Louise Stapleton."
"Ah! I am glad of the explanation! I was just going to inquire why you,
of all members of the family, were the only one to know your brother's
wife by sight."
The witness, considering this question answered, made no reply. But the
next suggestion could not be passed over.
"If you saw Mrs. Van Burnam so often, you are acquainted with her
personal appearance?"
"Sufficiently so; as well as I know that of my ordinary
calling-acquaintance."
"Was she light or dark?"
"She had brown hair."
"Similar to this?"
The lock held up was the one which had been cut from the head of the
dead girl.
"Yes, somewhat similar to that." The tone was cold; but he could not
hide his distress.
"Mr. Van Burnam, have you looked well at the woman who was found
murdered in your father's house?"
"I have, sir."
"Is there anything in her general outline or in such features as have
escaped disfigurement to remind you of Mrs. Howard Van Burnam?"
"I may have thought so--at first glance," he replied, with decided
effort.
"And did you change your mind at the second?"
He looked troubled, but answered firmly: "No, I cannot say that I did.
But you must not regard my opinion as conclusive," he hastily added. "My
knowledge of the lady was comparatively slight."
"The jury will take that into account. All we want to know now is
whether you can assert from any knowledge you have or from anything to
be noted in the body itself, that it is not Mrs. Howard Van Burnam?"
"I cannot."
And with this solemn assertion his examination closed.
The remainder of the day was taken up in trying to prove a similarity
between Mrs. Van Burnam's handwriting and that of Mrs. James Pope as
seen in the register of the Hotel D---- and on the order sent to
Altman's. But the only conclusion reached was that the latter might be
the former disguised, and even on this point the experts differed.
XIII.
HOWARD VAN BURNAM.
The gentleman who stepped from the carriage and entered Mr. Van Burnam's
house at twelve o'clock that night produced so little impression upon me
that I went to bed satisfied that no result would follow these efforts
at identification.
And so I told Mr. Gryce when he arrived next morning. But he seemed by
no means disconcerted, and merely requested that I would submit to one
more trial. To which I gave my consent, and he departed.
I could have asked him a string of questions, but his manner did not
invite them, and for some reason I was too wary to show an interest in
this tragedy superior to that felt by every right-thinking person
connected with it.
At ten o'clock I was in my old seat in the court-room. The same crowd
with different faces confronted me, amid which the twelve stolid
countenances of the jury looked like old friends. Howard Van Burnam was
the witness called, and as he came forward and stood in full view of us
all, the interest of the occasion reached its climax.
His countenance wore a reckless look that did not serve to prepossess
him with the people at whose mercy he stood. But he did not seem to
care, and waited for the Coroner's questions with an air of ease which
was in direct contrast to the drawn and troubled faces of his father and
brother just visible in the background.
Coroner Dahl surveyed him a few minutes before speaking, then he quietly
asked if he had seen the dead body of the woman who had been found lying
under a fallen piece of furniture in his father's house.
He replied that he had.
"Before she was removed from the house or after it?"
"After."
"Did you recognize it? Was it the body of any one you know?"
"I do not think so."
"Has your wife, who was missing yesterday, been heard from yet, Mr. Van
Burnam?"
"Not to my knowledge, sir."
"Had she not--that is, your wife--a complexion similar to that of the
dead woman just alluded to?"
"She had a fair skin and brown hair, if that is what you mean. But these
attributes are common to too many women for me to give them any weight
in an attempted identification of this importance."
"Had they no other similar points of a less general character? Was not
your wife of a slight and graceful build, such as is attributed to the
subject of this inquiry?"
"My wife was slight and she was graceful, common attributes also."
"And your wife had a scar?"
"Yes."
"On the left ankle?"
"Yes."
"Which the deceased also has?"
"That I do not know. They say so, but I had no interest in looking."
"Why, may I ask? Did you not think it a remarkable coincidence?"
The young man frowned. It was the first token of feeling he had given.
"I was not on the look-out for coincidences," was his cold reply. "I had
no reason to think this unhappy victim of an unknown man's brutality my
wife, and so did not allow myself to be moved by even such a fact as
this."
"You had no reason," repeated the Coroner, "to think this woman your
wife. Had you any reason to think she was not?"
"Yes."
"Will you give us that reason?"
"I had more than one. First, my wife would never wear the clothes I saw
on the girl whose dead body was shown to me. Secondly, she would never
go to any house alone with a man at the hour testified to by one of your
witnesses."[A]
"Not with any man?"
"I did not mean to include her husband in my remark, of course. But as I
did not take her to Gramercy Park, the fact that the deceased woman
entered an empty house accompanied by a man, is proof enough to me that
she was not Louise Van Burnam."
"When did you part with your wife?"
"On Monday morning at the depot in Haddam."
"Did you know where she was going?"
