Witness slowly shook his head.
"I know of no such affair or enemy—at least, I am sure there is no enemy in Mexico."
For the first time during the entire proceedings the District Attorney ignored the Coroner to put an interrogation himself.
"In Mexico?" he asked, quickly. "Do you know or suspect an enemy in this country—here—or elsewhere?"
"No, no, señor. Perhaps I should not have said that; but in Spain—in Mexico—Don Alberto could not have loved so beautiful a maiden as the Señorita Westbrook without making many enemies, and bitter ones too. I was thinking of that alone." He spread out his hands in true Latin fashion. "Eso se comprende—it is a matter of course—but I know nothing."
The inquiry now turned to the relations between General Westbrook and De Sanchez. It appeared that the witness had never met the General, and knew nothing of their mutual affairs. The two had separated amicably, so far as he knew. He had no reason to think otherwise. "When the Señorita Westbrook departed from Mexico, after her visit with her father, the Señor General accompanied his daughter home, and never returned."
So ended the testimony. The audience rapidly dwindled away as the jury filed out to deliberate; while the few who remained separated into groups and fell to discussing the "De Sanchez Mystery,"—now more of a mystery than ever.
For a reason not made known to the witnesses, they, with the exception of General Westbrook and Judge Petty, are requested to remain until the jury report. The request, regardless of the politeness in which it was couched, might have excited some doubt and apprehension among those who obeyed it, if the officers, in managing to keep near them, had been less adroit in doing so. Nobody can conjecture at whom the jury's verdict will point, and they are quite an hour in making up their own minds.
When they finally file back into the room there are very few remaining to hear what the result of their deliberations may be. The foreman slurred over the verdict with such haste that it was all but unintelligible. It ran:
We, the jury, in the matter of the death of Alberto de Sanchez, find that said De Sanchez came to his death by a dagger wound in the throat, at the hand of some person or persons to this jury unknown.