Chapter VI: Book II: The Law and Its Victim (2)

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 a fresh 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 saw 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 there at 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?”