What were his feelings as he read the telegram which she thrust into his hand—the telegram sent to her by a relative, who lived in London, acquainting her with the fact that an enterprising London paper had in its issue of that morning announced the safe arrival at Uganda of the distinguished explorer, Claude Westwood? “Authority unquestionable,” were the words with which the telegram ended.
Had he for one single moment an unworthy thought? Had he for a single moment a consciousness that she was lost to him for ever? Had he a feeling that he was being cruelly treated by Fate? Or was every feeling overwhelmed by the thought that this woman whose happiness was dear to him, was on her way to happiness?
She was leaning upon him as he read the telegram; and when he looked into her face he saw that the expression which it wore was not that of a woman who is thinking of her own happiness. He saw that her heart was not so full of her own happiness as to have no place for a thought for the man who in a moment had all hope swept away from him. Her eyes showed him that she had the tenderest regard for him at that moment; and that was how he was able to press her hand and say:
“With all my heart—with all my heart, I am glad. You will be happy. I ask nothing more.”
She returned the pressure of his hand, and with her eyes looking into his, said in a low voice:
“I know it—I know it.”
As he helped her to walk up to the house she kept putting question after question to him. Was the news that this paper published usually of a trustworthy character? She had heard that some newspapers with a reputation for enterprise to maintain, were usually more anxious to maintain such a reputation than one for scrupulous accuracy. Would Claude Westwood's brother be likely to receive a telegram to the same effect as hers, and if so, how was it that Dick had not come to her at once? Could it be that he questioned the accuracy of the news and was waiting until he had it confirmed by direct communication with Zanzibar before coming to her? And if Dick doubted the authentic nature of the message, was there not more than a possibility that there was some mistake in it? She knew all the systems of communication between Central Africa and the coast, she did not require any further information on that point; and she was aware of the ease with which an error could be made in a name or an incident between Uganda and Zanzibar.
Before she reached the house, the confidence which she had had in the accuracy of the message had vanished. With every step she took, a fresh doubt arose in her mind; so that when she threw herself down in the seat at the porch she was tremulous with excitement.
What could he say to soothe her? She knew far more than he did about the romance of African exploration, and being aware of this fact, he felt that it would be ridiculous for him to refer to the many cases there had been of explorers reappearing suddenly after years of hopeless silence. She was more fully acquainted than he was with the incidents connected with these cases of the lost being found. All that he could do was to assure her that no first-class newspaper, however anxious it might be to maintain a reputation for enterprise, would wilfully concoct such an item of news as that of which Agnes held the summary in her hand. It was perfectly clear that the newspaper had good reason for publishing in an authoritative manner the news of the safety of Claude Westwood, otherwise the words “Authority unquestionable” would not have been used in transmitting the substance of the intelligence.
This Sir Percival pointed out to her; and then, after a few moments of thought, Agnes rose from her seat, not without an effort, and announced her intention of going to Westwood Court.
“Dick cannot have received the news or he would surely be with me now,” she said. “Ah, what will he think of it? He never gave up hope. Everything he said to me helped to strengthen my hope. You have heard how attached he and Claude were?”
Sir Percival, seeing how excited she had become—how she alternated between the extremes of hope and fear, dissuaded her from her intention of going to the Court at once.
“You must have some rest,” he said. “The strain of going to the Court would be too much for you. You must not run the chance of breaking down when you need most to be strong. You will let me do this for you. I will see Westwood myself, whether he is at the Court or at the bank, and bring him to you.”
“I am sure you are right, my dear friend,” she said. “Oh yes, it is far better for you to bring him here. I cannot understand why Cyril has not come down yet. He should be the one to go. But you do not mind the trouble?”
“Trouble!” he said, and then laughed. “Trouble!”
He had gone some way down the drive when she called him back. She had left the porch of the house, and was standing against the trellis-work over which a rose was climbing. He returned to her at once.
“Listen to me, Sir Percival,” she said in a curious voice. “You are not to join with Dick in any compromise in regard to the news. If he believes that the report of Claude's safety is not to be trusted, you are to say so to me: it will not be showing your regard for me if you come back saying something to lessen the blow that Dick's doubt of the accuracy of the news will be to me. You will be treating me best if you tell me word for word what he says.”
