Round the Block Part 40

Marcus raised his sunken head, and shook it, as if to dispel a stupefaction. Then, in a faint and trembling voice, he replied that he looked at his watch just before bidding Mr. Minford "good-night,"

and-observed that it was fifteen minutes past eleven o'clock.

QUESTION BY A JUROR. "What kind o' watch do you carry?"

ANSWER (_exhibiting the watch_). "An English hunter--- lever escapement--- full jewelled."

At any other time, Marcus would have smiled at the impertinence of the question, but he answered it gravely.

He then went on to say, that Mr. Minford had not replied to his "good-night." That he repeated the salutation, and extended his hand as a token of unbroken friends.h.i.+p. That Mr. Minford refused to take it, and said that he had one last favor to ask of him (Marcus), and that was, never to cross his threshold again. That he (Marcus) responded, "I forgive you, sir. When, on reflection, you think that you have done me injustice--as you will, at last--send for me, and I will still be your friend." That he received no answer to this, save a shake of the head, and immediately went down stairs into the street. He was feverish, and his brain was in a whirl. Hardly knowing what he did, he walked the streets. .h.i.ther and thither. He could not tell what streets he traversed, but he kept up the exercise till he was tired. Then he became calmer, returned home, entered the house with a latch key, and went to bed without waking any of the inmates. On going to bed, he observed that his watch marked one o'clock.

An intelligent juror. "You must have pa.s.sed a large number of people in the streets between eleven and one o'clock. Did you see no one whom you knew?"

"No one; but at a corner some distance from here,--I could not say what corner,--I noticed a policeman sitting on a barrel in front of a grocery, smoking. He was a short, fat man, and his legs hardly reached to the pavement. I remember him the more particularly, because I stopped and lighted a cigar at his pipe. Just at that moment, the City Hall bell commenced striking a fire alarm."

"What was the district?" asked the juror who was a.s.sistant foreman of the Bully Boy Hose.

"The Seventh. I counted the strokes. I walked on rapidly, and soon came up with another policeman, who was leaning against a grocery store. I said to him, 'A cold night, Mr. Policeman,' and I think he would remember that circ.u.mstance, if he could be found. Just after I had pa.s.sed him, the alarm bells struck the last round. Three or four rounds had been struck."

The a.s.sistant foreman of the Bully Boy Hose, having referred to a memorandum book which he drew from a breast pocket, here exclaimed:

"The alarm was at twenty-five minutes of twelve. Nothing but a chimney in Whitehall street. We run into Twenty's fellers, comin' back, and had a nice little row. Ever belong to the department, sir?"

Marcus answered "No;" and the pyrophilist looked compa.s.sionately upon him, as upon one who had never known true happiness.

"If you never run with the mersheen," observed the coroner, "you do'

'no' wot life is. As for me, sir, it's my boast and pride that I have been a member of the New York Fire Department for more'n twenty years.

It wos the backin' of the boys that made me a coroner; and, thank G.o.d!

I'm never ashamed to tell 'em so."

The coroner spoke truly. So far from being ashamed to "tell 'em so," he was always "telling 'em so," never missing an opportunity, at political meetings, to inform the firemen that he was "one of 'em," and that no mark of honor, even from the President of the United States, was equal to his fireman's badge. The continual "telling of 'em so" had aided in procuring for him his present official distinction, and was destined to earn higher honors for him at a future day.

The coroner tore off a fresh chew from a half hand of Cavendish which had been well gnawed at all the edges, and told Marcus that he might "fire away" again.

Marcus then proceeded to state that, on the morning after the eventful night, he woke up early. His dreams had been horrible, and his waking reflections were no less distressing. The thought that Mr. Minford should have suspected him, thus unjustly, of the basest of crimes, and that they, who had been such good friends, should have parted in a way that effectually cut off reconciliation; and the other thought, that this mischief had been wrought by some unscrupulous enemy, when he had always fondly believed that he never could have a foe in the world--these thoughts, occurring with great force to a nervous and sensitive man, nearly maddened him. He felt that if he remained in the house that day, as usual, and brooded over his troubles, he would grow crazy. While he was pondering what to do, his eyes chanced to fall on an invitation which he had received from Mr. Wesley Tiffles, to meet him at the Cortlandt street ferry at seven and a quarter o'clock that morning, and accompany him and his panorama of Africa to New Jersey. The day before, when this invitation came to hand, he had determined not to accept it; but it now seemed to offer him a capital chance to see some excitement and ran. As these remedies were precisely what his mental malady required, he jumped to dress himself, and hurried out of the house, seeing n.o.body as he made his exit, and leaving no word of explanation. He took no luggage, except a clean collar, as he intended to return the following day. He was even so careless and forgetful as to leave his purse behind him, and found, on reaching the ferry, that he had barely two dollars in his pocket.

QUESTION BY A JUROR. "Wos they bank bills; and, if so, what bank wos they on?"

Marcus answered the question to the best of his knowledge, and the juror sagely nodded, and took the reply under treatment.

"I say, Tubbs," cried the coroner, "wot's the use of askin' them kind o'

questions?"

