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Title: The Terriford mystery
Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes
Release Date: May 20, 2023 [eBook #70810]
Language: English
Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY ***
THE
TERRIFORD MYSTERY
BOOKS BY
MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH, PRINCESS PALATINE
THE HEART OF PENELOPE
BARBARA REBELL
THE PULSE OF LIFE
THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
STUDIES IN WIVES
WHEN NO MAN PURSUETH
JANE OGLANDER
THE CHINK IN THE ARMOUR
MARY PECHELL
STUDIES IN LOVE AND IN TERROR
THE LODGER
THE END OF HER HONEYMOON
TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS: A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WAR
GOOD OLD ANNA
THE RED CROSS BARGE
LILLA: A PART OF HER LIFE
OUT OF THE WAR
LOVE AND HATRED
THE LONELY HOUSE
FROM THE VASTY DEEP
THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY
THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY
BY
MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
[Illustration: logo]
“Tattlers also, and busy-bodies, speaking things which they ought not.”
—_I. Tim v. 13._
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1924
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS CO.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
_First Edition_
THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY
PROLOGUE
Terriford village, a peaceful, exquisite corner of old England. Houses,
cottages, and great raftered barns spread over a rising stretch of what
was once primeval woodland. No dwelling-place is less than fifty years
old and many are of much older date.
At the apex of the broad, well-kept village street stands the
pre-Reformation gray stone church. It rises from what appears to be a
well-tended and fragrant garden, though here and there lichened stones
and crosses show it to be what old-fashioned folk still call a
graveyard.
But at the time my story opens sudden death, and all the evils the most
normal death implies in our strange, transitory existence, seem very far
from the inhabitants of Terriford. All the more remote because the group
of people who are soon to be concerned with a mysterious and terrible
drama of death are now one and all happy, cheerful, and full of life and
excitement. For they are present as privileged spectators at the first
appearance of the great Australian cricket team.
Why, it may well be asked, should quiet Terriford village be so
honoured? It is because Harry Garlett, the man who stands to the hamlet
in the relation of squire, is the most popular amateur cricketer in the
county and the owner of the best private cricket ground in England. Not
only money, but a wealth of loving care combined with great technical
knowledge and experience, has brought it near to absolute
perfection—this fine expanse of English turf, framed in a garland of
noble English elms and spreading chestnut trees.
Months ago in the dreary winter, when the tour of the Australian test
match team was being arranged, Garlett had invited the visitors to come
to Terriford immediately on landing from the boat and “play themselves
in” after the long voyage. He undertook to collect a strong team of
amateurs, stiffened with two or three professionals, that the
Australians might have something worth tackling, and he did not fail to
point out that at Terriford the visitors would most quickly become
accustomed to English pitches and the soft English light, so different
from the hard dry sunshine and matting wickets of Australia.
Harry Garlett knew that the merits of his private ground were well known
over there, on the other side of the world, but all the same he could
not feel sure. And so it was one of the happiest moments of a life which
had been singularly happy and fortunate when he received the cable
informing him that the Australian team would accept with pleasure his
kind invitation.
To-day, on this bright spring morning, the closing day of the great
match, there could be no more characteristically English scene than this
mixture of country-house party, garden party, and enthusiasts for the
national game.
The cricket is serious, but not so serious as to risk interfering with
good fellowship, the more so that this match does not count in the tour
for records and averages. The spirit of the whole affair is one of pure
good sportsmanship, and the small group of newspaper experts whom
Garlett has invited are all eager to see how the visitors shape and how
they compare with the great Australian teams of the past.
These connoisseurs are also full of admiration for the eleven which
their host has collected. It is indeed a cleverly composed combination.
Youth is represented by some brilliant young players from Oxford and
Cambridge, cheerful fellows who are equally likely to hit up centuries
or to make the two noughts familiarly known as “a pair of spectacles.”
But these lads are as active as monkeys in the field and can save
seemingly certain runs and bring off seemingly impossible “catches.”
Then there is a sprinkling of somewhat older, but still young men, who
have proved their mettle in the great county teams. Last, but not least,
there are three professionals—men whose names are known wherever cricket
is played and who are past-masters in all the subtleties of the great
game.
Decidedly the Cornstalks, though the odds are slightly in their favour,
will have to play all out if they are to win.
Any one who envied Harry Garlett his manifold good fortune, his
popularity, his good looks, his ideal life in “Easy Street,” for he is a
prosperous manufacturer as well as a famous cricketer, might argue that
were it not for the long voyage from Australia the Garlett eleven would
be beaten to a frazzle. But the general feeling is that it is just that
handicap on the visitors which equalizes the chances and makes the match
one of real sporting interest.
The pavilion is situated at the top of the cricket field and commands a
splendid view of the game. But the game is not the only thing. Indeed,
there are people there to whom it is not only an excuse to meet, to
gossip, and to enjoy a generous host’s delightful hospitality. For, at
the back of the great room where Harry Garlett’s special guests are all
gathered together, is a buffet loaded with every kind of delicious food,
wine, and spirits. Garlett, though himself abstemious as every keen
athlete has need to be, always offers the best of cheer to his friends,
ay, and not only to his friends, for bounteous free refreshments are
also provided for the village folk as well as for certain cricket
enthusiasts from the county town of Grendon.
And now let us concentrate on a little group of people in the pavilion,
all obviously quite at ease with one another, and all bent on making the
most of a memorable occasion. Very ordinary folk they are, typical
inhabitants of almost any English village.
First, in order of precedence—the rector and his wife, Mr. and Mrs.
Cole-Wright, he kindly and far from clever, facts which make him
popular, his wife clever and not over kindly, and therefore far less
popular.
Then come Dr. and Mrs. Maclean. The wise physician, whose fame goes far
beyond the confines of his practice, has snatched a day off from his
busy life in order to be present at the closing scenes of the great
match. Both he and his wife are Scotch, but they have lived for fifteen
years very happily in this typical English village. They are a closely
united couple, and the one lack in their joint life has lately been
satisfied by their adoption of Mrs. Maclean’s niece, Jean Bower, an
attractive, cheerful-looking, happy girl whose first introduction to the
neighbourhood is taking place to-day in Harry Garlett’s cricket
pavilion. Jean is only twenty-one, but she is not an idle girl. It is
known that she did good work during the last part of the war, and she
has lately been made secretary to the Etna China Company of which Harry
Garlett is managing director.
As to the other people there, they include Colonel Brackbury, the
Governor of Grendon Prison, his sharp-featured wife and two pretty
daughters; Mr. Toogood, chief lawyer in Grendon, with his wife and
daughter; Dr. Tasker, one of the few bachelors in the neighbourhood;
and, last but not least in that little group who are all on intimate
terms with one another, and whose affairs are constantly discussed in
secret by their humble neighbours, is Mary Prince, true type of that
peculiarly English genus unkindly called “old maid.”
Miss Prince is at once narrow-minded and tolerant, mean and generous,
wickedly malicious, while yet, in a sense, exceedingly kind-hearted.
Perhaps because her father was Dr. Maclean’s predecessor the village
folk consult her concerning their ailments, grave and trifling, more
often than they do the doctor himself.
There is one dark spot in the life of Harry Garlett. His devoted wife,
to whom as an actual fact the whole of Terriford village belongs—or did
belong till she made it over to him—is an invalid. Many months have gone
by since she left the upper floor of the delightful Georgian manor
house, which owes its unsuitable name of the Thatched House to the fact
that it was built on the site of a medieval thatched building.
The Thatched House is a childless house, and Harry Garlett, though on
the best of terms with his invalid wife, is constantly away, at any rate
during the summer months, playing cricket here, there, and everywhere,
all over England. So Agatha Cheale, Mrs. Garlett’s housekeeper, who is
known to be a kinswoman of her employer, plays the part of hostess in
the cricket pavilion. Even so, as the day wears on Miss Cheale
disappears unobtrusively two or three times in order to see if Mrs.
Garlett is comfortable and also to give her news of the cricket match
and especially news of how Mr. Garlett is acquitting himself. Everything
that concerns her husband is of deep moment to Mrs. Garlett, and she is
exceedingly proud of his fame as a cricketer.
On this, the second day of the great match, the Australians have been
set to make 234 runs in their second innings for victory. When the teams
go in for lunch there are few, even among those to whom the finer shades
of the game are as a sealed book, who doubt that they will do it pretty
easily.
The pitch has worn wonderfully well, and Garlett feels a thrill of
delight when he sees it roll out as true and plumb as on the first day.
He thinks with intense satisfaction of all the patient care that he has
devoted to this ground, of all the cunning devices of drainage lying hid
beneath the level turf, and of the scientific treatment with which he
has nursed the turf up to this acme of condition. Ah, money can do much,
but money alone couldn’t have done that. He wants to win the match, but
he emphatically does not want to owe victory to any defect of the pitch.
In such happy mood does Garlett lead his team out into the field after
lunch, and the Australians start, full of confidence. But somehow, even
from the beginning, they seem to find runs hard to get, harder than in
their first knock.
The young undergraduates field like men inspired, covering an immense
lot of ground and turning what seem certain fours into singles. Wickets
fall, too. Some of the Australians open their Herculean shoulders too
soon, and, beginning to hit before they are properly “set,” misjudge the
ball and get caught from terrific “skiers.” But still the score creeps
up. With careful generalship Garlett frequently changes his bowling,
treating the batsmen to every variety of swerve and break that his
bowlers can command.
The tension grows. One of Garlett’s professionals, a chartered jester of
the Surrey team, forgets to play off the antics with which he is wont to
amuse the crowd at the famous Oval ground, and suddenly becomes quite
serious. Still the score mounts up. On the great staging beside the
scorer’s box large tin numbers painted in white on a black ground show
the progress of the game.
Now, the last Australian is going in. What is the score? Ah, see, the
man is just changing the plates—yes, there it is! Nine wickets down for
230 runs. Only four more to make and the match is won—and lost!
What is the matter? Why is Mr. Garlett talking to the bowler? A little
plan of campaign, no doubt. Every heart on the ground beats a little
faster, even surely those well-schooled hearts concealed beneath the
white flannels which stand out so brilliantly on the deep green of the
pitch.
The newcomer takes his block. He is a huge creature with thick,
jet-black beard, a good man at rounding up the most difficult steers on
the far South Australian plains.
“Play!” Swift flies the ball from the height of the bowler’s swing, and
our cattle tamer, playing forward, drives it with a mighty swipe. “Oh,
well hit, sir!” Is it a boundary? If so, the match is won. No, no, one
of Garlett’s agile undergraduates has arrived like a white flash at the
right spot and at the right moment. Like lightning he gathers the ball
and returns it to the wicket. Ah, a runout? No, yes, no—Black Beard has
just got home. It was a narrow shave, but two precious runs have been
added.
Only two more to make! Everyone is silent in the tense excitement. Again
the ball flies from the bowler’s hand, and this time the Australian
giant decides to go all out for a winning hit. He opens his brawny
chest, all rippling with knotted muscles, and, taking the ball fair in
the middle of the bat, lifts it in a huge and lofty curve which seems
certain to come to earth beyond the boundary of the pitch.
But wait! Garlett is there, at extra long-on. It is the catch he has
planned with the bowler. It is all over in a moment, and yet what a long
moment it seems to the entranced spectators!
That little round leather ball high up against the evening sky reaches
the top of its flight. Ah, it is over the pavilion! No, it is
impossible! But Garlett does it, all the same. With a mighty backward
leap he gets the ball into his safe hands just as it was dropping on to
the seats in front of the pavilion.
Out! Our cattle tamer is out, the last Australian wicket, and the match
is won—by one run!
Every one feels the curious tingling thrill that comes of having seen a
feat that will become historic. Garlett’s great catch that won the
Australian match for his eleven will be talked about and written about
for years to come, wherever cricket is had in honour.
Garlett has picked himself up from where he fell after his terrific
leap—but still, you may be sure, holding the precious ball safely to his
chest—and instantly he is the centre of a throng of cheering and
congratulatory friends, among whom the Cornstalks themselves are
foremost.
CHAPTER I
In the star-powdered sky there hung a pale, golden moon. It was the 25th
of May, and though the day had been warm and sunny, it was cold
to-night, and even as early as ten o’clock most of the lights were
extinguished in Terriford village.
But “the moon is the lovers’ sun”: such was the conceit which a tall,
loosely built man had just propounded to the girl walking by his side on
the field path which lay like a white ribbon across the four cornfields
stretching between the Thatched House Farm and the well-kept demesne of
the Thatched House.
The girl—Lucy Warren was her name, and she was parlour-maid at the
Thatched House—made no answer. She could well have spared the moonlight.
She knew that not only her clever, capable mother, but also all the
gossips who made up her little world, would be shocked indeed did they
see her walking, in this slow, familiar, loverlike way, with her
mother’s lodger, Guy Cheale.
Not that shrewd Mrs. Warren disliked her lodger. In spite of herself she
had become very fond of him. He was such a queer, fantastic—had she
known the word, she might have added cynical—young gentleman.
But though she liked him, and though his funny talk amused her, Mrs.
Warren would have been wroth indeed had she known of the friendship
between her lodger and her daughter. And the mother would have been
right to feel wroth, for, while doing everything to make Lucy love him
with that fresh, wonderful young love that only comes to a woman once,
Guy Cheale never spoke to Lucy of marriage.
For the matter of that, how could he speak of marriage, being that
melancholy thing, a penniless gentleman? A man whose lodging at the farm
even was paid for by his sister, herself companion-housekeeper at the
Thatched House. There were a dozen newspapers in London which would
always print everything Guy Cheale chose to write, but he liked talking
better than writing, and he was in very poor health.
Lucy hated to think that the man whom deep in her heart she had come
passionately to love was too lazy—or was it really too ill?—to make a
living. She disliked her lover’s sister, Agatha Cheale, with a deep,
instinctive, fierce dislike, and sometimes she smiled, though it was not
a happy smile, at the thought of how angry Miss Cheale would be if she
knew that Mr. Cheale and she, Lucy, were lovers.
“Not quite so quick, my pretty Lucy!”
Guy Cheale was panting painfully—and a rush of that pity which is akin
to love filled Lucy Warren’s heart.
“I mustn’t be late,” she said nervously.
“You’re not late, Lucy”—he held up his watch close to his eyes. “It’s
only twenty to ten,” and then he added, in that voice which he knew how
to make at once so strangely tender, persuasive, and yes—mocking, “Let’s
go into our enchanted wood for five minutes, as you won’t let me in to
that drawing room of yours.”
“It ain’t my drawing room, as you knows full well. If it was, you’d be
welcome to come into it,” she exclaimed resentfully.
He guided her down the path leading to the wood, and then, once they
were under the shelter of the trees, he clutched her to him with a
strength which at once frightened and comforted her—for it seemed to
prove that he could not be as ill as he was made out to be.
“Love and life,” he muttered, “the one’s no good without the other!” He
bent his head and their lips clung together in a long long kiss.
And then Guy Cheale was filled with a delicious sense of triumph and of
exultation. He had won this proud sensitive creature at last—after a
long, to him a breathless, exciting chase.
But all at once he felt her stiffen in his arms.
“Hush!” she whispered. “There’s some one in the wood!”
He did not relax his almost terrible grip of her, as he too, listened
intently.
Lucy was right; he could hear the light, stuffless sound of footsteps
sinking into the dead leaves which still, on this spring night, lay
thickly spread on the path.
“Only happy lovers like you and me,” he whispered huskily. “They’re not
troubling about us—why trouble about them?”
But the girl was frightened. “For God’s sake, go away, Mr. Cheale!” she
pleaded in a terrified whisper.
“One kiss more, Lucy. Only one kiss more——”
But she lay inertly in his arms, all her senses absorbed in listening.
How different from only fifty seconds ago!
“Lucy,” he whispered, “Lucy? We can’t part like this, to-night—the first
time my goddess has yielded me her lips.”
Though full of nervous terror, she was moved by the real feeling in his
voice.
“I’ll go and see who it is,” she muttered in his ear. “You stop where
you are.”
“Promise to come back!”
For only answer she took up his thin right hand and laid it against her
cheek; and then she crept quickly away, moving almost soundlessly along,
for she knew every turn of the little wood.
At last she came back, panting a little.
“Who was it?” he whispered eagerly.
“I don’t know. They’re gone now. But I’ve not a minute left.”
He could hear by her voice that she was anxious, preoccupied, and with
the strange, dangerous power he possessed of seeing into a woman’s mind
he knew that she had not told the truth—that she was well aware of the
identity of those other haunters of the enchanted wood. But he had no
wish to share her knowledge. The good folk of Terriford, who meant so
much to Lucy Warren, meant less than nothing to Guy Cheale.
“You and that tiresome old cook go up to bed as soon as you come in,
don’t you?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes, we do,” she replied hesitatingly, knowing well, as she would have
expressed it to herself, what he was after.
“If I give you twenty minutes,” he whispered caressingly, “it will be
quite safe for you to let me into the drawing room, eh—little hawk?”
It was his supreme term of endearment—and once more she allowed him to
take her into his arms, and press her with an almost terrible strength
to his breast. But——
“It’s wrong,” she whispered, “it’s wrong, Mr. Cheale. I ought never to
have let you into the drawing room. ’Tain’t mine to use that way.”
“That’s why I like our doing it!” he chuckled.
And then with that queer touch of malicious triumph that fascinated her,
he added: “What would sister Agatha say if walls could speak?”
“Don’t you go saying that! Miss Cheale’s never in the drawing room,” she
exclaimed, affrighted at the very thought. “No one ever is—now that the
mistress keeps upstairs.”
“No one but you and me, Psyche!” and then he took her face between his
hands and lightly kissed it. “I won’t stay long to-night, I promise—but
we can’t meet to-morrow, worse luck! Your uncle’s spending the night at
the farm.”
“Can’t see what you fancy about Uncle Enoch——”
“I like lawyers—they’re such rascals! Why he was telling your mother all
about Mrs. Garlett’s will last Sunday——”
“He never was?”
Lucy felt very much shocked. Even she knew that in doing such a thing
her uncle, Enoch Bent, confidential clerk to Mr. Toogood, the leading
lawyer of Grendon, was acting in a very dishonourable manner.
“Run along now,” exclaimed Guy Cheale, a touch of rasped impatience in
his voice.
And then he seized her again in his arms—only to push her away. “I’ll
wait till we can kiss at ease—in the drawing room! Strange that hideous,
early Victorian temple of respectability should shelter the love of two
wild hawks like you and me—eh, Lucy?”
And then she left him and hurried through the wood, uncaring now of the
sounds her light footsteps made. She knew she was late—it must be quite
a bit after ten o’clock. But cookie was a kindly, good-natured, elderly
woman, and didn’t mind waiting up for a little while. But once, when
Lucy had been half an hour late, Miss Cheale had caught her, and spoken
to her very severely.
A quarter of an hour later Lucy, after tiptoeing down the silent house,
opened the drawing-room door, and, after closing it with infinite
precaution, passed through into the dark room. Then she turned and
locked the door behind her.
The white dimity covers of the heavy, early Victorian furniture by which
Mrs. Garlett, the invalid sleeping just above the drawing room, set such
store, made luminous patches in the big L-shaped apartment, and somehow
added to Lucy Warren’s feeling of nervous unease.
Though the passionate, newly awakened side of her beating heart was
burning to hear the tiny tap on the long French window which she knew
would herald Guy Cheale’s approach, there was another side of the girl
which hated and was deeply ashamed of allowing a meeting with her lover
here.
She felt that whom she saw, and even what she did, when out of doors,
under the sky, was no one’s business but her own—and perhaps, in a much
lesser measure, her mother’s. She would also have felt differently had
she and Guy Cheale been able to meet alone in the servants’ hall of the
Thatched House. But the drawing room she felt to be ground sacred to
Mrs. Garlett, so dear and precious indeed to the mistress of the
Thatched House that it was never used now, not even on the rare
occasions when Harry Garlett had a friend to dinner. Guy Cheale,
however, had discovered that the drawing room, alone of all the
ground-floor rooms of the spacious old house, had a French window
opening into the garden, and he and Lucy Warren had already met there
twice.
As Lucy stood in the dark room, listening intently, her nerves taut, her
heart beating, there suddenly swept over her an awful prevision of evil,
a sudden realization of her folly in allowing Guy Cheale to wile her
heart away. She knew, alas! that he was spoiling her for the only life
open to such as she—the life of an honest, commonplace, working man’s
wife.
She remembered to-night with an almost anguished vividness the first
time she had ever seen Guy Cheale—last February, on her first “afternoon
off” in the month. She had gone home to the Thatched House Farm to help
her mother with the new gentleman lodger, and, being a girl of a proud
independent nature, she had come prepared to dislike him, the more so
that she hated his sister, Mrs. Garlett’s strict, sarcastic young lady
housekeeper. And then she had opened the door of the little farmhouse
parlour, and seen the big, loosely built fair man who was to be “her
fate.”
His keen, thin, large-boned face, alive with a kind of gay, plucky
humour, large heavy-lidded gray eyes, and long, loose-limbed figure,
were each and all so utterly unlike Miss Cheale that no one could have
believed them to be what they were, brother and sister.
Guy Cheale had often reverted to the enchanted moment that had brought
them first face to face; and he had told her again and again what she
was never tired of hearing—how beautiful, how proud and how disdainful
he had thought her.
But she knew nothing of the cruel hunting instinct which had prompted
what had immediately followed her entry into the room.
“What is your name?” he had asked, and when she answered, “Lucy, sir.
I’m Mrs. Warren’s daughter,” he had got up and, gazing straight into her
face, had uttered the strange, poignant words—“A dying man—for that’s
what I’m supposed to be, my pretty dear—ought to be given a certain
license, eh?”
“License, sir?” she had repeated, falteringly.
“License in the way of love-making! I suppose you know, Lucy, that I’m
said to be dying? And so I am—dying for a little love!”
That had been the beginning of it all. And though she had been, for
quite a long while, what she termed to herself “standoffish,” they had
become, in time, dear friends—meeting often in secret, as some dear
friends are forced to do. It had not been easy for them to meet, even in
secret; for there is no place in the world so full of a kind of shrewd,
cruel scandal-mongering as is an English village, and it said much for
the intelligence, not only of Guy Cheale, but also of Lucy Warren, that
their names had never yet been connected the one with the other.
All the same, as is always the way with a man and a woman who are
determined on meeting, they had seen each other almost daily. And now
and again they had had a grand, a wonderful innings! Once Mrs. Warren
had had to go away for a week and Lucy had been given some hours off
each day in order that she might prepare the lunch and supper of her
mother’s lodger.
During those days—days on which he had insisted on helping her to do
everything, even to the cooking of his meals in the big, comfortable
farm kitchen, their friendship had grown apace. No man knew better the
way to a woman’s heart, and, posing then as her friend, and only as her
friend, he had encouraged her to talk about everything and everybody
that interested her—her employer, Harry Garlett, the famous county
cricketer, his sickly wife, and even the country village gossip.
Even so, in defence of her heart, Lucy Warren had put up a good fight—a
fight which, as the time went on, stimulated, excited, sometimes even
maddened Guy Cheale. He found, with surprise and even discomfiture, that
what he had begun in idle and ignoble sport, was becoming to him a
matter of interest, even of importance.
This, perhaps, was why now, while Lucy Warren stood in the dark drawing
room, her mind filled with tense, questioning memories, Guy Cheale,
padding up and down the lawn like some huge, loose-limbed creature of
the woods, was also asking himself intimate, searching questions.
He was already ruefully aware that this would probably be one of the
last times that he and this poor girl whom he had forced to love him
would meet, and it irked him to know how much he would miss her from out
his strange, sinister life—the life which he knew was ebbing slowly but
surely to a close. He had made love to many, many women, but this was
the first time he had been thrown into close intimacy with a country
girl of Lucy’s class—that sturdy, self-respecting British yeoman class
which has been for generations the backbone of the old country.
Very soon—how soon to a day not even Guy Cheale could tell—he would have
left the Thatched Farm. And oh! how he would like to take Lucy with him,
even for a little while. But, bad as he was, there was yet in him still
a small leaven of good which forced him to admit that he owed Lucy
Warren something for the love which, if passionate, was so pure and
selfless. Sometimes, when he felt more ailing than usual, he would tell
himself that when within sight of that mysterious bourne from which no
traveller returns he would send for Lucy, marry her, and be nursed by
her to the end.
But now, on this warm May night, he put painful thoughts away, and
determined to extract the greatest possible enjoyment from what could
only be, alas! the fleeting present.
Treading over the grass as lightly as might be, he leaped across the
narrow gravel footpath which ran round the front of the house.
And then a most untoward thing happened! Unaware that Lucy had unlatched
the hasp of the long French window, Guy Cheale leaned against it,
panting, and fell forward into the room—his heavy boot crashing through
one of the lower panes.
He uttered a stifled oath, then stood up and, walking forward, felt in
the darkness for the terror-stricken girl. For a few minutes they stood
together listening intently; then, reassured, he led her over to a couch
and, throwing himself down on it, he clasped her to him closely.
His arms were round her, he was kissing her eagerly, thirstily, when all
at once she gave a stifled cry—she had heard the handle turn in the
locked door.
“I expect it’s Miss Cheale,” she whispered. “She taxed me the other
night with having a sweetheart I was ashamed of! Go away—quick! She’ll
get round to the window in a minute——”
Guy Cheale leaped up and rushed across the room. Desperately he tried to
find the awkward, old-fashioned catch, and just as the second door of
the drawing room—a door the existence of which Lucy had forgotten—was
unlatched, and the electric light switched on, he flung open the window
and disappeared into the dark garden.
But the figure which advanced slowly into the L-shaped room was not that
of Agatha Cheale. Lucy, petrified with shame and fear, knew it for that
of the invalid mistress of the Thatched House.
Clad in an old-fashioned white dressing gown, her pallid face filled
with mingled curiosity and fright, Mrs. Garlett looked like a wraith,
and far more willingly would the girl, who stood before her with hanging
head, have faced a real spirit.
For a long, breathless moment Mrs. Garlett, dazzled by the light, peered
round her, looking this way and that. Then, “Lucy!” she exclaimed, in a
tone of keen surprise and anger, and again, “Lucy?”
Turning slowly round, she called out to some one who apparently had
remained in the passage outside.
“You can come in now, Miss Cheale. I was right and you were wrong. I
_did_ hear a noise upstairs—after all, my bedroom’s just over here. It
was Lucy Warren—in here with a man. He has just escaped through the
window.”
And then Miss Cheale, the woman whom Lucy Warren hated, feared and, yes,
despised, came into the room. She gave one swift glance of contempt and
reprobation at the unhappy culprit, glanced at the open French window,
and, turning to her employer, exclaimed:
“I will see Lucy to-morrow morning, Mrs. Garlett. Please come up to bed
at once. You’ve done a very dangerous thing in coming down like this!”
The invalid lady allowed herself to be led, unresisting, away; and then,
mechanically, Lucy went over to the window and stared out, her bosom
heaving with sobs, and tears streaming from her eyes.
But no kindly, mocking, caressing whisper came to comfort and reassure
her out of the darkness. By this time Guy Cheale must be well on his way
back to the farm.
Turning slowly, she threaded her way through the white-shrouded
furniture, unlocked the door nearest to her, and walked out, forgetting
or uncaring that the electric light which had been turned on by Mrs.
Garlett by the other door was still burning.
CHAPTER II
It was twelve o’clock the next morning, and the sun was streaming into
the pleasant downstairs rooms of the Thatched House. The only sign of
last night’s alarums and excursions was the broken window in the drawing
room, and of that no one but the three closely concerned were aware, for
early in the morning Miss Cheale had crept downstairs, put out the
electric light, and locked both the doors.
But Mrs. Garlett had been thoroughly upset by what had happened in the
night, and Miss Cheale had thought it well to telephone for the doctor.
“No good to herself—and no good to anybody else, poor soul!”
Dr. Maclean was uttering his thoughts aloud, as even the most discreet
of physicians will sometimes do when with an intimate acquaintance. He
was speaking of his patient, Mrs. Garlett, and addressing Agatha Cheale.
There were people in Grendon who envied Agatha Cheale her position as
practical mistress of the charming old house. She was known to be
distantly related to its master, Harry Garlett, and that made her
position there less that of a dependent than it might have been. No one
else used the pretty little sitting room where she and the doctor were
now standing. But Dr. Maclean—shrewd Scot that he was—knew that Agatha
Cheale was not to be envied, and that her job was both a difficult and a
thankless one.
As he uttered his thoughts aloud, his kindly eyes became focussed on the
woman before him. She was slight and dark, her abundant, wavy hair cut
almost as short as a boy’s. This morning the intensely bright eyes which
were the most arresting feature of her face, and the only one she had in
common with her fair-haired brother, had dark pouches under them.
Dr. Maclean told himself that she had made a mistake in giving up the
busy, useful, interesting life of secretary to the boss of a London
trading company.
He asked suddenly: “When are you going to have your holiday?”
“I don’t know that I shall take a holiday.” She looked at him with a
touch of tragic intensity. “I’m all right, really—though I don’t sleep
as well as I might.”
“Don’t be angry with me for asking you a straight question.”
A wave of colour flooded her pale face. “I won’t promise to answer it!”
“Why do you go on with this thankless job?” he said earnestly. “Within a
week or two at most I could find a competent nurse who could manage Mrs.
Garlett. Why should _you_ waste your life over that cantankerous,
disagreeable woman?”
And then Agatha Cheale said something which very much surprised Dr.
Maclean.
“I am thinking of giving up the job in September. That’s the real reason
why I’m not going to take a holiday now. You see,” she hesitated
perceptibly, “I’m afraid it will terribly upset Cousin Harry—my leaving
here, I mean.”
“Of course it will upset him. Thanks to you, he can go off on his
cricketing jaunts with a light heart. Master Harry’s a man to be
envied——”
She turned and faced him. “With a wife like that?”
“He married her, after all!”
“Why did he marry her?”
Dr. Maclean hesitated a moment. Then he answered frankly: “Harry Garlett
married Emily Jones because he was a simple, good-looking lad aged
twenty-two, and she a clever, determined woman aged twenty-seven who was
in love with him. Old Jones was a queer, suspicious creature—the Etna
China Company was a one-man concern in his day. A business friend asked
old Jones to give a young man in whom he was interested a job; and there
came along that cheery young chap.”
“They’ve been married thirteen years to-day.”
“God bless my soul—so they have!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “But the war
took a great chunk out of that, for Garlett joined up at once. I
remember how surprised we all were. Somehow it didn’t seem necessary
then—not for a man with a stake in the world. But he was mad to go, and
he was in France early in ’fifteen.”
“She says it was then that she fell ill.”
“She was always ailing—she’s a thoroughly unhealthy woman,” Dr. Maclean
spoke with abrupt decision. “I was looking at Dr. Prince’s casebook the
other day, and I came across her entry. She was an unhealthy child and
an unhealthy girl—far too fussy about herself always. Well I remember
her bringing me the War Office telegram with the news of that awful
wound of Garlett’s. But she wouldn’t go to France, not she! Yet—” he
hesitated—“in her own queer way she’s absolutely devoted to him.”
Agatha Cheale said in a low voice, “None of us thought he could get over
that wound.”
“Why, of course!” the doctor exclaimed. “You were there, Miss Cheale, in
that French war hospital. But I suppose you’d known Harry Garlett long
before then—as you’re his cousin?”
He looked at her rather hard.
“I’d never met Cousin Harry till we met in that strange way in France,”
she answered composedly.
“He told me once that he owed his life to you.”
“That, of course, is nonsense,” she said in a hard tone.
“He has plenty to be grateful to you for _now_.”
Agatha Cheale’s usually pale face became suffused with dusky red. It was
an overwhelming, an unbecoming blush, and, with a quickening of the
pulse, Dr. Maclean told himself that this involuntary betrayal of deep
feeling answered a question which he had half ashamedly often asked
himself in the last year—was Agatha Cheale secretly attached to Harry
Garlett? Was that the real reason she was spending her life, her
intelligence, her undoubted cleverness, in looking after his sickly,
tiresome wife?
Doctors know of many hidden tragedies, of many secret dramas in being,
and this particular doctor knew more than most, for he had a very kindly
heart. He felt glad that Mrs. Garlett’s companion was leaving the
Thatched House, though her doing so would throw a good deal of trouble
on him.
After he had gone, Agatha Cheale went over to the window. There she
pressed her forehead against the glass, and her eyes filled with bitter
tears. For perhaps the thousandth time in the last few months she told
herself that she would leave the Thatched House, forget Mrs. Garlett and
her tiresome exactions, and, above all, forget Harry Garlett.
Harry Garlett? She did not require to shut her eyes to visualize the
tall, still young-looking man whom the sick woman upstairs called
husband. Every feature, every distinctive line about his good-looking,
oftener merry than sad, alert expression of face, was printed on the
tablets of Agatha’s tormented, unhappy heart.
Why was it that she, a proud woman, and, until she had met Harry
Garlett, a cold woman, cared as she had come to care for this man?
Garlett was not nearly as clever as many of the men with whom her work
had brought her in contact during the war and since. The great surgeon
whose favourite nurse she had become in the oddly managed, private war
hospital, where all the square pegs had been forced into round holes,
had shown her unmistakably that he was violently attracted by her dark,
aloof beauty, but, far from being pleased, she had been bitterly
distressed at what she had regarded as an insult.
Memories crowded thick upon her. She remembered cutting the bloodstained
uniform off an unconscious form, and her thrill of surprise when she had
read on his disc the most unusual name of Garlett—the second name by
which she, herself, had been christened—she had never been able to
discover why.
It was true, she had saved, not his life, but his bowling arm. And oh,
how grateful he had been—then! At once they had fallen into the way, at
first in joke, of calling each other “Cousin Harry” and “Cousin Agatha.”
But there had been no love passages between them. He had at once told
her that he was a married man, and very soon, also, she had come to
understand that he was not “that sort.”
The war had been over some months when one day, by one of those chances
which often deflect the whole of a human existence, they had run up
against one another in a London street. She had asked him to come back
to the modest rooms she occupied in Bloomsbury, and it was there that he
had told her his wife was now a complete invalid, that she refused to
have a nurse, and that it was difficult to get even a lady housekeeper
who would satisfy her.
“Would you like me to try and find you some one?” she had asked. Eagerly
he had caught at the suggestion, and that same night she had written and
offered to come herself.
There had then taken place another interview between herself and the man
who held for her so strong an attraction and appeal. It had been a
rather emotional interview. Harry Garlett, filled with gratitude, had
insisted that she should have a really large, some would have said an
extravagant, salary, and she had revealed the existence of the clever,
idle, sickly brother who was the ever-present burden and anxiety of her
life.
It had been her suggestion that the people in the neighbourhood should
be told that she and her employer were related. Her name was Agatha
Garlett Cheale, after all. Surprised, he had yielded, reddening as he
did so under his tan.
“I daresay you’re right! They’re a gossiping set of women in my part of
the world.”
“Not more so than in other places,” and something had made her add:
“They gossiped about us in the hospital, you know.”
“Did they? I didn’t know that!” And he had looked amused—only amused.
Her first sight of Mrs. Garlett—how well she remembered it! “Poor Emily”
had not been very gracious, though in time she had thawed. The sick
woman realized the difference cool, competent Agatha Cheale made to the
Thatched House, and to herself Mrs. Garlett grudgingly admitted that
Miss Cheale’s sense and discretion matched her more useful qualities.
To those ladies who were kind enough to call on her—and practically
every lady in the neighbourhood considered it her duty to make
acquaintance with Harry Garlett’s cousin—Agatha explained that she never
went out in the evening. So the delicate question as to whether she was
or was not to be asked out to dinner with her employer was solved once
for all, in the way every hostess had hoped it would be.
As Dr. Maclean walked quickly down the short avenue which led from the
Thatched House to the carriage gate his mind was full of the woman he
had just left.
He did not like Agatha Cheale, yet he did feel intensely sorry for her.
For one thing she must be so lonely at times, for, with one exception,
she had made no friends in either Terriford or Grendon.
The one person of whom she saw a good deal was clever, malicious Miss
Prince. People had wondered more than once at the link between Miss
Prince and Agatha Cheale, but there was nothing mysterious about it.
Though Miss Prince was acquainted with every man, woman, and child in
Terriford she led a somewhat solitary life in the Thatched Cottage, a
pleasant little house which formed a kind of enclave in the Thatched
House property. Thus propinquity had something to do with the friendship
between the younger and the older woman.
There was one great difference, however, between them. Miss Prince was
what some people call “churchy,” while Agatha Cheale never went to
church at all, and on one occasion she had spoken to Dr. Maclean with a
slightly contemptuous amusement of those who did.
The doctor was close to the wrought-iron gate giving into the road which
led to his own house when, suddenly, he espied this very lady, Miss
Prince, coming toward him. She held a basket in her hand, and he did not
need to be told that it contained some dainty intended for Mrs. Garlett.
Like so many sharp-tongued mortals, Miss Prince often did kind things,
yet her opening remark was characteristic of her censorious attitude to
her fellow creatures.
“It’s a good thing that Harry Garlett’s rather more at his factory just
now. If it weren’t for poor old Dodson, that Etna China business would
have gone to pieces long ago! I never saw a man gad about as he does——”
Without giving the doctor time to answer, she went on: “No change in
poor Emily, I suppose?” She smiled disagreeably. “I expect you’d like to
have ten other patients like her, Dr. Maclean?”
At once he carried the war into the enemy’s country.
“Did Dr. Prince like that type of tiresome, cantankerous,
impossible-to-please patient?”
“I know I was glad of them.”
“Very well for you who had the spending of the fees and none of the
work!”
They generally sparred like this, jokingly in a sense, but with a sort
of unpleasant edge to their banter.
“I don’t suppose Emily will ever get better—till she dies of old age,”
laughed Miss Prince.
“As a matter of fact, she’s markedly less well than she was last year.”
Dr. Maclean didn’t know what provoked him to say that, though it was
true that he had thought Mrs. Garlett rather less well than usual these
last few weeks.
“It’s strange that everything in nature, having performed its work,
dies, and that only we poor human beings linger on long after any
usefulness we ever had in the world has gone,” said Miss Prince
musingly.
“I don’t believe that Mrs. Garlett was ever useful,” he said curtly.
“Oh, yes, she was! In her queer way Emily was a very devoted daughter to
that horrid old father of hers. And she’s made Harry Garlett.”
Again the spirit of contradiction seized him.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he exclaimed. “Harry Garlett’s the sort of
chap who’d have got on far better as a bachelor than as a married man.
His wife’s money has ruined him—that’s my view of it! There’s a lot more
in Garlett than people think. If he hadn’t married that poor, sickly
woman he might have done some real work in the world.”
“Dr. Maclean,” said Miss Prince abruptly, “I’m anxious about Agatha
Cheale.”
“So am I, Miss Prince.”
He lowered his voice, for he didn’t want some stray gardener’s boy to
overhear what he was about to say.
“You’re her only friend hereabouts,” he went on. “Do you know that she’s
thinking of giving up her job? Mind you keep her up to that!”
She gave him a curious look.
“She’ll never go—as long as Harry Garlett’s here,” she said, almost in a
whisper.
“Do you think Garlett will ask her to stay?”
“No, I don’t. I think he’s longing for her to go.”
He was taken aback. “Why d’you think that?”
“‘He who will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.’”
Dr. Maclean stared at Miss Prince distrustfully. What exactly did she
mean by that enigmatic quotation?
“You’re not a fool!” she said tartly. “Harry Garlett’s not the first man
who’s made love to a woman—and then been sorry he had, eh?”
“You think there was a time when Garlett made love to Miss Cheale?”
Dr. Maclean’s voice also fell almost to a whisper.
“I’m sure of it! She’s never admitted it, mind you—don’t run away with
that idea.”
“I don’t believe Harry Garlett has ever made love to Agatha Cheale,”
said the doctor, definitely making up his mind. “I think he’s an
out-and-out white man.”
Miss Prince smiled a wry smile.
“I’m positive that something happened lately which changed their
relations to one another. Harry’s afraid of her—he avoids her.”
“I’ve never noticed anything of the kind,” said the other brusquely.
Miss Prince looked vexed; no gossip likes to be contradicted, and she
proceeded to pay the doctor out.
“Your niece seems to be giving great satisfaction at the Etna factory,”
she observed.
“I think she is—I hope she is! Jean’s a good conscientious girl.”
“And so attractive, too! Every one was saying how pretty she looked at
the cricket match. Times are changed since we were young, Dr. Maclean.
What would my father have said if I’d insisted on being boxed up hour
after hour with an old bachelor like Mr. Dodson—or an attractive young
married man like Harry Garlett?”
The doctor felt annoyed. What a spiteful woman Miss Prince was, to be
sure!
“I don’t think she runs any risk with either of them.” He tried to speak
jokingly, but failed.
“How about them?” she asked meaningly.
“Perhaps she’ll become Mrs. Dodson,” he answered dryly. But as Mr.
Dodson was sixty-four and Jean Bower twenty-one, that didn’t seem very
likely.
Lifting his hat, Dr. Maclean walked briskly on his way, telling himself
that Miss Prince, like most clever people, was an extraordinary bundle
of contradictions—kind, spiteful, generous, suspicious, affectionate and
hard-hearted, and a mischief-maker all the time!
The subject of his thoughts hurried on toward the Thatched House. She
was precise in all her ways, and she wanted to leave her little gift for
Mrs. Garlett, enjoy a short talk with Agatha Cheale, and then get back
to her midday meal by one o’clock.
“I’ll see Miss Cheale just for a minute,” she said to the maid—not Lucy
Warren—who opened the door. “I suppose she’s in her sitting room?”
Without waiting for an answer Miss Prince went off, with her quick,
decided step, through into the house she knew so well.
As the door opened, Agatha Cheale turned round quickly, filled with a
sudden, unreasonable hope that it might be Harry Garlett. He had gone to
the china factory this morning, though it was Saturday, and he had
telephoned that he would be back to luncheon.
But she reminded herself bitterly that he never sought her out now. If
he had anything to communicate to her connected with the running of the
house, he always made a point of doing so at one of the rare meals they
took together, in the presence of the parlour-maid, Lucy Warren.
“I’ve brought a few forced strawberries for poor Emily,” began Miss
Prince, and then, lowering her voice perceptibly, she added: “I
understand she’s not so well as usual?”
The other looked at her surprised.
“I see no change,” she said indifferently.
And then Miss Prince became aware that the younger woman had been
crying.
“Look here, Agatha,” she spoke with kindly authority. “It’s time you had
a change! You’re badly in need of a holiday. It’s all very well for
Harry Garlett—his life’s a perpetual holiday.”
“He’s been working much harder than usual lately,” the other said
quickly.
There came a gleam into Miss Prince’s eye.
“I think there may be a reason for that,” she said rather mysteriously.
“Any special reason?” asked Agatha Cheale indifferently.
Miss Prince hesitated. This morning, at early celebration, she had
resolved that she would make a real effort to cure herself of what she
knew in her heart was her one outstanding fault—to herself she called
it, quite rightly, sin—that of retailing malicious tittle-tattle. But
somehow she felt strongly tempted to say just one word, and, as so often
happens with those cursed with her peculiar temperament, she was half
persuaded that in saying what she now determined to say she would be
doing the right thing.
“Of course you know that Jean Bower, Mrs. Maclean’s niece, has become
secretary to the Etna China Company?”
“No, I didn’t know it.” Agatha Cheale was more surprised than she chose
to show.
“How very odd of them not to have told you! I mean, how odd of Harry,
and how odd of Dr. Maclean. Why, she’s been at the Etna factory for
quite a month.”
“I thought the girl was well off.”
“When her father died it was found that he had only left fifteen hundred
pounds. And though the Macleans have practically adopted her, she seems
to have said she would much prefer to do some work than to be just idle;
so Mrs. Maclean, hearing that a secretary was wanted at the Etna
factory, managed to catch Harry Garlett at the office one day and asked
if he would give Jean a trial. Of course he had to say ‘yes.’”
“I suppose he had,” said Agatha Cheale slowly.
Jean Bower’s attractive, youthful personality had been impressed on her
in the cricket pavilion during the great Australian match. She had
envied the girl, not only her bright artless charm of manner, but also
the warm affection the doctor and his wife had shown her.
“I hear old Dodson is quite bewitched by her, and that even Harry
himself is at the factory a great deal more than he used to be,” went on
Miss Prince.
“That isn’t true about Cousin Harry.”
Agatha Cheale forced herself to smile, but in her heart she knew that
Harry Garlett had gone to the factory oftener this last month than he
had ever done since she first came to Terriford. As for old Dodson, he
was just the kind of foolish old bachelor to be bewitched by a young
girl. After being head clerk for a number of years, he had been made a
partner, and now practically ran the prosperous business.
Miss Prince looked sharply at her friend.
“Why, just now you said he had been working hard lately?”
“I didn’t mean at the factory.”
“It’s all very well to be unconventional,” went on Miss Prince, “but
human nature doesn’t alter. For my part I think it’s a mistake to mix up
attractive girls with married men.”
“Mr. Dodson isn’t a married man,” observed Agatha Cheale.
“No, but Harry Garlett is.”
The other made no answer, and Miss Prince suddenly exclaimed
triumphantly, “Why, there they are!”
Agatha Cheale turned quickly round.
Yes, Miss Prince was right. Through the window could be seen two figures
walking slowly across the meadow, to the right of which stretched the
little wood.
“I should have thought that Harry would have had more sense! I don’t
wonder they’re already beginning to be talked about,” observed Miss
Prince.
“What a lot of disgusting people there are in Grendon,” said Agatha
Cheale. There was a note of bitter scorn in her voice. “It’s Saturday
to-day. That’s why they’re walking back together. It’s the first time
they’ve done it.”
Miss Prince would have been not only surprised but deeply shocked had
she been able to see into her friend’s unhappy heart. Agatha Cheale,
gazing out on those two who were just coming through the little gate
which led from the cornfield into the garden of the Thatched House, had
felt a surge of intolerable suspicion and jealousy sweep over her, and
that though her reason told her that the suspicion, at any rate, was
utterly uncalled-for and absurd.
Miss Prince looked at her wrist watch—one of her few concessions to
modern ways.
“I must be going,” she exclaimed; “it’s almost one o’clock.”
She had only just left the room when there came a knock at the door.
“Come in!” called out Miss Cheale, and Lucy Warren appeared.
“You said you wanted to see me before lunch, miss.”
Though the girl was making a great effort to seem calm, her lips were
trembling and her eyes were swollen with crying.
CHAPTER III
Late that same evening, Dr. Maclean, his wife, and their adopted
daughter, were all sitting together in the dining room of Bonnie Doon.
The Macleans had bought the charming old house soon after the doctor had
taken over the practice of Miss Prince’s father, and they had renamed it
after Mrs. Maclean’s birthplace.
To-night, his wife and niece being by the table, the doctor sat close to
the fire smoking his pipe.
“Dr. Tasker popped in to tea to-day,” observed Mrs. Maclean. As her
husband said nothing she went on: “He waited quite a long while in the
hope of seeing you. I’m doubting, Jock, whether we’ve been quite fair to
that young man. He spoke very handsomely of you—he did indeed.”
“I’ve no need of his praise,” said the doctor dryly.
“I didn’t say you had. All the same I hope you’ll not scold me for
having asked him to supper to-morrow night. He says Sunday is such a
dull day in Grendon.”
“I can’t promise to stay in for him if I’m sent for,” said Dr. Maclean,
in a voice which his wife thought somewhat tiresome.
There had been a time, not so very long ago, when it was she, rather
than her husband, who had disliked the young medical man who had
suddenly “put up his plate,” as the saying is, on the door of almost the
last house in Grendon. But Dr. Tasker had spoken to her very pleasantly
at the cricket match. He had made friends, too, with Jean, and so Mrs.
Maclean was now prepared to take him, at any rate in a measure, to her
kindly Scots heart.
For a few moments there was silence in the room. Dr. Maclean turned
himself round, and his eyes rested with appreciative affection on the
bent head of the girl who even in a few weeks had so much brightened and
enlivened his own and his wife’s childless home.
Jean’s hair was the colour of spun gold, and she had a delicately clear
skin, giving depth to her hazel eyes. But her generous-lipped mouth was
too large for beauty, and her features were irregular. Yet she looked so
happy-natured, intelligent, and healthy, that the general impression
produced by her appearance was that of a pretty, as well as that of a
very agreeable girl.
Perhaps she felt her uncle’s grateful, kindly glance, for suddenly she
looked up and smiled.
“Well, Uncle Jock?” she exclaimed, “a penny for your thoughts!”
“I wonder if I’d really better tell you my thoughts,” he answered rather
soberly.
“Of course you must!” cried his wife.
She, too, put down her work for a moment on the table and looked at him.
“I’m thinking,” he said quietly, “that we won’t be keeping our pretty
Jean here for long. It’s all very well her being boxed up every day in
that china factory. There are always half Saturdays and Sundays, to say
nothing of holidays, and young men will soon come courting at Bonnie
Doon.”
Jean burst out laughing, but Mrs. Maclean felt vexed.
“Really, Jock,” she exclaimed, “what are you after saying now? I’ve no
liking for that sort of joke.”
“He wouldn’t say it if he thought it true,” said her niece merrily.
“I’ve been much disappointed in Terriford as regards the supply of young
men.”
“Bide a wee, bide a wee,” said the doctor dryly. “A young woman never
knows when she’s going to meet Mr. Right; he’s a way of appearing in the
most unlikely places.”
Again his wife looked at him severely. “Jock, I’m surprised at you!”
“You’d often be surprised if you could look straight into my mind,
woman,” said the doctor waggishly, tapping his pipe against the side of
the fireplace. And then, as her aunt was still looking annoyed, Jean
tactfully changed the subject.
“I wish you would tell me what you think of Agatha Cheale, Uncle Jock?”
“I wonder what you think of her?” he parried.
“I hardly know her. I liked her the day of the cricket match.”
“Is that the only time you’ve seen her?” asked Mrs. Maclean.
“I saw her to-day,” said Jean slowly, “Mr. Garlett overtook me after I
had started walking home the field way. He suggested I should go through
his garden—and then such a horrid thing happened!”
“What happened?” asked the husband and wife together.
“We were going across the lawn when we suddenly heard the sound of
crying. It was coming, it seems, from Miss Cheale’s sitting room. Mr.
Garlett thought it was a child who had hurt itself, and asked me to go
into the house. And then we found that it was Lucy Warren who was
crying—and that there was such a horrid scene going on! I’ve never seen
any one look as angry as Miss Cheale looked. I thought her such a quiet
person.”
Mrs. Maclean asked eagerly: “Why was she angry?”
“From what I could make out,” said Jean, “Mrs. Garlett heard the French
window of the drawing room open in the middle of last night. She thought
it was a burglar, and she insisted on going downstairs; so she and Miss
Cheale went downstairs together, and there was Lucy Warren with a man!
But he escaped by the window out into the garden before they could see
who it was.”
“I don’t wonder Miss Cheale was angry!” exclaimed Jean’s aunt. “I can
hardly believe such a tale of Lucy Warren. She’s such a superior-looking
girl, such a pet, too, of Miss Prince’s. Miss Prince was saying to me
the other day how sorry she was she had ever allowed Mrs. Garlett to
have Lucy, but she felt the Thatched House situation was such a good one
that she ought not to keep the girl from it.”
“Lucy will go back to her now. Miss Prince isn’t the woman to let a good
maid go begging,” observed Dr. Maclean. “They didn’t say a word of all
that to me this morning.” He added, “I couldn’t think what had upset
Mrs. Garlett.”
“When we came in, Miss Cheale was trying to get out of Lucy who the man
was,” went on Jean eagerly. “But all she would say was that she didn’t
see why she shouldn’t have a talk with a friend anywhere she chose. She
actually appealed to Mr. Garlett to say if she wasn’t right!”
“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Maclean.
“In a way he took Lucy’s part, for he reminded Miss Cheale that the
drawing room was never used. But of course that only made her more
angry—in fact, she was shaking with rage, her face was livid.”
“It was foolish of him to interfere,” observed the doctor.
“Of course I slipped away as quickly as I could,” went on the girl, “but
as I went down the passage I heard Lucy call out: ‘I hate you, Miss
Cheale! I hate Mrs. Garlett! I hate everybody in this house!’ Oh, it was
dreadful—and I felt so sorry for them all.”
Five hours later Jean Bower lay asleep in the big, comfortable bedroom
which had been made so pretty for her by her kind aunt. The girl stirred
uneasily, for she was dreaming a strange, a terrible, and most vivid
dream.
She was at the Etna China factory taking down letters from the dictation
of her employer, Mr. Garlett. Though she had been at the factory for a
full month Jean had seen very little of the managing director. But they
had made friends during their walk from Grendon to Terriford, and in her
dream she was enjoying the change of taking down dictation from a man
who knew exactly what he wanted to say instead of from weary-brained,
hesitating old Mr. Dodson. And then, suddenly looking up, she saw that,
pressed against the central pane of the window behind Mr. Garlett was a
face convulsed with hatred—and the face was that of Agatha Cheale!
A feeling of icy terror crept over her, for the managing director’s room
was on the first floor of the building, far above the ground of the
stone-paved courtyard round which the Etna China factory had been built
close on seventy years ago.
With a stifled cry the girl awoke and sat up in bed, the horror of her
nightmare still so vividly real that her teeth were chattering and her
hands trembling in the darkness.
Then there gradually came to her the reassuring knowledge as to why she
had dreamed that strange, unnatural dream. It was of course owing to her
having seen Agatha Cheale, her face distorted with anger, dismissing
Lucy Warren at the Thatched House yesterday morning!
But her feeling of reassurance and relief did not last long, for
suddenly a stone came crashing in through the window nearest to her.
Jumping out of bed she rushed across the room and threw up the lower
sash of the window.
“Who’s there?” she called out, and then, “What do you want?”
To her amazement it was Harry Garlett’s voice that called back, “Please
forgive me, Miss Bower. I’ve come for the doctor. My wife has been taken
seriously ill. I rang the night bell, but could get no answer.”
“The night bell’s gone wrong. I’ll run and tell Uncle Jock at once——”
Leaving the window open, she hustled on a dressing gown and ran down the
passage.
“Uncle Jock!” she knocked on the door as hard as she could. “Mr. Garlett
has come to fetch you, for Mrs. Garlett has been taken ill——”
Mrs. Maclean opened the bedroom door. “Go back to bed, child; I’ll see
to Harry Garlett.”
Reluctantly the girl did as she was bid, for she had the natural desire
of youth to be in the middle of anything exciting that is going on.
To Jean Bower Mrs. Garlett was still a mere name, for she had never seen
the invalid. But already, though she had only been working on and off
with him for a very short time, she had come to like the man every one
called Harry Garlett. She was a simple, straightforward, old-fashioned
girl. From her point of view all ordinary married people love one
another, and she believed her employer to be exceptionally devoted to
his ailing wife. There had been a note of extreme anxiety and urgency in
the now familiar voice which had come up from the garden just now.
As Dr. MacLean hurried by Harry Garlett’s side along the road leading to
the Thatched House he felt a good deal disturbed. Though he had thought
his patient more ailing than usual the day before, there had been
nothing to indicate anything in the nature of a sudden seizure.
“D’you know exactly when your wife was taken ill?” he asked, aware that
his companion’s bedroom was in quite another part of the Thatched House,
some way from the rooms occupied by the ailing woman and Agatha Cheale.
“She was taken ill early in the night. But Miss Cheale thought she’d be
able to manage without calling me, and then, suddenly, Emily seemed to
collapse! So I dressed and hurried along to fetch you.”
They walked on in silence till they turned in through the gate of the
delightful garden which surrounded the house for which they were bound,
and as they hastened up the avenue, Dr. Maclean noticed that there were
no lights in any of the windows. Agatha Cheale had evidently not seen
fit to rouse the servants.
The two men hurried together through the dark hall into the broad
corridor which ran through the spacious old house; but at the foot of
the staircase the master of the house hung back.
“I don’t think I’ll go up with you,” he exclaimed. “I’ll wait in my
study, Maclean. I can’t do any good up there, and it unnerves me to see
Emily suffer.”
“All right!” cried the doctor hastily; and he hastened on, familiar with
every inch of the way, till he reached the upstairs corridor, which,
unlike the lower part of the house, was brilliantly lighted.
All at once he started back—for from behind a big wardrobe there had
suddenly emerged an odd-looking figure clad in a drab-coloured ulster.
“It’s only me, sir.” The reassuring words were uttered in a frightened
whisper; and with astonishment Dr. Maclean recognized Lucy Warren, the
pretty parlour-maid who had got into such trouble the night before.
“Mrs. Garlett’s been moaning something awful,” she murmured, “but she’s
left off now. You won’t tell her that you’ve seen me, sir, will you?”
“Not if you’ll go straight back to bed!”
The little incident made an unpleasant impression on the doctor. He told
himself that the young woman might at least have gone and seen if she
could do anything to help relieve her sick mistress.
And then, as he approached his patient’s room, Dr. Maclean
half-unconsciously slackened his footsteps and listened.
But no sound fell on his ear; indeed the silence brooding over the
brilliantly lit corridor seemed almost uncanny.
Yet the bedroom door was ajar, and, hearing his footsteps, Agatha Cheale
opened the door wide, and came out into the passage, a finger to her
lips.
She was dressed in a big white coverall. It accentuated the intense
pallor of her face and made her slender figure look thicker than usual.
“Mrs. Garlett is asleep now,” she whispered, “but she’s been in awful
pain, and I’m sorry I didn’t send for you before. I’ve always been able
to manage her in her previous night attacks, but this time she’s been
really very bad! I do hope—oh, I do _hope_, Dr. Maclean, that you won’t
think I was to blame not to send for you at once?”
She was so unlike her usual quiet sensible self that the doctor felt
alarmed, in spite of himself.
“I don’t suppose I could have done any good if I had come an hour ago,”
he said soothingly. “I take it she overate herself last night?”
“She did indeed—that’s what upset her, of course.”
As he moved toward the now open door he told himself, not for the first
time, that it was strange that Agatha Cheale, in this one matter of
diet, seemed powerless to control his patient. But there it was! Like so
many people with delicate digestions, Mrs. Garlett had always had a
fanciful, queer, greedy kind of appetite. Sometimes she would eat hardly
anything for days together, and then she would grossly overeat herself.
“I suppose,” he said in a low voice, “that you’ve given her brandy?”
“Yes, I have—but it hasn’t done her any good.”
Agatha Cheale still spoke in an agitated, almost hysterical, whisper.
And then, for no particular reason, though he remembered doing so
afterwards, Dr. Maclean asked Agatha Cheale a casual question: “Has her
husband seen her?”
“No, he thought it best to go off at once for you.”
At last, together, they walked through into the sick woman’s room.
Mrs. Garlett’s bedchamber was the largest in the house, and, like the
drawing room below, was somewhat overcrowded with heavy early Victorian
mahogany furniture.
Coming out of the brightly lit corridor Dr. Maclean, for a moment, saw
nothing, for the one electric lamp which was turned on was heavily
shaded. But for the fact that he knew where every chair and table stood,
he would have knocked into something.
“Do turn on another light,” he whispered rather crossly. “I can’t see at
all!”
Obediently she turned on the two naked lights hanging above the
dressing-table, but the big curtained four-post bed in which the sick
woman lay remained in deep shadow.
“Before I see her, tell me exactly what she ate last night,” said the
doctor in a low voice.
Standing opposite Dr. Maclean, just under the two bright naked lights,
Agatha Cheale, her face pale and strained, told her story.
“About seven last evening I went to see Miss Prince for a few minutes
and, while I was away, from what I can make out Mr. Garlett came up to
sit with Mrs. Garlett before dressing for dinner. Unfortunately some
forced strawberries which Miss Prince had brought in the morning had
been taken up and left in the corridor outside. Mr. Garlett seems to
have brought them in here—I suppose to show them to Mrs. Garlett. She
said she would like to eat some of them then, before her supper. He
stupidly allowed her to do so, and she ate them all—a plateful—with
probably a lot of sugar added. So of course I wasn’t surprised when she
called out to me about two hours ago that she felt ill!”
“Did she take anything after the strawberries?” asked the doctor.
“Of course she did. She began to feel hungry about 8.30 and then she had
her supper—a nice bit of grilled fish and some stewed apples. But her
supper didn’t do her any good on the top of the strawberries——”
“I don’t suppose it did,” agreed the doctor dryly. “And now let me have
a look at her——”
As he took a step toward the bed Agatha Cheale suddenly put her right
hand on his arm.
Surprised, he stopped, and she whispered hesitatingly: “I’ve been
wondering—I suppose you wouldn’t like to have a second opinion?”
He shook his head decidedly, secretly very much surprised that her nerve
should so far have given way. What good could a second opinion do in a
case of severe indigestion? Why, the idea was absurd! Then he reminded
himself that Agatha Cheale was not a trained nurse—in spite of her war
experiences.
He walked quickly across to the sick woman’s four-post bed, lifted the
heavy, stiff, silk-lined calendered chintz curtain, and then turned on
the light in a reading lamp which stood on a small pedestal table.
Mrs. Garlett was lying on her back in the middle of the big bed, and Dr.
Maclean, taking up the lamp, leant for a long, long moment over his
patient.
Then he turned, with a blanched face, and still unconsciously holding
the lamp in his hand, to the woman who stood waiting over by the
dressing-table, the light beating down on her tired drawn face.
“She’s not asleep—she’s dead,” he said quietly.
“Dead! Not dead? Oh, don’t say she’s dead!”
Agatha Cheale’s voice rose into a kind of shriek.
The doctor put the lamp down. He took her hand and held it firmly in
his.
“Hush!” he exclaimed, kindly and yet authoritatively. “I’m sorry to have
given you such a shock, Miss Cheale, but I’m not so surprised as you
seem to be. Her heart was in a very bad state. You have nothing to
reproach yourself with—you have been wonderfully good and patient with
her, poor soul.”
“Can nothing be done?”
She was looking at him with an extraordinary expression of horror and of
pleading on her face.
“Nothing,” he answered gravely.
There was a pause; the doctor dropped the hand he had been holding in so
firm a clasp.
“Miss Prince’s dish of strawberries killed this poor woman as surely as
if she had taken a dose of poison,” he said grimly.
“You will never let Mr. Garlett know that, will you?” she whispered.
He made no answer, and perhaps she saw by his expression that he was
telling himself that even the most sensible women are sometimes
foolishly sentimental, for a little colour came back into her face.
“Shall I go down and tell him—or will you?” she asked, in a voice that
had suddenly become composed.
“I’ll tell him, of course.”
To his relief he saw her eyes become suffused with tears.
“We little thought yesterday morning that this would be the solution of
your problem,” he said feelingly.
“It’s a horrible, horrible solution!” she exclaimed violently.
Again Dr. Maclean made no answer, for he did not, could not, agree with
her. To his mind, the death of Mrs. Garlett was bound to turn out a
blessing, not only to the young woman who had tended her so faithfully,
if unlovingly, for over a year, but also to the dead woman’s husband.
Hard cases make bad law; Dr. Maclean was no advocate of easy divorce,
but to his mind there was something intensely repellent in the marriage
of a strong healthy man to a hopeless invalid. Deep down in his heart
the honest Scotsman knew what would have happened to himself had he been
in the shoes of Harry Garlett. He knew that his flesh and blood would
not have borne such a difficult, unnatural situation, and he had long
admired the young man’s straight, simple, clean way of life. Thanks to
that dish of early strawberries, Harry Garlett would now be able to
remake his life on happy, natural lines.
Slightly ashamed of such thoughts coming at such a time, he glanced at
the young woman before him. Would she now become the real mistress of
this delightful house? The doctor suspected she would make a try for it.
But he could not help hoping that the newly made widower would in time
meet with a happier fate than marriage with this secretive and, he
suspected, very jealous-natured woman. Dr. Maclean liked Harry Garlett
well enough to hope that, after a decent interval, this now mournful
house would be filled with gay, wholesome, girlish laughter, and the
patter of little feet.
And while these secret thoughts were rushing through his brain Agatha
Cheale was standing motionless, a look of stark terror on her bloodless
face.
“Go into your room,” he said at last, “and try and get a little rest.”
Together they left the room of death, and the doctor quickly made his
way downstairs through the still, silent house.
Rather unreasonably, it gave Dr. Maclean somewhat of a shock to find
Harry Garlett comfortably stretched out in an easy chair, reading a
novel. But as the doctor advanced into the room the master of the
Thatched House leaped to his feet.
“Well!” he exclaimed, “I hope you’ve made her more comfortable, Maclean?
I’m sorry to have dragged you out like this, but Miss Cheale was so very
much upset and worried——”
Then something in the gravity of the doctor’s face pulled the speaker up
short. He added quickly: “Isn’t she so well? Would you like me to get
Tasker?”
Dr. Maclean took a step forward; he put his hand on the younger man’s
shoulder:
“Garlett, I’ve a sad thing to break to you, man——”
He waited a moment, then said quietly: “Your poor wife is dead—an
obvious case of heart failure following an attack of acute indigestion.”
“Dead?”
As Harry Garlett repeated the word his face became deeply, deeply
troubled. “She seemed so well, for her, last evening,” he said slowly.
The doctor answered in a low voice: “You should have resisted her wish
for those strawberries.”
Harry Garlett looked puzzled.
“I never gave her any strawberries, Maclean. There are no strawberries
yet—it’s much too early.”
It was the doctor’s turn to be surprised.
“I understood from Miss Cheale that you had shown your wife a dish of
forced strawberries brought her by Miss Prince, and that then she had
insisted on having them before her supper.”
“I never saw any strawberries, and I was only with her for a very few
minutes.”
“Then one of the maids must have given them to her,” observed the
doctor. “But if it hadn’t been that dish of strawberries, it would have
been something else. It’s clear from the state she was in that anything
might have caused her death.”
As if hardly knowing what he was doing, Harry Garlett sat down again.
“I—I can’t believe it,” he muttered.
“As far as the poor soul could be made happy, you made her happy,
Garlett,” said Dr. Maclean feelingly.
“I wonder if I did—I wonder if I did! You must have often thought it
strange that I was away so much, Maclean. But honestly—it was poor
Emily’s own wish.”
He was speaking with deep emotion now, staring down at the floor.
“After I left the army, it took me some time to realize how really
ailing she was, though, as you may remember, I did at that time stay at
home a good deal. And then one day she sent me a note by hand to the
factory——”
He looked up. “That note, Maclean, was my order of release! I have kept
it, and I should like you to see it some day. In it she said that she
wanted me to be happy—that Dodson was quite up to looking after the
business, and that she did not want me ever to feel that I couldn’t do
anything which would add to my innocent pleasure in life—because of her
state.”
Dr. Maclean was more touched than he would have thought possible.
“Dear me,” he exclaimed, “that was very decent of her!”
