Persons Unknown

  CHAPTER X

  JOE PATRICK ARRIVES

  If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had,as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither ofthem stooped to signify it now.

  "Your name, if you please?"

  "Christina Hope."

  "Occupation?"

  "Actress."

  "May one ask a lady's age?"

  "Twenty-two years."

  She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. -- West 93rdStreet. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these drypreliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaningforward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could givethem. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand--"Unless,of course, you would rather I did not."

  The coroner replied to this biddable appeal--"I shan't keep you a momentlonger than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very fewquestions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject;and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call_personally_ intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hopeyou will answer as fully as possible in the same cause."

  "Oh, certainly."

  "You were engaged to be married to Mr. Ingham, Miss Hope?"

  "Yes."

  "When did this engagement take place?"

  "About a year ago."

  "And your understanding with him remained unimpaired up to his death?"

  "Yes."

  "When did you last see him alive?"

  "On the day before he--died. He drove to our house from the ship."

  "Ah! Very natural, very natural and proper. But surely you dinedtogether? Or met again during the next twenty-four hours?"

  "No."

  "No? What were you doing on the evening of the fourth of August--theevening of his death?"

  "My mother and I dined alone, at home. We were neither of us in goodspirits. I had had a bad day at rehearsal--everything had gone wrong. Myhead ached and my mother was worn out with trying to get our house inorder; it was a new house, we were just moving in."

  "You rented a new house just as you were going to be married?"

  "Yes, that was why. I was determined not to be married out of a flat."

  A smile of sympathy stirred through her audience. It might be stupiditywhich kept her from showing any resentment toward a man who hadpractically accused her of murder. Or, it might be guilt. But she was soyoung, so docile, so demure! Her voice was so low and it came in suchshy breaths--there was something so immature in the little rushes andhesitations of it. She seemed such a sweet young lady! After all, theydidn't want to feed her to the tigers yet awhile!

  And the coroner was instantly aware of this. "Then your mother," hesaid, "is the only person who can corroborate your story of how youpassed that evening?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you pass it?"

  "I worked on my part until after eleven, but I couldn't get it. Then Itook a letter of my mother's out to the post-box."

  "At that hour! Alone!"

  "Yes. I am an actress; I am not afraid. And I wanted the air."

  "You came straight home?"

  "Yes."

  "While you were out did any neighbor see you? Did you speak to any one?"

  "On the way to the post-box I saw Mrs. Johnson, who lives two doorsbelow and who had told us about the house being for rent. She is theonly person whom I know in the neighborhood. On the way back I met noone."

  "Then no one saw you re-enter the house?"

  "I think not."

  "Did the maid let you in?"

  "No, I had my key. The maids had gone to bed."

  "But it was a very hot night. People sat up late, with all their windowsopen, and caretakers in particular must have been sitting on the steps,some one must have seen you return."

  "Perhaps they did."

  "Did you, yourself, notice no one whom we can summon as a witness toyour return?"

  "No one."

  "What did you do when you came in?"

  "I went to bed."

  "You do not sleep in the same room with your mother?"

  "No."

  "On the same floor?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you lock your door?"

  "No."

  "But she would not be apt to come into your room during the night?"

  "Not unless something had happened; no."

  "Could you pass her door without her hearing you?"

  "I should suppose so. I never tried."

  "So that you really have no witness but your mother, Miss Hope, that youreturned to the house, and no witness whatever that you remained in it?"

  "No," Christina breathed.

  "Well, now I'm extremely sorry to recall a painful experience, but whenand how did you first hear of Mr. Ingham's death?"

  "In the morning, early, the telephone began to ring and ring. I couldhear my mother and the maids hurrying about the house, but I felt so illI did not try to get up. I knew I had a hard day's work ahead of me, andI wanted to keep quiet. But, at last, just as I was thinking it must betime, my mother came in and told me to lie still; that she would bringup my breakfast herself. I said I must go to rehearsal at any rate; andshe said, 'No, you are not to go to rehearsal to-day; something hashappened.'"

