The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics)

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “No, sir, I guess I wasn’t.”

  “There was very little affection and intimacy between you, wasn’t there?”

  “I don’t know what you call between us,” said Miss Biggs, and the pretty, common, swollen face was suddenly invested with dignity and beauty. “I loved her better than anyone I knew. She was the only best friend I ever had—ever.”

  And swept by the hunger in that quiet and humble voice, the courtroom was suddenly empty of everyone but two little girls, warm cheeked, bright eyed, gingham clad—a sleek pigtailed head and a froth of bright curls locked together over an inkstained desk. Best friends—four scuffed feet flying down the twilight street on roller skates—two mittened paws clutching each other under the shaggy robe of the bell-hung sleigh—a slim arm around a chubby waist on the hay cart—decorous, mischievous eyes meeting over the rims of the frosted glasses of sarsaparilla while brown-stockinged legs swung free of the tall drug-store stools—a shrill voice calling down the street in the sweet-scented dusk, “Yoo-hoo, Mimi! Mimi, c’mon out and play.” Mimi, Mimi, lying so still with red on your white lace dress, come on out and____

  “Thank you, Miss Biggs: that’s all.”

  She stumbled a little on the step of the witness box, brushed once more at her eyes with impatient fingers and was gone.

  “Call Mrs. Daniel Ives.”

  “Mrs. Daniel Ives!”

  All through the Court went that quickening thrill of interest. A little old lady was moving with delicate precision down the far aisle to the witness box; the red-headed girl glanced quickly from her to the corner where Patrick Ives was sitting. He had half risen from his seat and was watching her progress with a passion of protest on his haggard young face. Well, even the prosecutor said that this reckless young man had been a good son, and it could hardly be a pleasant sight for the worst of sons to see his mother moving steadily toward that place of inquisition, and to realize that it was his folly that had sent her there. He sat down abruptly, turning his face toward the blue autumnal sky outside the window, against which the bare boughs of the tree spread like black lace. The circles under his eyes looked darker than ever.

  As quietly as though it were a daily practice, Mrs. Ives was raising a neat black-gloved hand to take the oath and setting a daintily shod foot on the step of the witness box. She seated herself unhurriedly, opened the black fur collar at her throat, folded her hands on the edge of the box, and lifted a pair of dark blue eyes, bravely serene, to the shrewd coolness of the prosecutor. There was just a glimpse of silver hair under the old-fashioned black toque with its wisp of lace and round jet pins; there was the faintest touch of pink in her cheeks and a small smile on her lips, shy and gracious. The kind of mother, decided the red-headed girl, that you would invent, if you were very talented.

  “Mrs. Ives, you are the mother of Patrick Ives, are you not?”

  “I am.”

  The gentle voice was as clear and true as a little bell.

  “You heard Miss Biggs’s testimony?”

  “Oh, yes; my hearing is still excellent.” The small smile deepened for a moment to friendly amusement.

  “Were you aware of the state of affairs between Madeleine Bellamy and your son at the time that war broke out?”

  “I was aware that he was paying her very marked attention, naturally, but I was most certainly not aware that they were seriously considering marriage. Both of them seemed absolute babies to me, of course.”

  “Had your son confided in you his intentions on the subject?”

  “I believe that if he had had any such intentions he would have; but no, he had not.”

  “You were entirely in his confidence?”

  “I hope so. I believe so.” The deep blue eyes hovered compassionately over the averted face strained toward the window, and then moved tranquilly back to meet the prosecutor’s.

  “When this affair with Mrs. Bellamy was renewed in 1926, did he confide it to you?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Showing thereby that you were not entirely in his confidence, Mrs. Ives?”

  “Or showing perhaps that there was nothing to confide,” said Mrs. Daniel Ives gently.

  The prosecutor jerked his head irritably. “The state is in possession of an abundance of material to prove that there was everything to confide, I assure you, Mrs. Ives. However, it is not my intention to make this any more difficult for you than is strictly necessary. How long ago did you come to Rosemont?”

