Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/259

 "Did you tell him that you had just seen his wife and another man?"

"I did not."

"Did anything which he said or did give you any reason to suspect he had any knowledge of the situation you saw?"

"We did not talk about his wife or personal affairs at all. We talked only about music. He was in the midst of composing his new piece and he couldn't think or talk of anything else. I got so interested that I didn't think about anything else, after he played for me."

"You may tell to the jury the nature of your talk with him," bid Max, and Joan Daisy turned earnestly and told the truth:

"After he'd played his piece to me, gentlemen, and his eyes were shining with it, he said to me, 'It's great, isn't it? It's great!'

It's good, Ket,' I said. Gentlemen, I've told you something about the idea I had of what he could do in music. Gentlemen, it was a good jazz tune he'd played; they'd clapped and clapped for it at the Echo that night; but I listened to it with that dream of mine in my head; and I couldn't tell him it was great; and I didn't. He didn't like it, of course; he was disappointed; so I tried to tell him what I thought—how he might be like Mozart. That's what we were talking about, gentlemen, when he—he," she turned to Calvin and gazed at him, "he thinks we were talking about killing Ket's wife."

"You must not accuse the State's attorney," Max Elmen interjected quickly. "It is a privilege of his position to endow himself with any idea, however preposterous or unsupported by evidence. After he had played his piece for you, what did you do?"

"We immediately went upstairs to my home," replied