Madam Sapphira by Edgar Saltus

Day in, day out, the testimony continued. The cook testified. The waitress recalled, testified anew. The cook testified again, and a third time the waitress took the stand. By common consent objections ceased. Questions inane, idiotic, indecent, passed unchallenged, unrebuked.

Nevius ceased to attend. The coarseness was disgusting enough, but apart from that the presence of one who continued to come perplexed and tormented him. To those who have agreed to be bound by form, no law ever codified is rigider, and but for its shackles, at the first hearing he would have called to her, "Hilda, this is unworthy of you; let us go. " But no remonstrance being possible, it was easier to avoid that chamber where she listened exultingly to each fresh batch of scurrilities concerning himself.

For the exultation was there, one not dissimilar to that which that vestal must have displayed when her lover the gladiator fell and her delicate thumb reversed. It was this that unnerved him. He had fathomed the cause, but the effect he was unable to endure. But soon the exultation, the scurrilities must end, and then in what gentle ways would he woo her back to sanity and herself.

O'Donnell was not so sanguine. "They have got something," he would insist, "or else Tooth is milking his client. He consumes hours over nothing. Yesterday we learned what you preferred for breakfast. The fact that you drank moselle for dinner was shown to the satisfaction of everyone, the stenographer included. Metuchen went into the other room; I read a paper. No one listened except the plaintiff, and, by the way, did you tell me that she was pretty? Why, she is hideous; never in all my life hare I seen a woman with an expression as malignant as hers."

"Souvent femme varie," Nevius inconsequently replied.

"You are well rid of her. And the way she bullies Tooth! Were she a client of mine -- however, that's not the point. Tooth must have something else. Thus far the testimony of the servants has the value of a zero from which the periphery has been eliminated. But even otherwise the testimony of detectives is valueless unless corroborated. Tooth knows that, and he knows, too, that I can show the servants to have been in the pay of Mrs. Snaith. Now who is to corroborate them, for, mark my words, some corroboration there will be. Tooth is waiting for something, he is consuming time with no other object. Now what is it?"

"There is nothing. You have heard all you will ever hear."

But O'Donnell was skeptical as a ragpicker, and with cause. When he next appeared in Tenth Street the I-told-you-so was in his eye.

"We are sailing very close to the wind," he announced. "What do you suppose happened today?"

Nevius was not good at conundrums and said so.

"Your friend Miss Vührer appeared," the lawyer, with a great assumption of indifference, remarked, and then stopped to enjoy his client's surprise.

"Did she? " that client answered, but with an apathy that was stagnant. "I had forgotten that she lived."

"I had not, then. Though I admit I was not prepared for what occurred. Yesterday Tooth began with the waitress about her, showed that you were closeted with her for hours and exhibited a hairpin which was found on that sofa where you are sitting now. I had so little difficulty in putting that hairpin straight back into Mrs. Nevius' hair that even Metuchen laughed."

"Well?"

"Well, that was merely the prelude. This morning she appeared, as Jones would say, in impropriâ personâ. No, Nevius, she is worse than Becky, though, after all, she must get higher pay. With her was counsel, if you please, retained, of course, by Tooth. Pennell his name is, B. F. Pennell. When I saw him I knew that the surprise was at hand. He is a bad egg, but rottener than I had believed. Do you know, the plaintiff is very clever. It was she, I will take my oath, who put Tooth up to it."

The apathy which Nevius had displayed was departing, he came nearer to O'Donnell and stood, looking at him, impatient of details and phrases. Was the diagnosis wrong, after all? Was there another explanation of this mystery? Only the day before he had asked himself that question. And now what was the cleverness over which O'Donnell seemed inclined to harp?

"Tooth is fly enough," the lawyer was saying, "but unaided he would never have thought of this. Pennell got the young woman on the stand, and in no time at all had her white as snow. He had her take off her bonnet and show that in those blonde curls of hers there was not a hairpin to be found, he had her explain at some length that while her relations with you had been most friendly and pleasant, they had been also entirely innocent and that you had invariably treated her like what she called ‘a perfect gentleman. ' Then he turned her over to Tooth."

"Well?"

"Tooth began very greasily; he asked her a few gentle little questions which gave her an opportunity to repeat all she had said, and finally brought out that a few months ago you had met her in the street and had assured her you were doing everything to serve her interests. Very nice as far it goes, isn't it? Wait a bit. ‘And what did you say to Mr. Nevius? ' Tooth asked. ‘I asked Mr. Nevius,' the little beast answered, ‘whether the other young lady was as innocent as I was? ' ‘And what was Mr. Nevius' reply? ' Tooth inquired. ‘Mr. Nevius' reply was that unfortunately she was not."

"That she was not? " gnashed Nevius.