Colwyn found Mr. Oakham awaiting him in the hotel lobby, a little before eleven the following morning, to inform him that the necessary arrangements had been made to enable him to be present at his interview with Penreath. Colwyn forbore to ask him on what pretext he had obtained the gaol governor's consent to his presence, but merely signified that he was ready. Mr. Oakham replied that they had better go at once, and asked the porter to call a taxi.
On arriving at the gaol they passed through the double entrance gates, Mr. Oakham turned to a door on the left just within the gates, and entered. The door opened into a plainly furnished office, with walls covered with prison regulations. Behind a counter, at a stand-up desk opposite the door, a tall burly man in a uniform of blue and silver was busily writing in a large ledger. Ranged in rows, on hooks alongside him, were bunches of immense keys, and as he turned to attend to Oakham and Colwyn another bunch of similar keys could be seen dangling at his side. Mr. Oakham explained the purpose of their visit, and produced the order for the interview. The functionary in blue and silver, who was the entrance gaoler, perused it attentively, and pushed over two forms for the solicitor and the detective to fill in. It was the last formality that the law insisted on—a grim form of visiting card whereon the visitor inscribes his name and business, which is sent to the condemned man, who must give his consent to the interview before it is granted.
When Mr. Oakham and Colwyn had filled in their forms the entrance gaoler took them and pulled a rope. Somewhere in a corridor a bell clanged, and a moment afterwards a gaoler opened a small door on the other side of the counter. The entrance gaoler gave him the forms, and he disappeared with them. There ensued a long period of waiting, and nearly half an hour elapsed before he reappeared again, accompanied by a warder. The blue and silver functionary silently lifted the flap of the counter, and beckoned Mr. Oakham and Colwyn to accompany the warder through the small door at the other end of the room.
They went through and the bell clanged once more as the door closed behind them. The warder took them along a corridor to a door at the farther end, and ushered them into a room—a large apartment, not unlike a board room, furnished with a table and chairs ranged on each side. It was the governor of the gaol's room, where the interview was to take place. Colwyn took one of the chairs at the table, Mr. Oakham took another, and silently they awaited the coming of the condemned man.
Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the door at the other end of the room opened, and Penreath appeared between two warders. They conducted him to the table, and placed a chair for him. With a quick glance at his visitors he sat down, and the warders seated themselves on each side of him. The warder who had brought the visitors in then nodded to Mr. Oakham, as an indication that the interview might begin.
In the brief glance that the young man cast at his visitors Colwyn observed both calmness of mind and self-possession. Although deep shadows under the eyes and the tenseness of the muscles round the mouth revealed sleepless nights and mental agony, Penreath's faceshowed no trace of insanity or the guilty consciousness of evil deeds, but had the serene expression of a man who had fought his battle and won it.
Mr. Oakham began the interview with him in a dry professional way, as though it were an interview between solicitor and client in the sanctity of a private room, with no hearers. And, indeed, the prison warders sitting there with the impassive faces of officialdom might have been articles of furniture, so remote were they from displaying the slightest interest in the private matters discussed between the two. No doubt they had been present at many similar scenes, and custom is a deadening factor. Mr. Oakham's object was to urge his client to consent to the lodgement of an appeal against the jury's verdict, and to that end he advanced a multitude of arguments and a variety of reasons. The young man listened patiently, but when the solicitor had concluded he shook his head with a gesture of finality which indicated an unalterable refusal.
"It's no use, Oakham," he said. "My mind is quite made up. I'm obliged to you for all the trouble you have taken in my case, but I cannot alter my decision. I shall go through with it—to the end."
"In that case it is no use my urging you further." Mr. Oakham spoke stiffly, and put his eye-glasses in his pocket with an air of vexation. "Mr. Colwyn has something to say to you on the subject. Perhaps you will listen to him. He believes he can help you."
"He helped to arrest me," said Penreath, with a slight indifferent look at the detective.
"But not to convict you," said Colwyn. "I had hoped to help you."
"What do you want of me?" Penreath's tone was cold.
"In the first place, I have to say that I believe you innocent."
The young man lifted his eyebrows slightly, as if to indicate that the other's opinion was a matter of indifference to him, but he remained silent.
"I have come to beg of you, even at this late hour, to break your silence, and give an account of your actions that night at the inn."
"You might have saved yourself the trouble of coming here. I have nothing whatever to say."
"That means that you continue in your refusal to speak. Will you answer one or two questions?"
"No."
"Will you not tell me why you kept silence about what you saw in Mr. Glenthorpe's room that night of the murder?"
"Man, how did you find that out?" Penreath's calm disappeared in a sudden fury of voice and look. "What do you know?"
"I know whom you are trying to shield," replied the detective, with his eyes fixed on Penreath's face. "You are wrong. She——"
"I beg of you to be silent! Do not mention names, for God's sake." Penreath's face had grown suddenly white.
"It is in your power to ensure my silence."
"How?"
"By speaking yourself."
"That I will never do."
"Then you compel me to go to the authorities and tell them what I have discovered. I will save you in spite of yourself."
"Do you think that I want to be saved—like that?"
Struggling desperately for self-control Penreath turned to Mr. Oakham. "Why did you bring Mr. Colwyn here?" he asked the solicitor fiercely. "To torture me?"
Before Mr. Oakham could reply Colwyn laughed aloud. A clear ringing laugh of unmistakable satisfaction. The laugh sounded strangely incongruous in such a place.
"Penreath," he said, "you've told me all that I came here to know. You're a splendid young Briton, but finesse is not your strong point. You've acted like a quixotic young idiot in this case, and got yourself into a nice muddle for nothing. The girl is as innocent as you are, and you are a pair of simpletons! Yes. I mean what I say," continued the detective, answering the young man's amazed look with a reassuring smile. "Do you think that I would want to save you at her expense? Now perhaps, when I have told you what happened that night, you will answer a few questions. Before you went to bed you sat down and wrote a letter on a leaf torn from your pocket-book. That letter was to Miss Willoughby, breaking off your engagement. After writing it you went to bed. At that time it was raining hard.
"You must have fallen asleep almost immediately, and slept for half an hour—perhaps a little more—for when you awoke the rain had ceased. You heard a slight noise in your room, and lit your candle to see what it was. There was a rat in the corner of the room. You got up to throw something at it, but as soon as you moved the rat darted across the room and disappeared behind the wardrobe at the side of the bed. You pushed back the wardrobe and——"
"For God's sake, say no more!" said Penreath. His face was grey, and he was staring at the detective with the eyes of a man who saw his heart's secret—the secret for which he was prepared to die—being dragged outinto the light of day. "How did you learn all this?"
