A pleasant but firm baritone cut in. “If Your Honor pleases.” Jimmy Donovan was on his feet. “I submit that the witness may not testify to what Marie Willis and Mr. Ashe said to each other when he was not present.”

“Certainly not,” Mandelbaum agreed shortly. “He is reporting what Marie Willis told him had been said.”

Judge Corbett nodded. “That should be kept clear. You understand that, Mr. Bagby?”

“Yes, sir.” Bagby bit his lip. “I mean Your Honor.”

“Then go ahead. What Miss Willis said to you and you to her.”

“Well, she said she had agreed to meet Ashe because he was a theatrical producer and she wanted to be an actress. I hadn’t known she was stage-struck but I know it now. So she had gone to his office on Forty-fifth Street as soon as she was off the board, and after he talked some and asked some questions he told her- this is what she told me-he told her he wanted her to listen in on calls to his home number during the daytime. All she would have to do, when his light on her board went on and the buzzes started, if the buzzes stopped and the light went off-that would mean someone had answered the phone at his home-she would plug in and listen to the conversation. Then each evening she would phone him and report. That’s what she said Ashe had asked her to do. She said he counted out five hundred dollars in bills and offered them to her and told her he’d give her another thousand if she went along.”