“You simply said good-night and left her there?”
“I said good-night,” said Mr. Phipps, “and left her at her door.”
“You did not go inside at all?”
Mr. Phipps met the suave challenge with unflinching eyes. “I did not set my foot inside her house that night.”
“Your Honour,” asked Mr. Lambert, in a voice shaken with righteous wrath, “may I ask where these questions are leading?”
“The Court was about to ask the same thing. . . . Well, Mr. Farr?”
“I respectfully submit that it is highly essential to test the accuracy of Mr. Phipps’ memory as to the rest of the events on the night which he apparently remembers in such vivid detail,” said Mr. Farr smoothly. “And I assume that he is open to as rigorous an inspection as to credibility as the defense has seen fit to lavish on the state’s various witnesses. If I am in error, Your Honour will correct me.”
“The Court wishes to hamper you as little as possible,” said Judge Carver wearily. “But it fails to see what is to be gained by pressing the question further.”
“I yield to Your Honour’s judgment. Did anyone that you know see you after you left Miss Dunne that night, Mr. Phipps?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Mr. Phipps, in that low, painful voice. “I saw no one until I reached my wife in Blue Bay at about eleven o’clock the following morning.”