There was a stir among the reporters gathered in the little room where the coroner\'s inquest on the Glenmore fire was being held, when it became known that the architect was present and was to be examined. Graves\'s man, Gotz, the president of the hotel company, had finished his testimony on the previous day, having displayed a marvellous capacity for ignorance. Under advice from his employer\'s lawyer he had refused to answer every important question put to him, on the plea that it was irrelevant. The coroner had been scarcely more successful with other witnesses in his endeavors to determine the exact causes for the large loss of life in the new hotel, and his inquest was closing in failure. The yelping pack of newspapers had already raised their cry in another field; public interest in the Glenmore disaster had begun to wane; and it was generally believed that nothing would come of the inquest, not even a hearing before the Grand Jury. The whole affair appeared to be but another instance of the impotence of our system of government in getting at the real offenders against society, if they are cunning and powerful.


That morning, as the Harts were preparing to go to the hearing the doctor had called to see little Powers, for the child\'s feverish cold threatened to develop into pneumonia. After the doctor had gone, the architect went upstairs to the sickroom, where Helen was seated on the bed playing with Powers, and trying to soothe him. As he stood there silently watching them, he was tormented by a sudden fear, a terrible presentiment, that the child was to die, and thus he was to pay for his sins, and not only he, but Helen. She was to pay with him, even more than he! He tried to rid himself of the hysterical and foolish idea, but it persisted, prompted by that rough sense of retribution—an acknowledgment of supreme justice—that most men retain all their lives.

"I shall have to go now," he said to her at last. "But you mustn\'t think of coming. You must stay with the boy."

"Oh, no!" Helen exclaimed quickly, looking closely at the child. "The doctor says there is nothing to fear yet. Everything has been done that I can do, and your mother will stay with him while we are away. It won\'t be long, anyway!"

"Why do you insist upon coming?" he protested almost irritably. "It won\'t be exactly pleasant, and you may have to hang around there for hours."

"Don\'t you want me to go with you, and be there, Francis?" she asked a little sadly.

He made no reply, feeling ashamed to confess that it would make the coming scene all the more painful to know that she was hearing again in all its repulsive detail the story of his participation in the criminal construction of the Glenmore hotel.

"I think I had better go," she said finally, "and I want to go!"

She wished to be near him at the end, after he had performed this difficult act; to be near him when he came out from the hearing and walked home with the knowledge of the public disgrace preparing for him at the hands of the hungry reporters. Then, she divined, would come upon him the full bitterness of his position.


The hearing proceeded slowly, and it was the middle of the afternoon before the architect was called. The coroner, a grizzled little German-American with an important manner, put on his spectacles to examine the new witness, and the members of the coroner\'s jury, who knew that the architect had left the city immediately after the fire and were surprised at his return, evinced their curiosity by leaning forward and staring at Hart.

The first questions put to him were directed toward gaining information about the corporation that owned the building. As Mr. Hart was the treasurer of the Glenmore company, presumably he held stock in the corporation? A large amount? No, he had had some stock, but had disposed of it. Recently? Some time ago. To whom? The witness refused to answer. Had he paid cash for his stock? The witness refused to answer: he had been told by his lawyer that all such questions were not pertinent to the present inquiry. But who, then, were the chief stockholders? who were, in fact, the Glenmore company? Again the architect refused to answer; indeed, he was not sure that he knew. The coroner, baffled on this line, and knowing well enough in a general way at least from previous witnesses that nothing was to be unearthed here, turned to more vital matters.

"Mr. Hart," he said, clearing his throat and looking gravely at the witness, "I understand that you were the architect for this hotel?"

"Yes."

"You drew the plans and specifications for the Glenmore?"

"Yes, they were prepared in my office."

"Were they the same that you see here?"

The coroner motioned toward the roll of plans that had been taken from the files of the Building Department.

"Yes," the architect answered readily, merely glancing at the plans, "those were the plans for the hotel as originally prepared by me."

"Now I want to ask if the Glenmore hotel was built according to these plans?"

The architect hesitated. Every one in the room knew well enough by this time that the building destroyed by fire had not been erected according to these plans, but, nevertheless, they waited eagerly for the reply.

"Few buildings," Hart began explanatorily, "are completed in all respects according to the original plans and specifications."

"Ah, is that so?"

"But these plans were very considerably altered," the witness continued voluntarily.

"By whom? By you? With your consent, your approval?"

The architect hesitated again for a few moments, and then answered rapidly:—

"With my knowledge, certainly; yes, you may say with my consent!"

There was a little delay in the inquiry at this point, while the coroner consulted with his counsel as to the next questions that should be addressed to the witness. The architect gazed doggedly before him, keeping his eyes on the dirty window above the heads of the jury. In the dingy light of the little room, his face appeared yellow and old. His mouth twitched occasionally beneath his mustache, but otherwise he stood with composure waiting for the next question, which he knew would pierce to the heart of the matter.

"Mr. Hart," the coroner resumed, "will you describe to us what those alterations in the plans for the Glenmore were, what was the nature of them?"

The witness considered how he was to answer the question, and then he proceeded to explain the most important discrepancies between the building as it had been erected by Graves and the plans that had been filed with the Building Department. He described the use of the old walls and foundations, the reduction in the thickness of the bearing-walls and partitions, the chief substitutions of wood for steel in the upper stories, the omitting of fireproof partitions and fire-escapes, etc.,—in short, all the methods of "skinning" the construction, in which the contractor was such an adept. He referred from time to time to the plans, and used technical terms, which he was asked to explain. But the jury listened with absorbed interest, and he kept on until he had answered the question thoroughly.

"As an architect," the coroner asked, when Hart had completed his explanation, "will you state whether, in your judgment, these changes that you have described, especially the substitution of inflammable material for fireproofing and the weakening of t............