The Bellamy Trial

The redheaded girl sank into the seat in the middle of the first row with a gasp of relief. Sixth seat from the aisle⁠—yes, that was right; the label on the arm of the golden-oak chair stared up at her reassuringly. Row A, seat 15, Philadelphia Planet. The ones on either side of her were empty. Well, it was a relief to know that there were four feet of space left unoccupied in Redfield, even if only temporarily. She was still shaken into breathless stupor by the pandemonium in the corridors outside⁠—the rattling of regiments of typewriters, of armies of tickers, the shouts of infuriated denizens of telephone booths, the hurrying, frantic faces of officials, the scurrying and scampering of dozens of rusty-haired freckled-faced insubordinate small boys, whose olive-drab messenger uniforms alone saved them from extermination; the newspaper men⁠—you could spot them at once, looking exhausted and alert and elaborately bored; the newspaper women, keen and purposeful and diverted; and above and around and below all these licensed inhabitants, the crowd⁠—a vast, jostling, lunging beast, with one supreme motive galvanizing it to action⁠—an immense, a devouring curiosity that sent it surging time and time again against the closed glass doors with their blue-coated guardians, fragile barriers between it and the consummation of its desire. For just beyond those doors lay the arena where the beast might slake its hunger at will, and it was not taking its frustration of that privilege amiably.

The redheaded girl set her little black-feathered hat straight with unsteady fingers. She wasn’t going to forget that crowd in a hurry.

The little door to the left of the judge opened and two people came in, as leisurely and tranquilly as though they were advancing toward easy chairs and a tea table before an open fire. A slight figure in a tan tweed suit, with a soft copper silk handkerchief at her throat and a little felt hat of the same colour pulled down over two wings of pale gold hair, level hazel eyes under level dark brows, and a beautiful mouth, steady-lipped, generous, sensitive⁠—the most beautiful mouth, thought the redheaded girl, that she had ever seen. She crossed the short distance between the door and the chair beside which stood Mr. Lambert with a light, boyish swing. She looked rather like a boy⁠—a gallant, proud little boy, striding forward to receive the victor’s laurels. Did murderesses walk like that?

Behind her came Stephen Bellamy, the crape band on his dark coat appallingly conspicuous; only a few inches taller than Sue Ives, with dark hair lightly silvered, and a charming, sensitive, olive-skinned face. As they seated themselves, he flashed the briefest of smiles at his companion⁠—a grave, consoling smile, singularly sweet⁠—then turned an attentive countenance to the judge. Did a murderer smile like that?

The redheaded girl sat staring at them blankly.

“Oh, Lord!” moaned the reporter at her side. “Why did that old jackass Lambert let her come in here in that rig? If he had the sense that God gives a dead duck he’d know that she ought to be wearing something black and frilly and

“Mrs. Stephen Bellamy?”

“Yes, sir, through Mrs. Stephen Bellamy.”

“Will you tell us just how that happened, Miss Cordier?”

“Assuredly. My little younger sister had been sent by an agency three or four years ago to Mrs. Bellamy directly when she land in this country. She was quite inexperience’, you understand, and could not command a position such as one trained could demand; but Mrs. Bellamy was good to her and she work hard, and after a while she marries a young man who drives for the grocer and they⁠—”

“Yes, quite so, Miss Cordier. My question was, how did Mrs. Bellamy happen to send you to Mrs. Ives?”

“Yes, that is what I explain.” Miss Cordier, exquisitely unruffled, pursued the even tenor of her way. “Sometime when my sister was there with Mrs. Bellamy I would go out to show her what she should do. For me, I have been a waitress for eight years and am well experience’. Well, then I see Mrs. Bellamy and tell her that if some time she knows of a excellent position in that Rosemont, I would take it so that sometime I could see my little sister who is marrying that young man from the grocer’s. And about two years ago, maybe, she write to me to say that her friend Mrs. Patrick Ives she is looking for a extremely superior waitress. So that is how I go to Mrs. Ives.”

“At half-past eleven I have heard that Mrs. Bellamy have been killed.” The dark eyes slipped sidelong in the direction of the quiet young woman who had not so long since been her mistress. There she sat, leaning easily back in the straight, uncomfortable chair, ankles crossed, hands linked, studying the tips of her squarely cut little shoes with lowered eyes. The black eyes travelled from the edge of the kilted skirt to the edge of the small firm chin and then slid slowly back to the prosecutor: “When I heard that, I was not content, so I no longer stayed.”

“Exactly.” The prosecutor plunged his hands deep in his pockets and cocked a flagrantly triumphant eye at the agitated Lambert. “You no longer stayed. That will be all, Miss Cordier. Cross-examine.”

“Mrs. Ives, I’m going to ask you to tell us in your own words just what occurred on the evening of the nineteenth of June, from the time that Mr. Farwell spoke to you at the club. I won’t interrupt unless I feel that something is not quite clear. At what time did the conversation with Mr. Farwell take place?”

She looked so small, sitting there⁠—so small and young and fearless, with her dark, bright eyes and her lifted chin and the pale gold wings of her hair folded under the curve of the little russet hat. She had no colour at all⁠—not in her cheeks, not in her lips.

“It was a little after five,” said Sue Ives, and the redheaded girl gave a sigh of sheer delight. Once or twice in a lifetime a voice like that falls on our lucky ears⁠—a voice clear and fresh as running water, alive and beautiful and effortless. The girl in the box did not have to lift it a half tone to have it penetrate to the farthest corner of the gallery. “We got in from the links just at five, and Elliot came up and asked me if he could bring me something to drink. I said yes, and when he came back he suggested that we go over and sit on the steps, as he had a splitting headache, and everyone was making a good deal of a racket.