FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94  
95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>   >|  
. Symonds, have you brought your register for the past week?" "Yes, sir," answered the new-comer, with a good deal of flurry in his manner and an embarrassed look about him, which convinced Mr. Byrd that the words in regard to whose origin he had been so doubtful that morning, had been real words and no dream. "Very well, then, submit it, if you please, to the jury, and tell us in the meantime whether you have entertained at your house this week any guest who professed to come from Toledo?" "I don't know. I don't remember any such," began the witness, in a stammering sort of way. "We have always a great many men from the West stopping at our house, but I don't recollect any special one who registered himself as coming from Toledo." "You, however, always expect your guests to put their names in your book?" "Yes, sir." There was something in the troubled look of the man which aroused the suspicion of the coroner, and he was about to address him with another question when one of the jury, who was looking over the register, spoke up and asked: "Who is this Clement Smith who writes himself down here as coming from Toledo?" "Smith?--Smith?" repeated Symonds, going up to the juryman and looking over his shoulder at the book. "Oh, yes, the gentleman who came yesterday. He----" But at this moment a slight disturbance occurring in the other room, the witness paused and looked about him with that same embarrassed look before noted. "He is at the hotel now," he added, with an attempt at ease, transparent as it was futile. The disturbance to which I have alluded was of a peculiar kind. It was occasioned by the thick-set man making the spring which, for some minutes, he had evidently been meditating. It was not a tragic leap, however, but a decidedly comic one, and had for its end and aim the recovery of a handkerchief which he had taken from his pocket at the moment when the witness uttered the name of Smith, and, by a useless flourish in opening it, flirted from his hand to the floor. At least, so the amused throng interpreted the sudden dive which he made, and the heedless haste that caused him to trip over the gentleman's hat that stood on the floor, causing it to fall and another handkerchief to tumble out. But Mr. Byrd, who had a detective's insight into the whole matter, saw something more than appeared in the profuse apologies which the thick-set man made, and the hurried manner in which he gathered up
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94  
95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
witness
 

Toledo

 

coming

 

handkerchief

 

gentleman

 
manner
 
disturbance
 

embarrassed

 
moment
 

Symonds


register

 

meditating

 
peculiar
 

occasioned

 
evidently
 

tragic

 
looked
 
decidedly
 

alluded

 

attempt


transparent

 

making

 

minutes

 

futile

 

spring

 

flourish

 

causing

 

tumble

 

caused

 

detective


hurried

 
profuse
 

appeared

 

apologies

 

matter

 
insight
 

heedless

 
uttered
 

useless

 
pocket

recovery
 

opening

 
flirted
 
throng
 

gathered

 

interpreted

 
sudden
 

amused

 
paused
 

aroused