XI

DETAILS

The days of my obscurity were over. Henceforth, I was regarded as a decided factor in this case—a case which from this time on, assumed another aspect both at headquarters and in the minds of people at large. The reporters, whom we had hitherto managed to hold in check, now overflowed both the coroner's office and police headquarters, and articles appeared in all the daily papers with just enough suggestion in them to fire the public mind and make me, for one, anticipate an immediate word from Mr. Jeffrey calculated to establish the alibi he had failed to make out on the day we talked with him. But no such word came. His memory still played him false, and no alternative was left but to pursue the official inquiry in the line suggested by the interview just recounted.

No proceeding in which I had ever been engaged interested me as did this inquest. In the first place, the spectators were of a very different character from the ordinary. As I wormed myself along to the seat accorded to such witnesses as myself, I brushed by men of the very highest station and a few of the lowest; and bent my head more than once in response to the inquiring gaze of some fashionable lady who never before, I warrant, had found herself in such a scene. By the time I reached my place all the others were seated and the coroner rapped for order.

I was first to take the stand. What I said has already been fully amplified in the foregoing pages. Of course, my evidence was confined to facts, but some of these facts were new to most of the persons there. It was evident that a considerable effect was produced by them, not only on the spectators, but upon the witnesses themselves. For instance, it was the first time that the marks on the mantel-shelf had been heard of outside the major's office, or the story so told as to make it evident that Mrs. Jeffrey could not have been alone in the house at the time of her death.

A photograph had been taken of those marks, and my identification of this photograph closed my testimony.

As I returned to my seat I stole a look toward a certain corner where, with face bent down upon his hand, Francis Jeffrey sat between Uncle David and the heavily-veiled figure of Miss Tuttle. Had there dawned upon him as my testimony was given any suspicion of the trick by which he had been proved responsible for those marks? It was impossible to tell. From the way Miss Tuttle's head was turned toward him, one might judge him to be laboring under an emotion of no ordinary character, though he sat like a statue and hardly seemed to realize how many eyes were at that moment riveted upon his face.

I was followed by other detectives who had been present at the time and who corroborated my statement as to the appearance of this unhappy woman and the way the pistol had been tied to her arm. Then the doctor who had acted under the coroner was called. After a long and no doubt learned description of the bullet wound which had ended the life of this unhappy lady,—a wound which he insisted, with a marked display of learning, must have made that end instantaneous or at least too immediate for her to move foot or hand after it,—he was asked if the body showed any other mark of violence.

To this he replied

"There was a minute wound at the base of one of her fingers, the one which is popularly called the wedding finger."

This statement made all the women present start with renewed interest; nor was it altogether without point for the men, especially when the doctor went on to say:

"The hands were entirely without rings. As Mrs. Jeffrey had been married with a ring, I noticed their absence."

"Was this wound which you characterize as minute a recent one?"

"It had bled a little. It was an abrasion such as would be made if the ring she usually wore there had been drawn off with a jerk. That was the impression I received from its appearance. I do not state that it was so made."

A little thrill which went over the audience at the picture this evoked communicated itself to Miss Tuttle, who trembled violently. It even produced a slight display of emotion in Mr. Jeffrey, whose hand shook where he pressed it against his forehead. But neither uttered a sound, nor looked up when the next witness was summoned.

This witness proved to be Loretta, who, on hearing her name called, evinced great reluctance to come forward. But after two or three words uttered in her ear by the friendly Jinny, who had been given a seat next her, she stepped into the place assigned her with a suddenly assumed air of great boldness, which sat upon her with scant grace. She had need of all the boldness at her command, for the eyes of all in the room were fixed on her, with the exception of the two persons most interested in her testimony. Scrutiny of any kind did not appear to be acceptable to her, if one could read the trepidation visible in the short, quick upheavals of the broad collar which covered her uneasy breast. Was this shrinking on her part due to natural timidity, or had she failings to avow which, while not vitiating her testimony, would certainly cause her shame in the presence of so many men and women? I was not able to decide this question immediately; for after the coroner had elicited her name and the position she held in Mr. Jeffrey's household he asked whether her duties took her into Mrs. Jeffrey's room; upon her replying that they did, he further inquired if she knew Mrs. Jeffrey's rings, and could say whether they were all to be found on that lady's toilet-table after the police came in with news of her death. The answer was decisive. They were all there, her rings and all the other ornaments she was in the daily habit of wearing, with the exception of her watch. That was not there.

"Did you take up those rings?"

"No, sir."

"Did you see any one else take them up?"

"No, sir; not till the officer did so."

"Very well, Loretta, sit down again till we hear what Durbin has to say about these rings."

And then the man I hated came forward, and though I shrank from acknowledging it even to myself, I could but observe how strong and quiet and self-possessed he seemed and how decisive was his testimony. But it was equally brief. He had taken up the rings and he had looked at them; and on one, the wedding-ring, he had detected a slight stain of blood. He had called Mr. Jeffrey's attention to it, but that gentleman had made no comment. This remark had the effect of concentrating general attention upon Mr. Jeffrey. But he seemed quite oblivious of it; his attitude remained unchanged, and only from the quick stretching out and withdrawal of Miss Tuttle's hand could it be seen that anything had been said calculated to touch or arouse this man. The coroner cast an uneasy glance in his direction; then he motioned Durbin aside and recalled Loretta.

And now I began to be sorry for the girl. It is hard to have one's weaknesses exposed, especially if one is more foolish than wicked. But there was no way of letting this girl off without sacrificing certain necessary points, and the coroner went relentlessly to work.

"How long have you been in this house?"

"Three weeks. Ever since Mrs. Jeffrey's wedding day, sir."

"Were you there when she first came as a bride from the Moore house?"

"I was, sir."

"And saw her then for the first time?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did she look and act that first day?"

"I thought her the gayest bride I had ever seen, then I thought her the saddest, and then I did not know what to think. She was so merry one minute and so frightened the next, so full of talk when she came running up the steps and so struck with silence the minute she got into the parlor, that I set her down as a queer one till some one whispered in my ear that she was suffering from a dreadful shock; that ill-luck had attended her marriage and much more about what had happened from time to time at the Moore house."

"And you believed what was told you?"

"Believed?"

"Believed it well enough to keep a watch on your young mistress to see if she were happy or not?"

"Oh, sir!"

"It was but natural," the coroner suavely observed. "Every one felt interested in this marriage. You watched her of course. Now what was the result? Did you consider her well and happy?"

The girl's voice sank and she cast a glance at her master which he did not lift his head to meet.

"I did not think her happy. She laughed and sang and was always in and out of the rooms like a butterfly, but she did not wear a happy look, except now and then when she was seated with Mr. Jeffrey alone. Then I have seen her flush in a way to make the heart ache; it was such a contrast, sir, to other times when she was by herself or—"

"Or what?"

"Or just with her sister, sir."

The defiance with which this was said added point to what otherwise might have been an unimportant admission. Those who had already scrutinized Miss Tuttle with the curiosity of an ill-defined suspicion now scrutinized her with a more palpable one, and those who had hitherto seen nothing in this heavily-veiled woman but the bereaved sister of an irresponsible suicide allowed their looks to dwell piercingly on that concealing veil, as if they would be glad to penetrate its folds and read in those beautiful features the meaning of an allusion uttered with such a sting in the tone.

"You refer to Miss Tuttle?" observed the coroner.

"Mrs. Jeffrey's sister? Yes, sir." The menace was gone from the voice now, but no one could forget that it had been there.

"Miss Tuttle lived in the house with her sister, did she not?"

"Yes, sir; till that sister died and was buried; then she went away."

The coroner did not pursue this topic, preferring to return to the former one.

"So you say that Mrs. Jeffrey showed uneasiness ever since her wedding day. Can you give me any instance of this; mention, I mean, any conversations overheard by you which would show us just what you mean?"

"I don't like to repeat things I hear. But if you say that I must, I can remember once passing Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey in the hall, just as he was saying: 'You take it too much to heart! I expected a happy honeymoon. Somehow, we have failed—' That was all I heard, sir. But what made me remember his words was that she was dressed for some afternoon reception and looked so charming and so—and so, as if she ought to be happier."

"Just so. Now, when was this? How long before her death?"

"Oh, a week or so. It was very soon after the wedding day."

"And did matters seem to improve after that? Did she appear any better satisfied or more composed?"

"I think she endeavored to. But there was something on her mind, something which she tried to laugh off; something that annoyed Mr. Jeffrey and worried Miss Tuttle; something which caused a cloud in the house, for all the dances and dinners and goings and comings. I am sorry to speak of it, but it was so."

"Something that showed an unsettled mind?"

"Almost. The glitter in her eye was not natural; neither was the way she looked at her sister and sometimes at her husband."

"Did she talk much about the catastrophe which attended her wedding? Did her mind seem to run on that?"

"Incessantly at first; but afterward not so much. I think Mr. Jeffrey frowned on that subject."

"Did he ever frown on her?"

"No, sir—not—not when they were alone or with no one by but me. He seemed to love her then very much."

"What do you mean by that, Loretta; that he lost patience with her when other people were present—Miss Tuttle, for instance?"

"Yes, sir. He used to change very much when—when—when Miss Tuttle came into the room."

"Change toward his wife?"

"Yes, sir."

"How?"

"He grew more distant, much more distant; got up quite fretfully from his seat, if he were sitting beside her, and took up some book or paper."

"And Miss Tuttle?"

"She never seemed to notice but"

"But—?"

"She did not come in very often after this had happened once or twice; I mean into the room upstairs where they used to sit."

"Loretta, I regret to put this question, but after your replies I owe it to the jury, if not to the parties themselves, to make Miss Tuttle's position in this household thoroughly understood. Do you think she was a welcome visitor in this house?"

The girl pursed up her lips, glanced at the lady and gentleman whose feelings she was supposed to pass comment on, and seemed to lose heart. Then, as they failed to respond to her look of appeal, she strove to get the better of her sense of shame and, with a somewhat injured air, replied:

"I can only repeat what I once heard said about this by Mr. Jeffrey himself. Miss Tuttle had just left the diningroom and Mrs. Jeffrey was standing in one of her black moods, with her hand on the top of her chair, ready to go but forgetting to do so. I was there, but neither of them noticed me; he was staring at her, and she was looking down. Neither seemed at ease. Suddenly he spoke and asked, 'Why must Cora remain with us?' She started and her look grew strange and frightened. 'Because I want her to,' she cried. 'I can not live without Cora."'

These words, so different from what we were expecting, caused a sensation in the room and consequently a stir. As the noise of shifting feet and moving heads began to be heard in all directions, Miss Tuttle's head drooped a little, but Francis Jeffrey did not betray any sign of feeling or even of attention. The coroner, embarrassed, perhaps, by this exhibition of silent misery so near him, hesitated a little before he put his next question. Loretta, on the contrary, had gathered courage with every word she spoke and now looked ready for anything.

"It was Mrs. Jeffrey, then, who clung most determinedly to her sister?" the coroner finally suggested.

"I have told you what she said."

"Yet these sisters spent but little time together?"

"Very little; as little as two persons could who lived together in one house."

This statement, which seemed such a contradiction to her former one, increased the interest; and much disappointment was covertly shown when the coroner veered off from this topic and brusquely inquired "Did you ever know Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey to have any open rupture?"

The answer was a decided one.

"Yes. On Tuesday morning preceding her death they had a long and angry talk in their own room, after which Mrs. Jeffrey made no further effort to conceal her wretchedness. Indeed, one may say she began to die from that hour."

Mrs. Jeffrey's death had occurred on Wednesday evening.

"Let us hear what you have to say about this quarrel and what happened after it."

The girl, with a renewed flush, cast a deprecatory look at the mass of faces before her, and, meeting on all sides but one look of intense and growing interest, drew up her neat figure with a relieved air and began a story which I will proceed to transcribe for you in the fewest possible words.

Tuesday morning's breakfast had been a silent one. There had been a ball the night before at some great place on Massachusetts Avenue; but no one spoke of it. Miss Tuttle made some remark about a friend she had met there, but as no one listened to her, she soon stopped and in a little while left the table. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey sat on, but neither said anything. Finally Mr. Jeffrey rose and, speaking in a voice hardly recognizable, remarked that he had something to say to her, and led the way to their room. Mrs. Jeffrey looked frightened as she followed him; so frightened that it was evident that something very serious had occurred or was about to occur between them. As nothing of this kind had ever happened before, Loretta could not help waiting about till Mr. Jeffrey reappeared; and when he did so and she saw no signs of relief in his face or manner, she watched, with the silly interest of a girl who had nothing else to occupy her mind, to see if he would leave the house in such a mood, and without making peace with his young bride. To her surprise, he did not go out at the usual time, but went to Miss Tuttle's room, where for a full half-hour he remained closeted with his sister-in-law, talking in excited and unnatural tones. Then he went back for a few minutes to where he had left his wife, in her own boudoir. But he could not have had much to say to her this time, for he presently came out again and ran hastily downstairs and out, almost without stopping to catch up his hat.

As it was Mary's business, and not the witness', to make Mrs. Jeffrey's bed in the morning, Loretta could think of no excuse for approaching her mistress' room at this moment; but later, when letters came, followed by various messages and some visitors, she went more than a dozen times to Mrs. Jeffrey's door. She was not admitted, nor were her appeals answered, except by a sharp "Go away!"

Nor was Miss Tuttle received any better, though she tried more than once to see her sister, especially as night came on and the hour approached for Mr. Jeffrey's return. Mrs. Jeffrey was simply determined to remain alone; and when dinner time arrived, and no Mr. Jeffrey, she could be induced to open her door only wide enough to take in the cup of tea which Miss Tuttle insisted upon sending her.

The witness here confessed that she had been very much excited by these unusual proceedings and by the effect which they seemed to have on the lady just mentioned; so she was ready to notice that Mrs. Jeffrey's hand shook like that of an old and palsied woman when she reached out for the tray.

Gladly would Loretta have caught one glimpse of her face, but it was hidden by the door; nor did Mrs. Jeffrey answer a single one of her questions. She simply closed her door and kept it so till toward midnight, when Miss Tuttle, coming into the hall, ordered the house to be closed for the night. Then the long-shut door softly swung open, but before any one could reach it, it was again pulled to and locked.

The next day brought no relief. Miss Tuttle, who had changed greatly during this unhappy day and night, succeeded no better than before in getting access to her sister, nor could Loretta gain the least word from her mistress till toward the latter part of the afternoon, when that lady, ringing her bell, gave her first order.

"A substantial dinner," she cried; and when Loretta, greatly relieved, brought up the required meal she was astonished to find the door open and herself bidden to enter. The sight which met her eyes staggered her. From one end of the room to the other were signs of great nervous unrest and of terrible suffering. The chairs were pushed into corners as if the wretched bride had tramped the floor in an agony of excitement. Curtains were torn and the piano-cover was hanging half on and half off the open upright, as if she had clutched at it to keep herself from falling. On the floor beneath lay several pieces of broken china,—vases of whose value Mrs. Jeffrey had often spoken, but which, jerked off with the cover, had been left where they fell; while immediately in front of the fireplace lay one of the rugs tossed into a heap, as if she had rolled in it on the floor or used it to smother her cries of pain or anger.

