That Affair Next Door · Book I · Chapter 13 (2/2)

I was watching Howard, and the start he gave was so pronounced and the emotion he displayed was in such violent contrast to the self-possession he had maintained up to this point, that I was held spellbound by the shock I received, and forebore to look at the object which the Coroner had suddenly held up for inspection. But when I did turn my head towards it, I recognized at once the multicolored hat which Mr. Gryce had brought in from the third room of Mr. Van Burnam’s house on the evening I was there, and realized almost in the same breath that great as this mystery had hitherto seemed it was likely to prove yet greater before its proper elucidation was arrived at.

“Was that found in my father’s house? Where⁠—where was that hat found?” stammered the witness, so far forgetting himself as to point towards the object in question.

“It was found by Mr. Gryce in a closet off your father’s dining-room, a short time after the dead girl was carried out.”

“I don’t believe it,” vociferated the young man, paling with something more than anger, and shaking from head to foot.

“Shall I put Mr. Gryce on his oath again?” asked the Coroner, mildly.

The young man stared; evidently these words failed to reach his understanding.

“Is it your wife’s hat?” persisted the Coroner with very little mercy. “Do you recognize it for the one in which she left Haddam?”

“Would to God I did not!” burst in vehement distress from the witness, who at the next moment broke down altogether and looked about for the support of his brother’s arm.

Franklin came forward, and the two brothers stood for a moment in the face of the whole surging mass of curiosity-mongers before them, arm in arm, but with very different expressions on their two proud faces. Howard was the first to speak.

“If that was found in the parlors of my father’s house,” he cried, “then the woman who was killed there was my wife.” And he started away with a wild air towards the door.

“Where are you going?” asked the Coroner, quietly, while an officer stepped softly before him, and his brother compassionately drew him back by the arm.

“I am going to take her from that horrible place; she is my wife. Father, you would not wish her to remain in that spot for another moment, would you, while we have a house we call our own?”

Mr. Van Burnam the senior, who had shrunk as far from sight as possible through these painful demonstrations, rose up at these words from his agonized son, and making him an encouraging gesture, walked hastily out of the room; seeing which, the young man became calmer, and though he did not cease to shudder, tried to restrain his first grief, which to those who looked closely at him was evidently very sincere.

“I would not believe it was she,” he cried, in total disregard of the presence he was in, “I would not believe it; but now⁠—” A certain pitiful gesture finished the sentence, and neither Coroner nor jury seemed to know just how to proceed, the conduct of the young man being so markedly different from what they had expected. After a short pause, painful enough to all concerned, the Coroner, perceiving that very little could be done with the witness under the circumstances, adjourned the sitting till afternoon.