“It is extremely regrettable that the basement kitchen was not searched with the rest of the house that night; there is great possibility she was still living; at any rate the cause of death could then have been easily ascertained.
“The foregoing is all conjecture, I repeat. All that is known is that the remains of Mrs. Garr were found late the next Thursday evening, in such condition that it has proved impossible to determine the cause or exact time of her death.
“Circumstantiating evidence for a natural death is the key to the room in which Mrs. Garr was found. The door was locked, and the key inside. Fiction to the contrary, this is very difficult to effect, for any murderer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have been given exact accounts of the admitted activities of all persons well acquainted with the house at 593 Trent Street. If your verdict is murder you may, if you have determined by whom it was committed, name that person.”
He stopped talking.
The jury stood up, in a dazed, blundering way, and straggled out of the room by a side door.
I looked back to the coroner. He was sitting expansively back, his hands patting his sides. Lieutenant Strom, next to him, was smiling slightly. I started—was he smiling at me? I had only an instant to wonder in—he turned immediately to speak to the coroner.
Hodge Kistler, beside me, made the whisper of a whistle.
“What’ll the answer be?”
“Murder. I’m sure it’s murder,” I whispered back.
“You had your mind made up beforehand.”
“Didn’t you?”
“M-m-m-m.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Any time, up to and including hours.”
“F’heaven’s sake! Then let’s take up our legs and walk!”
We both got up, stretched, walked around the room. The others, when they saw we weren’t stopped, got up to do likewise, pausing in little groups of three and four to whisper and talk. The atmosphere around the audience was heavy with suspense; only the policemen walked in lighter air. They huddled to talk, too, though; I waited until Lieutenant Strom was momentarily detached, and went to speak to him. Mr. Kistler followed.
“Excellently well reasoned, Lieutenant Strom.”
“Why aren’t you congratulating the coroner on that?” He glinted at me, smiling with his lower lip.
“I recognized the style.”
“Nice to be appreciated.”
“Oh, I did. I was thinking I couldn’t have done better myself.”
The lieutenant howled.
“Of all the conceited little minxes!” And to Mr. Kistler: “How do you ever stand a girl like that?”
“She thinks I haven’t any, so she hasn’t started judging my mental output yet,” Mr. Kistler said.
“Surprised?” the lieutenant asked me.
“No. Why?”
“You mean you haven’t changed your mind about anything?”
“No. Why should I?”
“How’d you like to have me pass judgment on your mental processes?” He laughed again.
“Go ahead.”
“Spare the child,” Hodge Kistler broke in. “What’s the verdict going to be?”
“Ask me, with all these powerful intellects around?”
“Don’t you know yourself?” I put that one in; it was the worst I thought up on the spur of the moment.
“Sure, I know. But do I tell? Just this much—there won’t be any detective in your front hall tonight. You haven’t had a tail all day. There. Think that one out.”
He laughed at me again and went back to his coroner.
“What does he mean?” I asked Hodge Kistler excitedly. “Does he mean they have it all solved? They have the murderer?”
“Maybe.” Mr. Kistler’s eyes showed thinking, too. “Or maybe they think the whole thing’s just a washout. Just an insignificant old woman, better dead, dying of the infirmities of age.”
“It’s just got to be murder! I know it’s murder!”
I was in a fever of impatience. We went out to get chocolate bars at the stand; I kept running back, thinking I heard sounds of the jury returning. The others were nervous, too. Mrs. Halloran flounced away from her husband and stood twisting her hands. Mr. Grant sat without moving in his chair, his face thinner than it had been, curiously empty. Mr. Buffingham strode back and forth along the side of the room, tapping his eternal cigarette ashes on the floor, fixing his eyes moodily downward, or darting quick glances at one group or another. Miss Sands whispered to the Wallers in a corner. The Tewmans wandered to the door, looking at passersby, standing where everyone bumped them going in or out.
It was after six when the jurors went out. When seven came and they hadn’t returned, I asked Mr. Kistler: “What’s it usually mean when the jury takes a long time?”
He shrugged. “Someone’s a holder-outer.”
If there was just one holder-outer, he was a passing good one. It was nearly eight before we saw the doorknob of the door behind which the jury had retired turning, and the widening space between door and frame.
We all scrambled for our seats; the jury filed portentously into theirs.
There was one of those solemn hushes.
The coroner, speaking in ordinary tones, asked the question.
One juryman had remained standing; he was the one that replied.
“We find that Mrs. Garr died a natural death, from cause or causes unknown.”
I couldn’t believe it. I swung my eyes quickly to Lieutenant Strom. This time there wasn’t any doubt of it. His hooded eyes were directly on me, and his lips smiled triumphantly, sardonically.
I felt as if I had been sailing away up in the sky under a parachute, and the parachute had suddenly folded.
So that was the answer. That was the end.
“Do you mean to say,” I asked Mr. Kistler as he hustled me out, “that that’s all there is? The police won’t do any more?”
“Sure. Your mystery’s exploded—there wasn’t any
