THE INQUEST. MARCUS SPRINGS TO HIS FEET.
Little Pet sat on the low stool which she had always occupied, and which Marcus, in his strange sentimentality, had always considered sacred to her. She was veiled; but, through the thick gauze, he could see that her beautiful face was deathly pale. Her slender frame shook with little convulsions, that made the chair rattle.
"Be calm, my dear child," said a stout, self-possessed woman who sat by her side, and held a bottle of salts conspicuously in her hand. "Remember, you have only to tell the trewth, and let the consekences fall where they may. Tell the trewth, as the old sayin' is, and shame the de--you know who."
Mrs. Crull--for she it was--checked herself with a neat cough. Her three months' private education seemed to have been lost upon her. She could never speak correctly out of Miss Pillbody's sight. Fortunately, her heart needed no education. She had taken the poor orphan girl to her home, and been a mother to her. In that phrase there is an horizonless world of love.
The deep, manly voice of Mrs. Crull carried assurance to the sinking heart of Patty. She took the extended hand, and pressed it, deriving strength from the contact of that strong, positive nature.
"If you please, Mr. Cronner," said Mrs. Crull, "I think you'd better go ahead with her examination at once. Quickest said, soonest mended, you know."
The prisoner and his counsel having taken their seats, the coroner having involuntarily thrown his right leg into the old, easy position, the jury having pricked up their ears, the reporters having cleared spaces for their elbows, the young girl proceeded to give her testimony. She was too nervous to make a clear, connected statement. Sometimes terror, sometimes tears, would choke her voice; but the cheering words and the smelling bottle of Mrs. Crull invariably "brought her round in no time," in the words of that estimable lady.
Pet told the story of her return home on the fatal night, of her finding Mr. Wilkeson and her father in angry conversation; of her retiring to bed very much fatigued; of more conversation, growing angrier and angrier, which she overheard; of her marvellous vision in the night; of her waking next morning to find her vision true, and her father dead on the floor. All these facts, with which the reader is already familiar, the poor child made known to the jury in a fragmentary, roundabout way, as they were elicited by questions from the coroner, the jury, and occasionally the prisoner's counsel. The narrative of the vivid dream, or vision, produced a startling effect on the coroner, who was a firm believer in every species of supernaturalism winch is most at variance with human experience and reason.
In his interrogatories to the witness, the coroner took the truth of the vision for granted. When she testified to the blows which (in her dream) she saw her father and the prisoner exchange, and the battered appearance of Mr. Wilkeson's face, the coroner looked at the prisoner, and was evidently disappointed to observe no traces of a bruise upon his pale brow or cheeks, nor the lightest discoloration about his eyes. But the absence of this corroboration did not, in the coroner's opinion, throw the least discredit on the dream.
But the foreman of the jury, who had been listening with an affrighted look to the marvellous story, and believing it, had his faith sadly shaken by this discrepancy. Having been fireman ten years, and foreman of a hose company six years, he knew by large experience how long it took to tone down a black eye or reduce a puffed cheek. The foreman looked at the smooth, clear face of the prisoner, smiled incredulously, and shook his head at his associates.
Fayette Overtop here acted his part with a skill worthy of a veteran. Instead of making a great ado over this weak point of the dream, he shrugged his shoulders, and smiled faintly at the jury. The jurors, who had been inclined, up to this time, to accept the dream as evidence, without question, now decided that it was nonsense.
Marcus Wilkeson sat and listened, as if the scene and all the actors in it, himself included, were only a dream too. The young girl's evidence, of which he had not an inkling before, would have astounded him, if anything could. But he had reached that point of reaction in the emotions, where a stolid and complete apathy happily takes the place of high nervous excitement. He somehow felt certain of his acquittal, but was strangely benumbed to his fate.
He looked at the witness--the holy idol of all his romantic and tender thoughts in days gone by--with unruffled composure. The marked stoicism of his demeanor was not lost on the reporters, and they noticed it in paragraphs to the effect that the prisoner exhibited a hardened indifference during the most thrilling portion of the evidence.
QUESTION BY THE CORONER (after thinking it over a bit). "Who do you say struck the fust blow, miss? Remember, now, you're on oath."
ANSWER. "My father, sir--or rather, I dreamed so."
The coroner was disappointed again, for he hoped that the witness would, on second thought, fix the commencement of the actual assault on the prisoner. "Your father, being old and kind o' feeble, struck a light blow, I s'pose."
WITNESS. "No, sir--a heavy one, I should judge; for it appeared to cut open Mr. Wilkeson's lip, and bruise his cheek. The blood seemed to run down his face in a stream." Here little Pet exhibited signs of faintness, which good Mrs. Crull stopped by an instant application of the smelling bottle.
CORONER. "Mr. Wilkeson struck back a terrible blow in return, I s'pose."
WITNESS. "Yes, sir. He hit my father right in the eye, raising a black and blue spot as large as a hen's egg." The painful recollection of this part of the dream so overpowered the witness, that she burst into tears, but was soon quieted by the motherly attentions of Mrs. Crull.
FOREMAN OF THE JURY. "I don't want to hurt the young lady's feelin's, but this 'ere dream is all nonsense; and it strikes me we're a lot o' fools to be listenin' to it. Why, Harry, you know, as well as I do, that there wasn't no bruise on the old man's face, exceptin' the big one on his forehead. No more is there a sign of a scratch on the prisoner's mug there. It's all gammon."
