A Master Hand Part 5

"Call Mrs. Bunce!" and one of the ladies I had previously observed came forward. She was past middle age and plain but respectable looking.

"Where do you live?" she was asked. She gave her residence--a house on Nineteenth Street, west of Sixth Avenue, on the north side and only a block west of White's house.

She kept a lodging-house, she said.

An officer, by order of Dalton, now unwrapped a large package and produced the ulster. Miles smiled at me and I nodded my approval. The witness was asked if she knew anything about it. She identified it immediately and explained that she had found it lying over a chair in her front hall when she came down early the morning of White's death.

She did not know how it came there; it was not there when she retired about eleven o'clock. No inmate of the house owned such an article that she knew of. In fact no one lived in the house but herself and one other lady--and she looked toward her companion,--and a servant girl. The Inspector asked her nothing further, and Miss Stanton was then called.

When Mrs. Bunce left the stand, a slight, graceful woman came quickly forward and took her place and as she lifted her veil to take the oath, a very pretty face was disclosed. She was young, not much more than twenty, I should say, and had the dark hair and the blue eyes of the Irish type. The gray hat she wore with the big tilted brim had a jaunty look, while it cast a softening shadow over her face, and a close-fitting tailor gown of gray home-spun fitted well her trim figure.

Altogether she was a very attractive-looking woman. When she spoke her voice was low and not unrefined, but there was a slight metallic tone to it and a lack of sensitive modulation that was a bit disappointing. Her eyes, too, when she looked at you, though undeniably handsome, were too direct and persistent in their glance to be altogether pleasing; there was also a little hard look about the mouth that should not have been there in a woman. I had never seen her before, but I knew of her quite well as the somewhat questionable friend of White's of whom we had been talking on the night of his death, and I took perhaps a greater interest in her on that account than I might otherwise have done. I noticed, too, that Davis, Littell, and Van Bult were also observing her closely, the latter with his monocle critically adjusted. So far as I was aware, however, none of them knew her except by reputation.

I was amused to see the Inspector straighten up and unconsciously plume himself a little as he prepared to question her and his voice was gentler and his manner more deferential than it had been.

"This is Miss Stanton, I believe, Miss Belle Stanton?" and he smiled encouragingly.

"Yes, Inspector," she answered.

"We will not detain you any longer than necessary, Miss Stanton, and you must not be nervous," he continued, still with the same rea.s.suring manner, and she smiled sweetly at him in return.

I felt myself getting out of temper. What business had Dalton indulging in gallantry and plat.i.tudes when engaged on an official investigation that involved life and death? I fear my manner or expression must have suggested my feelings, for he resumed his business-like tone and conducted his examination from then on more tersely, though he could not quite abandon a little gallantry of manner.

"I believe, Miss Stanton, that you reside with Mrs. Bunce?" The answer was in the affirmative.

"And have you any knowledge of the finding of that ulster?"

"I understand from Mrs. Bunce that it was found in her hallway, though I did not see it there till later in the morning, and I do not know how it came there," was the answer.

"Did you ever see it before or have you any knowledge of its owner?"

"Yes," she said, "I have seen it a number of times when worn by Mr.

Arthur White."

"Then you knew Mr. White," Dalton asked.

"Yes, I have known him for about a year"; and the questions and answers continued in rapid succession:

"Was he a particular friend of yours?"

"He was."

"Was he in the habit of visiting you and sometimes in the evening, rather late, perhaps?"

"He was."

"As late as one o'clock?"

"Yes, sometimes, not often."

"Did Mr. White have a latch-key to the house?"

"He did."

"Had you seen him on the evening or night before the ulster was found?"

"I had not, nor for a couple of days."

"Have you any knowledge of Mr. White or of any one else having been at your house late that night or any knowledge of how the ulster came there?"

"I have not."

"It was through you, was it not, that its discovery was reported to the police?"

"It was; I heard of Mr. White's death, and considered it my duty to have so curious a coincidence reported."

"Thank you, Miss Stanton. I think that is all; we won't trouble you any longer," Dalton concluded.

The witness smiled her thanks brightly to her interrogator as she left the stand, but I thought she seemed troubled and somewhat sad too in spite of her apparent indifference. As she rejoined her companion she replaced her veil and, turning her back to the room, stood looking pensively out of the window.

The Inspector evidently considered that he had exhausted the witness, but I was far from satisfied and I meant sometime to see more of Miss Stanton; I felt that through her might yet be found a clue that would explain the presence of the ulster in that house.

Miss Stanton was succeeded on the stand by a flashy-looking man of the gambler type who gave his name as James Smith, and his occupation as dealer at a faro lay-out on Sixth Avenue near Twenty-seventh Street.

He was asked if he had charge of the game on the previous Monday night and said he had. The Inspector then handed him a fifty-dollar bill and asked if he had seen it before and, if so, under what circ.u.mstances.

Smith carefully examined the bill, reading off it the name of the bank--the American National--and the number. He then answered that he had given that same bill the previous night to the Inspector, who had come to his place to get it.

In answer to another question, he said that he had obtained the bill about two o'clock or a little later Tuesday morning from a man who had lost it at his game. He stated further that the man was unknown to him, but that he thought he could recognize him should he see him again. Then pointing to one of the witnesses, he said:

"That man was with him!"

All eyes were turned in the direction he indicated where a shabby, dissipated looking young fellow was standing by himself pulling at his mustache with an air of a.s.sumed bravado.

"That will do," said Dalton, and the witness stepped hurriedly down, looking relieved over his dismissal.

The bill the witness had identified, together with the one Van Bult had given me, were then compared by the officials and the jury, and they proved to be of the same bank issue and series. I saw the jurors looking with admiration at the Inspector, and I felt myself that much credit was due him.

The police work had been quickly and well done. Their case was indeed thoroughly "worked up," and I had to confess to myself, despite my disapproval of the method, that if they had not started with the a.s.sumption that Winters was the guilty man, they would not have found the money or secured any evidence to direct the verdict of the jury; but the question still remained, was its conclusion to be the true one? Time would tell.

Almost before the sensation created by the last evidence had subsided, Dalton called to the stand the man pointed out by the witness. He came forward slouching and ill at ease and the looks cast upon him from all sides were not rea.s.suring. Having taken the oath, he stood sullenly awaiting the questions.

In answer to the usual question he gave his name as Lewis Roberts.

"You were in Smith's place Tuesday morning," the Inspector stated, rather than asked him.

"I was," he answered.

"You were with another man," he continued in the same peremptory tone.

"I was."