“You may trust me,” he said quietly.
His heart was full of pity for her, for he could without difficulty see that she was in a perilous condition of excitement.
“I will trust you—oh, have I not trusted you?” she cried. “I do net want to live in a Fool's Paradise—Heaven only knows if I have not been living there during the past years. Paradise? No, it cannot be called a Paradise, for in no Paradise can there be the agony of waiting that was mine. And now—now—ah, do you think that I shall have an hour of Paradise till you return with the truth?—the truth, mind—that is what I want.”
He went away without speaking a word of reply to her. What would be the good of saying anything to a woman in her condition? She had all the sympathy of his heart. As he went along the road to the Court he began to wonder how it was that he had not guessed long ago that the life of this woman was not as the life of other women. It seemed to have occurred to no one in the neighbourhood to tell him what was the life that Miss Mowbray had chosen to live—that life of waiting and waiting through the long years. He supposed that her story had lost its interest for such persons as he had met during the year that he had been in Brackenshire; or they had not fancied that it would ever become of such intense interest to him as it was on this morning of June sunshine and singing birds and fleecy clouds and sweet scents of meadow grass and flower-beds.
He was conscious of a curious feeling of indignation in regard to the man who had been cruel enough to take from that woman her promise to love him, and him only, and then to leave her to waste her life away in waiting for him. He fancied he could picture her life during the years that Claude Westwood had been absent, and he felt that he had a right to be indignant with a man who had been selfish enough to bind a woman to himself with such a bond. Of course most women would, he knew, not consider such a bond binding upon them after a year or two: they would have been faithful to the man for a year—perhaps some of the most devoted might have been faithful for as long as eighteen months after his departure from England, and the extremely conscientious ones for six months after he had been swallowed up in the blackness of that black continent. They would not have been content to live the life that had been Agnes Mowbray's—the life of waiting and hoping with those alternate intervals of despair.
The man had behaved cruelly toward her, for he should have known that she was not as other women. It was the feeling that the man was not worthy of her that caused Sir Percival Hope his only misgiving. He wondered if he himself had chanced to meet Agnes before she had known Claude Westwood, what would her life have been—what would his life have been?
He stood in the road and tried to form a picture of their life—of their lives joined together so as to make one life.
He hurried on. The picture was too bright to be looked upon. He found it easier to think of the picture which had been before his eyes when he had looked back hearing her voice calling him—the picture of a beautiful pale woman, with one hand leaning on the trellis-work of the porch, while the roses drooped down to her hair.
“The cruelty of it—the cruelty of it!” he groaned, as he hurried on to perform his mission.
And these were the very words that Agnes Mowbray was moaning at the same instant, as she fell on her knees beside the sofa in her dressing-room. This was all the prayer that her lips could frame at that moment.
“The cruelty of it! The cruelty of it!” That was the result of all her thoughts of the past years that she had spent in waiting.
She and God knew what those years had been—the years that had robbed her of her youth, that had planted those grey hairs where the soft brown had been. All the past seemed unfolded in front of her like a scroll. She thought of her parting from her lover on that chill October day, when every breeze sent the leaves flying in crisp flakes through the air. Not a tear did she shed while she was saying that farewell to him. She had carried herself bravely—yes, as she stood beside the privet hedge and waved her hand to him on the road on which he was driving to catch the train; but when she had returned to the house and her father had put his arm round her, she was not quite so self-possessed. Her tears came in a torrent all at once, and she cried out for him to come back to her.
He had not come back to her. Through the long desolate years that had been her cry; but he had not come back to her. Oh! the desolation of those years that followed! At first she had received many letters from him. So long as he was in touch with some form of civilisation, however rudimentary it was, he had written to her; but then the letters became few and irregular. He could only trust that one out of every six that he wrote would reach her, he said, for he only wrote on the chance of meeting an elephant-hunter or a slave-raider going to the coast who would take a letter for him—for a consideration. She had not the least objection to receive a letter, even though it had been posted by the red hand of the half-caste slave-raider.
