The remainder of the story was given as the testimony of Madeleine Marstan, well-known favorite in the former Alcazar stock company, and Granville Jarvis, expert psychologist, whose skilful work was a strong plea for the admission of that newest of the sciences into court-room procedure.
During this latter testimony, the "Clarion" asserted, interest had been divided between the ultimate fate of the accused and the valuable contributions which the laboratory experiments of the witness had given the case. The word-tests which he had provided to the medium were, he had explained, one of the surest means of discovering the train of associations which lodge in the guilty mind. He had never been convinced that Glover himself had committed a murder, but suspected that his crime lay in trying to fasten it upon a man whom he knew to be both innocent and helpless. The cards, containing a mixture of irrelevant and relevant words, had been shown him and then he had been instructed to turn his head in the opposite direction. These instructions he had carefully observed except in the cases of terms which held evil associations. In such cases his eyes almost invariably turned back to the card with the printed word. Such terms as "gravel" and "oleander" had produced this attraction. But they had also aroused his suspicions. And from the day of his first call upon "Madame Rosalie" the situation between them had been a succession of clever manœuvers. Neither one of them had dared to let the other go. But in this encounter Mrs. Marstan had had the advantage. What he was able to find out about her was little compared with what she had discovered concerning him.
That she possessed unmistakable psychic powers could not be disputed. By a means of communication, which she could not herself explain, she had received at the time of Roger Kenwick's interview with her a message from the spirit of Isabel Kenwick, confessing that it was she who had unwittingly brought Richard Glover into his life, and entreating his forgiveness.
As to the concluding story of the actress, it was concerned with her description of how she had identified the body of her husband at the morgue on the evening of her flight from Rest Hollow; of how she had turned all arrangements for its shipment and burial over to the Mont-Mer and San Francisco undertakers, desiring to figure as little as possible in connection with the death of the man who had ruined her life. Of how she had succeeded in paying the debts against his name and had recently signed a stage contract with an eastern theatrical company.
When the trial was ended the crowd that jammed the room rose and surged toward the man in the prisoner's box, like a human tidal wave. "Keep them back, Dayton," Kenwick implored. "I don't want to talk to them."
Somehow his attorney managed to check the onrush, and the throng of congratulatory spectators was headed toward the exits. The room was almost empty when some one touched the prisoner's arm.
"Can you give me a few words?" It was one of the local reporters. "You're a newspaper man yourself, Mr. Kenwick, and you know how it is about these things."
Kenwick shook him off. "Come around later, to the hotel, if you like," he said, and turned to take a hand that was timidly held out to him.
"I didn't know whether you'd be willing to speak to me or not, Mr. Kenwick. But I just wanted to tell you that I'm satisfied, more than satisfied with—the way it has all come out."
"I am glad to hear that, Mrs. Fanwell," Kenwick told her gravely. "I would never have been quite satisfied myself unless I had heard you say that. I wish you would leave your address with Dayton, for, you see, I feel a little bit responsible for you, and I would like to put you in the way of getting a new hold on life."