"I should never care to live in this place again, if I were Aurora."
The door opened before Mrs. Bulstrode had finished speaking, and the mistress of the house came towards them. She welcomed them affectionately and kindly, taking Lucy in her arms, and greeting her very tenderly; but Talbot saw that she had changed terribly within the few days that had passed since her return to Yorkshire, and his heart sank as he observed her pale face and the dark circles about her hollow eyes.
Could she have heard——? Could anybody have given her reason to suppose——?
"You are not well, Mrs. Mellish," he said, as he took her hand.
"No, not very well. This oppressive weather makes my head ache."
"I am sorry to see you looking ill. Where shall I find John?" asked Mr. Bulstrode.
Aurora's pale face flushed suddenly.
"I—I—don't know," she stammered. "He is not in the house; he has gone out—to the stables—or to the farm, I think. I'll send for him."
"No, no," Talbot said, intercepting her hand on its way to the bell. "I'll go and look for him. Lucy will be glad of a chat with you, I dare say, Aurora, and will not be sorry to get rid of me."
Lucy, with her arm about her cousin's waist, assented to this arrangement. She was grieved to see the change in Aurora's looks, the unnatural constraint of her manner.
Mr. Bulstrode walked away, hugging himself upon having done a very wise thing.
"Lucy is a great deal more likely to find out what is the matter than I am," he thought. "There is a sort of freemasonry between women, an electric affinity, which a man's presence always destroys. How deathly pale Aurora looks! Can it be possible that the trouble I expected has come so soon?"
He went to the stables, but not so much to look for John Mellish as in the hope of finding somebody intelligent enough to furnish him with a better account of the murder than any he had yet heard.
"Some one else, as well as Aurora, must have had a reason for wishing to get rid of this man," he thought. "There must have been some motive: revenge,—gain,—something which no one has yet fathomed."
He went into the stable-yard; but he had no opportunity of making his investigation, for John Mellish was standing in a listless attitude before a small forge, watching the shoeing of one of his horses. The young squire looked up with a start as he recognized Talbot, and gave him his hand, with a few straggling words of welcome. Even in that moment Mr. Bulstrode saw that there was perhaps a greater change in John's appearance than in that of Aurora. The Yorkshireman's blue eyes had lost their brightness, his step its elasticity; his face seemed sunken and haggard, and he evidently avoided meeting Talbot's eye. He lounged listlessly away from the forge, walking at his guest's side in the direction of the stable-gates; but he had the air of a man who neither knows nor cares whither he is going.
"Shall we go to the house?" he said. "You must want some luncheon after your journey." He looked at his watch as he said this. It was half-past three, an hour after the usual time for luncheon at Mellish.
"I've been in the stables all the morning," he said. "We're busy making our preparations for the York Summer."
"What horses do you run?" Mr. Bulstrode asked, politely affecting to be interested in a subject that was utterly indifferent to him, in the hope that stable-talk might rouse John from his listless apathy.
"What horses!" repeated Mr. Mellish vaguely. "I—I hardly know. Langley manages all that for me, you know; and—I—I forget the names of the horses he proposed, and——"
Talbot Bulstrode turned suddenly upon his friend, and looked him full in the face. They had left the stables by this time, and were in a shady pathway that led through a shrubbery towards the house.
"John Mellish," he said, "this is not fair towards an old friend. You have something on your mind, and you are trying to hide it from me."
The squire turned away his head.
"I have something on my mind, Talbot," he said quietly. "If you could help me, I'd ask your help more than any man's. But you can't—you can't!"
"But suppose I think Icanhelp you?" cried Mr. Bulstrode. "Suppose I mean to try and do so, whether you will or no? I think I can guess what your trouble is, John; but I thought you were a braver man than to give way under it; I thought you were just the sort of man to struggle through it nobly and bravely, and to get the better of it by your own strength of will."
"What do you mean!" exclaimed John Mellish. "You can guess—you know—you thought! Have you no mercy upon me, Talbot Bulstrode? Can't you see that I'm almost mad, and that this is no time for you to force your sympathy upon me? Do you want me to betray myself? Do you want me to betray——"
He stopped suddenly, as if the words had choked him, and, passionately stamping his foot upon the ground, walked on hurriedly, with his friend still by his side.
The dining-room looked dreary enough when the two men entered it, although the table gave promise of a very substantial luncheon; but there was no one to welcome them, or to officiate at the banquet.
John seated himself wearily in a chair at the bottom of the table.
"You had better go and see if Mrs. Bulstrode and your mistress are coming to luncheon," he said to a servant, who left the room with his master's message, and returned three minutes afterwards to say that the ladies were not coming.
The ladies were seated side by side upon a low sofa in Aurora's morning-room. Mrs. Mellish sat with her head upon her cousin's shoulder. She had never had a sister, remember; and gentle Lucy stood in place of that near and tender comforter. Talbot was perfectly right; Lucy had accomplished that which he would have failed to bring about. She had found the key to her cousin's unhappiness.
"Ceased to love you, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Bulstrode, echoing the words that Aurora had last spoken. "Impossible!"
"It is true, Lucy," answered Mrs. Mellish, despairingly. "He has ceased to love me. There is a black cloud between us now, now that all secrets are done away with. It is very bitter for me to bear, Lucy; for I thought we should be so happy and united. But—but it is only natural. He feels the degradation so much. How can he look at me without remembering who and what I am? The widow of his groom! Can I wonder that he avoids me?"
"Avoids you, dear?"
"Yes, avoids me. We have scarcely spoken a dozen words to each other since the night of our return. He was so good to me, so tender and devoted during the journey home, telling me again and again that this discovery had not lessened his love, that all the trial and horror of the past few days had only shown him the great strength of his affection; but on the night of our return, Lucy, he changed—changed suddenly and inexplicably; and now I feel that there is a gulf between us that can never be passed again. He is alienated from me for ever!"
"Aurora, all this is impossible," remonstrated Lucy. "It is your own morbid fancy, darling."
"My fancy!" cried Aurora bitterly. "Ah, Lucy, you cannot know how much I love my husband, if you think that I could be deceived in one look or tone of his. Is it my fancy that he averts his eyes when he speaks to me? Is it my fancy that his voice changes when he pronounces my name? Is it my fancy that he roams about the house like a ghost, and paces up and down his room half the night through? If these things are my fancy, Heaven have mercy upon me, Lucy; for I must be going mad."
Mrs. Bulstrode started as she looked at her cousin. Could it be possible that all the trouble and confusion of the past week or two had indeed unsettled this poor girl's intellect?
"My poor Aurora!" she murmured, smoothing the heavy hair away from her cousin's tearful eyes: "my poor darling! how is it possible that John should change towards you? He loved you so dearly, so devotedly; surely nothing could alienate him from you."
"I used to think so, Lucy," Aurora murmured in a low, heart-broken voice; "I used to think nothing could ever come to part us. He said he would follow me to the uttermost end of the world; he said that no obstacle on earth should ever separate us; and now——"
She could not finish the sentence, for she broke into convulsive sobs, and hid her face upon her cousin's shoulder, staining Mrs. Bulstrode's pretty silk dress with her hot tears.
"Oh, my love, my love!" she cried piteously, "why didn't I run away and hide myself from you? why didn't I trust to my first instinct, and run away from you for ever? Any suffering would be better than this! any suffering would be better than this!"