“It was,” agreed the other, “it was indeed, Maclean. And she meant every
word of what she wrote. It was only yesterday, our thirteenth
wedding-day, that she said to me, ‘I don’t like your spending a week-end
at home. It doesn’t seem natural, my dear.’ Thank God I did—thank God I
did!”
“I think everything has gone very much better here this last year,” said
the doctor thoughtfully.
“How d’you mean?”
“I mean because of Miss Cheale.”
The other did not answer for a moment, and then he said in a low voice:
“That’s true in a way, though I don’t think Emily liked Miss Cheale. I
have at times regretted having agreed that she should come.”
“They weren’t the kind of women who would naturally take to one
another,” answered Dr. Maclean.
“And yet my wife quite liked that worthless brother of Miss Cheale’s. He
actually came to tea with her the other day.”
“Mrs. Garlett always liked men better than women,” said the doctor
dryly. He had at once guessed the identity of Lucy Warren’s drawing-room
visitor, and it had amused him to picture “poor Emily’s” wrath had she
even dimly suspected the fact.
He added, after a pause: “Your wife was a generous sort, Garlett—I mean
about money.”
“Yes, she was that, certainly.”
Both men remained silent for a moment. It was true that the poor woman
now lying dead upstairs had always shown herself generous about money,
though not, excepting to her husband, about anything else. But now was
not the moment to recall her cantankerous and narrow outlook on life.
“Well,” said the doctor at last, “I must be going now. I’ll leave a note
in her letter-box for Miss Prince as I go by. It will be just as well
for Agatha Cheale to have a friend with her this morning; she has had a
terrible shock.”
“She must have had,” said Harry Garlett; but he did not speak with his
usual hearty kindliness.
The doctor looked at him rather hard. Then he again put his hand on the
younger man’s shoulder.
“Look here, my friend, I know you’ve been a good husband to that poor
soul. But you’re still a young man, and a new chapter of your life has
begun.”
“I don’t feel like that,” muttered Harry Garlett in a low voice.
“Of course you don’t! But still it’s the truth.”
He added, measuring his words: “If I were you I should go away at once,
as soon as the funeral is over, for a real holiday—such a holiday as
you’ve never had. Don’t come back here till Christmas! Dodson’s getting
a very old man; you’ll soon either have to manage the business yourself
or get another partner, so take a holiday while you can get one.”
CHAPTER IV
Poor Emily Garlett’s funeral took place on a beautiful bright spring
morning. The broad sunny street of Terriford was filled with motors and
carriages, and quite a concourse of people had come out from Grendon, as
well as from the surrounding villages, to testify their respect for
popular Harry Garlett, both as famous cricketer and as a generous
employer of labour.
Every one saw him, for he followed his wife’s coffin on foot. So also
did the various other people closely concerned with the departed lady.
Agatha Cheale was ashen pale, but looked very attractive in her close,
nunlike bonnet and severely plain black dress. The few who knew him
noticed that Miss Cheale’s brother was not there; but Mrs. Warren could
have told them that her lodger had left the farm two days ago, so
recovered in health, so blithesome, so merry, that, though still
unnaturally thin, he was scarcely the same man as the pale, coughing,
queer, and clever gentleman who had come to her last February.
Dr. and Mrs. Maclean, accompanied by their niece, walked a little apart
from Miss Prince and Miss Cheale. Lucy was not with the group of
servants all clad in handsome black at their master’s expense. She had
left the Thatched House the afternoon after Mrs. Garlett’s death, and
to-day she had elected to stay at home to mind the farm. This had
enabled Mrs. Warren to be present at the funeral, leaning on the arm of
her brother, Enoch Bent, head clerk of Mr. Toogood the lawyer.
Little by little the mourners all passed through the lych-gate into the
ancient churchyard. The rector had a good voice, and tears rose to many
eyes as he read the noble, solemn words of the burial service.
It was remembered afterward that Harry Garlett, though he looked sad,
was absolutely composed. When the burial was over he lingered for a few
minutes talking to the rector, doubtless in the hope that the crowd
would disperse. Then he quietly walked down the short, broad village
street, and so through into the beautiful garden of the house which
somehow he had never quite regarded as his property, if only because it
was there that he had first known his wife, and where, as people
sometimes unkindly put it, he had “hung up his hat” when he married,
instead of taking his bride to a new home.
It is fortunate indeed that men and women cannot read each other’s
thoughts, for, truth to tell, during the whole of his wife’s funeral
service, Harry Garlett’s mind had been most uncomfortably full of
another woman.
To this woman, none other than Agatha Cheale, he had written a formal
note that morning saying he would like to see her after the funeral for
a few minutes. And now he wondered whether she expected him to go to
Miss Prince’s house, where she had been staying the last few days, or
whether he would find her waiting for him in the Thatched House in the
room which, till his wife’s death, had been known as “Miss Cheale’s
room.”
He went into the empty hall, took off his hat, but still wearing his
great coat, hurried down the passage. Then, after a moment’s pause, he
knocked at the door.
A quiet voice said “Come in,” and as he entered the room he saw Agatha
Cheale standing by the empty fireplace. All the little intimate
possessions which cause a room to be associated with one personality had
been cleared away. Already his late wife’s companion looked, as well as
felt, a stranger in this house where she had spent so secretly dramatic,
while so openly calm, a year of her life.
And now she gazed with sunken, burning eyes at the man who stood before
her. How well he looked, how young, how strong!—his life, which in the
last few days she had come to realize would never be shared by her, open
before him. Deep in her unhappy, tormented heart there had survived up
to to-day a glimmer of hope. True, he had obviously avoided her during
the last few days, but might not that be owing to his undoubted
affection, or rather respect, for his late wife? Now that faint glimmer
of hope died as she gazed into his set, almost stern, face.
There welled up in her heart a terrible tide of that acrid bitterness
which is born of thwarted love and ambition. But being a brave as well
as a proud woman, she only said: “I’m glad it was such a fine day—that
makes such a difference to a funeral.” And he answered eagerly: “Yes,
indeed!” grateful for her commonplace words.
With an obvious effort, he exclaimed: “I want to tell you how grateful I
feel for all you did for my poor wife. Your being here has made all the
difference this last year.”
She said nothing, and, speaking more quickly, he went on: “I have to
thank you for myself, as well as for poor Emily. It was such an infinite
comfort, each time I went away, to feel that I was leaving my wife with
someone I could trust, as I knew I could trust you.”
He waited a moment, and as she still remained silent while looking at
him with a terrible fixed look of—was it reproach?—he took an envelope
out of his pocket.
“I have made up the enclosed cheque,” he said awkwardly, “to the end of
the year. I am glad to say Emily left you a thousand pounds. So I do
hope you’ll manage to get a good rest before you start work again. From
something Miss Prince said the other day, I gather you’re taking a post
connected with some kind of Russian business house.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “they were the people I was with before I came
here, and they’ve often asked me to come back. It’s interesting work,
and I’m in general sympathy with their objects.”
“Bolshevik objects?” he suggested with a half smile, and without meaning
what he said. But she, without a glimmer of an answering smile, replied:
“Yes, Bolshevik objects.”
A look of bewilderment came over his open face.
“I had no idea that you and your brother shared that sort of view!” he
exclaimed, “deep as I know is your attachment for him.”
“We agree as to politics,” she answered, as if the words were being
forced out of her.
And then at last, almost as if reluctantly, she took the envelope from
his hand.
“Thank you for this,” she said coldly, “and for telling me of Mrs.
Garlett’s unexpected thought for me. I do not want a holiday, but now I
may be able to send my brother abroad this next winter, if he lives as
long.”
“I was coming to that,” said Harry Garlett quickly. “I’m going away for
a long holiday—certainly till Christmas, perhaps longer. But I’m keeping
the household here together, and I’ve been wondering whether your
brother would come and stay at the Thatched House as my guest, at any
rate through the summer.”
She shook her head.
“I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Garlett, that his coming here is out
of the question. I’m afraid, nay, I’m certain, that he was the man Lucy
Warren let into the drawing room that night——”
A look of anger and disgust flashed into his face. So she had succeeded
in rousing him at last?
She sighed, a weary, listless sigh.
“As I think I told you long ago, my brother’s one real interest in life
is what he calls ‘falling in love’—and always with some entirely
unsuitable person.”
Harry Garlett softened; he remembered very well his surprise when she
had first told him about the unprincipled sickly brother whom she yet
loved so dearly, and of whom she was, in a sense, proud.
“I feel grieved,” he said feelingly, “that you have this real anxiety
always with you; I wish I could help you with it.”
“No one can help me with it. I knew he was bound to get into a scrape
with some woman here.”
“What an extraordinary way to go on!”
“Extraordinary to you, no doubt. But you are a Galahad, Mr. Garlett.”
Her words were like the lash of a whip: he grew red under his tan, and
looking at her straight for the first time during this, to him, most
trying conversation, “I’m a very ordinary chap,” he said deliberately.
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Harry Garlett turned and looked
unseeingly out of the window. He was longing for the uncomfortable
interview to end, and it was with relief that he heard her say:
“I must be going back to the Thatched Cottage now. Good-bye, Mr.
Garlett, and thank you for all your kindness.”
“Good-bye and good luck!”
He tried to wring her hand, but it felt like a lump of dead, cold flesh.
All at once the door opened behind them. “Agatha? Oh, here you are!”
It was Miss Prince.
“I beg your pardon,” she exclaimed, glancing sharply from the one to the
other.
“We were just saying good-bye,” said Harry Garlett quickly. “And I’ll
bid you good-bye, too, Miss Prince, for I’m going away this afternoon,
and I don’t expect to be back this side of Christmas.”
“Good gracious, man! Are you going round the world?”
“I haven’t made up my mind what I’m going to do.”
“And who will look after the factory?”
“Dodson and Miss Bower. Come, Miss Prince”—his look challenged
her—“you’ve never credited me with doing much of the work there, eh?”
CHAPTER V
Harry Garlett was lying on the bank of a Norwegian fjord. It was a
beautiful warm September day. He felt well in soul and body, and
intended to give himself three more months’ good holiday.
With just a touch of reluctance he opened a packet of letters which had
followed him to this remote, delicious place. Old Dodson’s letter,
doubtless a brief dictated summary of what had been happening at the
factory, was, as usual, addressed in the girlish handwriting of Jean
Bower.
The sight of that handwriting made his thoughts stray for a while to the
place which he still called “home.” He was indeed a lucky chap to have
such a steady old soul as Dodson, and such a thoroughly nice, sensible
young woman as was Jean Bower, looking after the business from which he
drew part of his large income.
He opened the envelope and then, as he read the typewritten sheet, his
face clouded with deep and even deeper dismay.
DEAR MR. GARLETT,
I hope you will not think I am exceeding my duty in writing to tell
you that I am becoming very anxious about the state, not only of Mr.
Dodson’s health, but also of his brain.
It seems a shame to interrupt your holiday, but I really don’t know
what to do. I am supposed to be the only person who has any influence
over Mr. Dodson, but I have very little influence indeed, none where
the real conduct of the business is concerned. My uncle agrees with me
that you ought to know the state of things as soon as possible.
Believe me to remain, yours sincerely,
JEAN BOWER.
He got up from where he had been lying so luxuriously in the long grass,
feeling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. There was evidently nothing
for it but to go home and face out a difficult and disagreeable
situation. And yet he felt sharply annoyed with Jean Bower. No doubt she
was exaggerating as to old Dodson’s condition. But there it was; he
couldn’t neglect such a letter as that! He told himself that he had been
a fool to leave a girl in so responsible a position.
This was why his friends and neighbours welcomed Harry Garlett back in
their midst full three months before he had been expected home.
In such a place as Grendon everybody is interested in every other body’s
business. As soon as he had come back Harry Garlett had sent off Jean
Bower for a short holiday, and soon, to his mingled amusement and
annoyance, he found he could hardly take a step down the High Street
without some good-natured gossip telling him how splendidly the girl had
managed poor crazy old Dodson! Even his head foreman seemed quite lost
without her, and, as a matter of fact, things didn’t begin going right
again till she came back, and in her quiet and diffident, yet competent,
way, began to “put him wise” with regard to all those matters which
Dodson had always tried to keep jealously in his own hands.
And then, as the days went on, Harry Garlett began to find himself
taking a keen, even an excited, interest in his work. The business which
had meant little to him in the old days now gripped and absorbed him, or
so he honestly thought, to the exclusion of all else.
Times were bad, every one in the country economizing, going in more and
more for the cheap, rather than for the good, and the china made in the
Etna works had never been cheap, though always good. And soon it became
known in the town that Harry Garlett was trying to prove what even now
few people believe—that is, that homely, everyday objects can be cheap
and beautiful at the same time.
Never had time gone by so quickly as with these two eager workers! In
the old days time had hung sometimes very heavily on Harry Garlett’s
hands during the late autumn and winter months. But now he found there
were not hours enough for all he wanted to do.
With the brain side of the business increasing at the rate it was doing,
it became necessary to engage a new shorthand writer, and at the
suggestion of Jean Bower, the daughter of a local solicitor killed in
the war was given the coveted post. This was considered a kindly and
generous act on Miss Bower’s part. Most young women in the position in
which she found herself would not have cared to have another girl,
younger, most people would have said prettier, than herself, sharing her
secretarial position.
But, as a matter of fact, Jean no longer took down letters. Almost at
once, though neither she nor Harry Garlett realized it, she had slipped
into the position of a partner. They were a happy family at the Etna
China works. “All jolly and friendly together,” as the head foreman
expressed it.
And then, late in November, a word was uttered which changed, for ever,
both their lives.
It was Sunday evening, and Harry Garlett was on his way to supper at
Bonnie Doon. He went out often to dinner, having a large circle of
acquaintances, but he generally had supper with the Macleans on Sunday,
and as it was with him a dull, solitary day he used to look forward very
eagerly to the evening. Since his return home, on the pretext that he
was still in mourning, he no longer accepted invitations for week-end
visits.
To-night, as he passed the Thatched Cottage, Miss Prince came running
out of her door; it was almost as if she had been waiting for him.
“Harry!” she exclaimed. “May I walk a few yards with you? I want to ask
you a favour.” Inconsequently, she added: “Your wife and I were lifelong
friends, you know.”
She began walking along the road by his side, anxious to be quite out of
earshot of her maid, who, by the way, was Lucy Warren. Lucy had always
been a favourite of Miss Prince, and, to Agatha Cheale’s indignation,
after the girl’s dismissal from the Thatched House, she had at once
taken her back into her own service.
“Well, Miss Prince, what can I do for you?”
Harry Garlett never felt quite at ease with the gossiping spinster. They
had once, years ago, had a real quarrel. He had caught her trying to
make mischief between himself and his wife, and though they had formally
“made it up” neither really liked the other.
“If and when Jean Bower gives up her job at the Etna works, I do beg
you, Harry, to offer the position to Agatha Cheale.”
“Agatha Cheale?” Harry Garlett repeated the name mechanically.
His whole mind, aye, and his whole heart, were full of the first words
she had spoken—“If and when Jean Bower gives up her job——”
“Have you any reason for thinking that Miss Bower is going to give up
her position?”
He felt—he could not see, for it was dark—that Miss Prince smiled. It
was a smile he knew and had always hated, for it generally presaged on
her part the saying of something spiteful and unpleasant. But, whatever
it was she was about to say, she now seemed in no hurry to say it.
“Well,” she said at last, “you go to the Macleans so often I should have
thought you must have guessed what’s in the wind?”
It was not true that he went often to Bonnie Doon. As a matter of fact
he had a curious distaste in seeing Jean Bower in the company of her
uncle and aunt, for the reason that they two had now many interests in
common that they could not share with outsiders—however kind those
outsiders might be.
“In the wind, Miss Prince? I don’t understand what you mean.”
“If you were living where I live, on the road, you’d notice how often
Dr. Tasker goes in and out of Bonnie Doon. Why, it’s as good as a play!
There was a time when the man would hardly put his foot in Terriford
village. We were supposed to belong to Dr. Maclean—and we did, too.
There wasn’t much love lost between them before Miss Jean came along—but
now they’re kissing kind! I’m expecting to hear of Jean’s engagement to
Dr. Tasker any day.”
Harry Garlett fenced with his tormentor. “I now see your point about
Miss Cheale,” he said quietly, “but I doubt if she would give up her
work in London.”
“She gave it up before to please you.” Her tone was significant, though
he could not see her meaning look. She added hastily:
“Agatha is devoted to this place, and so I thought I would take time by
the forelock. Once it’s known that Jean Bower is leaving the factory,
there’ll be plenty of people anxious to work their idle, silly daughters
into her pleasant job. If you are wise, Harry Garlett, you will bear
Agatha Cheale in mind.”
“I will, indeed, Miss Prince. Thank you for mentioning her.”
Miss Prince turned back toward her house, while Harry Garlett walked on,
in a turmoil of astonishment and, yes, of bitter, intolerable jealousy.
Jean Bower and that red-haired brute, Tasker? Why, the mere thought of
their names being associated in the way he had just heard it done made
him feel beside himself with anger.
He quickened his footsteps, even now unaware of what was the matter with
him. Indeed, as he went up the drive leading to the Macleans’ front
door, he seriously told himself that his feeling of utter dismay was
owing to the loss Jean would be to him from a business point of view.
A most miserable evening followed. Whenever Harry Garlett had a chance
of doing so he would stare furtively, his heart full of jealousy and
suspicious misery, at Jean Bower’s bright, animated face.
He wondered whether Tasker had been there on Friday afternoon? The day
before yesterday Miss Bower had asked for the afternoon off—a most
unusual thing for her to do.
Jean? What a lovely unusual name! Till this evening she had been “Miss
Bower” even in Harry Garlett’s inmost thoughts. Henceforth she would
always be Jean....
He was so silent, so constrained in his manner, that the doctor and Mrs.
Maclean noticed that something was wrong. But they were, as Jean’s aunt
expressed it afterwards, a hundred miles from suspecting the truth. By
both these good people Harry Garlett was still regarded as the newly
made widower of “poor Emily,” and as for their dear little niece, they
were secretly happy in the belief that she would soon be Mrs. Tasker,
settled within a pleasantly easy distance of themselves, with her future
assured, even if the young medical man, whom they had regarded with such
very different feelings till a few months ago, were not exactly a hero
of romance. Tasker was proceeding in his wooing in a leisurely, cautious
manner, but neither of the onlookers suspected the truth—the truth being
that he felt as if there were an invisible, but strong, barrier between
the girl and himself.
The next morning Jean was ten minutes late in arriving at the factory.
As a rule she was five minutes early. But some one had come to Bonnie
Doon with a cut hand, and the doctor, who generally motored her into
Grendon, had wished to attend to the injury himself.
Those ten minutes had seemed to Harry Garlett an eternity. That she who
was always early should be late, seemed to his jealous, excited fancy to
confirm Miss Prince’s outspoken hint, and when at last she did come in,
with a half-smiling apology, he turned on her roughly.
“I hope that you won’t be delayed like this again, Miss Bower, however
good the reason. It gives a bad example,” and she was frightened, cowed,
by his look of mingled anger and contempt.
Each of them got through his and her morning work with difficulty—Jean
often on the point of tears.
What had happened to her kind, considerate employer, the man with whom,
in her guilelessness, she had thought herself almost on the terms of a
younger sister?
At last, at about a quarter to one, he turned on her with: “And what do
you see to admire, Miss Bower, in Dr. Tasker?”
It was a monstrous, an outrageous, question, and the colour flew into
her face.
She turned away and answered in what she meant should be a cheerful,
chaffing voice, though she felt not only astounded, but hot with anger.
“What makes you think I admire Dr. Tasker, Mr. Garlett?”
He said, “I’m told you do,” in a short, cutting voice.
This time she remained silent, and after pretending for a moment or two
to be busily engaged in correcting the proofs of a new trade catalogue
she put her pen down and turned to walk toward the door—no longer
mistress of herself.
Harry Garlett leaped to his feet, and before she could reach the door he
caught her up and masterfully—yet, oh how gently—took her in his arms.
“Jean! Don’t be cruel,” he whispered. “Surely—surely you know I love
you—adore you—worship you?”
For a long moment they gazed into each other’s eyes, and then his lips
sought and found her soft, quivering mouth....
Early that afternoon—it was the first of December—Jean went home and
quietly told her dismayed aunt that she and Harry Garlett loved one
another. She admitted that it was very strange that neither of them had
known it before to-day, but she went on to say that now they did know
it, they were very, very happy.
Poor Mrs. Maclean! For the first time in her life she felt as if she
could not cope with a situation—and she prayed for the doctor’s return
home.
But when he did come in, tired out, from a difficult case, he only said
grumpily: “So that was what was the matter with him yesterday? We were
fools not to have foreseen it,” and telephoned to ask Harry Garlett to
supper.
How different was this evening from that spent by them all the night
before! Even Mrs. Maclean, staid Scots body that she was, caught fire at
the great shaft of pure white flame which seemed to envelop those two
who had now become lovers.
To her husband she might mutter that it was only just over six months
since “poor Emily” died, but to herself she kept saying how wonderful,
how uplifting, even only to watch, was this ecstatic passion between a
man she had secretly imagined incapable of love, and her matter-of-fact,
capable, merry little Jean.
Dr. Maclean was far from pleased. He kept wondering, ruefully, what he
should say to Tasker. The man would undoubtedly be bitterly
disappointed. Nay, more, he might feel that he hadn’t been treated quite
fairly.
The doctor was also uncomfortably aware that there would be “talk,” and
almost as if his wife were able to see into his mind, just before Harry
Garlett at last got up, Mrs. Maclean suddenly exclaimed:
“There’s one thing I’m minded to say, Harry. I’m afraid Jean mustn’t go
to the factory any more—not till you’re married, that is.”
As both the girl and her lover exclaimed against the cruel decision, Dr.
Maclean clinched the matter.
“Your aunt’s quite right,” he said firmly. “Grendon’s the greatest place
for gossip in England.”
“We don’t mind gossip.”
Dr. Maclean looked gravely at the two fine-looking young people standing
before him in the lamplight.
Harry Garlett had never looked his age, and now, to-night, he looked
years younger than yesterday. As for Jean, not only her radiant face,
but her supple, graceful figure seemed transfigured—she looked a lovely
ageless nymph no sorrow or decay could touch.
“I fancy that even you would mind being spied on and sniggered at,” said
the doctor dryly.
And so there began for those two who loved one another so dearly a
strange period of mingled pain and bliss. They hated to be apart, and
yet they were not allowed to be together in what seemed to them both the
only seemly, natural way—that in their joint everyday work.
Mrs. Maclean showed what even Jean considered an almost absurd fear of
what even the people of Terriford might say. She did not like the lovers
to stray outside the large garden and paddock of Bonnie Doon, and she
ordained that “for the present” the engagement should remain private.
Small wonder that at the end of about ten days Miss Prince asked
inquisitively: “Why has Jean left off going to the factory?”
“Jean has only had a few days’ holiday since she first went there,”
answered Jean’s aunt evasively.
But Miss Prince shook her head. “I don’t know why you should hide the
truth from me, Mrs. Maclean? It’s been plain for a good while what was
the matter with Harry Garlett. I knew it before he knew it himself! But
I didn’t believe that the girl liked him. I thought she preferred Dr.
Tasker. Well, well! Poor Emily has soon been forgotten——”
After some three weeks of this state of things had gone on, Dr. Maclean
suddenly said to his wife: “There’s nothing for it but to get them
married! There’ll only be more talk if they don’t.”
And Mrs. Maclean answered with something like a groan: “There’ll be a
lot of talk if they do.”
“Yes, but what’s to be done, my dear? The poor fellow has never been in
love till now, so he doesn’t know how to behave——”
And so it was that at last it was decided that the two should be married
on the nineteenth of December, by special license, very quietly, not to
say secretly, in Terriford village church. They would then go to London
for a week’s honeymoon, and, during that week, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean
would tell all their neighbours and friends what had happened.
The doctor and his wife reminded each other that there was something
about Jean which attracted even cold people. She had such a bright,
happy, eager nature. As for Harry Garlett, he was always ready to do
anybody a good turn, and also, as a great cricketer, was very popular.
Though some old-fashioned people might be shocked by so early a second
marriage, every one knew that his late wife had been an invalid for
years.
There was only one person to whom, for a reason he would have found it
difficult to define even to himself, Harry Garlett felt bound to
announce his forthcoming marriage. This was Agatha Cheale.
In answer to his brief letter, there came one even briefer:
DEAR MR. GARLETT,
I am interested in your news, and I trust you will be as happy as you
deserve to be.
Yours sincerely,
AGATHA CHEALE.
CHAPTER VI
“I am the most fortunate man in England! I am the happiest man in the
world!”
As he swung along in the bright winter sunshine on the field path which
formed a short cut to the town, again and again these words seemed to
hammer themselves, in joyful cadence, on Harry Garlett’s brain.
What we call the human heart is full of the strangest twists and
turnings, and so, though Garlett’s heart was full of Jean Bower, he
threw an affectionately retrospective thought to his late wife. He and
“poor Emily” had never had a really cross word during those long, quiet
years before the war, when, most fortunately for himself, he had not
even dimly apprehended what the passion of love can mean in a human
life, and how it will make beautiful, and intimately delicious, even the
most prosaic facts of day-to-day existence.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten. In just twenty-four
hours from now he and Jean would be starting for their one week’s
honeymoon in London.
His face softened. There came upon it a great awe. God! How he loved
her. Every moment they spent together he seemed to discover some new,
hitherto hidden beauty of mind, soul, or body in this wonderful, still
mysterious, but wholly delightful young creature who not only allowed
him to worship her but—miracle of miracles—returned his passion.
Such were the disconnected but wholly contented thoughts which filled
half an hour of the last easy, unquestioning, and, as if for an immortal
moment, ecstatic morning of Harry Garlett’s life.
With no premonition of coming pain or evil Jean Bower’s fortunate lover
passed through the big paved courtyard of the Etna China factory. He
walked quickly into the early Victorian marble-papered hall and so past
the office where sat two clerks, into the high square room which had
been for so long known to the good folk of Grendon as “Mr. Dodson’s
room.”
His letters lay unopened on the shabby leather-covered writing table,
and as he sat down he saw that on the top of the pile was an unstamped
envelope marked “Private.” Opening it, he read:
The Red Lion, Grendon,
December 17th.
SIR,
I propose to call on you to-morrow at eleven with regard to an
important matter. Will you please arrange to be in at that time?
Yours faithfully,
JAMES KENTWORTHY.
He stared down at the sheet of paper, trying to remember if he had ever
heard the name Kentworthy before. But no, it meant nothing to him.
Whoever this Kentworthy might be he had no business to take it for
granted that he, Garlett, would be here, waiting his convenience, at
eleven o’clock!
He got up and went into the outer office.
“If a Mr. Kentworthy calls, I will see him. But say that I can only
spare him a few minutes, as I am very busy.”
As it was striking eleven, the door opened with: “Mr. Kentworthy, sir,”
and at once, with some surprise, Harry Garlett recognized in his visitor
a stranger he had seen walking about Terriford village during the last
week or so.
The first time he, Garlett, had noticed him, this gray-haired stout man
had been standing in the road just outside the gate of the Thatched
House, chatting with one of the gardeners. On another occasion he had
seen the same person looking at the inscriptions on the graves in the
beautiful churchyard, of which the high-banked wall bounded the top of
the broad village street. Also, this man whose name he now knew to be
Kentworthy had passed him more than once on the narrow field path along
which he had walked so joyously this morning.
“I have only just read your note, Mr. Kentworthy, for I was late this
morning. What can I do for you? I’m afraid I cannot spare you much time,
for, as you see, I haven’t even opened my letters.”
His burly, substantial-looking visitor came forward and stood close to
him.
“I may take it that you’ve no idea of the business which has brought me
here, Mr. Garlett?”
He looked straight into the face of the man he was addressing, and Harry
Garlett felt just a little disconcerted by that steady, steely stare.
“No,” he said frankly, “I have no idea at all of your business, but I
have lately seen you walking about Terriford village, so I take it that
you have some association with this part of the world?”
“This is my first visit to Grendon,” said the other slowly, “and I was
sent here, Mr. Garlett, on a most unpleasant errand.”
Again he looked searchingly at Garlett, and then he went on, speaking in
a deliberate, matter-of-fact voice:
“I am a police inspector attached to the Criminal Investigation
Department, and I was sent down here, about a week ago, to make
inquiries concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett, your late wife.”
Harry Garlett got up from his chair; he was so bewildered, so amazed,
and yes, so dismayed, at what the other had just said, that he wondered
whether he could have heard those strange, disturbing words aright.
“Concerning the death of my wife?” he repeated. “I don’t understand
exactly what you mean by that——?”
James Kentworthy did not take his eyes off the other’s face. Long and
successful as had been his career in the Criminal Investigation
Department, he had never had a case of which the opening moves
interested and, in a sense, puzzled him so much as did this case. He
asked himself whether the man now standing opposite to him, whose face
had gone gray under its healthy tan, was an innocent man, or that most
dangerous and vile of criminals, a secret poisoner?
“From some information recently laid before the Home Office, it seems
desirable that the cause of Mrs. Garlett’s death should be fully
ascertained,” he said slowly.
Harry Garlett sat down again.
“On whose information are you acting?” he asked.
“That, for obvious reasons, we are not prepared to divulge,” answered
the other coldly. And he also sat down.
Harry Garlett’s mind was darting hither and thither. Curse the gossips
of Terriford! He had known them to create much smoke where he had felt
convinced there was no fire—but never, never so noisome a smoke as this.
His heart became suddenly full of Jean—his darling, innocent little
love. Such a child, too, as regarded the evil side of human nature, with
all her common sense and practical cleverness. The thought of Jean
almost unmanned him, but, in a flash, he realized that if only for her
sake he must face this odious inquiry with courage and frankness.
“What is it you desire to know concerning my late wife’s death?” he
asked.
“Although Mrs. Garlett’s death was exceedingly sudden, there does not
seem to have been any question of an inquest,” observed the man Garlett
now knew to represent all the formidable and mysterious powers of the
C.I.D.
“There was not the slightest necessity for an inquest,” was the quiet
answer. “Dr. Maclean, who had been my wife’s medical attendant for many
years, saw her the day before she died.”
Mr. Kentworthy took a thick, small, notebook out of his coat pocket, and
opening it, began reading it to himself.
“I am aware of that fact,” he said, without looking up, “and of course
my next step will be to call on Dr. Maclean. But before doing that I
thought it only fair to come and tell you of my inquiries, Mr. Garlett.”
He looked up. “Have you any objection to giving me an account of your
wife’s death—as far as you can remember the circumstances? Let me
see—it’s only seven months ago, isn’t it?”
Again Harry Garlett made a mighty effort to pull himself together. He
had all your honest man’s instinctive, absolute trust in justice. No one
believed more firmly than himself that “truth will out, even in an
affidavit,” but even so, though he was not exactly an imaginative man,
he did feel as if the gods, envious of the wonderful happiness with
which his cup had been filled up to brimming over till a few moments
ago, had devised this cruel, devilish trick....
“I am quite willing to tell you everything you wish to know,” he said
frankly. “But there is very little to tell, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“It is a fact, is it not, that your wife was a lady of considerable
means, and that she gave over to you the greater part of her fortune
quite early in your married life?”
Garlett flushed. “That is so. But I beg you to believe that that was by
no wish of mine. In fact, as I can prove to you, I remade my will at
once, leaving the money back to her in case I predeceased her.”
James Kentworthy smiled. In spite of himself he was beginning to like
Harry Garlett, and even to feel inclined to believe, to hope, he had
been sent to this sleepy, old-world country town on a wild-goose chase.
“Look here!” he exclaimed, “I don’t want you to be on the defensive with
me, Mr. Garlett. If, as I trust will be the case, these inquiries of
mine show that everything occurred in—well, in a regular and proper
manner, no one will be more pleased than I shall be. I am not trying to
catch you out in any way.”
Garlett’s face lightened. “Thank you for saying that. But—but I feel so
bewildered, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“I understand that. Still, in your own interest I beg you to tell me, as
clearly as possible, whatever details you may remember as to your wife’s
sudden death. I propose to make a shorthand note of all you say, and
then, after I have transcribed it, to ask you to read it over and sign
the statement.”
He waited a moment, then added:
“I need hardly say that if you would prefer to ask your solicitor to be
present, I shall raise no objection.”
“I would far rather say the little I have to say to you alone,”
exclaimed Harry Garlett eagerly. “I have a very strong reason for hoping
that the matter will never be known to any one but to us two—and, I
suppose I must add, to Dr. Maclean?”
“Of course I shall have to see Dr. Maclean,” answered the police
inspector. “But now, Mr. Garlett, go ahead! I would, however, suggest
that you give orders that we be not interrupted. A great deal depends on
your statement, as well as on that of Mrs. Garlett’s medical attendant.
If they both prove satisfactory, the Home Office will not issue what it
is always reluctant to do—an exhumation order.”
“An exhumation order?”
As he repeated those ominous words, there was a tone of utter dismay and
horror in Harry Garlett’s voice, and the older man threw him a quick,
suspicious glance. Why did the suggestion of an exhumation order cause
Emily Garlett’s widower such unease? Then he reminded himself that,
after all, an absolutely innocent man might well quail before an ordeal
which, whatever the precautions taken, was bound to become public.
“That would obviously be the next step,” he said reluctantly.
Harry Garlett took up the telephone receiver which stood on his
writing-table. “I am not to be disturbed on any account,” he called
through.
And then, settling himself squarely in his chair, he faced his
tormentor:
“Ask me any questions you like, Mr. Kentworthy,” he said, “and I promise
to answer them fully and truthfully.”
The police inspector moved his chair a little nearer to the
writing-table.
“I understand, from the few inquiries I have been able to make, that
Mrs. Garlett was always in delicate health?”
“That is so; indeed my wife may be said to have been born delicate. She
told me once that she never remembered feeling really well. Her parents
made a very late marriage, and she was an only child.”
“She was a good deal older than you were, was she not?”
Harry Garlett reddened. The fact had always been a sensitive point with
him.
“I was twenty-two when I married, and my wife, at twenty-seven, seemed
in my eyes still quite a young woman. She was very slender, and, at that
time of her life, did not look more than twenty.”
“And I suppose I may assume that it was a marriage of affection on both
sides?”
A deeper flush came over Harry Garlett’s face. Though he had an open,
cheery manner, he was in some ways a very reserved man. It was,
therefore, with obvious, though restrained, emotion that he answered, in
a low voice:
“My mother died when I was a child, and I had no sister. My father
failed in business when I was a lad of fourteen, and a godfather paid
for my later education. Until I came to Grendon I had hardly ever spoken
to a young lady of refinement. At once the Thatched House became to me
what I had never known, a home, and its young mistress my—my ideal of
womanhood.”
“I see,” said the other man, touched by the candid admissions. “Then I
take it, Mr. Garlett, that yours was a love marriage?”
“In spite of my wife’s ill-health, and our disappointment at not having
children, I doubt if any married folk ever led a happier and more placid
existence than we did—till the war,” answered Harry Garlett earnestly,
but, as the other thought, a little evasively.
“My wife took the greatest pride and pleasure in my success as a
cricketer. Yet she was so far from strong that, even in the old days,
she could seldom sit out a match.”
“I know that you were the third man in Terriford to join up in August,
’14,” observed Mr. Kentworthy, “but that, I take it, did not mean that
you were not completely happy at home?”
“Indeed, it did not! I felt that every fit man, in a position to do so,
ought to join up at once. As for my wife, she was one of those
old-fashioned women who approve of everything their husbands do.”
“Very few of that sort about now,” said Mr. Kentworthy, smiling.
“Well, my wife was one of those few! I told her how I felt about it all,
and she said no word to stop me. And yet I have every reason to believe
that she went through a real martyrdom while I was at the front——” He
waited a moment, then concluded: “And when the war came to an end, and I
settled down at home again, I realized that she had become a permanent
invalid.”
“A terrible thing for a man of your age,” observed Mr. Kentworthy
thoughtfully.
Harry Garlett made no answer to that comment. Had he ever felt for poor
Emily a tithe of what he now felt for the girl who was to become his
wife to-morrow, the condition in which he had found her on his return
home would indeed have been a terrible thing. But with Emily, his
relations, though good, kindly, even in a sense, gratefully
affectionate, had not been such, even before the war, as greatly to
affect him. But that, after all, was entirely his own and most secret
business.
Thank God—he was thinking of Jean now, not of Emily—he had played fair
in the great game of life. Tempted? Of course he had been tempted. Once,
at least, more fiercely than he cared to remember now. But he had
fought, beaten down temptation, remaining not only in deed but even in
word, faithful to his marriage vow.
He came back with something of a mental start to the matter in hand.
This was the first time he had ever spoken, in an intimate sense, of his
married life to any human being, and he was surprised to feel that,
instead of finding it difficult, it was, in a sort of way, a relief.
“People may have told you, Mr. Kentworthy, that my wife was not a
good-tempered woman,” he said earnestly, “but all I can say is, she was
the most devoted and generous-natured of wives to me. I am aware that
among my neighbours I was criticized for being a good deal away from
home. No doubt I was selfish, absorbed in the game to which I give so
much of my life during the summer months, but it was always with her
eager encouragement that I went about and lived the kind of life I did
live.”
“Mrs. Garlett must have been a most exceptional woman,” said the other,
and he spoke with no sarcastic intent.
“She came of a long line of high-minded, God-fearing people—her old
father was proud of the fact that he was descended from a man who at one
moment had been Cromwell’s right hand.”
He, Harry Garlett, hadn’t thought of that for years. Yet, what was
perhaps more singular, poor Emily’s personality, at once so commonplace
and yet, in a sense, forceful, became suddenly more present to him than
it had ever been since the last time they had talked together, on the
evening of their thirteenth wedding-day.
“I may take it that there was never even a passing cloud on your married
life?”
“Never a cloud!”
Harry Garlett added impulsively, “I don’t want you to think me a better
man than I am. I did not always find it an easy situation——”
The other cut him short: “I accept what you said just now—that you two
were happier, if anything, than the average married couple?”
“Yes, I think we were—in fact, I’m sure we were.” He spoke with sober
decision.
“Now, tell me something about last spring. Did you think Mrs. Garlett
more ailing than usual?”
“No,” said Garlett frankly, “I did not. She always made an effort to
appear bright during the comparatively short times we were alone
together, but, as I have already told you, she had become a complete
invalid.”
He went on in a rather lower tone: “I wonder if you will understand when
I tell you that she treated me, of late years, more as a loving mother
treats a dear son than as a wife treats her husband——”
Both men remained silent for a moment, and the police inspector made a
note in his book.
“Now, concerning the night your wife died? I understand the date was May
the 28th, the time early on a Sunday morning.”
“The 27th of May was the thirteenth anniversary of our wedding-day,”
began Harry Garlett. “And I’m ashamed to say I had forgotten it. But my
wife remembered. And I found a gift, as a matter of fact, this gold
cigarette case”—he took a small plain gold case out of his
pocket—“waiting for me on my breakfast plate that Saturday morning. I
then altered a plan I had made for going away for the week-end, and I
decided to come home at one o’clock and spend as much of the day as was
possible with my wife.”
“You were not alone during that walk back to your house?” suggested Mr.
Kentworthy, in an indifferent tone. “You were, I believe, with a young
lady.”
“A young lady?” echoed Harry Garlett, surprised. “I don’t think so.” And
then suddenly he exclaimed: “You’re quite right—but how very odd that
any one should have remembered it! I walked back with Miss Bower, the
niece of my wife’s medical attendant, Dr. Maclean. But she went on to
her home—she lives with the Macleans—and I had a tray lunch upstairs,
with my wife.”
“Were you at home all that afternoon?”
Again it was as if Harry Garlett were making an effort to remember.
“I think so,” he said slowly. “No, I’m wrong! I went to a tennis party.
My wife generally rested in the afternoon. But I was back a little after
six o’clock, and I sat with her for some time.”
He knitted his brows, trying hard to remember what had happened, and
slowly half-forgotten incidents started into life.
“There was a question of some fruit, some forced strawberries that a
friend had brought that morning. The lady who was then acting as our
housekeeper and as my wife’s nurse, thought I had given Mrs. Garlett the
strawberries in question. But that was a mistake. She certainly ate
them, so one of the maids must have given them to her. The matter is of
some moment, for, as Dr. Maclean will, I think, tell you, it was this
fruit which indirectly led to her death. Strawberries generally
disagreed with her, but she was very fond of them, and as these were
small Alpine strawberries I suppose she thought it would be all right.”
“When did you first become aware of your wife’s serious condition?”
“It must have been about four o’clock in the morning when Mrs. Garlett’s
nurse-companion called me. She said my wife was in great pain and had
asked if she could have some morphia. So I dressed and went at once for
the doctor, who lives about a quarter of a mile from my place.”
“And then?”
“I had some trouble in rousing Dr. Maclean, but I think we were back in
my house well under half an hour——”
“Had Mrs. Garlett become worse?”
“My wife could not bear for me to see her in the sort of state in which
I understood she was then. So I waited downstairs in my study, and
about—well, I don’t think it could have been more than twenty minutes
after he had come into the house, Dr. Maclean came down and broke to me
the fact that she was dead.”
“Had she died while you were fetching the doctor?”
“I don’t know—I don’t think so. I was terribly upset, and I asked no
questions. Though she was an invalid, she always seemed, in a way, full
of life—a steady, if a low, flame. And she had seemed so well, so happy,
that afternoon! But wait a bit. I _have_ forgotten something. My wife
had had a disagreeable shock. One of our servants had admitted her
sweetheart into the house the night before—as a matter of fact into the
drawing room, which has a French window opening into the garden. Mrs.
Garlett heard sounds, and thought there were burglars in the house. She
actually went downstairs herself, and caught the girl red-handed, as it
were. I remember suggesting to Dr. Maclean that the shock—for she was
very particular about such things—might have affected her heart. But he
didn’t think so.”
He stopped speaking. Mr. Kentworthy was busily writing, and Harry
Garlett stared at his visitor’s bent head. Though assuring himself that
it would be “all right,” he felt an eerie feeling of apprehension
wrapping him round.
“I thank you for the straightforward way in which you have answered my
questions,” said the police inspector, getting up from his chair, “and
now I propose to see Dr. Maclean.”
“Would you like me to make a telephone appointment for you with him?”
asked Garlett. “He’s a very busy man.”
“Why, yes, I should. But I hope you won’t think it unreasonable of me to
ask you to give him no hint as to my business?”
“You will hear everything I say to him,” answered the other quickly.
He took his telephone receiver off. “Put me through to Dr. Maclean’s
house.”
James Kentworthy, who was now standing close to the writing-table, heard
the answer: “Miss Bower is already on the line, sir; we told her you
didn’t want to be disturbed—shall I put her through?”
“Yes, please.”
And then, unmindful of the presence of a stranger, more unmindful no
doubt because James Kentworthy was still so entirely a stranger to him,
Harry Garlett put his whole heart into the question he breathed into the
receiver.
“Is that you, my dearest?” And then—“I want to speak to the doctor.”
The other heard, as from afar off, a bright, happy voice exclaim: “He’s
in the meadow with Aunt Jenny! I’ll run along and get him. But you’d
better hang up the receiver, for I’m afraid it’ll be full five minutes.”
Garlett hung up the receiver, and again faced his visitor.
“I should like to tell you, Mr. Kentworthy, that I am just about to be
married.”
“Just about to be married?”
The police inspector wondered if he had kept out of his voice, not only
the surprise, but the dismay which he felt at this to him astounding
disclosure.
“My fiancée is the niece of Dr. Maclean. She was on the telephone just
now.”
“The young lady who, for a while, was your secretary?”
In spite of himself, there was a note of deep disappointment in the
voice in which Mr. Kentworthy asked the question.
Harry Garlett instinctively straightened himself.
“Miss Bower became secretary to the Etna China Company—not my personal
secretary—just before my wife’s death.”
There was an awkward silence between the two men.
“I see,” said Mr. Kentworthy at last. “I see, Mr. Garlett.”
But, as a matter of fact, he felt as if he had walked from the bright
sunshine into an evil-smelling fog. Quite a number of pages in his thick
little notebook bore the heading “Miss Jean Bower.”
“Is the date of your wedding fixed?”
“Well, yes, it is.” Harry Garlett hesitated, then exclaimed
impulsively—“We are to be married to-morrow morning, by special license!
No one, however, knows that fact excepting the vicar and his wife, and,
of course, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean.”
Again there followed a strange, painful silence.
“I take it you will postpone your marriage till this matter is
thoroughly cleared up?” said the police inspector at last.
As the younger man, dismayed, made no immediate answer, the other added:
“_I_ should do so, in your place, Mr. Garlett.”
Before he could speak the telephone bell rang and Harry Garlett took up
the receiver and in a falsely cheerful tone—a tone with which, alas,
James Kentworthy was painfully familiar as a result of his life work—he
called out: “Is that you, Dr. Maclean? Garlett speaking. Would you be in
if Mr. Kentworthy, a gentleman who wants to see you, on urgent private
business, were to come along now? Yes? Right!”
He hung up the receiver. “Dr. Maclean will see you at once.”
Both men got up.
“One word before you go, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“Yes, Mr. Garlett?”
Try as he might, he could not bring back the kindly tone into which he
felt he had been betrayed during the latter part of their conversation.
“I suppose the only thing that would set the matter absolutely at rest
would be the exhumation of my wife’s body?”
“That is so—obviously,” answered the other, briefly.
CHAPTER VII
Within an hour of his having left the Etna factory, James Kentworthy got
up from his chair in Dr. Maclean’s consulting room.
The man who had come down to Terriford to make these delicate inquiries
was honest and conscientious, set on finding out the truth and nothing
but the truth. Also, this was to be his last official investigation, and
he had every reason for hoping that it would be a short business. The
moment it was over he was to retire from the service and start for
himself as a private inquiry agent. He was, therefore, sincerely glad
that the conversation he had had with the late Mrs. Garlett’s medical
man had been, from his point of view, thoroughly satisfactory.
During the first few minutes of his interview with Mr. Kentworthy, Dr.
Maclean had been so indignant and so shocked when he realized his
visitor’s business, that he had been very unwilling to give the police
inspector any information. But he had soon realized that this was a
mistake on his part, and by the end of their conversation the two men
were on excellent terms the one with the other.
And now that their long talk was, as they both thought, drawing to an
end, Dr. Maclean said earnestly:
“I do hope, Mr. Kentworthy, that I have been able to convince you not
only that Mrs. Garlett died a natural death, but that my friend Garlett
himself was for long years an exceptionally good husband to the poor,
sickly woman?”
“You have convinced me,” said the inspector frankly, “that Mrs.
Garlett’s death was almost certainly a natural death. But I cannot
pledge my superiors in any way, and the best thing would be for you to
come with me to London to-night and see the gentleman in charge of the
case to-morrow morning.”
Dr. Maclean stood up.
“There’s one more thing I feel you should know, though it has nothing
directly to do with the matter in hand.”
Mr. Kentworthy stiffened into quick attention.
“My wife’s niece, Jean Bower, is just about to be married to Harry
Garlett. As a matter of fact, the wedding has been fixed to take place
to-morrow——”
A quick inward debate took place in the Inspector’s mind. Should he
imitate the other’s frankness? He made up his mind that it was his duty
to do so.
“I am aware of that, Dr. Maclean, for Mr. Garlett told me the fact
himself. I hope you won’t be offended when I say that I regret very much
that he did not wait a little longer. After all, it’s a very short time
since Mrs. Garlett’s death.”
“She died in May, and we are now in December!” exclaimed the doctor with
some heat. “And remember—I speak as from man to man—that the woman had
been Garlett’s wife only in name for many a long year.”
“I do remember that,” said James Kentworthy slowly. “But ask yourself,
Dr. Maclean, how so quick a second marriage would strike ordinary
people—who knew nothing of the special circumstances of the case?”
“But every one here, in this neighbourhood, does know the
circumstances,” objected the doctor.
Each word this stranger had uttered in the last few moments had been
said again and again in the last month by Dr. Maclean to his wife. But
he was not going to admit anything of the sort now, even to himself.
Hardly knowing what he was doing he sat down again, and Mr. Kentworthy
did the same.
Leaning forward, the police inspector said earnestly: “You must
remember, sir, that what we, in our line of inquiry, are always looking
for, is—motive.”
“Motive?” repeated the doctor. “I don’t quite follow what you mean, Mr.
Kentworthy.”
“I need not tell you—a doctor—that in the vast majority of cases the
death of a man or woman is always of interest, and very often of
considerable benefit, to some human being?”
“I see your point,” said the other uneasily.
“In this case,” went on Mr. Kentworthy, “I soon realized that money had
played no part at all in the matter I had been sent to investigate.”
He stopped abruptly, hardly knowing how to frame the unpleasant fact he
wanted to convey.
At last he said frankly: “You must admit, doctor, that Mrs. Garlett’s
death released her husband from a very trying position. It made him a
free man.”
“That’s true. Yet I ask you to believe me, Mr. Kentworthy, when I tell
you most solemnly that Harry Garlett never longed, even unconsciously,
for that sort of freedom. He is a man’s man in daily life; he never
seemed in the least interested in women; and there was never the
slightest breath of scandal about his name.”
The police inspector looked at him gravely.
“I am sorry to say that you are mistaken, Dr. Maclean. You are evidently
not aware that there has been a great deal of gossip, not only since
Mrs. Garlett’s death, but even before her death, concerning Mr. Garlett
and the young lady to whom he is now engaged.”
Dr. Maclean jumped up from his chair.
“I deny that! I deny it absolutely!”
His eyes flashed, he struck his writing-table with his hand.
“What devils some women are! Why, my poor little niece had only just
become secretary to the Etna Company when Mrs. Garlett died——”
“She took over her new duties on the 26th of last April,” observed the
inspector quietly, “and, from what I can make out, there seems no doubt
that Mr. Garlett, who up to then had much neglected his duties as
managing director, leaving everything, it appears, to his partner, a
certain Mr. Jabez Dodson, began going daily to the Etna China factory.”
Dr. Maclean sat down again. He felt far more disturbed than he would
have cared to acknowledge, even to himself.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that it would not be fair to ask you the
source of this absolutely untrue and poisonous gossip?”
“I don’t say it would be unfair—but I am sure you will understand that
it would not be right of me to oblige you.”
“Do you mind telling me exactly what it is you have heard?—narrowing
down the point to what you have been told happened before Mrs. Garlett’s
death?”
Mr. Kentworthy began to feel sorry he had said anything about that side
of his investigations. He had been tempted into indiscretion by his
liking for this man, and his growing conviction that Harry Garlett’s
wife had died an absolutely natural death.
It was as a friend of these foolish, if honest, people that he had just
said what he knew was true. After all, it was perhaps just as well that
they should know the kind of gossip floating about.
“The most serious thing I have heard,” he said quietly, “is that your
niece and Mr. Garlett occasionally met secretly, late at night, in a
little wood which forms part of Mr. Garlett’s property.”
Dr. Maclean stared at the speaker with growing anger and astonishment,
and the other, pursuing his advantage, as even the kindest men are
sometimes tempted to do, went on—
“I have actually spoken to the person who saw them there on at least two
occasions.”
Again Dr. Maclean got up. “You have actually found a man or woman who
declares that he or she saw my niece, Jean Bower, and Harry Garlett,
under the compromising circumstances you have described?”
“No,” exclaimed the other quickly. “I cannot say that the person in
question mentioned Miss Bower. What she said—I admit it is a woman—was
that she had twice seen Mr. Garlett and a young lady in the wood forming
part of the Thatched House property, and that, on the second occasion,
she overheard something like an altercation between the two. Garlett’s
companion burst into tears and reproached him, from what I can make out,
for his coldness to her.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean.
He sat down again, heavily. He felt suddenly years older.
“Having said so much, I think it is only fair to you to read the exact
words I put down after seeing the young woman in question.”
“_Young_ woman? Then the author of this infamous lie is not Miss
Prince?” said the doctor to himself as he listened to the inspector
beginning to read from his notebook.
“It was one day late in April, I cannot fix the date. When I got to
the little wood I saw Mr. Garlett and a young lady walking down the
path. I did not want them to see me, so I hid behind some laurels. I
think from what I could make out, they were talking about the war.
There was no love-making that I could see.”
“You must understand,” explained Mr. Kentworthy, looking up, “that the
person in question did not give me this connected account that I have
read out. I had more or less to drag out of her these apparently
unimportant details.”
“There is nothing there about a quarrel or tears,” observed the doctor.
“We are coming to that,” said the other quietly.
“It must have been exactly a week later,” he read on, “that I was
there again. I wondered if I should see them, and sure enough I did!
It was a moonlit night, so I could see their figures clearly. I
couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, for I was afraid of going
too near, owing to its being so much more light than it had been the
time before, but I did hear Mr. Garlett speaking as if he thought it
was wrong of them to be there together at all. He begged the lady’s
pardon ever so many times, and seemed a good deal distressed. As for
her, she was sobbing bitterly, and kept saying, ‘I am very tired, or I
shouldn’t be upset like this.’”
“I may as well read you the impression the story made on me at the
time,” said Mr. Kentworthy, and he went on with his notebook:
“I pressed her again and again to give me some indication of who the
young lady was. I cannot believe her assertion that it was a stranger
to her. But she persisted in her statement that though she knew the
man was Garlett she did not know his companion. If this is true it
follows that Garlett’s companion was some woman who had come out
either from Grendon or perhaps from an even greater distance to spend
an hour with him. Note: Make inquiries as to how he spent his time,
and with whom, during his frequent absences from home before his
wife’s death.”
“You cannot be surprised,” he added looking up, “that I feel everything
points to Mr. Garlett’s companion in the wood having been the young lady
with whom he is now on the eve of marriage.”
“I suppose I can’t expect you to agree with me,” said Dr. Maclean, “when
I say that I am convinced that the story is entirely false from
beginning to end. I _know_ my niece never met Harry Garlett secretly at
night, or, for the matter of that, in the daytime. Only his own
admission would make me believe that Garlett met any woman in such
compromising and dangerous circumstances.”
Mr. Kentworthy remained silent. It was clear he did not accept the other
man’s view of the story.
Suddenly the doctor pressed the electric bell on his table, twice,
sharply: “I’m going to send for my niece,” he exclaimed.
Mr. Kentworthy started up.
“That’s not fair,” he cried. “That’s not playing the game!”
“Bide a wee, man. I’m not going to do anything unfair. I simply want you
to see the child. I’ll give her a message for my wife.”
A moment later the door opened and Jean Bower ran in.
“Yes, Uncle Jock? What——” and then she stopped short. “I beg your
pardon. I did not know you had any one here.”
“Mr. Kentworthy—my niece.”
The two shook hands, and as he looked keenly into her fresh guileless
face and noted, as only a trained eye would have done, the dozen little
details which go to differentiate one type of modern girl from the
other, James Kentworthy told himself that Dr. Maclean had shown a sure
instinct in thus obliging him to see Harry Garlett’s betrothed.
The experienced police inspector was not a susceptible man, and he was
one whose work habitually caused him to see the ugliest side of feminine
human nature. Yet he would have staked a great deal on the probability
that the girl now before him was as pure and essentially simple-hearted
as had been the mother whose memory he cherished. He made up his mind
that Harry Garlett’s mysterious companion had almost certainly not been
this young woman.
“I want you to tell your aunt, my dear, that I have unexpectedly got to
go to town to-night.”
“Oh, Uncle Jock!”
Jean looked very troubled and dismayed. “I’d better ’phone to Harry at
once, hadn’t I?”
“Yes, do, my dear. But first tell your aunt. She’d better send a note to
the vicar—that is if you want me to be present at your wedding.”
She reddened deeply. How very strange and odd of Uncle Jock to speak of
to-morrow’s secret ceremony before a stranger.
“Of course we want you to be there. Why, we shouldn’t feel married if
you weren’t there! We’ll put the wedding off for a day or two.”
She tried to speak lightly and, turning, left the room.
“There!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “D’you see that girl meeting a married
man in a wood at night? She’s the most self-possessed, dignified little
lassie I’ve ever met! Not that she is lacking in feeling. She’s devoted
_now_, to that man, and,” he went on, speaking with a good deal of
emotion, “I hope to God she will never know of this horrible, if it was
not so serious I should say this ridiculous, business.”
Suddenly the telephone bell on his table rang. He took up the receiver.
“I said I was not to be disturbed”—and then in a very different
voice—“Garlett?”
“Has the man who called on me this morning gone? I feel I must see
you.... Yes, I’m still at the office. Where else should I be?... Somehow
the horror of it all seems to grow and grow on me.... For the first time
in my life I feel as if I don’t know what I ought to do!”
The doctor felt dismayed. It was clear that the invisible speaker was
painfully excited and overwrought.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he called back
soothingly. “My interview with Mr. Kentworthy has been quite
satisfactory, and I’m going up to London to-night to see the people
concerned to-morrow morning. Best not say too much over the telephone,
my dear fellow. Bad breaks will come in business, as we all know.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Garlett’s thoroughly rattled!” he exclaimed. “D’you see any objection
to his coming up with us to-night and going to the Home Office to-morrow
morning?”
The other hesitated.
“Frankly, I shouldn’t advise that. If you, as Mrs. Garlett’s medical
attendant, can convince my chiefs that she died a natural death, the
whole matter will be dropped.”
“I understand that, and I’ll make him follow your advice,” said the
doctor. “But what I can’t make out—what I would give a good deal to
know—I suppose you know and won’t tell me?—is what started this damnable
inquiry?”
The eyes of the two men crossed.
“There are such things as anonymous letters,” observed Mr. Kentworthy
dryly.
“Anonymous letters?”
Surprised though he felt, he told himself that he had been a fool not to
think of that solution of the mystery.
“I didn’t know,” he muttered, “that poor Garlett had an enemy in the
world. But I suppose you can’t run any business without making some bad
blood.”
“I suppose you can’t,” agreed the other. “But one thing I will tell you.
The letters in question were never written by a factory hand.”
He leant forward and instinctively lowering his voice, he went on:
“Can you think of any one who bears Mr. Garlett a grudge? Having said so
much I think I may go a step further and say that we have no doubt at
all that it is a woman.”
“A woman?”
Again the doctor’s suspicions swung around to Miss Prince.
“I understand that before his wife’s death Mr. Garlett went about a
great deal?” went on the other thoughtfully.
“That’s true. Garlett’s a very good fellow, and very popular. As a
famous cricketer he knew people more or less all over England, and the
only kind of business he really did for the Etna China works was that of
sometimes acting as a sort of glorified commercial traveller.”
“That being so, Dr. Maclean, don’t you think it possible that he may
have formed some kind of connection which he gave up as, queerly enough,
a good many men do give up such friendships after a wife’s death?”
“In this strange world of ours,” said the doctor reluctantly,
“everything is possible. But I would have staked a good deal that that
particular thing was never true of Harry Garlett. I take it you have
seen the anonymous letters in question?”
The police inspector quietly opened his black attaché case.
“I see no reason why I should not show the letters to you now!” he
exclaimed. “I feel certain the originals will be submitted for your
inspection at the Home Office. I, of course, have only a set of
facsimiles.”
The doctor’s face, which had been very grave, livened into eager
curiosity.
Mr. Kentworthy came up to the writing table.
“This was the first letter. It was not addressed to the Home Office. It
was sent to Scotland Yard.”
While he was speaking he had put his hand over the sheet of paper; now
he lifted it, and Dr. Maclean saw a large sheet of paper marked I. Drawn
in pencil was a curious conventional design, under which ran the
words—“Water-mark of the original (foreign) paper.”
Then, written in block letters in very black ink, he read the following:
THE WRITER FEELS IT HIS DUTY TO DRAW THE ATTENTION OF THE HEAD
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE TO CERTAIN MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING
THE DEATH, ON THE 28TH OF LAST MAY, OF MRS. EMILY GARLETT AT THE
THATCHED HOUSE, TERRIFORD VILLAGE. MRS. GARLETT WAS THE WIFE OF HENRY
GARLETT, OWNER AND MANAGING-DIRECTOR OF THE WELL-KNOWN GRENDON ETNA
CHINA FACTORY. THOUGH THE DEATH WAS VERY SUDDEN, NO INQUEST WAS HELD.
“This reads like a man’s letter,” observed Dr. Maclean.
“It was meant to read like a man’s letter,” said Mr. Kentworthy. “But we
believe it to be the work of an educated woman.”
The doctor went on staring at the sinister epistle. What dread secret of
love or hate—or was it only poisonous malice—lay behind these roughly
ink-printed words?
“Here is the envelope. You will notice that the postmark, which by the
way has been drawn in, for it was too obliterated for any other method
to be of use, shows the letter to have been posted in London just a
month ago. For what it is worth I may remind you that almost any
educated man would realize that such a communication should be sent to
the Criminal Investigation Department of the Home Office, and not to
Scotland Yard.”
“What happens,” asked Dr. Maclean, “when such a thing as this is
received?”
“By long experience we are well aware that such a letter is likely to be
only one of a series—and sure enough, four days later, came this second
letter!”
The speaker pushed aside the first sheet of paper he had laid down, and
put in its place another.
“This surely is from an uneducated person?” exclaimed Dr. Maclean.
He was now gazing at a most peculiar looking script, marked 2.
“Not necessarily,” said Mr. Kentworthy. “But whether written by the same
individual or not, this was undoubtedly written with the left hand. It
is extremely difficult for any handwriting expert, however clever, to
identify a letter written with the left hand with the writer’s ordinary
right-hand script. There are as a rule certain similarities, but those
proceed from the brain rather than from the mechanical action of the
hand.”
“I think I understand what you mean,” and, bending down, he read the
following long comma-less sentence:
It’s a shame the police took no notice of what happened at The
Thatched House when poor Mrs. Garlett died she died in agony her
husband was carrying on at the time with more than one girl the
doctor’s niece could tell you why poor Mrs. Garlett’s doctor made no
fuss people have asked why no inquest echo answers why?
“What an abominable thing!”
Dr. Maclean’s eyes flamed with anger. “I hope to God that neither my
niece nor Harry Garlett will ever see this vulgar, hateful letter.”
“I can reassure you on that point,” said the other earnestly. “Under no
consideration are these kinds of communications brought into a law
case,” and, as he saw a shadow pass over the doctor’s face:
“Not that I think there will be a law case. Since my talk with Mr.
Garlett this morning, and with you during the last hour, I believe that
all this trouble has been caused by some hysterical woman who has a
grudge against Mr. Garlett.”
Dr. Maclean muttered: “I only wish I had the writer of this letter
here.”
“Perhaps you’d rather not see the other letter?” said his visitor, half
smiling.
Human nature was always surprising James Kentworthy, and now he was
amused in spite of himself. Dr. Maclean had taken the first anonymous
letter calmly, but the moment he himself had been brought into the
matter he had evidently felt very differently.
“Of course I’d rather see it!” he exclaimed brusquely, and the police
inspector put it down before him.
No. 3 was written in block letters.
THE WRITER OF THE LETTER DATED NOVEMBER 25TH ADVISES THE HEAD
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE TO ASK MR. HENRY GARLETT TO RENDER A FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING HIS WIFE’S DEATH.
“I think,” said Dr. Maclean hesitatingly, “that I know who wrote two of
those letters.”
“You do?” Mr. Kentworthy leaped to his feet.
“I suspect,” said the doctor, “that the writer is a certain Mary Prince,
the daughter, I am sorry to say, of the medical man from whom I bought
my practice.”
“The lady who lives at the Thatched Cottage?”
Mr. Kentworthy felt sadly disappointed. He was convinced the doctor was
on a wrong track.
“I feel sure it is she,” Dr. Maclean spoke with growing energy and
conviction. “Miss Prince is a most malicious woman. She has never liked
Harry Garlett, and I know she has been genuinely shocked at his thought
of remarriage. She actually guessed how things were between him and my
poor little niece before they knew it themselves.”
“Believe me, you are on the wrong track, Dr. Maclean. I had a talk with
this very lady two days ago, and though I don’t think she has a pleasant
disposition, if she is really the writer of these letters then she
entirely took _me_ in.”
“Did she know why you were here?” asked Dr. Maclean.
“Good heavens, no! I hope you won’t be shocked when I confess that I
told her I was distantly related, through her mother, to the late Mrs.
Garlett. On the strength of this statement she asked me to tea, and we
had a long talk. She is a shrewd, clever woman, though I admit a
dangerous gossip. By the way, there is one person who, I gather, was
actually with Mrs. Garlett when she died. I mean a certain Miss Agatha
Cheale, who is a friend of this Miss Prince. How about her, Dr.
Maclean?”
Unconsciously the doctor stiffened.
“I don’t know that there is anything to say about Miss Cheale. She was
distantly related to the Garletts. Mrs. Garlett’s death was a real
misfortune for her, for although the poor lady left her a thousand
pounds, she was actually receiving a salary of three hundred pounds a
year.”
“When was she here last?” asked Mr. Kentworthy suddenly.
“She came down for a week-end visit to Miss Prince about a month ago,
and I think she is coming for Christmas. A capable, intelligent young
woman, but I don’t think she could add anything to what I have told
you—the more so, that although she was in a war hospital in France, she
is not a trained nurse.”
“Well, I’ll be going now. Shall we meet at Grendon station at five
o’clock and travel together?”
“By all means.” The two men shook hands cordially.
“I hope you will be able to forget all about this business after
to-morrow,” said the police inspector earnestly.
But Dr. Maclean felt very sick at heart when he finally shut the door on
his unwelcome visitor, and turned his steps reluctantly toward the
dining room where he knew his wife, and probably Jean with her, was
likely to be.
As he opened the dining-room door he saw with relief that Mrs. Maclean
was alone.
“What signifies the message Jean brought me just now?” she exclaimed.
“Why must the marriage be put off, even for one day, Jock? Surely you
can postpone going to London till to-morrow afternoon?”
“I’m the bearer of bad news,” he said heavily.
Mrs. Maclean stood up.
“What’s the matter?” she asked in a frightened tone.
As her husband remained silent, she went up to him, and gave his arm a
shake:
“Jock? You’re frightening me! Have you found out anything about Harry
Garlett? D’you mean you think the marriage will have to be broken off?”
She added, “The child’s fair daft about him!”
“There’s no question of breaking off the marriage,” he said quickly. “In
fact, if I had my way Jean should not be told anything—beyond the bare
fact that her wedding must be postponed for a day or two.”
And then, before he could say anything further, the door behind them
burst open and Harry Garlett rushed into the room.
His face was drawn and haggard—he looked years older than he had done
that morning.
“I hoped to catch that London detective here—but I hear he’s gone. Look
here, Maclean. I’ve had time to think over what I ought to do, and I’ve
decided to go to London at once and clear the matter up.”
“What matter have you to clear up?” asked Mrs. Maclean.
Garlett walked straight over to where she was standing and looked at her
fixedly:
“I am suspected of having murdered my wife, Aunt Jenny,” he said in a
hard, matter-of-fact voice, “and from what I can make out that suspicion
will never be laid to rest till they have dug up the poor creature and
satisfied themselves that she died a natural death.”