But afterwards the letters ceased altogether. She tried to find courage in the reflection that the rascally men who had been entrusted with the letters had flung them away, or perhaps they had been killed or had died naturally before reaching the coast. Only for a time did she find some comfort in thus accounting for the absence of all news regarding him. At the end of a year she read in a newspaper an article in which the writer assumed that all hope for the safety of Claude Westwood had been abandoned. The writer of the article was clearly an expert in African exploration. He was ready to quote instance after instance since the days of Hanno, of explorers who had dared too much and had been cut off—some by what he called the legitimate enemies of pioneers, namely, disease and privation, others by that cruelty which has its habitation in the dark places of the earth, and nowhere in greater abundance than in the dark places of the Dark Continent.
She recollected what her feelings had been as she read that article and scores of other articles, dealing with the disappearance of Claude Westwood. She had not broken down. Her father had pointed out to her the extraordinary mistakes so easily made by the experts who wrote on the subject of Claude Westwood's disappearance; and if they were able to bring forward instances of the loss of intrepid men who had set out in the hope of adding to the world's knowledge of the world, the Admiral was able to give quite as many instances of the safe return of explorers who had been given up for lost. Thus she and her father kept up each other's hopes until the question of Claude's safety ceased to be even alluded to in the press as a topic of the day.
She had never lost hope; but this fact did not prevent her having dreams of the night. She was accustomed to awake with a cry, seeing him tortured by savages—seeing him lying alone in a country where no tree was growing. And then she would remain awake through the long night, praying for his safety.
That had been her life for years, and now she was still praying for his safety—praying that the day of the realisation of her hopes had at last come.
She started up, hearing the sound of footsteps on the gravel path. She was at her window in time to see Sir Percival in the act of entering the porch. He had not been long absent. He could not have had a long conversation with Richard Westwood.
She met him while he was still in the porch. They stood face to face for a few moments, but no word came from either of them for a long time. She seemed to think that she was about to fall, for she put out a hand to the velvet portière that hung in an arch leading to the hall—that was her right hand—her left was pressed against her heart.
“You need not speak,” she whispered, when they had stood face to face in that long silence. “You need not speak. I know all that your silence implies.”
“No—no—you know nothing of what I have to tell you,” said he slowly.
“What have you to tell? Can you tell me anything worse than that Claude Westwood is dead?”
“It is not Claude Westwood who is dead.”
“Not Claude?—who—who, then, is dead?”
“Richard Westwood is dead.”
She continued looking at him after he had spoken, as though she failed to grasp the meaning of his words. It seemed as if they conveyed nothing definite to her.
“I don't think I heard you aright, Sir Percival,” she said at last. “There was no question of Richard Westwood's being alive or dead. You went to find out about Claude.”
“I went to find out about Claude, but I did not get further than the lodge,” said Sir Percival. “At the lodge I heard what had happened. It is a terrible thing! The events of the day must have affected him more deeply than we imagined they would.”
“You mean to tell me that Dick—that Richard Westwood is dead?” said Agnes.
“He died this morning.”
“Dead! but I was with him yesterday. My brother Cyril dined with him last night.”
“I tell you it is a terrible thing. Poor fellow! His mind must have given way beneath the strain that the run upon the bank entailed upon him. Dear Agnes, let me help you to reach your chair. Pray lean on me.”
She did not seem to hear what he had said. She was dazed but striving to recover herself.
“I cannot understand,” she said. “It appears strange that I cannot understand when you have spoken quite plainly. But we were talking about Claude—not Dick. You were to find out what Dick thought regarding the rumour of Claude's being alive—so far I am quite clear. But here you come to me saying: 'It is Dick Westwood and not Claude who is dead.' What on earth can you mean by saying that, when all i wanted to know was about Claude?”
“My dear Agnes, I can say nothing more. This second shock is too much for you. In a few minutes, however, you will be able to realise what has happened. Where is your brother? I must speak to him.”
“No—no; do not leave me. If he is dead—and you say that he is dead—I have no friend in the world but you. Ah, you must not leave me. I do not think I have any one in the world but you.”
She spoke in a tone of pitiful entreaty, holding out both her hands to him, as she had done once in the garden.
He took her hands and held them for a moment, but he did not press them, as another man might have done, when she had spoken. He said gently: “I will not leave you—whatever may happen I will be by your side. Now you will sit down.”
