XIV.
A SERIOUS ADMISSION.
I went at once to a restaurant. I ate because it was time to eat, andbecause any occupation was welcome that would pass away the hours ofwaiting. I was troubled; and I did not know what to make of myself. Iwas no friend to the Van Burnams; I did not like them, and certainly hadnever approved of any of them but Mr. Franklin, and yet I found myselfaltogether disturbed over the morning's developments, Howard's emotionhaving appealed to me in spite of my prejudices. I could not but thinkill of him, his conduct not being such as I could honestly commend. ButI found myself more ready to listen to the involuntary pleadings of myown heart in his behalf than I had been prior to his testimony and itssomewhat startling termination.
But they were not through with him yet, and after the longest threehours I ever passed, we were again convened before the Coroner.
I saw Howard as soon as anybody did. He came in, arm in arm as before,with his faithful brother, and sat down in a retired corner behind theCoroner. But he was soon called forward.
His face when the light fell on it was startling to most of us. It wasas much changed as if years, instead of hours, had elapsed since lastwe saw it. No longer reckless in its expression, nor easy, nor politelypatient, it showed in its every lineament that he had not only passedthrough a hurricane of passion, but that the bitterness, which had beenits worst feature, had not passed with the storm, but had settled intothe core of his nature, disturbing its equilibrium forever. My emotionswere not allayed by the sight; but I kept all expression of them out ofview. I must be sure of his integrity before giving rein to mysympathies.
The jury moved and sat up quite alert when they saw him. I think that ifthese especial twelve men could have a murder case to investigate everyday, they would grow quite wide-awake in time. Mr. Van Burnam made nodemonstration. Evidently there was not likely to be a repetition of themorning's display of passion. He had been iron in his impassibility atthat time, but he was steel now, and steel which had been through thefiercest of fires.
The opening question of the Coroner showed by what experience thesefires had been kindled.
"Mr. Van Burnam, I have been told that you have visited the Morgue inthe interim which has elapsed since I last questioned you. Is thattrue?"
"It is."
"Did you, in the opportunity thus afforded, examine the remains of thewoman whose death we are investigating, attentively enough to enable youto say now whether they are those of your missing wife?"
"I have. The body is that of Louise Van Burnam; I crave your pardon andthat of the jury for my former obstinacy in refusing to recognize it. Ithought myself fully justified in the stand I took. I see now that Iwas not."
The Coroner made no answer. There was no sympathy between him and thisyoung man. Yet he did not fail in a decent show of respect; perhapsbecause he did feel some sympathy for the witness's unhappy father andbrother.
"You then acknowledge the victim to have been your wife?"
"I do."
"It is a point gained, and I compliment the jury upon it. We can nowproceed to settle, if possible, the identity of the person whoaccompanied Mrs. Van Burnam into your father's house."
"Wait," cried Mr. Van Burnam, with a strange air, "_I acknowledge I wasthat person_."
It was coolly, almost fiercely said, but it was an admission thatwellnigh created a hubbub. Even the Coroner seemed moved, and cast aglance at Mr. Gryce which showed his surprise to be greater than hisdiscretion.
"You acknowledge," he began--but the witness did not let him finish.
"I acknowledge that I was the person who accompanied her into that emptyhouse; but I do not acknowledge that I killed her. She was alive andwell when I left her, difficult as it is for me to prove it. It was therealization of this difficulty which made me perjure myself thismorning."
"So," murmured the Coroner, with another glance at Mr. Gryce, "youacknowledge that you perjured yourself. Will the room be quiet!"
But the lull came slowly. The contrast between the appearance of thiselegant young man and the significant admissions he had just made(admissions which to three quarters of the persons there meant more,much more, than he acknowledged), was certainly such as to provokeinterest of the deepest kind. I felt like giving rein to my ownfeelings, and was not surprised at the patience shown by the Coroner.But order was restored at last, and the inquiry proceeded.
"We are then to consider the testimony given by you this morning as nulland void?"
"Yes, so far as it contradicts what I have just stated."
"Ah, then you will no doubt be willing to give us your evidence again?"
"Certainly, if you will be so kind as to question me."
