The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(315)

                I have purposely refrained from describing this best known and best reputed member of the Van Burnam family, foreseeing this hour when he would attract the attention of a hundred eyes and when his appearance would require our special notice. I will therefore endeavor to picture him to you as he looked on this memorable morning, with just the simple warning that you must not expect me to see with the eyes of a young girl or even with those of a fashionable society woman. I know a man when I see him, and I had always regarded Mr. Franklin as an exceptionally fine-looking and prepossessing gentleman, but I shall not go into raptures, as I heard a girl behind me doing, nor do I feel like acknowledging him as a paragon of all the virtues—as Mrs. Cunningham did that evening in my parlor.

                He is a medium-sized man, with a shape not unlike his brother’s. His hair is dark and so are his eyes, but his moustache is brown and his complexion quite fair. He carries himself with distinction, and though his countenance in repose has a precise air that is not perfectly agreeable, it has, when he speaks or smiles, an expression at once keen and amiable.

                On this occasion he failed to smile, and though his elegance was sufficiently apparent, his worth was not so much so. Yet the impression generally made was favorable, as one could perceive from the air of respect with which his testimony was received.



                             He was asked many questions. Some were germane to the matter in hand and some seemed to strike wide of all mark. He answered them all courteously, showing a manly composure in doing so, that served to calm the fever-heat into which many had been thrown by the stories of the two hackmen. But as his evidence up to this point related merely to minor concerns, this was neither strange nor conclusive. The real test began when the Coroner, with a certain bluster, which may have been meant to attract the attention of the jury, now visibly waning, or, as was more likely, may have been the unconscious expression of a secret if hitherto well concealed embarrassment, asked the witness whether the keys to his father’s front door had any duplicates.

                The answer came in a decidedly changed tone. “No. The key used by our agent opens the basement door only.”

                The Coroner showed his satisfaction. “No duplicates,” he repeated; “then you will have no difficulty in telling us where the keys to your father’s front door were kept during the family’s absence.”

                Did the young man hesitate, or was it but imagination on my part—“They were usually in my possession.”

                “Usually!” There was irony in the tone; evidently the Coroner was getting the better of his embarrassment, if he had felt any. “And where were they on the seventeenth of this month? Were they in your possession then?”

                “No, sir.” The young man tried to look calm and at his ease, but the difficulty he felt in doing so was apparent. “On the morning of that day,” he continued, “I passed them over to my brother.”

                Ah! here was something tangible as well as important. I began to fear the police understood themselves only too well; and so did the whole crowd of persons there assembled. A groan in one direction was answered by a sigh in another, and it needed all the Coroner’s authority to prevent an outbreak.

                Meanwhile Mr. Van Burnam stood erect and unwavering, though his eye showed the suffering which these demonstrations awakened. He did not turn in the direction of the room where we felt sure his family was gathered, but it was evident that his thoughts did, and that most painfully. The Coroner, on the contrary, showed little or no feeling; he had brought the investigation up to this critical point and felt fully competent to carry it farther.



                             “May I ask,” said he, “where the transference of these keys took place?”