Meantime Dominicus Pike, being an extremely
polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would
tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the
coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a
button, and had such a sweet pretty mouth, that Dominicus would almost
as lief have heard a love tale from it as a tale of murder.
"Gentlemen and ladies, said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the
millmen, and the factory girls, "I can assure you that some
unaccountable mistake, or, more probably, a wilful falsehood,
maliciously contrived to injure Mr. Higginbotham's credit, has excited
this singular uproar. We passed through Kimballton at three o'clock
this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the
murder had any been perpetrated. But I have proof nearly as strong
as Mr. Higginbotham's own oral testimony, in the negative. Here is a
note relating to a suit of his in the Connecticut courts, which was
delivered me from that gentleman himself. I find it dated at ten
o'clock last evening."
So saying, the lawyer exhibited the date and signature of the note,
which irrefragably proved, either that this perverse Mr.
Higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or- as some deemed the more
probable case, of two doubtful ones- that he was so absorbed in
worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death.
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