Geraldine Bonner

“ Now and then someone would move uneasily and make a rustle, but there were moments so still you could hear the fire snapping and the scratching of the reporters' pencils. They were just behind me, bunched up at a table in front of the window. When the Doctor came in everyone was as quiet as death and the eyes on him were like the eyes of images, so fixed and steady. Mrs. Fowler was not present—they sent for her later—but Nora and Anne were there as pale as ghosts. ”

“ It was impossible to trace any footprints, as the automobile party and Hines had trodden the earth about her into a muddy mass, and the grass along the edge was too thick and springy to hold any impression. ”

“ If you ask me was anyone suspected at this stage I'd answer "yes," but people were afraid to say who. There was talk about Hines on the street and in the postoffice, but it was only when you were close shut in your own room or walking quiet up a side street that the person with you would whisper the Doctor's name. Nobody dared say it aloud, but there wasn't a soul in Longwood who didn't know about the quarreling at Mapleshade, whose was the money that ran it, and the will that left everything to Mrs. Fowler if her daughter died. ”

“ Reddy was called a sort of stir went over the people. Everybody was curious to hear his story, as we'd only got bits of it, most of them wild rumors. And there wasn't a soul in Longwood that didn't grieve for him, plunged down at the moment when he thought he was most happy into such an awful tragedy. As he sat down in the chair opposite the Coroner, the room was as still as a tomb, even the reporters behind me not making so much as the scratch of a pen. ”

“ I saw it plainly as they passed it from hand to hand—a small dark automobile hat, with a tear in one side and some shreds of black Shetland veil hanging to its edge. She bore no other marks of violence save a few small scratches on her right hand. She had evidently been attacked unexpectedly and had had no time to fight or struggle. ”

“ The coroner asked her—and Anne when her turn came—very particular about the jewelry, what was gone, how many pieces and such questions. And then it came out that nobody—not even Mrs. Fowler—knew exactly what Sylvia had. She was all the time buying new ornaments or having her old ones reset and the only person who kept track of her possessions was Virginie Dupont. All any of them could be sure of was that the jewel box was empty, and the toilet articles, fitted bag, and gold mesh purse were gone.
Hines was called after that. ”

“ After I had heard from Miss Hesketh and seen from Dr. Fowler's manner that I was not wanted at Mapleshade, I saw her at intervals. Once or twice we went for walks in the woods, and a few times, perhaps three or four, I met her on the turnpike and took her for a drive in my car. ”

“ Fowler came, all swathed up in black and looking like a haggard old woman. The Coroner spoke very kind to her. When she got to the quarrel between Sylvia and the Doctor her voice began to tremble and she could hardly go on. It was pitiful to see but she had to tell it, and about the other quarrels too. Then she pulled herself together and told about going up to Sylvia's room and finding the letter. ”

“ If there are I would have hear them, for I can't sleep ever all night. All I hear is automobiles—many automobiles passing up and down and maybe—two, three, four times—the horns sounding."
The Coroner asked her a few more questions, principally about Hines' movements, and her answers, if you could get over the lingo, were all clear and in line with what Hines had said. ”

“ In the silence I heard one of the reporters whisper:
"Gee—poor chap! that's tough!"
He was asked some more questions, principally about what Sylvia had told him of the quarrels with her stepfather. You could see he was careful in his answers. According to what he said she'd only alluded to them in a general way as making the life at Mapleshade very uncomfortable.
He was just getting up when I saw one of the jurors pass a slip of paper across the table to the Coroner. He looked at it, then, as Mr. Reddy was moving away, asked him to wait a minute ”