The Mystery of the Hidden Room Part 7

The coroner gave me a swift glance from beneath half-closed lids as he fingered a sheet of paper thoughtfully.

"You said that Mrs. Darwin entered the study to reclaim a paper which was of value to you, did you not?" he inquired.

"Yes," I answered, briefly.

"Is this the paper?" he continued in a peculiar tone, holding up the letter that Ruth had described to me.

"I have no idea," I retorted.

"What do you mean by that?" he continued sharply.

"Mrs. Darwin simply told me that in the study-table drawer was a letter which her husband could use against me. I urged her to retrieve it.

Never having seen it I cannot possibly say whether the paper in your hand is the one or not," I returned, quietly.

For a moment he was nonplussed, and then he asked: "You heard Mr. Orton say it was a love-letter written to you by Mrs. Darwin?"

"Oh, yes, but I didn't hear you ask him how he knew this. No, nor did I hear him tell you that he fished the torn sc.r.a.ps of Mrs. Darwin's private correspondence from her basket and pieced it together for her husband's delectation," I replied, scornfully, glad of the chance to let the jury know the truth concerning that letter.

I saw the look of disgust with which various of the members of the jury favored Orton, and even the coroner was impressed to the point of laying the letter aside and resuming his attack upon a different line.

"When you sent Mrs. Darwin into the study you were both aware, of course, of Mr. Darwin's presence in that room?"

"No. Mr. Darwin had told his wife he was going out and we had no idea there was anyone in the study."

"But finding him there unexpectedly might she not have shot him to secure the letter?" pursued the relentless voice.

I shook my head and replied abruptly (I have learned since that he had no right to ask that question, but I had no knowledge of legal technicalities): "Impossible. She was in the study only a minute before the shot was fired. This I am positive of, Mr. Orton's evidence to the contrary. She had left the door slightly ajar and I remember listening for sounds from the study just before the clock struck twelve. I heard no voices. Besides, the study was in total darkness----"

"You are sure the study was in darkness?" he interrupted with an odd look.

"Yes, I think I can safely say it was."

"It has been proven that Mr. Darwin was writing just before he was shot.

Do you think he was in the habit of writing in the dark?" he inquired sarcastically.

I reddened. The detective's statement had slipped my mind, but I refused to be ridiculed into changing my opinion. I could have staked my life upon it that the study was dark.

"Of course I was not in the room itself," I returned stiffly, "but by the hesitating way in which Mrs. Darwin entered and from the fact that no glow came through the doorway as she opened the door, I judged that the study was in darkness."

"The lamp on this table could never give sufficient light to be seen from that doorway, Mr. Davies," remarked the coroner.

I shook my head impatiently. "Nevertheless, I am convinced the study was in darkness," I reiterated stubbornly.

Seeing that he was getting nowhere he dropped the point, and asked: "Did you also see the pistol in Mrs. Darwin's hand?"

There was no use in quibbling since the fact was known, and I had no idea of what Ruth herself would say on this point, so I replied in the affirmative, adding: "As I stood in the doorway I could see that Mr.

Darwin had been shot as plainly as I could see that Mrs. Darwin was standing beside his chair."

"I thought you said the study was in darkness?"

"It was, but the lamp was lighted as I sprang for the door."

"Then you think there may have been someone else in the room?"

"Yes."

"Could you see the door of the study from your position in the drawing-room?"

"Yes." What was he getting at, anyway?

"So that you could see whether anyone came out of the study, or entered it after Mrs. Darwin?"

"Yes."

"Did anyone come out or go in?"

"No."

"You heard the evidence concerning the windows?"

"Yes."

"Do you still persist in saying there was someone else in the study?"

So that was it. He was trying to trap me into making a contradictory statement to pay up for my stubbornness concerning the study. But I had no intention of being trapped by him.

"I cannot be absolutely positive, your honor," I said, "but of this I am certain. I had no knowledge of Mr. Orton's presence until he lighted the study. Whether he was already in the room when Mrs. Darwin went in, or whether he entered behind me, I am not prepared to say."

"That's not so!" cried Orton, his face more pallid than ever. "I was out in the hall, your honor, I was out in the hall!"

The detective said something to him in an undertone, whereupon he subsided tremblingly, but it was very plain to be seen that the coroner, who had not been previously impressed with the man and who had since come to regard him in the light of a sycophant, began to be suspicious of the secretary, eyeing him with great disfavor, wondering, no doubt, whether he were as innocent as he gave out. I began to breathe more freely for Ruth, but at the coroner's next words my hopes were dashed once more.

"Knowing that Mrs. Darwin was in the study, why did you give the police the impression last night that she had heard the shot from upstairs?"

"She was ill. I didn't want her disturbed," I explained.

"In other words, you feared to tell the truth," he commented.

I made no answer. Protestations would only have made a bad matter worse.

"Mr. Davies, you know, of course, that if a man dies intestate, his wife inherits his property?"

I nodded, but was decidedly puzzled.

"Mr. Darwin died intestate," he continued quietly, watching to note the effect upon me.

"I don't understand you," I said, and I spoke the truth. I was out of my depth, for he surely couldn't suppose that I was intimately acquainted with Philip Darwin's personal affairs! Either that, or else he possessed information of which I had no knowledge. It proved to be the latter case.

"In the waste basket we found partially burned sc.r.a.ps of what was presumably a will, Mr. Davies, and here," holding up a heavy paper, "is what Mr. Darwin was at work upon when he was shot. It is a will, Mr.