So much for the state in which the witness found the boudoir. The adjoining bed-room was not in much better case, though it was evident that the bed itself had not been lain in since it was made up the day before at breakfast time. By this token Mrs. Jeffrey had not slept the night before, or if she had laid her head anywhere it had been on the rug already spoken of.

These signs of extreme mental suffering, so much more extreme than any Loretta had ever before witnessed, frightened her so that the tray shook in her hand as she set it down on the table among the countless objects Mrs. Jeffrey always had about her. The noise seemed to startle her mistress, who had walked to the window after opening the door, for she wheeled impetuously about and Loretta saw her face. It was as if a blight had passed over it. Once gay and animated beyond the power of any one to describe, it had become in twenty-four hours a ghost's face, with the glare of some awful resolve on it. Or so it would appear from the way Loretta described it. But such girls do not always see correctly, and perhaps all that can be safely stated is that Mrs. Jeffrey was unnaturally pale and had lost her butterfly-like way of incessant movement.

Loretta, who was evidently accustomed to seeing her mistress arrayed in brilliant colors and much begemmed, laid great stress on the fact that, though it was on the verge of evening and she was evidently going out, she was dressed in black cloth and without even a diamond or a flower to relieve its severe simplicity. Her hair, too, which was always her pride, was piled in a careless mass upon her head as if she had tried to arrange it herself and had forgotten what she was doing while her fingers were but half through their work. There was a cloak lying on a chair near which she was standing, and she held a hat in her band; but Loretta saw no gloves. As the maid's glance and that of her mistress crossed, Mrs. Jeffrey spoke, and the effort she made in doing so naturally frightened the girl still more. "I am going out," were her words. "I may not be home till late—What are you looking at?"

Loretta declared that the words took her by surprise and that she did not know what to say, but managed to cover up her embarrassment by intimating that if her mistress would let her touch up her hair a bit she would make her look more natural.

At this suggestion, Mrs. Jeffrey cast a glance in the glass and impetuously declared, "It doesn't matter." But she seemed to think better of it the next minute; for, throwing herself in a chair, she bade the girl to bring a comb, and sat quiet enough, though evidently in a great tremor of haste and impatience, while Loretta combed her hair and put it up in the old way.

But the old way was not as becoming as usual, and Loretta was wondering if she ought to call in Miss Tuttle, when Mrs. Jeffrey jumped to her feet and went over to the table and began to eat with the feverish haste of one who forces himself to take food in spite of hurry and distaste.

This was the moment for Loretta to leave the room; but she did not know how to do so. She felt herself fixed to the spot and stood watching Mrs. Jeffrey till that lady, suddenly becoming conscious of the girl's presence, turned, and in the midst of the moans which broke unconsciously from her lips, said with a pitiable effort at her old manner:

"Go away, Loretta; I am ill; have been ill for two days. I don't like people to look at me like that!" Then, as the girl shrank back, added in a breaking voice: "When Mr. Jeffrey comes home—" and said no more for several minutes, during which she clutched her throat with both hands and struggled with herself till she got her voice back and found herself able to repeat: "When Mr. Jeffrey comes,—if he does come,—tell him that I was right about the way that novel ended. Remember that you are to say to him the moment you see him that I was right about the novel, and that he is to look and see if it did not end as I said it would. And Loretta—" here she rose and approached the speaker with a sweet, appealing look which brought tears to the impressionable girl's eyes, "don't go gossiping about me downstairs. I sha'n't be sick long. I am going to be better soon, very soon. By the time you see me here again I shall be quite like my old self. Forget how—how"—and Loretta said she seemed to have difficulty in finding the right word here—"how childish I have been."

Of course Loretta promised, but she is not sure that she would have had the courage to keep all this to herself if she had not heard Mrs. Jeffrey stop in Miss Tuttle's room on her way out. That relieved her, and enabled her to go downstairs to her own supper with more appetite than she had thought ever to have again. Alas! it was the last good meal she was able to eat for days. In three hours afterward a man came from the station house with the news of Mrs. Jeffrey's suicide in the horrible old house in which she had been married only two weeks before.

As this had been a continuous narrative and concisely told, the coroner had not interrupted her. When at this point a little gasp escaped Miss Tuttle and a groan broke from Francis Jeffrey's hitherto sealed lips, the feelings of the whole assemblage seemed to find utterance. A young wife's misery culminating in death on the very spot where she had been so lately married! What could be more thrilling, or appeal more closely to the general heart of humanity? But the cause of that misery! This was what every one present was eager to have explained. This is what we now expected the coroner to bring out. But instead of continuing on the line he had opened up, he proceeded to ask:

"Where were you when this officer brought the news you mention?"

"In the hall, sir. I opened the door for him."

"And to whom did he first mention his errand?"

"To Miss Tuttle. She had come in just before him and was standing at the foot of the stairs."

"What! Was Miss Tuttle out that evening?"

"Yes; she went out very soon after Mrs. Jeffrey left. When she came in she said that she had been around the block, but she must have gone around it more than once, for she was absent two hours."

"Did you let her in?"

"Yes, sir."

"And she said she had been around the block?"

"Yes, sir"

"Did she say anything else?"

"She asked if Mr. Jeffrey had come in"

"Anything else?"

"Then if Mrs. Jeffrey had returned."

"To both of which questions you answered—"

"A plain 'No.'"

"Now tell us about the officer."

"He rang the bell almost immediately after she did. Thinking she would want to slip upstairs before I admitted any one, I waited a minute for her to go, but she did not do so, and when the officer stepped in she—"

"Well!"

"She shrieked."

"What! before he spoke?"

"Yes, sir."

"Just at sight of him?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he wear his badge in plain view?"

"Yes, on his breast."

"So that you knew him to be a police officer?"

"Yes."

"And Miss Tuttle shrieked at seeing a police officer?"

"Yes, and sprang forward."

"Did she say anything?"

"Not then."

"What did she do?"

"Waited for him to speak."

"Which he did?"

"At once, and very brutally. He asked if she was Mrs. Jeffrey's sister, and when she nodded and gasped 'Yes,' he blurted out that Mrs. Jeffrey was dead; that he had just come from the old house in Waverley Avenue, where she had just been found."

"And Miss Tuttle?"

"Didn't know what to say; just hid her face. She was leaning against the newel-post, so it was easy for her to do so. I remember that the man stared at her for taking it so quietly and asking no questions."

"And did she speak at all?"

"Oh, yes, afterwards. Her face was wrapped in the folds of her cloak, but I heard her whisper, as if to herself: 'No! no! That old hearth is not a lodestone. She can not have fallen there.' And then she looked up quite wildly and cried: 'There is something more! Something which you have not told me.' 'She shot herself, if that's what you mean.' Miss Tuttle's arms went straight up over her head. It was awful to see her. 'Shot herself?' she gasped. 'Oh, Veronica, Veronica!' 'With a pistol,' he went on—I suppose he was going to say, 'tied to her wrist,' but he never got it out, for Miss Tuttle, at the word 'pistol' clapped her hands to her ears and for a moment looked quite distracted, so that he thought better of worrying her any more and only demanded to know if Mr. Jeffrey kept any such weapon. Miss Tuttle's face grew very strange at this. 'Mr. Jeffrey! was he there?' she asked. The man looked surprised. 'They are searching for Mr. Jeffrey,' he replied. 'Isn't he here? 'No,' came both from her lips and mine. The man acted very impertinently. 'You haven't told me whether a pistol was kept here or not,' said he. Miss Tuttle tried to compose herself, but I saw that I should have to speak if any one did, so I told him that Mr. Jeffrey did have a pistol, which he kept in one of his bureau drawers. But when the officer wanted Miss Tuttle to go up and see if it was there, she shook her head and made for the front door, saying that she must be taken directly to her sister."

"And did no one go up? Was no attempt made to see if the pistol was or was not in the drawer?"

"Yes; the officer went up with me. I pointed out the place where it was kept, and he rummaged all through it, but found no pistol. I didn't expect him to—" Here the witness paused and bit her lip, adding confusedly: "Mrs. Jeffrey had taken it, you see."

The jurors, who sat very much in the shadow, had up to this point attracted but little attention. But now they began to make their presence felt, perhaps because the break in the witness' words had been accompanied by a sly look at Jinny. Possibly warned by this that something lay back of this hitherto timid witness' sudden volubility, one of them now spoke up.

"In what room did you say this pistol was kept?"

"In Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey's bed-room, sir; the room opening out of the sitting-room where Mrs. Jeffrey had kept herself shut up all day."

"Does this bed-room of which you speak communicate with the hall as well as with the sitting room?"

"No, sir; it is the defect of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey often spoke of it as a great annoyance. You had to pass through the little boudoir in order to reach it."

The juryman sank back, evidently satisfied with her replies, but we who marked the visible excitement with which the witness had answered this seemingly unimportant question, wondered what special interest surrounded that room and the pistol to warrant the heightened color with which the girl answered this new interlocutor. We were not destined to know at this time, for the coroner, when he spoke again, pursued a different subject.

"How long was this before Mr. Jeffrey came in."

"Only a few minutes. I was terribly frightened at being left there alone and was on my way to ask one of the other girls to come up and stay with me, when I heard his key in the lock and came back. He had entered the house and was standing near the door talking to an officer, who had evidently come in with him. It was a different officer from the one who had gone away with Miss Tuttle. Mr. Jeffrey was saying, 'What's that? My wife hurt!' 'Dead, sir!' blurted out the man. I had expected to see Mr. Jeffrey terribly shocked, but not in so awful a way. It really frightened me to see him and I turned to run, but found that I couldn't and that I had to stand still and look whether I wanted to or not. Yet he didn't say a word or ask a question."

"What did he do, Loretta?"

"I can not say; he was on his knees and was white—Oh, how white! Yet he looked up when the man described how and where Mrs. Jeffrey, had been found and even turned toward me when I said something about his wife having left a message for him when she went out. This message, which I almost hesitated to give after the awful news of her death, was about the ending of some story, as you remember, and it seemed heartless to speak of it at a moment like this, but as she had told me to, I didn't dare to disobey her. So, with the man listening to my every word, and Mr. Jeffrey looking as if he would fall to the ground before I could finish, I repeated her words to him and was surprised enough when he suddenly started upright and went flying upstairs. But I was more surprised yet when, at the top of the first flight, he stopped and, looking over the balustrade, asked in a very strange voice where Miss Tuttle was. For he seemed just then to want her more than anything else in the world and looked beaten and wild when I told him that she was already gone to Waverley Avenue. But he recovered himself before the man could draw near enough to see his face, and rushed into the sitting-room above and shut the door behind him, leaving the officer and me standing down by the front door. As I didn't know what to say to a man like him, and he didn't know what to say to me, the time seemed long, but it couldn't have been very many minutes before Mr. Jeffrey came back with a slip of paper in his hand and a very much relieved look on his face. 'The deed was premeditated,' he cried. 'My unfortunate wife has misunderstood my affection for her.' And from being a very much broken-down man, he stood up straight and tall and prepared himself very quietly to go to the Moore house. That is all I can tell about the way the news was received by him."

Were these details necessary? Many appeared to regard them as futile and uncalled for. But Coroner Z. was never known to waste time on trivialities, and if he called for these facts, those who knew him best felt certain that they were meant as a preparation for Mr. Jeffrey's testimony, which was now called for.

When Francis Jeffrey's hand fell from his forehead and he turned to face the assembled people, an instinctive compassion arose in every breast at sight of his face, which, if not open in its expression, was at least surcharged with the deepest misery. In a flash the scene took on new meaning. Many remembered that less than a month before his eye had been joyous and his figure a conspicuous one among the favored sons of fortune. And now he stood in sight of a crowd, drawn together mainly by curiosity, to explain as best he might why this great happiness and hope had come to a sudden termination, and his bride of a fortnight had sought death rather than continue to live under the same roof with him.

So much for what I saw on the faces about me. What my own face revealed I can not say. I only know that I strove to preserve an impassive exterior. If I secretly held this man's misery to be a mask hiding untold passions and the darkness of an unimaginable deed, it was not for me to disclose in this presence either my suspicions or my fears. To me, as to those about me, he apparently was a man who at some sacrifice to his pride, would, yet be able to explain whatever seemed dubious in the mysterious case in which he had become involved.

His wife's uncle, who to all appearance shared the general curiosity as to the effect which this woeful tragedy had had upon his niece's most interested survivor, eyed with a certain cold interest, eminently in keeping with his general character, the pallid forehead, sunken eyes and nervously trembling lip of the once "handsome Jeffrey" till that gentleman, rousing from his depression, manifested a realization of what was required of hire and turned with a bow toward the coroner.

Miss Tuttle settled into a greater rigidity. I pass over the preliminary examination of this important witness and proceed at once to the point when the coroner, holding out the two or three lines of writing which Mr. Jeffrey had declared to have been left him by his wife, asked:

"Are these words in your wife's handwriting?"

Mr. Jeffrey replied hastily, and, with just a glance at the paper offered him:

"They are."

The coroner pressed the slip upon him.

"Look at them carefully," he urged. "The handwriting shows hurry and in places is scarcely legible. Are you ready to swear that these words were written by your wife and by no other?"

Mr. Jeffrey, with just a slight contraction of his brow expressive of annoyance, did as he was bid. He scanned, or appeared to scan, the small scrap of paper which he now took into his own hand.

"It is my wife's writing," he impatiently declared. "Written, as all can see, under great agitation of mind, but hers without any doubt."

"Will you read aloud these words for our benefit?" asked the coroner:

It was a cruel request, causing an instinctive protest from the spectators. But no protest disturbed Coroner Z. He had his reasons, no doubt, for thus trying this witness, and when Coroner Z. had reason for anything it took more than the displeasure of the crowd to deter him.

Mr. Jeffrey, who had subdued whatever indignation he may have felt at this unmistakable proof of the coroner's intention to have his own way with him whatever the cost to his sensitiveness or pride, obeyed the latter's command in firmer tones than I expected.

The lines he was thus called upon to read may bear repetition:

"I find that I do not love you as I thought. I can not live knowing this to be so. Pray God you may forgive me!
VERONICA."

As the last word fell with a little tremble from Mr. Jeffrey's lips, the coroner repeated:

"You still think these words were addressed to you by your wife; that in short they contain an explanation of her death?"

"I do."

There was sharpness in the tone. Mr. Jeffrey was feeling the prick. There was agitation in it, too; an agitation he was trying hard to keep down.

"You have reason, then," persisted the coroner, "for accepting this peculiar explanation of your wife's death; a death which, in the judgment of most people, was of a nature to call for the strongest provocation possible."