"That does not matter much just now. What you saw through the wall made you determine to leave the house as speedily as possible, and also caused you to destroy the letter you had written to Miss Willoughby.
"You were wrong in what you did. In the first place, you misinterpreted what you saw through the door in the wall. By thinking Peggy guilty and leaving the inn early in the morning, you not only wronged her grievously, but brought suspicion on yourself. Peggy's presence in the room was quite by accident. She had gone to ask Mr. Glenthorpe to assist you in your trouble, by lending you money, and, finding the door open, she impulsively went in and found him dead—murdered. And at the bedside she picked up the knife—the knife you had used at dinner—and this."
Colwyn produced Penreath's match-box from his pocket and laid it on the table in front of him.
"Because of the knife and this match-box she thought you guilty."
"I! Why I never left my room after I went into it," exclaimed Penreath. "I left the match-box in the room where I had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. When I awoke after falling asleep, and heard the noise in the room—just as you describe—I could not find my match-box when I wanted a match to light my candle, then I remembered that I had left it in the sitting-room on the mantelpiece. I happened to find a loose match in my vest pocket."
"Peggy came to see me at my hotel, after the trial, and told me all she knew," continued Colwyn. "It was well she did, for my second visit to the inn brought to light a number of facts which will enable me to establish your innocence."
"And what about the real murderer?" asked Penreath, in a hesitating voice, without looking at the detective.
"We will not go into that just now, unless you have anything to tell me that will throw further light on the events of the night." Colwyn shot a keen, questioning glance at the young man.
"I will answer any questions you wish to put to me. It is the least I can do after having made such a fool of myself. It was the shock of seeing Peggy in the room that robbed me of my judgment. I should have known her better, but you must remember that I had no idea she was in the house until I looked through the door in the wall which I had accidentally discovered, and saw her standing at the bedside, with the knife in her hand. I started to follow her home that day because I wished to know more about her. I lost my way in the mist. I met a man on the marshes who directed me to the village and the inn."
"When she heard your voice, and saw you going upstairs, she waited about in the hope of seeing you before she went to bed, as she wished to avoid meeting you in the presence of her father. When she saw Mr. Glenthorpe's door open she acted on a sudden impulse, and went in."
"I have been rightly punished for my stupidity and my folly," said Penreath. "I have wronged her beyond forgiveness."
"You really have not much to blame yourself for except your obstinate silence. That was really too quixotic, even if things had been as you imagined. No man is justified in sacrificing his life foolishly. And you had much to live for. You had your duty to do in life. Nobody knew that better than you—a soldier who had served his country gallantly and well. In fact, yoursilence has been to me one of the puzzles of this case, and even now it seems to me that you must have had a deeper motive than that of shielding the girl, because you could have asserted your innocence without implicating her."
"You are a very clever man, Colwyn," said the other slowly. "There was another reason for my silence."
"What was it?"
"I am supposed to be an epileptic. I happen to know a little of the course of that frightful disease, and it seemed to me that it was better to die—even at the hands of the hangman—than to live on to be a burden to my friends and relations, particularly when by dying I could shield the girl I loved. That is why I was glad when the plea put up for my defence failed. I preferred to die rather than live branded as a criminal lunatic. So, you see, it was not such a great sacrifice on my part, after all."
"What brought you back to the wood where you were arrested?"
"To see her. I do not know if I wanted to speak to her; but I wanted above all things to see her once again. When I left the inn that morning I had no idea that I might fall under suspicion for having committed the murder, but I was desperately unhappy after what I had seen the night before, and I didn't care what I did or where I went. Instead of walking back to Durrington I struck across the marshes in the opposite direction. I walked along all day, through a desolate area of marshes, meeting nobody except an old eel fisherman in the morning, and, later on, a labourer going home from his work. I was very tired when I saw the labourer, and I asked him to direct me to some place where I could obtain rest and refreshment. He pointed to a short cut across themarshes, which, he said, led to a hamlet with an inn. I went along the path he had pointed out, but I lost my way in the gathering darkness. After wandering about the marshes for some time I saw the light of a cottage window some distance off, and went there to inquire my way. The occupant, an old peasant woman, could not have heard anything about the murder, for she was very kind to me, and gave me tea and food. Afterwards I set out for the inn again, and when I reached the road I sat down by the side of it to rest awhile.
"While I was sitting there two men came along. They did not see me in the dark, and I heard them talking about the murder, and from what they said I knew that I was suspected, and that the whole country side was searching for me. It seemed incredible to me, and my first instinct was to fly. I sat there until the men's voices died away in the distance, then I turned off the road, and hurried across some fields, looking for a place to hide. After walking some distance I came to a large barn, standing by itself. The door was open, and I went in. I had no matches, but I felt some hay or straw on the floor. I lay down and pulled some over me, and fell fast asleep.
"I had only intended to rest in the barn for a while, but I was so tired that I slept all night. When I awoke it was broad daylight. I did not know where I was at first, but it all came back to me, and I started up in a fright, determined to leave the barn as quickly as possible, for I knew it was an unsafe hiding place, and likely to be searched at any time. But before I could get away I heard loud voices approaching, and I knew I should be seen. I looked hastily around for some place of concealment. It was just a big empty shed with one or two shelves covered with apples, and a lot of straw on thefloor. In desperation, as the voices came nearer, I lay down on the floor again, and pulled straw over me till I was completely hidden from view.
"The door opened, and some men looked in. Through the straw that covered me I could see them quite distinctly—three fishermen and a farm labourer—though apparently they couldn't see me. From their conversation I gathered that they formed part of a search party looking for me, and had been told off to search the barn. This apparently they were not anxious to do, for they merely peeped in at the door, and one of them, in rather a relieved tone, said I wasn't in there, wherever I was. One of the fishermen replied that he expected that I was far enough off by that time. They stood at the door for a few moments, talking about the murder, and then they went away.
"I stayed in the barn all day, but nobody else came near me. When it was dark, I filled my pockets with apples from the shelves, and went out. I wandered about all night, and found myself close to a railway station at daybreak. I had been in that part of the country before, so I knew where I was—not far from Heathfield, with Flegne about three miles away across the fields. The country was nearly all open, and consequently unsafe. As I walked through a field I spied a little hut, almost hidden from view in a clump of trees. The door was open, and I could see it was empty. I went in, lay down, and fell fast asleep.
