“No.”
“Just went on downstairs to meet Stephen Bellamy, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You did not?” Mr. Lambert’s blank query was enough to wring commiseration from a stone. Sue Ives did not look particularly merciful, however. She had turned in her chair so that she faced her devoted adversary squarely. She leaned forward a little now, her lovely mouth schooled to disdain, her eyes under their level brows bright with anger.
“No, not then. I was telling you what I did. I turned the key in the lock and put it in my pocket. You didn’t want me to say that, did you, Uncle Dudley? You wanted everyone to believe that it was Pat who murdered Mimi, didn’t you?”
“Mrs. Ives—Mrs. Ives——”
“Silence! Silence!”
“Mrs. Ives!”
Over the outraged clamour of the law, her voice rose, clear and triumphant: “He didn’t murder her, because he was locked in those rooms until quarter to eleven that night, and I had the key in my pocket. Now, you can all strike that out of the record!”
“Mrs. Ives!” Over the last crash of the gavel, Judge Carver’s voice was shaken with something deeper than anger. “Mrs. Ives, if you are not immediately silent, the Court will be obliged to have you removed.”