"My wife was not herself. My wife was in an over strained and suffering condition. For one so nervously overwrought many allowances must be made. She may have been conscious of not responding fully to my affection. That this feeling was strong enough to induce her to take her life is a source of unspeakable grief to me, but one for which you must find explanation, as I have so often said, in the terrors caused by the dread event at the Moore house, which recalled old tragedies and emphasized a most unhappy family tradition."

The coroner paused a moment to let these words sink into the ears of the jury, then plunged immediately into what might be called the offensive part of his examination.

"Why, if your wife's death caused you such intense grief, did you appear so relieved at receiving this by no means consoling explanation?"

At an implication so unmistakably suggestive of suspicion Mr. Jeffrey showed fire for the first time.

"Whose word have you for that? A servant's, so newly come into my house that her very features are still strange to me. You must acknowledge that a person of such marked inexperience can hardly be thought to know me or to interpret rightly the feelings of my heart by any passing look she may have surprised upon my face."

This attitude of defiance so suddenly assumed had an effect he little realized. Miss Tuttle stirred for the first time behind her veil, and Uncle David, from looking bored, became suddenly quite attentive. These two but mirrored the feelings of the general crowd, and mine especially.

"We do not depend on her judgment alone," the coroner now remarked. "The change in you was apparent to many others. This we can prove to the jury if they require it."

But no man lifting a voice from that gravely attentive body, the coroner proceeded to inquire if Mr. Jeffrey felt like volunteering any explanations on this head. Receiving no answer from him either, he dropped the suggestive line of inquiry and took up the consideration of facts. The first question he now put was:

"Where did you find the slip of paper containing these last words from your wife?"

"In a book I picked out of the book-shelf in our room upstairs. When Loretta gave me my wife's message I knew that I should find some word from her in the novel we had just been reading. As we had been interested in but one book since our marriage, there was no possibility of my making an' mistake as to which one she referred."

"Will you give us the name of this novel?"

"COMPENSATION."

"And you found this book called COMPENSATION in your room upstairs?"

"Yes."

"On the book-shelf?"

"Yes."

"Where does this book-shelf stand?"

Mr. Jeffrey looked up as much as to say, "Why so many small questions about so simple a matter?" but answered frankly enough:

"At the right of the door leading into the bedroom."

"And at right angles to the door leading into the hall?"

"Yes."

"Very good. Now may I ask you to describe the cover of this book?"

"The cover? I never noticed the cover. Why do you—. Excuse me, I suppose you have your reasons for asking even these puerile and seemingly unnecessary questions. The cover is a queer one I believe; partly red and partly green; and that is all I know about it."

"Is this the book?"

Mr. Jeffrey glanced at the volume the coroner held up before him.

"I believe so; it looks like it."

The book had a flaming cover, quite unmistakable in its character.

"The title shows it to be the same," remarked the coroner. "Is this the only book with a cover of this kind in the house?"

"The only one, I should say."

The coroner laid down the book.

"Enough of this, then, for the present; only let the jury remember that the cover of this book is peculiar and that it was kept on a shelf at the right of the opening leading into the adjoining bed-room. And now, Mr. Jeffrey, we must ask you to look at these rings; or, rather, at this one. You have seen it before; it is the one you placed on Mrs. Jeffrey's hand when you were married to her a little over a fortnight ago. You recognize it?"

"I do."

"Do you also recognize this small mark of blood on it as having been here when it was shown to you by the detective on your return from seeing her dead body at the Moore house?"

"I do; yes."

"How do you account for that spot and the slight injury made to her finger? Should you not say that the ring had been dragged from her hand?"

"I should."

"By whom was it dragged? By you?"

"No, sir."

"By herself, then?"

"It would seem so."

"Much passion must have been in that act. Do you think that any ordinary quarrel between husband and wife would account for the display of such fury? Are we not right in supposing a deeper cause for the disturbance between you than the slight one you offer in way of explanation?"

An inaudible answer; then a sudden straightening of Francis Jeffrey's fine figure. And that was all.

"Mr. Jeffrey, in the talk you had with your wife on Tuesday morning was Miss Tuttle's name introduced?"

"It was mentioned; yes, sir."

"With recrimination or any display of passion on the part of your wife?"

"You would not believe me if I said no," was the unexpected rejoinder.

The coroner, taken aback by this direct attack from one who had hitherto borne all his innuendoes with apparent patience, lost countenance for a moment, but, remembering that in his official capacity he was more than a match for the elegant gentleman, who under other circumstances would have found it only too easy to put him to the blush, he observed with dignity:

"Mr. Jeffrey, you are on oath. We certainly have no reason for not believing you."

Mr. Jeffrey bowed. He was probably sorry for his momentary loss of self-control, and gravely, but with eyes bent downward, answered with the abrupt phrase:

"Well, then, I will say no."

The coroner shifted his ground.

"Will you make the same reply when I ask if the like forbearance was shown toward your wife's name in the conversation you had with Miss Tuttle immediately afterward?"

A halt in the eagerly looked-for reply; a hesitation, momentary indeed, but pregnant with nameless suggestions, caused his answer, when it did come, to lose some of the emphasis he manifestly wished to put into it.

"Miss Tuttle was Mrs. Jeffrey's half-sister. The bond between them was strong. Would she would I—be apt to speak of my young wife with bitterness?"

"That is not an answer to my question, Mr. Jeffrey. I must request a more positive reply."

Miss Tuttle made a move. The strain on all present was so great we could but notice it. He noticed it too, for his brows came together with a quick frown, as he emphatically replied:

"There were no recriminations uttered. Mrs. Jeffrey had displeased me and I said so, but I did not forget that I was speaking of my wife and to her sister."

As this was in the highest degree non-committal, the coroner could be excused for persisting.

"The conversation, then, was about your wife?"

"It was."

"In criticism of her conduct?"

"Yes."

"At the ambassador's ball?"

"Yes."

Mr. Jeffrey was a poor hand at lying. That last "yes" came with great effort.

The coroner waited, possibly for the echo of this last "yes" to cease; then he remarked with a coldness which lifted at once the veil from his hitherto well disguised antagonism to this witness.

"If you will recount to us anything which your wife said or did on that evening which, in your mind, was worthy of all this coil, it might help us to understand the situation."

But the witness made no attempt to do so, and while many of us were ready to pardon him this show of delicacy, others felt that under the circumstances it would have been better had he been more open.

Among the latter was the coroner himself, who, from this moment, threw aside all hesitation and urged forward his inquiries in a way to press the witness closer and closer toward the net he was secretly holding out for him. First, he obliged him to say that his conversation with Miss Tuttle had not tended to smooth matters; that no reconciliation with his wife had followed it, and that in the thirty-six hours which elapsed before he returned home again he had made no attempt to soothe the feelings of one, who, according to his own story, he considered hardly responsible for any extravagances in which she might have indulged. Then when this inconsistency had been given time to sink into the minds of the jury, Coroner Z. increased the effect produced by confronting Jeffrey with witnesses who testified to the friendly, if not lover-like relations which had existed between himself and Miss Tuttle prior to the appearance of his wife upon the scene; closing with a question which brought out the denial, by no means new, that an engagement had ever taken place between him and Miss Tuttle and hence that a bond had been canceled by his marriage with Miss Moore.

But his manner and careful choice of words in making this denial did not satisfy those present of his entire candor; especially as Miss Tuttle, for all her apparent immobility, showed, by the violent locking of her hands, both her anxiety and the suffering she was undergoing during this painful examination. Was the suffering merely one of outraged delicacy? We felt justified in doubting it, and looked forward, with cruel curiosity I admit, to the moment when this renowned and universally admired beauty would be called on to throw aside her veil axed reveal the highly praised features which had been so openly scorned for the sake of one whose chief claims to regard lay in her great wealth.

But this moment was as yet far distant. The coroner was a man of method, and his plan was now to prove, as had been apparent to most of us from the first, that the assumption of suicide on the part of Mrs. Jeffrey was open to doubt. The communication suggesting such an end to her troubles was the strongest proof Mr. Jeffrey could bring forward that her death had been the result of her own act. Consequently it was now the coroner's business to show that this communication was either a forgery, or a substitution, and that if she left some word in the book to which she had in so peculiar a manner directed his attention, it was not necessarily the one bewailing her absence of love for him and her consequent intention of seeking relief from her disappointment in death.

Some hint of what the coroner contemplated had already escaped him in the persistent and seemingly inconsequent questions to which he had subjected this witness in reference to these very matters. But the time had now come for a more direct attack, and the interest rose correspondingly high, when the coroner, lifting again to sight the scrap of paper containing the few piteous lines so often quoted, asked of the now anxious and agitated witness, if he had ever noticed any similarity between the handwriting of his wife and that of Miss Tuttle.

An indignant "No!" was about to pass his lips, when he suddenly checked himself and said more mildly: "There may have been a similarity; I hardly know, I have seen too little of Miss Tuttle's hand to judge."

This occasioned a diversion. Specimens of Miss Tuttle's handwriting were produced, which, after having been duly proved, were passed down to the jury along with the communication professedly signed by Mrs. Jeffrey. The grunts of astonishment which ensued as the knowing heads drew near over these several papers caused Mr. Jeffrey to flush and finally to cry out with startling emphasis:

"I know that those words were written by my wife."

But when the coroner asked him his reasons for this conviction, he could, or would not state them.

"I have said," he stolidly repeated; and that was all.

The coroner made no comment, but when, after some further inquiry, which added little to the general knowledge, he dismissed Mr. Jeffrey and recalled Loretta, there was that in his tone which warned us that the really serious portion of the day's examination was about to begin.

XIII

CHIEFLY THRUST

The appearance of this witness had undergone a change since she last stood before us. She was shame-faced still, but her manner showed resolve and a feverish determination to face the situation which could but awaken in the breasts of those who had Mr. Jeffrey's honor and personal welfare at heart a nameless dread; as if they already foresaw the dark shadow which minute by minute was slowly sinking over a household which, up to a week ago, had been the envy and admiration of all Washington society.

The first answer she made revealed both the cause of her shame and the reason of her firmness. It was in response to the question whether she, Loretta, had seen Miss Tuttle before she went out on the walk she was said to have taken immediately after Mrs. Jeffrey's final departure from the house.

Her words were these

"I did sir. I do not think Miss Tuttle knows it, but I saw her in Mrs. Jeffrey's room."

The emphatic tone, offering such a contrast to her former manner of speech, might have drawn all eyes to the speaker had not the person she mentioned offered a still more interesting subject to the general curiosity. As it was, all glances flew to that silent and seemingly impassive figure upon which all open suggestions and covert innuendo had hitherto fallen without creating more than a pressure of her interlaced fingers. This direct attack, possibly the most threatening she had received, appeared to produce no more effect upon her than the others; less, perhaps, for no stir was visible in her now, and to some eyes she hardly seemed to breathe.

Curiosity, thus baffled, led the gaze on to Mr. Jeffrey, and even to Uncle David; but the former had dropped his head again upon his hand, and the other—well, there was little to observe in Mr. Moore at any time, save the immense satisfaction he seemed to take in himself; so attention returned to the witness, who, by this time, had entered upon a consecutive tale.

As near as I can remember, these are the words with which she prefaced it:

"I am not especially proud of what I did that night, but I was led into it by degrees, and I am sure I beg the lady's pardon." And then she went on to relate how, after she had seen Mrs. Jeffrey leave the house, she went into her room with the intention of putting it to rights. As this was no more than her duty, no fault could be found with her; but she owned that when she had finished this task and removed all evidence of Mrs. Jeffrey's frenzied condition, she had no business to linger at the table turning over the letters she found lying there.

Here the coroner stopped her and made some inquiries in regard to these letters, but as they seemed to be ordinary epistles from friends and quite foreign to the investigation, he allowed her to proceed.

Her cheeks were burning now, for she had found herself obliged to admit that she had read enough of these letters to be sure that they had no reference to the quarrel then pending between her mistress and Mr. Jeffrey. Her eyes fell and she looked seriously distressed as she went on to say that she was as conscious then as now of having no business with these papers; so conscious, indeed, that when she heard Miss Tuttle's step at the door, her one idea was to hide herself.

That she could stand and face that lady never so much as occurred to her. Her own guilty consciousness made her cheeks too hot for her to wish to meet an eye which had never rested on her any too kindly; so noticing how straight the curtains fell over one of the windows on the opposite side of the room, she dashed toward it and slipped in out of sight just as Miss Tuttle came in. This window was one seldom used, owing to the fact that it overlooked an adjoining wall, so she had no fear of Miss Tuttle's approaching it. Consequently, she could stand there quite at her ease, and, as the curtains in falling behind her had not come quite together, she really could not help seeing just what that lady did.

Here the witness paused with every appearance of looking for some token of disapprobation from the crowd.

But she encountered nothing there but eager anxiety for her to proceed, so without waiting for the coroner's question, she added in so many words:

"She went first to the book-shelves"

We had expected it; but yet a general movement took place, and a few suppressed exclamations could be heard.

"And what did she do there?"

"Took down a book, after looking carefully up and down the shelves."

"What color of book?"

"A green one with red figures on it. I could see the cover plainly as she took it down."

"Like this one?"

"Exactly like that one."

"And what did she do with this book?"

"Opened it, but not to read it. She was too quick in closing it for that."

"Did she take the book away?"

"No; she put it back on the shelf."

"After opening and closing it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you see whether she put anything into the book?"

"I can not swear that she did; but then her back was to me, and I could not have seen it if she had."

The implied suggestion caused some excitement, but the coroner, frowning on this, pressed the girl to continue, asking if Miss Tuttle left the room immediately after turning from the book-shelves. Loretta replied no; that, on the contrary, she stood for some minutes near them, gazing, in what seemed like a great distress of mind, straight upon the floor; after which she moved in an agitated way and with more than one anxious look behind her into the adjoining room where she paused before a large bureau. As this bureau was devoted entirely to Mr. Jeffrey's use, Loretta experienced some surprise at seeing his wife's sister approach it in so stealthy a manner. Consequently she was watching with all her might, when this young lady opened the upper drawer and, with very evident emotion, thrust her hand into it.

What she took out, or whether she took out anything, this spy upon her movements could not say, for when Loretta heard the drawer being pushed back into place she drew the curtains close, perceiving that Miss Tuttle would have to face this window in coming back. However, she ventured upon one other peep through them just as that lady was leaving the room, and remembered as if it were yesterday how clay-white her face looked, and how she held her left hand pressed close against the folds of her dress. It was but a few minutes after this that Miss Tuttle left the house.

As we all knew what was kept in that drawer, the conclusion was obvious. Whatever excuse Miss Tuttle might give for going into her sister's room at this time, but one thought, one fear, or possibly one hope, could have taken her to Mr. Jeffrey's private drawer. She wished to see if his pistol was still there, or if it had been taken away by her sister,—a revelation of the extreme point to which her thoughts had flown at this crisis, and one which effectually contradicted her former statement that she had been conscious of no alarm in behalf of her sister and had seen her leave the house without dread or suspicion of evil.

