The frustrated, troubled eyes met his honestly. “Well, I’ll try, but that sounds pretty hard, sir. What was it you wanted to know?”
“Just what you did when you left Mrs. Ives.”
“Yes, sir. Well, first we tried to get a job together, but we didn’t get much of a one. It was a family of seven, and we did all the work, and Dolph didn’t like it at all; so when spring came he decided to take a position as gardener on Long Island at Oyster Bay, where they wanted a single man to sleep in the garage. We fixed it up so that I was to take a job at Locust Valley as chambermaid, and we’d spend Sundays together, and evenings, too, sometimes. It looked like a pretty good plan, the way things were going, and it didn’t work out so bad until I got that letter.”
“You haven’t told us about any letter, Mrs. Platz.”
“No, sir, I haven’t, that’s a fact. Do you want that I should tell you now?”
“Well, I don’t want you to get ahead of your story. Before you go on, I’d like to clear up one thing. What was the date on which your husband took this position?”
“It was the first of April, 1926. I didn’t get mine till about two weeks later.”
“Did you consider that he had left you for good at that time—deserted you, I mean?”
“I certainly didn’t understand any such a thing.” A spark shone in Mrs. Platz’s mild eye. “He came to see me every Sunday of his life just like clockwork, and about once a week besides.”
“He had talked of leaving you?”
“He certainly didn’t, except once in a while when both of us was mad and didn’t mean anything we said—like he’d say if I didn’t quit nagging he’d walk out and leave me cold, and I’d say nothing would give me any more pleasure—you know, like married people do sometimes.”
Mr. Lambert permitted himself a wintry smile.
“Quite. Divorce was not contemplated by either of you?”
“No, sir, we couldn’t contemplate anything like that. Divorces cost something dreadful; and besides, we hadn’t been married no more than a year about.” Mrs. Platz blinked valiantly through the straw-colored lashes, her mouth screwed to a small, watery smile.
“So, at the time you were speaking of, your relations with your husband were amiable enough, were they?”
“Yes, sir; I don’t have any complaints to make. Everything was nicer than it had been since the fall before.”
“What changed your relations?”
Mrs. Platz, the painful flush mounting once more, fixed her eyes resolutely on the little patch of floor between her and Mr. Lambert.
“It was that____”
“Just a little louder, please. We all want to hear you, you know.”
“It was that waitress of Mrs. Ives’. She sent for him to come back.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, I’ll tell you how I know it.” Mrs. Platz leaned forward confidentially. It was good, said her quick, eager voice—after all these weary months—of silence, it was good to find a friend to listen to this ugly story. “This was the way: Sunday evening came around and he hadn’t never turned up at all.”
“Sunday of what date?”
“Sunday, June twentieth, sir. I didn’t know what in the world to make of it, but Tuesday morning, what do I get but a letter from Dolph saying that____”
“Have you still got that letter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you got it with you?”
“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Platz dipped resourcefully into her shiny black leather bag and produced a soiled bit of blue notepaper.
“This is the original document?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“In your husband’s handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“Your Honor, I ask to have this note marked for identification, after which I offer it in evidence.”
“Just one moment, Your Honor. May I ask on what grounds the correspondence of the Platz family is being introduced into this case?”
“If Your Honor will permit me, I’ll explain why these documents are being introduced,” remarked Mr. Lambert briskly. “They are being introduced in order to attack the credibility of one of the prosecutor’s star witnesses; they are being introduced in order to prove conclusively and specifically that Miss Melanie Cordier is a liar, a perjurer, and a despoiler of homes. I again offer this letter in evidence—I shall have another one to offer later.”
Judge Carver eyed the blue scrap in Mr. Lambert’s fingers with an expression of deep distaste. “You say that this proves that the witness was guilty of perjury?”
“I do, Your Honor.”
“Very well, it may be admitted.”
Mr. Farr permitted himself a gesture of profound annoyance, hastily buried under a resigned shrug. “Very well, Your Honor, no objection.”