He had just helped her to one of the chairs that stood in the porch, when the portière was flung aside, and Cyril, in the art of lighting a cigarette, appeared.
“Hallo, Agnes, I'm a bit late, I suppose,” he began, but seeing Sir Percival helping her as though she were as feeble as an invalid, to the chair, he stopped short. “What's the matter, Sir Percival?” he said, in another tone, but not one of great concern.
“Tell him—tell him; perhaps he will understand,” said Agnes, looking up to Sir Percival's face.
“You do not mind my speaking to him for a minute in the garden?” said Sir Percival.
“Go; perhaps he will understand,” said she.
He held up a linger to Cyril, and they went outside together.
“What's the mystery now?” asked Cyril, picking up his straw hat from a chair. “I shouldn't wonder if it had something to do with Claude Westwood. My poor sister is overcome because she has received confirmation of his death probably. But you and I know, Sir Percival, that there has not been the smallest chance.”
“I do not want to talk to you about Claude Westwood just at this minute, but about his brother,” said Sir Percival. “The fact is, that I have just returned from the Court. The dead body of Richard Westwood was found by a gardener this morning not twenty yards from his house. He had shot himself with a revolver.”
Cyril turned very pale, but the cigarette that he was smoking did not drop from his lips. He stared at Sir Percival for some moments, and then slowly removed his cigarette. He drew a long breath before saying in a whisper:
“Shot himself? Then he was bankrupt after all, and Agnes's money's gone. Why the mischief did you give her that cheque yesterday, Sir Percival?”
“I thought it well that you should hear this terrible news at once,” said Sir Percival, ignoring his question. “I believe that you dined with him last night, and so you were probably the last person to see him alive. You will most certainly be questioned by the Chief Constable before the inquest.”
“The Chief Constable or any other constable may question me; I don't mind. I don't suppose it will be suggested that I shot poor Dick,” said Cyril, somewhat jauntily.
Sir Percival made no reply, and Cyril went on.
“Good heavens! Poor old Dick! I'm sorry for him. I have good reason to be sorry. He was the best friend I had. He understood me. He wasn't too hard on a chap like me. The people in this neighbourhood think that I'm a bad egg—you probably think so too, Sir Percival; but poor Dick never joined with the others in boycotting me, though he knew more about me than any of them! And to think that all the time he was playing that game of billiards—all the time he was crossing the park with me when I was going home, he meant to put an end to himself.”
“You will probably be asked some questions on this point by the Chief Constable,” said Sir Percival. “He will ask you if you can testify to his state of mind last evening. You drove back with him from the bank, I believe?”
“I drove back with him, and dined with him. We had a game of billiards, the same as usual, and then he walked across the park with me, as I say. That's all I have to tell. I know nothing about his condition of mind; but he admitted to me more than once that he had had rather a bad time of it while those fools were in the bank clamouring for their money—it appears that they weren't such great fools after all. Poor old Dick! He took me up quite seriously when I suggested that he should marry Agnes. He pretended to believe that Claude was still alive, as if he didn't know as well as you or I, Sir Percival”—
“There is every likelihood that Claude Westwood is alive,” said Sir Percival.
“What—Claude Westwood alive and Dick Westwood dead?” cried Cyril. “Pardon me if I seem rude, Sir Percival, but what on earth are you talking about?”
“I have told you all that I know,” said Sir Percival. “Your sister got a telegram an hour ago telling her that a London newspaper contains a piece of exclusive news regarding Claude Westwood, and the information is described as accurate beyond question.”
“Great Scott!” said Cyril after a pause. “What's the meaning of this, anyway? One brother turns up alive and well after being lost in Africa for eight years, and the other—Good heavens! What can any one say when things like that are occurring under our very eyes? Why couldn't Dick have waited until the news came? He would not have shot himself if he had known that Claude was alive, I'll swear. And as for Claude—well, when he gets the news from Brackenhurst, he'll be inclined to wish that he had remained in the interior.”
“They were so deeply attached to each other?”
“Well, of course, Sir Percival, I can't say anything about that from my own recollection, but every one about here says they were like David and Jonathan—like Damon and the other chap. Nothing ever came between them—not even a woman; and I need hardly tell you, Sir Percival, that the appearance of the woman is usually the signal for”—
“Here is Major Borrowdaile,” said Sir Percival, interrupting the outburst of cynical philosophy on the part of the youth, as a dog-cart driven by Major Borrowdaile, the Chief Constable of the county, passed through the entrance gates.