"When I awoke it was getting dusk. I was very stiff and cold, so I started out walking again to get myself warm. It was then, I remember well, that the longing came over me to see Peggy again. I cursed myself for my weakness, knowing what I knew—or thought I knew, God forgive me.
"I found myself making my way back to Flegne as fast as my legs would carry me—which wasn't very fast, because I was weak from want of food, and so footsore that I could hardly stumble along. But I got over the three miles somehow, and reached the wood, where I crawled into some undergrowth, and lay there all night, sometimes dozing, sometimes wide awake, and sometimes a bit light-headed, I think. It was there you found me next day, and I was glad you did. I was about finished when I saw you looking through the bushes and only too glad to come out. I didn't care what happened to me then. And now, I have told you all."
The young man, as he finished his story, buried his face in his hands, as though overcome by the recollection of the mental anguish he had been through, and what he had endured.
"Not quite all, I think," said Colwyn, after a pause.
"I have told you everything that counts," said Penreath, without looking up.
"You have not," replied the detective firmly. "You have not told me all you saw when you were looking through the door between the two rooms the night of the murder."
Penreath raised his head and regarded the other with startled eyes.
"What do you mean?" he said, in a whisper.
"I mean that you have kept back that you saw the body removed," he said grimly.
"Are you a man or a wizard?" cried Penreath fiercely. "God! how did you find that out?"
"By guess work, if you like," responded the other coolly. "Listen to me! There has been too much concealment about this case already, so let us have no more of it. It was because of what you saw afterwards thatyour suspicions were doubly fastened on the girl, is that not so? I thought as much," he continued, as the other nodded without speaking. "How long after Peggy left the room was it before the body was removed?"
"Not very long," replied Penreath. "After she went out of the room I sat on the bedside. I did not close the small door I had discovered, or replace the wardrobe. I was too overwhelmed. In a little while—perhaps ten minutes—I saw a light shine through the hole again. I went to it and looked through—God knows why—and I saw somebody walking stealthily into the room, carrying a candle. He went to the bedside and, with a groan, lifted the body on to his shoulders, and carried it out of the room. I crept to my door, and looked out and saw him descending the stairs. God in heaven, what a horror, what a horror!
"I waited to see no more. I shut the door in the wall, pulled the wardrobe back into its place and determined to leave the accursed inn as soon as it was daylight. In my cell at nights, when I hear the footsteps of the warder sounding along the corridor and dying away in the distance, it reminds me of how I stood at the door that night, listening to the sound of the footsteps stumbling down the staircase."
"You heard the footsteps distinctly, then?" said the detective.
"Distinctly and clearly. The staircase is a stone one, as you know."
"Did you put your boots out to be cleaned before you went to bed?"
"Yes."
"And were they there when you looked out of the door?"
"I do not remember. But I know they were there inthe morning, dirty and covered with clay. I took them in, and was about to put them on, when the servant knocked at the door with a cup of morning tea. I answered the door with the boots in my hand. She offered to clean them for me, and was taking them away, but I called her back and said I would not wait for them. I was too anxious to get away from the place."
"Do you remember when you lost the rubber heel of one of them?"
"It must have been when I was walking the previous day. They were only put on the day before. I happened to mention to a bootmaker at Durrington that my left heel had become jarred with walking. He recommended me to try rubber heels to lessen the strain, and he put them on for me. I had never worn them before, and found them very uncomfortable when I was walking along the marshes. They seemed to hold and stick in the wet ground."
"And now there are one or two other points I want you to make clear. Why did you register in the name of James Ronald at the Durrington Hotel?"
"That was merely a whim. I was disgusted with London and society after my return from the front. Those who have been through this terrible war learn to see most things at their true worth, and the frivolity, the snobbishness, and the shams of London society at such a time sickened and disgusted me. They tried to lionise me in drawing rooms and make me talk for their entertainment. They put my photograph in the illustrated papers, and interviewed me, and all that kind of thing. What had I done! Nothing! Not a tithe of what thousands of better men are doing every day out there. So I went away from it all. I had no intention, when I went into the hotel, of not registering in my full namethough. That came about in a peculiar way. It was the first registration form I had seen—it was the first hotel I had stayed at after nearly eighteen months at the front—and I put down my two christian names, James Ronald, in the wrong space, the space for the surname, which is the first column. I saw my error as I glanced over the form, but the girl, thinking I had filled it up, took it away from me. It then struck me that it was just as well to let it go; it would prevent my being worried by fools."
"And how came it that you ran so short of money that you had to leave the hotel?"
"I have practically nothing except what my father allows me, and which is paid quarterly through his bankers in London. I left London with a few pounds in my pocket, and thought no more about money until the hotel proprietor stopped me one morning and asked me politely to discharge my bill, as I was a stranger to him. It was then that I first realised the difference between a name like Penreath of Twelvetrees and plain James Ronald. I was furious, and told him he should have the money in two days, as soon as I could communicate with my London bankers. I wrote straight away, and asked them to send me some money. The money came, the morning I was turned out of the hotel; I saw the letter in the rack, addressed to J. R. Penreath, but what good was that to me? I could not claim it because I was booked in the name of James Ronald. I knew nobody in the place to whom I could apply. I had some thoughts of confiding in the hotel proprietor, but one look at his face was sufficient to put that out of the question.
"So I went in to breakfast, desperately angry at being treated so, and feeling more than a little ill. You knowwhat happened at the breakfast table. I began to feel pretty seedy, and left my place to get to the fresh air, when that doctor—Sir Henry Durwood—jumped up and grabbed me. I tried to push him off, but he was too strong for me, and I found myself going. The next thing I knew was that I was lying in my bedroom, and hearing somebody talk. After you had left the room I determined to leave the hotel as quickly as possible. I packed a small handbag, and told the hotel-keeper on my way downstairs that he could keep my things until I paid my bill. Then I walked to Leyland Hoop, where I had an appointment with Peggy, as you know. I seem to have acted as a pretty considerable ass all round," said the young man, with a rueful smile. "But I had a bad gruelling from shell-shock. I wouldn't mention this, but it's really affected my head, you know, and I don't think I'm always quite such a fool as this story makes me appear to be."
"And your nerves were a bit rattled by the Zeppelin raid at Durrington, were they not?" said Colwyn sympathetically.
"You seem to know everything," said the young man, flushing. "I am ashamed to say that they were."