“The envelope containing this letter is postmarked Atlantic City, June 20, 1926,” remarked Mr. Lambert with unction.
“It says:
“DEAR FRIEDA:
“Well, you will be surprised to get this, I guess, and none too pleased either, which I am not blaming you for. The fact is that I have decided that we had better not see anything more of each other,, because Melanie and I, we have decided that we can’t get along any longer without each other and so she has come to me and I have got to look after her.
“The reason that I did not come to see you this week-end was that I went out to Rosemont to see her and she had got in wrong with Mrs. Ives and she was in a dreadful state about this Mrs. Bellamy being killed, and she is very delicate, so I am going to see that she gets a good rest.
“I hope that you will not feel too bad, as this is the best way. Melanie does not know that I am writing, as she is of a very jealous nature and does not want me writing any letters to you, so no more after this one, but I want everything to be square and aboveboard, because that is how I am. It won’t do you any good to look for me, so you can save yourself the trouble, because no matter how often you found me, I wouldn’t come back, as Melanie is very delicate and needs me. Hoping that you have no hard feelings toward me, as I haven’t any toward you,
“YOURS TRULY,
“Adolph Platz.”
Adolph Platz’s wife sat listening to this ingenuous document with an inscrutable expression on her small, colorless face. It was impossible to tell whether, in spite of the amiable injunctions of the surprising Mr. Platz, she yielded to the indulgence of hard feelings or not.
“Have you ever seen Mr. Platz since the receipt of this letter, Mrs. Platz?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you ever try to find him?”
“No, sir, I didn’t; but my brother Gus did. He was set on finding him, and he spent all his holidays looking in Atlantic City. He said that he hadn’t any hard feelings against him, but it certainly would be a real treat to break every bone in his body.”
“And did he?”
“Oh, no, sir, I don’t believe that he broke any bones—not actually broke them.”
“I mean—did he find him?”
“Oh, yes, sir, he found him in a very nice boarding house called Sunrise Lodge.”
“Yes, exactly. Was Miss Cordier with him?”
The colorless face burned suddenly, painfully. “Yes, sir, she was.”
“Now did you ever hear from this husband of yours again, Mrs. Platz?”
“Yes____”
“When?”
“In September—over a month ago.”
“Have you got the letter with you?”
“I have, sir—right here.”
“I offer this in evidence too.”
“No objection,” said Mr. Farr bitterly. “I should appreciate the opportunity of inspecting these letters after Court adjourns, however.”
“Oh, gladly, gladly,” cried Mr. Lambert, sonorously jocose. “More than happy to afford you the opportunity. Now the envelope of this letter is postmarked New York, September 21, 1926. It says:
DEAR FRIEDA:
; “Well, this is to say that by the time you get this I will be on my way to Canada. I have a first-class opportunity to get into a trucking business up there that has all kinds of possibilities, if you get what I mean, and I think it is better for all concerned if I start in on a new life, as you might say, as the old one was not so good. Melanie thinks so, too, as she is very sensitive about all these things that have happened, and she thinks that it would be much nicer to start a new life too. She will join me when she is through being subpoenaed for this Bellamy trial, which is all pretty fierce, wouldn’t you say so too. She doesn’t know that I am writing you, because she is still jealous, but I thought I would like you to know for the sake of old times, as you might say, and also so that you can let Gus know that it won’t do him any good to go looking for me any more. He will probably see that if you explain how I am starting this new life in Canada. Hoping that this finds you as it leaves me,
“YOURS TRULY,
“Adolph Platz.”
“Have you ever heard from your husband since you received this letter, Mrs. Platz?”
“No, sir.”
“Ever heard of him?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you, that will be all. Cross-examine.”
“No questions,” said Mr. Farr indifferently, and the small, unhappy shadow that had been Adolph Platz’s wife was gone.
