The Verdict by Edgar Saltus

The next moment Jones was alone. Professionally, if metaphorically, he cocked an eye. There was something queer here, something behind the scenes. What was it?

For a year and a day he had seen little of Rochester, who, for a while, had been visiting in Massachusetts. From there he had written to Jones, among other things, about a Puritan girl whom he said he was to marry. Subsequently he had shown up in town, but as one does when one has been hit, hard hit, hit on the head. He had become moody, remote, inaccessible.

Afterward, without further allusion to the Puritan maiden, Rochester's marriage to Nina Varian had occurred. Whether it had been a success, no one save himself and his bride could have told; and now her heart had interfered. Suddenly it had stopped, and, discarding her flesh like a raiment, she had gone -- in a jiffy, like that!

It was certainly odd, Jones reflected, and the oddity of it was heightened by Rochester's demeanor, in which there was no sign of grief, or of anything, except perhaps of funk -- the funk of a man too trained to betray it. Only in his curious pallor and in his equally curious bribe had it been revealed.

In an effort to clarify the situation Jones once more felt for his cigarette-case. Remembering that it had slipped from him, he bent over and groped behind the table-cover that reached nearly to the floor.

But now he had it -- or no, he had something else. He drew it out and found himself looking at a six-shooter, which among the costly futilities of the room was incongruous as a pike in a tank of goldfish. Unsummoned, an empty remark of Rochester's returned to him, charged now with significance:

"I was standing where you are seated."

Strangling an oath, he threw the pistol back under the table, and, fumbling again, discovered the case. Then, straightening, he opened the case, took a cigarette, and was looking for a match when the three men reappeared.

"You tell me this lady was interested in some charity? " the coroner was saying.

Rochester nodded.

"Yes, and that reminds me -- "

He pressed a button, sat down at the table opposite Jones, got a checkbook from a drawer, and began to write.

"I have made it to bearer," he added as he finished, and handed it over.

Greasily the fat physician coughed and rubbed his fabulous nose; but the coroner, folding the paper, said:

"I will have a word with Barker, and then I will authorize Folsom to certify accordingly."

At the door, in answer to the pressed button, a servant stood.

"Show these gentlemen out," Rochester said.

"Well? " Jones put in when they had gone.

Rochester stood up, crossed the room, recrossed it, closed the door.

"Well, that's over!"