the very one. Shame, I say, to
spoil a new garment that way."

"Why do you call it new?" asked the Coroner.

"Because it hasn't a mud spot or even a mark of dust upon it. We looked
it all over, my wife and I, and decided it had not been long off the
shelf. A pretty good haul for a poor man like me, and if the police----"

But here he was cut short again by an important question:

"There is a clock but a short distance from the place where you
stopped. Did you notice what time it was when you drove away?"

"Yes, sir. I don't know why I remember it, but I do. As I turned to go
back to the hotel, I looked up at this clock. It was half-past eleven."

XII.

THE KEYS.

We were all by this time greatly interested in the proceedings; and when
another hackman was called we recognized at once that an effort was
about to be made to connect this couple with the one who had alighted at
Mr. Van Burnam's door.

The witness, who was a melancholy chap, kept his stand on the east side
of the Square. At about twenty minutes to twelve, he was awakened from a
nap he had been taking on the top of his coach, by a sharp rap on his
whip arm, and looking down, he saw a lady and gentleman standing at the
door of his vehicle.

"We want to go to Gramercy Park," said the lady. "Drive us there at
once."

"I nodded, for what is the use of wasting words when it can be avoided;
and they stepped at once into the coach."

"Can you describe them--tell us how they looked?"

"I never notice people; besides, it was dark; but he had a swell air,
and she was pert and merry, for she laughed as she closed the door."

"Can't you remember how they were dressed?"

"No, sir; she had on something that flapped about her shoulders, and he
had a dark hat on his head, but that was all I saw."

"Didn't you see his face?"

"Not a bit of it; he kept it turned away. He didn't want nobody looking
at _him_. She did all the business."

"Then you saw _her_ face?"

"Yes, for a minute. But I wouldn't know it again. She was young and
purty, and her hand which dropped the money into mine was small, but I
couldn't say no more, not if you was to give me the town."

"Did you know that the house you stopped at was Mr. Van Burnam's, and
that it was supposed to be empty?"

"No, sir, I'm not one of the swell ones. My acquaintances live in
another part of the town."

"But you noticed that the house was dark?"

"I may have. I don't know."

"And that is