  The naivete of Christina's phrases sank to an awed whisper; her eyeswere very fixed, like those of a child hypnotized by its own vision.

  "I saw then that she was trying not to tremble and that she had beencrying. She couldn't deny it, and so she told me that Mr. Ingham wasvery, very ill, and she let me get up and helped me to dress. But then,when I must see other people--she told me--she told me--"

  Christina's throat swelled and her eyes filled suddenly with tears.

  The coroner, cursing the sympathy of the situation, forced himself to acommiserating, "Did she say how he died?"

  "She told me it was an accident. I said, 'What kind of an accident?' Andshe said he was shot. 'But,' I said, 'how could he be shot by anaccident? He didn't have any pistol? You know he didn't own such athing.'" A slight sensation traversed the court. "Then it came out--thatno one knew--that people were saying it was--murder--"

  "Do you believe that, Miss Hope?"

  "I don't know what to believe."

  "Did Mr. Ingham have any enemies?"

  "I knew of none."

  "From your intimate knowledge of Mr. Ingham's affairs you know of noone, either with a grudge to satisfy or a profit to be made, by hisdeath?"

  "No. No one at all."

  "So that you have really no theory as to how this terrible thinghappened?"

  "No, really, I haven't."

  "Well, then, I suppose we may excuse you, Miss Hope."

  The girl, with her tranquil but slightly timid dignity, inclined herhead, and heaving a deep sigh of relief, turned away.--

  --"Oh, by the way, Miss Hope,--" And suddenly, with a violent change ofmanner, he began to beat her down by the tactics which he had used withDeutch. But with how different a result! Nothing could make that pale,tall girl ridiculous. Scarcely speaking above a breath, she answeredquestion after question and patiently turned aside insult after insult.He found no opposition, no confusion, no reticence; nothing but thatsoft yielding, that plaintive ingenuousness. The crudest jokes, thecruelest thrusts still left her anxiously endeavoring to convey desiredinformation. He took her back over her relations with Ingham, theirinterview upon his return, the events of the last evening, with aninstance and a repetition that wearied even the auditors to distraction;he would let her run on a little in her answers and then bring her upwith a round turn; twenty times he took with her that journey to andfrom the post-box and examined every step, and still her replies ranlike sand through his fingers and left no trace behind. But, at last,she put out a hand toward the chair she had rejected, and sank slowlyinto it. Then indeed it became plain that she was profoundly exhausted.

  And because her exhaustion was so natural and so pit
iable, the coroner,watching its effect, said, "Well, I can think of nothing more to askyou, Miss Hope. I suppose it would be useless to inquire whether, beingfamiliar with the apartment, you could suggest any way in which, thedoor being bolted, the murderer could have escaped?"

  Christina looked up at him with a very faint smile and with her humblesweetness that had become almost stupidity, she said, "Perhaps themurderer wasn't in the apartment at all!"

  The whole roomful of tired people sat up. "Not in the apartment! Andwhere, then, pray?"

  "Well," said Christina, softly, "he could have been shot through an openwindow, I suppose. Of course, I'm only a woman, and I shouldn't like tosuggest anything. Because, of course, I'm not clever, as a lawyer is.But--"

  "Well, we're waiting for this suggestion!"

  "Oh!--Well, it seems to me that when this lady, whose shadow excited theyoung gentleman so much, disappeared as if it went forward, perhaps itdid go forward, perhaps she ran out of the room. You can see--if youdon't mind stopping to think about it--that she must have been standingright opposite the door. If she had been quarreling with Mr. Ingham, hemay have bolted the door after her. I don't know if you've looked--butthe button for the lights is right there--in the panel of the wallbetween the door and the bedroom arch. Mr. Ingham was a very nervous,emotional person. If there had been a scene, he might very well havemeant to switch the lights out after her, too. If he had his finger onthe button when the bullet struck him, he might very well, in the shock,have pressed it. And then the lights would have gone out, almost as ifthe bullet had put them out, just as the young man says. But, of course,if this were what had happened, you would have thought of it foryourself." And she looked up meekly at him, with her sweet smile.

