A.With the purpose of lighting a cigarette.
Q.But you did speak with her?
A.Yes, I have said so.
Q.You placed your gun against the tree where you afterwards found it?
A.Yes.
Q.Was the deceased then standing near you, or further in by the tree where her body was found?
A.She was standing—— (Some amazing purport in the question seemed suddenly here to burst upon the witness, and he uttered a violent ejaculation)—Great God! Are you meaning to suggest that I fired the shot myself? (Sensation.)
Q.I am suggesting nothing of the sort, of course. Will you answer, if you please, whether, after you had put aside your gun, she came towards you or you walked towards her?
A.(Recovering himself with obvious difficulty): She came towards me.
Q.So as to bring herself within view, we will say, of any one who might be watching from the road, or thereabouts?
A.Just possibly she might, if the person had come inside the gate.
Q.Would you mind telling us what was the subject of your brief conversation with the deceased?
A.I asked her what she was doing there.
Q.Just so. And she answered, Mr. Kennett?
A.O! what one might expect.
Q.Evasively, that is to say?
A.Yes.
Q.Did you twit her, possibly, with being there for an assignation?
A.Something of the sort I might.
Q.And she admitted it?
A.Of course not. (Laughter.)
Q.What else, would you mind saying?
A.I understood from her that she had come out to escape the company in the kitchen. It seemed there had been a row regarding her between Cleghorn our butler and the prisoner, and she wanted to get away from them both. She said that the foreigner had paid her unwelcome attentions, and had tried to kiss her, for which she had boxed his ears, and that ever since she had gone in fear of her life from him. (Sensation.) I took it more for a joke than a formal complaint, and did not suppose her to be serious. It did not occur to me that she was really frightened of the man, or I should have taken steps for her protection.
Q.And that was all?
A.All that was essential.
Q.Thank you, Mr. Kennett. I will not trouble you any further.
Witness turned and retired. His evidence had yielded something of the unexpected, in its incredulous little outburst and in its conclusion. As to the first, it was patent that Counsel’s object in putting the question which had provoked it was to suggest maddened jealousy as a motive for the crime on the part of some one to whom the girl’s actions had become suddenly visible through her movement towards the witness, between whom and herself had possibly occurred some philandering passages. Such, at least, from the witness’s own implied admission of a certain freedom in his conversation with the deceased, would appear a justifiable assumption. His final statement—though legally inadmissible—inasmuch as it supplied the motive with a name, caused a profound stir in Court.
Mrs. Anna Bingley, housekeeper to Sir Calvin Kennett, was the next witness called. Her evidence repeated, in effect, what has already been recorded, and may be passed over. Where it was important, it was, like the other, evidence of hearsay, and inadmissible.
Jane Ketchlove, cook to Sir Calvin, gave evidence. She had never seen the prisoner till the night of his arrival, though she had seen his master once or twice on the occasion of former visits. He, the Baron, had not at those times come accompanied by any gentleman. Mr. Cabanis made himself quite at home like: he was a very lively, talkative person, and easily excited, she thought. He showed himself very forward with the ladies, and they remarked on it, though putting it down to his foreign breeding. On the night of his arrival the valet went up to lay out his master’s things about seven o’clock. Shortly afterwards Annie followed him with the hot water. She, witness, rather wondered over the girl’s assurance in going alone, after the way the man had been acting towards her. He had seemed like one struck of a heap with her beauty; for the poor creature was beautiful, there was no denying it. It was as if he claimed her for his own from the first moment of his seeing her, and dared any one to say him nay. A few minutes later Annie came down, red with fury over his having tried to kiss her. She had boxed his ears well for him, she said. Mr. Cleghorn was in the kitchen, and he flew into a fury when he heard. He said she must have encouraged the man, or he never would have dared. He was a great admirer of Annie himself, and it was always said among us that they would come to make a match of it. Annie answered up, asking him what business it was of his, and there was a fine row between the two. In the middle this Cabanis came down. His cheek was red as fire, and he looked like a devil. He said no one had ever struck him—man, woman, or child—without living to repent it. He and Mr. Cleghorn got at it then, and the rest of us had a hard ado to part them; but we got things quiet after a time, though it was only for a time, Mr. Cleghorn having to go upstairs, upset as he was. They simmered like, and came on the boil again the next day at dinner in the servants’ hall. Annie was not there, and that seemed to give them the chance to settle things in her absence. Mr. Cleghorn began it, insisting on his prior claim to the girl, and Cabanis answered that, if he couldn’t have her, nobody else should; he would see her dead first. That led to a struggle, ending in blows between them; and at the last Cabanis broke away, declaring he was going out then and there to find the girl and put the question to her.
Q.What question?
A.Whether it was to be himself or Mr. Cleghorn, sir.
Q.Did he utter any threat against the girl, in case her choice was against him?
A.Not in so many words, sir; but we were all terrified by his look and manner.
Q.They struck you as meaning business, eh?
A.That was it, sir.
Q.About what time was that?
A.As near as possible to two o’clock.
Q.And Mr. Cleghorn followed?
A.After waiting a bit, sir, to recover himself. Then he got up sudden, saying he was going to see this thing through, and, putting on his cap and coat, out he went.
Q.At what time was that?
A.It may have been ten minutes after the other.
Q.Did you form any conclusion as to what he meant by seeing the thing through?
A.We all thought he meant, sir, that he was going to follow Cabanis and get the girl herself to choose between them.
Q.When did you see him again?
A.It was at half after four, when, as some of us stood waiting and shivering at the head of the path, he came amongst us.
Q.In his cap and overcoat?
A.Yes, sir. Just as he had gone out. We told him what had happened.
Q.And how did he take it?
A.Very bad, sir. He turned that white, I thought he would have fallen.
Q.And when did the prisoner return?
A.It may have been five o’clock when I saw him come in.
Q.Did his manner then show any signs of agitation or disturbance?
