XVI.
COGITATIONS.
My cook had prepared for me a most excellent dinner, thinking that Ineeded all the comfort possible after a day of such trying experiences.But I ate little of it; my thoughts were too busy, my mind too muchexercised. What would be the verdict of the jury, and could thisespecial jury be relied upon to give a just verdict?
At seven I had left the table and was shut up in my own room. I couldnot rest till I had fathomed my own mind in regard to the events of theday.
The question--the great question, of course, now--was how much ofHoward's testimony was to be believed, and whether he was,notwithstanding his asseverations to the contrary, the murderer of hiswife. To most persons the answer seemed easy. From the expression ofsuch people as I had jostled in leaving the court-room, I judged thathis sentence had already been passed in the minds of most there present.But these hasty judgments did not influence me. I hope I look deeperthan the surface, and my mind would not subscribe to his guilt,notwithstanding the bad impression made upon me by his falsehoods andcontradictions.
Now why would not my mind subscribe to it? Had sentiment got the betterof me, Amelia Butterworth, and was I no longer capable of looking athing squarely in the face? Had the Van Burnams, of all people in theworld, awakened my sympathies at the cost of my good sense, and was Idisposed to see virtue in a man in whom every circumstance as it came tolight revealed little but folly and weakness? The lies he had told--forthere is no other word to describe his contradictions--would have beensufficient under most circumstances to condemn a man in my estimation.Why, then, did I secretly look for excuses to his conduct?
Probing the matter to the bottom, I reasoned in this way: The latterhalf of his evidence was a complete contradiction of the first,purposely so. In the first, he made himself out a cold-hearted egotistwith not enough interest in his wife to make an effort to determinewhether she and the murdered woman were identical; in the latter, heshowed himself in the light of a man influenced to the point of folly bya woman to whom he had been utterly unyielding a few hours before.
Now, knowing human nature to be full of contradictions, I could notsatisfy myself that I should be justified in accepting either half ofhis testimony as absolutely true. The man who is all firmness one minutemay be all weakness the next, and in face of the calm assertions made bythis one when driven to bay by the unexpected discoveries of the police,I dared not decide that his final assurances were altogether false, andthat he was not the man I had seen enter the adjoining house with hiswife.
Why, then, not carry the conclusion farther and admit, as reason andprobability suggested, that he was also her murderer; that he had killedher during his first visit and drawn the shelves down upon her in thesecond? Would not this account for all the phenomena to be observed inconnection with this otherwise unexplainable affair? Certainly, all butone--one that was perhaps known to nobody but myself, and that was thetestimony given by the clock. _It_ said that the shelves fell at five,whereas, according to Mr. Stone's evidence, it was four, or thereabouts,when Mr. Van Burnam left his father's house. But the clock might nothave been a reliable witness. It might have been set wrong, or it mightnot have been running at all at the time of the accident. No, it wouldnot do for me to rely too much upon anything so doubtful, nor did I; yetI could not rid myself of the conviction that Howard spoke the truthwhen he declared in face of Coroner and jury that they could not connecthim with this crime; and whether this conclusion sprang fromsentimentality or intuition, I was resolved to stick to it for thepresent night at least. The morrow might show its futility, but themorrow had not come.
Meanwhile, with this theory accepted, what explanation could be given ofthe very peculiar facts surrounding this woman's death? Could thesupposition of suicide advanced by Howard before the Coroner beentertained for a moment, or that equally improbable suggestion ofaccident?
Going to my bureau drawer, I drew out the old grocer-bill which hasalready figured in these pages, and re-read the notes I had scribbledon its back early in the history of this affair. They related, if youwill remember, to this very question, and seemed even now to answer itin a more or less convincing way. Will you pardon me if I transcribethese notes again, as I cannot imagine my first deliberations on thissubject to have made a deep enough impression for you to recall themwithout help from me.
The question raised in these notes was threefold, and the answers, asyou will recollect, were transcribed before the cause of death had beendetermined by the discovery of the broken pin in the dead woman's brain.
These are the queries:
First: was her death due to accident?
Second: was it effected by her own hand?
Third: was it a murder?
The replies given are in the form of reasons, as witness:
_My reasons for not thinking it an accident._
1. If it had been an accident, and she had pulled the cabinet over uponherself,[B] she would have been found with her feet pointing towards thewall where the cabinet had stood. But her feet were towards the door andher head under the cabinet.
2. The precise arrangement of the clothing about her feet, whichprecluded any theory involving accident.
_My reason for not thinking it a suicide._
She could not have been found in the position observed without havinglain down on the floor while living, and then pulled the shelves downupon herself. (A theory obviously too improbable to be considered.)
_My reason for not thinking it murder._
She would need to have been held down on the floor while the cabinet wasbeing pulled over on her, a thing which the quiet aspect of the handsand feet make appear impossible. (Very good, but we know now that shewas dead when the shelves fell over, so that my one excuse for notthinking it a murder is rendered null.)
_My reasons for thinking it a murder._
----But I will not repeat these. My reasons for not thinking it anaccident or a suicide remained as good as when they were written, and ifher death had not been due to either of these causes, then it must havebeen due to some murderous hand. Was that hand the hand of her husband?I have already given it as my opinion that it was not.
Now, how to make that opinion good, and reconcile me again to myself;for I am not accustomed to have my instincts at war with my judgment. Isthere any reason for my thinking as I do? Yes, the manliness of man. Heonly looked well when he was repelling the suspicion he saw in thesurrounding faces. But that might have been assumed, just as hiscareless manner was assumed during the early part of the inquiry. I musthave some stronger reason than this for my belief. The two hats? Well,he had explained how there came to be two hats on the scene of crime,but his explanation had not been very satisfactory. _I_ had seen no hatin her hand when she crossed the pavement to her father's house. Butthen she might have carried it under her cape without my seeingit--perhaps. The discovery of two hats and of two pairs of gloves in Mr.Van Burnam's parlors was a fact worth further investigation, andmentally I made a note of it, though at the moment I saw no prospect ofengaging in this matter further than my duties as a witness required.
And now what other clue was offered me, save the one I have alreadymentioned as being given by the clock? None that I could seize upon; andfeeling the weakness of the cause I had so obstinately embraced, I rosefrom my seat at the tea-table and began making such alterations in mytoilet as would prepare me for the evening and my inevitable callers.
"Amelia," said I to myself, as I encountered my anything but satisfiedreflection in the glass, "can it be that you ought, after all, to havebeen called Araminta? Is a momentary display of spirit on the part of ayoung man of doubtful principles, enough to make you forget the dictatesof good sense which have always governed you up to this time?"
The stern image which confronted me from the mirror made me no reply,and smitten with sudden disgust, I left the glass and went below togreet some friends who had just ridden up in their carriage.
They remained one hour, and they discussed one
subject: Howard VanBurnam and his probable connection with the crime which had taken placenext door. But though I talked some and listened more, as is proper fora woman in her own house, I said nothing and heard nothing which had notbeen already said and heard in numberless homes that night. Whateverthoughts I had which in any way differed from those generally expressed,I kept to myself,--whether guided by discretion or pride, I cannot say;probably by both, for I am not deficient in either quality.
Arrangements had already been made for the burial of Mrs. Van Burnamthat night, and as the funeral ceremony was to take place next door,many of my guests came just to sit in my windows and watch the comingand going of the few people invited to the ceremony.
But I discouraged this. I have no patience with idle curiosity.Consequently by nine I was left alone to give the affair such realattention as it demanded; something which, of course, I could not havedone with a half dozen gossiping friends leaning over my shoulder.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote B: _As was asserted by her husband in his sworn examination._]
That Affair Next Door Page 17