At the inquest held in the big upstair room of the Star and Garter Hotel at Kew Bridge there was a crowded attendance. By this time the public excitement had risen to fever-heat. It had by some unaccountable means leaked out that at the post-mortem we had been puzzled; therefore the mystery was much increased, and the papers that morning without exception gave prominence to the startling affair.
The coroner, seated at the table at the head of the room, took the usual formal evidence of identification, writing down the depositions upon separate sheets of blue foolscap.
Samuel Short was the first witness of importance, and those in the room listened breathlessly to the story of how his alarum clock had awakened him at two o’clock; how he had risen as usual and gone to his master’s room, only to discover him dead.
“You noticed no sign of a struggle?” inquired the coroner, looking sharply up at the witness.
“None, sir. My master was lying on his side, and except for the stain of blood which attracted my attention it looked as though he had died in his sleep.”
“And what did you do?”
“I raised the alarm,” answered Short; and then he went on to describe how he switched on the electric light, rushed downstairs, seized the knife hanging in the hall, opened one of the back doors and rushed outside.
“And why did you do that, pray?” asked the coroner, looking at him fixedly.
“I thought that someone might be lurking in the garden,” the man responded, a trifle lamely.
The solicitor of Mrs. Courtenay’s family, to whom she had sent asking him to be present on her behalf, rose at this juncture and addressing the coroner, said:
“I should like to put a question to the witness, sir. I represent the deceased’s family.”
“As you wish,” replied the coroner. “But do you consider such a course wise at this stage of the inquiry? There must be an adjournment.”
He understood the coroner’s objection and, acquiescing, sat down.
Nurse Kate and the cook were called, and afterwards Ethelwynn, who, dressed in black and wearing a veil, looked pale and fragile as she drew off her glove in order to take the oath.
As she stood there our eyes met for an instant; then she turned towards her questioner, bracing herself for the ordeal.
“When did you last see the deceased alive?” asked the coroner, after the usual formal inquiry as to her name and connection with the family.
“At ten o’clock in the evening. Dr. Boyd visited him, and found him much better. After the doctor had gone I went upstairs and found the nurse with him, giving him his medicine. He was still sitting before the fire.”
“Was he in his usual spirits?”
“Quite.”
“What was the character of your conversation with him? I understand that Mrs. Courtenay, your sister, was out at the time. Did he remark upon her absence?”
“Yes. He said it was a wet night, and he hoped she would not take cold, for she was so careless of herself.”
The coroner bent to his paper and wrote down her reply.
“And you did not see him alive again.”
“No.”
“You entered the room after he was dead, I presume?”
“No. I—I hadn’t the courage,” she faltered. “They told me that he was dead—that he had been stabbed to the heart.”
Again the coroner bent to his writing. What, I wondered, would those present think if I produced the little piece of stained chenille which I kept wrapped in tissue paper and hidden in my fusee-box?
To them it, of course, seemed quite natural that a delicate woman should hesitate to view a murdered man. But if they knew of my discovery they would detect that she was an admirable actress—that herhorror of the dead was feigned, and that she was not telling the truth. I, who knew her countenance so well, saw even through her veil how agitated she was, and with what desperate resolve she was concealing the awful anxiety consuming her.
“One witness has told us that the deceased was very much afraid of burglars,” observed the coroner. “Had he ever spoken to you on the subject?”
“Often. At his country house some years ago a burglary was committed, and one of the burglars fired at him but missed. I think that unnerved him, for he always kept a loaded revolver in the drawer of a table beside his bed. In addition to this he had electrical contrivances attached to the windows, so as to ring an alarm.”
“But it appears they did not ring,” said the coroner, quickly.
“They were out of order, the servants tell me. The bells had been silent for a fortnight or so.”
“It seems probable, then, that the murderer knew of that,” remarked Dr. Diplock, again writing with his scratchy quill. Turning to the solicitor, he asked, “Have you any questions to put to the witness?”
“None,” was the response.
And then the woman whom I had loved so fervently and well, turned and re-seated herself. She glanced across at me. Did she read my thoughts?
Her glance was a glance of triumph.
Medical evidence was next taken, Sir Bernard Eyton being the first witness. He gave his opinion in his habitual sharp, snappy voice, terse and to the point.
In technical language he explained the disease from which his patient had been suffering, and then proceeded to describe the result of the post-mortem, how the wound inside was eight times larger than the exterior incision.
“That seems very remarkable!” exclaimed the coroner, himself a surgeon of no mean repute, laying down his pen and regarding the physician with interest suddenly aroused. “Have you ever seen a similar wound in your experience, Sir Bernard?”
“Never!” was the reply. “My friends, Doctor Boyd and Doctor Farmer, were with me, and we are agreed that it is utterly impossible that the cardiac injuries I have described could have been caused by the external wound.”
“Then how were they caused?” asked the coroner.
“I cannot tell.”
There was no cross-examination. I followed, merely corroborating what my chief had said. Then, after the police surgeon had given his evidence, Dr. Diplock turned to the twelve Kew tradesmen who had been “summoned and sworn” as jurymen, and addressing them said:
“I think, gentlemen, you have heard sufficient to show you that this is a more than usually serious case. There are certain elements both extraordinary and mysterious, and that being so I would suggest an adjournment, in order that the police should be enabled to make further enquiries into the matter. The deceased was a gentleman whose philanthropy was probably well known to you all, and we must alltherefore regret that he should have come to such a sudden and tragic end. You may, of course, come to a verdict to-day if you wish, but I would strongly urge an adjournment—until, say, this day week.”
The jury conferred for a few moments, and after some whispering the foreman, a grocer at Kew Bridge, announced that his fellow jurymen acquiesced in the coroner’s suggestion, and the public rose and slowly left, more puzzled than ever.