"You have no cause to be ashamed," replied Colwyn gently. "The bravest men suffer that way after shell-shock."
"It's not a thing a man likes to talk about," said Penreath, after a pause. "But if you have had experience of this kind of thing, will you tell me if you have ever seen a man completely recover—from shell-shock, I mean?"
"I should say you will be quite yourself again shortly. There cannot be very much the matter with your nerves to have stood the experience of the last few weeks.After we get you out of here, and you have had a good rest, you will be yourself again."
"And what about this other thing—thisfuror epilepticus, whatever it is?" asked Penreath, anxiously.
"As you didn't murder anybody, you haven't had the epileptic fury," replied Colwyn, laughing.
"But Sir Henry Durwood said at the trial that I was an epileptic," persisted the other.
"He was wrong about thefuror epilepticus, so it is just as likely that he was wrong about the epilepsy. His theory was that you were going to attack somebody at the breakfast table of the hotel, and you have just told us that you had no intention of attacking anybody—that your only idea was to get out of the room. You are neither an epileptic nor insane, in my opinion, but at that time you were suffering from the after effects of shell-shock. Take my advice, and forget all about the trial and what you heard there, or, if you must think of it, remember the excellent certificate of sanity and clear-headedness which the doctors for the Crown gave you! When you get free I'll take you to half a dozen specialists who'll probably confirm the Crown point of view."
Penreath laughed for the first time.
"You've made me feel like a new man," he said. "How can I thank you for all you have done?"
"The only way you can show your gratitude is by instructing Mr. Oakham to lodge an appeal for you—at once. Have you the necessary forms with you, Mr. Oakham?"
"I have," said the solicitor, finding voice after a long silence.
Mr. Oakham did not discuss what had taken place in the prison as he and Colwyn drove to the office of the chief constable after the interview. He sat silent in his corner of the taxi, his hands clasped before him, and gazing straight in front of him with the look of a man who sees nothing. From time to time his lips moved after the fashion of the old, when immersed in thought, and once he audibly murmured, "The poor lad; the poor lad." Colwyn forbore to speak to him. He realised that he had had a shock, and was best left to himself.
By the time the taxi reached the office of the chief constable Mr. Oakham showed symptoms of regaining his self-possession. He felt for his eye-glasses, polished them, placed them on his nose and glanced at his watch. It was in something like his usual tones that he asked Colwyn, as they alighted from the cab, whether he had an appointment with the chief constable.
"I wired to you both at the same time," replied the detective. "I asked him to keep this afternoon free," he explained with a smile.
A police constable in the outer office took in their names. He speedily returned with the message that the chief constable would be glad to see them, and would they step this way, please. Following in his wake, they were conducted along a passage and into a large comfortably furnished room, where Mr. Cromering was writing at a small table placed near a large fire. He looked up as the visitors entered, put down his pen, and came forward to greet them.
"I am pleased to see you again, Mr. Colwyn, and you also, Mr. Oakham. Please draw your chairs near the fire gentlemen—there's a decided nip in the air. I got your telegram, Mr. Colwyn, and I am at your disposal, with plenty of time. Your telegram rather surprised me. What has happened in the Glenthorpe case?"
"Fresh facts have come to light—facts that tend to prove the innocence of Penreath, who was accused and convicted for the murder."
"Dear me! This is a very grave statement. What proofs have you?"
"Sufficient to warrant further steps in the case. It is a long story, but I think when you have heard it you will feel justified in taking prompt action."
Before Mr. Cromering could reply, the police constable who had shown in Colwyn and Mr. Oakham entered the room and said that Superintendent Galloway, from Durrington, was outside.
"Bring him in, Johnson," said Mr. Cromering. He turned to Colwyn and added: "When I received your telegram I telephoned to Galloway and asked him to be here this afternoon. As he worked up the case against Penreath, I thought it better that he should be present and hear what you have to say. You have no objection, I suppose?"
"On the contrary, I shall be very glad for Galloway to hear what I have to say."
The police constable returned, ushering in Superintendent Galloway, who looked rather surprised when he saw his superior officer's visitors. He nodded briefly to Colwyn, and looked inquiringly at the chief constable.
"Mr. Colwyn has discovered some fresh facts in the Glenthorpe murder, Galloway," explained Mr. Cromering. "I sent for you in order that you might hear what they are."
"What sort of facts?" asked Galloway, with a quick glance at the detective.
"That is what Mr. Colwyn proposes to explain to us."
"I shall have to go back to the beginning of our investigations to do so—to the day when we motored from Durrington to Flegne," said the detective. "We went there with the strong presumption in our minds that Penreath was the criminal, because of suspicious facts previously known about him. He was short of money, he had concealed his right name when registering at the hotel, and his behaviour at the breakfast table the morning of his departure suggested an unbalanced temperament. It is a legal axiom that men's minds are influenced by facts previously known or believed, and we set out to investigate this case under the strong presumption that Penreath, and none other, was the murderer.
"The evidence we found during our visit to the inn fitted in with this theory, and inclined the police to shut out the possibility of any alternative theory because of the number of concurrent points which fitted in with the presumption that Penreath was the murderer. There was, first, the fact that the murderer had entered through the window. Penreath had been put to sleep in the room next the murdered man, in an unoccupied part of the inn, and could easily have got from one window to the other without being seen or heard. Next was the fact that the murder had been committed with a knife with a round end. Penreath had used such a knife when dining with Mr. Glenthorpe, and that knife was afterwards missing. Next, we have him hurriedly departing from the inn soon after daybreak, refusing to wait tillhis boots were cleaned, and paying his bill with a Treasury note.
"Then came the discovery of the footprints to the pit where the body had been thrown, and those footprints were incontestably made by Penreath's boots. The stolen notes suggested a strong motive in the case of a man badly in need of money, and the payment of his bill with a Treasury note of the first issue suggested—though not very strongly—that he had given the servant one of the stolen notes. These were the main points in the circumstantial evidence against Penreath. The stories of the landlord of the inn, the deaf waiter, and the servant supported that theory in varying degrees, and afforded an additional ground for the credibility of the belief that Penreath was the murderer. The final and most convincing proof—Penreath's silence under the accusation—does not come into the narrative of events at this point, because he had not been arrested.
