“ ‘No; there had been rain; the path was muddy and the grass was wet.’
“ ‘Did you suppose that the deceased would loiter about in the wet wood, in the mud and in the long grass in the wood, for two long hours?’
“ ‘I do not. I think it most improbable—even impossible.’
“ ‘Your suggestion is that there was someone lurking in the wood?’
“ ‘Everything points to that, in my opinion.’
“ ‘Otherwise, on the theory of the prosecution, your brother-in-law must have stood in the wood, doing nothing for nearly two hours; because nobody disputes the fact that the prisoner entered the wood a little before twelve.’
“ ‘That is so, I think.’
“ ‘I am sorry to press you, Mr. Campaigne, on a subject so painful, but I have a life to save. Do you suppose that your friend was one who would be likely to yield up his life without a struggle?’
“ ‘Certainly not. He was a strong and resolute man.’
“ ‘Again, look at the prisoner,’ who was not more than five feet five. ‘Do you suppose that your friend would stand still to be killed by a little man like that?’
“ ‘It is absurd to suppose anything of the kind.’
“ ‘He might have been taken unawares, but then the blow would have been at the back of the head. Now, it was in the front. Do you suppose it possible that this labouring man should on entering the wood suddenly resolve upon taking a strange gentleman’s life without a motive, not even with the hope of plunder?—should rush upon him, find him off his guard, and succeed in taking his life without receiving a blow or a scratch?’
“ ‘I certainly do not. I consider the thing absolutely impossible.’
“ ‘Do you suppose that, if all these improbabilities or impossibilities had taken place, the man would have run back covered with blood to tell what he had found, and to pretend that some other man had done it?’
“ ‘I certainly do not.’
“The boy, who had already given his evidence, was recalled.
“ ‘How long was it after Mr. Holme went into the wood before John Dunning went in?’
“ ‘It was a long time.’
“ ‘We know the facts already,’ said the Judge;‘the two gentlemen went out at ten; they would reach the wood, according to this map, about fifteen minutes past ten; the dead body was brought home a little after noon. Therefore, as the prisoner was only a few minutes in the wood, it must have been about twenty minutes to twelve that he went in.’
“ ‘And remained, my lord, no more than a few minutes.’
“ ‘So it would seem from the evidence. Much mischief, however, may be done in a few minutes.’
“The counsel recalled the doctor.
“ ‘When you saw the body it was, I think you said, a little before one o’clock.’
“ ‘That is so.’
“ ‘The body was then quite stiff and dead, you say?’
“ ‘Quite. It had been dead some time—perhaps two hours.’
“ ‘It had been dead two hours. You are quite sure?’
“ ‘I will not swear to the exact time. I will say a long while.’
“ ‘If the boy’s evidence as to the time occupied by the prisoner in the wood is correct, death would have been caused a few minutes before the men brought the shutter. The body would have been quite warm.’
“ ‘It would.’
“ ‘Now—you saw the wound. Indicate for the jury exactly where it was.’
“The doctor laid his hand on the top of his head.
“ ‘Not the front, but the top. Very good. Mr. Holme was six feet high. Look at the prisoner. Is it possible that so short a man could have inflicted such a blow on the top of the head?’
“ ‘Not unless he found his victim seated.’
“ ‘Quite so. And we have heard from Mr. Campaigne that it was impossible to sit down in the wet wood. Thank you.’ ”
One need not go on. This was the most important part of the evidence. At first it looked very bad against the prisoner: no one else in the wood; the blood on the smock; the weapon with which the deed was accomplished; the apparent impossibility of anyone else being the criminal. Then came this clever lawyer upon the scene, and in a little while the whole of the case fell to pieces.
First, the doctor’s evidence that death had been caused two hours before the prisoner entered the wood; the evidence of the boy that the prisoner had gone in only a few minutes before he came out running. That was positive evidence in his favour. There was, next, the evidence of Mr. Campaigne. His brother-in-law was the last man in the world who would be murdered without making a fight. He was a powerful man, much stronger than the fellow charged with murdering him. He was not taken unawares, but received the fatal blow in full front. Again, there was no robbery. If a poor man commits the crime of murder, he does it either forrevenge, or for jealousy, or for robbery. There could be none of those motives at work in the murder of this unfortunate gentleman.
Lastly, there was the best possible testimony in favour of the prisoner’s personal character. This is not of much use where the evidence is strong, but when it is weak it may be of the greatest possible help. His employer stated that the prisoner was a good workman who knew his business; that he was sober and industrious and honest; the least likely man on his farm to commit this atrocious act.
The Judge summed up favourably. The jury retired to consider their verdict. They came back after an hour. Verdict: “Not guilty.”
“Quite right,” said Leonard, laying down the book. “The man John Dunning certainly was innocent of this charge.”
Then followed more writing by the housekeeper:
“When the verdict was declared the prisoner stepped down, and was greeted with friendly congratulations by his master, the farmer, and others. The Judge, before leaving the Court, sent for Mr. Campaigne.
“ ‘Sir,’ he said, shaking hands with him, ‘we have to deplore our own loss as well as yours in the melancholy events of that day. For my own part, although I consider the verdict of the jury amply justified by the evidence, I should like your opinion on the matter.’
“ ‘If it is worth your attention, you shall hear it.I had already made up my mind on the point. The evidence at the inquest was quite incomplete. After talking the matter over with the doctor, I was convinced that the murder was most certainly committed long before the man Dunning went into the wood at all. The state of the body showed, if medical evidence is worth anything, that death had taken place two hours before: that is, before eleven—in fact, shortly after I left him. He must have been walking straight to his death when I left him and saw him striding along through the wood.’
“ ‘And have you been able to form any theory at all?’
“ ‘None. Had there been robbery, I should have suspected gipsies. Our own people about here are quiet and harmless. Such a thing as wilful and deliberate murder would be impossible for them.’
“ ‘So the case only becomes the more mysterious.’
“ ‘I felt so strongly as to the man’s innocence that I not only provided him with counsel, but I also provided counsel with my own full statement of the case. The murderer of my brother-in-law, the slayer of my wife’—here Mr. Campaigne turned very pale—‘will be discovered; some time or other he must be discovered. I have understood that murder lies on the conscience until life becomes intolerable. Then the man confesses, and welcomes the shameful death to end it. Let us wait till the murderer finds his burden too heavy to be borne.’
