his mind and allowed him to leave the stand. I
felt relieved, for I had seen by Van Bult's expression that he was not
disposed to submit to further questions concerning himself and I knew
his temper would not brook insistence from the Inspector.

The night-officer, the substance of whose testimony had been told to me
in the Inspector's office as I have related, then testified. He gave his
account of the happenings of the night just as I had heard them and in
answer to a few direct questions stated positively that it was not later
than a quarter after one o'clock when White left the house that night
wearing the cap and ulster, that he had seen him wear them more than
once and knew them. That it was about a half-hour later when he had seen
a man looking in White's window and some little time later, probably
still before two o'clock, when the same man came out of the vestibule
and hurried away, turning up Sixth Avenue. That he wore a light coat and
brown derby hat and that he thought he could recognize him if he saw him
again.

The witness impressed me as honest and painstaking in his work but not
as especially clever. The effect of his evidence upon the jury and all
present was plain. They had hung on his every word with breathless
attention. To them it evidently seemed, as to the police, that they had
fixed upon the criminal.

At my request the Inspector asked the officer if the man he had seen
leaving the vestibule had White's ulster with him, and he answered
positively that he had not.

My intention, of course, was to call to the notice of the jurors its
unaccounted-for disappearance. I was not, however, encouraged to hope I
had been successful, for from the indifferent expression with which the
answer was received by most of them at least, they apparently thought it
gratuitous and I realized that it would require a lucid argument to
awaken them to its importance.

As the officer left the stand, I wondered whom the next witness would
be, and if I was ever to hear anything further of the ulster or if its
disappearance was to remain unexplained, to be ignored! I remembered,
however, Detective Miles's promise, "We will find it if it is not
destroyed," and felt sure he would keep his word, and this expectation
was promptly confirmed.

"Call Mrs. Bunce!" and one of the ladies I had previously observed came
forward. She was past middle age and plain but respectable looking.

"Where do you live?" she was asked. She ga