"That is all," said Dalton; "go back to your place. We may want you."
The tone implied a threat and the witness answered it with a defiant look. He had evidently been lying, but not to shield himself, I thought. I wondered who the next witness would be; there did not seem occasion for many more for already the police had pretty nearly put the noose around the neck of their man.
Turning, after a few minutes delay, to Dalton to see what might be the cause of it, I saw he was in earnest conversation with a sergeant. He was evidently receiving some important report, for he listened attentively and gave an order in response which despatched the officer rapidly from the room. Then giving his attention again to the proceedings, he called another witness.
It was the paying teller of the American National Bank. His evidence required but a few minutes. He stated he had paid Mr. Van Bult five hundred in "fifties" on the morning before White's death, and that they were new bills just received by the Bank from the Sub-Treasury. On being shown the bill produced by Van Bult and that recovered from the gambling house, he identified them as two of the bills thus received by the Bank, though he said he could not state positively they were the same drawn by Van Bult as a few others had also been paid out. However, it was hardly necessary that he should do so as every one was satisfied the bill obtained from the gambling house was one of those left by Van Bult on White's table.
It only remained now for the man who had lost it to explain how he came by it. Would the explanation be satisfactory? That was the one material point.
When the paying teller had concluded it was late in the afternoon. It was dark out-of-doors and the gas had been lighted within, but the crowd had not diminished; on the contrary, it had been steadily augmented wherever a new spectator had found a chance to wedge his way into the throng. So intense was the interest that neither the Coroner nor a juror had suggested any recess. They sat scarcely moving in their seats, intent only on the words of each succeeding witness. All felt something final must come soon. The evidence was logical and dovetailed perfectly; it all pointed to one man. Who was he? The police must know, they could not have failed in this one vital particular after succeeding so fully in all others. I could read these thoughts in the faces of those about me, in their expectant attitudes; and I felt they were not to be disappointed. The police had done their work thoroughly and the Inspector had submitted its results with telling effect. If it were his purpose to work his evidence up to a climax he had succeeded and the moment had now come for the crowning of his success,—the identification of the man. After that there would be little left apparently for the lawyers of the State to do; but I felt there might be something for some one to undo.
There was a slight disturbance among the spectators at one side of the room near the door; "another spectator struggling for a nearer view," I thought to myself; and then amid an expectant hush the night-officer was recalled to the stand.
"Officer," said Dalton, "you said you thought you would recognize the man you saw that night if you should see him again; look about you now! Do you see him?"
The officer let his gaze pass over the jury and witnesses and slowly on to where the spectators were gathered at the farther end of the room,—men retreating before the searching glance as from the eye of fate,—and then he leaned forward and fixed his look on a man standing where the retreating crowd had left him almost alone:
"That is the man," he said.