Van Torp, who was very strong.  With regard to the late Miss Bamberger the witness thought that Mr. Van Torp had killed her to get rid of her, because she was in possession of facts that would ruin him if they were known and because she had threatened to reveal them to her father.  If she had done so, Van Torp would have been completely in his partner’s power.  Mr. Bamberger could have made a beggar of him as the only alternative to penal servitude.  Questioned as to the nature of this information, witness said that it concerned the explosion, which had been planned by Van Torp for his own purposes.  Either in a moment of expansion, under the influence of the drug he was in the habit of taking, or else in real anxiety for her safety, he had told Miss Bamberger that the explosion would take place, warning her to remain in her home, which was situated on the Riverside Drive, very far from the scene of the disaster.  She had undoubtedly been so horrified that she had thereupon insisted upon dissolving her engagement to marry him, and had threatened to inform her father of the horrible plot.  She had never really wished to marry Van Torp, but had accepted him in deference to her father’s wishes.  He was known to be devoting himself at that very time to a well-known primadonna engaged at the Metropolitan Opera, and Miss Bamberger probably had some suspicion of this.  Witness said the motive seemed sufficient, considering that the accused had already twice taken human life.  His choice lay between killing her and falling into the power of his partner.  He had injured Mr. Bamberger, as was well known, and Mr. Bamberger was a resentful man.

The latter part of Charles Feist’s deposition was certainly more in the nature of an argument than of evidence pure and simple, and it might not be admitted in court; but Isidore Bamberger had instructed his lawyer, and the Public Prosecutor would say it all, and more also, and much better; and public opinion was roused all over the United States against the Nickel Tyrant, as Van Torp was now called.

In support of the main point there was a short note to Miss Bamberger in Van Torp’s handwriting, which had afterwards been found on her dressing-table.  It must have arrived before she had gone out to dinner.  It contained a final and urgent entreaty that she would not go to the Opera, nor leave the house that evening, and was signed with Van Torp’s initials only, but no one who knew his handwriting would be likely to doubt that the note was genuine.

There were some other scattered pieces of evidence which fitted the rest very well.  Mr. Van Torp had not been seen at his own house, nor in any club, nor down town, after he had gone out on Wednesday afternoon, until the following Friday, when he had returned to make his final arrangements for sailing the next morning.  Bamberger had employed a first-rate detective, but only one, to find out all that could be discovered about Van Torp’s movements.