THE LAWYER
At the coroner's words the man beside me arose and walked to the front
of the room. He was about Philip Darwin's build and height, but his face
was fleshier, and he wore a full, square beard of a peculiar mottled
red, the same shade as his hair, as though both had been liberally
sprinkled with gray. He was very fastidiously dressed, I might say
almost foppishly so, even to the point of wearing spats and an eyeglass,
which he was continually screwing into his eye as he spoke.
"You are Mr. Darwin's lawyer?" asked the coroner.
"Yes. You will pardon me if I reply rather briefly. I have a bad throat
to-day and find it trying to speak at length," he apologized in a husky
voice.
"Certainly, certainly. This is a mere formality," responded the coroner
affably, whereat the lawyer smiled, rather sardonically, I thought.
"Mr. Cunningham, do you know whether the will that was destroyed was in
Mrs. Darwin's favor?"
"It was."
"Are you absolutely certain?"
"Yes. I made it out when Mr. Darwin was married."
"Do you know whether Mr. Darwin keeps any of his valuable papers in that
safe?"
"I am sure he keeps nothing of value in it. His papers are in his vault
at the bank."
"Have you none, then?"
The lawyer shook his head and replaced his eyeglass with great
deliberation. "Two nights ago Mr. Darwin removed the last of his
securities from my office," he said with evident difficulty.
"The last of his securities? Do you mean that he had been gradually
removing them from your care?"
This time the lawyer nodded.
"For what purpose?" asked the coroner.
"I do not know," was the candid answer. "He was rather secretive. I
surmised he needed them in his dealings in Wall Street."
"He did not actually say so?"
"No. He told me nothing."
"Since he was so secretive, might he not have put some of his securities
in that safe?"
"No, I don't think so. However, you might have it opened--to satisfy
yourself," with a slight, rather mocking accent on the last word.
"I think it just as well," responded the coroner, briskly. "Mr.
Cunningham, you don't by any chance happen to know the combination?"
"No, I do not."
"Jones, can you open that safe?" inquired the coroner.
"I think so." The detective rose and advanced down the long room to the
safe, where he knelt down, the better to hear the fall of the tumblers.
While he twirled the knob of the dial now this way and now that, Mr.
Cunningham, as if in no way interested, moved to the window, where he
stood looking out with his back to the room. Now it happened that I was
sitting so that I could see his reflection in the window-pane, and I was
surprised to note the look of diabolical joy that overspread his
countenance as he rubbed his hands together in unholy glee, for it
seemed to me that such levity was decidedly out of place at this
particular time.
But now my attention was diverted, for the detective straightened to his
full height and opened the safe door, which swung back on noiseless
hinges. As the detective darted within the cavernous depths, the lawyer
turned toward the room once more with a remnant of his smile on his lips
as he stroked his beard with a well-kept white hand. And then it flashed
across me where I had seen him before. It was on the Knickerbocker Roof,
late one evening in September, where I was supping with my partner after
the show. Cunningham had come in with a couple of chorus girls and my
partner had mentioned that he was a gay old boy, to which I had agreed
after watching him as he stroked his beard and made love to the girls. I
had not seen him since that night, roof gardens not being much in my
line, and so, of course, I had failed to remember him until that gesture
which seemed habitual with him recalled him to my mind.
"Nothing, your honor," reported the detective, emerging with a
crestfallen face. "Nothing but a few receipted tailor's bills, an empty
cash box and a stoneless ring."
"A what?" The coroner screwed himself around in his chair and the jury
strained backward as Jones spoke.
Mr. Cunningham involuntarily put out his hand for the bauble as the
detective passed him, but Jones shook his head with a smile, as he
returned to the front of the room and placed the objects on the table
before the coroner.
Coroner Graves examined with meticulous care the sheaf of bills, the
empty box. Then he put them aside and turned his attention to the
stoneless ring.
"Odd, very odd," he said. "Why should a man like Mr. Darwin preserve a
stoneless ring?"
"I think I can explain that," said the lawyer, coming forward very
leisurely. "May I look at it?" He held out his hand and the coroner
placed the ring within it. "Ah, yes, it is the same." He handed it back
with a courteous air, but I could not help feeling that somehow he was
merely amused by the attempts of the coroner to solve the problem. But
it must have been my own overwrought fancy, for his voice was sinister
enough through its throatiness, as he said:
"My client, as perhaps you know, was very fond of the ladies. Before his
marriage he met a very beautiful young lady--her name does not matter,
it was not her own, for she was an actress, I believe--of whom he became
very fond. In fact, he told me he was going to engage himself to her,
and showed me that ring which he had bought her. It held within that now
broken setting a magnificent blue-white diamond. If you will look within
you will see the inscription which Mr. Darwin had engraved upon it."
He paused, as much to rest his voice as to give the coroner the
opportunity of reading aloud for the benefit of the jury the sentiment
which graced the ring: "To my one love--D."
"I remonstrated with him, told him she would take the ring and leave him
high and dry, but he would not listen and bestowed it upon her," resumed
the lawyer. "A week later he received a letter from her enclosing that."
He waved his hand toward the golden circlet contemptuously. "She had
kept the diamond and returned him his ring. She left the country and he
never heard from her again. Why he kept that empty shell I don't know.
Perhaps he put it in the safe and forgot it was there."
"Where did you find it, Jones?" asked the coroner.
"In one corner of the top shelf. I only discovered it because as I
passed my hand over the shelf the broken prong scratched me," replied
Jones.
The coroner nodded. "A thin bit of gold not worth considering," he said,
adding as the lawyer was about to return to his seat: "Mr. Cunningham,
do you know Mr. Darwin's nephew?"
"Yes, I have met him several times," responded the lawyer.
"Was there not a will in his favor before the wedding?"
"Yes, but it was destroyed when the new will was made."
"Did Mr. Darwin mention to you recently that he intended changing his
will?"
"No."
"Have you ever heard of Cora Manning?"
"No."
"Yet Mr. Darwin had written her name on the will he was making at the
time he was shot, Mr. Cunningham."
"Indeed? This is all news to me, sir. My client, as perhaps you have
heard, was exceedingly peculiar. He did not confide all his affairs to
me. In fact, he often employed more than one lawyer."
The coroner raised his brows. "Well, he certainly was peculiar if he did
that. One lawyer ought to be enough for any sane man."
"Quite right," responded Mr. Cunningham with an odd smile. "But perhaps
my client wasn't quite sane."