Ambler Jevons had been present, sitting at the back of the room, and in order to avoid the others we lunched together at an obscure public-house in Brentford, on the opposite side of the Thames to Kew Gardens. It was the only place we could discover, save the hotel where the inquest had been held, and we had no desire to be interrupted, for during the inquiry he had passed me a scrap of paper upon which he had written an earnest request to see me alone afterwards.
Therefore when I had put Ethelwynn into a cab, and had bade farewell to Sir Bernard and received certain private instructions from him, we walked together into the narrow, rather dirty High Street of Brentford, the county town of Middlesex.
The inn we entered was close to a soap works, the odour from which was not conducive to a good appetite, but we obtained a room to ourselves and ate our meal of cold beef almost in silence.
“I was up early this morning,” Ambler observed at last. “I was at Kew at eight o’clock.”
“Why?”
“In the night an idea struck me, and when such ideas occur I always seek to put them promptly into action.”
“What was the idea?” I asked.
“I thought about that safe in the old man’s bedroom,” he replied, laying down his knife and fork and looking at me.
“What about it? There’s surely nothing extraordinary in a man having a safe in his room?”
“No. But there’s something extraordinary in the key of that safe being missing,” he said. “Thorpe has apparently overlooked the point; therefore this morning I went down to Kew, and finding only a constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In the dead man’s room I naturally expected to find it, and after nearly a couple of hours searching in every nook and every crack I succeeded. It was hidden in the mould of a small pot-fern, standing in the corridor outside the room.”
“You examined the safe, then?”
“No, I didn’t. There might be money and valuables within, and I had no right to open it without the presence of a witness. I’ve waited for you to accompany me. We’ll go there after luncheon and examine its contents.”
“But the executors might have something to say regarding such an action,” I remarked.
“Executors be hanged! I saw them this morning, a couple of dry-as-dust old fossils—city men, I believe,who only think of house property and dividends. Our duty is to solve this mystery. The executors can have their turn, old chap, when we’ve finished. At present they haven’t the key, or any notion where it is. One of them mentioned it, and said he supposed it was in the widow’s possession.”
“Well,” I remarked, “I must say that I don’t half like the idea of turning out a safe without the presence of the executors.”
“Police enquiries come before executors’ inventories,” he replied. “They’ll get their innings all in good time. The house is, at present, in the occupation of the police, and nobody therefore can disturb us.”
“Have you told Thorpe?”
“No. He’s gone up to Scotland Yard to make his report. He’ll probably be down again this afternoon. Let’s finish, and take the ferry across.”
Thus persuaded I drained my ale, and together we went down to the ferry, landing at Kew Gardens, and crossing them until we emerged by the Unicorn Gate, almost opposite the house.
There were loiterers still outside, men, women, and children, who lounged in the vicinity, staring blankly up at the drawn blinds. A constable in uniform admitted us. He had his lunch, a pot of beer and some bread and cheese which his wife had probably brought him, on the dining-room table, and we had disturbed him with his mouth full.
He was the same man whom Ambler Jevons had seen in the morning, and as we entered he saluted, saying:
“Inspector Thorpe has left a message for you, sir. He’ll be back from the Yard about half-past three, and would very much like to see you.”
“Do you know why he wants to see me?”
“It appears, sir, that one of the witnesses who gave evidence this morning is missing.”
“Missing!” he cried, pricking up his ears. “Who’s missing?”
“The manservant, sir. My sergeant told me an hour ago that as soon as the man had given evidence he went out, and was seen hurrying towards Gunnersbury Station. They believe he’s absconded.”
I exchanged significant glances with my companion, but neither of us uttered a word. Ambler gave vent to his habitual grunt of dissatisfaction, and then led the way upstairs.
The body had been removed from the room in which it had been found, and the bed was dismantled. When inside the apartment, he turned to me calmly, saying:
“There seems something in Thorpe’s theory regarding that fellow Short, after all.”
“If he has really absconded, it is an admission of guilt,” I remarked.
“Most certainly,” he replied. “It’s a suspicious circumstance, in any case, that he did not remain until the conclusion of the inquiry.”
We pulled the chest of drawers, a beautiful piece of old Sheraton, away from the door of the safe, and before placing the key in the lock my companion examined the exterior minutely. The key was partlyrusted, and appeared as though it had not been used for many months.
Could it be that the assassin was in search of that key and had been unsuccessful?
He showed me the artful manner in which it had been concealed. The small hardy fern had been rooted up and stuck back again heedlessly into its pot. Certainly no one would ever have thought to search for a safe-key there. The dampness of the mould had caused the rust, hence before we could open the iron door we were compelled to oil the key with some brilliantine which was discovered on the dead man’s dressing table.
The interior, we found, was a kind of small strong-room—built of fire-brick, and lined with steel. It was filled with papers of all kinds neatly arranged.
We drew up a table, and the first packet my friend handed out was a substantial one of five pound notes, secured by an elastic band, beneath which was a slip on which the amount was pencilled. Securities of various sorts followed, and then large packets of parchment deeds which, on examination, we found related to his Devonshire property and his farms in Canada.
“Here’s something!” cried Ambler at length, tossing across to me a small packet methodically tied with pink tape. “The old boy’s love-letters—by the look of them.”
I undid the loop eagerly, and opened the first letter. It was in a feminine hand, and proved a curious, almost unintelligible communication.
I glanced at the signature. My heart ceased its beating, and a sudden cry involuntarily escaped me, although next moment I saw that by it I had betrayed myself, for Ambler Jevons sprang to my side in an instant.
But next instant I covered the signature with my hand, grasped the packet swift as thought, and turned upon him defiantly, without uttering a word.
“What have you found there?” inquired Ambler Jevons, quickly interested, and yet surprised at my determination to conceal it from him.
“Something that concerns me,” I replied briefly.
