The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton

"Yuss," defiantly, "I am." "Then if I put Mrs. Towers in the witness-box, if she denies on oath that she made any such statement to you, she will be guilty of perjury?" "Well----" "I want an answer to my question. If Mrs. Towers denies, on oath, that she made any such statement, will she or you be guilty of perjury?" "Well," the red hands shifted on the rail of the witness-box, "I wouldn't care to say she used those actual words. But that was what she meant." "You realize that what you are saying is of very grave importance?" "Yuss." "But you abide by what you have told us about the conversation between you and the accused?" "Yuss." Question and answer went on; till Maggie Peterson, gazing angrily at her interrogator, saw a black-coated figure move to his side. "What the devil----" Ronnie, feeling a twitch at his gown, turned to see Bunce, all agog with excitement. "Chap at the back of the court, sir, says you're to look at this before you ask any more questions." Benjamin Bunce, having delivered himself of his message and a scrap of soiled paper, slipped away. Ronnie, taking no further notice of the interruption, continued his attempts to shake Maggie Peterson's evidence. But the witness had grown sullen. His suavity elicited only monosyllables. He felt the jury wearying, growing hostile once more--felt himself outwitted--felt it useless to continue the struggle. Then, just as he was preparing to sit down, his left hand, fidgeting with his notes, touched the scrap of paper which Bunce had laid among them; and glancing down, he saw: "M. P. is a bloody liar. I can tell you something about what she was doing on the fourth of July." Ronnie looked round for his clerk, but his clerk had disappeared. The ermined figure on the bench was growing bored. "If you have no further questions to ask this witness----" began the ermined figure. Maggie Peterson grinned. And suddenly Ronnie knew panic. Either he must close his cross-examination; or risk a shot in the dark. For a second he made as though to sit down; then, seeing some emotion almost akin to reproach flit across the pale face of his client, he took his risk. "You told both my learned friend and his lordship that at half-past nine o'clock on the fourth of July--I want you to be very careful of the date, please--you saw the accused go into Robert Fielding's room. You are still prepared to swear, on your oath, that that statement is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" "Yuss"--shrilly, but there was a trace of fear in the shrill. "And supposing--mind you, I'm only supposing--that a witness were to come forward and say that, on the night in question, you could not possibly have seen any such thing, that witness would not be telling the truth?" "What do yer mean?" "I should have thought it was sufficiently obvious," said Ronnie gravely; and repeating his question knew, by the very look on the witness's face, that his shot in the dark had found its mark. "I've told yer all I know," retorted Maggie Peterson stubbornly. "Possibly more." Ronnie, warming to a subdued chuckle from Spillcroft, ventured one more question. "Tell me, please, what you did _after_ you had--as you say--watched the accused woman go into her cousin's room?" "Went to bed, of course." "Then you were in bed by a quarter to ten?" "I suppose so." "Not later than ten o'clock, anyway?" "No." "Thank you." Ronnie turned to the judge. "That is all I have to ask this witness, m' lord." To the woman in the box, it seemed that her ordeal was over; to the jury, that the bulk of her evidence remained unshaken. But Brunton--reëxamining at length--was obviously suspicious of a trap. He kept on glancing at Ronnie as though to find out what had prompted those last questions; and Ronnie, as though hiding some secret, kept on refusing to meet the glance. "I shall adjourn till ten o'clock to-morrow," said his lord-ship--reëxamination concluded. Sweeping his scornful way out of court, the "hanging prosecutor" deigned yet another glance at his enemy. But his enemy's eyes did not look up: they were still glued to that little scrap of paper which he had spread out on his brief. CHAPTER XXXI 1 Walking back alone to the "ridiculous flat," Ronald Cavendish was oppressed with a sense of his own inefficiency. Even though his intuitive suspicions about Maggie Peterson's honesty had been to a very large extent confirmed by that piece of paper, the author of that piece of paper could not be found. Bunce, bullied to remember who had given him the document, thought it was "a common-looking kind of fellow." Cartwright, told, had said skeptically, "Those sort of things always happen in murder-trials. I'd forget it if I were you." But Ronnie could not forget. Halting under the light of a street-lamp, he drew the paper from his pocketbook and reread it for the twentieth time. If only he could succeed in discrediting the Peterson woman. Yet, even if he did succeed in discrediting Maggie Peterson, in nullifying her evidence as to motive, Brunton--according to his opening--had other witnesses. Walking on, he bought an evening paper. The paper reported Brunton's speech verbatim. Curse Brunton! What an orator the man was. Listening to him, one could hardly imagine Lucy Towers anything but the murderous adulteress. 