A.No, sir, I can’t say it did. On the contrary, he seemed cheerful and relieved, as if he had got something off his mind.
Q.Did you tell him what had happened?
A.Yes, to be sure.
Q.And how didhetake it?
A.Very quiet—sort of stunned like.
Q.Did he make any remark?
A.He said something in his own language, sir, very deep and hoarse. It sounded like—but I really can’t manage it.
M. le Baron (interposing): “It was ‘Non, non, par pitié!’”
Counsel (tartly): I shall be obliged, sir, if you will keep your evidence till it is asked for. (M. le Baron admitted his error with a bow.)
Q.Was that all?
A.One of the maids told him, sir, that his master was asking for him, and he went off at once, without another word.
Q.And he has never referred to the subject since?
A.He would not talk of it. It was too horrible, he said.
Jessie Ellis, parlour-maid, and a couple of house-maids—(they kept no male indoor servants, except the butler, at Wildshott)—Kate Vokes and Mabel Wheelband, gave corroborative evidence, substantiating in all essential particulars the last witness’s statement.
Reuben Henstridge, landlord of the Red Deer inn, was the next witness summoned. He was a big cloddish fellow, unprepossessing in appearance, and reluctant and unwilling in his answers, as though surlily suspecting some design to ensnare him into compromising himself. He deposed that on the afternoon of the crime he was out on the hill somewhere below his inn “taking the air,” when he saw a man break through the lower beech-thicket skirting Wildshott, and go down quickly towards the high road. That man was the prisoner. He parted the branches savage-like, and jumped the bank and trench, moving his arms and talking to himself all the time. Witness went on with his business of “taking the air,” and, when he had had enough, returned to his own premises. Later Mr. Cleghorn, whom he knew very well as a casual customer, came in for a glass. He did not look himself, and stayed only a short time, and that was the wholeheknew of the matter.
Q.What time of day was it when you saw the prisoner come from the wood?
A.Ten after two, it might be.
Q.And he went down towards the road?
A.Aye.
Q.Did you notice what became of him?
A.No, I didn’t. I had my own concerns to look after.
Q.Taking the air, eh?
A.That’s it.
Q.You weren’t taking it with a wire, I suppose? (Laughter.)
A.No, I weren’t. You keep a civil tongue in your head.
The witness, called sharply to order by the Coroner, stood glowering and muttering.
Q.Where is your inn situated?
A.Top o’ Stockford Down.
Q.How far is it from the high road?
A.Call it a mile and a half.
Q.Where were you on the hill when you saw the prisoner?
A.Nigher the road than the inn. Three-quarters way down, say.
Q.Were you anywhere near the prisoner when he emerged?
A.Nigh as close as I am to you.
Q.Did he see you?
A.No, he didn’t. I were hid in the ditch. (Laughter.)
Q.You didn’t recognise him?
A.Not likely. I’d never seen him before.
Q.Did anything strike you in his manner or expression?
A.He looked uncommon wild.
Q.Did he? Now, what time was it when you started to return to your inn?
A.It may have been an hour later.
Q.A little after three, say?
A.Aye.
Q.Did you pass anybody by the way?
A.No.
Q.The Red Deer is very lonely situated, is it not?
A.Lonely enough.
Q.High up, at the meeting of four cross roads, I understand?
A.That’s it.
Q.You don’t have many customers in the course of a day?
A.Maybe, maybe not.
Q.Not so many that you would forget this one or that having called yesterday or the day before?
A.What are you trying to get at?
Q.I must trouble you to answer questions, not put them. What time was it on that day when Mr. Cleghorn looked in?
A.Put it at four o’clock.
Q.And you thought he looked unwell?
A.He said himself he was feeling out of sorts. The liquor seemed to pull him round a bit.
Q.Did he say anything else?
A.Not much. He went as soon a’most as he’d drunk it down. I thought he’d tired himself walking up the hill.
Q.What made you think that?
A.I see’d him a’coming when he was far off. I was crossing the yard to the pump at the time. That might have been at a quarter before four. He looked as if he’d pulled his cap over his eyes and turned his coat collar up; but I couldn’t make him out distinct.
Q.How did you know, then, that it was Mr. Cleghorn?
A.Because he come in himself a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later. Who else could it be?
Q.What sort of coat and hat or cap was this figure wearing?
A.What I see when Mr. Cleghorn come in, of course—same as he’s got now.
Q.Colour, style—the same in every particular?
A.That’s it.
Q.You made out the figure in the distance to be wearing a coat and cloth cap like Mr. Cleghorn’s?
A.Nat’rally, as it were Mr. Cleghorn himself.
Q.Now attend to me. Will you swear you could distinguish the colour of the coat and cap the figure was wearing?
A.I won’t go so far as to say that. It were a dull day, and my eyesight none of the best, and he were too far off, and down in the shadder of the hollers. He looked all one colour to me—a sort o’ misty purple. But I knew him for Mr. Cleghorn, sure enough, when he walked into the tap.
Q.Wonderfully sagacious of you. (Laughter.) How far away was this figure when you saw it?
A.Couple o’ hundred yards, maybe.
Q.Was it climbing the hill fast?
A.What you might call fast—hurrying.
Q.Didn’t it strike you as odd, then, that it should take it a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to cover that short distance between the spot where you saw it and your inn?
A.No, it didn’t. I didn’t think about it. Mr. Cleghorn, he might have stopped to rest himself, or to tie a bootlace, or anything.
Q.After seeing the figure did you return to the bar?
A.No. I went into the parlour to make tea.
Q.And remained there till Mr. Cleghorn entered?
A.That’s it.
Counsel nodded across at the detective, as if to say, “Here’s possible matter for you, Sergeant,” and with that he closed the examination, and told the witness he might stand down.