"It was when we visited the murdered man's bedroom that the first doubts came to my mind as to the conclusiveness of the circumstantial evidence against Penreath. The theory was that Penreath, after murdering Mr. Glenthorpe, put the body on his shoulder, and carried it downstairs and up the rise to the pit. The murderer entered through the window—the bits of red mud adhering to the carpet prove that conclusively enough—but if Penreath was the murderer where had he got the umbrella with which he shielded himself from the storm? The fact that the murderer carried an umbrella is proved by the discovery of a small patch of umbrella silk which had got caught on a nail by the window. Again, why should a man, getting from one window to another, bother about using an umbrella for a journey of a few feet only? He would know that he could not use it whencarrying the body to the pit, for that task would require both his hands. And what had Penreath done with the umbrella afterwards?
"The clue of the umbrella silk, and the pool of water near the window where the murderer placed the umbrella after getting into the room, definitely fixed the time of the murder between eleven and 11.30 p.m., because the violent rainstorm on that night ceased at the latter hour. If Penreath was the murderer, he waited until the storm ceased before removing the body. There were no footprints outside the window where the murderer got in, because they were obliterated by the rain. On the other hand, the footsteps to the pit where the body was thrown were clear and distinct, proving conclusively that no rain fell after the murderer left the house with his burden. It seemed to me unlikely that a man after committing a murder would coolly sit down beside his victim and wait for the rain to cease before disposing of the body. His natural instinct would be to hide the evidence of his crime as quickly as possible.
"These points, however, were of secondary importance, merely tending to shake slightly what lawyers term the probability of the case against Penreath. But a point of more importance was my discovery that the candle-grease dropped on the carpet was of two different kinds—wax and tallow—suggesting that two different persons were in the room on the night of the murder. Mr. Glenthorpe did not use a candle, but a reading lamp. Neither did Mr. Glenthorpe use the gas globe in the middle of the room. Yet that gas tap was turned on slightly when we examined the room, and the globe and the incandescent burner smashed. Who turned on the tap, and who smashed the globe? Penreath is not tall enough to have struck it with his head. Superintendent Galloway'stheory was that it might have been done by the murderer when throwing the body of his victim over his shoulder.
"An ideal case of circumstantial evidence may be weakened, but not destroyed, by the destruction of one or more of the collateral facts which go to make it up. There are two kinds of circumstantial evidence. In one kind presumption of guilt depends on a series of links forming a chain. In the other, the circumstances are woven together like the strands of a rope. That is the ideal case of circumstantial evidence, because the rope still holds when some of the strands are severed. The case against Penreath struck me as resembling a chain, which is no stronger than its weakest link. The strongest link in the chain of circumstances against Penreath was the footprints leading to the pit. They had undoubtedly been made by his boots, but circumstances can lie as well as witnesses, and in both cases the most plausible sometimes prove the greatest liars. Take away the clue of the footprints, and the case against Penreath was snapped in the most vital link. The remaining circumstances in the case against him, though suspicious enough, were open to an alternative explanation. The footprints were the damning fact—the link on which the remaining links of the chain were hung.
"But the elimination of the clue of the footprints did not make the crime any easier of solution. From the moment I set foot in the room it struck me as a deep and baffling mystery, looking at it from the point of view of the police theory or from any other hypothesis. If Penreath had indeed committed the murder, who was the second visitor to the room? And if Penreath had not committed the murder, who had?
"That night, in my room, I sought to construct two alternative theories of the murder. In the first place, Iexamined the case thoroughly from the police point of view, with Penreath as the murderer. In view of what has come to light since the trial, there is no need to take up time with giving you my reasons for doubting whether Penreath had committed the crime. I explained those reasons to Superintendent Galloway at the time, pointing out, as he will doubtless remember, that the police theory struck me as illogical in some aspects, and far from convincing as a whole. There were too many elements of uncertainty in it, too much guess-work, too much jumping at conclusions. Take one point alone, on which I laid stress at the time. The police theory originally started from the point of Penreath's peculiar behaviour at the Durrington hotel, which, from their point of view, suggested homicidal mania. To my mind, there was no evidence to prove this, although that theory was actually put forth by the defence at Penreath's trial. I witnessed the scene at the breakfast table, and, in my opinion, Sir Henry Durwood acted hastily and wrongly in rushing forward and seizing Penreath. There was nothing in his behaviour that warranted it. He was a little excited, and nothing more, and from what I have heard since he had reason to be excited. Neither at the breakfast table nor in his room subsequently did his actions strike me as the actions of a man of insane, neurotic, or violent temperament. He was simply suffering from nerves. It is important to remember, in recalling the events which led up to this case, that Penreath was invalided out of the Army suffering from shell-shock, and that two nights before the scene at the hotel there was an air raid at Durrington. Shell-shock victims are always prejudicially affected by air raids.
"Even if the police theory had been correct on this point, it seemed inconceivable to me that a man affectedwith homicidal tendencies would have displayed such cold-blooded caution and cunning in carrying out a murder for gain, as the murderer at theGolden Anchordid. The Crown dropped this point at the trial. I merely mention it now in support of my contention that the case of circumstantial evidence against Penreath was by no means a strong one, because it originally depended, in part, on inferred facts which the premises did not warrant.
"Next, the discoveries made in the room where the murder was committed, and certain other indications found outside, did not fit in with the police case against Penreath. Superintendent Galloway's reconstruction of the crime, after he had seen the body and examined the inn premises, did not account for the existence of all the facts. There were circumstances and clues which were not consistent with the police theory of the murder. The probability of the inference that Penreath was the murderer was not increased by the discoveries we made. I am aware that absolute proof is not essential to conviction in a case of circumstantial evidence, but, on the other hand, to ignore facts which do not accord with a theory is to go to the other extreme, for by so doing you are in danger of excluding the possibility of any alternative theory.
"On the other hand, when I sought to account for the crime by any other hypothesis I found myself puzzled at every turn. The presence of two persons in the room was the baffling factor. The murderer had entered through the window in the storm, lighted the tallow candle which he brought with him, walked straight to the bed and committed the murder. Then he had waited till the rain ceased before carrying the body downstairs to the pit. But what about the second person—the person who had carried the wax candle and dropped spots of grease underneath the broken gas globe? Had he come in at a different time, and why? Why had he sought to light the gas, when he carried a candle? Why had he—as I subsequently ascertained—left the room and gone downstairs to turn on the gas at the meter?
