Just behind her they were forming a pool. Someone with a squeaky voice was betting that they would be back in twenty minutes; someone with an Oxford accent was betting that they’d take two hours; a girl’s pleasant tones offered five to one that it would be a hung jury. Large red apples were materializing, the smoke of a hundred cigarettes filled the air, and rumour’s voice was loud in the land:
“Listen, did you hear about Melanie Cordier? Someone telephoned that she’d collapsed at the inn in Rosemont and confessed that Platz had done it, and about one o’clock this morning every taxicab in Redfield was skidding around corners to get there first. And she hadn’t been there since last Friday, let alone collapsed!”
“Well, you wouldn’t get me out of my bed at one in the morning to hear Cal Coolidge say he’d done it.”
“Did you hear the row that Irish landlady was setting up about a state witness taking her seat? Oh, boy, what an eye that lady’s got! It sure would tame a wildcat!”
“Anyone want to bet ten to one that they’ll be out all night?”
The voice of an officer of the court said loudly and authoritatively, “No smoking in here! No smoking, please!”
There was a temporary lull, and a perfunctory and irritable tapping of cigarettes against chair arms. The clock over the courtroom door said four.
“Have some chocolate?” inquired the reporter solicitously. The red-headed girl shuddered. “Well, but, my good child, you haven’t had a mouthful of lunch, and if you aren’t careful you won’t have a mouthful of dinner either. Lord knows how long that crew will be in there.”
“How long?” inquired the red-headed girl fiercely. “Why, for heaven’s sake, should they be long? Why, for heaven’s sake, can’t they come out of there now and say, ‘Not guilty’?”
“Well, there’s a good old-fashioned custom that they’re supposed to weigh the evidence; they may be celebrating that.”