  The coroner smiled, too, with compressed lips, and putting his hands inhis pockets, threw back his head. "And how do you think, then, that--ifhe was killed instantly, as the doctors have testified,--the corpsewalked into the bedroom, where it was found?"

  "Ah!" said Christina, "I can't account for everything! I'm not anobserver, like you! But there has never been, has there, a doctor whowas ever wrong? Of course, I don't pretend to know."

  "Well, it's a pretty theory, my dear young lady, and I'm sure you meanto work it out for us all you can. So give us a hint where this bullet,coming through an open window, was fired from."

  "It could have been fired from the apartment opposite. Across theentrance-court. You remember, the policeman who went in there found thatthe windows exactly--do you call it 'tallied'?"

  "Very good, Miss Hope. If it were an unoccupied apartment. But it isoccupied by Mr. and Mrs. Willing, and Mrs. Willing was in the apartmentthe entire evening."

  "Yes," said Christina, turning and looking pleasantly at the ladymentioned, "alone." Then she was silent.

  After a staggered instant, the coroner asked, "And what became of thislady who ran out into the hall?"

  "Well, of course," said Christina, sweetly, "if it was Mrs. Willing--"

  The Willings leaped to their feet. "This is ridiculous! This is anoutrage! Why!" cried the husband, "his blind opposite our sitting-roomwas down all the time. There isn't even a hole through it where a shotwould have passed!"

  "Oh, isn't there?" asked Christina. "You see, it wasn't I who knewthat!"

  "What do you mean, you wicked girl! How dare you! Why, you heard thepoliceman say that it was only when he looked through our bedroom thathe could see into Mr. Ingham's apartment--"

  "And wasn't it in the bedroom that the body was found?"

  "Miss Hope!" said the coroner, sternly, "I must ask you not toperpetrate jokes. You know perfectly well that your implied chargeagainst Mrs. Willing is perfectly ridiculous--"

  "Is it?" Christina interrupted, "she implied it about me!"

  And for the first time she lifted to his a glance alight with thefaintest mockery of malice; a wintry gleam, within the white exhaustionof her face. Then,--if all the time she had been playing a part--then,if ever, she was off her guard.

  And she could not see what Herrick, from his angle, could see very well;that the coroner had been quietly slipping something from his desk intohis hand, and was now dangling it behind his back.

  This something was the scarf found on Ingham's table--that white scarfwith its silky border, cloudy, watery, of blue glimmering into gray. Howthe tender, misty coloring recalled that room of Ingham's!

  "Don't you know very well, Miss Hope," the coroner went on, "that Mrs.Willing had nothing whatever to do with Mr. Ingham's death?"

  "How can I? You see, I wasn't there!"

  "So that, by no possibility," said the coroner, "could this be yours?"

  He launched the scarf, like a soft, white serpent, almost in her face.And the girl shrank from it, with a low cry. She might as well haveknotted it about her neck.

  And in the horrible stillness that followed her cry, the coroner said,"Your nerves seem quite shattered, Miss Hope. I was only going to askyou if you didn't think that ornament, in case it was not yours, mighthave been left on Mr. Ingham's table by the young lady who called on himthat afternoon."

  With a brave attempt at her former mild innocence, Christina responded,"I don't know."

  "Neither can you tell us, I suppose,--it would straighten matters outgreatly--who that caller was?"

  "No, I can't. I'm sorry."

  "Think again, Miss Hope. Are there so many smartly dressed and prettyyoung ladies of your acquaintance, with curly red hair and, as Mr. Doddinforms us, with cute little feet?"

  Christina was silent.