Samuel Cleghorn, butler to Sir Calvin, was then called to give evidence. Witness appeared as a substantial, well-nourished man of forty, with a full, rather unexpressive face, a fixed eye (literally), and a large bald tonsure—not at all the sort of figure one would associate with a romantic story of passion and mystery. He admitted his quarrel with the prisoner, pleading excessive provocation, and that he had followed him out on the fatal afternoon with the intention actually suggested by the witness Ketchlove. He had failed, however, to discover him, or the direction in which he had gone, and had ultimately, after some desultory prying about the grounds, withdrawn himself to the upper kitchen gardens, where he had taken refuge in a tool-shed, and there remained, nursing his sorrow, until 3.30 or thereabouts, when, feeling still very overcome, he had decided to go up to the Red Deer for a little refreshment, which he had done, afterwards returning straight to the house.
Q.How did you leave the kitchen garden?
A.By a door in the wall, sir, giving on the downs; and by that way I returned.
Q.During all this time, while you were looking for the prisoner, or mourning in the tool-shed—(laughter)—did you encounter any one?
A.Not a soul that I can remember, sir.
Q.You were greatly attached to the deceased?
A.(With emotion.) I was.
Q.And wished to make her your wife?
A.Yes.
Q.Though your acquaintance with her extended over only a couple of months?
A.That is so.
Q.Almost a case of love at first sight, eh?
A.As you choose, sir.
Q.Did she return your attachment?
A.Not as I could have wished.
Q.She refused you?
A.I never offered myself to her in so many words.
Q.Had you reason to suspect a rival?
A.None in particular—till the Frenchman came.
Q.Rivals generally, then?
A.Naturally there were many to admire her.
Q.But no one in especial to excite your jealousy?
A.No.
Q.Did the deceased give you her confidence?
A.Not what you might call her confidence. We were very friendly.
Q.She never spoke to you of her past life, or of her former situations, or of her relations?
A.No, never. She was not what you might call a communicative young woman.
Q.You had no reason to suspect that she was carrying on with anybody unknown to you?
A.Noreason, sir. I can’t answer for my thoughts.
Q.What do you mean by that?
A.Why, I might have wondered now and againwhyshe was so obstinate in resisting me.
Q.But you suspected no rival in particular? I ask you again.
A.A man may think things.
Q.Will you answer my question?
A.Well, then, I didn’t.
Q.Are you speaking the truth?
A.Yes.
Witness was subjected to some severe cross-questioning on this point, but persisted in his refusal to associate his suspicions with any particular person. He argued only negatively, he said, from the deceased’s indifference to himself, which (he declared amid some laughter) was utterly incomprehensible to him on any other supposition than that of a previous attachment. Counsel then continued:—
Q.When, after leaving the garden, you were making for the Red Deer, did you observe any other figure on the hill, going in the same direction as yourself, but in advance of you?
A.There may have been. I won’t answer for sure.
Q.Will you explain what you mean by that?
A.I was what you might call preoccupied—not thinking much of anything but my own trouble. But—yes, I have an idea there was some one.
Q.How was he dressed?
A.I can’t say, sir. I never looked; it’s only a hazy sort of impression.
Q.Was he far ahead?
A.He may have been—very far; or perhaps it was only the shadows. I shouldn’t like to swear there was any one at all.
Q.You have heard the witness Henstridge’s evidence. Are you sure you are not borrowing from it the idea of this second figure, a sort of simulacrum of yourself?
A.Well, I may be, unconscious as it were. I can’t state anything for certain.
Q.Were you walking fast as you got near the inn?
A.I dare say I was—fast for me. (Laughter.) What with one thing and another, my throat was as dry as tinder.
Q.Did you stop, or linger, for any purpose when approaching the inn?
A.Not that I can remember. I may have. What happened afterwards has put all that out of my head.
Q.You mean the news awaiting you on your return?
A.Yes.
Q.So that you can’t tell me, I suppose, whether or not, as you climbed the hill, your coat-collar was turned up and the peak of your cap pulled down?
A.It’s like enough they were. I had put the things on anyhow in my hurry. But it’s all a vague memory.
Counsel.Very well. You can stand down.
Daniel Groome, gardener, was next called. He stated that he was sweeping up leaves in the drive to the east side of the house—that is to say, the side furthest from the copse—on the afternoon of the murder. Had heard the stable clock strike three, and shortly afterwards had seen the young master come out of the head of the Bishop’s Walk and go towards the house, which he entered by the front door. He was looking, he thought, in a bit of a temper: but the young master was like that—all in a stew one moment over a little thing, and the next laughing and joking over something that mattered. Had wondered at seeing him back so soon from the shooting, but supposed he had shot wild, as he sometimes would, and was in a pet about it. Did not see him again until he, witness, was summoned to the copse to help remove the body.
Q.During the time you were sweeping in the drive, did you hear the sound of a shot?
A.A’many, sir. The gentlemen was out with their guns.
Q.Did any one shot sound to you nearer than the others?
A.One sounded pretty loud.
Q.As if comparatively close by?
A.Yes, it might be.
Q.From the direction of the Bishop’s Walk?
A.I couldn’t rightly say, sir. It wasn’t a carrying day. Sounds on such a day travel very deceptive. It might have come from across the road, or further.
Q.At what time did you hear this particular shot?
A.It might have been three o’clock, or a little later; I couldn’t be sure.
Q.Think again.
A.No, I couldn’t be sure, sir. I shouldn’t like to swear.
Q.Might it have been nearer half-past three?
A.Very like. I dare say it might.
This point was urged, but the witness persisted in refusing to commit himself to any more definite statement.
John Tugwood, coachman, Edward Noakes, groom, and Martha Jolly, lodge-keeper, were called and examined on the same subject. They had all distinguished, or thought they had distinguished, the louder shot in question; but their evidence as to its precise time was so hopelessly contradictory that no reliance whatever could be placed on it.
