OCR Text |
Show mmi - I llMwIu UV lllustrdtosisbjj j J Copyright 1922 By Dodd.Mead and Co. Inc. e CHAPTER VIII Continued. 14 "Want to spring him 7" asked the detective with a grin. Bartley nodded, and Black went sway to arrange the matter. I could see what Bartley was after. Only the police and ourselves know that the jnan was to be placed on the stand, and Bartley wanted to see what effect ef-fect his sudden Introduction might have on those present. There might be someone so surprised by It that he would give himself away. In a row of chairs, directly In front of the coroner's desk and about six feet away, were seated the, members of Slyke's household. Slyke's stepdaughter step-daughter Ruth, dressed In dark blue, was between Miss Potter and an old man, who, I decided, was the minister uncle who had brought her home the night of the murder. I could not see Miss Potter's face, but her hands showed a great nervous strain; they were never still, picking Incessantly at the folds of her dress. On her right were two empty chairs for the chauffeur and Roche, and beyond them the butler and the other servants. serv-ants. We had to wait some time for the doctor, who had been delayed by a case. When he arrived, he pushed his way hurriedly through the people at the far end of the room, pausing only for a moment to speak to the district attorney. He took his place back of the desk, and, after removing some papers from his bag, stood for a moment mo-ment looking over the crowd. He seemed almost too worn and nervous to preside. A silence fell on the room, the curious, curi-ous, expectant silence that I have so often noticed at Inquests. To most of the people present, the doctor had ceased to be their familiar friend and had become an impersonal officer of the law, the instrument for unraveling unravel-ing a mysterious death. Perhaps some were thinking of the man in whose house they were and whose The silence was suddenly broken by a heavy peal of thunder.- To my surprise, the doctor called as his first witness Slyke's sister-in-law. As a rule, the first person called at an inquest Is the one who discovered the body, but for some reason rea-son the doctor had decided to keep the butler for a later moment. The first questions, after Miss Potter Pot-ter had taken the oath, were the usual ones. They related to her name and her relationship to Slyke. She said her name was Alice Potter, and that she was the sister of his dead wife. Slyke had asked her to come and run his house for him, and for the last ten years she had done so. In response re-sponse to a question as to whether she had been paid for her services, she flushed deeply and explained that while no real salary had been paid, whenever she had needed money she had asked Slyke for it and he had given it to her. The sum varied, though she doubted if she had ever received more than a thousand In any one year. He always had been willing to give her as much as she asked for, and had not questioned the amounts. There had never been any trouble over money matters between them. This was all evidence that I knew; and, while she was giving It, I glanced about the room, then watched the doctor. doc-tor. He wag finding his position a very difficult one, as he was the family fam-ily physician as well as the coroner. He put his questions with as much delicacy as possible. The whole affair seemed to be very distasteful to him. It was particularly trying for a man who was still feeling the effects of a nervous breakdown. Miss Potter, fortunately, for-tunately, became more at ease as the questioning proceeded. She kept her eyes down and gave her answers In euch a low voice that at times it was hard to hear them at all. All through the early part of Miss Potter's evidence there were rumbles of distant thunder. Leaning back in my chair, I pushed aside the heavy draperies that hid the window, and looked out. It was almost like night. A big storm was close at hand. The thunder was still some miles away, and I could see distant, almost continuous con-tinuous Hashes of lightning. After a quick glance I let the curtain fall back into place. When I turned my attention again to the evidence, Doctor King was questioning Miss Potter about the finding of the body. She testified that she was at breakfast when the butler rushed Into the room, crying that something was wrong with Mr. Slyke. She knew her brother-in-law hud Intended In-tended to go fishing that morning, and was surprised to learn that he was not yet up. The butler had told her that he had culled him, and receiving no reply had entered his room and found Mr. Slyke still In bed. When he did not answer when spoken to again, he (the butler) had come at jmce to her. She stated that she had gone up at once to his room, the door of which had been left open by the butler but-ler when he rushed out. She had crossed to the bed and called him by name. When he did not answer, she looked closer and saw that he was dead. Her voice broke a little on this last statement, but she soon recovered and continued. The next thing she had done, she said, was to call the 1 doctor. For the first time, the district attorney at-torney took a hand In the proceedings. "Tall us how you found him." She answered that he was Lying on his back, the bedclothes pulled up around his chin, and his hands by his side. She had not pulled the bedclothes bed-clothes down from the body, nor disturbed dis-turbed them in any way. It was not until she had noticed, tha wound in his head that she realized he had been shot. "Did you disturb the . body?" was the next question. There was a long silence, then haltingly, halt-ingly, "I well, that Is I did close hla yes. Their expression frightened fright-ened me, so I closed them." She received a rather disgusted look from the district attorney, who asked, "Did you not know that the body should have been left as you found It." "I " sire made an appealing gesture: ges-ture: "I never thought of that. Only of his eyes I They frightened me, they stared so. I simply closed them. But I did nothing else." King then asked a question that surprised ma. "You thought he had committed suicide?" She hesitated, started to speak, stopped and at last found her voice. "Why, yes. That that is I did at the time. But I don't know what to think now." "Why did yon think he killed himself?" him-self?" This seemad a harder question to answer than the other. "Why, I don't know. You see, he was shot ; and I knew of no one who would want to kill him. As far as "Why Did You Think He Killed Himself?" Him-self?" that goes, I know of no reason why he should have wanted to take his own life." The next questions were along the line she ivad suggested by her answers. Could she not think of some reason why