“ ‘Yet,’ said the Judge, ‘one would like to find him out by means of the Law.’
“ ‘Well,’ said Mr. Campaigne, ‘for my own part, I resolved that I would do all in my power so that an innocent man should not suffer for the guilty if I could prevent it.’
“ ‘Sir,’ said the Judge, ‘your conduct is what the world expects of a noble gentleman. There remains one conclusion. It is that there was someone concealed in the wood. The boy said that no one went out. He was thinking of the two ends; but he could not perhaps see through the wood, or beyond the wood. It is not yet, perhaps, too late to search for footsteps. However, no doubt all that can be done will be done.’
“So the trial was finished. I have not heard that any further examination of the spot was made. As all the village, and people from neighbouring villages and the nearest market-towns, crowded over every Sunday for weeks after, gazing at the spot where the body was found, it was of very little use to look for footsteps.
“The man John Dunning went back to work. But the village folk—his old friends—turned against him. They would no longer associate with him; the taint of murder was upon him, though he was as innocent a man as ever stepped. The Vicar spoke to the people, but it was in vain; anyone who had been tried for murder must be a murderer, and he was shunned like a leper or a madman.
“Then the Vicar spoke about it to the Squire, who gave John money so that he might emigrate; and with all his family he went to Botany Bay, where the people are not all convicts, I am told. There, at least, it ought not to be thrown in a man’s teeth that he had been tried and acquitted for murder. I have never heard what became of John Dunning and his family afterwards.
“The Squire offered a reward of £500 for the apprehension and conviction of some person unknown who had murdered Mr. Langley Holme. The printed bill remained on the church door for years—long after the rain had washed out the letters, until the whole bill was finally washed out and destroyed. But the reward was never claimed, nor was there any attempt to fix the guilt upon another; and as time went on, a belief grew up in the minds of the world that, notwithstanding the acquittal, no other was possible as the criminal than John Dunning himself. So that it was a fortunate thing for him that he went away when he did, before the popular belief was turned quite so dead against him.
“The wood became haunted; no one dared pass through it alone, even by day; because the murdered man walked by day as well as by night. I cannot say, for myself, that I ever actually saw the ghost—not, that is to say, to recognise the poor gentleman, though there are plenty of credible witnesses who swear to having seen it—in the twilight, in the moonlight, and in the sunshine. But one day,when I was walking home from the village—it was in the morning about eleven o’clock—I saw a strange thing which made my heart stand still.
“It was a spring day, with a fresh breeze and sunshine, but with flying clouds. They made light and shadow over the fields. In the wood, which, as was stated at the trial, was more of a coppice than a wood, composed of slender trees such as birches, which were on one side, and firs and larches on the other, with a good deal of undergrowth among the birches, I saw, as clear as ever I saw anything in my life, a figure—oh! quite plain—a figure under the birches and among the bushes and undergrowth. I knew there could be no one there, but I saw a figure, plain as the figure of man or woman. It had its back to me, and I made out head and shoulders and arms; the rest of the body was hidden. While I looked the shadow passed away and the sun came out. Then the figure disappeared. I waited for it to return. It did not.
“I crept slowly through the wood, looking about fearfully to right and left. There was nothing; the birds were singing and calling to each other, but there was no ghost. Yet I had seen it. When I asked myself how it was dressed I could not remember; nay, I had not observed. Then there were some to whom the ghost had appeared clad as when he met the murderer; nay, some to whom it has spoken; so that my own evidence is not of so much importance as that of some others.
“After the funeral we could not fail to observe a great change in the habits of my master.
“Before the trouble Mr. Campaigne was a man fond of society; he would invite friends to dinner two or three times a week. He was fond of the bottle, but no drunkard; once a week he went to the market town, and there dined at the gentlemen’s ordinary. He was a Justice of the Peace, and active; he farmed himself some of his own land, and took an interest in the stock and in the crops; he went to church every Sunday morning, and had prayers every morning for the household; he was fond of playing with his children; he talked politics and read the paper every week. He went hunting once or twice a week in the season; he went shooting nearly every day in the autumn; he attended the races; he was a gardener, and looked after his hothouses and conservatories; in a word, he was a country gentleman who pleased himself with the pursuits of the country. He was a good farmer, a good landlord, a good magistrate, a good father, and a good Christian.
“Yet, mark what followed. When the murder happened, the body was placed in the dining-room. The master went into the library; there he had his meals served. He never entered the dining-room afterwards; he sat in the library when he was not walking on the terrace alone.
“Suddenly, not little by little, he abandoned everything. He left off going to church; he left off going to market; he left off shooting, hunting, gardening,farming, reading; he gave up company; he refused to see anyone; he opened no letters; he held no family prayers; he paid no attention to his children; if he found them playing, he passed by the innocents as if they had been strangers; as for the youngest, she who cost her mother her life, I doubt if he ever saw her, or knew who she was if he did see her.
“And so it has continued all these years. Sometimes the lawyer comes over when money is wanted; then the money is obtained. But he never speaks; he listens, and signs a cheque. As his housekeeper, I used to present an open bill from time to time; the money was put upon the bill with no question. The grooms have been long dismissed; the horses turned out to grass are long dead; the dogs are dead; the garden has run to seed and weed; the rooms, in which there has been no fire, or light, or air, or anything, are mouldering in decay.
“As for the poor unfortunate children, they grew up somehow; the master would allow no interference on the part of his own family; the lawyer, Mr. Ducie, was the only person who could persuade him to anything. The boys were sent to a preparatory school, and then to a public school. The second went into the Navy—never was there a more gallant or handsome boy—but he was drowned; the elder went to Oxford and into Parliament, but he killed himself; the girl married a merchant who turned out bad.
“Everything turned out bad. It was a most unfortunatefamily; father and children alike—all were unfortunate.”