Sergeant-Detective Ridgway deposed that, having been put in charge of the case by Sir Calvin Kennett, he had proceeded to make an examination of the spot where the body had been found. This was some twenty-four hours after the commission of the alleged crime, and it might be thought possible that certain local changes had occurred during the interval. He understood, however, that the police had, when first called in, conducted an exhaustive investigation of the place, and that their conclusions differed in no material degree from his own, so that he was permitted to speak for them in the few details he had to place before the jury. Briefly, his notes comprised the following observations:—The measured distance from the wicket in the boundary hedge to the tree against which the witness, Mr. Hugo Kennett, had stated that he rested his gun was nineteen and a quarter yards: thence to the beech-tree by which the body had been found was another fifteen feet. Between the wicket and the first tree there was a curve in the track, sufficient to conceal from any one standing by the second, or inner, tree the movements of one approaching from the direction of the gate. All about this part of the copse, down to the hedge, was very dense thicket, which in one place, in close proximity to the first tree supporting the gun, bore some tokens as of a person having been concealed there. If such were the case, the movements of the person in question had been presumably stealthy, the growth showing only slight signs of disturbance, not easily detected. His theory was that this person had entered possibly by the gate from the road, had crept along the path, or track, until he had caught a glimpse through the trees of the deceased in conversation with Mr. Kennett, had then slipped into the undergrowth and silently worked his way to the point of concealment first-mentioned, where he would be both eye and ear witness of what was passing between the two, and had subsequently, whether torn by the passion of revenge or of jealousy, issued noiselessly forth, some few minutes after Mr. Kennett’s departure, seized up the gun, and either at once, or following a brief altercation, shot the deceased dead as she was moving to escape from him. Conformably with this theory, there was no sign of any struggle having occurred; but thereweresigns that the murderer had moved and conducted himself with great caution and circumspection. Unfortunately no evidence as to footprints could be adduced, the ground being in too hard and dry a state to record their impression. Finally, he was bound to say that there was nothing in his theory incompatible with the assumption that the prisoner was the one responsible for the deed. On the other hand, it was true that the man’s movements between the time when the witness Henstridge had seen him descending towards the road, and the time of the commission of the crime—which could not have been earlier than three o’clock—had still to be accounted for. But it was possible, of course, that he had occupied this interval of three-quarters of an hour in stalking, and in finally running to earth his victim. If he could produce witnesses to prove the contrary, the theory of course collapsed.
The Sergeant delivered his statement with a hard, clear-cut precision which was in curious and rather deadly contrast with the nervous hesitation displayed by other witnesses. There was a suggestion about him of the expert surgeon, demonstrating, knife in hand, above the operating table; and in a voice as keen and cold as his blade.
Raymond, Baron Le Sage, was the next witness called. It was noticed once or twice, during the course of the Baron’s evidence, that the prisoner looked as if reproachfully and imploringly toward his master.
Q.The prisoner is your servant?
A.He is my servant.
Q.Since when, will you tell me?
A.He has been in my service now over a year.
Q.You took him with a good character?
A.An excellent character.
Q.He is a Gascon, I believe?
A.Yes, a Gascon.
Q.A hot-blooded and vindictive race, is it not?
A.A warm-blooded people, certainly.
Q.Practising the vendetta?
A.You surprise me.
Q.I am asking you for information.
A.I have none to give you.
Q.Very well; we will leave it at that. On the afternoon of the murder, about half-past two, you entered the Bishop’s Walk?
A.I had been out driving with Miss Kennett, and, passing the gate, asked her wither it led. She told me, and I decided to go by the path, leaving her to drive on to the house alone.
Q.Why did you so decide?
A.I had caught a glimpse among the trees of, as I thought, the maid, Annie Evans, and I wished to speak with her.
Q.Indeed? (Counsel was evidently a little taken aback over the frankness of this admission.) Would you inform me on what subject?
A.I had been accidental witness the night before of the scrimmage between her and Louis already referred to, and I wished at once to apologise to her for Louis’s behaviour, and to warn her against any repetition of the punishment she had inflicted.
Q.On what grounds?
A.On the grounds that, the man being quick-tempered and impulsive, I would not answer for the consequences of another such assault. (Sensation.)
Q.And what was the deceased’s answer?
A.She thanked me, and said she could look after herself.
Q.Anything further?
A.Nothing. I went on and joined my friend, Sir Calvin, in the house.
Q.The deceased, while you were with her, offered no sort of explanation of her presence in the copse?
A.None whatever.
Q.And you did not seek one?
A.O, dear, no! I should not have been so foolish. (Laughter.)
Q.Did you speak to the prisoner on the subject of the assault?
A.At the time, yes.
Q.And what did you gather from his answer?
A.I gathered that, in his quick ardent way, he was very much enamoured of the girl’s beauty.
Q.And was correspondingly incensed, perhaps, over her rejection of his advances?
A.Not incensed. Saddened.
Q.He uttered no threat?
A.No.
Q.On the afternoon of the murder, on your return to the house, as just described, you inquired for the prisoner?
A.I inquired for him, then, and again later on our return from the copse after we had been to view the body.
Q.You were troubled about him, perhaps?
A.I was uneasy, until I had seen and questioned him.
Q.When was that?
A.He came in about five o’clock, and was immediately sent up to me.
Q.You asked him, perhaps, to account for his absence?
A.I did.
Q.And what was his explanation?
A.He made a frank confession of his quarrel with Mr. Cleghorn, described how his first intention on rushing from the house had really been to find the girl and throw himself upon her mercy; but how, once in the open air, his frenzy had begun to cool, and to yield itself presently to indecision. He had then, he said, gone for a long walk over the downs, fighting all the way the demon of rage and jealousy which possessed him, and had finally, getting the better of his black unreasoning mood, grown thoroughly repentant and ashamed of his behaviour, and had returned to make amends.
Q.And you credited that wonderful story?
A.I believed it implicitly.
Q.Well, indeed, sir! Did he appear overcome by thenewswhich had greeted him on his return?