Cyril allowed himself to be interrupted without a protest. His nonchalance vanished as the officer jumped from the dog-cart and went across the lawn to him. Sir Percival took a few steps to meet Major Borrowdaile, but Cyril did not move.
“You have heard of this nasty business, Sir Percival?” said the officer.
“I have just come from the lodge at the Court,” replied Sir Percival. “There's no possibility of a mistake being made, I suppose? It is certain that Mr. Westwood shot himself.”
“It is certain that the poor fellow was found shot through the lungs,” said the Chief Constable cautiously. “I hear that you dined with him last night, Mowbray,” he continued, turning to Cyril. “That is why I have troubled you with a visit.”
“Why should you come to me?” said Cyril, almost plaintively. “I dined with Dick Westwood, and parted from him at the road gate before midnight. That's all I know about the business.”
“That means you were the last person to see him alive. He must have been shot on returning to the house after letting you through the road gate.”
“Must have been shot?” cried Cyril. “Why, you said he had shot himself, Sir Percival.”
“He was found with a revolver close to his hand,” said Major Borrowdaile, “and the undergardener, who discovered the body, took it for granted that he had committed suicide. You see the fact that there was a run upon the bank yesterday induces some people to jump to the conclusion that he committed suicide, just as the assumption that he committed suicide will lead many people to assume that the affairs of the bank are in an unsatisfactory condition. They are bad logicians. Did he seem at all depressed in the course of the evening, Mowbray?”
“Not he,” replied Cyril. “He was just the opposite. He ate a first-class dinner, and we discussed the fools who made the run upon the bank. It seems that they weren't such fools after all—so I've been saying to Sir Percival.”
“You are another of the imperfect logicians,” said Major Borrowdaile. “I want facts—not deductions, if you please. If there are to be any deductions made I prefer making them myself. I promise you that I shall make them on a basis of fact. Dr. Mitford saw our poor friend, and he has had, as you know, a large experience of bullet wounds—he went through four campaigns—and he declares that it is quite impossible that Mr. Westwood could have shot himself. The bullet entered the lungs from behind. Now, men who wish to commit suicide do not shoot themselves in that way. They have the best of reasons tor refraining. That is fact number one. Fact number two is that the revolver which was found at his hand was not Mr. Westwood's—his own revolver was found safe in his own bedroom.”
“Then the deduction is simple,” said Sir Per-cival. “Some one must have shot him.”
“I am afraid that is the only conclusion one can come to, considering the facts which I have placed before you, Sir Percival,” said Major Borrowdaile. “This view is strengthened by Mowbray's testimony as to the condition of Mr. Westwood last night: he was not depressed nor had he any reason to be depressed, the run upon the bank having been successfully averted.”
“But who could have borne him a grudge? He was, I have always believed, the most popular man in the neighbourhood,” said Sir Percival.
The Chief Constable glanced toward Cyril saying:
“Perhaps Mowbray here will be able to give us at least a clue.”
“I?—I know nothing of the matter,” said Cyril. “I have told you all that I know. We parted at the gate in the wall of the park—it saves me a round of more than half a mile—that's all I know, I assure you.”
“Then I'm disappointed in my mission to you,” said the Chief Constable. “The fact is that one of the servants came to us with a singular story of a visitor—a man wearing a rather shabby coat and a soft hat. He says he entered the room when this man was having an altercation with Mr. Westwood, at which you were present, and the revolver”—
“Great Scott!” cried Cyril. “How could I be such an idiot as to forget that! The man came into the drawing-room through the open window, and called Dick a swindler. He pulled out a revolver and covered Dick with it just as the servant entered the room. Dick took the matter very coolly and the fellow threw the revolver out of the window, and walked out by the door himself—but not before he had threatened Dick. Oh, there can be no doubt about it; the shot was tired by that man.”
“Did he mention what was his name?” asked Major Borrowdaile.
