Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/40

 there were two Mr. Feltons." That evidence is conclusive. It is, so far as the audience is concerned.

"He asked where he could find Mr. Felton, and I told him perhaps at his office in the bank building," continues Sarah.

Miss Johnson is closely questioned as to the demeanor of the stranger, but she knows little of importance, as she had not seen the visitor's face. He was of medium height, she says, and his voice was pleasant. Sheriff Wilson, who has first learned of this clew, smiles patronizingly upon Ashley and the other newspaper men.

A bright-faced lad of 12 is Jimmie Howe, whom Coroner Lord next calls to the stand. Jimmie was playing on the bridge when Mr. Hathaway called to him from the bank door and asked him to take a note to Mr. Felton and to hurry about it. After he delivered the note he went home.

Prof. George Black, Edward Knapp and three others, who were in Prof. Black's room in the bank building, testify to hearing a shot about 8 o'clock, but whether before or after that hour they cannot agree.

Alden Heath, the telegraph operator at the depot, stated that some one—he was busy at his key at the time—asked somewhere around 8 o'clock when the next train left. He answered without looking up, and when he did glance at the window the inquirer was gone. It was a strange voice; of that he was positive.

George Kenney, who states that he is the station agent at Ashfield, is next sworn. His testimony establishes the probable fact that Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway boarded the midnight train for New York.

There is an involuntary but quickly suppressed exclamation from the witnesses. Miss Hathaway is trembling and Ralph Felton, who is sitting near her, is savagely biting his mustache.

As Coroner Lord calls the name of Richard Chase and the stalwart warden of the State prison at Windsor appears on the witness stand there is a hush of expectancy.

"Ernest Stanley, a convict in the Vermont State prison,