A.He appeared stupefied—that is the word.
Q.Did he comment on it at all?
A.If you mean in the self-incriminating sense, he did not.
Q.In what sense, then?
A.He cursed the assassin capable of destroying so sweet a paragon of womanhood. (Laughter.)
Q.Very disinterested of him, I’m sure. Thank you, sir; that will suffice.
Counsel sitting down, Mr. Redstall, for Sir Calvin, rose to put a question or two to the witness:—
Q.You have never had reason, M. le Baron, to regard the prisoner as a vindictive man?
A.Never. Impulsive, yes.
Q.And truthful?
A.Transparently so—to a childish degree.
Q.He would have a difficulty in dissembling?
A.An insuperable difficulty, I should think.
Dr. Harding, of Longbridge, was the last witness called. He deposed to his having been summoned to the house on the afternoon of the murder, and to having examined the body within an hour and a half of its first discovery in the copse. The cause of death was a gunshot wound in the back, from a weapon fired at short range. Practically the whole of the charge had entered the body in one piece. Death must have been instantaneous, and must have occurred, from the indications, some two hours before his arrival; or, approximately, at about 3.30 o’clock. The wound could not possibly have been self-inflicted, and the position of the gun precluded any thought of accident. He had since, assisted by Dr. Liversidge of Winton, made apost-mortemexamination of the body. Asked if there was anything significant in the deceased’s condition, his answer was yes.
This completed the evidence, at the conclusion of which, and of some remarks by the Coroner, the jury, after a brief consultation among themselves, brought in a verdict that the deceased died from a gunshot wound deliberately inflicted by the prisoner Louis Victor Cabanis, in a fit of revengeful passion; which verdict amounting to one of wilful murder, the prisoner was forthwith, on the Coroner’s warrant, committed to the County gaol, there to await his examination before the magistrates on the capital charge. The jury further—being local men—added a rider to their verdict respectfully commiserating Sir Calvin on the very unpleasant business which had chosen to select his grounds for its enactment; and with that the proceedings terminated.
Theinquest was over, the provisional verdict delivered, and all that remained for the time being was to put the poor subject of it straightway to rest under the leafless trees in Leighway churchyard. It was done quietly and decently the morning after the inquiry, with some of her fellow-servants attending, and Miss Kennett to represent the family; and so was another blossom untimely fallen, and another moral—a somewhat ghastly one now—furnished for the reproof of the too hilarious Christian.
Audrey, coming back from the sad little ceremony, met Le Sage walking by himself in the grounds. The Baron looked serious and, she thought, dejected, and her young heart warmed to his grief. She went up to him, and, putting her hands on his sleeve, “I am so sorry,” she said, “so very, very sorry.”
He smiled at her kindly, then took her hand and drew it under his arm.
“Let us walk a little way, and talk,” he said; and they strolled on together. “Poor Louis!” he sighed.
“It is not true, is it, Baron?”
“I don’t think it is, my dear. But the difficulty is to prove that it isn’t.”
“How can it be done?”
“At the expense only, I am afraid, of finding the real criminal.”
“Have you any idea who that is?”
He laughed; actually laughed aloud.
“Have I not had enough of cross-examination?”
“I could not help wondering why, as I have been told, you confessed to the warning you gave the poor girl.”
“About the danger of tempting hot blood, and so forth?”
“Yes, that.”
“It was the truth.”
“Yes, but——”
He put a finger to his lips, glancing at her with some solemnity.
“You were not going to say that it is my way to repress the truth?”
“No,” answered the girl, with a little flush; “but only not to blurt it out unnecessarily.”
“My dear,” he said, “take my word for it that I always speak the truth.”
“O! I only meant to say——” she began; but he stopped her.
“What would you do if a question were put to you which, for some reason of expediency, or good-feeling, you did not wish to answer?”
“I am afraid I should fib.”
“Try my plan, and answer it with another question. It saves a world of responsibility. That is a secret I confide to you. An answer may often be interpreted into an innuendo which is as false to the speaker’s meaning as it is unjust to its subject. I love truth so much that I would not expose it to that misunderstanding. In this instance, to have left the truth for some one else to discover might have cast suspicion on us both, thereby darkening the case against Louis. But, in general, not to answer is surely not to lie?”
“No, I suppose not, Baron”—she thought a little—“I wonder if you would answer me justonequestion?”
“What is that?”
“Do you put any faith in that talk about there having been another man on the hill besides Cleghorn?”
He did not reply for awhile, but went softly patting the hand on his arm. Presently he looked up.
“If I were to say yes, I should not speak the truth, and if I were to say no, I should not speak the truth. So I follow my bent, and you will not be offended with me. Are you going to take me for a drive to-day, I ask?”
“Certainly, if you wish it.”
“What a question! I can answer that without a scruple. I wish it with such fervour, seeing my companion, as my years may permit themselves. Where shall we go?”
“You shall choose.”
“Very well. Then we will go north by the Downs, that we may take the great free air into our lungs, and realise the more sympathetically the condition of my poor Louis.”
“O, don’t! It would kill me to be in prison. Baron, you are going to stop with us, are you not, until the trial is over?”
“Both you and your father are very good. I may have, however, to absent myself for a short time presently. We will see. In the meanwhile I am your grateful Baron.” He took vast snuff, making his eyes glisten, and somehow she liked him for it.
“I shall be glad,” she said, “when that detective goes. One will feel more at peace from the squalor of it all.”
He shook his head.
“I do not think he means to go just yet.”
“Not? Why not?”
“Ah! that is his secret.”
“But what can he have to do now?”
“You must ask him, not me. All I can tell you is that he considers his work here not yet finished; in fact, from words I heard him let fall to your father this morning, little more than just begun.”
“How very strange! What can it mean?”
“Let us hazard a conjecture that he is not wholly satisfied with the evidence against my Louis. It would be a happy thought for me.”