The temerity which had made it possible to associate the name of such a man as Francis Jeffrey with an outrageous crime having been thus in a measure explained, the coroner recalled that gentleman and again thoroughly surprised the gaping public.

Had the witness accompanied his wife to the Moore house?

"No"

Had he met her there by any appointment he had made with her or which had been made for them both by some third person?

"No"

Had he been at the Moore house on the night of the eleventh at any time previous to the hour when he was brought there by the officials?

"No."

Would he glance at this impression of certain finger-tips which had been left in the dust of the southwest chamber mantel?

He had already noted them.

Now would he place his left hand on the paper and see—

"It is not necessary," he burst forth, in great heat. "I own to those marks. That is, I have no doubt they were made by my hand" Here, unconsciously, his eyes flew to the member thus referred to, as if conscious that in some way it had proved a traitor to him; after which his gaze traveled slowly my way, with an indescribable question in it which roused my conscience and made the trick by which I had got the impression of his hand seem less of a triumph than I had heretofore considered it. The next minute he was answering the coroner under oath, very much as he had answered him in the unofficial interview at which I had been present.

"I acknowledge having been in the Moore house and even having been in its southwest chamber, but not at the time supposed. It was on the previous night." He went on to relate how, being in a nervous condition and having the key to this old dwelling in his pocket, he had amused himself by going through its dilapidated interior. All of this made a doubtful impression which was greatly emphasized when, in reply to the inquiry as to where he got the light to see by, he admitted that he had come upon a candle in an upstairs room and made use of that; though he could not remember what he had done with this candle afterward, and looked dazed and quite at sea, till the coroner suggested that he might have carried it into the closet of the room where his fingers had left their impression in the dust of the mantel-shelf. Then he broke down like a man from whom some prop is suddenly snatched and looked around for a seat. This was given him, while a silence, the most dreadful I ever experienced, held every one there in check. But he speedily rallied and, with the remark that he was a little confused in regard to the incidents of that night, waited with a wild look in his averted eye for the coroner's next question.

Unhappily for him it was in continuation of the same subject. Had he bought candles or not at the grocer's around the corner? Yes, he had. Before visiting the house? Yes. Had he also bought matches? Yes. What kind? Common safety matches. Had he noticed when he got home that the box he had just bought was half empty? No. Nevertheless he had used many matches in going through this old house, had he not? Possibly. To light his way upstairs, perhaps? It might be. Had he not so used them? Yes. Why had he done so, if he had candles in his pocket, which were so much easier to hold and so much more lasting than a lighted match? Ah, he could not say; he did not know; his mind was confused. He was awake when he should have been asleep. It was all a dream to him.

The coroner became still more persistent.

"Did you enter the library on your solitary visit to this old house?"

"I believe so."

"What did you do there?"

"Pottered around. I don't remember."

"What light did you use?"

"A candle, I think."

"You must know."

"Well, I had a candle; it was in a candelabrum."

"What candle and what candelabrum?"

"The same I used upstairs, of course"

"And you can not remember where you left this candle and candelabrum when you finally quitted the house?"

"No. I wasn't thinking about candles."

"What were you thinking about?"

"The rupture with my wife and the bad name of the house I was in."

"Oh! and this was on Tuesday night?"

"Yes, sir."

"How can you prove this to us?"

"I can not."

"But you swear—"

"I swear that it was Tuesday night, the night immediately preceding the one when—when my wife's death robbed me of all earthly happiness."

It was feelingly uttered, and several faces lightened; but the coroner repeating: "Is there no way you can prove this to our satisfaction?" the shadow settled again, and on no head more perceptibly than on that of the unfortunate witness.

It was now late in the day and the atmosphere of the room had become stifling; but no one seemed to be conscious of any discomfort, and a general gasp of excitement passed through the room when the coroner, taking out a box from under a pile of papers, disclosed to the general gaze the famous white ribbon with its dainty bow, lying on top of the fatal pistol.

That this special feature, the most interesting one of all connected with this tragedy, should have been kept so long in reserve and brought out just at this time, struck many of Mr. Jeffrey's closest friends as unnecessarily dramatic; but when the coroner, lifting out the ribbon, remarked tentatively, "You know this ribbon?" we were more struck by the involuntary cry of surprise which rose from some one in the crowd about the door, than by the look with which Mr. Jeffrey eyed it and made the necessary reply. That cry had something more than nervous excitement in it. Identifying the person who had uttered it as a certain busy little woman well known in town, I sent an officer to watch her; then recalled my attention to the point the coroner was attempting to make. He had forced Mr. Jeffrey to recognize the ribbon as the one which had fastened the pistol to his wife's arm; now he asked whether, in his opinion, a woman could tie such a bow to her own wrist, and when in common justice Mr. Jeffrey was obliged to say no, waited a third time before he put the general suspicion again into words:

"Can not you, by some means or some witness, prove to us that it was on Tuesday night and not on Wednesday you spent the hours you speak of on this scene of your marriage and your wife's death?"

The hopelessness which more than once had marked Mr. Jeffrey's features since the beginning of this inquiry, reappeared with renewed force as this suggestive question fell again upon his ears; and he was about to repeat his plea of forgetfulness when the coroner's attention was diverted by a request made in his ear by one of the detectives. In another moment Mr. Jeffrey had been waved aside and a new witness sworn in.

You can imagine every one's surprise, mine most of all, when this witness proved to be Uncle David.

XIV.

"TALLMAN! LET US HAVE TALLMAN!"

I do not know why the coroner had so long delayed to call this witness. In the ordinary course of events his testimony should have preceded mine, but the ordinary course of events had not been followed, and it was only at the request of Mr. Moore himself that he was now allowed the privilege of appearing before this coroner and jury.

I speak of it as a privilege because he himself evidently regarded it as such. Indeed, his whole attitude and bearing as he addressed himself to the coroner showed that he was there to be looked at and that he secretly thought he was very well worth this attention. Possibly some remembrance of the old days, in which he had gone in and out before these people in a garb suggestive of penury, made the moment when he could appear before them in a guise more befitting his station one of incalculable importance to him.

At all events, he confronted us all with an aspect which openly challenged admiration. When, in answer to the coroner's inquiries, it became his duty to speak, he did so with a condescension which would have called up smiles if the occasion had been one of less seriousness, and his connection with it as unimportant as he would have it appear.

What he said was in the way of confirming the last witness' testimony as to his having been at the Moore house on Tuesday evening. Mr. Moore, who was very particular as to dates and days, admitted that the light which he had seen in a certain window of his ancestral home on the evening when he summoned the police was but the repetition of one he had detected there the evening before. It was this repetition which alarmed him and caused him to break through all his usual habits and leave his home at night to notify the police.

"The old sneak!" thought I. "Why didn't he tell us this before?" And I allowed myself afresh doubt of his candor which had always seemed to me somewhat open to question. It is possible that the coroner shared my opinion, or that he felt it incumbent upon him to get what evidence he could from the sole person living within view of the house in which such ghastly events had taken place. For, without betraying the least suspicion, and yet with the quiet persistence for which men in his responsible position are noted, he subjected this suave old man to such a rigid examination as to what he had seen, or had not seen, from his windows, that no possibility seemed to remain of his concealing a single fact which could help to the elucidation of this or any other mystery connected with the old mansion.

He asked him if he had seen Mr. Jeffrey go in on the night in question; if he had ever seen any one go in there since the wedding; or even if he had seen any one loitering about the steps, or sneaking into the rear yard. But the answer was always no; these same noes growing more and more emphatic, and the gentleman more and more impenetrable and dignified as the examination went on. In fact, he was as unassailable a witness as I have ever heard testify before any jury. Beyond the fact already mentioned of his having observed a light in the opposite house on the two evenings in question, he admitted nothing. His life in the little cottage was so engrossing—he had his organ—his dog—why should he look out of the window? Had it not been for his usual habit of letting his dog run the pavements for a quarter of an hour before finally locking up for the night, he would not have seen as much as he did.

"Have you any stated hour for doing this?" the coroner now asked.

"Yes; half-past nine"

"And was this the hour when you caw that light?"

"Yes, both times."

As he had appeared at the station-house at a few minutes before ten he was probably correct in this statement. But, notwithstanding this, I did not feel implicit confidence in him. He was too insistent in his regret at not being able to give greater assistance in the disentanglement of a mystery so affecting the honor of the family of which he was now the recognized head. His voice, nicely attuned to the occasion, was admirable; so was his manner; but I mentally wrote him down as one I should enjoy outwitting if the opportunity ever came my way.

He wound up with such a distinct repetition of his former emphatic assertion as to the presence of light in the old house on Tuesday as well as Wednesday evening that Mr. Jeffrey's testimony in this regard received a decided confirmation. I looked to see some open recognition of this, when suddenly, and with a persistence understood only by the police, the coroner recalled Mr. Jeffrey and asked him what proof he had to offer that his visit of Tuesday had not been repeated the next night and that he was not in the building when that fatal trigger was pulled.

At this leading question, a lawyer sitting near me, edged himself forward as if he hoped for some sign from Mr. Jeffrey which would warrant him in interfering. But Mr. Jeffrey gave no such sign. I doubt if he even noticed this man's proximity, though he knew him well and had often employed him as his legal adviser in times gone by. He was evidently exerting himself to recall the name which so persistently eluded his memory, putting his hand to his head and showing the utmost confusion.

"I can not give you one," he finally stammered. "There is a man who could tell—if only I could remember his name." Suddenly with a loud cry which escaped him involuntarily, he gave a gurgling laugh and we heard the name "Tallman!" leap from his lips.

The witness had at last remembered whom he had met at the cemetery gate at the hour, or near the hour, his wife lay dying in the lower part of the city.

The effect was electrical. One of the spectators—some country boor, no doubt—so far forgot himself as to cry out loud enough for all to hear:

"Tallman! Let us have Tallman!"

Of course he met with an instant rebuke, but I did not wait to hear it, or to see order restored, for a glance from the coroner had already sent me to the door in search of this new witness.

My destination was the Cosmos Club, for Phil Tallman and his habits and haunts were as well known in Washington as the figure of Liberty on the summit of the Capitol dome. When I saw him I did not wonder. Never have I seen a more amiable looking man, or one with a more absentminded expression. To my query as to whether he had ever met Mr. Jeffrey at or near the entrance of Rock Creek Cemetery, he replied with an amazed look and the quick response:

"Of course I did. It was the very night that his wife— But what's up? You look excited for a detective."

"Come to the morgue and see. This testimony of yours will prove invaluable to Mr. Jeffrey."

I shall never forget the murmur of suppressed excitement which greeted us as I reappeared before coroner and jury accompanied by the gentleman who had been called for in such peremptory tones a short time before.

Mr. Jeffrey, who had attempted to rise at our entrance, but seemed to lack the ability, gave a faint smile as Tallman's good-natured face appeared; and the coroner, feeling, perhaps, that some cords are liable to break if stretched too strongly, administered the oath and made the necessary inquiries with as little delay as was compatible with the solemnity of the occasion.

The result was an absolute proof that Mr. Jeffrey had been near Soldiers' Home as late as seven, which was barely fifteen minutes previous to the hour Mrs. Jeffrey's watch was stopped by her fall in the old house on Waverley Avenue. As the distance between the two places could not be compassed in that time, Mr. Jeffrey's alibi could be regarded as established.

When we were all rising, glad of an adjournment which restored free movement and an open interchange of speech, a sudden check in the general rush called our attention back to Mr. Jeffrey. He was standing facing Miss Tuttle, who was still sitting in a strangely immovable attitude in her old place. He had just touched her on the arm, and now, with a look of alarm, he threw up the veil which had kept her face hidden from all beholders.

A vision of loveliness greeted us, but that was not all. It was an unconscious loveliness. Miss Tuttle had fainted away, sitting upright in her chair.

XV

WHITE BOW AND PINK

Mr. Jeffrey's examination and its triumphant conclusion created a great furor in town. Topics which had hitherto absorbed all minds were forgotten in the discussion of the daring attempt which had been made by the police to fix crime upon one of Washington's most esteemed citizens, and the check which they had rightly suffered for this outrage. What might be expected next? Something equally bold and reprehensible, of course, but what? It was a question which at the next sitting completely filled the inquest room.

To my great surprise, Mr. Jeffrey was recalled to the stand. He had changed since the night before. He looked older, and while still handsome, for nothing could rob him of his regularity of feature and extreme elegance of proportion, showed little of the spirit which, in spite of the previous day's depression, had upheld him through its most trying ordeal and kept his eye bright, if only from excitement. This was fact number one, and one which I stored away in my already well-furnished memory.

Miss Tuttle sat in a less conspicuous position than on the previous day, and Mr. Moore, her uncle, was not thereat all.

The testimony called for revived an old point which, seemingly, had not been settled to the coroner's satisfaction.

Had Mr. Jeffrey placed the small stand holding the candelabrum on the spot where it had been found? No. Had he carried into the house, at the time of his acknowledged visit, the candles which had been afterward discovered there? No. He had had time to think since his hesitating and unsatisfactory replies of the day before, and he was now in a position to say that while he distinctly remembered buying candles on his way to the Moore house, he had not found them in his pocket on getting there and had been obliged to make use of the matches he always carried on his person in order to find his way to the upstairs room where he felt positive he would find a candle.

This gave the coroner an opportunity to ask:

"And why did you expect to find a candle there?"

The answer astonished me and, I have no doubt, many others.

"It was the room in which my wife had dressed for the ceremony. It had not been disturbed since that time. My wife had little ways of her own; one was to complete her toilet by using a curling iron on a little lock she wore over her temple. When at home she heated this curling iron in the gas jet, but there being no gas in the Moore house, I naturally concluded that she had made use of a candle, as the curl had been noticeable under her veil."

Oh, the weariness in his tone! I could scarcely interpret it. Was he talking by rote, or was he utterly done with life and all its interests? No one besides myself seemed to note this strange passivity. To the masses he was no longer a suffering man, but an individual from whom information was to be got. The next question was a vital one.

He had accounted for one candle in the house; could he account for the one found in the tumbler or for the one lying crushed and battered on the closet floor?

He could not.

And now we all observed a change of direction in the inquiry. Witnesses were summoned to corroborate Mr. Jeffrey's statements, statements which it seemed to be the coroner's present wish to establish. First came the grocer who had sold Mr. Jeffrey the candles. He acknowledged, much to Jinny's discomfort, that an hour after Mr. Jeffrey had left the store, he had found on the counter the package which that gentleman had forgotten to take. Poor Jinny had not stayed long enough to hear his story out. The grocer finished his testimony by saying that immediately upon his discovery he had sent the candles to Mr. Jeffrey's house.

This the coroner caused to be emphasized to such an extent that we were all convinced of its importance. But as yet his purpose was not evident save to those who were more in his confidence than myself.

