XV

During the night which preceded the day when Ivy Lexton was to appear as chief witness for the Crown, she lay awake, hour after hour, dreading with an awful dread the ordeal that lay before her.

Her chattering, excited circle of friends had all unwittingly terrified her with their accounts of how Gretorex’s counsel, Sir Joseph Molloy, was apt to deal with a witness. And in the watches of the night, Ivy, shivering, saw herself faced by that ruthless cross-examiner.

What was this formidable advocate going to say to her, to get out of her, by what one of her admirers had laughingly called “his exercise of the Third Degree?”

For the first time the widow of Jervis Lexton realised how insincere and how shallow were the sympathy and the cloying flattery with which she was now surrounded. Only two human beings seemed really sorry at the thought of what was going to happen to her tomorrow⁠—Lady Flora Desmond and Philip Paxton-Smith.

The concern manifested by her solicitor made Ivy feel sick with apprehension. He had spent hours with her trying to teach her what she had to say; that is, what to admit, what to deny, during her cross-examination.

It was plain, dreadfully plain, to her, that Paxton-Smith was very much afraid of how the great Sir Joseph Molloy would treat her when he had her in his power.

Again and again, during that long winter night, she asked herself with terror whether Sir Joseph could have found out anything with regard to her past relations with Roger Gretorex.

She knew Gretorex far too well to suppose, even for a moment, that he had given her away. But the short interview with Roger’s mother, though she, Ivy, had appeared to come out of it so well, had left a frightening impression. And she shivered as she recalled the terrible expression which had come over Mrs. Gretorex’s face when making to her the appeal which she had rejected with words implying that she, too, believed the man who loved her had been guilty of a terrible crime.

Ivy even asked herself with a kind of angry resentment, in the darkness of the night, why Roger Gretorex had not done this thing of which he stood accused?

Her own set, the men and women round her, all seemed to think it natural, in a sense, that he should have done it. And yet, though he had had many opportunities of ridding himself of Jervis Lexton, in the days when he had been so much with them, and though the only bar at one moment which had stood in the way of his happiness had been the life of Jervis Lexton, the thought of doing such a thing had evidently never even occurred to his mind!

Looking back, Ivy knew that there had been a time last winter when, had she then become a widow, she would have married Gretorex. She had been⁠—how curious to remember that time now, though it was less than a year ago⁠—infatuated with the splendid-looking young man who loved her with so intense and passionate a devotion.

She remembered, also, how reckless she had been in those old days. Anyone but Jervis would have suspected the truth. Thank God, she hadn’t known Miles Rushworth, even slightly, during those mad weeks of what she had called her love for Roger Gretorex. Rushworth would have guessed, nay more, he would have known, what was going on.

Had Roger’s mother suspected the truth? Almost certainly, yes. If Mrs. Gretorex thought it would help Roger, she would of course tell the famous advocate who was now fighting for her son’s life what she believed had been the real relations between her son and the woman who was to be the chief witness against him.

Always it was to Sir Joseph Molloy, the man whose name she had never heard till, say, a fortnight ago, that Ivy’s thoughts turned with dread, during those endless hours of darkness when she tossed this way and that through the long night.

Nurse Bradfield had had a terrible time in the witness-box. Indeed, she had confessed to Ivy last evening that Sir Joseph could have made her say black was white and wrong right! He had dwelt with sinister insistence on the short time that she, Mrs. Lexton, had been left alone with Mr. Lexton on that fatal last afternoon; nay, more, he had almost gone so far as to imply that, had Nurse Bradfield been faithful to her trust and had not gone out for those few minutes, Jervis Lexton might be alive today. Also he had called her “Woman!” She had even appealed to the Judge to protect her⁠—not that that had done her much good.

The nurse’s account of the ordeal she had been through filled Ivy with such foreboding that she would have done anything, even gone back to the old black days when she and Jervis lived in those poverty-stricken Pimlico lodgings, if she could thereby have wiped out all that had happened since.

When at last there came the morning, she got up, pale and really ill. Then she waited, in an extremity of nervous fear, till, at last, there came the moment when Mr. Paxton-Smith, looking, so she told herself, like an undertaker, and not at all like his usual jovial self, called in his car to take her to the Old Bailey.

During their long drive in the crowded streets the lawyer remained almost entirely silent. He had explained and made her rehearse yesterday, carefully and kindly, everything she must say and refrain from saying.

When passing the Piccadilly end of Bond Street, for the chauffeur, chauffeur-like, had taken them the longest way, a sob escaped Ivy. There had risen before her a vision of carefree, happy nights, spent in dancing, and in what old-fashioned people would have called riotous living, within a few yards of where the car was now being held up in the traffic.

After they had gone on again, her frightened eyes caught glimpses of the newspaper placards. On each one was blazoned forth her now notorious name:

Lexton mystery.

Lexton murder.

Nurse in the box.

