But before either of us could make out just what this change betokened he recovered his aspect of fixed melancholy and quietly remarked:
"It is dreadful to think of her standing there alone, aiming a pistol at her young, pa.s.sionate heart; but it is worse to picture her doing this under the gaze of unsympathizing eyes. I can not and will not so picture her. You have been misled by appearances or what in police parlance is called a clue."
Evidently he did not mean to admit the possibility of the pistol having been fired by any other hand than her own. This the coroner noted. Bowing with the respect he showed every man before a jury had decided upon his guilt, he turned toward the door out of which I had already hurried.
"We hope to hear from you in the morning," he called back significantly, as he stepped down the stairs.
Mr. Jeffrey did not answer; he was having his first struggle with the new and terrible prospect awaiting him at the approaching inquest.
BOOK II
THE LAW AND ITS VICTIM
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, a.s.sumed 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, antic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.signed her with a suddenly a.s.sumed 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 att.i.tude 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!"