Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “Listen to me, Sarah,” he said; “something horrible has happened at the Hall. Heaven only knows what; for this poor distracted girl can tell but little.

  I must go down with Samuel to see what is wrong. Remember this, that not a creature but yourself must come into this room while I am gone. Not a creature but yourself must come near Millicent Duke. You understand?”

  “Yes, yes!”

  “You will yourself keep watch over my unhappy cousin, and not allow another mortal to see her?”

  “I will not, Master Darrell.”

  “And you yourself will refrain from questioning her; and should she attempt to talk, you will check her as much as possible?”

  “I will — I will, poor dear,” answered Sarah, bending tenderly over the prostrate figure on the bed.

  Darrell Markham lingered for a moment to look at his cousin. It was difficult to say whether she was conscious or not; her eyes were half open, but they had a lustreless unseeing look which bespoke no sense of that which passed before them. Her head lay back upon the pillow, her arms had fallen powerless at her sides, and she made no attempt to stir when Darrell turned away from the bed to leave the room.

  “You will come back when you have found out—”

  “What has happened yonder? Yes, Sarah, I will.” He went downstairs, and in the hall found one of the village constables, who lived near at hand, and who had been aroused by an officious ostler, anxious to distinguish himself in the emergency.

  “Do you know anything of this business, Master Darrell?” asked this man.

  “Nothing more than what these people about here can tell you,” answered Darrell. “I was just going down to the Hall to see what had happened.”

  “Then I’ll go with your honour, if it’s agreeable. Fetch a lantern, somebody.”

  The appeal to “somebody” being rather vague, everybody responded to it; and all the lanterns to be found in the establishment were speedily placed at the disposal of the constable.

  That functionary selected one for himself, and handed another to Darrell.

  “Now then, Master Markham,” he said, “the sooner we start the better.”

  But the officious ostler who had fetched the constable, and the other servants of the Black Bear, had no idea of being deprived of any further share in the business. They were forming themselves into a species of impromptu procession, armed with a couple of rusty blunderbusses and a kitchen poker, with a view to accompanying Darrell and the constable, when the latter personage turned sharply round upon them, and addressed them thus:

  “Now you look here,” he said; “we don’t want all of you straggling through the village with your firearms and your fire-irons, a-going direct against the Riot Act. Whatever’s wrong down yonder, me and Mr. Markham is strong enough and big enough to see into it, without the help of any of you.” With which unceremonious remarks the constable shut the door of the Black Bear upon its master and his servants, and strode forth into the snow, followed by Darrell Markham.

  Neither of the two men spoke to each other on the way to the Hall, except once when the constable again asked Darrell if he knew anything of this business, whereupon Darrell again answered, as he had answered before, that he knew nothing of it whatever. The light shining from the shutterless window of the garden room showed them the house far off. This light came from Millicent’s candle, which still burned where she had set it down, before she discovered the murder.

  “We shall have difficulty enough to get in,” said Darrell, as they groped their way towards the terrace; “for the only servant I saw in the house was a deaf old woman, and I doubt if Mrs. Duke aroused her.”

  “Then Mrs. Duke ran straight out of the house when the deed was done, and came to the Black Bear?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Strange that she did not run to nearer neighbours for assistance. The Bear is upwards of a mile and a half from here, and there are houses within a quarter of a mile.”

  Darrell Markham made no reply.

  “See yonder,” said the constable; “we shall have no difficulty about getting in — there is a door open at the top of those steps.”

  He pointed to the half-glass door of the garden room, which Millicent had left ajar when she fled. The light, streaming through the aperture, threw a zigzag streak upon the snow-covered steps.

  The snow still falling, perpetually falling, through that long night, blotted out all footprints almost as soon as they were made.

  “Do you know in which room the murder was committed, Master Darrell?” asked the constable as they went up the steps.

  “I know nothing but what you know yourself.”