The colour drifted from Mrs. Maclean’s healthy face.
“Is what he says true?” she asked, turning to her husband.
“Yes and no,” he answered in a measured tone. “It’s true that Harry has
some deadly enemy who is trying to fasten this awful charge on him. But
my talk just now with a man named Kentworthy who was sent down from the
Home Office——”
“The Home Office?”
Mrs. Maclean was an intelligent woman, and the words struck a note of
sharp fear in her breast.
The doctor went on: “I’ve just had the fellow here for over an hour, and
I think I’ve convinced him that the—well, the suspicion, if you can go
so far as to call it that, is absolutely groundless.”
Harry Garlett broke in: “But did Kentworthy tell you what I forced him
to admit to me—that nothing short of an exhumation will really settle
the matter, and that unless that takes place the matter may be raised
again at any time?”
A tide of dismay welled up in Dr. Maclean’s heart. He suddenly realized
that what this wild-eyed man, who looked so little like the happy, still
young lover of this morning, was saying, was only too true.
Even so he forced himself to exclaim: “You take an exaggerated view,
Harry. All I ask you to do is to await the result of my interview with
the Home Office people.”
Harry Garlett was staring at the speaker, a look of terrible perplexity
as well as acute suffering on his face.
“In any case, I suppose you would admit that our marriage will have to
be postponed?” he said slowly.
“Well, yes, I’m afraid it must be—for a day or two.”
And then Mrs. Maclean broke in:
“Before you even decide on that I think you ought to consult Jean. After
all, she’s the person most nearly concerned, isn’t she? Though perhaps—”
she hesitated painfully, “we need not tell her the reason for the
postponement?”
Garlett turned away and stared out into the wintry garden, and there was
such a look of anguish on his face that Mrs. Maclean suddenly felt a
rush of intense, overwhelming pity for him.
She went across to where he was standing and put her hand gently on his
arm. But he made no response.
Dr. Maclean cleared his throat: “Perhaps I’d better go and tell Jean
what has happened? I don’t see how we can hope to keep it from her.”
But the unhappy man roused himself: “No!” he said violently, “I’ll tell
her myself—I’d rather she heard it from me.
He turned to the doctor. “I know how kind you are——” his voice broke,
“but I feel that she ought to hear this vile thing from me——”
“I think that’s true, Jock,” said Mrs. Maclean quietly. “So now I’ll go
and find the child.”
She was walking to the door when Garlett asked suddenly: “Where is Jean?
Out of doors? I’d rather speak to her there.”
“I’ll see you’re not disturbed.”
Jean Bower was already on her way back to the house when Harry Garlett
caught sight of her. She was walking quickly, her whole figure instinct
with the joyous buoyancy and grace of happy youth.
When she saw her lover she stopped short, pleased and yet surprised, for
he had told her that he was not coming back from the factory till late
afternoon.
And then, as he hurried up to her, there swept over her a feeling of
sharp misgiving.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked affrightedly.
He took hold of her arm and guided her to a brick path which was now, to
them both, filled with delicious associations, for it was here that they
had always come, during the few short weeks of their secret engagement,
to be alone together. Closed in on either side by old yew hedges, it was
the only part of the Bonnie Doon garden really sheltered from prying
eyes. Often, nay almost always, their first, their only, kisses, on any
given day, were taken and given here, between those high, impenetrable
walls of living green. To Jean the yew hedge walk had become holy
ground.
And so, as they turned the corner, the girl’s heart began to beat
quickly. Here it was that Harry always turned with a sudden, passionate
movement, and took her in his arms. But to-day her lover hurried her
along the uneven brick path until they reached the extreme end of the
shadowed walk.
Then, and not till then, he stopped, and faced her with the words: “We
can’t be married to-morrow——”
He had meant to add, “I am suspected of having poisoned my wife.” But he
found he could not utter the hateful words. They would not come.
And Jean? Gazing up into his haggard face she felt a mingled rush of
intense relief and deep, exultant love and tenderness. It moved her to
the soul to think that the postponement of their marriage could make him
look as he was looking now. But she was quickly, painfully, undeceived.
“A man came to see me at the works this morning to tell me that there
seems to be some doubt as to the cause of Emily’s death.”
Her face filled with deep surprise and dismay, but no suspicion of what
his words implied crossed her mind. All she did understand was that what
had happened had given this man who was so entirely her own, a terrible
shock.
“Why should that make any difference to our being married to-morrow
morning?” she asked in a low voice.
“Because neither your aunt nor your uncle would wish you to be married
to a man suspected of murder.” He spoke with harsh directness.
“Murder?” Jean Bower’s eyes flashed. She did not shrink, as he had
thought she would do; instead she threw herself on his breast and
pressed close up to him, putting her arms round his neck.
“If that is true, but I don’t believe it is true, then I want to marry
you at once—to-day rather than to-morrow, Harry. Oh, my love, my own
dear love, don’t look at me like that!”
His arms hungrily enfolded her, but he shook his head determinedly.
“Till the whole thing is cleared up, we’ve got to face this trouble
separately.”
“No! No! _No!_” she exclaimed, looking up eagerly, piteously, into his
drawn face. “Not separately, but together, Harry.”
And it was he, not she, who broke down as she pressed up closer to him,
for, to her agonized distress, he pushed her away and broke into short,
gasping, hard sobs.
“I can’t come back to the house,” he said at last. “Tell your uncle I’ll
meet him at the station, my darling.”
She saw he was making a great effort over himself, and very gallantly
she “played up.”
“All right, I’ll tell him. But Harry?”
“Yes?” he said listlessly.
“You’ll go now and get something to eat. Promise?” and for the first
time her lips quivered.
“I promise.”
Again he took her in his arms. Their lips met and clung together. At
last, “Oh, Jean,” he whispered brokenly, “do you think we shall ever be
happy again?”
“Of course we shall,” she said confidently.
And then she walked with him through the wintry, bare garden to the
field where there was a gate which gave into the road leading to
Grendon. There they did not kiss again. They only shook hands quietly.
CHAPTER VIII
The scene shifts to London—London, so indifferent, so cruel, so drab a
city to those whom she is stranger, not mother.
Harry Garlett and Dr. Maclean had gone to a city hotel where they felt
sure that they would run little risk of meeting any one from their part
of the world.
And it was there, within sound of what he vaguely felt to be the
comforting roar of London’s busiest traffic, that Garlett paced up and
down a big private sitting room in the cold, foggy atmosphere of a
December afternoon, while he waited for the doctor’s return from the
Criminal Investigation Department of the Home Office.
At last he stopped and looked at his watch. But for the cruel man or
woman who had written the anonymous letters of which Dr. Maclean had
told him, he and Jean would by now have been man and wife. He reminded
himself drearily that he had forgotten to cancel his order for the small
suite of rooms overlooking the Thames where they were to have spent
their Christmas honeymoon. Well, so much the better! It gave him a
little satisfaction to know that the rooms which were to have been the
scene of his ecstatic happiness were empty of life, of joy, of laughter,
for at least a little while.
The door of the darkened room burst open, and Dr. Maclean’s hearty voice
exclaimed exultantly: “Our trouble’s over! The Home Office is going to
take no further action in the matter——”
Then he shut the door, turning on, as he did so, the electric light.
“I had a great stroke of luck! One of the two men sent to examine me was
an old fellow-student of mine, a fellow called Wilson, an Aberdeen chap.
It made everything easy, of course.”
Putting his hat down on a table, he came close up to the other man.
“My God, Harry, don’t look like that! The trouble’s over, man—don’t you
understand?”
“You’re a good friend, Maclean. I’ll never forget how you’ve stood by me
in this thing——”
“Nonsense!” he said strongly. “I was as much in it as you were—your poor
wife was my patient, after all. I signed her death certificate.”
“I want to ask you a question—and I trust to you to answer it truly,”
said Harry Garlett in a low, tense tone.
“Ask away, man!”
The doctor said the words jokingly, but he felt hurt and
disappointed—tired, too. He had put every ounce of power he
possessed—and there was a good deal of power in Jock Maclean—into the
difficult interview he had just carried through so successfully.
“Did you obtain an assurance that the inquiry into the cause of Emily’s
death would never be reopened?”
Harry Garlett’s question made Dr. Maclean feel acutely uncomfortable. It
seemed to bring back, echoing in his ears, the last words that old
friend of his, Donald Wilson, had uttered: “The matter is now closed,
Maclean—unless, of course, anything in the form of real evidence be
tendered us.”
So it was that for a fraction of a minute he remained silent.
“I take it they gave you no such assurance?”
“How could they do such a thing?” exclaimed the other. “Come, Harry, be
reasonable!”
Garlett started once more his restless pacing up and down the now
brightly lit room; then, all at once, he turned on the older man.
“I consider myself entitled to such an assurance, and I won’t be
satisfied with less. The greatest indignity that can be put on an
innocent man has been put on me. You weren’t present during my interview
with that police inspector, Kentworthy! At first the man scarcely took
the trouble to conceal his belief that I was a murderer.”
As the other uttered an impatient exclamation, he added: “Can’t you see
what it would mean to me, to Jean, to feel that awful possibility always
hanging over us? I’ve made up my mind to go to the Home Office myself
to-morrow morning. If they refuse to give me an assurance that the
matter is closed once and for all, I shall insist on my right to an
exhumation order.”
“Then you will do a stupid, as well as a very cruel and selfish thing,”
said the doctor sharply.
“Cruel? Selfish? I don’t follow you——” And as the other remained silent
he went on, in a low voice, “Again I ask you to try and realize what it
would mean—not only to myself but to Jean—if, after we had been married
say six months, or a year, we suddenly learnt that an exhumation order
had been issued.”
Dr. Maclean began to feel thoroughly angry.
“Pull yourself together, man,” he said sharply, “and don’t go havering
on as to what might happen—I am thinking of what will certainly happen
if you follow the course you propose.”
Harry Garlett stared at Dr. Maclean. “What d’you mean?”
“I mean that you’ve really only been considering yourself in this
matter. You’re not really thinking of that poor little girlie who loves
you——”
“I _am_ thinking of her—only of her!”
“You’re doing nothing of the sort. If you had only yourself to think of
you might insist on settling this horrible matter at once for all in the
drastic way you propose. But to do so now would be a cruel wrong to
Jean.”
He waited a moment, then, speaking very solemnly, he went on:
“Most people are convinced of the truth of that evil old proverb,
‘There’s no smoke without fire.’ The fact that your wife’s body had been
exhumed, and certain portions of that poor body submitted to certain
tests by a government expert, would never be forgotten.”
“I suppose that’s true,” said Garlett slowly, and Dr. Maclean pursued
his advantage.
He put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder, “For God’s sake, let the
matter rest. As things are now I regard it as practically certain that
this painful business will never be known beyond just our four selves.”
“Our four selves?” repeated Harry Garlett uncertainly.
“Of course, man! Myself, my wife, Jean and you.”
There was a long pause, and Dr. Maclean, with intense relief, believed
that he had gained his point. But suddenly Harry Garlett exclaimed:
“It’s no use, Maclean! I can’t see it as you do. I shall go to the Home
Office to-morrow morning.”
“I suppose you agree that Jean has a right to be consulted before you
take a step that may cloud all her future life?”
“I know Jean will agree with me,” said Harry Garlett obstinately.
“Give her a chance of hearing the other side, man. Damn it all! You do
owe me something——”
He turned toward the door. “I’ll telephone my wife to bring the girl up
to-night.” Without waiting for the other’s assent he left the room.
Then, for he was an upright man, and not given to deceiving himself, Dr.
Maclean stayed his steps for a moment on the big, empty hotel landing.
He was asking himself whether, after all, Harry Garlett might not be
taking the right course in settling this painful, degrading question
once for all. He had felt, in spite of the courtesy, nay, the kindness,
with which he had been treated at the Home Office, that an uncomfortable
suspicion did still linger in the minds of the two men with whom he had
had his difficult interview. Deep in his heart he was well aware that it
was the fortunate accident of his old acquaintance with that now
important government official, Donald Wilson, coupled, of course, with
his own absolute conviction that Mrs. Garlett had died a natural death,
which had achieved what at the moment had seemed such a triumph.
It was five hours later. The hotel sitting room was in darkness, save
that no uncurtained room in London is ever really dark, and there was
also a little fire in the black grate. But no one coming in casually
would have seen the two who sat on the sofa hand in hand.
As soon as Jean and her aunt had arrived, there had begun the painful,
difficult consultation—if, indeed, consultation it could be called, for
Jean and the man she loved had listened in silence while the doctor and
Mrs. Maclean tried to dissuade Harry Garlett from taking the course he
meant to pursue.
At last, after having used every conceivable argument, husband and wife
got up together.
“Let us go down and have a little supper,” said the doctor. “After that
you two shall come up here alone and talk it over. Don’t be in too great
a hurry to make up your mind, Harry. Weigh everything, and, above all,
remember that ‘What’s done can’t be undone.’”
And now at last they were alone together. For a while neither of them
spoke, and then Harry Garlett said quietly, “Your uncle has made me see
one thing, my dearest. That I ought to leave the decision with you.”
“If the decision rests with me, then I say—do what you feel right.”
Moving up closer to him, she whispered: “The only thing that matters to
me—surely you know it—is our love. Nothing can take that away. After
all, we’re not bound to go on living in Terriford.”
“That’s true!” he exclaimed. “All the same, remember that if you feel
the slightest doubt I’ll put aside my wish.”
“I feel not the slightest doubt. On the contrary, I’m quite sure,” she
answered, without a tremor in her voice, “that whatever you feel should
be done will be well done.”
Big Ben was booming out the hour of half-past ten as Harry Garlett was
ushered into one of the bare waiting rooms of the Criminal Investigation
Department. And it seemed to him a long time before the door opened
again to admit the man he had asked to see.
Dr. Wilson was a good-humoured, cheerful-looking Scot, very much on the
alert, and, if the truth be told, though it was a truth mercifully
concealed from Garlett, a man sufficiently interested in human nature to
feel a considerable thrill at seeing face to face a human being he was
strongly inclined to believe a successful murderer.
“I’m told you’ve specially asked to see me, Mr. Garlett. So I take it
you’ve not seen our mutual friend, Dr. Maclean? He spent a couple of
hours here yesterday, and I think I may go as far as to assure you that
unless some new and unexpected development should take place, the matter
concerning which Mr. Kentworthy came down to Terriford will go no
further.”
“Does that mean,” asked Harry Garlett quietly, “that I may rest assured
that no order for the exhumation of my late wife will ever be issued?”
The Scotsman looked at him keenly. “We could not give such an assurance
to any living man, Mr. Garlett. Not even,” he smiled grimly, “to the
Lord Chancellor or the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Then the speaker’s whole manner changed—it became grave, official.
“Perhaps,” he went on, “I had better send for my colleague, and, may I
add, my superior, Mr. Braithwaite? He will tell you exactly how the
matter stands.”
“That,” said Garlett firmly, “is what I have come here to discover—I
mean exactly how the matter stands.”
Dr. Wilson left the room, and when at last, after what seemed a long
delay to the waiting man, he did come back, he was accompanied by a
younger official. Garlett, perhaps by now morbidly sensitive, noticed
that the new man only bowed; he did not shake hands with him, as Dr.
Wilson had done.
“I understand that you wish to know exactly how the matter stands with
regard to the action we took on the receipt of certain anonymous letters
concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett?”
“What I wish to know,” said Garlett coldly, “is not how the matter
stands, but how _I_ stand.”
As neither of the men opposite him answered his question, he went on
deliberately: “Though I believe I was successful in convincing of my
innocence the police inspector you sent down to make inquiries, he made
it clear to me that nothing short of an exhumation would set the matter
absolutely at rest.”
“In saying such a thing,” said Mr. Braithwaite sharply, “Kentworthy went
very much beyond his instructions. But of course I admit that in a
sense, speaking to you as man to man, he spoke the truth.”
Harry Garlett looked fixedly at the speaker, as if suddenly dowered with
something like second-sight. He could almost see the interrogation mark
in Mr. Braithwaite’s mind: “Is this man standing here before me an
innocent man, or that vilest form of murderer—the secret poisoner?”
Speaking in a hard, composed tone of voice, he said firmly:
“I will be open with you, gentlemen. You probably know that I am going
to be married. Putting myself out of the question, I feel that for the
sake of my future wife I am compelled to ask the Home Secretary to issue
an exhumation order. Surely I have the right, as an Englishman
accused—however you may gloss over the fact—of the hideous crime of
murder, to insist on the only thing that can absolutely clear me?”
At that moment Harry Garlett triumphed. The two civil servants looked at
one another, each of them convinced that the man who had just spoken
those strong, determined words was innocent.
“Have you the slightest conception of what will happen if the Home
Secretary accedes to your request, Mr. Garlett?” The words were uttered
gravely and kindly.
“Do you realize that it will be impossible for the fact of the
exhumation of your wife’s body to be concealed from the press—not only
the local press, mind you, but the press of the whole country?”
“Yes, I do realize that. In fact, everything to be said against an
exhumation has been put to me, and very strongly, by Dr. Maclean.”
“Then why not let the matter rest for the present?” interposed Dr.
Wilson. “While it is obviously impossible for us to give you any
promise, unofficially we can assure you that the matter is closed, and
that only in the case of real evidence of foul play would it be
reopened.”
Mr. Braithwaite chimed in: “Forgive me for alluding to your private
affairs, but may I say that what you are now asking us to do may be a
very grave matter for the lady who is going to be your wife, Mr.
Garlett?”
“We talked it over last evening, and I left the final decision to her.
So you see that it is her wish as well as mine that the matter should be
laid to rest for ever in the only way it can be laid to rest.”
And then, speaking with deep feeling, he exclaimed:
“Put yourselves in my place! Think what you would feel”—he looked from
one to the other of the men who were confronting him—“if you were
situated as I am situated. Would you not do everything in your power to
put an end, once for all, to so horrible, so hideous a suspicion?”
“I wonder if I should,” said Mr. Braithwaite musingly. “Honestly, I
don’t feel at all sure!”
He waited a moment.
“You formally ask that an exhumation order be issued, Mr. Garlett?”
“Yes, I do most earnestly ask that it may be issued. Nay, more, I regard
it as my right.”
Both men shook hands with him, yet after the last echoes of their
visitor’s footsteps had died away, they simultaneously exclaimed the one
to the other: “I don’t know what to think—do you?”
“It isn’t often that you and I are so absolutely of one mind, Wilson,
eh?” Mr. Braithwaite spoke jokingly, but there was an undercurrent of
deep questioning in his voice. “If Garlett is guilty, then he’s the most
cunning devil of the many cunning devils you and I have come across! But
of one thing we may be quite sure—nothing of a surprising nature will be
found in the poor woman’s body. If our friend did kill her, he has
completely covered up his tracks!”
“I am inclined to believe,” said the other hesitatingly, “that Garlett
is an absolutely innocent man.”
“In that case, God help the poor devil! He doesn’t know what he’s
letting himself in for,” observed Braithwaite. “He’ll be a marked man
all his life. Think of what a country town can be like for malice and
all uncharitableness.”
“I wonder,” said the Scotsman, “if it’s the girl who’s driven him to
this extreme course? What if she’s made her marriage conditional on all
this mess being cleared up? She may have done that—if she’s a fool. It’s
plain he’s entirely devoted to her.”
“Kentworthy says they were talked about long before his first wife’s
death.”
“I didn’t forget _that_ fact just now,” said Dr. Wilson smiling. “When
he first spoke of the girl I said to myself: ‘She’s the cause of all the
mischief. Keep clear of the sex, Donald, my boy!’”
CHAPTER IX
Ten long days, including the quietest Christmas ever spent in Bonnie
Doon, and then on the second day of the New Year—“A letter for you, Miss
Jean, from the Thatched House.” Elsie’s dour face softened as the girl
eagerly tore open the envelope.
MY DEAREST LOVE,
I find I can’t come to-night as I had hoped to do, but I will be with
you early to-morrow morning.
Always your
HARRY.
Jean remembered that a telegram had come for her uncle a few moments
ago. Now telegrams were always being delivered at Bonnie Doon, but some
secret instinct now seemed to tell her that this time the telegram had
had something to do with her lover and his affairs.
She walked into the doctor’s study, and when he saw who it was, he
opened the top drawer of the writing table at which he was sitting, and
slipped something into it.
“Well?” he said, looking up, “Well, my dear, what d’you want?”
She came close up to the table, and he was dismayed to see how sad and
suffering was the expression on her young face.
“Uncle Jock,” she said in a low voice, “Harry has just sent me word that
he can’t come this evening. I suppose——” and then she stopped short;
somehow she could not bring herself to say the horrible words. But at
last she whispered: “I suppose they are going to dig up poor Mrs.
Garlett’s coffin to-night?”
Dr. Maclean rose from his chair; he put his arm round the girl’s
shoulder. “Yes,” he said quietly, “you have guessed aright, Jean. The
exhumation is to take place to-night, and Harry and I will both, of
course, be present.”
He could feel her trembling, and he saw her right hand open and shut.
“You must remind yourself,” he went on, “that what is going to be done
to-night marks the beginning of the end—as far as Harry’s painful ordeal
is concerned. You and I know—indeed I am convinced that even those who
have ordered the exhumation feel as sure of it as we do—that the result
will be nil; that is to say, from our point of view, absolutely
satisfactory.”
“I know that,” she murmured in a strangled voice. “But I don’t feel as
if that knowledge made the shame of it any easier to bear—now.”
He felt startled. It was the first time that Jean had admitted that
there was any shame to be faced.
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed vigorously. “Think what you would be
feeling—what I should be feeling—if we had the slightest doubt about the
matter?”
She had moved away, and was looking at him with wide-open eyes.
“I—I don’t understand,” she stammered.
“Forget yourself and Harry for a moment.” He felt that a touch of
sternness, even of roughness, would do the girl good just now. “Think of
what the innocent friends, ay, and lovers, of a real murderer must feel
when the net is slowly but inexorably closing round him. Supposing you
half suspected, or a quarter suspected, or even a hundredth part
suspected—the man you love?”
The girl smiled; but it was a wan, pitiful smile.
“I can’t imagine such a thing. And you know I can’t, Uncle Jock.”
“Are you going to answer Harry’s note?” he asked abruptly.
“Do you think I ought?”
“I do! I think you ought to write him a cheerful brave letter, reminding
him that this is the beginning of the end, and that within a very short
time you and he will have come out from the darkness into the sunshine.”
She went straight round the writing table, and leaning down, drew a
sheet of notepaper toward her. She wrote:
MY DARLING HARRY,
I know what is going to happen to-night. I want you to remember that
it is the beginning of the end; that very soon, in a few days at most,
we shall have come out from the darkness into the sunshine.
Your own loving
JEAN.
And then, after she had addressed the envelope, she put her hands over
her face, and burst into a passion of anguished sobs.
Sheltered by the heavy pall of a dark winter night, Jean Bower, six
hours later, crept out of the garden door of Bonnie Doon into the lonely
country road which led to Terriford churchyard. It was a bitterly cold,
as well as a dark, night, but it was not the cold and darkness which
made her tremble so violently that she found it difficult to shut the
front door behind her.
For almost the first time in her life she was doing a thing which she
believed to be wrong. She knew that not only her uncle and aunt, but
also her lover, would be profoundly distressed and shocked by what she
had long ago secretly determined she would do—that is, share, in as far
as was possible without his being aware of it, Harry Garlett’s horrible
ordeal.
After an evening during which none of the three had spoken of what was
filling all their minds and hearts, she had waited in her bedroom,
trying to read, until close to midnight. Then there had come the sound
of the front door shutting softly behind Dr. Maclean, and, allowing him
a good quarter of an hour’s start, she had crept down the stairs, and
followed him.
Jean’s eyes soon became accustomed to the darkness, and when she knew
herself to be close to the wrought-iron gate which led into the grounds
of the Thatched House, she waited a moment, scarcely daring to breathe,
for she felt that it would be terrible for her, and horribly painful to
them both, were she to meet Harry Garlett on the way to his sinister
tryst.
As she walked up the broad, now deserted, village street, at the top of
which were the church and churchyard with only fields and country lanes
beyond, there was a red glow over the sky, and she could see the roof
and clock-tower of the church outlined against it. She told herself,
vaguely, that a house must be on fire somewhere far away, but the
thought scarcely stirred her, so intent was she on the dreadful thing
that was about to be done.
When she came close up to the lych-gate she stayed her steps and
listened intently. But there was neither stir nor sound, and she
reminded herself that Mrs. Garlett’s grave lay the other side of the
church and so even in daylight was completely hidden from where she was
now standing.
She had moved a step forward, her foot kicking aside a stone as she did
so, when all at once a bull’s-eye lantern was turned full on her. Giving
a stifled cry of surprise and fear, she waited, shrinkingly, for a stern
inquiry as to her name and business to follow. But to her mingled relief
and amazement it was a kindly, if a gruff, voice which came out of the
darkness.
“Well, missie? Come to see the fun, I suppose?”
“The fun?” Could the still invisible man have said “the fun”?
Then the lantern was lifted a little, and by its gleaming light she saw
a burly figure dressed in a plain chauffeur’s uniform. Slowly he turned
his lantern round, and then she became aware that drawn up under an
evergreen oak overhanging the banked-up churchyard wall was a huge
police motor car.
Again the man spoke, but this time it was in a whisper: “If ye’ll
promise not to cry out, or faint, or do summat silly o’ that sort, I’ll
get you a good sight of it all——”
“Thank you very much,” she faltered, feeling overwhelmed with shame and
confusion.
He went on: “Though ’tis a gruesome sight, sure-lye, for a young gal to
want to see? But there! I’ve been young myself, and I can mind when I
wanted to see every earthly thing there was to see, ’owever fearsome——”
“I should like to see it,” she whispered back in a trembling voice, “but
only if I can do so without being seen by any one who’s there.”
“Trust to me, missie! I’ll make that all right,” he said reassuringly.
“They’ll be much too busy over their job to trouble about you or me. You
come right through ’ere.”
He half pushed, half led her through the lych-gate, and turning his
lantern toward the ground, slowly preceded her, as they threaded their
way between the gray and white gravestones.
“I’ve brought a party of six,” he muttered huskily, “and apart from the
grave-diggers, and the undertaker’s little lot, there’s the corpse’s
doctor, so I understand, as well as the fine gentleman who did ’is poor
lady in.”
Jean Bower stayed her steps.
“You mustn’t say that—for Mr. Garlett is innocent of having done any
wrong.”
She felt convulsed with pain and anger, though her words were whispered
quietly enough.
The man turned round. “Every man and every woman, too,” he muttered
huskily, “is hinnocent, as we well knows, until found guilty. But it
stands to reason, don’t it, that this kind of thing ain’t done for
nothing? ’E ’as got a nerve to be ’ere to-night at all—’e needn’t ’a
been.”
A moment later, turning round again, he asked with sudden suspicion,
“You’ve nothing to do with ’im—eh? You’re not an hinterested party, eh?”
And then Jean Bower, who had never told a lie, lied. “No, I’m just a
visitor to Terriford,” she murmured.
Reassured, he went on, keeping near the low wall, as far from the church
as was possible.
Suddenly a turn in the narrow way between the graves left the church to
their right, and Jean saw before her what she had come to see, and
instinctively she clutched hold of her companion’s strong arm and clung
to it, feeling sick and faint.
Lighted by two big flares, whence had come the curious glow which Jean
had thought caused by a distant fire, a group of men were moving about
close to, and just below, the walls of the old stone church; and
stretching in dancing, shadowy lines on the gravestones round, the men’s
shadows came and went in queer, grotesque shapes.
Moving very slowly, her companion advanced nearer and nearer to the
strange, uncannily silent scene, at which Jean, gathering a desperate
courage from within herself, stared with affrighted eyes. Then all at
once she saw the man whose image filled her heart.
Harry Garlett was standing almost exactly facing her, at the head of
Emily Garlett’s open grave. He seemed quite incurious of what was being
done, for he was staring straight before him, his bare head flung back.
“The Home Office gent ’as ’is back turned to us,” whispered Jean’s
companion. “’E’s ’ere to see that there’s no tampering with the poor
lady’s remains.”
The girl pressed forward, shrouded in a darkness which was made the more
intense by the bright light shed by the flares beyond, and, gradually,
she began to realize exactly what was taking place in the lighted-up
space before her.
Four men, two on each side of what looked like a deep, narrow trench,
were exerting all their strength to lift the coffin up out of what Jean
knew to be the freshly opened grave of Harry Garlett’s wife. And, after
what seemed to the agonized watcher a long, long time, they succeeded in
their task. Then there came the sound of heavy, muffled footsteps; out
of the darkness stepped two other men, and the six together placed the
coffin on to a hand bier which Jean had not noticed before.
“They’ll take her to that cottage yonder: I helped to get it ready for
’em,” muttered her companion hoarsely.
“What cottage?” she asked, surprised.
“Not better than a dog kennel!—but good enough for the gentleman from
London—him what they call a hanalist—’e who’s the cause of many a
’anging,” whispered the man.
And then Jean remembered that on the other side of the churchyard wall,
standing in a field, was a kind of shanty which she knew had been
condemned, largely owing to her uncle’s efforts, as unfit for human
habitation some months ago.
She forced herself to ask what was to her an all-important question.
“Is it there that they’ll find out what Mrs. Garlett died from?”
“Lord, no!” he exclaimed, astonished at such ignorance, “that’s a long
business—that’s done in London.”
“Then what will they do there?” she asked, puzzled and disappointed, and
with no prevision of his answer.
“Well, missie, what’ll be done in that cottage over there won’t be a
pleasant job. I’m glad I’m not in it.”
“What are they going to do?” she breathed.
“They’ll take parts of the lady’s inside and put them into jars. Then
the poor soul will rest once more in her coffin. Meanwhile, that which
’as been removed (if you take my meaning) will be taken away to London,
and it’s according to the report of the gentleman I pointed out to you
just now whether the ’usband will get off scot-free or whether he’ll
swing.”
He uttered the dreadful words in a matter-of-fact tone, and Jean turned
suddenly sick and faint.
“Will you help me back to the gate?” she muttered. “I don’t want to stay
here any longer.”
“Not just a few minutes more?” he asked, disappointed. “If you goes now,
you’ll miss the most hinteresting part of the whole affair. They’re just
going to unscrew the coffin, and take her out, and it isn’t as if we was
near enough to see anything that ’ud frighten you——”
But, already, Jean had turned and was blindly making her way back, among
the gravestones, toward the lych-gate.
She was bitterly, bitterly sorry now that she had come. She felt that as
long as she lived the memory of to-night would remain most presently and
horribly vivid to her, and she knew that it was a memory of shame and
horror she must ever bear alone.
“Don’t ’e look like a murderer?”
“Course he does—he is one!”
Harry Garlett turned sharply round. For a moment his weary face, his
shrunken eyes, glanced quickly this way and that, seeking to find out
who had uttered those cruel words.
It was the day following the night of the exhumation, and market day in
Grendon. On the high paved sidewalk there paced up and down, jostling
one another, a crowd of men, though here and there a woman, a farmer’s
wife or daughter, mingled in the throng.
And then all at once Garlett realized that as he stepped quickly along,
people were pointing him out to one another, and that many of them were
staring at him, some furtively, but the majority with an eager, pitiless
stare of almost savage curiosity.
A boy selling the local daily, a small sheet called _The Grendon News_,
came bounding along, and he could hardly hand the paper out quickly
enough to those who had not already got it in their hand.
Harry Garlett called out: “Here, boy, I want that paper!” and at the
sound of his harsh voice the men round him all fell silent, and stared
at him with a more pitiless curiosity than before.
He took the paper, paid the boy, and held it out. Right across the
little local sheet, in as big type as had been set out the declaration
of war in August, 1914, ran the words “Exhumation of Mrs. Emily
Garlett.”
He walked on, hardly knowing what he was doing, and yet horribly aware
that his fellow townsmen and country neighbours were now forming a lane,
leaving the way clear for him alone on the pavement.
Not a face smiled in greeting, not a hand was stretched out to him of
the many hands there which had so often grasped his in kindly
friendship, or in fervent admiration of his cricketing prowess.
At last he reached what he believed would be to him a place of refuge.
But as he turned into the great square courtyard of the Etna China
factory, he saw faces glued to every window-pane.
His coming had been heralded, and all these people with whom he had been
on such happy, friendly terms till yesterday, were now staring at him as
if he were some terrible wild beast.
But having gazed, as they hoped furtively, their fill, they melted
quickly away from the windows. He was, after all, their employer, the
master of their destinies, until——?
He hurried into the hall, and turned into the clerks’ room. “Any one
called yet?”
“No, sir, no one.”
The man who spoke to him looked much as usual, the other clerk had a
foolish, nervous grin on his face.
He walked on into his own room, took off his hat and coat, sat down, and
forced himself to open the letters which lay as usual piled on his desk.
Then he telephoned through to the room where his young lady shorthand
writer must be awaiting his summons. But there came no answer to his
call.
He waited five minutes, then tried to get through to her again—without
result. Then he got up and went to the clerks’ room. “Where is Miss
Faring?” he asked.
His head clerk hesitated a moment. “Miss Faring’s mother brought a note
about half an hour ago, sir. I’m sorry I forgot it.”
He handed his employer a black-bordered envelope, and Harry Garlett,
walking out of the room, opened the note in the hall.
DEAR MR. GARLETT,
I am sure you will agree with me that under the circumstances it is
far better that my daughter should suspend her work with you for the
present. I hope you will not think it impertinent of me to say that
you and Miss Bower have both been so very kind to Nancy that I trust
with all my heart that the terrible things that are being said about
you both are not true. Nay, I will go further, dear Mr. Garlett, and
say that I am sure they are not true.
Yours very truly,
MARY FARING.
Terrible things said about Jean and himself? This was a far greater, a
more agonizing, blow, than anything he had yet experienced.
He walked into his room and, careless of possible interruption, sat down
and buried his head in his hands.
Jean—the subject of low, coarse gossip? Jean—the subject of odious
innuendo?
He started up and began walking up and down the room. The fearful ordeal
of last night, the horror attendant on his recent hideous progress
through the High Street—everything was forgotten in the news conveyed in
Mrs. Faring’s letter.
Garlett was a proud and sensitive man. He had put aside, as he would
have done a noxious sight or smell, those half questions put to him by
James Kentworthy, the detective, concerning his relationship with Jean
Bower. But now the memory of those questions, those veiled insinuations,
came back, and with that memory the agonized realization that Jean Bower
had been even then suspected as providing the motive for an otherwise
motiveless crime.
But, fortunately for most of us at some time of our lives, work has to
be done—whatever betide. So at last the unhappy man sat down and began
the tedious task of answering with his own hand the letters which
otherwise he would have dictated. As he did so, he found himself, for
the first time in his life, struggling with two distinct currents of
thought—the one superficial, concerning the letters he was writing; the
other still passionately concerned with the news contained in Mrs.
Faring’s letter. In vain he now tried to assure himself that his and
Jean’s ordeal was bound to be a short one, and that once the Government
analyst’s report was published he would be able to take up life again
exactly as it had been.
Well he knew, _now_, that life could never be the same again. If he
remained at Terriford he realized that even if he lived to be a very old
man, there would always be somebody ready to point him out as the man
who had been suspected of having murdered his first wife for love of the
woman who had become his second.
Though he had arrived very late at the factory, he had never spent a
morning there which seemed so long and dreary. None of his usual
business associates came in to see him, no one even rang him up on the
telephone. It was as though a desert had been created round about him,
and bitterly he felt the humiliation, the degradation, of it all.
At one o’clock he got up, and, putting on his hat and coat, went into
the clerks’ room: “I shall not be here this afternoon,” and then
painfully he hesitated. Yesterday he would have added, “Should you want
me—get through to Bonnie Doon,” but that stinging sentence in Mrs.
Faring’s letter stopped his saying that.
“Should you want me,” he said quietly, “I shall be at the Thatched House
after three o’clock.”
He had tried to speak, to look, as usual, but he knew that he had
failed.
In the hall he waited irresolutely. No, he would not go out, as usual,
through the courtyard, as perhaps another kind of man would have done.
Grimly he told himself that, in a sense, he accepted defeat. He felt he
could not face again the stares of his workpeople and of his fellow
townsmen.
Taking a rusty key off its hook, he walked through the now empty
shuttered rooms which had once been the home of his wife’s parents. He
hurried through the silent, cobwebbed kitchen into the narrow, sunless
garden. A door at the bottom of the garden led into an alley which was
an unfrequented and generally more or less deserted way of getting out
of the town.
He hurried through the door, and once out there he felt as if he
breathed a lighter air. And yet, as he hastened along, it seemed to his
excited fancy that he could hear the busy murmur of voices, cruel,
spiteful, eager voices—all talking of him, of his poor dead wife, and,
hideous thought, Jean.
At last, after passing through some mean and sordid streets, he reached
the open country, and the clean, keen air worked something like a
miracle in his tortured brain. By the time he opened the front door of
Bonnie Doon he was almost himself again, filled with joy at the thought
of seeing Jean, the only human being to whom he could pour out his
heart, and who could bring him comfort.
Elsie, the cook, came quickly out of her kitchen.
“Eh, Mr. Garlett,” she exclaimed, “I’ve been watching for ye! D’you mind
going into the doctor’s study? Miss Jean’s not down yet.”
“She’s not ill?”
“No, no—only tired. Don’t ye fash yourself,” said the good woman.
And then the door of the doctor’s study opened.
“Come in here, Garlett, just for a minute, will you?”
Was it his fancy, or was Dr. Maclean’s voice cold—cold to sternness?
“Jean was in the churchyard last night,” began the doctor without any
preamble. “She didn’t mean us to know—but my wife got it out of her—and
it’s smashed her up. I’ve given her a soothing draught, and I want her
to stay in bed quietly all to-day. I meant to ring you up, but we didn’t
expect you till this afternoon.”
He spoke in a low, preoccupied tone. “I’m sure you’ll understand, my
dear fellow,” his voice softened as he used the affectionate
appellation, “that I think it’s best you shouldn’t see her to-day.
You’ll see her to-morrow, no doubt.”
Harry Garlett remained silent. He was sick with horror at the thought
that Jean had been in the churchyard.
“Why did you let her come last night?” he asked roughly.
“_I_ let her come?” repeated Dr. Maclean sharply. “It’s the last thing I
should have thought her capable of doing. It’s the first time her aunt
and I have found her out in doing anything deceitful or—well, I can only
call it indelicate! But there, she felt half distraught. It’s fortunate
that it’s only a fortnight now—it may be three weeks at the
longest—before everything will be cleared up.”
“And how are we to get through the fortnight or three weeks?” asked
Garlett hoarsely.
His mind was full of what had happened that morning, but he told himself
with relief that of what was apparently being said in Grendon Dr.
Maclean knew nothing.
“Come, come, man—show a little courage! You’ve a long life of happiness
and prosperity before you. How few can say that!”
“I know that I’m not reasonable,” muttered Garlett.
“But there’s one thing, Harry”—the older man bent forward and laid his
hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “There’s one thing, my boy, I’m
minded to say to you, and I expect you to take it in a sensible, upright
way.”
“I’ll try to, sir.”
“Both Mrs. Maclean and myself feel very strongly that during this time
of waiting you should see very little of Jean. We haven’t the heart to
say you’re not to meet at all, though we think that would be the best
plan. But we do think you should do nothing to give cause for any talk
or gossip—even in the village.”
As Garlett made no answer, the doctor went on reluctantly, “I can hardly
bear to bring myself to soil my lips with what, however, I feel must be
said. You are probably not aware that there has been talk about you and
Jean?”
“I was not aware of it till this morning,” said Garlett in a low, shaky
voice, “though of course Kentworthy asked me some strange questions.”
“Ay, so he did me! Even here there’s been, it seems, a lot of poisonous
gossip. I’ve traced one story direct to Miss Prince—a story of how you
and that poor girl upstairs walked home on the day before your wife
died.”
“Did we?” said Harry Garlett in a dull voice. “I’d forgotten that. I
daresay we did. For the matter of that I’ve walked home from Grendon to
Terriford with most of our neighbours in the last thirteen years,
including Miss Prince herself.”
“I know that,” said the doctor quickly. “But to come back to the matter
in hand. I don’t want to be unreasonable, but I do hope that you will
both behave—well, how can I put it?—with sense and discretion. After
all, it isn’t very long to wait; you’ll be married within less than a
month from now, and then you’ll be together for always. Till you’re
married, I’m quite sure you’d best see as little as possible of one
another.”
“I quite see what you mean, and I daresay you’re right.” He was
beginning to feel himself a pariah.
“I’ll be going back to the Thatched House for lunch,” he went on
forlornly, remembering vividly how only yesterday he had been pressed to
come to-day to this house from which he now felt he was being expelled.
“I think that will be best,” said Dr. Maclean uncomfortably. “I’ll
telephone through and say you’re coming along.”
CHAPTER X
A fortnight to the day after the exhumation of Mrs. Garlett, Dr.
Maclean, after reading his necessary letters, walked through the hall
into the kitchen.
“Elsie,” he said abruptly, “I want your good help. First, go and tell
your mistress that I require to see her about something urgent and
private. Then get hold of Miss Jean and make her stay with you in here
till I have done with your mistress.”
The woman, an old and trusted friend by now, just nodded her head. “Ay,”
she said, “I’ll do all that.”
A few moments later Mrs. Maclean hurried into her husband’s study. “What
is it?” she asked breathlessly. “You shouldn’t frighten me like that,
Jock. ‘Secret and urgent’ indeed!”
“Lock the door,” he said briefly.
She turned the key in the lock, and came over close to where he was
sitting. “What is it, Jock?”
He did not answer for a moment, and then he said very quietly: “Harry
Garlett did poison his wife. He is to be arrested to-day, and we must
manage to get Jean away, if it’s in any way possible, before that
happens.”
She stared across into her husband’s set face, but, though utterly
amazed and horror-struck, she uttered no exclamation of surprise. She
simply waited to hear more.
“Well,” he said irritably, “well, Jenny, did you expect this?”
“_I_ expect it?” she exclaimed. “I expected it as little as you did. But
what makes you so certain, Jock? Is there no loophole of escape?”
And then she muttered as to herself, “It’s the child I’m thinking of.
What will happen to Jean—if this is true?”
“She’ll have to go through with it,” he said grimly. And then he handed
her a letter. It was marked “Private,” and ran as follows:
DEAR MACLEAN,
I feel I owe it to our old friendship to inform you that Garlett is to
be arrested to-morrow on the charge of having murdered his wife. I may
add, for your own information, that our man has found five grains of
arsenic, the largest amount ever given in his experience. It had
actually penetrated the graveclothes inside the coffin.
I hope you won’t think it impertinent on my part to suggest that you
would be wise to send your poor young niece as far away as may be. How
about Iona? Should she be required to give evidence, which I hope will
not be the case, she could always come back.
Yours in frantic haste,
DONALD WILSON.
There was a postscript:
Of course I have no business to write you this letter. I’m doing it
for old times’ sake. You may care to know that Kentworthy, though
shaken, still believes that Garlett may be innocent. K. has left the
Government service. It might be as well for Garlett to employ him in
getting up his case. His address is 100 Chancery Lane.
Mrs. Maclean read the letter twice through. Then she handed it back to
her husband.
“You’ll never get Jean to go away,” she said quietly. “She wouldn’t
believe Harry Garlett guilty if an angel from heaven came and told her
he was.”
“But he _is_ guilty!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean, striking the table with his
hand.
“I don’t think you have any call to say that yet,” observed his wife.
“I shan’t say it out of this room till I have to get up and say it on
oath in the witness-box,” he said sombrely.
“Oh, Jock! Will you have to do that?”
“Of course I shall,” he answered bitterly—“and be known for the rest of
my life as the medical man who was bamboozled into giving a wrong death
certificate.”
Dismay kept her silent. Till this moment she had only thought of Harry
Garlett, and of how all this would affect Jean. She now realized what it
would mean to her husband.
She suddenly went very pale, and Dr. Maclean felt queerly touched. He
got up and laid his hand gently on her shoulder.
“Come, come, woman,” he said a little huskily. “Things are never as bad
as they look! Many a better man than I has made that kind of mistake. As
for Jean, she’s young yet. She’ll get over it, never fear.” As his wife
remained silent, he added: “It isn’t as if we’d been improvident—if need
be we can leave Terriford.”
“No,” said Mrs. Maclean in a low tone, “we must stay and face it out.
But as for Jean, we’ll have to make some plan. She won’t go away now—not
a hope of it. But if yon man’s hanged we’ll get her right away; I mean
to some place where no one will have heard about this awful thing—to my
sister in New Zealand, or to the MacPhersons in San Francisco.”
He looked at her, amazed. This was foresight with a vengeance. Why, she
had already tried, judged, condemned, and, yes, hanged, Harry Garlett!
“Till this morning,” he said with a groan, “I would have staked my life
on yon man’s innocence.”
And then Mrs. Maclean said something which startled her husband.
“It’s all so strange,” she said musingly, “because, as you well know,
Jock, he hardly knew our Jean _then_.”
“It had nothing to do with Jean!” he said violently. “For God’s sake,
Jenny, put that horrible idea out of your mind. The truth is—I can say
so to you—Emily Garlett had become impossible, intolerable——”
“If the man’s a murderer, you’re just trying to find excuses for him,”
she said dryly.
“Not excuses,” said Dr. Maclean sharply, “but a reason for his mad and
wicked act—yes.”
“And now,” said his wife slowly, “which of us is to tell the child, and
what will be the best way to break it to her?”
“I think,” said the doctor hesitatingly, “that you had better tell her,
my dear.”
“Perhaps I had, for she’s a bit afraid of me, and she hasn’t a shadow of
fear of you!”
But they might have saved themselves the trouble of their painful little
discussion, for, when they went into the kitchen, they found that Jean
had left the house without saying where she was going.
“I think she saw by my face that there was trouble afoot,” admitted
Elsie regretfully, for she just looked at me and said, “You can tell
them I’ve gone up to the village.”
“I hope she hasn’t gone to the Thatched House,” said Mrs. Maclean in a
dismayed tone.
“That is just where I feel certain she has gone,” said the cook
positively. “It’s all over the village, Mrs. Maclean, that they will be
arresting Mr. Garlett this morning. But the poor wean don’t know that.”
Driven by some instinct which she would have shrunk from analysing, Jean
Bower was hurrying toward the Thatched House.
It was the first time she was going there alone; but she had been
through what had seemed to her a time of measureless suffering this last
fortnight, and now had come the breaking point. She felt she must see
Harry Garlett—and alone.
“Jean! Jean! Stop!”
It was Miss Prince’s familiar voice, and unwillingly the girl turned and
stood at bay.
“You mustn’t go to the Thatched House this morning, my dear.”
A feeling of exasperated anger filled Jean’s already overburdened heart.
“I have something very important to tell Harry before he starts for the
factory,” she said quickly.
“I doubt if you’ll find him at home. He probably slept at the factory——”
The older woman looked into the girl’s flushed, rebellious face, with
genuine pity and concern.
“I think you ought to know, my dear, that the police came out to the
Thatched House while Harry was out last evening. They ransacked
everything, and turned out every drawer in the place.”
“Why—why did they do that?” asked Jean falteringly.
Probably for the first time in her life Miss Prince remained silent in
answer to a question. She had already heard the rumour that Harry
Garlett was to be arrested this morning.
“Let me go to the Thatched House,” she exclaimed, “and if Harry is there
I’ll ask him to come out here and speak to you. I don’t think you ought
to go there alone, in any case. Think what people would say?”
“I am going there,” said Jean firmly, “and I hope you won’t think me
rude, Miss Prince, if I say that I don’t care at all what people say.”
Without waiting for the other’s answer, she began to run, leaving Miss
Prince staring after her.
But after she had gone through the wrought-iron gate, she saw that a
little way up the broad path leading to the house the Terriford village
policeman was standing, as if barring the way.
Now Jean knew the young man well, for he had an invalid mother whom she
sometimes visited.
“Have you business up at the house, miss?” he asked hesitatingly.
She answered, “Of course I have, Jackson, or I shouldn’t be going
there,” and walked firmly on.
And then, all at once, with a leap of sudden joy she saw Harry Garlett
standing by the open front door of his house. The sight of him brought a
feeling of comfort, of reassurance, to her burdened heart. But as he
came forward to meet her, she realized that he was in a state of painful
excitement and anger.
“I tried to get through to your uncle about half an hour ago,” he
exclaimed, “but Elsie said he was out. I wanted to tell him myself of
the dastardly outrage committed here last evening! It scared away the
cook and her daughter, so I’m alone here.”
He hurried her into the hall, and then throwing his arms round her, he
strained her to him.
“It makes all the difference having you with me——”
Poor Jean! Since this great trouble had come upon them all, Mrs. Maclean
had seemed to think it almost unseemly for the lovers to be alone
together. Even the yew edge walk had become, by her plainly expressed
wish, forbidden ground.
It was wonderful to be alone with him like this, heart to heart, and
lips to lips; almost too wonderful to be true.
But at last the girl gently withdrew herself from Garlett’s enfolding
arms.
“What happened last night?” she asked.
“I suppose I’m a fool to mind,” he answered. “You are the only thing
that matters to me now, Jean. But I’d better tell you about it, for you
will have to know some time.”
“Yes?” she said, and taking up his hand she laid it against her cheek.
Though the mere fact that they were alone together brought with it deep
comfort as well as a hidden ecstatic bliss of which she was half
ashamed, she yet felt not only frightened, but terribly perplexed. What
did this that had happened last evening portend?
“The moment I’d turned the corner on my way to Bonnie Doon the police
came and ransacked everything here. I’ll show you the state in which
those brutes left my study!”
“Who did all this?” she asked.
“I met the Grendon inspector of police and his two underlings at the
gate, as I was coming home last night, and he said that they had acted
on instructions from London. D’you mind seeing my study, Jean?
Everything is exactly as they left it. I want Dr. Maclean to see it—the
rector, too! Of course I shall send in a claim for compensation.”
She followed him through the empty house, and then, at the door of what
had been an orderly, even a luxurious, room, she stopped, amazed at the
sight before her.
The cupboard doors of a large Chippendale bookcase were wide open, and
the books had been roughly turned out of the shelves and lay all over
the floor. The drawers of the writing table were drawn out as far as
they would go, and the top drawer, which had been locked, had been
wrenched open with some rough instrument.
As a girl Emily Garlett had collected shells, and her small shell
cabinet had been kept in this, her husband’s study. Even that had not
been spared rough desecration. The cotton wool on which the shells had
rested had been thrown out, and lay in wads on the carpet.
“This is the worst room,” said Harry Garlett quietly. “But my bedroom’s
in a pretty queer state, too, and as for the dining room, you’d think
burglars had been in it!”
“Did they say what they wanted to find?” asked Jean wonderingly.
“They made a regular mystery of it, and yet they were fools enough to
ask that poor old cook and her daughter if they had found any packets of
gray or white powder about!”
“Gray or white powder?” she said uncertainly.
“Not salt or pepper—arsenic!” he said bitterly.
Then he again took her in his arms, and kissed her with a passion that
half frightened her.
“God! What should I do if I hadn’t you?” he muttered.
She clung to him, and for a moment they forgot their great trouble.
“Oh, Jean, my darling, darling love—it’s been hell this last fortnight!”
he whispered. “D’you know that we’ve never been alone since we came back
from London?”
“They’ve been very cruel—though they meant to be kind,” she said in a
choking voice.
“Did _you_ feel them cruel?” he whispered.
As only answer she pressed more closely to him, and again in that
disordered, desecrated room, it was as if Heaven wrapped them round.
It was Jean who heard the sound of footsteps echoing across the hall;
and they had only just time to start apart when a loud voice called out:
“Is any one in this house? We are looking for Mr. Henry Garlett——” And
two men in uniform burst through the half-open door.
They looked taken aback when they saw that the man they sought was not
alone, and the elder of the two came up close to where Harry Garlett was
standing by Jean Bower’s side.
He asked civilly, “Can I speak to you in private——?” he hesitated, and
then added the word, “sir.”
Harry Garlett exchanged a quick look with the man, and then he turned to
Jean. “Will you go outside, into the garden? I’ll join you in a few
minutes.”
“Yes, miss, that’s what I advise you to do. You go out into the garden,”
the police inspector spoke in a very kindly, respectful, pitying tone.
But Jean had moved closer to her lover’s side. She took his arm, and
held it firmly.
“Say what you want to say to Mr. Garlett here,” she said. “I’m not going
to leave him.”
“I’m sure the gentleman would rather we had our talk by ourselves,
miss.”
Garlett said in a low voice, “He’s right, my dear. I do beg you to leave
me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said piteously. “Don’t be angry with
me, Harry.”
He tried to smile. “Nothing could make me angry with you, my darling.”
“Now, miss, can’t I persuade you to go out into the garden?”
“No,” said Jean. “I’m very sorry, but you can’t.”
“I’m sorry, too,” said the man. “But duty is duty.”
He put his hand lightly on Harry Garlett’s free arm.
“I now arrest you,” he said solemnly, “on a serious charge—that of
having murdered your wife, Mrs. Emily Garlett, on the twenty-seventh of
last May.”
It was the first time that such a duty had fallen to Inspector Johnson,
and he looked far more moved than did the man he had just put under
arrest.
“I must warn you,” he went on, “that anything you say henceforth may be
used in evidence against you.” And then inconsequently, he added: “Have
you nothing to say, Mr. Garlett?”
“The only thing I have to say,” said Harry Garlett, “is that I am
innocent.”
He gently freed his arm from Jean Bower’s detaining hand. “You must go
home now,” he said quietly, “and tell your uncle and aunt what has
happened.”
He turned to the inspector. “I take it, Mr. Johnson, that I shall be
allowed all reasonable opportunities of seeing my friends?”
“That is so,” said the man.
Then he made a sign to his subordinate, and they both turned their backs
while their prisoner and the girl who loved him bade each other a
silent, apparently an unemotional farewell.
But when she got out of doors, in front of the house, Jean suddenly
turned faint and giddy; it was as if her mind became a blank. She
covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God,” she prayed, “make me keep my
reason—and help me to help Harry.”
Then, with steady steps, she walked on, past the pitying young
policeman, and past the closed car in which she vaguely realized her
lover was about to be taken to Grendon prison.
CHAPTER XI
In every human drama where anguish, shame, despair, play a part, there
are always certain minor characters who deserve, though they never
receive, almost as much sympathy as do the principals in the tragedy.
As the doctor and his wife sat awaiting the return of Jean Bower, they
felt as if the whole of their happy, dignified house of life had fallen
into ruins about them. Deep in her troubled heart Mrs. Maclean was quite
as much concerned with the position of her husband as she was with that
of her niece, dearly as she loved the girl. For Jean was young enough to
start another life, and, as the years went on, all that was now
happening, and about to happen, would become a painful memory and
nothing more.
How different the case of her husband—to say nothing of herself!
Already Mrs. Maclean felt as if the doctor had aged perceptibly during
the last hour. He was sitting staring into the fire, doing nothing, not
even smoking. He had asked her to tell Elsie that he would not be at
home this morning to any patients, and that all calls must be telephoned
on at once to Dr. Tasker. It was worse, far worse, than if death,
unexpected, unheralded, and coming in some peculiarly terrible shape,
had entered the house.
The door opened, and they both turned round quickly. Speaking in a
hushed voice, Elsie said:
“I thought maybe you’d like to know that a machine has just driven past.
There was a policeman on the box, and I’m afraid—I make no doubt—that I
saw Mr. Garlett riding inside.”
She did not wait to hear her master’s comment on her piece of news, but,
with true delicacy, retreated quickly into her kitchen.
The husband and wife looked at each other, a dozen unspoken questions as
to the whereabouts of Jean remaining unuttered by either. At last Mrs.
Maclean said slowly: “I expect the child will be back in a few minutes;
she can’t but know what’s happened.”
“What you expect,” said her husband rather gruffly, “is neither here nor
there. What one expects never happens in this life. The only thing of
which we may be quite sure is that she won’t have been allowed into the
Thatched House. But as to whether she will know that Garlett has been
arrested depends on——”
And then as he said the word “on” they heard the front door open and
Jean’s steady, quiet voice: “Is Aunt Jenny upstairs, Elsie?” and Elsie’s
far more moved tones in answer: “The mistress is with the doctor, Miss
Jean, in the dining room.”
Dr. Maclean and his wife stood up—the door opened, and the girl looked
from one to the other.
“Harry’s been arrested for the murder of his wife,” she said, “and now
we’ve got to arrange for his defence.”
She turned and shut the door behind her.
“I couldn’t help hearing what you said to Elsie before I went out, for I
was just coming through the scullery. Was what you wanted to tell me,
both of you, anything about Harry?”
And then Mrs. Maclean did a fine thing. She would have given the world
to stay where she was, but she told herself that it would be far easier
for the girl to endure what had to be said if the two others were alone
together, and so, quietly, she left the room.
Jean came over to where the doctor was sitting. And though he still
remained silent, she saw his hand make an uncertain movement toward his
breast pocket.
“May I see the letter you had this morning? I think I ought to see it,
Uncle Jock.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I think you ought to see it. And I will go
further, my dear, and say you ought to ponder over its contents very
carefully.”
He handed her the letter his one-time fellow-student had written, and
she read it through—once quickly, and then once very slowly.
At last she let the piece of paper flutter down on to the hearth-rug.
He scarcely dared look at her, yet at last, when she did speak, there
was in her tone a ring of confidence, almost of happy confidence, that
somehow irritated him.
“The first thing we’ve go to do,” she exclaimed, “is to get Mr.
Kentworthy to come and see us. I don’t know what happens when an
innocent man is accused of murder. Who looks after his interests? Would
it be Mr. Toogood, the solicitor to the Etna China Company?”
“I suppose Mr. Toogood will be the solicitor in charge of the case,” he
answered gravely. “_I_ intend to get a London man.”
She gazed at him surprised. “How d’you mean? Why should you have a
solicitor, Uncle Jock?”
He got up. “Because,” he said, looking down into her flushed face, “I
gave a wrong death certificate.”
He could not help adding, with a touch of intense bitterness, “I am the
simple country doctor who was taken in, and who unwittingly abetted the
murderer in his foul deed.”
Then he sat down, heavily, in his armchair by the fire.
She threw herself on her knees on the ground before him. “You don’t
mean, you can’t mean, that you think Harry——?”
And there was something so piteous, so terrible, in the eyes that looked
up into his that he quailed before that searching accusing glance.
“The one thing we know for certain is that Emily Garlett died as the
result of a huge dose of arsenic,” he said quietly.
He stood up, and, putting out his hands, raised her from the ground. “If
you want to help this man, you must face the truth, my dear.”
“The truth?” she echoed.
“The truth that the whole world, on the evidence now available, will
consider Garlett guilty. You, I understand, believe him to be absolutely
innocent?”
“Absolutely innocent,” she repeated, in a steady voice; but in her
wide-open eyes there was a look of anguished questioning as to what he
believed.
Dr. Maclean could not face that look, and, hardly knowing what he was
doing, he walked over to the window and looked out into the wintry
garden.
Behind him were uttered tonelessly the words: “Would you mind my sending
a telegram to Mr. Kentworthy?”
He turned round. “Do so, by all means. And then I suppose we’d better go
and see Mr. Toogood, and I’ll apply for permission to see Garlett.”
“Do go on calling him Harry, Uncle Jock!”
“I will,” he said quickly. “I will, my dear. But you know that till very
lately I always did call him Garlett.”
As she was going towards the door, he called her back. “Do you feel,
under the circumstances, that you ought to stay here in Terriford?”
“D’you want me to go away, Uncle Jock?”
He groaned. “Want you to go away? Don’t you know what a difference your
coming here has made to me—as well as to your Aunt Jenny? We’ve never
talked about it, even to one another, but it’s been the one blot on our
happy married life that we had no child. You’ve become our child. Want
you to go away!”
She walked up to him and put her hand through his arm. She was very
moved, and for one fleeting moment she forgot Harry Garlett.
“Then why,” she faltered, “why did you say that cruel, cruel thing just
now, Uncle Jock?—I mean about my leaving Bonnie Doon?”
“Because,” he answered painfully, “if you stay here your life will
become unendurable between now and Harry’s trial. Your aunt and I have
already talked it over. She suggests you and she going away together to
some quiet spot where you can pass as Miss Maclean.”
“But why should I do that?” asked the girl in a bewildered tone. “I
don’t understand.”
He looked at her and saw what she said was true—that she was still quite
unaware of the tide of noisome gossip which had flowed over her name and
her innocent, girlish past since the exhumation of Mrs. Garlett.
“I supposed,” he said slowly, “that you were aware, Jean, of what the
people who believe Harry Garlett guilty take to have been his motive.”
He waited a moment, then saw that still no glimmer of his meaning
crossed her mind.
“Has it never occurred to you that Harry Garlett is believed to have
fallen in love with you before his wife died?”
“No one can believe that.” She spoke with entire conviction. “He hardly
knew me, and admits that he did not even like me. He would far rather
have had some one at the factory quite unconnected with his private
life. Why, he almost always turned over to Mr. Dodson any letters to
which answers had to be dictated!”
“I’m not telling you what _I_ believe—but what other people believe,” he
said in a low voice, and suddenly the full meaning of what his words
implied became clear to her.
“I can’t bear it,” she whispered, “oh, Uncle Jock, I can’t bear it!”
As even the best and the kindest of human beings will feel under stress
of circumstances, Dr. Maclean gathered a cruel courage from seeing her
distress.
“It would be very wrong to conceal from you what you are up against, my
dear. As far as the average man and woman can see, Harry Garlett was the
only human being in the world who could be affected in the smallest
degree by his wife’s death. The question of money is ruled out—there
only remains love.”
She turned on him in a flash. “Then you ought to admit his absolute
innocence, for you know as well as I do that he was very much vexed with
me for having written the letter that brought him back. It took him some
time,” she hesitated, “something like a month, before we became even on
friendly terms together. After that,” there came a radiant look into her
face, “after that I admit he came to love me, though even then——”
She stopped abruptly and covered her face with her hands.
He looked at her eagerly. Was it possible that she was going to reveal
some fact hitherto concealed by her that might throw light on the
mystery?
“Yes?” he said, “yes, Jean? What happened then?”
“Dr. Tasker happened,” she was smiling through her tears. “But for Dr.
Tasker, we might have gone on as we were for a long, long time. Don’t
think me unkind, for it wasn’t as if he had ever really cared, but I
have often thanked God for Dr. Tasker!”
It was fortunate for her that Jean Bower had no clue to the look which
came over Dr. Maclean’s face. He was seeing her in the witness-box,
admitting her love for Harry Garlett, unconscious that by so doing she
would provide for most members of the jury the strongest of all reasons
for the crime for which Harry Garlett was on trial for his life.
“And now,” she asked, “may I go and telephone a telegram to Mr.
Kentworthy, Uncle Jock?”
A few moments later his wife came into the room. “Jenny,” exclaimed the
doctor, “almost has that child convinced me of Harry Garlett’s
innocence!”
A hush, almost of death, over Bonnie Doon. A hush broken by a moment of
almost intolerable disappointment, for the reply to the telegram sent to
Mr. Kentworthy ran: “Am ill in bed. Will come as soon as possible.
Doctor forbids journey for three days.”
Dr. Maclean felt this to be a bad setback, all the worse because somehow
it was so entirely unexpected. And what he felt was experienced in a
far, far stronger and more anguished degree by Jean Bower. She had
pinned all her faith on James Kentworthy. She had felt that he would be
the one tower of strength in a world where everything was falling into
ruins about her. Her misery was much increased by the suspicion that her
uncle was inclined to believe Harry Garlett guilty. She knew only too
well the generous warmth he would have shown had he really believed her
lover innocent.
At last she suggested timidly that they might go to Grendon and see Mr.
Toogood. But to that suggestion he answered irritably, “After all, I
can’t wholly neglect my patients.”
“Go out, do, and get that job over!” exclaimed Mrs. Maclean sharply. And
he actually went out for his usual round, late in that long,
inexpressibly dreary morning, glad that he, at any rate, had something
to do, and so was not compelled to sit with his wife and Jean waiting
they knew not for what.
At last he came in. They all sat down to their midday meal, and then Dr.
Maclean suddenly lost his temper. Looking across the table he had seen
Jean surreptitiously pushing the little piece of meat with which her
aunt had served her under a salad leaf.
“Look here!” he called out sharply, “you won’t do Harry Garlett any good
by starving yourself, Jean. The one hope the poor fellow has got is that
we should all keep an even keel.”
Jean drew the little piece of meat out into the open again, and ate it.
At last a welcome diversion was caused by Elsie.
“There’s some one on the ’phone, sir, who wants to speak to you urgent.
It’s Lawyer Toogood, I’m thinking.”
The doctor jumped up and hurried into his consulting room. “Yes? Who is
it?”
“Toogood. I’ve seen Garlett, and I’d rather like to have a few words
with you, Maclean. Can you make it convenient to come early this
afternoon?”
“Of course I will. And, Toogood, may I bring my niece, Jean Bower?”
“Bring her by all means. But I should like to see you alone first.”
“Can you give me any word of hope?” Dr. Maclean’s voice instinctively
lowered.
“Wait till I see you; I don’t like to say much over the ’phone. The
town’s in a state of wild excitement. There’s actually a little crowd of
people round the door of my office at this moment, just waiting to catch
any one who comes in or out!”
And twenty minutes later, the patience of the idle folk who hung about
the High Street in the hope of catching a glimpse of some actor in what
was already beginning to be called the Terriford Mystery, was rewarded.
Dr. Maclean’s familiar covered-in two-seater dashed up to the fine old
red brick house on the door of which was a big brass plate bearing the
words, “Toogood, Lane & Co., Solicitors,” and the group of idlers
pressed forward to see the girl who was the heroine of the case alight
from the car.
“She looks a deep one,” ventured a voice; and then there came the answer
from more than one pair of lips, “Ay, ay, so she do!”
Her ordeal, or rather Dr. Maclean’s ordeal, for she was unaware of the
glances levelled at her, did not last long, for the doctor and his niece
were kept only a moment standing outside the mahogany door.
Mr. Toogood had hurried downstairs as soon as he had heard the
two-seater drawing up in the street, and this alone would have marked
the great importance he attached to the visit, for he was not the man to
put himself out unnecessarily.
He shook hands with them both in a perfunctory, hurried way, and then
led the way up to the spacious first floor. Once there, he opened the
door of a back room:
“Now then, my dear young lady, you go in here! I’m afraid it will be
some time before I shall ask you to join us.”
He shut the door on her, and preceded Dr. Maclean into the large front
room which, though lined with tin boxes, each of which was inscribed in
white letters with the name of some local worthy, might have been the
comfortable study of a man of leisure.