The other witnesses were men from Rauchers, who had acted as waiters at the time of the marriage. One of them testified that immediately on Miss Moore's arrival he had been sent for a candle and a box of matches. The other, that he had carried up to her room a large candelabrum from the drawing-room mantel. A pair of curling tongs taken from the dressing table of this room was next produced, together with other articles of toilet use which had been allowed to remain there uncared for, though they were of solid silver and of beautiful design.

The next witness was a member of Mr. Jeffrey's own household. Chloe was her name, and her good black face worked dolefully as she admitted that the package of candles which the grocer boy had left on the kitchen table, with the rest of the groceries on the morning of that dreadful day when "Missus" killed herself, was not to be found when she came to put the things away. She had looked and looked for it, but it was not there.

Further inquiry brought out the fact that but one other member of the household was in the kitchen when these groceries were delivered; and that this person gave a great start when the boy shouted out, "The candles there were bought by Mr. Jeffrey," and hurried over to the table and handled the packages, although Chloe did not see her carry any of them away.

"And who was this person?"

"Miss Tuttle."

With the utterance of this name the veil fell from the coroner's intentions and the purpose of this petty but prolonged inquiry stood revealed. It was to all a fearful and impressive moment. To me it was as painful as it was triumphant. I had not anticipated such an outcome when I put my wits to work to prove that murder, and not suicide, was answerable for young Mrs. Jeffrey's death.

When the murmur which had hailed this startling turn in the inquiry had subsided, the coroner drew a deep breath, and, with an uneasy glance at the jury, who, to a man, seemed to wish themselves well out of this job, he dismissed the cook and summoned a fresh witness.

Her name made the people stare.

"Miss Nixon."

Miss Nixon! That was a name well known in Washington; almost as well known as that of Uncle David, or even of Mr. Tallman. What could this quaint and characteristic little body have to do with this case of doubtful suicide? A word will explain. She was the person who, on the day before, had made that loud exclamation when the box containing the ribbon and the pistol had been disclosed to the jury.

As her fussy little figure came forward, some nudged and some laughed, possibly because her bonnet was not of this year's style, possibly because her manner was peculiar and as full of oddities as her attire. But they did not laugh long, for the little lady's look was appealing, if not distressed. The fact that she was generally known to possess one of the largest bank accounts in the District, made any marked show of disrespect toward her a matter of poor judgment, if not of questionable taste.

The box in the coroner's hand prepared us for what was before us. As he opened it and disclosed again the dainty white bow which, as I have before said, was of rather a fantastic make, the whole roomful of eager spectators craned forward and were startled enough when he asked:

"Did you ever see a bow like this before?"

Her answer came in the faintest of tones.

"Yes, I have one like it; very like it; so like it that yesterday I could not suppress an exclamation on seeing this one."

"Where did you get the one you have? Who fashioned it, I mean, or tied it for you, if that is what I ought to say?"

"It was tied for me by—Miss Tuttle. She is a friend of mine, or was—and a very good one; and one day while watching me struggling with a piece of ribbon, which I wanted made into a bow, she took it from my hand and tied a knot for which I was very much obliged to her. It was very pretty."

"And like this?"

"Almost exactly, sir."

"Have you that knot with you?"

She had.

"Will you show it to the jury?"

Heaving a sigh which she had much better have suppressed, she opened a little bag she carried at her side and took out a pink satin bow. It had been tied by a deft hand; and more than one pair of eyes fell significantly at sight of it.

Amid a silence which was intense, two or three other witnesses were called to prove that Miss Tuttle's skill in bow-tying was exceptional, and was often made use of, not only by members of her household, but, as in Miss Nixon's case, by outsiders; the special style shown in the one under consideration being the favorite.

During all this, I kept my eyes on Mr. Jeffrey. It had now become so evident which way the coroner's inquiries tended that I wished to be the first to note their effect on him. It was less marked than I had anticipated. The man seemed benumbed by accumulated torment and stared at the witnesses filing before him as if they were part of some wild phantasmagoria which confused, without enlightening him. When finally several persons of both sexes were brought forward to prove that his attentions to Miss Tuttle had once been sufficiently marked for an announcement of their engagement to be daily looked for, he let his head fall forward on his breast as if the creeping horror which had seized him was too much for his brain if not for his heart. The final blow was struck when the man whom I had myself seen in Alexandria testified to the contretemps which had occurred in Atlantic City; an additional point being given to it by the repetition of some old conversation raked up for the purpose, by which an effort was made to prove that Miss Tuttle found it hard to forgive injuries even from those nearest and dearest to her. This subject might have been prolonged, but some of the jury objected, and the time being now ripe for the great event of the day, the name of the lady herself was called.

After so significant a preamble, the mere utterance of Miss Tuttle's name had almost the force of an accusation; but the dignity with which she rose calmed all minds, and subdued every expression of feeling. I could but marvel at her self-poise and noble equanimity, and asked myself if, in the few days which had passed since first the murmur of something more serious than suicide had gone about, she had so schooled herself for all emergencies that nothing could shake her self-possession, not even the suggestion that a woman of her beauty and distinction could be concerned in a crime. Or had she within herself some great source of strength, which sustained her in this most dreadful ordeal? All were on watch to see. When the veil dropped from before her features and she stepped into the full sight of the expectant crowd, it was not the beauty of her face, notable and conspicuous as that was, which roused the hum of surprise that swept from one end of the room to the other, but the calmness, almost the elevation of her manner, a calmness and elevation so unlooked for in the light of the strange contradictions offered by the evidence to which we had been listening for a day and a half, that all were affected; many inclined even to believe her innocent of any undue connection with her sister's death before she had stretched forth her hand to take the oath.

I was no exception to the rest. Though I had exerted myself from the first to bring matters to a climax—but not to this one—I experienced such a shock under the steady gaze of her sad but gentle eyes, that I found myself recoiling before my own presumption with something like secret shame till I was relieved by the thought that a perfectly innocent woman would show more feeling at so false and cruel a position. I felt that only one with something to conceal would turn so calm a front upon men ready, as she knew, to fix upon her a great crime. This conviction steadied me and made me less susceptible to her grace and to the tone of her quiet voice and the far-away sadness of her look. She faltered only when by chance she glanced at the shrinking figure of Francis Jeffrey.

Her name which she uttered without emphasis and yet in a way to arouse attention sank into all hearts with more or less disturbance. "Alice Cora Tuttle!" How in days gone by, and not so long gone by, either, those three words had aroused the enthusiasm of many a gallant man and inspired the toast at many a gallant feast! They had their charm yet, if the heightened color observable on many a cheek there was a true index to the quickening heart below.

"How are you connected with the deceased Mrs. Jeffrey?"

"I am the child of her mother by a former husband. We were half-sisters."

No bitterness in this statement, only an infinite sadness. The coroner continued to question her. He asked for an account of her childhood, and forced her to lay bare the nature of her relations with her sister. But little was gained by this, for their relations seemed to have been of a sympathetic character up to the time of Veronica's return from school, when they changed somewhat; but how or why, Miss Tuttle was naturally averse to saying. Indeed she almost refused to do so, and the coroner, feeling his point gained more by this refusal than by any admission she might have made, did not press this subject but passed on to what interested us more: the various unexplained actions on her part which pointed toward crime.

His first inquiry was in reference to the conversation held between her and Mr. Jeffrey at the time he visited her room. We had listened to his account of it and now we wished to hear hers. But the cue which had been given her by this very account had been invaluable to her, and her testimony naturally coincided with his. We found ourselves not an inch advanced. They had talked of her sister's follies and she had advised patience, and that was all she could say on the subject—all she would say, as we presently saw.

The coroner introduced a fresh topic.

"What can you tell us about the interview you had with you sister prior to her going out on the night of her death?"

"Very little, except that it differed entirely from what is generally supposed. She did not come to my room for conversation but simply to tell me that she had an engagement. She was in an excited mood but said nothing to alarm me. She even laughed when she left me; perhaps to put me off my guard, perhaps because she was no longer responsible."

"Did she know that Mr. Jeffrey had visited you earlier in the day? Did she make any allusion to it, I mean?"

"None at all. She shrugged her shoulders when I asked if she was well, and anticipated all further questions by running from the room. She was always capricious in her ways and never more so than at that moment. Would to God that it had been different! Would to God that she had shown herself to be a suffering woman! Then I might have reached her heart and this tragedy would have been averted."

The coroner favored the witness with a look of respect, perhaps because his next question must necessarily be cruel.

"Is that all you have to say concerning this important visit, the last you held with your sister before her death?"

"No, sir, there is something else, something which I should like to relate to this jury. When she came into my room, she held in her hand a white ribbon; that is, she held the two ends of a long satin ribbon which seemed to come from her pocket. Handing those two ends to me, she asked me to tie them about her wrist. 'A knot under and a bow on top,' she said, 'so that it can not slip off.' As this was something I had often been called on to do for her, I showed no hesitation in complying with her request. Indeed, I felt none. I thought it was her fan or her bouquet she held concealed in the folds of her dress, but it proved to be—Gentlemen, you know what. I pray that you will not oblige me to mention it."

It was such a stroke as no lawyer would have advised her to make,—I heard afterward that she had refused the offices of a dozen lawyers who had proffered her their services. But uttered as it was with a noble air and a certain dignified serenity, it had a great effect upon those about her and turned in a moment the wavering tide of favor in her direction.

The coroner, who doubtless was perfectly acquainted with the explanation with which she had provided herself, but who perhaps did not look for it to antedate his attack, bowed in quiet acknowledgment of her request and then immediately proceeded to ignore it.

"I should be glad to spare you," said he, "but I do not find it possible. You knew that Mr. Jeffrey had a pistol?"

"I did."

"That it was kept in their apartment?"

"Yes."

"In the upper drawer of a certain bureau?"

"Yes."

"Now, Miss Tuttle, will you tell us why you went to that drawer—if you did go to that drawer—immediately after Mrs. Jeffrey left the house?"

She had probably felt this question coming, not only since the coroner began to speak but ever since the evidence elicited from Loretta proved that her visit to this drawer had been secretly observed. Yet she had no answer ready.

"I did not go for the pistol," she finally declared. But she did not say what she had gone for, and the coroner did not press her.

Again the tide swung back.

She seemed to feel the change but did not show it in the way naturally looked for. Instead of growing perturbed or openly depressed she bloomed into greater beauty and confronted with steadier eye, not us, but the men she instinctively faced as the tide of her fortunes began to lower. Did the coroner perceive this and recognize at last both the measure of her attractions and the power they were likely to carry with them? Perhaps, for his voice took an acrid note as he declared:

"You had another errand in that room?"

She let her head droop just a trifle.

"Alas!" she murmured.

"You went to the book-shelves and took out a book with a peculiar cover, a cover which Mr. Jeffrey has already recognized as that of the book in which he found a certain note."

"You have said it," she faltered.

"Did you take such a book out?"

"I did."

"For what purpose, Miss Tuttle?"

She had meant to answer quickly. But some consideration made her hesitate and the words were long in coming; when she did speak, it was to say:

"My sister asked another favor of me after I had tied the ribbon. Pausing in her passage to the door, she informed me in a tone quite in keeping with her whole manner, that she had left a note for her husband in the book they were reading together. Her reason for doing this, she said, was the very natural one of wishing him to come upon it by chance, but as she had placed it in the front of the book instead of in the back where they were reading, she was afraid that he would fail to find it. Would I be so good as to take it out for her and insert it again somewhere near the end? She was in a hurry or she would return and do it herself. As she and Mr. Jeffrey had parted in anger, I hailed with joy this evidence of her desire for a reconciliation, and it was in obedience to her request, the singularity of which did not strike me as forcibly then as now, that I went to the shelves in her room and took down the book."

"And did you find the note where she said?"

"Yes, and put it in toward the end of the story."

"Nothing more? Did you read the note?"

"It was folded," was Miss Tuttle's quiet answer. Certainly this woman was a thoroughbred or else she was an adept in deception such as few of us had ever encountered. The gentleness of her manner, the easy tone, the quiet eyes, eyes in whose dark depths great passions were visible, but passions that were under the control of an equally forcible will, made her a puzzle to all men's minds; but it was a fascinating puzzle that awoke a species of awe in those who attempted to understand her. To all appearances she was the unlikeliest woman possible to cherish criminal intents, yet her answers were rather clever than convincing, unless you allowed yourself to be swayed by the look of her beautiful face or the music of her rich, sad voice.

"You did not remain before these book-shelves long?" observed the coroner.

"You have a witness who knows more about that than I do," she suggested; and doubtless aware of the temerity of this reply, waited with unmoved countenance, but with a visibly bounding breast, for what would doubtless prove a fresh attack.

It was a violent one and of a character she was least fitted to meet. Taking up the box I have so often mentioned, the coroner drew away the ribbon lying on top and disclosed the pistol. In a moment her hands were over her ears.

"Why do you do that?" he asked. "Did you think I was going to discharge it?"

She smiled pitifully as she let her hands fall again.

"I have a dread of firearms," she explained. "I always have had. Now they are simply terrible to me, and this one—"

"I understand," said the coroner, with a slight glance in the direction of Durbin. They had evidently planned this test together on the strength of an idea suggested to Durbin by her former action when the memory of this shot was recalled to her.

"Your horror seems to lie in the direction of the noise they make," continued her inexorable interlocutor. "One would say you had heard this pistol discharged."

Instantly a complete breaking-up of her hitherto well maintained composure altered her whole aspect and she vehemently cried:

"I did, I did. I was on Waverley Avenue that night, and I heard the shot which in all probability ended my sister's life. I walked farther than I intended; I strolled into the street which had such bitter memories for us and I heard—No, I was not in search of my sister. I had not associated my sister's going out with any intention of visiting this house; I was merely troubled in mind and anxious and—and—"

She had overrated her strength or her cleverness. She found herself unable to finish the sentence, and so did not try. She had been led by the impulse of the moment farther than she had intended, and, aghast at her own imprudence, paused with her first perceptible loss of courage before the yawning gulf opening before her.

I felt myself seized by a very uncomfortable dread lest her concealments and unfinished sentences hid a guiltier knowledge of this crime than I was yet ready to admit.

The coroner, who is an older man than myself, betrayed a certain satisfaction but no dread. Never did the unction which underlies his sharpest speeches show more plainly than when he quietly remarked:

"And so under a similar impulse you, as well as Mr. Jeffrey, chose this uncanny place to ramble in. To all appearance that old hearth acted much more like a lodestone upon members of your family than you were willing at one time to acknowledge."

This reference to words she had herself been heard to use seemed to overwhelm her. Her calmness fled and she cast a fleeting look of anguish at Mr. Jeffrey. But his face was turned from sight, and, meeting with no help there, or anywhere, indeed, save in her own powerful nature, she recovered as best she could the ground she had lost and, with a trembling question of her own, attempted to put the coroner in fault and reestablish herself.

"You say 'ramble through.' Do you for a moment think that I entered that old house?"

