She took her place
without emotion and there she corroborated the evidence
of the servants of the hotel. To the grave questions of
the prosecution she fluently replied that the distraction
of these evenings had been cards--cards played, certainly,
for money, and that she, certainly, had won very
considerable sums from the defendant from time to time.
In Elgin the very mention of cards played for money will
cause a hush of something deeper than disapproval; there
was silence in the court at this. In producing several
banknotes for Miss Belton's identification, Mr Cruickshank
seemed to profit by the silence. Miss Belton identified
them without hesitation, as she might easily, since they
had been traced to her possession. Asked to account for
them; she stated, without winking, that they had been
paid to her by Mr Walter Ormiston at various times during
the fortnight preceding the burglary, in satisfaction of
debts at cards. She, Miss Belton, had left Elgin for
Chicago the day after the burglary. Mr Ormiston knew that
she was going. He had paid her the four fifty-dollar
notes actually traced, the night before she left, and
said. "You won't need to break these here, will you?" He
seemed anxious that she should not, but it was the merest
accident that she hadn't. In all, she had received from
Mr Ormiston four hundred and fifty dollars.
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