On the flat writing table stood a bunch of sweet-smelling hot-house
flowers, for Mr. Toogood was a keen gardener.
“Well, Maclean? Sit ye down! This is a grim business, eh?”
Dr. Maclean sat down, and he noticed that Mr. Toogood’s round, genial
face was set in hard lines. The two men often had occasion to meet, and
sometimes on disagreeable business, but the doctor had never seen the
lawyer look as he looked now.
At last the doctor muttered: “I don’t know what to think, Toogood.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky—but in the course of my long practice I’ve never
even suspected the secret administration of poison.”
“I can’t say the same. I think you’d be surprised if you knew how often
I’ve suspected—perhaps I ought to say half suspected—murder! In our line
of country the longing for money is the thing that leads to crime.”
“There was nothing of the sort in this case,” exclaimed the doctor.
“Garlett had all the money he wanted.”
“I was going on to say,” observed the lawyer, significantly, “that next
to money _love_ is the most potent begetter of crime.”
Dr. Maclean remained silent, and the lawyer, fingering a ruler on his
table, said musingly:
“Garlett was a very good-looking chap, yet he never seemed to care for
women.”
Mr. Toogood unconsciously used the past tense, and Dr. Maclean, noticing
that he had done so, felt a slight shock.
He leaned forward: “D’you think Garlett in real danger, Toogood? I want
you to tell me the truth, for it’s of terrible moment to us—because of
our niece.”
A change came over the lawyer’s face. “It is indeed!” he exclaimed.
It was a curious fact, but a fact nevertheless, that during the last two
or three minutes Mr. Toogood had completely forgotten Jean Bower’s
connection with the man now talking to him. His mind had been full of
her—but entirely in connection with Harry Garlett. It was as Garlett’s
secretary, not as Dr. Maclean’s niece, that he had considered the girl’s
unhappy situation.
He told himself that he must go warily, the more so that two or three of
the men who had spoken to him of the case that morning had seemed to
think it possible that Jean Bower might find herself in the dock with
Harry Garlett. He now remembered, with a touch of acute dismay, that a
fellow lawyer had actually observed: “I’m told they found no arsenic at
the Thatched House—but that young woman, Garlett’s lady love, being a
doctor’s niece, must have access to all kinds of poisons, eh?”
So, setting a guard on his tongue, Mr. Toogood came back to the matter
in hand.
“You’ll be the most important witness, both before the magistrates and
at the trial, Maclean. I suppose you knew Mrs. Garlett very well
indeed—not only as her medical man, but as a friend?”
“Yes, I think I can say that,” said the doctor cautiously, “although the
poor woman never cared for anybody apart from the man she married. As
for female friends—well, Miss Prince was her only intimate acquaintance.
She was on bad terms with Mrs. Cole-Wright, and she never cared to see
my wife.” The doctor smiled a rueful smile—“Though she was prim and
old-fashioned, Emily Garlett liked men very much, more than she did
women. The day before she died she had two gentlemen callers—the rector
for one, I know.”
“You saw her pretty often, I suppose?”
“Yes, she often sent for me, though there was little I could do for
her.”
“You attributed her death to violent indigestion, acting on the heart?”
queried the lawyer, glancing down at a paper lying on the table before
him.
Dr. Maclean hesitated; this was touching on what had already become a
very sore subject with him.
“I made a bad break there, Toogood,” he admitted painfully.
“Oh, well, we all make mistakes! It would have been strange indeed had
you suspected arsenic.”
He was debating within himself how he could introduce the subject of
Jean Bower, when the doctor suddenly gave him a lead.
“I hope my niece won’t be called as a witness,” he observed, with just
that touch of alteration in his voice which betrayed to the other’s
legal ear that the speaker felt very nervous.
Mr. Toogood did not answer for a few moments, and then he put his two
hands on the table and looked keenly across at his visitor. He felt the
time had come to speak plainly.
“It’s no use beating about the bush, Maclean. I suppose you know what’s
being said in Grendon to-day, and what will be said all over England
to-morrow?”
As the doctor remained silent, he went on:
“Your niece is regarded as having provided the only motive for the
crime—if crime there was.” And, as the doctor still said nothing, he
added: “I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know, or at least
suspect—eh, Maclean?”
And then, at last, the other spoke out, “I realize that what you say is
true, but, I’d like you to believe, at any rate, that that notion, or
suspicion—I don’t know what to call it—is a damned lie, Toogood! That’s
God’s truth—though I realize how difficult it will be to make the truth
apparent.”
Mr. Toogood took a mouthpiece from off his table and whistled down it,
“I’m not to be disturbed on any account.”
Then he got up, walked across to the door, opened it, looked out on to
the empty landing, and, shutting the door, came and stood by the doctor.
“Look here, Maclean! I don’t forget the night that you and I spent by
our boy’s beside just before he died—or how good you were to me and to
my poor wife. That’s why I’m going to do my very best to help you, and
to shield that unfortunate girl. But I feel I owe you the truth, and I’m
afraid—nay, I’m more than afraid—I’m _sure_ that if Garlett committed
this awful crime he did it for love of your niece. Even now he can think
of nothing else! When I saw him in the prison this morning the first
thing he said to me was: ‘I want you to convey a message to Miss Bower,
Toogood. I want you to explain to her that I don’t want her ever to come
here—to this horrible place.’”
Dr. Maclean opened his mouth to speak, and then he shut it again.
“And that wasn’t all! While I was trying to get out of him something
which might be of value when he is brought up before the magistrates,
his mind was so full of Miss Bower that he really could hardly attend to
what I was saying!”
“They’ve hardly seen one another, and never alone, since the exhumation
of Mrs. Garlett’s body,” observed the doctor in a low voice.
The lawyer stared at him.
“They were alone in the Thatched House this morning,” he said abruptly.
“I mean when Garlett was arrested.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true,” said the doctor firmly.
“My dear Maclean, it _is_ true. The Inspector came in about quite
another matter, and gave me the most moving account of how he found them
together in that empty house. He said it would have melted the heart of
a stone to see the way the poor girl behaved. She wouldn’t leave
Garlett—she clung to him—he said it reminded him of stories he had read
of couples in the Indian Mutiny.”
“My God!” exclaimed the doctor, “I knew nothing of this——”
The lawyer pursued his advantage.
“I’m afraid there have been many things of which you have known nothing,
Maclean.” Instinctively he lowered his voice: “To my mind, Garlett, who
has been starved so long of all natural human emotion, fell in love with
your niece at first sight. No doubt the girl was unaware of it for quite
a long time. But you’re not going to tell me that last winter, when she
first became secretary to his company, Garlett didn’t see enough of her
to have a hundred opportunities of finding out how far more attractive
she was than his wife?”
Dr. Maclean remained silent. With a feeling of sick dismay he realized
that what the other man said was only too true.
“In a way, for all his jolly, open manner, Garlett was a secretive
chap,” went on Mr. Toogood. “I’ve been his lawyer ever since he married,
but he’s never talked to me about his private affairs, or consulted me
in any way. As a matter of fact Mrs. Garlett was far more businesslike.
She knew what she wanted; I always enjoyed a talk with her.” He smiled
rather ruefully. “There were no flies on poor Emily——”
“But you must admit,” chipped in the doctor, “that she was never
jealous; in that she wasn’t at all true to type, if I may say so.”
“You’re right there!” exclaimed the lawyer. “She simply worshipped that
man. Nothing was too good for him. And yet—and yet, there was always
something spinsterish about her, eh, Maclean?”
Dr. Maclean nodded: “I know what you mean. It was that which accounted
for Garlett’s attitude to the poor soul. His attitude was much more that
of a kind and attentive nephew than that of a husband—still, he didn’t
seem to mind.”
“Rubbish—stuff! Of course he minded! You and I have met here to-day to
look facts in the face. To throw that still young man with an
exceedingly attractive, and, I’m told, lively, intelligent girl, was
just tempting providence.”
“It’s done every day—in all the business offices in the world,” said the
doctor defensively.
Mr. Toogood began toying with some of the papers on his table.
“I’ll tell you one thing I heard last night,” he observed without
looking up, “in the bar of the King’s Head Hotel, as a matter of fact.
It was asserted that within a week of Mrs. Garlett’s death your niece
received by post an anonymous gift of a most beautiful diamond ring. If
the purchase of that ring can be traced to Garlett, it will produce a
very unpleasant impression at the trial.”
The doctor felt a strange sensation suddenly sweep over him. He had
often seen a woman in hysterics, and he had all your medical man’s
contempt for that special form of disordered feminine nerves, but now he
felt as if he himself might easily burst out crying and laughing
together.
“That ring,” he exclaimed, “was my wife’s gift to her niece on the
girl’s twenty-second birthday. It is a poor little bit of a thing, with
a turquoise in the middle and two small pearls, one on either side. One
of the pearls had gone dead, and my wife sent it away to have it
replaced by a good pearl. So she arranged that the gift should reach our
niece anonymously on her birthday. If the stories that are being told of
Garlett and Jean are on a level with _that_ story——”
The other raised his hand.
“I should be deceiving you, Maclean, were I to admit that all, or even
most of the stories now being told concerning your niece and Garlett are
as easily refuted as is apparently this story of the diamond ring. Let
us simply take what we know to be true.”
“How d’you mean?”
“What happened after Mrs. Garlett’s death? Garlett gave out he was going
away for a long time—perhaps for as long as a year. I thought it odd
that he didn’t come to see me, to make the arrangements any ordinary man
of business makes when going away for so long a period. But he just sent
me a hasty note as to the proving of his wife’s will, and left the very
day of the funeral! I thought his conduct very strange then, and I don’t
mind telling you now that I hope the other side won’t get hold of it.
But there’s one thing we can’t keep from them—that is Garlett’s sudden
return at the end of three months. Now why did he do that?”
“Because of old Dodson’s state of health,” replied Dr. Maclean hotly.
“The direct cause of his return was a letter from your niece. He told me
that himself the first time I met him.”
“That letter,” said Dr. Maclean sharply, “was written on my advice—in
fact she showed me the letter before she sent it off to Garlett. The
girl was placed in a very difficult position at the factory.”
“I know that,” said the lawyer quickly. “Everybody knew that it was most
awkward for the girl. Old Dodson used to make love to her. I heard about
it at the time. I believe he went so far as to propose marriage more
than once!”
Dr. Maclean stared at Mr. Toogood in amazement. He knew that this was
true, but he had thought it was a secret between him and Jean. He had
not even told his wife. The other read what was passing in his mind.
“You’re surprised, my good friend, at that fact being known? Probably
Miss Jean never told a soul except, perhaps, you——”
The doctor nodded.
“Good God, man! D’you suppose that in such a place as the Etna China
factory every thing that happens isn’t known?”
“I hold to it that no one can say Harry Garlett fell in love with my
niece before his wife’s death,” said Dr. Maclean firmly.
“I suppose you wouldn’t go so far as to declare that Garlett didn’t fall
in love with her the moment he came back, eh?”
“I think he did,” was the reluctant answer, “but I’m convinced he didn’t
know it himself.”
“I wish I was as sure of that as you are. But I agree that he wouldn’t
have spoken so soon if it hadn’t been that he found that Tasker was
after her, eh?”
Dr. Maclean stared in fresh astonishment at the lawyer. “There’s very
little going on hereabouts that _I_ don’t know,” remarked Mr. Toogood.
There was a pause, then: “Whom are you going to get to defend Garlett?”
asked Dr. Maclean eagerly, “or haven’t you yet made up your mind?”
The other smiled—a superior smile. “The moment I learned that Garlett
was to be arrested I got a call through to our London agents and I
secured Sir Harold Anstey.”
“The man who got Mrs. Panford off?”
“Of course! He’s the greatest of living advocates, and at first I was
afraid there was going to be a hitch. The man’s so gorged with money and
success that he can pick and choose his cases——”
Dr. Maclean looked uncomfortable.
“Surely you don’t think we could have done better?” asked the lawyer,
nettled.
“I suppose not—and yet, Toogood, only last week I read somewhere that
Anstey’s nickname is ‘the murderer’s friend.’ We don’t want to condemn
Garlett beforehand, eh?”
Mr. Toogood leaned forward.
“It will take the whole of Sir Harold Anstey’s wit and skill to save our
man from the gallows. Make no mistake about that! Still, there’s one
hopeful feature. I’ve found out—unofficially, of course—that the Crown
people have been in touch with every chemist in every place where our
friend ever played cricket in the last ten years! But they’ve found
nothing.”
“Then they haven’t traced arsenic in any form to Garlett’s possession?”
asked the doctor eagerly.
“So far that’s the one missing link—and a very important link it is! By
the way, you’ve never had a dispensary, have you?”
The question was asked carelessly, but the doctor knew very well what
was in the lawyer’s mind, and his thoughts flew to the other side of the
book-lined wall to his left—to the room where Jean Bower was sitting,
waiting for this long interview to end.
“No,” he said quietly, “I have never had a dispensary, Toogood. For what
it’s worth, I may tell you that I make it a rule to keep no drugs in my
house at all. Were it otherwise, I should be constantly worried by the
village people. When I prescribe anything of the kind they’ve got to
trudge into Grendon to get it.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to mention Miss Prince and her amateur
doctoring, but he refrained. After all, Miss Prince, whatever her
special knowledge, could no more procure poison than could the simplest
cottage wife in Terriford village. So, after a moment’s pause, he only
added: “How about a statement from me, Toogood?”
“I think we had better let the Crown people see you first,” said the
solicitor thoughtfully. “After all, you’ve nothing to conceal. So it may
be better for you to be a Crown witness friendly to our side.”
Both men stood up.
“I should like to ask you one delicate question, Maclean”; the lawyer
hesitated, then went on: “Of course you are aware that the fellow who
got up this case originally—I mean Kentworthy—procured a deposition
stating that Garlett and some young woman used to meet in a wood at
night last spring. Are you certain that that young woman was not your
niece? Forgive me for asking the question. I won’t press it, if you’d
rather not answer.”
“I’d stake my life that it was not my niece!” exclaimed the doctor.
“Without going quite so far as that, I’m inclined to agree with you, and
it confirms a view I’ve formed in the last few hours.”
“What view is that?” asked Dr. Maclean, eagerly.
“My view,” said the solicitor quietly, “is that there was a second woman
in Garlett’s life. A woman who was never seen in Terriford at all—whom
he probably came to know years before he ever saw your niece. If he had
some secret married woman friend who had, say, lately become a widow, we
have a second person who may have had an interest in Mrs. Garlett’s
death.”
“That seems very far-fetched,” observed the doctor.
“In a murder case, nothing is too far-fetched if it throws an element of
doubt into the jury’s mind.”
“I see what you mean,” said the other doubtfully.
“Has any one turned up yet to take a statement from Miss Bower?”
Dr. Maclean was taken much aback by the ominous question.
“D’you mean,” he exclaimed, “that my niece can be compelled to be a
witness at Garlett’s trial for murder?”
“She’ll be a leading witness,” was the answer. “I thought you realized
that.”
“She never even saw Mrs. Garlett,” said the doctor in a low voice.
“Miss Bower will not be questioned as to her relations with Mrs.
Garlett, but with Mrs. Garlett’s husband,” observed Mr. Toogood.
Dr. Maclean groaned.
“It’s hard, Maclean, but if your view is the right one, if the girl is
absolutely innocent of any wrong-doing, she’ll come through all right.
I’m a firm believer in the old saying that ‘Truth will out—even in an
affidavit!’ And now we’d better have her in, for I must give her that
message from poor Garlett.”
He left the room, and a moment later returned with Jean Bower.
“I had a talk with Mr. Garlett this morning, and he asked me to tell you
that he hopes you will make no effort to see him while he is in prison,
Miss Bower.”
As a look of deep unhappiness flooded her quivering face, he added
hastily:
“I’m sure he is acting in the wisest, as well as in the kindest, way for
both of you. Though I should not have suggested his message, I heartily
approve of his having sent it.”
“Shall I be able to write to him freely? Or will our letters be read?”
she asked.
“I’m afraid that your letters will all be perused by the governor. Mr.
Garlett is allowed to communicate with me, as his legal adviser, quite
privately, and I think it possible that Dr. Maclean may be allowed to
see him alone. But with regard to you—well, I doubt if even a wife’s
letters are given unopened to a prisoner.”
“I see,” said the girl dully.
“But that must not prevent your writing him cheerful letters,” went on
the solicitor. “The great thing you’ve got to do is to keep up the man’s
spirits. Your uncle here tells me that you are absolutely convinced of
Mr. Garlett’s innocence?”
She was too choked with tears to do more than nod.
“We have a splendid counsel—the best, I think I may say, in Europe. I’m
sure you’ve heard of Sir Harold Anstey?”
Now Jean Bower had also seen a photograph of the famous advocate in a
picture paper, and underneath the portrait had been printed the words:
“Sir Harold Anstey, affectionately known at the Bar as ‘the murderer’s
friend.’”
“Sir Harold is a wonderful man,” went on Mr. Toogood eagerly; “I shall
never forget having seen him once in court. It was in the great Panford
case. There didn’t seem a hope for the woman in the dock, but he got her
off! He has an astonishing way with a jury.”
“I see,” said Jean, again in that toneless, dull voice.
“And then there’s another thing. It’s everything for a witness to have
Sir Harold with him or her. I suppose—” he hesitated uncomfortably—“I
suppose, Miss Bower, that you realize that a gentleman will soon come
from London in order to take a statement from you. On that statement you
will be examined and cross-examined—so you must be careful what you say
or admit when answering his questions.”
“I quite understand that.”
Jean had already regained her composure, and it was well that she had
done so, for, as Mr. Toogood escorted his important visitors down to the
front door, by some curious accident every human being in the
substantial house happened at that moment either to have business in the
hall, or to be standing at one of the doors that gave into the hall.
The lawyer felt vexed. And yet——? Yet even he felt the general
excitement contagious. He could not help being glad that his firm was
about to play a prominent part in what was evidently going to be a
famous case. It was also satisfactory to reflect that Harry Garlett,
unlike the vast majority of criminals, was a wealthy man, and that the
huge costs were thus certain to be paid.
Even so, as he walked upstairs back to his own room, Mr. Toogood told
himself that Jean Bower was the last kind of young woman for whom he
would have been tempted to commit murder twenty years ago. She seemed so
quiet, so dull, so unemotional.
Mr. Toogood recalled the last time he had been out to Terriford. It had
been to take the poor doomed woman’s instructions as to her will. She
had only a few thousand pounds to leave, for she had settled the bulk of
her fortune on her husband years ago. And suddenly he reminded himself
that neither he nor the doctor had mentioned Miss Agatha Cheale, one of
Mrs. Garlett’s legatees, who had been actually present at her death. She
would be a witness, and an important witness, for the defence, for she,
at any rate, could testify as to the excellent terms on which the
husband and wife had been.
CHAPTER XII
Elsie, the cook, was an early riser and worker, but even she had been
exhausted by the doings of the long day on which Harry Garlett had been
arrested. So she came down later than usual the next morning.
It was still rather dark, so she turned on the electric light, and,
after she had lit the fire and put on a kettle of water, she began
bustling about the kitchen.
All at once, and for the first time in her life, she gave a suppressed
scream, for three pale faces were glued to the kitchen window, and for
an awful moment she thought they were the spirits of dead men.
Then the woman’s strong good sense asserted itself. Spirits don’t wear
great coats and billy-cock hats. Looking straight into the three staring
faces, she hurried to the front door and unlocked it. At once the three
men faced about and stood before her, and, in the hazy morning light,
she saw the motor which had brought them standing outside in the road.
The youngest of the strange-looking visitors, a “cocky-looking young
man,” so Elsie told herself, took off his hat and held out his hand; but
Elsie kept her hands down.
“Is it the doctor you’re wanting?” she said, sharply. “And what d’you
mean by behaving so unmannerly? You gave me the fright of my life—if
it’s any pleasure to you to know it.” And then, to her indignation and
surprise, the cocky young man bent a little forward, took up her right
hand and pressed into it a pound note.
“We want five minutes’ talk with Miss Jean Bower,” he said in a husky
whisper. “Don’t think we’re going to frighten the young lady, or insult
her in any way—we only want a few moments, which will be all to her
advantage. Can you conveniently manage that for us?”
Elsie crunched up the pound note and flung it straight at his face. To
her regret it did not touch either of his eyes, it only hit his nose.
“How dare you offer me your dirty money?” she exclaimed. “You make
yourself scarce, young man, or I’ll go and ring up the police!”
“The police won’t be able to help you,” but he spoke with less
assurance. “We have a perfect right to try to see this young lady. In
fact, as I hinted just now, it will be better for her, and better for
Harry Garlett, too, for her just to see us and tell us her side of the
story. We each represent a big London paper.—Crawford?” A tall, fair
youth stepped forward. “Let me introduce the _Live Wire_!”
Elsie could not but feel thrilled. This was the first time she had ever
seen a newspaper man.
“Now then, Angus—don’t be shy!”
The oldest man of the three, in answer to that remark, moved a little
nearer.
“I think it will be to the poor girl’s advantage to see us,” he said
gently.
“He’s the _Sunbeam_—a bad poet in his rare moments of leisure, and, I
take it, a fellow countryman of yours, Mrs. Housekeeper!”
There was something boyish about the impudent young fellow, and Elsie
unconsciously melted a little. Also she had been impressed by the few
words uttered by “Angus.” There might be something in what he said.
“You all go up to the village,” she said suddenly, “and put in an hour
at ‘The Pig and Whistle.’ Then you come back here. By then I’ll have
told the doctor what you say. Maybe he’ll let Miss Jean see ye.”
The three men consulted together, and then the man who had not yet
spoken, he of the _Live Wire_, came forward.
“Look here,” he began, “if we do that—I admit we’ve no business to come
and disturb you so early—can we rely on you that no one will get in
before us? I and my friends here came down from London last night,
determined to be the first in the field. All we ask is some kind of
statement from Miss Bower. She’ll have to give one sooner or later to
the press, and we represent three big papers. We don’t want to be let
down by some fellow who stayed in bed up to the last minute and had a
good breakfast before starting on this job.”
“I think I’ll go so far as to promise ye that no one else will see the
doctor or Miss Jean before you come back. Will that satisfy ye?”
And then the Scotsman came close up to her.
“Look here,” he said in a low voice, “I’m sure you could tell me
something that would be worth while hearing? What sort of a girl is this
young lady who’s brought all the trouble about? You must know the
truth—if any one knows it.”
Elsie looked at him shrewdly.
“Look here, my bonny man,” she ordered, “you just go and join the other
two. You won’t get anything more out of me because you come from
Aberdeen, and don’t you be expecting of it!”
“Though you’re so unkind to me, I’ll be kind to you,” he answered
significantly. “See that every door and window in this house is tight
shut this morning. There’s a swarm of reporters coming out from Grendon.
The public is just thirsting for a good murder mystery,” and then he ran
off to join the other two, who were already in the car.
Hurrying through her kitchen Elsie slipped the bolt in the back door
which gave into the scullery, and glad was she that she had done so when
a few minutes later there came a loud knock on the bolted door. She
started so violently that she nearly dropped the kettle of boiling water
she had taken off the fire.
But it was only the milkman, who had been amazed to find the door locked
against him. He and Elsie were old cronies, but when he ventured on just
a word—and it was a kindly word, too—with regard to Miss Jean, she
answered him so roughly that he was quite offended.
“You needn’t bite my head off,” he said in an injured tone. “Nobody
talks of anything else in Terriford, and no more they won’t till that
fine gentleman, Mr. Harry Garlett, has been strung up. I’d go a good way
to see ’im hanged, that I would! Think of all the trouble he’s brought
on your poor young lady—to say nothing of the good doctor and his
missus.”
“And what if I say that I believe Mr. Garlett to be innocent?” asked
Elsie pugnaciously.
“I should say your ’eart, cook, was better than your understanding,” he
answered tolerantly.
It was an hour later, nearly nine o’clock, when Mrs. Maclean touched her
still sleeping husband. She had got up at the usual time, for all that
they had talked till two in the morning, debating every point of the
mysterious and terrible business with which they were now so closely and
so painfully connected.
“Jock?” she said in a low voice, “it’s time to get up.”
He opened his eyes.
“What’s that you’re saying? I wish you’d let me sleep a little longer,
Jenny.”
“Well, so I should have done——” and then she stopped short.
Walking across to the window, she drew the blind a little way up. “Get
out of bed for a minute, and come over here,” she exclaimed.
Together, in silence, husband and wife gazed out on what was to them a
most surprising sight. The drive up to their front door, as well as the
road beyond, was blocked with vehicles—old-fashioned flys and motors,
closed and open. In one of the cars a man was standing with a huge
camera bracketed on the house.
“My God!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean, and then with a groan, “I suppose we
must expect this kind of thing, Jenny, till we’ve got that child away.”
“Ay,” she answered. “This will surely show her that she can’t stay here.
But I’m glad she’s having her breakfast in bed this morning.”
As they gazed down they saw one man after another came up to their front
door, try the handle, look up at the knocker and then walk away.
“Whatever can Elsie have done to prevent their knocking and ringing the
house down?”
“She has put a notice on the knocker,” said Mrs. Maclean, in a low
voice. “Three London newspaper men were here at seven, it seems, but she
persuaded them to go away. They told her there would be a lot of men out
by nine o’clock, so she tied a label on the knocker, with ‘Please do not
knock or ring bell’ written on it. But she has one of the kitchen
windows open, poor woman, though it’s a bitterly cold day, and she just
parleys with them through it. We shall have a lot to thank Elsie for,
Jock, when all this trouble’s over.”
“I’ll get up now,” he said, shivering not so much with cold as with
horror at the thought of what did, indeed, lie before them.
“I’ve got your bath nice and hot.”
He took her hand and patted it. “Now you go down and tell Elsie that
I’ll deal with these gentry as soon as I’m up.”
“I’ve arranged for your breakfast to be brought up here on a tray. You
may as well wait till you’ve had that.”
“Perhaps I might,” he agreed.
“They’re all round about the house,” she went on, “their faces just
glued to the windows trying to get a glimpse of Jean.”
The doctor had just finished his hasty breakfast when there came a knock
at the bedroom door and Elsie appeared.
“Please, sir,” she said in a hesitating voice, “the three men who came
very early this morning have come back. They’re from big papers, and I’m
thinking ’twould be best for ye to see them. I promised no one should
see ye before them.”
He looked at her sternly.
“You had no business to make such a promise, Elsie. I do not wish to see
anybody.”
“I’m afraid that ye’ll be well advised to see them,” she said in a
subdued tone; “their newspapers are read a lot in these parts, sir.”
He got up. “You’re a wise woman, Elsie. I’ll take your advice. Are they
in my study?”
“Oh, no, sir. They’d be seen there. I’ve got them in the scullery.”
And it was standing in the cold, dark scullery, in which he had not been
for years, that Dr. Maclean confronted the three inquisitive strangers,
his anger breaking out afresh that he should be subjected to so horrible
and degrading an ordeal.
As to the one thing they all so eagerly desired, he was absolutely firm.
“It is quite impossible for you to see my niece. And if you did see her,
there is nothing which she could say to you that I cannot say. Ask me
any questions you like, and I will try to answer them truthfully.”
And then they did ask him questions, foolish questions and wise
questions, dangerous questions and harmless questions, clever questions
and stupid questions! The doctor was too new to the game to ask them to
read over to him what they had been writing down so busily. But at last,
with infinite relief, he shook hands with each of the three and let them
out, one by one, into the little yard from which ran a separate way to
the high road.
He was going through the kitchen, when they were startled by a loud,
imperative double knock on the knocker which, so far, no one had touched
that morning. The front door bell also pealed through the house.
“You wait just inside here, sir. I’ll go to the door. I’ve got it on the
chain. No one can force their way in.”
Elsie purposely left the kitchen door open, and soon the doctor heard a
stern voice say:
“Please take off the chain and admit me at once. I’m a police inspector
sent down by the Director of Public Prosecutions. I’ve come to take
statements from Miss Jean Bower and Dr. Maclean.”
The tone of the speaker was not pleasant. But a moment later, to Dr.
Maclean’s relief, he heard the same voice apparently addressing a small
crowd of men who had gathered round him. They could be seen through the
window of the kitchen edging closer and closer to the now open front
door.
“If you newspaper people don’t show a little more good feeling and
decent regard in such a case as this we shall have a Bill put through
Parliament making it illegal to take any photograph or any interview in
connection with any murder case as yet untried! That wouldn’t suit some
of you, I reckon? There’s nothing doing this morning, apart from what
I’ve come to do, so I advise you to be off.”
Dr. Maclean heard Elsie’s voice: “If you’ll come into the doctor’s
consulting room, sir, I’ll go and tell him that you’re here.”
“I should like to see Miss Bower.”
“Miss Bower’s still in bed sir.”
“I shall have to see her in bed, if she’s not inclined to get up.”
“I’m sure she’ll get up, sir. Will you please come this way?”
Very different from James Kentworthy was the man whom the doctor greeted
a moment later. He was tall and thin, with a clever stern face.
“My name is Fradelle, Dr. Maclean. And it is my duty to take from you
and from Miss Jean Bower the statements which will be used by the Crown
in the forthcoming inquiry concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett.”
“I will, of course, put all the information in my power before you,”
answered the doctor quietly. “But is it really necessary that you should
take a statement from my niece?”
“Most certainly it is. I understand that Miss Bower is in bed. That does
not mean, I presume, that you consider her too ill to give me a
statement to-day?”
“No,” said Dr. Maclean, “I could not honestly say that. But the girl is
terribly distressed, Mr. Fradelle.” He hesitated and then added, “She
believes Mr. Garlett to be absolutely innocent.”
“So I understand,” said the other dryly.
An hour later, Dr. Maclean, getting out of the chair where he had sat
while he was being interrogated, exclaimed, “I will fetch my niece, Mr.
Fradelle.”
The early morning mist had cleared away; it was a brilliant sunny day,
so brilliant as to seem to mock the doctor’s feeling of despondency and
distress.
Every question put to him had seemed deadly in its import—how different
from that first interrogation from James Kentworthy!
The most relentless duel of words—and a duel it had been between those
two men, shut up in that cozy, shabby, consulting room—had concerned the
strawberries eaten by Mrs. Garlett the evening preceding the night of
her death. At first the doctor had not seen the trend of the younger
man’s questions, as he had assented, without much thought, to a
statement that Mrs. Garlett had been given the strawberries by her
husband.
Then suddenly he had exclaimed, “You realize that I’m not speaking from
knowledge, but only from hearsay, Mr. Fradelle?”
The other seemed taken aback. “How do you mean, doctor?”
“I was simply told by Miss Cheale that Garlett had probably given them
to the poor lady.”
“Even so, I presume that you have no doubt Garlett did give his wife the
strawberries?”
“Well——”
The doctor hesitated a moment; he was tired and somewhat confused. At
last he replied evasively: “Garlett strongly denies that he even saw the
little dish of strawberries, and he further asserts that, knowing how
delicate was his wife’s digestion, nothing would have made him give them
to her so late in the evening.”
Mr. Fradelle frowned. He consulted his notes.
“There seems very little doubt that the arsenic was administered in the
sugar spread over the strawberries. Still, from what you now say, there
seems to be no direct evidence at all as to who gave the strawberries to
the poisoned woman?”
“The one person who could give you authentic information as to what
happened on the evening before Mrs. Garlett’s death is Miss Agatha
Cheale, who was Mrs. Garlett’s housekeeper-companion.”
“I hope to see this Miss Cheale as soon as I am back in London,” said
Mr. Fradelle. “I made two attempts to see her the day before yesterday.
I tried at the place where she has a flat, and then I went to the office
where she works, but I was unfortunate both times. I take it to be
unlikely that the defence have got hold of her yet?”
“They may have done so,” said the doctor dubiously, “She was on very
good terms with both Mr. and Mrs. Garlett. In fact Miss Cheale is, in
some way, related to Mr. Garlett. I think it would be very painful to
her to be among the witnesses for the prosecution—though not more
painful, I feel sure, than it is to myself,” he concluded ruefully.
“I take it Miss Jean Bower will be an unwilling witness, Dr. Maclean?”
“I know that my niece will be a truthful witness——” he looked rather
straight at the thin tight-lipped man who sat with his back to the
light, in shadow.
“I trust so, though a woman witness is seldom as truthful—perhaps I
ought to say as straightforward—as would be a man in her place. Too
often your honest, truthful woman witness is such a fool that, without
meaning it, she gets confused and begins to lie!”
“My niece is not at all that sort of woman,” said the doctor coldly.
Perhaps the last words uttered by Dr. Maclean prejudiced the stranger,
for the glance he cast on the pale, sad-faced girl who a few moments
later entered the room was far from kindly.
Jean Bower walked over to her uncle’s writing-table and sat down in his
big chair.
She looked such a little slip of a thing that even a harder man than was
Mr. Fradelle might have been moved by her look of fragility, deep
sadness, and youth. But, like so many clever people, the Crown
inquisitor was one of those men who find it difficult to change their
minds. He had made up his mind that Jean Bower was the villain of the
piece. He felt convinced that it was for love of this girl that Garlett
had committed a cruel crime. Far from having any wish to spare her, he
hoped to convict her lover, if not herself, out of her own mouth.
“Miss Bower,” he began, in a rasping, unpleasant tone, “I must ask you
to give me your whole attention, and I want no wordy explanations. What
is required are straight, simple answers to what I think you will admit
to be straight, simple questions.”
Jean bent her head. She felt not only frightened, but utterly lonely and
forlorn.
“You are, I believe, aware that you are to be among the witnesses called
by the prosecution, that is, by the Crown, at the forthcoming trial of
Henry Garlett for the murder of his wife. I want you to understand quite
clearly that you will be examined on what you tell me to-day—examined,
that is, by the prosecution and cross-examined by the defence.”
Jean Bower was in the condition in which many a poor wretch must have
been during those periods of the world’s history when such an
examination as she was about to undergo was always carried out with the
aid of physical torture. While determined to say nothing that could
implicate the man she loved, she felt too oppressed and bewildered to
make full use of her wits.
He looked at the paper he held in his hand. “You became secretary to the
Etna China Company last April? I take it that you were already
acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Garlett before you obtained that
appointment?”
“I did not know Mrs. Garlett,” she answered in a toneless voice. “But I
had seen Mr. Garlett two or three times. My aunt had taken me to call on
him at the Etna China factory, and I had seen him walking about the
village.”
“Come, Miss Bower”—his voice was at once stern and contemptuous—“you
are, I understand, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean’s adopted daughter? Do you mean
to tell me that you were not acquainted with the lady who was your
uncle’s principal patient?”
“I lived with my father in the north of England till last February, and
though I always accompanied Dr. and Mrs. Maclean on their holidays, I
had not been in Terriford since I was a child.”
She looked at him quite straight.
“While I was doing war work I took no holidays. My father worked himself
literally to death, as did so many men who were too old to join up.
After the war he became an invalid, and I nursed him till his death,
just a year ago.”
“I see. By a strange chapter of accidents you had not been to Terriford
for many years till you came here to live last winter?”
“That is so.”
“But after you’d become secretary to the Etna China Company I take it
you saw Mr. Garlett constantly, he being managing director of the
business?”
“Yes, I used to see him quite often—not every day, but on most days.”
She nearly added—“Most of my work lay with Mr. Dodson,” but something
made her refrain from even making that true statement of fact.
“Now, Miss Bower”—he waited for some seconds, while she remained
silent—“I’m going to ask you a question which I fear will be very
disagreeable to you. I cannot force you to answer it truly, but I advise
you in your own interest to do so.”
She said nothing, and he went on:
“Did Mr. Garlett, during the month that elapsed between your coming to
the works and his wife’s death, ever make any improper advances to you?”
Twice she opened her mouth to speak, and twice the one word “Never!” she
wished to utter, would not come.
She was bitterly angered and shocked by the blunt question, and to the
man who gazed into her now flushed and quivering face her silence
proclaimed, if not her own guilt, then certainly that of the man who
would soon be on his trial for murder.
Perhaps because he felt he had scored a great point he went on in a
kindlier tone:
“I’m sorry to have to press you about this matter, but it is far better
you should tell me now than have it dragged out of you when you are in
the witness-box. I suppose I may take it, Miss Bower, that there
were”—he hesitated, then brought out awkwardly the words—“love passages,
no doubt of a comparatively harmless kind, between yourself and Mr.
Garlett?”
She started to her feet.
“There were no love passages,” she cried passionately, “none, none at
all! I hardly knew Mr. Garlett. Oh! do believe that! Indeed, indeed it’s
the truth!” More calmly she added: “The cricket season was beginning,
and he was constantly away from home.”
“And yet you told me just now that you saw him most days at the
factory?”
“He used to come in for a few moments to see his letters. I was
generally present when he did come in, with the man who really managed
the business—Mr. Dodson.”
He glanced down at the paper he was holding.
“And yet,” he observed, “slight as was your acquaintance with your
employer, you walked back with him from Grendon to Terriford the day
before Mrs. Garlett’s death. Or do you deny having done that?”
She sat down again.
“Did I?” she said falteringly. And then she exclaimed—while he told
himself that she was perhaps the best actress he had ever encountered in
the course of his work—“Yes, I did! I remember it now. We came in to
Miss Cheale’s sitting room just when she had dismissed a servant. But
for that I should not have remembered having walked home with Mr.
Garlett.”
“Now that your memory has become more clear, Miss Bower, I want you to
remember something else. At what time—I mean about what date—was the
word ‘marriage’ first mentioned by Mr. Garlett with respect to
yourself?” He leaned forward. “Was it before Mrs. Garlett’s death, or
immediately after it?”
Again she looked at him quite straight. She could see his shadowed
face—to her it was the face of a sneering devil.
“The first time we actually spoke of our marriage,” she gave a quick,
convulsive sigh, “was in answer to a question asked by my aunt the day
after we had come to an understanding, early in November.”
“Come, come!” he exclaimed roughly, “that is what a mere man calls
quibbling, Miss Bower. You know what I mean!”
“I do not know what you mean. If you mean did Mr. Garlett ever make love
to me before his wife’s death, I answer, ‘No, never!’ He has told me
since that instead of liking me, as many a man may like a young woman in
his employment, he disliked me. He thought me too—too—” she sought for a
word, and then faltered out the word “‘self-assured.’ The person who
liked me, who tried to make love to me, was old Mr. Dodson.”
She covered her face with her hands. “Why do you force me to say these
horrible, degrading things?” she asked brokenly.
He felt embarrassed, even perhaps slightly ashamed.
“You are making my task difficult, Miss Bower. Believe me, I have no
wish to make you say anything either horrible or degrading. But it is my
duty to ask you certain painful questions.”
He went on, in a more conciliatory tone. “I am to take it, then, that
Henry Garlett never made love to you at all till the day when he became
engaged to you early last November?”
“Yes,” she said, looking up, “that is the truth.”
“You ask me to believe”—but there was no jeering touch in his voice
now—“that Mr. Garlett asked you to become his wife with no preliminary
love passages at all?”
“Yes,” she said steadily. “I ask you to believe that, because it is
true. After Mr. Garlett’s return, when we had worked together for some
two months, seeing each other constantly, there came a day—a day——”
She could not go on.
He said quickly, “You mean that there came a day when he realized that
he loved you—that is what you want me to understand?”
She bent her head.
He got up and went and stood opposite the writing table, so that for the
first time she was able to see him quite clearly.
“I formally ask you if Mr. Garlett ever made love to you before his
wife’s death, or ever spoke to you of marriage till within the last few
weeks?”
“He never did.”
“You will be ready to swear to both those statements in the witness
box?”
“Yes.”
He came round to where she was standing.
“Will you read what I have written?” he asked. “As you see, it has
boiled down to very little, but I wish to be quite sure that I have got
everything quite correct?”
She read down the two sheets of bold, clear handwriting.
“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what I have said.”
She was surprised that he had put it all down so fairly, so truthfully.
“If you wish to modify or alter anything I have written down here, I
will come and take any fresh statement you may wish to make. You
understand that perjury is a most serious criminal offence?”
CHAPTER XIII
On the arrest of a man for murder he is taken before the magistrates at
the earliest possible opportunity, but only to be formally charged—that
is, evidence of arrest is given, and a remand, generally for a week, is
asked for and obtained.
During that long week Dr. Maclean was the least unhappy of the unhappy
inmates of Bonnie Doon because he was forced to follow his profession.
The fact that Harry Garlett—it was taken as a fact—had poisoned his wife
for love of Jean Bower did not prevent men and women in the
neighbourhood falling ill and sending for the doctor. Indeed, quite a
number of his old patients suddenly developed some kind of slight
complaint in order that he or she might have the intense satisfaction of
a short talk with Jean Bower’s uncle.
At first Dr. Maclean had keenly resented these strange manifestations of
inquisitive human nature, and he dreaded the questions which he knew
would be put to him. But after two or three days he became quite
accustomed to the usual opening:
“Dr. Maclean, I hope you won’t be offended if I say how very, very sorry
I feel for you and for Mrs. Maclean over this terrible Garlett business.
I hardly like to ask you what you _really_ think about Harry Garlett,
but you and I are such old friends I’m sure you won’t mind my asking?”
From the first he had taken up a line to which he steadfastly adhered:
“I should much like to tell you my theories—but if I am to be a witness
next week, when Mr. Garlett is brought up before the magistrates, it
would not only be unprofessional but very wrong for me to say anything
at all to you about the case.”
As was only natural, nine times out of ten, the lady—for it was
generally a lady who asked him the indiscreet question—afterward told
her husband, her friends, and her acquaintances, that Dr. Maclean,
though he was too kind to say so, undoubtedly believed Harry Garlett
guilty, for the simple reason that had he thought Garlett innocent there
was no reason in the world why he should not have said so right out.
But if Dr. Maclean found it far from easy to put off his patients, his
real trouble in connection with the painful mystery with which all their
hearts were filled was with his one-time happy home.
Jean Bower’s eyes followed him about as a dog’s eyes follow his master.
She never actually asked him to declare his belief in her lover’s
innocence, yet he always felt that she was asking him, mutely, for some
such declaration.
At last, feeling he could bear her speechless interrogation no longer,
he put his arm round her shoulder and said very quietly: “It’s no good,
Jean! I’m an honest man, and I can’t deceive you. I would like with all
my heart to feel sure that Harry is absolutely innocent, but the truth
is I can’t make up my mind.”
As for Mrs. Maclean, she longed to talk the whole matter out with Jean,
but her Scotch reserve kept her silent. Even Elsie said nothing, but
more than once Jean heard her administer a vigorous, well-directed snub
at some one who tried to engage her in conversation at the back door on
what had now become the forbidden subject at Bonnie Doon.
But if that strange, unnatural silence was preserved in Dr. Maclean’s
house, that was not the case anywhere else. Within a circuit of thirty
miles round, Harry Garlett and his affairs were discussed constantly,
and that by men and women of every class and kind, of every social
position, of every degree of poverty and wealth. Strange rumours flew
hither and thither, some of them absurdly false.
One fact gradually emerged. Little by little it became known that no
arsenic had been traced to the possession of the man now lying under
remand in Grendon prison. This was the missing link in the chain of
circumstantial evidence which, it was beginning to be believed, would
certainly in the end hang the famous cricketer. Meanwhile, not only the
local papers, but the great London papers had become busy over the case.
Harry Garlett’s special interest in life, his wonderful cricketing
records, his popularity, his character as an employer, everything and
anything that touched on his personality, was made the subject of
comment.
Often during that long week Jean Bower felt as though she had fallen
into a bath of ill-smelling mud from whose stains she would never be
wholly cleansed. British law considers a man innocent until he is proved
guilty, but it is amazing what the English language can do in the way of
innuendo, and that without in any way sailing too near the dangerous law
of libel.
Half way through that terrible week of waiting suspense there came to
Jean one happy hour. Dr. Maclean had insisted that the girl should go
out with him, if only to get a little fresh air, and they were both
coming in tired from a long round when they saw Elsie’s face at the
kitchen window. Before the doctor had time to jump out of his two-seater
she was at the door.
“Mr. Kentworthy has arrived, sir. He’s with the mistress in the dining
room. She has given him some tea. He’s fair longing to see you and Miss
Jean!”
Mr. Toogood would have been surprised had he seen how utterly the girl
who now walked quickly forward into the dining room of Bonnie Doon had
changed in looks from the sad, listless, pale young creature to whom he
had delivered her lover’s message a few days before. Mr. Kentworthy
grasped her hand warmly and his eyes twinkled as he exclaimed:
“I’ve got up from my sick-bed in spite of my wife’s protests. I said to
Mrs. Kentworthy, ‘Now, this is just the sort of job I’m going to enjoy
thoroughly—clearing an innocent man of a foul charge’—for that’s what
we’re going to do, Miss Bower. We may have a difficult task before us,
but there are already several very important points in our favour.”
“Yes,” chimed in Mrs. Maclean, “Mr. Kentworthy has been telling me that
the Crown, in spite of the limitless money at their disposal, have
failed to trace any arsenic to Harry’s possession. But I’m astonished to
hear that there’s arsenic in almost everything in use. Did you know
that?” She turned to her husband.
“Of course I did,” he answered curtly.
“Even in chocolate,” went on Mrs. Maclean, with a touch of excitement.
“Every chocolate manufacturer has a certain amount of arsenic allowed
him by the Government—so much per ton of chocolate.”
“That’s why it’s lucky for us, my dear madam, that Mr. Garlett made
china instead of sweets,” exclaimed the private detective, smiling. “And
now,” he said, turning to Dr. Maclean, “I suppose we must get down to
business. Shall we go into your study, sir? I have got your former
statement to me here. We must go over the whole thing again, and I want
you to put your mind to telling me anything—however small or apparently
unimportant—that may be of value to us.”
But in spite of skilful cross-examination and shrewd suggestive
questioning, the hour which followed in Dr. Maclean’s consulting room
yielded little or no fresh material for Mr. Kentworthy to work upon, and
at last he said:
“I wonder, sir, if you would mind my seeing Miss Bower alone? She is
more likely to talk frankly to me if there are none of her family
present.”
Dr. Maclean looked dubious.
“I don’t believe that would be the case with my niece,” he replied. “But
it shall be as you wish, Mr. Kentworthy. Talk to the girl frankly—as
frankly as you have talked to me. For one thing she deserves frankness.”
He added, in a rather shamefaced voice, “I take it, Mr. Kentworthy, that
you still feel an unshaken belief in Garlett’s innocence?”
The detective allowed a moment to pass by before he answered, but at
last his words came out clearly:
“I do believe in Mr. Garlett’s innocence. But to err is human, and I
shall be able to tell you more as to what I really think and feel after
I have made fresh investigations. I’d like, for instance, to have a talk
with that Miss Cheale. You never know in a case of this sort who may
give you a valuable clue. I take it she will be on our side?”
Dr. Maclean hesitated, a fact which was duly registered by Kentworthy.
“I don’t think Miss Cheale will be able to add much to our knowledge.”
“I suppose the fact has occurred to you, doctor, that this young lady—I
mean Miss Cheale—had a certain interest in Mrs. Garlett’s death? She was
left, I understand, a thousand pounds.”
“Yes, but she was receiving three hundred pounds a year, and all found,”
was the quick answer. “Besides, I feel convinced that she knew nothing
of that legacy. It took us all, even Mr. Garlett, entirely by surprise.”
He went to the door and called out: “Jean! Mr. Kentworthy is ready to
see you.”
Pale, but absolutely composed, the girl came in. “Mr. Kentworthy would
prefer to see you alone,” said Dr. Maclean.
“I should prefer that also, Uncle Jock.”
After her uncle had left the room there came a pathetic eagerness into
her manner. She knew that James Kentworthy believed in her lover’s
innocence, and she also knew, though she would have scarcely admitted it
even to herself, that very few people shared that belief.
But though they discussed at length every detail of the story, he soon
became aware that Jean had nothing to say that threw any light on the
mystery.
“You suspect no one?” he asked at last, looking at her rather hard.
“There is no secret thought lying at the back of your mind?”
“No,” she answered very gravely. “I suspect no one, and, what is more, I
know Mr. Garlett does not either.”
Kentworthy gave her a long, measuring look. He was wondering whether she
could be trusted with a secret. Finally he made up his mind that he
would run the risk.
“Did Dr. Maclean tell you what first caused the Home Office to take
action?” he asked.
“He doesn’t know!” she exclaimed. “Only the other day my aunt was saying
she’d give anything to find out what had caused those first inquiries as
to Mrs. Garlett’s death.”
“Your uncle is a man of his word,” said the detective briefly. “I myself
told him what started the whole business, but I made him promise not to
pass the knowledge on. However, I’m now going to tell you the secret,
and I must ask you to make me the same promise that he made me.”
She looked at him with wide-open eyes, and then he said in a hesitating
voice:
“Mr. Garlett has some bitter enemy, some one who, as soon as the news of
his forthcoming marriage to you had begun to leak out in the
neighbourhood, formed, as I believe, an infamous plot to bring him to
disgrace.”
“A bitter enemy?” faltered Jean.
“Yes, a bitter enemy, to my mind certainly a woman, who wrote the three
anonymous letters which led indirectly to the exhumation of Mrs. Emily
Garlett.”
As she stared at him, overwhelmed with horror and dismay, he laid before
her on her uncle’s writing table the three sinister sheets of paper.
“By rights I ought not to have kept these facsimiles in my possession.
But I made up my mind that it would be right for me to keep even that
which does not belong to me—if it will help me to save an innocent man.”
Jean gazed down at the first impersonal note, that in which the writer
said he felt it his duty to draw the attention of the Head Commissioner
of Police to “certain mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of
Mrs. Garlett.”
“This,” she said doubtfully, “was perhaps written by some one who really
thought there should have been an inquest?”
Kentworthy shook his head.
“You are too kind, my dear young lady. Look at No. 2.”
“But surely this letter was not written by the same person who wrote the
first one?” exclaimed Jean, as she gazed at the second, ill-written,
comma-less letter.
Then, as she read it over, she grew deeply red. Indeed, she felt as if
the words: “The doctor’s niece can tell you why poor Mrs. Garlett’s
doctor made no fuss,” had been burnt, with a hot iron, for ever on the
tablets of her memory.
“Now look at No. 3—that which purports to be written by the sender of
the first letter.”
She read over the long sentence, and then a look of bewilderment and
pain struggled together in her face.
“Well,” asked the detective gravely, “have you any suspicion at all as
to who wrote these letters?”
She knitted her forehead and remained silent for quite a long time, and
James Kentworthy’s hopes rose high.
But at last: “I have no suspicion,” said Jean Bower slowly.
“Your uncle thought that they might be the work of that Miss Prince, who
lives in the Thatched Cottage.”
“I’m sure not,” said Jean, shaking her head. “Miss Prince is a spiteful
woman, and she has never liked Harry, but she’s not a fiend.”
James Kentworthy looked at her with increased respect.
“I agree,” he said, “it’s never any use trying to convince oneself of
what, deep at the back of one’s mind, one knows is not the case. But I
won’t conceal from you that I’m disappointed! Somehow I hoped you would
be able to help me, Miss Bower, and now I feel as if we were up against
a blank wall.”
She said nothing, for she felt terribly oppressed—the knowledge that
there was some one in the world who intensely hated both Harry Garlett
and herself filled her with a kind of unreasoning terror.
“I’m not giving up hope, mind you,” went on Kentworthy. “We’ve a long
time before us yet, and after all”—he was now speaking as if to
himself—“we’re lucky to have secured Sir Harold Anstey.”
Jean’s lip quivered. She felt as if, in spite of his brave words, he was
beginning to believe that he was confronted with an unfathomable
mystery.
“Sir Harold and I are old friends,” went on the detective with a queer
smile. “Thanks to me, a murderer Sir Harold was bent on getting off was
hung. So there’s no love lost between us! Still, he’s a tower of
strength with a jury—makes them see black’s white, so to speak.”
“Do you think that will be necessary?” she asked in a trembling voice.
“I think Sir Harold will start some queer theory of his own—such as that
the poor lady may have poisoned herself.”
“That won’t be the truth,” said Jean.
“And when you are in the witness-box it will be very pleasant for you,
Miss Bower—very pleasant, I mean, that Sir Harold will be with you, and
not against you.”
“Mr. Garlett means to go into the box,” said Jean quickly.
“I know he does,” said the other, “and I’m sorry for it. It’s an unfair
thing that any man now standing on trial for his life has to go into the
box or be considered guilty! Why, it’s a monstrous thing in a way. Those
who changed the law never thought it would be like that.”
“I don’t understand,” she exclaimed, bewildered. “Why shouldn’t he go
into the box?”
“Because, Miss Bower, he’ll be up against people very much cleverer than
himself, if you’ll forgive me for saying so—people, too, who’ll be keen
and resourceful, while he’ll be nervous and dejected. Now take one
thing”—he looked at her hard, hesitated in his own mind, then determined
that he would go through with what he felt ought to be said—“Mr. Garlett
will be asked when he first began to feel for you those—well—sentiments
that led to his asking you to be his wife? If he is an absolutely honest
man I expect he will feel compelled to answer that he was attached to
you long before anybody else knew that he was. That will look pretty bad
from our point of view. _Motive_, Miss Bower—that’s what judge, jury,
everybody in a word, is always looking for in a murder mystery. And
_you_ would provide a very strong motive—if you take my meaning.”
He saw her face change. It was as if all the colour was ebbing out of
it. He suddenly regretted that he had been so frank.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked piteously.
He shook his head regretfully.
“I suppose it wouldn’t be any good my seeing Sir Harold Anstey?”
Mr. Kentworthy remained silent for a moment, and then he answered in a
rather singular tone:
“I think it would be a good thing for you to see him, Miss Bower. But,
mind you—it would be irregular—very irregular! Mr. Toogood wouldn’t lend
himself to anything of that sort.”
“If you think it would help Mr. Garlett, I’d manage to see Sir Harold
Anstey somehow,” she exclaimed, the colour coming back into her face.
“I expect you would. But——”
“But what?” she said eagerly.
“I shouldn’t like it to be known that I advised your doing such a thing.
It isn’t my business to advise what isn’t proper,” he said irresolutely.
“You haven’t advised it,” she exclaimed. “The moment I heard that Sir
Harold was going to defend Harry I made up my mind to see him.”
“Between you and me,” went on the worthy man, “it has always seemed to
me to be dashed stupid that the advocate who is going to defend a man
accused of a serious crime isn’t allowed to see him! In this case it
might make a real difference, for if Mr. Garlett convinced _me_ of his
innocence, who’d gone to see him feeling pretty sure he was guilty, then
think of the effect seeing him might have on a man who wants to think
him innocent?”
“Can’t I persuade Sir Harold to see Harry?”
The detective gave a short barklike laugh.
“Sir Harold won’t see Mr. Garlett till they’re both in court, and one of
them in the dock!”
Jean covered her eyes with her hand, but that made her see all the more
clearly the awful picture conjured up by Mr. Kentworthy’s words.
“Look here, Miss Bower. If you will keep your word you’ll never let Sir
Harold know how you obtained them, I’ll give you these anonymous letters
to show him. I’m sure the Prosecution don’t mean to produce those
letters. ’Twould put people off writing to the police if they thought
their letters would be put in among the exhibits.”
“Exhibits?” echoed Jean, “what are they?”
“Exhibits are the actual, concrete objects connected with the case,”
explained Kentworthy. “If you show Sir Harold these letters he may
demand that the originals be ‘put in,’ as they call it. That will add a
useful touch of mystery—and he’ll make the most of it, never fear!”
“Then I’m to leave these facsimile letters with him?”
“Indeed you’re to do nothing of the kind! If we have the good luck to
run across their writer we may be very glad of them.”
“How soon ought I to try to see Sir Harold?”
“As soon as I hear Sir Harold is back at work I’ll wire to you: ‘Have
hopes of a clue.’ But look here, Miss Bower. If I were you I’d tell no
one of what you mean to do, for it’s irregular—very irregular! If the
case were reversed, if you were a gentleman and not a young lady, I’d
never advise you to try to see Sir Harold. But I think he’ll see _you_.”
Sir Harold was what is known in common parlance as a ladies’ man. But
somehow the detective felt it best to leave Jean Bower to discover that
fact for herself.
CHAPTER XIV
“I’m frightened about Jean.”
Dr. Maclean looked across at his wife. “How d’you mean?” he asked
irritably. “Explain yourself, woman.”
“I sent her upstairs to lie down after Mr. Kentworthy had gone away, and
about tea-time Elsie went up to see if she was asleep. But she wasn’t in
her room. We looked all over the house, but she’s slipped out without
telling anybody.”
“Well? What of that? Why shouldn’t the girl want a breath of fresh air?
It’s just what I should have done at her age if I’d felt as I’m afraid
the poor wean is feeling now.”
“Listen to what she did do,” said Mrs. Maclean in a low voice. “Elsie
felt uneasy—just as uneasy as I did. So she went off into the village.
They said at the post office that Jean had gone by, walking very
quickly, about a quarter of an hour before. Then Elsie—the woman’s no
fool, Jock—somehow guessed what the child had done!”
“D’you mean she went to the Thatched House?”
Dr. Maclean could not keep the dismay out of his voice. He knew that the
police were still in charge of Harry Garlett’s dwelling-place.
“She went to the churchyard. Elsie found her close to poor Mrs.
Garlett’s grave. She was kneeling there, on the bare, wet ground, and
when Elsie came up close behind her she heard her say: ‘Don’t be angry
with Harry, Mrs. Garlett. He hardly knew I existed while you were alive.
But I’ll give him up—I will, indeed, if you’ll help to save him?’ The
poor girl screamed when Elsie spoke to her. But she got up off the cold
earth, and came back with Elsie. She’s sitting in the dining room now,
but she looks very strange, and when I spoke to her just now she didn’t
seem to hear.”
The doctor looked alarmed. “She’s got it in her head that she may have
said something to the man who took her statement that will injure
Garlett. She let out as much to me yesterday. I did my best to reassure
her, but I found it damned difficult to do so, beyond saying that if the
man’s innocent nothing she said could affect the issue.”
“I wish I could think that,” said his wife significantly, “I used to
believe that an innocent man was never found guilty, but I don’t know
that I think so now, Jock.”
“Does that mean,” asked the doctor quickly, “that you now think Garlett
is innocent?”
“I am more inclined to think him so than you are. For one thing, Mr.
Kentworthy’s belief in him has impressed me very much.”
“Has Jean said anything to you about her talk with Kentworthy?”
“No,” said Mrs. Maclean; “in a way, she’s been quite mysterious about
it, but I’m afraid she was terribly disappointed.”
“I suppose she’s sleeping badly?”
“She looked this morning as if she’d had no sleep at all.”
Dr. Maclean got up; he came over to where his wife was sitting and
patted her hand.
“To-day I received a sample of a new preparation of bromide and valerian
with just a dash of chloral. I’ll try Jean with that to-night, and if it
gives her a good night I’ll wire to London for a bottle of the stuff to
come down by train parcel to-morrow. We’ve got to keep her going these
next few weeks.”
“I’ve such a horror of drugs,” said Mrs. Maclean in a low voice. “I
thought you had, too, Jock?”
“So I have, but it’s quite an exceptional case. For the matter of that,
I only wish I could send the poor child to sleep till the whole of this
painful business is over. I’ve sometimes thought what a fine thing it
will be when science is able to suspend a man’s thinking faculties for a
much longer period than for just a few hours——”
“I don’t want to live in that time,” said Mrs. Maclean stubbornly.
“I daresay you don’t, but a good many people would be thankful to be
able to take a dose of—shall we say ‘forgetfulness?’—through their worst
time of sorrow, and, above all, of anxiety.”
“Has any one spoken to you of the case to-day?” she asked.
“Every one has spoken to me of it! I was even stopped in the road three
or four times, and not very far from our gate I had quite a talk with a
newspaper man—in fact I wonder Jean and Elsie didn’t meet him. He
admitted he’d been hanging about all the afternoon.”
“They did meet him—he said he came from the biggest of the London press
agencies. But of course they hurried indoors and refused to have
anything to say to him.”
“He almost persuaded me that it would be worth our while to let Jean
give him an interview,” observed the doctor hesitatingly.
“I disagree,” she said emphatically.
“Well, the question won’t arise now, for I told the man right out she
would give no statement to the press at all.”
“If only she would go away,” moaned Mrs. Maclean.
“I think she might—if you were to tell her that you simply can’t bear
staying here in the circumstances, and that you will go with her,” said
Dr. Maclean slowly.
As only answer his wife burst into sudden, sharp, short sobs.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed.
“I can’t do it, Jock.” She was trying hard to regain her composure. “You
mustn’t ask it of me! I don’t feel I can leave home just now. I know
that my unhappiness is nothing to that poor child’s, but still, I am
very unhappy.” The tears were running down her cheeks. “I suppose we’ve
been very fortunate,” she sobbed, “more fortunate than I knew. Well,
we’re paying for it now!”
“It’ll be all the same a hundred years hence,” he said lamely, “cheer
up, woman!” And Mrs. Maclean wiped her eyes and did try to cheer up.
It is two o’clock in the morning, the darkest hour of the winter night,
and Jean Bower is dreaming. In what she would describe as “a sort of a
way” she knows she is dreaming, and yet, even so, she is filled with an
awful sensation of foreboding and affright.
In this strange and terrific dream of hers, Bonnie Doon is transformed
into a citadel. She is in an upper room, and, gazing fearfully out of
the window, she sees a mob of men surging round the pretty,
old-fashioned, creeper-covered house standing so defenceless close to
the road leading from Terriford village to Grendon. The assaulters are
trying to force their way inside the house. She can hear the roar of
triumph when one of them thinks he has obtained a foothold on the
trellis work, and the murmur of disappointment and exasperation when one
of them falls back.
She knows with a sure and dreadful knowledge that they are all trying to
get at her, and she begins running from room to room trying to hide
herself. But this only means a new horror—for into whatever room she
runs there is always a window, and against that window she sees pressed
menacing, grimacing faces.
And yet, even so, one part of her drugged brain tells her that this
fearful adventure is only a dream—a dream induced by what Elsie told her
about the three reporters whose faces were pressed against the kitchen
window on the morning after the arrest of Harry Garlett. Her uncle had
warned her that what had happened that morning would probably occur
again and again....
At last, with a sobbing sensation of relief, she awakes and sits up in
bed. What was it woke her? The sound, which seemed infinitely far away,
of a window opening and shutting?
Again she lies down, and soon she has gone back to that strange land of
dreams that has always played such a part in her life. But this time it
is to a happy dreamland, and to her weary, bemused brain the knowledge
brings with it a vague comfort. Anything is better than real life just
now.
A dream-match has been struck close to her face, and a dream-man’s
voice—a low, pleasant, caressing voice—exclaims soothingly:
“Don’t be frightened, little girl; it’s only a friend who wants to help
you and your lover.”
A friend? A real friend who wants to help her and Harry? How wonderful!
Even though she knows it is only a dream-friend, the kind deep voice
brings comfort, and a measure of reassurance, to her oppressed heart. So
she answers in a low, sleepy voice:
“How can you help us? I don’t think any one can help us.”
As she mutters the words the light flickers out, and she is again in
darkness. But out of the darkness there again comes that drawling,
caressing voice:
“We—you and I—have this in common, Miss Jean. You believe in Harry
Garlett’s innocence, and I know he is innocent.”
She answers dreamily, “I know it, too. I more than believe, I _know_
that Harry is innocent.”
And from her unseen friend there come again brave, comforting words:
“We must put our wits together, and think of something that will make
other people believe him innocent.”
“I can’t think of anything,” she says wearily, “can you? Oh, do try,
dream-friend!”
She finds it so delicious to be lulled by that deep, caressing voice,
even though she knows it is only a dream-voice.
“Have you never thought that Mrs. Garlett might have taken the poison
herself?”
She answers, as if hypnotized: “Do you think so?” and quickly the answer
comes back out of the darkness: “Why not? There’s only one thing worth
having in life—and that one thing the poor soul lacked.”
One thing worth having? What can he mean? Jean is losing hold of
herself, she is beginning to feel extraordinarily drowsy.
“The one thing worth having in this queer life of ours is love,”
whispers the tender, mocking voice. “Mrs. Garlett had no love in her
life, and even she must have known that life is not worth living without
love.”
Jean murmurs: “What brings happiness is to love, not to be loved.”
And then, as if the familiar words were being uttered infinitely far
away, she hears—“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings——”
Then the voice comes nearer, it is close to her ear.
“Before I go back, far, far away, to the land of dreams, I have a
message for you, Miss Jean.”
“A message, dream-friend?”
“A message from Harry Garlett’s soul to yours. He asks you to remember
that ‘stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.’ He says
he feels happy—happy in spite of all that has happened—because he
possesses your love.”
And then the voice becomes infinitely sad: “There is no love where I
live—in Goblin Land—only an ugly imitation of love. Still, even an ugly
imitation of the greatest thing in the world is better than no love at
all,” and there is something so mournful, so hopeless in the voice that
utters those words that Jean feels keenly distressed. Were she not so
drowsy the tears would come into her eyes.
“Hobgoblins, strange and horrible shapes of pain and death, haunt my
dwelling-place,” goes on her dream-friend. “True there is no unjust
judge, no stupid, conceited set of jurymen, but as a terrible set-off to
that relief there is no rapture—or none to speak of—in the land of
dreams. You and Harry Garlett have the best of it, even now, in the
waking world, Miss Jean. And now, dream happy dreams, poor child, happy,
happy dreams....”
The next morning but one Elsie was bustling about her kitchen, but ever
since she had seen those pallid faces pressed against the window-pane
she had left the shutters closed till after breakfast.
Soon there came the sound of milk cans jingling against one another, so
she hurried into the scullery and cautiously unlocked the back door.
The milkman looked so cheerful that Elsie felt irritated.
“You’re later than usual,” she said snappily.
“I stopped to ’ave a read of the paper. ’Tis rare exciting to-day.” He
added with a chuckle: “I’m in it this morning.”
“You!” exclaimed Elsie. She thought he had gone mad.
“There’s my picture in it, as well as my name—just because I ’aves the
honour of leaving the milk ’ere each morning,” he said grinning.
Then he waited for a second. Though they were old friends he was
slightly afraid of the tall Scotswoman who now stood looking at him with
an air of disgust and doubt on her strong features.
“You’re in it, too,” he said at last, enjoying with a somewhat fearful
joy the look of wrath that flamed up into her face.
“Me in it?”
“You and me is on the back page. Right in the middle where they prints
the big news there’s a piece as what they calls a statement about your
young lady——”
And then he handed her the paper.
She opened it wide and saw that on the middle sheet, under a photograph
of Bonnie Doon, ran the words in huge letters:
THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY
JEAN BOWER’S STATEMENT
BY AN OLD FRIEND
“Miss Jean’s not given any statement,” said Elsie fiercely. “It’s all a
lie, from beginning to end.”
“Well, you just read what’s there.”