“Concerns you?” he ejaculated. “I don’t understand. How can anything among the old man’s private papers concern you?”
“This concerns me personally,” I answered. “Surely that is sufficient explanation.”
“No,” my friend said. “Forgive me, Ralph, for speaking quite plainly, but in this affair we are both working towards the same end—namely, to elucidate the mystery. We cannot hope for success if you are bent upon concealing your discoveries from me.”
“This is a private affair of my own,” I declared doggedly. “What I have found only concerns myself.”
He shrugged his shoulders with an air of distinct dissatisfaction.
“Even if it is a purely private matter we are surely good friends enough to be cognisant of one another’s secrets,” he remarked.
“Of course,” I replied dubiously. “But only up to a certain point.”
“Then, in other words, you imply that you can’t trust me?”
“I can trust you, Ambler,” I answered calmly. “We are the best of friends, and I hope we shall always be so. Will you not forgive me for refusing to show you these letters?”
“I only ask you one question. Have they anything to do with the matter we are investigating?”
I hesitated. With his quick perception he saw that a lie was not ready upon my lips.
“They have. Your silence tells me so. In that case it is your duty to show me them,” he said, quietly.
I protested again, but he overwhelmed my arguments. In common fairness to him I ought not, I knew, keep back the truth. And yet it was the greatest and most terrible blow that had ever fallen upon me. He saw that I was crushed and stammering, and he stood by me wondering.
“Forgive me, Ambler,” I urged again. “When you have read this letter you will fully understand why I have endeavoured to conceal it from you; why, if you were not present here at this moment, I would burn them all and not leave a trace behind.”
Then I handed it to him.
He took it eagerly, skimmed it through, and started just as I had started when he saw the signature. Upon his face was a blank expression, and he returned it to me without a word.
“Well?” I asked. “What is your opinion?”
“My opinion is the same as your own, Ralph, old fellow,” he answered slowly, looking me straight in the face. “It is amazing—startling—tragic.”
“You think, then, that the motive of the crime was jealousy?”
“The letter makes it quite plain,” he answered huskily. “Give me the others. Let me examine them. I know how severe this blow must be to you, old fellow,” he added, sympathetically.
“Yes, it has staggered me,” I stammered. “I’m utterly dumfounded by the unexpected revelation!” and I handed him the packet of correspondence, which he placed upon the table, and, seating himself, commenced eagerly to examine letter after letter.
While he was thus engaged I took up the first letter, and read it through—right to the bitter end.
It was apparently the last of a long correspondence, for all the letters were arranged chronologically, and this was the last of the packet. Written from Neneford Manor, Northamptonshire, and vaguely dated “Wednesday,” as is a woman’s habit, it was addressed to Mr. Courtenay, and ran as follows:—
“Words cannot express my contempt for a man who breaks his word as easily as you break yours. A year ago, when you were my father’s guest, you told me that you loved me, and urged me to marry you. At first I laughed at your proposal; then when I found you really serious, I pointed out the difference of our ages. You, in return, declared that you loved me with all the ardour of a young man; that I was your ideal; and you promised, by all you held most sacred, that if I consented I should never regret. I believed you, and believed the false words of feigned devotion which youwrote to me later under seal of strictest secrecy. You went to Cairo, and none knew of our secret—the secret that you intended to make me your wife. And how have you kept your promise? To-day my father has informed me that you are to marry Mary! Imagine the blow to me! My father expects me to rejoice, little dreaming how I have been fooled; how lightly you have treated a woman’s affections and aspirations. Some there are who, finding themselves in my position, would place in Mary’s hands the packet of your correspondence which is before me as I write, and thus open her eyes to the fact that she is but the dupe of a man devoid of honour. Shall I do so? No. Rest assured that I shall not. If my sister is happy, let her remain so. My vendetta lies not in that direction. The fire of hatred may be stifled, but it can never be quenched. We shall be quits some day, and you will regret bitterly that you have broken your word so lightly. My revenge—the vengeance of a jealous woman—will fall upon you at a moment and in a manner you will little dream of. I return you your letters, as you may not care for them to fall into other hands, and from to-day I shall never again refer to what has passed. I am young, and may still obtain an upright and honourable man as husband. You are old, and are tottering slowly to your doom. Farewell.“Ethelwynn Mivart.”
“Words cannot express my contempt for a man who breaks his word as easily as you break yours. A year ago, when you were my father’s guest, you told me that you loved me, and urged me to marry you. At first I laughed at your proposal; then when I found you really serious, I pointed out the difference of our ages. You, in return, declared that you loved me with all the ardour of a young man; that I was your ideal; and you promised, by all you held most sacred, that if I consented I should never regret. I believed you, and believed the false words of feigned devotion which youwrote to me later under seal of strictest secrecy. You went to Cairo, and none knew of our secret—the secret that you intended to make me your wife. And how have you kept your promise? To-day my father has informed me that you are to marry Mary! Imagine the blow to me! My father expects me to rejoice, little dreaming how I have been fooled; how lightly you have treated a woman’s affections and aspirations. Some there are who, finding themselves in my position, would place in Mary’s hands the packet of your correspondence which is before me as I write, and thus open her eyes to the fact that she is but the dupe of a man devoid of honour. Shall I do so? No. Rest assured that I shall not. If my sister is happy, let her remain so. My vendetta lies not in that direction. The fire of hatred may be stifled, but it can never be quenched. We shall be quits some day, and you will regret bitterly that you have broken your word so lightly. My revenge—the vengeance of a jealous woman—will fall upon you at a moment and in a manner you will little dream of. I return you your letters, as you may not care for them to fall into other hands, and from to-day I shall never again refer to what has passed. I am young, and may still obtain an upright and honourable man as husband. You are old, and are tottering slowly to your doom. Farewell.
“Ethelwynn Mivart.”