  "What? And yet she knows you well enough to say to your fiance--'I don'twish to get Christina into trouble'!" Whose was the smile of malice,now! "Come, come, Miss Hope, you're trifling with us! Tell us theaddress of this lady, and you'll make us your debtors!"

  The girl opened her pale lips to breathe forth, "I can't tell you! Idon't know!"

  "Let us assist your memory, Miss Hope, by recalling to you the lady'sname. Her name is Ann Cornish."

  Herrick's nerves leaped like a frightened horse. And then he sawChristina start from her chair, and, casting round her a wild glancethat seemed to cry for help, drop back again and put her hands over herface. A dozen people sprang to their feet.

  Mrs. Hope ran to her daughter's side, closely followed by Mrs. Deutch.The two women, crying forth indignation and comfort, and exclaiming thatthe girl was worn out and ought to be in bed, rubbed Christina's head,and began to chafe her hands. She was half fainting; but when a glass ofwhiskey had appeared from somewhere and Mrs. Deutch had forced a fewdrops between her lips, Christina, unlike the heroine of romance whosefaints always refuse stimulants, lifted her head and drank a mouthfulgreedily. She sat there then, breathing through open lips, with a traceof color mounting in her face.

  Then the coroner, once more commanding attention, held up a slip ofpasteboard. "This visiting-card," he said, "is engraved with MissCornish's name, but with no address. It was found leaning against acandlestick on Mr. Ingham's piano, as though he wished to keep itcertainly in mind. As a still further reminder, Mr. Ingham himself hadwritten on it in pencil--'At four.'"

  Christina, with the gentlest authority, put back her friends. She rose,slowly and weakly, to her feet. "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish tocorrect a false impression; may I?"

  "Mr. Coroner," she said, "I wish to correct a falseimpression; may I?"]

  "That's what we're here for, my dear young lady," the coroner scornfullyreplied.

  "I have said nothing," she went on, "that is not true, but I haveallowed something to be inferred which is not true." She pressed herhands together and drew a long breath. "It is true that I was engaged toMr. Ingham. And when you asked me if our understanding was unimpaired atthe time of his death, I said yes; for, believe me, our understandingthen was better than it had ever been before. But that was not what youmeant. I will answer what you meant, now. At the time of his death, Iwas not engaged to marry Mr. Ingham."

  "You were not! Why not?"

  "We had quarre
led."

  "When?"

  "The day before he died."

  An intense excitement began to prevail. Herrick longed to stand up andshout, to warn her, to muzzle her. Good God! was it possible shedidn't see what she was doing? The coroner, weary man, sat back with along sigh of satisfaction. His whole attitude said, "Now we're coming toit."

  "And may one ask an awkward question, Miss Hope? Who broke theengagement?"

  "I did."

  "Oh, of course, _naturally_. And may one ask why?"

  "Because I began to think that life with Mr. Ingham would not bepossible to me."

  "But on what grounds?"

  "He was grossly and insanely jealous," said Christina, flushing. "Somewomen enjoy that sort of thing; I don't."

  "Jealous of anyone in particular, Miss Hope?"

  "Only," said Christina, "of everyone in particular."

  "There was never, of course, any grounds for this jealousy?"

  Christina looked through him without replying.

  "Well, well. And was there nothing but this?"

  "He objected to my profession; and when I was first in love with him Ithought that I could give it up for his sake. But as I came to know moreof--everything--and to understand more of myself, I knew that I couldnot. And I would not."

  "So that it was partly Mr. Ingham, himself, in his insistence upon yourrenouncing your profession, who broke the engagement?"

  "If you like."

  "At least, your continuance in it made his jealousy more active?"

  "It made it unbearable. And as it gradually became clear to me that hescarcely pretended to practise even the rudiments of the fidelity thathe exacted, it seemed to me that there were limits to the insults whicheven a gentleman may offer to his betrothed. And I--freed myself."

  Two or three people exchanged glances.