"Miss Tuttle," was the grave, almost sad reply, "did you not know that in some earth, dropped from a flower-pot overturned at the time when a hundred guests flew in terror from this house, there is to be seen the mark of a footstep,—a footstep which you are at liberty to measure with your own?"

"Ah!" she murmured, her hands going up to her face.

But in another moment she had dropped them and looked directly at the coroner.

"I walked there—I never said that I did not walk there—when I went later to see my sister and in sight of a number of detectives passed straight through the halls and into the library."

"And that this footstep," inexorably proceeded the coroner, "is not in a line with the main thoroughfare extending from the front to the back of the house, but turned inwards toward the wall as if she who made it had stopped to lean her head against the partition?"

Miss Tuttle's head drooped. Probably she realized at this moment, if not before, that the coroner and jury had ample excuse for mistrusting one who had been so unmistakably caught in a prevarication; possibly her regret carried her far enough to wish she had not disdained all legal advice from those who had so earnestly offered it. But though she showed alike her shame and her disheartenment, she did not give up the struggle.

"If I went into the house," she said, "it was not to enter that room. I had too great a dread of it. If I rested my head against the wall it was in terror of that shot. It came so suddenly and was so frightful, so much more frightful than anything you can conceive."

"Then you did enter the house?"

"I did."

"And it was while you were inside, instead of outside, that you heard the shot?"

"I must admit that, too. I was at the library door."

"You acknowledge that?"

"I do."

"But you did not enter the library?"

"No, not then; not till I was taken back by the officer who told me of my sister's death."

"We are glad to hear this precise statement from you. It encourages me to ask again the nature of the freak which took you into this house. You say that it was not from any dread on your sister's account? What, then, was it? No evasive answer will satisfy us, Miss Tuttle."

She realized this as no one else could.

Mr. Jeffrey's reason for his visit there could not be her reason, yet what other had she to give? Apparently none.

"I can not answer," she said.

And the deep sigh which swept through the room was but an echo of the despair with which she saw herself brought to this point.

"We will not oblige you to," said the coroner with apparent consideration. But to those who knew the law against forcing a witness to incriminate himself, this was far from an encouraging concession.

"However," he now went on, with suddenly assumed severity, "you may answer this. Was the house dark or light when you entered it? And, how did you get in?"

"The house was dark, and I got in through the front door, which I found ajar."

"You are more courageous than most women! I fear there are few of your sex who could be induced to enter it in broad daylight and under every suitable protection."

She raised her figure proudly.

"Miss Tuttle, you have heard Chloe say that you were in the kitchen of Mr. Jeffrey's house when the grocer boy delivered the candles which had been left by your brother-in-law on the counter of the store where he bought them. Is this true?"

"Yes, sir, it is true."

"Did you see those candles?"

"No, sir."

"You did not see them?"

"No, sir."

"Yet you went over to the table?"

"Yes, sir, but I did not meddle with the packages. I had really no business with them."

The coroner, surveying her sadly, went quickly on as if anxious to terminate this painful examination.

"You have not told us what you did when you heard that pistol-shot."

"I ran away as soon as I could move; I ran madly from the house."

"Where?"

"Home."

"But it was half-past ten when you got home."

"Was it?"

"It was half-past ten when the man came to tell you of your sister's death."

"It may have been."

"Your sister is supposed to have died in a few minutes. Where were you in the interim?"

"God knows. I do not."

A wild look was creeping into her face, and her figure was swaying. But she soon steadied it. I have never seen a more admirable presence maintained in the face of a dreadful humiliation.

"Perhaps I can help you," rejoined the coroner, not unkindly. "Were you not in the Congressional Library looking up at the lunettes and gorgeously painted walls?"

"I?" Her eyes opened wide in wondering doubt. "If I was, I did not know it. I have no remembrance of it."

She seemed to lose sight of her present position, the cloud under which she rested, and even the construction which might be put upon such a forgetfulness at a time confessedly prior to her knowledge of the purpose and effect of the shot from which she had so incontinently fled.

"Your condition of mind and that of Mr. Jeffrey seem to have been strangely alike," remarked the coroner.

"No, no!" she protested.

"Arguing a like source."

"No, no," she cried again, this time with positive agony. Then with an effort which awakened respect for her powers of mind, if for nothing else, she desperately added: "I can not say what was in his heart that night, but I know what was in mine—dread of that old house, to which I had been drawn in spite of myself, possibly by the force of the tragedy going on inside it, culminating in a delirium of terror, which sent me flying in an opposite direction from my home and into places I had been accustomed to visit when my heart was light and untroubled."

The coroner glanced at the jury, who unconsciously shook their heads. He shook his, too, as he returned to the charge.

"Another question, Miss Tuttle. When you heard a pistol-shot sounding from the depths of that dark library, what did you think it meant?"

She put her hands over her ears—it seemed as if she could not prevent this instinctive expression of recoil at the mention of the death-dealing weapon—and in very low tones replied:

"Something dreadful; something superstitious. It was night, you remember, and at night one has such horrible thoughts."

"Yet an hour or two later you declared that the hearth was no lodestone. You forgot its horrors and your superstition upon returning to your own house."

"It might be;" she murmured; "but if so, they soon returned. I had reason for my horror, if not for my superstition, as the event showed."

The coroner did not attempt to controvert this. He was about to launch a final inquiry.

"Miss Tuttle; upon the return of yourself and Mr. Jeffrey to your home after your final visit to the Moore house, did you have any interview that was without witnesses?"

"No."

"Did you exchange any words?"

"I think we did exchange some words; it would be only natural."

"Are you willing to state what words?"

She looked dazed and appeared to search her memory.

"I don't think I can," she objected.

"But something was said by you and some answer was made by him?"

"I believe so."

"Can not you say definitely?"

"We did speak."

"In English?"

"No, in French."

"Can not you translate that French for us?"

"Pardon me, sir; it was so long ago my memory fails me."

"Is it any better for the second and longer interview between you the next day?"

"No-sir."

"You can not give us any phrase or word that was uttered there?"

"No."

"Is this your final reply on this subject?"

"It is."

She never had been subjected to an interrogation like this before. It made her proud soul quiver in revolt, notwithstanding the patience with which she had fortified herself. With red cheeks and glistening eyes she surveyed the man who had made her suffer so, and instantly every other man there suffered with her; excepting possibly Durbin, whose heart was never his strong point. But our hearts were moved, our reasons were not convinced, as was presently shown, when, with a bow of dismissal, the coroner released her, and she passed back to her seat.

Simultaneously with her withdrawal the gleam of sensibility left the faces of the jury, and the dark and brooding look which had marked their countenances from the beginning returned, and returned to stay.

What would their verdict be? There were present two persons who affected to believe that it would be one of suicide occasioned by dementia. These were Miss Tuttle and Mr. Jeffrey, who, now that the critical period had come, straightened themselves boldly in their seats and met the glances concentrated upon them with dignity, if not with the assurance of complete innocence. But from the carefulness with which they avoided each other's eyes and the almost identical expression mirrored upon both faces, it was visible to all that they regarded their cause as a common one, and that the link which they denied, as having existed between them prior to Mrs. Jeffrey's death, had in some way been supplied by that very tragedy; so that they now unwittingly looked with the same eyes, breathed with the same breath, and showed themselves responsive to the same fluctuations of hope and fear.

The celerity with which that jury arrived at its verdict was a shock to us all. It had been a quiet body, offering but little assistance to the coroner in his questioning; but when it fell to these men to act, the precision with which they did so was astonishing. In a half-hour they returned from the room into which they had adjourned, and the foreman gave warning that he was prepared to render a verdict.

Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle both clenched their hands; then Miss Tuttle pulled down her veil.

"We find," said the solemn foreman, "that Veronica Moore Jeffrey, who on the night of May eleventh was discovered lying dead on the floor of her own unoccupied house in Waverley Avenue, came to her death by means of a bullet, shot from a pistol connected to her wrist by a length of white satin ribbon.

"That the first conclusion of suicide is not fully sustained by the facts;

"And that attempt should be made to identify the hand that fired this pistol."

It was as near an accusation of Miss Tuttle as was possible without mentioning her name. A groan passed through the assemblage, and Mr. Jeffrey, bounding to his feet, showed an inclination to shout aloud in his violent indignation. But Miss Tuttle, turning toward him, lifted her hand with a commanding gesture and held it so till he sat down again.

It was both a majestic and an utterly incomprehensible movement on her part, giving to the close of these remarkable proceedings a dramatic climax which set all hearts beating and, I am bound to say, all tongues wagging till the room cleared.

XVI

AN EGOTIST OF THE FIRST WATER

Had the control of affairs been mine at this moment I am quite positive that I should have found it difficult to deny these two the short interview which they appeared to crave and which would have been to them such an undeniable comfort. But a sterner spirit than mine was in charge, and the district attorney, into whose hands the affair had now fallen, was inexorable. Miss Tuttle was treated with respect, with kindness, even, but she was not allowed any communication with her brother-in-law beyond the formal "Good afternoon" incident upon their separation; while he, scorning to condemn his lips to any such trite commonplace, said nothing at all, only looked a haggard inquiry which called forth from her the most exalted look of patience and encouraging love it has ever been my good fortune to witness. Durbin was standing near and saw this look as plainly as I did, but it did not impose on him, he said. But what in the nature of human woe could impose on him? Durbin is a machine—a very reliable and useful machine, no doubt, yet when all is said, a simple contrivance of cogs and wheels; while I—well, I hope that I am something more than that; or why was I a changed man toward her from the moment I saw the smile which marked this accused woman's good by to Francis Jeffrey. No longer believing in her guilt, I went about my business with tumult in brain and heart, asking in my remorse for an opportunity to show her some small courtesy whereby to relieve the torture I felt at having helped the coroner in the inquiries which had brought about what looked to me now like a cruel and unwarranted result.

That it should be given to Durbin to hold such surveillance over her as her doubtful position demanded added greatly to my discomfort. But I was enabled to keep my lips firmly shut over any expression of secret jealousy or displeasure; and this was fortunate, as otherwise I might have failed to obtain the chance of aiding her later on, in other and deeper matters.

Meanwhile, and before any of us had left this room, one fact had become apparent. Mr. Jeffrey was not going to volunteer any fresh statement in face of the distinct disapproval of his sister-in-law. As his eye fell upon the district attorney, who had lingered near, possibly in the hope of getting something more from this depressed and almost insensible man, he made one remark, but it was an automatic one, calculated to produce but little effect on the discriminating ears of this experienced official.

"I do not believe that my wife was murdered." This was what he said. "It was a wicked verdict. My wife killed herself. Wasn't the pistol found tied to her?"

Either from preoccupation or a dazed condition of mind, he seemed to forget that Miss Tuttle had owned to tying on this pistol; and that nothing but her word went to prove that this was done before and not after the shot had been delivered in the Moore house library. I thought I understood him and was certain that I sympathized with his condition; but in the ears of those less amiably disposed toward him, his statements had lost force and the denial went for little.

Meanwhile a fact which all had noted and commented on had recurred to my mind and caused me to ask a brother officer who was walking out beside me what he thought of Mr. Moore's absence from an inquiry presumably of such importance to all members of this family.

The fellow laughed and said:

"Old Dave has lost none of his peculiarities in walking into his fortune. This is his day at the cemetery. Didn't you know that? He will let nothing on earth get in the way of his pilgrimage to that spot on the twenty-third of May, much less so trivial an occurrence as an inquest over the remains of his nearest relative."

I felt my gorge rise; then a thought struck me and I asked how long the old gentleman kept up his watch.

"From sunrise to sundown, the boys say. I never saw him there myself. My beat lies in an opposite direction."

I left him and started for Rock Creek Cemetery. There were two good hours yet before sundown and I resolved to come upon Uncle David at his post.

It took just one hour and a quarter to get there by the most direct route I could take. Five minutes more to penetrate the grounds to where a superb vehicle stood, drawn by two of the finest horses I had seen in Washington for many a long day. As I was making my way around this equipage I came upon a plot in a condition of upheaval preparatory to new sodding and the planting of several choice shrubs. In the midst of the sand thus exposed a single head-stone rose. On his knees beside this simple monument I saw the figure of Uncle David, dressed in his finest clothes and showing in his oddly contorted face the satisfaction of great prosperity, battling with the dissatisfaction of knowing that one he had so loved had not lived to share his elevation. He was rubbing away the mold from the name which, by his own confession, was the only one to which his memory clung in sympathy or endearment. At his feet lay an open basket, in which I detected the remains of what must have been a rather sumptuous cold repast. To all appearance he had foregone none of his ancient customs; only those customs had taken on elegance with his rise in fortune. The carriage and the horses, and most of all, the imperturbable driver, seemed to awaken some awe in the boys. They were still in evidence, but they hung back sheepishly and eyed the basket of neglected food as if they hoped he would forget to take it away. Meanwhile the clattering of chains against the harness, the pawing of the horses and the low exclamations of the driver caused me the queerest feelings. Advancing quite unceremoniously upon the watcher by the grave, I remarked aloud;

"The setting sun will soon release you, Mr. Moore. Are you going immediately into town?"

He paused in his rubbing, which was being done with a very tender hand, and as if he really loved the name he was endeavoring to bring into plainer view. Scowling a little, he turned and met me point-blank with a look which had a good deal of inquiry in it.

"I am not usually interrupted here," he emphasized; "except by the boys," he added more mildly. "They sometimes approach too closely, but I am used to the imps and scarcely notice them. Ah! there are some of my old friends now! Well, it is time they knew that a change has taken place in my fortunes. Hi, there! Hands up and catch this, and this, and this!" he shouted. "But keep quiet about it or next year you will get pennies again."

And flinging quarters right and left, he smiled in such a pompous, self-satisfied way at the hurrah and scramble which ensued, that it was well worth my journey there just to see this exhibition of combined vanity and good humor.

"Now go!" he vociferated; and the urchins, black and white, flew away, flinging up their heels in delight and shouting: "Bully for you, Uncle David! We'll come again next year, not for twenty-fives but fifties."

"I will make it dollars if I only live so long," he muttered. And deigning now to remember the question I had put to him, he grandly remarked:

"I am going straight into town. Can I do anything for you?"

"Nothing. I thought you might like to know what awaits you there. The city is greatly stirred up. The coroner's jury in the Jeffrey-Moore case has just brought in a verdict to the effect that suicide has not been proved. Naturally, this is equivalent to one of murder."

"Ah!" he ejaculated, slightly taken aback for one so invariably impassive.

"And to whom is the guilt of this crime ascribed?" he presently ventured.

"There was mention of no name; but the opprobrium naturally falls on Miss Tuttle."

"Miss Tuttle? Ah!"

"Since Mr. Jeffrey is proved to have been too far away at the time to have fired that shot, while she—"

"I am following you—"

"Was in the very house—at the door of the library in fact—and heard the pistol discharged, if she did not discharge it herself—which some believe, notably the district attorney. You should have been there, Mr. Moore."

