“We are waiting on you, Mr. Harden,” said Moxlow at length.

“I should say that this is a marginal fragment of a Gas Company bond,” said the banker slowly.  “Indeed there can be no doubt on the point.  The paper is the same, and these lines in red ink are a part of the decoration that surrounds the printed matter.  No,—­there is no doubt in my mind as to what this paper is.”

“What part of the bond is it?” asked Moxlow.

“The lower right-hand corner,” replied the banker promptly.  “That is why I hesitated to identify it; with this much of the upper left-hand corner for instance, I should not have been in doubt.”

“Excused,” said Moxlow briefly.

The room became blank before John North’s eyes as he realized that a chain of circumstantial evidence was connecting him with the McBride murder.  He glanced about at a score of men—­witnesses, officials, and jury, and felt their sudden doubt of him, as intangibly but as certainly as he felt the dead presence just beyond the closed door.

“We have one other witness,” said Moxlow.

And Joe Montgomery, seeming to understand that he was this witness, promptly quitted his chair at the back of the room and, cap in hand, slouched forward and was duly sworn by the coroner.

If Mr. Montgomery had shown promptness he had also evinced uneasiness, since his fear of the law was as rock-ribbed as his respect for it.  He was not unfamiliar with courts, though never before had he appeared in the character of a witness; and he had told himself many times that day that the business in which he had allowed Mr. Gilmore to involve him carried him far behind his depths.  Now his small blue eyes slid round in their sockets somewhat fearfully until they rested on Mr. Gilmore, who had just taken up his position at Marshall Langham’s elbow.  The gambler frowned and the handy-man instantly shifted his gaze.  But the prosecuting attorney’s first questions served to give Joe a measure of ease; this was transitory, however, as he seemed to stand alone in the presence of some imminent personal danger when Moxlow asked: 

“Where were you on the night of the twenty-seventh of November at six o’clock?”

Joe stole a haunted glance in the direction of Gilmore.  Moxlow repeated his question.

“Boss, I was in White’s woodshed,” answered Montgomery.

“Tell the jury what you saw,” said Moxlow.

“Well, I seen a good deal,” evaded the handy-man, shaking his great head.

“Go on!” urged Moxlow impatiently.

“It was this way,” said Joe.  “I was lookin’ out into the alley through a crack in the small door where they put in the coal; right across the alley is the back of McBride’s store and the sheds about his yard—­” the handy-man paused and mopped his face with his ragged cap.

At the opposite end of the room Gilmore placed a hand on Langham’s arm.  The lawyer had uttered a smothered exclamation and had made a movement as if about to quit his seat.  The gambler pushed him back.