  "Was the engagement ever broken before and patched up again?"

  "We had quarreled before, but not definitely. Last spring I asked him torelease me, and he would not. But he consented to my remaining on thestage, and to going away for the summer, so that I could think thingsout."

  "And you immediately took a house from which to be married!"

  "Yes. I tried to go on with it. I thought furnishing it might make mewant to. But I couldn't. I wrote him so, and he came home. While he wason the ocean I found out something which made any marrying between usutterly impossible. When he drove to my house the day before he waskilled, I told him so. We had a terrible scene, but he knew then as wellas I that it was the end. I never saw him again."

  "As a matter of fact, then, the definite breaking of the engagement wascaused by something new and wholly extraneous to your profession or hisjealousy?"

  "Yes."

  "And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?"

  "Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that."And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't knowwhat I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me?But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know,now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. Ithad nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simplysomething--monstrous--which happened a long time ago. But, between ustwo, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. Andyou can never make me."

  "And you don't know Ann Cornish?"

  Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bearto have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christinaadded, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And,besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she neverhad an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill ofme. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Heraddress is--" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied."She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress,poor child!"

  "Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean,--you don't careabout appearing innocent any longer?"

  "I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through thisafternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You'vemade me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn andtwist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and nowthat I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if youchoose!"

  Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes,impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Notto have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in thishorrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worryme, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you!I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have acareer, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to killme for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hatedwomen--once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;--how you copied anattorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by thepersecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard aswhen she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed toevery scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answereverything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old,and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For ifyou imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, itis easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him likethat, oh, you are wrong--and my nerves are all in shreds. So that itseemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated,and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defendmyself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To bejudged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading.But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to makepeople believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a littlechoking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother,and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't provethat I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It'sworse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you thinkI would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day?I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm allalone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and satdown beside her mother.

  Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash suchdifferent lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentimentsof a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knewwhat to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly moreconciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishlyinto her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have meltedthe public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against thewall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down herunshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forwardacross his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "Myfriends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardlyexpect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for awitness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us getinto shape what we have already learned.--The first thing of which weare sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of thethird of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss ChristinaHope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that housetheir engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that hedisapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and thatthey quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have nowitness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will askyou to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statementthat it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement.

  "Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is thatMr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, hadan appointment with a lady for four o'clock--an appointment the hour ofwhich he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady'svisiting-card, and stood
the card against a candle on his piano. Ournext facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had aprivate interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, assoon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, andthat he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitementof some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you shouldbring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and inquestioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham,then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon thegreat clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you haveclearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish wasnot a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledgedlovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend,and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr.Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham,and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for shesaid--'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found theinformation important, for he soon wished it told him at greater lengthupstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees;although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, Iask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to getChristina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses togive her name come to a specially attractive man with news of herdearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry--newsfor which she feels it necessary to apologize--for but one of tworeasons;--either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injureher friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man andjealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend'slegitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her pointfor she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparentlyfailed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture.

  "Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge offacts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening,expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to beadmitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy,and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; thatdespite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham'sapartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the onlyvisitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy,Joseph Patrick, all this must wait.