"Eliminating Penreath for the time being, I tried next to fit in the clues I had discovered with two alternative theories. Had the murder been committed from outside by a villager, or by somebody in the inn? There were possibilities about the former theory which I pointed out to Superintendent Galloway, who subsequently investigated them, and declared that there was no ground for the theory that the murder had been committed from outside. The theory that the murder had been committed by somebody inside the inn turned my attention to the inmates of the inn. Excluding Penreath for the time being, there were five inmates inside the walls the night the murder was committed—the innkeeper, his daughter, his mother, the waiter, and Ann, the servant. The girl could hardly have committed the murder, and could certainly not have carried away the body. The old mad woman might have committed the murder if she could have got out of her room, but she could not have carried the body to the pit—neither could the servant. By this process of elimination there remained the landlord and the deaf waiter.
"For a reason which it is not necessary to explain now, my thoughts turned to the waiter when I first saw the body of the murdered man. The possibility that he was the murderer was strengthened by the slight clue of the line in the clay which I found underneath the murdered man's bedroom window. That window is about five feet from the ground outside, and the waiter, whois short and stout, could not have climbed through the window without something to stand on. But the waiter could not possibly have carried the body to the pit. His right arm is malformed, and only a very strong man, with two strong arms, could have performed that feat.
"There remained the innkeeper. He was the only person on the inn premises that night, except Penreath, who could have carried the corpse downstairs and thrown it into the pit. Although thin, I should say he is a man of great physical strength. It is astonishing to think, in looking back over all the circumstances of this extraordinary case, that some suspicion was not diverted to him in the first instance. He was very hard-pressed for money, and he knew for days beforehand that Mr. Glenthorpe was going to draw £300 from the bank—a circumstance that Penreath could not possibly have known when he sought chance shelter at the inn that night. He was the only person in the place tall enough to have smashed the gas globe and incandescent burner in Mr. Glenthorpe's room by striking his head against it. He knew the run of the place and the way to the pit intimately—far better than a stranger like Penreath could. I was struck with that fact when we were examining the footprints. The undeviating course from the inn to the mouth of the pit suggested an intimate acquaintance with the way. The man who carried the body to the pit in the darkness knew every inch of the ground.
"It is easy to be wise after the event, but my thoughts and suspicions were centering more and more around the innkeeper when Penreath was arrested. His attitude altered the whole aspect of the case. His hesitating answers to me in the wood, his fatalistic acceptance of the charge against him, seemed to me equivalent to a confession of guilt, so I abandoned my investigations and returned to Durrington.
"I was wrong. It was a mistake for which I find it difficult to forgive myself. Penreath's hesitation, his silence—what were they in the balance of probabilities in such a strange deep crime as this murder? In view of the discoveries I had already made—discoveries which pointed to a most baffling mystery—I should not have allowed myself to be swerved from my course by Penreath's silence in the face of accusation, inexplicable though it appeared at the time. You know what happened subsequently. Penreath, persisting in his silence, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death—because of that silence, which compelled the defence to rely on a defence of insanity which they could not sustain.
"I went back to the inn a second time, not of my own volition, but because of a story told me by the innkeeper's daughter, Peggy, at Durrington four days ago. The night before the inquest Peggy paid a visit to the room in which the murdered man lay. I did not see her go in, but I saw her come out. She went downstairs and hurried across the marshes and threw something into the sea from the top of the breakwater. The following day, after Penreath's arrest, I questioned her. She gave me an explanation which was hardly plausible, but Penreath's silence, coming after the accumulation of circumstances against him, had caused me to look at the case from a different angle, and I did not cross-examine her. The object of her visit to me after the trial was to admit that she had not told me the truth previously. Her amended story was obviously the true one. She and Penreath had met by chance on the seashore near Leyland Hoop two or three weeks before, and had met secretly afterward. The subsequent actions of these two foolish young peopleprove, convincingly enough, that they had fallen passionately in love with each other. Peggy, however, had never told Penreath her name or where she lived—because she knew her position was different from his, she says—and she could not understand how he came to be at the inn that night. Naturally, she was very much perturbed at his unexpected appearance. She waited for an opportunity to speak to him after hearing his voice, but was compelled to attend on her mad grandmother until it was very late.
"Before going to bed she went down the passage to see if by any chance he had not retired. There was a light in Mr. Glenthorpe's room, and, acting on a sudden girlish impulse, she ran along the passage to Mr. Glenthorpe's door, intending to confide her troubles in one who had always been very good and kind to her. The door was partly open, and as she got no reply to her knock, she entered. Mr. Glenthorpe was lying on his bed, murdered, and on the floor—at the side of the bed—she found the knife and this silver and enamel match-box. She hid the knife behind a picture on the wall. She did a very plucky thing the following night by going into the dead man's room and removing the knife in order to prevent the police finding it, for by that time she was aware that the knife formed an important piece of evidence in the case against her lover. It was the knife she threw into the sea, but she kept the match-box, which she recognised as Penreath's. When she came to me she did not intend to tell me anything about the match-box if she could help it. She was frank enough up to a point, but beyond that point she did not want to go.
"After Penreath's conviction she began, womanlike, to wonder if she had not been too hasty in assuming his guilt, and as the time slipped by and brought the day ofhis doom nearer she grew desperate, and as a last resource she came to me. It was a good thing she did so. For her story, though apparently making the case against Penreath blacker still, incidentally brought to light a clue which threw a new light on the case and decided me to return to Flegne. That clue is contained in the match-box."
Colwyn opened the silver and enamel box, and emptied the matches on the table.
"I showed this match-box to Charles on my return to the inn, and he told me that Penreath used it in the upstairs sitting-room the night he dined there with Mr. Glenthorpe. Therefore, it is a reasonable deduction to assume that he had no other matches in his possession the night of the murder.
"This fact is highly significant, because the matches in Penreath's silver box are, as you see, blue-headed wax matches, whereas the matches struck in Mr. Glenthorpe's room on the night of the murder were of an entirely different description—wooden matches with pink heads, of British manufacture—so-called war matches, with cork pine sticks. The sticks of these matches break rather easily unless they are held near the head. Two broken fragments of this description of match, with unlighted heads, were found in Mr. Glenthorpe's room the morning after the murder. Superintendent Galloway picked up one by the foot of the bed, and I picked up the other under the broken gas-globe. The recovery of Penreath's match-box in the murdered man's room suggested several things. In the first place, if he had no other matches in his possession except those in his silver and enamel box, he was neither the murderer nor the second person who visited the room that night. But if my deduction about the matches was correct, how was it that his match-box was found in the murdered man's room? The inferenceis that Penreath left his match-box in the dining room after lighting his candle before going to bed, and the murderer found it and took it into Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom to point suspicion towards Penreath.
