"Persons Unknown". Virginia Tracy
"And what was this discovery, Miss Hope?"
"Oh!" said Christina, quite simply, "I am not going to tell you that." And she suddenly began to speak quite fast. "Do you think I don't know what I am doing when I say that? Do you think you have not taught me? But I don't care about appearing innocent any longer. And so I know, now, what I'm saying. I will never tell you the cause of our quarrel. It had nothing to do with Mr. Ingham's death. It was simply something—monstrous—which happened a long time ago. But, between us two, it had to fall like a gulf. More than that I will not tell you. And you can never make me."
"And you don't know Ann Cornish?"
Christina hesitated. "Of course I thought of her. But I couldn't bear to have that little girl brought into it. She's only twenty," Christina added, as if the difference in their ages were half a century. "And, besides, how could it be she? She scarcely knew Mr. Ingham; she never had an appointment with him; I can't believe she ever told him ill of me. She is my dearest friend. But ask her, Mr. Coroner, ask her. Her address is—" And Christina gave an address which was hastily copied. "She is rehearsing at the Sheridan Theater. She, too, is an actress, poor child!"
"Let us go back a moment, Miss Hope. What do you mean—you don't care about appearing innocent any longer?"
"I mean that never again will I go through what I have gone through this afternoon. You have asked me the last question I shall answer. You've made me sound like a liar, and feel like a liar; you've made me turn and twist and dodge, trying to convince you of the truth about me, and now that I have told you all the truth, you may think a lie about me, if you choose!"
Her face was all alive, now, and her voice thrilled out its deep notes, impassioned as they were soft. "Oh, I wished so much to say nothing! Not to have to stand up here and tell all sorts of intimate things, in this horrible place before these gaping people! But when you began to worry me, to threaten and jeer at me, trying to trip me, I was afraid of you! I know people say that your one thought is to make a mark and have a career, and I seemed to see in your face that you would be glad to kill me for that. I remembered all I had ever heard of you; how you hated women—once, I suppose, some woman hurt you badly;—how you copied an attorney who made all his reputation by the prosecution, by the persecution, of women, and how they say you never run a woman so hard as when she has to work for her living, as I do, and stands exposed to every scandal, as I am! And so I tried to convince you, to answer everything you asked; I am in great trouble, and I am not so very old, and since this came I have scarcely eaten and not slept at all. For if you imagine that, because I haven't really loved him this long while, it is easy to bear thinking how his life had been rived out of him like that, oh, you are wrong—and my nerves are all in shreds. So that it seemed as if I must clear myself, as if it were too hideous to be hated, and to have every one thinking I had murdered him! I struggled to defend myself, and I let you torture me. But oh, I was wrong, wrong! To be judged and condemned and insulted, that's hard, but it's not degrading. But to explain, and pick about, and plead, and wrack your brain to make people believe your word, oh, that degrades!" She paused on a little choking breath. "Think what you like! I have no witness but my mother, and I know very well, in such a case, she doesn't count. I can't prove that I returned to my house, I can't prove that I stayed in it. It's worse than useless to try. If I had friends to speak for me do you think I would have them subjected to what Mr. Deutch has borne for me to-day? I've nothing that shop-keepers call position; I've no money; I'm all alone. Think what you please." And Christina crossed the room and sat down beside her mother.
Conflicting emotions clashed in the silence. She seemed to flash such different lights! She had so little, now, the manners or the sentiments of a sweet young lady. Many people were greatly moved, but no one knew what to think. If Christina had brought herself to slightly more conciliatory language or if, even now, she had thrown herself girlishly into her mother's arms, she could, at that moment, easily have melted the public heart. But she sat with her head tipped back against the wall, with her eyes on vacancy, and great, slow tears rolling down her unshielded face, "as bold as brass." And the coroner, leaning forward across his desk, surveyed the assemblage with a cold, fine smile. "My friends," he began, "after the young lady's eloquence, I can hardly expect you to care for mine. Nevertheless, while we are waiting for a witness unavoidably detained, I will ask you to listen to me. Let us get into shape what we have already learned.—The first thing of which we are sure is that James Ingham landed in New York on the afternoon of the third of August and drove directly to the residence of Miss Christina Hope, his betrothed. Miss Hope tells us that when he left that house their engagement was broken; that he was unbearably jealous; that he disapproved of the profession which she persisted in following and that they quarreled over something which she refuses to divulge. We have no witness to this quarrel, but I will ask you to remember it. I will ask you to remember that neither have we witnesses to Miss Hope's statement that it was she, rather than Mr. Ingham, who broke the engagement.