  "Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham'splaying at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was aftereleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box,and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spokenwith her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Inghamplayed, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began tobe the sound of voices talking through the music--the voices, as otherwitnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins tosound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun toquarrel. Their voices--particularly the woman's voice--rise higher andstormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep.But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, andsays to her husband, who has just come in, 'He's got that actress he'sengaged to in there with him.' And then even Mr. Herrick is awakened bya deliberate discord from the piano; a jarring crash, 'a kind of hellisheloquence.' In other words, the man, with his comparative calm and hismastery over his instrument, is mocking and goading the woman, whoseshadow, convulsed, threatening, furious, immediately springs out uponthe blind. Gentlemen, can you not imagine the sensations of that woman?Let us suppose a case. Let us suppose that a girl ambitious and lovely,but of a type of loveliness not easily grasped by the mob, a girl whohas had to work hard and fight hard, who is worthy to adorn the highestcircles, but who is, in Miss Christina Hope's feeling expression,without position, without money, without friends, suddenly meets andbecomes engaged to marry a distinguished and wealthy man. Let us supposethat she puts up with this man's exactions, with his furious jealousies,with his continual infidelities for the sake of the security andaffluence of becoming his wife. But is it not possible that when thisexacting gentleman is safely across the ocean she may allow herself alittle liberty? That in the chagrin of knowing she is presently to betorn from her really more congenial friends and surroundings she goes,in his absence, a little too far? At any rate, he cuts short his visitin Europe, he flies to her from the steamer, full of accusations,but--contrary to the experience narrated by Miss Hope--he is perhapssoothed by her version of things and goes away, without having fullywithdrawn his word, to examine matters. Let us suppose that on the nextday he receives a call from his fiancee's confidential friend,--verypossibly his informant while he was abroad--who circumstantiallyconfirms his worst suspicions. Let us suppose he drives wildly to thehouse of his betrothed; but she is not at home, and after a time hegives up looking for her. He comes miserably back, dines out, returnsearly, but leaves word that he is not at home. But in the meanwhile maynot the lady have got word of all this? Suppose that when she does, shecomes to him,--at any hour, at any risk,--and uses her hithertoinfallible charm to get him back. Suppose she gets him back; they arealone together; she is excited and confident and off her guard. She letssomething slip. Instantly the battle is on. This time she cannot get himback. She becomes desperate. If he speaks, as perhaps he has threatenedto, she loses not only him, but everything. For she is on the brink ofthe great step of her career. She is to play the leading feminine roleunder a celebrated star, who does not care for scandal in hisadvertisements. On the contrary, he has bruited everywhere her youth,her propriety, her breeding, her good blood. She is a fairy-tale of thegirlish virtues. He has no use for her otherwise. And still the man atthe piano proclaims her everything that is otherwise, and she sees thatshe is to lose him and all she has struggled for, professionally, in onebreath. He sits there--he, he, the man who has been continually false toher, claiming for himself a different morality--he sits there playing,playing, shattering her nerves with his crash of chords, with hishellish eloquence. But with his back to her, you observe, where shestands at the window and suddenly she sees something lying on a littletable or the foot of the couch--something not unusual in a man'sapartment, although we have Miss Hope's word that Mr. Ingham did notpossess one--something which, perhaps, in his wrecked happiness, he hadloaded earlier in the evening with that sinister intention of suicide inwhich Miss Hope's respected friend, Mr. Deutch, so profoundly believes.Well, gentlemen, the frenzied eye of this tormented girl lights on thatlittle object, she stoops to pick it up, he turns,--and then comes apistol-shot. There is an end to the strength of a woman's nerves,gentlemen, and she has found it. She cannot look upon her handiwork. Shesprings off the light and flees. In the confusion she escapes.Gentlemen, with the dumbfounding mystery of that bolted door I can notdeal, unless--as Miss Hope has reminded us--medical science may be foronce at fault,--unless the wounded man instinctively staggered to thedoor and bolted it, staggered toward his telephone, in his bedroom, anddied there. That, gentlemen, can be threshed out at the trial. In themeantime, I must ask you to remember that the lady whom events seem toindicate is high-strung and overwrought; that her natural grief andnervousness led her through a long cross-examination in which she neveronce betrayed any hesitation, or the fact that she had quarreled withMr. Ingham or that she was aware of the existence of Ann Cornish, to asatirical attack upon Mrs. Willing, whose remarks had annoyed her; that,as she tells us, she has no one to take care of her, and if we areinclined to think that she can take very good care of herself, we mustremember that when she was confronted with a lady's scarf found not farfrom the murdered man, she screamed at the sight of it, and whenconfronted with the visiting-card of Ann Cornish, she so much wished herfriend to be kept out of it that she fainted, and, afterwards, _changedall her evidence_.--Gentlemen, I rejoice to see, entering this room, ourwitness, Joseph Patrick."