“I hope the doctor will have the law on this dratted paper. I never
heard of such a thing. How dare they?” she cried indignantly.
But she was rapidly reading the short double-column, large-print
article, and as she did so she was impressed in spite of herself.
Every man, woman and child in Terriford village will tell you that
Jean Bower, the sweet-faced heroine of what promises to be one of the
big murder mysteries of our time, is a simple, gentle-natured girl
with an exceptionally kind and feeling heart for those in any sorrow
or distress. That is why the hearts of all her neighbours, gentle and
simple, go out to her in the terrible and overwhelming sorrow which
has come to her.
While utterly refusing to be interviewed by any pressmen, I have had
the privilege, as one of her oldest friends, to have a short talk with
her on the subject of what has come to be called the Terriford
Mystery.
Through me she is willing to let it be known that she is absolutely
convinced of Harry Garlett’s innocence. Further, she is inclined to
believe that Mrs. Garlett, a bedridden invalid, who was known to have
attacks of depression at times, administered the poison to herself!
The very fact that Mrs. Garlett was so deeply attached to her husband
would of itself provide a motive to some of those who were acquainted
with the poor lady. Among those acquaintances, however, Miss Jean
Bower was not, for it is a curious fact that she had never even seen
Mrs. Garlett.
Furthermore, her old friend can emphatically deny the cruel and stupid
rumours that declare her to have been on friendly terms with Mr.
Garlett before his wife’s death. Owing to a series of circumstances
that will be made clear by the defence, Miss Bower, though actually in
the employment of the Etna China Company, was only on the most distant
terms with the company’s managing director.
As Elsie read on her first feeling of anger and disgust was insensibly
transformed into one of satisfaction, though she frowned, or tried to
frown, when, after a laudatory account of Bonnie Doon, of Dr. Maclean
and of his wife, she came to the following paragraphs:
Last, and by no means least, in the group of people who compose this
typical British household of worthy and high-minded folk, is Elsie
MacTaggart, the cook.
Elsie is a clever, pugnacious Scotswoman, full of the mother wit and
tender, homely wisdom that we all associate with the land which gave
birth to J. M. Barrie. “It was a fair treat,” as one of those who was
present told me, “to hear Elsie dealing with the swarm of reporters
and press photographers that surrounded Bonnie Doon the day after
Harry Garlett was arrested!”
Unlike the great majority of her brilliant fellow countrymen and
countrywomen, she showed no favour, even to those of the press folk
present who hailed from the other side of the Tweed. She held the
fort, so to speak, with fine discrimination and courage, and it is
largely thanks to her that no statement could be extracted even out of
Dr. Maclean.
Elsie MacTaggart, in addition to her other gifts, is a splendid cook,
and those who have the good fortune to be bidden as guests to Bonnie
Doon all go home feeling utterly dissatisfied with their own porridge
and griddle cakes.
“What a havering idiot the man seems to be!” said Elsie at last.
“Some there are as believe as what Mrs. Cole-Wright wrote that piece,”
observed the milkman.
“Never!” exclaimed Elsie. “She’s far too proud a body to demean herself
by writing for a newspaper. This is a man’s work—unless I’m much out of
my reckoning.”
“Maybe it’s the Reverend Cole-Wright.”
“No, ’tisn’t him neither,” said Elsie decidedly.
Her quick mind was darting hither and thither. She felt genuinely
puzzled, and then there came to her a sudden illumination.
“It’s that fat Kentworthy!” she exclaimed, remembering that Mr.
Kentworthy had highly approved of the bountiful tea which had been
spread out in his honour. Also, now that she came to think of it, he had
said that he liked Scotch cakes owing to his mother having been a
Scotswoman. Well, well, the world’s a small place!
Elsie took her old worn leather purse out of her pocket. “I’d like to
keep this paper,” she observed. “Here’s a penny, milkman, for you to get
yourself another one.”
“You can keep the paper and your penny, too,” said the man offended. “I
never thought, Miss MacTaggart, good friends though we may be, that
you’d take me for a Scotsman!”
Locking the scullery door, Elsie went back into her kitchen, and there
she spread the newspaper out on the table, and once more read the
article through.
Now Elsie never went into the village to do her daily shopping without
hearing Mrs. Garlett’s mysterious death discussed from every point of
view, but never once had any one even so much as hinted that the late
mistress of the Thatched House had committed suicide.
Again and again she now read over the words: “She is inclined to believe
that Mrs. Garlett, a bedridden invalid who was known to have attacks of
depression at times, administered the poison to herself.”
This was, of course, the one solution that would make them all happy
again!
So it was with a look of real happiness on her thin, intelligent face
that she took the paper into the dining room just after the doctor and
his wife had sat down to breakfast.
“There’s something just here,” she exclaimed, “that I doubt whether
you’ll approve, doctor. But I’m thinking it will make you happy all the
same.”
Without waiting for an answer, she went out of the room, and Mrs.
Maclean jumped from her chair and came round to where her husband, an
air of astonishment on his face, was staring with angry, disgusted eyes
at the picture of Bonnie Doon. Then, together, they eagerly read the
article which purported to contain a statement by Jean Bower.
“Whoever do you think wrote this?” asked Mrs. Maclean at last. “Of
course there’s a lot in it that’s true, but I’d stake my life that Jean
hasn’t talked about this terrible business to any human being. I know
she has absolutely refused to discuss it with Miss Prince, though the
woman’s been at her again and again about it.”
For a few moments Dr. Maclean remained silent. Half mechanically he was
reading over and over again the phrases in the so-called statement that
puzzled him the most.
Then at last he looked up.
“This is the work of a practised literary hand—maybe I ought to say of a
practised literary hack!” he exclaimed.
“I’ll tell you who I think did it, or maybe had it done,” said Mrs.
Maclean slowly. “I think ’twas that man Kentworthy or someone he
employed to write it.”
The doctor struck his hand on the table.
“You’ve got it, woman!” he cried. “Kentworthy did his level best to
force me to say that that poor creature, Emily Garlett, had administered
the poison to herself. This is the red herring across the trail. Not a
doubt of it!”
He sat back in his chair.
“The more I know of law and lawyers, the more I feel that what we call
law and justice are queer, twisted things,” he said in a low voice.
“Perhaps Kentworthy has done the best in the circumstances. At any rate,
it’s not our job to let him down or blame him.”
His wife shook her head.
“To my mind no one is justified in putting words into Jean’s mouth which
she never uttered, and never will utter,” she said firmly.
“You are one of those old-fashioned people who believe in telling the
truth,” said the doctor dubiously. “I’d have said the same of myself a
month ago. Of course, you and I know that that woman never committed
suicide—the idea’s absurd! Still, if they can’t get any better notion,
that’s what the defence will set out to prove—I can see that well
enough. I fear me I shall be asked the question straight out, if only
because of this foolish article.”
“And if you are asked the question straight out, what is it you intend
to say in answer, Jock?”
They were both unheeding and uncaring of the good breakfast which was
fast getting cold, and instinctively they had both lowered their voices
for fear lest Jean, though they believed her to be safe in bed, might
suddenly open the door on them.
“Well, Jenny, if I’m on oath, what can I say, except that to the best of
my belief the thought of suicide never crossed Mrs. Garlett’s mind?”
“Will you have to put it quite as strongly as that?” asked his wife.
“Well, I don’t say I shall put it quite as strongly as I’ve put it to
you, but still it’s the truth! Mrs. Garlett loved life, for all she was
such a poor, sickly thing. You must remember that she had never been a
strong and healthy woman.”
And then Mrs. Maclean so far forgot herself as to say something which
reduced her husband to silence.
She went back to her place behind the teapot, and from there, in a
small, still voice, she said quietly:
“You did make one mistake, Jock. You hadn’t a doubt that the woman died
a natural death, and you signed a certificate to that effect. Isn’t it
just possible that you’ve made another mistake? Supposing, after all,
Mrs. Garlett had got tired of her life and made up her mind to quit?
Don’t you go and be too sure of anything, my dear. You were wrong once;
you may be wrong again.”
He made no answer to that, and though she loved him well, and had no
wish to hurt him, she would not have taken her words back. What she had
said was true—in this strange world it is a mistake, sometimes a
terrible mistake, to be too sure of anything.
After a while she spoke again:
“I wouldn’t let Jean know about this article, if we can prevent it,
Jock. She’s so fearsomely truthful. She might think it her duty to write
to the paper and say that she does not believe Mrs. Garlett killed
herself! I did raise the point with her after Kentworthy came that first
time, and she declared that Harry Garlett told her his wife was much too
religious a woman ever to have thought of such a thing—apart from the
fact that she always seemed perfectly happy and contented with her
life.”
“I think you’re right. We’ll say nothing of it. What a blessing it is
that we can trust Elsie to hold her tongue!”
And so it was that Dr. Maclean locked the paper away, and that Jean
Bower was never shown the article described as containing her statement.
Yet the so-called statement was widely discussed, and both the
Prosecution and the Defence took special note of it. Further, the
circulation of the paper was very largely increased, at any rate in
Terriford and Grendon, during the weeks which followed. Thus the
enterprise the editor had shown in securing the article was justified,
though one of the proprietors, when he discovered, as he took the
trouble to do, that the author was a casual contributor and had been
paid a special fee of fifty guineas, thought the sum excessive.
CHAPTER XV
Miss Prince got up very early on the morning Harry Garlett was to appear
before the magistrates, to be either committed for trial, or sent out
into the world a free man.
Though glad, in a sense, that her friend Agatha Cheale had been saved by
illness from the painful ordeal of appearing against her late employer,
she, Miss Prince, felt, from a selfish point of view, sorry. For it had
been arranged, at Agatha Cheale’s own request, that the older woman
should accompany her to the police court, and Miss Prince had a special
reason for wishing to know what exact evidence as to the arsenic, the
administration of which had undoubtedly killed Mrs. Garlett, would be
tendered to-day.
As things had now fallen out, she would have to possess her soul in
patience till the afternoon.
It may be asked why Miss Prince did not follow the example of
innumerable women belonging to the neighbourhood, that is, go off to
Grendon and, after a more or less long wait, fight her way into the
police court? Had she been thirty years younger she might have done so,
but being the manner of woman she was, the thought of doing so
unladylike and bold a thing never even occurred to her. And yet, during
the whole of the wakeful night which preceded her early rising, her mind
was entirely occupied with the form the evidence against Harry Garlett
was likely to assume.
As is the case with most clever, malicious gossips, no woman could on
occasion keep her own counsel more rigidly than could Miss Prince. No
doubt this was owing, in a measure, to the fact that for more than half
her life she had been the trusted confidante of her father. In no
profession is there so high a standard of loyalty to another’s personal
secrets as in the medical profession, and what is true of the doctor is
generally true also of the doctor’s wife and daughter.
So it was that Miss Prince had kept rigidly to herself a dreadful
suspicion which since the arrest of Harry Garlett had hardened into
certainty.
Lucy Warren, hearing her mistress stirring, had hurried down to cook the
breakfast, and Miss Prince, leaving her cold bedroom, felt a certain
warmth about the heart as there floated up her tiny staircase a pleasant
aroma of frizzling bacon.
Worried and unhappy as she felt, uncertain, too, as to where her duty
lay—a most unusual feeling with her—she yet told herself that she was
indeed fortunate in her good, quiet, sensible young servant. Even as a
child Lucy Warren had been a favourite of hers, and the girl seemed so
superior to her class, so reserved, so proud, that for a moment Miss
Prince asked herself whether she would not do well to confide in Lucy,
for she longed to share her anxiety and uncertainty with some other
human being. But the thought was no sooner there than she dismissed it,
aware that if the moment came when she felt she must share her secret,
it was to a lawyer that a certain fact, known to her alone, must be
admitted.
But one thing she did this morning marked both to herself and to Lucy
Warren the unusual nature of the day. She ordered her breakfast, for the
first time in her life, to be brought to her upstairs sitting room.
Perhaps because it was upstairs, she very seldom used this room, except
when she asked a few friends in to supper and a game of cards. From her
point of view, though she would not have admitted it, the upstairs
sitting room of the Thatched Cottage was a cardroom and nothing else.
She sat down, feeling deadly cold, for though the fire was burning
brightly the room was chilly, as a room in which no fire has been lit
for some days is apt to be. But it was not the cold which made Miss
Prince feel so shivery, and so miserably undecided in her mind. For the
first time in her now long life she was confronted with a problem to
which she could see no solution that would not bring disaster, even
death, in its train.
Lucy Warren came up with her mistress’s breakfast tray. She drew up a
small table and set it before her in silence, making no remark, as
almost any other young woman would have done, as to Miss Prince’s
surprising choice of a breakfast room, and she was just leaving the room
when her mistress called out: “Lucy!”
Lucy turned round. “Yes, ma’am?” she said inquiringly.
Always Miss Prince insisted on being accorded brevet rank both by her
own servants and the people of the village. She hated the term “Miss.”
“Come nearer, Lucy. I want to speak to you.”
And then, somewhat to Miss Prince’s astonishment, she saw that her words
startled the girl. Lucy became painfully red, as she stood before her
mistress twisting and untwisting a bit of apron in her hand, and looking
very unlike her usual composed self.
“I want you to cast your mind back to last April and May—I mean, of
course, when your friend Agnes Dean was my servant. You used to be in
and out of my kitchen a good deal, I think.”
Lucy answered freely, eagerly: “Yes, ma’am, I used to come along most
days.”
“Now I want to ask you a very serious question, Lucy, and I rely on you
to keep the fact that I have asked it of you to yourself. Did she tell
you, or were you aware of your own knowledge, that Mr. Garlett was ever
in this house at a time when I was out of it?”
“Not that I know of, ma’am. The only person who used sometimes to come
and wait for you while you was out was Miss Cheale.”
“Of course, I know that,” Miss Prince spoke with a touch of impatience.
“What I want you to try to remember is whether Mr. Garlett was ever in
this house alone for, say, a quarter of an hour? Especially, Lucy,” she
hesitated, then asked the question firmly, “whether he was ever in this
upper part of the house by himself? As you know, he is my landlord. On
him depend all the outside repairs. It is possible, nay, even probable,
he may have come upstairs once or twice on such business as that.”
“Mr. Garlett never bothered about that sort of thing himself, ma’am. He
always sent the builder along. A nice fat lot of money Blackman has made
out of that poor gentleman in the last ten years! Mr. Garlett never
bothered, and Mrs. Garlett was too ill to bother.”
Miss Prince looked fixedly at the girl.
“Then you are not one of those,” she observed in a rather cold tone,
“who believe that Mr. Garlett poisoned Mrs. Garlett?”
Lucy hesitated, and then she made a reply that surprised Miss Prince.
“I don’t care one way or the other,” she said sullenly. “Though it
doesn’t seem to me that Mr. Garlett had any reason to do such a wicked
thing. It wasn’t as if he’d known Miss Bower then—leastways he did know
her, but he didn’t like her. I know that!”
“You know that, Lucy?”
“I do, ma’am. I heard Mr. Garlett say one day, when I was waiting at
table, that he wished Mrs. Maclean hadn’t gone and asked him to take her
niece on at the factory. He said it would be difficult to reprimand
her—that was the word he used—if she did anything that he or old Mr.
Dodson didn’t like. He said it was a mistake to mix up friendship and
business.”
“Whom did he say that to?” asked Miss Prince eagerly. Here she was on
her old familiar ground of gossip.
“He said it to the lawyer, Mr. Toogood,” answered Lucy.
“Was that just before his wife’s death?”
“Well, ’twas perhaps a fortnight before she died. I can’t say exactly.
Miss Cheale had already gone upstairs, and Mr. Garlett had rung for more
port wine, and it was as I came into the dining room that I heard him
say that.”
“Dear me, that’s very interesting.”
“You won’t let on I’ve told you that, ma’am?” asked Lucy earnestly.
“Mother’s fearful lest I be mixed up in it all. She was once called to
an inquest and never forgot it. It made her ill for months afterward,
that it did—she was so terrified. Those lawyers ’ud get anything out of
you. They make you say black’s white—and white’s black.”
“I don’t think there’s the slightest reason to fear that you will be
called as a witness,” said Miss Prince coldly, “and in any case, if you
were called, it would be your duty to attend, Lucy. Surely you would
think it a duty to speak up and tell the truth?”
And then Lucy, emboldened by Miss Prince’s benignant mood, ventured a
question.
“Will you be a witness, ma’am?”
“I? Certainly not! Why should I be?” Miss Prince looked disturbed—she
even flushed a little. “Miss Cheale will be a witness for the
Prosecution, for she was with poor Mrs. Garlett when she died.”
And then Lucy said in a singular tone:
“Miss Cheale will be sorry if Mr. Garlett is hanged. She was such a
friend of his.”
“Not only a friend,” said Miss Prince quickly, “but a relation, too.
Miss Cheale is a distant cousin of Mr. Garlett’s. I’ve always supposed
that that was why Mrs. Garlett left her that legacy.”
Lucy turned away, and perhaps it was as well that Miss Prince did not
see the look that came over her face.
“Lucy? One word more. Has your mother heard from Mr. Guy Cheale lately?
Does she know where he is, and what he’s doing?”
Lucy did not turn round, as a properly trained servant ought to have
done.
“Mother heard from Mr. Cheale? Not that I know of. Why should she?”
Then she slipped out of the room and went down the stairs at such a pace
that her mistress concluded she must have heard some one knocking at the
back door.
Miss Prince began eating her now cold egg and bacon. She felt sick and
shivery, yet she forced herself to eat, and after a while the food and
her good China tea made her feel a little better. But even so she was in
a miserable state of uncertainty.
With all her odious peculiarities she had a strict, if a narrow, sense
of duty, and she could not make up her mind as to what she ought to do
with regard to a sinister fact known to herself alone.
Miss Prince, for her misfortune, knew of a place in Terriford where
arsenic could be found. And deep in her heart she was quite certain it
was from that store or cache of arsenic that had been stolen the dose of
poison which had killed Emily Garlett.
That store or cache of arsenic was here, in her own house, close by
where she was now considering the difficult problem of what it was her
duty to do.
Sitting there, in front of the now bright fire, she could visualize with
horrid clearness the fat glass-stoppered bottle with the red label on
which was printed in black letters the word “Arsenic.”
The bottle—which contained a sufficient quantity of the deadly poison to
have killed every one in the village—stood on the top shelf of her drug
cupboard, in a tiny room next door, known all over the village as “Miss
Prince’s medicine room.”
As residuary legatee to her father, everything that had belonged to him
at his death had passed into her possession, and she had chosen to take
with her to her new home the drugs that had been in his dispensary.
In a country medical practice every little counts. Thanks to Miss
Prince, the poorer folk in Terriford had hardly ever had occasion to
consult Dr. Maclean. He had spoken to her of the matter only once—years
ago—soon after his arrival. She had said what had been far more true
then than it was to-day—that the working folk were so miserably poor
that it would be sheer cruelty to ask them to send for the doctor for
every trifling ailment. Further, she had asserted that often she
relieved him of work for which he could never expect any payment, and
Dr. Maclean had admitted, somewhat reluctantly, the force of the
argument.
But while the knowledge of that stoppered bottle on the top shelf of the
drug cupboard which she generally, but not invariably, kept locked, made
her feel acutely anxious, she tried to persuade herself that it could
not be her duty to force herself into this, to her, horrible affair. Not
only was the thought of appearing in the witness-box at a great trial
terrible to one with Miss Prince’s old-fashioned feminine outlook on
life, but she was well aware that she would certainly be severely
censured, by both counsel and judge in the case, for keeping such
poisons as arsenic and strychnine in her house.
She faced the grim certainty that she, and she alone, could supply the
missing link in the chain of circumstantial evidence now tightening
around Harry Garlett. But would that link be missed? Never having liked
him, and having now no doubt as to his guilt, she equally had no doubt
as to his fate. Was it essential that she, his wife’s oldest friend,
should hound him to his death?
She asked herself with a sharp feeling of self-rebuke why she had been
such a fool as to keep a poison which she never had any reason to use?
But there it was, she had kept it.
Getting up at last, she took off a small bookshelf “The Student’s
Handbook of Forensic Medicine and Public Health,” and turning to the
entry “Metallic Irritants,” she quickly made herself mistress of what
information was there.
She learned that white arsenic—that is the type of arsenic in her
possession—was not only colourless and odourless, but almost devoid of
taste, thus very easily administered in powdered sugar, and even she,
with her wide knowledge of drugs, received a certain shock when she
discovered that a pinch of arsenic holds no less than seventeen grains,
two grains being a fatal dose.
Now Miss Prince, in common with almost every one in the neighbourhood,
had severely blamed Dr. Maclean for his lack of suspicion, but, as she
read the little black volume by which her father had set such store, she
realized that the old doctor had not been so much to blame after all.
For, whereas in many cases the symptoms of arsenical poisoning point to
an irritant administered, all sorts of anomalies may and do occur. In
fact the symptoms are frequently so misleading that death due to the
action of arsenic has even been described as spontaneous internal
inflammation!
Miss Prince put her book back on its shelf and went out on the landing.
She listened intently for a few moments, and then, turning the handle of
the door giving into her medicine room, she went through into the tiny
bare chamber.
After having shut the door softly, she gazed at the substantial wooden
cupboard in which she kept the drugs which were a survival of the days
when she had been her father’s faithful assistant and dispenser.
The cupboard was locked now. But it had been often left open till a few
days ago—owing to the trifling fact that something had gone wrong with
the lock, and that it had become just a little tiresome to turn the key.
If only walls could speak! Miss Prince, gazing up at the grained wood,
would have given years of her life to know if Harry Garlett had ever
stood where she was standing now—but with the cupboard doors wide open
before him.
At last, with an impatient movement, she took a step forward, and stood
by the narrow window of her medicine room, and then, suddenly, she
shrank back, and a deep frown gathered on her face.
Trudging quickly along in the wintry sunshine was James Kentworthy, the
man who had, to use her own expression, bamboozled her. It was easy now
to marvel at her stupidity in supposing for a moment that such an
individual could have been connected, even very distantly, with her poor
friend, Emily Garlett. But she had believed him, absolutely, and on the
strength of it had asked him in to tea. Well she remembered the quiet,
skilful way in which he had examined and cross-examined her concerning
the inmates of the Thatched House.
James Kentworthy was on his way to Bonnie Doon, for it had been arranged
that he and the doctor should drive together to Grendon in order to be
present at the final inquiry before the magistrates.
The private inquiry agent felt, if possible, even more baffled than he
had been at the end of his conversation with Jean Bower. He had learned
everything there was to learn, or so he felt convinced, concerning the
only people who had had access to Mrs. Garlett, and more and more it had
become clear to him that the only human being with a paramount interest
in her death was her husband, Harry Garlett. Twenty years of hard work
in the Criminal Investigation Department had proved to him that where
there is no motive there is no murder, and if this be true of an
ordinary, sordid crime, how much more true when a secret poisoner is in
question!
But Kentworthy was also aware of a fact which is often forgotten by
those interested in murder mysteries—namely, that a motive which may
seem utterly inadequate to one type of mind, to another may be
overwhelmingly sufficient for almost any crime.
Again and again he had asked himself, in the last few days, what manner
of woman was Agatha Cheale? Next to Harry Garlett she was the only human
being who had benefited by Mrs. Garlett’s death. On the other hand, the
young lady had been in the enjoyment of a very exceptional salary. For
her apparently simple and easy services she had been paid at the rate of
three hundred pounds a year. Further, Mr. Toogood had assured him that
Mrs. Garlett, secretive as are so many people concerning their money
affairs, had not even made the husband whom she dearly loved acquainted
with the terms of her will.
All those men whose professions, be they lawyers, doctors, ministers of
the gospel, whose way of life brings them closely in touch with human
nature, soon become aware of how difficult it is to form any accurate
view concerning the secret relations of a man and a woman. Mr.
Kentworthy had come to the reluctant conclusion that long before his
wife’s death Garlett had lived a double life. He was convinced of the
truth of Lucy Warren’s statement as to the meetings in the wood, and the
more convinced because the girl had made it unwillingly, indeed had been
frightened into making it. Twice he had tried in the last three days to
get in touch with her again, each time choosing a moment when Miss
Prince was out. But Lucy Warren had defied him, and the second time he
had seen her she had said with a shrewdness that surprised him:
“I am not bound to tell you anything now. It was different when you came
from the police.”
Kentworthy was convinced that she had told the truth, and so he accepted
it as a fact that Garlett had been in the habit of meeting a woman
secretly at night. Further, he believed that the anonymous letters had
been written by that unknown woman, and he hoped that her association
with Garlett—of whatever nature it might prove to be—would provide a
sufficiently strong motive for her to have committed secret murder.
With his mind full of these vague and uncertain half-suspicions, the
detective came within sight of Bonnie Doon, and then he hastened his
steps, for the doctor’s motor was already before the door waiting to
start for the police court in Grendon where Harry Garlett’s fate was to
be decided to-day so far as it was within the power of the local
magistrates to decide it.
CHAPTER XVI
Early that same afternoon Miss Prince made her way to the rectory. She
felt too anxious, too excited, too restless to stay quietly at home, and
she knew that the rector would soon be returning with the news of what
had happened.
She and the rector’s wife, Mrs. Cole-Wright, were on terms of armed
neutrality rather than friendship, and that though they “ran the parish”
between them. Mrs. Cole-Wright was the best-read woman in the
neighbourhood. In happier circumstances she might have cut a certain
figure in the world. As it was, her sarcastic tongue and reputation for
“cleverness” caused her to be avoided by many of her neighbours.
She shared to the full the prevailing excitement concerning Harry
Garlett, and so, for once, she was glad to see Miss Prince.
“The rector is not yet back,” she observed, “but you must wait and hear
what he has to say. I suppose that unfortunate man has been committed
for trial, though I don’t quite see what actual evidence they have
against him.”
“How d’you mean?” exclaimed the other, surprised. “Surely you don’t
doubt that poor Emily Garlett was poisoned?”
“Of course I don’t doubt that,” answered Mrs. Cole-Wright impatiently.
“But I do ask myself how they will be able to bring the murder home to
Harry Garlett, unless they can prove that he had arsenic in his
possession, or that he bought arsenic for any purpose whatsoever, within
a comparatively short time of his wife’s death.”
“I think it’s almost certain that they did find some arsenic in the
Thatched House,” said Miss Prince. “But we shall soon know——”
She did not look up as she spoke; she kept her eyes fixed on a worn spot
in the rectory drawing-room carpet.
Even as she said the words there came the sound of the front door
opening and shutting, and a moment later the rector came hurriedly into
the room, almost as eager to tell his news as they were to hear it.
“Well, it’s gone as I suppose we all expected it to do,” he exclaimed.
“Garlett has been committed for trial at the next assizes on the charge
of having murdered his wife!”
“How did he take it?” asked his wife.
“Very oddly, to my thinking. The unhappy man addressed the magistrates.
Think of that! Why, he himself was sitting on that very magistrate’s
bench less than a month ago——”
“What did he say?” exclaimed the two ladies together.
“He only spoke for about three minutes—but it seemed an hour to me! He
declared most solemnly that he was not guilty, and he made a kind of
appeal—it made me go hot all over—asking how it was possible that any
one who had ever known him could believe him guilty?”
And then Miss Prince looked into the rector’s kindly, troubled face.
“Did they find any arsenic at the Thatched House?” she asked in a low
voice.
“Nothing was said about that,” answered the clergyman slowly. “If any
arsenic was found they have not chosen to bring the fact forward to-day.
Of course what told terribly against Garlett was Maclean’s evidence.”
“Had he anything new to say?”
“Well, I don’t know that he had, exactly. But there was quite a
sensation in the court when he revealed that Mrs. Garlett had taken a
plateful of strawberries and sugar from Harry Garlett’s own hand a few
hours before the poor soul died in agony! One could tell that according
to Maclean’s theory the arsenic was administered in the white powdered
sugar which seems to have been thickly sprinkled over the strawberries.”
“My strawberries!” exclaimed Miss Prince, as if speaking to herself, “my
strawberries—alas!”
They both turned on her quickly.
“_Your_ strawberries, Miss Prince? What do you mean?”
“Ever since I was a girl,” she answered, “I have grown a few forced
strawberries each spring. I thought every one in Terriford knew that.”
There came a spot of colour into her sallow face. She had never
presented the Cole-Wrights with a basket of her forced strawberries, and
now she regretted the omission.
“Do you mean you grow them in pots in the house?” asked Mrs.
Cole-Wright, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. She had no love of
gardening—another peculiarity which tended to make her unpopular with
her neighbours.
“I grow them there in two small barrels in which holes have been
pierced,” answered Miss Prince quickly. “A French governess showed me
how to do it when I was little more than a child, and I grow those tiny
Alpine strawberries that the French call the ‘Four Seasons.’ On that
fatal Saturday last May, hearing that poor Emily Garlett was feeling
rather less well than usual, I took her up my first gathering, so to
speak. Though the berries were rather white they were very sweet. To
think that they should have helped to kill her!”
“And was it your sugar, too?” asked the rector abruptly.
“Good gracious, no—of course not! I took the strawberries to the
Thatched House in a little covered basket which I left with Miss Cheale,
and she brought me back the basket that same evening.”
“Did Mr. Garlett allude to the strawberries in his speech to-day?”
inquired Mrs. Cole-Wright.
“I’m sorry to say he did. He denied absolutely that he had given his
wife any strawberries. He said that he had never even seen them! But of
course no one doubted that Maclean had told the truth, the more so that
one could see that he gave his damning evidence with the greatest
reluctance. I thought at one moment that the poor fellow was going to
break down. It’s an awful thing for the Macleans. I feel truly sorry for
them.”
“You mean because of Jean Bower?” observed his wife. Then she gave a
curious little laugh. “Men are so sentimental, aren’t they, Miss Prince?
The girl will get over it soon enough, Philip—never you fear! It’s lucky
they weren’t already married. There I admit that Jean Bower and the
Macleans have had a lucky escape. But as for the girl, no pity need be
wasted over her. Why, she hardly knew Harry Garlett, when he came back
four months ago!”
“I hope that’s true,” remarked Miss Prince in a singular tone.
“What d’you mean?” asked her hostess eagerly.
“I have my doubts as to the terms they were on before Harry went away.”
“Do you mean before his wife died?” asked the rector, in a horror-struck
tone.
“My dear Philip,” exclaimed his wife. “Do you _never_ hear any gossip?”
“I never heard any gossip as to the relations of these two people,” he
said decidedly. Then, looking at his wife, “Did you?”
“I can’t remember exactly when I first heard a word said. But I do
remember that I didn’t believe a word of it,” answered Mrs. Cole-Wright.
“But of course I’ll change my mind if Miss Prince has any evidence that
they were intimate——?” and she looked fixedly at her visitor.
“Intimate!” exclaimed the rector in a horrified tone.
“All I can say is,” Miss Prince spoke in a dogged tone, “that on the
very morning I took those strawberries to the Thatched House, Harry
Garlett and Miss Bower walked back together from Grendon across the
fields. I saw them with my own eyes, just before I left the house.”
As the husband and wife leaned forward in their chairs and looked at her
full of keen, if rather shamefaced, curiosity, she went on composedly:
“I’d already heard some talk about them even then. Jean Bower’s a very
attractive girl, for all her quiet ways. Old Dodson was crazy about
her.”
Mrs. Cole-Wright said musingly: “When one comes to think of it, Jean
Bower was at the Etna China factory some time before Mrs. Garlett’s
death. She first came here in the winter.”
“So she did—I’d forgotten that! Still, if Mrs. Maclean is to be
believed,” observed the rector, “she and her husband were utterly taken
by surprise over the engagement. The day she came to see me about the
marriage—you remember how quiet they wanted it to be—she admitted that
they had both thought the girl liked Tasker.”
“Dr. Tasker has reason to be thankful to-day,” said Miss Prince slowly.
“Why?” asked husband and wife.
“Because,” she replied briskly, “could anything be more awful than to
have one’s bride, even one’s fiancée, mixed up in such an affair?”
“D’you really think Jean Bower would have been mixed up in it—if she’d
been engaged to Tasker?” asked the rector in a pained tone.
“One never can tell,” said Miss Prince sententiously, forgetting—as
scandal-mongers are apt to forget—that in this life one cannot have it
both ways.
She went on eagerly, “However, Dr. Tasker is out of it, and, next to
Harry Garlett himself, the one most affected is Dr. Maclean. Mark my
words—there’ll be an awful falling-off in his practice!”
She did not utter that prediction with any touch of regret in her voice,
for she had never liked her father’s successor.
After a pause she added, “He showed himself grossly careless, if not
worse, when signing poor Emily’s death certificate.”
“He was certainly taken in,” said Mrs. Cole-Wright acidly.
The rector exclaimed: “Yes, indeed! By the way, he made great play
to-day with the fact that he was being called as a common, and not as an
expert, or skilled, witness.”
“How very odd,” observed Mrs. Cole-Wright. “Surely a doctor is always an
expert—or ought to be?”
“Well, no, not according to law,” said the rector. “According to him—and
I could see that none of the magistrates dared to contradict him—he was
only bound to state, as any other witness might have done, the facts
that had fallen under his own observation. They tried hard to make him
say what he thought himself as to Garlett’s guilt or innocence, but he
refused, very properly, to give an opinion.”
“Of course it will be got out of him at the trial,” exclaimed his wife.
“Do you know whether Dr. Maclean is to appear for the prosecution or the
defence?” asked Miss Prince.
“For the prosecution, surely?” cried Mrs. Cole-Wright quickly. “But the
defence will cross-examine him, and I pity the poor man if, as I heard
yesterday, Sir Harold Anstey has already been briefed by Mr. Toogood.”
“Maclean said one thing that struck me very much,” said the rector. “He
reminded the magistrates that a medical witness should always remember
that he is not retained for any particular person, but in the cause of
justice alone. I think you will find that he will make a most excellent
witness. He certainly managed to conceal what he really thought from
me—I could form no opinion as to whether he believes Garlett innocent or
guilty.”
“You’d have made it out fast enough if he thought the man innocent,”
said his wife shrewdly.
“Of course he knows Harry Garlett to be guilty,” exclaimed Miss Prince
in a hard voice. “I don’t see how any one can doubt it.”
“How well I remember,” went on the rector, “Dr. Maclean coming up that
Sunday morning, just as I was going into church, to tell me of Mrs.
Garlett’s death. He looked terribly tired, for he had been up most of
the night. But still we had a little talk about it. I was very much
shocked, for, if you remember”—he turned to his wife—“I had seen Mrs.
Garlett the day before, and she had seemed to me rather brighter than
usual.”
He waited a moment, then exclaimed: “By the way, I remember now that
Maclean actually mentioned those strawberries as having caused the acute
indigestion which resulted in her death!”
His wife looked at him apprehensively. “Be careful what you say, Philip.
You don’t want to be called as a witness?”
“Of course I don’t. Miss Prince? May I rely upon you not to tell any one
of this curious little piece of corroborative evidence?”
“What the rector said is not evidence,” said Mrs. Cole-Wright lightly.
Her husband looked at her puzzled.
“One can never be quite sure as to who may be called upon to give
evidence,” observed Miss Prince. “But the one witness they are sure to
call at the trial is Jean Bower.”
“What an awful ordeal it will be for the poor girl,” said Mr.
Cole-Wright in a moved tone.
“The person I shall feel sorry for,” broke in his wife, “is Miss Cheale.
I respect that young woman. She was always so quiet, so dignified, and
kept herself to herself. She will be a most important witness.”
“And she seems to have been the only person actually with Mrs. Garlett
when the poor soul passed away,” chimed in the rector.
“I was surprised at the time,” observed Mrs. Cole-Wright, “that there
was neither an inquest nor a post-mortem with a person so important in
her own way as poor Mrs. Garlett.”
“And there’s another thing,” said the rector hesitatingly, “though
perhaps I hardly ought to tell it to you?”
“Of course you must tell us, Philip. All we are saying here is
absolutely private——”
She looked at Miss Prince, and Miss Prince nodded, gravely:
“Harry Garlett was exceedingly anxious that the burial should take place
two days earlier than it did,” said the clergyman impressively. “This
fact, to which I now attach a sinister significance, was the more
ominous because, instead of raising the question himself, he got Miss
Cheale to do so. Miss Cheale and that queer, sickly brother of hers came
and asked me if the funeral could take place on the Thursday instead of
on the Saturday. Miss Cheale said that Garlett was anxious to have the
funeral as soon as possible. But that again”—he turned to Miss
Prince—“is a thing I naturally do not wish made public. The wretched man
will be condemned on direct, not circumstantial, evidence, unless I’m
much mistaken.”
“I suppose he will,” said Miss Prince.
Then she got up to go. She had enjoyed every moment of her visit, save
during the short discussion as to the forced Alpine strawberries.
Lucy Warren was moving about her little kitchen trying to make work for
herself. She was miserable with the dull dogged misery bred of hope
deferred. Since the night she had seen Guy Cheale disappear through the
drawing room window of the Thatched House, she had only had one short
interchange of words with him.
Months had gone by since then, and yet to Lucy Warren the wounds
inflicted on her pride as well as on her heart were still open wounds.
She was of course excited and interested in the question of Mrs.
Garlett’s death, but to her the one thing that mattered was the mystery
of Guy Cheale’s disappearance out of her life.
This afternoon the man she had come to love was very present to her
mind. She seemed to see his keen, mocking face rise up before her. It
was as if his heavy-lidded gray eyes—eyes that could be at once so cruel
and so tender, were following her about.
Her feelings toward Agatha Cheale had undergone no change—in fact, when
that young lady had stayed at the Thatched Cottage—Lucy had quietly told
Miss Prince that she would not meet her, and Miss Prince had allowed
Lucy’s sister to take her place for the time. Often since then, poor
Lucy had regretted that she had not forced herself to stay and face her
enemy. She would, maybe, have learned something as to Guy Cheale and his
condition; she might even have had the good fortune to discover his
address.
As these thoughts were drifting through her mind, there came at the back
door a curious, furtive, uncertain knock.
With a strange sense of foreboding at her heart, she went and unlatched
the door, and for a moment she thought the slight woman whose face was
swathed in a long motor veil a stranger.
“I want to see Miss Prince,” said the husky voice Lucy remembered only
too well. Then came a surprise: “Why, it’s Lucy Warren! Tell me—do you
know if Mr. Garlett was committed for trial this morning?”
Lucy stared at the unexpected visitor, remembering that Miss Cheale was
supposed to be too ill to leave London.
“I don’t know what’s happened to Mr. Garlett. I’m expecting Miss Prince
back every minute. She’ll have found out for sure,” said Lucy coldly.
“Come in, do! You look perished with cold, miss.”
Agatha Cheale came through into the warm kitchen. She loosened her
concealing veil, and Lucy saw that her face was thin and worn. She
looked very ill, and though there seemed nothing in common between her
and her big, fair brother, yet to-day Lucy did see a kind of family
resemblance which made her heart beat faster, and impelled her to do a
thing she would have thought herself incapable of doing even for Miss
Prince. It was in a tone of kindly sympathy that she exclaimed:
“Sit you down, miss, and I’ll take off your boots and bring a pair of
shoes for you to put on!”
Agatha Cheale sat down wearily.
“I’ll take off my boots myself,” she said, “but I shall be glad of the
shoes, though I can’t stay long.”
“Mother’s fretted a deal about Mr. Cheale,” said Lucy nervously. “Is he
quite well?”
A challenging look flashed between the two young women, and then Agatha
Cheale said coldly:
“I have no idea where my brother is. The last time I saw him was about a
month after he left here. He was then going abroad.”
Almost as if the words were dragged out of her, Miss Cheale added: “He
asked me about the Thatched Farm—how you all were, and so on. But I told
him I did not know.”
After Lucy had fetched Miss Prince’s warm bedroom slippers, she asked
the visitor: “Won’t you come into the little sitting room? I’ve kept up
a good fire there. Miss Prince will be back in a minute.”
But it seemed a very long time both to the young lady sitting in the
parlour and to the maid sitting in the kitchen, before there came the
familiar knock at the front door. Miss Prince would have thought it
quite wrong, almost a “fast” thing to do, to let herself in with a
latchkey.
As Lucy opened the door she whispered: “Miss Cheale is here, waiting to
see you, ma’am.”
“Miss Cheale!”
Miss Prince could hardly believe her ears. She had supposed her friend
to be ill in bed, in London.
As she came in to her sitting room, Agatha Cheale stood up, a look of
agonized suspense on her face.
“Is Harry Garlett committed for trial?” she asked.
“Of course he is—surely you did not expect anything else?”
And then Miss Prince felt suddenly disturbed and angry. She disliked
intensely anything that savoured of hysterical emotion, and here was
Agatha Cheale clasping her hands together with a wild gesture, and
exclaiming: “How terrible! For he is innocent—innocent!”
“You cannot possibly know whether he is innocent or guilty,” said Miss
Prince coldly. “Sit down, my dear. We’ll have tea in a moment.”
“He _is_ innocent,” cried the other passionately. “I know Harry Garlett
far, far better than I have ever admitted—even to you!”
Miss Prince’s heart seemed to leap in her breast. Was she at last to be
positively assured of something which no one but herself had ever
suspected, with the one exception, maybe, of Dr. Maclean?
Agatha Cheale sat staring before her, a look of terrible suffering in
her eyes.
The older woman at last ventured: “You mean, my dear, that there were
love passages between you? I always suspected it.”
“No!” almost screamed Agatha Cheale, starting up from her chair. “There
were no love passages between us. What love there was was on my side—my
side alone.”
And then she broke into bitter sobs. “I’m a wicked woman, a wicked
woman——”
“Nonsense, my dear! If there have been no love passages, you are not a
wicked woman,” said practical Miss Prince.
She walked over to where her friend still stood, a dreadful look of
rigid misery on her face.
“Sit down,” she said quietly, taking up the other’s hot, nerveless hand.
“Sit down, Agatha. You’re in a high fever, I do believe.”
“I have been in bed on and off for nearly ten days. But I felt I must
come down here and learn what had really happened to-day. Have you seen
any one who was there?”
“Yes, I’ve seen the rector. What told against Harry most was Dr.
Maclean’s evidence. But no arsenic has yet been traced to his
possession.”
In spite of herself, as she said those last words Miss Prince’s voice
altered slightly.
“Why should he be suspected then—more than any one else who was in the
house at the time?”
Miss Prince thought this a very silly question.
“What is absolutely certain, Agatha, is that poor Emily died, poisoned
with an unusually large quantity of arsenic.”
“I know that,” said Miss Cheale in a quieter tone. “And yet—I daresay
you will think me very foolish—though I do know it’s true, somehow I
can’t believe it. Once or twice I’ve wondered—you’ll think me raving
mad”—her voice sank almost to a whisper as she fixed her burning, sunken
eyes on Miss Prince’s face—“if the analyst, the man who made the
examination, could have mixed up poor Mrs. Garlett’s remains with those
of some one else?”
“My dear Agatha!” the older woman looked at her with concern, and then,
choosing her words, she said: “You mustn’t allow your feelings of
affection for Mr. Garlett to affect——”
“I know what you mean,” broke in Agatha Cheale. “But while my reason
tells me Emily Garlett was poisoned, everything else tells me that it
can’t be true.”
“I’ve often wondered,” said Miss Prince suddenly, “what first started
the inquiry. After all, none of us had the slightest suspicion there was
anything wrong, had we?”
Agatha Cheale turned herself about, and sitting down, gazed into the
fire.
“Well,” she said at last, in a voice that had now become collected and
steady, “though none of us suspected anything at the time, there may
have been some outsider who thought it odd that there was no inquest.”
“I can tell you who that outsider was,” exclaimed Miss Prince. “Mrs.
Cole-Wright thought it a most extraordinary thing that there was no
inquest! I remember her saying so to me the very day of the funeral.”
“Perhaps she wrote to the police,” said Agatha Cheale in a hesitating
voice.
“I’m sure she didn’t. She’s a cautious woman, and she’s always liked
Harry Garlett. No! it’s far more likely that some one who saw Harry
carrying on with Jean Bower in the factory wrote to the police.”
“I suppose they called the girl as a witness?” said Agatha Cheale. There
was acrid bitterness in her voice.
“No,” said Miss Prince, “they didn’t call her, oddly enough. They seem
to have decided to do without her. Dr. Maclean was most anxious she
shouldn’t be called. He said she was ill, and, after all, he’s the
medical attendant of every one of the magistrates who were there——”
“Does she still consider herself engaged to Mr. Garlett?”
“She certainly does. Though, as to that, I can tell you a very curious
thing.”
Agatha Cheale turned round eagerly, her face full of intense, painful
curiosity.
“Harry Garlett has absolutely refused to see Jean Bower—I mean since his
arrest. Some people say it’s nearly broken her heart. She’s so pale and
thin you’d hardly believe her to be the pretty girl of a few weeks ago.”
The other drew a long breath. “So he won’t see her? Then he can’t have
really cared for her.”
She waited a moment, and then added in an odd tone, “He is a very cold
man.”
Miss Prince was surprised, “I shouldn’t call him that——”
Agatha Cheale turned round and looked straight into the older woman’s
face. “He is what foreigners call ‘A Jaseph,’” she exclaimed.
Miss Prince shrank back, almost as if she had been struck.
“My dear Agatha—what a horrid expression!”
“It’s a true expression,” answered Agatha Cheale. “We’ll never speak of
this again, and I don’t want you to have a worse impression of me than
you must. But I cared for Harry Garlett, and I did my utmost—my
utmost—to make him care for me. I failed. Let’s leave it at that!”
“Did Emily suspect that you liked him?”
“Good God, no!”
And again Miss Prince shrank back a little. This was an Agatha Cheale
she did not know—a violent, unrestrained human being, laying her soul
bare as few human beings ever have the cruel courage to do.
“I hope you got poor Emily’s legacy all right?”
“Yes, I got it almost at once. It enabled me to send my brother abroad.”
“How is he?” asked Miss Prince.
“I don’t know, he never writes to me, unless he wants money,” she said
bitterly. “I’ve only cared for two people in my life—my brother and
Harry Garlett—and neither of them have cared for me.”
She got up. “I must be going back! The driver of the car I hired at Dill
Junction had a friend in Grendon. I said he could go there for an hour.
I was afraid he might go into the village, and cause gossip. I think I
heard the car come up just now.”
“I wonder if I ought to let you go away?” said Miss Prince hesitatingly.
“You don’t look fit to go back to London to-day, my dear.”
“I couldn’t stay here. If I did I should get into serious trouble for
not having appeared at the Police Court to-day.”
She turned and put her arms around Miss Prince’s angular neck.
“Good-bye, Mary. You’re a good friend,” she exclaimed. “Forget all I’ve
said to-day!”
“I will,” said Miss Prince soberly, “indeed I will, Agatha. I don’t feel
as if you are really yourself, my dear.”
“I’m not myself in a sense, and yet in another sense I’m quite myself,
more myself than you’ve ever seen me be.”
The great tide of life flows on steadily, ruthlessly, whatever be the
tragedies or comedies being enacted below the swift-moving waters. Dr.
Maclean had an important consultation early that afternoon with a great
London specialist. And though both his wife and his niece were aware
that he could not be in to lunch, yet both of them shrank from learning
the news as to whether Harry Garlett was a free man or had been
committed for trial from any one but him.
After the clock had struck two, Jean constantly took the little gold
watch, which she wore on an old-fashioned gold chain round her neck, out
of her belt, and Mrs. Maclean felt that they had both come near the
breaking point.
“Let’s put on our things and walk to meet your uncle,” she said at last.
“You won’t mind our seeing people on the road who may stop and speak to
us?”
“I don’t mind anything,” she answered listlessly, and soon they were
walking quickly in the direction from where they knew Dr. Maclean was to
come. As they hurried through the biting January wind a little colour
came into Jean’s face and she began to look more herself.
“It’s foolish to feel as I do to-day,” she said at last. “I’m not really
in suspense, for of course I know quite well that Harry has been
committed for trial. Nothing excepting a miracle happening—I mean the
guilty person coming forward—could have prevented it. And yet?—and yet,
Aunt Jenny, I hope against hope!”
“So do I,” said Mrs. Maclean in a low voice.
At last they saw the familiar little car rolling along very much more
quickly than it was apt to do, and as the doctor drove up to them a
glance at his face was enough.
“Of course he’s committed for trial. Nothing new came out—one way or the
other.”
Then in a voice which he tried to make colourless, he went on: “I’ve got
a letter for you from Harry, child. I was to give it to you only if he
was committed for trial. Would you like us two to drive on, leaving you
to read it and walk home alone?”
She looked up into his kind, tired face—oh, so gratefully, and held out
her hand for the envelope.
“I think I’ll go walking on, for a bit, by myself. Don’t be frightened
if I don’t come in for an hour or so.”
She tried to smile, but failed.
Mrs. Maclean got into the car, and the husband and wife drove off
together, their hearts heavy with pity and that most painful of
sensations that nothing they could say or do could help the poor girl
they both loved so dearly.
After a few moments Mrs. Maclean made a restless movement.
“Don’t look round,” said the doctor sharply. “I know what’s in the
letter I’ve just given the poor lass. He’s not only offered to release
her from their engagement, but he begs her strongly to allow it to come
to an end. Whatever he may have done, there’s something very fine about
the chap. Both Toogood and the governor of the prison told me that Jean
is never out of his mind—and not selfishly in it, mark you.”
“She’ll never give him up,” said Mrs. Maclean woefully.
“Bide a wee, my dear. I think she’ll do anything he asks her to do; and
though I haven’t seen the letter I know that he’s put it very strongly
to her. He’s assured her—a splendid lie if ever there was one—that the
breaking of their engagement will be to his benefit, I mean during the
course of the trial.”
“If he’s said that, perhaps she’ll do it.”
“The governor had a little talk with me before the proceedings began.
He’s so much impressed with Garlett’s way of taking the whole thing that
he half believes him to be innocent. I wish I could believe
it”—unconsciously he was slowing down—“it’s no good my pretending that I
don’t feel very wretched, the more so that I know well enough that if
he’s hung it will be my testimony that will hang him.”
“Were you asked anything about Jean?” asked his wife in a low voice.
“Of course I was! And of course I had to admit that she’d been at the
factory fully five weeks before Emily Garlett’s death. Also that they’d
corresponded while he was away.”
“Jock! You never said that? Why, it was only the most formal business
correspondence,” exclaimed Mrs. Maclean dismayed.
“They particularly questioned me about it, and though I tried to make
the truth as clear as I could, I don’t think they believed me. Then I
had to admit that the moment he came back he and she were always
together. Garlett’s head foreman was called. I felt sorry for the poor
chap—he is obviously attached to Jean, but he had to confess that the
factory was humming with talk about them long before they became
engaged. That stupid, daft old Sir William Harding asked: ‘You mean
before Mrs. Garlett’s death?’ and the foreman was so bewildered that he
actually answered: ‘I don’t seem to remember exactly when the talk about
them did begin.’”
“And will it all be put in the papers?”
“Of course it will.”
CHAPTER XVII
Jean walked on, Harry Garlett’s letter, still unopened, in her hand,
till she came to a little wood which she knew would be almost certainly
deserted.
Once in the now leafless wilderness, she began walking slowly, her feet
sinking into the sodden, fallen leaves, longing and yet dreading to know
what Harry had written to her.
At last she slowly opened the square, official-looking envelope. Written
across the top were the words: “Read and passed by J.C. Brackbury,
Governor of H.M. Prison, Grendon.”
She was used to that sentence, but somehow to-day the pain and shame
that such a letter as she supposed she was going to read, an intimate
love-letter, should have been seen by any other eyes than her own,
brought a new anguish.
She unfolded the big, plain sheet of notepaper, and at once she saw that
there was no beginning or end to the letter. The fact that this was so
gave her a quick, frightened feeling of foreboding.
If, as Toogood is obviously convinced will be the case, I am committed
for trial, then, Jean, I want you to do something for me.
You’ve never failed me, and I trust you to see this thing as I see it
myself. I want you, my dear, to release me. By that I mean that it is
my wish our engagement should be at an end. I know you believe I’m an
innocent man; but I’ve gone through hell since I was arrested, knowing
that all unwittingly I have brought not only grief, but unutterable
shame, on you and on those kind, good friends of mine, Dr. and Mrs.
Maclean. I am told that nothing done now can prevent your being called
as a witness at my trial, but I’m convinced that if you appear as a
simple witness, and not as a woman engaged to me, it will be
infinitely better not only for you, but for me also. This is why I ask
you most solemnly to allow our engagement to come to an end, and to
let the fact be widely advertised. As Toogood has reminded me more
than once, we were, after all, only engaged for a very short time. But
may I say, Jean, in this, my last, letter to you, for I do not intend
to write again, and I beg you will not do so, that not only during the
last few weeks but ever since I came home, you have made me as happy
as any woman ever made any man, though in saying so I’m showing myself
to be what every man is—selfish. Yet I like to believe that you will
be glad to know that the happy days we spent together before I knew I
loved you, the happy days we have shared since we knew we loved one
another, have made up, to me at least, for everything that has come to
pass. The thankfulness and wonder that one so unworthy as myself
should have been blessed with your love will remain with me to the
very end, and, I firmly believe, beyond.
I know you well enough to feel quite sure that you will not be hurt,
still less surprised, to receive none of those last words and messages
which only satisfy the morbid, horrible curiosity of a callous, cruel
world. And so good-bye, my own, my only, love.
Jean Bower put the letter back in its envelope and thrust it in her
bosom. She walked through the wood on to the now deserted stretch of
downland that had been turned into a golf course by the enterprising
municipality of Grendon.
Beyond the course there were a few pretty houses which now, in the
deepening twilight, were being lighted up, and all at once Jean, in the
midst of her agonized and bewildered questionings, remembered that in
one of these houses lived Mr. and Mrs. Toogood and their only daughter.
She remembered having gone there last August with her aunt to call on
Mrs. Toogood.
She quickened her steps, and striking across the links, soon reached Mr.
Toogood’s house.
In answer to her ring, a maid opened the door.
“Is Mr. Toogood back yet from his office? Could I see him?” asked Jean.
“I won’t keep him five minutes, but it’s very urgent!”
“The master never sees any one on business out of office hours.”
Then, suddenly, the young woman realized who the visitor was, and a
thrill of joyful excitement ran through her.
“Why, it’s Miss Bower, isn’t it? I’m sure Mr. Toogood will see _you_,
miss.”
She led the way to a comfortable-looking library. A big fire was
burning, and gratefully Jean sank into an easy chair.
Burning with curiosity and excitement, the girl hurried off to the
dining room, where her master, while enjoying his tea, had been telling
his wife and daughter every detail of Harry Garlett’s appearance before
the magistrates and his committal for trial.
The maid was not lacking in a certain dramatic instinct, so when she
came into the dining room she shut the door and said demurely:
“A young lady to see you, sir.”
Mr. Toogood looked up sharply. “No one on business, I hope?”
“It’s Miss Jean Bower,” announced the girl in a hissing whisper. “She do
look miserable! I thought you’d see _her_, sir. She only wants to see
you for five minutes, and says it’s very urgent.”
“Jean Bower!” exclaimed Mrs. Toogood. “And all by herself? You’re sure
the doctor’s not with her?”
“Of course I’m sure, ma’am.”
And then Miss Toogood broke in: “I wonder what she’s come to say! I
wonder whether _she_ poisoned Mrs. Garlett, and whether she’s come to
confess it to Father? Jimmy Danetree says that they ought to have called
her as a witness this morning——”
“I forbid you to discuss Harry Garlett’s affair with young men,”
interposed her father sharply.
He was on his way to the door, and though he too felt excited, he
thought he knew what Jean Bower had come to tell him. Indeed he was sure
that she had come to say that her engagement was at an end, and to ask
him to make that fact known as widely as possible.
He walked into his study and held out his hand.
“Well, Miss Bower? I’m glad that you’ve come here to-night, instead of
to my office to-morrow morning. Now that’s the very first time I’ve ever
said that to any client of mine—and I feel quite sure I shall never say
it again! Sit down, my dear young lady; I think I know the business that
has brought you,” and his voice became very kindly.
“I don’t think you can know why I have come,” she said in a low voice.
“I think I do, for I had a talk with Mr. Garlett just before we went
into the police court this morning. He told me he’d written you a letter
which he was going to ask your uncle to deliver in case he was committed
for trial. He did not show me the letter, but he told me what was in
it.”
“I’ve come to ask you a very important question,” said Jean in a firm
tone. She fixed her eyes on the shrewd face of the man standing before
her.
“I ask you—and I want you to answer as if you were on oath, Mr.
Toogood—will it do Harry good, or will it do him harm, if I break my
engagement now?”
The lawyer felt annoyed, as well as very much taken aback. For one
thing, he could not tell by her manner whether she wished his answer to
be “yes” or “no.” So he answered her evasively:
“I know that Mr. Garlett strongly wishes the engagement to be broken
off, Miss Bower. He spoke very frankly to me this morning, and he said
he hoped with all his heart that you would do as he wished.”
“I realize all that,” she answered, with what was for her a curious and
most unusual touch of irritation in her voice. “But I am not thinking of
what he wishes me to do. What I want you to tell me is what will be best
for him.”
And then suddenly she saw into Mr. Toogood’s mind.
“Surely,” she exclaimed, “you don’t think that I wish to break our
engagement?”
With a pitiful little smile she added slowly: “To do that would break my
heart, but I will, if you tell me that’s it’s honestly the best thing
for Harry.”
He was so touched, so surprised at her words, that he felt he would like
to take her in his arms and hug her.
What a splendid girl she was, and that even if she had allowed her
employer, the husband of poor ailing Emily Garlett, to make love to her
in his wife’s lifetime! She deserved to know the truth—the real truth.
“About that,” he said decidedly, “I can set your mind at rest. Though I
should not like to be quoted as having said it, I haven’t a doubt that,
in as far as public opinion plays any part in a great law case, the fact
that you have remained faithful to Mr. Garlett can do him nothing but
good.”
Jean sighed convulsively, and tears of relief began running down her
face.
“We take our stand on Garlett’s absolute innocence,” continued the
lawyer. “We wish to prove that he hardly realized your existence till
some months after his wife’s death. That is the point on which you will
have to try and convince judge, jury, and the very clever gentleman who
will lead the Prosecution for the Crown. Now it is obvious to me that if
you set out to do that as the woman who loves the prisoner in the dock,
and absolutely believes in his innocence, that fact will give your words
far more weight than if you come into court admitting that you have
broken off your engagement.”
“Then why,” she whispered, “did he write me this letter? In spite of the
loving things he said in it toward the end, I felt a sort of dreadful
doubt, as if he no longer cared for me——”
“No longer cared for you?” exclaimed Mr. Toogood, wiping his spectacles.
“Why, my dear young lady, it’s entirely for _your_ sake that he wrote
that letter. Didn’t you understand that? He won’t be allowed to see any
of the newspapers after to-day, but up to to-day the Governor stretched
a point. But it was no kindness, for some of the things the papers
printed made him feel simply frantic. He was awfully upset at some
article which said that you thought his wife had committed suicide. He
wanted to have it contradicted!”
“I never saw any statement of that sort,” said Jean astonished. “I can
hardly believe they can have dared to say such a thing. Of course I feel
sure that Mrs. Garlett did not commit suicide.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Quite frequently it happens
that a man takes his own life when every one round him would have sworn
him utterly incapable of doing such a thing. If that is often true of a
man, it is truer of a woman, for your sex is far more sensitive than
mine, Miss Bower.”
“May I write an answer to Harry here?” said Jean.
He put a sheet of paper before her on his writing table, and taking up a
pencil she wrote quickly:
I cannot do what you wish. I would have done so if not doing it would
have done you harm. But I have found, thank God, that to break our
engagement would do you harm rather than good.
“And now,” observed Mr. Toogood, “I’ll just put my boots on again, and
see you home.”
“Indeed, you’ll do nothing of the kind!” exclaimed Jean, and this time
she really smiled. “I’m not a bit afraid. Besides, it isn’t really
dark.”
She took his hand and squeezed it.
“You’ve never made anybody happier than you’ve made me to-day,” she
said.
When Jean Bower slipped quietly back into Bonnie Doon, she amazed them
all—those three kind folk who felt so unhappy and anxious about her, her
uncle, her aunt, and Elsie—by being bright, cheerful, and full of
courage and hope.
After a few minutes she went up to her bedroom. The writing table there
was one of the few things she had brought from her old home. She went
over it, and taking up an envelope, slipped Harry Garlett’s letter
inside it. Then she wrote outside: “In case of my death I wish this
envelope to be put in my coffin, over my heart”—and then she placed it
in a drawer where she knew it would be found at once, should she die
while still an inmate of the house where she had known such intense joy
and such bitter sorrow.
After the first burst of excitement following the day of Harry Garlett’s
appearance before the magistrates and his being committed for trial, all
mention of the Terriford Mystery dropped gradually out of the
newspapers; for weeks, sometimes even months, elapse between the
committal of a man charged with murder and the actual opening of the
legal drama which is to decide whether he is to enjoy life and freedom,
or suffer a hideous and shameful death.
But though from the point of view of the public the case temporarily
disappeared, there were still innumerable men and women all over England
who seemed to find it impossible to banish the story from their minds.
Many of the people with whom Jean had drifted into acquaintance during
her life, and especially during the course of her war work, wrote to her
with either strong interest or sympathy. But she received other letters
of a very different character, and terrible letters some of them were,
so venomous and cruel in their wording that they seemed as if inspired
by personal hatred. A typical example ran as follows:
WICKED WOMAN,
My husband’s love has been taken away from me by his typist, so I know
exactly what poor Mrs. Garlett must have felt during that time when
you were insidiously worming your way into the heart of your employer.
Your conduct was the more horrible because, as is the case with my
husband, that brute, Garlett, owed everything to his wife. I am
eagerly looking forward to the day when you will stand in the witness
box and all your sins be brought to light, also to the day when he
will be hung.
Your evil wisher,
A DESERTED WIFE.
Of the letters written to her by people known to her there was only one
that seemed to bring a touch of comfort to her sore heart.
It came from a girl, Rachel North by name, with whom she had worked for
eight months in a war hospital. They had drifted into something very
like close friendship during that time, but, as so often happens in
life, though they had each made an effort to keep up their friendship by
correspondence, the letters had become fewer and fewer on either side,
and had now ceased for nearly a year. Thus Jean was the more touched
when she received the following letter from her friend:
January 14th.
MY DEAR JEAN,
This is only to tell you that I feel deeply grieved for you and that
you are a great deal in my thoughts. I know so well what you must be
going through, and I will tell you now what I have never told you yet.
My father, to whom I was devoted, was falsely accused of having
embezzled a considerable sum of money. Though he was only technically
guilty, for it was his partner who had embezzled the money, it was
thought that my father had shown carelessness. Accordingly, though the
other man got four years, my father received six months’ imprisonment.
His death occurred two months after he had left prison.
I hope, my dear, that this man whom you love and who seems to be a
splendid fellow, will get through his awful ordeal. Don’t trouble to
answer this letter, but remember that if at any time you want to spend
a night in London I can take you in. I am now cashier in a big boot
store. The work is hard and the pay is poor, but I have had the great
luck to be lent a small flat of three rooms for six months.
Your old friend who never forgets what a difference you made to her
life during that dreary time in that convalescent hospital,
RACHEL NORTH.
This was the only letter that Jean had cared to keep, and after
answering it she had put it carefully away. It had comforted her, if
only because it had been written by some one who had gone through in a
smaller measure the anxiety, the anguish, and the suspense she was going
through now.
Though the world at large had suspended its interest in the Terriford
Mystery, that was not the case in this neighbourhood. There the
excitement was kept alive by all sorts of happenings. The chief of these
was the occasional appearance of James Kentworthy, and his eager
attempts to get hold of any shred of evidence that would help his
client. But in spite of his efforts he found no one who could throw even
a glimmer of light on the apparently unsolvable problem of Emily
Garlett’s death. The one weak link in the evidence against Harry
Garlett, from the point of view of the prosecution, continued to be that
up to the present no arsenic had been traced in any form to his
possession. Inquiries were still being made all over England, and
especially where Garlett had been either playing cricket or acting as a
glorified commercial traveller to the Etna China factory. But so far
these inquiries had yielded nothing.
Mr. Kentworthy had built great hopes on an interview with Agatha Cheale;
but though on two occasions he had managed to force himself into her
presence, she had, while coldly civil, replied to his questions: “I have
been subpœnaed by the prosecution, and I understand that it would be
quite out of order to give you any information. Besides, I could only
tell you exactly what I told them.”
With Miss Prince he had again become on surprisingly friendly terms.
They often discussed the case, and to him she always professed she kept
an open mind. Yet Mr. Kentworthy felt sure that she knew something not
to Harry Garlett’s credit. Once or twice he had thought her on the point
of confiding to him what this was. But at the last moment she always
quickly drew back, and made up her mind to be silent.
But if on friendly terms with Miss Prince, the inquiry agent was not on
friendly terms with Lucy Warren. Again and again he tried to make the
girl amplify her former statement to him. But all she would say now was:
“I’m very sorry I said anything to you about it! Maybe it was not Mr.
Garlett at all that was in the wood. It’s easy enough to make a mistake
at night.”
She looked unhappy, scornful, and embittered with life, and one day he
casually received a hint as to why that was so, from the village
postmistress:
“There be some as says Miss Cheale’s brother, the gentleman who was Mrs.
Warren’s lodger at the Thatched Farm, made up to Lucy. If that’s so,
he’s gone and left her high and dry! Mind you, I don’t say that it’s
true, but there be some as says so.”
He decided that there must be something in it. The girl looked as if she
had been crossed in love.
At last it seemed as if Mr. Kentworthy had left the village for good. He
had done everything that could be done there in the way of inquiry and
suggestion, and he made up his mind to investigate the whole case from
the angle of Harry Garlett’s life as a popular cricketer, welcome in
many a great country house, and indeed everywhere where the national
game has its experts and devotees.
But he had been gone only some ten days when there arrived for Jean
Bower the following letter:
DEAR MISS BOWER,
I promised to let you know when Sir Harold Anstey would be back in
town. I learn that he arrived home from the south of France yesterday.
He is going away somewhere for the week-end, but he will be in his
chambers in King’s Bench Walk from Tuesday onward.
I have no doubt that among your uncle’s more important patients there
must be someone acquainted with Sir Harold who would be willing to
give you a note of introduction to him. It might, however, be better
to call on him and just take your chance.
I wish I had some good news for you. I am going on prosecuting my
inquiries in a somewhat new field. In such a case as this, one never
knows when one may obtain a clue.
Yours very truly,
JAMES KENTWORTHY.
P. S. What you have to do with regard to Sir Harold Anstey is to
convince him, as fully as you have convinced me, of the truth of your
and Mr. Garlett’s assertion that you were scarcely acquainted at the
time of his wife’s death, and that you did not become really friends
till close on five months later. Do not forget to take with you the
facsimiles of—you know what.