  The constable pushed open the half-glass door and the two men entered the room.

  The candle, burned down to the socket of the quaint old silver candlestick, stood where Millicent had left it on a table near the window. The tapestry curtain, flung aside from the door as she had flung it in her terror, hung in a heap of heavy folds. That hideous pool between the bed and the fireplace had widened and spread itself; but the hearth was cold and black, and the bed upon which George Duke had lain was empty.

  It was empty. The pillow on which his head had rested was there, stained a horrible red with his blood. The butt-end of the pistol, on which his fingers had lain when he fell asleep was still visible beneath the pillow. Red ragged stains and streaks of blood, and one long gory line which marked what way the stream had flowed towards the dark pool on the floor, disfigured the bedclothes; but beyond this there was nothing.

  “He must have got off the bed and dragged himself into another room after his wife left him for dead,” said the constable, taking the candle from his lantern and thrusting it into the candlestick left by Millicent; “we must search the house, Mr. Markham.”

  Before leaving the garden room, the rustic official bolted the half-glass door, and then, followed by Darrell, went out into the corridor. —

  They searched every room in the great dreary house, but found no trace of Captain George Duke, of the good ship Vulture. The sharp eyes of the constable took note of everything, and amongst other things of the half-open drawer in the bureau in the room which Millicent had last occupied. In this half-open drawer he found nothing but the razor-case, which he put into his pocket, after having examined its contents.

  “What do you want with those?” Darrell asked.

  “There’s bloodstains upon one of them, Mr. Markham. They may be wanted when this business comes to be looked into,” the man answered quietly.

  In one of the smaller rooms Darrell and the constable came upon the old woman, Mrs. Meggis, snoring peacefully, happily ignorant of all that had passed, and as there seemed little good to be obtained from awakening her, they left her to her slumbers.

  The empty broken-necked bottles and the high silver candlestick stood on the oaken table in the parlour, as Captain Duke had left them when he went to bed. On the sideboard the tarnished silver tankards, ranged in a prim row, stood undisturbed as they had stood in the old squire’s lifetime; the ball door, fastened with heavy bolts, remained as it had been left by the deaf-house-keeper. Throughout the house there was no sign of plunder nor of violence, save the pool of blood in the garden chamber.

  “Whoever has done this business,” said the constable, looking gravely about him and pointing to the plate upon the sideboard, “is no common burglar.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that it hasn’t been done for gain. There’s something more than plunder at the bottom of this.”

  They went once more to the garden room, and the constable walked slowly round the chamber, looking at everything in his way.

  “What’s come of the Captain’s clothes, I wonder?” he said, rubbing his chin, and staring thoughtfully at the bed.

  It was noticeable that no vestige of clothing belonging to Captain George Duke was left in the apartment.

  CHAPTER XIX. AFTER THE MURDER.

  The grey January morning dawned late a
nd cold upon Compton-on-the-Moor. The snow still falling, for ever falling through the night, had done strange work in the darkness. It had buried the old village, and left a new one in its stead. An indistinct heap of buildings, with roof-tops and gable-ends so laden with snow, that the inhabitants of Compton scarcely knew the altered outlines of their own houses.

  The coach that passed through Compton, on its way northward to Marley Water, had been stopped miles away by the snow. Waggons and carriers’ carts, that had been used to come blundering through the village, were weatherbound in distant market towns. Horsemen were few and far between upon the dangerous roads; and those who were hardy enough to brave the perils of the way paid dearly for their temerity. Compton was cut off from the outer world, and cast upon its own resources, on the clear cold morning which succeeded that night of ceaseless snow; but Comptom had enough to talk about, and enough to think about, within its own narrow limits — so much, indeed, that the coach itself was hardly missed, save inasmuch as it would have afforded the inhabitants a kind of solemn and ghastly pleasure to tell the passengers of the dire event, and to watch their scared faces as they received the intelligence.