"I knew where she said she was going."
"And where was that, may I ask?"
"To New York, to interview my father."
"But your father was not in New York?"
"He was daily expected here. The steamer on which he had sailed from
Southampton was due on Tuesday."
"Had she an interest in seeing your father? Was there any special reason
why she should leave you for doing so?"
"She thought so; she thought he would become reconciled to her entrance
into our family if he should see her suddenly and without prejudiced
persons standing by."
"And did you fear to mar the effect of this meeting if you accompanied
her?"
"No, for I doubted if the meeting would ever take place. I had no
sympathy with her schemes, and did not wish to give her the sanction of
my presence."
"Was that the reason you let her go to New York alone?"
"Yes."
"Had you no other?"
"No."
"Why did you follow her, then, in less than five hours?"
"Because I was uneasy; because I also wanted to see my father; because I
am a man accustomed to carry out every impulse; and impulse led me that
day in the direction of my somewhat headstrong wife."
"Did you know where your wife intended to spend the night?"
"I did not. She has many friends, or at least I have, in the city, and I
concluded she would go to one of them--as she did."
"When did you arrive in the city? before ten o'clock?"
"Yes, a few minutes before."
"Did you try to find your wife?"
"No. I went directly to the club."
"Did you try to find her the next morning?"
"No; I had heard that the steamer had not yet been sighted off Fire
Island, so considered the effort unnecessary."
"Why? What connection is there between this fact and an endeavor on your
part to find your wife?"
"A very close one. She had come to New York to throw herself at my
father's feet. Now she could only do this at the steamer or in----"
"Why do you not proceed, Mr. Van Burnam?"
"I will. I do not know why I stopped,--or in his own house."
"In his own house? In the house in Gramercy Park, do you mean?"
"Yes, he has no other."
"The house in which this dead girl was found?"
"Yes,"--impatiently.
"Did you think she might throw herself at his feet there?"
"She said she might; and as she is romantic, foolishly romantic, I
thought her fully capable of doing so."
"And so you did not seek her in the morning?"
"No, sir."
"How about the afternoon?"
This was a close question; we saw that he was affected by it though he
tried to carry it off bravely.
"I did not see her in the afternoon. I was in a restless frame of mind,
and did not remain in the city."
"Ah! indeed! and where did you go?"
"Unless necessary, I prefer not to say."
"It is necessary."
"I went to Coney Island."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Did you see anybody there you know?"
"No."
"And when did you return?"
"At midnight."
"When did you reach your rooms?"
"Later."
"How much later?"
"Two or three hours."
"And where were you during those hours?"
"I was walking the streets."
The ease, the quietness with which he made these acknowledgments were
remarkable. The jury to a man honored him with a prolonged stare, and
the awe-struck crowd scarcely breathed during their utterance. At the
last sentence a murmur broke out, at which he raised his head and with
an air of surprise surveyed the people before him. Though he must have
known what their astonishment meant, he neither quailed nor blanched,
and while not in reality a handsome man, he certainly looked handsome at
this moment.
I did not know what to think; so forbore to think anything. Meanwhile
the examination went on.
"Mr. Van Burnam, I have been told that the locket I see there dangling
from your watch-chain contains a lock of your wife's hair. Is it so?"
"I have a lock of her hair in this; yes."
"Here is a lock clipped from the head of the unknown woman whose
identity we seek. Have you any objection to comparing the two?"
"It is not an agreeable task you have set me," was the imperturbable
response; "but I have no objection to doing what you ask." And calmly
lifting the chain, he took off the locket, opened it, and held it out
courteously toward the Coroner. "May I ask you to make the first
comparison," he said.
The Coroner, taking the locket, laid the two locks of brown hair
together, and after a moment's contemplation of them both, surveyed the
young man seriously, and remarked:
"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."
"Do you remember the hat? Were you with her when she bought it, or did
you ever have your attention drawn to it in any particular way?"
"I remember the hat."
"Is this it, Mr. Van Burnam?"
I was watching Howard, and the start he gave was so pronounced and the
emotion he displayed was in such violent contrast to the self-possession
he had maintained up to this point, that I was held spell-bound by the
shock I received, and forebore to look at the object which the Coroner
had suddenly held up for inspection. But when I did turn my head towards
it, I recognized at once the multi-colored hat which Mr. Gryce had
brought in from the third room of Mr. Van Burnam's house on the evening
I was there, and realized almost in the same breath that great as this
mystery had hitherto seemed it was likely to prove yet greater before
its proper elucidation was arrived at.
"Was that found in my father's house? Where--where was that hat found?"
stammered the witness, so far forgetting himself as to point towards the
object in question.
"It was found by Mr. Gryce in a closet off your father's dining-room, a
short time after the dead girl was carried out."
"I don't believe it," vociferated the young man, paling with something
more than anger, and shaking from head to foot.