He looked surprised at this suggestion.

"I never am anywhere but here on the twenty-third of May," he declared.

"Miss Tuttle needed some adviser."

"Ah, probably."

"You would have been a good one."

"And a welcome one, eh?"

I hardly thought he would have been a welcome one, but I did not admit the fact. Nevertheless he seized on the advantage he evidently thought he had gained and added, mildly enough, or rather without any display of feeling:

"Miss Tuttle likes me even less than Veronica did. I do not think she would have accepted, certainly she would not have desired, my presence in her counsels. But of one thing I wish her to be assured, her and the world in general. Any money she may need at this—at this unhappy crisis in her life, she will find amply supplied. She has no claims on me, but that makes little difference where the family honor is concerned. Her mother's husband was my brother—the girl shall have all she needs. I will write her so."

He was moving toward his carriage.

"Fine turnout?" he interrogatively remarked.

I assented with all the surprise,—with all the wonder even—which his sublime egotism seemed to invite.

"It is the best that Downey could raise in the time I allotted him. When I really finger the money, we shall see, we shall see."

His foot was on the carriage-step. He looked up at the west. The sun was almost down but not quite. "Have you any special business with me?" he asked, lingering with what I thought a surprising display of conscientiousness till the last ray of direct sunlight had disappeared.

I glanced up at the coachman sitting on his box as rigid as any stone.

"You may speak," said he; "Caesar neither hears nor sees anything but his horses when he drives me."

The black did not wink. He was as completely at home on the box and as quiet and composed in his service as if he had driven this man for years.

"He understands his duty," finished the master, but with no outward appearance of pride. "What have you to say to me?"

I hesitated no longer.

"Miss Tuttle is supposed to have secretly entered the Moore house on the night you summoned us. She even says she did. I know that you have sworn to having seen no one go into that house; but notwithstanding this, haven't you some means at your disposal for proving to the police and to the world at large that she never fired that fatal shot? Public opinion is so cruel. She will be ruined whether innocent or guilty, unless it can be very plainly shown that she did not enter the library prior to going there with the police."

"And how can you suppose me to be in a position to prove that? Say that I had sat in my front window all that evening, and watched with uninterrupted assiduity the door through which so many are said to have passed between sunset and midnight—something which I did not do, as I have plainly stated on oath—how could you have expected me to see what went on in the black interior of a house whose exterior is barely discernible at night across the street?"

"Then you can not aid her?" I asked.

With a light bound he leaped into the carriage. As he took his seat he politely remarked:

"I should be glad to, since, though not a Moore, she is near enough the family to affect its honor. But not having even seen her enter the house I can not testify in any way in regard to her. Home, Caesar, and drive quickly. I do not thrive under these evening damps."

And leaning back, with an inexpressible air of contentment with himself, his equipage and the prospect of an indefinite enjoyment of the same, the last representative of the great Moore family was quietly driven away.

XVII

A FRESH START

I was far from being good company that night. I knew this without being told. My mind was too busy. I was too full of regrets and plans, seasonings and counter reasonings. In my eyes Miss Tuttle had suddenly become innocent, consequently a victim. But a victim to what? To some exaggerated sense of duty? Possibly; but to what duty? That was the question, to answer which offhand I would, in my present excitement, have been ready to sacrifice a month's pay.

For I was moved, not only by the admiration and sympathy which all men must feel for a beautiful woman caught in such a deadly snare of circumstantial evidence, but by the conviction that Durbin, whose present sleek complacency was more offensive to me than the sneering superiority of a week ago, believed her to be a guilty woman, and as such his rightful prey. This alone would have influenced me to take the opposite view; for we never ran along together, and in a case where any division of opinion was possible, always found ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, on different sides. Yet I did not really dislike Durbin, who is a very fine fellow. I only hated his success and the favor which rewarded it.

I know that I have some very nasty failings and I do not shrink from owning them. My desire is to represent myself as I am, and I must admit that it was not entirely owing to disinterested motives that I now took the secret stand I did in Miss Tuttle's favor. To prove her innocent whom once I considered the cause of, if not the guilty accessory to her sister's murder, now became my dream by night and my occupation by day. Though I seemed to have no sympathizer in this effort and though the case against her was being pushed very openly in the district attorney's office, yet I clung to my convictions with an almost insensate persistence, inwardly declaring her the victim of circumstances, and hoping against hope that some clue would offer itself by means of which I might yet prove her so. But where was I to seek for this clue?

Alas, no ready answer to this very important query was forthcoming. All possible evidence in this case seemed to have been exhausted save such as Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle withheld. And so the monstrous accusation stood, and before it all Washington—my humble self included—stood in a daze of mingled doubt and compassion, hunting for explanations which failed to appear and seeking in vain for some guiltier party, who evermore slipped from under our hand. Had Mr. Jeffrey's alibi been less complete he could not have stood up against the suspicions which now ran riot. But there was no possibility of shifting the actual crime back to him after the testimony of so frank and trustworthy a man as Tallman. If the stopping of Mrs. Jeffrey's watch fixed the moment of her death as accurately as was supposed,—and I never heard the least doubt thrown out in this regard,—he could not by any means of transit then known in Washington have reached Waverley Avenue in time to fire that shot. The gates of the cemetery were closed at sundown; sundown took place that night at one minute past seven, and the distance into town is considerable. His alibi could not be gainsaid. So his name failed to be publicly broached in connection with the shooting, though his influence over Miss Tuttle could not be forgotten, suggesting to some that she had acted as his hand in the deed which robbed him of an undesirable wife. But this I would not believe. I preferred to accept the statement that she had stopped short of the library door in her suspicious visit there, and that the ribbon-tying, which went for so much, had been done at home. That these facts, especially the latter, called for more than common credulity, I was quite ready to acknowledge; and had her feeling for Francis Jeffrey shown less unselfishness, I should certainly have joined my fellows in regarding these assertions as very lame attempts to explain what could only be explained by a confession of guilt.

So here was a tangle without a frayed end to pull at, unless the impervious egotism of Uncle David afforded one, which I doubted. For how could any man with a frightful secret in his breast show that unmixed delight in his new equipage and suddenly acquired position, which had so plainly beamed from that gentleman's calm eye and assured bearing? When he met my scrutiny in the sacred precincts where the one love of his heart lay buried, he did so without a quiver or any sign of inner disturbance. His tone to Caesar as he drove off had been the tone of a man who can afford to speak quietly because he is conscious of being so undeniably the master; and when his foot rose to the carriage step it was with the confidence of one who had been kept out of his rights for most of his natural life, but who feels in his present enjoyment of them no apprehension of a change. His whole bearing and conversation on that day were, as I am quite ready to admit, an exhibition of prodigious selfishness; but it was also an exhibition of mental poise incompatible with a consciousness of having acquired his fortune by any means which laid him open to the possibility of losing it. Or so I judged.

Finding myself, with every new consideration of the tantalizing subject, deeper and deeper in the quagmire of doubt and uncertainty, I sought enlightenment by making a memorandum of the special points which must have influenced the jury in their verdict, as witness:

1. The relief shown by Mr. Jeffrey at finding an apparent communication from his wife hinting at suicide.

2. The possibility, disclosed by the similarity between the sisters' handwriting, of this same communication being a forgery substituted for the one really written by Mrs. Jeffrey.

3. The fact that, previous to Mr. Jeffrey's handling of the book in which this communication was said to have been hidden, it had been seen in Miss Tuttle's hands.

4. That immediately after this she had passed to the drawer where Mr. Jeffrey's pistol was kept.

5. That while this pistol had not been observed in her hand, there was as yet no evidence to prove that it had been previously taken from the drawer, save such as was afforded by her own acknowledgment that she had tied some unknown object, presumably the pistol, to her sister's wrist before that sister left the house.

6. That if this was so, the pistol and the ribbon connecting it with Mrs. Jeffrey's wrist had been handled again before the former was discharged, and by fingers which had first touched dust—of which there was plenty in the old library.

7. That Miss Tuttle had admitted, though not till after much prevarication and apparent subterfuge, that she had extended her walk on that fatal night not only as far as the Moore house, but that she had entered it and penetrated as far as the library door at the very moment the shot was fired within.

8. That in acknowledging this she had emphatically denied having associated the firing of this shot with any idea of harm to her sister; yet was known to have gone from this house in a condition of mind so serious that she failed to recollect the places she visited or the streets she passed through till she found herself again in her sister's house face to face with an officer.

9. That her first greeting of this officer was a shriek, betraying a knowledge of his errand before he had given utterance to a word.

10. That the candles found in the Moore house were similar to those bought by Mr. Jeffrey and afterward delivered at his kitchen door.

11. That she was the only member of the household besides the cook who was in the kitchen at the time, and that it was immediately after her departure from the room that the package containing the candles had been missed.

12. That opportunities of coming to an understanding with Mr. Jeffrey after his wife's death had not been lacking and it was not until after such opportunities had occurred that any serious inquiry into this matter had been begun by the police. To which must be added, not in way of proof but as an important factor in the case, that her manner, never open, was such throughout her whole public examination as to make it evident to all that only half of what had occurred in the Jeffreys' house since the wedding had been given out by her or by the man for whose release from a disappointing matrimonial entanglement she was supposed to have worked; this, though the suspicion hanging over them both called for the utmost candor.

Verily, a serious list; and opposed to this I had as yet little to offer but my own belief in her innocence and the fact, but little dwelt on and yet not without its value, that the money which had come to Mr. Jeffrey, and the home which had been given her, had both been forfeited by Mrs. Jeffrey's death.

As I mused and mused over this impromptu synopsis, in my vain attempt to reach some fresh clue to a proper understanding of the inconsistencies in Miss Tuttle's conduct by means of my theory of her strong but mistaken devotion to Mr. Jeffrey, a light suddenly broke upon me from an entirely unexpected quarter. It was a faint one, but any glimmer was welcome. Remembering a remark made by Mr. Jeffrey in his examination, that Mrs. Jeffrey had not been the same since crossing the fatal doorstep of the Moore house, I asked myself if we had paid enough attention to the mental condition and conduct of the bride prior to the alarm which threw a pall of horror over her marriage; and caught by the idea, I sought for a fuller account of the events of that day than had hitherto been supplied by newspaper or witness.

Hunting up my friend, the reporter, I begged him to tell me where he had obtained the facts from which he made that leading article in the Star which had so startled all Washington on the evening of the Jeffrey wedding. That they had come from some eye-witness I had no doubt, but who was the eye-witness? Himself? No. Who then? At first he declined to tell me, but after a fuller understanding of my motives he mentioned the name of a young lady, who, while a frequent guest at the most fashionable functions, was not above supplying the papers with such little items of current gossip as came under her own observation.

How I managed to approach this lady and by what means I succeeded in gaining her confidence are details quite unnecessary to this narrative. Enough that I did obtain access to her and that she talked quite frankly to me, and in so doing supplied me with a clue which ultimately opened up to me an entirely new field of inquiry. We had been discussing Mr. Jeffrey and Miss Tuttle, when suddenly, and with no apparent motive beyond the natural love of gossip which was her weakness, she launched out into remarks about the bride. The ceremony had been late; did I know it? A half-hour or three-quarters past the time set for it. And why? Because Miss Moore was not ready. She had chosen to array herself in the house and had come early enough for the purpose; but she would not accept any assistance, not even that of her maid, and of course she kept every one waiting. "Oh, there was no more uneasy soul in the whole party that morning than the bride!" Let other people remark upon the high look in Cora Tuttle's face, or gossip about the anxious manner of the bridegroom; she, the speaker, could tell things about the bride which would go to show that she was not all right even before that ominous death's-head reared itself into view at her marriage festival. Why, the fact that she came downstairs and was married without her bridal bouquet was enough. Had there not been so much else to talk about, people would have talked about that. But the big event had so effectually swallowed up the little that only herself, and possibly two other ladies she might name, seemed to retain any memory of the matter.

"What ladies?" I asked.

"Oh, it doesn't matter what ladies. Two of the very best sort. I know they noticed it, because I heard them talking about it. We were all standing in the upper hall and were all crowded into a passage leading to the room where the bride was dressing. It was before the alarm had gone around of what had been discovered in the library, and we were all impatient enough for the appearance of the bride, who, we had been told, intended to wear the old point in which her great-grandmother was married. I have a weakness for old point and I was determined to stand where I could see her come out, even if I lost sight of the ceremony itself. But it would have been tedious enough waiting in that close hall if the ladies behind me had not kept up a conversation, which I, of course, pretended not to hear. I remember it, every word, for it was my sole amusement for half an hour. What was it? Oh, it was about that same bouquet, which, by the way, I had the privilege of staring at all the time they chatted. For the boy who brought it had not been admitted into Miss Moore's room, and, not knowing what else to do with it, was lingering before her door, with the great streamers falling from his hands, and the lilies making the whole place heavy with a sickening perfume. From what I heard the ladies say, he had been standing there an hour, and the timid knock he gave from time to time produced in me an odd feeling which those ladies behind me seemed to share.

"'It's a shame!' I heard one of them cry. 'Veronica Moore has no excuse for such thoughtlessness. It is an hour now that she has been shut up in her room alone. She won't have even her maid in. She prefers to dress alone, she says. Peculiar in a bride, isn't it? But one thing is certain: she can not put on her veil without help. She will have to call some one in for that.' At which the other volunteered that the Moores were all queer, and that she didn't envy Francis Jeffrey. 'What! not with fifty thousand a year to lighten her oddities?' returned her companion with a shrug which communicated itself to me, so closely were we packed together. 'I have a son who could bear with them under such circumstances.' Indeed she has, and all Washington knows it, but the remark passed without comment, for they had not yet exhausted the main event, and the person they now attacked was Miss Tuttle. 'Why doesn't she come and see that that bouquet is taken in? I declare it's not decent. Mr. Jeffrey would not feel complimented if he knew the fate of those magnificent lilies and roses. I presume he furnished the bouquet.'

"'Miss Tuttle has looked out of her room once,' I heard the other reply. 'She is in splendid beauty to-day, but pale. But she never could control Veronica.' 'Hush! you speak louder than you think' This amused me, and I do believe that in another moment I should have laughed outright if another boy had not appeared in the hall before us, who, shoving aside the first, rapped on the door with a spirit which called for answer. But he was no more successful than the other boy had been; so, being a brisk fellow, with no time for nonsense, he called out, 'Your bouquet, Miss, and a message, which I am to give you before you go downstairs! The gentleman is quite particular about it.' These words were literally shouted at the door, but in the hubbub of voices about us I don't believe any one heard them but ourselves and the bride. I know that she heard them, for she opened the door a very little way,—such a very little way that the boy had to put his lips to the crack when he spoke, and then turn and place his ear where his lips had been in order to catch her reply. This, for some reason, seemed a long time in coming, and the fellow grew so impatient that he amused himself by snatching the bouquet from the other boy and thrusting it in through the crack, to the very great detriment of its roses and lilies. When she took it he bawled for his answer, and when he got it, he stared and muttered doubtfully to himself as he worked his way out again through the crowd, which by this time was beginning to choke up all the halls and stairways.

