“No; she put it back on the shelf.”
“After opening and closing it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see whether she put anything into the book?”
“I can not swear that she did; but then her back was to me, and I could not have seen it if she had.”
The implied suggestion caused some excitement, but the coroner, frowning on this, pressed the girl to continue, asking if Miss Tuttle left the room immediately after turning from the book-shelves. Loretta replied no; that, on the contrary, she stood for some minutes near them, gazing, in what seemed like a great distress of mind, straight upon the floor; after which she moved in an agitated way and with more than one anxious look behind her into the adjoining room where she paused before a large bureau. As this bureau was devoted entirely to Mr. Jeffrey’s use, Loretta experienced some surprise at seeing his wife’s sister approach it in so stealthy a manner. Consequently she was watching with all her might, when this young lady opened the upper drawer and, with very evident emotion, thrust her hand into it.
What she took out, or whether she took out anything, this spy upon her movements could not say, for when Loretta heard the drawer being pushed back into place she drew the curtains close, perceiving that Miss Tuttle would have to face this window in coming back. However, she ventured upon one other peep through them just as that lady was leaving the room, and remembered as if it were yesterday how clay-white her face looked, and how she held her left hand pressed close against the folds of her dress. It was but a few minutes after this that Miss Tuttle left the house.
As we all knew what was kept in that drawer, the conclusion was obvious. Whatever excuse Miss Tuttle might give for going into her sister’s room at this time, but one thought, one fear, or possibly one hope, could have taken her to Mr. Jeffrey’s private drawer. She wished to see if his pistol was still there, or if it had been taken away by her sister,—a revelation of the extreme point to which her thoughts had flown at this crisis, and one which effectually contradicted her former statement that she had been conscious of no alarm in behalf of her sister and had seen her leave the house without dread or suspicion of evil.
The temerity which had made it possible to associate the name of such a man as Francis Jeffrey with an outrageous crime having been thus in a measure explained, the coroner recalled that gentleman and again thoroughly surprised the gaping public.
Had the witness accompanied his wife to the Moore house?