* * * * * * *
Here ended the housekeeper’s book of extracts and comments. There was appended a letter. It was headed, “Mary’s letter, September, 2d, 1855:”
“Dear Lucy,“I have not been able to answer your letter before—believe me. There are times when the heart must be alone with the heart. I have been alone with my sorrowful heart—oh, my sorrowful heart!—for a month since it happened.“I can now tell you something—not all—that has fallen upon us, upon my innocent babes and myself. You heard that Langley took his own life with his own hand four weeks ago. You ask now why he did it. He was doing well—no one was more promising, no one had brighter prospects; friends assured me that in proper time I might confidently expect to see him in the Cabinet; his powers and his influence and his name were improving daily; he was acquiring daily greater knowledge of affairs. At home I may say truthfully that he was happy with his wife, who would have laid down her life cheerfully to make him happy, and with his tender children. As for anything outside his home, such as some young men permit themselves, he would have no such thought, and could not have as a man who considered his duty to wife and family or as a Christian.Yet he killed himself—oh, my dear, he killed himself!—and I am left. Why did he do it?“There was one thing which always weighed heavily upon his mind—the condition of his father. He frequently talked of it. Why, he asked, should a misfortune such as that which had befallen him—the tragic death of a friend and the sudden death of his wife—so completely destroy a strong man, young, healthy, capable of rising above the greatest possible disasters? Why should this misfortune change him permanently, so that he should neglect everything that he had formerly loved, and should become a miserable, silent solitary, brooding over the past, living the useless life of a hermit? Of course, he felt also the neglect in which he and his brother and sister had been left, and the lack of sympathy with which his father had always regarded them. For, remember, his father is not insane; he is able to transact business perfectly. It is only that he refuses to speak or to converse, and lives alone.“Now, dear Lucy, I am not going to make any suggestion. I want only to tell you exactly what happened. You sent him a book of extracts and cuttings, with supplementary notes. These cuttings were the contemporary account of the murder of Mr. Langley Holme, the inquest, the trial of a man who was acquitted, and the strange effect which the whole produced upon Mr. Campaigne, then quite a young man.“He received the book, and took it into his study.This was in the morning. At midnight I looked in. He turned his face. My dear, it was haggard. I asked him what was the matter that he looked so ill. He replied, rambling, that the fathers had eaten sour grapes. I begged him to leave off, and to come upstairs. He said something in reply, but I did not catch it, and so I left him.“He never came upstairs. At five in the morning I woke up, and finding that he was not in bed, I hurried down the stairs full of sad presentiments. Alas! he was dead. Do not ask me how—he was dead!“Dear Lucy, you are now the only one left of the three children. I have burnt the book. At all events, my children shall not see it or hear of this terrible story. I implore you to burn your copy.”
“Dear Lucy,
“I have not been able to answer your letter before—believe me. There are times when the heart must be alone with the heart. I have been alone with my sorrowful heart—oh, my sorrowful heart!—for a month since it happened.
“I can now tell you something—not all—that has fallen upon us, upon my innocent babes and myself. You heard that Langley took his own life with his own hand four weeks ago. You ask now why he did it. He was doing well—no one was more promising, no one had brighter prospects; friends assured me that in proper time I might confidently expect to see him in the Cabinet; his powers and his influence and his name were improving daily; he was acquiring daily greater knowledge of affairs. At home I may say truthfully that he was happy with his wife, who would have laid down her life cheerfully to make him happy, and with his tender children. As for anything outside his home, such as some young men permit themselves, he would have no such thought, and could not have as a man who considered his duty to wife and family or as a Christian.Yet he killed himself—oh, my dear, he killed himself!—and I am left. Why did he do it?
“There was one thing which always weighed heavily upon his mind—the condition of his father. He frequently talked of it. Why, he asked, should a misfortune such as that which had befallen him—the tragic death of a friend and the sudden death of his wife—so completely destroy a strong man, young, healthy, capable of rising above the greatest possible disasters? Why should this misfortune change him permanently, so that he should neglect everything that he had formerly loved, and should become a miserable, silent solitary, brooding over the past, living the useless life of a hermit? Of course, he felt also the neglect in which he and his brother and sister had been left, and the lack of sympathy with which his father had always regarded them. For, remember, his father is not insane; he is able to transact business perfectly. It is only that he refuses to speak or to converse, and lives alone.
“Now, dear Lucy, I am not going to make any suggestion. I want only to tell you exactly what happened. You sent him a book of extracts and cuttings, with supplementary notes. These cuttings were the contemporary account of the murder of Mr. Langley Holme, the inquest, the trial of a man who was acquitted, and the strange effect which the whole produced upon Mr. Campaigne, then quite a young man.
“He received the book, and took it into his study.This was in the morning. At midnight I looked in. He turned his face. My dear, it was haggard. I asked him what was the matter that he looked so ill. He replied, rambling, that the fathers had eaten sour grapes. I begged him to leave off, and to come upstairs. He said something in reply, but I did not catch it, and so I left him.
“He never came upstairs. At five in the morning I woke up, and finding that he was not in bed, I hurried down the stairs full of sad presentiments. Alas! he was dead. Do not ask me how—he was dead!
“Dear Lucy, you are now the only one left of the three children. I have burnt the book. At all events, my children shall not see it or hear of this terrible story. I implore you to burn your copy.”
Mrs. Galley wrote after this: “I have read the book again quite through. I cannot understand at all why my brother killed himself. As for the murderer, of course it was the man named John Dunning. Who else could it have been?”
Leonard looked up. It was three o’clock in the morning. His face was troubled with doubts and misgiving.
“Why did they burn the book?” he said. “As for the murder, there must have been someone hidden in the wood. That is clear. No other explanation is possible. But why did my grandfather cut his throat? There is nothing in the book that could lead him to such an act.”
LEONARDshut the book and threw it aside. He sat thinking over it for a little. Then he thought it was time to go to bed. There was not much of the night left; in fact, it was already broad daylight. But if it had been a night of mid-winter for darkness he could not have been visited by a more terrifying nightmare.
In his sleep the Family History continued. It now took the form of a Mystery—a Mystery in a Shape. It sat upon his afflicted chest and groaned. He was unable to guess or understand what kind of Mystery it was, or, in his sleep, to connect it with anything on the earth or in the world outside this earth. He woke up and shook it off; he went to sleep again, and it returned, unrelenting. It was vague and vast and terrible; a Thing with which the sufferer wrestled in vain, which he could not shake off and could not comprehend.
There are many kinds of nightmares; that of the unintelligible mystery, which will not go away and cannot be driven away, is one of the worst.
