That Affair Next Door Part 29

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.

XV.

A RELUCTANT WITNESS.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sed 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.

But let me give his testimony. Having acknowledged that he knew the Van Burnam family well, and Howard in particular, he went on to state that on the night of the seventeenth he had been detained at his office by business of a more than usual pressing nature, and finding that he could expect no rest for that night, humored himself by getting off the cars at Twenty-first Street instead of proceeding on to Thirty-third Street, where his apartments were.

The smile which these words caused (Miss Althorpe lives in Twenty-first Street) woke no corresponding light on his face. Indeed, he frowned at it, as if he felt that the gravity of the situation admitted of nothing frivolous or humorsome. And this feeling was shared by Howard, for he started when the witness mentioned Twenty-first Street, and cast him a haggard look of dismay which happily no one saw but myself, for every one else was concerned with the witness. Or should I except Mr. Gryce?

"I had of course no intentions beyond a short stroll through this street previous to returning to my home," continued the witness, gravely; "and am sorry to be obliged to mention this freak of mine, but find it necessary in order to account for my presence there at so unusual an hour."

"You need make no apologies," returned the Coroner. "Will you state on what line of cars you came from your office?"

"I came up Third Avenue."

"Ah! and walked towards Broadway?"

"Yes."

"So that you necessarily pa.s.sed very near the Van Burnam mansion?"

"Yes."

"At what time was this, can you say?"

"At four, or nearly four. It was half-past three when I left my office."

"Was it light at that hour? Could you distinguish objects readily?"

"I had no difficulty in seeing."

"And what did you see? Anything amiss at the Van Burnam mansion?"

"No, sir, nothing amiss. I merely saw Howard Van Burnam coming down the stoop as I went by the corner."

"You made no mistake. It was the gentleman you name, and no other whom you saw on this stoop at this hour?"

"I am very sure that it was he. I am sorry----"

But the Coroner gave him no opportunity to finish.

"You and Mr. Van Burnam are friends, you say, and it was light enough for you to recognize each other; then you probably spoke?"

"No, we did not. I was thinking--well of other, things," and here he allowed the ghost of a smile to flit suggestively across his firm-set lips. "And Mr. Van Burnam seemed preoccupied also, for, as far as I know, he did not even look my way."

"And you did not stop?"

"No, he did not look like a man to be disturbed."

"And this was at four on the morning of the eighteenth?"

"At four."

"You are certain of the hour and of the day?"

"I am certain. I should not be standing here if I were not very sure of my memory. I am sorry," he began again, but he was stopped as peremptorily as before by the Coroner.

"Feeling has no place in an inquiry like this." And the witness was dismissed.

Mr. Stone, who had manifestly given his evidence under compulsion, looked relieved at its termination. As he pa.s.sed back to the room from which he had come, many only noticed the extreme elegance of his form and the proud cast of his head, but I saw more than these. I saw the look of regret he cast at his friend Howard.

A painful silence followed his withdrawal, then the Coroner spoke to the jury:

"Gentlemen, I leave you to judge of the importance of this testimony.

Mr. Stone is a well-known man of unquestionable integrity, but perhaps Mr. Van Burnam can explain how he came to visit his father's house at four o'clock in the morning on that memorable night, when according to his latest testimony he left his wife there at twelve. We will give him the opportunity."

"There is no use," began the young man from the place where he sat. But gathering courage even while speaking, he came rapidly forward, and facing Coroner and jury once more, said with a false kind of energy that imposed upon no one:

"I can explain this fact, but I doubt if you will accept my explanation.

I was at my father's house at that hour, but not in it. My restlessness drove me back to my wife, but not finding the keys in my pocket, I came down the stoop again and went away."

"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."