As soon as the court had opened on the following morning, Mrs. Peele was called. She looked haughtily askance at the worn Bible as the clerk rattled off the oath, bent her head as would she whiff upon what plebeian lips had touched so often and so evidently, and took the witness chair as were she mounting a throne. She was apparelled in crape. Only her intimate friends could have told whether the backward bend of her head was due to the weight of her veil or the weight of her ancestors. At first she stared at the district attorney with haughty resentment, as, for the benefit of the humble jury, he curtly asked her several direct questions; but remembering that he was “a Sturges,” and also recalling her husband’s admonitions, she unbent, and even condescended to address the jury. Her tale of the night in no wise differed from her husband’s; but her accentuation of Patience’s dark threats and marital deficiencies was all her own. Her suggestion of a lover in the case caused a sudden movement in the jury box, although the stolid faces did not relax. Under cross-examination much of her testimony was as effectually demolished as her husband’s had been.
Two maid servants followed. They testified to violent quarrels between the young couple. Then the butler testified to the reiterant and emphatic command of the prisoner on the day before the death to send to New York for morphine.
The prosecution produced its trump card: the stable boy who had spied upon the interviews between the prisoner and the mysterious lover. The man had evidently been carefully rehearsed—as Bourke later on pointed out to the jury—for his memory of the eight or ten interviews he had witnessed needed little refreshing. His “best recollection” was given glibly and ungrammatically. He dilated upon the young man’s remarkable personal beauty, and observed that it far outshone his beloved Mr. Beverly’s. They had talked principally of books in all but the last two interviews, but had looked perfectly happy. His account of the last two interviews created a profound impression in the court room, even the jury leaning forward slightly. The judge frowned and wheeled his chair sharply when the man gave the gist of the prisoner’s matter-of-fact objection to living with a man who was not her husband.
Mr. Bourke’s rich voice had never rung with deeper indignation and disgust, never shaped itself to more cutting sarcasm than when he made the man see himself and the jury see him as a coward, a cur, a spy, a liar, an eager schemer for an innocent woman’s life. “You felt it your duty,” he concluded, “to spy upon a woman of irreproachable reputation who met a friend in an open wood in broad daylight—Yes, yes,” with all the lingering scornful emphasis which only he could give that simple word. “You never felt yourself a cowardly scoundrel meddling in what was none of your business—No! No!” He turned to the jury with the passion still upon his face, but when he took his seat he smiled encouragingly to his admiring young client.
“Wouldn’t he make an actor?” whispered Simms. “I never saw him do the lofty indignation act with finer effect.”
“Well, he would be a great actor, at least,” retorted Patience, “and I am convinced that you would be a very small one.”
“Just wait,” said Simms, angrily. “I’ve got to talk to this jury about you in a day or two, and if you don’t forget I ever doubted you I’ll eat my hat. The best lawyer’s the best fakir, and a few days from now you’ll see what an ambitious man I am.”
“Miss Rosita Thrailkill,” called the district attorney when the court opened next morning. The audience stood up to a man.
A plump willowy Spanish figure undulated behind the jury box, kissed the Bible reverently, and ascended the witness stand. Rosita was clad in black and yellow, a mantilla in place of a hat, and many diamonds. She looked as pretty and as naughty as possible. As she met Patience’s eyes, she wafted her a kiss, and the prisoner groaned in spirit. She gave her name and birthplace with melodious caressing accent and her marked precision of speech. Yes, the defendant had been her dear friend, her best friend, her only intimate friend. Yes, with unaffected reluctance, Mrs. Sparhawk had been disreputable, and Patience had once attempted her life. Yes, she was the prima donna of light opera known as La Rosita. Did she appear before the public in tights and scant attire? Yes, why not? Had she not had a number of lovers? Objected to and sustained. Flashing indignation of soft Spanish eyes. Did she not have the reputation of being a woman of loose and lawless life? Objected to and sustained. Angry rattle of fan. Was it not in her house that the prisoner was arrested? Yes, it was! and she loved her Patita and would always give her shelter.
When the district attorney sat down with an ugly smile on his thin mouth, Bourke, muttering anathema, rose to his feet.