Chapter IXThe enquiry upon which I had now stirred myself to enter, could not be an easy one, but it should have seemed for the present to be narrowed down to a question about a single man. Perhaps it was from repugnance against consciously going about to hang a man who had sheltered under my roof, that I did not even then definitely put to myself the question of that man’s guilt. By some half-conscious sequence of thought I was led to begin my search far afield. It started with the two letters which had come for Peters from Mr. Charles Bryanston, or rather first with the later letter.I had some time before written briefly and formally to Mr. Bryanston to acquaint him with the fact of Peters’ murder, but had, for a while since, thought no more of him. Now I began to do what one very seldom does, steadily and methodically think. I mooned up and down with a pipe in my garden or in the lanes. I sat, with those letters in my hand, alone before the fire. I sat at my writing-table with paper before me, and made incoherent jottings with a pencil. I should be afraid to say how often and how long I did all these seemingly idle things. Till at last, in the time between tea and dinner, with the children playing in the room, I arrived at actually spelling the matter out.“This time I will not delay my answer.” “This time——” Then at other times he did delay his answer. That might have some significance when I turned to the earlier letter. “This time I will not delay my answer.” It was an answer to a question in a letter just received from Peters, an answer probably by return of post. Why not delay it this time as usual? Why, of course, because the question was one which both to Peters and to Bryanston seemed important, perhaps momentous. Simple enough so far. “Longhurst did sail in theEleanor, and she did not go down.” It was clear enough that some one had thought that Longhurst had sailed in a ship that did go down. Peters had thought otherwise, and Peters was right. What of that? There is nothing momentous in that. Stop, though. It is not necessarily that. Some one need not have thought it—he may have said it to Peters, and Peters may have thought it was a lie. And what did it matter, and why did some one say it? Well, of course, Longhurst would be dead if the ship had gone down; and Longhurst was not really dead, and some one was interested in saying that he was. Perhaps Longhurst was the next heir to some property, and search ought to have been made for him; and my mind wandered over all the stories I had ever read of lost heirs, in fact or in fiction. Or perhaps—— Who said Longhurst and his ship went down? “C.” said it, whoever “C.” might be.Then I took up the earlier letter. I knew from the other letter that this had been sent late. There was nothing further to be gained from the words of it, but a flood of suspicion broke upon me as I held it in my hand. Had “C.” another initial to his surname, a double name? Did I know this “C.”? Had I not seen this very letter in the hands of “C.”? Had I not thought it rather odd that he, a man so decidedly “all there,” had opened and read it before it was given to me? Had I not rather wondered at the pains he had kindly taken to help me with several letters before? Did he not laugh rather strangely as he read it, though I never heard him laugh at anything amusing? Did he not go away just after the letter came, though he had not been intending to go so soon? Was it conceivable that he knew that Peters had asked that question, and thought the first letter (“very uninforming,” as he called it) was the answer to that question, and an answer which made him safe? After that one laugh I thought he became suddenly downcast. Had he really read in that letter that he need not have feared Peters, and that he had—yes, murdered him for nothing? Had the accident that Peters had written, perhaps long before, some unimportant question to Bryanston, and the accident that Bryanston had delayed his answer betrayed this man into leaving me alone with my letters a week too soon; and would this trifling mistake lead him to—to the gallows? and I remembered with a start the grim end which I was preparing. Yes, all this was conceivable. There is an old maxim that you should beware of going back upon your first instinctive impressions of liking or dislike when you happen to have them. There are qualifications to it; the repulsions that start from ugliness or strangeness or difference of opinion may not be safe guides. But broadly the maxim is true. It was true in this instance. No, I too had never liked “C.”It is strange that I should have received Mr. Bryanston’s answer the very next morning, a long, full, warm-hearted letter on the death of the friend to whose letters in life—and what letters Peters wrote!—he made such scrappy replies. In a P.S. at the end, as if the writer had hesitated whether to write it, were the words: “It is curious and may be news to you that Mr. Peters, at the time he was murdered, was unravelling the mystery of another murder, committed, as he suspected, many years ago”.So then, as I had half-guessed, Longhurst was dead. It was not that he was alive and Cartwright pretended he was dead, he was dead, and Cartwright had a motive for falsely pretending he was drowned.
