“No.” (Did it sound properly indignant, that “no?”)
Sir Samuel said menacingly:
“I put it to you that you deliberately planned to put this girl out of the way, in the hope that Roderick Welman would return to you.”
“Certainly not.” (Disdainful—a little weary. That was better.)
The questions went on. It was just like a dream…a bad dream … a nightmare ….
Question after question … horrible, hurting questions… Some of them she was prepared for, some took her unawares….
Always trying to remember her part. Never once to let go, to say:
“Yes, I did hate her… Yes, I did want her dead… Yes, all the time I was cutting the sandwiches I was thinking of her dying….”
To remain calm and cool and answer as briefly and passionlessly as possible….
Fighting….
Fighting every inch of the way….
Over now… The horri
ble man with the Jewish nose was sitting down. And the kindly, unctuous voice of Sir Edwin Bulmer was asking a few more questions. Easy, pleasant questions, designed to remove any bad impression she might have made under cross-examination….
She was back again in the dock. Looking at the jury, wondering….
IV
Roddy. Roddy standing there, blinking a little, hating it all. Roddy—looking somehow—not quite real.
But nothing’s real any more. Everything is whirling round in a devilish way. Black’s white, and top is bottom and east is west… And I’m not Elinor Carlisle; I’m “the accused.” And, whether they hang me or whether they let me go, nothing will ever be the same again. If there were just something—just one sane thing to hold on to….
(Peter Lord’s face, perhaps, with its freckles and its extraordinary air of being just the same as usual…)
Where had Sir Edwin got to now?
“Will you tell us what were the state of Miss Carlisle’s feelings towards you?”
Roddy answered in his precise voice:
“I should say she was deeply attached to me, but certainly not passionately in love with me.”
“You considered your engagement satisfactory?”
“Oh, quite. We had a good deal in common.”
“Will you tell the jury, Mr. Welman, exactly why that engagement was broken off?”
“Well, after Mrs. Welman died it pulled us up, I think, with a bit of a shock. I didn’t like the idea of marrying a rich woman when I myself was penniless. Actually the engagement was dissolved by mutual consent. We were both rather relieved.”
“Now, will you tell us just what your relations were with Mary Gerrard?”
(Oh, Roddy, poor Roddy, how you must hate all this!)
“I thought her very lovely.”
“Were you in love with her?”