Murder in Stained Glass. Armstrong Margaret

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СКАЧАТЬ Leo put in. “The tooth is not porcelain. It is the identical tooth that was broken off at the root. My father insisted on Doctor Pratt setting it in a gold claw, as you see it. The dentist didn’t approve, of course. He said the tooth wouldn’t last, and the work would all have to be done over again. But my father said he had always depended on his own ivory, and he wasn’t going to begin chewing on china any sooner than he could help. In the end Doctor Pratt gave in.”

      “I see. But why, may I ask, have you kept this knowledge to yourself until now, Mr. Ullathorne? You should have mentioned this tooth at once.”

      “I couldn’t bear to,” Leo said in a low voice. “My father would have hated all this, the publicity, the headlines in the newspapers. He loathed publicity. Why, he moved the business out here from New York to get away from it.”

      “I see. But you must have known it would come out in the end.”

      “I—I hoped it wouldn’t.”

      “How did you propose to account for your father’s disappearance?”

      “My father was eccentric. When he had finished a big piece of work like this cathedral window, he usually went off on a long trip, sometimes forgetting to tell anyone where he was going. All his friends knew this.”

      The coroner nodded kindly. “I think I understand,” he said. “Your filial piety is commendable though mistaken. Why have you spoken now?”

      “Because of Jake Murphy. I couldn’t let you think Jake had been murdered, when I knew the bones were those of my father.”

      “Quite so. You have my sincerest sympathy, Mr. Ullathorne. One more question: Do you know if your father had any enemies?”

      Leo flushed. “No one who would have killed him,” he said. “My father was temperamental, apt to get excited over trifles and imagine that people were insulting him. He had old-fashioned ideas about honor, and what he called the ‘manly art of self-defense.’ ”

      “Then he might have become involved in an unpremeditated quarrel?”

      “Yes; that might have happened. But I think robbery is more likely to have been the motive. My father was careless about money and often carried large sums loose in his pockets.”

      “Large sums? How much?”

      “I’ve known him to draw two or three thousand dollars from the bank for business purposes, and forget he had it until I reminded him.”

      “What about last week?”

      “He went to Banbury and cashed a check for the payroll before he went to New York, and left me what I needed to pay the men. I don’t know how large the check was. He often forgot to fill out the stubs in his check book. The bank can tell you the amount of the check, of course.”

      “Thank you, Mr. Ullathorne. That will be all for the present.” The coroner turned to Sam Beers. “Find out if Dr. Pratt is present and, if he is, ask him to come forward.”

      Dr. Pratt, being interested in the case, did happen to be present. He corroborated Leo’s story of the broken tooth and identified the “appliance.”

      While it was being labeled, the coroner leaned back in his chair, his forehead wrinkled in a meditative frown.

      Edgar Farraday glanced at him, scribbled a sentence on a scrap of paper, handed it to Sam Beers, and told him to give it to the coroner.

      The coroner took the paper, waited to read it until he had told Sam that Peter Curtis was to be recalled; then he read it, glanced at Edgar Farraday with a slow smile, nodded and turned to Peter:

      “I fear, Peter Curtis, that you have not been entirely frank in your testimony. Please remember that you are required to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth. Why did not you, or any of your fellow workmen, mention Jake Murphy until you were obliged to do so?”

      “Because he went off in a huff.”

      “A huff? Why was that? What happened?”

      “Well, you see Jake and Mr. Ullathorne they had words. Jake’s got a god-awful temper, and Mr. Ullathorne he called him down good and plenty for leading up some red flash, a sort of glass we don’t use much, in the big window ’stead of what Mr. Ullathorne picked out that got broke some way. Jake’s diamond slipped, I guess. Mr. Ullathorne said that panel would have to go back on the bench, and the flash ripped out as soon as he got back from New York, and Jake would be docked for what it cost, and Jake said he’d see him in hell first.”

      “In short, there was a quarrel.”

      “That’s about the size of it.”

      “Do you know Jake Murphy’s address in New York?”

      “I don’t. He wasn’t a particular friend of mine; Jake sort of kept himself to himself. But that don’t mean nothing. Jake wouldn’t hurt a fly, Jake wouldn’t.”

      “No doubt. One more question: Were Mr. Ullathorne’s relations with his employees amicable upon the whole? Were they attached to him?”

      “Well,” Peter hesitated, “Mr. Ullathorne never had any difficulty getting men to work for him. He was the king of the glass business, and we were all proud of him. But I don’t know as you could say we were attached. He was a hard man. You’d oughtn’t to speak ill of the dead, but he had a cruel tongue, Mr. Ullathorne had. What I mean is, he wasn’t any nastier to Jake than he was to the rest of us.”

      “Thank you, Mr. Curtis. You may go.”

      Peter turned away. Skinner approached and said, loud enough for us all to hear:

      “Your Honor, I have just received a report on the shred of cloth and the two trouser buttons found in the kiln. The New York police inform me that L. P. Fortune, the tailor, made a suit of this sort of cloth, a Canadian homespun, for Mr. Frederick Ullathorne about two years ago. It is of a peculiar weave and color, imported especially for Mr. Ullathorne.”

      “I congratulate you, Mr. Skinner.” The coroner turned to his assistant: “Your arm, Mr. Culver,” and rose.

      “Gentlemen of the jury,” he began, in a low clear voice gaining strength as he went on. “This is a curious case presenting several unusual features. It is not, however, without precedent. Before I sum up the evidence you have heard I will describe, for your benefit, a very celebrated case—recalled to me a moment ago by a friend, but which I had already remembered.”

      Edgar whispered in my ear: “I might have known it. The old boy never misses a trick.”

      “I refer,” the coroner went on, “to the Webster-Parkman case. The circumstances were as follows: In the year 1854 Professor Parkman of Harvard College was murdered by Professor Webster, also of Harvard and head of the department of chemistry. The latter was in financial difficulties. Parkman had lent him money and became insulting when he was not repaid. One day he visited Webster in the laboratory, and was never seen again. When charred bones were found in the laboratory furnace by the janitor, Webster was accused of the murder. I need not give you the details of the trial. Suffice it to say that the only portion of the body which could be identified after cremation were the false teeth identified by Parkman’s dentist. Webster was convicted and hanged. Now the two cases СКАЧАТЬ