When he rose, late in the morning, unrefreshed and tired, he did connect the nightmare with somethingintelligible. It arose from the book and its story; which, like Chaucer’s, was left half told. That, in itself, would have mattered little. A strange thing happened: it began with this morning: there fell upon him quite suddenly an irresistible sense that here was a duty laid upon him: a duty not to be neglected: a thing that had to be done to the exclusion of everything else. He had to follow up this story, and to recover, after seventy years and more, the true history of the crime which cast a shadow so long and so terrible upon all those years and the children of those years. He looked at the papers on his table: they were the half-finished article he had undertaken: his mind bidden to think upon the subject rebelled: it refused to work: it would not be turned in that direction: it went off to Campaigne Park and to seventy years before.
Without words Leonard was mysteriously commanded to follow up the story to its proper conclusion. Without any words he was plainly and unmistakably commanded to follow it up. By whom? He did not ask. He obeyed.
After seventy years the discovery of the guilty man would seem difficult. We find historians grappling with the cases of accused persons, and forming conclusions absolutely opposite, even when the evidence seems quite full and circumstantial in every point. Take the case of Anne Boleyn, for instance; or that of Mary Queen of Scots: two of the most illustrious and most unfortunate princesses. Whatagreement is there among historians concerning these ladies? Yet there are monumental masses of documents—contemporary, voluminous, official, private, epistolary, confidential, partisan—that exist to help them.
In this case there were no other documents except those in the Book of Cuttings. All that a private investigation could do was to read the evidence that had already been submitted to two Courts, and to arrive, if possible, at some conclusion.
This Leonard proceeded to do. He laid aside altogether the work on which he had been engaged, he placed the book before him, and he read the whole contents again, word for word, albeit with the same strange shrinking.
Then he made notes. The first referred to the man Dunning.
I.John Dunning.—The prisoner was rightly acquitted; he was most certainly innocent. The boy showed that he had not been in the wood more than two or three minutes. The deceased was a man six inches taller than Dunning, and strong in proportion. The latter could only have delivered the fatal blow if he had come upon his victim from behind, and while he was sitting. But the medical evidence proves that the blow must have been delivered from the front; and it was also proved that the grass was too wet from recent showers for the deceased to have been sitting down on it.
II.The Time of Death.—If the medical evidenceis worth anything, the man when found had been lying dead for about two hours, as was proved by the rigor mortis. This absolutely convinces one of Dunning’s innocence, and it introduces the certainty of another hand. Whose?
There he paused and began to consider.
There must have been another person in the wood; this person must have rushed upon his victim suddenly and unexpectedly. To rush out of the wood armed with a heavy club torn from a tree was the act of a gorilla. If there had been an escaped gorilla anywhere about, the crime could have been fixed upon him. But gorillas in the year 1826 were not yet discovered.
Perhaps the assailant ran upon him from behind, noiselessly; perhaps Langley Holme heard him at the last moment, and turned so that the blow intended for the back of the head fell upon the fore part.
This was all very well in theory. But why? Who wanted to kill this young gentleman, and why? There was no robbery. The body lay for two hours and more in this unfrequented place; there was plenty of time for the murderer to take everything; the murderer had taken nothing.
Then, why? How to explain it? Here was a young country gentleman, highly popular; if he had enemies, they would not be outside his own part of the country. Most country gentlemen, in those days, had many enemies. These enemies, who wererustics for the most part, satisfied their revenge and their hatred by poaching on the preserves. They also set fire to the hayricks. Langley Holme was staying a welcome guest with his friend and brother-in-law; he was walking along on a summer morning in a wood not a mile away from the House and Park, and there he was discovered lying dead—murdered!
It may be objected that this attempt to solve the insoluble after seventy years was a waste of time; that dead and gone crimes may as well be left alone. Other people’s crimes may no doubt be left alone. But this was his own crime, so to speak—a crime inflicted in and upon his own family. Besides, he was dragged by ropes to the consideration of the thing; his mind was wholly charged with it; he could think of nothing else.
Presently he shaped a theory, which at first seemed to fit in with everything. It was really a very good theory, which promised, when he framed it, to account for all the facts brought out in the inquest and at the trial.
The theory supposed an escaped lunatic—a homicidal maniac, of course; that would account for everything. A maniac—a murderous maniac. He must have been lying concealed in the wood; he must have rushed out armed with his club, like that gorilla. This theory seemed to meet every point in the case. He shut up the book; he had found out the truth; he could now go about his own workagain, forgetting the mysterious murder which drove his great-grandfather off his balance.
He sighed with satisfaction. He placed the book in a drawer out of the way; he need not worry any more about the thing. So with another sigh of relief he reached out for his books and returned once more to the study of his “subject.”
Presently he became aware that his eyes were resting on the page without reading it; that his mind was back again to the Book of Extracts, and that in his brain there was forming, without any volition of his own, one or two difficult questions about that maniac. As, for instance, if there had been such a creature wandering in the fields someone would have seen him; he would probably have murdered more than one person while he was in the mood for murder. There was a little boy, for instance, scaring birds; he would have killed that little boy. Then, the fact of a roving maniac would have been known. He must have escaped from somewhere: his madness must have been known. There would have been some sort of hue and cry after him: either at the inquest or at the trial there would have been some mention of this dangerous person going about at large; some suggestion that he might have been the guilty person. Dangerous maniacs do not escape without any notice taken, or any warning that they are loose.
No. It would not do. Another and a more workable theory must be invented.
He got another. Poachers! Everybody knows the deadly hostility, far worse seventy years ago than at present, that existed between a country gentleman and a poacher. The latter was accustomed, in those days, to get caught in a mantrap; to put his foot into a gin; to be fired upon by gamekeepers; to be treated like a weasel or a stoat. In return the poacher manifested a lamentably revengeful spirit, which sometimes went as far as murder. In this case, no doubt, the crime was committed by a poacher.
The theory satisfied him at first, just as much as its predecessor. Presently, however, he reflected that there is not much for a poacher to do in early June, and that poachers do not prowl about the woods and coverts in broad daylight and at noon; and that poachers do not, as a rule, murder gentlemen belonging to other parts of the country. Besides, poachers on one estate would not bear malice against the squire of another estate fifteen miles distant. Leonard pushed his papers away in despair.
