Through the Wall Part 39

"Madam, I am trying to be patient, I wish to spare your feelings in every possible way, but I _must_ have the truth. Was the trouble caused by this other woman?"

"No, it came before he met her."

"Ah! Which one of you was responsible for it?"

"I don't know; really, I don't know," she insisted with a weary gesture.

"Then I must do what I can to _make_ you know," he replied impatiently, and reaching forward, he pressed the electric bell.

"Bring back the prisoner," he ordered, as the guard appeared, and a moment later Kittredge was again in his place beside Maitre Pleindeaux, with the woman a few feet distant.

"Now," began Hauteville, addressing both Lloyd and Mrs. Wilmott, "I come to an important point. I have here a packet of letters written by you, Kittredge, to this lady. You have already identified the handwriting as your own; and you, madam, will not deny that these letters were addressed to you. You admit that, do you not?"

"Yes," answered p.u.s.s.y weakly.

The judge turned over the letters and selected one from which he read a pa.s.sage full of pa.s.sion. "Would any man write words like that to a woman unless he were her lover? Do you think he would?" He turned to Mrs.

Wilmott, who sat silent, her eyes on the floor. "What do _you_ say, Kittredge?"

Lloyd met the judge's eyes unflinchingly, but he did not answer.

Again Hauteville turned over the letters and selected another one.

"Listen to this, both of you." And he read a long pa.s.sage from a letter overwhelmingly compromising. There were references to the woman's physical charm, to the beauty of her body, to the deliciousness of her caresses--it was a letter that could only have been written by a man in a transport of pa.s.sion. Kittredge grew white as he listened, and Mrs. Wilmott burned with shame.

"Is there any doubt about it?" pursued the judge pitilessly. "And I have only read two bits from two letters. There are many others. Now I want the truth about this business. Come, the quickest way will be the easiest."

He took out his watch and laid it on the desk before him. "Madam, I will give you five minutes. Unless you admit within that time what is perfectly evident, namely, that you were this man's mistress, I shall continue the reading of these letters _before your husband_."

"You're taking a cowardly advantage of a woman!" she burst out.

"No," answered Hauteville sternly. "I am investigating a cowardly murder."

He glanced at his watch. "Four minutes!"

Then to Kittredge: "And unless _you_ admit this thing, I shall summon the girl from Notre-Dame and let _her_ say what she thinks of this correspondence."

Lloyd staggered under the blow. He was fortified against everything but this; he would endure prison, pain, humiliation, but he could not bear the thought that this fine girl, his Alice, who had taught him what love really was, this fond creature who trusted him, should be forced to hear that shameful reading.

"You wouldn't do that?" he pleaded. "I don't ask you to spare me--I've been no saint, G.o.d knows, and I'll take my medicine, but you can't drag an innocent girl into this thing just because you have the power."

"Were you this woman's lover?" repeated the judge, and again he looked at his watch. "Three minutes!"

Kittredge was in torture. Once his eyes turned to Mrs. Wilmott in a message of unspeakable bitterness. "You're a judge," he said in a strained, tense voice, "and I'm a prisoner; you have all the power and I have none, but there's something back of that, something we both have, I mean a common manhood, and you know, if you have any sense of honor, that _no man_ has a right to ask another man that question."

"The point is well taken," approved Maitre Pleindeaux.

"Two minutes!" said Hauteville coldly. Then he turned to Mrs. Wilmott.

"Your husband is now at his club, one of our men is there also, awaiting my orders. He will get them by telephone, and will bring your husband here in a swift automobile. _You have one minute left!_"

Then there was silence in that dingy chamber, heavy, agonizing silence.

Fifteen seconds! Thirty seconds! The judge's eye was on his watch. Now his arm reached toward the electric bell, and p.u.s.s.y Wilmott's heart almost stopped beating. Now his firm red finger advanced toward the white b.u.t.ton.

Then she yielded. "Stop!" came her low cry. "He--he was my lover."

"That is better!" said the judge, and the scratching of the _greffier's_ pen recorded unalterably Mrs. Wilmott's avowal.

"I don't suppose you will contradict the lady," said Hauteville, turning to Kittredge. "I take your silence as consent, and, after all, the lady's confession is sufficient. You were her lover. And the evidence shows that you committed a crime based on pa.s.sionate jealousy and hatred of a rival.

You knew that Martinez was to dine with your mistress in a private room; you arranged to be at the same restaurant, at the same hour, and by a cunning and intricate plan, you succeeded in killing the man you hated. We have found the weapon of this murder, and it belongs to you; we have found a letter written by you full of violent threats against the murdered man; we have found footprints made by the a.s.sa.s.sin, and they absolutely fit your boots; in short, we have the fact of the murder, the motive for the murder, and the evidence that you committed the murder. What have you to say for yourself?"

Kittredge thought a moment, and then said quietly: "The fact of the murder you have, of course; the evidence against me you seem to have, although it is false evidence; but----"

"How do you mean false evidence? Do you deny threatening Martinez with violence?"

"I threatened to punch his head; that is very different from killing him."

"And the pistol? And the footprints?"

"I don't know, I can't explain it, but--I know I am innocent. You say I had a motive for this crime. You're mistaken, I had _no_ motive."

"Pa.s.sion and jealousy have stood as motives for murder from the beginning of time."

"There was _no_ pa.s.sion and _no_ jealousy," answered Lloyd steadily.

"Are you mocking me?" cried the judge. "What is there in these letters," he touched the packet before him, "but pa.s.sion and jealousy? Didn't you give up your position in America for this woman?"

"Yes, but----"

"Didn't you follow her to Europe in the steerage because of your infatuation? Didn't you bear sufferings and privations to be near her?

Shall I go over the details of what you did, as I have them here, in order to refresh your memory?"

"No," said Kittredge hoa.r.s.ely, and his eye was beginning to flame, "my memory needs no refres.h.i.+ng; I know what I did, I know what I endured. There was pa.s.sion enough and jealousy enough, but that was a year ago. If I had found her then dining with a man in a private room, I don't know what I might have done. Perhaps I should have killed both of them and myself, too, for I was mad then; but my madness left me. You seem to know a great deal about pa.s.sion, sir; did you ever hear that it can change into loathing?"

"You mean--" began the judge with a puzzled look, while Mrs. Wilmott recoiled in dismay.

"I mean that I am fighting for my life, and now that _she_ has admitted this thing," he eyed the woman scornfully, "I am free to tell the truth, all of it."

"That is what we want," said Hauteville.

"I thought I loved her with a fine, true love, but she showed me it was only a base imitation. I offered her my youth, my strength, my future, and she would have taken them and--broken them and scattered them in my face and--and laughed at me. When I found it out, I--well, never mind, but you can bet all your pretty French philosophy I didn't go about Paris looking for billiard players to kill on her account."

It was not a gallant speech, but it rang true, a desperate cry from the soul depths of this unhappy man, and p.u.s.s.y Wilmott shrank away as she listened.

"Then why did you quarrel with Martinez?" demanded the judge.

"Because he was interfering with a woman whom I _did_ love and _would_ fight for----"

"For G.o.d's sake, stop," whispered the lawyer.

"I mean I would fight for her if necessary," added the American, "but I'd fight fair, I wouldn't shoot through any hole in a wall."