"Alice Cora Tuttle!" How in days gone by, and not so long gone by, either, those three words had aroused the enthusiasm of many a gallant man and inspired the toast at many a gallant feast! They had their charm yet, if the heightened color observable on many a cheek there was a true index to the quickening heart below.
"How are you connected with the deceased Mrs. Jeffrey?"
"I am the child of her mother by a former husband. We were half-sisters."
No bitterness in this statement, only an infinite sadness. The coroner continued to question her. He asked for an account of her childhood, and forced her to lay bare the nature of her relations with her sister. But little was gained by this, for their relations seemed to have been of a sympathetic character up to the time of Veronica's return from school, when they changed somewhat; but how or why, Miss Tuttle was naturally averse to saying. Indeed she almost refused to do so, and the coroner, feeling his point gained more by this refusal than by any admission she might have made, did not press this subject but passed on to what interested us more: the various unexplained actions on her part which pointed toward crime.
His first inquiry was in reference to the conversation held between her and Mr. Jeffrey at the time he visited her room. We had listened to his account of it and now we wished to hear hers. But the cue which had been given her by this very account had been invaluable to her, and her testimony naturally coincided with his.
We found ourselves not an inch advanced. They had talked of her sister's follies and she had advised patience, and that was all she could say on the subject - all she would say, as we presently saw.
The coroner introduced a fresh topic.
"What can you tell us about the interview you had with you sister prior to her going out on the night of her death?"
"Very little, except that it differed entirely from what is generally supposed. She did not come to my room for conversation but simply to tell me that she had an engagement. She was in an excited mood but said nothing to alarm me. She even laughed when she left me; perhaps to put me off my guard, perhaps because she was no longer responsible."
"Did she know that Mr. Jeffrey had visited you earlier in the day?
Did she make any allusion to it, I mean?"
"None at all. She shrugged her shoulders when I asked if she was well, and anticipated all further questions by running from the room.
She was always capricious in her ways and never more so than at that moment. Would to God that it had been different! Would to God that she had shown herself to be a suffering woman! Then I might have reached her heart and this tragedy would have been averted."
The coroner favored the witness with a look of respect, perhaps because his next question must necessarily be cruel.
"Is that all you have to say concerning this important visit, the last you held with your sister before her death?"
"No, sir, there is something else, something which I should like to relate to this jury. When she came into my room, she held in her hand a white ribbon; that is, she held the two ends of a long satin ribbon which seemed to come from her pocket. Handing those two ends to me, she asked me to tie them about her wrist. 'A knot under and a bow on top,' she said, 'so that it can not slip off.' As this was something I had often been called on to do for her, I showed no hesitation in complying with her request. Indeed, I felt none. I thought it was her fan or her bouquet she held concealed in the folds of her dress, but it proved to be - Gentlemen, you know what. I pray that you will not oblige me to mention it."
It was such a stroke as no lawyer would have advised her to make, - I heard afterward that she had refused the offices of a dozen lawyers who had proffered her their services. But uttered as it was with a noble air and a certain dignified serenity, it had a great effect upon those about her and turned in a moment the wavering tide of favor in her direction.
The coroner, who doubtless was perfectly acquainted with the explanation with which she had provided herself, but who perhaps did not look for it to antedate his attack, bowed in quiet acknowledgment of her request and then immediately proceeded to ignore it.
"I should be glad to spare you," said he, "but I do not find it possible. You knew that Mr. Jeffrey had a pistol?"
"I did."
"That it was kept in their apartment?"
"Yes."
"In the upper drawer of a certain bureau?"
"Yes."
"Now, Miss Tuttle, will you tell us why you went to that drawer - if you did go to that drawer - immediately after Mrs. Jeffrey left the house?"
She had probably felt this question coming, not only since the coroner began to speak but ever since the evidence elicited from Loretta proved that her visit to this drawer had been secretly observed. Yet she had no answer ready.
"I did not go for the pistol," she finally declared. But she did not say what she had gone for, and the coroner did not press her.
Again the tide swung back.
She seemed to feel the change but did not show it in the way naturally looked for. Instead of growing perturbed or openly depressed she bloomed into greater beauty and confronted with steadier eye, not us, but the men she instinctively faced as the tide of her fortunes began to lower. Did the coroner perceive this and recognize at last both the measure of her attractions and the power they were likely to carry with them? Perhaps, for his voice took an acrid note as he declared:
"You had another errand in that room?"
She let her head droop just a trifle.
"Alas!" she murmured.
"You went to the book-shelves and took out a book with a peculiar cover, a cover which Mr. Jeffrey has already recognized as that of the book in which he found a certain note."
"You have said it," she faltered.
"Did you take such a book out?"
"I did."
"For what purpose, Miss Tuttle?"
She had meant to answer quickly. But some consideration made her hesitate and the words were long in coming; when she did speak, it was to say:
"My sister asked another favor of me after I had tied the ribbon.
