"They are of the same shade. Shall I pass them down to the jury?"
Howard bowed. You would have thought he was in a drawing-room, and in the act of bestowing a favor. But his brother Franklin showed a very different countenance, and as for their father, one could not even see his face, he so persistently held up his hand before it.
The jury, wide-awake now, passed the locket along, with many sly nods and a few whispered words. When it came back to the Coroner, he took it and handed it to Mr. Van Burnam, saying:
"I wish you would observe the similarity for yourself. I can hardly detect any difference between them."
"Thank you! I am willing to take your word for it," replied the young man, with most astonishing aplomb. And Coroner and jury for a moment looked baffled, and even Mr. Gryce, of whose face I caught a passing glimpse at this instant, stared at the head of his cane, as if it were of thicker wood than he expected and had more knotty points on it than even his accustomed hand liked to encounter.
Another effort was not out of place, however; and the Coroner, summoning up some of the pompous severity he found useful at times, asked the witness if his attention had been drawn to the dead woman's hands.
He acknowledged that it had. "The physician who made the autopsy urged me to look at them, and I did; they were certainly very like my wife's."
"Only like."
"I cannot say that they were my wife's. Do you wish me to perjure myself?"
"A man should know his wife's hands as well as he knows her face."
"Very likely."
"And you are ready to swear these were not the hands of your wife?"
"I am ready to swear I did not so consider them."
"And that is all?"
"That is all."
The Coroner frowned and cast a glance at the jury. They needed prodding now and then, and this is the way he prodded them. As soon as they gave signs of recognizing the hint he gave them, he turned back, and renewed his examination in these words:
"Mr. Van Burnam, did your brother at your request hand you the keys of your father's house on the morning of the day on which this tragedy occurred?"
"He did."
"Have you those keys now?"
"I have not."
"What have you done with them? Did you return them to your brother?"
"No; I see where your inquiries are tending, and I do not suppose you will believe my simple word; but I lost the keys on the day I received them; that is why-"
"Well, you may continue, Mr. Van Burnam."
"I have no more to say; my sentence was not worth completing."
The murmur which rose about him seemed to show dissatisfaction; but he remained imperturbable, or rather like a man who did not hear. I began to feel a most painful interest in the inquiry, and dreaded, while I anxiously anticipated, his further examination.
"You lost the keys; may I ask when and where?"
"That I do not know; they were missing when I searched for them; missing from my pocket, I mean."
"Ah! and when did you search for them?"
"The next day-after I had heard-of-of what had taken place in my father's house."
The hesitations were those of a man weighing his reply. They told on the jury, as all such hesitations do; and made the Coroner lose an atom of the respect he had hitherto shown this easy-going witness.
"And you do not know what became of them?"
"No."
"Or into whose hands they fell?"
"No, but probably into the hands of the wretch-"
To the astonishment of everybody he was on the verge of vehemence; but becoming sensible of it, he controlled himself with a suddenness that was almost shocking.
"Find the murderer of this poor girl," said he, with a quiet air that was more thrilling than any display of passion, "and ask him where he got the keys with which he opened the door of my father's house at midnight."
Was this a challenge, or just the natural outburst of an innocent man. Neither the jury nor the Coroner seemed to know, the former looking startled and the latter nonplussed. But Mr. Gryce, who had moved now into view, smoothed the head of his cane with quite a loving touch, and did not seem at this moment to feel its inequalities objectionable.
"We will certainly try to follow your advice," the Coroner assured him. "Meanwhile we must ask how many rings your wife is in the habit of wearing?"
"Five. Two on the left hand and three on the right."
"Do you know these rings?"
"I do."
"Better than you know her hands?"
"As well, sir."
"Were they on her hands when you parted from her in Haddam?"
"They were."
"Did she always wear them?"
"Almost always. Indeed I do not ever remember seeing her take off more than one of them."
"Which one?"
"The ruby with the diamond setting."
"Had the dead girl any rings on when you saw her?"
"No, sir."
"Did you look to see?"
"I think I did in the first shock of the discovery."
"And you saw none?"
"No, sir."
"And from this you concluded she was not your wife?"
"From this and other things."
"Yet you must have seen that the woman was in the habit of wearing rings, even if they were not on her hands at that moment?"
"Why, sir? What should I know about her habits?"
"Is not that a ring I see now on your little finger?"
"It is; my seal ring which I always wear."
"Will you pull it off?"
"Pull it off!"
"If you please; it is a simple test I am requiring of you, sir."
The witness looked astonished, but pulled off the ring at once.
"Here it is," said he.
"Thank you, but I do not want it. I merely want you to look at your finger."
The witness complied, evidently more nonplussed than disturbed by this command.
"Do you see any difference between that finger and the one next it?"
"Yes; there is a mark about my little finger showing where the ring has pressed."
"Very good; there were such marks on the fingers of the dead girl, who, as you say, had no rings on. I saw them, and perhaps you did yourself?"
"I did not; I did not look closely enough."
"They were on the little finger of the right hand, on the marriage finger of the left, and on the forefinger of the same. On which fingers did your wife wear rings?"
"On those same fingers, sir, but I will not accept this fact as proving her identity with the deceased. Most women do wear rings, and on those very fingers."
The Coroner was nettled, but he was not discouraged. He exchanged looks with Mr. Gryce, but nothing further passed between them and we were left to conjecture what this interchange of glances meant.
The witness, who did not seem to be affected either by the character of this examination or by the conjectures to which it gave rise, preserved his sang-froid, and eyed the Coroner as he might any other questioner, with suitable respect, but with no fear and but little impatience. And yet he must have known the horrible suspicion darkening the minds of many people present, and suspected, even if against his will, that this examination, significant as it was, was but the forerunner of another and yet more serious one.
"You are very determined," remarked the Coroner in beginning again, "not to accept the very substantial proofs presented you of the identity between the object of this inquiry and your missing wife. But we are not yet ready to give up the struggle, and so I must ask if you heard the description given by Miss Ferguson of the manner in which your wife was dressed on leaving Haddam?
"I have."
"Was it a correct account? Did she wear a black and white plaid silk and a hat trimmed with various colored ribbons and flowers?"
"She did."