"I will believe it," he muttered, "I must." And he dropped the subject, as he made me see, forever.
I drew a deep breath of relief. I had come very near to revealing my secret.
When we returned to the court-room, we found it already packed with a very subdued and breathless crowd. It differed somewhat from the one which had faced us in the morning; but Ella and her parents were there and many others of the acknowledged friends of the accused and of his family.
He, himself, wore the heavy and dogged air which became him least. Physically refreshed, he carried himself boldly, but it was a boldness which convinced me that any talk he may have had with his lawyer, had been no more productive of comfort than the one I had held with mine.
As he took the witness chair, and prepared to meet the cross-examination of the district attorney, a solemn hush settled upon the room. Would the coming ordeal rob his brow of its present effrontery, or would he continue to bear himself with the same surly dignity, which, misunderstood as it was, produced its own effect, and at certain moments seemed to shake even the confidence of Mr. Fox, settled as he seemed to be in his belief in the integrity of his cause and the rights of the prosecution.
Shaken or not, his attack was stern, swift, and to the point.
"Was the visit you made to the wine-vault on the evening of the second of
December, the first one you had ever paid there?"
"No; I had been there once before. But I always paid for my depredations," he added, proudly.
"The categorical answer, Mr. Cumberland. Anything else is superfluous."
Arthur's lip curled, but only for an instant; and nothing could have exceeded the impassiveness of his manner as Mr. Fox went on.
"Then you knew the way?"
"Perfectly."
"And the lock?"
"Sufficiently well to open it without difficulty."
"How long do you think you were in entering the house and procuring these bottles?"
"I cannot say. I have no means of knowing; I never thought of looking at my watch."
"Not when you started? Not when you left Cuthbert Road?"
"No, sir."
"But you know when you left the club-house to go back?"
"Only by this—it had not yet begun to snow. I'm told that the first flakes fell that night at ten minutes to eleven. I was on the golf-links when this happened. You can fix the time yourself. Pardon me," he added, with decided ill-grace as he met Mr. Fox's frown. "I forgot your injunction."
Mr. Fox smiled an acrid smile, as he asked: "Whereabouts on the golf-links? They extend for some distance, you remember."
"They are six hundred yards across from first tee to the third hole, which is the nearest one to Cuthbert Road," Arthur particularised. "I was—no, I can't tell you just where I was at that moment. It was a good ways from the house. The snow came on very fiercely. For a little while I could not see my way."
"How, not see your way?"
"The snow flew into my eyes."
"Crossing the links?"
"Yes, sir, crossing the links."
"But the storm came from the west. It should have beaten against your back."
"Back or front, it bothered me. I could not get on as fast as I wished."
Mr. Fox cast a look at the jury. Did they remember the testimony of the landlord that Mr. Cumberland's coat was as thickly plastered with snow on the front as it had been on the back. He seemed to gather that they did, for he went on at once to say:
"You are accustomed to the links? You have crossed them often?"
"Yes, I play golf there all summer."
"I'm not alluding to the times when you play. I mean to ask whether or not you had ever before crossed them directly to Cuthbert Road?"
"Yes, I had."
"In a storm?"
"No, not in a storm."
"How long did it take you that time to reach Cuthbert Road from The
Whispering Pines?"
Mr. Moffat bounded to his feet, but the prisoner had answered before he could speak.
"Just fifteen minutes."
"How came you to know the time so exactly?"
"Because that day I did look at my watch. I had an engagement in the lower town, and had only twenty minutes in which to keep it. I was on time."
Honest at the core. This boy was growing rapidly in my favour. But this frank but unwise answer was not pleasing to his counsel, who would have advised, no doubt, a more general and less precise reply. However, it had been made and Moffat was not a man to cry over spilled milk. He did not even wince when the district attorney proceeded to elicit from the prisoner that he was a good walker, not afraid in the least of snow-storms and had often walked, in the teeth of the gale twice that distance in less than half an hour. Now, as the storm that night had been at his back, and he was in a hurry to reach his destination, it was evidently incumbent upon him to explain how he had managed to use up the intervening time of forty minutes before entering the hotel at half-past eleven.
"Did you stop in the midst of the storm to take a drink?" asked the district attorney.
As the testimony of the landlord in Cuthbert Road had been explicit as to the fact of his having himself uncorked the bottle which the prisoner had brought into the hotel, Arthur could not plead yes. He must say no, and he did.
"I drank nothing; I was too busy thinking. I was so busy thinking I wandered all over those links."
"In the blinding snow?"
"Yes, in the snow. What did I care for the snow? I did not understand my sister being in the club-house. I did not like it; I was tempted at times to go back."
"And why didn't you?"
"Because I was more of a brute than a brother—because Cuthbert Road drew me in spite of myself—because—" He stopped with the first hint of emotion we had seen in him since the morning. "I did not know what was going on there or I should have gone back," he flashed out, with a defiant look at his counsel.
Again sympathy was with him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point more vulnerable.
"When you heard your sister's voice in the club-house, how did you think she had got into the building?"
"By means of the keys Ranelagh had left at the house."
"When, instead of taking the whole bunch, you took the one key you wanted from the ring, did you do so with any idea she might want to make use of the rest?"
"No, I never thought of it. I never thought of her at all."
"You took your one key, and let the rest lie?"
"You've said it."
"Was this before or after you put on your overcoat?"
"I'm not sure; after, I think. Yes, it was after; for I remember that I had a deuce of a time unbuttoning my coat to get at my trousers' pocket."
"You dropped this key into your trousers' pocket?"
"I did."
"Mr. Cumberland, let me ask you to fix your memory on the moments you spent in the hall. Did you put on your hat before you pocketed the key, or afterwards?"
"My hat? How can I tell? My mind wasn't on my hat. I don't know when I put it on."
"You absolutely do not remember?"
"No."
"Nor where you took it from?"
"No."
"Whether you saw the keys first, and then went for your hat; or having pocketed the key, waited—"
"I did not wait."
"Did not stand by the table thinking?"
"No, I was in too much of a hurry."
"So that you went straight out?"
"Yes, as quickly as I could."
The district attorney paused, to be sure of the attention of the jury. When he saw that every eye of that now thoroughly aroused body was on him, he proceeded to ask: "Does that mean immediately, or as soon as you could after you had made certain preparations, or held certain talk with some one you called, or who called to you?"
"I called to nobody. I—I went out immediately."
It was evident that he lied; evident, too, that he had little hope from his lie. Uneasiness was taking the place of confidence in his youthful, untried, undisciplined mind. Carmel had spoken to him in the hall—I guessed it then, I knew it afterward—and he thought to deceive this court and blindfold a jury, whose attention had been drawn to this point by his own counsel.