“As for Stephen Bellamy, his idolatry of his young and beautiful wife was his life—a drab and colourless life save for the light and colour that she brought to it. When he discovered that she had turned that idolatry to mockery, madness descended on him—the madness that sent Othello staggering to his wife’s bed with death in his hands; the madness that has caused that wretched catch phrase ‘the unwritten law’ to become almost as potent as our written code—to our shame, be it said. Do not be deceived by the memory of that phrase, gentlemen. There was another law, written centuries ago in letters of flame on the peaks of a mountain—‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Remember that law written in flame and forget the one that has been traced only in the blood of its victims. These two before you stand accused of breaking that law, written on Sinai—that sacred law on which hangs all the security of the society that we have so laboriously wrought out of chaos and horror—and we are now about to show you why they are thus accused.
“From the first step that each took toward the dark way that was to lead them to the room in the gardener’s cottage, we will trace them—to its very threshold—across its threshold. There I will leave them, my duty will have been done. Yours, gentlemen, will be yet to do, and I am entirely convinced that, however painful, however hateful, however dreadful, it may seem to you, you will not shrink from performing that duty.”
The compelling voice with its curious ring fell abruptly to silence—a silence that lingered, deepened, and then abruptly broke into irrepressible and incautious clamour.
“Silence! Silence!”
Ben Potts’s voice and Judge Carver’s gavel thundered down the voices.
“Once and for all, this courtroom is not a place for conversation. Kindly remain silent while you are in it. Court is dismissed for the day. It will convene again at ten to-morrow.”
The red-headed girl dragged stiffly to her feet. The first day of the Bellamy trial was over.
Chapter II
The red-headed girl was late. The clock over the courtroom door said three minutes past ten. She flung herself, breathless, into the seat next to the lanky young man and inquired in a tragic whisper, “Have they started?”
“Nope,” replied that imperturbable individual. “Calm yourself. You haven’t missed a single hear ye. Your hat’s a good deal over one eye.”