“He did—yes, he said his name was—now What the mischief did he say it was? Stanley?—no—Stanmore?—I think he said his name was Stanmore. No! have it now—Standish; and he mentioned that he had just come from Midleigh. Oh, there's no doubt that he fired the shot. Why on earth haven't you tried to arrest him? He can't have gone very far as yet.”
“He was arrested half an hour ago,” said the Chief Constable.
“Heavens above! He didn't run away?” cried Cyril.
“On the contrary, he walked straight into the bank the first thing this morning, and tried to make a row because the cashier hadn't arrived,” said Major Borrowdaile. “He waited there, and when the news came that Mr. Westwood was dead and the doors of the bank were about to be closed, he refused to leave the premises. That was where he made a mistake; for he was arrested by my sergeant on suspicion, though the sergeant had heard that Mr. Westwood had shot himself. And yet we hear that there is no intelligence apart from Scotland Yard!”
The London evening papers were full of the name of Westwood, and the pleasant little country town of Brackenhurst was during the afternoon overrun with representatives of the Press, the majority of whom were, to the amazement of the legitimate inhabitants, far more anxious to obtain some items relating to the personal history—the more personal the better—of Claude Westwood, than to become acquainted with the local estimate of the character of his brother. The people of the neighbourhood could not understand how it was possible that the world should regard the reappearance of a distinguished explorer after an absence of eight years with much greater interest than the murder of a provincial banker—even supposing that Mr. Westwood was murdered, which was to place the incident of his death in the most favourable light—from the standpoint of those newspapers that live by sensational headlines.
The next morning every newspaper worthy of the name had a leading article upon the Westwoods, and pointed out how the tragic elements associated with the death of one of the brothers were intensified by the fact that if he had only lived for a few hours longer, he would have heard of the safety of his distinguished brother, to whom he was deeply attached. While almost every newspaper contained half a column telling the story—so far as it was known—of the supposed murder of Richard Westwood, a far greater space was devoted to the story of the escape of Claude Westwood from the savages of the Upper Zambesi, who had killed every member of his expedition and had kept him in captivity for eight years.
The people of Brackenhurst could not understand such a lapse of judgment on the part of the chief newspaper editors: they were, of course, very proud of the fact that Claude Westwood was a Brackenshireman, but they were far prouder of the distinction of being associated with the locality of a murder about which every one in the country was talking.
Cyril Mowbray found himself suddenly advanced to a position of unlooked-for prominence, owing to the amount of information he was able to give to the newspaper men regarding the scene during the run on the bank, and the scene in the drawingroom at the Court, when the man who called himself Standish had entered, demanding the money which he had lodged the previous year in Westwoods' bank. Only once before had Cyril found himself in a position of equal prominence, and that was when he had been finally sent down at Oxford for participating in a prank of such a character as caused the name of his college to appear in every newspaper for close upon a week under the heading of “The University Scandal.” Before the expiration of that week Cyril's name was in the mouth of every undergraduate, and he felt, for the remainder of the week, all the gratification which is the result (sometimes) of a sudden accession to a position of prominence after a long period of comparative obscurity.
But his sister Agnes was completely prostrated by what had now happened—by the gladness of hearing that her lover was safe—that her long years of watching and waiting had not been in vain, and by the grief of knowing that her gladness could not be shared by Dick Westwood. It seemed to her that her hour of grief had swallowed up her hour of joy. She could not look forward to the delight of meeting Claude once again without feeling that her triumph—the triumph of her constancy—was robbed of more than half its pleasure, since it could not be shared by poor Dick. A week ago the news that her lover was safe would have thrilled her with delight; but now it seemed to her a barren joy even to anticipate his return: she knew that he would never recover from the blow of his brother's death—she knew that all the love she might lavish upon him would not diminish the bitterness of the thoughts that would be his when he returned to the Court and found it desolate.
She read with but the smallest amount of interest the newspaper articles that eulogised Claude Westwood and his achievements. She seemed to have but an impersonal connection with the discoveries that he had made—suggestions of their magnitude appeared almost daily in the newspapers; and the fact that an enterprising publishing firm in England had sent out a special emissary to meet him at Zanzibar with an offer of £25,000 for his book—it was taken as a matter of course that he would write a book—interested her no more than did the information that an American lecture bureau had cabled to their English agent to make arrangements with him for a series of lectures—it was assumed that he would give a course of lectures with limelight views—in the States, his remuneration to be on a scale such as only a prima donna had ever dreamt of, and that only in her most avaricious moments. She even remained unmoved by the philosophical reflection indulged in by several leader writers, to the effect that, after all, it would seem that the perils surrounding an ordinary English gentleman were greater than those encompassing the most intrepid of explorers in the most dangerous sphere of exploration in the world.
