Carolyn Wells

“ Hart said, “but before that, Mr. Moore, the famous New York City detective, noticed there was a tiny metal disk visible through the hair of the dead man. Investigation proved this to be the head of a nail, about two inches long, that had been driven with great force into Mr. Tracy’s skull, presumably while he was alive and asleep.”
“Could a nail be so driven, through the bone?” asked a mild mannered juryman.
“Yes,” the coroner told him. “It would require a heavy driving instrument, and a strong hand, as well as a callous brain, for a man to accomplish that fiendish deed.” ”

“ But an escaping murderer, if brave enough to risk the danger, and skilled enough in diving and sufficiently familiar with the position of the principal rocks, might make the goal. It was a comfort to me to think that, since the authorities assumed that was the way the criminal got out, it rather freed Alma Remsen from suspicion. ”

“ But what most impressed me was her expression of wisdom. Surely, this was a woman to whom all the experiences of life were as an open book. She had the look of a witch or sibyl, although her gray hair was decorously smooth beneath her small black hat. ”

“ That he hadn’t seen Alma Remsen, in her canoe, some time after midnight!
But if the Coroner thought much about this bit of evidence he gave no sign of doing so, and the rest of the inquiries he put to Everett were of a stereotyped sort and led nowhere.
Then came Billy Dean. That cheerful young man was chipper as always and told all he had to tell in a clear and concise way.
“Did you hear any sound in the night as of a passing boat?” Hart asked him. ”

“ As Doctor Rogers was absent, Hart himself was the only one to give the medical report, and he told the jury succinctly and clearly the details of the death and how both doctors had thought it apoplexy at first, as the symptoms were of such an attack. ”

“ She was the nurse who had cared for Alma since she was born. She lived with the girl in her island home, and surely no one could ask for a more capable and efficient-looking guardian.
Not a fine lady, but beyond all doubt a fine woman, Mrs. ”