Mrs. Balfame apologised to the jury for relating this incident out of order, and then went on with her quiet plausible story. Her reason for not running out at once was simplicity itself. She must have been in the kitchen when the shot was fired; she had not made a point of regulating her movements by the clock as some of the witnesses for the prosecution appeared to have done, so that she was quite unable to give the jury positive information upon the subject of the exact number of minutes she had remained in the kitchen. She had washed and put away the glass, of course; she was a very methodical woman. Then she had gone upstairs, leisurely, and it was not until she was in her bedroom that she became aware of some sort of excitement out in the Avenue. Even that conveyed nothing to her, for it was Saturday night—she curled her fastidious lip. But when she heard voices directly under her window, inside the grounds, she threw it open at once and asked what had happened. Then of course she ran downstairs and out to her husband. That was all.
Even the district attorney was not able to interject a hint of the lemonade story, and so, naturally, she ignored it.
"Gemima!" whispered Mr. Broderick to his neighbour, "but she is a wonder! I never heard it better done, and I've seen some of the boss liars on the stand. She looks like an angel on toast, a poor, sweet, patient, martyr angel. But I'll bet five dollars to a nickel that she was just about three degrees too plausible for that jury. If she didn't do it, who did? That's what they'll ask. And who else wanted him out of the way? Have you given any thought to that proposition?" His voice was almost as steady as his keen grey eyes, and he looked straight into the wise and weary orbs of a brilliant but too inabstinent member of the crack reporter regiment who had been missing for several days. The man raised his sagging shoulders and dropped them listlessly. Then his heavy eyes were invaded by a sudden gleam.
"Say," he whispered, "that Rush is a good-looking chap—and she—I don't like those ice-boxes myself, but some men do. It's crossed my mind more than once to-day that he's got something on his—what's the matter?"
"For God's sake, hush!" Broderick's low voice was savage, his face white. "They're always likely to say that about a young lawyer when his client is handsome enough and their imaginations are excited by a mysterious murder case. He's a friend of mine, and I don't want him to get into trouble. He might not be able to prove an alibi. But I know he didn't do it because I happen to know that he is in love with another woman. I was in the same trolley with them yesterday when they came back from the woods. There was no mistaking how the land lay."
"Oh! Just so!" The other man's eyes were glittering. He looked like a hunter glancing down his gun-barrel. "I see he is a friend of yours and you've got his defence pat—well, I'm not going to bother my poor head until Mrs. B. is acquitted or convicted. Ta! Ta!" And he slid gently to the floor, laid his head against the infuriated Broderick's knee and went to sleep.
"I say," whispered Wagstaff, "she almost involved young Kraus, all right. He's never been quite so close to the bull's-eye before. The very fact that she didn't trump up a yarn—or Rush wouldn't let her—that she saw him when she opened the door, or that he had turned the handle, is one for her and one on him."
The Judge, who had taken a few moments' rest, re-entered, and conversation ceased. Conrad and Frieda were called in rebuttal, and encouraged to fix the time of Mrs. Balfame's departure and return as accurately as might be. Frieda asserted that Mrs. Balfame, after closing the outer door, had not remained below-stairs for more than three minutes, and Conrad declared that her exit must have been made three or four before Mr. Mott left Miss Lacke's. Of course—with quiet scorn—he had not looked at his watch. How could he in the dark? As he did not smoke he had no matches in his pocket.
That closed the day's session. The jury filed out, and no man could read aught in their weather-beaten faces save the conviction that the Paradise City Hotel was a haven of delights after a long day in the box, and they were quite equal to the feat of enjoying the dinner served there, with minds barren of the grim purpose behind this luxurious week.