"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. .h.i.therto 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 pa.s.s 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 bal.u.s.trade, 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.
XII
THRUST AND PARRY
When Francis Jeffrey"s hand fell from his forehead and he turned to face the a.s.sembled people, an instinctive compa.s.sion 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 impa.s.sive exterior. If I secretly held this man"s misery to be a mask hiding untold pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.s 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 sc.r.a.p 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 repet.i.tion:
"I find that I do not love you as I thought. I can not live knowing this to be so. Pray G.o.d 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?"