"Shall I put Mr. Gryce on his oath again?" asked the Coroner, mildly.
The young man stared; evidently these words failed to reach his
understanding.
"_Is_ it your wife's hat?" persisted the Coroner with very little
mercy. "Do you recognize it for the one in which she left Haddam?"
"Would to God I did not!" burst in vehement distress from the witness,
who at the next moment broke down altogether and looked about for the
support of his brother's arm.
Franklin came forward, and the two brothers stood for a moment in the
face of the whole surging mass of curiosity-mongers before them, arm in
arm, but with very different expressions on their two proud faces.
Howard was the first to speak.
"If that was found in the parlors of my father's house," he cried, "then
the woman who was killed there was my wife." And he started away with a
wild air towards the door.
"Where are you going?" asked the Coroner, quietly, while an officer
stepped softly before him, and his brother compassionately drew him back
by the arm.
"I am going to take her from that horrible place; she is my wife.
Father, you would not wish her to remain in that spot for another
moment, would you, while we have a house we call our own?"
Mr. Van Burnam the senior, who had shrunk as far from sight as possible
through these painful demonstrations, rose up at these words from his
agonized son, and making him an encouraging gesture, walked hastily out
of the room; seeing which, the young man became calmer, and though he
did not cease to shudder, tried to restrain his first grief, which to
those who looked closely at him was evidently very sincere.
"I would not believe it was she," he cried, in total disregard of the
presence he was in, "I _would not_ believe it; but now----" A certain
pitiful gesture finished the sentence, and neither Coroner nor jury
seemed to know just how to proceed, the conduct of the young man being
so markedly different from what they had expected. After a short pause,
painful enough to all concerned, the Coroner, perceiving that very
little could be done with the witness under the circumstances, adjourned
the sitting till afternoon.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: Why could he not have said Miss Butterworth? These Van
Burnams are proud, most vilely proud as the poet has it.--A. B.]
XIV.
A SERIOUS ADMISSION.
I went at once to a restaurant. I ate because it was time to eat, and
because any occupation was welcome that would pass away the hours of
waiting. I was troubled; and I did not know what to make of myself. I
was no friend to the Van Burnams; I did not like them, and certainly had
never approved of any of them but Mr. Franklin, and yet I found myself
altogether disturbed over the morning's developments, Howard's emotion
having appealed to me in spite of my prejudices. I could not but think
ill of him, his conduct not being such as I could honestly commend. But
I found myself more ready to listen to the involuntary pleadings of my
own heart in his behalf than I had been prior to his testimony and its
somewhat startling termination.
But they were not through with him yet, and after the longest three
hours 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 the
Coroner. But he was soon called forward.
His face when the light fell on it was startling to most of us. It was
as much changed as if years, instead of hours, had elapsed since last
we saw it. No longer reckless in its expression, nor easy, nor politely
patient, it showed in its every lineament that he had not only passed
through a hurricane of passion, but that the bitterness, which had been
its worst feature, had not passed with the storm, but had settled into
the core of his nature, disturbing its equilibrium forever. My emotions
were not allayed by the sight; but I kept all expression of them out of
view. I must be sure of his integrity before giving rein to my
sympathies.
The jury moved and sat up quite alert when they saw him. I think that if
these especial twelve men could have a murder case to investigate every
day, they would grow quite wide-awake in time. Mr. Van Burnam made no
demonstration. Evidently there was not likely to be a repetition of the
morning's display of passion. He had been iron in his impassibility at
that time, but he was steel now, and steel which had been through the
fiercest of fires.
The opening question of the Coroner showed by what experience these
fires had been kindled.
"Mr. Van Burnam, I have been told that you have visited the Morgue in
the interim which has elapsed since I last questioned you. Is that
true?"
"It is."
"Did you, in the opportunity thus afforded, examine the remains of the
woman whose death we are investigating, attentively enough to enable you
to say now whether they are those of your missing wife?"
"I have. The body is that of Louise Van Burnam; I crave your pardon and
that of the jury for my former obstinacy in refusing to recognize it. I
thought myself fully justified in the stand I took. I see now that I
was not."
The Coroner made no answer. There was no sympathy between him and this
young man. Yet he did not fail in a decent show of respect; perhaps
because he did feel some sympathy for the witness's unhappy father and
brother.
"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 now
proceed to settle, if possible, the identity of the person who
accompanied Mrs. Van Burnam into your father's house."
"Wait," cried Mr. Van Burnam, with a strange air, "_I acknowledge I was
that person_."
It was coolly, almost fiercely said, but it was an admission that
wellnigh created a hubbub. Even the Coroner seemed moved, and cast a
glance at Mr. Gryce which showed his surprise to be greater than his
discretion.
"You acknowledge," he began--but the witness did not let him finish.