“It was a fair picnic,” conceded the reporter. “And for a person whose height should be measured in inches rather than feet, you’re a very fair hiker. Too bad there’s only one Sunday to a trial. You have rather a knack with bacon sandwiches too. How are you with scrambled eggs?”
“Marvellous!” said the red-headed girl frankly.
“Though, if things keep up the way they’ve been going this morning, we’re liable to have another trial started before this one is over. The people versus Patrick Ives! I can see it coming.”
“You don’t think he did it, do you?” inquired the red-headed girl anxiously.
“Oh, when it comes to murder trials, I don’t think. But I’ll tell you this: If Steve Bellamy didn’t do it, he thinks that Pat Ives did. And if Pat didn’t he thinks that Sue did. And I don’t envy any of them their thoughts these days. . . . Ah, here we are again!”
“Mr. Ives, do I understand that you were perfectly willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars for two or three letters that you protest are perfectly innocent?”
“I don’t protest anything of the kind. I think they’re damned incriminating letters—just exactly the kind of stuff that a sickening, infatuated, fatuous young fool would write. And you’re flattering me when you say that I was perfectly willing. It took me about two months to get even moderately resigned to the situation, and at that, I didn’t regard it with marked favour.”
“Still, you were willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars to keep the letters out of your wife’s hands?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars, if I could put my hands on it, to keep pain and sorrow and ugliness out of her way.”