“No, no, I never said that. I never said anything like that.” The desperate voice rose slightly in its intensity. “I couldn’t have; it isn’t true. I’ve been there often—years ago, when I used to go over to play with Doug Thorne when we were kids. There was a playhouse just a few hundred feet from the cottage, and we used to run over to the cottage and get bread and jam and cookies from the old German gardener. I remember it absolutely; that’s probably what twisted me.”
“But the old German gardener didn’t have any piano, Mr. Bellamy,” explained the prosecutor patiently. “Don’t you remember that Orsini particularly told us how the Italian gardener had just purchased it for his daughter before they went off on their vacation? It couldn’t have been the old German gardener.”
The red-headed girl was weeping noiselessly into a highly inadequate handkerchief. “Horrid, smirking, disgusting beast!” she intoned in a small fierce whisper. “Horrid——”
“No? Well, then,” said the dreadful, hunted voice, “probably Mimi told me about it. She——”
“Mrs. Bellamy?” There was the slightest inflection of reproach in the soothing voice. “Mrs. Bellamy told you that her body was lying to the left of the piano as you entered the room? It isn’t just the piano, you see—I’m afraid that you’re getting a little confused. It’s the position of the body in relation to the piano. You’re quite correct about the position, of course—quite. But won’t you tell us how you were so sure of it?”
“Wait, please,” said Stephen Bellamy very clearly and distinctly. “You’re quite right about the fact that I’m confused. I can see perfectly that I’m making an absolute mess of this. It’s principally because I haven’t had any sleep since God knows when, and when you don’t sleep, you——”
“Mr. Bellamy, I’m sorry that I can’t let you go into that. Will you answer my question?”
“I can’t answer your question. But I can tell you this, Mr. Farr—I can tell you that as God is my witness, Susan Ives and I had nothing more to do with this murder than you had. I——”
“Your Honour! Your Honour!”
“Be silent, sir!” Judge Carver’s voice was more imperious than his gavel. “You are completely forgetting yourself. Let that entire remark be stricken from the record. Mr. Lambert, be good enough to keep your witness in hand. I regard this entire performance as highly improper.”