There were three minute and different statements from the doctors about the wounds, so technically worded that nobody could understand them. Harry and Laura had also been “interviewed” and there was a statement from Philip himself, which a reporter had knocked him up out of bed at midnight to give, though how he found him, Philip never could conjecture.
What some of the journals lacked in suitable length for the occasion, they made up in encyclopaedic information about other similar murders and shootings.
The statement from Laura was not full, in fact it was fragmentary, and consisted of nine parts of, the reporter’s valuable observations to one of Laura’s, and it was, as the reporter significantly remarked, “incoherent”, but it appeared that Laura claimed to be Selby’s wife, or to have been his wife, that he had deserted her and betrayed her, and that she was going to follow him to Europe. When the reporter asked:
“What made you shoot him, Miss Hawkins?”
Laura’s only reply was, very simply,
“Did I shoot him? Do they say I shot him?”. And she would say no more.
The news of the murder was made the excitement of the day. Talk of it filled the town. The facts reported were scrutinized, the standing of the parties was discussed, the dozen different theories of the motive, broached in the newspapers, were disputed over.
During the night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns of the Union, from the Atlantic to the territories, and away up and down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions and millions of people, while the owner of it — the sweet child of years ago, the beautiful queen of Washington drawing rooms — sat shivering on her cot-bed in the darkness of a damp cell in the Tombs.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Philip’s first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day, and he found that hero very much cast down.
“I never intended to come to such a place as this, old fellow,” he said to Philip; “it’s no place for a gentleman, they’ve no idea how to treat a gentleman. Look at that provender,” pointing to his uneaten prison ration. “They tell me I am detained as a witness, and I passed the night among a lot of cutthroats and dirty rascals — a pretty witness I’d be in a month spent in such company.”
“But what under heavens,” asked Philip, “induced you to come to New York with Laura! What was it for?”
“What for? Why, she wanted me to come. I didn’t know anything about that cursed Selby. She said it was lobby business for the University. I’d no idea what she was dragging me into that confounded hotel for. I suppose she knew that the Southerners all go there, and thought she’d find her man. Oh! Lord, I wish I’d taken your advice. You might as well murder somebody and have the credit of it, as get into the newspapers the way I have. She’s pure devil, that girl. You ought to have seen how sweet she was on me; what an ass I am.”
“Well, I’m not going to dispute a poor prisoner. But the first thing is to get you out of this. I’ve brought the note Laura wrote you, for one thing, and I’ve seen your uncle, and explained the truth of the case to him. He will be here soon.”
Harry’s uncle came, with other friends, and in the course of the day made such a showing to the authorities that Harry was released, on giving bonds to appear as a witness when wanted. His spirits rose with their usual elasticity as soon as he was out of Centre Street, and he insisted on giving Philip and his friends a royal supper at Delmonico’s, an excess which was perhaps excusable in the rebound of his feelings, and which was committed with his usual reckless generosity. Harry ordered the supper, and it is perhaps needless to say that Philip paid the bill.
Neither of the young men felt like attempting to see Laura that day, and she saw no company except the newspaper reporters, until the arrival of Col. Sellers and Washington Hawkins, who had hastened to New York with all speed.
They found Laura in a cell in the upper tier of the women’s department. The cell was somewhat larger than those in the men’s department, and might be eight feet by ten square, perhaps a little longer. It was of stone, floor and all, and tile roof was oven shaped. A narrow slit in the roof admitted sufficient light, and was the only means of ventilation; when the window was opened there was nothing to prevent the rain coming in. The only means of heating being from the corridor, when the door was ajar, the cell was chilly and at this time damp. It was whitewashed and clean, but it had a slight jail odor; its only furniture was a narrow iron bedstead, with a tick of straw and some blankets, not too clean.
When Col. Sellers was conducted to this cell by the matron and looked in, his emotions quite overcame him, the tears rolled down his cheeks and his voice trembled so that he could hardly speak. Washington was unable to say anything; he looked from Laura to the miserable creatures who were walking in the corridor with unutterable disgust. Laura was alone calm and self-contained, though she was not unmoved by the sight of the grief of her friends.
“Are you comfortable, Laura?” was the first word the Colonel could get out.
“You see,” she replied. “I can’t say it’s exactly comfortable.”
“Are you cold?”
“It is pretty chilly. The stone floor is like ice. It chills me through to step on it. I have to sit on the bed.”
“Poor thing, poor thing. And can you eat any thing?”
“No, I am not hungry. I don’t know that I could eat any thing, I can’t eat that.”
“Oh dear,” continued the Colonel, “it’s dreadful. But cheer up, dear, cheer up;” and the Colonel broke down entirely.
“But,” he went on, “we’ll stand by you. We’ll do everything for you. I know you couldn’t have meant to do it, it must have been insanity, you know, or something of that sort. You never did anything of the sort before.”
Laura smiled very faintly and said,
“Yes, it was something of that sort. It’s all a whirl. He was a villain; you don’t know.”
“I’d rather have killed him myself, in a duel you know, all fair. I wish I had. But don’t you be down. We’ll get you the best counsel, the lawyers in New York can do anything; I’ve read of cases. But you must be comfortable now. We’ve brought some of your clothes, at the hotel. What else, can we get for you?”
Laura suggested that she would like some sheets for her bed, a piece of carpet to step on, and her meals sent in; and some books and writing materials if it was allowed. The Colonel and Washington promised to procure all these things, and then took their sorrowful leave, a great deal more affected than the criminal was, apparently, by her situation.
The colonel told the matron as he went away that if she would look to Laura’s comfort a little it shouldn’t be the worse for her; and to the turnkey who let them out he patronizingly said,
“You’ve got a big establishment here, a credit to the city. I’ve got a friend in there — I shall see you again, sir.”
By the next day something more of Laura’s own story began to appear in the newspapers, colored and heightened by reporters’ rhetoric.