“Well,” said the reporter judicially to the red-headed girl, “you have to grant him one thing. He knows when to leave bad enough alone.”
“Call Mrs. Shea.”
“Mrs. Timothy Shea!”
Mrs. Timothy Shea advanced belligerently toward the witness box, her forbidding countenance inappropriately decorated with a large lace turban enhanced with obese violets and a jet butterfly. She seated herself solidly, thumped a black beaded bag on to the rail before her and breathed audibly through an impressive nose.
“Mrs. Shea, what is your occupation?”
“I keep a boarding house in Atlantic City—known far and wide as the decentest in that place or in any other, as well as the most genteel and the best table.”
“Yes. Just answer the question, please. Never mind the rest. Were you____”
“I’ll thank you to let me be after telling the truth,” said Mrs. Shea, raising her voice to an unexpected volume. “It’s the truth I swore to tell and the truth I’m after telling. The decentest and the____”
“Yes, undoubtedly,” said Mr. Lambert hastily. “But what I wanted to know was whether you were in court at the time that Miss Cordier was testifying?”
“I was there. It will be a long day before I forget that day, and you may well say so.”
“Had you seen her before?”
“Had I seen her before?” inquired Mrs. Shea with a loud and melodramatic laugh. “Every day of my life for close on three months, mincing around with her eyes on the ground and her nose in the air as fine as you please, more shame to her.”
“Did you know her as Miss Cordier?”
“I did not.”
“Under what name did you know her?”
“Under the name she gave me and every other living soul in the place—the name of Mrs. Adolph Platz, that ought to have burned the skin off her tongue to use it.”
“She and Mr. Platz lived with you as man and wife?”
“Well, I ought to have lived in this world long enough to know that no man and his wife would go on forever playing the love-sick fools like those two,” remarked Mrs. Shea grimly. “But I thought they were new wed and would soon be over it.”
“Was Mr. Platz staying with you regularly?”
“Seven days and nights of the week.”
“Did he pay you regularly?”
“He did that!”
“Did he seem to have a regular profession?”
“Well, that’s all whether you’d call bootlegging a regular profession.”
“Now, Your Honor,” remonstrated Mr. Farr, who had been following this absorbing recital with an air of possibly fictitious boredom, “I don’t want to indulge in any legal hairsplitting, but surely a line should be drawn somewhere when it comes to this type of baseless slander and innuendo.”
“Do I understand that you have evidence of Mr. Platz’s activities?” inquired Judge Carver severely.
“The evidence of two eyes and two ears and a nose,” remarked Mrs. Shea with spirit. “Goings and comings and doings such as____”
“That will do, Mrs. Shea. The question hardly seems material. It is excluded. You may take your exception, Mr. Lambert.”
Mr. Lambert, thus prematurely adjured, stared indignantly about him and returned somewhat uncertainly to his task.
“Is it a fact that Mr. Platz’s relationship with Miss Cordier during their sojourn under your roof was simply that of a friend?”
“Fact!” Mrs. Shea snorted derisively. “ ’Tis a black-hearted lie off a black-hearted baggage. Friend, indeed!”
“That will do, Mrs. Shea,” said Judge Carver ominously. “Mr. Lambert, I request you to keep your witness in hand.”
“It is my endeavor to do so,” replied Mr. Lambert with some sincerity and much dignity. “I will be greatly obliged, Mrs. Shea, if you omit any comments or characterizations from your replies. Will you be good enough to give us the day when you first discovered that Mrs. Cordier and Mr. Platz were not married?”
“September seventeenth.”
“Have you any way of fixing the date?”
“You may well say so. Wasn’t it six years since Tim Shea died, and didn’t that big tall Swede come roaring down there saying that the two of them was no more married than Jackie Coogan and the Queen of Spain, and that he was going to beat the life out of his dear brother-in-law, Mr. Adolph Platz? And didn’t he go and do it, without so much as by your leave or saving your presence, and in the decentest and____”
“Madam!” Judge Carver’s tone would have daunted Boadicea.