Any other kind of work was impossible; he could think of nothing else. At this point, however, some kind of relief came to him. For he felt that he must make himself personally acquainted with the place itself. He wanted to see the wood of which so much mention was made—the place where the blow was struck, the place where the murderer lay hidden. He wanted the evidence of the wood itself, which was probably the same now as it had been seventy years before, unless it had been felled orbuilt over. In that part of the country they do not destroy woods, and they do not build upon their site; it is a conservative country. As the fields were a hundred years ago, so they are now.
Visitors to the house most conveniently approach it from the Metropolitan Extension Line, which goes to Rickmansworth, Amersham, and Verney. Leonard resolved upon going there that very morning. He took a note-book and started, setting down the points on which he wished to inquire.
He arrived at the station a little before noon; a walk of ten minutes brought him to the house. On the terrace at the back the old man, tall, broad-shouldered, erect, walked as usual up and down, with his hard, resolute air. Leonard did not speak to him; he passed into the garden, and looking at his watch walked along the grass-grown walks, and at the end, turning to the right, entered the park.
It was but a small park: there was only one walk in the direction which the two would have followed; this was now, like the garden walks, overgrown with grass. At the end there was a lodge; but it had stood empty for nearly seventy years; the gates were rusting on their hinges, the windows were broken and the tiles had fallen off the roof.
Beyond the park was an open road—the highroad; beyond the road a narrow path led across a broad field into a small wood; on the right hand was a low rising ground. This, then, was the wood where the thing was done; this was the hillside on which theboy was scaring the birds when he saw the two go in and the one come out.
Leonard crossed the field and entered the wood. He looked at his watch again. It had taken him twenty minutes to walk from the house to the road; he made a note of that fact. He walked through the wood; it was a pretty wood, more like a plantation than a wood—a wood with a few large trees, many saplings, two or three trees lying on the ground and waiting to be cut up. The spring foliage was out, dancing in the sunlight; the varying light and shade were pleasing and restful, the air was soft, the birds were singing. A peaceful, lovely place.
This, then, was the spot where Langley Holme was suddenly done to death. By whom?
Now, as Leonard stood looking into the tangled mass of undergrowth, a curious thing happened. It was the same thing which had happened to the housekeeper, and was mentioned in her notes. By some freak of light and shade, there was fashioned in a part of the wood where the shade was darkest the simulacrum or spectre of a man—only the shoulders and upper part of a man, but still a man.
Leonard was no more superstitious than his neighbours; but at this ghostly presentment he was startled, and for a moment his heart beat quickly with that strange kind of terror, unlike any other, which is called supernatural.
There are men who boast that they know it not, and have never felt it. These are men who wouldtake their work into a deserted house, and would carry it on serenely, alone, through the watches of the livelong night. For my own part, I envy them not. Give me the indications of the unseen world; the whisper of the unseen spirit; the cold breath of the unseen guest; even though they are received with terror and superstitious shrinkings.
It was with such terror that Leonard saw this apparition. A moment after and it was gone; then he perceived that it was nothing but the shadows lying among the undergrowth, so that they assumed a solid form. Yet, as to the housekeeper, to whom that same apparition had appeared, it seemed to him the actual phantom of the murdered man.
He retraced his steps. It took no more than five minutes, he found, to walk through the wood from one end to the other. It was so small, and the undergrowth of so light a character, with no heavy foliage, that any person standing in any part of it would be easily visible; it would be impossible for any man to conceal himself. He made a note, also, of these facts.
He then remembered the boy on the hillside scaring the birds. There was no boy at the moment, but Leonard walked up the low hill in order to learn what the boy had been able to see.
The hill, although low, was a good deal higher than the trees in the wood; it commanded a view of the land beyond the wood—another field with young corn upon it. Leonard observed that one could notsee through the wood, but that he could see over it, and beyond it, and on either side of it.
If, for instance, anyone approached the wood from any direction, or ran away from it, it would be quite possible for a boy standing on the hillside to see that person.
Then, in his imagination, he heard the boy’s evidence. “I see the Squire and a gentleman with him. They came as far as the wood together. Presently the Squire went away by himself. Then John Dunning came along, and presently he came out, running over to the farm. Then they brought a shutter and carried out something on it covered up. That’s all I see.”
The words were so clear and plain that when they ceased he looked round, and was astonished to find there was no boy. He sat down on a gate and looked at his notes.
1. The walk from the house to the wood took twenty minutes.
2. The time taken in walking through the wood was five minutes.
3. The wood was nowhere thick enough to conceal a man.
4. The wood could not be seen through from the hillside.
5. But it was overlooked on all sides from the hill.
He considered these things, being now more than ever seized and possessed with the weight and burdenof the mystery. Consider. It was no ordinary crime, such as one might read about, when in the annals of a family one member of a long time ago was brutally and wickedly cut off. It was a crime whose effects were felt by every member of his family in the strange seclusion of the head. Whatever advantages might be possessed by any member of this ancient and honourable house were lost; for the head of it, and the owner of all the property, took no notice of anyone; knew nothing of his existence, even; and lived entirely to himself and by himself.
It was, again, the first of all the numerous misfortunes which had fallen upon the family. Lastly, it was a mystery which seemed continually on the point of being cleared up by some theory which would explain and account for everything.
He looked round. The place seemed too peaceful for any deed of violence, the sunshine was warm, the singing of birds filled his ear. The contrast with his own thoughts bewitched him. He would have preferred a thunderous atmosphere charged with electricity.
He argued with himself that the thing took place seventy years ago; that it might be very well left to be cleared up when the secrets of all hearts will be known; that after all these years he could not hope to clear it up; that he was only wasting his time; and so forth. He charged the mystery, so to speak, to leave him. No demon of possession, no incubus,ever refused more resolutely to be driven out. It remained with him, more burdensome, more intolerable, than ever.
He left the hillside and walked back to the road. There, instead of walking through the park again, he turned to the left and entered the village. One must eat; he ordered a chop at the village inn, and while it was getting ready he went to the church. The monuments of his own family were scattered about the church, and on the wall he read again the tablet to the memory of the unfortunate man.
Outside, in the churchyard, was the same old man who had accosted him when he brought Constance here. He was sitting on a tombstone, basking and blinking in the sun. He stood up slowly, and pulled off his hat.
“Hope you’re well, sir,” he said.
“Oh!” Leonard remembered. “You were the boy who was scaring birds on the day—seventy years ago—when Mr. Holme was murdered.”
