The words were cut short by the rolling back of one of the parlor doors, and the entrance of the three doctors. The Coroner, who came last, pulled the door shut again. The older of the other two came to the District Attorney and said, with deliberate distinctness:
“We are both prepared to swear that Mr. Fairchild’s death was caused by a gunshot wound in the head.”
It was then that John sprang to the stove, and shook its grate vehemently.
At sight of the Sheriff, who advanced upon him with a directness which left no ambiguity as to his purpose, Milton rose excitedly from his chair, cast a swift scared glance around the company, and then, while the handcuffs were being snapped upon his wrists, began to whimper.
“I didn’t do it! It’s a put-up job! It’s them brothers o’ his thet allus hankered after his money, ’n’ naow they got it they’re tryin’ to put the thing on me. ’N’ his wife, tew, thet stuck-up city gal, she——”
“Come naow, yeou better shut up,” said the Sheriff sententiously. “Th’ more yeh say th’ wuss it’ll be fer yeh.”
Most of the men present averted their gaze during the brief period of alternate threats and cringing, of rough curses and frenzied fawning on the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and even the Coroner, which ensued; but Mr. Hubbard watched it all carefully with evident interest.
“That is a very curious type of criminal,” he said, as the Sheriff and his prisoner left the room; “very curious indeed! I never saw a murderer before who had so little nerve, and funked so absolutely when he was confronted with detection. Why, I’ve seen men, guilty as guilty could be, who would deceive even their own lawyers. But such a simpleton as that—he’s not worth his rope.”
“That is because you are a city man,” explained the District Attorney. “You don’t know the kind of murderers we raise here in the country. The chances are that your city assassin would be tortured by remorse, if he escaped discovery, and that he committed the deed in a moment of passion. But the rural murderer (I am speaking of native Americans, now) plans the thing in cold blood, and goes at it systematically, with nerves like steel. He generally even mutilates the body, or does some other horrible thing, which it makes everybody’s blood boil to think of. And so long as he isn’t found out, he never dreams of remorse. He has no more moral perspective than a woodchuck. But when detection does come, it knocks him all in a heap. He blubbers, and tries to lay it on somebody else, and altogether acts like a cur—just as this fellow ’s doing now, for instance.”
A hubbub of shrieks and sobs rose from the kitchen as he finished this sentence, and they with one accord moved toward the door.