31 Bond Street

31 Bond Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: 31 Bond Street Read Online Free PDF
Author: Ellen Horan
Tags: Fiction, Historical
“Why, I am now more certain about the man,” he said waving the daguerreotype. “That woman has a much larger bosom than the one who came, and that is all I can say for certain.” The room erupted again, and the Coroner yelled for quiet.
    “We are speaking of a matter of the utmost importance,” he cried. “There was a murder under this roof, committed while that woman and her daughters were at home. We must determine if she had a role.” Clinton listened for a while longer, then edged his way out of the back of the parlor. Disgusted, he could the see the wheels at work: Connery was leading the witness and molding the investigation toward a theory that the marriage certificate was faked. The reporters were transcribing every word, readying them for the pressengines downtown, which would grease the wheels for an arrest and a criminal trial. Solving the murder quickly was a political expediency, which would quell the fears of the populace. And a hanging would be another feather in the cap of Oakey Hall.
    As Clinton stepped from the room, two men at the parlor door were whispering. “I heard the Doctor had some business on the night he was killed with a large sum of money, and none of it was found. The detectives are looking for a servant, a Negro, who drove Dr. Burdell’s carriage that evening.”
    “That seems to me a waste of effort,” replied the other. “That woman was after his money. The lady upstairs is the culprit, if you want my opinion.”
    Clinton mounted the staircase, unnoticed. Upstairs, the hall was empty. The policemen guarding the rooms had been drawn to the drama in the parlor below. Clinton passed the room where the murder occurred and saw the profuse amounts of dried blood that covered the floor and the walls. Inside the next bedroom, the corpse was spread on a bed as doctors leaned over, intently measuring the lesions with calipers. A man peered into the lens of a microscope. After a murder, the poor went straight to the morgue; when the wealthy were victims, an autopsy included the latest techniques of anatomical science to allow the tissues and organs to be delicately probed and examined. A newspaper artist sat sketching the scene for one of the illustrated newspapers.
    Clinton mounted the next flight to the third floor. An open door led to an attic, and through it he heard the voice of a police officer chastise a boy about cleaning out the chamber pots. There was no one guarding the bedrooms. The last door on the third floor was closed, and taking a guess, he turned the knob and stepped in.
    The shutters were pulled tight and the only illumination came from the coal in the brazier. His eyes adjusted and he saw a figure in an armchair.
    “Excuse me, Madame, for intruding,” he said. Her chair was close to the fire. She looked up with alarm, and he could now see the fearful and tired expression in her features. She studied him with wide eyes, wary of his presence.
    ‘Madame, please don’t be frightened. I am Henry Clinton, the lawyer that you summoned. I am with the firm of Armstrong and Clinton.”
    “Oh, thank God, you have come. I asked to speak with counsel, but I was not permitted,” she said. “The Coroner has forbidden me.”
    “You have a right to speak to counsel. It is the Coroner who is in error.”
    “What is happening?” she whispered. “I have answered so many questions and yet no one has answered mine. This is such a terrible state of affairs.” Her voice was unsteady and trembling. Clinton pulled an ottoman close and sat next to her, leaning forward so that they could speak softly without being heard.
    “You have the right to speak to counsel,” he repeated. “There is no law that says a person under house arrest in a coroner’s investigation can be denied that right. Furthermore, anything you say to me will remain in confidence.”
    “I have been in my room now since Saturday,” she said, distraught. “How long must I remain here? Why am I being detained? I
Read Online Free Pdf

Similar Books

Meeting at Midnight

Eileen Wilks

Sweet: A Dark Love Story

Kit Tunstall, R.E. Saxton

To Win the Lady

Mary Nichols

Bad Biker Stepbrother 3

Michelle Black

Lily's Cowboys

S. E. Smith

Powder of Love (I)

Summer Devon

Luck of the Draw

Kelley Vitollo

All This Time

Marie Wathen