"But why have I told you all this nonsense?" she asked quite suddenly. "It isn't of the least consequence that Veronica Moore kept a boy waiting at her door while she dressed herself for her wedding; but it shows that she was queer even then, and I for one believe in the theory of suicide, and in that alone, and in the excuse she gave for it, too; for if she had really loved Francis Jeffrey she would not have been so slow to take in the magnificent bouquet he had provided for her."

But comment, even from those who had known these people well, was not what I wanted at this moment, but facts. So, without much attention to these words, I said:

"You will excuse me if I suggest that you are going on too fast. The door of the bride's room has just been shut upon the boy who brought her a message. When was it opened again?"

"Not for a good half-hour; not till every one had grown nervous and Miss Tuttle and one or two of her most intimate friends had gone more than once to her door; not, in fact, till the hour for the ceremony had come and gone and Mr. Jeffrey had crossed the hall twice under the impression that she was ready for him. Then, when weariness was general and people were asking what kept the bride and how much longer they were to be kept waiting, her door suddenly opened and I caught a glimpse of her face and heard her ask at last for her maid. O, I repeat that Veronica Moore was not all right that day, and though I have heard no one comment on the fact, it has been a mystery to me ever since why she gave that sudden recoil when Francis Jeffrey took her hand after the benediction. It was not timidity, nor was it fear, for she did not know till a minute afterward what had happened in the house. Did some sudden realization of what she had done in marrying a man whom she herself declared she did not love come when it was too late? What do you think?"

Miss Freeman had forgotten herself; but the impetuosity which had led her into asking my opinion made her forget in another moment that she had done so. And when in my turn I propounded a question and inquired whether she ever again saw the boy who besieged the bride's door with a message, she graciously replied:

"The boy; let me see. Yes, I saw him twice; once in a back hall talking earnestly to Mr. Jeffrey, and secondly at the carriage door just before the bridal party rode away. It was Mrs. Jeffrey who was talking to him then, and I wondered to see him look so pleased when everybody in and about the house was pale as ashes."

"Do you know the name of that boy?" I carelessly inquired.

"His name? O no. He is one of Raucher's waiters; the curly-haired one. You see him everywhere; but I don't know his name. Do you flatter yourself that he can tell you anything that other people don't know? Why, if he knew the least thing that wasn't in everybody's mouth, you would have heard from him long ago. Those men are the greatest gossips in town"—I wonder what she thought of herself,—"and so proud to be of any importance." This was true enough, though I did not admit it at the time; and when the interview was closed and I went away, I have no doubt she considered me quite the most heavy person she had ever met. But this did not disturb me. The little facts she had stated were new to me and, repeating my former method, I was already busy arranging them in my mind. Witness the result:

1. The ceremony of marriage between Francis Jeffrey and Veronica Moore was fully three-quarters of an hour late.

2. This was owing to the caprice of the bride, who would not have any one in the room with her, not even her maid.

3. The bridal bouquet did not figure in the ceremony. In the flurry of the moment it was forgotten or purposely left behind by the bride. As this bouquet was undoubtedly the gift of Mr. Jeffrey, the fact may be significant.

4. She received a message of a somewhat peremptory character before going below. From whom? Her bridegroom? It would so appear from the character of the message.

5. The messenger showed great astonishment at the reply he was given to carry back. Yet he has not been known to mention the matter. Why? When every one talked he was silent. Through whose influence? This was something to find out.

6. Though at the time the benediction was pronounced every one was in a state of alarm except the bride, it was noticed that she gave an involuntary recoil when her bridegroom stooped for the customary kiss. Why? Were the lines of her last farewell true then, and did she experience at that moment a sudden realization of her lack of love?

7. She did not go again upstairs, but very soon fled from the house with the rest of the bridal party.

Petty facts, all, but possibly more significant than appeared. I made up my mind to find the boy who brought the bouquet and also the one who carried back her message.

But here a surprise, if not a check, awaited me. The florist's boy had left his place and no one could tell where he had gone. Neither could I find the curly-haired waiter at Raucher's. He had left also, but it was to join the volunteers at San Antonio.

Was there meaning in this coincidence? I resolved to know. Visiting the former haunts of both boys, I failed to come upon any evidence of an understanding between them, or of their having shown any special interest in the Jeffrey tragedy. Both seemed to have been strangely reticent in regard to it, the florist's boy showing stupidity and the waiter such satisfaction in his prospective soldiering that no other topic was deemed worthy his attention. The latter had a sister and she could not say enough of the delight her brother had shown at the prospect of riding a horse again and of fighting in such good company. He had had some experience as a cowboy before coming to Washington, and from the moment war was declared had expressed his intention of joining the recruits for Cuba as soon as he could see her so provided for that his death would not rob her of proper support. How this had come about she did not know. Three weeks before he had been in despair over the faint prospect of doing what he wished; then suddenly, and without any explanation of how the change had come about, he had rushed in upon her with the news that he was going to enlist in a company made up of bronco busters and rough riders from the West, that she need not worry about herself or about him, for he had just put five hundred dollars to her account in bank, and that as for himself he possessed a charmed life and was immune, as she well knew, and need fear bullets no more than the fever. By this he meant that he had had yellow fever years before in Louisiana, and that a ball which had once been fired at him had gone clean through his body without taking his life.

"What was the date of the evening on which he told you he had placed money in bank for you?"

"April the twenty-ninth."

Two days after the Jeffrey-Moore wedding!

Convinced now that his departure from town was something more than a coincidence, I pursued my inquiries and found that he had been received, just as she had said, into the First Volunteer Corps under Colonel Wood. This required influence. Whose was the influence? It took me some time to find out, but after many and various attempts, most of which ended in failure, I succeeded in learning that the man who had worked and obtained for him a place in this favored corps was FRANCIS JEFFREY.

XVIII

IN THE GRASS

I did some tall thinking that night. I remembered that this man had held some conversation with the Jeffreys at their carriage door previous to their departure from the Moore house, and found myself compelled to believe that only a matter of importance to themselves as well as to him would have detained them at such a minute. Oh, that Tampa were not so far off or that I had happened on this clue earlier! But Tampa was at that moment a far prospect for me and I could only reason from such facts as I had been able to collect in Washington.

Fixing my mind now on Mrs. Jeffrey, I asked the cause of the many caprices which had marked her conduct on her wedding morning. Why had she persisted in dressing alone, and what occasioned the absorption which led to her ignoring all appeals at her door at a time when a woman is supposed to be more than usually gracious? But one answer suggested itself. Her heart was not in her marriage, and that last hour of her maidenhood had been an hour of anguish and struggle. Perhaps she not only failed to love Francis Jeffrey, but loved some other man. This seemed improbable, but things as strange as this have happened in our complex society and no reckoning can be made with a woman's fancy. If this was so—and what other theory would better or even so well account for her peculiar behavior both then and afterward? The hour usually given by brides to dress and gladsome expectation was with her one of farewell to past hopes and an unfortunate, if not passionate, attachment. No wonder that she wished to be alone. No wonder that interruption angered her. Perhaps it had found her on her knees. Perhaps— Here I felt myself seized by a strong and sudden excitement. I remembered the filings I had gathered up from the small stand by the window, filings which had glittered and which must have been of gold. What was the conclusion? In this last hour of her maiden life she had sought to rid herself of some article of jewelry which she found it undesirable to carry into her new life. What article of jewelry? In consideration of the circumstances and the hour, I could think of but one. A ring! the symbol of some old attachment.

The slight abrasion at the base of her third finger, which had been looked upon as the result of too rough and speedy a withdrawing of the wedding-ring on the evening of her death, was much more likely to have been occasioned by the reopening of some little wound made two weeks before by the file. If Durbin and the rest had taken into account these filings, they must have come to very much the same conclusion; but either they had overlooked them in their search about the place, or, having noted them, regarded them as a clue leading nowhere.

But for me they led the way to a very definite inquiry. Asking to see the rings Mrs. Jeffrey had left behind her on the night she went for the last time to the Moore house, I looked them carefully over, and found that none of them showed the least mark of the file. This strengthened my theory, and I proceeded to take my next step with increased confidence. It seemed an easy one, but proved unexpectedly difficult. My desire was to ascertain whether she had worn previous to her marriage any rings which had not been seen on her finger since, and it took me one whole week to establish the fact that she had.

But that fact once learned, the way cleared before me. Allowing my fancy full rein, I pictured to myself her anxious figure standing alone in that ancient and ghostly room filing off this old ring from her dainty finger. Then I asked myself what she would be likely to do with this ring after disengaging it from her hand? Would she keep it? Perhaps; but if so, why could it not be found? None such had been discovered among her effects. Or had she thrown it away, and if so, where? The vision of her which I had just seen in my mind's eye came out with a clearness at this, which struck me as providential. I could discern as plainly as if I had been a part of the scene the white-clad form of the bride bending toward the light which came in sparsely through the half-open shutter she had loosened for this task. This was the shutter which had never again been fastened and whose restless blowing to and fro had first led attention to this house and the crime it might otherwise have concealed indefinitely. Had some glimpse of the rank grass growing underneath this window lured her eye and led her to cast away the ring which she had no longer any right to keep? It would be like a woman to yield to such an impulse; and on the strength of the possibility I decided to search this small plot for what it might very reasonably conceal.

But I did not wish to do this openly. I was not only afraid of attracting Durbin's attention by an attempt which could only awaken his disdain, but I hesitated to arouse the suspicion of Mr. Moore, whose interest in his newly acquired property made him very properly alert to any trespass upon it.

The undertaking, therefore, presented difficulties. But it was my business to overcome these, and before long I conceived a plan by which every blade of grass in the narrow strip running in front of this house might be gone over without rousing anything more serious than Uncle David's ire.

Calling together a posse of street urchins, I organized them into a band, with the promise of a good supper all around if one of them brought me the pieces of a broken ring which I had lost in the grass plot of a house where I had been called upon to stay all night. That they might win the supper in the shortest possible time and before the owner of this house, who lived opposite, could interfere, I advised them to start at the fence in a long line and, proceeding on their knees, to search, each one, the ground before him to the width of his own body. The fortunate one was to have the privilege of saying what the supper should consist of. To give a plausible excuse for this search, a ball was to be tossed up and down the street till it lighted in the Moore house inclosure.

It was a scheme to fire the street boy's soul, and I was only afraid of failure from the over-enthusiasm it aroused. But the injunctions which I gave them to spare the shrubs and not to trample the grass any more than was necessary were so minute and impressive that they moved away to their task in unexpected order and with a subdued cheerfulness highly promising of success.

I did not accompany them. Jinny, who has such an innocent air on the street, took my place and promenaded up and down the block, just to see that Mr. Moore did not make too much trouble. And it was well she did so, for though he was not at home,—I had chosen the hour of his afternoon ride, his new man-servant was; and he no sooner perceived this crowd of urchins making for the opposite house than he rushed at them, and would have scattered them far and wide in a twinkling if the demure dimples of my little ally had not come into play and distracted his attention so completely as to make him forget the throng of unkempt hoodlums who seemed bound to invade his master's property. She was looking for Mr. Moore's house, she told him. Did he know Mr. Moore, and his house which was somewhere near? Not his new, great, big house, where the horrible things took place of which she had read in the papers, but his little old house, which she had heard was soon to be for rent, and which she thought would be just the right size for herself and mother. Was that it? That dear little place all smothered in vines? How lovely! and what would the rent be, did he think? and had it a back-yard with garden-room enough for her to raise pinks and nasturtiums? and so on, and so on, while he stared with delighted eyes, and tried to put in a word edgewise, and the boys—well, they went through that strip of grass in just ten minutes. My brave little Jinny had just declared with her most roguish smile that she would run home and tell her mother all about this sweetest of sweet little places, when a shout rose from the other side of the street, and that collection of fifteen or twenty boys scampered away as if mad, shouting in joyous echo of the boy at their head:

"It's to be chicken, heaping plates of ice cream and sponge cake."

By which token she knew that the ring had been found.

When they brought this ring to me I would not have exchanged places with any man on earth. As Jinny herself was curious enough to stroll along about this time, I held it out where we both could see it and draw our conclusions.

It was a plain gold circlet set with a single small ruby. It was cut through and twisted out of shape, just as I had anticipated; and as I examined it I wondered what part it had played and was yet destined to play in the drama of Veronica Jeffrey's mysterious life and still more mysterious death. That it was a factor of some importance, arguing some early school-girl love, I could but gather from the fact that its removal from her finger was effected in secrecy and under circumstances of such pressing haste. How could I learn the story of that ring and the possible connection between it and Mr. Jeffrey's professed jealousy of his wife and the disappointing honeymoon which had followed their marriage? That this feeling on his part had antedated the ambassador's ball no one could question; but that it had started as far back as the wedding day was a new idea to me and one which suggested many possibilities. Could this idea be established, and, if so, how? But one avenue of inquiry offered itself. The waiter, who had been spirited away so curiously immediately after the wedding; might be able to give us some information on this interesting point. He had been the medium of the messages which had passed between her and Mr. Jeffrey just prior to the ceremony; afterward he had been seen talking earnestly to that gentleman and later with her. Certainly, it would add to our understanding of the situation to know what reply she had sent to the peremptory demand made upon her at so critical a time; an understanding so desirable that the very prospect of it was almost enough to warrant a journey to Tampa. Yet, say that the results were disappointing, how much time lost and what a sum of money! I felt the need of advice in this crisis, yet hesitated to ask it. My cursed pride and my no less cursed jealousy of Durbin stood very much in my way at this time.

A week had now passed since the inquest, and, while Miss Tuttle still remained at liberty, it was a circumscribed liberty which must have been very galling to one of her temperament and habits. She rode and she walked, but she entered no house unattended nor was she allowed any communication with Mr. Jeffrey. Nevertheless she saw him, or at least gave him the opportunity of seeing her. Each day at three o'clock she rode through K Street, and the detective who watched Mr. Jeffrey's house said that she never passed it without turning her face to the second-story window, where he invariably stood. No signs passed between them; indeed, they scarcely nodded; but her face, as she lifted it to meet his eye, showed so marked a serenity and was so altogether beautiful that this same detective had a desire to see if it maintained like characteristics when she was not within reach of her brother-in-law. Accordingly, the next day he delegated his place to another and took his stand farther down the street. Alas! it was not the same woman's face he saw; but a far different and sadder one. She wore that look of courage and brave hope only in passing Mr. Jeffrey's house. Was it simply an expression of her secret devotion to him or the signal of some compact which had been entered into between them?

Whichever it was, it touched my heart, even in his description of it. After advising with Jinny I approached the superintendent, to whom, without further reserve, I opened my heart.

The next day I found myself on the train bound for Tampa, with full authority to follow Curly Jim until I found him.