The letter fully explained a circumstance of which I had been entirely ignorant, namely, that the womanI had loved had actually been engaged to old Mr. Courtenay before her sister had married him. Its tenor showed how intensely antagonistic she was towards the man who had fooled her, and in the concluding sentence there was a distinct if covert threat—a threat of bitter revenge.
She had returned the old man’s letters apparently in order to show that in her hand she held a further and more powerful weapon; she had not sought to break off his marriage with Mary, but had rather stood by, swallowed her anger, and calmly calculated upon a fierce vendetta at a moment when he would least expect it.
Truly those startling words spoken by Sir Bernard had been full of truth. I remembered them now, and discerned his meaning. He was at least an honest upright man who, although sometimes a trifle eccentric, had my interests deeply at heart. In the progress I had made in my profession I owed much to him, and even in my private affairs he had sought to guide me, although I had, alas! disregarded his repeated warnings.
I took up one after another of the letters my friend had examined, and found them to be the correspondence of a woman who was either angling after a wealthy husband, or who loved him with all the strength of her affection. Some of the communications were full of passion, and betrayed that poetry of soul that was innate in her. The letters were dated from Neneford, from Oban, and from various Mediterranean ports, where she had gone yachting with her uncle, SirThomas Heaton, the great Lancashire coal-owner. Sometimes she addressed him as “Dearest,” at others as “Beloved,” usually signing herself “Your Own.” So full were they of the ardent passion characteristic of her that they held me in amazement. It was passion developed under its most profound and serious aspects; they showed the calm and thoughtful, not the brilliant side of intellect.
In Ethelwynn’s character the passionate and the imaginative were blended equally and in the highest conceivable degree as combined with delicate female nature. Those letters, although written to a man in whose heart romance must long ago have been dead, showed how complex was her character, how fervent, enthusiastic and self-forgetting her love. At first I believed that those passionate outpourings were merely designed to captivate the old gentleman for his money; but when I read on I saw how intense her passion became towards the end, and how the culmination of it all was that wild reproachful missive written when the crushing blow fell so suddenly upon her.
Ethelwynn was a woman of extraordinary character, full of picturesque charm and glowing romance. To be tremblingly alive to the gentle impressions, and yet be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a design requires it, an immovable heart, amidst even the most imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and rarest endowment of humanity. I knew her as a woman of highest mental powers touched with amelancholy sweetness. I was now aware of the cause of that melancholy.
Yet it was apparent that the serious and energetic part of her character was founded on deep passion, for after her sister’s marriage with the man she had herself loved and had threatened, she had actually come there beneath their roof, and lived as her sister’s companion, stifling all the hatred that had entered her heart, and preserving an outward calm that had no doubt entirely disarmed him.
Such a circumstance was extraordinary. To me, as to Ambler Jevons who knew her well, it seemed almost inconceivable that old Mr. Courtenay should allow her to live there after receiving such a wild communication as that final letter. Especially curious, too, that Mary had never suspected or discovered her sister’s jealousy. Yet so skilfully had Ethelwynn concealed her intention of revenge that both husband and wife had been entirely deceived.
Love, considered under its poetical aspect, is the union of passion and imagination. I had foolishly believed that this calm, sweet-voiced woman had loved me, but those letters made it plain that I had been utterly fooled. “Le mystère de l’existence,” said Madame de Stael to her daughter, “c’est la rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines.”
And although there was in her, in her character, and in her terrible situation, a concentration of all the interests that belong to humanity, she was nevertheless a murderess.
“The truth is here,” remarked my friend, laying his hand upon the heap of tender correspondence which had been brought to such an abrupt conclusion by the letter I have printed in its entirety. “It is a strange, romantic story, to say the least.”
“Then you really believe that she is guilty?” I exclaimed, hoarsely.
He shrugged his shoulders significantly, but no word escaped his lips.
In the silence that fell between us, I glanced at him. His chin was sunk upon his breast, his brows knit, his thin fingers toying idly with the plain gold ring.
“Well?” I managed to exclaim at last. “What shall we do?”
“Do?” he echoed. “What can we do, my dear fellow? That woman’s future is in your hands.”
“Why in mine?” I asked. “In yours also, surely?”
“No,” he answered resolutely, taking my hand and grasping it warmly. “No, Ralph; I know—I can see how you are suffering. You believed her to be a pure and honest woman—one above the common run—a woman fit for helpmate and wife. Well, I, too, must confess myself very much misled. I believed her to be all that you imagined; indeed, if her face be any criterion, she is utterly unspoiled by the world and its wickedness. In my careful studies in physiognomy I have found that very seldom does a perfect face like hers cover an evil heart. Hence, I confess, that this discovery has amazed me quite as much as it has you. I somehow feel——”
“I don’t believe it!” I cried, interrupting him. “I don’t believe, Ambler, that she murdered him—I can’t believe it. Her’s is not the face of a murderess.”
“Faces sometimes deceive,” he said quietly. “Recollect that a clever woman can give a truthful appearance to a lie where a man utterly fails.”
“I know—I know. But even with this circumstantial proof I can’t and won’t believe it.”
“Please yourself, my dear fellow,” he answered. “I know it is hard to believe ill of a woman whom one loves so devotedly as you’ve loved Ethelwynn. But be brave, bear up, and face the situation like a man.”
“I am facing it,” I said resolutely. “I will face it by refusing to believe that she killed him. The letters are plain enough. She was engaged secretly to old Courtenay, who threw her over in favour of her sister. But is there anything so very extraordinary in that? One hears of such things very often.”
“But the final letter?”
“It bears evidence of being written in the first moments of wild anger on realising that she had been abandoned in favour of Mary. Probably she has by this time quite forgotten the words she wrote. And in any case the fact of her living beneath the same roof, supervising the household, and attending to the sick man during Mary’s absence, entirely negatives any idea of revenge.”
