. And again last night when he said that it was necessary.”
“Yes, exactly. Thank you, Miss Dunne; that will be all. Cross-examine.”
“It was not the state that is responsible for the pitiless publicity to which this unfortunate young girl has been exposed,” said Mr. Farr, looking so virtuous that one sought apprehensively for the halo. “And it is not the state that proposes to prolong it. I ask no question.”
Judge Carver said, in answer to the look of blank bewilderment in the clear eyes, “That will be all. You may step down, Miss Dunne.”
The redheaded girl, who thought that nothing in the world could surprise her anymore, felt herself engulfed in amazement.
“Well, but what did he let her go for?”
“He let her go,” explained the reporter judicially, “because he’s the wiliest old fox in Bellechester County. He knows perfectly well that while he has a fair sporting chance of instilling the suspicion in the twelve essential heads that Mr. Phipps is a libertine and a bribe taker and a perjurer, he hasn’t the chance of the proverbial snowball to make them believe that Sally Dunne could speak anything but the truth to save her life or her soul. That child could make the tales of Munchausen sound like the eternal verities. The quicker he can get her off the stand, the more chance he has of saving his case.”
“Save it? How can he save it?”
“Well, that’s probably what he’d like to know. As the prosecutor is supposed to be a seeker after truth, rather than a bloodhound after blood, he has rather a tough row to hoe. And here’s where he starts hoeing it.”
“The state has no comment to make on the testimony that you have just heard,” Mr. Farr was saying to the twelve jurors with an expression of truly exalted detachment, “other than to ask you to remember that, after all, these two last witnesses are no more than human beings, subject to the errors, the frailties, and the weaknesses of other human beings. If you will bear that in mind in weighing their evidence, I do not feel that it will be necessary to add one other word.”
Judge Carver eyed him thoughtfully for a moment over the glasses that he had adjusted to his fine nose. Then, with a perfunctory rap of his gavel, he turned to the papers in his hand.
“Gentlemen of the jury, the long and anxious inquiry in which we have been engaged is drawing to a close, and it now becomes my duty to address you. It has been, however painful, of a most absorbing interest, and it has undoubtedly engaged the closest attention of every one of you. You will not regret the strain that that attention has placed upon you when it shortly becomes your task to weigh the evidence that has been
