The expert sat down, and satisfied that the chain of evidence was complete the coroner ordered the jury to leave the room and arrive at a decision. We had not long to wait. No sooner had they filed out than they were back again, nor do I think that anyone was surprised when they found that the deceased had come to his death by a pistol shot fired at the hands of his wife, Ruth Darwin.
"Carlton, do you still believe in me?" she asked dully.
"With all my heart and soul, Ruth, dear. I shall always believe in you even against all the world," I answered simply.
She gave me a look of love unutterable, then for the second time in twenty-four hours crumpled in a heap on the floor beside me.
CHAPTER X
JENKINS' ADVICE
Philip Darwin was a man of so great wealth and social prominence that the news of his murder and the subsequent arrest of his wife aroused the public to such a pitch of sensational excitement and furor that the district attorney, an exceedingly clever man by the name of Grenville, was forced to set the trial for the end of November, within two months from the date of the murder.
Whereupon I hastened to lay the case before my lawyers, who were also the Trenton solicitors, since I took no great stock in Cunningham for the reason that he had been Darwin's attorney. Therefore, as I remarked before, I went to the firm of Vaughn and Chase, where I found the senior partner in his office. I would rather have spoken to Chase, who was younger and more enthusiastic, but he was out of town, so I had to content myself with Richard Vaughn.
The senior partner was the old-fashioned type of lawyer, cautious and unimaginative, and he listened to my rather disconnected statements with patient tolerance. When I had finished he shook his head and eyed me rather pityingly.