This far I had progressed when I heard steps in the hall, and a moment later the coroner ushered the six gentlemen of his jury into the room.

III

THE CORONER’S JURY

It was just as the men came in at the door, that I chanced to notice a newspaper that lay on a small table.  I picked it up with an apparent air of carelessness, and, watching my chance, unobserved by Parmalee, I put the paper away in a drawer, which I locked.

The six men, whom Coroner Monroe named over to me, by way of a brief introduction, stepped silently as they filed past the body of their late friend and neighbor.

For the jurymen had been gathered hastily from among the citizens of West Sedgwick who chanced to be passing; and as it was after eleven o’clock, they were, for the most part, men of leisure, and occupants of the handsome homes in the vicinity.

Probably none of them had ever before been called to act on a coroner’s jury, and all seemed impressed with the awfulness of the crime, as well as imbued with a personal sense of sorrow.

Two of the jurors had been mentioned to me by name, by the coachman who brought me from the station.  Horace Hamilton and Lemuel Porter were near-by neighbors of the murdered man, and; I judged from their remarks, were rather better acquainted with him than were the others.

Mr. Hamilton was of the short, stout, bald-headed type, sometimes called aldermanic.  It was plainly to be seen that his was a jocund nature, and the awe which he felt in this dreadful presence of death, though clearly shown on his rubicund face, was evidently a rare emotion with him.  He glanced round the room as if expecting to see everything there materially changed, and though he looked toward the figure of Mr. Crawford now and then, it was with difficulty, and he averted his eyes as quickly as possible.  He was distinctly nervous, and though he listened to the remarks of Coroner Monroe and the other jurors, he seemed impatient to get away.

Mr. Porter, in appearance, was almost the exact reverse of Mr. Hamilton.  He was a middle-aged man with the iron gray hair and piercing dark eyes that go to make up what is perhaps the handsomest type of Americans.  He was a tall man, strong, lean and sinewy, with a bearing of dignity and decision.  Both these men were well-dressed to the point of affluence, and, as near neighbor and intimate friends of the dead man, they seemed to prefer to stand together and a little apart from the rest.

Three more of the jurors seemed to me not especially noticeable in any way.  They looked as one would expect property owners in West Sedgwick to look.  They listened attentively to what Mr. Monroe said, asked few or no questions, and seemed appalled at the unusual task they had before them.

Only one juror impressed me unpleasantly.  That was Mr. Orville, a youngish man, who seemed rather elated at the position in which he found himself.  He fingered nearly everything on the desk; he peered carefully into the face of the victim of the crime, and he somewhat ostentatiously made notes in a small Russia leather memorandum book.