"Well, yes and no. A small boy, my grandson, discovered it in your aunt's house. Eliza lets the house during the summer months, as I daresay you know."
"Very nice, too. Yes, I believe I did keep a diary. Why? I haven't kept one for—since—Oh, well, you probably know the date of it."
But she looked hopefully at Mrs. Bradley as she said this, as though anticipating that Mrs. Bradley might not know.
"Well, the date of the year was on it—printed on it—and although that, in itself, is not, perhaps, proof positive that the items were written in that same year, the chain of events with which the diary seems to be concerned dates it without doubt. Tell me, Miss Foxley—for I gather you do not propose to answer my former question ..."
"Which one?"
"Whether the diary was your own unaided work."
"Oh, lord! Of course it was! What a silly question!"
"You will take back that unkind remark later on, I think."
"Maybe. And—maybe! Well, go on."
"By all means. Time is short, of course."
"You're dern tooting it's short," Bella agreed. "They'll get me next time, I reckon. Well, I should worry! I've not had so much luck in my life that I expect to get away with this. Shoot!"
"These Americanisms—the cinema?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.
"Oh, possibly. I used to live there, nearly, in the evenings. Only thing to do, and the best way, anyhow, to get away from the atmosphere of that poisonous Institution for a bit."
"Ah, yes. You weren't happy there."
"When I say I'd sooner be here," said Bella vigorously, "I'm not saying one-half. Does that convince you?"
"I don't need convincing. The diary would have convinced me."
"The diary? But I didn't put anything in the diary about the Institution, did I? I used to be pretty careful about that."
"Really? You surprise me," said Mrs. Bradley, grinning like a fiend.
"I don't remember any of it," said the prisoner, scowling in the effort of recollection. "But I do want to ask you something. Exactly what is your object in pushing in here? You were against me at the trial, you and that precious Muriel, and that oaf Lawrence. What's the big idea of turning prisoner's friend all of a sudden? "
"Not prisoner's friend; seeker after truth," Mrs. Bradley corrected her. "And, of course, you are at liberty to refuse to answer my questions. You are at liberty to tell me not to come again."
"Oh, it makes for a good laugh once in a while," said Bella, "and, as you say, I needn't answer; and, not being quite so gone on the truth as you are, I can always tell a lie."
"So you can," replied Mrs. Bradley, unperturbed. "I think I know most of the truth, mind you," she continued. "Enough of it, anyway, to be able to pick out your lies. Did you tell the truth in court, by the way, about the boys?"
"Not exactly, but near enough to make no difference to the jury."
"You mean that you did send them to Mr. Turney?"
"No, I didn't send 'em, but when he offered to have them I let them go."
"Do you ever wish you hadn't?"
"No, I don't."
"It was a terrible death," said Mrs. Bradley, her eyes leaving those of the prisoner and wandering vaguely towards the door.
"It's over now," said Bella, "and they're better out of the world, two kids like that. What chance did they ever stand? Who'd give them a chance? Poor little wretches! Thieves and murderers before they'd hardly begun their lives at all."
"I saw in the diary that you held strong views on the subject," said Mrs. Bradley.
"You saw—Don't be daft! I never put any of my real opinions in that diary, that I'm positive I didn't!"
"Well, at any rate, it seems to have got round that you held strong views of that kind."
"Oh, maybe. I generally used to say what I thought, to one person and another."
"Especially to one person," said Mrs. Bradley, with peculiar emphasis. To her great interest, an ugly, purplish flush spread over Bella Foxley's face and down her thick neck.
"You're wrong!" she said, huskily. "I never told Tom all that much."
"No, I'm not wrong," replied Mrs. Bradley. "Now, this question of mine which seems so long in coming. Do you happen to know—I ask it in the most disinterested and scientific sense—but do you happen to know how your Cousin Tom met his death?"
"Considering I was tried for murdering him," said Bella, in strangled tones, "I suppose I ought to know!"
"Ah, but you were acquitted. Tell me what you really think."
Bella looked at her suspiciously.
"What is all this?" she said. Mrs. Bradley nodded mysteriously.
"We are coming to something, I do believe," she said. "Come along, Miss Foxley. Do your best. It won't seem as strange to me as it might to some people."
"I don't see it would sound strange, exactly, to anyone," said Bella, recovering herself a little. "After all, one of the little devils had committed murder already ..."
"Ah," said Mrs. Bradley. "So you think the boys killed Cousin Tom?"
"Well, I suppose it was a fact that they'd already pushed him out of the window once."
"That would account for his having made no particular complaint, 1 suppose," said Mrs. Bradley, as though she agreed with the supposition.
"Well, he couldn't very well inform against them, considering how he'd been hiding them from the police and using them, could he, poor fellow?"
"I suppose not," said Mrs. Bradley; but she seemed to have lost interest in the subject. "You do realise, though, don't you, that the boys were already in the cellar when your Cousin Tom fell out the second time?"
She looked expectantly at Bella. The prisoner's face was livid.
"I heard that in court, but it didn't—it wasn't true. I happen to know that for a fact, if it's facts you're after," she said. Her sombre eyes smouldered. She did not speak again for a minute or two. The heavy, rather turgid mentality behind that ugly fore- head and those angry, defeated eyes was accustoming itself to a new and terrible conviction, Mrs. Bradley surmised. She rose.
"Think it over," she said, almost kindly. "And when you go next into the witness box, I think I should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if I were you. Even if it does no good, you'll feel the better for it. And, you know, Miss Foxley, if I were you—and I mean this in the most ..."
"Disinterested way," said Bella, with a return to her former irony.
"If you like. Anyway, I should make up my mind to tell the court exactly what you were doing and where you were when the boys ... need I say the rest? ... when the boys were dying."
"And now," said Mrs. Bradley brightly, "for another go at our patient Griselda."
"That fatheaded widow, I suppose you mean?" said Mr. Pratt, who was again a weekend visitor at the Stone House. "That woman ought to be stood on hot bricks or something, to wake her up and bring her to, I should say. She simply threw away the case for the prosecution—simply threw it away."
"Mea culpa," said Mrs. Bradley inexcusably. Pratt, lighting a pipe, looked at her steadfastly.
"You're up to something," he said. "Don't tell me we've got to whitewash the unspeakable Bella?"
Mrs. Bradley grinned and asked him whether, in such case, she could count upon his assistance.