  “About fifteen years ago.”

  “You were a widow and obliged to support yourself?”

  “No, that’s hardly accurate. I was not supporting myself entirely and I was not a widow.” The pale roses deepened a little under the black toque, but the voice was a trifle clearer than before.

  “You mean that at the time you came to Rosemont your husband was still living?” The prosecutor made no attempt to disguise the astonishment in his voice.

  “I do not know whether he was living or not. He had left me, you see, almost seventeen years before I came to Rosemont. I learned three years ago that he was dead, but not when he died.”

  “Mrs. Ives, I do not wish to dwell on a subject that must be painful to you, but I would like to get this straight. Were you divorced?”

  “It is not at all painful to me,” said Patrick Ives’s mother gently, her small gloved hands wrung tightly together on the edge of the witness box. “It happened many years ago, and my life since has been full of so many things. We were not divorced. My husband was younger than I, and our marriage was not happy. He left me for a much younger woman.”

  “It was believed in Rosemont that you were a widow, was it not?”

  “Everyone in Rosemont believed me to be a widow except Pat, who had known the truth since he was quite a little boy. It was foolish of me not to tell the truth, perhaps, but I had a great distaste for pity.” She smiled again, graciously, at the prosecutor. “False pride was about the only luxury that I indulged in, in those days.”

  “You say that you were supporting both your son and yourself?”

  “No. Pat was doing any little jobs that he could get, as he had done since he sold papers on the corner when he was six years old.” For a moment the smile faded and she eyed the prosecutor steadfastly, almost sternly, as though daring him to challenge that statement, and for a moment it looked as though he were about to do exactly that, when abruptly he veered.

  “Were you in the garden the night of the nineteenth of June, Mrs. Ives?”

  “In the rose garden—yes.”

  “Did you see Miss Page on her way to the sand pile?”

  “I believe that I did, although I have nothing that particularly fixes it in my mind.”

  “Did you see your daughter-in-law?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment the faintest shadow passed over her face—a shadow of doubt, of hesitancy. Her glance went past the prosecutor to the place where her daughter-in-law was sitting, quietly attentive, and briefly, profoundly, their eyes met. The shadow passed.

  “Which way was she going?”

  “She was going past the rose garden toward the back gate of the house.”

  “Just one moment, Mrs. Ives. What is the distance between Mr. Ives’s house and Orchards?”

  “Well, that depends on how you approach it. By road it must be almost two miles, but if you use the little footpath that cuts across the meadows north of the house, it can’t be less than a mile.”

  “Do you know where that path comes out?”

  “I believe that it comes out by a little summerhouse or playhouse on the Thorne estate.”

  “Far from the gardener’s cottage?”

  “Oh, no—Miss Page said that it was quite near it, I think. She had been using it to take the children over to the playhouse on several occasions—and as it was quite without Mrs. Ives’s knowledge, I spoke to my son about it.”

  “Did other members of the household make use of this path?”

  “Not to my kno
wledge.”

  “Now, Mrs. Ives, when Mrs. Patrick Ives passed you in the garden, did she speak to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just what did she say?”

  “As nearly as I can remember, she said that she was going to the movies with the Conroys, and that she wasn’t sure whether she would be back before I got to bed. She added that Pat was going to play poker.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “That is all that I remember.”

  “Did you see her again that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell us when?”

  “I saw her twice. Not more than two or three minutes after she passed me in the rose garden, she came back and went toward the house, almost running. I was at the far end of the garden by then, working on some trellises, and I didn’t speak to her. She seemed in a great hurry, and I thought that she had probably forgotten something—her bag or a scarf for her hair, perhaps. She wasn’t wearing any hat. A minute or so later she came out of the house and ran back down the path to the back gate.”

  “Was she wearing a scarf on her hair?”

  “No.”

  “Had she a bag?”