“O, yes, wouldn’t it! But—I wonder.”
“What do you wonder?”
“If the question of that other figure on the hill is puzzling him too.”
Le Sage laughed. “Well, we are permitted to wonder,” he said, and, humming a little tune, changed the subject to one of topography, and the situation of various places of interest in the neighbourhood.
Audrey was perplexed about him. That he felt, and felt deeply, not only the unhappy position of the prisoner, but the disturbance which he himself had been the innocent means of introducing into the house, she could not doubt; yet the patent genuineness of this sentiment was unable, it seemed, wholly to deprive him of that constitutional serenity, even gaiety, habitual to his nature. It was as if he either could not, or would not, realise the black gravity of the affair; as if, almost, holding the strings of it in his own hands, he could afford to give this or that puppet a little tether before reining it in to submit to his direction. And then she thought how this impression was probably all due to that unanswering trick of his which they had just been discussing, and which might very well seem to inform his manner with a significance it did not really possess or intend. She left him shortly, being called to some duty in the house, and he continued his saunter alone, an aimless one apparently, but gradually, after a time, assuming a definite direction. It took him leisurely down the drive, out by the lodge gates into the road as far as the fatal wicket, and so once more into the Bishop’s Walk. Going unhurried along the track, he suddenly saw the detective before him.
The Sergeant, bent over, it seemed, in an intent observation of the ground, was fairly taken off his guard. He showed it, as he came erect, in a momentary change of colour. But the little shock of surprise was mastered as soon as felt: self-possession is not long or easily yielded by one trained in self-resourcefulness.
“Were you wanting me, sir?” he said; “because, if not——”
“Because, if not,” took up the Baron, wagging his head cheerfully, “what am I doing here, interrupting you at your business?”
“Well, sir, it’s you have said it, not I.”
“So your business is not yet over, Sergeant? Am I to borrow any hope for my man from that?”
“Was it the question, sir, you were looking for me to answer?”
“Excellent! My own way of meeting an awkward inquiry.”
“What do you mean by awkward?”
“Why, you won’t answer me, of course. What sensible detective would, and give away his case? Still, I am justified in assuming that there is something in the business which, so far, does not satisfy you; and I build on that.”
“O! you do, do you?” He rubbed his chin grittily, pulling down his well-formed lower jaw, and stood for a moment or two speculatively regarding the face before him. “I wonder now,” he said suddenly, “if you would answer a question I might put to you?”
“I’ll see, my friend. Chance it.”
“What made you so interested in this business before even your man was charged on suspicion?”
“You allude——?”
“I allude to my finding you already on the spot here when I came down to make my own examination of it.”
“Surely I have no reason to hide what I have already admitted in public. I was uneasy about Louis.”
“And wanted to look and see, perhaps, if he’d left any evidences of his guilt behind him?”
“I admit I was anxious to assure myself that there were no such evidences.”
“And you did assure yourself?”
“Quite.”
“You found nothing suspicious?”
“Nothing whatever to connect with his presence here.”
“Found nothing at all?”
“Yes, I did: I found this.”
The Baron took from a pocket a common horn coat-button, and handed it to the other, who received it and turned it over in silence.
“I picked it up,” said Le Sage, “near the tree where the gun had stood.”
“Why,” said the detective, looking up rather blackly, “didn’t you produce this at the Inquest?”
“I never supposed for the moment it could be of any importance.”
“H’mph!” grunted the Sergeant, and after a darkling moment, put the button into his own pocket. “I don’t know; it may or may not be; but you should have told me about it, sir. For the present, by your leave, I’ll take charge of the thing. And now, if you’ve nothing more to show me——”
“Nothing.”
“Then I should like to get on with my work, if it’s all the same to you.”
“And I with my walk,” said the Baron, and he tripped jauntily away.
(From the Bickerdike MS.)
Onthe day following the Inquest, the plot thickened. It became really entertaining. One did not know whether to appear the more scandalised or amused. On the one hand there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that the last word was apparently not said in what had seemed to be a perfectly straightforward affair, on the other one’s sense of fitness had received a severe blow. In short, the impeccable Cleghorn had been arrested, and was detained on suspicion. I saw him go off in a fly in charge of a couple of policemen, and never did hooked cod-fish on the Dogger Bank look more gogglingly stupefied than he over the amazing behaviour of the bait he had swallowed. Sir Calvin stormed, and blasphemed, and demanded to know if the whole household of Wildshott was in a conspiracy to shame him and tarnish his escutcheon; but his objurgations were received very civilly and sensibly by the detective, who explained that he must act according to his professional conscience, that detention did not necessarily mean conviction, or even indictment, and that where a sifting of the truth from the chaff imposed precautionary measures, he must be free to take them, or abandon his conduct of the case. Whereon the wrathful General simmered down, and contented himself only with requesting sarcastically a few hours’ grace to settle his affairs, when it came to behisturn to wear the official bracelets.
And so, for the while, we were without a butler; nor could one, on reviewing the evidence, be altogether surprised, perhaps, over that deprivation. Certainly Cleghorn’s account of his own movements could not be considered wholly satisfying or convincing, and he had admitted his lack of any witness to substantiate it. It seemed incredible, with a man of his substance and dignity; but is not the history of crime full of such apparent contradictions? After all, he had had the same provocation as the other man, and had departed, apparently, the same way to answer it; and, as to his moral conditionafterthe event, all testimony went to prove that it was worse than that of the Gascon. Anyhow, this new development, however it was destined to turn out, added fifty per cent. to the excitement of the business. Cleghorn! It seemed inexpressibly comic.