Her passionate grief merged into a fit of hysterical weeping, in which she was no longer mistress of herself. She had suffered for the past few days more bitterly than she had ever suffered yet. Lucy understood all that. She was one of those people whose tenderness instinctively comprehends the griefs of others. She knew how to treat her cousin; and in less than an hour after this emotional outbreak Aurora was lying on her bed, pale and exhausted, but sleeping peacefully. She had carried the burden of her sorrow in silence during the past few days, and had spent sleepless nights in brooding over her trouble. Her conversation with Lucy had unconsciously relieved her, and she slumbered calmly after the storm. Lucy sat by the bed watching the sleeper for some time, and then stole on tiptoe from the room.
She went, of course, to tell her husband all that had passed, and to take counsel from his sublime wisdom.
She found Talbot in the drawing-room alone; he had eaten a dreary luncheon in John's company, and had been hastily left by his host immediately after the meal. There had been no sound of carriage-wheels upon the gravelled drive all that morning; there had been no callers at Mellish Park since John's return; for a horrible scandal had spread itself throughout the length and breadth of the county, and those who spoke of the young squire and his wife talked in solemn under-tones, and gravely demanded of each other whether some serious step should not be taken about the business which was uppermost in every body's mind.
Lucy told Talbot all that Aurora had said to her. This was no breach of confidence in the young wife's code of morality; for were not she and her husband immutably one, and howcouldshe have any secret from him?
"I thought so!" Mr. Bulstrode said, when Lucy had finished her story.
"You thought what, dear?"
"That the breach between John and Aurora was a serious one. Don't look so sorrowful, my darling. It must be our business to reunite these divided lovers. You shall comfort Aurora, Lucy; and I'll look after John."
Talbot Bulstrode kissed his little wife, and went straight away upon his friendly errand. He found John Mellish in his own room,—the room in which Aurora had written to him upon the day of her flight; the room from which the murderous weapon had been stolen by some unknown hand. John had hidden the rusty pistol in one of the locked drawers of his Davenport; but it was not to be supposed that the fact of its discovery could be locked up or hidden away.Thathad been fully discussed in the servants' hall; and who shall doubt that it had travelled further, percolating through some of those sinuous channels which lead away from every household?
"I want you to come for a walk with me, Mr. John Mellish," said Talbot, imperatively; "so put on your hat, and come into the park. You are the most agreeable gentleman I ever had the honour to visit, and the attention you pay your guests is really something remarkable."
Mr. Mellish made no reply to this speech. He stood before his friend, pale, silent, and sullen. He was no more like the hearty Yorkshire squire whom we have known, than he was like Viscount Palmerston or Lord Clyde. He was transformed out of himself by some great trouble that was preying upon his mind; and being of a transparent and childishly truthful disposition, was unable to disguise his anguish.
"John, John!" cried Talbot, "we were little boys together at Rugby, and have backed each other in a dozen childish fights. Is it kind of you to withhold your friendship from me now, when I have come here on purpose to be a friend to you—to you and to Aurora?"
John Mellish turned away his head as his friend mentioned that familiar name; and the gesture was not lost upon Mr. Bulstrode.
"John, why do you refuse to trust me?"
"I don't refuse. I——Why did you come to this accursed house?" cried John Mellish, passionately; "why did you come here, Talbot Bulstrode? You don't know the blight that is upon this place, and those who live in it, or you would have no more come here than you would willingly go to a plague-stricken city. Do you know that since I came back from London not a creature has called at this house? Do you know that when I and—and—my wife—went to church on Sunday, the people we knew sneaked away from our path as if we had just recovered from typhus fever? Do you know that the cursed gaping rabble come from Doncaster to stare over the park-palings, and that this house is a show to half the West Riding? Why do you come here? You will be stared at, and grinned at, and scandalized,—you, who——Go back to London to-night, Talbot, if you don't want to drive me mad."
"Not till you trust me with your troubles, John," answered Mr. Bulstrode firmly. "Put on your hat, and come out with me. I want you to show me the spot where the murder was done."
"You may get some one else to show it you," muttered John, sullenly; "I'll not go there!"
"John Mellish!" cried Talbot suddenly, "am I to think you a coward and a fool? By the heaven that's above me, I shall think so if you persist in this nonsense. Come out into the park with me; I have the claim of past friendship upon you, and I'll not have that claim set aside by any folly of yours."
The two men went out upon the lawn, John complying moodily enough with his friend's request, and walked silently across the park towards that portion of the wood in which James Conyers had met his death. They had reached one of the loneliest and shadiest avenues in this wood, and were, in fact, close against the spot from which Samuel Prodder had watched his niece and her companion on the night of the murder, when Talbot stopped suddenly, and laid his hand on the squire's shoulder.
"John," he said, in a determined tone, "before we go to look at the place where this bad man died, you must tell me your trouble."
Mr. Mellish drew himself up proudly, and looked at the speaker with gloomy defiance lowering upon his face.
"I will tell no man that which I do not choose to tell," he said firmly; and then with a sudden change that was terrible to see, he cried impetuously, "Why do you torment me, Talbot? I tell you that I can't trust you—I can't trust any one upon earth. If—if I told you—the horrible thought that—if I told you, it would be your duty to—I—Talbot, Talbot, have pity upon me—let me alone—go away from me—I——"
Stamping furiously, as if he would have trampled down the cowardly despair for which he despised himself, and beating his forehead with his clenched fists, John Mellish turned away from his friend, and, leaning against the gnarled branch of a great oak, wept aloud. Talbot Bulstrode waited till the paroxysm had passed away before he spoke again; but when his friend had grown calmer, he linked his arm about him, and drew him away almost as tenderly as if the big Yorkshireman had been some sorrowing woman, sorely in need of manly help and comfort.
"John, John," he said gravely, "thank God for this; thank God for anything that breaks the ice between us. I know what your trouble is, poor old friend, and I know that you have no cause for it. Hold up your head, man, and look straightforward to a happy future. I know the black thought that has been gnawing at your poor foolish manly heart:you think that Aurora murdered the groom!"
John Mellish, started, shuddering convulsively.
"No, no," he gasped; "who said so—who said——?"
"You think this, John," continued Talbot Bulstrode; "and you do her the most grievous wrong that ever yet was done to woman; a more shameful wrong than I committed when I thought that Aurora Floyd had been guilty of some base intrigue."
"You don't know——" stammered John.
"I don't know! I know all, and foresaw trouble for you, beforeyousaw the cloud that was in the sky. But I never dreamt of this. I thought the foolish country people would suspect your wife, as it always pleases people to try and fix a crime upon the person in whom that crime would be more particularly atrocious. I was prepared for this; but to think that you—you, John, who should have learned to know your wife by this time—to think that you should suspect the woman you have loved of a foul and treacherous murder!"
"How do we know that the—that the man was murdered?" cried John vehemently. "Who says that the deed was treacherously done? He may have goaded her beyond endurance, insulted her generous pride, stung her to the very quick, and in the madness of her passion—having that wretched pistol in her possession—she may——"
"Stop!" interrupted Talbot. "What pistol? you told me the weapon had not been found."
"It was found upon the night of our return."