2 Caroline Staley had prepared the usual faultless dinner; but her master ate hardly anything. In his mind, he went over Maggie Peterson's evidence, weighing it word by word. Obviously the woman hated Lucy Towers; obviously, almost obviously, she had had some sort of relations, probably immoral relations, with the dead man. But how the devil could one prove that? Even proved, how did it advance matters? If only Bunce hadn't been such an infernal fool. If only Brunton weren't such an infernally fine orator. Curse Brunton! Half a bottle of claret and a cigar only added to Ronnie's depression. Alone in the drawing-room where he and Aliette had so often sat together, he felt as though, failing Lucy Towers, he would fail his own woman; as though the fate of Lucy and the fate of Aliette were one fate; as though, by not saving the one from Brunton's hideous cleverness, he would never rescue the other from Brunton's hideous obduracy. Brunton! The man's face traced itself, bewigged, implacable, relentless, in every up-curling puff of Ronnie's cigar-smoke. Behind that face hovered the faces of the jury. And the jury stood for public opinion; public opinion solid on Brunton's side. In his fight against Lucy Towers, as in his fight against his wife, Brunton had the world's judgment in his favor: yet both women--"_both_," repeated conviction--were innocent, at least in intent, of anti-social crime. A hell of a lot "intent" mattered to Hector Brunton! If only Hector Brunton were dead! If only for Aliette's sake, for Lucy's sake, he, Ronald Cavendish, could kill Brunton as William Towers had been killed! Surely that killing would be not murder, but justice. For more than a year Brunton, moved only by blind vanity, had been striving to compass the ruin of a woman against whom his only grudge was that she had denied herself to him. Now, moved by the same blind motive, he was striving to compass the ruin and the death of Lucy Towers. Between those two women and the tyrant who oppressed them stood but one man. Himself--Ronald Cavendish. Surely the killing of Brunton would be no murder! The little mood of madness passed. Resolutely Ronnie put the personal issue out of mind. Resolutely he fetched his papers from his dressing-room and set himself to study the reports of the trial before the magistrate. If only he could discredit Brunton's evidence on the question of adultery, surely there was a chance, just the shadow of a chance, to secure the coveted verdict, justifiable homicide. "But I'd need to be an orator for that," he thought; and all night, tossing sleepless, visions flickered across the taut screen-board of his brain. Alternately he saw Aliette, Lucy, his mother--sad faces, each oppressed, each pleading for deliverance. Yet next morning, as he emerged from Temple Station and made his way along the Embankment to his chambers, Ronald Cavendish's self-confidence returned. And the self-confidence increased fourfold when Bunce, rather shamefaced, handed him yet another scrap of paper. "Found this in our letter-box, sir," said Bunce. Deciphered, the sprawly disguised handwriting read: "I seed her in the Red Lion, Hill Street, with Bill T. Time 10:15 pip emma. She's a bitch. I ought to know. I married her." This time even John Cartwright thought the information of value. "Though I don't see how you can use it," he said dubiously. "Unless Standon's people can find this fellow Peterson for us." "I sha'n't need Peterson," decided Ronnie, as their car swung them down Holborn. "He probably has his own reasons for keeping out of the way. A witness from the public-house will be enough. Will you send some one down at once? The fourth of July, luckily, is American Independence day. Some one's sure to remember if Towers was there on that particular night, and who was with him." The solicitor, dropping his passenger at the Old Bailey, drove off hurriedly. Public interest in the case had not diminished overnight. Already the early street crowd numbered hundreds. On the great staircase, on the wide landing, folks seethed and jostled. The packed court-room itself--as the dignified figures of Mr. Justice Heber and his accompanying big-wigs took their seats---was a lake of straining faces. Immediately Brunton rose to examine his next witness; a tall black-mustached, black-haired type with flashy rings and a flashy tie-pin, who answered to the name of John Hodges. He was a book-maker, John Hodges told the court. He had known Bill Towers for many years--long before he married. He had often heard the dead man speak of his wife. The dead man had been very fond of his wife; but the affection, according to Hodges, had not been reciprocated. Question and answer flowed on. But to Ronnie, waiting anxiously for Cartwright's return, it seemed as though Brunton must be ill. Twice the harsh voice missed the sequence of its questions. Twice Henry Smith-Assher had need to prompt his leader. And twice, as the examination neared its ending, the gray eyes under the "hanging prosecutor's" gray horsehair deserted their witness to stare, fascinated, at the woman in the dock. Lucy Towers, it seemed to Brunton, stared back at him with his wife's own brown unfathomable pupils. "You've known the accused ever since she married the deceased?" he asked his witness. "Has she ever spoken to you about her husband?" "Only once." "Can you remember what she said?" "Yes. She said that she wished she'd never married him." "When was that?" "Some time in June." "Can't you fix the exact date?" "No, not the exact date. It was somewhere about the end of June, I think." "Thank you." Heavily Hector Brunton sat down. All night the face of the woman in the dock had haunted him. And now, now the still, small voice of conscience was whispering again. "Cruel," whispered the voice; "cruel." But the sight of Cavendish, rising to cross-examine, silenced the voice of conscience, brought back the suspicion that Cavendish held some card, some trump-card, up his sleeve. And "Even if he gets the charge reduced to manslaughter," thought Brunton, "she'll do time. She won't be able to trouble me for years. Say seven years." "Mr. Hodges"--Ronnie's voice recalled his enemy to the