He spoke almost with a tone of resentment; his eyes glowed darkly, and a thrill of horror sped through the room as if they felt that the murderer himself stood before them.
"You will tell me what was said in this interview, if you please, and whether the widow knew who you were; and, if so, whether any words of anger passed between you?"
The face of the young man burned, and he looked at the coroner and then at the jurymen, as if he would like to challenge the whole crew, but the color that showed in his face was the flush of shame, or, so thought Mr. Byrd, and in his reply, when he gave it, there was a bitterness of self-scorn that reminded the detective more of the mortification of a gentleman caught in an act of meanness than the secret alarm of a man who had been beguiled into committing a dastardly crime.
"Mrs. Clemmens was evidently a woman of some spirit," said he, forcing out his words with sullen desperation. "She may have used sharp language; I believe indeed she did; but she did not know who I was, for—for I pretended to be a seller of patent medicine, warranted to cure all ills, and she told me she had no ills, and—and—Do you want a man to disgrace himself in your presence?" he suddenly flashed out, cringing under the gaze of the many curious and unsympathetic eyes fixed upon him.
But the coroner, with a sudden assumption of severity, pardonable, perhaps, in a man with a case of such importance on his hands, recommended the witness to be calm and not to allow any small feelings of personal mortification to interfere with a testimony of so much evident value. And without waiting for the witness to recover himself, asked again:
"What did the widow say, and with what words did you leave?"
"The widow said she abominated drugs, and never took them. I replied that she made a great mistake, if she had any ailments. Upon which she retorted that she had no ailment, and politely showed me the door. I do not remember that any thing else passed between us."
His tone, which had been shrill and high, dropped at the final sentence, and by the nervous workings of his lips, Mr. Byrd perceived that he dreaded the next question. The persons grouped around him evidently dreaded it too.
But it was less searching than they expected, and proved that the coroner preferred to approach his point by circuitous rather than direct means.
"In what room was the conversation held, and by what door did you come in and go out?"