"Yes; but why do you associate this weapon with Aurora? What do you mean by saying that the pistol was in her possession?"
"Because—O my God! Talbot, why do you wring these things from me?"
"For your own good, and for the justification of an innocent woman; so help me, Heaven!" answered Mr. Bulstrode. "Do not be afraid to be candid with me, John. Nothing would ever make me believe Aurora Mellish guilty of this crime."
The Yorkshireman turned suddenly towards his friend, and leaning upon Talbot Bulstrode's shoulder, wept for the second time during that woodland ramble.
"May God in heaven bless you for this, Talbot!" he cried passionately. "Ah, my love, my dear, what a wretch I have been to you! but Heaven is my witness that, even in my worst agony of doubt and horror, my love has never lessened. It never could!—it never could!"
"John, old fellow," said Mr. Bulstrode, cheerfully, "perhaps, instead of talking this nonsense, which leaves me entirely in the dark as to everything that has happened since you left London, you will do me the favour to enlighten me as to the cause of these foolish suspicions."
They had reached the ruined summer-house and the pool of stagnant water, on the margin of which James Conyers had met with his death. Mr. Bulstrode seated himself upon a pile of broken timber, while John Mellish paced up and down the smooth patch of turf between the summer-house and the water, and told, disjointedly enough, the story of the finding of the pistol, which had been taken out of his room.
"I saw that pistol upon the day of the murder," he said. "I took particular notice of it; for I was cleaning my guns that morning, and I left them all in confusion while I went down to the lodge to see the trainer. When I came back—I——"
"Well, what then?"
"Aurora had been setting my guns in order."
"You argue, therefore, that your wife took the pistol?"
John looked piteously at his friend; but Talbot's grave smile reassured him.
"No one else had permission to go into the room," he answered. "I keep my papers and accounts there, you know; and it's an understood thing that none of the servants are allowed to go there, except when they clean the room."
"To be sure! But the room is not locked, I suppose?"
"Locked! of course not!"
"And the windows—which open to the ground—are sometimes left open, I dare say?"
"Almost always in such weather as this."
"Then, my dear John, it may be just possible that some one who had not permission to enter the room did, nevertheless, enter it, for the purpose of abstracting this pistol. Have you asked Aurora why she took upon herself to rearrange your guns?—she had never done such a thing before, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, very often. I'm rather in the habit of leaving them about after cleaning them; and my darling understands all about them as well as I do. She has often put them away for me."
"Then there was nothing particular in her doing so upon the day of the murder. Have you asked her how long she was in your room, and whether she can remember seeing this particular pistol, among others?'
"Ask her!" exclaimed John; "how could I ask her, when——"
"When you have been mad enough to suspect her. No, my poor old friend; you made the same mistake that I committed at Felden. You presupposed the guilt of the woman you loved; and you were too great a coward to investigate the evidence upon which your suspicions were built. Had I been wise enough, instead of blindly questioning this poor bewildered girl, to tell her plainly what it was that I suspected, the incontrovertible truth would have flashed out of her angry eyes, and one indignant denial would have told me how basely I had wronged her. You shall not make the mistake that I made, John. You must go frankly and fearlessly to the wife you love, tell her of the suspicion that overclouds her fame, and implore her to help you to the uttermost of her power in unravelling the mystery of this man's death. The assassinmustbe found, John; for so long as he remains undiscovered, you and your wife will be the victims of every penny-a-liner who finds himself at a loss for a paragraph."
"Yes," Mr. Mellish answered bitterly, "the papers have been hard at it already; and there's been a fellow hanging about the place for the last few days whom I've had a very strong inclination to thrash. Some reporter, I suppose, come to pick up information."
"I suppose so," Talbot answered thoughtfully; "what sort of a man was he?"
"A decent-looking fellow enough; but a Londoner, I fancy, and—stay!" exclaimed John suddenly, "there's a man coming towards us from the turnstile; and unless I'm considerably mistaken, it's the very fellow."
Mr. Mellish was right.
The wood was free to any foot-passenger who pleased to avail himself of the pleasant shelter of spreading beeches, and the smooth carpet of mossy turf, rather than tramp wearily upon the dusty highway.
The stranger advancing from the turnstile was a decent-looking person, dressed in dark tight-fitting clothes, and making no unnecessary or ostentatious display of linen, for his coat was buttoned tightly to the chin. He looked at Talbot and John as he passed them,—not insolently, or even inquisitively, but with one brightly rapid and searching glance, which seemed to take in the most minute details in the appearance of both gentlemen. Then, walking on a few paces, he stopped and looked thoughtfully at the pond, and the bank above it.
"This is the place, I think, gentlemen?" he said, in a frank and rather free-and-easy manner.
Talbot returned his look with interest.
"If you mean the place where the murder was committed, it is," he said.
"Ah, I understood so," answered the stranger, by no means abashed.
He looked at the bank, regarding it, now from one point, now from another, like some skilful upholsterer taking the measure of a piece of furniture. Then walking slowly round the pond, he seemed to plumb the depth of the stagnant water with his small gray eyes.
Talbot Bulstrode watched the man as he took this mental photograph of the place. There was a business-like composure in his manner, which was entirely different to the eager curiosity of a scandalmonger and a busybody.
Mr. Bulstrode rose as the man walked away, and went slowly after him.
"Stop where you are, John," he said, as he left his companion; "I'll find out who this fellow is."
He walked on, and overtook the stranger at about a hundred yards from the pond.
"I want to have a few words with you before you leave the Park, my friend," he said quietly: "unless I'm very much mistaken, you are a member of the detective police, and come here with credentials from Scotland Yard."
The man shook his head, with a quiet smile.
"I'm not obliged to tell everybody my business," he answered coolly; "this footpath is a public thoroughfare, I believe?"
"Listen to me, my good fellow," said Mr. Bulstrode. "It may serve your purpose to beat about the bush; but I have no reason to do so, and therefore may as well come to the point at once. If you are sent here for the purpose of discovering the murderer of James Conyers, you can be more welcome to no one than to the master of that house."
He pointed to the Gothic chimneys as he spoke.
"If those who employ you have promised you a liberal reward, Mr. Mellish will willingly treble the amount they may have offered you. He would not give you cause to complain of his liberality, should you succeed in accomplishing the purpose of your errand. If you think you will gain anything by underhand measures, and by keeping yourself dark, you are very much mistaken; for no one can be better able or more willing to give you assistance in this than Mr. and Mrs. Mellish."
The detective—for he had tacitly admitted the fact of his profession—looked doubtfully at Talbot Bulstrode.
"You're a lawyer, I suppose?" he said.
"I am Mr. Talbot Bulstrode, member for Penruthy, and the husband of Mrs. Mellish's first cousin."
The detective bowed.
"My name is Joseph Grimstone, of Scotland Yard and Ball's Pond," he said; "and I certainly see no objection to our working together. If Mr. Mellish is prepared to act on the square, I'm prepared to act with him, and to accept any reward his generosity may offer. But if he or any friend of his wants to hoodwink Joseph Grimstone, he'd better think twice about the game before he tries it on; that's all."
Mr. Bulstrode took no notice of this threat, but looked at his watch before replying to the detective.
"It's a quarter-past six," he said. "Mr. Mellish dines at seven. Can you call at the house, say at nine, this evening? You shall then have all the assistance it is in our power to give you."