Jevons smiled dubiously, and I myself knew that my argument was not altogether logical.
“Well?” I continued. “And is not that your opinion?”
“No. It is not,” he replied, bluntly.
“Then what is to be done?” I asked, after a pause.
“The matter rests entirely with you, Ralph,” he replied. “I know what I should do in a similar case.”
“What would you do? Advise me,” I urged eagerly.
“I should take the whole of the correspondence, just as it is, place it in the grate there, and burn it,” he said.
I was not prepared for such a suggestion. A similar idea had occurred to me, but I feared to suggest to him such a mode of defeating the ends of justice.
“But if I do that will you give me a vow of secrecy?” I asked, quickly. “Recollect that such a step is a serious offence against the law.”
“When I pass out of this room I shall have no further recollection of ever having seen any letters,” he answered, again giving me his hand. “In this matter my desire is only to help you. If, as you believe, Ethelwynn is innocent, then no harm can be done in destroying the letters, whereas if she is actually the assassin she must, sooner or later, betray her guilt. A woman may be clever, but she can never successfully cover the crime of murder.”
“Then you are willing that I, as finder of those letters, shall burn them? And further, that no word shall pass regarding this discovery?”
“Most willing,” he replied. “Come,” he added, commencing to gather them together. “Let us lose no time, or perhaps the constable on duty below or one of the plain-clothes men may come prying in here.”
Then at his direction and with his assistance I willingly tore up each letter in small pieces, placed the whole in the grate where dead cinders still remained, and with a vesta set a light to them. For a few moments they blazed fiercely up the chimney, then died out, leaving only black tinder.
“We must make a feint of having tried to light the fire,” said Jevons, taking an old newspaper, twisting it up, and setting light to it in the grate, afterwards stirring up the dead tinder with the tinder of the letters. “I’ll remark incidentally to the constable that we’ve tried to get a fire, and didn’t succeed. That will prevent Thorpe poking his nose into it.”
So when the whole of the letters had been destroyed, all traces of their remains effaced and the safe re-locked, we went downstairs—not, however, before my companion had made a satisfactory explanation to the constable and entirely misled him as to what we had been doing.
The adjourned inquest was resumed on the day appointed in the big room at the Star and Garter at Kew, and the public, eager as ever for sensational details, overflowed through the bar and out into the street, until the police were compelled to disperse the crowd. The evening papers had worked up all kinds of theories, some worthy of attention, others ridiculous; hence the excitement and interest had become intense.
The extraordinary nature of the wound which caused Mr. Courtenay’s death was the chief element of mystery. Our medical evidence had produced a sensation, for we had been agreed that to inflict such a wound with any instrument which could pass through the exterior orifice was an absolute impossibility. Sir Bernard and myself were still both bewildered. In the consulting room at Harley Street we had discussed it a dozen times, but could arrive at no definite conclusion as to how such a terrible wound could possibly have been caused.
I noticed a change in Sir Bernard. He seemed mopish, thoughtful, and somewhat despondent. Usually he was a busy, bustling man, whose manner with his patients was rather brusque, and who, unlike the majority of my own profession, went to the pointat once. There is no profession in which one is compelled to exercise so much affected patience and courtesy as in the profession of medicine. Patients will bore you to death with long and tedious histories of all their ailments since the days when they chewed a gutta-percha teething-ring, and to appear impatient is to court a reputation for flippancy and want of attention. Great men may hold up their hands and cry “Enough!” But small men must sit with pencil poised, apparently intensely interested, and listen through until the patient has exhausted his long-winded recollections of all his ills.
Contrary to his usual custom, Sir Bernard did not now return to Hove each evening, but remained at Harley Street—dining alone off a chop or a steak, and going out afterwards, probably to his club. His change of manner surprised me. I noticed in him distinct signs of nervous disorder; and on several afternoons he sent round to me at the Hospital, saying that he could not see his patients, and asking me to run back to Harley Street and take his place.
On the evening before the adjourned inquest I remarked to him that he did not appear very well, and his reply, in a strained, desponding voice, was:
“Poor Courtenay has gone. He was my best friend.”
Yes, it was as I expected, he was sorrowing over his friend.
When we had re-assembled at the Star and Garter, he entered quietly and took a seat beside me just before the commencement of the proceedings.
The Coroner, having read over all the depositions taken on the first occasion, asked the police if they had any further evidence to offer, whereupon the local inspector of the T Division answered with an air of mystery:
“We have nothing, sir, which we can make public. Active inquiries are still in progress.”
“No further medical evidence?” asked the coroner.
I turned towards Sir Bernard inquiringly, and as I did so my eye caught a face hidden by a black veil, seated among the public at the far side of the room. It was Ethelwynn herself—come there to watch the proceedings and hear with her own ears whether the police had obtained traces of the assassin!
Her anxious countenance shone through her veil haggard and white; her eyes were fixed upon the Coroner. She hung breathlessly upon his every word.
“We have no further evidence,” replied the inspector.
There was a pause. The public who were there in search of some solution of the bewildering mystery which had been published in every paper through the land, were disappointed. They had expected at least to hear some expert evidence—which, if not always reliable, is always interesting. But there seemed an inclination on the part of the police to maintain a silence which increased rather than lessened the mystery.
