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Updated: June 4, 2025
Howard Van Burnam, as thus presented to our notice by his own testimony, was an anomaly, whether we were to believe what he was saying at the present time or what he had said during the morning session. But I wished I had had the questioning of him. His next answer, however, opened up one dark place into which I had been peering for some time without any enlightenment.
The site for the camp had been fixed upon, two days beforehand, and it was but the work of an hour to unpack the wagons and pitch the four tents which made up the outfit. At the south were the sleeping-tents, with Mrs. Burnam presiding over one, and Mr.
Finally an officer, who had been sent into the adjoining room, came back with a gentleman, who was no sooner recognized as Mr. Franklin Van Burnam than a great change took place in the countenances of all present.
Van Burnam, it is disagreeable for me to go into family matters, but if you have had no quarrel with your brother, how comes it that you and he have had so little intercourse of late?" "He has been in Connecticut and I at Long Branch. Is not that a good answer, sir?" "Good, but not good enough. You have a common office in New York, have you not?" "Certainly, the firm's office."
"Mr. Van Burnam, I have been told that the locket I see there dangling from your watch-chain contains a lock of your wife's hair. Is it so?" "I have a lock of her hair in this; yes." "Here is a lock clipped from the head of the unknown woman whose identity we seek. Have you any objection to comparing the two?"
Perhaps this fact may be accounted for by the curiosity shown in those apartments by a very spruce new boarder we have had from New York. His taste for that particular quarter of the house was such that I could not keep him away from it except by lock and key. If there was a picture there of Mrs. Van Burnam, he took it, for he departed very suddenly one night.
Van Burnam inquiring, in his old calm way, which nothing seemed able to disturb: "Who is this crazy girl you have forced upon me? If I had known I was to be subjected to such companionship I should not have regarded my outing so favorably." Mr.
"By testing it," I suggested. "Very good, madam, I will. Not from actual knowledge, then, but from a certain insight I have acquired in my long dealing with such matters, I have come to the conclusion that Franklin Van Burnam did not in the beginning plan to kill this woman in his father's house.
"What have you done with them? Did you return them to your brother?" "No; I see where your inquiries are tending, and I do not suppose you will believe my simple word; but I lost the keys on the day I received them; that is why " "Well, you may continue, Mr. Van Burnam." "I have no more to say; my sentence was not worth completing."
But falsehoods never fit like truths, and we all felt the strain on our credulity as he met and attempted to parry the Coroner's questions. "And now, Miss Butterworth, let me again ask if your turn has not come at last for adding the sum of your evidence to ours against Franklin Van Burnam?"
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