The Girl at Central Part 8

A good deal of what he said I didn't understand-it was to prove that death resulted from a fracture of the skull. He could not state the exact hour of dissolution, but said it was in the earlier part of the night, some time before twelve. He described the condition of the scalp which had been partially protected by the hat, thick as it was with a plush outside and a heavy interlining. This was held up and then given to the jury to examine. I saw it plainly as they pa.s.sed it from hand to hand-a small dark automobile hat, with a tear in one side and some shreds of black Shetland veil hanging to its edge. She bore no other marks of violence save a few small scratches on her right hand. She had evidently been attacked unexpectedly and had had no time to fight or struggle.

The automobilists who had found the body came next. Only the men were present-two nice-looking gentlemen-the ladies having been excused. They told what I have already written, one of them making the creeps go down your spine, describing how his wife said she saw the hand in the moonlight, and how he walked back, laughing, and pulled off the brushwood.

After that Mrs. Fowler came, all swathed up in black and looking like a haggard old woman. The Coroner spoke very kind to her. When she got to the quarrel between Sylvia and the Doctor her voice began to tremble and she could hardly go on. It was pitiful to see but she had to tell it, and about the other quarrels too. Then she pulled herself together and told about going up to Sylvia's room and finding the letter.

The Coroner stopped her there and taking a folded paper from the table beside him said it was the letter and read it out to us. It was dated Firehill, Nov. 21st.

"_Dearest_:

"All right. This evening at seven by the pine. We'll go in my racer to Bloomington and be married there by Fiske, the man I told you about. It'll be a long ride but at the end we'll find happiness waiting for us. Don't disappoint me-don't do what you did the other time. Believe in my love and trust yourself to me-_Jack_."

In the silence that followed you could hear the fire falling together with a little soft rustle. All the eyes turned as if they were on pivots and looked at Jack Reddy-all but mine. I kept them on Mrs. Fowler and never moved them till she was led, bent and sobbing, out of the room.

Nora Magee was the next, and I heard them say afterward made a good witness. The coroner asked her-and Anne when her turn came-very particular about the jewelry, what was gone, how many pieces and such questions. And then it came out that n.o.body-not even Mrs. Fowler-knew exactly what Sylvia had. She was all the time buying new ornaments or having her old ones reset and the only person who kept track of her possessions was Virginie Dupont. All any of them could be sure of was that the jewel box was empty, and the toilet articles, fitted bag, and gold mesh purse were gone.

Hines was called after that. He was all slicked up in his store clothes and looked very different to what he had that day in the summer. Though anyone could see he was scared blue, the perspiration on his forehead and his big, knotty hands twiddling at his tie and his watch chain; he told his story very clear and straightforward. I think everyone was impressed by it and by Mrs. Hines, who followed him. She was a miserable looking little rat of a woman, with inflamed eyes and a long drooping nose, but she corroborated all he said, and-anyway, to me-it sounded true.

Tecla Rabine, the Bohemian servant, followed, and when she walked over to sit in the chair, keyed up as I was, I came near laughing. She was a large, fat woman with a good-humored red face and little twinkling eyes, and she sure was a sight, bulging out of a black cloth suit that was the fashion when Columbus landed. On her head was a fancy straw hat with one mangy feather sticking straight up at the back, and the last touch was her face, one side still swollen out from her toothache, and looking for all the world as if she had a quid in her cheek.

Though she spoke in a queer, foreign dialect, she gave her testimony very well and she told something that no one-I don't think even the police-had heard before.

While Hines was locking up she went to her room but couldn't sleep because of the pain of her toothache.

"Ach," she said, spreading her hand out near her cheek, "it was out so far-swole out, and, oh, my G.o.d-_pain_!"

"Never mind your toothache," said the Coroner-"keep to the subject."

"How do I hear noises if my toothache doesn't make me to wake?" she asked, giving him a sort of indignant look.

Somebody laughed, a kind of choked giggle, and I heard one of those fresh write-up chaps behind me whisper:

"This is the comic relief."

"Oh, you heard noises-what kind of noises?"

"The scream," she said.

"You heard a scream?"

"Yes-one scream-far away, up toward Cresset's Crossing. I go crazy with the pain and after Mr. Hines is come upstairs I go down to the kitchen to make--" she stopped, looking up in the air-"what you call him?"-she put her hand flat on the side of her face-"for here, to stop the pain."

"Do you mean a poultice?"

She grinned all over and nodded.

"Yes, that's him. I make hot water on the gas, and then, way off, I hear a scream."

"What time was that?"

"The kitchen clock says ten minutes past ten."

"What did you do?"

She looked surprised.

"I make the-you know the name-for my ache."

"Didn't you go out and investigate-even go to the door?"

She shook her head and gave a sort of good-humored laugh as if she was explaining things to a child.

"Go out. For why? If I go out for screams I go out when the dagoes fight, and when the automobiles be pa.s.s-up and down all night, often drunken and making noises;" she shrugged her shoulders sort of careless; "I no be bothered with screams."

"Did you go to bed?"

"I do. I make the medicine for my swole up face and go upstairs."

"Did you hear any more screams?"

"No-there are no more. If there are I would have hear them, for I can't sleep ever all night. All I hear is automobiles-many automobiles pa.s.sing up and down and maybe-two, three, four times-the horns sounding."

The Coroner asked her a few more questions, princ.i.p.ally about Hines'

movements, and her answers, if you could get over the lingo, were all clear and in line with what Hines had said.

The railway men followed her, Sands and Clark and Jim Donahue. Jim was as nervous as a cat, holding his hat in his hands and twisting it round like a plate he was drying. He told about the woman he put on the seven-thirty train on Sunday night.

"Where did you first see this woman?" he was asked.

"On the platform, just before the train came in. She came down along it, out of the dark."

"Can you swear it was Miss Hesketh?"

Jim didn't think he could swear because he couldn't see her face plain, it being covered with a figured black veil. But he never thought of it being anyone else.

"Why did you think it was she?"

"Because it looked like her. It was her coat and her gold purse and I'd know her hair anywhere. And when I spoke to her and said: 'Good evening, Miss Hesketh, going to leave us?' it was her voice that answered: 'Yes, Jim, I'm going away for a few days.'"

"Did you have any more conversation with her?"

"No, because the train came along then. She got in and I handed her her bag and said 'Good night.'"

When he was asked to describe the bag, he said he hadn't noticed it except that it was a medium sized bag, he thought, dark colored.

Then he was shown the clothes-that was heart-rending. The Coroner held them up, the long fur coat, the little plush hat, and the one glove. He thought they were the same but it was hard to tell, the platform being so dark-anyway, it was them sort of clothes the lady had on, and though he couldn't be sure of the glove he had noticed that her gloves were light colored.

Sands, the Pullman conductor, and Clark, from the Junction, testified that they'd seen the same woman on the train and at the Junction. Sands particularly noticed the gold mesh purse because she took her ticket out of it. He addressed her as Miss Hesketh and she had answered him, but only to say "Good evening."