  Joe Patrick, a short, thick-set young fellow, with rough hair and abright eye,
advanced to the coroner's desk. His forehead was ornamentedwith a great deal of very fresh surgeon's plaster, and when asked why hewas so late, he replied that he had been knocked down by an automobileon his way to the inquest. Well, yes, he would sit down; he did feel alittle weak, but it wasn't so much from that--he'd had some candy senthim day before yesterday and he'd been awful sick ever since he ate it.Joe was a friendly soul and he added that he was sorry the man thecoroner sent hadn't seen anybody but his mother. He was to the doctor's,then.

  "But you had telephoned a pretty detailed account to your mother, hadn'tyou, before you left the Van Dam--on the morning of the murder--muchmore detailed than you gave the police?"

  "Yes, sir. I guess I did."

  "Well, then, please give that account to us."

  Joe looked rather at sea, and the coroner added, "You have said from thebeginning, that a lady called upon Mr. Ingham the night of his death?"

  "Oh, yes, sir! She did!"

  "Well, tell us first what happened when you went on watch. You had amessage from Mr. Ingham?"

  "Yes, sir. He telephoned down to me. He says, 'I'm out. And if any ladycomes to see me this evening, you say right away I'm out.'"

  "Well, and then?"

  "Well, along about half-past twelve--it was awful hot and lonesome,and--and--"

  "And you began to get sleepy! It seems that at least the house-staff wasable to sleep that night!"

  "Well," said Joe, "I guess anybody'd get sleepy, been sittin' there forfour hours in that heat! Anyhow, it seemed like I'd just closed my eyes,when they came open all of a sudden and I was looking at the frontdoor. And there, all in white--'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there'sMiss Hope!' I don't know why it seemed so awful queer to me, unlessbecause I wasn't really but half-awake."

  "'Great Scott!' I says to myself, 'there's Miss Hope!'"]

  It is not too much to say that a shudder traversed the court. Christina,white as death, and her eyes black and strained with horror, leanedtoward him in an agony.

  "Perhaps you thought she was rather a late visitor!" smiled the coroner."Well? She didn't melt away, I suppose?"

  "No, sir. She came up to me, all smiles like, but you bet there wassomething that wasn't a bit funny in that smile. And she says to me, 'Isour friend, Mr. Ingham, at home?' she says. And I says, 'No, ma'am.' Andshe says, 'You're a bad liar, my boy! But you won't take me up, Isuppose?' And I says, 'He told me not to, ma'am.'"

  "Well? Go on!"

  "So she says, 'Well, then, I must take myself up.' And before you couldsay 'Pop,' she was up the stairs."

  "And what did you do?"

  "'Oh, here, ma'am, ma'am,' I says, 'you mustn't do that!' She stoppedand put her elbows on the stair-rail,--they run right up to one side o'the 'phone desk, you know,--and laughed down at me. She looked awfulpretty, but there was something about her kind o' scared me. And 'It'sall right, my boy,' she says. 'I shan't hurt him!' An' she laughed againan' ran on up."

  "And you did nothing?"

  "Well, what could I do, I like to know! But I grabbed at the switchboardand called up Mr. Ingham. 'Mr. Ingham,' I says, 'that lady's coming upanyhow.' An' he says, 'Damnation!' That's the last word I ever heard outo' him."

  "'That lady!' Didn't you give him her name?"

  "Why, I didn't know her name, sir!"

  "Not know her name! Why, you know Miss Hope--you know her name?"

  "Oh, yes, sir."

  "Well, are you crazy, then? It was Miss Hope, was it not?"

  "Why, no, you bet you it wasn't! It was another lady altogether!"