  A murder had been done at Compton-on-the-Moor. At that simple Cumbrian village, whose annals until now had been unstained with this the foulest of crimes, a murder had been done in the silence of the long winter’s night, beneath that white and shroud-like curtain of thick-falling snow — a murder so wrapped in mystery, that the wisest in Compton were baffled in their attempts to understand its meaning.

  With the winter dawn every creature in Compton knew of the deed that had been done. People scarcely knew how they heard of it, or who told them; but every lip was busy with conjecture, and every face was charged with solemn import, as who should say, “I am the sole individual in the place who knows the real story, but I have my instructions from higher authorities, and I am dumb.”

  Every creature in Compton, with the exception of an old woman who had been bedridden since Millicent Duke’s babyhood, and the curate’s wife, who couldn’t leave her seven children, went to look at the Hall in the course of the morning. It seemed the prevailing impression that some great change would have taken place in the building itself, and there was considerable disappointment felt by the young and sanguine on finding the brick and mortar in its normal condition. Again, everybody went with a view of exploring the interior of the house and looking for the body of Captain Duke, which they all individually conceived themselves destined to find. It was no small mortification, therefore, to discover that the house, and even the gates leading to the grounds, were strongly barricaded, and that no creature, save a few happy semiofficials, in the employ of that mighty being, the constable, were to be admitted on any pretence whatever.

  The constable had taken up his abode at the Hall for the time being, and sat in the little oaken parlour in solemn state, holding conference now and again with the semi-officials in his employ, who were busy, according to the current belief of Compton, looking for the body.

  Under this prevailing impression, the semi-officials had rather a hard time of it, as whenever they emerged from the Hall gates they were waylaid and seized upon by some anxious Comptonian, eager to know “if they had found it.”

  The one all-absorbing idea in the mind of every Comptonian was the idea of the missing body of Captain George Duke. Busy volunteers made unauthorized search for it in every unlikely direction. In chimney-corners and cupboards of unoccupied houses, in outbuildings, pigsties, and stables; in far-away fields, where they went waist-deep in snow, and were in imminent peril of altogether disappearing in unlooked-for pitfalls; in the churchyard; nay, some of the most sanguine spirits went so far as to request being favoured with the keys of the church itself, in order that they might look for Captain Duke in the vestry cupboard, where a skilful assassin might have hidden him behind the curate’s surplice.

  The all-pervading idea of the body, which was only a pleasant excitement by daylight, and in mixed company, grew very awful as dusky evening darkened into moonless night, and the Comptonians sat in little groups of two or three before their cottage fires. There were shadowy corners in the dimly lighted chambers, corners in which it would have seemed only a natural thing to find some special image of the murdered man lurking, blood-stained and ghastly. There were corkscrew staircases provided with niches that seemed specially intended for the reception of that horrible thing which must be hidden somewhere in the village.

  Perhaps the only person in Compton who was quite indifferent to the terrible event which had occurred was the deaf old housekeeper, Mrs. Meggis. The constable made some feeble attempt to acquaint her with the catastrophe which had happened, when he awoke her at daybreak, with a view to cross-questioning her as to the events of the previous night; but it was evident that the tidings never reached the dim obscurities of her inner consciousness, for she only replied, “That it wasn’t to be wondered at at this time of the year, and that it was seasonable, sir, very seasonable, though uncommon bad for old folks as was a’most crippled by chilblains, and was subject to the rheumatics,” by which the constable inferred that she had imagined him to be talking all the time of the snowy weather. Whatever hope he might have had of obtaining information from this quarter was therefore very quickly dispelled; so, having locked the door of that garden chamber, where the gory pool was scarcely dry, he bade Mrs. Meggis go about her daily business, and light a fire for him in the oak parlour.

