United States or Mauritania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Simmonds and Goldberger followed him, and their faces showed that they were as shaken and nonplussed as I. There was a third man with them whom I did not know; but I soon found out that it was Freylinghuisen, the coroner's physician. They all looked at the body, and Freylinghuisen knelt beside it and examined the injured hand; then he sat down by Dr.
Two policemen edged close to his side. But Francisco Silva looked about him with scornful eyes, and presently he opened his lips as though to speak, and then he closed them. Goldberger seemed perplexed. He looked as though, while rolling smoothly along the road toward a well-understood goal, he had suddenly struck an unforeseen obstacle.
Goldberger did think it over; he realised the danger of trying to punish a paper so powerful as the Record, and he finally decided to accept Godfrey's statement as a mitigation of his refusal to answer. "That is only one of the details which Commissioner Grady has missed," Godfrey added, pleasantly. "That will do," Goldberger broke in, and Godfrey left the stand.
I fancied that Swain lost a little of his colour when he saw the handkerchief and learned where it had been found, but he made no remark. "Will Miss Vaughan be able to testify?" Goldberger inquired, just before the doctor stepped down. "Unless it is absolutely necessary, I think she would better be excused," Hinman answered. "She is still very nervous. The ordeal might cause a serious collapse."
"On the morning after the tragedy," Goldberger began sweetly, "you printed in the Record a photograph which you claimed to be that of the woman who had called upon Mr. Vantine the night before, and who was, presumably, the last person to see him alive. Where did you get that photograph?" "It was a copy of one which Drouet carried in his watch-case," answered Godfrey.
There was an instant's silence, and then Goldberger turned to the jury. "Is this your verdict, gentlemen?" he asked quietly; and each juryman replied in the affirmative as his name was called. "I thank you for your services," Goldberger added, directed his clerk to give them their vouchers on the city treasurer, and dismissed them.
My tension during the telling of the story had been almost painful; and it was not until it was ended that I saw two other men had entered while Miss Vaughan was speaking. I was on my feet as soon as I saw them, for I recognised Goldberger and Sylvester. "Simmonds telephoned me this morning that I was needed out here again," Goldberger explained.
"Yes," said Godfrey, as we shook hands, "I happened to be talking to Simmonds when the call came in, and I thought I might as well come along. What is it?" "Just a suicide, I think," and I unlocked the door into the room where the dead man lay. Simmonds, Goldberger and Godfrey stepped inside. I followed and closed the door. "Nothing has been disturbed," I said. "No one has touched the body."
Sylvester shrugged his shoulders to indicate that proof could go no further. Goldberger took back the photographs from the foreman of the jury and ranged them before him on the table. "Now, Mr. Sylvester," he said, "did you notice any correspondence between these prints?" "Yes," answered the witness, in a low voice; "the thumb-prints on both robes were made by the same hand."
For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty out of the hundred and thirty odd dollars that the pair secured; and naturally this put them on friendly terms with him, and a few days later he introduced them to a little "sheeny" named Goldberger, one of the "runners" of the "sporting house" where they had been hidden.
Word Of The Day