As day followed day succeeding this terrific event, however progressively other things might be assumed to be moving, no ground was made in the matter of tracing out the dead girl’s origin or connexions—and that in spite of the publicity given to the affair. It was very strange, and I was immensely curious to know what could be the reason. Her portrait was published in thePolice Gazette, and exhibited outside the various stations, but without result. I saw a copy of it, and did not wonder. It had been reproduced, enlarged, it seemed, from a tiny snapshot group, taken by one of the grooms, in which she had figured quite inconspicuously, and was like nothing human. I spoke to Ridgway about it, and he said it was the best that could be done, that no other photograph of her could be traced, though all the photographers in London had been applied to, and he owned frankly that there seemed some mystery about the girl. I quite agreed with him, and hinted that it was not the only one that remained to be cleared up. He did not ask me what I meant, but I saw, by his next remark, that he had understood what was in my mind.
“Why don’t you persuade him, sir,” he said, “to throw this business off his chest, and get back to his old interests? He takes it too much to heart.”
It was to Hugo he referred, of course, and I did not pretend to misapprehend him. To tell the truth, I was a little smarting from my friend’s treatment of me, and not in the mood to be indulgent of his idiosyncrasies. I might have my suspicions as to his involvement in a discreditable affair, but I had certainly not made him a party to them, or even touched upon the subject of the scandal to him save with the utmost delicacy and consideration. If he had chosen to give me his confidence then and there, I would have honoured it; as it was, since he showed no disposition to keep his promise to me made on the day of the shoot, I considered myself as much at liberty to canvass the subject as any one else who had heard, and formed his own conclusions, from the doctor’s evidence. It was true that, to me at least, Hugh was doing his best to give his case away by his behaviour. He seemed to make little attempt to rally from the gloom with which the tragedy had overcast him, but mooned about, silent, and aimless, as if for the moment he had lost all interest in life. It was only that morning that, moved by his condition, I had come at last to the resolution to remind him of his promise, and get him to share with me, if he would, the burden that was crushing his soul. His answer showed me at once, however, the vanity of my good intentions. “Thanks, old fellow,” he had said; “but a good deal has happened since then, and I’ve nothing to confide.”
Now, that might be true, in the sense that the danger was past, and I could have forgiven his reticence on the score of the loyalty it might imply to a reputation passed beyond its own defence; but he went on with some offensive remark about his regret in not being able to satisfy my curiosity, and ended with a suggestion which, however well-meaning it might have been, I considered positively insulting.
“You are wasting yourself here, old boy,” he said. “I’m not, truth to tell, in the mood for much, and we oughtn’t to keep you. I feel that I got you here under false pretences; but I couldn’t know what was going to happen, could I? and so I won’t apologise. I think, I really think, that, for the sake of all our feelings, it would be better if you terminated your visit. You don’t mind my saying so, do you?”
“On the contrary, I mind very much,” I answered. “Have you forgotten how, at considerable inconvenience to myself, I responded at once to your invitation, and came down at a moment’s notice? The reason, as you ought to know, Hugh, was pure regard for yourself and a desire to help, and that desire is not lessened because I find you involved in a much more serious business than I had anticipated.”
“O, if you put it in that way”—he began.
“I do put it in that way,” I said, “and I don’t take it very friendly of you that you should talk of denying me a privilege which you were ready enough to grant to that precious new Baron of yours—even pressing him to stay.”
“It was not I who asked him,” he murmured.
“No,” I insisted, “I came to be helpful, and I am going to remain to be helpful. I don’t leave you till I have seen this thing through.”
“Well,” he said very equivocally, “I hope that will be soon”—and he left me to myself to brood over his ingratitude. I was sore with him, I confess, and my grievance made me more unguarded perhaps in my references to him than otherwise I should have been.
“I dare say he does,” I answered the detective; “but after all, I suppose, it is his heart that is affected.”
He looked at me keenly.
“You mean, sir?”
“O! whatyoumean,” I answered, “and that I can see that you mean. What’s the good of our beating about the bush? My friend wouldn’t be the first young fellow of his class to have got into trouble with a good-looking servant girl.”
“No,” he said, “no,” in a hard sort of way. “They are not the kind to bother about the consequences to others where their own gratification is concerned. I’ve knocked up against some pretty bad cases in my time. So, that’s what you gather from the medical report?”
“Partly from that; not wholly.”
“Ah! I dare say now, being on such friendly terms with Mr. Kennett, you’ve been taken into his confidence?”
“Not directly; but in a way that invited me to form my own conclusions. What then? It doesn’t affect this case, does it, except in suggesting a possible motive for the crime on the part of some jealous rival?”
“That’s it. It’s of no consequence, of course—except to the girl herself—from any other point of view.”
His assurance satisfied me, and, taken by his sympathetic candour, I could not refrain from opening my rankling mind to him a bit.
“The truth is,” I said, “that the moment I came down, I saw there was something wrong with my friend. Indeed, he had written to me to imply as much.”
“He was upset like, was he?” commented the detective.
“He was in a very odd mood,” said I—“an aggravated form of hysteria, I should call it. I had never known him quite like it before, though, as I dare say you have gathered, his temperament is an excitable one, up and down like a see-saw. He talked of his dreaming of sitting on a gunpowder barrel smoking a cigarette, and of the hell of an explosion that was coming. And then there was his behaviour at the shoot the next day.”
“I’ve heard something about it,” said Ridgway. “Queer, wasn’t it?”
“More than queer,” I answered. “I don’t mind telling you in confidence that I had reason at one time to suspect him of playing the fool with his gun, with the half intention—you know—an accident, and all the bother ended. He swore not, when I tackled him about it; but I wasn’t satisfied. I tried to get him to go home, leaving his gun with the keeper, but he absolutely refused; and he refused again to part with it when, in the afternoon, he finally did leave us, saying he was good for nothing, and had had enough of it. If only then he had done what I wanted him to do, and left his gun behind, this wretched business might never have happened.”
“Ah!” said the detective, “he feels that, I dare say, and it doesn’t help to cheer him up. Well, sir, I’d get him out, if I was you—distract his thoughts, and make him forget himself. He won’t mend what’s done by moping.”
