The Just and the Unjust Part 26

Again Moxlow paused and glanced over the room. He must have been aware that to his eager audience the connection between Mr. North's and Mr.

Gilmore's fireplaces and the McBride murder, was anything but clear.

"Did you empty the ashes from the fireplaces in the apartments occupied by Mr. North and Mr. Gilmore on Friday morning?" he asked.

"Yes; that is, I took up the ashes in Mr. North's rooms."

"But not in Mr. Gilmore's?"

"No, sir, I didn't go into his rooms Friday morning."

"Why was that,--was there any reason for it?"

"Yes, I knew that Mr. Gilmore's rooms had not been occupied Thursday night; that was the night of the murder, and he was at McBride's house,"

explained the witness.

"But you emptied the grate in Mr. North's rooms?"

"Yes, sir."

"And disposed of the ashes in the usual way?"

"Yes, sir."

"In the barrel in the yard back of the building?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you notice anything peculiar about the ashes from Mr. North's rooms on Friday morning?"

The witness looked puzzled.

"Hadn't Mr. North burnt a good many papers in his grate?"

"Oh, yes, but then he was going away."

"That will do,--you are excused," interposed Moxlow quickly.

The sheriff was next sworn. Without interruption from Moxlow he told his story. He had made a thorough search of the ash barrel described by the witness Thomas Nelson, and had come upon a number of charred fragments of paper.

"We think these may be of interest to the coroner's jury," said Moxlow quietly.

He drew a small pasteboard box from an inner pocket of his coat and carefully arranged its contents on the table before him. In all there were half a dozen sc.r.a.ps of charred or torn paper displayed; one or two of these fragments were bits of envelopes on which either a part or all of the name was still decipherable. North, from where he sat, was able to recognize a number of these as letters which he had intended to destroy that last night in his rooms; but the refuse from his grate and the McBride murder still seemed poles apart; he could imagine no possible connection.

The president of Mount Hope's first national bank was the next witness called. He was asked by Moxlow to examine a Mount Hope Gas Company bond, and then the prosecuting attorney placed in his hands a triangular piece of paper which he selected from among the other fragments on the table.

"Mr. Harden, will you kindly tell the jury of what, in your opinion, that bit of paper in your hand was once a part?" said Moxlow.

Very deliberately the banker put on his gla.s.ses, and then with equal deliberation began a careful examination of the sc.r.a.p of paper.

"Well?" said Moxlow.

"A second, please!" said the banker.

But the seconds grew into minutes before he was ready to risk an opinion.

"We are waiting on you, Mr. Harden," said Moxlow at length.

"I should say that this is a marginal fragment of a Gas Company bond,"

said the banker slowly. "Indeed there can be no doubt on the point. The paper is the same, and these lines in red ink are a part of the decoration that surrounds the printed matter. No,--there is no doubt in my mind as to what this paper is."

"What part of the bond is it?" asked Moxlow.

"The lower right-hand corner," replied the banker promptly. "That is why I hesitated to identify it; with this much of the upper left-hand corner for instance, I should not have been in doubt."

"Excused," said Moxlow briefly.

The room became blank before John North's eyes as he realized that a chain of circ.u.mstantial evidence was connecting him with the McBride murder. He glanced about at a score of men--witnesses, officials, and jury, and felt their sudden doubt of him, as intangibly but as certainly as he felt the dead presence just beyond the closed door.

"We have one other witness," said Moxlow.

And Joe Montgomery, seeming to understand that he was this witness, promptly quitted his chair at the back of the room and, cap in hand, slouched forward and was duly sworn by the coroner.

If Mr. Montgomery had shown promptness he had also evinced uneasiness, since his fear of the law was as rock-ribbed as his respect for it. He was not unfamiliar with courts, though never before had he appeared in the character of a witness; and he had told himself many times that day that the business in which he had allowed Mr. Gilmore to involve him carried him far behind his depths. Now his small blue eyes slid round in their sockets somewhat fearfully until they rested on Mr. Gilmore, who had just taken up his position at Marshall Langham's elbow. The gambler frowned and the handy-man instantly s.h.i.+fted his gaze. But the prosecuting attorney's first questions served to give Joe a measure of ease; this was transitory, however, as he seemed to stand alone in the presence of some imminent personal danger when Moxlow asked:

"Where were you on the night of the twenty-seventh of November at six o'clock?"

Joe stole a haunted glance in the direction of Gilmore. Moxlow repeated his question.

"Boss, I was in White's woodshed," answered Montgomery.

"Tell the jury what you saw," said Moxlow.

"Well, I seen a good deal," evaded the handy-man, shaking his great head.

"Go on!" urged Moxlow impatiently.

"It was this way," said Joe. "I was lookin' out into the alley through a crack in the small door where they put in the coal; right across the alley is the back of McBride's store and the sheds about his yard--"

the handy-man paused and mopped his face with his ragged cap.

At the opposite end of the room Gilmore placed a hand on Langham's arm.

The lawyer had uttered a smothered exclamation and had made a movement as if about to quit his seat. The gambler pushed him back.

"Sit tight, Mars.h.!.+" he muttered between his teeth.

Mr. Montgomery, taking stock of his courage, prepared to adventure further with his testimony.

"All at once as I stood by that door lookin' out into the alley, I heard a kind of noise in old man McBride's yard. It sounded like something heavy was bein' sc.r.a.ped across the frozen ground, say a box or barrel.

Then I seen a man's derby hat come over the edge of the shed, and next the man who was under that hat drawed himself up; he come up slow and cautious until he was where he could throw himself over on to the roof.

He done that, squatted low, and slid down the roof toward the alley.