Jean made up her mind at once that she would act on Kentworthy’s second
thoughts. She decided, therefore, to go by herself to London, and,
without giving him any notice, call at the famous barrister’s chambers
on the chance of seeing him.
So the two people, whose anxious loving scrutiny of her day by day was
sometimes more than she could bear, were disturbed and surprised when
she suddenly observed:
“I want to go to London next Monday by myself. I’ve got a friend who
will put me up for the night. I don’t want to tell you why I’m going, so
please don’t ask me. But you will be glad to know that it is something
I’m doing with the full approval of Mr. Kentworthy.” And then suddenly
she grew very red. “I ought not to have said that,” she exclaimed in a
distressed tone. “Will you try and forget it, and never, never tell any
one?”
She looked from one to the other.
“Very well, my dear. But be careful. Mr. Toogood told me the other day
that he had a great horror of anything like amateur”—the doctor
hesitated a moment and then said, “spying.”
“I’m not going to spy,” said Jean, and she looked hurt.
“Well, well, my dear, forgive me for saying that! But you know what I
mean? I don’t want you mixed up with any of Kentworthy’s dirty, if
necessary, work——”
“Not if it helped Harry, Uncle Jock?”
“Not even if it helped Garlett, my dear.”
She turned away, and he knew that she would stick at nothing that would
help the man she loved.
CHAPTER XVIII
Sir Harold Anstey came bustling into his pleasant chambers. He had only
just come back from a long week-end, there was a bright fire burning in
the attractive, wasteful, eighteenth-century grate, and the famous Old
Bailey barrister felt not only fresh and keen, but on the happiest terms
with himself and the world.
The great advocate was a big, florid, good-looking man, and so popular a
bachelor that it was no wonder he had never made up his mind to become
true to one lady.
Like most successful men, he attached great importance to the Press of
his country, and he paid considerable court to those newspaper men with
whom he came in contact. So of the pile of letters, opened and unopened,
on his writing-table, Sir Harold first turned to a bulky envelope from
his press-cutting agency.
The envelope contained a page cut from a popular picture paper, and
across the top of the sheet ran: “The Terriford Mystery: Exclusive
Photographs.”
Sir Harold smiled when he saw that the pictures were grouped round his
own comely, bewigged visage. He noted that a delightful-looking country
house was flanked by two portraits, the one being that of a
pleasant-faced man in a cricketing cap, while the other was a
charming-looking girl in V. A. D. uniform. In somewhat painful contrast
below, was a large photograph, evidently taken a great many years ago,
of a plain-looking woman in an old-fashioned wedding dress.
The barrister had mastered enough of the story to realize that the
handsome cricketer was Harry Garlett, the man about to be tried for his
life, and the sweet-faced young nurse Jean Bower, the girl to whom
Garlett was now engaged, and who was supposed to have provided the
motive for his having poisoned his unattractive-looking wife.
As for the central portrait—the counterfeit presentment of himself—the
caption which declared him to be “the most famous criminal lawyer of our
day” gave Sir Harold pleasure, though it no longer bore the delicious
thrill of novelty.
As he laid the sheet down on his writing table, the door opened and his
clerk came in: “A young lady to see you, Sir Harold. She says she would
rather not give her name.”
The great advocate looked sharply at his faithful henchman.
“I suppose you told her that I only see people by appointment?”
“I did tell her that, Sir Harold, but she said she did hope you would
break your rule this time.”
“A nice young lady—a pretty young lady, Fulford?” asked Sir Harold.
He was fiddling about the papers which were on his table, and he did not
look at his clerk as he put the question.
“Well, yes, Sir Harold, a very pretty young lady, quite young, too, if
you’ll excuse my mentioning it.”
“All right. Show her in.”
While awaiting his visitor he idly opened a letter marked “Urgent and
confidential” which lay on the top of the pile of envelopes.
It contained the following words:
It is because there are villains like you in the world ready to defend
any rascal, however guilty, that men murder women, trusting to you to
get them off.
Another tribute to his marvellous gift of advocacy! He read the
ill-written sentence again, and it was with a broad smile that he
greeted the very charming-looking girl who advanced nervously into the
big, comfortably furnished room.
“Sit down,” he said with a kindly smile; and timidly his visitor
accepted his invitation.
“I hope you will not mind telling me your name? Remember, my dear young
lady, that wise people tell everything to their doctor and their
lawyer!”
“My name,” she said quietly, “is Jean Bower, and I am engaged to be
married to Mr. Henry Garlett.”
As she uttered these words, there was no trace of a smile on her face,
and it was then—for perhaps his knowledge of human nature had not gone
as far as he thought it had—that Sir Harold Anstey realized for the
first time that his visitor looked unutterably sad. Had she not been so
young, and, yes, so attractive, he would have seen at once that she was
spent with anxiety and suffering.
It must be admitted, though the fact did not redound to his credit, that
Sir Harold’s manner underwent a quick and subtle change. It became, in
place of deferential, familiar.
“Although your coming to see me like this is not at all in order, Miss
Bower, I shall not be sorry to have a little talk with you!” he
exclaimed, moving his chair just a little forward.
As he did this, Jean Bower, unaware that she was doing it, moved her
chair just a little back.
“And so,” he went on, in a jocular tone, “you are the pretty young lady
who has brought all this trouble about?”
Poor Jean! She felt as if this man, whom she had thought of as a friend,
had struck her straight between the eyes. She made no answer to the
half-question, and only gazed at him affrightedly.
“You are by profession a nurse, are you not?” he asked abruptly. He felt
annoyed that she had not “played up.”
“No, I am not a nurse,” she spoke in a very low tone.
“But I have seen a picture of you, a very delightful picture, it is,
too!—in a nurse’s dress.”
Jean Bower looked bewildered; then a painful flush came over her face.
She also, for her misfortune, had seen the page now lying on Sir
Harold’s table.
“The papers have published a head of me taken out of a group of V. A.
D.’s,” she said quickly. “I acted as secretary for a while at a war
hospital.”
“That’s why you were in France at the hospital to which Harry Garlett
was taken when wounded in 1917.”
He thought he was on the right track at last.
“No,” she said again, “I was never in France, I was in a Manchester
hospital in the later part of the war. I became secretary to the Etna
China Company last April, and as I have not resigned my post, I am that
now.”
She spoke with a certain simple directness.
“Then you were secretary to Mr. Garlett’s company, and you also took
care of his wife?” said the famous advocate, again with a curious, not
very pleasant, smile on his face.
“You are confusing me with Miss Cheale, who was Mrs. Garlett’s
housekeeper and companion,” said Jean.
There had now come over her a terrible feeling of anxious despondency,
and of bitter, bitter disappointment. She had expected the great man—he
had been described to her as a very great man by Mr. Toogood—to have the
whole story at his fingers’ ends, and to be, even in everyday life, an
ardent, as well as an eloquent, believer in his client’s innocence.
Something of what was passing in her mind became apparent to Sir Harold
Anstey, and he felt sharply vexed with himself. Vexed for having got the
threads of the story so wrong, and vexed, too, that he had broken
through his rule of never seeing, excepting at his own request, any one
connected with a forthcoming case.
In his happy, prosperous everyday life Sir Harold rarely came across any
girls who seemed to him as prudish as the girl now sitting facing him.
Besides, with regard to this girl, who had actually driven a man to
commit murder for love of her, such a pose was not only absurd, but very
hypocritical.
Still, as he had been foolish enough to see her, he told himself that he
might as well make the best of it, and improve his own chances of
winning what he was beginning to see was going to be a very important
case.
His manner changed; it became, if not exactly more pleasant, then shrewd
and businesslike—what his visitor vaguely described to herself as
“sensible.”
“I want you to tell me in your own words,” he said impressively, “the
story of your acquaintance with Henry Garlett, and what led up to your
engagement.”
Quietly, straightforwardly, and, he began almost to believe, quite
truthfully, Jean told the simple story of that which had come to her to
mean everything in the world.
After she had finished Sir Harold leaned forward.
“If I accept all this as true, I must ask you a most important question,
Miss Bower. Who can have had the smallest motive for wishing this lady
out of the way? Remember that in such a case as this, it is not enough
to say, ‘This man did not do it.’ You must, if you can in any way bring
it about, be able to declare, ‘But that man did!’ I suppose we may put
aside the idea that Mrs. Garlett committed suicide?”
“I suppose we may,” said Jean Bower, but she spoke with a certain
hesitation which he was quick to detect.
“Have you any doubt of it?” he asked eagerly. “Did the poor woman suffer
great pain? What was her mental state? Can we rely on her doctor to give
evidence favourable to Mr. Garlett?”
“Dr. Maclean, who attended Mrs. Garlett, is my uncle,” said the girl
slowly. “I know that he believes, as does Mr. Garlett himself, that such
an idea as suicide never even crossed her mind.”
Sir Harold Anstey felt both perplexed and irritated. He told himself
that there is after all such a thing as being too truthful, too
scrupulous.
“That’s a great pity,” he said dryly. “If you could persuade your uncle,
Miss Bower, to given even a slight hint that his patient was sometimes
very depressed and, if not suffering actual pain, was yet in constant
discomfort, it might be a very great help to me in saving Mr. Garlett’s
life.”
He was still absolutely convinced that his client was guilty, but
somehow he was beginning to feel very, very sorry for this pretty young
creature with whom he was holding this curiously unemotional
conversation. While she had been telling him the story of her
acquaintanceship with the man she now loved, he had suddenly realized
that it was pent-up passion, not lack of feeling, that made her speak in
so still and quiet a voice.
“So far no arsenic has been traced to Henry Garlett’s possession, and of
course that is a point in his favour,” he said musingly.
“I suppose that it is quite impossible that sugar and arsenic can be
substituted by accident the one for the other?” asked Jean. “I mean at a
grocer’s, for instance?”
“Quite impossible,” he said firmly. “But tell me why you ask the
question?”
“Because Mrs. Garlett seems to have had some strawberries smothered in
white sugar just before her supper.”
“Did she say the strawberries had made her ill?”
Jean knitted her white forehead.
“Not that I know of. But Miss Cheale, the lady who was her
companion-nurse, at first put down her illness to her having eaten
them.”
“Your uncle, I take it, lives close to the Thatched House. Does he make
up his own medicines?”
Jean Bower shook her head.
“He did so, I believe, when he first bought the practice, but he gave up
doing it years ago.”
“And I take it that everything connected with the dispensary was swept
away?”
“A garage has been put up in the place where he used to make up the
medicines.”
“Is there a chemist’s shop near by?”
“No,” said Jean quickly. “But the daughter of my uncle’s predecessor, a
lady called Miss Prince, keeps certain simple medicines in her house,
which she gives to the village people.”
Sir Harold made a note of the name on his blotting paper. “I suppose we
may take it,” he observed, “that that lady had no arsenic in her
possession?”
“If she had, I feel sure she would have said so,” said Jean. “As a
matter of fact, she is Mr. Garlett’s tenant.”
“How old is Miss Prince?” he asked abruptly.
“I should think she must be about sixty——”
“I see. Now, Miss Bower, I must ask you a delicate question. Can you
think of any young woman, apart from yourself, who was on friendly terms
with Mr. Garlett at the time of his wife’s death?”
To his surprise the girl became first distressingly red and then very
pale. A struggle was going on in her mind. Had the big, florid man
sitting opposite to her been just a little other than he was, she would
have forced herself to tell him of the curious, as she believed utterly
untrue, gossip, concerning her lover’s meeting with some mysterious
young woman in the wood. But somehow she could not bring herself to
mention the sordid story to Sir Harold Anstey.
“No,” she said at last. “I can think of nobody; indeed I’m quite sure
there was nobody.”
He looked at his watch.
“I should like you to wait while I glance over the brief. It contains a
précis of the Garlett case.”
He handed her an unopened daily paper.
“Try to forget what I am doing,” he said kindly. “Switch your mind right
off it! We shall get along much better when I have mastered the
principal points of the story.”
Deliberately he turned his back on her, and she did her best to follow
his advice.
It seemed an eternity to Jean Bower, but it was not more than twenty
minutes before Sir Harold Anstey put the wad of sheets he had been
holding down on the table and turned toward her, an ugly, sneering frown
on his broad, shrewd face.
How extraordinary that this simple country chit should have so
bamboozled him! If angry with her, he was also angry with himself, and
so, though he did not wish to frighten her, it was in a very cold
cutting voice that he observed:
“I see, Miss Bower, that a witness, Lucy Warren by name, will be called
by the Crown to prove that before his wife’s death you were in the habit
of meeting Henry Garlett secretly at night in a wood close to his
house.”
“Lucy Warren!” exclaimed Jean Bower, in a tone of utter surprise, as
well as of dismayed horror.
She went on excitedly: “We used to wonder who could have told that
wicked lie. No one would tell me, not even Mr. Kentworthy!”
Her eyes filled with tears; instinctively she covered her face with her
hands.
The great advocate told himself that he was not in the least moved by
this display of emotion. Your unsuccessful liar, especially if she be a
woman, often covers up her confusion at being found out by shedding
quite genuine tears.
“I am sure you understand,” he said firmly, “that this fact, which you
very foolishly and dishonourably—if you will forgive my saying
so—concealed from me just now, puts a far more serious complexion on our
side of the case.”
“I see what you mean,” she said in a low voice; and she looked so
unutterably miserable that, in spite of himself, the man’s heart
softened.
After all, she was a very pretty little girl—far more pitiful and
appealing, now that she was showing distress and emotion, than she had
appeared when so coldly restrained. He told himself that it was rather
beastly that he, Harold Anstey, who was so fortunate, so prosperous,
and, as a rule, such a lucky dog with women, should allow himself to be
vexed that he had been taken in—for once!
He suddenly began to feel kindly, protective, generous, as well as again
shrewdly alive to the importance of winning what was evidently going to
be a very big case.
He got up and came and put his big right hand on her slender shoulder:
“Now, look here, my dear——?”
She shrank back a little, then drying her eyes, she looked up at him,
fearlessly and bravely.
“I am going to do my very best to save your lover’s life. But you, on
your side, must make up your mind to be absolutely truthful with me—eh?”
“I will be, Sir Harold—indeed I will be!”
“Well, we may take it, I suppose, that it was a case of love at first
sight; that Mr. Garlett was taken with you from the first (as well he
might be!) and then he did persuade you, wrongly I admit, to meet him at
night in this wood? When I say night, I am well aware that it was not
really night. From what this young servant says, she had to be in by
ten, so that fixes the time. Can you give me any kind of reason why you
should have met him? Any reason you can think of, or even—hum!—invent,
will be of value. I realize that you were working with Mr. Garlett, and
that you had plenty to talk about of a—well! ordinary, straightforward
kind.”
Jean Bower got up from her chair so suddenly that he felt startled.
“I don’t know if anything I say will convince you that I am telling the
truth,” she said desperately. “But I swear to you most solemnly before
God that I never met Mr. Garlett, either before his wife’s death or
since, secretly at night, in that wood or anywhere else. What is more, I
am convinced that he never did such a thing, and I can’t believe that
Lucy Warren thinks that he did!”
He was impressed in spite of himself.
“What sort of a girl is Lucy Warren? Do you know her?” he asked
abruptly.
“I know her quite well. In fact, the day before Mrs. Garlett’s death I
was actually present when, as a result of something she had done, she
was given notice to leave the Thatched House.”
“I admit,” said Sir Harold slowly, “that that does provide from our
point of view a useful complication. The evidence of a dismissed servant
is always regarded as tainted.”
He looked, for the first time, really puzzled and ill at ease.
“Let me see,” he said. “Kentworthy, who was for so many years employed
by the Home Office, is the detective we are employing, isn’t he?”
Jean Bower came up closer to him. Somehow she no longer felt afraid of
this big, to her singularly unattractive-looking, man.
“We all like Mr. Kentworthy, and I am sure he is honest. But oh! he is
not a clever man, Sir Harold. The only thing that makes me happy to be
with him”—tears came into her voice—“is that even now he does believe
Harry to be innocent. He really does—I do wish you believed it too!”
He was taken aback, touched, and rather amused, by her frankness.
“How dare you accuse me of not believing in the innocence of a man I’m
going to defend?” he exclaimed half jokingly. “Of course I believe my
client to be innocent until he is proved guilty!”
“Sir Harold,” she said piteously, “tell me if I can help Harry in any
way? Is there nothing—nothing that I can do? I would do anything.”
“Sit down,” he said briefly.
She sat down, and he began walking up and down the room. Though she did
not know it, that was a good sign. It showed that he was becoming really
interested, putting his powerful mind to the solution of a problem that
was not, after all, as simple as he had believed it to be.
If this girl told the truth—if her relations with this man she now
passionately loved had been what she had just sworn them to have been
before his wife’s death—then what could have been Garlett’s motive in
poisoning the poor woman? He was also impressed by the detective
Kentworthy’s belief in Garlett’s innocence.
Sir Harold Anstey had had a great deal to do with Kentworthy in another
murder mystery case and it had been Kentworthy’s passionless, honest,
clear evidence in the box which had hanged Anstey’s guilty client.
Kentworthy might not be a clever man—not the Sherlock Holmes every young
lady expects a detective to be—but his opinion, especially when it was
in favour of a man actually under arrest on a charge of murder, was of
great value in the famous barrister’s eyes.
“This is going to be a very difficult, complicated, and anxious case,”
he said at last. “All the more difficult because it appears so
absolutely simple.”
He saw a look of astonishment flash across Jean Bower’s flushed face.
“To you,” he exclaimed, “who believe this man to be innocent, the case
is perfectly simple. But if we can produce nothing better than what we
have now got, Miss Bower, judge, jury, in fact——” he hesitated and then
went on firmly, “everyone in the case will believe that Harry Garlett
undoubtedly poisoned his late wife.”
She answered in a low voice: “I do understand that,” and though she did
not flinch, a sensation of numb despair took possession of her heart.
“It follows that we must produce something, anything, that will shake
the belief of those on whose opinion, Miss Bower, your lover’s life will
hang as by a thread.”
She stared at him, fascinated. The real power of the man was beginning
to impress her, to make her feel a kind of confidence in him.
He stopped in his pacing and gazed fixedly down into her troubled,
quivering, upturned face.
“Will you give me your word of honour that you will never reveal to
anybody the fact that I gave you, personally, any advice concerning your
own association with the case?”
“I give you my word of honour,” she said quietly.
“It is because I believe you will keep it,” he said seriously, “that I
am going to tell you how I think you can help your lover.”
She waited silently till he spoke again.
“I am one of the few people in my line of life who believe in the
amateur detective—and especially in the woman amateur detective. Not for
nothing were the most dangerous spies in the great war—women.”
A look of pain came into Jean Bower’s face. Unheeding of that, he went
on, weighing his words:
“Kentworthy can be trusted thoroughly to get up a case of the
straightforward, normal kind. But for this sort of delicate, difficult,
dangerous work, I fear he is of little use.”
He wheeled round, and once more began walking up and down the long room.
“And now I’m going to assume that you are right, Miss Bower—that Henry
Garlett is absolutely innocent.”
He turned and cast a quick, measuring glance at his visitor.
He was wondering, deep in his heart, if she really did absolutely
believe in Garlett’s innocence? If not, he was not only wasting valuable
time, but they two were playing at a tiresome game of make-believe.
And then she said so humbly, so touchingly, “Thank you, Sir Harold,”
that he felt his question answered.
He went on speaking, swaying slightly as he did so, wholly absorbed in
the problem before him. “If this man is innocent, then we must
concentrate on the fact that some one else is guilty of the crime of
which he is accused. Some human being—man or woman—gave Mrs. Emily
Garlett a large dose of arsenic with intent to kill her.” He looked at
her fixedly. “Now who was that person? It is up to you, Miss Bower, to
find that out, and you have only a month and a few days to do it in, so
there’s no time to lose.”
“Tell me how to set about it,” exclaimed Jean Bower, “and I’ll do
exactly what you tell me to do!”
“I wonder if you will?” he exclaimed. “I know you mean now to do what I
advise, but the worst of amateurs is that they are prone to act from the
heart rather than from the head. You won’t like the first job I’m going
to put you to.”
“I will do anything,” she said firmly.
“Wait till you hear what it is! The moment you get back to Terriford get
an order to see Mr. Garlett alone, or within sight, but not within
hearing, of a warder. And then, however disagreeable the job, you must
get out of him whether or not this Lucy Warren told the truth concerning
his mysterious interviews with some woman in the wood near his house.”
“I am absolutely sure it is a lie!”
Sir Harold shook his head.
“This won’t do at all. If you begin by assuring him that you are sure he
never did such a thing—then he will find it impossible to admit that he
did do it. What you must say is that you can see no reason in the world
why he shouldn’t have met and walked with some young lady.”
“How can I do that when I feel sure he never did do it?”
He looked at her kindly.
“Forgive me, Miss Bower! I was a fool to think that you could bring
yourself to act the part of even the most amateur of detectives. Put the
idea out of your mind, and rest assured that I will do everything in my
power to save your lover’s life.”
Jean rose from her chair.
“No, no, no!” she cried, “of course I’ll do exactly what you advise.
I’ll tell Harry that his meeting a girl in that way and in that place
was not so very strange—nay, more, I’ll try and force myself to believe
it!”
“That’s right,” he said heartily, “now you’re acting like a brave,
sensible girl, and not like a foolish, obstinate woman.”
“But supposing he says it was all an invention of Lucy Warren’s——?” She
looked at him anxiously. “Then I suppose I must get Lucy Warren to say
she told a lie?”
“Yes, that will be the next step, and if you fail I shall succeed when I
have got her in the witness-box,” he said grimly. “That is supposing she
_did_ tell a lie. But, Miss Bower——?”
“Yes?”
“Suppose that Garlett admits that he did meet a lady in the wood—what
then?”
He answered his own question.
“You have then what we are looking for—a second human being with an
interest in Mrs. Garlett’s death. I suppose,” he said suddenly, “that it
has not occurred to you that the young woman may have been no other than
Lucy Warren herself?”
“There are things, Sir Harold, which I suppose even you would admit are
impossible,” she said quietly.
He looked at her, and remained silent. How make this girl understand
that innumerable men of a superior social caste have made love, will
make love, are making love all the time, to girls like Lucy Warren? From
the moment he had read the notes made by Kentworthy, he had asked
himself whether after all, Lucy Warren, in her obstinate determination
not to reveal the name of the woman with whom she said she had seen her
master, might not have had the very best of reasons for her obstinacy.
“We will suppose,” he went on, measuring his words, “that Mr. Garlett,
while admitting he was in the wood, refuses to give up the name of his
companion. Well, if you fail to extract that information from Lucy
Warren you must try and think of some other way of discovering who the
woman was. To do that, you must, if you will forgive the expression,
stick at nothing.”
She said timidly: “I suppose you’ve seen the anonymous letters—the
letters which started the whole trouble?”
“The anonymous letters?” he exclaimed. “There isn’t a word about them
here!”
Sir Harold Anstey went over to his writing table and sat down.
“Have you copies of these letters in your possession?” he asked.
“Yes, I have them here,” she said in a low voice, “but I don’t want to
get Mr. Kentworthy into trouble, Sir Harold. I’m afraid he ought not to
have kept these facsimiles.”
“Thank God, he did! Show them to me at once.”
He spoke in a peremptory tone.
Jean Bower opened her bag and silently laid the three sheets of paper
before him.
He bent over them for what seemed to her a very long time, but at last
he looked up.
“It’s a monstrous thing,” he exclaimed, “that these were not put in
among the exhibits connected with the case.”
“So Mr. Kentworthy says,” observed Jean. “He thinks them an integral
part of the story—that was his expression.”
“Miss Bower?”
He turned, and faced her squarely.
“Find the human being who wrote these three dastardly letters—and I will
undertake to save your lover’s life!”
CHAPTER XIX
As she walked away from the great advocate’s chambers Jean Bower felt
happier than she had felt since the terrible morning when Harry Garlett
had been arrested in her presence on the charge of murder.
Though she felt certain that her forthcoming interview with Garlett
would not bring the result Sir Harold evidently expected it to do, yet,
deep in her heart, she was full of joy at the thought of seeing the man
she loved. Her heart had hungered for him, and nothing but the knowledge
that he shrank from seeing her in the shameful place where he was now
strictly confined had prevented her making an effort to see him. It was
an infinite comfort to feel that it was now her duty to do so.
She had deliberately sent no word of her approaching return to Bonnie
Doon, and when she went out of Grendon station, where she had always
been met by either her uncle or her aunt, even by Elsie if neither of
them could come, there swept over her a curious feeling that henceforth
she must live her life alone, if only because of her promise to the man
on whose instructions she was now acting.
Quickly she walked away from the station, intent on seeing Mr. Toogood,
so that her interview with Harry Garlett should be arranged as soon as
possible.
But when she turned into the High Street of the busy country town she
became aware that she had been recognized by certain of the people who
had passed her, and by the time she had reached the lawyer’s office some
ten to twenty men and women were dogging her footsteps.
She began to feel like a hunted thing, and oh, the relief of finding
herself in the hall of the house where she had come with her uncle on
the day her lover had been arrested.
This time Jean was shown straight into the room where Mr. Toogood, the
last time she was here, had remained closeted with her uncle for so
long.
She went, as was her nature, straight to the point.
“I have made up my mind to ask for an order to see Mr. Garlett,” she
said quietly. “And I should be grateful if you would tell him, Mr.
Toogood, that it is because I have to speak to him on a matter of
importance that I’m doing what I know he does not wish me to do.”
“I’ve always thought his attitude as to that quite unreasonable,” said
the lawyer in a decided tone.
“How would you like Mrs. Toogood or your daughter to see you in prison?”
asked Jean in a low voice.
“There’s something in that—especially as I suppose you realize, Miss
Bower, that you won’t see Mr. Garlett alone?”
“I thought perhaps that as I want to see him on private business, I
would be granted the privilege of seeing him alone.”
He shook his head.
“There is no country in the world, Miss Bower, where such privileges are
extended to a prisoner under remand. I, as Mr. Garlett’s legal adviser,
have free private access to him. But you cannot expect the same
privilege. Whatever you have to say to him will be said in the presence
of two warders.”
He saw that this was a great surprise to her, and she looked deeply
troubled.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he exclaimed. “I’ll put the case to the
Governor. I suppose you’ve met him?”
“I remember that he was in the cricket pavilion at that big match last
May, and I even had a talk with him. But I don’t suppose he’ll remember
me.”
“You do yourself an injustice!” exclaimed the old lawyer gallantly. “I
expect Colonel Brackbury remembers you very well indeed. In any case I
will put the matter to him personally. I take it, Miss Bower,” he looked
at her hard, “that you really require to see Mr. Garlett on business?”
“I would willingly tell you why I wish to see him, but I have given my
word to tell no one.” She hesitated, and then, “I have been asked to put
a certain question to him.”
“Kentworthy making the poor girl do his dirty work,” thought Mr.
Toogood. Aloud he observed:
“Well, my dear young lady, I’ll see what can be done. I know the
Governor will stretch a point if he can. He is on very cordial terms
with your uncle, and I seem to remember that he’s a regular cricket
maniac. Funny, isn’t it, that such things should make any difference?
But they do! I’ve found out that the lawyer who doesn’t allow for the
oddities of human nature makes a great mistake—I mean professionally. I
hope you’ve left every one quite well at home, eh?—I mean at Bonnie
Doon?”
“I’ve been in London,” she answered, “so I haven’t seen them since the
day before yesterday.”
“That fixes it!” said the lawyer to himself. “I wonder what Kentworthy
wants that poor girl to get out of Garlett? Surely he’s never told her
to find out who was in the wood with him? That would be hard on her. Yet
he may be beginning to see what I’ve always seen, that Garlett’s one
hope is to bring some other woman into the case.”
They both got up; he strolled across to his window, and saw with dismay
that a crowd had gathered below on the broad pavement, waiting for the
heroine of the Terriford Mystery to appear.
“Haven’t you got a car?” he asked, surprised.
“I thought of walking home.”
“No need to do that,” he said kindly. “I’ll telephone and ask my
daughter to bring our car along. She’ll get you to Bonnie Doon in no
time! Meanwhile, will you go into the other room for a minute? I have a
private message to give her.”
Slightly surprised, Jean did as he asked her. Then, when he had got
through to his house, he said: “Is that you, Kitty?”
“Yes, Father.”
“I want you to run the car along here. Are you listening?”
“Listening hard, Father!”
“Good! Now don’t come through the High Street. You’ve got to make your
way somehow into Juniper Alley, to the back of this house. There’s a
crowd gathered at the front door waiting for that poor child, Jean
Bower, to come out. I want to get her away without any one seeing her.
You’ll only have to drive her to Bonnie Doon. It won’t take you long.”
Then he brought his young visitor back to his room.
“Now, look here, my dear, we’ve got about ten minutes before my daughter
can be here, and I haven’t had an opportunity of seeing you alone since
we met—you remember when? I want to tell you to be of good heart! It’s a
tremendously important point on your side—I wonder if you realize how
important?—that no arsenic has been traced to Harry Garlett’s
possession. What’s more, poor Mrs. Garlett was poisoned with _white_
arsenic. We’ve got one of the biggest poison experts in the world ready
to go into the box and swear that Mrs. Garlett was poisoned with pure
arsenic, not arsenic extracted from some article in common use.”
She looked at him gratefully, but remained silent.
“Then there’s another point,” he went on. “A great deal has been made of
those strawberries which were eaten by Mrs. Garlett on the fatal
evening. As a matter of fact, no one saw her eat them, and no one has
the slightest idea who brought them into her room. It’s very unfortunate
that your uncle conveyed the impression, as he certainly did, that he
knew as a fact that Mrs. Garlett received those strawberries from her
husband’s hand. He knew nothing of the kind.”
“I’ve never been able to understand the question of the strawberries,
and why so much importance has been attached to them,” said Jean Bower
in a low voice.
“Importance has been attached to them,” said the lawyer decidedly,
“because they seem to have been the only vehicle by which the poison
could have been administered. The Prosecution have two witnesses ready
to swear that they saw the small dish of strawberries, sprinkled thickly
with powdered sugar, outside Mrs. Garlett’s door at five o’clock, and
that at seven o’clock the dish was no longer there.”
“How strange,” said Jean in an oppressed tone.
“Mr. Garlett denies having even seen the strawberries. The lawyer who
took Miss Cheale’s evidence on commission received from her the
assurance that she did not know who had given Mrs. Garlett the fruit—she
simply assumed that it must have been Mr. Garlett. Sir Harold Anstey—you
will remember I told you about him last time you were in this room—will
certainly make the most of the fact that no one knows what happened to
those strawberries! Not only the fruit, but the dish, one of a set of
four, disappeared from the top of the chest of drawers where it was
known to have been that afternoon. The apparent obliteration of the dish
is a very curious circumstance.”
“I suppose it is,” said Jean doubtfully.
“That odd occurrence, coupled with the fact that no purchase of arsenic
has been traced to our friend, will certainly be an important point in
his favour, so you must keep up heart.”
“I try to,” said Jean. “I’m feeling happier——”
She stopped short. She had nearly said “now that I have seen Sir Harold
Anstey.”
Mr. Toogood looked at his watch.
“Kitty will be waiting for you now.” He opened the door, and then, to
her surprise, said a little hurriedly: “No, not downstairs, but
upstairs, Miss Bower! My daughter prefers driving up to the back of the
house.”
As he uttered these lying words, he was leading her up the staircase,
she bewildered but obedient. When they reached the top story he led her
down a passage, and then they walked silently down what had been the
back stairs of the old mansion when it was a dwelling-house. Once on the
ground floor, he took her rapidly through a small paved court into a
kind of little alley, where the car stood waiting.
“Good-bye, Miss Jean! I’ll see if I can catch the Governor to-day, and
then your interview will take place, if it can be managed, to-morrow
morning.”
It was not often that Mr. Toogood felt a pang of curiosity. As a rule,
lawyers know too much, not too little, of their clients’ affairs. But he
did wonder very much what it was that Kentworthy had asked Jean Bower to
find out. He felt sure that she would fail in her task. Harry Garlett
was the last man to be persuaded to say anything he did not wish to say,
and if he had indeed been holding clandestine meetings in the wood with
some woman whose name he alone knew, he would certainly not “give the
lady away.”
Mr. Toogood chuckled a little as he found his way back to his room,
remembering that his good friend, Colonel Brackbury, Governor of His
Majesty’s Prison at Grendon, had said to him only two days before:
“I feel interested in Jean Bower. I thought her a most attractive girl!
We had quite a talk at that cricket match last spring. I should very
much like to see her again.”
Late that same afternoon Elsie put her head through the door of the
dining room of Bonnie Doon.
“Ye’re wanted on the telephone, Miss Jean.”
“Would you rather I went, my dear?” asked her aunt kindly.
“I’ll go,” said the girl quickly. “I think I know who it is.”
And, sure enough, it was Mr. Toogood.
“It’s all right, Miss Bower. If you will be at the prison at ten o’clock
to-morrow morning, the Governor will himself be present at your
interview with Mr. Garlett. He says he will keep out of earshot. I hope
you are pleased.”
“I am indeed,” she called back, “and very grateful to you!”
And then she walked back slowly to the room where her uncle and aunt
were sitting. She was sorry, now, that she had not confided to them her
intention of seeing Harry Garlett, but she had shrunk from doing so, for
she knew they were hurt with her for concealing the reason of her visit
to London.
As she opened the door she said abruptly: “I am going to see Harry
to-morrow morning. I called at Mr. Toogood’s office on my way home and
arranged it.”
As neither of them spoke, she went on, catching her breath a little:
“Try not to mind my not being able to tell you why I want to see him.
I’ve promised not to do so—but it is important. It may make a difference
at the trial.”
There was a pause, and then Mrs. Maclean said a little coldly:
“Neither your uncle nor I wish to interfere in your private affairs, my
dear. You are grown up, and you have a right to do as you please. But
your uncle has a very wide knowledge of life, and I think you would
probably find that, in the long run, it would be worth your while to
take him into your confidence.”
Jean burst into bitter sobs, and her aunt got up from her chair and put
her arms around her.
“Come, come, don’t be offended, childie! It’s only that we’re so
anxious—that’s all. The matter’s so terribly important, not only to you
but to your uncle—perhaps you don’t quite realize that, eh?”
“How d’you mean?” exclaimed Jean, glancing from the one to the other.
“Well,” said Dr. Maclean slowly, “I’ve not said anything about it, for
I’ve known that your trouble, my dear, has been much, much greater than
mine. But of course this terrible affair is a fearful blow to my
professional reputation. And though for a little while people will be
eager to see me—after I’ve been badgered and worried like a rat worried
by a terrier, in the witness-box—the better class of my patients are
sure to say: ‘Better not send for old Maclean. D’you remember that
stupid mistake he made over the death certificate of that patient of his
who was poisoned?’”
“I didn’t realize all that. Oh, how sorry I am that I’ve brought all
this awful trouble on you!” exclaimed Jean, looking from the one to the
other of them with unhappy, haunted eyes.
For the first time since this great trouble had come on them all, they
separated that evening not on their usual affectionate, open terms, the
one with the other. And it was after a night spent wide awake in bitter
self-communing that Jean got up early the next morning.
“I’ll breakfast with you in the kitchen,” she said to Elsie. “I’ve got
to be at the prison by ten o’clock, and I should like to get out of the
house before my uncle and aunt come downstairs.”
The modern prison of Grendon was built at a time in the nineteenth
century when there was still but small reverence for historic buildings.
Within the vast enclosure surrounded by walls five feet thick still
stands the mound crowned by the ruins of a Norman keep known to
antiquaries as Grendon Castle. And close to that high mound rises the
mediæval mass of brick and stone locally called the Old Prison. To the
imaginative historian that house of woe, long emptied though it be of
suffering humanity, is of far greater interest than are the remains of
the castle.
Last, but, from the point of view of the townspeople, by far the most
important, within the same vast enceinte is the eighteenth-century
pillared building where the county assizes are always held, and where
many a famous trial has taken place. But the public doors to the Assize
Court are reached from without the great walls, some way from the
jealously guarded entrance to the modern prison, and to the vast space
in which it stands.
Till comparatively lately, the public were freely admitted to what is
still called the Castle yard, and public meetings of deep import to the
state were held there. But now it is difficult to obtain even permission
to visit the Castle ruins and the Old Prison.
Jean Bower had walked quickly through the keen morning air, and so,
being full half an hour early, she paced up and down for what seemed a
long time under the stout walls; at last, when her watch told her it was
a quarter to ten, she rang the bell of the small postern door cut into
the great gate.
There came the sound of footsteps on stone flags, the clanking of big
keys, and then the door was opened by a gray-haired man in uniform.
Taking the admission order from her hand, he glanced over it, and looked
at her with quickened interest.
“You’re a bit early, if I may say so,” he said kindly, “but you follow
me, miss, and I’ll see what I can do.”
As she walked under the vaulted gateway, past the quaint little opening
which evidently led into her guide’s home, Jean found herself on the
edge of a vast paved enclosure.
To her left rose the huge mound, and in front of the mound, as if cut
out of the paving stones, was a round lawn of closely cropped turf.
Then, gradually, she became aware that behind a row of tall, now
leafless, plane trees was a strange-looking building of dark red brick
and gray stone. There was something stark and desolate about the
irregular outline which showed sharply clear against the pale blue of
the winter sky.
Her companion followed the direction of her eyes.
“Ay, that’s the Old Prison,” he observed. “Folk used to come from a long
way to go over that place, but now it isn’t shown—ever. But as you’ve
got a few minutes to spare, miss, maybe you’d like to have a look at
it?”
He took her assent for granted, and slowly they began walking straight
toward what Jean now knew to be a very famous place—famous if only
because it had been the first prison visited by Elizabeth Fry.
“Where is the real prison?” she asked hesitatingly.
“You turn yourself right around-about and you’ll see it clear enough.”
She turned quickly, and beyond the Castle mound, far to the right, she
saw a large, commonplace-looking yellow brick building which reminded
her of a modern factory. The knowledge that Harry Garlett was there gave
her a stab of pain. Quickly she turned away and once more stared at the
sinister-looking Old Prison, and it was with a thrill of surprise that
she saw that the low doors giving access to the dark, grimy-looking
building were all wide open.
“I should be afraid to come here at night,” she exclaimed. “That place
looks as if it were haunted.”
“You’re not the only one to say that. My wife wouldn’t go in the Old
Prison not after dark—for a hundred pounds! It’s said that on
All-Hallows Eve one ’ears groans and awful moanings agoing on the whole
night. However, I’ve never been there to see, and bless you! people are
sure to say them sort of things about that sort of place. Now you come
along—and I’ll show you what many a lady in Grendon would give a good
bit to see.”
He moved on, his bunch of keys clanging in his big hands as he walked,
till they came right up to the widest of the low entrances to the
deserted building.
The black oak iron bound door had been clamped back to the wall, leaving
the way in clear.
“I’d best go in first,” said the porter; and Jean, following him, found
herself almost at once in pitch-darkness, groping along a narrow
passage. Suddenly he took out of his pocket and turned on an electric
torch. But that only seemed to make more dense the thick-feeling
blackness, though it enabled Jean to see that on each side of the
passage were tiny, windowless cells. Was it possible that human beings
had ever been confined in such holes as that?
They walked on and on along the lightless, airless burrows, and once the
girl stumbled badly on the uneven earthen floor.
At last the porter stayed his steps and held up his hand; she saw it
gleaming redly against the bright white light cast by his torch.
“This is the place folk most wants to come and gloat over,” he observed
in a half joking tone.
They were on the threshold of a low vaulted chamber, and a moment later
he and Jean were standing in the middle of the otherwise empty,
windowless crypt-like room, by what looked like an enormous kitchen
table, excepting that it was made of stone. Jean’s guide threw the light
of his torch right on to the gray, stained surface, and she saw that
into the stone two deep ruts had been cut, one each way.
“Folk were drawn and quartered on this ’ere table,” he explained, “and
not so very long ago, missie! The last lot done ’ere was a batch of what
they called ‘the rebels,’ those Scotchies who reckoned they wanted
another king. Just before my time they used to keep ’ere, careless-like
on the table, the big knife and fork with which they quartered the poor
wretches. But now they’re put away in what’s called Grendon Museum.”
As if talking to himself, he went on musingly: “’Anging’s a sight more
merciful than the old ways they ’ad of doing men and women to death.
That I always will maintain. But a ’anging’s a gruesome sight. Maybe
we’ll have time for me to take you just round to see the gallows.
Leastways you won’t see much! Only a kind of platform, you know—that’s
where they’re turned off. It’s just off the new prison.”
And then the good man felt considerably startled, for the girl he had
supposed to be by his side staring down at the stone table had
disappeared!
He flashed his torchlight round the stone walls, and with relief
perceived that she was leaning up against the side of the arched
entrance which gave into the black passage way.
Her face was drawn, and very pale, and all at once he remembered her
relation with the man who, it was confidently expected by most of the
people connected with Grendon Prison, would be the next poor wretch to
be “turned off.”
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, “I oughtn’t to have said that. I clean
forgot about your friend, missie. What a fool I am to be sure!”
There was a tone of deep dismay and regret in the voice in which he
uttered these words.
“I’m all right now,” Jean said faintly. “I suddenly felt queer. I think
the air must be very bad in this place.”
“Of course it is,” he agreed, “no draught through.”
And then he went on, this time in a very serious voice, “As I’ve said so
much, miss, I’ll say just one thing more to ye——”
“Yes?” she said questioningly, standing away from the door. She had no
idea what he was going to say, and yet somehow she felt horribly afraid.
“’Anging, as now practised,” he observed, “is a very merciful form of
death. It isn’t ’anging at all, so to speak—they just breaks the poor
chap’s neck and it’s all over in a second! ’E don’t know it’s ’appening
till it ’as ’appened—if you take my meaning?”
She “took his meaning” only too well, and, with a wild wish to escape
from her now torturing thoughts, she turned out of that awful room of
death, and almost ran along the cavernous way and so out into the fresh
air.
Her guide followed, uncertain whether he had been right or wrong in
saying what he had last said to her. “But there!” he said to himself,
“the poor little missie may be glad to remember it some March morning.”
But when he saw her face in the daylight, he exclaimed, “Dang me! The
wife’s right! I do talk too much—that I do.” And then, shamefacedly, he
added: “Best say nothing of my having shown you a bit of the Old Prison,
eh? I mean to the Governor?”
“Of course I won’t,” she murmured.
Soon they reached the great gate, and then the man took hold of Jean
Bower’s arm.
“Mary Ann,” he called out.
A tall thin woman came out: “Yes?” she said acidly, “what d’you want,
John?”
“Give this young lady a drop o’ that brandy I’ve got in the cupboard.
Give it her neat—no water, Mary Ann! That Old Prison of ours ’as turned
’er over queer.”
The woman gave a quick look at Jean, and then she ran indoors. A moment
later she came back, a small glass in her hand.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, the girl gulped down the brandy.
Almost at once she felt better, and the colour came back into her face.
CHAPTER XX
Jean Bower sat in the waiting room of what was called the New Prison.
Though she was clad in a warm fur cloak which had just been given her by
her uncle and aunt, she felt dreadfully cold. She was miserably anxious
and uneasy as to her coming interview with Harry Garlett. How could she
ask the man she loved so degrading a question—how make him understand
the great importance all those concerned with his defence attached to
what she took to be a lying bit of low gossip?
The door of the waiting room opened and Colonel Brackbury walked in.
“Miss Bower? I had the pleasure of meeting you early last May.” And then
he shook hands with her warmly. But although he was touched at his
visitor’s look of deep sadness and at the pallor of her young face, he
hardened himself to say that which he knew must be said.
“I have stretched a great point in assenting to your wish for what
practically amounts to a private interview with Henry Garlett. I must
ask you to give me your solemn word of honour that you will not hand
him, or try to convey to him, anything surreptitiously. Also that you
will not make the slightest attempt to approach him.”
“To approach him?” echoed Jean uncertainly.
“There will be a table between Mr. Garlett and yourself. You must not
stretch across it and try to shake hands with him, for instance.”
“I quite understand, and I promise to do what you ask.”
“Some time ago a lady was allowed to see her husband, who, like Mr.
Garlett, was as yet untried. Although a warder was present at the
interview she managed, unseen by the warder, to roll along the floor
toward her husband a small ball containing a dose of prussic acid.”
He looked at her significantly, but Jean made no comment. It was to her
as if she was living through some awful nightmare.
“I understand that you desire to see Henry Garlett with reference to
some matter concerning his defence?”
She answered in a strangled tone: “But for that I should not have asked
to see him.”
“I should like you to know,” he said kindly, “that we are doing
everything we can to make Mr. Garlett comfortable. In our country a man
is accounted absolutely innocent until he is adjudged guilty. Apart from
the irksomeness of the confinement, and the not being able to see his
friends freely, Mr. Garlett is leading much the same life as he would
lead outside, were he, what of course he is not, a recluse. I am taking
special pains to see that he has good and nourishing food.”
And then, rather to his surprise, for he really knew very little about
human nature, Jean Bower began to cry.
“Come, come,” he said dismayed, “this won’t do! You must do your best to
hearten him up, you know.”
“I will,” she whispered, “I will indeed.” And then she added a pathetic
word. “I didn’t think you would be so kind.”
“I’m not kind,” he exclaimed testily. “I’m only doing my duty. There!
That’s right”—for she was trying to smile.
And then they started walking down what seemed to the girl interminable
cold, clean, bare passages. But at last they passed through a baize door
into what had once been the Governor’s official residence before the
pleasant villa which the Brackburys occupied had been built, and where
were now situated the prison offices.
The Governor opened the door of a large room and courteously stood aside
to allow her to pass in. And then suddenly Jean, through a mist of
blinding tears, saw Harry Garlett.
He was standing close to the wall behind a long narrow table to her
left. For a moment she thought him unchanged; and then she saw that all
the healthy, outdoor-man look had gone, and that there was an awful air
of strain in the eyes which seemed the only thing alive in his pale set
face.
A fire was burning at the other end of the room, but it was very cold,
and the atmosphere was full of the musty feeling of an uninhabited room.
Colonel Brackbury brought over a chair for Jean to sit upon. Then,
looking from the girl to his prisoner, he said: “And now I will leave
you to your talk, Miss Bower. You see that door over there? I shall be
close to it, reading my paper, and I shall not be able to hear anything
you say unless you raise your voices.”
He walked quickly down the long room, and Jean sat down on the chair he
had provided for her.
For a few moments neither of them said anything. She sat, with downcast
eyes, trying to repress the tears which would come in spite of her
effort to keep them back, while he, poor wretch, gazed at her, all his
soul in his sunken eyes remembering.
At last she whispered: “You don’t mind my having come? There is a real
reason, Harry, or I would not have done it.”
“It was only because I didn’t feel I could bear the thought of your
coming to such a place that I wrote as I did,” he answered in a low
voice. “But, oh, how glad I am to see you now.” Sinking his voice yet
further, he whispered, “My darling, darling love.”
She felt as if the sobs she must repress would strangle her utterance.
But at last she managed to say: “I have come to ask you to tell me
something——” She stopped, not knowing how to word her stupid, her
unnecessary, her insulting question.
“Yes,” he said eagerly. “Ask me anything in the world, Jean.” And then,
as she at last looked up, and he saw the lines that pain and acute
suspense had written on her face, he gave a low groan.
“Oh, my God!” he exclaimed, “I can’t bear your looking like this, Jean.
Mrs. Maclean told me you were quite well.”
She said quietly: “I am quite well. But I lay awake last night thinking
of to-day. I’m so afraid”—she waited, then began again—“I’m so
dreadfully afraid that you’ll be angry—that you won’t understand. But
the question I’ve come to ask you is supposed to be so important. And
yet? Oh, Harry——”
He broke in: “What is it? Come, Jean, you’ve nothing to be afraid of!
You could never make me angry—surely you know that? Whatever you ask me
I’ll answer truthfully.”
“The other side have a witness,” she murmured in a low strained voice,
“who will swear that she saw you at night in the wood which joins part
of your garden, with a young woman.”
Instead of the quick, contemptuous denial she had felt so absolutely
certain would come, Harry Garlett remained silent for what seemed a long
time.
Then he asked: “Who is the witness?”
“Lucy Warren.”
His face had turned a dull red, and, as if not knowing what he was
doing, his hands began nervously drumming on the table before him.
“Lucy Warren says the person you were with was a stranger to her,” added
Jean slowly, and she saw a look of intense relief flash over his worn
face.
“Well, my dear,” he said gently, “what is it you wish to ask me?”
“I want to know,” she said in a trembling voice, “whether what she says
is true.”
Before he spoke she knew from the look on his face what his answer, if
he spoke the truth, must be. And her heart was contracted, for the first
time in her life, with a passion of anguished jealousy.
She looked at him fixedly, and something of what she was feeling showed
in her set face and wide-open eyes.
At last he said slowly, as if the words were indeed being dragged out of
him:
“Yes, it is quite true that I was there twice at night, and with a
woman. But the fact has nothing remotely to do with my forthcoming trial
for murder. So you must not ask me who the woman was, Jean. It would be
most unfair to drag her into this terrible business of mine. I am sure
you will understand that?”
He was looking at her straightly, but speaking with obvious
embarrassment and unease.
“Of course I was a fool to do a thing so likely to cause poisonous
gossip,” he went on. “But you will believe me when I tell you, before
God, that it was not my fault. There are certain things concerning his
past life that no man has the right to reveal, even to his nearest and
dearest.”
Then more confidently he exclaimed, “Jean? You do understand—you do
agree that it would be a shame to bring some one who has nothing to do
with the matter at all into such a case as mine will be?”
“Of course I agree to that,” she whispered. “And yet, Harry, and yet——?”
She looked at him so imploringly that for the first time he leaned
forward, in his eagerness, across the table which separated them, and
there came a warning cough from the distant half-open door.
He straightened himself quickly, and over his face she saw flash a
painful look of impotent anger.
She said desperately, “You really feel you ought not to tell who was
with you that night in the wood—not even to me?”
“Not even to you! I’m not a quixotic fool, my darling. If I thought it
would make the slightest difference, of course I would obtain permission
from the person in question to reveal her identity. But it would make no
difference. It would simply”—he stopped, then choosing his words
carefully, he concluded—“draw a hateful, vulgar red herring across the
path. I’m afraid that is the object of the people who want me to give
you the name of this lady who was with me in the wood.”
As she made no answer to that, he looked at her searchingly.
“I have a right to ask you to believe that I did nothing of which I am
now ashamed.”
And then there fell on them a long, long silence. Jean felt overcome,
dazed with miserable suspicions. It was as if this man whom she still
loved with so absorbing a passion had suddenly revealed himself as being
quite other than what she had thought him.
Again there came the sound of a little cough, followed by the rustling
of a newspaper being slowly folded up.
Jean did not look round, but she could hear Colonel Brackbury coming
toward them.
“Miss Bower, I’m afraid your time is up.”
He looked at his prisoner. “Come round to the end of the table, Garlett.
I know Miss Bower would like to shake hands with you.”
He turned away, deliberately, and then Harry Garlett took the poor girl
in his arms.
“I swear to you,” he whispered brokenly, “that you have been my only
love.”
She raised her face, her lips, to his. “I do know that—God bless you, my
own darling!”
And then quickly they fell apart, for with a warning “Hm! Hm!” the
Governor, without turning round, exclaimed, “Come along, Miss Bower.”
Jean Bower walked away from the prison gate in a maze of such misery as
she had not believed a human being could feel. For the first time in her
life she realized what some people learn very soon, and others never
learn at all, even if they live to be quite old people. This is that we
do not know, with any real knowledge, even those whom we most
passionately love and trust.
She had felt so sure, so absolutely certain, that the story of Harry
Garlett’s meeting a woman in the wood was a malicious lie! And now she
knew that it was true, and that there was some strange, painful mystery
behind it.
She had seen his pale face flush, and the look of embarrassment, almost
of shame, with which he had muttered: “There are certain things about
his past no man has the right to reveal—even to his nearest and
dearest.”
Her mind hastily surveyed the young women known to her who lived in and
about Grendon. There were at least a dozen with whom Harry Garlett was
on easy terms of acquaintanceship. But no young people had ever come
openly to the Thatched House. Mrs. Garlett did not care for girls, and
Agatha Cheale was well known to have no friends, with the exception of
Miss Prince.
She walked on, threading her way as if blindly through mean, and shabby
streets, and, as she looked furtively to the right and left, she knew
that in every one of those little houses there were people who were
honestly convinced that Harry Garlett had poisoned his wife for love of
her. Small wonder that she hurried on till at last she was in the open
country, with not a creature in sight. There, standing on a field path,
she stopped and burst into bitter tears.
Crying did her good; it seemed to lift something of the load weighing on
her despondent heart. She dried her eyes, vaguely telling herself that
she would walk on till she felt too tired to go on—then, turning back,
she would in time reach Terriford village.
She had been walking for close on an hour, her nerves sensibly soothed
by the fresh air, when all at once she saw in front of her a farmhouse
which she knew to be the home of Lucy Warren.
The sight of this place reminded her that her next painful task must be
to see Lucy Warren, to try to persuade the girl to tell her that thing
which it was so vital she should know, and which yet she knew Harry
Garlett hoped she would never know. There are people—perhaps more women
than men—who delight in discovering that which those about them do not
wish them to know. But Jean Bower was the exact opposite. She had an
acute—some people might have said an absurd—sense of honour. It would
have seemed to her dishonest to try and worm a secret, even a little
secret, out of a child.
She wondered uneasily how she could see Lucy Warren without Miss Prince
becoming aware she had done so. And then fortune favoured her, for, as
she took the turn which would soon bring her to Terriford, she saw Lucy
Warren coming toward her.
The two met in the middle of the field path, and Jean saw an eager look
leap to Lucy’s eyes. Lucy would have passed any other young lady by with
a curt nod, but this particular young lady was not only always kindly,
and even friendly, in her manner, but was also the heroine of the most
exciting affair which had ever happened in the recollection of the whole
neighbourhood.
“Lucy! I am so glad to meet you——” and then Jean held out her hand.
The other grasped it warmly. “You do look bad, miss!” she exclaimed,
real concern in her voice.
“I feel very tired,” faltered Jean.
“Won’t you come to the farm and rest a bit? There’s only Mother there.”
“I’d rather stay out here. Oh, Lucy, I know that you have it in your
power to help Mr. Garlett!”
With the caution always shown by the more intelligent of her class when
face to face with the unknown, Lucy Warren remained silent for a while,
gazing, however, fixedly into Jean Bower’s troubled face.
“How might that be?” she asked at last.
“The gentleman who is to defend Mr. Garlett says it’s all-important to
find out who was with him in the wood the night you saw him there,”
answered Jean in a trembling voice. “I do implore you to tell me who it
was, Lucy?”
“I promised Mother I wouldn’t say nothing,” said Lucy hesitatingly.
“But your mother’s a good woman! She wouldn’t want you to keep anything
back that might save an innocent man!” cried Jean wildly.
“I always said to Mother that I should have to say summat—sooner or
later.”
Jean stared at the girl in breathless suspense.
“The young lady as met Mr. Garlett in the wood,” said Lucy at length,
“was Miss Cheale.”
“Miss Cheale? Are you sure of that, Lucy?”
There was deep disappointment, instinctive relief, and a touch of
incredulity in the way in which Jean Bower repeated the name of the
young lady who for a year had been an inmate of the Thatched House.
Lucy moved a little closer to Jean Bower.
“Us servants,” she said meaningly, “knows a lot more than we’re meant to
know. We all knew well enough that Miss Cheale fair doted on Mr.
Garlett—though he was always trying not to see it. Why sometimes she’d
be talking about him in her sleep!”
Jean Bower’s face, from pale became very red. Could this be true? Or was
it only an example of the kind of vulgar, dangerous gossip of which she
now knew village life to be ever full?
“What I’d like to ask Miss Cheale,” went on Lucy in an excited voice,
“and what ought to be asked her, is why she told them lies about them
strawberries?”
“Lies?” repeated Jean in an oppressed tone. “I don’t understand, Lucy.
What lies did Miss Cheale tell?”
“She told your uncle, miss, that Mr. Garlett had given the missus some
strawberries that had been left for her by Miss Prince. Well, that was
just a lie! Them strawberries were there on a chest of drawers in the
corridor outside Mrs. Garlett’s room in the early afternoon. I saw them
there myself. Then they just vanished off the chest of drawers—long
before Mr. Garlett went into Mrs. Garlett’s room. I can swear to that! I
happens to have a special reason for remembering it, for he said to me,
‘Lucy, will you please go in and ask Mrs. Garlett if she can see me
now?’ And I says, says I, ‘No, sir, I don’t feel I can do that. The
missis is so angry with me about last night.’ So I went and got the
housemaid to go in—that’s why it remained so plain in my mind.”
“You mean,” said Jean slowly, “that the strawberries disappeared early
in the afternoon.”
“Ay, that’s what I do mean,” said Lucy confidently. “They were there, a
good ’elping, not more, on one of them small dishes belonging to the
best dessert service.”
“Who do you think gave them to Mrs. Garlett?”
Lucy hesitated. “If it comes to that, the missus may have got them for
’erself.”
“I thought she never went into the passage.”
“She came downstairs in the middle of the night spry enough,” said the
girl bitterly. “Besides, there’s nothing to prove she got the poison
with them strawberries—it’s only a idea.”
But Jean was hardly listening, for her mind was full of something very
different.
“You are quite sure, Lucy, that it was Miss Cheale who was in the wood
with Mr. Garlett?”
“I’m more than sure. I saw ’er quite plain.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be said. But I’m bitterly disappointed,”
said Jean sadly. “Somehow I had hoped that whoever was in the wood with
Mr. Garlett would—” she did not quite know how to frame her
meaning—“would, well, provide a clue,” she ended.
Lucy gave an odd glance at Jean. She felt very sorry for Dr. Maclean’s
niece.
“Miss Cheale was in the village the very day Mr. Garlett was sent for
trial,” she muttered.
“That’s impossible,” said Jean quickly, “she was ill in London that day.
Her evidence had to be read. She couldn’t have been anywhere near
Grendon.”
“She was at our place—at the Thatched Cottage—early that afternoon, and
in an awful state, too! I heard her tell Miss Prince that she _knew_ Mr.
Garlett was innocent.”
“You heard her say that?”
“Yes, I did,” went on Lucy excitedly, “and don’t you forget that it was
Miss Cheale who always saw to Mrs. Garlett’s food.”
She had got it out now, that suspicion, that almost certainty, that
_hope_, that had long tormented her.
“But why,” asked Jean in an oppressed, bewildered tone, “should Miss
Cheale do such an awful thing?”
She felt as if she was living through one of her terrible nightmares.
“Miss Cheale,” said Lucy firmly, “thought that if she could get Mrs.
Garlett out of the way Mr. Garlett maybe would marry her.”
“I can’t believe that, Lucy.”
“Anyway, she was terribly upset when she heard that you and him was
going to be married. She took on awful! I heard what she said to Miss
Prince, though they thought as how I was out, I had come in, unbeknown
to them, and heard it all. Again and again she asked: ‘But is it true,
Mary, or just gossip?’ And Miss Prince, she kept on saying: ‘It is true,
Agatha, only too true; I asked Mrs. Maclean, and she admitted it.’ Then
she says, ‘You must pull yourself together, and call on your pride.’”
“D’you think it would be any good if I went in to Miss Prince and asked
her about Miss Cheale?” asked Jean in a hesitating tone. “I mean,
couldn’t she ask Miss Cheale what she meant by saying that she knew that
Mr. Garlett was innocent?”
A look of terror came into Lucy’s face.
“Oh, miss, you won’t go and do that? It would get me into terrible
trouble! They’re such friends—she’d never say a word against Miss
Cheale, I know she wouldn’t! Why, Miss Prince had a letter from her this
very morning. That’s why I’m here now. Miss Cheale wrote as how the
woman who keeps the place where she’s living in London can’t get any
help, and Miss Prince thought my sister might go—just to oblige. Not
much! But of course I couldn’t but say I’d ask.”
“Can you give me Miss Cheale’s address?” asked Jean in a stifled tone.
Lucy began hunting in the narrow pocket of her ulster.
“Not that you’ll get anything out of her! She’s an artful one—she is!”
She held out a crumpled piece of paper.
Required from next Monday a respectable young woman to help. Previous
experience not essential. Wages, fifteen shillings a week and all
found. A comfortable home for the right person. Apply Mrs. Lightfoot,
106, Coburg Square.
Jean Bower gazed down at the piece of paper now in her hand for some
time. Lucy was looking at her anxiously, not liking to speak. Had she
been wise to confide her great secret, her frightful half-suspicion of
the woman she hated, to this young lady?
At last Jean turned round.
“Lucy,” she said, “I’m going to trust you with a secret.”
She spoke with a touch of solemnity which impressed the girl.
“I’m going to London to take this situation offered by”—she looked again
at the paper—“Mrs. Lightfoot.”
“You never are!”
“It’s my only chance of getting at Miss Cheale—of finding out anything
she may know. I don’t believe—I can’t believe—that she had anything
direct to do with the poisoning of Mrs. Garlett. But she may know who
did it. And now I want to know if I may go to the Thatched Farm and
write out two telegrams, one to Mrs. Lightfoot, the other to a friend of
mine with whom I mean to spend to-night in London. Would you take them
for me to the post office?”
“That I will,” said Lucy.
As they walked toward the farm together, it was as if there sounded
loudly in Jean’s ear the words Sir Harold Anstey had uttered a couple of
days ago: “Find the man or woman who wrote those anonymous letters, and
I promise to save your lover’s life.”
Jean Bower now felt that she knew who had written those letters.
CHAPTER XXI
To Jean Bower it was an extraordinary stroke of good fortune that
to-day, for the first time for many weeks, Dr. Maclean had persuaded his
wife to accept an invitation to luncheon. Thanks to that circumstance,
the overwrought girl was able to go back to Bonnie Doon, pack a small
bag containing the clothes she felt she must take with her, write a
short note to the kind folk to whom she stood in so curious a relation,
and, finally, enjoy a comforting talk with Elsie MacTaggart.
Somehow she now felt much more at ease with Elsie than with either her
uncle or aunt. Elsie was a whole-hearted believer in Harry Garlett’s
innocence, and a believer, too, that he was sure to come out, as she put
it, “all richt.” So it was that at the very last moment before quitting
Bonnie Doon, she knew not for how long, Jean went into the kitchen and
took tight hold of Elsie’s work-worn hand.
“I’m going away, Elsie,” she said, “in order to do something that may
help Mr. Garlett. I can’t say more, and if I did they wouldn’t approve.”
The girl continued, somewhat bitterly: “They’ve wanted me to go
away—they’ve longed for me to go away! Well, now I _am_ going away. I
don’t know for how long. Here’s a note in which I’ve given an address
where I can be written to, and of course I’ll let them know how I am,
now and again.”
Then as she heard the sound of a motor, the colour rushed to her face.
“They can’t be back yet,” she exclaimed in a dismayed tone.
Elsie smiled. “That’s the machine I just telephoned for to Grendon. You
were never going to walk to the station? That would have been a foolish
thing to do when maybe you’ve some hard days in front of you.”
Jean took Elsie in her arms and hugged her. Then she kissed her on both
cheeks. “Good-bye, Elsie, I know that _you_ wish me well.”
“Ay, indeed, I’ll be doing that.”
And so, very quietly and without consulting anybody, Jean Bower started
on what was to be her great adventure. It was such a comfort to feel
that to Rachel North, at least, she owed no explanations that she did
not choose to give, no duty of any sort, only gratitude for present
kindness done. It was also soothing to know that in London she would be
but one of millions of people intent on their own business and not on
hers. How different from a place where she could hardly walk a few steps
in the daylight without knowing that even the village children were
pointing her out to each other!
Cuthbert Street, Belgravia? The address sounded grand to her country
ears. But she knew that Rachel North in far-away days had had a large
circle of friends. Perhaps it was some kindly survivor of those distant
days who had lent her a flat.
On and on her taxi took her, through the dark streets, for it was a late
Saturday afternoon, and to Jean, looking out of the windows, the long
dreary streets seemed to grow shabbier and shabbier.
At last it turned into a thoroughfare which seemed interminable, and of
which the houses had that depressing, almost terrible, look of having
seen better days. The plaster was peeling off the stucco walls, and here
and there a window was broken. There was a look of indescribable grime
and dirt, even on the pavements.
At last the driver drew up opposite the very last house in the street,
one that overlooked a railway bridge.
“I reckon it’s here,” he said looking round dubiously.
Jean told herself that there must be some mistake. The house looked even
more forlorn than did its neighbours, and while she was glancing up at
the gray crusted walls and dirty windows, she heard the shriek of a
train, and a moment later there came a deafening roar.
“Come, miss! This is 200, Cuthbert Street, right enough. You give me my
fare, and let me go off,” said the man rather roughly. “I’m on another
job in a few minutes, and this is such an out-of-the-way part.”
She paid him the big sum marked on the taximeter, took her hold-all out
of the cab, and with a slight sensation of fear, as well as of deep
surprise, she pressed the top one of the four knobs which seemed to
indicate that the house had four occupiers.
For what seemed a considerable while nothing happened; and she pressed
the second knob. Then, at last, a slatternly looking woman opened the
door and looked at her disagreeably.
“You’re not wanting Mrs. Stratford?” she asked.
“Does Miss Rachel North live here? I’ve come to stay with her,” said
Jean, trembling a little.
“As I’ve had the trouble of opening the door to you, you can walk up.
It’s the top floor. But you’d no business to press my bell.”
“I’m sorry,” faltered Jean.
“We’re not allowed to put our names outside the door. And it’s a shame,
that it is! I’m always coming up from my basement just to open the door
to some other lady’s visitors.”
The woman turned round, leaving the front door open. Jean shut it, and
began slowly walking up the narrow dark staircase. The house looked more
than dirty; it looked degraded.
On and on she went, past frowsy-looking landings, till she reached the
top floor. There—a change indeed! A piece of linoleum, scrupulously
clean, was on the landing, and, as she moved cautiously forward and
knocked on the door opposite the top of the staircase, a voice which had
once been very familiar, called out: “Come in!”
She turned the handle, and saw before her a plainly furnished, but
pleasant little sitting room, and a girl who she knew was Rachel North,
rose from a low chair by the fire, and came forward.
“Why, Jean, I didn’t expect you for another hour! I looked out the
trains from Grendon. You must have come by a slow one.”
“I did,” she answered rather breathlessly. “I was in such a hurry to get
away.”
“I know—to get busy,” said the other nodding her head.
She was a reserved girl, and she did not kiss Jean Bower. Instead, she
took both her visitor’s hands, held them firmly, and gazed into her
face.
“I won’t say much,” she exclaimed. “But I should like you to know that I
do understand what you are feeling, what you are going through, and I’ll
do everything in my power to help you. You know I’m engaged all day. I’m
so glad to-day happened to be a Saturday. But for that I shouldn’t have
got your telegram until after you’d arrived in London!”
