Mrs. Balfame: A NovelAtherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
General
Mrs. Balfame: A Novel
Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
Murder -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"Frieda is five-feet-three, and this was a tall woman, taller than I,
and I am five-eight. I have seen Mrs. Balfame many times, and though I
couldn't see her face,--she had a dark veil or scarf round it,--I knew
her height and walk. Of course I watched to see what she was up to. A
few moments later I heard Balfame turn in from Dawbarn Street, singing,
like the fool he was, 'Tipperary,' and then I heard a shot. I guessed
that Balfame had got what was coming to him, and I didn't wait to see. I
tiptoed for a minute or two and then ran through the next four places at
the back, and then out toward Balfame Street, for the trolley. But
Frieda heard Mrs. Balfame when she came in. She was all out of breath,
and, when she heard a sound on the stairs, called out before she
thought, I guess, and asked Frieda if she had heard anything. But Frieda
is very cautious. She had heard the shot, but she froze stiff against
the wall when she heard Mrs. Balfame's voice, and said nothing. We told
her afterwards that she had better keep quiet for the present."
"And you think Mrs. Balfame did it?"
"Who else? I shall not be so sorry if she goes to the chair, for a woman
should always be punished the limit for killing a man, even such a man
as Balfame."
"No fear of that, but we'll have a dandy case. You tell that story to
the Grand Jury to-morrow, and you get your five hundred before night.
Now you must come and get me a word with Frieda. She won't look at me,
and of course she is in bed anyhow. But I must tell her there are a
couple of hundred in this for her if she comes through--"
"But she'll be arrested for perjury. She testified at the coroner's
inquest that she knew nothing."
"An abscessed tooth will explain her reticence on any other subject."
"Perhaps I should tell you that she came to see us to-night--last night
it is now, not?--and told my papa that Lawyer Rush had frightened her,
told her that she might be accused of the killing, that she had better
get out. But Papa advised her to go home and fear nothing, where there
was nothing to fear. He knew that if she ran away, he would be suspected
again, the girl being intimate in the family; and of course the police
would be hot on her trail at once. So, like the good sensible girl she
is, she took the advice and went home."
"All right. Come along. I'm not on the morning paper, but I promised the
story to the boys if I could get it in time."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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