"Yet one more witness was heard that afternoon whose evidence proved of great interest. This was the assistant in the shop, Samuel Kutz. He could not throw much light on the tragedy, because he had not been out of the shop from six o'clock, when he finished his tea, to nine, when he put up the shutters and went away. But he did say that, while he was having his tea in the back parlour, old Mrs. Levison was helping in the front shop, and Mr. Reuben was there, too, doing nothing in particular, as was his custom. When witness went back to the shop Mrs. Levison went through into the back parlour, and, as soon as she had gone, he noticed that she had left her bag on the bureau behind the counter. Mr. Reuben saw it, too; he picked up the bag, and said with a laugh: 'I'd best take it up at once, the old girl don't like leaving this about.' Kutz told him he thought Mrs. Levison was in the back parlour, but Mr. Reuben was sure she had since gone upstairs. "'Anyway,' concluded witness, 'he took the bag and went upstairs with it.' "This may have been a valuable piece of evidence or it may not," the Old Man in the Corner went on with a grin, "in view of the tragedy occurring so much later, it did not appear so at the time. But it brought in an altogether fresh element of conjecture, and while the police asked for an adjournment pending fresh enquiries, the public was left to ponder over the many puzzles and contradictions that the case presented. Whichever line of argument one followed, one quickly came to a dead stop. "There was, first of all, the question whether Reuben Levison did cajole his mother into giving him the diamond stars, or whether he was peremptorily refused admittance to her room; but this was just a case of hard swearing between one party and the other, and here I must admit, that public opinion was inclined to take Reuben's version of the story. Mrs. Levison's passionate affection for her younger son was known to all her friends, and people thought that Ida Griggs had lied in order to incriminate Mrs. Aaron.