“It was clothed?”
“Yes.”
“In these garments, Mr. Bellamy?”
And there, incredibly, it was again, that streaked and stiffened gown with its once airy ruffles, dangling over the witness box in reach of Stephen Bellamy’s fine long-fingered hand. After the first convulsive movement he sat motionless, his eyes dilated strangely under his level brows. “Yes.”
“These shoes?”
Lightly as butterflies they settled on the dark rim of the box, so small, so gay, so preposterous, shining silver, shining buckles. The man in the box bent those strange eyes on them. After a moment, his hand moved forward, slowly, hesitantly; the fingers touched their rusted silver, light as a caress, and curved about them, a shelter and a defense.
“These shoes,” said Stephen Bellamy.
Somewhere in the back of the hall a woman sobbed loudly and hysterically, but he did not lift his eyes.
The prosecutor asked in a voice curiously gentle: “Mr. Bellamy, when you went into the room, was the body to the right or the left of the piano?”
“To the left.”