Mr. Orsini dismissed his penal career with an eloquent shrug. “Ah, well, for what thing do you not go to jail in these days? If you do not have money to pay for fine, it is jail for you! You drink beer what is two and three quarter, you shake up some dice where you think nobody care, you drive nine and one-half mile over a bridge where it say eight and one half——”
“That will do, Orsini. In 1911 did you or did you not serve eight months in jail for stealing some rings from a hotel room?”
“Ah, that—that is one dirty lie—one dirty plant is put on me! I get that——”
From under the swarthy skin of the erstwhile suave citizen of the world there leaped, sallow with fury, livid with fear, the Calabrian peasant, ugly and vengeful, chattering with incoherent rage. Lambert eyed him with profound satisfaction.
“Yes, yes—naturally. It always is. Very unfortunate; our jails are crowded with these errors. It’s true, too, isn’t it, Orsini, that less than three weeks before the murder you told Mr. Bellamy that the reason you hadn’t asked your little Milanese friend to marry you was that you couldn’t afford to buy her an engagement ring?”
“You—you——”
“Just one moment, Orsini.” The prosecutor’s low voice cut sharply across the thick, violent stammering. “Don’t answer that question. . . . Your Honour, I once more respectfully inquire as to whether this is the trial of Mr. Bellamy and Mrs. Ives or of my witnesses, individually and en masse?”
“And the Court has told you once before that it does not reply to purely rhetorical questions, Mr. Farr. You are perfectly aware as to whose trial this is, and while the Court is inclined to agree as to the impropriety of the last question, it does not believe that it is in error in stating that it is some time since you have seen fit to object to any of the questions put by Mr. Lambert to your witness.”
“Your Honour is quite correct. It being my profound conviction that I have an absolutely unshakable case, I have studiously refrained from injecting the usual note of acrimonious bickering into these proceedings that is supposed to be the legal prerogative. This kind of thing causes me profoundly to regret my forbearance, I may state. About two out of three witnesses that I’ve put on the stand have been practically accused of committing or abetting this murder. Whether they’re all supposed to be in one gigantic conspiracy or to have played lone hands is still a trifle hazy, but there’s no doubt whatever about the implications. Miss Page, Miss Cordier, Mr. Farwell, Mr. Ives, Mr. Orsini—it’ll be getting around to me in a minute.”
“I object to this, Your Honour, I object!” The choked and impassioned voice of Mr. Dudley Lambert went down before the clear, metallic clang of the prosecutor’s, roused at last from lethargy.