"Certainly, sir. At nine this evening."
"We shall be prepared to receive you. Good afternoon."
Mr. Grimstone touched his hat, and strolled quietly away under the shadow of the beeches, while Talbot Bulstrode walked back to rejoin his friend.
It may be as well to take this opportunity of stating the reason of the detective's early appearance at Mellish Park. Upon the day of the inquest, and consequently the next day but one after the murder, two anonymous letters, worded in the same manner, and written by the same hand, were received respectively by the head of the Doncaster constabulary and by the chief of the Scotland-Yard detective confederacy.
These anonymous communications—written in a hand which, in spite of all attempt at disguise, still retained the spidery peculiarities of feminine caligraphy—pointed, by a sinuous and inductive process of reasoning, at Aurora Mellish as the murderess of James Conyers. I need scarcely say that the writer was no other than Mrs. Powell. She has disappeared for ever from my story, and I have no wish to blacken a character which can ill afford to be slandered. The ensign's widow actually believed in the guilt of her beautiful patroness. It is so easy for an envious woman to believe horrible things of the more prosperous sister whom she hates.
"We are on the verge of a precipice," Talbot Bulstrode thought, as he prepared for dinner in the comfortable dressing-room allotted to him at Mellish,—"we are on the verge of a precipice, and nothing but a bold grapple with the worst can save us. Any reticence, any attempt at keeping back suspicious facts, or hushing up awkward coincidences would be fatal to us. If John had made away with this pistol with which the deed was done, he would have inevitably fixed a most fearful suspicion upon his wife. Thank God I came here to-day! We must look matters straight in the face, and our first step must be to secure Aurora's help. So long as she is silent as to her share in the events of that day and night, there is a link missing in the chain, and we are all at sea. John must speak to her to-night; or perhaps it will be better for me to speak."
Mr. Bulstrode went down to the drawing-room, where he found his friend pacing up and down, solitary and wretched.
"The ladies are going to dine up-stairs," said Mr. Mellish, as Talbot joined him. "I have just had a message to say so. Why does she avoid me, Talbot? why does my wife avoid me like this? We have scarcely spoken to each other for days."
"Shall I tell you why, you foolish John?" answered Mr. Bulstrode. "Your wife avoids you because you have chosen to alienate yourself from her, and because she thinks, poor girl, that she has lost your affection. She fancies that the discovery of her first marriage has caused a revulsion of feeling, and that you no longer love her."
"No longer love her!" cried John. "O my God! she ought to know that, if I could give my life for her fifty times over, I would do it, to save her one pang. I would do it, so help me, Heaven, though she were the guiltiest wretch that had ever crawled the earth!"
"But no one asks you to do anything of the kind," said Mr. Bulstrode. "You are only requested to be reasonable and patient, to put a proper trust in Providence, and to be guided by people who are rather less impetuous than your ungovernable self."
"I will do what you like, Talbot; I will do what you like."
Mr. Mellish pressed his friend's hand. Had he ever thought, when he had seen Talbot an accepted lover at Felden, and had hated him with a savage and wild Indian-like fury, that he would come to be thus humbly grateful to him; thus pitifully dependent upon his superior wisdom? He wrung the young politician's hand, and promised to be as submissive as a child beneath his guidance.
In compliance, therefore, with Talbot's commands, he ate a few morsels of fish, and drank a couple of glasses of sherry; and having thus gone through a show of dining, he went with Mr. Bulstrode to seek Aurora.
She was sitting with her cousin in the morning-room, looking terribly pale in the dim dusk of the August evening,—pale and shadowy in her loose white muslin dress. She had only lately risen after a long feverish slumber, and had pretended to dine out of courtesy to her guest. Lucy had tried in vain to comfort her cousin. This passionate, impetuous, spoiled child of fortune and affection refused all consolation, crying out again and again that she had lost her husband's love, and that there was nothing left for her upon earth.
But in the very midst of one of these despondent speeches, she sprang up from her seat, erect and trembling, with her parted lips quivering and her dark eyes dilated, startled by the sound of a familiar step, which within the last few days had been seldom heard in the corridor outside her room. She tried to speak, but her voice failed her; and in another moment the door had been dashed open by a strong hand, and her husband stood in the room, holding out his arms and calling to her.
"Aurora! Aurora! my own dear love, my own poor darling!"
She was folded to his breast before she knew that Talbot Bulstrode stood close behind him.
"My own darling," John said, "my own dearest, you cannot tell how cruelly I have wronged you. But, oh, my love, the wrong has brought unendurable torture with it. My poor guiltless girl! how could I—how could I——But I was mad, and it was only when Talbot——"
Aurora lifted her head from her husband's breast and looked wonderingly into his face, utterly unable to guess the meaning of these broken sentences.
Talbot laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. "You will frighten your wife if you go on in this manner, John," he said quietly. "You mustn't take any notice of his agitation, my dear Mrs. Mellish. There is no cause, believe me, for all this outcry. Will you sit down by Lucy and compose yourself? It is eight o'clock, and between this and nine we have some serious business to settle."
"Serious business!" repeated Aurora vaguely. She was intoxicated by her sudden happiness. She had no wish to ask any explanation of the mystery of the past few days. It was all over, and her faithful husband loved her as devotedly and tenderly as ever. How could she wish to know more than this?
She seated herself at Lucy's side, in obedience to Talbot; but she still held her husband's hand, she still looked in his face, for the moment most supremely unconscious that the scheme of creation included anything beyond this stalwart Yorkshireman.
Talbot Bulstrode lighted the lamp upon Aurora's writing-table,—a shaded lamp, which only dimly illuminated the twilight room,—and then, taking his seat near it, said gravely—
"My dear Mrs. Mellish, I shall be compelled to say something which I fear may inflict a terrible shock upon you. But this is no time for reservation; scarcely a time for ordinary delicacy. Will you trust in the love and friendship of those who are around you, and promise to bear this new trial bravely? I believe and hope that it will be a very brief one."
Aurora looked wonderingly at her husband, not at Talbot.
"A new trial?" she said inquiringly.
"You know that the murderer of James Conyers has not yet been discovered?" said Mr. Bulstrode.
"Yes, yes; but what of that?"
"My dear Mrs. Mellish, my dear Aurora! the world is apt to take a morbid delight in horrible ideas. There are some people who think that you are guilty of this crime!"
"I!"
She rose suddenly from her low seat, and turned her face towards the lamp-light, with a look of such blank amazement, such utter wonder and bewilderment, that had Talbot Bulstrode until that moment believed her guilty, he must thenceforth and for ever have been firmly convinced of her innocence.
"I!" she repeated.
Then turning to her husband, with a sudden alteration in her face, that blank amazement changing to a look of sorrow, mingled with reproachful wonder, she said in a low voice—
"Youthought this of me, John;youthought this!"
John Mellish bowed his head before her.
"I did, my dear," he murmured—"God forgive me for my wicked folly—I did think this, Aurora. But I pitied you, and was sorry for you, my own dear love; and when I thought it most, I would have died to save you from shame or sorrow. My love has never changed, Aurora; my love has never changed."
She gave him her hand, and once more resumed her seat. She sat for some moments in silence, as if trying to collect her thoughts, and to understand the meaning of this strange scene.
