“But what reason did Harrison give Mrs. Lawrence,” asked the judge, “for these adulterous-looking assignations? It seems to me she’d have suspected a frame-up from Harrison’s conduct.”
“I doubt it. Harrison had the best blind in the world for his behavior. He was known as a great lover. It would not have seemed so strange to Martha that, in addition to making her pay him blackmail, Harrison should also try to make time with her. She was probably too busy fighting him off to probe too deeply into his real motive. It would not surprise me, in fact, if Harrison developed a genuine interest in the chase; the situation would have appealed to his cynical make-up. Or, for that matter, if Dirk Lawrence knew it.”
And Ellery stopped thoughtfully.
And then he said, “And I think, Your Honor, that’s all of it.”
Darrell Irons turned from the window.
“Judge Levy.” he said, “I wish it explicitly understood that I agreed to defend this case in good faith and because I believed in the validity of my client’s injury. I don’t any longer hold to that belief. I withdraw from the defense.”
And at a later time the members of another jury filed back into the courtroom from the jury room, and they took their seats, and a man at a table gripped the arms of his chair and looked from face to face in the jury box as if he were trying to discover a well-kept secret; and another judge nodded to the clerk of the court; and the courtroom was still.
And the clerk of the court turned to face the jury box, and he said in a clear voice: “Will the foreman of the jury please rise?”
And a man in the first seat of the first row of the jury box rose.
And the clerk of the court said: “Has the jury arrived at a verdict?”
And the foreman of the jury replied: “We have.”
And the clerk asked: “How does the jury find?”
And the foreman of the jury turned to look Dirk Lawrence full in the face, and he said with considerable distinctness: “We find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.”
And in a little room adjoining the courtroom a pale woman rose and said with a sigh to the man and the girl beside her, “Please take me home.”