“Well, gentlemen,” exclaimed Dr. Diplock, turning at last to the twelve local tradesmen who formed the jury, “you have heard the evidence in this curiouscase, and your duty is to decide in what manner the deceased came by his death, whether by accidental means, or by foul play. I think in the circumstances you will have very little difficulty in deciding. The case is a mysterious one—a very mysterious one. The deceased was a gentleman of means who was suffering from a malignant disease, and that disease must have proved fatal within a short time. Now this fact appears to have been well known to himself, to the members of his household, and probably to most of his friends. Nevertheless, he was found dead in circumstances which point most strongly to wilful murder. If he was actually murdered, the assassin, whoever he was, had some very strong incentive in killing him at once, because he might well have waited another few months for the fatal termination of the disease. That fact, however, is not for you to consider, gentlemen. You are here for the sole purpose of deciding whether or not this case is one of murder. If, in your opinion it is, then it becomes your duty to return a verdict to that effect and leave it to the police to discover the assassin. To comment at length on the many mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragedy is, I think, needless. The depositions I have just read are sufficiently full and explanatory, especially the evidence of Sir Bernard Eyton and of Doctor Boyd, both of whom, besides being well-known in the profession, were personal friends of the deceased. In considering your verdict I would further beg of you not to heed any theories you may have read in thenewspapers, but adjudge the matter from a fair and impartial standpoint, and give your verdict as you honestly believe the truth to be.”
The dead silence which had prevailed during the Coroner’s address was at once broken by the uneasy moving of the crowd. I glanced across at Ethelwynn, and saw her sitting immovable, breathless, statuesque.
She watched the foreman of the jury whispering to two or three of his colleagues in the immediate vicinity. The twelve tradesmen consulted together in an undertone, while the reporters at the table conversed audibly. They, too, were disappointed at being unable to obtain any sensational “copy.”
“If you wish to retire in order to consider your verdict, gentlemen, you are quite at liberty to do so,” remarked the coroner.
“That is unnecessary,” replied the foreman. “We are agreed unanimously.”
“Upon what?”
“Our verdict is that the deceased was wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.”
“Very well, gentlemen. Of course in my position I am not permitted to give you advice, but I think that you could have arrived at no other verdict. The police will use every endeavour to discover the identity of the assassin.”
I glanced at Ethelwynn, and at that instant she turned her head, and her eyes met mine. She started quickly, her face blanched to the lips; then she rose unsteadily, and with the crowd went slowly out.
Ambler Jevons, who had been seated at the opposite side of the room, got up and rushed away; therefore I had no chance to get a word with him. He had glanced at me significantly, and I knew well what passed through his mind. Like myself, he was thinking of that strange letter we had found among the dead man’s effects and had agreed to destroy.
About nine o’clock that same night I had left Sir Bernard’s and was strolling slowly round to my rooms, when my friend’s cheery voice sounded behind me. He was on his way to have a smoke with me as usual, he explained. So we entered together, and after I had turned up the light and brought out the drinks he flung himself into his habitual chair, and stretching himself wearily said—
“The affair becomes more mysterious hourly.”
“How?” I inquired quickly.
“I’ve been down to Kew this afternoon,” was his rather ambiguous response. “I had to go to my office directly after the inquest, but I returned at once.”
“And what have you discovered? Anything fresh?”
“Yes,” he responded slowly. “A fresh fact or two—facts that still increase the mystery.”
“What are they? Tell me,” I urged.
“No, Ralph, old chap. When I am certain of their true importance I’ll explain them to you. At present I desire to pursue my own methods until I arrive at some clear conclusion.”
This disinclination to tell me the truth was annoying. He had always been quite frank and open, explaining all his theories, and showing to me any weak points in the circumstantial evidence. Yet suddenly, as it seemed to me, he had become filled with a strange mistrust. Why, I could not conceive.
“But surely you can tell me the nature of your discoveries?” I said. “There need be no secrets between us in this affair.”
“No, Ralph. But I’m superstitious enough to believe that ill-luck follows a premature exposure of one’s plans,” he said.
His excuse was a lame one—a very lame one. I smiled—in order to show him that I read through such a transparent attempt to mislead me.
“I might have refused to show you that letter of Ethelwynn’s,” I protested. “Yet our interests being mutual I handed it to you.”
“And it is well that you did.”
“Why?”
“Because knowledge of it has changed the whole course of my inquiries.”
“Changed them from one direction to another?”
He nodded.
“And you are now prosecuting them in the direction of Ethelwynn?”
“No,” he answered. “Not exactly.”
I looked at his face, and saw upon it an expression of profound mysteriousness. His dark, well-marked countenance was a complex one always, but at that moment I was utterly unable to discern whether hespoke the truth, or whether he only wished to mislead my suspicions into a different channel. That he was the acme of shrewdness, that his powers of deduction were extraordinary, and that his patience in unravelling a secret was almost beyond comprehension I knew well. Even those great trackers of criminals, Shaw and Maddox, of New Scotland Yard, held him in respect, and admired his acute intelligence and marvellous power of perception.
Yet his attempt to evade a question which so closely concerned my own peace of mind and future happiness tried my patience. If he had really discovered some fresh facts I considered it but right that I should be acquainted with them.
“Has your opinion changed as to the identity of the person who committed the crime?” I asked him, rather abruptly.
“Not in the least,” he responded, slowly lighting his foul pipe. “How can it, in the face of the letter we burnt?”
“Then you think that jealousy was the cause of the tragedy? That she——”
“No, not jealousy,” he interrupted, speaking quite calmly. “The facts I have discovered go to show that the motive was not jealousy.”
“Hatred, then?”
“No, not hatred.”
“Then what?”
“That’s just where I fail to form a theory,” he answered, after a brief silence, during which he watched the blue smoke curl upward to the sombreceiling of my room. “In a few days I hope to discover the motive.”
“You will let me assist you?” I urged, eagerly. “I am at your disposal at any hour.”
“No,” he answered, decisively. “You are prejudiced, Ralph. You unfortunately still love that woman.”
A sigh escaped me. What he said was, alas! too true. I had adored her through those happy months prior to the tragedy. She had come into my lonely bachelor life as the one ray of sunlight that gave me hope and happiness, and I had lived for her alone. Because of her I had striven to rise in the profession, and had laboured hard so that in a little while I might be in a position to marry and buy that quiet country practice that was my ideal existence. And even now, with my idol broken by the knowledge of her previous engagement to the man now dead, I confess that I nevertheless still entertained a strong affection for her. The memory of a past love is often more sweet than the love itself—and to men it is so very often fatal.