Tubbs looked up from his ruminations, somewhat confused. The politic Overtop--that model of a rising lawyer--here put in a word for Tubbs, and said that the question, in his opinion, was a very pertinent one, for it went to test the memory of his client. If Mr. Wilkeson had just committed murder, he would hardly be in that calm frame of mind which is necessary to the recollection of small facts. He hoped that the ingenious gentleman would ask many more such questions. By these judicious remarks, Overtop gained one fast friend for his client on the jury.

CHAPTER III.

JUSTICE GOES TO DINNER.

Wesley Tiffles was then examined. He commenced with an eloquent dissertation on the rights of man, and his own rights in particular, but stopped when he saw that the reporters tucked their pencils behind their ears, and waited for facts. The moment he began to talk facts--which are to reporters what corn is to crows--down came the pencils from their perches again, and went tripping over the paper.

Mr. Tiffles's testimony would have consumed two hours, or two days, perhaps, if he had been allowed to go on unchecked. But the coroner had been invited to dine at a Broadway restaurant, with a few political friends, at three P.M. So he concluded, after Tiffles had talked five minutes, that he knew nothing about the murder, and could throw no light on it, and told Tiffles that he was not wanted further.

"And you mean to tell me, sir, that I am not to be locked up in the station house to-night," said Tiffles.

"No, unless yer want ter be."

"Of course not--of course not." But the interior Tiffles was disappointed at this sudden and unromantic termination of his case. A few more nights in the station house, or in the Tombs, would have given him capital material for a book, of which he had already projected the first chapter. He sat down, and execrated his ill luck.

Patching, the artist, was then interrogated, to the extent of two minutes, and corroborated Tiffles's testimony as to the sad and strange appearance of Mr. Wilkeson on the day after the supposed murder.

Patching was then informed by the coroner that his further attendance at the inquest would not be required.

Patching, on rising, had a.s.sumed the att.i.tude of Paul before Felix, as set forth in some ancient cartoon; and in that position of mingled innocence, dignity, and defiance, the artist of the ill.u.s.trated paper got a spirited sketch of him. Had Patching dreamed how capitally his long hair, peaked beard, thin nose, and bony forehead would be taken off, in a rough but faithful character portrait, he would have sunk in confusion. Happily, the newspaper artist was sitting almost behind his more pretentious brother of the canvas, and the latter knew not what had been done, until, the following week, he saw a striking intensification of himself staring into the street from numerous bulletin boards and shop windows.

Before sitting down, Mr. Patching begged to explain to the jury, and to the public through the reporters (who did not take down a word of the explanation), that he had painted the panorama of Africa to oblige his friend, "Wesley Tiffles. It was hardly necessary for him to say, in this community, that he was more at home among higher walks of Art.

"Are you a sign painter, Mr. Patching?" asked the coroner. "No, sir; I am not," said Patching, with dignified contempt.

"Perhaps you're a carriage painter, then? Them's the fellers for picturin'. The woman and flowers on the Bully Boys' hose carriage wos well done. Hey, Jack?"

"That it wos, Harry," returned the a.s.sistant foreman of the Bully Boys.

"If Patching can do that sort o' thing, he'll pa.s.s."

Patching fixed looks of professional indignation on the coroner and the a.s.sistant foreman, and sat down gloomily, amid the suppressed laughter of the irreverent reporters.

The coroner then looked at his watch, and, finding that the time was within half an hour of dinner, said that the inquest would be adjourned till the following morning, at ten o'clock.

"But, your Honor," said Overtop, "--that is, if you will allow me to make the suggestion--couldn't you give us an hour longer? Nothing has yet been heard from Miss Minford, who, you said, was expected to be in attendance to-day. Will you be good enough to send to Mrs. Crull's house for her?"

"Really, I can't wait," replied the coroner. "The young lady must be sick, or she would have been here before now."

"But--pardon me, your Honor--we are anxious to have Miss Minford brought on the stand this afternoon, believing, that her testimony alone will acquit our client."

"You believe so, because you do' 'no' what it is. But, as I said before, it wos on Miss Minford's statement that Mr. Wilkingson there was 'rested. And the best advice I can give him is to take a good night's rest, and get his nerves ready for the young woman's testimony to-morrow, for it'll be a staggerer." The coroner consulted his watch again, with evident impatience, and rose from his seat.

Overtop essayed to speak again; but the coroner interrupted him with, "The inquest is 'journed till to-morrer, at ten o'clock. Mr. Policeman, you will take the prisoner back to the station house."

This speech was torture to Overtop and Maltboy, who, believing firmly in their friend's innocence, were convinced that a full investigation of the case that day would procure his acquittal. They turned eyes of exhaustless friends.h.i.+p and sympathy toward him.

Marcus was in that half-comatose state which is the stupid reaction from an intense and painful excitation of the nerves. He was morbidly calm.

The opinion of the coroner, that Miss Minford's testimony would be a "staggerer," had no more effect on him than it would have had on the most phlegmatic reader of the case in next morning's paper.

"Then, your Honor, we must ask you to take bail," said Overtop.

"Can't take bail! Can't take anything but my dinner, to-day! For the third time, I say, the inquest is adjourned." The coroner hastily put on his spring overcoat.

Overtop was tempted to make a fierce reply; but the legal discretion in which he was educated restrained him.