“Surely, sir—surely. I haven’t forgotten. I remember it all—just as yesterday. Better than yesterday. I’m old, master, and I remember what happened when I was a boy better than what happened yesterday. To many old people the same hath happened.”
“Very likely; I have heard so. Now sit down and tell me all about it. I’ve just come down from London to look at the place, and I remembered your evidence.”
“I will tell you everything, sir. Will you ask me, or shall I tell my own story?”
“You may tell your own story first, and I will ask you questions afterwards.”
So the old man repeated, in a parrot-like way:
“It was on a fine morning in June, getting on to dinner-time. I’d been scaring since five, and I was hungry. I was all alone on the hill, in the field where there’s a little wood, and the path runs through the wood. Then I saw two gentlemen—one was the Squire, the other I’d seen at church with the Squire Sunday before, but I didn’t know his name. He was tall, but nothing like so tall as the Squire. They were talking high and loud and fast. I remember hearing them, but I couldn’t hear the words. They went as far as the wood together. Directly after, the Squire turned back; he looked up and down as if he was expecting somebody, then he turned and walked home fast. The other gentleman didn’t go out with the Squire, nor yet at the other end of the wood.
“A long time after, John Dunning came along. He had on his smock-frock; he hadn’t been in the wood two minutes before he came running out of it, and he made for the farm. I saw that his smock-frock was red; and the farmin’ men brought a shutter and carried out of the wood something covered up. That is all I remember.”
“Yes, that is all. That is what you said at the inquest and the trial, is it not?”
“That was it, sir.”
“Yes. Was the wood then such as it is now?”
“Just the same.”
“Not a close dark wood, but light and open—just as at present?”
“A light and open coppice with plenty of bushes.”
“Could you, then, see through the wood?”
“No; I could see over it and beyond it, but not through the road, where I was standing.”
“On that day what time was it when you arrived?”
“My time was half-past five. Mother gave me my breakfast and sent me out. I suppose it must ha’ been about that time.”
“Very well. You went straight to the hillside and began your work, I suppose?”
“No; I went through the wood first.”
“What for?”
“To see the birds’ nests there.”
“Oh! You were in the wood? Did you find anybody there, or any signs of anybody being concealed there?”
“Lord love you! how could a body hide in that little place?”
“There might have been poachers, for instance.”
“Not in June. If there was anyone at all, I should have seen him.”
“Well, then you went up the hill and began your scaring. Did you see anyone pass into the wood before the Squire and Mr. Holme arrived?”
“No; if there had been anyone, I must have seenhim—for certain sure I must. There was no one all the morning—no one that way at all. There very seldom was anyone.”
“Where does the path lead?”
“It leads across the fields to the village of Highbeech and the church.”
“It is not a frequented way, then?”
“No. Most days there will be only a single person on that way.”
“Humph!” Leonard was disconcerted with the old man’s positiveness. Nobody in the wood on his arrival, no one passed into it all the morning. Where was the poacher? Where was the murderous maniac? “You were only a little boy at the time,” he said. “Don’t you think your memory may be at fault? It was seventy years ago, you know.”
The old man shook his head.
“Why, for months and months and for years and years I was asked over and over again what happened and what I saw. Sometimes it was the Vicar and his friends who talked about the matter and sent for me. Sometimes it was the men at the Crown and Jug who talked about the murder and sent for me. Sometimes it was the gossips. Don’t you think my memory fails, master, because it can’t fail. Why,” he chuckled, “the very last thing I shall see before I go up to the Throne will be the sight of them two gentlemen going along to the wood.”
“Very well, come back to that point. When they arrived at the wood, the Squire turned back.”
“Yes: first went in with the other gentleman.”
“Oh! It doesn’t matter. But he went a little way into the wood, did he?”
“I don’t know if it was a little way. It was a bit of a time—I don’t know how long, five minutes, perhaps—two minutes, perhaps—I don’t know—before he came out.”
“Oh! Was this in your evidence?”
“I answered what I was asked. Nobody ever asked me how long the Squire was in the wood.”
“Well, they entered the wood, and they were talking in an animated manner. That is not in your evidence, either.”
“Because I wasn’t asked. As for animated, they were talking high and loud as if they were quarrelling.”
“They could not be quarrelling.”
“I didn’t hear what they said.”
“Well: it doesn’t matter. The Squire turned back just at the entrance.”
Again the sexton shook his head.
“I know what I said,” he replied; “and I know what I saw.”
“Is there anybody in the village,” Leonard asked, “besides yourself, who remembers the—the event?”
“It was seventy years ago,” he said. “I’m the oldest man in the village, except the Squire. He remembers it very well, for all his mad ways. He’s bound to remember it. There’s nobody else.”
“Then they suspected one man.”
“John Dunning it was. Why, I was only sevenyears of age, but I knew well enough that it couldn’t be John. First, he wasn’t big enough—and then, he wasn’t man enough—and then, he wasn’t devil enough. But they tried him, and he got off and came back to the village. However, he had to go, because, you see, the people don’t like the company of a man who’s been tried for murder, even though he’s been let off; and they wouldn’t work with John, so the Squire gave him money, and he went away, out to Australia—him and all his family—and never been heard of since.”
“Was no one else ever suspected?”
“There might be some who had suspicions, but they kept their suspicions to themselves.”
“Did you yourself have suspicions?”
“It’s a long time ago, sir. The Squire and me are the only two people that remember the thing. What’s the use, after all these years, of having suspicions? I don’t say I have, and I don’t say I haven’t. If I have, they will be buried with me in my grave.”
Leonard returned to London. He now understood exactly the condition of the ground, and he had examined the old man whose evidence was so important. Nothing additional was to be got out of him; but the verbal statement of a contemporary after seventy years concerning the event in which Leonard was so much interested was remarkable.
He returned to his own rooms. Hither presently came Constance.
“My friend and cousin,” she said, in her frank manner, as if there had never been any disturbing question between them, “you are looking worried. What is the matter?”
“Am I looking worried?”
“The more important point is—are you feeling worried? Leonard, it has nothing to do with that little conversation we had the other day?”
“No,” he replied. “Nothing.” It was not a complimentary reply, but, then, Constance was not a girl to expect or to care for compliments.
“Well—is it the discovery of the poor relations?”
“You will think me a very ridiculous person. I don’t worry in the least about the poor relations. But I am worried about that crime—that murder of seventy years ago.”
