“No, sir.”
“You open Mr. Leavenworth’s letters?”
“I do.”
“Has there been anything in his correspondence of late calculated to throw any light upon this deed?”
It actually seemed as if he never would answer. Was he simply pondering over his reply, or was the man turned to stone?
“Mr. Harwell, did you hear the juryman?” inquired the coroner.
“Yes, sir; I was thinking.”
“Very well, now answer.”
“Sir,” he replied, turning and looking the juryman full in the face, and in that way revealing his unguarded left hand to my gaze, “I have opened Mr. Leavenworth’s letters as usual for the last two weeks, and I can think of nothing in them bearing in the least upon this tragedy.”
The man lied; I knew it instantly. The clenched hand pausing irresolute, then making up its mind to go through with the lie firmly, was enough for me.