"This fact opened up a new possibility about the crime—the possibility that Penreath was the victim of a conspiracy. When we were examining the footprints which led to the pit, the possibility of somebody else having worn Penreath's boots occurred to me, because I have seen that trick worked before, but the servant's story suggested that Penreath did not put his boots outside his door to be cleaned, but came to the door with them in his hand in the morning. But Penreath told me this morning that he put out his boots overnight to be cleaned, but had taken them back into his room before Ann brought up his tea. The murderer, therefore, had ample opportunity to use them for his purpose of carrying the body to the pit and to put them back afterwards outside Penreath's door.
"But Peggy's belated admissions did more than suggest that Penreath was the victim of a sinister plot—they narrowed down the range of persons by whom it could have been contrived. The plotter was not only an inmate of the inn, but somebody who had seen the match box and knew that it belonged to Penreath.
"I returned to Flegne to resume the investigations I had broken off nearly three weeks before, and from that point my discoveries were very rapid, all tending to throw suspicion on Benson. The first indication was the outcome of a remark of mine about his height, and the broken gas light in Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom. It was purely a chance shot, but it threw him into a pitiable state of excitement. I let him think, however, that it was nothing more than a chance remark. That nightI was put to sleep in Penreath's room, and there I made two discoveries. The first was the existence of a small door, behind the wardrobe, opening on a corresponding door on the other side, which in its turn opens into Mr. Glenthorpe's room. Thus it would be possible for a person in the room Penreath occupied, discovering these doors as I did, to see into the next bedroom—under certain conditions. My second discovery was the outcome of my first discovery—I picked up underneath the wardrobe a fragment of an appealing letter which Penreath had commenced to write to his fiancée, and had subsequently torn up. It was a long time before I grasped the full significance of these two discoveries. Why should a man, after writing a letter of appeal to his fiancée, decide not to send it and destroy it? The most probable reason was that something had happened to cause him to change his mind. What could have happened to change the conditions so quickly? The hidden doors in the wall, which looked into the next room, supplied an answer to the question. Penreath had looked through, and seen—what? My first thought was that he had seen the murder committed, but that theory did not account for the destruction of the letter, and his silence when arrested, unless, indeed, the girl had committed the murder. The girl—Peggy! It came to me like a flash, the solution of the strangest aspect of this puzzling case—the reason why Penreath maintained his dogged silence under an accusation of murder.
"It came to me, the clue for which I had been groping, with the recollection of a phrase in the girl's story to me—her second story—in which she not only told me of her efforts to shield Penreath, but revealed frankly to me her relations with Penreath, innocent enough, but commenced in chance fashion, and continued by clandestinemeetings in lonely spots. I remembered when she told me about it all that I was impressed by Penreath's absolute straightforwardness in his dealings with this girl. He was open and sincere with her throughout, gave her his real name, and told her much about himself: his family, his prospects, and even his financial embarrassment. He went further than that: he told her that he was engaged to be married, and that if he could get free he would marry her. A young man who talks in this strain is very much in love. The artless story of Peggy revealed that Penreath was as much in love with the girl as she was with him. 'If he could get free!' That was the phrase that gave me the key to the mystery. He had set out to get free by writing to Miss Willoughby, breaking off his engagement. Later he had torn up the letter because through the door in the wall he had seen Peggy standing by the bedside of the murdered man, and had come to the conclusion that she had murdered him.
"If you think it a little strange that Penreath should have jumped to this conclusion about the woman he loved, you must remember the circumstances were unusual. Peggy had surrounded herself with mystery; she refused to tell her lover where she lived, she would not even tell him her name. When he looked into the room he did not even know she was in the house, because she had kept out of his way during the previous evening, waiting for an opportunity to see him alone. Consequently he experienced a great shock at the sight of her, and the mystery with which she had always veiled her identity and movements recurred to him with a terrible and sinister significance as he saw her again under such damning conditions, standing by the bedside of the dead man with a knife in her hand.
"Penreath's subsequent actions—his destruction of theletter he had written to Miss Willoughby, his hurried departure from the inn, and his silence in the face of accusation—are all explained by the fact that he saw the girl Peggy in the next room, and believed that she had committed this terrible crime.
"I now come to the clues which point directly to Benson's complicity in the murder. I have already told you of his alarm at my chance remark about his height and the smashed gas globe. You also know that he was in need of money. The next point is rather a curious one. When Benson was telling us his story the day after the murder I observed that he kept smoothing his long hair down on his forehead. There was something in the action that suggested more than a mannerism. The night after I discovered the door in the wall, I left it open in order to watch the next room. During the night Benson entered and searched the dead man's chamber. I do not know what he was looking for—he did not find it, whatever it was—but during the search he grew hot, and threw back his hair from his forehead, revealing a freshly healed scar on his temple. The reason he had worn his hair low was explained: he wanted to hide from us the fact that it was he who had smashed the gas-globe in Mr. Glenthorpe's room, and had cut his head by the accident.
"But his visit to the dead man's room revealed more than the scar on his forehead. How did Benson get into the room? The room had been kept locked since the murder. That night I had taken the key from a hook on the kitchen dresser in order to examine the room when the inmates of the place had retired. Benson, therefore, had let himself in with another key. This was our first knowledge of another key. Hitherto we had believed that the only key was the one found in the outside of thedoor the morning after the murder. The police theory is partly based on that supposition. Benson's possession of a second key, and his silence concerning it, point strongly to his complicity in the crime. He knew that Mr. Glenthorpe was accustomed to lock his door and carry the key about with him, so he obtained another key in order to have access to the room whenever he desired. There would have been nothing in this if he had told his household about it. A second key would have been useful to the servant when she wanted to arrange Mr. Glenthorpe's room. But Benson kept the existence of the second key a close secret. He said nothing about it when we questioned him concerning the key in the door. An innocent man would have immediately informed us that there was a second key to the room. Benson kept silence because he had something to hide.
"I now come to the events of the next morning. My investigation of the rise and the pit during the afternoon had led to a discovery which subsequently suggested to my mind that the missing money had been hidden in the pit. I determined to try and descend it. I arose before daybreak, as I did not wish any of the inmates of the inn to see me. Before going to the pit I got out of the window and into the window of the next room, as Penreath is supposed to have done. That experiment brought to light another small point in Penreath's favour. The drop from the first window is an awkward one—more than eight feet—and my heels made a deep indentation in the soft red clay underneath the window. If Penreath had dropped from the window, even in his stocking feet, the marks of his heels ought to have been visible. There was not enough rain after the murder was committed to obliterate them entirely. There were no such marksunder his window when we examined the ground the morning after the murder.
