“Isn’t it a little incongruous,” said Doctor Sherman, smiling wanly at her, “for the instrument that struck the blow to complain, in the presence of the victim, of his suffering?”
“But I want her to know it!” persisted the wife. “She must know it to do you justice, dear! It seemed at first disloyal—but finally Edgar decided that his duty to the city——”
“Please say no more, Elsie.” Katherine turned to the pale young minister. “Doctor Sherman, I have not come to utter one single word of recrimination. I have come merely to ask you to tell me all you know about the case.”
“I shall be glad to do so.”
“And could I also talk with Mr. Marcy, the agent?”
“He has left the city, and will not return till the trial.”
Katherine was disappointed by this news. Doctor Sherman, though obviously pained by the task, rehearsed in minutest detail the charges he had made against Doctor West, which charges he would later have to repeat upon the witness stand. Also he recounted Mr. Marcy’s story. Katherine scrutinized every point in these two stories for the loose end, the loop-hole, the flaw, she had thought to find. But flaw there was none. The stories were perfectly straightforward.
Katherine walked slowly away, still going over and over Doctor Sherman’s testimony. Doctor Sherman was telling the indubitable truth—yet her father was indubitably innocent. It was a puzzling case, this her first case—a puzzling, most puzzling case.
When she reached home she was told by her aunt that a gentleman was waiting to see her. She entered the big, old-fashioned parlour, fresh and tasteful despite the stiff black walnut that, in the days of her mother’s marriage, had been spread throughout the land as beauty by the gentlemen who dealt conjointly in furniture and coffins.
From a chair there rose a youthful and somewhat corpulent presence, with a chubby and very serious pink face that sat in a glossy high collar as in a cup. He smiled with a blushful but ingratiating dignity.