The foundation for this philosophy was, of course, the coincidence of the news being published confirmatory of the safety of one of the Westwoods on the same page that contained the melancholy story of what was soon termed the Brackenshire Tragedy.
And this melancholy story did not lose anything of its tragic aspect when it came to be investigated before the usual tribunals. But however interesting as well as profitable it might be to give at length an account of the questions put to the witnesses at the inquest, and the answers given by them to the solicitors engaged in the investigation, such interest and profit must be foregone in this place. A reader will have to be content with the information of the bare fact that the coroner's jury returned a verdict of “Wilful Murder” against the man who had, under the name of Carton Standish, lodged some hundreds of pounds the previous year in the Westwoods' bank, and who, according to the evidence of Cyril, corroborated by the footman, had threatened Mr. Westwood with a revolver.
Cyril described the incidents of the entire interview that Standish had with Mr. Westwood, up to the point of his throwing the revolver out of the window. He was not, of course, prepared to say that the revolver which was found at Mr. Westwood's hand (deposed to by the under-gardener) was the same weapon, but he said that it seemed to him to be the same. He had not seen the man pick up the revolver from the grass where it had fallen. The man had left the house, not by the window, by which he had entered, but by the hall door. In reply to a question put to him Cyril said that if the revolver had been left on the grass it might have been picked up by any one aware of the fact that it was there. Neither he nor Mr. Westwood had picked it up. They had not walked together in the direction of the Italian garden, but through the park, which was on the other side of the house. They had not discussed the incident of the man's entering the drawing-room, except for a few minutes, nor did it seem to occur to Mr. Westwood that he might be in jeopardy were he to walk through the grounds. He appeared to disregard the man's threats.
The surgeon who had examined the body gave a horribly technical description of the wound made by the bullet, and said he had no hesitation in swearing that the revolver was fired from a distance of at least twenty feet from the deceased. He had a wide experience of bullet wounds, but it did not need a wide experience to enable a surgeon to pronounce an opinion as to whether or not a wound had been produced by a point-blank discharge of a weapon, whether revolver or rifle.
Major Borrowdaile and the police sergeant gave some evidence regarding the arrest of Standish, and the butler, who was the first to enter the drawingroom in the morning, stated that he had found the French window open. He fancied that his master had gone out for a stroll before breakfast. He also said that he had heard in the early part of the night the sound of several shots; but he had taken it for granted that a party were shooting rabbits in the warren, In any case the sound of a shot at night in the park or the shrubberies would not cause alarm among the servants: they would take it for granted that a keeper had fired at one of the wild-cats or perhaps at a night-hawk, or some creature of the woods inimical to the young pheasants.
This was considered sufficient evidence by the coroner's jury, and the man was handed over, to be formally committed by the bench of magistrates.
The Summer Assizes were held within a fortnight, and then, in addition to the evidence previously given, a gunmaker from Midleigh swore that the revolver was purchased from him by the prisoner on the forenoon of the day when he had appeared at Westwood Court. Against such evidence the statement of the landlord of the Three Swans Inn at Brackenhurst, to the effect that he had admitted the prisoner to the inn at a few minutes past midnight—the only direct evidence brought forward for the defence—was of no avail. The landlord, on being cross-examined, admitted that his clock was not invariably to be depended on: on the night in question he took it for granted that it was a quarter of an hour fast. He would not swear that it was not customary to set it back on the very day of the week corresponding to that preceding the discovery of the dead body of Mr. Westwood. He also declined to swear that the next day the clock was not found to be accurate.