"Who suspects me of this crime?" she said presently. "Has any one else suspected me? Any one besides—my husband?"
"I can scarcely tell you, my dear Mrs. Mellish," answered Talbot; "when an event of this kind takes place, it is very difficult to say who may or may not be suspected. Different persons set up different theories: one man writes to a newspaper to declare that, in his opinion, the crime was committed by some person within the house; another man writes as positively to another paper, asserting that the murderer was undoubtedly a stranger. Each man brings forward a mass of suppositious evidence in favour of his own argument, and each thinks a great deal more of proving his own cleverness than of furthering the ends of justice. No shadow of slander must rest upon this house, or upon those who live in it. It is necessary, therefore, imperatively necessary, that the real murderer should be found. A London detective is already at work. These men are very clever; some insignificant circumstance, forgotten by those most interested in discovering the truth, would often be enough to set a detective on the right track. This man is coming here at nine o'clock; and we are to give him all the assistance we can. Will you help us, Aurora?"
"Help you! How?"
"By telling us all you know of the night of the murder. Why were you in the wood that night?"
"I was there to meet the dead man."
"For what purpose?"
Aurora was silent for some moments, and then looking up with a bold, half-defiant glance, she said suddenly—
"Talbot Bulstrode, before you blame or despise me, remember how the tie that bound me to this man had been broken. The law would have set me free from him, if I had been brave enough to appeal to the law; and was I to suffer all my life because of the mistake I had made in not demanding a release from the man whose gross infidelity entitled me to be divorced from him? Heaven knows I had borne with him patiently enough. I had endured his vulgarity, his insolence, his presumption; I had gone penniless while he spent my father's money in a gambling-booth on a race-course, and dinnerless while he drank champagne with cheats and reprobates. Remember this, when you blame me most. I went into the wood that night to meet him for the last time upon this earth. He had promised me that he would emigrate to Australia upon the payment of a certain sum of money."
"And you went that night to pay it to him?" cried Talbot eagerly.
"I did. He was insolent, as he always was; for he hated me for having discovered that which shut him out from all claim upon my fortune. He hated himself for his folly in not having played his cards better. Angry words passed between us; but it ended in his declaring his intention of starting for Liverpool early the next morning, and—"
"You gave him the money?"
"Yes."
"But tell me,—tell me, Aurora," cried Talbot, almost too eager to find words, "how long had you left him when you heard the report of the pistol?'
"Not more than ten minutes."
"John Mellish," exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode, "was there any money found upon the person of the murdered man?"
"No—yes; I believe there was a little silver," Mr. Mellish answered vaguely.
"A little silver!" cried Talbot contemptuously. "Aurora, what was the sum you gave James Conyers upon the night of his death?"
"Two thousand pounds."
"In a cheque?"
"No; in notes."
"And that money has never been heard of since?"
No; John Mellish declared that he had never heard of it.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Bulstrode; "we shall find the murderer."
"What do you mean?" asked John.
"Whoever killed James Conyers, killed him in order to rob him of the money that he had upon him at the time of his death."
"But who could have known of the money?" asked Aurora.
"Anybody; the pathway through the wood is a public thoroughfare. Your conversation with the murdered man may have been overheard. You talked about the money, I suppose?"
"Yes."
"Thank God, thank God! Ask your wife's pardon for the cruel wrong you have done her, John, and then come downstairs with me. It's past nine, and I dare say Mr. Grimstone is waiting for us. But stay,—one word, Aurora. The pistol with which this man was killed was taken from this house, from John's room. Did you know that?"
"No; how should I know it?" Mrs. Mellish asked naïvely.
"That fact is against the theory of the murder having been committed by a stranger. Is there any one of the servants whom you could suspect of such a crime, John?"
"No," answered Mr. Mellish decisively; "not one."
"And yet the person who committed the murder must have been the person who stole your pistol. You, John, declare that very pistol to have been in your possession upon the morning before the murder."
"Most certainly."
"You put John's guns back into their places upon that morning, Aurora," said Mr. Bulstrode; "do you remember seeing that particular pistol?"
"No," Mrs. Mellish answered; "I should not have known it from the others."
"You did not find any of the servants in the room that morning?"
"Oh, no," Aurora answered immediately; "Mrs. Powell came into the room while I was there. She was always following me about; and I suppose she had heard me talking to——"
"Talking to whom?"
"To James Conyers's hanger-on and messenger, Stephen Hargraves—the 'Softy,' as they call him."
"You were talking to him? Then this Stephen Hargraves was in the room that morning?"
"Yes; he brought me a message from the murdered man, and took back my answer."
"Was he alone in the room?"
"Yes; I found him there when I went in, expecting to find John. I dislike the man,—unjustly, perhaps; for he is a poor, half-witted creature, who I dare say scarcely knows right from wrong; and I was angry at seeing him. He must have come in through the window."
A servant entered the room at this moment. He came to say that Mr. Grimstone had been waiting below for some time, and was anxious to see Mr. Bulstrode.
Talbot and John went down-stairs together. They found Mr. Joseph Grimstone sitting at a table in a comfortable room that had lately been sacred to Mrs. Powell, with the shaded lamp drawn close to his elbow, and a greasy little memorandum-book open before him. He was thoughtfully employed making notes in this memorandum-book with a stumpy morsel of lead-pencil—when do these sort of people begin their pencils, and how is it that they always seem to have arrived at the stump?—when the two gentlemen entered.
John Mellish leaned against the mantel-piece, and covered his face with his hand. For any practical purpose, he might as well have been in his own room. He knew nothing of Talbot's reason for this interview with the detective officer. He had no shadowy idea, no growing suspicion shaping itself slowly out of the confusion and obscurity, of the identity of the murderer. He only knew that his Aurora was innocent; that she had indignantly refuted his base suspicion; and that he had seen the truth, radiant as the light of inspiration, shining out of her beautiful face.
Mr. Bulstrode rang, and ordered a bottle of sherry for the delectation of the detective; and then, in a careful and business-like manner, he recited all that he had been able to discover upon the subject of the murder. Joseph Grimstone listened very quietly, following Talbot Bulstrode with a shining track of lead-pencil hieroglyphics over the greasy paper, just as Tom Thumb strewed crumbs of bread in the forest-pathway, with a view to his homeward guidance. The detective only looked up now and then to drink a glass of sherry, and smack his lips with the quiet approval of a connoisseur. When Talbot had told all that he had to tell, Mr. Grimstone thrust the memorandum-book into a very tight breast-pocket, and taking his hat from under the chair upon which he had been seated, prepared to depart.
"If this information about the money is quite correct, sir," he said, "I think I can see my way through the affair; that is, if we can have the numbers of the notes. I can't stir a peg without the numbers of the notes."
Talbot's countenance fell. Here was a death-blow. Was it likely that Aurora, that impetuous and unbusiness-like girl, had taken the numbers of the notes, which, in utter scorn and loathing, she had flung as a last bribe to the man she hated?
"I'll go and make inquiries of Mrs. Mellish," he said; "but I fear it is scarcely likely I shall get the information you want."
He left the room; but five minutes afterwards returned triumphant.
"Mrs. Mellish had the notes from her father," he said. "Mr. Floyd took a list of the numbers before he gave his daughter the money."
