The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин
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had been conscious some time before.
He was in the front parlor where the dead girl lay, and as I took my way thither I felt the same sensations of faintness which had so nearly overcome me on the previous occasion. But I mastered them, and was quite myself before I crossed the threshold.
There were several gentlemen present, but of them all I only noticed two, one of whom I took to be the Coroner, while the other was my late interlocutor, Mr. Gryce. From the animation observable in the latter, I gathered that the case was growing in interest from the detective standpoint.
“Ah, and is this the witness?” asked the Coroner, as I stepped into the room.
“I am Miss Butterworth,” was my calm reply. “Amelia Butterworth. Living next door and present at the discovery of this poor murdered body.”
“Murdered,” he repeated. “Why do you say murdered?”
For reply I drew from my pocket the bill on which I had scribbled my conclusions in regard to this matter.
“Read this,” said I.
Evidently astonished, he took the paper from my hand, and, after some curious glances in my direction, condescended to do as I requested. The result was an odd but grudging look of admiration directed towards myself and a quick passing over of the paper to the detective.
The latter, who had exchanged his bit of broken china for a very much used and tooth-marked lead-pencil, frowned with a whimsical air at the latter before he put it in his pocket. Then he read my hurried scrawl.
“Two Richmonds in the field!” commented the Coroner, with a sly chuckle. “I am afraid I shall have to yield to their allied forces. Miss Butterworth, the cabinet is about to be raised; do you feel as if you could endure the sight?”
“I can stand anything where the cause of justice is involved,” I replied.
“Very well, then, sit down, if you please. When the whole body is visible I will call you.”
And stepping forward he gave orders to have the clock and broken china removed from about the body.
As the former was laid away on one end of the mantel some one observed:
“What a valuable witness that clock might have been had it been running when the shelves fell!”
But the fact was so patent that it had not been in motion for months that no one even answered; and Mr. Gryce did not so much as look towards it. But then we had all seen that the hands stood at three minutes to five.
I had been asked to sit down, but I found this impossible. Side by side with the detective, I viewed the replacing of that heavy piece of furniture against the wall, and the slow disclosure of the upper part of the body which had so long lain hidden.
That I did not give way is a proof that my father’s prophecy was not without some reasonable foundation; for the sight was one to try the stoutest nerves, as well as to awaken the compassion of the hardest heart.
The Coroner, meeting my eye, pointed at the poor creature inquiringly.
“Is this the woman you saw enter here last night?”
I glanced down at her dress, noted the short summer cape tied to the neck with an elaborate bow of ribbon, and nodded my head.
“I remember the cape,” said I. “But where is her hat? She wore one. Let me see if I can describe it.” Closing my eyes I endeavored to recall the dim silhouette of her figure as she stood passing up the change to the driver; and was so far successful that I was ready to announce at the next moment that her hat presented the effect of a soft felt with one feather or one bow of ribbon standing upright from the side of the crown.
“Then the identity of this woman with the one you saw enter here last night is established,” remarked the detective, stooping down and drawing from under the poor girl’s body a hat, sufficiently like the one I had just described, to satisfy everybody that it was the same.
“As if there could be any doubt,” I began.
But the Coroner, explaining that it was a mere formality, motioned me to stand aside in favor of the doctor, who seemed anxious to approach nearer the spot where the dead woman lay. This I was about to do when a sudden thought struck me, and I reached out my hand for the hat.
“Let me look at it for a moment,” said I.
Mr. Gryce at once handed it over, and I took a good look at it inside and out.
“It is pretty badly crushed,” I observed, “and does not present a very fresh appearance, but for all that it has been worn but once.”
“How do you know?” questioned the Coroner.
“Let the other Richmond inform you,” was my grimly uttered reply, as I gave it again into the detective’s hand.
There was a murmur about me, whether of amusement or displeasure, I made no effort to decide. I was finding out something for myself, and I did not care what they thought of me.
“Neither has she worn this dress long,” I continued; “but that is not true of the shoes. They are not old, but they have been acquainted with the pavement, and that is more than can be said of the hem of this gown. There are no gloves on her hands; a few minutes elapsed then before the assault; long enough for her to take them off.”
“Smart woman!” whispered a voice in my ear; a half-admiring, half-sarcastic voice that I had no difficulty in ascribing to Mr. Gryce. “But are you sure she wore any? Did you notice that her hand was gloved when she came into the house?”
“No,” I answered, frankly; “but so well-dressed a woman would not enter a house like this, without gloves.”
“It was a warm night,” some one suggested.
“I don’t care. You will find her gloves as you have her hat; and you will find them with the fingers turned inside out, just as she drew them from her hand. So much I will concede to the warmth of the weather.”
“Like these, for instance,” broke in a quiet voice.
Startled, for a hand had appeared over my shoulder dangling a pair of gloves before my eyes, I cried out, somewhat too triumphantly I own:
“Yes, yes, just like those! Did you pick them up here? Are they hers?”
“You say that this is the way hers should look.”
“And I repeat it.”
“Then allow me to pay you my compliments. These were picked up here.”
“But where?” I cried. “I thought I had looked this carpet well over.”
He smiled, not at me but at the gloves, and the thought crossed me that he felt as if something more than the gloves was being turned inside out. I therefore pursed my mouth, and determined to stand more on my guard.
“It is of no consequence,” I assured him; “all such matters will come out at the inquest.”
Mr. Gryce nodded, and put the gloves back in his pocket. With them he seemed to pocket some of his geniality and patience.
“All these facts have been gone over before you came in,” said he, which statement I beg to consider as open to doubt.
The doctor, who had hardly moved a muscle during all this colloquy, now rose from his kneeling position beside the girl’s head.
“I shall have to ask the presence of another physician,” said he. “Will you send for one from your office, Coroner Dahl?”
At which I stepped back and the Coroner stepped forward, saying, however, as he passed me:
“The inquest will be held day after to-morrow in my office. Hold yourself in readiness to be present. I regard you as one of my chief witnesses.”
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