"Very well; where did your wife and yourself first meet after yourarrival in New York?"
"In the street near my office. She was coming to see me, but I prevailedupon her to go uptown."
"What time was this?"
"After ten and before noon. I cannot give the exact hour."
"And where did you go?"
"To a hotel on Broadway; you have already heard of our visit there."
"You are, then, the Mr. James Pope, whose wife registered in the booksof the Hotel D---- on the seventeenth of this month?"
"I have said so."
"And may I ask for what purpose you used this disguise, and allowed yourwife to sign a wrong name?"
"To satisfy a freak. She considered it the best way of covering up ascheme she had formed; which was to awaken the interest of my fatherunder the name and appearance of a stranger, and not to inform him whoshe was till he had given some evidence of partiality for her."
"Ah, but for such an end was it necessary for her to assume a strangename before she saw your father, and for you both to conduct yourselvesin the mysterious way you did all that day and evening?"
"I do not know. She thought so, and I humored her. I was tired ofworking against her, and was willing she should have her own way for atime."
"And for this reason you let her fit herself out with clothes down toher very undergarments?"
"Yes; strange as it may seem, I was just such a fool. I had entered intoher scheme, and the means she took to change her personality only amusedme. She wished to present herself to my father as a girl obliged to workfor her living, and was too shrewd to excite suspicion in the minds ofany of the family by any undue luxury in her apparel. At least that wasthe excuse she gave me for the precautions she took, though I think thedelight she experienced in anything romantic and unusual had as much todo with it as anything else. She enjoyed the game she was playing, andwished to make as much of it as possible."
"Were her own garments much richer than those she ordered fromAltman's?"
"Undoubtedly. Mrs. Van Burnam wore nothing made by Americanseamstresses. Fine clothes were her weakness."
"I see, I see; but why such an attempt on your part to keep yourself inthe background? Why let your wife write your assumed names in the hotelregister, for instance, instead of doing it yourself?"
"It was easier for her; I know no other reason. She did not mind puttingdown the name Pope. I did."
It was an ungracious reflection upon his wife, and he seemed to feel itso; for he almost immediately added: "A man will sometimes lend himselfto a scheme of which the details are obnoxious. It was so in this case;but she was too interested in her plans to be affected by so small amatter as this."
This explained more than one mysterious action on the part of this pairwhile they were at the Hotel D----. The Coroner evidently considered itin this light, for he dwelt but little longer on this phase of the case,passing at once to a fact concerning which curiosity had hitherto beenroused without receiving any satisfaction.
"In leaving the hotel," said he, "you and your wife were seen carryingcertain packages, which were missing from your arms when you alighted atMr. Van Burnam's house. What was in those packages, and where did youdispose of them before you entered the second carriage?"
Howard made no demu
r in answering.
"My wife's clothes were in them," said he, "and we dropped themsomewhere on Twenty-seventh Street near Third Avenue, just as we saw anold woman coming along the sidewalk. We knew that she would stop andpick them up, and she did, for we slid into a dark shadow made by aprojecting stoop and watched her. Is that too simple a method fordisposing of certain encumbering bundles, to be believed, sir?"
"That is for the jury to decide," answered the Coroner, stiffly. "Butwhy were you so anxious to dispose of these articles? Were they notworth some money, and would it not have been simpler and much morenatural to have left them at the hotel till you chose to send for them?That is, if you were simply engaged in playing, as you say, a game uponyour father, and not upon the whole community?"
"Yes," Mr. Van Burnam acknowledged, "that would have been the naturalthing, no doubt; but we were not following natural instincts at thetime, but a woman's _bizarre_ caprices. We did as I said; and laughedlong, I assure you, over its unqualified success; for the old woman notonly grabbed the packages with avidity, but turned and fled away withthem, just as if she had expected this opportunity and had preparedherself to make the most of it."
"It was very laughable, certainly," observed the Coroner, in a hardvoice. "_You_ must have found it very ridiculous"; and after giving thewitness a look full of something deeper than sarcasm, he turned towardsthe jury as if to ask them what they thought of these very forced andsuspicious explanations.
