The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 12

"Your honor, may I make a suggestion?" Cunningham awoke suddenly to the exigencies of the situation.

"Certainly, Mr. Cunningham," responded the coroner graciously.

"It has occurred to me that perhaps Mr. Darwin had in a moment of sentiment slipped that stoneless ring on his finger, and then had trouble in removing it. Of course it is only a suggestion,"

apologetically.

"No doubt it was just as you say," answered the coroner. "After all, the ring has nothing to do with the actual murder. Thank you, Mr.

Cunningham."

As the lawyer resumed his seat with that sardonic smile upon his lips, the coroner picked up the handkerchief. "Is this yours, Mrs. Darwin?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"May I see that handkerchief that you are holding so tightly in your hand?"

Without a word she pa.s.sed the bit of cambric to him and he held it up beside the blood-stained handkerchief. They were exactly the same, texture, pattern, and design!

"Well?" The coroner laid the two articles upon the table and bent a flas.h.i.+ng look upon her.

"I don't understand how it can be just like mine when it doesn't belong to me," she said in a frightened voice. "Phil bought it for me at the church bazaar--just after we were married. He--he only bought me one."

"Wasn't it strange--his buying only one?"

"No--no. I wouldn't let him get me any more. I--I didn't want him to buy me anything at all."

"Then since it is quite evident that you did not love Philip Darwin, will you explain why you married him at all?"

"Ruth," I said, warningly, and this time she heeded my advice.

"I can't discuss my private affairs, sir. They have nothing to do with--with Phil's death, and they are my own," she said with troubled dignity.

"Do you realize that your silence will militate against you?"

"I can't help it, sir," she answered with tears in her eyes.

"Just one thing more. What is your father's present address?"

"Daddy's address? Surely you can't think--but he wasn't here last night!" she cried in terror.

"I know. It is merely a formality," replied the coroner, in a soothing voice.

"Shall I tell him, Carlton?" she asked me, ignoring her counsel.

"Yes, I suppose you had better," I returned.

"He is staying with Mrs. Bailey at Tarrytown."

"Thank you, Mrs. Darwin. If you will remain where you are, please, we will now hear from Mr. Ames," said the coroner.

The finger-print expert stepped forward. "My evidence is of the briefest," he said. "I have examined the pistol and have taken an impression of the finger-prints upon the handle. I have the enlargements with me and I should like to compare them with a set made by Mrs.

Darwin. If you please."

He extended an inked pad toward Ruth and showed her how to make the impressions that he desired. Then followed silence while he compared them with the enlargements. Then with a brisk nod he pa.s.sed the plates to the jury.

"Well, Mr. Ames?" asked the coroner.

"Finger-prints, as you know, are infallible evidence," said the expert.

"The finger-prints on the handle of the pistol are the same as those made by Mrs. Darwin here in your presence and there are no other prints of any kind upon the pistol. Therefore I do not hesitate to say that the only person who handled that revolver last night was Mrs. Darwin."

The expert sat down, and satisfied that the chain of evidence was complete the coroner ordered the jury to leave the room and arrive at a decision. We had not long to wait. No sooner had they filed out than they were back again, nor do I think that anyone was surprised when they found that the deceased had come to his death by a pistol shot fired at the hands of his wife, Ruth Darwin.

"Carlton, do you still believe in me?" she asked dully.

"With all my heart and soul, Ruth, dear. I shall always believe in you even against all the world," I answered simply.

She gave me a look of love unutterable, then for the second time in twenty-four hours crumpled in a heap on the floor beside me.

CHAPTER X

JENKINS' ADVICE

Philip Darwin was a man of so great wealth and social prominence that the news of his murder and the subsequent arrest of his wife aroused the public to such a pitch of sensational excitement and furor that the district attorney, an exceedingly clever man by the name of Grenville, was forced to set the trial for the end of November, within two months from the date of the murder.

Whereupon I hastened to lay the case before my lawyers, who were also the Trenton solicitors, since I took no great stock in Cunningham for the reason that he had been Darwin's attorney. Therefore, as I remarked before, I went to the firm of Vaughn and Chase, where I found the senior partner in his office. I would rather have spoken to Chase, who was younger and more enthusiastic, but he was out of town, so I had to content myself with Richard Vaughn.

The senior partner was the old-fas.h.i.+oned type of lawyer, cautious and unimaginative, and he listened to my rather disconnected statements with patient tolerance. When I had finished he shook his head and eyed me rather pityingly.

"You know of course that we do not make it a practice to take up criminal cases?" he said with indulgent kindliness.

"I didn't know," I said, rising and walking toward the door. "I came to you because you have handled her father's business for years, but I certainly won't trouble you to defend her since it might break a rule of your firm," and I flung open the door.

"Tut, my dear boy, don't fly off the handle at my first remark. Close the door and sit down, please. Of course we'll take the case," he continued as I resumed my seat, "or rather we shall see to it that she has proper counsel at the time. But you must realize for yourself that we haven't much evidence to go on."

"You have a good knowledge of her character, you know she is incapable of murder, and you have her account of what happened in the study," I returned.

Again he bent upon me that tolerant, pitying look. "My dear boy," he said, laying a hand on my knee, "you are young and in love and as is only natural you are letting your heart run away with your head. Besides you know nothing of courts and their proceedings. Mrs. Darwin's account of that minute or two in the study is, to say the least, extremely fanciful."

"But true," I interrupted with conviction.

"Yes, yes, of course," he replied soothingly. "But remember that a jury of twelve honest, but more or less stolid, citizens is convinced by facts and not by fancies."