“Isn’t it a fact,” the district attorney persisted, “that you returned to your house at an early hour this morning for the purpose, among other things, of killing the parrot which was in the house, the parrot which your next-door neighbor, Mrs. Winters, had kept while you spent your so-called honeymoon with the person whom you have referred to as your husband, in this mountain cabin?”
“That is not a fact. I didn’t even know the parrot was dead until the sheriff told me.”
The district attorney said, “I think perhaps I can refresh your recollection upon this subject, Miss Monteith.”
He turned and nodded to his deputy, a young man who was standing near the doorway. The deputy stepped outside long enough to pick up a bundle covered with cloth, then hurried down the aisle, past the rows of twisted-necked spectators, to deliver the bundle to Sprague.
District Attorney Sprague dramatically whipped away the cloth. A gasp sounded from the spectators as they saw what the cloth had concealed — a bloodstained parrot cage, on the floor of which lay the stiff body of a dead parrot, its head completely severed.
“That,” the district attorney said dramatically, “is your handiwork, isn’t it, Miss Monteith?”
She swayed slightly in the witness chair. “I feel giddy,” she said. “... Please take that away... The blood...”
The district attorney turned to the spectators and announced triumphantly, “The killer quails when confronted with evidence of her...”
“She does no such thing,” Mason roared, getting to his feet and striding belligerently toward Sprague. “This young woman has been subject to inhuman treatment. Within the short space of twenty-four hours, she has learned that the man whom she loved, and whom she regarded as her husband, was killed. No sympathy was offered her in her hour of bereavement. Instead of sympathy being extended, she was dragged out into the pitiless glare of publicity and...”
“Are you making a speech?” the district attorney interrupted.