"Then if you'll be so good as to drop Mr. Floyd a line, asking for that list by return of post, I shall know how to act," replied the detective. "I haven't been idle this afternoon, gentlemen, any more than you. I went back after I parted with you, Mr. Bulstrode, and had another look at the pond. I found something to pay me for my trouble."
He took from his waistcoat-pocket a small object, which he held between his finger and thumb.
Talbot and John looked intently at this dingy object, but could make nothing out of it. It seemed to be a mere disc of rusty metal.
"It's neither more nor less than a brass button," the detective said, with a smile of quiet superiority; "maker's name, Crosby, Birmingham. There's marks upon it which seem uncommon like blood; and unless I'm very much mistaken, it'll be found to fit pretty correct into the barrel of your pistol, Mr. Mellish. So what we've got to do is to find a gentleman wearin', or havin' in his possession, a waistcoat with buttons by Crosby, Birmingham, and one button missin'; and if we happen to find the same gentleman changin' one of the notes that Mr. Floyd took the numbers of, I don't think we shall beveryfar off layin' our hands on the man we want."
With which oracular speech Mr. Grimstone departed, charged with a commission to proceed forthwith to Doncaster, to order the immediate printing and circulating of a hundred bills, offering a reward of 200l.for such information as would lead to the apprehension of the murderer of James Conyers. This reward to be given by Mr. Mellish, and to be over and above any reward offered by the Government.
Mr. Matthew Harrison and Captain Prodder were both accommodated with suitable entertainment at the sign of the Crooked Rabbit; but while the dog-fancier appeared to have ample employment in the neighbourhood,—employment of a mysterious nature, which kept him on the tramp all day, and sent him home at sunset, tired and hungry, to his hostelry,—the sailor, having nothing whatever to do, and a great burden of care upon his mind, found the time hang very heavily upon his hands; although, being naturally of a social and genial temper, he made himself very much at home in his strange quarters. From Mr. Harrison the captain obtained much information respecting the secret of all the sorrow that had befallen his niece. The dog-fancier had known James Conyers from his boyhood; had known his father, the "swell" coachman of a Brighton Highflyer, or Sky-rocket, or Electric, and the associate of the noblemen and gentlemen of that princely era, in which it was the right thing for the youthful aristocracy to imitate the manners of Mr. Samuel Weller, senior. Matthew Harrison had known the trainer in his brief and stormy married life, and had accompanied Aurora's first husband as a humble dependent and hanger-on in that foreign travel which had been paid for out of Archibald Floyd's cheque-book. The honest captain's blood boiled as he heard that shameful story of treachery and extortion practised upon an ignorant school-girl. Oh, that he had been by to avenge those outrages upon the child of the dark-eyed sister he had loved! His rage against the undiscovered murderer of the dead man was redoubled when he remembered how comfortably James Conyers had escaped from his vengeance.
Mr. Stephen Hargraves, the "Softy," took good care to keep out of the way of the Crooked Rabbit, having no wish to encounter Captain Prodder a second time; but he still hung about the town of Doncaster, where he had a lodging up a wretched alley, hidden away behind one of the back streets,—a species of lair common to every large town, only to be found by the inhabitants of the locality.
The "Softy" had been born and bred, and had lived his life, in such a narrow radius, that the uprooting of one of the oaks in Mellish Park could scarcely be a slower or more painful operation than the severing of those ties of custom which held the boorish hanger-on to the neighbourhood of the household in which he had so long been an inmate. But now that his occupation at Mellish Park was for ever gone, and his patron, the trainer, dead, he was alone in the world, and had need to look out for a fresh situation.
But he seemed rather slow to do this. He was not a very prepossessing person, it must be remembered, and there were not very many services for which he was fitted. Although upwards of forty years of age, he was generally rather loosely described as a young man who understood all about horses; and this qualification was usually sufficient to procure for any individual whatever some kind of employment in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. The "Softy" seemed, however, rather to keep aloof from the people who knew and could have recommended him; and when asked why he did not seek a situation, gave evasive answers, and muttered something to the effect that he had saved a little bit of money at Mellish Park, and had no need to come upon the parish if he was out of work for a week or two.
John Mellish was so well known as a generous paymaster, that this was a matter of surprise to no one. Steeve Hargraves had no doubt had pretty pickings in that liberal household. So the "Softy" went his way unquestioned, hanging about the town in a lounging, uncomfortable manner, sitting in some public-house taproom half the day and night, drinking his meagre liquor in a sullen and unsocial style peculiar to himself, and consorting with no one.
He made his appearance at the railway station one day, and groped helplessly through all the time-tables pasted against the walls: but he could make nothing of them unaided, and was at last compelled to appeal to a good-tempered-looking official who was busy on the platform.
"I want th' Liverpool trayuns," he said, "and I can find naught about 'em here."
The official knew Mr. Hargraves, and looked at him with a stare of open wonder.
"My word, Steeve," he said laughing, "what takes you to Liverpool? I thought you'd never been further than York in your life?"
"Maybe I haven't," the "Softy" answered sulkily; "but that's no reason I shouldn't go now. I've heard of a situation at Liverpool as I think'll suit me."
"Not better than the place you had with Mr. Mellish."
"Perhaps not," muttered Mr. Hargraves, with a frown darkening over his ugly face; "but Mellish Park be no pleace for me now, and arnt been for a long time past."
The railway official laughed.
The story of Aurora's chastisement of the half-witted groom was pretty well known amongst the townspeople of Doncaster; and I am sorry to say there were very few members of that sporting community who did not admire the mistress of Mellish Park something more by reason of this little incident in her history.
Mr. Hargraves received the desired information about the railway route between Doncaster and Liverpool, and then left the station.
A shabby-looking little man, who had also been mating some inquiries of the same official who had talked to the "Softy," and had consequently heard the above brief dialogue, followed Stephen Hargraves from the station into the town. Indeed, had it not been that the "Softy" was unusually slow of perception, he might have discovered that upon this particular day the same shabby-looking little man generally happened to be hanging about any and every place to which he, Mr. Hargraves, betook himself. But the cast-off retainer of Mellish Park did not trouble himself with any such misgivings. His narrow intellect, never wide enough to take in many subjects at a time, was fully absorbed by other considerations; and he loitered about with a gloomy and preoccupied expression in his face, that by no means enhanced his personal attractions.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Joseph Grimstone let the grass grow under his feet after his interview with John Mellish and Talbot Bulstrode. He had heard enough to make his course pretty clear to him, and he went to work quietly and sagaciously to win the reward offered to him.
There was not a tailor's shop in Doncaster or its vicinity into which the detective did not make his way. There was not a garmentconfectionéeby any of the civil purveyors upon whom he intruded that Mr. Grimstone did not examine; not a drawer of odds and ends which he did not ransack, in his search for buttons by "Crosby, maker, Birmingham." But for a long time he made his inquisition in vain. Before the day succeeding that of Talbot's arrival at Mellish Park was over, the detective had visited every tailor or clothier in the neighbourhood of the racing metropolis of the north, but no traces of "Crosby, maker, Birmingham," had he been able to find. Brass waistcoat-buttons are not particularly affected by the leaders of the fashion in the present day, and Mr. Grimstone found almost every variety of fastening upon the waistcoats he examined, except that one special style of button, a specimen of which, out of shape and blood-stained, he carried deep in his trousers-pocket.