I had risen to pour out some whiskey for my companion when, of a sudden, my man opened the door and announced:
“There’s a lady to see you, sir.”
“A lady?” we both exclaimed, with one voice.
“Yes, sir,” and he handed me a card.
I glanced at it. My visitor was the very last person I desired to meet at that moment, for she was none other than Ethelwynn herself.
“I’ll go, old chap,” Jevons cried, springing to his feet, and draining his glass at a single draught. “She mustn’t meet me here. Good-bye till to-morrow. Remember, betray no sign to her that you know the truth. It’s certainly a curious affair, as it now stands; but depend upon it that there’s more complication and mystery in it than we have yet suspected.”
As soon as Ambler Jevons had slipped out through my little study my love came slowly forward, as though with some unwillingness.
She was dressed, as at the inquest, in deep mourning, wearing a smartly-cut tailor-made dress trimmed with astrachan and a neat toque, her pale countenance covered with a thick spotted veil.
“Ralph,” she exclaimed in a low voice, “forgive me for calling upon you at this hour. I know it’s indiscreet, but I am very anxious to see you.”
I returned her greeting, rather coldly I am afraid, and led her to the big armchair which had only a moment before been vacated by my friend.
When she seated herself and faced me I saw how changed she was, even though she did not lift her veil. Her dark eyes seemed haggard and sunken, her cheeks, usually pink with the glow of health, were white, almost ghastly, and her slim, well-gloved hand, resting upon the chair arm, trembled perceptibly.
“You have not come to me for two whole days, Ralph,” she commenced in a tone of complaint. “Surely you do not intend to desert me in these hours of distress?”
“I must apologise,” I responded quickly, rememberingJevons’ advice. “But the fact is I myself have been very upset over the sad affair, and, in addition, I’ve had several serious cases during the past few days. Sir Bernard has been unwell, and I’ve been compelled to look after his practice.”
“Sir Bernard!” she ejaculated, in a tone which instantly struck me as strange. It was as though she held him in abhorrence. “Do you know, Ralph, I hate to think of you in association with that man.”
“Why?” I asked, much surprised, while at that same moment the thought flashed through my mind how often Sir Bernard had given me vague warnings regarding her.
They were evidently bitter enemies.
“I have no intention to give my reasons,” she replied, her brows slightly knit. “I merely give it as my opinion that you should no longer remain in association with him.”
“But surely you are alone in that opinion!” I said. “He bears a high character, and is certainly one of the first physicians in London. His practice is perhaps the most valuable of any medical man at the present moment.”
“I don’t deny that,” she said, her gloved fingers twitching nervously. “A man may be a king, and at the same time a knave.”
I smiled. It was apparent that her intention was to separate me from the man to whom I owed nearly all, if not quite all, my success. And why? Because he knew of her past, and she feared that he might, in a moment of confidence, betray all to me.
“Vague hints are always irritating,” I remarked. “Cannot you give me some reason for your desire that my friendship with him should end?”
“No. If I did, you would accuse me of selfish motives,” she said, fixing her dark eyes upon me.
Could a woman with a Madonna-like countenance be actually guilty of murder? It seemed incredible. And yet her manner was that of a woman haunted by the terrible secret of her crime. At that moment she was seeking, by ingenious means, to conceal the truth regarding the past. She feared that my intimate friendship with the great physician might result in her unmasking.
“I can’t see that selfish motives enter into this affair at all,” I remarked. “Whatever you tell me, Ethelwynn, is, I know, for my own benefit. Therefore you should at least be explicit.”
“I can’t be more explicit.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have no right to utter a libel without being absolutely certain of the facts.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” I said, rather puzzled.
“I mean that at present the information I have is vague,” she replied. “But if it is the truth, as I expect to establish it, then you must dissociate yourself from him, Ralph.”
“You have only suspicions?”
“Only suspicions.”
“Of what?”
“Of a fact which will some day astound you.”
Our eyes met again, and I saw in hers a look of intense earnestness that caused me to wonder. To what could she possibly be referring?
“You certainly arouse my curiosity,” I said, affecting to laugh. “Do you really think Sir Bernard such a very dreadful person, then?”
“Ah! You do not take my words seriously,” she remarked. “I am warning you, Ralph, for your own benefit. It is a pity you do not heed me.”
“I do heed you,” I declared. “Only your statement is so strange that it appears almost incredible.”
“Incredible it may seem; but one day ere long you will be convinced that what I say to-night is the truth.”
“What do you say?”
“I say that Sir Bernard Eyton, the man in whom you place every confidence, and whose example as a great man in his profession you are so studiously following, is not your friend.”
“Nor yours, I suppose?”
“No, neither is he mine.”
This admission was at least the truth. I had known it long ago. But what had been the cause of difference between them was hidden in deepest mystery. Sir Bernard, as old Mr. Courtenay’s most intimate friend, knew, in all probability, of his engagement to her, and of its rupture in favour of her sister Mary. It might even be that Sir Bernard had had a hand in the breaking of the engagement. If so, that would well account for her violent hostility towards him.
Such thoughts, with others, flashed through my mind as I sat there facing her. She was leaning back,her hands fallen idly upon her lap, peering straight at me through that spotted veil which, half-concealing her wondrous beauty, imparted to her an additional air of mystery.
“You have quarrelled with Sir Bernard, I presume?” I hazarded.
“Quarrelled!” she echoed. “We were never friends.”
Truly she possessed all a clever woman’s presence of mind in the evasion of a leading question.
“He was an acquaintance of yours?”
“An acquaintance—yes. But I have always distrusted him.”