he might have committed suicide sui-cide in health or money troubles? nad he quarreled with anyone lately? She seemed to have more difficulty with these last questions than with any of the previous ones. She was so long in answering that some of them had to be repaated several times. She was so careful of what she said that she gave me the impression that she was trying to keep something back. In response to the first question, she repeated that she knew no reason rea-son why Slyke should want to commit com-mit suicide. She had heard of no money troubles, and his health was good. No, she had never heard of his having quarreled with anyone. It was tills last answer that she had has-Itated has-Itated longer over than over any of the others, and It was the one which caused me to feel sure she was hiding something. The question ragarding the revolver that had been found In Slyke's hand she answered readily enough. He had kept It in his room, just where, she did not know; It was one that he had bought a year befora. When questioned as to her own doings do-ings on the night of his death, she could tell us nothing of value. There had been a card party, but she had gone to bed about ten o'clock and had not -aven heard the men go out. During Dur-ing the night she had heard no sound. As this was all she had to tell shu , left the stand. Though her testimony had thrown no light on what had taken place, I felt more strongly than ever that she could have done so had stva wished. I glanced at Bartley, and the queer smile he gave me hinted that he, too, thought as I did. The next witness was a Doctor Webster". I knew that a second physician phy-sician had been called in on tha morning morn-ing of the crime, but had not met him. Doctor King's position was a peculiar one, as he was not only the physician who had first seen the body, but also the coroner. In order to have the testimony of a sacond medical man, he had sent Doctor Webster to examine ex-amine the body and testify as to its condition. As the doctor took the seat near the coroner, I examined him closely. He was a man of at least sixty, rather stout, with a beaming, kindly face, and white beard that gave hlra the appearance of a practitioner prac-titioner of the old school. In response to questions, he told how Doctor King had requested him to go to the house and examine the body, bacause, as coroner, King himself him-self could not testify at the inquest. In terms more scientific than plain, he described how Slyke met his death, a death which, he said, must have been instantaneous, as tha bullet had lodged in the brain. "Doctor, do you think the wound could have been self-inflicted?" came the question. The doctor paused, then answered thoughtfully, "That Is vary hard to answer. So far as the wound Itself is concerned, It could have been self-inflicted. self-inflicted. But other things that were brought to my attention eause me to believe that It could not hava been so inflicted." The room stiffened into attention. It was the first hint they had had that Slyke might have been murdered. "Explain your answer. What do you mean by 'other things ware brought to your attention'?" The doctor replied slowly, "The facts I will mention were brought to my attention by Mr. John Bartley, the famous criminal Investigator, whom I found at the house when I arrived." At the mention of Bartley's nam-a a little murmur of surprise went over the room. Half way down the room the reporters, for the first time, were writing hurriedly, and In a minute a telegraph boy went out with a mass of telegrams. Within an hour the fact that Bartley was working on the case would be In all the newspaper offices In New York. The doctor continued: "Mr. Bartley aided me in making my examination of th-a body. The wound was, as I have said, one that a man could hava easily inflicted upon himself, but such a wound causes death within a few seconds after It Is made. I thought at first sight that It was suicide, but Mr. Bartley pointed out that the hands of the dead man, one of which h-ald the revolver, were under the bedclothes bed-clothes and that they were pulled up smoothly around his neck. It would have been impossible for Mr. Slyk3 hliaself to- have done that. I mean he could not have killed himself and then placed his arms under tha clothes, after first pulling them up around his chin. He would not have had time hafore he died, had he fired the shot. As Mr. Bartley pointed out and as I should have thought of for myself in cases of violent death tha eyes are open. Mr. Slyke's eyes were almost closad. How they were closed after1 death, Miss Potter has Just told us." Again there came a murmur of astonishment. as-tonishment. The doctor's statement had been entirely unexpected by most of the audienca. For the first time It was suggested that, Instead of Slyke's having killed himself, he had been murdered. All awaited eagerly further developments. "Then you would say that Mr. Slyke was murdered?" came the question. The doctor's answer was a long time in coming. "I hardly know what to say. What Mr. Bartley pointed out to me causes me to beliave that Mr. Slyke was killed. Of course, there Is a possibility possi-bility that the wound might have been self-inflicted, and someone else arranged ar-ranged the bedclothes around his neck after he was dead." He paused again, then continued, "That might have been done, but the chances are that he did not kill himself. him-self. I cannot positively state, however, how-ever, whether it was suicide or murder." mur-der." His hesitation started a long argument argu-ment between him, the coroner, and the district attorney. If Slyke had killed himself, then someone else must have pulled up the bedclothes and arranged ar-ranged the body. What had been the person's reason for doing It? If, on the other hand, he had been murdered, then a very definite attempt had been made to make It look like suicide. The revolver in the dead man's hand came under discussion, and Doctor Webster said that, though it could be placed In a person's hand after death, any trained eye could detect the fact. His evidence, while ft had for the first time suggested that a murder might have been committed, had yet done little lit-tle to clear up the mystery. I could see by the doubt and bewilderment in their faces that his uncertainty as to whether It was murder or suicide had communicated itself to the audience. They looked eagerly about for th next witness, wondering what his testimony would disclose. There was little enough, as I knew too well, (hat any witness could toll that would throw light on Slyke's death. The coroner glanced at a piece of pniier and said: "Will Mr. John Hartley Hart-ley kindly take the stand?" (TO BE CONTINUED.) I |