  He had been at the Black Bear early that morning to ask for an interview with Mrs. George Duke, in order to hear her statement about the murder; but Sarah kept watch and ward over Millicent, and she and Darrell and the village surgeon all protested against the unhappy girl being questioned until she had somewhat recovered from the mental shock which had prostrated her. So the constable was fain to withdraw, after whispering some directions to one of the semi-officials, who, red-nosed, blue-lipped, and shivering, hung about the Black Bear all that day, consuming numerous mugs of ale, and regarded with reverential curiosity by all the servants of the establishment.

  Millicent was indeed in no state to be questioned. She lay in the same dull stupor into which she had fallen between three and four o’clock that morning. Sarah Pecker and Darrell Markham, watching her tenderly through the day, could not tell whether she was conscious of their presence. She never spoke, but sometimes tossed her head from side to side upon the pillow, moaning wearily. It was a cruel and a bitter day of trial for Darrell Markham. He never stirred from his place by the bedside, only looking up every now and then — when Sarah returned after having left the room to ascertain what was going on downstairs — to ask anxiously if anything had been discovered about the murder — if they had found the assassin or the body.

  Whatever gloomy thought was in his mind, as he sat pale and watchful by the bedside, from the first grey glimmer of dawn till the sombre shadows, gathering on the white expanse of moorland, shut out the open country before the windows and crept into the corners of the room — whatever thought was in his mind throughout that patient watch, he kept it to himself, and made no confidant even of the faithful mistress of the Black Bear. Watch him closely as she might, tormented by her own vague fears, she could not penetrate the gloom that shrouded his face, or guess the bent of his thoughts in that long reverie.

  Below stairs all was confusion and bewilderment; for only the presence of strong-minded Sarah could have preserved order and tranquillity during a period of such excitement. But business was very brisk, and Samuel and his retainers had as much as they could do in supplying the wants of thirsty Comptonians, who were eager to discuss the event of the previous night,’ and greedy of information as to the mental and physical state of Mrs. Duke, whose strange conduct on the previous night was by this time known to all Compton.

  Samuel Pecker, always of a morbid turn of mind, was in his element during this crisis. The absence of the body of the supposed murdered man was a source of never-ending wonder and bewilderment to his simpl
e mind. He demanded over and over again how there could possibly be a murder without a body, when the leading feature of a murder always was the body?

  This led to much discussion of a belief very prevalent in Compton, namely, that the Captain of the Vulture had cut his own throat, and quietly walked away to a certain cross-road where the Carlisle mail was to be met at about half-past three o’clock every morning, and had laid himself down there in the snow, ready for the unholy stake of the felo-de-se. Others contended that it was but likely that the unknown assassin had only half done his work, and that the Captain, with a great gash in his throat, and speechless from loss of blood, was hiding somewhere within call of all Compton; and nervous people were afraid to go into solitary chambers lest they should come suddenly upon the ghastly figure of George Duke crouching in some dark corner.

  The shadows gathered black and dense upon the moorland, and Compton Hall, wrapt in snow from the basement to the gabled roof, looked like some phantom habitation glimmering dimly through the dusk. The semi-officials made their report in the oaken parlour, where the constable sat over a blazing sea-coal fire, taking pencil notes in a plethoric and greasy leathern pocket-book; but they could bring no report which in any way tended to throw light upon the whereabouts of the Captain of the Vulture, alive or dead.

  It was quite dark when the constable, after locking the doors of the principal rooms in the old house, and putting the keys in his pockets, gave strict directions to Mrs. Meggis to admit no one, and to keep the place securely barricaded. By dint of considerable perseverance he contrived to make the old woman understand him to this extent, and then nodding good-naturedly to her, left her for the night, happily ignorant of what had been so lately done beneath the roof that sheltered her.

  From the Hall Hugh Martin, the constable, walked straight to a mansion about half-a-mile distant, which was inhabited by a certain worthy gentleman and county magistrate, called Montague Bowers. A very different man from that magistrate before whom Darrell Markham had charged Captain Duke with highway robbery seven years before.