The Affair Next Door (16 page)

"It was very laughable, certainly," observed the Coroner, in a hard
voice. "
You
must have found it very ridiculous"; and after giving the
witness a look full of something deeper than sarcasm, he turned towards
the jury as if to ask them what they thought of these very forced and
suspicious explanations.

But they evidently did not know what to think, and the Coroner's looks
flew back to the witness who of all the persons present seemed the least
impressed by the position in which he stood.

"Mr. Van Burnam," said he, "you showed a great deal of feeling this
morning at being confronted with your wife's hat. Why was this, and why
did you wait till you saw this evidence of her presence on the scene of
death to acknowledge the facts you have been good enough to give us this
afternoon?"

"If I had a lawyer by my side, you would not ask me that question, or if
you did, I would not be allowed to answer it. But I have no lawyer here,
and so I will say that I was greatly shocked by the catastrophe which
had happened to my wife, and under the stress of my first overpowering
emotions had the impulse to hide the fact that the victim of so dreadful
a mischance was my wife. I thought that if no connection was found
between myself and this dead woman, I would stand in no danger of the
suspicion which must cling to the man who came into the house with her.
But like most first impulses, it was a foolish one and gave way under
the strain of investigation. I, however, persisted in it as long as
possible, partially because my disposition is an obstinate one, and
partially because I hated to acknowledge myself a fool; but when I saw
the hat, and recognized it as an indisputable proof of her presence in
the Van Burnam house that night, my confidence in the attempt I was
making broke down all at once. I could deny her shape, her hands, and
even the scar, which she might have had in common with other women, but
I could not deny her hat. Too many persons had seen her wear it."

But the Coroner was not to be so readily imposed upon.

"I see, I see," he repeated with great dryness, "and I hope the jury
will be satisfied. And they probably will, unless they remember the
anxiety which, according to your story, was displayed by your wife to
have her whole outfit in keeping with her appearance as a working girl.
If she was so particular as to think it necessary to dress herself in
store-made undergarments, why make all these precautions void by
carrying into the house a hat with the name of an expensive milliner
inside it?"

"Women are inconsistent, sir. She liked the hat and hated to part with
it. She thought she could hide it somewhere in the great house, at least
that was what she said to me when she tucked it under her cape."

The Coroner, who evidently did not believe one word of this, stared at
the witness as if curiosity was fast taking the place of indignation.
And I did not wonder. Howard Van Burnam, as thus presented to our notice
by his own testimony, was an anomaly, whether we were to believe what he
was saying at the present time or what he had said during the morning
session. But I wished I had had the questioning of him.

His next answer, however, opened up one dark place into which I had been
peering for some time without any enlightenment. It was in reply to the
following query:

"All this," said the Coroner, "is very interesting; but what explanation
have you to give for taking your wife into your father's empty house at
an hour so late, and then leaving her to spend the best part of the dark
night alone?"

"None," said he, "that will strike you as sensible and judicious. But we
were not sensible that night, neither were we judicious, or I would not
be standing here trying to explain what is not explainable by any of the
ordinary rules of conduct. She was set upon being the first to greet my
father on his entrance into his own home, and her first plan had been to
do so in her own proper character as my wife, but afterwards the freak
took her, as I have said, to personify the housekeeper whom my father
had cabled us to have in waiting at his house,—a cablegram which had
reached us too late for any practical use, and which we had therefore
ignored,—and fearing he might come early in the morning, before she
could be on hand to make the favorable impression she intended, she
wished to be left in the house that night; and I humored her. I did not
foresee the suffering that my departure might cause her, or the fears
that were likely to spring from her lonely position in so large and
empty a dwelling. Or rather, I should say,
she
did not foresee them;
for she begged me not to stay with her, when I hinted at the darkness
and dreariness of the place, saying that she was too jolly to feel fear
or think of anything but the surprise my father and sisters would
experience in discovering that their very agreeable young housekeeper
was the woman they had so long despised."

"And why," persisted the Coroner, edging forward in his interest and so
allowing me to catch a glimpse of Mr. Gryce's face as he too leaned
forward in his anxiety to hear every word that fell from this remarkable
witness,—"why do you speak of her fear? What reason have you to think
she suffered apprehension after your departure?"

"Why?" echoed the witness, as if astounded by the other's lack of
perspicacity. "Did she not kill herself in a moment of terror and
discouragement? Leaving her, as I did, in a condition of health and good
spirits, can you expect me to attribute her death to any other cause
than a sudden attack of frenzy caused by terror?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the Coroner in a suspicious tone, which no doubt voiced
the feelings of most people present; "then you think your wife committed
suicide?"

"Most certainly," replied the witness, avoiding but two pairs of eyes in
the whole crowd, those of his father and brother.

"
With
a hat-pin," continued the Coroner, letting his hitherto scarcely
suppressed irony become fully visible in voice and manner, "thrust into
the back of her neck at a spot young ladies surely would have but little
reason to know is peculiarly fatal! Suicide! when she was found crushed
under a pile of
bric-à-brac
, which was thrown down or fell upon her
hours after she received the fatal thrust!"

"I do not know how else she could have died," persisted the witness,
calmly, "unless she opened the door to some burglar. And what burglar
would kill a woman in that way, when he could pound her with his fists?
No; she was frenzied and stabbed herself in desperation; or the thing
was done by accident, God knows how! And as for the testimony of the
experts—we all know how easily the wisest of them can be mistaken even
in matters of as serious import as these.
If all the experts in the
world
"—here his voice rose and his nostrils dilated till his aspect
was actually commanding and impressed us all like a sudden
transformation—"
If all the experts in the world were to swear that
those shelves were thrown upon her after she had lain therefor four
hours dead, I would not believe them. Appearances or no appearances,
blood or no blood, I here declare that she pulled that cabinet over in
her death-struggle; and upon the truth of this fact I am ready to rest
my honor as a man and my integrity as her husband
."

