Hines was called after that. He was all slicked up in his store clothes and looked very different to what he had that day in the summer. Though anyone could see he was scared blue, the perspiration on his forehead and his big, knotty hands twiddling at his tie and his watch chain; he told his story very clear and straightforward. I think everyone was impressed by it and by Mrs. Hines, who followed him. She was a miserable looking little rat of a woman, with inflamed eyes and a long drooping nose, but she corroborated all he said, and—anyway, to me—it sounded true. Tecla Rabine, the Bohemian servant, followed, and when she walked over to sit in the chair, keyed up as I was, I came near laughing. She was a large, fat woman with a good-humored red face and little twinkling eyes, and she sure was a sight, bulging out of a black cloth suit that was the fashion when Columbus landed. On her head was a fancy straw hat with one mangy feather sticking straight up at the back, and the last touch was her face, one side still swollen out from her toothache, and looking for all the world as if she had a quid in her cheek. Though she spoke in a queer, foreign dialect, she gave her testimony very well and she told something that no one—I don’t think even the police—had heard before. While Hines was locking up she went to her room but couldn’t sleep because of the pain of her toothache. "Ach," she said, spreading her hand out near her cheek, "it was out so far—swole out, and, oh, my God—_pain_!" "Never mind your toothache," said the Coroner—"keep to the subject." "How do I hear noises if my toothache doesn’t make me to wake?" she asked, giving him a sort of indignant look. Somebody laughed, a kind of choked giggle, and I heard one of those fresh write-up chaps behind me whisper: "This is the comic relief." "Oh, you heard noises—what kind of noises?" "The scream," she said. "You heard a scream?" "Yes—one scream—far away, up toward Cresset’s Crossing. I go crazy with the pain and after Mr. Hines is come upstairs I go down to the kitchen to make——" she stopped, looking up in the air—"what you call him?"—she put her hand flat on the side of her face—"for here, to stop the pain." "Do you mean a poultice?" She grinned all over and nodded. "Yes, that’s him. I make hot water on the gas, and then, way off, I hear a scream." "What time was that?" "The kitchen clock says ten minutes past ten." "What did you do?" She looked surprised. "I make the—you know the name—for my ache." "Didn’t you go out and investigate—even go to the door?" She shook her head and gave a sort of good-humored laugh as if she was explaining things to a child. "Go out. For why? If I go out for screams I go out when the dagoes fight, and when the automobiles be pass—up and down all night, often drunken and making noises;" she shrugged her shoulders sort of careless; "I no be bothered with screams." "Did you go to bed?"