But they evidently did not know what to think, and the Coroner's looksflew back to the witness who of all the persons present seemed the leastimpressed by the position in which he stood.
"Mr. Van Burnam," said he, "you showed a great deal of feeling thismorning at being confronted with your wife's hat. Why was this, and whydid you wait till you saw this evidence of her presence on the scene ofdeath to acknowledge the facts you have been good enough to give us thisafternoon?"
"If I had a lawyer by my side, you would not ask me that question, or ifyou did, I would not be allowed to answer it. But I have no lawyer here,and so I will say that I was greatly shocked by the catastrophe whichhad happened to my wife, and under the stress of my first overpoweringemotions had the impulse to hide the fact that the victim of so dreadfula mischance was my wife. I thought that if no connection was foundbetween myself and this dead woman, I would stand in no danger of thesuspicion which must cling to the man who came into the house with her.But like most first impulses, it was a foolish one and gave way underthe strain of investigation. I, however, persisted in it as long aspossible, partially because my disposition is an obstinate one, andpartially because I hated to acknowledge myself a fool; but when I sawthe hat, and recognized it as an indisputable proof of her presence inthe Van Burnam house that night, my confidence in the attempt I wasmaking broke down all at once. I could deny her shape, her hands, andeven the scar, which she might have had in common with other women, butI could not deny her hat. Too many persons had seen her wear it."
But the Coroner was not to be so readily imposed upon.
"I see, I see," he repeated with great dryness, "and I hope the jurywill be satisfied. And they probably will, unless they remember theanxiety which, according to your story, was displayed by your wife tohave her whole outfit in keeping with her appearance as a working girl.If she was so particular as to think it necessary to dress herself instore-made undergarments, why make all these precautions void bycarrying into the house a hat with the name of an expensive millinerinside it?"
"Women are inconsistent, sir. She liked the hat and hated to part withit. She thought she could hide it somewhere in the great house, at leastthat was what she said to me when she tucked it under her cape."
The Coroner, who evidently did not believe one word of this, stared atthe witness as if curiosity was fast taking the place of indignation.And I did not wonder. Howard Van Burnam, as thus presented to our noticeby his own testimony, was an anomaly, whether we were to believe what hewas saying at the present time or what he had said during the morningsession. But I wished I had had the questioning of him.
His next answer, however, opened up one dark place into which I had beenpeering for some time without any enlightenment. It was in reply to thefollowing query:
"All this," said the Coroner, "is very interesting; but what explanationhave you to give for taking your wife into your father's empty house atan hour so late, and then leaving her to spend the best part of the darknight alone?"
"None," said he, "that will strike you as sensible and judicious. But wewere not sensible that night, neither were we judicious, or I would notbe standing here trying to explain what is not explainable by any of theordinary rules of conduct. She was set upon being the first to greet myfather on his entrance into his own home, and her first plan had been todo so in her own proper character as my wife, but afterwards the freaktook her, as I have said, to personify the housekeeper whom my fatherhad cabled us to have in waiting at his house,--a cablegram which hadreached us too late for any practical use, and which we had thereforeignored,--and fearing he might come early in the morning, before shecould be on hand to make the favorable impression she intended, shewished to be left in the house that night; and I humored her. I did notforesee the suffering that my departure might cause her, or the fearsthat were likely to spring from her lonely position in so large andempty a dwelling. Or rather, I should say, _she_ did not foresee them;for she begged me not to stay with her, when I hinted at the darknessand dreariness of the place, saying that she was too jolly to feel fearor think of anything but the surprise my father and sisters wouldexperience in discovering that their very agreeable young housekeeperwas the woman they had so long despised."
"And why," persisted the Coroner, edging forward in his interest and soallowing me to catch a glimpse of Mr. Gryce's face as he too leanedforward in his anxiety to hear every word that fell from this remarkablewitness,--"why do you speak of her fear? What reason have you to thinkshe suffered apprehension after your departure?"
"Why?" echoed the witness, as if astounded by the other's lack ofperspicacity. "Did she not kill herself in a moment of terror anddiscouragement? Leaving her, as I did, in a condition of health and goodspirits, can you expect me to attribute her death to any other causethan a sudden attack of frenzy caused by terror?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the Coroner in a suspicious tone, which no doubt voicedthe feelings of most people present; "then you think your wife committedsuicide?"
