"He was sitting here at the head of the
table. Mr. Bruce, who is the 'Co.' of the firm, had been sitting here
at his right; I was at the left. The inspector has a list of all the
others present. That door to the right was open, and Mrs. Parker and
some other ladies were in the room--"
"Mrs. Parker?" broke in Kennedy.
"Yes. Like a good many brokerage firms we have a ladies' room. Many
ladies are among our clients. We make a point of catering to them. At
that time I recollect the door was open--all the doors were open. It
was not a secret meeting. Mr. Bruce had just gone into the ladies'
department, I think to ask some of them to stand by the firm--he was
an artist at smoothing over the fears of customers, particularly
women. Just before he went in I had seen the ladies go in a group
toward the far end of the room--to look down at the line of depositors
on the street, which reached around the corner from one of the trust
companies, I thought. I was making a note of an order to send into the
outside office there on the left, and had just pushed this button
here under the table to call a boy to carry it. Mr. Parker had just
received a letter by special delivery, and seemed considerably puzzled
over it. No, I don't know what it was about. Of a sudden I saw him
start in his chair, rise up unsteadily, clap his hand on the back of
his head, stagger across the floor--like this--and fall here."
"Then what happened?"
"Why, I rushed to pick him up. Everything was confusion.
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