“And the fact is,” remarked the grimly smiling prosecutor, “that it might perfectly well have been there without your seeing it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that also is the fact.”
“That will be all. Call Miss Flora Biggs.”
The prosecutor’s grim little smile still lingered.
“Miss Flora Biggs!”
Flora Biggs might have been a pretty girl ten years ago, before that fatal heaviness had crept from sleazy silk ankles to the round chin above the imitation pearls. Everything about Miss Biggs was imitation—an imitation fluff of something that was meant to be fur on the plush coat that was meant to be another kind of fur; an imitation rose of a washed-out magenta trying to hide itself in the masquerading collar; pearls the size of large bone buttons peeping out from too golden hair; an arrow of false diamonds catching the folds of the purple velvet toque that was not quite velvet; nervous fingers in suède gloves that were rather a bad grade of cotton clutching at a snakeskin bag of stenciled cloth—a poor, cheap, shoddy imitation of what the well-dressed woman will wear. And yet in those small insignificant features that should have belonged to a pretty girl, in those round china-blue eyes, staring forlornly out of reddened rims, there was something candid and touching and appealing. For out of those reddened eyes peered the good shy little girl in the starched white dress brought down to entertain the company—the good, shy little girl whose name had been Florrie Biggs. And little Florrie Biggs had been crying.
“Where do you live, Miss Biggs?”
“At 21 Maple Street, Rosemont.” The voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“Just a trifle louder, please; we all want to hear you. Did you know Madeleine Bellamy, Miss Biggs?”
The tears that had been lurking behind the round blue eyes welled over abruptly, leaving little paths behind them down the heavily powdered cheeks. “Yes, sir, I did.”