Three others of the jury nodded in approval of this sentiment. The remaining two shared somewhat in the coroner's reverence for dreams, and awaited further developments.
The coroner turned his quid uneasily. "You can think as you please, Jack," said he: "but we'll see--we'll see." The coroner, like many other men of greater claims to wisdom, used this enigmatical expression when he could not see anything.
A lawyer less crafty than Fayette Overtop would have protested against the reception of this singular testimony at the outset, and at intervals of a minute during its delivery. But he foresaw that, being a dream, it must be full of absurdities, which would surely betray themselves, and help his client. Besides, he was curious to hear all of the evidence, however ridiculous and worthless, against the prisoner.
The witness then proceeded to the close of her testimony, amid the silence of all hearers. The narrative of the dreadful grapple, the struggle for the club, and the death blow given by Mr. Wilkeson to her prostrate father--all delivered with an intense earnestness, broken only by occasional sobs and pauses of anguish--produced a powerful impression. As she finished, and fell, half fainting, into the arms of Mrs. Crull, the coroner nodded his head slowly, and said:
"What do you think of dreams now, Jack? Something in 'em, eh?"
The foreman shared in the general feeling of awe; but he had given his opinion that the dream was nonsense, and stood by it. "It's strange," said he. "It's what the newspapers call a 'strordinary quincidence,' that the young lady should 'a' dreamed out this murder so plain. I do' 'no' much about the science o' dreams, but I think this one might be explained somethin' in this way: The young lady heerd the old man and Mr. Wilkeson here talkin' strong, when she come home that night. She went to sleep with their conversation ringin' in her ears. Part on it she heerd in her dreams, and the rest she 'magined. She says she was afraid there would be trouble between 'em when she went to bed. The fight, and the murder, and all that, which she says she saw in a dream, or vision like, might have grown out o' that naterally enough. That's my notion of it, off hand. I've often gone to bed, myself, thinkin' of somethin' horrible that was goin' to happen, and dreamt that it did happen."
THE INQUEST. MARCUS SPRINGS TO HIS FEET.
This was precisely the theory upon which Fayette Overtop intended to explain the dream to the jury when the proper time arrived. He was glad that the foreman had done it instead; for he knew the tenacity with which a man, having given an opinion, defends it. To have so potent an advocate of his client's innocence on the jury, was a strong point.
"Very good, old boy," said the coroner; "but, if the prisoner didn't commit the murder, who did?"
This question, so manifestly unjust, and betraying the coroner's intention to sacrifice Marcus to a theory, roused that unfortunate man to consciousness, and he sprang to his feet. But the wiser Overtop placed his hands upon his friend's shoulder, whispered in his ear, and forced him reluctantly into his seat. Overtop knew that the argumentative foreman could best dispose of the coroner.
The foreman replied to the coroner's question:
"As to who did the murder, that's what we're here to find out. But, for one, I sha'n't bring in no man guilty till it's proved onto him."
The foreman's face was a dull one, but it became suddenly luminous with an idea:
"You say, miss, that you was waked by a noise as of somethin' heavy fallin' on the floor?"
"Yes, sir."
"You s'pose--as we all s'pose--that it was your father's body that fell, when he received his death blow?"
"Yes, sir."
"You say you heerd no one a-goin' out o' the room?"
"No, sir."
"That's not strange; for the murd'rer could 'a' slipped off his boots or shoes, and walked out puffickly quiet. I noticed, this mornin', and the other members of the jury can see for themselves, that the boards of the floor don't creak when you walk on 'em, nor the entry door neither when you open it. Didn't you never observe that succumstance?"
"Yes, sir; but it did not occur to me when I woke up. I thought, if the dream had been true, that I should have heard Mr. Wilkeson moving around in the room, or going out of the door. I listened for a long time, as I have already said, and, hearing nobody, I thought the dream was nothing but a nightmare, as father used to call it."
"One more question, miss, which may or may not be of some consekence. Haven't you no idee about what time it was when you was waked up by this noise of somethin' fallin'?"
"No, sir; not the least. It might have been about midnight, I should guess."
"Think a minute, miss, if you didn't hear any sound outside that could give you some idee of the time." The foreman fixed his eyes piercingly on the witness.
She reflected a moment. "Yes--yes; I do remember, that when I jumped out of bed--which I did the very second that I woke up--and listened at the door, I heard the fire bells striking. Now, if anybody could tell what time that happened."
"At precisely twenty-five minutes of twelve," said the foreman, in a solemn voice. "It was for the seventh district--the only 'larm that night. It was a false 'larm, and only three or four rounds was sounded. Did you hear the bell many times?"
"Only two or three, and then it stopped. The sound was very plain, sir, because the bell tower is only a short distance from here, you know."
"Exactly," said the foreman. "You woke up just as Uncle Ith was givin' off the last round."
There was a deep, awestruck silence in the room; for all understood the object of these inquiries.
"Now, gentlemen," continued the foreman, in a trembling voice, "let the prisoner only prove that he was a half, or a quarter, or an eighth of a mile from here when that 'larm was sounded, and I rather think he will clear himself. Where are the policemen that the prisoner saw that night?"
A noise, as of heavy official boots, was heard on the stairs, sending a strange thrill through the hearts of all present.
"God be praised," said Fayette Overtop, "if the lieutenant has found them." It was the first time that the model young lawyer had shown any signs of emotion.