Though she was singularly unimaginative, Ivy shuddered as she told herself that, in a couple of hours from now, maybe there would be the words, “Mrs. Lexton in the Box,” or, worse by far, “Mrs. Lexton Cross-examined.”

At last, after what seemed both to Paxton-Smith and to his client a long drive, the car drew up by a side door of the great frowning building called by that name of dread to every evildoer the Old Bailey.

What an awesome, and in some ways superb, spectacle is the scene presented by every British trial for murder! And if this is always true, even in the humblest country town Assize Court, how much more tense and awe-inspiring is what takes place in the courthouse of the Old Bailey, when the prisoner in the dock is the central figure in a murder mystery which has suddenly become world-famous. Especially is this true when the accused man is putting up a struggle, not only for his life, but what to some men really does mean more than life⁠—his honour.

Since the war there has appeared in London a new world of idle, luxury-loving human beings who live for pleasure, and who, if their income is fluctuating and uncertain, yet mysteriously appear always plentifully provided with ready money to burn on what they call “fun.”

To the eyes of those composing this new world, lovely Ivy Lexton, and good-humoured, popular Jervis Lexton, had been familiar figures, especially during the years when they were merrily engaged in running through their capital. All these people regarded the trial of Roger Gretorex as a spectacle produced and staked for their special benefit, and while the more enterprising and fortunate among them attended each day the exciting proceedings at the Old Bailey, the others all read with avid interest the full accounts of the trial which appeared every morning in whatever happened to be their favourite daily paper.

Although the case was called the Lexton Mystery, none of the hundreds of thousands of Roger Gretorex’s fellow-countrymen and countrywomen, who were following each detail of the story as unfolded now day by day in Court, considered that there was very much mystery about it. What was of tense interest, and what formed the real enigma, was the latest variant of the eternal triangle⁠—the story of the relations of the three, wife, husband, and lover.

One doubt remained in many a mind. That doubt concerned the relations of Ivy Lexton and of Roger Gretorex. To what extent, if any, had that beautiful young woman been involved in her lover’s guilt? Was it true that her own feelings, with regard to the young man who had slowly done a husband to death so that a wife should be free, had been simply those which it was known she was going into the witness-box to swear they had been? Had they really been feelings of kindly and indifferent, not to say tepid, friendship?

Another question which is always being asked by every student of human nature was asked in this case⁠—that is, whether a certain kind of exalted passion, the passionate love of a man for a woman which leads to crime, can exist without even a touch of secret encouragement?

The more worldly-wise shook their heads, and said that, whatever romantic poets and novelists may aver, such entirely unrequited passion on the part of an intelligent, educated man is impossible. Surely, before such a man as Roger Gretorex had set out to do that awful thing, he must, at any rate, have had some cause to believe that Ivy Lexton, when widowed, would become his wife?

There was yet another point which made this judicial drama appear, to use a phrase sometimes used in such a connection, “a full-dress trial.” Justice may be blind, yet she can see the glitter of gold. No money had been spared on either side. Indeed, judging by the array of counsel engaged, there must have been limitless wealth available for the defence. And, in a sense, there was, for Mrs. Gretorex had thrown all the fortune that remained to her into the struggle for her son’s life.

And now, on the fourth day, was approaching the great moment of Roger Gretorex’s trial for murder. The highest peak of the fever chart of this drama, which was being watched not only by those who were present in Court, but by hundreds of thousands of English-speaking people all over the world, was now about to be reached.

There came a peculiar rustle through the Court, followed by a moment of complete silence, as Ivy Lexton stepped, with short, dainty steps into the witness-box, and faced what appeared to her a myriad world of eyes fixed on her pale countenance. In accordance with a strong hint given yesterday by her solicitor, Ivy had not made up her face at all today.

Paxton-Smith, as the tense moments flew by, felt full of admiration for his beautiful client.

Ivy even remembered everything that he had advised with regard to her behaviour when in the witness-box, including certain things she might well have been pardoned for forgetting. One of these had been that, when answering counsel for the Crown, she should hold her head well up.

This she obviously tried to do, and when, as more than once happened, she threw what looked like a childlike glance of fear and supplication at the kind, if grave, face of the inquisitor whose only desire was to learn the truth and nothing but the truth, a thrill of sympathy went through her great, silent audience.

Again, when the flawless oval of her face appeared framed in the tiny little pull-on black hat, and her starlike eyes for a moment looked wild, many a man, watching her, told himself that he could well understand, indeed almost sympathise with, any crime being committed by one who loved her, and who longed, as only lovers long, to have the exquisite creature standing there at bay entirely his own.

But one curious thing was observed by those who note such things. This was that not once did Ivy Lexton glance at the prisoner in the dock, during the long examination-in-chief.

As for Gretorex, he on his side crossed his arms and stared straight before him as if with unseeing eyes, during the whole of the time the woman he had loved with so devoted and trusting a love, remained in the witness-box.