"Most certainly," replied the witness, avoiding but two pairs of eyes inthe whole crowd, those of his father and brother.
"_With_ a hat-pin," continued the Coroner, letting his hitherto scarcelysuppressed irony become fully visible in voice and manner, "thrust intothe back of her neck at a spot young ladies surely would have but littlereason to know is peculiarly fatal! Suicide! when she was found crushedunder a pile of _bric-a-brac_, which was thrown down or fell upon herhours after she received the fatal thrust!"
"I do not know how else she could have died," persisted the witness,calmly, "unless she opened the door to some burglar. And what burglarwould kill a woman in that way, when he could pound her with his fists?No; she was frenzied and stabbed herself in desperation; or the thingwas done by accident, God knows how! And as for the testimony of theexperts--we all know how easily the wisest of them can be mistaken evenin matters of as serious import as these. _If all the experts in theworld_"--here his voice rose and his nostrils dilated till his aspectwas actually commanding and impressed us all like a suddentransformation--"_If all the experts in the world were to swear thatthose shelves were thrown upon her after she had lain therefor fourhours dead, I would not believe them. Appearances or no appearances,blood or no blood, I here declare that she pulled that cabinet over inher death-struggle; and upon the truth of this fact I am ready to restmy honor as a man and my integrity as her husband_."
An uproar immediately followed, amid which could be heard cries of "Helies!" "He's a fool!" The attitude taken by the witness was sounexpected that th
e most callous person present could not fail to beaffected by it. But curiosity is as potent a passion as surprise, and ina few minutes all was still again and everybody intent to hear how theCoroner would answer these asseverations.
"I have heard of a blind man denying the existence of light," said thatgentleman, "but never before of a sensible being like yourself urgingthe most untenable theories in face of such evidence as has been broughtbefore us during this inquiry. If your wife committed suicide, or if theentrance of the point of a hat-pin into her spine was effected byaccident, how comes the head of the pin to have been found so many feetaway from her and in such a place as the parlor register?"
"It may have flown there when it broke, or, what is much more probable,been kicked there by some of the many people who passed in and out ofthe room between the time of her death and that of its discovery."
"But the register was found closed," urged the Coroner. "Was it not, Mr.Gryce?"
That person thus appealed to, rose for an instant.
"It was," said he, and deliberately sat down again.
The face of the witness, which had been singularly free from expressionsince his last vehement outbreak, clouded over for an instant and hiseye fell as if he felt himself engaged in an unequal struggle. But herecovered his courage speedily, and quietly observed:
"The register may have been closed by a passing foot. I have known ofstranger coincidences than that."
"Mr. Van Burnam," asked the Coroner, as if weary of subterfuges andargument, "have you considered the effect which this highlycontradictory evidence of yours is likely to have on your reputation?"
"I have."
"And are you ready to accept the consequences?"
"If any especial consequences follow, I must accept them, sir."
"When did you lose the keys which you say you have not now in yourpossession? This morning you asserted that you did not know; but perhapsthis afternoon you may like to modify that statement."
"I lost them after I left my wife shut up in my father's house."
"Soon?"
"Very soon."
"How soon?"
"Within an hour, I should judge."
"How do you know it was so soon?"
"I missed them at once."
"Where were you when you missed them?"
"I don't know; somewhere. I was walking the streets, as I have said. Idon't remember just where I was when I thrust my hands into my pocketand found the keys gone."
"You do not?"
"No."
"But it was within an hour after leaving the house?"
"Yes."
"Very good; the keys have been found."
The witness started, started so violently that his teeth came togetherwith 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_ cantell me, then, where I lost them."
"They were found," said the Coroner, "in their usual place above yourbrother's desk in Duane Street."
"Oh!" murmured the witness, utterly taken aback or appearing so. "Icannot account for their being found in the office. I was so sure Idropped them in the street."
"I did not think you could account for it," quietly observed theCoroner. And without another word he dismissed the witness, whostaggered to a seat as remote as possible from the one where he hadpreviously been sitting between his father and brother.