The enquiry upon which I had now stirred myself to enter, could not be an easy one, but it should have seemed for the present to be narrowed down to a question about a single man. Perhaps it was from repugnance against consciously going about to hang a man who had sheltered under my roof, that I did not even then definitely put to myself the question of that man’s guilt. By some half-conscious sequence of thought I was led to begin my search far afield. It started with the two letters which had come for Peters from Mr. Charles Bryanston, or rather first with the later letter.
I had some time before written briefly and formally to Mr. Bryanston to acquaint him with the fact of Peters’ murder, but had, for a while since, thought no more of him. Now I began to do what one very seldom does, steadily and methodically think. I mooned up and down with a pipe in my garden or in the lanes. I sat, with those letters in my hand, alone before the fire. I sat at my writing-table with paper before me, and made incoherent jottings with a pencil. I should be afraid to say how often and how long I did all these seemingly idle things. Till at last, in the time between tea and dinner, with the children playing in the room, I arrived at actually spelling the matter out.
“This time I will not delay my answer.” “This time——” Then at other times he did delay his answer. That might have some significance when I turned to the earlier letter. “This time I will not delay my answer.” It was an answer to a question in a letter just received from Peters, an answer probably by return of post. Why not delay it this time as usual? Why, of course, because the question was one which both to Peters and to Bryanston seemed important, perhaps momentous. Simple enough so far. “Longhurst did sail in theEleanor, and she did not go down.” It was clear enough that some one had thought that Longhurst had sailed in a ship that did go down. Peters had thought otherwise, and Peters was right. What of that? There is nothing momentous in that. Stop, though. It is not necessarily that. Some one need not have thought it—he may have said it to Peters, and Peters may have thought it was a lie. And what did it matter, and why did some one say it? Well, of course, Longhurst would be dead if the ship had gone down; and Longhurst was not really dead, and some one was interested in saying that he was. Perhaps Longhurst was the next heir to some property, and search ought to have been made for him; and my mind wandered over all the stories I had ever read of lost heirs, in fact or in fiction. Or perhaps—— Who said Longhurst and his ship went down? “C.” said it, whoever “C.” might be.
Then I took up the earlier letter. I knew from the other letter that this had been sent late. There was nothing further to be gained from the words of it, but a flood of suspicion broke upon me as I held it in my hand. Had “C.” another initial to his surname, a double name? Did I know this “C.”? Had I not seen this very letter in the hands of “C.”? Had I not thought it rather odd that he, a man so decidedly “all there,” had opened and read it before it was given to me? Had I not rather wondered at the pains he had kindly taken to help me with several letters before? Did he not laugh rather strangely as he read it, though I never heard him laugh at anything amusing? Did he not go away just after the letter came, though he had not been intending to go so soon? Was it conceivable that he knew that Peters had asked that question, and thought the first letter (“very uninforming,” as he called it) was the answer to that question, and an answer which made him safe? After that one laugh I thought he became suddenly downcast. Had he really read in that letter that he need not have feared Peters, and that he had—yes, murdered him for nothing? Had the accident that Peters had written, perhaps long before, some unimportant question to Bryanston, and the accident that Bryanston had delayed his answer betrayed this man into leaving me alone with my letters a week too soon; and would this trifling mistake lead him to—to the gallows? and I remembered with a start the grim end which I was preparing. Yes, all this was conceivable. There is an old maxim that you should beware of going back upon your first instinctive impressions of liking or dislike when you happen to have them. There are qualifications to it; the repulsions that start from ugliness or strangeness or difference of opinion may not be safe guides. But broadly the maxim is true. It was true in this instance. No, I too had never liked “C.”
It is strange that I should have received Mr. Bryanston’s answer the very next morning, a long, full, warm-hearted letter on the death of the friend to whose letters in life—and what letters Peters wrote!—he made such scrappy replies. In a P.S. at the end, as if the writer had hesitated whether to write it, were the words: “It is curious and may be news to you that Mr. Peters, at the time he was murdered, was unravelling the mystery of another murder, committed, as he suspected, many years ago”.
So then, as I had half-guessed, Longhurst was dead. It was not that he was alive and Cartwright pretended he was dead, he was dead, and Cartwright had a motive for falsely pretending he was drowned.