“Abigail Pope—folks write ‘relict of John Pope, deceased,’ in all my law papers.”
“Very well, Mrs. Pope; the simple name will suffice for the present purposes. Do you reside in this neighbourhood?”
“In Biberry. I was born, brought up, married, became a widow, and still dwell, all within half-a-mile of this spot. My maiden name was Dickson.”
Absurd and forward as these answers may seem to most persons, they had an effect on the investigation that was then going on in Biberry. Most of the audience saw, and felt, the difference between the frank statements of the present witness, and the reserve manifested by the last.
“Now, why couldn’t that Mary Monson answer all these questions, just as well as Abigail Pope?” said one female talker to a knot of listeners. “She has a glib enough tongue in her head, if she only sees fit to use it! I’ll engage no one can answer more readily, when she wishes to let a thing out. There’s a dreadful history behind the curtain, in my judgment, about that same young woman, could a body only get at it.”
“Mr. Sanford will get at it, before he has done with her, I’ll engage,” answered a friend. “I have heard it said he is the most investigating coroner in the state, when he sets about a case in good earnest. He’ll be very apt to make the most of this, for we never have had anything one-half so exciting in Biberry, as these murders! I have long thought we were rather out of the way of the rest of the world, until now; but our time has come, and we shan’t very soon hear the last of it!”
“It’s all in the papers, already!” exclaimed a third. “Biberry looks as grand as York, or Albany, in the columns of every paper from town, this morning! I declare it did me good to see our little place holding up its head among the great of the earth, as it might be——”
What else, in the way of local patriotism, may have escaped this individual, cannot now be known, the coroner drawing off her auditors, by the question next put to the widow.
“Did you ever see any gold coins in the possession of the late Mrs. Goodwin?” asked that functionary.
“Several times—I don’t know but I might say often. Five or six times, at least. I used to sew for the old lady, and you know how it is when a body works, in that way, in a family—it’s next thing, I do suppose, to being a doctor, so far as secrets go.”