Sir Jonathan Wright, the leading counsel for the Crown, to whom fate had assigned Ivy Lexton as his principal witness, was very gentle with her, moved, no doubt, by her evident, shrinking fear. But all those present in Court were struck by the clear way she answered the questions concerning her early married life, the loss of Jervis’s fortune, and his final, successful, effort, to find work.

It was not until she was questioned as to her relations⁠—her “friendship,” as counsel put it⁠—with the prisoner that Ivy’s voice for the first time became inaudible, and that the Judge had to admonish her to speak louder.

But at once she responded with pathetic submission to the flick of the whip.

“I am sorry to have to press the question, Mrs. Lexton”⁠—and the distinguished man on whom had fallen the, to him, painful duty of conducting the prosecution did feel really sorry for this lovely, pathetic-looking, young creature⁠—“but I put to you, and most solemnly, the question: What were your real relations to and with Dr. Gretorex?”

“We were great friends. All three of us were great friends. My husband, too,” she answered, in a tone which, if clear, yet quivered with pain.

“Were your husband and Dr. Gretorex friends before you ever met Dr. Gretorex?”

Then came a whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Eh, what?”

The Judge, Mr. Justice Mayhew, was old, but none the less keen and clear as regarded his mind, though he was slightly deaf.

“She does not know, my lord,” said Sir Jonathan emphatically.

Then he turned back to his witness.

“Do you think they were already acquainted?”

“I really don’t know.” And then, perhaps because she saw she was creating a less good impression than had been the case with regard to her other answers, “I think not,” she said firmly.

As the examination went on, it became clear that Ivy Lexton was painfully anxious to say all that was good of Roger Gretorex. More than once she managed to bring into one of her answers to a short question the fact that he had been kind to her⁠—very, very kind.

And those who listened breathlessly to Ivy’s artless story of how the prisoner in the dock had come to love her, were moved by her apparent surprise and gratitude that he should have been “so kind” to her.

With quivering lips, again and again, in no wise checked by the man who was taking her, step by step, through the story of these last few months, she said a good word for the now tragic lover with whom she had been on those terms⁠—peculiar, and yet how usual nowadays⁠—when a beautiful young married woman, while enchanted to take all she can from a man, will yet give nothing in exchange.

And with every word she uttered, with every apparently spontaneous admission, Ivy threw a secret thought over the sea to Miles Rushworth, and of what he would think tomorrow of what she said, and left unsaid, today.

How strangely drawn out appeared that first portion of her ordeal, to Ivy herself, and to the man now on trial for his life! Not so to those who listened, with ever-increasing curiosity and excitement, to her admissions, omissions, and equivocations.

But it was generally agreed that, as a matter of fact, the murdered man’s wife had very little to reveal, after all. Even the most mindless and stupid of those present knew that the jury only had to look at her, standing there in the witness-box, and then to look at the prisoner in the dock, to know what must have been that young man’s motive for the crime of which he stood accused.

Ivy was so helpless-looking, so fragile, so appealing, as well as so exceedingly lovely. She seemed, indeed, to some of those watching her, like some poor little delicate furry creature caught in a cruel steel trap.

Had she flirted dangerously, heartlessly, with Roger Gretorex? Even that seemed doubtful to some of those listening to her low-toned replies to counsel for the Crown.

There were women now watching her intently who had come into Court that day with the strongest prejudice against Ivy Lexton. Yet they were conquered by what appeared to be her effortless, youthful charm, as also by her evident suffering. And then her many pitiful little efforts to say the best she could say for this man who had loved her moved her own sex, in some cases, to tears.

Many a woman there told herself that the witness now in the box had once loved the prisoner in the dock, even though she had not known it then, and though she would deny it, no doubt, even to herself, now.

At last came the moment which Ivy had visualised hundreds of times in the last few days⁠—the moment, that is, when Sir Joseph Molloy rose to begin his cross-examination of the chief witness for the Crown.

The silence that there had been before was as a loud noise to the silence there was now. But, as always happens, three or four people coughed nervously, and were angrily hushed by those about them.

What was Sir Joseph going to do? One thing certainly. It would be nothing less than his bare duty to try to prove to the jury that, because she had taken everything, and given nothing, the beautiful wife of Jervis Lexton had goaded this young man, Roger Gretorex, to the frenzy which leads to crime.

Not long ago Sir Joseph had caused two juries to disagree over what, to the plain man, had been a clear case of murder. That simply because he had been able to prove that the prisoner in the dock, who was a far from prepossessing type of bucolic lover, had been rendered jealous to madness by the foolish girl whom he had killed, and this though his act had been clearly premeditated. That had been a very different case from the Lexton case, and one not nearly so exciting to those in Court. Still, there were many present today who remembered the terrible cross-examination of the poor dead girl’s mother. It had been the way Sir Joseph had dealt with the trembling woman, the admissions he had forced out of her, which had saved his client’s life.