The Paternoster Ruby Part 24

"Mr. Coroner," he said, "we 'd like to ask the young lady some questions."

He was a poor specimen, that foreman; one of your little, officious, meddling busybodies, as aggravating as the buzzing of a persistent fly.

"If they are pertinent to the inquiry," said Dr. de Breen, "it is not only proper, but your duty to ask them. The young lady will be sworn."

At this unexpected demand she darted a startled glance from the foreman to Dr. De Breen, and then looked at me--as I joyfully fancied, for guidance and support.

I nodded--she could n't avoid the ordeal--and she bowed in acknowledgment of the oath, which the doctor rattled off as if it were all one long word.

And just here I am unable to refrain from pointing out how small an incident will sometimes afford the turning-point for a momentous crisis; such an apt ill.u.s.tration is presently to follow.

When interrupted by Genevieve's shriek of terror the foreman had been in the very midst of p.r.o.nouncing the concluding phrase of the verdict.

Had it not been for the strange face, had the venturesome girl not followed the face's owner, who could say how differently events might not have turned out? For I know now that the first verdict was quite different from the one finally read.

The catechism which Genevieve was required to undergo follows:

"What is your name?"

"Clara Genevieve Cooper."

"How old are you?"

"I was twenty-one in December."

"We would like to know, Miss Cooper, what relation, if any, you bear to the witness Maillot?"

"Merely that of a friend."

"How about him and the other young lady?"--an interrogation which instantly made Miss Belle flush and bridle. But the witness was fully equal to the occasion.

"I would n't undertake to speak for them," she replied composedly.

The succeeding questions brought out the relationship between the two girls, and also established Miss Fluette's ident.i.ty. Something akin to a sensation prevailed in the jury-box for a few seconds after the six good men and true realized that the handsome gentleman with the white hair and dark beard was no other than the celebrated "wheat king."

Their manner toward his niece underwent a sudden transformation; their att.i.tude became more respectful.

Miss Cooper was dismissed, and Maillot was recalled. He denied any formal engagement between himself and Miss Fluette; but it soon became apparent, both from his manner and her growing vexation, pretty precisely what the relations between them really were. The jury learned that the young man's quest of the Paternoster ruby had not been undertaken without the stimulus of a very warm-hearted devotion.

Maillot was left sitting in the witness-chair while a new verdict was made out. It formally charged the young man with the murder of his uncle.

I afterward learned, by questioning the self-important foreman, that the first verdict had been an open one. The demand for Miss Cooper's testimony had been prompted by the "diversion"--I am using his own word--she had occasioned when she left the room, and afterward threw the proceedings into wild disorder by her scream. The interrupted verdict had failed to hold Maillot only by the narrowest margin; Miss Cooper's adventure had served to turn the scale against him.

"Look here," I demanded warmly, "don't you believe what she said?"

He smiled with an air of such superior knowledge that I very nearly cuffed his ears.

"Oh, I don't blame the young lady!--dear me, no!" he said, with a smirk. "Loyalty, you know. What do you think of it?"

I had turned to move away, much disgusted; but I lingered long enough to look him over curiously.

"What's your name?" I bluntly demanded.

"Griggs--Samuel B. Griggs."

"I think, Mr. Samuel B. Griggs--if you really want to know--that you 're a d.a.m.ned idiot."

CHAPTER XVII

PRISON DOORS

As I recall the scene that brilliant winter morning in the Page library, one detail stands out so much more prominently than all the rest, that the really important aspects are quite overshadowed in my memory, and notwithstanding the surprising nature of Alfred Fluette's deportment, I am obliged to pause and group them in my own mind in order to produce a reasonably correct portrayal of what actually transpired. But one's memory is apt to play strange and unaccountable tricks, and mine is no exception. The best mental image I can recall is distorted, all out of drawing, as the artists say; I can see only Belle Fluette.

After the accusation fell from the foreman's lips, I quite suddenly became aware of the fact that she was standing rigidly erect, one hand strained to her bosom, the other clenched tightly against her cheek.

Every vestige of color had flown from her face, leaving it as white as marble.

But her eyes! It is her eyes that still haunt me. They burned with a light of despair so profound that no mere human note could even feebly yield a hint of it; and behind the despair, plucking and tearing at her heart-strings, lay a misery unutterable. She alone had remained serenely confident of the outcome, and now, being the least prepared for it, the shock to her high-strung susceptibilities was more keenly poignant than human flesh could endure. She presented the appearance of one stunned, of one beaten and buffeted to stupefaction, yet through it all still sensible of an anguish that wrenched her very soul.

There was no outcry, no spoken word; but in a moment a tremor ran over her slender form, her knees gave way, and with one last desperate effort she tried to reach Maillot. Even as she turned to him, before a move could be made to sustain her, she tottered and fell p.r.o.ne upon her face. One extended hand clutched once at the young man's foot, then relaxed and grew still. It was as if her last conscious thought had been governed by a flitting impulse to seek the support of even so mean an a.s.surance of his presence.

In a flash the lover was kneeling at his sweetheart's side, pressing her white face to his bosom in a wild embrace. He called to her frantically, coaxed her with endearments, wholly oblivious of his shocked audience. He a.s.sured her in choked, incoherent phrases that all was well with him; but he spoke to deaf ears.

Dr. De Breen, direct and practical, brought him to his senses with a sharp command.

Maillot reluctantly yielded Belle to Genevieve and the doctor. Not for a moment did a thought of his own trouble enter his head, I am sure, and he did not remove his tense look of anxiety from her face until Dr.

De Breen convincingly declared that she was only in a swoon.

"Best thing for her, just now," said he, crisply; "she can't think.

Furthermore, she needs a sedative to keep her from thinking for a while." Then to her father:

"Here, you, you take her home on the double-quick. Have in your physician. Let her cousin get her in bed."

It is likely that Alfred Fluette had not been addressed for many a day with such cavalier brusqueness, and overpowering indeed must have been his emotions now that he did not notice the doctor's abrupt manner.

Even his daughter's condition seemed to produce only a momentary impression upon him; for by the time Maillot and Dr. De Breen had conveyed the limp girl to a divan, where Genevieve continued to minister to her, he was excitedly striving to catch the doctor's attention.

"Listen to me, sir," he commanded, his voice trembling, "you are the one in authority here; this young man must _not_ be remanded to jail."

Dr. De Breen stopped short and fixed him with a look of surprise. And I was not a little surprised myself. Knowing how bitterly opposed he had been to Maillot's attentions to Miss Belle, what was I to think?

Did the manner in which the shock had prostrated her--had literally felled her to the floor--open his eyes to the depth of their attachment, and at the same time touch his heart with pity? His concern could not have been more p.r.o.nounced if the young fellow had been his own son placed in similar jeopardy. Or--and here was my predominating thought--did he have the best of reasons for _knowing_ that Maillot was innocent?

During the brief pause in which Dr. De Breen coolly surveyed him--for once the perverse gla.s.ses observing their proper function--he recovered something of his equipoise.

"See here, Doctor," he went on more calmly, "I am not familiar enough with the proper procedure in--er--in criminal cases to know just what I want to say. But is the next step imprisonment for Mr. Maillot?"

"It is," snapped the doctor.

"Then I will go his bond--in any amount; but he must not go to--"