The judge upon this occasion was not the one whose anxiety to sentence men and women to be hanged is so great that he has now and again practically insisted on a jury returning a verdict of guilty against prisoners who, on being reprieved by the Home Secretary, were eventually found to be entirely innocent of the crime laid to their charge. Nor was he the one whose unfortunate infirmity of deafness prevents his hearing more than a word or two of the evidence. He was not even the one whose inability to perceive the difference between immorality and criminality is notorious. He was the one whose ingenuity is made apparent by his suggestion of certain possibilities which have never occurred to the counsel engaged in a case.
When it seemed to be quite certain that Standish would be found guilty, the judge began to perplex the minds of the jurymen by suggestions of his own. He pointed out that the prisoner had had but one object in threatening Mr. Westwood—namely, to recover the money that he had lodged in Westwoods' bank; and this being so, what motive would he have for murdering Mr. Westwood until he had applied to the bank and had had his money refused to him?
So far from his having a motive in killing Mr.
Westwood, and then placing the weapon so close to his hand as to suggest that he had committed suicide, he had the very best reason for preventing the spread of the report that the proprietor of the bank had committed suicide, for it would be perfectly plain to any one that the spread of such a report would cause it to be taken for granted that the affairs of the bank were in a shaky condition, and the bank might stop payment in self-defence; in which case the prisoner must have known that his money would be in serious jeopardy.
He then went on to point out how no evidence had been brought forward to prove that the prisoner had ever regained possession of the revolver after he had thrown it out of the window, so that it was open for any one who might have found the weapon, to use it with deadly effect against Mr. Westwood, or, for that matter, against some one else. Finally, he ventured to point out how it was scarcely within the bounds of possibility that the murder could have been committed by any one except the prisoner. He trusted, however, that the jury would give the amplest consideration to the points upon which he had dwelt.
The result of this summing up was that it took the jury two hours and a half instead of five minutes to find the prisoner guilty. It only took the judge five minutes to sentence him, however; but those persons who had been looking forward to so exciting an incident as an execution, with a black flag hoisted outside the gaol to stimulate the imagination in regard to the horror that was being enacted within, were disappointed, for the Home Secretary commuted the capital sentence to one of penal servitude for life.
The man's character had not been an unblemished one. Fifteen years before he had suffered eighteen months' imprisonment for fraud in connection with the floating of a company—a transaction into which it seems scarcely possible for fraud to enter—but since his return he appeared to have supported himself honorably at Midleigh. He had worked himself up to a position of trust at the great Midleigh brewery, and it was said that in addition to the few hundreds which remained to his credit in Westwoods' bank, he had saved some thousands of pounds. It appeared, however, that what he had said in Dick Westwood's drawing-room about having a wife and child, was untrue, for certainly no no one claiming to be his wife had come forward during the trial.
Thus, within three weeks of the tragedy at the Court, the people of Brackenhurst had begun to talk of other matters—during a fortnight no other topic was possible in the town. After Mr. Westwood's death there was no run on the bank: but even if there had been, plenty of gold would have been forthcoming to meet all demands. It was then that the people began to discuss the probability of Mr. Westwood's having died a wealthy man, and the likelihood of his having made a will. They feared that Claude Westwood would not find himself better provided for than he had been at his father's death; for they took it for granted that his brother would have made his will on the assumption—the very reasonable assumption—that he was no longer alive.
It did not take long to satisfy the curiosity of the neighbourhood on all these points. Richard Westwood's lawyer produced in due course a will which the former had made the year before, and it became plain from this document that the testator was a wealthy man—that is to say, wealthy from the standpoint of Brackenshire; though, of course, in the estimation of Lancashire or Chicago the sums which he bequeathed represented a competency only one degree removed from absolute penury. Something like two hundred thousand pounds were distributed in the will, but the distribution was made on the simplest principle. After a few legacies of an unimportant character to some cousins, his clerks and servants. Richard Westwood left all his property in trust for his brother Claude, should the said Claude be found to be alive within five years from the date of the will. But should no proof be forthcoming that he was alive within that period, everything was to go to Agnes Louise Mowbray, of The Knoll, for her absolute use.
People opened their eyes when they became acquainted with the provisions of the will. So many years had passed since the departure of Claude Westwood, it was quite forgotten, except by a few persons, that there was a woman awaiting his return.
There were some people, however, who said that the character of Richard Westwood's will proved that he had been in love with Miss Mowbray. They never failed to add that they had suspected it all along.