The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(334)

                “Ah, I see now why you prevaricated this morning in regard to the time when you missed those keys.”

                “I know that my testimony is full of contradictions.”

                “You feared to have it known that you were on the stoop of your father’s house for the second time that night?”

                “Naturally, in face of the suspicion I perceived everywhere about me.”

                “And this time you did not go in?”

                “No.”

                “Nor ring the bell?”

                “No.”

                “Why not, if you left your wife within, alive and well?”

                “I did not wish to disturb her. My purpose was not strong enough to surmount the least difficulty. I was easily deterred from going where I had little wish to be.”

                “So that you merely went up the stoop and down again at the time Mr. Stone saw you?”

                “Yes, and if he had passed a minute sooner he would have seen this: seen me go up, I mean, as well as seen me come down. I did not linger long in the doorway.”

                “But you did linger there a moment?”

                “Yes; long enough to hunt for the keys and get over my astonishment at not finding them.”

                “Did you notice Mr. Stone going by on Twenty-first Street?”

                “No.”



                             “Was it as light as Mr. Stone has said?”

                “Yes, it was light.”

                “And you did not notice him?”

                “No.”

                “Yet you must have followed very closely behind him?”

                “Not necessarily. I went by the way of Twentieth Street, sir. Why, I do not know, for my rooms are uptown. I do not know why I did half the things I did that night.”

                “I can readily believe it,” remarked the Coroner.

                Mr. Van Burnam’s indignation rose.

                “You are trying,” said he, “to connect me with the fearful death of my wife in my father’s lonely house. You cannot do it, for I am as innocent of that death as you are, or any other person in this assemblage. Nor did I pull those shelves down upon her as you would have this jury think, in my last thoughtless visit to my father’s door. She died according to God’s will by her own hand or by means of some strange and unaccountable accident known only to Him. And so you will find, if justice has any place in these investigations and a manly intelligence be allowed to take the place of prejudice in the breasts of the twelve men now sitting before me.”

                And bowing to the Coroner, he waited for his dismissal, and receiving it, walked back not to his lonely corner, but to his former place between his father and brother, who received him with a wistful air and strange looks of mingled hope and disbelief.

                “The jury will render their verdict on Monday morning,” announced the Coroner, and adjourned the inquiry.