第 二 章 · THE CORONER’S INQUEST

being now in session, I felt a strong desire

to be present, so, requesting Mr. Gryce to inform the ladies

that Mr. Veeley was absent from town, and that I had come as his

substitute, to render them any assistance they might require on so

melancholy an occasion, I proceeded to the large parlor below, and

took my seat among the various persons there assembled.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] For those who are interested in the details of this affair, the

following diagram is given:

[Illustration: 1. Library table. 2. Chair. 3. Passageway. 4. Bed.

5. Shaving stand.]

Chapter 2. THE CORONER’S INQUEST

“The baby figure of the giant mass

Of things to come.”

Troilus and Cressida.

For a few minutes I sat dazed by the sudden flood of light greeting

me from the many open windows; then, as the strongly contrasting

features of the scene before me began to impress themselves upon my

consciousness, I found myself experiencing something of the same

sensation of double personality which years before had followed an

enforced use of ether. As at that time, I appeared to be living

two lives at once: in two distinct places, with two separate sets

of incidents going on; so now I seemed to be divided between two

irreconcilable trains of thought; the gorgeous house, its elaborate

furnishing, the little glimpses of yesterday’s life, as seen in the

open piano, with its sheet of music held in place by a lady’s fan,

occupying my attention fully as much as the aspect of the throng of

incongruous and impatient people huddled about me.

Perhaps one reason of this lay in the extraordinary splendor of

the room I was in; the glow of satin, glitter of bronze, and

glimmer of marble meeting the eye at every turn. But I am rather

inclined to think it was mainly due to the force and eloquence of a

certain picture which confronted me from the opposite wall. A sweet

picture--sweet enough and poetic enough to have been conceived

by the most idealistic of artists: simple, too--the vision of a

young flaxen-haired, blue-eyed coquette, dressed in the costume of

the First Empire, standing in a wood-path, looking back over her

shoulder at some one following--yet with such a dash of something

not altogether saint-like in the corners of her meek eyes and

baby-like lips, that it impressed me with the individuality of

life. Had it not been for the open dress, with its waist almost

beneath the armpits, the hair cut short on the forehead, and the

perfection of the neck and shoulders, I should have taken it

for a literal portrait of one of the ladies of the house. As it

was, I could not rid myself of the idea that one, if not both,

of Mr. Leavenworth’s nieces looked down upon me from the eyes of

this entrancing blonde with the beckoning glance and forbidding

hand. So vividly did this fancy impress me that I half shuddered

as I looked, wondering if this sweet creature did not know what

had occurred in this house since the happy yesterday; and if so,

how she could stand there smiling so invitingly,--when suddenly

I became aware that I had been watching the little crowd of men

about me with as complete an absorption as if nothing else in the

room had attracted my attention; that the face of the coroner,

sternly intelligent and attentive, was as distinctly imprinted

upon my mind as that of this lovely picture, or the clearer-cut

and more noble features of the sculptured Psyche, shining in

mellow beauty from the crimson-hung window at his right; yes, even

that the various countenances of the jurymen clustered before me,

commonplace and insignificant as most of them were; the trembling

forms of the excited servants crowded into a far corner; and the

still more disagreeable aspect of the pale-faced, seedy reporter,

seated at a small table and writing with a ghoul-like avidity that

made my flesh creep, were each and all as fixed an element in the

remarkable scene before me as the splendor of the surroundings

which made their presence such a nightmare of discord and unreality.

I have spoken of the coroner. As fortune would have it, he was

no stranger to me. I had not only seen him before, but had held

frequent conversation with him; in fact, knew him. His name was

Hammond, and he was universally regarded as a man of more than

ordinary acuteness, fully capable of conducting an important

examination, with the necessary skill and address. Interested as

I was, or rather was likely to be, in this particular inquiry, I

could not but congratulate myself upon our good fortune in having

so intelligent a coroner.

As for his jurymen, they were, as I have intimated, very much like

all other bodies of a similar character. Picked up at random from

the streets, but from such streets as the Fifth and Sixth Avenues,

they presented much the same appearance of average intelligence and

refinement as might be seen in the chance occupants of one of our

city stages. Indeed, I marked but one amongst them all who seemed

to take any interest in the inquiry as an inquiry; all the rest

appearing to be actuated in the fulfilment of their duty by the

commoner instincts of pity and indignation.

Dr. Maynard, the well-known surgeon of Thirty-sixth Street, was

the first witness called. His testimony concerned the nature of

the wound found in the murdered man’s head. As some of the facts

presented by him are likely to prove of importance to us in our

narrative, I will proceed to give a synopsis of what he said.

Prefacing his remarks with some account of himself, and the

manner in which he had been summoned to the house by one of the

servants, he went on to state that, upon his arrival, he found

the deceased lying on a bed in the second-story front room, with

the blood clotted about a pistol-wound in the back of the head;

having evidently been carried there from the adjoining apartment

some hours after death. It was the only wound discovered on the

body, and having probed it, he had found and extracted the bullet

which he now handed to the jury. It was lying in the brain, having

entered at the base of the skull, passed obliquely upward, and

at once struck the _medulla oblongata_, causing instant death.

The fact of the ball having entered the brain in this peculiar

manner he deemed worthy of note, since it would produce not only

instantaneous death, but an utterly motionless one. Further, from

the position of the bullet-hole and the direction taken by the

bullet, it was manifestly impossible that the shot should have been

fired by the man himself, even if the condition of the hair about

the wound did not completely demonstrate the fact that the shot was

fired from a point some three or four feet distant. Still further,

considering the angle at which the bullet had entered the skull,

it was evident that the deceased must not only have been seated

at the time, a fact about which there could be no dispute, but he

must also have been engaged in some occupation which drew his head

forward. For, in order that a ball should enter the head of a man

sitting erect at the angle seen here, of 45 degrees, it would be

necessary, not only for the pistol to be held very low down, but in

a peculiar position; while if the head had been bent forward, as in

the act of writing, a man holding a pistol naturally with the elbow

bent, might very easily fire a ball into the brain at the angle

observed.

Upon being questioned in regard to the bodily health of Mr.

Leavenworth, he replied that the deceased appeared to have been

in good condition at the time of his death, but that, not being

his attendant physician, he could not speak conclusively upon

the subject without further examination; and, to the remark of

a juryman, observed that he had not seen pistol or weapon lying

upon the floor, or, indeed, anywhere else in either of the

above-mentioned rooms.

I might as well add here what he afterwards stated, that from the

position of the table, the chair, and the door behind it, the

murderer, in order to satisfy all the conditions imposed by the

situation, must have stood upon, or just within, the threshold of

the passageway leading into the room beyond. Also, that as the ball

was small, and from a rifled barrel, and thus especially liable

to deflections while passing through bones and integuments, it

seemed to him evident that the victim had made no effort to raise

or turn his head when advanced upon by his destroyer; the fearful

conclusion being that the footstep was an accustomed one, and the

presence of its possessor in the room either known or expected.

The physician’s testimony being ended, the coroner picked up the

bullet which had been laid on the table before him, and for a

moment rolled it contemplatively between his fingers; then, drawing

a pencil from his pocket, hastily scrawled a line or two on a

piece of paper and, calling an officer to his side, delivered some

command in a low tone. The officer, taking up the slip, looked at

it for an instant knowingly, then catching up his hat left the

room. Another moment, and the front door closed on him, and a wild

halloo from the crowd of urchins without told of his appearance in

the street. Sitting where I did, I had a full view of the corner.

Looking out, I saw the officer stop there, hail a cab, hastily

enter it, and disappear in the direction of Broadway.