The Red Seal Part 16

"Yes. I heard them scratching at the door leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt as I went upstairs, and so I turned around and went down and opened the door and let them run down into the cellar."

Penfield snapped shut his notebook. "I am greatly obliged, Mrs.

Brewster; we will not detain you longer."

The morgue master stepped forward and helped the pretty widow down from the platform.

"Colonel McIntyre is here now," he told the coroner.

"Ah, then bring him in," and Penfield, while awaiting the arrival of the new witness, straightened the papers on his desk.

McIntyre looked straight ahead of him as he walked down the room and stood frowning heavily while the oath was being administered, but his manner, when the coroner addressed him, had regained all the suavity and polish which had first captivated Was.h.i.+ngton society.

"I have been a resident of Was.h.i.+ngton for about five years," he said in answer to the coroner's question. "My daughters attended school here after their return from Paris, where they were in a convent for four years. They made their debut last November at our home in this city."

"Were you aware of the wager between your daughter Barbara and James Turnbull?" asked Penfield.

"I heard of it Sunday afternoon but paid little attention," admitted McIntyre. "My daughter Barbara's vagaries I seldom take seriously."

"Was Mr. Turnbull a frequent visitor at your house?"

"Oh, yes."

"Was he engaged to your daughter Helen?"

"No." McIntyre's denial was prompt and firmly spoken. Penfield and Kent, from his new seat nearer the platform, watched the colonel narrowly, but learned nothing from his expression.

"I have heard otherwise," observed the coroner dryly.

"You have been misinformed," McIntyre's manner was short. "I would suggest, Mr. Coroner, that you confine your questions and conjectures to matters pertinent to this inquiry."

Penfield flushed as one of the jurors snickered, but he did not repeat his previous question, asking instead, "Was there good feeling between you and Mr. Turnbull?"

"I never quarreled with him," replied McIntyre. "I really saw little of him as, whenever he called at the house, he came to see one or the other of my daughters, or both."

"When did you last see Mr. Turnbull?" inquired Penfield.

"He was at the house on Sunday and I had quite a talk with him,"

McIntyre leaned back in his chair and regarded the neat crease in his trousers with critical eyes. "I last saw Turnbull going out of the street door."

"Were you disturbed by the burglar's entrance on Monday night?"

McIntyre shook his head. "I am a heavy sleeper," he said. "I regret very much that my daughter Helen did not at once awaken me on finding the burglar, as she supposed, hiding in the closet. I knew nothing of the affair until Grimes informed me of it, and only reached the police court in time to bring my daughters home from the distressing scene following the identification of the dead burglar as Jimmie Turnbull."

"Colonel McIntyre," Penfield turned over several papers until he found the one he sought. "Mrs. Brewster has testified that while you and she were sitting in the reception room, Mr. Clymer opened the window. Did you close it on leaving the room?"

McIntyre reflected before answering. "I cannot remember doing so,"

he stated finally. "Clymer was in rather a hurry to leave, and after bidding Mrs. Brewster good night, we went straight out to the car and I drove him to the Saratoga."

"Then you cannot swear to the window having been re-locked?"

"I cannot."

Penfield paused a moment. "Did you return immediately to your house from the Saratoga apartment?"

"I did" promptly. "My chauffeur, Harris, wasn't well, and I wanted him to get home."

Penfield thought a moment before putting the next question.

"How did Miss Barbara return from the Grosvenor dance?" he asked.

"She was brought home by friends, Colonel and Mrs. Chase." McIntyre in turning about in his chair knocked down his walking stick from its resting place against its side, and the unexpected clatter made several women, nervously inclined, jump in their seats. Observing them, McIntyre smiled and was still smiling amusedly when Penfield addressed him.

"Did you observe many lights burning in your house when you returned?"

asked Penfield.

"No, only those which are usually left lit at night."

"Was your daughter Helen awake?"

"I do not know. Her room was in darkness when I walked past her door on my way to bed."

Penfield removed his eye-gla.s.ses and polished them on his silk handkerchief. "I have no further questions to ask. Colonel, you are excused."

McIntyre bowed gravely to him and as he left the platform came face to face with his family physician, Dr. Stone.

Penfield, who was an old acquaintance of the physician's, signed to him to come on the platform. After the preliminaries had been gone through, he s.h.i.+fted his chair around, the better to face Stone.

"Did you accompany the Misses McIntyre to the police court on Tuesday morning?" he asked.

"I did," responded the physician, "at Miss Barbara's request. She said her sister was not very well and they disliked going alone to the police court."

"Did she state why she did not ask her father to go with them?"

"Only that he had not fully recovered from an attack of tonsillitis, which I knew to be a fact, and they did not want him to over-tax his strength."

There was a moment's pause as the coroner, his attention diverted by a whispered word or two from the morgue master, referred to his notes before resuming his examination.

"Did you know James Turnbull?" he asked a second later.

"Yes, slightly."

"Did you recognize him in his burglar's disguise?"

"I did not"

"Had you any suspicion that the burglar was other than he seemed?"

"No."