I was frantic, and that night I made an attempt to see Florence Gunther.
She was not at home, but I found her walking on the street, near an Italian fruit stand.
But I was horrified to see her go white when she saw me.
“She refused to speak to me, and when I insisted she said that I had killed Sarah; that she knew it and knew why, and that if I didn’t leave her she would call an officer.
On the way home I worked that out.
I remembered that on the night when I saw her, while we waited for Sarah, I had idly shown her the mechanism of the sword-stick.
I am not surprised that she believed that I had killed Sarah Gittings.
It is easy to see why, now.
She believed that Sarah Gittings had come to me with that copy of a will which disinherited me, and that to get possession of it I had killed her.
“I made no more overtures.
I was afraid I would drive her to the police.
“I went home that night a sick man, and took to my bed.
Some time during that week, however, I crawled downstairs.
It seemed to me that if she told the police and they found the stick hidden, it would damn me.
I decided to put it back in the hall, where it had stood before.
“I unlocked the door, but the stick had disappeared.
I do not yet know how it disappeared, or why it was found in the cellar.
My personal belief is that my servant Amos was alarmed at the situation in which I found myself, and that he buried it himself.
“It is also my belief that Amos has been either killed or bribed to leave the city, for fear that he may make this confession and thus help to clear me.
“In a similar manner, I believe that a ring of oil was planted in my car, so that I might be suspected of having killed Florence Gunther.
The police know that this ring was not in the car the day after her murder.
“During this trial, much has been made of the fact that by a new will made by my brother-in-law, Howard Somers, I lost a bequest originally devised to me.
In reply to that I say most solemnly that I never knew that Howard Somers had made a new will until Mr. Alexander Davis told me in New York, following Mr. Somers’ death.
Even had I known of it, the murder of these two unfortunate women could certainly not benefit me.
The will itself was safe among Mr. Somers’ papers in a New York bank vault and Mr. Waite could testify to its existence and its authenticity.
“I know nothing whatever of Florence Gunther’s death.
When I found that she suspected me of Sarah Gittings’ murder I made no further attempt to see her, and I solemnly swear that I never did see her.
Nor did I make any visit to Howard Somers on the night of his death.
Whoever saw him that night deliberately used my name to gain access to him.
Nor did I receive a check from him for one thousand dollars.
“As to leaving the country, I had such a thought at one time.
My position was unbearable, and I was helpless.
I did nothing further about the matter, nor have I attempted to escape.
“I have not invented this story since my arrest, or preceding it.
I have told the absolute truth, under oath.
I have never killed any human being.
I am innocent of this charge.
If I suffer for it I suffer for another man’s crime.”
Much of this was in the story he told on the stand.
I believe that outside of ourselves hardly a soul in that crowded courtroom believed it.
And against it was that mass of accumulated testimony, including our own unwilling appearances on the stand.
It should have helped him that on that very day the body of poor Amos was found floating down the river, but it did not.
He had been drowned, poor wretch, and although we have our own suspicions we do not know to this day that he was murdered.
But I think I can reconstruct that scene; Amos confiding and amiable, flattered at being consulted.
On a bridge, maybe, or on the river bank somewhere; and then a sudden thrust of a muscular arm, and the muddy swirling water closing over his head.
Jim was found guilty after only three hours’ deliberation by the jury.
Guilty of murder in the first degree.
Chapter Twenty-seven
JIM WAS SENTENCED TO the chair on the twenty-fifth of June.
One and all the newspapers were gratified by the verdict, and not a few kind words were said of the acumen of the police and the fairness of the trial.