“Oh! But why?”
“It concerns you as well as me.”
“Do you mean that I ought to worry about it? I cannot, really. It is too long ago. I feel, really, no interest in it at all—except for a little pity about my grandmother, whose childhood was saddened by the dreadful thing. And that, too, was such a long time ago. But why should it worry you?”
“I can hardly tell you why. But it does. Constance, it is the most wonderful thing. You do not suspect me of nerves or idle fancies?”
“Not at all. You are quite a strong person as regards nerves.”
“Then you will perhaps explain what has happened.Last night I came home about eleven. I remembered that my newly discovered Great-Aunt had sent me as a present—a cheerful present—a book containing a full account, with cuttings from the papers of the time and notes by a woman who was housekeeper at Campaigne Park, of the crime——”
“Well?”
“I took it out of its brown-paper covering. Again, Constance, am I a man of superstitions?”
“Certainly not!”
“Well——” He considered the point for a few moments, as one perhaps better concealed. Then he resolved upon communicating it. “When I opened it I was seized with a most curious repulsion—a kind of loathing—which it was difficult to shake off. This morning on looking at the book again I had the same feeling.”
“Yes, it is strange. But you got over it.”
“In spite of it I persisted and resolutely went through the whole book. I am repelled and I am attracted by the subject. I sat up half the night reading it—I have never been so held by any book before.”
“Strange!” Constance repeated. “And for a thing so long ago!”
“I threw it aside at last and went to bed—and to dream. And the end—or the beginning—of it is that I am compelled—I use the word advisedly—compelled, Constance, to investigate the whole affair.”
“Oh! but you are not in earnest? Investigate?But it happened seventy years ago! What can be learned after seventy years?”
“I don’t know. I must investigate and find out what I can.”
Constance looked at him with astonishment. He sat at his desk—but with his chair turned towards her. His face was lined and somewhat haggard: he looked like one who is driven: but he looked resolved.
“Leonard, this is idle fancy.”
“I cannot help it; I must investigate the case. There is no help for me, Constance—I must. This was the first of the family misfortunes. They have been so heavy and so many that—well, it is weakness to connect them with something unknown.”
“I am sorry—I am very sorry—that you have learned the truth—even though it makes me your cousin.”
“I am very sorry, too. But Fate has found me—as it found my grandfather and my father and that old, old man. Perhaps my own career is also to be cut short.”
“Nonsense, Leonard! You will investigate the case: you will find out nothing: you will throw it aside: you will forget it.”
“No; it is not to be forgotten or thrown aside.”
“Well, make your inquiry as soon as you can and get it over. Oh, I should have thought you the last person in the world to be moved by fancies of compulsion or any other fancies.”
“I should have thought so, too, except for this experience.When I got up, Constance, I resolutely shut the book, and I made up my mind to forget the whole business.”
“And you could not, I suppose?”
“I could not. I found it impossible to fix my attention, so I pulled out the book again and went all over it from the beginning once more. Constance, it is the most remarkable story I ever read. You shall read it yourself.”
“If I do, not even my duty to our ancestor will make me take it so seriously as you are doing.”
“To-day I have been down to the place. I have visited the wood where the thing happened: I found again that old man of the churchyard, who paid you an undeserved compliment.” Constance blushed, but not much. “I made him tell me all he remembered: it was not much, but it sounded like the unexpected confirmation of some old document.”
“And have you come to any conclusion yet? Have you formed any theory?”
“None that will hold water. I don’t know what is going to happen over that business, but I must go on—I must go on.”
She laid a hand upon his arm.
“If you must go on, let me go with you. It is my murder as well as yours. Lend me the book.”
She carried it off to her own rooms, and that night another incubus sat upon another sleeping person and murdered rest.
“Come to get another speech, Fred?” Christopher looked up cheerily from the work before him. The sweet spring season, when the big dinners are going on, is his time of harvest, and after June he can send his sheaves of golden grain to the Bank. It promised to be a busy and a prosperous season. “Come for another speech, old man?” he repeated. “I’m doing a humorous one on Literature, but I can make room for you.”
“Hang your speeches!” Fred sat down on the table. “You might offer a man a drink.” He spoke as one oppressed with a sense of injustice.
“Seem out of sorts, Fred. What’s gone wrong? Colonial Enterprise? The great concern which interests all Lombard Street hitched up somehow?” He asked with the exasperating grin of the doubter. But he opened a cupboard and produced a bottle, a glass, and two or three sodas. “Well, old man, there’s your drink.”
Fred grunted, helped himself liberally, though it was as yet only eleven in the forenoon.
“The great Colonial concern is where it was,” he explained vaguely.
“So I supposed. And about Lombard Street?”
“Well, I thought better of the City. I thought there was still some enterprise left in this rotten, stagnant, decaying, and declining old country.”
Christopher laughed.
“They won’t look at it, eh?”
“On the contrary, they won’t do anything till they have looked at it.”
“Humph! Awkward, isn’t it? I say, Fred, what did you come back for at all? Why not stay in Australia?”
“I came back for many reasons. Partly to look after you, Brother Chris.”
“Oh! After me? Why after me?”
“Well, you see, you are the only one left who knew of my existence. Leonard remembered nothing about me. My grandfather’s lawyers had never heard of me. And one day there came into my head—it was like a voice speaking to me—it said, ‘Fred, you are a Fool. You’ve been twenty years in this country. You’ve got an old lunatic of a grandfather who must have piles and piles of money. Perhaps he’s dead. And no one but Christopher left to remember you. Get off home as quick as you can. Christopher,’ said this remarkable voice, ‘is quite capable of putting his hands on the lot and forgetting you.’ That is what the voice said, my brother.”
“Sometimes it’s rats: sometimes it’s cats: sometimes it’s circles: sometimes it’s a voice. Fred, you must have been pretty far gone.”
“Perhaps. But I listened to that voice, and, what is more, I obeyed it, and came home. The old man isn’t gone yet. So far that’s safe. And the lawyers know of my existence. So that’s all right. You won’t get the chance of forgetting me, after all.”
“Very good, very good. There will be very soon, I should say, the division of a most almighty pile, Fred. You are quite welcome to your share.”
“Much obliged, I’m sure. Do you know how much it is?”
“I am afraid to calculate. Besides, what will has he made?”