He was returning to the inn at which he had taken up his abode, and where he was supposed to be a traveller in the Glenfield starch and sugar-plum line, tired and worn out with a day's useless work, when he was attracted by the appearance of some ready-made garments gracefully festooned about the door of a Doncaster pawnbroker, who exhibited silver teaspoons, oil-paintings, boots and shoes, dropsical watches, doubtful rings, and remnants of silk and satin, in his artistically-arranged window.
Mr. Grimstone stopped short before the money-lender's portal.
"I won't be beaten," he muttered between his teeth. "If this man has got any weskits, I'll have a look at 'em."
He lounged into the shop in a leisurely manner, and asked the proprietor of the establishment if he had anything cheap in the way of fancy waistcoats.
Of course the proprietor had everything desirable in that way, and from a kind of grove or arbour of all manner of dry goods at the back of the shop, he brought out half a dozen brown-paper parcels, the contents of which he exhibited to Mr. Joseph Grimstone.
The detective looked at a great many waistcoats, but with no satisfactory result.
"You haven't got anything with brass buttons, I suppose?" he inquired at last.
The proprietor shook his head reflectively.
"Brass buttons aint much worn now-a-days," he said; "but I'll lay I've got the very thing you want, now I come to think of it. I got 'em an uncommon bargain from a traveller for a Birmingham house, who was here at the September meeting three years ago, and lost a hatful of money upon Underhand, and left a lot of things with me, in order to make up what he wanted."
Mr. Grimstone pricked up his ears at the sound of "Birmingham." The pawnbroker retired once more to the mysterious caverns at the back of his shop, and after a considerable search succeeded in finding what he wanted. He brought another brown-paper parcel to the counter, turned the flaming gas a little higher, and exhibited a heap of very gaudy and vulgar-looking waistcoats, evidently of that species of manufacture which is generally called slop-work.
"These are the goods," he said; "and very tasty and lively things they are, too. I had a dozen of 'em; and I've only got these five left."
Mr. Grimstone had taken up a waistcoat of a flaming check pattern, and was examining it by the light of the gas.
Yes; the purpose of his day's work was accomplished at last. The back of the brass buttons bore the name of Crosby, Birmingham.
"You've only got five left out of the dozen," said the detective; "then you've sold seven?"
"I have."
"Can you remember who you sold 'em to?"
The pawnbroker scratched his head thoughtfully.
"I think I must have sold 'em all to the men at the works," he said. "They take their wages once a fortnight; and there's some of 'em drop in here every other Saturday night to buy something or other, or to take something out of pledge. I know I sold four or five that way."
"But can you remember selling one of them to anybody else?" asked the detective. "I'm not asking out of curiosity; and I don't mind standing something handsome by-and-by, if you can give me the information I want. Think it over, now, and take your time. You couldn't have sold 'em all seven to the men from the works."
"No; I didn't," answered the pawnbroker after a pause. "I remember now, I sold one of them—a fancy sprig on a purple ground—to Josephs the baker, in the next street; and I sold another—a yellow stripe on a brown ground—to the head-gardener at Mellish Park."
Mr. Joseph Grimstone's face flushed hot and red. His day's work had not been wasted. He was bringing the buttons by Crosby of Birmingham very near to where he wanted to bring them.
"You can tell me the gardener's name, I suppose?" he said to the pawnbroker.
"Yes; his name's Dawson. He belongs to Doncaster, and he and I were boys together. I should not have remembered selling him the waistcoat, perhaps, for it's nigh upon a year and a half ago; only he stopped and had a chat with me and my missis the night he bought it."
Mr. Grimstone did not linger much longer in the shop. His interest in the waistcoats was evidently departed. He bought a couple of second-hand silk handkerchiefs, out of civility, no doubt, and then bade the pawnbroker good-night.
It was nearly nine o'clock; but the detective only stopped at his inn long enough to eat about a pound and a quarter of beefsteak, and drink a pint of ale, after which brief refreshment he started for Mellish Park on foot. It was the principle of his life to avoid observation, and he preferred the fatigue of a long and lonely walk to the risks contingent upon hiring a vehicle to convey him to his destination.
Talbot and John had been waiting hopefully all the day for the detective's coming, and welcomed him very heartily when he appeared, between ten and eleven. He was shown into John's own room this evening; for the two gentlemen were sitting there smoking and talking after Aurora and Lucy had gone to bed. Mrs. Mellish had good need of rest, and could sleep peacefully now; for the dark shadow between her and her husband had gone for ever, and she could not fear any peril, any sorrow, now that she knew herself to be secure of his love. John looked up eagerly as Mr. Grimstone followed the servant into the room; but a warning look from Talbot Bulstrode checked his impetuosity, and he waited till the door was shut before he spoke.
"Now, then, Grimstone," he said; "what news?"
"Well, sir, I've had a hard day's work," the detective answered gravely, "and perhaps neither of you gentlemen—not being professional—would think much of what I've done; but for all that, I believe I'm bringin' it home, sir; I believe I'm bringin' it home."
"Thank God for that!" murmured Talbot Bulstrode, reverently.
He had thrown away his cigar, and was standing by the fireplace, with his arm resting upon the angle of the mantel-piece.
"You've got a gardener by the name of Dawson in your service, Mr. Mellish?" said the detective.
"I have," answered John: "but, Lord have mercy upon us! you don't mean to say you think it's him? Dawson's as good a fellow as ever breathed."
"I don't say I think it's any one as yet, sir," Mr. Grimstone answered sententiously; "but when a man as had two thousand pound upon him in bank-notes is found in a wood shot through the heart, and the notes missin'—the wood bein' free to anybody as chose to walk in it—it's a pretty open case for suspicion. I should like to see this man Dawson, if it's convenient."
"To-night?" asked John.
"Yes: the sooner the better. The less delay there is in this sort of business, the more satisfactory for all parties, with the exception of the party that's wanted," added the detective.
"I'll send for Dawson, then," answered Mr. Mellish; "but I expect he'll have gone to bed by this time."
"Then he can but get up again, if he has, sir," Mr. Grimstone said politely. "I've set my heart upon seeing him to-night, if it's all the same to you."
It is not to be supposed that John Mellish was likely to object to any arrangement which might hasten, if by but a moment's time, the hour of the discovery for which he so ardently prayed. He went straight off to the servants' hall to make inquiries for the gardener, and left Talbot Bulstrode and the detective together.
"There aint nothing turned up here, I suppose, sir," said Joseph Grimstone, addressing Mr. Bulstrode, "as will be of any help to us?"
"Yes," Talbot answered. "We have got the numbers of the notes which Mrs. Mellish gave the murdered man. I telegraphed to Mr. Floyd's country house, and he arrived here himself only an hour ago, bringing the list of the notes with him."
"And an uncommon plucky thing of the old gentleman to do, beggin' your pardon, sir," exclaimed the detective with enthusiasm.
Five minutes afterwards, Mr. Mellish re-entered the room, bringing the gardener with him. The man had been into Doncaster to see his friends, and only returned about half an hour before; so the master of the house had caught him in the act of making havoc with a formidable cold joint, and a great jar of pickled cabbage, in the servants' hall.
