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Mrs. Balfame

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[Pg 310] <h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> There had been a crowd on the day of Frieda's and young Kraus' testimony, but on Monday morning there was a mob. The road as well as the open space before the Courthouse was as solid a mass of automobiles as the police would permit, and within, even the wide staircase was packed with people, many from New York City, waving cards and demanding entrance to the Court-room, or at least the freedom to breathe. The sheriff and his assistants, soon after the doors were opened, succeeded in forming a lane, and dragged the women reporters to the upper landing. They found the young men at their tables, cool, imperturbable, having entered through the library at the back of the Court-room. All doors were closed before ten o'clock, and the crowd without, save only the few that were fortunate enough to have come early and obtain a vantage point against the glass, gradually dwindled away, to renew the assault after luncheon. It was not only the brilliant winter day that had enticed the curious over from New York, but the rumour that Mrs. Balfame would take the stand. The morning droned along peacefully. Cummack and several others, including Mr. Mott, were recalled and questioned further. Rush made no interruptions whatever. The Judge yawned behind his hand. The women reporters whispered to one another that Mrs.[Pg 311] Balfame looked lovelier than ever—only different, somehow. Even Mr. Broderick looked at her uneasily once or twice and confided to Mr. Wagstaff that he believed she and Rush had something up their sleeves; she no longer looked like a marble effigy of herself, but like a woman who was sure of getting what she wanted—much too sure. Her cheeks were almost pink. That was as close as he could get to the upheavals and revolutions that had taken place in Mrs. Balfame of Elsinore; and their causes. Immediately after luncheon, Rush showed the jury Defendant's Exhibit A: the suitcase that Mrs. Balfame had packed for her husband after his telephone message from the house of Mr. Cummack. He demonstrated that it must have been packed by a firm hand guided by a clear head, a head as far as possible from that cyclonic condition technically known as "brainstorm." When he read them the explicit directions Mrs. Balfame had written for the velvet handbag her generous husband had offered to bring from Albany, the jury craned its neck and puckered its brows. This suitcase had been examined on the night of the crime by police and reporters, the cynical men of the press characterising it later as a grand piece of bluff. But it looked very convincing in a court-room, and its innocent appeal was thrown into high relief by the indisputable fact that the murder had been committed at least half an hour later. On the other hand, there was reason to believe that Mrs. Balfame had deliberately planned the shooting and in that case it was quite natural for her to prepare something in the nature of an alibi—that is, if a woman, and an amateur in crime, could exercise so[Pg 312] much foresight. The jury looked at the defendant out of the corner of its eye. Well, she, at least, looked cool enough for anything. Then came the great moment for which the spectators had braved discomfort, indignities, and even hunger. The counsel for the defence asked Mrs. Balfame to take the stand. Everybody in the court-room save the Judge, the jury, and the cool young reporters half rose as she walked rapidly behind the jury-box, mounted the stand, took the oath, bowed to the Court and arranged herself, with her usual dignified aloofness, in the witness-chair. She felt but a slight quiver of the nerves, no apprehension whatever. She knew her story too well to be disconcerted even by the sudden wasp-like assaults of the district attorney, and she was sensible of the moral support of practically all the women in the room. Rush asked her to tell her story in her own way to the jury, and for a time the district attorney permitted her to talk without interruption. Rush had warned her after the interview with the women reporters against delivering herself with too tripping a tongue, and his assistant had spent several hours with her in rehearsal of certain improvements upon a too perfect style. In consequence, she told a clear coherent story, in the simplest manner possible, with little dramatic breaks or hesitations now and again, but with nothing stronger than a quaver in her sweet shallow voice. When she had reached the episode of the filter and had explained to the inquisitive district attorney why she had made no mention at the coroner's inquest of the somewhat complicated episode of which it was the pivot, so to speak, she gave the same credible [Pg 313]explanation the newspaper women had already offered to the public; and then, quite unexpectedly, she related the story of Frieda's attempt to blackmail her, and her indignant refusal to give the creature a dollar. Mr. Gore shouted in vain. The Judge ordered him to keep quiet and permitted the defendant to tell the story in her own way. 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[Pg 314] 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[Pg 315] 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. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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