  “I don’t remember seeing a bag, but she might well have had one.”

  “She did not speak to you?”

  “No.”

  “And those were the two times that you refer to?”

  “Oh, no,” corrected Mrs. Ives gently. “I thought of those occasions as forming one time. I saw her again, a good deal later in the evening.”

  Once more the courtroom was filled with that strange stir—the movement of hundreds of bodies moving an inch nearer to the edges of chairs.

  “Good Lord!” murmured the reporter devoutly. “She’s going to give the girl an alibi! Look out, you old fox!”

  The prosecutor, thus disrespectfully and inaudibly adjured, moved boldly forward. “At what time did you see your daughter-in-law, Mrs. Ives?”

  “You’ve got to grant him nerve,” continued the reporter, unabashed. “Or probably he’s betting that the old lady wouldn’t perjure herself even to save her son’s wife. I’d rather bet it myself.”

  Mrs. Ives, who had been sitting silently studying her linked fingers, raised an untroubled countenance to the prosecutor’s, but for the first time she spoke as though she were weighing her words: “It is difficult for me to give you the exact time, as I did not look at a clock. I had been in bed for quite a little while, however, and had turned out the light. I should say, roughly, that it might have been half-past ten. It was quite dark when I came into the house myself, I remember, and I believe that it stayed light at that time until long after nine.”

  “It was your habit to work in the garden until it was dark?”

  “Yes; gardening is both my recreation and occupation.” Mrs. Ives’s tranquil eyes smiled at the prosecutor as though she expected to find in him an understanding soul. “Those hours after dinner were a great happiness to me, and often after it was too dark for any further work I would prolong them by sitting on a bench in the rose arbor and thinking over work well done. It was generally dark before I came in.”

  “And was on the night of the nineteenth of June?”

  “Oh, yes; it had been dark for some time.”

  “Did you go straight to bed when you came in?”

  “No; I stopped for a moment in the flower room to put away the basket with my tools and to tidy up a bit. Gardening is a grubby business.” Again that delicate, friendly smile. “Just as I was coming out I saw Melanie, the waitress, turning out the lights in the living room, and I remember thinking that it must be ten o’clock, as that was the time that she usually did it if the family were not at home. Then I went on up to bed. It wasn’t very long after I had turned out the light that I heard the front door close and thought, ‘That must be Sue.’____”

  “It didn’t occur to you that it might be your son?”

  “Oh, no; Pat never got in before twelve if he was playing cards.”

  “You say that you saw Mrs. Ives. Did she come straight up to your room?”

  “No; about five minutes after I heard the door close, I imagine. My room is in the left wing of the house, you understand, and I always leave my door a little ajar. Sue came to the door and asked in a whisper, ‘Are you awake, Mother?’ I said that I was and she came in, saying, ‘I brought you your fruit; I’ll just put it on the stand.’____”

  “Was she in the habit of doing that?”

  “No, not exactly in the habit—that was Pat’s task, but Sue is the most thoughtful child alive, and she had remembered that Pat wasn’t there.” Once more her eyes, loving and untroubled, smiled into Sue’s.

  “Did you turn on the light, Mrs. Ives?”

  “No.”

  “Weren’t you going to take the fruit?”

  “Oh, no; I am not a very good sleeper, and I saved the fruit for the small hours of the morning.”

  “You were not able to see Mrs. Ives clearly, in that case?”

  “I could see her quite clearly; there was a very bright light in the hall.”

  “You noticed nothing extraordinary in her appearance?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  “She was wearing the clothes that you had last seen her in?”

  “She was wearing the dress, but she had taken off the coat, I believe.”

  “Ah-h!” sighed the courtroom under its breath.

  “What kind of a coat, Mrs. Ives?”

  “A little cream-colored flannel coat.” Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Mrs. Ives admit the sinister significance of that sigh.

  “Did she say anything further?”