And then she drew Jean toward the bright little fire.
“It isn’t a bad place,” she said critically, “once one’s up here. The
rest of the house is filthy.”
She took Jean’s hold-all. “Is this all you’ve brought?”
“Yes,” said Jean, and there crept a tone of defiance into her voice. “I
think I may as well tell you at once why I’ve come to London. I’m going
to take a place on Monday as general servant in a house where some one
lives who, I believe might help, if she chose to do so, to prove Harry’s
innocence.”
“I see,” said Rachel North slowly, “a bit of detective work? Knowing how
sensible you used to be, I suppose that you’re acting under advice, eh?”
“Not altogether—but yes, I think I may say I’m acting under advice.
Perhaps I ought to go out now and get clothes of the kind needed for
that sort of work?”
There came a troubled look into her face, and the older girl felt
touched, even a little amused.
“Don’t you worry about clothes,” she exclaimed. “I came very low down in
the world at one time, and I’ve kept the things I wore then. They’re
awfully shabby, but they’re quite clean. I don’t quite know why I kept
them—it was a sort of superstitious feeling. I felt that if I gave them
away, I might want them again. But now, well, my dear, you know I’ve all
sorts of queer ideas—now I think I was probably intended to keep them
that I might help you!”
That this question should be settled so easily and so well was more of a
relief than perhaps Jean would have admitted even to herself. She had
given the matter of her outfit for 106, Coburg Square, a good deal of
anxious thought on her railway journey. She realized that the whole of
her scheme would fail if the woman to whose employment she was going
suspected that she was playing a part. She was too sensible to suppose
that she would be able to pass herself off as a simple country girl of
the working class, but she did hope that she would be able to make her
employer believe that she was out to earn an honest living, in however
humble a capacity.
And then, after they had enjoyed their cold supper, and while Jean was
lying back in an extraordinarily comfortable couch which yet looked
oddly big for the little room, her friend exclaimed:
“Perhaps I’d better tell you now that you’re really on what’s going to
be your bed. I’ve thought it over, and though I should have been
delighted to give you my bedroom and to have slept in here, I somehow
felt that you’d far rather sleep here and leave me my bedroom, eh?”
“Indeed, indeed, I would!” exclaimed Jean.
“I know,” the other nodded. “I once went to stay with a friend, and I
can’t tell you what I felt when I discovered the next day that she had
turned out of her room and slept in the kitchen!”
Jean Bower awoke to find her friend smiling down at her. There was a cup
of tea in her hand.
“Now then, you just drink this up. Then I’ll light the fire, and after
I’ve done that I’ll bring you those clothes I told you about. I’ve just
had a look at them. They’re old-fashioned and ugly, but I don’t know
that that really matters. After all, your object is to look the part——”
Jean sat up and drank the tea thirstily. Oh! how restful to be here with
this quiet, reserved young woman who, while obviously sympathizing with
her, was not in the least inquisitive.
She caught Rachel North’s hand and pulled her down.
“You know I’m grateful to you, without my saying so,” she whispered. “I
shall never forget how good you’ve been!”
“I’ve not been more good to you than two or three people were to me, in
my deep trouble. But I took my trouble in a way I hope you will never
do, Jean,” replied the other girl. “I cut myself off from everybody
after my father’s death. I was wrong in that—I see it now. But I was so
unhappy”—her face altered, it became convulsed with feeling, and she
turned quickly away, busying herself in making and lighting the fire.
Then she went off into her room and came back with a curious little heap
of garments in her arms. There was a brown serge coat and skirt—the
skirt unfashionably full, while the coat was short and skimpy. Then
there were two clean, washed-out-looking flannel blouses.
“This, I take it, is the sort of thing you want? But I strongly advise
you to buy some thick woollen underwear. After all, the woman won’t see
what you’re wearing underneath your coat and skirt.”
“How clever you are, Rachel. I should never have thought of that,” said
Jean admiringly.
“You don’t want to go and fall ill the first day you’re there.
Especially as you’ll have need of an alert mind. I’m afraid you’ll have
very nasty food.”
“I don’t mind that,” said Jean quickly.
“Oh, don’t you? Well, you wait a bit. It’s easy to talk like that! I’ve
come to think that nice food is one of the most important things in the
world. If I were you I should take some malted milk, or cod liver oil
and malt, in your trunk.”
“Trunk?” queried Jean doubtfully.
“A good, big, deep suitcase rather than a wooden box. The woman who’s
going to employ you won’t think your bringing such a thing queer at all.
In fact, I think she’d think it odd if you came with practically nothing
but a hold-all.”
“I suppose that’s true,” said Jean. “All right—I put myself in your
hands. You shall tell me what to do!”
Rachel North smiled. She was one of those women who love power, and,
given the chance, exercise it wisely.
“If you don’t mind getting up a bit early on Monday morning there’s a
place close by here, a great big cheap store, where all the working
girls go. We’ll get some kind of suitcase there, and we’ll buy two sets
of their best warm underclothing. If your employer should see them by
any chance you can say they were given you by a kind lady!”
And then they both burst into peals of girlish laughter. Jean had not
laughed so heartily as that for many a long day.
“By the way, have you chosen a good name to call yourself by?”
“I’m going as ‘Elizabeth Chart,’ my mother’s maiden name,” and the
laughter died out of her eyes.
Suddenly Rachel said, “I must go out and get my Sunday papers. When one
is leading a lonely life one does depend tremendously on reading, and,
I’m not ashamed to say it, on newspaper reading. Papers are my only
luxury, and on Sundays I have a regular debauch!”
Jean was staring into the fire.
“I suppose you’ve read everything that’s been printed about, about”—and
then she said rather defiantly—“about Harry and me? I know there must
have been horrid things, for Uncle Jock made me promise not to look at
the papers—not even at the paper they take in at Bonnie Doon.”
“Yes,” said Rachel North reluctantly, “I have seen a good deal about
you, Jean. But everything so far about you has been kind.”
And then Jean jumped up from her chair.
“I hate that!” she exclaimed. “I’d far rather they said horrible
things—as I know they do about Harry.”
“They have to be careful,” said Rachel North in a detached tone. “No
paper is allowed to prejudge a case.”
“Yet they do prejudge it!” exclaimed Jean Brower excitedly.
“Well, yes, in a sense I’m afraid they do.”
When Rachel North came back she handed the bundle of papers to Jean, and
began bustling in and out of her tiny kitchen getting dinner ready—a
delicate little bit of undercut which was to be served French fashion
with fried potatoes and some salad.
Jean began looking at one of the papers listlessly. Then all at once she
realized that in the middle of the big sheet was a square space, and
within it, running ribbon-wise across the top ran:
THE TERRIFORD MYSTERY
AN EXCITING DEVELOPMENT
Exclusive to _The Sunday Critic_
_The Sunday Critic_ learns on absolutely reliable authority that the
prosecution believe that they are at last on the track of the one
missing link in The Terriford Mystery.
That Mrs. Emily Garlett died from a large dose of white arsenic is
certain, but till two days ago there was no clue as to where the
murderer, the murderess, or the murderers, had obtained the poison.
This doubt, so we are credibly informed, is on the point of being
solved. The discovery has not changed the present situation, and no
further arrests are contemplated.
Jean read the paragraph again and again. Then she called out, “Rachel,
come here, and tell me what this means?”
Rachel North hurried into the room. She knelt down by the girl’s side
and read the paragraph.
“It means,” she said in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice, “that if this
paper is to be believed the prosecution have found where the arsenic was
purchased. The implication is that it was purchased by Mr. Garlett;
hence those words, ‘The situation is unchanged. No further arrests are
contemplated.’”
And then something happened which, though it terrified Rachel North,
gave a few moments of merciful oblivion to Jean Bower. The supple,
rounded figure, full of the strength of living life, suddenly sagged.
She would have fallen on the floor had not the other caught hold of her.
But Rachel North’s hospital training stood her in good stead. She laid
the unconscious form flat on the floor, and rushing off to her bedroom,
came back with some sal-volatile which she forced through Jean’s lips.
And at last, with a low moan the girl regained consciousness.
After a few moments she struggled up on to her knees. Then she looked
round her, dazed, forgetting where she was, and what had happened. But
all too soon everything rushed back into her mind.
Painfully she lifted herself up again on to the chair.
“I want to read that paragraph again,” she said in a trembling voice. “I
want to understand exactly what it means.”
“I don’t think you will be able to do that, dear. It’s put in that odd,
uncertain way on purpose; but honestly, Jean, I don’t think you need
attach much importance to it!”
And then, for the first time since her arrival, Jean Bower had a
heart-to-heart talk with Rachel North over the whole mysterious story.
They discussed every alternative possibility, and, as so often happens,
Jean began to feel happier, more self-controlled, as a result of that
long talk. One thing which greatly comforted her was that after hearing
all she had to say Rachel North suddenly exclaimed:
“I think I was wrong as to what I said to you—I mean as to the
prosecution having found the place where Mr. Garlett may have purchased
arsenic. What I think has happened is that they have found something in
the Thatched House from which arsenic can be extracted. Now apparently
arsenic can be extracted from almost anything! That being so, it would
be strange indeed if nothing of the sort had been found.”
“That’s true,” said Jean, “and yet”—her face clouded over—“and yet,
Rachel, they’ve left no stone unturned—one might almost say that
literally—to find arsenic in the Thatched House.”
Rachel North took her friend’s hand. “You will want all your wits about
you during this experiment that you are going to try. If you allow
yourself to be unnerved by what has been published by that paper then
I’m afraid you’ll injure your chance of success. From all you tell me, I
agree with you that that woman Agatha Cheale knows far more than she has
chosen to tell. Her behaviour after Mr. Garlett was committed for
trial—I mean her behaviour in coming down to see Miss Prince—is to my
mind almost an indication that she knows something she is unwilling to
reveal. Now I wonder—perhaps you’ll be shocked at what I’m going to say,
Jean—I wonder if Miss Cheale—well, to put it plainly, was fond of Mr.
Garlett?”
Jean looked at Rachel.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I’m afraid Miss Cheale did care for Harry, and
it’s because I can’t help suspecting that she had something to do with
the writing of those anonymous letters that I’m going to the house where
she is living. She’s only seen me twice in her life. I feel sure she
won’t know me again, and, as I’ve already told you, Sir Harold Anstey
thinks it is all-important that I should find out who wrote those
letters.”
“I agree,” said Rachel quickly. “Whoever wrote those letters was either
instigated by the most fiendish spite, and simply wanted to make Mr.
Garlett miserable for nothing, or else he or she must have known that if
an exhumation should take place arsenic would certainly be found in Mrs.
Garlett’s body.”
“I think Agatha Cheale wrote those letters to make Harry wretched—to
punish him for not having loved her. If I thought she knew Mrs. Garlett
was poisoned, then I should regard her as——” she broke off in what she
was going to say, and the other exclaimed, “A—murderess? Yes, that’s the
only logical conclusion!”
CHAPTER XXII
“Can you tell me the shortest way to Coburg Square?”
“It’s round by the Foundling Hospital. I’m going that way myself, so
you’d best come along with me.”
The man peered through the dark fog-laden air into the young pale face
looking up at him from under the brim of a singularly unbecoming plain
brown straw hat. He was an old bachelor who never, if he could help it,
spoke to a woman, but he had been mollified by the sweetness of her
voice.
The Foundling Hospital? It was a comfort to her in her present forlorn
condition to think of all that that great house of human pity and
sympathy had done for innumerable deserted and friendless orphans.
For the first time in her life she was assailed by that most unnerving
of companions, “Little Devil Doubt.” What she was about to do was surely
a terrible risk? If she failed, as she might well fail, and her
desperate enterprise were to become known, would she not be universally
condemned? Might it not even get into the papers? Harry Garlett’s
betrothed taking a place as a servant for his sake! She could almost
picture the terrible headlines! She felt so nervous, so excited, that
when the deep voice of her conductor suddenly interrupted her anxious
self-questioning, she stumbled, and would have fallen had not he put out
his hand.
“If you just turn down to the left here,” said the man, “and then turn
sharp to the right, the house you want will be within three or four of
the corner of the square.”
In response to her word of thanks, he took off his hat and went his way.
Jean then walked on slowly, and now and again she stopped. This was her
last chance to change her mind, to give up what she well knew most of
the people who had known and respected her in her short life would
consider a crazy adventure.
When she came to the end of the long street which led into the square
she pressed her cold hand across her face. Her eyes were smarting,
partly with the fog, partly from the tears she had shed in the night.
She felt unutterably sad and discouraged, and yet deep in her heart she
longed to engage in what she believed would be a duel between herself
and that strange woman, Agatha Cheale.
If Lucy Warren’s tale were true, Agatha Cheale was the one person in the
world who had had a vital reason for desiring Mrs. Garlett’s death.
Throwing off “Little Devil Doubt,” Jean decided to go on. She crossed
over to the corner house of the square. To her left she could dimly
discern the railings of the narrow garden facing the dark houses to her
right.
There was no one in sight, and she felt strangely eerie walking along
the wide uneven pavement trying to make out the number on each door.
Even the street lamps seemed to gleam more dimly here than elsewhere.
She found 109. Then the gloomy-looking unlit house with the portico must
be 106.
Blindly she groped for a bell, and at last she felt a row of knobs. As
her fingers slid over them uncertainly there came over her a sudden
feeling of acute fear. What if Agatha Cheale should open the door and
recognize her?
Then she told herself that her fear was absurd. She had only met Miss
Cheale twice. The first time in the cricket pavilion where Mrs.
Garlett’s housekeeper had been absorbed in looking after the numerous
guests and their entertainment. Then, again, for a few moments on the
morning when Miss Cheale, livid with anger, was giving notice to Lucy
Warren; and on that day, she, Jean Bower, had been wearing a large hat
which completely shadowed her face.
And then, with intense relief, she reminded herself that of course her
way of entrance should be by the back door. Creeping out from under the
dark portico, she felt along the iron railings. Yes, here was the area
gate! And luckily it was unlatched. She pushed it open and found that it
led to a steep stone staircase. Down she went, feeling her way from one
worn step to the next till she reached the bottom.
She was now in a small pit-like yard, and to her right, from behind what
was evidently the kitchen window of the cavernous old house, there shone
a bright light. As she could see no door, she knocked, at last, timidly
on the window. A moment later a narrow door was opened wide and she
walked through into a stone passage lighted by a gas-jet, while a not
unkindly voice exclaimed:
“You’re Elizabeth Chart, I take it? Didn’t think you’d come for another
hour, my dear. Come into my kitchen, do! And I’ll have some tea ready
for you in a jiffy.”
The speaker was a gray-haired, red-faced woman, immensely stout, and
dressed in an old-fashioned alpaca dress. She wore a Paisley shawl
neatly pinned across her vast breast with a cameo brooch.
“Elizabeth’s a mouthful—so if you don’t mind I’ll call you Bet.”
“I’ll like that,” faltered the girl.
“Now then, Bet, you go right into my kitchen and get warm. ’Twill be a
great relief to me, I reckon, having a country girl after them London
sluts. I was that pleased when I got the telegram saying you was coming
this afternoon that I could ’a’ danced!”
It was a homely-looking kitchen with a big red fire in the
old-fashioned, wasteful grate. The bright light the girl had seen from
outside came from a chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling.
Under the light the two faced one another—Mrs. Lightfoot, the
housekeeper, and Bet Chart, the new servant. With thankfulness Bet
noticed that her employer had a shrewd, good-humoured face, and, in
spite of her huge girth, a brisk, cheerful way of moving about.
“’Tain’t no good taking you upstairs yet. You can just pop your things
off in my room. This way, please!”
She led the way into what had evidently once been the butler’s pantry in
the stately old house.
“I’d ’a’ liked to ’ave ’ad you near me, my dear, but I wouldn’t keep a
dog’s kennel in any of the other rooms in this ’ere basement; they’re
that damp and dark.”
A fire was burning in the room they were now in, and by its light Jean
saw a big bed and some nice old-fashioned furniture.
“This room and next door to it is my ’ome,” said Mrs. Lightfoot with
pride. “You’ll sleep under the roof. I goes up and down as little as I
can, for though I used to live up to my husband’s name I can’t do with
stairs! Still I can move about quick, as you’ll soon see. Like to wash
your ’ands? You can do so in my basin as a treat to-day, but henceforth
you’ll ’ave to wash ’em at the sink.”
A few moments later Jean came back into the kitchen. She felt very
strange and odd in her full brown skirt, her flannel blouse, and the
neat, Quaker-like little white muslin cap she and Rachel North had
bought that morning.
“That’s right!” exclaimed Mrs. Lightfoot, “not ashamed to wear a cap as
was our last fine lady? A little treasure you’re setting out to be. The
last ’ussy I ’ad ’ere, she’s got a job as a demonstrator—putting rouge
on her lips and whitening her face. I reckon that’ll suit her ladyship
for the present, till she moves on to—I won’t demean myself by saying
where.”
She had set out bread, butter, and jam on the kitchen table. Then,
apparently afraid lest her praise should make her new help uppish, she
observed critically:
“You don’t look over-strong for a country girl. Mind you, there’s stairs
’ere—stairs, stairs, stairs all the time!”
“I’m very strong,” said Jean in a low voice, “it’s only that I’m tired
to-day. You see I’ve come a long way.”
“Ay, that’s true—and not over familiar with London, I daresay.”
“I don’t know London at all.”
Jean looked straight into the other’s fat face. She was glad to be able
to say something which was absolutely true.
“There now, fancy that! You surprise me—seein’ that I can see you’ve ’ad
some edication. I’m a Londoner born and bred—proud of it, too. It’s
unlucky you and me can’t go out together. I’d take you to see the
sights! But you’ll be able to go ’ere and there on your afternoon off. A
young girl like you won’t be long before she gets a friend to walk out
with.”
To that Jean made no answer. Instead she sat down and poured herself out
a cup of tea.
“As you come from Terriford I expect you’re quite familiar-like with all
the parties concerned with this ’ere Garlett murder—The Thatched ’Ouse
Mystery some calls it? Ever seen my top floor—Miss Cheale? She’s in it,
of course!”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her,” faltered Jean.
She bent her face down to her plate. “I wasn’t in Terriford long.”
“I’ll give you a peep at Miss Cheale some time or other,” said Mrs.
Lightfoot kindly. “But she’s the one of my lodgers you won’t ’ave much
to do with. I do the waitin’ on ’er myself. She simply can’t abear
strangers! But you’ll ’ave to help do ’er room, mind you. ‘What the hear
don’t ’ear, the ’eart don’t grieve at.’ She thinks I never lets any one
into her room. But there she’s mistaken. I can’t do all the work, and
it’s lucky for me that my front ground floor’s been hempty a while,
though now you’ve come, my dear, I don’t mind ’ow soon it fills up.”
Jean’s hands were shaking. How stupid, how idiotic of her, not to have
realized that Agatha Cheale’s connection with the Thatched House would
be known to Mrs. Lightfoot!
“She’s takin’ on awful about that case,” went on the housekeeper. “She
left ’ere over a year ago to go to that very Mrs. Garlett as
lady-’ousekeeper. I says to ’er then, ‘You’re a fool to give up your
hindependence, Miss Cheale, my dear!’ But she would do it. And see where
it’s landed ’er!”
“Has Miss Cheale ever told you how she thinks Mrs. Garlett was
poisoned?” asked Jean.
“I simply wouldn’t dare ask ’er. I ’ave tried once or twice to sort of
lead on to it delicately—but she can’t bear the littlest question about
it. Oh, she’s a fly one! It wasn’t till I seed her name in the paper
that she let on she’d anything to do with it. Since then—well, it stands
to reason she’s ’ad to say just a bit about it to me now and again.
What’s upset her so as been those dratted lawyers—first one side, then
the other, coming and worrying ’er somethin’ hawful! That’s why she’s
’ad to speak to me about it so that I should prevent ’em coming up to
her. And I ’ave prevented ’em!” exclaimed Mrs. Lightfoot.
Unconsciously she put her arms akimbo and assumed a fighting attitude.
“Many a fine bold lie ’ave I told in ’er good cause! Be spot truthful
when you’re young, but as time goes on, allow yourself a little law.
That’s a motter for you, Bet Chart, and a good one, too. After all, Miss
Cheale can’t say what she don’t know—can she?”
“No one knows anything,” said Jean at last. “It’s a terrible, terrible
mystery,” and she pushed her plate away.
“Now you just go on eating, Bet. It’s real butter; no cheap margarine
for me! Never would ’ave it in my ’ouse for all I’ve come down in the
world, as the saying is. During the war plain honest dripping as I got
off a chef I know: since then the best butter. You’ll find I live up to
what I said, ‘a comfortable ’ome for a suitable person.’”
So Jean forced herself to eat a bit more of Mrs. Lightfoot’s excellent
bread and butter.
“In a way ’tis a mystery,” went on her employer, “though in another way
’tis no mystery at hall! Young man marries old woman for ’er money. Gets
fair sick of ’er. Meets a pretty young girl. Takes a fancy to _’er_ and
does away with the old ’un. So far all clear. As I says to Miss Cheale
early this very morning: ‘Don’t you take on so, miss. It’s ’appened
plenty of times before and it’ll ’appen plenty times again—before the
judgment day! Anyway,’ I says, ‘it’ll be all the same a ’undred years
hence.’ But between you and me, Bet Chart, I’ve another idea.”
“There are some people who think that perhaps Mrs. Garlett poisoned
herself,” said Jean.
She had given up the pretence of eating and was now looking fixedly into
Mrs. Lightfoot’s red face.
“Well, that I never will believe! Not if the King himself come out of
Buckingham Palace and commanded me so to do! I’ve read pretty well
heverything that’s been written about this ’ere so-called mystery. I
makes a special study of murders. Always ’ave done so, though it turns
me faint to drown a new-born kitten in warm water. I’ve been found right
many a time, and that afore the judge and jury ’ave made up their
minds!”
“And what d’you think now?” asked Jean eagerly.
“More than once I’ve hasked myself whether that forward hussy, Jean
Bower, did it? She ’ad every reason to want the poor soul out of the
way, but it don’t look at present as if she’d hever ’ad the chance.”
“No,” said Bet Chart quietly, “Jean Bower never even saw Mrs. Garlett.”
“That, beggin’ your pardon, Bet, may be a tale! I don’t see ’ow _you_
could know, anyway. It would ’a’ been strange if they’d never met,
living in the same place, and both being gentry. And she the doctor’s
niece! What’s she like? I suppose you’ve seen ’er?”
“Yes,” said Jean. “I’ve seen her. She’s just ordinary—like everybody
else.”
“They’re generally the worst,” said Mrs. Lightfoot. “Very much the
worst—if you’ll believe me. I’ve given a lot o’ study to that girl.
There’s some one a protectin’ ’er, not a doubt of it! Else why wasn’t
she called when that man ’Enry Garlett was committed for his trial? She
ought to ’a’ been! They did their level best to try and compel my poor
top floor to go to Grendon town. She ’ad to ’ave a doctor, and ’e ’ad to
give ’er a certificate. And even that wasn’t enough! We ’ad a lawyer
’ere—a man from the Crown, he called ’isself—but I don’t believe for one
minute the King knew the way ’e went on. ’Ow ’e worried that poor young
woman! She made me stay in the room all the time—and a good thing, too.
There ’e was, close up to ’er bed, with a big book and a fountain
pen—why it wasn’t decent. She wouldn’t eat any supper after that. She
cried and cried, and I was fair tormented about ’er! Yet they left that
Bower girl—that forward sly ’ussy—habsolutely alone. What d’you say to
that?”
“They didn’t leave her absolutely alone,” said Jean slowly. “Some one
came from the Crown to see her and cross-examine her, too.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Mrs. Lightfoot, “very glad, indeed! That’s the
best word I’ve ’eard you say, Bet Chart, about the whole business. I’m
intending to get in at that trial even if I’m crushed to death doing so!
It’ll take the place of my summer outing. I don’t often go in for that
sort o’ treat, but I did see The Brides in the Bath man. I saw him
black-capped.”
“How dreadful!” whispered the help, and she turned even whiter than she
had been before.
“I’d a friend at the Old Bailey, one of the judge’s clerks—my ’usband’s
uncle was Mr. Justice Barnaby’s clerk—and that gives me a sort o’
connection with the law. So they’re very kind to me when I goes down to
the Old Bailey, and I could get in much oftener than I does if I could
leave the ’ouse. Still, as I ’opes and believes you’ll be ’ere when
’Enry Garlett’s trial takes place, I’ll just give myself the treat of
seeing my poor Miss Cheale in the witness-box.” She waited a moment to
take breath, then added significantly: “You just look over there!”
Jean turned round quickly to see a great pile of newspapers lying in a
corner of the kitchen.
“Miss Cheale takes in five newspapers a day, if you’ll believe me—just
with the idea of seeing something new about that hawful affair. If it
had been war-time I could ’ave made my fortune out of them old papers,
but now the dustman wants to be paid for carrying them away! But there!
I do get something out of it, for o’ course I reads ’em all—when I ’ave
the time, that is! As for Miss Cheale, she just pores over them, and
hevery one of the Sunday papers she takes in too. I ’aven’t ’ad time yet
to look over yesterday’s. But I will this evenin’, and it’ll be a treat
for you too, Bet. There was something in one of them papers as greatly
upset Miss Cheale. She wouldn’t say nought about it—but I knew! It’s
never out of her mind, that it isn’t. She even talks about it in her
sleep. My last girl used to ’ear her, and it fair give ’er the creeps.”
“Hadn’t I better begin washing up?” asked Jean timidly.
“Well, yes, I reckon you ’ad. All the people in this ’ouse goes out to
work for their daily bread. Leastways, all but one does. I won’t ’ave no
drones if I can ’elp it. No drones and no—you can guess what sort I mean
for all you’re an hinnocent young thing. I could ’ave made a lot of
money, retired too, and lived in peace and plenty, if I ’adn’t been a
respectable woman, but there! I can’t help it—I just ham.”
Jean made no reply to that obviously truthful statement. Instead, she
carried the tea-things she had used one after the other to the broad
sink.
“Hullo,” called out Mrs. Lightfoot suddenly, “ever ’eard of a tray?”
The girl turned round surprised.
“How stupid of me,” she exclaimed. And then suddenly her heart almost
stopped beating, for Mrs. Lightfoot walked straight up to her and said,
“You’ve never been hout before? You’re not the plain country lass I took
you for. What har you?”
“I’m the daughter of a man of business, Mrs. Lightfoot. My father failed
before he died. I never was taught to do anything, though I did what I
could in a hospital during the war. When I heard of your situation last
week I was on my beam ends.”
Mrs. Lightfoot looked relieved.
“I guessed you were something just not quite common,” she admitted
cautiously. “The way you put your cup to your lips, in a sort of finicky
way, henlightened me. I expect you was sent to a genteel school.”
“I suppose I was,” said the other almost in a whisper. “But I don’t mind
hard work. You’ll see I don’t.”
And then suddenly she began to cry. “I—I’ve been so unhappy,” she
gasped, “since my father died.”
“There, there! You’ll be ’appy ’ere. Don’t you worry, and don’t you go
and think, as many a silly young girl supposes nowadays, that all the
good chaps were killed in the war. If there’s only one left, you’ll find
him right enough! And if not, I’ll find ’im for you. There’s some good
elderly gents about too, just now. Better be an old man’s darling than a
young man’s slave. Hany old barndoor can keep out the draught! But no
carryings on with the lodgers, mind! But there, I won’t insult you, Bet,
my dear, by supposing you capable of doing such a thing. Likewise, you
won’t ’ave a chance, for I does most of the waiting on the gentlemen
myself.”
Then came three knocks on the floor above the kitchen ceiling.
“What’s that?” exclaimed the new “help.”
“My hinvalid—a mystery _’e_ is—Mr. Gee by name—though not ’is real one,
between you and me and the lamp-post. But you’ll have nothing to do with
’im.”
She went off upstairs: then came back, and said suddenly:
“Can you cook at all, my dear, or shall I ’ave to teach you that—as well
as the use of a tray?”
But Mrs. Lightfoot spoke very good-humouredly.
“I can cook simple things,” said Jean, “and I know some nice Scotch
breakfast dishes.”
“I don’t want you to go a-spoiling my lodgers! Plain and good—that’s my
motter. Eggs and bacon week-days, an’ midget sausages on Sunday for a
treat. My gentlemen pays for ‘bed and breakfast,’ and though it’s near
double what it was afore the war, yet it needs a good bit more
contriving than it did then, I can tell you. As to Miss Cheale, well,
she goes on another plan. I just buys what she wants. She makes a tidy
bit of money out of them Russians she works for. Besides, as you maybe
’ave ’eard, she was left a little fortune by that poor poisoned soul!”
At six-thirty there came the sound of the big front door opening. Then
it was shut slowly, carefully.
“That’s Mr. Robins,” remarked Mrs. Lightfoot; “’e’s a very careful
gentleman. Halways the first to come in, for the reason he works near
’ere at the British Museum. A proper, quiet sort o’ man, though they do
say ’e was a regular devil in the war! But there! ’E’s settled down
peaceful nicely now. ’E’s got my big front drawing room, and beautiful
’e’s made it with some things ’is ma left ’im when she died.”
Something like a quarter of an hour went by, and then again there came
the sound of the front door opening. This time it was banged to.
“Mr. Goodbody,” said the housekeeper. “A merry, cheerful little
gentleman, as lives up to ’is name. Going to be married, so we sha’n’t
keep ’im long. I’ll miss ’im when ’e goes—not that I exactly envy ’is
missis, mind you, but still it’s nice to be always greeted with a laugh
and a joke.”
“That’s Miss Cheale,” exclaimed Mrs. Lightfoot, as a church clock near
by struck seven. “Sometimes she works even later than this. ’Er arrival
is the signal for me to get busy. I got ’er a nice chop to-day. She
going to ’ave fried potatoes with it—fried potatoes and brussels
sprouts—likewise a meringue. Not one of those bought meringues—all glue
and a lick of cream. But a meringue I’ve got to fill chock-full of
whipped cream. Miss Cheale knows what she likes, and, unlike some folks,
she’s willing to pay for it.”
As she spoke she got up, and began moving about, and when Jean offered
to help her she shook her head.
“Let be, let be,” she exclaimed; “’nother night I may let you try your
’and at Miss Cheale’s supper, but to-night I’d better do it, for I knows
what she likes, and exactly ’ow she likes it. But I’ll tell you what I
will let you do! I’ll let you carry up the tray as far as the landing.
We must take the risk of ’er seeing you—morbid, ain’t it, ’er dislike of
seeing people?”
Twenty minutes later Jean took the heavily loaded tray and started going
up the kitchen stairs. In front of her, treading more and more slowly,
more and more wheezily, walked the housekeeper. The gas-light in the
hall showed the fine tessellated black and white pavement and the two
mahogany doors. As they walked past the door giving into a back room on
the ground floor Jean heard a choking cough.
“There ’e is, pore gentleman, coughing ’is life away,” whispered Mrs.
Lightfoot compassionately. “It’ll be a mercy for me, as well as for ’im
and another I could name, when ’e’s gone. But that sort lingers on and
on—never knowing they’re going either.”
They went on, up the first flight, and though there was another gas-jet
halfway up, the house seemed wrapped in gloom. It was, however, a
magnificent remnant of London’s eighteenth-century architecture; the
banisters of the wide staircase were of wrought iron, and it did not
require much imagination to see the beaux and the belles of a hundred
and fifty years ago walking down the wide, low steps hand in hand.
When they reached the drawing-room floor, the door of the back drawing
room opened, and a cheerful chubby-looking young man’s face looked out.
“Hullo! Mrs. Heavyfoot? Got a lady-in-waiting at last, eh?” And then the
speaker looked hard at the girl carrying the tray. “Here’s a pretty
miss! D’you know who you remind me of, pretty miss?”
“Now, none of your nonsense!” said Mrs. Lightfoot sharply, “you an
engaged gentleman too! Fie! Mr. Goodbody.”
“You remind me,” went on Mr. Goodbody, taking no notice of his landlady,
“of a beauteous young female called Pamela—‘Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.’
But I fear me you’ll have none of the wondrous adventures which befell
Pamela—not while you’re under the eagle eye of your present chaperon!”
Jean made no answer to these facetious remarks, but she looked at him so
coldly that the young man felt, as he expressed it to himself, somewhat
withered. Quietly he withdrew into his own quarters and shut the door.
“’E means no ’arm,” panted Mrs. Lightfoot tolerantly, “’e’s only out for
a bit of fun. And yet, would you believe it? ’Is young lady, well, she
’ardly smiles! I suppose ’e’s tired her with ’is fun, that’s what ’e’s
done.”
On and on they went, and then the housekeeper suddenly said: “’Ush!” In
a low whisper she added: “I sees that ’er door is open. You just give me
that tray, and then, when I’ve fixed ’er up comfortable, you can creep
up be’ind me, and I’ll show you where you’re to sleep. Then I won’t ’ave
to come up again to show you—see?”
And there on the dark staircase the girl waited—it seemed to her for a
long time, while murmurs of conversation came from behind the now shut
door of Miss Cheale’s sitting room. She felt extraordinarily strung up
and excited at the thought that there, within a few feet of her, was the
woman who claimed to have the key to the mystery of Mrs. Garlett’s
death.
At last Mrs. Lightfoot came out of the brightly lit room, and beckoned
to her help; and Jean, hurrying on to the landing, saw a narrow
ladder-like staircase.
“No need for me to go up. You can’t make no mistake, Bet, for only one
o’ the two garrets up there ’as any furniture in it. I don’t say you’ll
find it very comfortable, but ’tain’t as if ’twas terrible cold just
now. You can move about too, for all you’re just over Miss Cheale’s
bedroom. They don’t build ’ouses like this nowadays. She’s in a rare
nervy state to-night. She’s frightened of a feller that’s been ’anging
about ’ere a lot—name of Kentworthy. ’E’s getting up this case for ’Enry
Garlett. But ’e don’t get much change out of me—though before I knew
what ’e was up to, we became quite friendly-like. Oh, ’e’s an artful
one! But ’e won’t get over Jemima Lightfoot—and I told ’im so flat! Only
once did ’e force ’is way into this ’ouse and that was when I wasn’t in
it.”
CHAPTER XXIII
With a loud cry of “What is it? What’s the matter?” Jean, in the pitch
darkness, sat up in her narrow pallet bed, and listened.
For a moment or two she didn’t know where she was, and fear clutched at
her heart. And then, though memory soon came back, it was accompanied by
icy waves of terror, and it was with a trembling hand that she lit a
candle.
It was now quite still and quiet up there under the roof of the huge old
house. Then, all at once, the sounds that had awakened her began again.
The sound of a loud, discordant voice—or was it two voices?—that seemed
terrifyingly near.
Clasping her hands together nervously, Jean listened intently. It was a
high-pitched voice—only one voice after all—uttering quick, eager,
argumentative words, of which she could not catch the sense.
The candle was burning more brightly now, and she looked timorously
round her. Mrs. Lightfoot, with all her kind, hearty good-nature, had
never bethought herself of making the bedroom of her help even a little
comfortable. It was a large garret, and the ceiling was so low that it
gave its occupant a feeling of being pressed down upon. The flooring
boards, which were not over-clean, were bare, though by the pallet bed
lay a dingy-looking string mat. A tub and minute iron washing-stand were
in a corner, and a rickety yellow-painted chest of drawers stood far
away, under the dormer window, and on it was the cheapest form of
toilet-glass made. Jean had laughed when she had looked at herself in
it, for so distorted a view of her face had never been presented to her
gaze before. But now, sitting up in bed, the thought of that distorting
looking-glass gave her a feeling of horror and affright.
The one chair in the room was dirty and very shaky. On it there now
stood her light, cheap, almost empty, suitcase. There were three hooks
screwed into the door, but she had put her clothes on the bed, for in
spite of Mrs. Lightfoot’s remark, she had felt very cold....
All at once she realized that the voice she heard was Miss Cheale’s
voice. Leaping out of bed, she caught up her outdoor jacket and put it
on; then, after listening intently, she opened her door, leaving the
candle alight.
For a moment the darkness baffled her. Then she felt along the wall, and
at last found the cord which ran down along the side of the dangerous,
ladder-like stairs. Putting one bare foot slowly, cautiously, before the
other, down she went, very, very slowly, terrified lest she should make
the smallest sound.
At last her feet rested on the landing out of which opened Miss Cheale’s
sitting room and bedroom, and, as she stood there, the voice suddenly
stopped.
Was it possible that Agatha Cheale had heard the stuffless sounds which
she had made while treading with her bare feet down the wooden stairs?
Then, to her mingled fright and relief, she heard the voice begin again,
speaking now loudly, now almost in a whisper.
Tip-toeing across the lobby, she crouched down outside the closed
bedroom door, and there at last she heard quite clearly the words that
seemed tumbling out one after another, as if the lips that uttered them
could not get them out quickly enough.
And yet those words, those sentences, were punctuated with strange
pauses. It was as if the speaker were taking part in an eager, sometimes
embittered, argument with an unseen opponent.
“I am speaking up. I have nothing to conceal.... A tall dark man.... I
think I should.... It is a broad corridor.... No, I did not think of it,
I thought him a workman.... I did not know I was free to speak sooner.”
The staccato sentences were uttered with extraordinary energy. Then with
a complete change of voice came the quiet words:
“I always liked Mrs. Garlett very much.... Yes, she was invariably most
kind to me. Of course Mr. Garlett was also kind and considerate, but I
saw very little of him.... I was naturally with Mrs. Garlett very much
more.... Undoubtedly ... as long, that is, as Mr. and Mrs. Garlett
wished me to stay. Three hundred pounds is not an exceptional salary....
No communication with Mr. Garlett.... Once, just after the war.”
Then, with sudden passion, “You have no right to say that.” There came
an appeal in the voice. “My lord, am I compelled to answer that
question?... They were forced strawberries given by a lady who will, if
necessary, confirm what I say ... Miss Prince, my lord.”
And then at last, as if telling a story, and in a much more composed,
quiet voice, Agatha Cheale continued:
“I put the strawberries on one side, partly because I had before me the
disagreeable task of giving notice to a servant. I forgot about the
strawberries till early afternoon. I then put them on a Chinese dessert
dish, and took them upstairs myself. I placed them on a chest of drawers
outside Mrs. Garlett’s room——”
Then came a long pause. Jean’s heart was beating—beating.
“Yes, I will swear they were gone when I saw the man I took to be a
workman in the corridor. I thought no more of them till Mrs. Garlett
first summoned me in the night.... Mrs. Garlett did not say they had
been given her by her husband. I will swear to that.... I’m quite aware
that everything I’m now saying is being said on oath.... She said, ‘The
strawberries upset me. I ought not to have taken them.’ She had had
several visitors that afternoon.... I cannot remember who they were. She
was very fond of seeing people when fairly well.”
In a low hesitating voice came the words: “Must I go into details of Mr.
Garlett’s sojourn in the war hospital, my lord?”... Then with a kind of
cry—“He always behaved like a gentleman to me!”
There followed what seemed to the listener a very long silence, and Jean
was just turning away to go upstairs, when again Agatha Cheale began
speaking in an excited, defiant voice.
“Certainly not! This is the very first time I have ever seen an
anonymous letter.... I _am_ looking at it. I entirely deny that.... I
can’t help what any expert says.... I don’t want to look at it again....
I did not know Miss Bower—she was never at the Thatched House that I
know of.”
And then there followed complete silence, broken now and then by a moan
from the sleeping woman on the other side of the door.
The eavesdropper stood up. She walked slowly across the landing, and
made her way, hardly breathing, up the narrow stairway.
What did all that confused, broken talk portend? She tried to piece the
sentences together to make sense of them, but the whole formed a
hopeless jumble in her weary brain, and when she reached her comfortless
bedchamber she poured a small dose of sleeping draught into a medicine
glass, and, lying down, soon fell into a troubled sleep.
At six o’clock her alarm rang out. She jumped out of bed and went over
to the bathtub. Oh, how cold the water was and how cold she felt with
this sorry substitute for the comfortable bathroom at Bonnie Doon! But a
good rub with a rough towel made her feel a good deal warmer. She
dressed quickly and went downstairs, feeling her way till she reached
the hall. There was a thin line of light under the invalid lodger’s
door, and as she passed it Jean heard his stifled, painful cough.
Going into the kitchen, she laid and lit the fire. Then, acting on
impulse, at seven she boiled a little water and took Mrs. Lightfoot a
cup of nice hot tea.
“Well, child, this is very kindly of you, and no mistake! You’re the
first of my ’elps that ’as hever done such a thing as bring me a cup o’
tea afore I got up in the morning. But there—you’ll not suffer from
being kind. You shall ’ave two eggs instead of the one I meant you to
’ave for your breakfast. No Chinese eggs for me! Good English new-laid,
that’s all _I_ has any use for. Now, you start getting ready the
breakfasts. Hall ’ave to be early stirrers and early risers in this
’ouse—hall but Miss Cheale, that is. She’s not expected to be down at
’er place till near eleven.”
For the next hour Jean was kept very busy, doing the kitchen and helping
with the breakfast. At last she took up Mr. Robins’s breakfast tray,
while Mrs. Lightfoot took up Mr. Goodbody’s.
As for the mysterious gentleman who occupied the back room on the ground
floor, he had a specially big breakfast—a quarter of a pound of the best
butter all to himself. Jean remembered the words: “’E’s paid for
separately because ’e’s an hinvalid. You’ll ’ave nothing to do with
’im,” and sure enough in that one case Mrs. Lightfoot did not ask her to
help in any way, save to carry the heavy tray to the top of the kitchen
staircase.
Then, at last, the two sat down together to their breakfast, and after a
few moments Mrs. Lightfoot suddenly observed: “Did Miss Cheale gabble a
bit in ’er sleep last night?”
“Yes,” said Jean in a low voice, “she did.”
“There now! But you’ll soon get used to it. The minute she drops off,
she is in the witness-box, poor soul! That’s what’s unsettling of ’er,
though she do believe she’ll get that villain, Garlett, off.”
Jean started so violently that the other noticed it.
“What’s the matter with you? Got a pain?”
“Just a little pain,” said Jean, trying to smile.
“You’ll get used to the stairs hafter a day or two. Just pour yourself
hout another cup of tea and start your second hegg—that’ll make you feel
better.”
“I don’t think I want another egg,” said Jean.
“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Lightfoot severely. “The hegg’s been cooked, and
you’ve got to eat it. I won’t ’ave any waste in this ’ouse.”
“Does Miss Cheale really think she’ll get Mr. Garlett off?”
“She do, indeed! She thinks she saw the murderer—a strange-looking chap
’e was—in the ’ouse that very hafternoon.”
Mrs. Lightfoot leaned forward. “But it’s my belief, Bet, that she’s just
made that up! If so, they’ll soon find it hout. She’ll never save ’im,
bless you! She don’t know as much as I do about murder.”
Mrs. Lightfoot smiled a broad cheerful smile. “My poor ’usban’ used ter
say: ‘’Ow you can care to read about them ’orrible occurrences passes
me, Jemima.’ But I’ve made a special study of ’em from childhood.”
“But if she thinks she can prove he’s innocent,” asked Jean in a
trembling voice, “why doesn’t she do it now? Why wait for the trial?”
“Now you’re askin’!” exclaimed Mrs. Lightfoot. “But I’ll answer your
question truly. Miss Cheale”—she fixed her eyes on Jean’s pale
face—“Miss Cheale,” she repeated, “wants that man Garlett to know she’s
saved ’im. Then she thinks ’e’ll give up that girl Bower—and maybe marry
_’er_.”
“Marry her?” repeated Jean. “How d’you mean?”
“Miss Cheale,” said Mrs. Lightfoot, “is sweet on that villain ’erself.
That’s been plain to me for a long time. If not, why take on so? She
saved the man’s arm, ’cordin’ to ’er account, when she was a nurse in
France, and now she means to save ’is life. She’s a deep one!”
“Then she says she saw a stranger in the Thatched House?” asked Jean.
She was beginning to understand much that had seemed oddly mysterious
last night.
“That’s what she’s going to say, at any rate. One thing I will tell you,
Bet Chart. She do honestly believe Garlett didn’t do it. She said so
again to me last night. Funny, wasn’t it? She says to me: ‘They say
they’ve found the place where Mr. Garlett bought the poison. ’E never
did buy any poison.’”
“You mean the thing that appeared in _The Sunday Critic_?” said the
girl.
“Yes, that’s what I do mean—but ’owever did you know it?”
“I saw the paper. A friend I stayed with the night before I came here
bought it, and showed me the paragraph.”
Night and day the hidden drama went on—with the vast, dark, melancholy
old house as background.
From the moment she went up to bed Jean Bower became intensely
herself—that is, the unhappy, agonizingly anxious girl who was engaged
to a man whom the whole world regarded as a murderer.
And then, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, she would be awakened by
the now familiar sounds of Agatha Cheale talking in her sleep, and,
after a short battle with herself, she would creep down to the floor
below and listen to the unseen speaker rehearsing the evidence she meant
to give when in the witness-box at Harry Garlett’s trial for his life.
But what to the secret listener was so strange, as well as bitterly
disappointing, was that Agatha Cheale’s monologue scarcely altered at
all, from night to night. The suggestions, assertions, indignant denials
and admissions, would be repeated again and again, in almost exactly the
same form of words. Indeed, as night followed night, there came a
maddening monotony about Jean Bower’s furtive eavesdropping expeditions
down to the dark landing.
Lying awake after she had again crept into her bed, Jean would ask
herself if there was any truth in the suggestion that a stranger had
broken his way into the Thatched House on that fatal Saturday afternoon?
And always she had to agree with shrewd Mrs. Lightfoot that there had
been no stranger there. He was an invention, and a poor invention at
that, of Agatha Cheale.
From seven each morning Jean Bower turned into Bet Chart, “help” to the
good-natured, talkative, monstrously fat woman of whom the poor girl
found herself getting fond, in a sort of way.
Now and again the “help” would hide herself behind the door of the empty
front room on the ground floor to see the young lady who was the subject
of so much interest and speculation to every one in the house, pass
through the gloomy hall.
Agatha Cheale was exceptionally well dressed, generally in a well-cut
blue serge coat and skirt, a handsome fur tippet, and a smart little
toque on her dark hair. She had always been pale, and now her face
looked absolutely bloodless. There were deep, dark rings under her
eyes—those eyes which were the only beautiful feature of her thin,
strong face.
Late each morning Bet Chart tidied Miss Cheale’s sitting room, and “did”
her bedroom; and when quite sure that Mrs. Lightfoot would not make an
unexpected appearance, she would ashamedly open the drawers in the
ramshackle dressing-table, and try the lid of the shabby old dispatch
box which stood close to Miss Cheale’s bed. But the box had a patent
lock, and its owner wore the key night and day, according to Mrs.
Lightfoot.
As to the sitting room, it was bare and comfortless. On the big, plain
writing table stood a typewriter, and to its right a wad of blotting
paper, and a box of good notepaper and envelopes to match. A bookcase
full of books did something to humanize the room. But Miss Cheale only
used the room as a place in which to have her tray meals, and when she
received her infrequent visitors.
And then, just nine days before what was to be the opening day of Harry
Garlett’s trial, Jean Bower did obtain conclusive evidence concerning
the authorship of the anonymous letters which had first started the
investigation.
She had finished dusting Miss Cheale’s tidy, bare, little sitting room
when some sudden instinct made her do what she had never done before.
She moved, that is, the heavy typewriter which stood on the
writing-table.
Under the board on which it stood lay a thin, fancy-paper covered
blotting book. She opened it, to find between its leaves some sheets of
thin, foreign-looking paper....
Shaking with excitement and suspense, she took up the top sheet and held
it up between her eyes and the window. Then, still with the sheet of
paper in her hand, she rushed up the ladder-like staircase, turned into
her large bare garret, opened the attaché case where she kept a few
things under lock and key, and took out the facsimile of the first of
the anonymous letters which had been given to her by James Kentworthy.
Yes, there could be no doubt about it, the watermarks were the same.
She sank down on her bed, dizzy with conflicting feelings. Then Lucy
Warren had been right in her reluctantly expressed suspicion! It was now
certain that Agatha Cheale had written the anonymous letters which had
ultimately caused Harry Garlett’s arrest on the awful charge of
poisoning his wife, and with a feeling of mingled excitement, horror,
and triumph, Jean Bower faced what seemed to her the certainty of Agatha
Cheale’s guilt.
As she came back into the kitchen Mrs. Lightfoot looked up.
“Why, child, you do look bad!” she exclaimed. “I was going to ask you to
go hout and get a quarter of a pound of butter, but I declare I’ll do it
myself! I don’t want you laid up!”
She put her podgy hand on the girl’s shoulder, and Jean burst into tears
and began to sob bitterly, “I’m all right,” she said.
At eight o’clock Jean summoned up courage to ask leave to go out. She
felt she must see Sir Harold Anstey to-night. Considering the importance
of what she had to tell him, _to show him_, he could not object to her
going to his private address; a flat in Park Lane.
“I want to go out this evening on some urgent business. I hope you won’t
mind, Mrs. Lightfoot? Would you lend me a latchkey?”
Mrs. Lightfoot looked consideringly at the girl.
“Well,” she grumbled, “I don’t suppose I shall say ‘no,’ though ’tain’t,
by rights, your hevening hout. But there! Yes, Bet, you can go.”
It was nine o’clock, and Sir Harold Anstey had just finished dinner. He
had had an excellent meal and was enjoying a good cigar. But he was in a
very bad temper—a rare state for him to be in—but a lady had been going
to dine with Sir Harold to-night, and at the very last moment she had
“chucked” him. He felt furious; also, what he was not wont to feel:
jealous.
The telephone bell rang in the pantry and Sir Harold leapt up from his
chair.
“A lady, Sir Harold, on the ’phone. She asked if you were alone. She
wouldn’t give her name. She said she’d like to come along and see you
for a little while, if you were alone, and not too busy.”
“Say I shall be delighted to see her. And Gunn! I’ll open the front door
myself.”
Dear little woman! Her excuse that she had had to go and see a sick
friend had evidently been a true one.
But even to his impatient heart, the sharp electric ring came
surprisingly soon.
He hurried into his hall. But when he opened the door, instead of the
beautiful woman he expected to see, a slight, shabbily dressed girl
stood before him.
“This is number eight,” he said shortly. “You have made a mistake in the
floor.”
“No, I haven’t, Sir Harold. I’m Jean Bower. I telephoned and asked if
you were alone.”
“Miss Bower? So it was you who telephoned? Come in, by all means.”
Though he tried to speak pleasantly, there was a marked lack of
cordiality in his voice.
“As a matter of fact I am very busy this evening,” he went on, “but of
course, if you’ve anything important to say, I will see you now for a
few minutes, rather than to-morrow morning in my chambers.”
But as he ushered her into the sitting room, the lawyer reasserted
himself, and the mere man disappeared.
“And now, Miss Bower, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve found out that Agatha Cheale wrote those anonymous letters. I
think you will agree that this piece of paper provides the proof.”
Sir Harold scrutinized closely the watermark which had been so carefully
drawn in on the facsimile of the first anonymous letter. Then he held
the thin piece of foreign paper up to the lamp.
“Yes—there’s no doubt about it,” he said decisively.
Jean looked at him anxiously. She had felt so absolutely sure that he
would be overjoyed at her discovery. Instead of that there was a grim,
almost an angry, expression on his broad face.
“I fear that I am going to give you a shock, Miss Bower. The whole
situation has been changed most seriously to our detriment by the fact
that arsenic has been found in a house actually belonging to Mr.
Garlett.”
As she was about to break in he put up his hand:
“Let me have my say out, please—and then I will listen to whatever you
may have to say. I have something to tell you concerning this woman,
Agatha Cheale. She lately communicated to the Prosecution a sworn
statement that she saw a stranger in the Thatched House on the afternoon
of Mrs. Garlett’s death. She further says she saw him close to Mrs.
Garlett’s bedroom door. The prosecution do not believe this story, and
neither does our side.”
“Yet it may be true!” exclaimed Jean desperately.
The great advocate went on as if he had not heard her:
“Now my theory is this: First, this woman, Agatha Cheale, was
undoubtedly in love with Garlett; and she considered herself very much
aggrieved when she learned of the man’s forthcoming marriage to
yourself.”
He saw Jean’s face change, become discomposed, and, speaking a little
less harshly, he went on:
“Come, come, you mustn’t mind hearing the truth! I take it you would
rather know the truth?”
She bent her head.
“Secondly, to me, and also, I may add, to my brethren of the law on the
other side, it soon became practically certain that Miss Cheale had
written the anonymous letters, so what you have brought me to-night
simply confirms our view. Now, Miss Cheale, to the best of my belief”—he
looked at her significantly—“did this out of what I must call, saving
your presence, feminine spite. I am quite sure she had no idea that Mrs.
Garlett had met with anything but a natural death. What she wished to do
was to give Henry Garlett, and no doubt yourself, too, a very unpleasant
quarter of an hour. If this theory is correct, the result of the
exhumation astounded her and caused her to realize that, thanks to her
spiteful action, the man to whom she seems to be still devoted is in
great peril of his life. This is why she has hit on the absurd, though
in such cases common, invention of a mysterious stranger.”
He stopped speaking, and in a strangled voice Jean exclaimed:
“So what I’ve brought you to-night is not of the slightest help, Sir
Harold?”
“I don’t say that! I’m glad you brought the proof to me and not to the
other side, for, of course, anything that tends to discredit Miss Cheale
discredits her mysterious stranger. But I should not be a true friend, I
should be a cruel friend”—and now his voice did take on a far more
kindly quality—“were I to conceal from you, Miss Bower, that Henry
Garlett is in the very gravest danger. Till the admission made by Miss
Prince——”
Jean made a quick movement of surprise.
“Yes, Miss Prince has at last brought herself to admit that there was
actually a considerable amount of arsenic kept by her, carelessly, in an
open cupboard at the Thatched Cottage. You are, of course, aware that
there was one all-important missing link in the chain of circumstantial
evidence connecting Henry Garlett with the death of his wife? That link
has now, I regret to say, been supplied.”
As he saw the look of agony, of despair, on her young face he hastened
on:
“I do not mean by all I have said, Miss Bower, that you are to give up
hope. On the contrary, if you can persuade the jury that Garlett had not
fallen in love with you before his wife’s death, you will have gone a
very long way to destroy what, of course, the other side are relying
on—Garlett’s motive for committing this murder—if murder there was.”
“If murder there was?” repeated Jean uncertainly.
“Yes, for I am going most seriously into the question whether or not
Mrs. Garlett committed suicide. A large quantity of white arsenic has
been in Miss Prince’s possession for many years. At one time, when in
better health, Mrs. Garlett was constantly at the Thatched Cottage. I
have found a woman who will tell the Court that Mrs. Garlett had an
extraordinary horror of vermin—of rats and of mice—and I am going to
raise the question as to whether some years ago she did not persuade
Miss Prince to give her a small quantity of arsenic to destroy some rats
which she believed were infesting a portion of the Thatched House. In
that case Mrs. Garlett may well have kept some of the arsenic by her,
and, in a moment of depression or of pain, administered it to herself.”
But even Sir Harold’s assured voice became less assured as he put
forward this unlikely theory.
He concluded after a short pause:
“The thing for you to do is to keep yourself as fit as possible during
the days that are now going to elapse before the trial. Remember that
everything may depend on your making a good and, as I believe, an honest
impression on the jury.”
CHAPTER XXIV
Jean walked the whole way back to Coburg Square. She was numb, spent
with misery. For the first time hope, that illusive yet infinitely
comforting and uplifting companion, had left her side, and she felt
to-night as if he had never been there. The knowledge that she had
failed to secure anything that really mattered by what now seemed to her
an absurd and inglorious adventure added to the load of misery and
discouragement she was now carrying.
She made up her mind to go back to Terriford early to-morrow morning, as
the need for make-believe was past.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when she reached the deserted square.
Quietly she turned the old-fashioned latchkey in the big box lock. The
hall was in darkness, but under the ailing lodger’s door ran a thin
streak of light. Did the poor man never go to sleep?
She felt her way down the kitchen stairs, and turning into the kitchen,
lit the gas.
She felt extraordinarily wide awake, and yet tired, tired to death! The
thought of going up to the cold bedroom where she had spent such excited
hours of hope, suspense, and, to-day, of triumphant satisfaction, filled
her with a feeling of sick depression. Suddenly she told herself that
she would stay down here, in this warm, comfortable kitchen all night.
Mrs. Lightfoot would never find it out, and if she did—what matter?
She made up the fire quietly. With luck there would still be a remnant
of warmth when she awoke to-morrow morning at half-past six. She knelt
down, but she found she could not say the simple, trusting prayers she
had said from childhood, for she felt that God had forsaken her.
She got up, and by the light of the fire she pushed forward the black
horsehair-covered armchair in which Mrs. Lightfoot generally sat of an
evening. Then she put her own chair in front of it, and lay down.
Tap ... Tap ... Tap....
Jean awoke with a clutch of fear at her heart. Was that the death watch
of which her old nurse had once told her?
She sat up on her improvised couch, and again there came that strange
sound repeated three times. But now, being thoroughly awake, she knew
them at once for what they were—a signal, a summons, from the invalid
lodger who lived in the back room on the ground floor of the house.
Jean did not wait to strike a match, but went quickly to the door. She
was unwilling to be caught here, downstairs, by Mrs. Lightfoot, so she
walked on tiptoe past the housekeeper’s bedroom, and then she ran
lightly up the kitchen stairs and knocked on the sick lodger’s door.
“Come in!” called out a clear, well-modulated voice.
She opened the door on a strange and, to her, a most unexpected sight.
The high, well-proportioned eighteenth-century room was well and even
luxuriously furnished. Green damask curtains were drawn across the two
windows. On the thick felt carpet which covered the floor, stood a
mahogany chest of drawers and, facing the door, a high modern bedstead.
By the bed was a table bearing a reading lamp, which, though shaded, lit
up the finely shaped head and thin, bony face of the man lying in the
bed. His head was covered with a thick thatch of fair hair, and he was
propped up on three or four pillows placed at his back.
To Jean’s pitying eyes he appeared to be dying.
And as she stood there, still close to the door outside the circle of
light cast by the lamp, she gradually took in other, minor, details.
There was a pile of books on the table, and on the blue silk eiderdown a
small volume was open, face downward.
“Mrs. Lightfoot?” said the invalid in a doubtful tone. “I’m ashamed of
having had to rouse you, but I feel much less well to-night, also
parched with thirst.”
Jean took a few steps forward. “I’m Mrs. Lightfoot’s ‘help.’ And as Mrs.
Lightfoot is asleep I thought it better to come up.”
An amazing change came over the pallid face—it was suddenly animated
with keen curiosity and cynical amusement.
“Bet Chart?” he exclaimed. “And most perfect of Hebes, according to good
old Lightfoot. Come hither, fair maid——”
Jean moved back rather than forward.
“What can I do for you?” she said quietly. “If you will tell me what it
is you wanted Mrs. Lightfoot for—I will do it.”
He raised himself painfully on his right elbow and gave her a long,
measuring, penetrating look.
“Come nearer,” he said in an authoritative voice. “You’ve nothing to be
afraid of from the poor dying wretch I am now——”
She came close up to the bed; and then, looking up at her, he said in a
very different tone: “Your name is not Bet Chart; you are Miss Jean
Bower, of Terriford village.”
She clasped her hands together.
“It’s true!” she cried, oppressed, bewildered. “But for God’s sake don’t
give me away to Mrs. Lightfoot——”
“Of course I won’t. And now tell me how is it that Dr. Maclean’s niece
comes to be here, in 106, Coburg Square?” And his sunken eyes were alive
with a mocking, mischievous curiosity.
Instead of answering his question, she said again, “What can I do for
you?”
And then, noticing that behind the pile of books was an empty glass,
“D’you want something to drink?”
“I did—horribly. But now I’m no longer thirsty—or, rather, I’m only
thirsty for information.”
It was amazing to see how he had changed in the last few minutes, and
yet the long outlines of his body under the eiderdown looked like those
of a skeleton.
Jean Bower looked round.
“The milk and soda water are over there—quite out of my reach. You may
have already observed that Mrs. Lightfoot has nothing in common with
Florence Nightingale.”
She turned and saw that on the chest of drawers there stood a siphon and
a jug of milk. She went over and brought them both back with her.
“D’you remember the scrumptious refreshments at that cricket match, Miss
Bower?”
She looked down into his pallid, smiling face, and as she met the direct
glance of his heavy-lidded gray eyes, there came over Jean Bower a
strong feeling that she had seen him before.
“Can’t you guess who I am?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea who you are! Mrs. Lightfoot has
never mentioned your name.”
Then he said, in a singular tone: “Why should I make a foolish mystery
of it? My name is Guy Cheale. I am Agatha’s brother. But she hates
illness, and as it makes her wretched to see me in this state—well, we
don’t often meet. It’s my fault I haven’t a nurse.”
And then all at once his hand shot out—his bony left hand—and took hold
of her dress.
“I know now why you’re here,” he exclaimed. “How stupid of me not to
guess it! You’ve come to spy on Agatha. But, believe me, Miss Bower,
you’re on the wrong track. You’re not going to help your friend that
way.”
“I know that now,” she whispered.
“There’s nothing to find out about Agatha—nothing that will help you, at
any rate. I suppose you know that she and Garlett were once great
friends?”
“That’s not true,” she said the words with passionate conviction.
“Not true?” he repeated. “Absolutely true! But one thing I’ll grant you.
Agatha was the one who cared. He didn’t care—not even in the war
hospital when he was so lonely. But she thought he did!”
As if speaking to himself, he added: “And I thought so, too. I used to
think that if anything happened to his wife, to use the conventional
paraphrase for death—sweet, delicate death—he would marry Agatha.”
Jean stared down at him. She was torn with conflicting feelings in which
repulsion and anger for the moment predominated.
“I’m afraid you are very unhappy,” he said suddenly.
She whispered, “Very unhappy,” and yet, though what he had said about
his sister and Harry Garlett both disturbed and offended her, it was an
astonishing relief to find herself with some one with whom she could be
herself.
“Bring up that chair,” he said in a low voice, “and let us talk it
over.”
She brought the chair close to the bed.
“Ask yourself what use was Mrs. Garlett’s life even to herself, and
imagine, for the purposes of our argument, that your worthy rector, Mr.
Cole-Wright, having in him a secret strain of what some people call
madness, but what I should term supernormal sense, told himself that it
would be a duty—I will not say a pleasure, but a duty—to send this poor
woman to the heaven in which both he and she absolutely believe. Is that
an utterly unreasonable supposition?”
“Yes,” said Jean, in a low voice, “utterly unreasonable.”
A sensation of mingled excitement, pain and indignation filled her
heart. She felt she was doing wrong in staying with this strange,
sinister, cruel-natured man a moment longer than was absolutely
necessary. Yet he exercised a certain fascination over her, and again
she felt what a real relief it was to be talking to some one with whom
she need not pretend.
“Don’t be hurt, Miss Jean, at my teasing you—for of course I am teasing
you! I quite realize that in our present state of civilization the
putting away of a human being is a serious thing—and not to be
encouraged. Doctors alone are licensed by public opinion, as well as by
decrees passed by themselves, to commit what other people call murder.”
She remained silent, and after a long pause, during which his eyes
seemed to hold hers in fee, he asked abruptly:
“When is Harry Garlett’s trial coming on?”
“In nine days.”
“That’s very near,” he muttered, “nearer than I thought. Are you
dreading the witness-box? My sister is horribly afraid of it—I know that
much about her.”
She made no answer to that, and he muttered: “Poor little girl—poor,
pretty little girl. Too bad! Too bad!”
And again Jean Bower felt sure they had met—nay, even more, that he had
uttered pitying, familiar words to her before. But as to when and where,
memory supplied no clue.
Guy Cheale lay back on his pillows. He closed his eyes, and Jean felt a
pang of sick fear. Ought she to call his sister and Mrs. Lightfoot?
Suddenly he opened his eyes. “Your guardian angel surely brought you
here to-night.”
“Why?” she asked.
“In order that I might cheer you up by telling you that Harry Garlett is
sure to be acquitted, to be given, as it were, the benefit of the
doubt.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Jean in a trembling tone.
She was sobbing now, bitterly. He leaned over with difficulty and took
her soft right hand in his bony fingers.
“Not,” he exclaimed, “because I believe in British justice—far from
it—but there’s just one little fact that will save him.”
She looked at him, all her soul now in her eager eyes.
“What fact?” she asked.
“The fact,” he said deliberately, “that no arsenic has been traced to
Garlett’s possession. Practically all the resources of the Crown have
been used to find where he procured the arsenic—and they have failed.”
“They have not failed,” said Jean quietly, “in finding where Harry could
have procured arsenic. I saw Sir Harold Anstey this evening. He told me
that Miss Prince, who is a doctor’s daughter and lives close to the
Thatched House, has now admitted that she kept quite a lot of arsenic in
her medicine cupboard. Miss Prince is Harry’s tenant——”
The sick man dropped her hand and stared at her in dismay.
“My God!” he muttered. “That is a bit of rough luck.”
“I’m going home to-morrow,” Jean went on drearily. “There’s nothing left
for me to do here. I’m sorry to be going so—so abruptly, because Mrs.
Lightfoot has been very kind to me.”
“Yes, she’s a good old soul.”
He lay back and again shut his eyes. His face had gone very gray. For a
moment neither of them spoke. Then he opened his eyes wide again.
“D’you know Lucy Warren?” he asked in a singular tone.
And suddenly Jean remembered the talk there had been concerning poor
Lucy and the strange man who lay there dying before her, his body
disintegrating, while his mind, his intellect, remained so sound and
clear.
The colour rushed into her face.
“Yes, I know her quite well.”
“Lucy’s a good girl,” he said thoughtfully, and then, “I didn’t behave
well to Lucy, Miss Bower.”
“I’m afraid you didn’t.”
“Did she tell you so?” he asked.
“Lucy has never mentioned you to me. I don’t believe she’s ever spoken
of you to anybody.”
“I want you to do something for me,” there was a touch of urgency in his
voice. “It’s to take down a message for Lucy at my dictation, and then,
in the morning, to telegraph it to her. You will find some money over
there in a drawer. I’d write it myself, but I’m too weak.”
There came a spot of colour into his cheeks.
“There’s a paper and pencil near where the siphon stood just now. I used
to write notes to my sister, but I can no longer manage it.”
Jean brought what he asked for, and then he dictated, scarce hesitating
for a word:
Miss Lucy Warren, The Thatched Cottage, Terriford, Grendon. This
conveys an offer of marriage from one who is your devout lover. I am
dying, and I want you. Lose not an hour. Come at once to 106, Coburg
Square, London.—GUY CHEALE.