"Let us get to our next positive fact. Our next positive fact is that Mr. Ingham, on the next afternoon, the afternoon of August fourth, had an appointment with a lady for four o'clock—an appointment the hour of which he was so anxious not to forget that he wrote it on the lady's visiting-card, and stood the card against a candle on his piano. Our next facts are that the lady kept this appointment, that she had a private interview with Mr. Ingham which greatly excited him; that, as soon as she was gone, he drove off in a taxi with desperate haste, and that he returned in about an hour, still under the repressed excitement of some disagreeable emotion. If, gentlemen of the jury, you should bring in a verdict warranting the State in examining that cabman and in questioning Miss Ann Cornish as to the news she imparted to Mr. Ingham, then, indeed, I am much mistaken if we do not have our hands upon the great clue to all murders, gentlemen, the motive. For, as you have clearly perceived, the meeting between Mr. Ingham and Miss Cornish was not a lover's meeting. Or, if so, it was not a meeting of acknowledged lovers. Miss Hope tells us that Miss Cornish is her confidential friend, and, as far as she knew, had only the most formal acquaintance with Mr. Ingham. No, Miss Cornish had a piece of information to give Mr. Ingham, and she expected this information to serve her own ends, for she said—'It is good of you to see me.' And Mr. Ingham found the information important, for he soon wished it told him at greater length upstairs, 'where we shall be quite undisturbed.' The lady agrees; although she adds, 'I don't want to get Christina into trouble.' Now, I ask you, gentlemen, what could have been her object except to get Christina into trouble. Why does a pretty young woman who refuses to give her name come to a specially attractive man with news of her dearest friend whom she supposes him to be still engaged to marry—news for which she feels it necessary to apologize—for but one of two reasons;—either she is in love with him herself, and wishes to injure her friend in his eyes, or she is in love with some other man and jealous of her friend whom she wishes warned off by the friend's legitimate proprietor. In either case, she evidently effected her point for she sent Mr. Ingham rushing from the house. He, however, apparently failed in what he set out to do. All this, gentlemen, is but conjecture.
"Here is where I expected to present you with an astonishing bridge of facts. I had now meant to show you that Mr. Ingham, that evening, expected an unwelcome visitor; that he left orders she was not to be admitted; that she came, that she was well-known to the elevator boy, and to all of us here present as well as to a greater public; that despite the efforts of the elevator boy, she penetrated to Mr. Ingham's apartment, whence she was not seen to return, and that she was the only visitor he had that night. But in the continued absence of the boy, Joseph Patrick, all this must wait.
"Our next known fact is that Mr. Herrick was wakened by Mr. Ingham's playing at one or shortly before. You will remember that it was after eleven when Miss Hope spoke to Mrs. Johnson on her way to the post-box, and that after that no one but her mother claims to have seen or spoken with her. For a quarter of an hour, Mr. Herrick tells us, Mr. Ingham played, calmly and beautifully. All was peace. But then there began to be the sound of voices talking through the music—the voices, as other witnesses have testified, of a man and a woman. And the piano begins to sound fitfully and brokenly. The man and the woman have begun to quarrel. Their voices—particularly the woman's voice—rise higher and stormier. Mr. Herrick, with the whole street between, has fallen asleep. But Mrs. Willing, just across the court, hears a voice she knows, and says to her