“Will, my boy! He’s got £6,000 a year, and he spends nothing and he gives nothing. All that money, with something he had from his mother, has been rolling up and rolling up. How much is it? A million? Two millions? And here am I hard up for want of a few pounds, and you, a Fraud and an Impostor, working like a nigger, and all that money waiting to be spent as it should be spent. It’s maddening, Chris—it’s maddening.”
“So it is, so it is. But nothing can be done. Well, you were on the highroad to D.T., and, instead of seeing rats, you heard a voice calumniating your brother, and you came home; and you put your vast concern in your pocket—the waistcoat pocket held it all, no doubt.”
“What the devil does it matter which pocket held it?”
Christopher leaned back and joined the tips of his fingers.
“I wasn’t going to spoil your game, Fred, though that devil of a voice did speak such utterances. But I knew all along. I smelt a fake, so to speak. You a man of business? You the head of a great Colonial Enterprise? No, no; it was too thin, my brother—too thin. Not but what you looked the part—I will say that.”
“Upon my word, I thought it was going to come off. I got hold of a company promoter. He said he’s steered craft more crazy than mine into Port. Talked of a valuation: talked of assigning 50,000 shares to me as owner of the Colonial business——”
“Well, but, Fred, come to the facts; sooner or later the facts would have to be faced, you know. What was the Colonial business?”
“It was a going concern fast enough when I left it. Whether it’s going now I don’t know. A lovely shanty by the roadside, stocked with a large assortment of sardines, Day and Martin, tea, flour, and sugar. What more do you want? The thing I traded on was not the shanty, but the possible ‘development.’ ”
“The development of the shanty. Excellent!”
“The development, I say, out of this humble roadside beginning. I made great use of the humble beginning: I thought they would accept the firststeps of the development. I proposed a vast company with stores all over Australia for the sale of everything. Barlow Brothers were to serve the Australian Continent. We were to have our sugar estates in the Mauritius: our coffee estates in Ceylon: our tea estates in Assam: our flour-mills everywhere: our vineyards in France and Germany——”
“I see—I see. Quite enough, Fred; the scheme does you great honour. So you went into the City with it.”
“I did. I’ve wasted buckets full of champagne over it, and whisky enough to float a first-class yacht. And what’s the result?”
“I see. And you’ve come to an end.”
“That is so. The very end. Look!” He pulled out his watch-chain. There was no watch at the end of it. “The watch has gone in,” he said. “The chain will go next. And there’s the hotel bill.”
“Rather a heavy bill, I should imagine.”
“I’ve done myself well, Christopher.”
“And how are you going to pay that bill? And what are you going to do afterwards?”
“I thought of those accumulations. I went down to see the old man. He’s quite well and hearty—wouldn’t speak to me. Pretends to be deaf and dumb. But the housekeeper says he understands everything. So he knows of my existence. The woman gave me the address of his solicitors, and I’ve been to see them. I wanted an advance, you know, just a little advance on the accumulations.”
“Ah!”
“But they won’t acknowledge that they have any power. ‘My dear Sir,’ I said, ‘I don’t ask whether you have any power or not—I don’t care whether you advance me a thousand on my reversionary interest, or whether you lend it yourself.’ No, sir, the fellow wouldn’t budge. Said I must prove the possession of reversionary interest: said he wasn’t a money-lender: said I had better go to a bank and show security. Here I am one of the heirs to a noble fortune. I don’t know how much, but it must be something enormous. Why, his estate is worth £6,000 a year, and I know that there was money besides which he had from his mother. Enormous! Enormous! And here I am wanting a poor thousand.”
“It seems hard, doesn’t it? But, then, are you sure that you are one of the heirs?”
“The old man is off his head. Everything will be divided. He can’t live long.”
“No. But he may live five or six years more.”
“Well, Christopher, the long and the short of it is that you will have to find that money. You may charge interest: you may take my bond: you will do what you like: but I must have that money.”
“The long and the short of it, Fred, is this: I am not going to give, or to lend, or to advance, any money to you at all. Put that in your pipe.”
“Oh!” Fred helped himself to another whisky-and-water. “You won’t, eh? Then, what do youthink of my blowing this flourishing concern of yours, eh?”
Christopher changed colour.
“What do you think, Christopher, of my going to call on Pembridge Crescent, and letting out in the most natural and casual way in the world, that I’ve just come from the rooms in Chancery Lane where you carry on your business?”
“Fred, you—you—you are a most infernal scoundrel!”
“What business? asks my sister-in-law. What business? asks my niece. What business? asks my nephew. Why, says I, don’t you know? Hasn’t he told you? Quite a flourishing income—almost as flourishing as Barlow Brothers. It’s in the Fraudulent Speech Supply Line. That’s a pretty sort of shell to drop in the middle of your family circle, isn’t it?”
“Fred, you were always the most cold-blooded villain that ever walked.”
“That’s what I shall do, my dear brother. More than that, I shall go and see Leonard. That aristocratic young gentleman, who thinks so much about his family, will be greatly pleased, will he not?”
We need not follow the conversation, which became at this point extremely animated. Memories long since supposed to be forgotten and buried and put away were revived, with comments satirical, indignant, or contemptuous. Language of the strongest was employed. The office boy put down hisnovelette, and wondered what Jack Harkaway would do under such circumstances. Indeed, the past lives of the two brothers lent themselves singularly to the recollection of romantic adventures and episodes of a startling character. Presently—we are not Cain and Abel—the conversation became milder. Some kind of compromise began to be considered.
“Well, I don’t mind,” said Fred at length. “I don’t care so long as I can get the money. But I must have the money—or some money—and that before long.”
“You can put your case before Leonard, if you like. He won’t give you much, because he hasn’t got much to give. I think he has a few hundreds a year from his mother. He might advance on his reversions, but he isn’t that sort of man at all.”
“I’ll try. But, look you, Christopher, if he refuses I’ll take it out of you. How would you like all the world to know how you live? And, by the Lord, sir, if I have to tell all the world, I will.”
“I was a great fool, Fred, to let you into the secret. I might have known, from old experience, what you would do with it to suit your own purpose. Always the dear old uncalculating, unselfish, truthful brother—always!”
Fred took another drink and another cigar. Then he invoked a blessing upon his brother with all the cordiality proper for such a blessing and retired.