"Now, you're not to be frightened, Dawson," said the young squire, with friendly indiscretion; "of course nobody for a moment suspects you, any more than they suspect me; but this gentleman here wants to see you, and of course you know there's no reason that he shouldn't see you if he wishes it, though what he wants with you—"
Mr. Mellish stopped abruptly, arrested by a frown from Talbot Bulstrode; and the gardener, who was innocent of the faintest comprehension of his master's meaning, pulled his hair respectfully, and shuffled nervously upon the slippery Indian matting.
"I only want to ask you a question or two to decide a wager between these two gentlemen and me, Mr. Dawson," said the detective with reassuring familiarity. "You bought a second-hand waistcoat of Gogram, in the market-place, didn't you, about a year and a half ago?"
"Ay, sure, sir. I bought a weskit at Gogram's," answered the gardener; "but it weren't second-hand; it were bran new."
"A yellow stripe upon a brown ground?"
The man nodded, with his mouth wide open, in the extremity of his surprise at this London stranger's familiarity with the details of his toilet.
"I dunno how you come to know about that weskit, sir," he said, with a grin; "it were wore out full six months ago; for I took to wearin' of it in t' garden, and garden-work soon spiles anything in the way of clothes; but him as I give it to was glad enough to have it, though it was awful shabby."
"Him as you give it to?" repeated Mr. Grimstone, not pausing to amend the sentence, in his eagerness. "You gave it away, then?"
"Yees, I gave it to th' 'Softy;' and wasn't th' poor fond chap glad to get it, that's all!"
"The 'Softy'!" exclaimed Mr. Grimstone. "Who's the 'Softy'?"
"The man we spoke of last night," answered Talbot Bulstrode; "the man whom Mrs. Mellish found in this room upon the morning before the murder,—the man called Stephen Hargraves."
"Ay, ay, to be sure; I thought as much," murmured the detective. "That will do, Mr. Dawson," he added, addressing the gardener, who had shuffled a good deal nearer to the doorway in his uneasy state of mind. "Stay, though; I may as well ask you one more question. Were any of the buttons missing off that waistcoat when you gave it away?"
"Not one on 'em," answered the gardener, decisively. "My missus is too particular for that. She's a reg'lar toidy one, she is; allers mendin' and patchin'; and if one of t' buttons got loose she was sure to sew it on toight again, before it was lost."
"Thank you, Mr. Dawson," returned the detective, with the friendly condescension of a superior being. "Good-night."
The gardener shuffled off, very glad to be released from the awful presence of his superiors, and to go back to the cold meat and pickles in the servants' hall.
"I think I'm bringing the business into a nutshell, sir," said Mr. Grimstone, when the door had closed upon the gardener. "But the less said, the better, just yet awhile. I'll take the list of the numbers of the notes, please, sir; and I believe I shall come upon you for that two hundred pound, Mr. Mellish, before either of us is many weeks older."
So, with the list made by cautious Archibald Floyd, bestowed safely in his waistcoat-pocket, Mr. Joseph Grimstone walked back to Doncaster through the still summer's night, intent upon the business he had undertaken.
"It looked uncommon black against the lady about a week ago," he thought, as he walked meditatively across the dewy grass in Mellish Park; "and I fancy the information they got at the Yard would have put a fool upon the wrong scent, and kept him on it till the right one got worn out. But it's clearing up, it's clearing up beautiful; and I think it'll turn out one of the neatest cases I ever had the handling of."
It is scarcely necessary to say, that, with the button by Crosby in his pocket, and with the information acquired from Dawson the gardener, stowed away carefully in his mind, Mr. Joseph Grimstone looked with an eye of particular interest upon Steeve Hargraves the "Softy."
The detective had not come to Doncaster alone. He had brought with him a humble ally and follower, in the shape of the little shabby-looking man who had encountered the "Softy" at the railway station, having received orders to keep a close watch upon Mr. Stephen Hargraves. It was of course a very easy matter to identify the "Softy" in the town of Doncaster, where he had been pretty generally known since his childhood.
Mr. Grimstone had called upon a medical practitioner, and had submitted the button to him for inspection. The stains upon it were indeed that which the detective had supposed—blood; and the surgeon detected a minute morsel of cartilage adhering to the jagged hasp of the button; but the same surgeon declared that this missile could not have been the one used by the murderer of James Conyers. It had not been through the dead man's body; it had inflicted only a surface wound.
The business which now lay before Mr. Grimstone was the tracing of one or other of the bank-notes; and for this purpose he and his ally set to work upon the track of the "Softy," with a view of discovering all the places which it was his habit to visit. The haunts affected by Mr. Hargraves turned out to be some half-dozen very obscure public-houses; and to each of these Joseph Grimstone went in person.
But he could discover nothing. All his inquiries only elicited the fact that Stephen Hargraves had not been observed to change, or to attempt to change, any bank-note whatever. He had paid for all he had had, and spent more than it was usual for him to spend, drinking a good deal harder than had been his habit heretofore; but he had paid in silver, except on one occasion, when he had changed a sovereign. The detective called at the bank; but no person answering the description of Stephen Hargraves had been observed there. The detective endeavoured to discover any friends or companions of the "Softy;" but here again he failed. The half-witted hanger-on of the Mellish stables had never made any friends, being entirely deficient in all social qualities.
There was something almost miraculous in the manner in which Mr. Joseph Grimstone contrived to make himself master of any information which he wished to acquire; and before noon on the day after his interview with Mr. Dawson the gardener, he had managed to eliminate all the facts set down above, and had also succeeded in ingratiating himself into the confidence of the dirty old proprietress of that humble lodging in which the "Softy" had taken up his abode.
It is scarcely necessary to this story to tell how the detective went to work; but while Stephen Hargraves sat soddening his stupid brain with medicated beer in a low tap-room not far off, and while Mr. Grimstone's ally kept close watch, holding himself in readiness to give warning of any movement on the part of the suspected individual, Mr. Grimstone himself went so cleverly to work in his manipulation of the "Softy's" landlady, that in less than a quarter of an hour he had taken full possession of that weak point in the intellectual citadel which is commonly called the blind side, and was able to do what he pleased with the old woman and her wretched tenement.
His peculiar pleasure was to make a very elaborate examination of the apartment rented by the "Softy," and any other apartments, cupboards, or hiding-places to which Mr. Hargraves had access. But he found nothing to reward him for his trouble. The old woman was in the habit of receiving casual lodgers, resting for a night or so at Doncaster before tramping further on their vagabond wanderings; and the six-roomed dwelling-place was only furnished with such meagre accommodation as may be expected for fourpence and sixpence a night. There were few hiding-places,—no carpets, underneath which fat bundles of bank-notes might be hidden; no picture-frames, behind which the same species of property might be bestowed; no ponderous cornices or heavily-fringed valances shrouding the windows, and affording dusty recesses wherein the title-deeds of half a dozen fortunes might lie and rot. There were two or three cupboards, into which Mr. Grimstone penetrated with a tallow candle; but he discovered nothing of any more importance than crockery-ware, lucifer-matches, fire-wood, potatoes, bare ropes, on which an onion lingered here and there and sprouted dismally in its dark loneliness, empty ginger-beer bottles, oyster-shells, old boots and shoes, disabled mouse-traps, black beetles, and humid fungi rising ghost-like from the damp and darkness.