"We do not depend on her judgment alone," the coroner now remarked. "The change in you was apparent to many others. This we can prove to the jury if they require it."
But no man lifting a voice from that gravely attentive body, the coroner proceeded to inquire if Mr. Jeffrey felt like volunteering any explanations on this head. Receiving no answer from him either, he dropped the suggestive line of inquiry and took up the consideration of facts. The first question he now put was:
"Where did you find the slip of paper containing these last words from your wife?"
"In a book I picked out of the book-shelf in our room upstairs. When Loretta gave me my wife's message I knew that I should find some word from her in the novel we had just been reading. As we had been interested in but one book since our marriage, there was no possibility of my making an' mistake as to which one she referred."
"Will you give us the name of this novel?"
"COMPENSATION."
"And you found this book called COMPENSATION in your room upstairs?"
"Yes."
"On the book-shelf?"
"Yes."
"Where does this book-shelf stand?"
Mr. Jeffrey looked up as much as to say, "Why so many small questions about so simple a matter?" but answered frankly enough:
"At the right of the door leading into the bedroom."
"And at right angles to the door leading into the hall?"
"Yes."
"Very good. Now may I ask you to describe the cover of this book?"
"The cover? I never noticed the cover. Why do you—. Excuse me, I suppose you have your reasons for asking even these puerile and seemingly unnecessary questions. The cover is a queer one I believe; partly red and partly green; and that is all I know about it."
"Is this the book?"
Mr. Jeffrey glanced at the volume the coroner held up before him.
"I believe so; it looks like it."
The book had a flaming cover, quite unmistakable in its character.
"The title shows it to be the same," remarked the coroner. "Is this the only book with a cover of this kind in the house?"
"The only one, I should say."
The coroner laid down the book.
"Enough of this, then, for the present; only let the jury remember that the cover of this book is peculiar and that it was kept on a shelf at the right of the opening leading into the adjoining bed-room. And now, Mr. Jeffrey, we must ask you to look at these rings; or, rather, at this one. You have seen it before; it is the one you placed on Mrs. Jeffrey's hand when you were married to her a little over a fortnight ago. You recognize it?"
"I do."
"Do you also recognize this small mark of blood on it as having been here when it was shown to you by the detective on your return from seeing her dead body at the Moore house?"
"I do; yes."
"How do you account for that spot and the slight injury made to her finger? Should you not say that the ring had been dragged from her hand?"
"I should."
"By whom was it dragged? By you?"
"No, sir."
"By herself, then?"
"It would seem so."
"Much passion must have been in that act. Do you think that any ordinary quarrel between husband and wife would account for the display of such fury? Are we not right in supposing a deeper cause for the disturbance between you than the slight one you offer in way of explanation?"
An inaudible answer; then a sudden straightening of Francis Jeffrey's fine figure. And that was all.
"Mr. Jeffrey, in the talk you had with your wife on Tuesday morning was Miss Tuttle's name introduced?"
"It was mentioned; yes, sir."
"With recrimination or any display of passion on the part of your wife?"
"You would not believe me if I said no," was the unexpected rejoinder.
The coroner, taken aback by this direct attack from one who had hitherto borne all his innuendoes with apparent patience, lost countenance for a moment, but, remembering that in his official capacity he was more than a match for the elegant gentleman, who under other circumstances would have found it only too easy to put him to the blush, he observed with dignity:
"Mr. Jeffrey, you are on oath. We certainly have no reason for not believing you."
Mr. Jeffrey bowed. He was probably sorry for his momentary loss of self-control, and gravely, but with eyes bent downward, answered with the abrupt phrase:
"Well, then, I will say no."
The coroner shifted his ground.
"Will you make the same reply when I ask if the like forbearance was shown toward your wife's name in the conversation you had with Miss Tuttle immediately afterward?"
A halt in the eagerly looked-for reply; a hesitation, momentary indeed, but pregnant with nameless suggestions, caused his answer, when it did come, to lose some of the emphasis he manifestly wished to put into it.
"Miss Tuttle was Mrs. Jeffrey's half-sister. The bond between them was strong. Would she would I—be apt to speak of my young wife with bitterness?"
"That is not an answer to my question, Mr. Jeffrey. I must request a more positive reply."
Miss Tuttle made a move. The strain on all present was so great we could but notice it. He noticed it too, for his brows came together with a quick frown, as he emphatically replied:
"There were no recriminations uttered. Mrs. Jeffrey had displeased me and I said so, but I did not forget that I was speaking of my wife and to her sister."
As this was in the highest degree non-committal, the coroner could be excused for persisting.
"The conversation, then, was about your wife?"
"It was."
"In criticism of her conduct?"
"Yes."
"At the ambassador's ball?"
"Yes."
Mr. Jeffrey was a poor hand at lying. That last "yes" came with great effort.
The coroner waited, possibly for the echo of this last "yes" to cease; then he remarked with a coldness which lifted at once the veil from his hitherto well disguised antagonism to this witness.
"If you will recount to us anything which your wife said or did on that evening which, in your mind, was worthy of all this coil, it might help us to understand the situation."
But the witness made no attempt to do so, and while many of us were ready to pardon him this show of delicacy, others felt that under the circumstances it would have been better had he been more open.
Among the latter was the coroner himself, who, from this moment, threw aside all hesitation and urged forward his inquiries in a way to press the witness closer and closer toward the net he was secretly holding out for him. First, he obliged him to say that his conversation with Miss Tuttle had not tended to smooth matters; that no reconciliation with his wife had followed it, and that in the thirty-six hours which elapsed before he returned home again he had made no attempt to soothe the feelings of one, who, according to his own story, he considered hardly responsible for any extravagances in which she might have indulged. Then when this inconsistency had been given time to sink into the minds of the jury, Coroner Z. increased the effect produced by confronting Jeffrey with witnesses who testified to the friendly, if not lover-like relations which had existed between himself and Miss Tuttle prior to the appearance of his wife upon the scene; closing with a question which brought out the denial, by no means new, that an engagement had ever taken place between him and Miss Tuttle and hence that a bond had been canceled by his marriage with Miss Moore.
But his manner and careful choice of words in making this denial did not satisfy those present of his entire candor; especially as Miss Tuttle, for all her apparent immobility, showed, by the violent locking of her hands, both her anxiety and the suffering she was undergoing during this painful examination. Was the suffering merely one of outraged delicacy? We felt justified in doubting it, and looked forward, with cruel curiosity I admit, to the moment when this renowned and universally admired beauty would be called on to throw aside her veil axed reveal the highly praised features which had been so openly scorned for the sake of one whose chief claims to regard lay in her great wealth.