“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.”