Free The Affair Next Door by Anna Katherine Green Page B

erect as nature intended, and my back kept the line
my good health warrants. The path of duty has its thorny passages, but
it is for strong minds like mine to ignore them.
    Promptly at ten o'clock I entered the room reserved for the inquest, and
was ushered to the seat appointed me. Though never a self-conscious
woman, I could not but be aware of the many eyes that followed me, and
endeavored so to demean myself that there should be no question as to my
respectable standing in the community. This I considered due to the
memory of my father, who was very much in my thoughts that day.
    The Coroner was already in his seat when I entered, and though I did not
perceive the good face of Mr. Gryce anywhere in his vicinity, I had no
doubt he was within ear-shot. Of the other people I took small note,
save of the honest scrub-woman, of whose red face and anxious eyes under
a preposterous bonnet (which did
not come
from La Mole's), I caught
vague glimpses as the crowd between us surged to and fro.
    None of the Van Burnams were visible, but this did not necessarily mean
that they were absent. Indeed, I was very sure, from certain
indications, that more than one member of the family could be seen in
the small room connecting with the large one in which we witnesses sat
with the jury.
    The policeman, Carroll, was the first man to talk. He told of my
stopping him on his beat and of his entrance into Mr. Van Burnam's house
with the scrub-woman. He gave the details of his discovery of the dead
woman's body on the parlor floor, and insisted that no one—here he
looked very hard at me—had been allowed to touch the body till relief
had come to him from Headquarters.
    Mrs. Boppert, the scrub-woman, followed him; and if she was watched by
no one else in that room, she was watched by me. Her manner before the
Coroner was no more satisfactory, according to my notion, than it had
been in Mr. Van Burnam's parlor. She gave a very perceptible start when
they spoke her name, and looked quite scared when the Bible was held out
towards her. But she took the oath notwithstanding, and with her
testimony the inquiry began in earnest.
    "What is your name?" asked the Coroner.
    As this was something she could not help knowing, she uttered the
necessary words glibly, though in a way that showed she resented his
impertinence in asking her what he already knew.
    "Where do you live? And what do you do for a living?" rapidly followed.
    She replied that she was a scrub-woman and cleaned people's houses, and
having said this, she assumed a very dogged air, which I thought strange
enough to raise a question in the minds of those who watched her. But no
one else seemed to regard it as anything but the embarrassment of
ignorance.
    "How long have you known the Van Burnam family?" the Coroner went on.
    "Two years, sir, come next Christmas."
    "Have you often done work for them?"
    "I clean the house twice a year, fall and spring."
    "Why were you at this house two days ago?"
    "To scrub the kitchen floors, sir, and put the pantries in order."
    "Had you received notice to do so?"
    "Yes, sir, through Mr. Franklin Van Burnam."
    "And was that the first day of your work there?"
    "No, sir; I had been there all the day before."
    "You don't speak loud enough," objected the Coroner; "remember that
every one in this room wants to hear you."
    She looked up, and with a frightened air surveyed the crowd about her.
Publicity evidently made her most uncomfortable, and her voice sank
rather than rose.
    "Where did you get the key of the house, and by what door did you
enter?"
    "I went in at the basement, sir, and I got the key at Mr. Van Burnam's
agent in Dey Street. I had to go for it; sometimes they send it to me;
but not this time."
    "And now relate your meeting with the policeman on Wednesday morning, in
front of Mr. Van Burnam's house."
    She tried to tell her story, but she made awkward work of it, and they
had to ply her with questions to get at the smallest fact. But finally
she