  “Yes. I asked her whether she had enjoyed the movie, and she said that she had not gone to Rosemont, as she had met Stephen Bellamy in his car on her way to the Conroys’ and he had given her a lift. He told her that the picture in Rosemont was an old one that they had both seen, and suggested that they drive over by the River Road and see what was running in Lakedale. When they got there they discovered that they had seen that film, too, so they drove around a little longer and then came home.”

  “That was all that she said?”

  “She wished me sweet dreams, I believe, and kissed me good-night.”

  Under the gentle directness of her gaze, the prosecutor’s face hardened. “Where was the fruit that you speak of usually kept, Mrs. Ives?”

  “I believe that it was kept in a small refrigerator in the pantry.”

  “Was there a sink in that pantry?”

  “Yes.”

  The prosecutor advanced deliberately toward the witness box, lowering his voice to a strangely menacing pitch: “Mrs. Ives, during the space that elapsed between the closing of the front door and Mrs. Patrick Ives’s appearance in your bedroom, there would have been ample time for her to have washed her hands at that sink, would there not?”

  “Oh, surely.”

  There was not even a second’s hesitation in that swift reply, not a second’s cloud over the lifted, slightly wondering face; but the little cold wind moved again through the courtroom. Over the clear, unfaltering syllables there was the sound of running water—of water that ran red, as Sue, the thoughtful, cleansed the hands that were to bear the fruit for the waiting mother.

  “That will be all, Mrs. Ives,” said the prosecutor. “Cross-examine.”

  She turned her face quietly toward Lambert’s ruddy one.

  “I’ll keep you only a minute, Mrs. Ives.” The rotund voice was softened to one of friendliest concern. “Mrs. Ives seemed quite herself when she came into the room?”

  “Absolutely herself.”

  “No undue agitation?”

  “She was not agitated in the slightest.”

  “Mr. Farr has asked you whether your son ever confided to you that he was having an affair with Mrs. Bellamy. I ask you whether he ever intimated that he was unhappy?”

  “Not ever.”

  “Did Mrs. Ives?”

  “Never.”
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  “What was your impression as to their relations?”

  “I thought____” For the first time the clear voice faltered, broke. She forced it back to steadiness relentlessly. “I thought that they were the happiest people that ever lived,” said Patrick Ives’s mother.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Ives,” said Mr. Lambert gently. “That will be all.”

  “Want me to bring back a sandwich?” inquired the reporter hospitably, gathering up his notes.

  “Please,” said the red-headed girl meekly.

  “Sure you don’t want to trail along? That drug store really isn’t half bad.”

  “I’m always afraid that something might happen to me and that I mightn’t get back,” explained the red-headed girl. “Like getting run over, or arrested or kidnapped or something. . . . One with lettuce in it, please.”

  She sat contemplating the remaining occupants of the press seats about her with fascinated eyes. Evidently others were agitated by the same fears that haunted her. At any rate, three or four dozen were still clinging to their places, reading or writing or talking with impartial animation. They looked much nicer and less impersonal scattered about like that, but they still made her feel dreadfully shy and incompetent. They all knew one another so well; they were so casual and self-contained. Hurrying through the corridors, their ribald, salty banter broke over her in waves, leaving her drowned and forlorn.

  She liked them awfully—that lanky, middle-aged man with the shrewd, sensitive face, jabbering away with the opulent-looking young creature in the sealskin cap and cloak; that Louisville reporter with her thin pretty face and little one-sided smile; that stocky youngster with the white teeth and the enormous vocabulary and the plaid necklace; that really beautiful girl who looked like an Italian opera singer and swore like a pirate, and arrived every day exactly an hour late in a flame-colored blouse up to her chin and a little black helmet down to her eyebrows.

  “Here’s your sandwich,” said the reporter—“two of ’em, just to show my heart’s in the right place. The poisonous-looking pink one is currant jelly and the healthy-looking green one is lettuce. That’s what I call a balanced ration! Fall to!”