“It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me that the postmistress of
that gossiping little place should know the truth, and the doctor who
looks after me here is a good chap. He’ll arrange about getting the
ring, parson, bell, and book.”
As she looked at him, dazed, he said with a slight smile:
“Death-bed marriages are not as unusual as you may happen to think them,
Miss Bower. And if there were more such marriages, there would be fewer
unhappy wives.”
She smiled wanly, and in the midst of her own wretchedness, felt glad
that Lucy would have her heart’s wish.
“They were more merciful in the old days,” muttered Guy Cheale. “In the
days of the rack and the stake, any poor wretch in prison for murder
could marry his sweetheart. You’re sorry that’s not the case now, eh,
Miss Jean?”
“Yes,” said Jean, looking down at him. “I am very sorry that that’s not
the case now.”
“Still there are various forms of prison, you know? I’m in prison
here—very much in prison, if I may say so. Oh, how I’ve got to loathe
the look of this room—for all poor Agatha tried to make it comfortable
for me! I little thought when I first arrived here—only six weeks ago,
Miss Bower—that it would become my marriage room. But in life—now don’t
forget this, for it’s the last thing I shall say to you—in life it’s the
strange, the unexpected, the astounding thing that as often as not
happens——”
“That’s true,” she said heavily.
“I’ve got an idea—a good idea, too! I’ll be your mediator with the
outraged Lightfoot. I’ll tell her you had to go away—that it was really
urgent. And then I’ll break to her that a new help is coming—a good
worker, too, much more experienced than poor little Bet Chart is ever
likely to be. A tall, dark, magnificent-looking girl, with a will of her
own, mind you. So then Lucy will be sure, I won’t say of a welcome—but
of a greeting.”
She leaned down and began to shake up his pillows.
“Give Mrs. Lightfoot her cup of tea before you steal away,” he said.
And as he caught a look of surprise in her face:
“Mrs. Lightfoot is my only friend. If it wasn’t that she is such a good,
kindly-natured human creature, God knows what I should have done with
myself. Well, good-bye, good luck, and thank you for what you’re going
to do for me. You won’t be sorry, Miss Bower, that you’ve obliged a
dying man.”
“Sorry?” she said. “No, indeed, Mr. Cheale, I shall always be very glad
we’ve had this talk.”
“I hope I shall,” he said doubtfully, and helplessly began to cough.
She stood quietly by his side till the painful paroxysm was over, and
then:
“Good-bye,” she said, torn between a feeling of intense pity and almost
equally intense repulsion.
“Good luck!” he exclaimed. “And remember that in this country we are
taught to believe that no innocent man is ever wrongly convicted.”
A queer, mocking smile came over his face, and then once more he began
to cough, and again she waited, till the painful sounds ceased.
After giving Mrs. Lightfoot a cup of tea, she wrote a note of what she
felt to be lame apology, and, leaving it on the kitchen table, crept out
and went to the nearest post office.
The young woman who accepted the strangely worded telegram for
transmission looked very hard at Jean Bower:
“This a practical joke, or what?” she asked suspiciously.
Jean answered soberly: “No, it’s not a joke. It’s exactly what it
pretends to be—an offer of marriage from a dying man.”
“Some girls seem to have all the luck! Forty-one words.”
Jean was so tired that she slept away the journey which would otherwise
have been so full of disappointed, bitter thoughts, and she felt as if
she had been away months instead of days when she came out into the big
station yard of Grendon, and saw her Uncle Jock’s familiar two-seater
with him at the wheel waiting for her. He had not come on to the
platform to greet her, and for that she was grateful, for she was
shrinkingly aware that there were prying eyes and listening ears
everywhere—everywhere, that is, where she was recognized as the heroine
of “The Terriford Mystery.”
Dr. Maclean said very little while he drove his niece to Bonnie Doon. It
was not till after she had taken off her things and come downstairs,
feeling so strange, so little at home there, that it seemed almost
impossible to believe she had been so short a time away, that her aunt
suddenly asked: “I suppose Kentworthy has told you about Miss Prince?”
Jean answered slowly: “I’ve seen Sir Harold Anstey, and he told me.”
“She came and told me, of all people in the world,” said the doctor
ruefully. “Let me see—it must have been two days before you went away.
It gave me an awful shock. I could think of nothing else, and yet of
course I was bound, professionally, to keep the fact to myself.”
He hit the table with his hand. “I have always disliked that woman!” He
turned to his wife. “You can bear me out in that, Jenny, eh?”
“Ay,” she said, “and sometimes I did not think you were quite reasonable
about it, Jock. But now I see how right you were. Miss Prince must have
had enough poison in that medicine cupboard of hers to have killed every
man, woman, and child in the place!”
And then Jean suddenly got up.
“I think I would like to go a walk by myself,” she said. “I didn’t get
half walking enough while I was in London.”
After she had shut the door behind her, husband and wife looked at one
another.
“I can’t but be glad that she doesn’t yet realize that Garlett’s as good
as hanged already,” said the doctor sombrely.
“I think she does realize it,” said Mrs. Maclean pitifully. “You weren’t
watching her face while we spoke of Miss Prince. Fancy her having got
into touch with Sir Harold Anstey!”
“That was a bit of a surprise to me,” admitted the doctor. “But not all
the Ansteys in the world could get off yon man Garlett now.”
EPILOGUE
I
It is a cold windy March morning. The trial of Henry Garlett has been
fixed for ten o’clock, but since before eight o’clock there has been a
crowd, growing larger and larger every minute, round the stately
pillared portico of the Grendon Assize Court. The crowd has been
compelled to spread out fan-fashion, owing to the stout walls which
stretch on either side of the building, and women form by far the larger
proportion of those who are determined to obtain places in the public
galleries and in those seats, behind the jury, reserved for certain
privileged persons.
These would-be spectators of Henry Garlett’s ordeal, and of Jean Bower’s
agony, belong to all classes, and are of all ages. Some of the women
there have walked ten miles and more, this morning, to be present at the
trial of the man who a short six months ago was the most popular figure
in the whole countryside.
Motor cars of every make and of every type are drawn up on the edge of
the ever-growing crowd. Many of these motors are filled with
well-dressed women, who have come provided with opera glasses. They have
sent their servants to keep places in the queues which are already
pressing round each of the three big doors. But soon it becomes known
that the police will not allow this convenient plan, and to their
disgust the ladies have to step out of their comfortable cars, and stand
cheek by jowl with their humbler fellow women.
The great majority of the people who are waiting there on this cold
morning have brought some form of food with them, for they mean to keep
in their places all day, so as not to lose even the smallest thrill
connected with what is indifferently called the Garlett Case and the
Terriford Mystery.
It is known that there will be four important witnesses—Garlett himself,
the famous amateur cricketer; Jean Bower, for whose sake, in the opinion
of the vast majority of those who will be present at the trial, he
committed a dastardly and cruel murder; Miss Prince, the spinster whose
tardily tendered evidence is said to be of vital importance, though no
one as yet knows of what that evidence consists; and last, though not
least, Agatha Cheale, the mystery woman of the strange story.
Most of the men who have come, some of them very long distances, on
cycles, in motors, in old-fashioned horse-drawn vehicles, and on their
own feet, are looking forward to seeing Dr. Maclean in the box. Few of
those in that ever-growing crowd but have come across the kindly Scots
doctor, either as his patients themselves, or because of the illness of
some one dear to them. But that makes no difference to their eager wish
to see him cross-examined—heckled, as it would be called in his own
country—by the celebrated Sir Harold Anstey.
At half-past nine the doors are thrown open to the public and the
struggle for places begins. There are some ugly rushes, with much
pushing, kicking, and even pinching and scratching, before the public
galleries of the Court, which is exceptionally large for a country
Assize Court, are filled to their utmost capacity.
The reserved seats are few, and they, too, are soon almost unpleasantly
crowded with a number of pretty, well-dressed women, some with attendant
squires to whom they are talking, while they glance with keen,
curiosity-laden eyes at the unfamiliar scene.
In the well of the Court already the solicitors’ clerks are busy at wide
tables; the long bench which will soon be occupied by the witnesses is
empty; and so is the railed-in dock, where the prisoner will soon be
standing, exactly opposite the high, throne-like seat from which the
judge, the keen and redoubtable Mr. Justice Freshwater, will direct the
proceedings. It is known that this old-fashioned judge does not approve
of ladies being present at murder trials, and accordingly the seats to
his right and left will be occupied by his men friends and not by their
wives.
The minutes go by fairly quickly for most of the people there, for
almost everybody is talking to his or her neighbour. Also there is the
excitement of watching the various parties connected with the case come
slowly in.
The first of the witnesses to arrive are Dr. Maclean and his niece, and
a stir runs through the Court as they come in. Every eye is fixed on Dr.
Maclean’s slight companion. Jean Bower is quietly dressed in a black
coat and skirt, and a simple little hat with a touch of blue in it. She
looks absolutely self-possessed, though very pale.
Somehow the sight of her irritates some of the spectators; they had
expected a tragic figure, wrapped, maybe, in long, concealing veils;
they tell each other disappointedly that she looks a very ordinary young
woman. True, she is curiously pale, but then perhaps she is naturally
pale.
There come in various other witnesses of no particular interest, or at
least not yet of any particular interest. Then, all at once there
appear, walking side by side, a young and an old lady. Again a stir runs
through the court.
“That’s Miss Prince,” some one says in a loud excited voice.
Miss Prince hears the words, and draws herself up somewhat haughtily.
She is wearing a coat and skirt, and a plain, unbecoming round felt hat.
The young lady with Miss Prince is dressed more in accordance with the
popular idea of a female witness. She is heavily veiled—and looks indeed
almost like a mourner at a funeral. The word is passed round that this
is no other than Agatha Cheale.
She and Miss Prince walk past the other witnesses with averted eyes, and
sit at the extreme end of the long bench.
Ten o’clock strikes, and now comes the moment when the judge, who
embodies the majesty, the terror, the splendour of British justice,
walks with slow, rhythmic steps to his place. He is a tall man, and
shows off his red robes, deep ermine bands, and full-bottomed wig to
great advantage. He sits himself down, gives one long stern glance round
the crowded, now silent Court, and then he bends his head and busies
himself with the notes and other documents laid on the high desk before
him.
Now the legal lights concerned with the case begin to stream in. Sir
Harold Anstey, bustling, smiling, his great frame well set off by his
long black silk gown. His wig always looks just a little too small for
his huge head, but still there is something very impressive about his
strongly marked features and his keen eyes.
A great contrast, indeed almost a ludicrous contrast, is Sir Almeric
Post, the leading counsel for the Crown. Sir Almeric is a thin man, and
his wig looks too big for his head. He has a hatchet-shaped face,
narrow, compressed lips, a straight nose, and two cold,
thoughtful-looking gray eyes. Unlike Sir Harold, who is keenly aware of
his audience, Sir Almeric does not even glance round the Court, but at
once engages in an earnest discussion with one of his juniors.
There is a slight stir when the jury stumble into their places. The
twelve good men and true are an extraordinarily ordinary-looking
collection. Still, every one of them has a confident, self-important
look. To some of those present the reflection that those twelve men are
going to decide the awful question of a fellow being’s life or shameful
death brings with it a sensation of unease.
By some mistake, which will be severely noted in to-morrow’s Press, the
newspaper men have not been allowed, till now, to enter the Court. They
file in and take the places allotted to them. Jean Bower, though she has
no reason to love newspapers, tells herself that she wishes they
composed the jury rather than the stolid, rather stupid-looking, men who
are exactly opposite to her.
And then at last, very quietly, so quietly that half the people present
do not immediately realize what is happening, the prisoner is brought up
from the cells below and walks with firm step into the dock.
Henry Garlett is dressed in a blue serge suit, and wears a double collar
and a black tie. He looks neither to the right nor to the left, but bows
slightly to the judge.
Amid dead silence the clerk of assize reads the charge setting forth
that Henry Garlett feloniously and wilfully murdered his wife, Emily
Garlett.
The prisoner, in a voice which though the words are not loudly uttered
is heard by every one present, says firmly: “Not guilty, my lord.”
The trial is now begun, and even the most frivolous spectators settle
down to listen to what will certainly be a terrible and formidable
indictment.
Sir Almeric Post, however, puts the case for the Crown quite simply, and
as undramatically as possible. He tells, in ordinary, everyday language,
the story of the painful death of Mrs. Garlett on the 27th of last May.
He does not hurry over it. He tells it indeed at some length. And then
he goes back to the past lives of the two people with whom he is
concerned.
In a fair and passionless manner he describes the marriage of the
penniless youth, Henry Garlett, to the considerable, not to say great,
heiress, Emily Jones, and briefly mentions the fact that there were no
children. He gives full credit to Garlett, as he calls him throughout,
for his war service, and then very gravely he tells how this still young
man came back to find his wife a hopeless, almost bedridden, invalid.
Lightly, skilfully he touches on Garlett’s great fame as a cricketer,
and he even reminds the jury of that memorable match last spring, the
first match played by the Australians in the old country.
Every one stiffens into eager attention, and even Sir Almeric’s clear,
toneless voice changes a little, when he utters the words:
“And now I come to a new figure in the story of Henry Garlett and of
Emily Garlett—I refer to Miss Jean Bower.”
For the first time he glances down at the paper, covered with pencilled
notes, which he holds in his left hand; and then he gives the precise
date of the arrival of the pretty young girl in Terriford village. He
explains incidentally that her home with Dr. and Mrs. Maclean is only
some ten minutes’ to a quarter of an hour’s walk from the Thatched
House. There follows an account of how Garlett had given Jean Bower the
position of official secretary to the limited company of which he,
Garlett, was managing director. And just because Sir Almeric tells his
tale in so simple and almost bald a manner, most of those present
somehow realize very vividly how much may lie unsaid behind his measured
words.
He does not propose, he says, to call much evidence as to the relations
of these two people, but he will call three witnesses who saw them
coming home together by the field path from Grendon to Terriford on the
day which preceded Mrs. Garlett’s death.
“Both this man and this woman affirm,” he observes in a considering
voice, “that they were scarcely acquainted at that time, and yet they
were sufficiently acquainted to walk something like two miles in each
other’s company, and Henry Garlett brought Jean Bower through his own
garden, which, perhaps I ought in fairness to add, is something of a
short cut to Bonnie Doon, where she was then living with her uncle and
aunt.”
All too quickly for some of the ghouls in the public gallery, ay, and in
the reserved seats, Sir Almeric sketches lightly but firmly what
happened immediately after the return of the apparently disconsolate
widower to the Thatched House.
“It is admitted by everybody concerned that from then onward Henry
Garlett, the managing director of the Etna China works, and Jean Bower,
official secretary of the company, became inseparable. Soon all the
factory hands were commenting, though in no disagreeable way, or so I am
informed, on their close friendship. I will bring to your notice the
fact that Garlett, though besieged with invitations from old friends and
acquaintances, scarcely ever went away during those autumn weeks. Now
and again he took a Saturday to Monday off, but on the whole he stuck
close to his work.”
Sir Almeric waits a few moments, and a glass of water is handed to him.
“And now, gentlemen, we come to a number of significant occurrences.
Early in November these two people became betrothed. I cannot tell you
the exact date of the engagement, which was kept more or less private by
the wish of Dr. Maclean and his wife. But it is admitted that by early
December this so-called private engagement was known to the whole of
Terriford, and, as a matter of fact, the date of the marriage was
actually fixed for December 19th.”
Sir Almeric ends his opening for the prosecution with a strange,
dramatic suddenness, and calls in quick succession half a dozen
witnesses, of whom by far the most important is Dr. Maclean.
The worthy physician’s ordeal does not last as long as was expected. He
is taken through Mrs. Garlett’s long illness, and describes in very
clear language her condition just before the night of her fatal illness.
Then he is made to narrate at length the circumstances of Mrs. Garlett’s
death—how he was fetched by the sick woman’s husband, such a thing
having never happened before—how Garlett showed a strange unwillingness
to go upstairs, and how the witness then, proceeding alone through the
sleeping house, suddenly encountered the parlour-maid, Lucy Warren.
Finally, how, after a short colloquy with Miss Cheale, he turned his
attention to the sick woman and discovered that she was dead.
The doctor makes it clear that, to the best of his belief, Mrs. Garlett
was already dead when he arrived at the house; and then he explains
somewhat haltingly why it was that he then made up his mind that his
patient had died from heart failure.
In the course of his evidence Dr. Maclean has naturally mentioned Agatha
Cheale several times, and so, at the end of the doctor’s
cross-examination and re-examination, the judge leans forward and asks
Sir Almeric: “Are you going to call Miss Cheale now?” And Sir Almeric
says, no, he is not going to call Miss Cheale yet. He would prefer to
call certain witnesses who will testify as to the relations between the
prisoner and Miss Bower both before and after Mrs. Garlett’s death.
Five people then follow one after the other into the box—three men and
two women. The two women each declare that they thought it very strange
that a pretty young lady should be made secretary of the company, and
one of them, a forewoman, identifies a letter she had written to her
sister containing the strangely prophetic sentence: “If anything was to
happen to the missus, I should never be surprised if Miss B. became his
second.”
An overseer at the factory swears that as early as October 1st—he
remembers the date because it was his birthday—he told his wife that he
hadn’t a doubt that “the boss was sweet on Miss Bower.” But he asserts
that he had also expressed surprise because he had never noticed
anything of the kind before Mr. Garlett went away.
That fact is eagerly taken hold of by Sir Harold Anstey, and there
follows a keen cross-examination. The great advocate makes some
facetious remarks on love and on love-making generally, and the Court
for the first time enjoys what perhaps Sir Harold would describe as “a
little fun.”
Titters even come from the witnesses’ bench, but Miss Prince looks
severe, almost disgusted, and as for Jean Bower, the girl becomes even
paler than she was before. The prisoner in the dock looks straight
before him while all this goes on—he might be carved in stone.
“Call Miss Agatha Cheale!”
The words ring through the court, and a thickly veiled figure walks
quickly round to the steps leading to the witness-box. But as she puts
her second foot upon the ladder-like steps she trips and would have
fallen but for one of the Court officials, who seizes her arm and pulls
her to her feet again.
Miss Cheale is sworn and throws back her veil at the judge’s bidding.
She, too, is then taken through the story of the death night. To the
surprise of many of those present she speaks in a composed, almost
mincing, voice. She is asked what happened the afternoon before Mrs.
Garlett’s sudden death, and in reply she tells what has come to be
called the “strawberry story”—that is, she explains how the strawberries
were left by Miss Prince, how she put them on a plate outside Mrs.
Garlett’s door immediately after luncheon, and then, how, late in the
afternoon, having occasion to go upstairs, she distinctly saw a strange
man making his way quickly down the passage.
She adds a detail of considerable interest. This is that she noticed
that the plateful of strawberries had disappeared. She adds that this
fact was noticed by her quite half an hour before Mr. Garlett went up to
his wife’s room.
Sir Harold Anstey, when cross-examining Agatha Cheale, naturally plays
up to the story she has told. His object now is to increase, not
diminish, the witness’s credit. He draws out of her her very high
opinion of both Mr. and Mrs. Garlett. She tells the Court what a devoted
couple they were, and how excellent a husband Mr. Garlett was. In fact,
she can’t speak too well of them.
Then Miss Cheale has a few unpleasant moments to live through while she
is re-examined by Sir Almeric. He presses her very hard, very
ruthlessly, about her mysterious stranger. Does she really believe that
the stranger she saw hastening down the passage committed the murder?
She answers emphatically that yes, she does believe it. Has she anything
that could account for such a monstrous and motiveless crime on an
unknown man’s part? She replies that there is a type of criminally
minded human being who does commit motiveless crimes. Criminal lunatic
asylums are full of them.
II
“Call Miss Prince!”
There is a look of tense excitement on almost every face in the crowded
court-house when the tall, angular figure of Miss Prince steps up,
composedly, into the witness-box. Even the dullest witted of the
spectators present is aware by now that her evidence will be crucial,
one way or the other, to the prisoner.
While she is being sworn, the man in the dock, Henry Garlett, looks at
her with a long, steady, rather sad look. The sight of Miss Prince
reminds him with painful vividness of his wife, of “poor Emily.”
He is the one person in Court who does not realize the fearful import of
the evidence she is about to tender. For one thing, he is well aware
that he has only been to the Thatched Cottage on one occasion in two
years, and he does not yet understand how very difficult it is to prove
a negative.
Sir Almeric Post, for the Prosecution, begins his examination of this
witness in a conversational tone. It is almost as if he were calling on
Miss Prince in her own house, and asking her a number of not very
important questions. And she also answers in a clear, decided voice, the
voice that some of the people of Terriford know only too well. It is the
voice of the admonitory Miss Prince, not that of Miss Prince the eager
gossip.
Briefly she admits she is the daughter of the late Dr. William Prince,
that she helped her father in his dispensary, and that when there came
the break-up of her home and the sale of the practice to Dr. Maclean,
she thought it within her right to take with her to the Thatched Cottage
what drugs were left in her father’s dispensary.
And then there comes a sharp quickening of the public interest, and even
the judge leans forward. Sir Almeric puts solemnly the question:
“And among those drugs I understand that there was a considerable
quantity of arsenic in a stoppered glass jar?”
“There was,” she answers in a clear voice.
“Is it also a fact that the jar, marked with the word ‘arsenic’ printed
on a blue label, stood open to the view of all those who were in a
position to glance up into your medicine cupboard when it was open?”
“That is so,” says Miss Prince in a lower tone.
“And now I want you to cast your mind back to last spring.”
Miss Prince makes no answer, she simply looks quietly, thoughtfully at
her questioner.
“Can you do that?”
“I think so. Though of course it’s difficult for me to swear to anything
that may have happened on any special day.”
“You do, however, remember a late April storm which caused the gutters
of your house to overflow and which did damage to the ceiling of a
servant’s bedroom on the top floor of your house?”
Miss Prince admits that she remembers the circumstance.
“Now tell us in your own words what followed.”
“I wrote to Mr. Garlett, my landlord, and asked him if he would
personally come over to my house and see the damage which had been done.
We had never had a lawyer’s agreement. I was an old friend, almost the
oldest friend, of Mrs. Garlett. And I was well aware that at any moment
the Thatched Cottage could have been let for a considerably larger sum
than the rent I was paying. On the other hand, I felt that Mr. Garlett
would not mind my asking him to have the gutters of the house attended
to. The expense, considerable to me, would be, I felt, small to him;
also I should like to say that he was known to me as an exceptionally
generous man.”
There is a stir through the Court. The judge leans forward.
“Will you kindly keep to the matter in hand, madam?”
Miss Prince does not look in the least disturbed by this rebuke. She
answers quietly:
“Would you prefer, my lord, that Sir Almeric should ask questions and I
give answers?”
Miss Prince had once stayed in the company of Sir Almeric at a country
house many years ago, and she feels quite at ease with him.
“No,” says the Judge sharply, “go on with your story. But keep to the
matter in hand.”
“Mr. Garlett sent me a note saying that he would try and make time to
come and see the damage.”
Another bustle in Court. “Is that note among the exhibits?” There is a
hurried looking over of the papers scattered on the table where sit the
Crown lawyers in pleasant amity with the prisoner’s solicitor, Mr.
Toogood. Yes, the letter is here; Sir Almeric holds it up before Miss
Prince.
“Is this the letter?”
“Yes, I certify that that is the letter.”
“As a matter of fact, Miss Prince, you did not actually receive a visit
from Mr. Garlett. But you think it almost certain that he came in one
day when you happened to be out?”
Miss Prince hesitates. “I cannot say that I consider it almost certain.”
Sir Almeric says quickly: “We have a witness who will swear that you
told her you regarded it as practically certain that Mr. Garlett did
visit your house to look at the gutters.”
Miss Prince for the first time shows some discomfort.
“I may have said that,” she answers in a low voice, “but now that I am
speaking on oath I wish to reassert the fact that I am not certain Mr.
Garlett ever came to my house. The only certain thing is that he sent in
his builder, and that the gutters were cleaned out and repaired.”
“Is it or is it not a fact that your medicine cupboard was often left
open—the door of it, that is, unlocked?”
Sir Almeric’s voice now takes a somewhat unpleasant edge. He had
understood that Miss Prince would be a very willing witness against
Henry Garlett.
“I am sorry to say that is true. The key did not work properly, and as I
am constantly taking things out of my medicine cupboard, cough mixture
and so on, for the village folk who come to consult me, I did get into
the bad habit of leaving the cupboard door unlocked.”
“It is also a fact, is it not, Miss Prince, that you are constantly in
and out of your house—in other words in and out of Terriford village?”
“That is so.”
“And during the month of April you were constantly in attendance on a
dying woman who had been, or so I understand, for many years in your
father’s service. Now, who looked after the house while you were out?”
“During some of the time,” says Miss Prince hesitatingly, “I only had a
woman from the village to come in and do for me; therefore, the house
was frequently left empty. But when that was the case one of Mr.
Garlett’s gardeners was generally about the place.”
“Still, the house was often empty. Do you always lock your back door and
your garden door as well when you leave home, or are they sometimes left
open? Be careful, Miss Prince, as to your answer to this question.”
Miss Prince hesitates, but only for a moment. She knows only too well
what her answer must be.
“I always locked the back door, that giving access to the kitchen, when
I left the house empty,” she says in a low voice. “The garden door,
which only communicates with the garden of the Thatched House, was
generally left open.”
There follows a long pregnant silence. And then there runs a strange
convulsive sigh through the Court, for the majority of those present
realize that by the admission she has just made Miss Prince has gone far
to sign Henry Garlett’s death warrant.
“That means,” goes on Sir Almeric in the same quiet, emotionless tone,
“that any one last May could gain access to the Thatched Cottage, and of
course to your medicine room, so long as he or she came through the
grounds of the Thatched House? It is, is it not, a fact that this
entrance to your house—I mean the garden-door entrance—is more or less
concealed by an evergreen hedge?”
“That is so,” says Miss Prince.
“To resume—nothing would have been easier for Mr. Garlett than to go to
your back premises, open the garden door, and go upstairs to view the
damage done by the rain in the gutters?”
“It would have been quite easy for him to do so,” replies Miss Prince
hesitatingly, “but to my mind it would have been a very strange thing
for a gentleman to do—to come into a lady’s house without asking her
leave, to go upstairs, and, if I may say so, poke about!”
A titter runs through the Court.
And then Sir Almeric observes suavely: “A strange thing to do, no doubt,
but gentlemen, Miss Prince, have been known to do very strange things if
they had certain objects in view.”
At that there is again “laughter in Court.”
“And now I ask you one last question: As far as you know, was Mr.
Garlett aware that there was arsenic in your house?”
Miss Prince remains silent for what seems to her audience a very long
time. Once or twice the judge glances down at her rather sharply, and
then, just as he is about to ask her if she has understood the question
put to her, she answers reluctantly, “Yes, I think Mr. Garlett was
probably aware of that fact. He cut his finger very badly about two
years ago, and came down to the Thatched Cottage to ask me to bind it up
for him. I took him up to my medicine room, for of course I keep lint
and bandages there. I remember——” and then Miss Prince stopped short.
“You remember, Miss Prince——?” says Sir Almeric encouragingly.
Miss Prince turns to the judge. “Am I compelled to answer, my lord, what
it is that I remember?”
Up leaps Sir Harold Anstey, and there follows between the two great
barristers a sharp interchange of words. But at last the judge decides
in favour of the prosecution, and Miss Prince is instructed that she
must state what it was that she remembers.
And then for the first time the witness becomes obviously very nervous.
In a low voice she very hesitatingly admits:
“I remember that the door to my medicine cupboard happened that day to
be wide open, and that Mr. Garlett and I had a talk about poisons. But I
do not remember that we mentioned arsenic.”
Again there comes that curious stir through the Court.
“That will do, Miss Prince.”
And indeed every one feels that Miss Prince has indeed “done” for Harry
Garlett.
And then Sir Harold Anstey takes the place left vacant by the Crown
counsel.
“You told Sir Almeric, Miss Prince,” he begins, “that though you could
cast your mind back to late April, it would be impossible for you to
remember what happened on any special day at so great a distance of
time. Yet during the last few minutes you have shown yourself possessed
of a remarkable memory.”
“You must remember,” replies Miss Prince quickly, “that when I learned
what had been the cause of my friend Mrs. Garlett’s death, I realized at
once that the only place in Terriford where arsenic could have been
procured was in my house.”
“You did not, however, see fit to reveal that very important fact till
quite lately. Even then, you did not reveal it to the proper
authorities. You told it to Dr. Maclean, thus putting him in a very
painful position——”
“I deeply regret now that I did not write to the prosecution direct. But
the Garletts had been my nearest neighbours and friends, and I hoped
against hope that my arsenic had not been in question. I tried, in a
quiet way, to find out if Mr. Garlett had ever been seen in my house,
and I found that, as far as anybody knew, he never had been in my
house—with the one exception when he came to see me about his cut
finger—for two years or more.”
“I put it to you, Miss Prince”—Sir Harold looks at her fixedly—“that any
one, by walking from the road into the grounds of the Thatched House,
could obtain access to your house through the garden door?”
“That is so,” assents Miss Prince eagerly.
“Were any of your friends in the habit of using that door?”
“Yes, my friend Miss Agatha Cheale—Mrs. Garlett’s housekeeper—always
came into my house that way. So of course did any servant bringing a
message or a note from the Thatched House to the Thatched Cottage. But
you must remember that there was the back door, used by the tradesmen
each morning, also the front door. I should like to repeat my conviction
that Mr. Garlett would not naturally have thought of coming into my
house by the garden door. The time he came to see me after cutting his
finger he came to the front door.”
Sir Harold makes a note of this fact, and it is in a pleasant voice that
he asks:
“As far as you know—and I gather you had many opportunities of
knowing—Mr. and Mrs. Garlett were on very good terms the one with the
other?”
“Excellent terms,” says Miss Prince emphatically.
Deep in her heart she knows that her evidence has gone far to ensure a
conviction for murder against Henry Garlett, and now she is anxious to
give him the benefit of every doubt that has ever assailed her during
the last difficult anxious weeks.
And then Sir Harold makes one of the few mistakes of his brilliant
professional life.
“You are acquainted,” he says, “with Miss Jean Bower. I take it, Miss
Prince, that you have a very high opinion of that young lady?”
There follows a pause—a terrible pause. It is as if all in the crowded
court-house are holding their breath.
“I know very little of Miss Jean Bower,” answers Miss Prince coldly.
Alas, that gives Sir Almeric his chance when re-examining Miss Prince.
And he draws out of her with infinite skill, not only that she does not
think well of the unhappy girl who will so soon stand where she is
standing—that is, in the witness-box—but that, on the very day which
preceded Mrs. Garlett’s sudden and terrible death, she actually saw Jean
Bower and Henry Garlett walking home together from the Etna China
factory.
Miss Prince has proved a most damaging witness. Sir Harold looks grim,
preoccupied, and what his enemies call “sour.”
To the surprise of the Court, the next witness is Mr. Garlett’s builder.
He is only a short time in the witness-box and what he says is regarded
on the whole as bearing against his employer. While he declares that, as
far as he can remember, Mr. Garlett had said nothing to him implying
that he had actually seen the gutters, he admits that Mr. Garlett had
shown a remarkable knowledge of the nature and extent of the damage.
When Sir Harold re-examines, he points out to the man that the letter
written by Miss Prince had given the most detailed description of the
havoc the rain and storm had caused. Even so, on the whole the general
impression of the Court is that the builder unwillingly believes that
Mr. Garlett had been to the house and seen the damage.
Every one is tired and just a little cross by now. Whatever happens,
people must eat, and it is long past one o’clock. The prisoner is taken
below. Judge, jury, and lawyers leave the Court, and those spectators
who are determined not to lose their places take out their little
packets of sandwiches.
There is a buzz of conversation. Bets are freely offered and taken as to
how long the trial will last. Only one man present bets on an acquittal.
He is a widower, and takes the milk round Terriford village, and though
some years younger than Elsie MacTaggart, is supposed to be “sweet” on
her.
III
At last the judge comes up and the officials stream in.
“Call Jean Bower!”
What all the people there have been waiting for with almost savage
longing is now about to take place, and every eye in Court save the
prisoner’s fastens on Jean Bower.
The slight girlish figure ascends the steps into the witness-box. She is
painfully pale—her pallor enhanced by her plain black coat and skirt.
Yet, strange to say, Jean Bower does not make a pleasant impression. She
is too quiet, too self-possessed. It is difficult to visualize her as
the heroine of a criminal love drama.
After she has been sworn, Sir Almeric takes her through the story which
is now almost tiresomely familiar to most of those present. She sticks
firmly to the unlikely tale that till the return of Henry Garlett, four
months after his wife’s death, he and she had been on terms of formal
acquaintance—nothing more.
And then at last there comes the thrill for which all these men and
women who crowd the public galleries to suffocation have been waiting.
“I suppose I may assume that after his return, this last autumn, you
became deeply attached to Mr. Garlett?”
There follows a long pause—twice Jean Bower opens her pale lips, but no
answer comes from them. Then, slowly, she bends her head.
“Do you still love him?”
The question is asked in a hard, unemotional voice. But it seems to
galvanize the witness into eager, passionate, palpitating life.
She cries out strongly, almost triumphantly: “With all my heart and
soul.”
The advocate for the Crown turns away. He has scored a great point. The
jury have doubtless been moved by that cry of love and faith, but he,
Sir Almeric Post, will soon show them, with the pitiless logic for which
he is famed, that the very fact of this overwhelming passion discredits
the whole of the evidence Jean Bower has just tendered in so lifeless
and composed a manner.
The entire crux of the case turns on what were the real relations of
Henry Garlett and Jean Bower before Mrs. Garlett’s death. Were the girl
to admit even warm innocent friendship on her employer’s part she would
be helping to prove the case for the Crown. And now, who, with any
knowledge of feminine human nature, can doubt that she has
lied—_splendide mendax_, as the old Latin tag puts it—“a splendid lie,
but a lie all the same?”
“Thank you, Miss Bower; that will do,” he says suavely.
As Sir Harold Anstey is taking the place of his brother advocate in
order to re-examine the unhappy girl who all unwittingly has done his
client such a fatal mischief by that cry of devoted love, there is an
unwonted stir, even a struggle, at one of the doors. Across the now
silent Court ring out the words:
“I must speak now—I must speak now!”
The judge leans forward, and Sir Harold turns round, a frown on his
face. For the moment public attention is diverted from the slight figure
in the witness-box.
Sir Harold, after a whispered word with the Crown counsel, observes:
“One of the female witnesses has only just arrived, my lord, and she
seems to have become hysterical.”
Again the loud wailing, the unrestrained voice is heard:
“I must speak—I must speak _now_.”
Hastily Sir Almeric takes a hand.
“The young woman who desires so urgently to be heard, my lord, was
formerly parlour-maid at the Thatched House. I doubt, however, if she is
in a fit condition to go into the witness-box to-day at all. I
understand she has just come from her husband’s death-bed.”
The judge leans forward.
“Do you regard her as an important witness, Sir Almeric?”
“No, my lord. She was moving about the house during the night of Mrs.
Garlett’s death. Also she has evidence to tender concerning the secret
meetings which took place between Henry Garlett and some unnamed young
woman in a wood before Mrs. Garlett’s death.”
Again there rises that strange, unnatural cry—loud, defiant:
“I demand to be heard now! I have the right to be heard now!”
The judge frowns. He peers forward till he thinks he distinguishes the
hysterical young woman who has been making such an unseemly disturbance,
and then he says, slowly, distinctly, and severely:
“You will be heard when I direct you to be heard. And I now direct that
your evidence shall be taken after the rest of the witnesses for the
prosecution have been examined, cross-examined, and re-examined.”
During this long altercation Jean Bower, standing in the witness-box, is
growing paler and paler. She clutches convulsively the ledge before her,
and Sir Harold looks at her with concern. He does not wish her to faint
before she has answered his questions; on the other hand he tells
himself that the sight of a fainting young woman always touches your
more sentimental juryman.
The great advocate happens to be, however, a far more imaginative man
than is Sir Almeric Post, and he realizes that Jean Bower’s ordeal has
lasted long enough. So, to the disappointment of the Court, he does not
address many questions to the young woman who has just acknowledged her
passionate love for Harry Garlett, and for the sake of whose love the
immense majority—almost every human being present at the trial—believe
he has committed a singularly foul and dastardly murder.
Sir Almeric does not trouble to re-examine the witness. He knows by now
that he has practically won his case, and he has no wish to cause any of
the hapless human beings connected with this painful story any
unnecessary distress.
IV
Till comparatively lately a British prisoner could not give evidence in
his own defence, but that is no longer so, and Henry Garlett is, as is
known, eager to go into the witness-box.
At once, when he is facing the Court with a strained tense look, it
becomes clear that Sir Almeric does not intend to play with the wretched
man as a cat plays with a mouse. He leaves those methods to Sir Harold
Anstey. To the deep disappointment of many of those present, after Harry
Garlett has been sworn, only a comparatively short interchange of
question and answer takes place between the man now on trial for his
life and the man who leads the prosecution against him:
“I understand that your only answer to the terrible charge of which you
stand accused is that you are absolutely and entirely innocent?”
“That is my answer,” says Henry Garlett in a firm voice.
“Well, I will just take you briefly through the principal points. You
lived, I understand, for thirteen years with this poor lady whom you
married when you were only twenty-two and she twenty-seven—you being a
penniless lad, and she a considerable heiress?”
“That is so,” says the prisoner.
“Though you claim to have been attached to your wife, you were
constantly away from home—in fact we have it on record that out of the
three hundred sixty-five days of one year you were away one hundred
forty-four days.”
“I think that is very possible.”
“If necessary I can prove it.”
“I accept your statement.”
“Miss Jean Bower became secretary to the Etna China Company on April
23rd. I understand that you claim to have been scarcely aware of the
fact that a charming young woman had entered your employment in the
capacity of official secretary to the limited company of which you were
managing director?”
“Of course I was aware that Miss Jean Bower had become secretary to my
company. But, as you yourself have just pointed out, I was away a great
deal. Until we walked home together the day before my wife’s death, I
had hardly done more than exchange a few words with Miss Bower.”
“And yet, during the month before your wife’s death—a month which,
curiously enough, coincided with the stay of Miss Bower at the Etna
China factory—you were far more often at your china factory than had
been the case for some time before.”
“I deny that!” exclaims Henry Garlett. “Or if it happens to be
technically true, it was only because I was just then preparing for the
Australian cricket match.”
“And now, Mr. Garlett, are you prepared to swear that you did not go the
Thatched Cottage as a result of the note sent you by Miss Prince?”
“I swear that the only time I was in the Thatched Cottage for full two
years was the day I went down to show a cut finger to Miss Prince.”
“Do you remember the circumstances of your visit to her?”
“Yes, very well. It was the first time I had ever been in her medicine
room, though I had heard of it.”
“Can you recall any conversation you had with her?”
“Yes,” replies Harry Garlett firmly. “I recall our conversation quite
clearly. What is more, I do not mind telling you frankly that Miss
Prince did mention the fact that she possessed in her medicine cupboard
three poisons—arsenic, morphia, and opium.”
There is a stir through the Court, and for a moment Sir Almeric is taken
aback.
“Then you now admit that you were aware of the existence of arsenic in
the Thatched Cottage?”
“I have never denied it——”
“Don’t quibble, Garlett. Is there anything further you would like to say
about this point?”
“Yes, I would like to say that I remember advising Miss Prince to hand
over the three drugs in question to Dr. Maclean. But I should like to
add, though no doubt you will not believe me——”
The judge intervened sternly: “You have no right to suggest such a thing
to counsel for the Crown.”
“I beg your pardon. I should not have said that.”
“What is it you wish to add?”
“Simply that the fact of the conversation that day had actually slipped
my memory till my solicitor, about a fortnight ago, told me of Miss
Prince’s admission as to her possession of arsenic.”
Sir Almeric moves some of the papers he is holding in one of his hands
to the other hand, and then he asks in almost a casual tone:
“I suppose I may take it that you were exceedingly surprised when you
learned that your wife had died from the administration of an enormous
dose of arsenic?”
The prisoner stares at him. Then he answers quickly:
“I was more than surprised, I was astounded.”
At that Sir Almeric Post straightens himself.
“And yet you ask the jury to believe that while the whole village was
ringing with the question as to where the poison administered to Mrs.
Garlett could have come from, you had forgotten the all-important fact
that there was a large supply of arsenic within a few yards of your
front door?”
Henry Garlett looks manifestly troubled. For a few moments he loses that
air of calm, quiet, rigid self-control.
“I admit it is very strange,” he says at last, in a hesitating voice,
“but you must remember two things. First, that I was unaware of the
importance attached to the question of how the arsenic had reached my
house. Secondly, that I had always known in a vague way that Miss Prince
had in her possession many dangerous drugs which, as a rule, can only be
procured from a chemist. I mean by that, I was not specially surprised
at her admission that she had a number of poisons in her medicine
cupboard.”
He has spoken slowly, rather picking his words, and the admission—if
admission it can be called—makes a bad impression on the Court. The
audience in the galleries all feel that they would have certainly
remembered such a startling fact as that a large amount of poison was in
the possession of a maiden lady living in such a quiet place as
Terriford seems to have been.
Other questions are put to the prisoner. After all, Sir Almeric Post is
expected to work for his bread, and it would never do were he to conduct
the examination of a man accused of murder in too rapid or perfunctory a
manner.
Garlett is shown the letter which was written to him by Jean Bower, and
which was the immediate cause of his return home earlier than he was
expected. He is taken step by step through the various stages of his
growing friendship with her, and pressed again and again as to the
degree of his knowledge of her before his wife’s death.
But when the counsel for the Prosecution has done, there is a general
impression that the witness has been let off very lightly. It is clear
that Sir Almeric regards the prisoner as already under sentence of
death.
Then comes the turn of Sir Harold Anstey. Sir Harold goes on quite
another tack to what he has done up to now. His object is to show what a
good, genial, delightful fellow Harry Garlett has always proved himself
to be.
Though in his heart of hearts he considers cricket to be an idiotic
pastime, and though he has on occasion quoted with approval Kipling’s
famous line about “the flannelled fools at the wicket,” he has made a
special study of cricket in the last week, and he now shows that
knowledge to the admiration of the Court, and especially to the
admiration of those present—they are a large number—who make a fetish of
the national game. He shows that his client is not only a famous
cricketer but also a remarkably modest cricketer—and not till he has
made that fact quite clear does he begin on the real subject in hand.
The judge has hardly listened while all this is going on. In fact he has
been leaning back, for the first time, a slight ironic smile on his
face. But after all, this is a _cause célèbre_. Sir Harold Anstey is a
popular figure, and must be allowed a fair run for his money. The judge
reflects that fortunately for Sir Harold the money will be forthcoming
this time, for, unlike the majority of murderers, Henry Garlett is a man
of substance.
At last, however, Sir Harold gets down to real business. In an almost
cooing voice he asks his client something as to his happy married life.
But there he is not quite as successful as he had hoped to be, or Harry
Garlett is curiously unwilling to make any play with that side of his
past. He answers yes or no to the probing questions, though at one
moment he is obviously so painfully moved that some few people began to
believe that perhaps he did really care for his first wife.
However, Sir Harold, who is nothing if not tactful when dealing with a
difficult witness, now turns to the question of the Etna China works. He
draws from his client an account of all that has been done in the last
ten years, and especially since the war, for the benefit of the workers.
He makes it clear what a happy family they all were, and then, with
light, skilful touches, he brings out how important was Miss Bower’s
share in promoting harmony and comfort at the factory. He is even
successful in making the Court realize something of what a very
charming, old-fashioned girl she seems to have been.
Sir Almeric, who is very tired by now, and who knows that to-morrow he
will have to make a long, clear speech to the stolid jury, does not
re-examine, and when, after two hours in the witness-box, Harry Garlett
goes back to the dock, he is mercifully quite unaware that, had there
been the slightest doubt in anybody’s mind as to his guilt, he might
have been kept in that box for four or five hours.
V
And now opens the second day of the trial of Henry Garlett on the charge
of having murdered his wife. The crowds round the doors of the Assize
Court are almost as large as ever, and yet there is not the same feeling
of excitement that there was on the first day.
For one thing, all the most important witnesses have already been in the
box. For another, the trial, though the verdict is regarded as a
foregone conclusion, is not expected to conclude till to-morrow. A good
many unimportant witnesses have still to be examined, among them a
number of well-known men, each of whom, when the issue of the trial
appeared far more uncertain than it does now, had expressed themselves
willing to tender evidence as to “character.” These gentlemen will
testify that is, that they have always regarded Henry Garlett as a
high-minded man, the best of good fellows, and so on.
After all these minor witnesses have been called, examined,
cross-examined, and re-examined, then Sir Almeric Post will begin his
address to the jurymen. Though it is known that Sir Almeric never cuts a
speech short, it is thought he will finish in time to allow Sir Harold
to make a start to-day. Sir Harold’s speeches to a jury are a delight to
listen to, but there seems some doubt as to whether the famous advocate,
who is known not to like interrupting a great oration in the middle, may
not so manoeuvre matters, with the kindly connivance of his brother in
the law, Sir Almeric, as to put off the beginning of his speech till
to-morrow morning.
Yes, to-morrow is likely to be a very exciting day! There will be Sir
Harold’s pathetic powerful plea for the murderer; the clear summing-up
by the judge, who, although an old man, has his wits keenly about him;
and then the jury’s retirement, maybe for quite a short time, maybe for
a long time—one can never tell which, even when the verdict is a
foregone conclusion.
However, as was said a great, great many times—perhaps a million times
by various men and women all over the kingdom that same evening and the
next morning—it is the unexpected in life that very often happens, and
makes the best-laid plans go wrong.
Behold the Court assembled, the galleries full to bursting, but the
ladies in the reserved seats are not all of them quite so
distinguished-looking as those who graced the first day of the trial. On
the other hand, two noted novelists—one a man the other a woman—have
come down from London to be present at the closing scenes.
The judge has just taken his seat, but the prisoner has not yet been
brought up from below into the dock, when Sir Harold Anstey rises and
asks to be heard.
“I have received, my lord, a very important communication,” he says, in
a tone of such marked gravity that every one stiffens into attention.
And then—was it by some mistake, or in the natural course of events?—the
prisoner is brought up between two warders to take his usual place.
He looks tired, dispirited, and for the first time his eyes seem to seek
out hungrily, thirstily, the figure of Jean Bower, sitting below him on
the witnesses’ bench. As if drawn by some magnetic influence, she turns
her head round at last, and they exchange a long, piteous look.
In answer to Sir Harold, the judge observes in a slow, unimpassioned
tone:
“I, too, have received what is no doubt a copy of what you term an
important communication, Sir Harold. I am exceedingly surprised that the
parties in question should have waited till this morning—in fact, till
just half an hour ago—to put this communication before me. I have
already taken certain steps, and I have no doubt you have done the same,
to test, shall we say, the value? of this communication. I understand
that both the solicitors for the Crown and Mr. Toogood, the prisoner’s
solicitor, are even now in telephonic communication with London.”
The judge’s words are listened to in absolute silence, and no one can
make head or tail of what they mean. But it is plain that both Mr.
Justice Freshwater and those two great protagonists, Sir Almeric Post
and Sir Harold Anstey, are very much disturbed.
All kinds of wild rumours are current, but the low murmur of
conversation is stilled by the loud voices of the ushers ordering
“Silence, silence in Court!”
Every ear is strained to miss not a word as Sir Almeric takes up the
ball in this mysterious legal game. He says in a very low voice:
“In all the circumstances, my lord, I have arranged with Sir Harold
Anstey that he shall call Mrs. Cheale, formerly Lucy Warren, as his
witness, not mine. He proposes, with your leave, to put her at once into
the box.”
A feeling of intense relief sweeps through the Court. Then everything is
going on according to plan? True, those with sharper ears than the
others had caught the name of Mrs. Cheale. But most of the eager
listeners suppose that it is Miss Agatha Cheale who is going to be
re-examined. Into just a few minds there darts a sudden, lightning
suspicion. Agatha Cheale had always been something of a dark horse; has
she any revelation to make which she studiously concealed while in the
witness-box yesterday?
Here and there some expert in criminology asked himself or herself
whether, after all, Agatha Cheale was not in some way “in it,” an
accomplice, maybe, of Henry Garlett?
But curiosity will have to wait; for all at once, and strange to say
without her name being called out in the usual way, a tall young woman
is seen almost running up the steps of the witness-box.
She wears what, to the expert feminine eyes now insistently fastened on
her, are obviously cheap, ready-made, badly cut mourning clothes; a
rusty black serge coat and skirt, and a curious-looking little black
bonnet of the kind which some of the older people in Court can remember
having been worn when they were young—a princess bonnet it used to be
called. This particular princess bonnet has a queer wispy veil hanging
down behind. In fact the young woman—she is not only a young but a very
good-looking woman, so all the men in Court notice—looks like a widow of
the humblest working class.
Instead of being ordered to stand down, in order that Agatha Cheale may
be called, to the general surprise the stranger is sworn.
With this witness the taking of the oath is not a perfunctory formality,
as it seemed to be with so many of the witnesses, but a very solemn act.
And, while she is being sworn, she looks at the judge as if he were the
only person in that crowded Court.
Sir Harold rises to his feet, and then the witness suddenly cries out:
“May I speak now?”
The judge leans forward.
“No, madam, you may not speak now. You are here to answer questions put
to you by counsel.”
She is obviously cowed by those quiet firm cold tones, and clasps her
hands nervously together on the ledge of the witness-box as she stares
distrustfully at the tall, stout gentleman who is now going to put to
her those questions to which alone she may make answer.
“Your name,” begins Sir Harold in a very kindly, conversational voice,
“is Lucy Cheale?”
Most of the general public in Court are surprised. What an odd mistake
for the great advocate to have made! But of course he is tired—tired and
worried no doubt by that important communication concerning which he and
the judge have just had that curious little mysterious interchange of
words.
He goes on quickly: “You were Lucy Warren?”
Now he has corrected himself—so think all those who have not noted that
little word “were.”
“Yes, sir, and I——”
“Stop! Allow me to put my question—it will be far quicker in the end. I
mean by that, Mrs. Cheale——”
Hullo! _Mrs._ Cheale? What is happening to Sir Harold—the quick, the
bold, the resourceful, the man whose astonishing memory is almost
proverbial? Another thing happens which is extraordinarily unusual with
him—that is a piece of paper is handed to him by his junior, and from it
he reads the following questions, and in each case without waiting for
an answer.
“You are the daughter of Mrs. Warren of the Thatched Farm? Your age is
now twenty-four? Till ten days ago you were in the employment of Miss
Prince at the Thatched Cottage? Before that you were for a considerable
time head parlour-maid at the Thatched House?”
He reads over these questions, or rather assertions, very rapidly, and
each time the woman witness nods her head.
“And now I ask you to recall what happened nine—or was it ten—days ago?”
Nine or ten days ago? Sir Harold surely means nine months ago?
Again the witness nods, this time eagerly.
“You received the following telegram?”
Again Sir Harold turns round, and again a piece of paper is handed up to
him.
The witness holds out her hand.
“No, the jury must hear the telegram, so I will read it out.”
In clear tones Sir Harold, turning to face the jury, reads out slowly
the address, “Miss Lucy Warren, The Thatched Cottage, Terriford.” Then
he pauses dramatically, and goes on:
This conveys an offer of marriage from one who is your devout lover. I
am dying, and I want you. Lose not an hour. Come at once to 106,
Coburg Square, London.—GUY CHEALE.
Guy Cheale? Who on earth is he?
There is great excitement in Court, and again the ushers have to command
“Silence!”
Here is a rare slice of human nature with a vengeance! Though what all
this can have to do with Henry Garlett is a complete mystery. Many of
the spectators in their eagerness rise from their seats in order to get
a better view of the young woman who has inspired so strange, so
pathetic, so desperate an offer of marriage.
One or two stupid people ask themselves whether, when a witness has
married in the interval between the commission of a crime and the trial
of the criminal, he or she has to explain how and why the marriage came
about.
Sir Harold looks at his witness with his kindest, most benignant
expression, as he asks in a soft tone, and yet one which is heard
throughout all the Court:
“I take it that you were deeply attached to this man Guy Cheale—that you
and he had some kind of an understanding?”
Her head drops, she whispers inaudibly: “Yes, I loved him dearly.”
The great advocate repeats, for the benefit of those who had not heard,
the whispered words, “You loved him dearly. And so, without even waiting
to ask your mistress’s permission, you left a note on the kitchen table,
went to the village post office and drew out some money from the Savings
Bank, and went straight off to London?”
Again there comes an almost inaudible “Yes.”
“And now, Mrs. Cheale, we come to a very important part of your
evidence. You realize that you are on oath?”
This time she answers quite loud, “I do, sir.”
“I pass over quickly the fact that within twenty-four hours of your
arrival you were married to this man, Guy Cheale, on what was
practically his death bed. But even before the marriage he made to you a
certain communication?”
She bends her head.
“Now tell his lordship and the jury in your own words what that
communication was?”
The witness straightens herself, and the judge, leaning forward, looks
at her keenly.
“I must ask you,” he says, but in no unkind tone, “to speak up, madam.
Otherwise the jury will not hear you.” He might have added, “And I
myself am a little hard of hearing.”
The witness begins in a loud voice:
“Mr. Cheale told me that before we were married he had something to tell
me about himself——”
She stops short. Every one is staring at her. What is all this about?
Who is Mr. Cheale? By this time every one in Court realizes that he must
be related to Agatha Cheale, as Cheale is such an odd name. Also, a good
many people know that Agatha Cheale has a brother. Is it conceivable
that he gave his sister away? Can it be that Agatha Cheale committed the
murder?
Almost alone of all those present, the man in the dock looks
uninterested in what is going on. He has become so tired, so utterly
weary.
But there is one person in Court—nobody is looking at her—who is almost
fainting with excitement and suspense. That person is Jean Bower. Her
head is thrown back. She is gazing up into the troubled face of the
woman who is in the box just above her.
“He asked me,” goes on the witness, her voice gathering strength, “if I
would mind marrying a murderer.”
There is an extraordinary stir, by far the greatest stir there has yet
been in that Court.
“I answered him prompt—‘No, not if he was the murderer.’”
One or two women giggle hysterically, and there comes a stern “Silence!”
from the judge himself.
“He then went on to tell me that it was he who had poisoned Mrs.
Garlett.”
A strange sound, a kind of strangled half-sigh, half-groan, issues from
the man in the dock. He slips down, and is seen through the railings of
the dock lying in a heap on the floor.
One of the warders, after stooping down, stands up and says stolidly:
“The prisoner has fainted, my lord. Shall we take him below?”
“Yes, and do not bring him back till I direct you to do so.”
But this occurrence, which would have made such an impression at any
other time, is scarcely noticed.
Sir Harold addresses the witness encouragingly:
“I understand you to say that Guy Cheale, your late husband, confessed
to you before the marriage took place that he had poisoned Mrs. Garlett.
Did he tell you what motive inspired him to commit this crime?”
For the first time the witness falters. She turns to the judge.
“Have I got to answer that, your worship?”
The judge hesitates.
“No,” he says at last. “I do not direct you to answer that question.”
Sir Harold, now frowning a little, turns again to his witness, “What
happened after this conversation with Guy Cheale?”
“I got him to let me send for the doctor, because I thought he was going
to die right then.”
“But to the best of your belief—this is a very important point, Mrs.
Cheale—he was absolutely in his right mind when he made this strange
communication to you?”
“Yes, absolutely in his right mind, sir. In fact, he wanted me to have
in somebody to take down the statement he had just made to me. But I was
frightened—I thought he would be taken to prison. Cruel things are done,
sir, sometimes, to us poor folk, even when we’re dying.”
Sir Harold in a moved tone says:
“I fear that is so, though I would fain hope not, Mrs. Cheale.”
He waits a moment. He is so obviously, so genuinely moved, that every
one in Court feels a sudden wave of liking for him.
“Very well,” he says, recovering himself. “Now tell me what happened
next.”
“We was married then, sir. He’d fixed it all up before I came.”
Her face suddenly relaxes; it becomes almost cheerful as she adds:
“Of course he’d known all along that nothing he’d done would make any
difference to me.”
Sir Harold goes on in a matter-of-fact tone:
“The moment the marriage had been solemnized, he insisted, I understand,
on your sending for what I may call an unofficial witness?”
“Yes, sir. The minute the clergyman and all that was gone, he made me
call the landlady of the place where he was living—Mrs. Lightfoot’s her
name. She had got quite fond of him before I came. She was the marriage
witness—leastways one of them. He says to her: ‘Mrs. Lightfoot, I’ve
something to tell you. It’s very grave—you’ve got to remember it. Maybe
you’ll be sworn and asked about it.’ Then he told her what he had told
me.”
“You mean he repeated to her the statement that he had poisoned Mrs.
Emily Garlett?”
The witness again became almost inaudible, but it was evident that she
had answered, “Yes, sir.”
“I understand, Mrs. Cheale, that it was not till the day before his
death that he succeeded in persuading you to send for a commissioner for
oaths?”
She answers in a low, halting voice:
“When the doctor told me he couldn’t last out the night, I didn’t think
it mattered what happened. Besides, I knew they couldn’t do much till
the next day, and I believed that the next day he would be dead—and so
he was.”
“The commissioner for oaths,” Sir Harold looked at one of the papers in
his hand, “is Mr. Theophilus Jones——”
There runs a nervous laugh through the Court. The judge looks very
stern.
Sir Harold goes on—“of 15, London Wall. That gentleman, or so I
understand, has influenza. That is why he is not here to-day.”
The witness answers, “Yes, sir—I’m afraid he caught cold coming out to
see my husband at night time.”
There is another titter, which is quickly suppressed.
“You see, sir, I didn’t know what to do! And then Mrs. Lightfoot, she
says to me, ‘There’s a gentleman as is a commissioner for oaths living
in this very square. It was him as had to do with the lease of this
house.’ So I went round to his home, sir, and I just told him the
truth—that my dear husband was dying and wanted to make a confession to
him. He’s an old gentleman, and he was very kind to me. He said it
wasn’t in order, but that he’d come. And he did, sir. My husband had
made me put down—he was too weak to write himself—what he wanted said,
and the old gentleman, Mr. Jones, he read it over to him, and then my
husband swore it was all true.”
At this point Mr. Toogood is seen entering the Court, and a memorandum
is handed up to the judge.
Meanwhile the witness remains standing quite still in the box staring
before her as if hardly knowing where she is.
Sir Harold reads a note from the judge, and then he goes on with his
examination of the witness.
“Your husband, I understand, died within five hours of making this
statement?”
“That is so, sir.”
“That was early yesterday morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you started at once, Mrs. Cheale, for Grendon? I understand you did
this in obedience to a desire expressed by him?”
“Yes, sir. He made a joke like; he says to me: ‘You won’t have many
opportunities of keeping your marriage vow—to obey me, Lucy—but I do
give you an opportunity now. The minute the breath’s out of my body,’ he
says, ‘you’re to go straight off with that paper of which you’ve got a
copy. You’re to go to the office of that—’” she hesitates—“‘that
rascally lawyer, Toogood,’ he called him, but then, sir, he always said
all lawyers were rascals, and he often would have his joke. ‘There,’ he
says, ‘you’re to find Toogood, and you’re to put this before him. No
good telegraphing,’ he said, ‘to judge or counsel. Lawyers are dull,
hide-bound villains, they’d take no notice of a telegram, they’d think
it was a hoax.’”
The audience in Court turned amused eyes on the gentlemen who are
hearing themselves so candidly described. But if they expect to see any
signs of self-conscious confusion, they are disappointed. All the
lawyers remain perfectly calm, and the witness goes on:
“He says to me, ‘Have you enough money for a motor, Lucy? That would
perhaps be quickest of all. Then, on the other hand,’ he says, ‘you
might be killed in the motor. So best go by train,’ he said. So I did
what he wished. The moment he was dead I left him alone with that kind
soul, Mrs. Lightfoot, and I only stopped long enough on the way to the
station to get the black clothes I’m now wearing——”
And now the judge leans forward.
“I regret,” he said somewhat severely, “that this statement of yours was
not put in yesterday.”
“I never had no chance, sir—your worship. I did try to be heard.”
Sir Harold interposes:
“May I ask your lordship to allow me to read the sworn statement made by
Guy Cheale?”
Then Sir Almeric jumps up. He looks ruffled and disturbed, as he
intimates:
“I do not oppose my learned friend’s application, my lord.”
The next thing to do is to release the witness.
“That will do, Mrs. Cheale,” says Sir Harold in a courteous tone. “We
thank you very much for the clear way in which you have given your
evidence. I understand that you wish to go back to London as soon as
possible. If so, I hope you will use my motor car.”
A murmur of admiration for Sir Harold’s thoughtful kindness runs through
the Court. But to the judge Sir Harold’s public announcement of his
kindness seems highly irregular, and his lordship hastens to create a
diversion.
“Sir Almeric Post,” he observes in his frigid tones, “in view of what is
contained in that sworn statement, it is for you to read it to the jury,
and not Sir Harold Anstey.”
“Very good, my lord,” says Sir Almeric, and then, in his passionless,
clear tones he reads out the following words:
_“I, Guy Cheale, in full possession of all my faculties though a dying
man, wish to put it on record that I administered the arsenic to Mrs.
Emily Garlett for reasons best known to myself, and which from my point
of view were sufficiently good and conclusive at the time, though I do
not expect any one else in the present state of our peculiar, complex
civilization, built as it is on a pyramid of lies, to agree with me._
_“My sister, Agatha Cheale, then lady housekeeper at the Thatched House,
asked me three days before Mrs. Emily Garlett’s death to take a note for
her to Miss Prince’s house, the Thatched Cottage. She informed me I
could get straight into the house through a garden door._
_“I followed her directions and found myself in the empty house. I laid
the letter on the hall table. I then bethought myself that I would go
upstairs, as I’d heard Miss Prince had a curious collection of
medicaments, and I have always been much interested in drugs._
_“I found the room in which they were kept with no difficulty. The
cupboard door was open, and I noticed the stoppered bottle of arsenic. I
took out about an ounce of the white powder and put it in an envelope
which I had in my pocket. I then walked back to the Thatched Farm. There
I transferred the arsenic to a large empty pill-box. To the best of my
belief the pill-box, with some of the arsenic still in it, will be found
behind the fourth row of books in the small glazed bookcase in the
parlour there._
_“I ought here to add that when in the medicine room of Miss Prince’s
house I turned up the entry ‘Arsenic’ in a medical work on her table. I
thus discovered the right dose for an adult. On the afternoon which
preceded Mrs. Garlett’s death I was one of two or three people who went
and sat with her for a time. In a sense I may say I acted on a sudden
impulse, for when I saw the small plateful of strawberries outside her
door with the sugar sifter close to it I thought it an ideal opportunity
for the accomplishment of my purpose._
_“I asked her whether she would care to have the strawberries, and she
said yes, that she had not known there were strawberries there. I went
out of the room and mixed the arsenic with the sugar, then I brought the
plate into her room. After she had eaten the strawberries I bade her
good-bye and removed the plate—she thought outside the door—as a matter
of fact I took it away with me, and threw it under a bush in the little
wood, where it doubtless still is._
_“I left the house as far as I know without having been seen, though
Lucy Warren had admitted me, and we had had a short talk. Lucy was on
the point of leaving the house owing to our having been found together—I
may add not in any compromising sense—in the drawing room the night
before by my sister and Mrs. Garlett. Mrs. Garlett, of course, had not
recognized me. My sister, who is a generous woman, handed over to me
practically the whole of her legacy—her unexpected legacy of a thousand
pounds, which Mrs. Garlett left her in her will.”_
Suddenly there breaks across the level, passionless tones of Sir
Almeric’s voice a loud groan, and for the second time that day a man
faints in Court. He is hastily taken below, but not before the Grendon
folk present recognize him as Enoch Bent, Lucy Cheale’s uncle and Mr.
Toogood’s highly respected head clerk. Few, however, of those who
recognize him ask themselves why Guy Cheale’s reference in his statement
to Mrs. Garlett’s will and the legacy to Guy Cheale’s sister should have
had such an effect on the worthy Bent.
Fortunately for Bent, there is no need for him to be put in the
witness-box, there to have drawn from him, by the persuasive arts of Sir
Harold Anstey, an account—nay, a confession—of certain highly
reprehensible and most unprofessional confidences concerning Mrs.
Garlett’s will, made before that lady’s tragic death. That other and
greater confession—the confession of Guy Cheale on his death-bed—has
shed an amply sufficient light on the Terriford Mystery.
After the slight interruption caused by Bent’s collapse and removal, Sir
Almeric goes on reading Guy Cheale’s statement from the exact place
where he broke off:
_“With this money I went abroad, and I was still abroad when the
exhumation of Mrs. Garlett took place, and when Mr. Garlett was
committed for trial. While abroad—in Spain, as a matter of fact—I became
exceedingly ill. I therefore made for home. My sister unwillingly
consented to hire a room in the house in which she was then living,
namely the house in which I am now._
_“In a sense it has been a race between my life and that of Henry
Garlett. I hope—I try to persuade myself—that I should, in any case,
have made this confession even had I not been a dying man. Had I done so
I should of course have put myself first out of the power of English
law, which would not have been difficult, as I have always been a
rolling stone, as the silly saying is._
_“I hope it will not be considered egotistic on my part to put on record
my high appreciation of my wife’s fine nature. She is a thoroughly good
woman, and I hope that in time she will forgive me, and that some man—a
thousand-fold better man than I can claim to be—will make her yet a
happy woman.”_
And what is happening meantime in the cold, rather dark cell, where so
many unhappy prisoners have sat, waiting to be taken upstairs to hear
the verdict?
By special leave of the judge, Jean Bower has been allowed to go below
and join her lover, who will not now be a prisoner for long.
Together again at last, Harry Garlett and Jean Bower are sitting on a
hard wooden bench, hand in hand. They are not alone. Two warders are
watching them with stolid faces, and they are still feeling bewildered,
oppressed, by this wonderful thing that has happened to them.
Harry Garlett is saying to himself, “Guy Cheale? _Guy Cheale!_ Why,
Emily liked him—_she liked him_.”
The door opens. “Mr. Garlett,” says a kind voice—the voice of the
Governor of Grendon Gaol. “Will you and Miss Bower come upstairs to hear
the verdict?”
They get up. Still hand in hand they mount the dark stairs. Then the
prisoner—he is still a prisoner—raises Jean’s hand and kisses it.
They emerge into the crowded Court, all eyes upon them, and he goes on
up into the dock for the last time, while she walks round to the witness
bench, where Dr. Maclean has preceded her.
The jury are all in their places. They have evidently had no difficulty
in arriving at their verdict.
Then the clerk of the Court calls out:
“How say you, gentlemen—guilty or not guilty?”
The foreman of the jury, looking very pale, answers in a firm voice:
“Not Guilty.”
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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