“Yes.”

“Were you sure?”

“I was pretty sure, boss—­”

“Only pretty sure?”

“I thought it was Mr. North,—­it looked like Mr. North, and I thought it was him,—­I thought so then and I think so now,” said Montgomery desperately.

“Are you willing to swear positively that it was John North?” demanded Moxlow.

“No—­” said the handy-man, “No,—­I only say I thought it was John North.  He looked like John North, and I thought it was John North,—­I’d have said it was John North, but it all happened in a minute.  I wasn’t thinkin’ I’d ever have to say who it was I seen on the shed!”

“But your first distinct impression was that it was John North?”

“Yes.”

“You have known John North for years?”

“All his life.”

“Had you seen him recently?”

“I seen him Thanksgiving day along about four o’clock crossing the Square.”

“How was he dressed, did you notice?”

“He was dressed like the man in the alley,—­he had on a black derby hat and a dark brown overcoat.”

“That’s all,” said Moxlow quietly.

The coroner and the jury drew aside and began a whispered consultation.  In the vitiated atmosphere of that overcrowded room, heavy as it was with the stifling heat and palpably dense with the escaping smoke from the cracked wood-stove, men coughed nervously with every breath they drew, but their sense of physical discomfort was unheeded in their tense interest in the developments of the last few moments.  The jury’s deliberation was brief and then the coroner announced its verdict.

North heard the doctor’s halting words without at once grasping their meaning.  A long moment of silence followed, and then a man coughed, and then another, and another; this seemed to break the spell, for suddenly the room buzzed with eager whisperings.

North’s first definite emotion was one of intense astonishment.  Were they mad?  But the faces turned toward him expressed nothing beyond curiosity.  His glance shifted to the official group by the table.  These good-natured commonplace men who, whether they liked him or not, had invariably had a pleasant word for him, instantly took on an air of grim aloofness.  Conklin, the fat jolly sheriff; the coroner; Moxlow, the prosecuting attorney in his baggy trousers and seam-shining coat,—­why, he had known these men all his life, he had met them daily,—­what did they mean by suspecting him!  The mere suspicion was a monstrous wrong!  His face reddened; he glanced about him haughtily.

Now at a sign from the coroner, Conklin placed his fat hands on the arms of his chair and slowly drew himself out of its depths, then he crossed to North.  The young fellow rose, and turned a pale face toward him.

“John,” said the sheriff gently, “I have an unpleasant duty to perform.”

In spite of himself the pallor deepened on North’s face.