“And are those what you call comments and characterizations?” inquired Mrs. Shea indignantly. “Well, God save us all!”
“That will be all, thank you, Mrs. Shea,” said Mr. Lambert hastily. “Cross-examine.”
“No questions,” said Mr. Farr with simple fervor. Mrs. Shea, looking baffled but menacing, moved forward with a majestic stride, leaving the courtroom in a state of freely expressed delight. Across the hum of their voices boomed Mr. Lambert’s suddenly impressive summons.
“Mr. Bellamy, will you be good enough to take the stand?”
Very quietly he came, the man who had been sitting there so motionless for so many days for them to gape their fill at, moving forward now to afford them better fare. Dark-eyed, low-voiced, courteous, and grave, he advanced toward the place of trial with an unhurried tread. In the lift of his head there was something curiously and effortlessly noble, thought the red-headed girl. Murderers should not hold their heads like that.
“Mr. Bellamy, where were you on the night of June nineteenth at nine-thirty o’clock?”
The proverbial dropped pin would have made a prodigious clatter in the silence that hovered over the waiting courtroom.
“I was in my car on the River Road, about a mile or so from Lakedale.”
“You were not in the neighborhood of the Thorne estate, Orchards?”
“Not within ten miles—twelve, perhaps, would be more accurate?”
“Was anyone with you?”
“Yes; Mrs. Patrick Ives was with me.”
“You have a way of fixing the time?”
“I have.”
“I will ask you to do so later. Will you tell us now at what time you left the Rosemont Country Club?”
“At a little before six, I think. We dined at quarter to seven, and my wife always dressed before dinner.”
“Had you noticed Mr. Farwell in conversation with Mrs. Ives before you left?”
“Yes; my wife had called my attention to the fact that they seemed deeply absorbed in a conversation on the club steps.”
“Just how d
id she call your attention to it?”
“She said, ‘Oh, look, El’s got another girl!’____”
“Did you make any comment on that?”
“Yes; I said, ‘That’s clear gain for you, darling’____” He caught himself up, olive skin a tone paler, teeth deep in his lip. “I said, ‘That’s clear gain for you, but a bit hard on Sue.’ ”
“You were aware of Mr. Farwell’s devotion to your wife?”
Behind Stephen Bellamy’s tragic eyes someone smiled, charming, tolerant, ironic—and was gone.
“It was impossible to be unaware of it. Mr. Farwell was candor itself on the subject, even with those who would have been more grateful for reticence.”
“Your wife made no attempt to conceal it?”
“To conceal it? Oh, no. There was nothing whatever to conceal; his infatuation for Mimi was common property. She laughed about it, though I think that sometimes it annoyed her.”
“Did she ever mention getting a divorce in order to marry Farwell?”
“A divorce? Mimi?” His eyes, blankly incredulous, met Mr. Lambert’s inquiring gaze. After a moment, he said, slowly and evenly, “No, she never mentioned a divorce.”
“If she had asked for one, would you have granted it to her?”
“I would have granted her anything that she asked for.”
“But you would have been surprised?”
Stephen Bellamy smiled with white lips. “ ‘Surprised’ is rather an inadequate word.” He sought for one more adequate—failed—and dismissed it with an eloquent motion of his hands. “I should have been more—well, astounded than it is possible for me to say.”
“So you had no inkling that your wife was contemplating any such action?”
“Not the faintest, not the____” Once more he pulled himself up, and after a moment’s pause, he leaned forward. “That, too, sounds ridiculously inadequate. I should like to make myself quite clear; apparently I haven’t succeeded in doing so. I believed my wife to be completely happy. You see, I believed that she loved me.”
He was pale enough now to gratify the most exigent reporter of emotions, but his pleasant, leisurely voice did not falter, and it was the ruddy Lambert, not he, who seemed embarrassed.
The Bellamy Trial (American Mystery Classics) Page 19
