'And Howard heard it?'
'Or of it; I cannot say which.'
'Mr. Van Burnam, have you noticed any change in your brother since this threat was uttered?'
'How, sir; what change?'
'In his treatment of his wife, or in his attitude towards yourself?'
'I have not seen him in the company of his wife since they went to Haddam. As for his conduct towards myself, I can say no more than I have already. We have never forgotten that we are children of one mother.'
'Mr. Van Burnam, how many times have you seen Mrs. Howard Van Burnam?'
'Several. More frequently before they were married than since.'
'You were in your brother's confidence, then, at that time; knew he was contemplating marriage?'
'It was in my endeavors to prevent the match that I saw so much of Miss Louise Stapleton.'
'Ah! I am glad of the explanation! I was just going to inquire why you, of all members of the family, were the only one to know your brother's wife by sight.'
The witness, considering this question answered, made no reply. But the next suggestion could not be passed over.
'If you saw Mrs. Van Burnam so often, you are acquainted with her personal appearance?'
'Sufficiently so; as well as I know that of my ordinary calling-acquaintance.'
'Was she light or dark?'
'She had brown hair.'
'Similar to this?'
The lock held up was the one which had been cut from the head of the dead girl.
'Yes, somewhat similar to that.' The tone was cold; but he could not hide his distress.
'Mr. Van Burnam, have you looked well at the woman who was found murdered in your father's house?'
'I have, sir.'
'Is there anything in her general outline or in such features as have escaped disfigurement to remind you of Mrs. Howard Van Burnam?'
'I may have thought so-at first glance,' he replied, with decided effort.
'And did you change your mind at the second?'
He looked troubled, but answered firmly: 'No, I cannot say that I did. But you must not regard my opinion as conclusive,' he hastily added. 'My knowledge of the lady was comparatively slight.'
'The jury will take that into account. All we want to know now is whether you can assert from any knowledge you have or from anything to be noted in the body itself, that it is not Mrs. Howard Van Burnam?'
'I cannot.'
And with this solemn assertion his examination closed.
The remainder of the day was taken up in trying to prove a similarity between Mrs. Van Burnam's handwriting and that of Mrs. James Pope as seen in the register of the Hotel D- and on the order sent to Altman's. But the only conclusion reached was that the latter might be the former disguised, and even on this point the experts differed.
XIII – Howard Van Burnam
The gentleman who stepped from the carriage and entered Mr. Van Burnam's house at twelve o'clock that night produced so little impression upon me that I went to bed satisfied that no result would follow these efforts at identification.
And so I told Mr. Gryce when he arrived next morning. But he seemed by no means disconcerted, and merely requested that I would submit to one more trial. To which I gave my consent, and he departed.
I could have asked him a string of questions, but his manner did not invite them, and for some reason I was too wary to show an interest in this tragedy superior to that felt by every right-thinking person connected with it.
At ten o'clock I was in my old seat in the court-room. The same crowd with different faces confronted me, amid which the twelve stolid countenances of the jury looked like old friends. Howard Van Burnam was the witness called, and as he came forward and stood in full view of us all, the interest of the occasion reached its climax.
His countenance wore a reckless look that did not serve to prepossess him with the people at whose mercy he stood. But he did not seem to care, and waited for the Coroner's questions with an air of ease which was in direct contrast to the drawn and troubled faces of his father and brother just visible in the background.
Coroner Dahl surveyed him a few minutes before speaking, then he quietly asked if he had seen the dead body of the woman who had been found lying under a fallen piece of furniture in his father's house.
He replied that he had.
'Before she was removed from the house or after it?'
'After.'
'Did you recognize it? Was it the body of any one you know?'
'I do not think so.'
'Has your wife, who was missing yesterday, been heard from yet, Mr. Van Burnam?'
'Not to my knowledge, sir.'
'Had she not-that is, your wife-a complexion similar to that of the dead woman just alluded to?'
'She had a fair skin and brown hair, if that is what you mean. But these attributes are common to too many women for me to give them any weight in an attempted identification of this importance.'
'Had they no other similar points of a less general character? Was not your wife of a slight and graceful build, such as is attributed to the subject of this inquiry?'
'My wife was slight and she was graceful, common attributes also.'
'And your wife had a scar?'
'Yes.'
'On the left ankle?'
'Yes.'
'Which the deceased also has?'
'That I do not know. They say so, but I had no interest in looking.'
'Why, may I ask? Did you not think it a remarkable coincidence?'
The young man frowned. It was the first token of feeling he had given.
'I was not on the look-out for coincidences,' was his cold reply. 'I had no reason to think this unhappy victim of an unknown man's brutality my wife, and so did not allow myself to be moved by even such a fact as this.'
'You had no reason,' repeated the Coroner, 'to think this woman your wife. Had you any reason to think she was not?'
'Yes.'
'Will you give us that reason?'
'I had more than one. First, my wife would never wear the clothes I saw on the girl whose dead body was shown to me. Secondly, she would never go to any house alone with a man at the hour testified to by one of your witnesses.' [1]
'Not with any man?'
'I did not mean to include her husband in my remark, of course. But as I did not take her to Gramercy Park, the fact that the deceased woman entered an empty house accompanied by a man, is proof enough to me that she was not Louise Van Burnam.'
'When did you part with your wife?'
'On Monday morning at the depot in Haddam.'
'Did you know where she was going?'
'I knew where she said she was going.'