An uproar immediately followed, amid which could be heard cries of "He
lies!" "He's a fool!" The attitude taken by the witness was so
unexpected that the most callous person present could not fail to be
affected by it. But curiosity is as potent a passion as surprise, and in
a few minutes all was still again and everybody intent to hear how the
Coroner would answer these asseverations.

"I have heard of a blind man denying the existence of light," said that
gentleman, "but never before of a sensible being like yourself urging
the most untenable theories in face of such evidence as has been brought
before us during this inquiry. If your wife committed suicide, or if the
entrance of the point of a hat-pin into her spine was effected by
accident, how comes the head of the pin to have been found so many feet
away from her and in such a place as the parlor register?"

"It may have flown there when it broke, or, what is much more probable,
been kicked there by some of the many people who passed in and out of
the room between the time of her death and that of its discovery."

"But the register was found closed," urged the Coroner. "Was it not, Mr.
Gryce?"

That person thus appealed to, rose for an instant.

"It was," said he, and deliberately sat down again.

The face of the witness, which had been singularly free from expression
since his last vehement outbreak, clouded over for an instant and his
eye fell as if he felt himself engaged in an unequal struggle. But he
recovered his courage speedily, and quietly observed:

"The register may have been closed by a passing foot. I have known of
stranger coincidences than that."

"Mr. Van Burnam," asked the Coroner, as if weary of subterfuges and
argument, "have you considered the effect which this highly
contradictory evidence of yours is likely to have on your reputation?"

"I have."

"And are you ready to accept the consequences?"

"If any especial consequences follow, I must accept them, sir."

"When did you lose the keys which you say you have not now in your
possession? This morning you asserted that you did not know; but perhaps
this afternoon you may like to modify that statement."

"I lost them after I left my wife shut up in my father's house."

"Soon?"

"Very soon."

"How soon?"

"Within an hour, I should judge."

"How do you know it was so soon?"

"I missed them at once."

"Where were you when you missed them?"

"I don't know; somewhere. I was walking the streets, as I have said. I
don't remember just where I was when I thrust my hands into my pocket
and found the keys gone."

"You do not?"

"No."

"But it was within an hour after leaving the house?"

"Yes."

"Very good; the keys have been found."

The witness started, started so violently that his teeth came together
with a click loud enough to be heard over the whole room.

"Have they?" said he, with an effort at nonchalance which, however,
failed to deceive any one who noticed his change of color. "
You
can
tell me, then, where I lost them."

"They were found," said the Coroner, "in their usual place above your
brother's desk in Duane Street."

"Oh!" murmured the witness, utterly taken aback or appearing so. "I
cannot account for their being found in the office. I was so sure I
dropped them in the street."

"I did not think you could account for it," quietly observed the
Coroner. And without another word he dismissed the witness, who
staggered to a seat as remote as possible from the one where he had
previously been sitting between his father and brother.

A pause of decided duration now followed; an exasperating pause which
tried even me, much as I pride myself upon my patience. There seemed to
be some hitch in regard to the next witness. The Coroner sent Mr. Gryce
into the neighboring room more than once, and finally, when the general
uneasiness seemed on the point of expressing itself by a loud murmur, a
gentleman stepped forth, whose appearance, instead of allaying the
excitement, renewed it in quite an unprecedented and remarkable way.

I did not know the person thus introduced.

He was a handsome man, a very handsome man, if the truth must be told,
but it did not seem to be this fact which made half the people there
crane their heads to catch a glimpse of him. Something else, something
entirely disconnected with his appearance there as a witness, appeared
to hold the people enthralled and waken a subdued enthusiasm which
showed itself not only in smiles, but in whispers and significant
nudges, chiefly among the women, though I noticed that the jurymen
stared when somebody obliged them with the name of this new witness. At
last it reached my ears, and though it awakened in me also a decided
curiosity, I restrained all expression of it, being unwilling to add
one jot to this ridiculous display of human weakness.

Randolph Stone, as the intended husband of the rich Miss Althorpe, was a
figure of some importance in the city, and while I was very glad of this
opportunity of seeing him, I did not propose to lose my head or forget,
in the marked interest his person invoked, the very serious cause which
had brought him before us. And yet I suppose no one in the room observed
his figure more minutely.

He was elegantly made and possessed, as I have said, a face of peculiar
beauty. But these were not his only claims to admiration. He was a man
of undoubted intelligence and great distinction of manner. The
intelligence did not surprise me, knowing, as I did, how he had raised
himself to his present enviable position in society in the short space
of five years. But the perfection of his manner astonished me, though
how I could have expected anything less in a man honored by Miss
Althorpe's regard, I cannot say. He had that clear pallor of complexion
which in a smooth-shaven face is so impressive, and his voice when he
spoke had that music in it which only comes from great cultivation and a
deliberate intent to please.

He was a friend of Howard's, that I saw by the short look that passed
between them when he first entered the room; but that it was not as a
friend he stood there was apparent from the state of amazement with
which the former recognized him, as well as from the regret to be seen
underlying the polished manner of the witness himself. Though perfectly
self-possessed and perfectly respectful, he showed by every means
possible the pain he felt in adding one feather-weight to the evidence
against a man with whom he was on terms of more or less intimacy.