The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~— “ THAT MAY APPLE. 453 So directed, amid a silence as deep as if animation had suddenly been sus- pended in those about me, I told all the facts I have already related, care- fully avoiding, however, any mention of my suspicions as to the thief. ‘““My God !’’ exclaimed Mr. Arney. ‘‘Some burglar must have clomb into the window, in the night !’’ For a moment no one spoke. Then the judge, treating me as a witness on the stand, resumed his examination, asking, ‘‘ When you went to your room that night, who accompanied you ? ”’ ‘* Jacob Arney.’’ ‘Tell me what he did, when he and you were alone together in that room? ’”’ ‘‘He placed himself before me, and, fixing his eyes upon mine, tapped several times with his right forefinger on the wallet, which was in the left inside pocket of my vest.’’ ‘‘’Tapped on the vest, on the outside, over the wallet, you mean, do you not?’’ persisted the judge. I knew his cunning way of compelling attention to a salient point, by that sort of pretended anxiety for extreme precision of statement, and saw in Mr. Arney’s face that it had not failed of effect. But he had not driven it in far enough to suit him, even yet. ‘‘ As if to assure himself that it was there ?’’ he went on. ‘‘T will not go so far as to say that was his object. I simply state the fact.’’ ‘Then he was the last person, so far as you are aware, who could have been cognizant of the money being 1 in your possession ?”’ ‘Yes, sir.”’ ‘‘ How long was it, after he left the room, that you placed the wallet in the under mattress, before going to bed ?’”’ ‘*T do not know exactly. Probably seven or eight minutes.’ ‘Long enough for a person to have left your room, gone out of the front door, and passed around the house, to where a view of your movements, through the window, could be obtained ? ”’ ‘* Amply.”’ ‘Did you put the wallet in the middle of the mattress, or near the upper end ?’’ ‘The latter.’’ ‘Where it could have been reached by a hand cautiously slipped between the mattresses, without waking you?”’ ‘“So it seems.’’ ‘Vou are sure about the nail being in the window casing when you went to bed and on the floor when you got up? Also, about the freshly broken branch of — rose bush ?”’ ‘* Yes, sir.’ With calm *t sebes Judge McDowell eee to Mr. Arney and asked, ‘What do you deduce, sir, from the facts presented ? ’’ ‘“My God, judge,’’ answered the father, in a voice like a sob, ‘‘it all seems to point to my boy Jake. But I’d answer with my life for him. He’s COMIIGDOOKSHGE