The Affair Next Door (14 page)

Coroner Dahl surveyed him a few minutes before speaking, then he quietly
asked if he had seen the dead body of the woman who had been found lying
under a fallen piece of furniture in his father's house.

He replied that he had.

"Before she was removed from the house or after it?"

"After."

"Did you recognize it? Was it the body of any one you know?"

"I do not think so."

"Has your wife, who was missing yesterday, been heard from yet, Mr. Van
Burnam?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir."

"Had she not—that is, your wife—a complexion similar to that of the
dead woman just alluded to?"

"She had a fair skin and brown hair, if that is what you mean. But these
attributes are common to too many women for me to give them any weight
in an attempted identification of this importance."

"Had they no other similar points of a less general character? Was not
your wife of a slight and graceful build, such as is attributed to the
subject of this inquiry?"

"My wife was slight and she was graceful, common attributes also."

"And your wife had a scar?"

"Yes."

"On the left ankle?"

"Yes."

"Which the deceased also has?"

"That I do not know. They say so, but I had no interest in looking."

"Why, may I ask? Did you not think it a remarkable coincidence?"

The young man frowned. It was the first token of feeling he had given.

"I was not on the look-out for coincidences," was his cold reply. "I had
no reason to think this unhappy victim of an unknown man's brutality my
wife, and so did not allow myself to be moved by even such a fact as
this."

"You had no reason," repeated the Coroner, "to think this woman your
wife. Had you any reason to think she was not?"

"Yes."

"Will you give us that reason?"

"I had more than one. First, my wife would never wear the clothes I saw
on the girl whose dead body was shown to me. Secondly, she would never
go to any house alone with a man at the hour testified to by one of your
witnesses."
[1]

"Not with any man?"

"I did not mean to include her husband in my remark, of course. But as I
did not take her to Gramercy Park, the fact that the deceased woman
entered an empty house accompanied by a man, is proof enough to me that
she was not Louise Van Burnam."

"When did you part with your wife?"

"On Monday morning at the depot in Haddam."

"Did you know where she was going?"

"I knew where she said she was going."

"And where was that, may I ask?"

"To New York, to interview my father."

"But your father was not in New York?"

"He was daily expected here. The steamer on which he had sailed from
Southampton was due on Tuesday."

"Had she an interest in seeing your father? Was there any special reason
why she should leave you for doing so?"

"She thought so; she thought he would become reconciled to her entrance
into our family if he should see her suddenly and without prejudiced
persons standing by."

"And did you fear to mar the effect of this meeting if you accompanied
her?"

"No, for I doubted if the meeting would ever take place. I had no
sympathy with her schemes, and did not wish to give her the sanction of
my presence."

"Was that the reason you let her go to New York alone?"

"Yes."

"Had you no other?"

"No."

"Why did you follow her, then, in less than five hours?"

"Because I was uneasy; because I also wanted to see my father; because I
am a man accustomed to carry out every impulse; and impulse led me that
day in the direction of my somewhat headstrong wife."

"Did you know where your wife intended to spend the night?"

"I did not. She has many friends, or at least I have, in the city, and I
concluded she would go to one of them—as she did."

"When did you arrive in the city? before ten o'clock?"

"Yes, a few minutes before."

"Did you try to find your wife?"

"No. I went directly to the club."

"Did you try to find her the next morning?"

"No; I had heard that the steamer had not yet been sighted off Fire
Island, so considered the effort unnecessary."

"Why? What connection is there between this fact and an endeavor on your
part to find your wife?"

"A very close one. She had come to New York to throw herself at my
father's feet. Now she could only do this at the steamer or in—"

"Why do you not proceed, Mr. Van Burnam?"

"I will. I do not know why I stopped,—or in his own house."

"In his own house? In the house in Gramercy Park, do you mean?"

"Yes, he has no other."

"The house in which this dead girl was found?"

"Yes,"—impatiently.

"Did you think she might throw herself at his feet there?"

"She said she might; and as she is romantic, foolishly romantic, I
thought her fully capable of doing so."

"And so you did not seek her in the morning?"

"No, sir."

"How about the afternoon?"

This was a close question; we saw that he was affected by it though he
tried to carry it off bravely.

"I did not see her in the afternoon. I was in a restless frame of mind,
and did not remain in the city."

"Ah! indeed! and where did you go?"

"Unless necessary, I prefer not to say."

"It is necessary."

"I went to Coney Island."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"Did you see anybody there you know?"

"No."

"And when did you return?"

"At midnight."

"When did you reach your rooms?"

"Later."

"How much later?"

"Two or three hours."

"And where were you during those hours?"

"I was walking the streets."

The ease, the quietness with which he made these acknowledgments were
remarkable. The jury to a man honored him with a prolonged stare, and
the awe-struck crowd scarcely breathed during their utterance. At the
last sentence a murmur broke out, at which he raised his head and with
an air of surprise surveyed the people before him. Though he must have
known what their astonishment meant, he neither quailed nor blanched,
and while not in reality a handsome man, he certainly looked handsome at
this moment.

I did not know what to think; so forbore to think anything. Meanwhile
the examination went on.

"Mr. Van Burnam, I have been told that the locket I see there dangling
from your watch-chain contains a lock of your wife's hair. Is it so?"

"I have a lock of her hair in this; yes."

"Here is a lock clipped from the head of the unknown woman whose
identity we seek. Have you any objection to comparing the two?"

"It is not an agreeable task you have set me," was the imperturbable
response; "but I have no objection to doing what you ask." And calmly
lifting the chain, he took off the locket, opened it, and held it out
courteously toward the Coroner. "May I ask you to make the first
comparison," he said.

