“You’ve been a brave witness, young man.Thank you. Now I believe defense counsel may have one or twoquestions for you.” Cambridge smiled disingenuously at Marc as ifto say, I really haven’t left you much more.
Marc did not begin gently. “Mr. Broom youassumed what you saw was an illicit sexual encounter. But was it?You said you heard no scream or cry for help, is that right?”
“No. She didn’t cry out.” Broom lookedthoroughly frightened, like an overweight rabbit staring into theferret’s eyes.
“Did you not think that strange? A girlgetting raped and giving out nothing but little gasps? Did the manhave his hand over her mouth?”
“No – no, sir. They were both in the straw,holdin’ him up.”
“You described her legs as waving in the air.Did you mean to say she was thrashing about?”
“Yes . . . I mean, no. She wasn’t thrashin’at all.”
“I see. Strange behaviour, wouldn’t you say,if this was fifteen-year-old Betsy?”
“It was. I saw her dress and the basket andthe apron.”
“A gingham dress, yes. Tell me, do otheryoung ladies in your township wear gingham?”
“It was blue gingham.”
“My questions still stands.”
Broom dabbed hopelessly at his sweating browwith his right sleeve. “Yeah. Lots of girls wear gingham.”
“And you saw only a scrap of yellow cloth inthe straw and assumed it was part of an apron?”
“Well, it looked like – ”
“And it was an ordinary wicker basket thatyou observed from a distance of twenty-five feet, lying half-buriedin the straw?”
“She brung her pa’s lunch in it!”
“I submit, sir, that you made a quick, hastyand panic-stricken guess that you were looking at BetsyThurgood in that stall.”
“Who else could it’ve been?”
“You said in your statement that those rearbarn doors are always open?”
“To let in the breeze.”
“And below the barn is a screen of treesalong the shore of the creek?”
“Y – yes.”
“Could not anyone, local or stranger, havebeen walking along the creek with his lady love and a picnicbasket, sneaked up to the barn unobserved, and made ordinary, ifunorthodox, love in the straw of an empty stall? A lovemakingwithout cries for help or any sort of thrashing resistance?”
Broom hung his head. Reluctantly, because ananswer was expected, he mumbled, “I guess so.” Then he brightenedand said, “But nobody in the area has big grey hair!”
“Ah, let’s have a look at that, shall we? Youclaim the so-called attacker was older, short, and had a shock ofwhitish-grey hair. Are old people the only ones with scrawnylegs?”
“Usually, yes.”
“But Mr. Clift, for example, is a tall andvery slim man in his twenties. I’ll bet his legs might look scrawnyfrom a distance of twenty-five feet?”
One of the jurors tittered. They were allriveted to this critical dialogue.
“But he’s near bald!”
“Which brings us to this business of thehair, doesn’t it? You said the stall itself was in shadow exceptfor what you called ‘sprinkles’ of sunlight. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“In a barn, the sun comes slanting throughcracks in the barn-board, doesn’t it? And all sorts of strangebeams and pools of light result, don’t they?”
“I guess so.” Broom was looking more and morebewildered. What had seemed so straightforward to his mind wasbeing twisted and made to look otherwise. More and more his repliesseemed to be coming from an automaton.
“Are you certain, then, that you were notactually seeing a halo effect around the man’s head? The lightdazzling off his hair and making it look large and whitish,whatever colour and however bushy it might have been?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. I swear.”
“Or consider this, sir. You men all work inthe mill. You grind grist into flour and you put the flour intobags and barrels. Do you not in the course of your work becomecovered in wheat chaff and flour?”
“Of course we do. I don’t see – ”
“Would not anyone, whatever colour theirhair, who worked in that mill look as if he had a spray of whitishhair, especially in a dark stall sprinkled with confusing halos oflight?”
Cambridge was on his tiptoes. “Milord. Mr.Edwards is putting words into the witness’s mouth and then dashingoff on flights of fancy.”
“Try to restrain yourself, Mr. Edwards.”
“Yes, Milord,” he said humbly, but he hadalready milked his flight of fancy. “Now I wish to turn to a moreserious aspect of your testimony, Mr. Broom.”
The witness flinched, and Marc held his gazewith as fierce as stare as he could muster. He could feel the ghostof his mentor, Doubtful Dick Dougherty, hovering near. “If this wasa rape, as you claim, why did you turn and run away?”
Jake Broom fought back tears as he said, “Itold Mr. Cambridge. I figured it best to get help. I reckonedthey’d still be in the office a while yet.”
“I suggest, sir, that you were either adespicable coward or that what you saw was not rape but twostrangers having intercourse in a manner that shocked and disgustedyou!”
“It wasn’t like that! It wasn’t!”
“You staggered back to the office, which youknew perfectly well was empty, and sat there trying to hold yourlunch down. You did not tell Mr. Whittle because there was nothingto tell!” Marc glared at Broom. “You never went back to thatstall, did you?”
“Milord, counsel is harrowing thewitness.”
“Mr. Edwards, Mr. Broom is not ahostile witness. Let him answer one question at a time, and pleaserefrain from embroidering.”
“I did go back there,” Broom mumbled. “And Iwas ashamed I didn’t try to help poor Betsy.” Tears welled up andfilled both large, innocent eyes. “When I heard she died like shedid, I almost died myself. It was her, I knowit!”
Marc stood back. Something was amiss here. Atruant thought suddenly entered his head. He peered down as ifconsulting his notes. Broom was trying desperately not to sob.
“Mr. Broom do you have a reputation formaking up stories?”
Broom was stunned. Even his quiet weeping wasstinted. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“Remember, sir, you are under oath.”
“Milord, this is highly irregular. Counsel isfishing.”
“It speaks to the witness’s credibility,” thejudge said. “Mr. Edwards, I’m giving you some latitude with thiscritical witness, but I do have boundaries. Answer the question asbest you can, Mr. Broom.”
Broom said almost inaudibly, “I’ve alwaysliked to make up stories. I even write them down.”
“Very much like Betsy Thurgood?”
A moment of pure terror flashed throughBroom’s eyes, then vanished. “When I first come to the township, Igot a job at Whittle’s mill. Mr. Whittle asked me if I was relatedto Jimmy Broom, a notorious drunk and reprobate. I told himno.”
“But you were related?”
“I was his son.” Broom’s voice was now closeto a whisper. “Later on, Mr. Whittle found out. By then he liked meand I showed him I could work. But he always took what I said witha grain of salt.”
“You tended to exaggerate things? Make themsound more colourful?”
Broom’s jaw reached his chest.“Sometimes.”
“What I’m wondering, sir, is why the juryshould believe you today?”
Broom looked up, anguished. “Because I saw myBetsy gettin’ raped by Mr. Baldwin and I was too much a coward tosave her!”
This passionate outburst had the effect ofinstantly galvanizing sympathy for the young man, who had beenlosing ground in the past ten minutes. There was genuine anguish inthe face, and conviction. But Marc was no longer worried: Broom hadunwittingly given away something of vital importance.
“You and Betsy were romantically involved,weren’t you?” he said quietly when the hubbub in the room hadsubsided.