“All very well,” I answered, “to talk about making him forget himself; but when I’m forced to affect an ignorance of the very thing he wants to forget—if we’re right—what am I to do? You might think that after having had me down for the express purpose of advising him—as I have no doubt was the case—in this scrape, he would take me more into his confidence, and not at least resent, as seemingly he does, any allusion to it.”
“Well, you see,” said the detective, “from his point of view the scrape’s ended for him, and so there isn’t the same need for advice. But I’d keep at it, if I was you, and after a time you may get him to unburden himself.”
I had not much hope, after what had passed between us; but I held the Sergeant’s recommendation in mind, and resolved to watch for and encourage the least disposition to candour which might show itself on my friend’s part. Perhaps I had gone a little further than I should have in taking the detective into my confidence about a scandal which, after all, was no more than surmise; but it was so patent to me that his judgment ran, and must run, with my own, that it would have been simply idle to pretend ignorance of a situation about which no two men of intelligence could possibly have come to differing conclusions. And, moreover, as Ridgway himself had admitted, true or not, the incident had no direct bearing on the case.
These days at Wildshott, otherwise a little eventless for me as an outsider, found a certain mitigation of their dullness in the suspicion still kept alive in me regarding the Baron’s movements, and in the consequent watchfulness I felt it my duty to keep on them. I don’t know how it was, but I mistrusted the man, his secretiveness, the company he kept, the mystery surrounding his being. Who was he? Why did he play chess for half-crowns? Why had he come attended—as, according to evidence, never before—by a ruffianly foreign man-servant, ready, on the most trifling provocation, to dip his hands in blood? That had been outside the programme, no doubt: men who use dangerous tools must risk their turning in their hands; but what had been his purpose in bringing the fellow? Throat-cutting? Robbery?—I was prepared for any revelation. Abduction, perhaps: the Baron was for ever driving about the country with Audrey in the little governess cart. In the meanwhile, following that miscarriage of his master’s plans, whatever they might be, Mr. Louis Victor Cabanis had been had up before a full bench of magistrates, and, the police asking for time in which to compact their evidence, had been remanded to prison for a fortnight. The delay gave some breathing space for all concerned, and was, I think, welcomed by every one but Hugo. I don’t know by what passion of hatred of the slayer my friend’s soul might have been agitated. Perhaps it was that, perhaps mere nervous tension; but he appeared to be in a feverish impatience to get the business over. He did not say much about it; but one could judge by his look and manner the strained torment of his spirit. We were not a great deal together; and mostly I had to make out my time alone as best I could. Sometimes, in a rather pathetic way, he would go and play chess with his father, a thing he had never dreamed of doing in his normal state. I used to wonder if the General had guessed the truth, and how he was regarding it if he had. According to all accounts, he had been no Puritan himself in his younger days.
I have said that Audrey and the Baron were about a good deal together. They were, and the knowledge troubled me so much that I made up my mind to warn her.
“You appear to find his company very entertaining,” I said to her one day. Audrey had a rather disconcerting way of responding to any unwelcome question with a wide-eyed stare, which it was difficult to undergo quite stoically.
“Do I?” she said presently. “Why?”
“You would hardly favour it so much otherwise, would you?”
“Perhaps not. You see I take the best there is. I can’t help it if the choice is so limited.”
“That’s one for me. But never mind. I’m content he should do the entertaining, if I can do the helpful.”
“To me, Mr. Bickerdike?”
“I hope so—a little. As Hugo’s friend I feel that I ought to have some claim on your forbearance, not to say your good will. I think at least that, on the strength of that friendship, you need not resent my giving you a word of advice on a subject where, in my opinion, it’s wanted.”
“I have a father and brother to look after me, Mr. Bickerdike.”
“I’m aware of it, Audrey; and also of the fact that—for reasons sufficient of their own, no doubt—they leave you pretty much as you like to go your own way. It may be an unexceptionable way for the most part; but the wisest of us may occasionally go wrong from ignorance, and then it is the duty—I dare say the thankless duty—of friendship to interpose. You are very young, you know, and, one can’t help seeing, rather forlornly situated——”
“Will you please to leave my situation alone, and explain what this is all about?”
“Frankly, then—I offer this in confidence—I don’t think the Baron very good company for you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a little difficult to say. If you had more knowledge of the world you would understand, perhaps. There’s an air about him of the shady Continental adventurer, whose purpose in society, wherever he may seek it, is never a disinterested purpose. He’s always, one may be sure, after something profitable to himself—in one word, spoil. What do we any of us know about the Baron, except that he plays chess for money and consorts with doubtful characters? Your father knows, I believe, little more than I do, and that little for me is summed up in the word ‘suspect.’ One can’t say what can be his object in staying on here when common decency, one would have thought, seeing the trouble he has been instrumental in causing, should have dictated his departure; but, whatever his object, it is not likely, one feels convinced, to be a harmless one, and one cannot help fearing that he may be practising on your young credulity with a view to furthering it in some way. I wish you would tell me—will you?—what he talks to you about.”
She laughed in a way which somehow nettled me. “Doesn’t it strike you,” she said, “as rather cheek on the part of one guest in a house to criticize the behaviour of another to his hostess?”
“O, if you take it in that way,” I answered, greatly affronted, “I’ve nothing more to say. Your power of reading character is no doubt immensely superior to mine.”
“Well, I don’t think yours is very good,” she answered; “and I don’t see why the question of common decency should apply to him more than to another.”
“Don’t you?” I said, now fairly in a rage: “then it’s useless to prolong the discussion further. This is the usual reward of trying to interpose for good in other people’s affairs.”
“Some people might call it prying into them,” she answered, and I flung from her without another word. I felt that I really hated the girl—intolerable, pert, audacious young minx; but my rebuff made me more determined than ever to sift the truth out of this questionable riddle, and face her insolent assurance with it at the proper time.