The Coroner, taking the locket, laid the two locks of brown hair
together, and after a moment's contemplation of them both, surveyed the
young man seriously, and remarked:

"They are of the same shade. Shall I pass them down to the jury?"

Howard bowed. You would have thought he was in a drawing-room, and in
the act of bestowing a favor. But his brother Franklin showed a very
different countenance, and as for their father, one could not even see
his face, he so persistently held up his hand before it.

The jury, wide-awake now, passed the locket along, with many sly nods
and a few whispered words. When it came back to the Coroner, he took it
and handed it to Mr. Van Burnam, saying:

"I wish you would observe the similarity for yourself. I can hardly
detect any difference between them."

"Thank you! I am willing to take your word for it," replied the young
man, with most astonishing
aplomb
. And Coroner and jury for a moment
looked baffled, and even Mr. Gryce, of whose face I caught a passing
glimpse at this instant, stared at the head of his cane, as if it were
of thicker wood than he expected and had more knotty points on it than
even his accustomed hand liked to encounter.

Another effort was not out of place, however; and the Coroner, summoning
up some of the pompous severity he found useful at times, asked the
witness if his attention had been drawn to the dead woman's hands.

He acknowledged that it had. "The physician who made the autopsy urged
me to look at them, and I did; they were certainly very like my wife's."

"Only like."

"I cannot say that they were my wife's. Do you wish me to perjure
myself?"

"A man should know his wife's hands as well as he knows her face."

"Very likely."

"And you are ready to swear these were not the hands of your wife?"

"I am ready to swear I did not so consider them."

"And that is all?"

"That is all."

The Coroner frowned and cast a glance at the jury. They needed prodding
now and then, and this is the way he prodded them. As soon as they gave
signs of recognizing the hint he gave them, he turned back, and renewed
his examination in these words:

"Mr. Van Burnam, did your brother at your request hand you the keys of
your father's house on the morning of the day on which this tragedy
occurred?"

"He did."

"Have you those keys now?"

"I have not."

"What have you done with them? Did you return them to your brother?"

"No; I see where your inquiries are tending, and I do not suppose you
will believe my simple word; but I lost the keys on the day I received
them; that is why—"

"Well, you may continue, Mr. Van Burnam."

"I have no more to say; my sentence was not worth completing."

The murmur which rose about him seemed to show dissatisfaction; but he
remained imperturbable, or rather like a man who did not hear. I began
to feel a most painful interest in the inquiry, and dreaded, while I
anxiously anticipated, his further examination.

"You lost the keys; may I ask when and where?"

"That I do not know; they were missing when I searched for them; missing
from my pocket, I mean."

"Ah! and when did you search for them?"

"The next day—after I had heard—of—of what had taken place in my
father's house."

The hesitations were those of a man weighing his reply. They told on the
jury, as all such hesitations do; and made the Coroner lose an atom of
the respect he had hitherto shown this easy-going witness.

"And you do not know what became of them?"

"No."

"Or into whose hands they fell?"

"No, but probably into the hands of the wretch—"

To the astonishment of everybody he was on the verge of vehemence; but
becoming sensible of it, he controlled himself with a suddenness that
was almost shocking.

"Find the murderer of this poor girl," said he, with a quiet air that
was more thrilling than any display of passion, "and ask
him
where he
got the keys with which he opened the door of my father's house at
midnight."

Was this a challenge, or just the natural outburst of an innocent man.
Neither the jury nor the Coroner seemed to know, the former looking
startled and the latter nonplussed. But Mr. Gryce, who had moved now
into view, smoothed the head of his cane with quite a loving touch, and
did not seem at this moment to feel its inequalities objectionable.

"We will certainly try to follow your advice," the Coroner assured him.
"Meanwhile we must ask how many rings your wife is in the habit of
wearing?"

"Five. Two on the left hand and three on the right."

"Do you know these rings?"

"I do."

"Better than you know her hands?"

"As well, sir."

"Were they on her hands when you parted from her in Haddam?"

"They were."

"Did she always wear them?"

"Almost always. Indeed I do not ever remember seeing her take off more
than one of them."

"Which one?"

"The ruby with the diamond setting."

"Had the dead girl any rings on when you saw her?"

"No, sir."

"Did you look to see?"

"I think I did in the first shock of the discovery."

"And you saw none?"

"No, sir."

"And from this you concluded she was not your wife?"

"From this and other things."

"Yet you must have seen that the woman was in the habit of wearing
rings, even if they were not on her hands at that moment?"

"Why, sir? What should I know about her habits?"

"Is not that a ring I see now on your little finger?"

"It is; my seal ring which I always wear."

"Will you pull it off?"

"Pull it off!"

"If you please; it is a simple test I am requiring of you, sir."

The witness looked astonished, but pulled off the ring at once.

"Here it is," said he.

"Thank you, but I do not want it. I merely want you to look at your
finger."

The witness complied, evidently more nonplussed than disturbed by this
command.

"Do you see any difference between that finger and the one next it?"

"Yes; there is a mark about my little finger showing where the ring has
pressed."

"Very good; there were such marks on the fingers of the dead girl, who,
as you say, had no rings on. I saw them, and perhaps you did yourself?"

"I did not; I did not look closely enough."

"They were on the little finger of the right hand, on the marriage
finger of the left, and on the forefinger of the same. On which fingers
did your wife wear rings?"

"On those same fingers, sir, but I will not accept this fact as proving
her identity with the deceased. Most women do wear rings, and on those
very fingers."

The Coroner was nettled, but he was not discouraged. He exchanged looks
with Mr. Gryce, but nothing further passed between them and we were left
to conjecture what this interchange of glances meant.