“I don’t remember his full name, sir. Seems ’sif the last name began with L,—but I wouldn’t say for sure.”
“And his first name?”
“Kane, sir. I heard Mr. Trowbridge call him that a heap of times, sir.”
“Kane!”
“Yes, sir.” And then Fibsy added, in an awed voice, “that’s why I said, ‘Gee’!”
The coroner looked at the expectant audience. “It seems to me,” he began slowly, “that this evidence of the office boy, if credible or not, must at least be looked into. While not wishing to leap to unwarranted conclusions, we must remember that the Swede declared that with his dying breath, Mr. Trowbridge denounced his murderer as Cain! It must be ascertained if, instead of the allusion to the first murderer, which we naturally assumed, he could have meant to designate this nephew, named Kane. Does any one present know the surname of this nephew?”
There was a stir in the back part of the room, and a man rose and came forward. He was tall and strong and walked with that free, swinging step, that suggests to those who know of such things, the memory of alfalfa and cactus. With shoulders squared and head erect, he approached the coroner at his table and said “I am Kane Landon, a nephew of the late Rowland Trowbridge.”
CHAPTER VI
OUT OF THE WEST
A bomb dropped from an aeroplane could scarcely have caused greater excitement among the audience. Every eye in the room followed the tall young figure, as Kane Landon strode to the table behind which the coroner sat. That worthy official looked as if he had suddenly been bereft of all intelligence as well as power of speech. In fact, he sat and looked at the man before him, with such an alarmed expression, that one might almost have thought he was the culprit, and the new witness the accusing judge.
But Mr. Berg pulled himself together, and began his perfunctory questions.