“Mary likes him, I believe,” I remarked. “He was poor Courtenay’s most intimate friend for many years.”
“She judges him from that standpoint alone. Any of her husband’s friends were hers, and she was fully cognisant of Sir Bernard’s unceasing attention to the sufferer.”
“If that is so it is rather a pity that she was recently so neglectful,” I said.
“I know, Ralph—I know the reason of it all,” she faltered. “I can’t explain to you, because it is not just that I should expose my sister’s secret. But I know the truth which, when revealed, will make it clear to the world that her apparent neglect was not culpable. She had a motive.”
“A motive in going to town of an evening and enjoying herself!” I exclaimed. “Of course, the motive was to obtain relaxation. When a man is more than twice the age of his wife, the latter is apt to chafe beneath the golden fetter. It’s the sameeverywhere—in Mayfair as in Mile End; in Suburbia as in a rural village. Difference of age is difference of temperament; and difference of temperament opens a breach which only a lover can fill.”
She was silent—her eyes cast down. She saw that the attempt to vindicate her sister had, as before, utterly and ignominiously failed.
“Yes, Ralph, you are right,” she admitted at last. “Judged from a philosophic standpoint a wife ought not to be more than ten years her husband’s junior. Love which arises out of mere weakness is as easily fixed upon one object as another; and consequently is at all times transferable. It is so pleasant to us women to be admired, and so soothing to be loved that the grand trial of constancy to a young woman married to an elderly man is not to add one more conquest to her triumphs, but to earn the respect and esteem of the man who is her husband. And it is difficult. Of that I am convinced.”
There was for the first time a true ring of earnestness in her voice, and I saw by her manner that her heart was overburdened by the sorrow that had fallen upon her sister. Her character was a complex one which I had failed always to analyse, and it seemed just then as though her endeavour was to free her sister of all the responsibilities of her married life. She had made that effort once before, prior to the tragedy, but its motive was hidden in obscurity.
“Women are often very foolish,” she went on, half-apologetically. “Having chosen their lover for his suitability they usually allow the natural propensity oftheir youthful minds to invest him with every ideal of excellence. That is a fatal error committed by the majority of women. We ought to be satisfied with him as he is, rather than imagine him what he never can be.”
“Yes,” I said, smiling at her philosophy. “It would certainly save them a world of disappointment in after life. It has always struck me that the extravagant investiture of fancy does not belong, as is commonly supposed, to the meek, true and abiding attachment which it is woman’s highest virtue and noblest distinction to feel. I strongly suspect it is vanity, and not affection, which leads a woman to believe her lover perfect; because it enhances her triumph to be the choice of such a man.”
“Ah! I’m glad that we agree, Ralph,” she said with a sigh and an air of deep seriousness. “The part of the true-hearted woman is to be satisfied with her lover such as he is, old or young, and to consider him, with all his faults, as sufficiently perfect for her. No after development of character can then shake her faith, no ridicule or exposure can weaken her tenderness for a single moment; while, on the other hand, she who has blindly believed her lover to be without a fault, must ever be in danger of awaking to the conviction that her love exists no longer.”
“As in your own case,” I added, in an endeavour to obtain from her the reason of this curious discourse.
“My own case!” she echoed. “No, Ralph. I have never believed you to be a perfect ideal. I have loved you because I knew that you loved me. Our tastesare in common, our admiration for each other is mutual, and our affection strong and ever-increasing—until—until——”
And faltering, she stopped abruptly, without concluding her sentence.
“Until what?” I asked.
Tears sprang to her eyes. One drop rolled down her white cheek until it reached her veil, and stood there sparkling beneath the light.
“You know well,” she said hoarsely. “Until the tragedy. From that moment, Ralph, you changed. You are not the same to me as formerly. I feel—I feel,” she confessed, covering her face with her hands and sobbing bitterly, “I feel that I have lost you.”
“Lost me! I don’t understand,” I said, feigning not to comprehend her.
“I feel as though you no longer hold me in esteem,” she faltered through her tears. “Something tells me, Ralph, that—that your love for me has vanished, never to return!”
With a sudden movement she raised her veil, and I saw how white and anxious was her fair countenance. I could not bring myself to believe that such a perfect face could conceal a heart blackened by the crime of murder. But, alas! all men are weak where a pretty woman is concerned. After all, it is feminine wiles and feminine graces that rule our world. Man is but a poor mortal at best, easily moved to sympathy by a woman’s tears, and as easily misled by the touch of a soft hand or a passionate caress upon the lips. Diplomacy is inborn in woman, and although everywoman is not an adventuress, yet one and all are clever actresses when the game of love is being played.
The thought of that letter I had read and destroyed again recurred to me. Yes, she had concealed her secret—the secret of her attempt to marry Courtenay for his money. And yet if, as seemed so apparent, she had nursed her hatred, was it not but natural that she should assume a hostile attitude towards her sister—the woman who had eclipsed her in the old man’s affections? Nevertheless, on the contrary, she was always apologetic where Mary was concerned, and had always sought to conceal her shortcomings and domestic infelicity. It was that point which so sorely puzzled me.
“Why should my love for you become suddenly extinguished?” I asked, for want of something other to say.
“I don’t know,” she faltered. “I cannot tell why, but I have a distinct distrust of the future, a feeling that we are drifting apart.”
She spoke the truth. A woman in love is quick of perception, and no feigned affection on the man’s part can ever blind her.
I saw that she read my heart like an open book, and at once strove to reassure her, trying to bring myself to believe that I had misjudged her.
“No, no, dearest,” I said, rising with a hollow pretence of caressing her tears away. “You are nervous, and upset by the tragedy. Try to forget it all.”
“Forget!” she echoed in a hard voice, her eyes cast down despondently. “Forget that night! Ah, no, I can never forget it—never!”