"I next proceeded to the rise and lowered myself down the pit by the creepers inside. About ten feet down the vegetable growth ceased, and the further descent was impossible without ropes. But at the limit of the distance to which a man can climb down unaided, I saw a peg sticking into the side of the pit, with a fishing line suspended from it. I drew up the line, and found attached to it the murdered man's pocket-book containing the £300 he had drawn out of the bank at Heathfield the day he was murdered.
"Let me now try to reconstruct the crime in the light of the fresh information we have gained. Benson was in desperate straits for money, and he knew that Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn £300 from the bank that morning, all in small notes, which could not be traced. The fact that he obtained a second key to the room suggests that he had been meditating the act for some time past. It will be found, I think, when all the facts are brought to light, that he obtained the second key when he learnt that Mr. Glenthorpe intended to take a large sum of money out of the bank. Penreath's chance arrival at the inn on the day that the money was drawn out, probably set him thinking of the possibility of murdering and robbing Mr. Glenthorpe in circumstances that would divert suspicion to the stranger. Penreath unconsciously helped him by leaving his match-box in the room where he had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. Benson found the match-box on looking into the room to see that everything was all right when his guests had retired, and determined to commit the murder that night, and leave it by the murdered man's bedside, as a clue to direct attention to Penreath. His next idea, to murder Mr. Glenthorpewith the knife which Penreath had used at dinner, probably occurred to him as he considered the possibilities of the match-box.
"It is difficult to decide why Benson chose to enter the room from the window instead of by the door when he had a second key of the room. He may have attempted to open the door with the key, and found that Mr. Glenthorpe had locked the door and left the key on the inside. Or he may have thought that as Penreath was sleeping in the next room, he ran too great a risk of discovery by entering from the door, and so decided to enter by the window. We must presume that Benson subsequently found Mr. Glenthorpe's key, either inside the door or under his pillow, and kept it. He entered the window, stabbed Mr. Glenthorpe, and placed the match-box and the knife at the side of the bed. His next act would be to search for the money. Finding it difficult to search by the light of the tallow candle, he decided to go downstairs and turn on the gas.
"During his absence Peggy entered the room, saw the dead body, and picked up the knife and the match-box. Then she picked up the candlestick by the bed, and fled in terror. Benson, after turning on the gas at the meter, returned to find the room in darkness. Thinking that the wind had blown out the candle, he walked to the gas with the intention of lighting it. In doing so he knocked his head against the globe, cutting his forehead, and smashing the incandescent burner.
"Benson, when he found that the candlestick had disappeared must, in his fright, have rushed downstairs for another. He could not light the gas, because he had smashed the burner. In no other way can I account for the second lot of candle-grease that I found in the room underneath the gas-light, which made me believe at firstthat the room had been visited by two persons on the night of the murder. Thereweretwo persons, Benson and his daughter, but Peggy did not bring a candlestick into the room. It looks to me as though Benson, on returning with the second candle, attempted to light the gas with it and failed. That action would account for the gas tap being turned on, and the spilt grease directly underneath. He then searched the room till he found the pocket-book containing the money.
"The subsequent removal of the body to the pit strikes me as an afterthought. The complete plan was too diabolically ingenious and complete to have formed in the murderer's mind at the outset. The man who put the match-box and knife by the bedside of the murdered man in order to divert suspicion to Penreath had no thought, at that stage, of removing the body. That idea came afterwards, probably when he went upstairs the second time with the lighted candle, and saw Penreath's boots outside the door. I cannot help thinking that the clue of the footprints, which was such a damning point in the case against Penreath, was quite an accidental one so far as the murderer was concerned. The thought that the boots would leave footprints which would subsequently be identified as Penreath's was altogether too subtle to have occurred to a man like Benson. That is the touch of a master criminal—of a much higher order of criminal brain than Benson's.
"It is my belief that he originally intended to leave the murdered man in his room, thinking that the match-box and knife would point suspicion to Penreath. But after killing Mr. Glenthorpe he was overcome with the fear that his guilt would be discovered, in spite of his precautions to throw suspicions on another man, and he decided to throw the body into the pit in the hope thatthe crime would never be found out. The fact that he had entered the room in his stocking feet supports this theory, because he would be well aware that he would not be able to carry the body over several hundred yards of rough ground in his bare feet. He took Penreath's boots, which were close at hand, in preference to the danger and delay which he would have incurred in going to his own room, some distance away, for his own boots. Having put on the boots, he took the body on his shoulders and conveyed it to the pit.
"There are two or three points in this case which I am unable to clear up to my complete satisfaction. Why did Benson leave the key in the outside of the door? Was it merely one of those mistakes—those oversights—which all murderers are liable to commit, or did he do it deliberately, in the hope of conveying the impression that Mr. Glenthorpe had gone out and left the key in the outside of the door. In the next place, I cannot account for the mark of the box underneath the window. There is a third point—the direction of the wound in the murdered man's body, which gave me some ideas at the time that I am now compelled to dismiss as erroneous. But these are points that I hope will be cleared up by Benson's arrest, and confession, for I am convinced, by my observation of the man, that he will confess.
"There are one or two more points. Benson is an ardent fisherman, who spends all his spare time fishing on the marshes. The stolen pocket-book was suspended in the pit by a piece of fishing line. But I attach more importance to the second point, which is that since the murder has been committed the nightly conversation at the inn tap-room has centred around a local ghost, known as the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit, who is supposed from time immemorial to have haunted thepit where the body was thrown, and to bring death to anybody who encounters her at night. This spectre, which is profoundly believed in by the villagers, had not been seen for at least two years before the murder, but she made a reappearance a night or two after the crime, and is supposed to have been seen frequently ever since. It looks to me as though Benson set the story going again in order to keep the credulous villagers away from the pit where the money was concealed.
"This morning, in company with Mr. Oakham, I saw Penreath in the gaol, and by a ruse induced him to break his stubborn silence. His story, which it is not necessary for me to give you in detail, testifies to his innocence, and supports my own theory of the crime. He did not see the murder committed, but he saw the girl go into the room, and subsequently he saw her father enter and remove the body. It was the latter spectacle that robbed him of any lingering doubts he may have had of the girl's guilt, and forced him to the conclusion that she and her father were accomplices in the crime. But he loved her so much that he determined to keep silence and shield her."