by Ellen Wood
“How do you know she had none?”
“Because, sir, none has been found, and the police is keen at searching; nothing escapes ‘em. She had the best part of a sovereign in her purse — nineteen and sixpence, they say, but no more. So, how she looked to pay her expenses, her doctor and her nurse, and me — and Mother Pepperfly boarding with me at the lady’s request, and she don’t eat a trifle — she best knew; and I say that it does look odd.”
“You regaled Mrs. Pepperfly with gin,” spoke up one of the jury, relaxing from the majesty of his office. “Was that to be charged for, or was it a personal treat?”
“Oh, dear, good gentlemen, don’t pray throw it in my teeth,” sobbed the widow. “I did happen to have a drop of the vulgar stuff in the house. It must have been some I got for the workmen when I moved into it three years ago, and have been ever since on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard, in a cracked bottle. I couldn’t touch a drop of gin myself without being ill, gentlemen; my inside would turn against it.”
Perhaps Mrs. Gould’s eyes likewise turned against it, for they were cast up with the fervour of her assertion until nothing but the whites were visible. —
“Ahem!” interrupted the coroner, “you are on your oath.” And Mrs. Gould’s eyes came down with a start at the words, and her mouth with them.
“Leastways unless I feel very bad,” she interjected.
“This is wasting time, ma’am,” said the coroner; “we must hasten on. Can you account for the poison getting into the composing draught sent in by Mr. Grey? Did it get into it after it came into your house?”
The witness was considerably astonished at the question; considerably flustered.
“Why, you don’t think I’d go and put it in?” she uttered, subsiding into sobs again.”
“I ask you,” said the coroner, “as a matter of form, whether there was any one likely to do such a thing; any one of whom you can entertain a suspicion?”
“Of course, gentlemen, if you mean to accuse me and Mrs. Pepperfly of poisoning her by prussic acid, the sooner you do it the better,” howled the widow. “We never touched the bottle. As the Greys’ boy brought it, so it was given to her. And there was nobody else to touch it — although Mr. Carlton as good as accused us of having a whiskered man in the house on the sly!”
The coroner pricked up his ears. “When was that?”
“The night of the death, sir. He was there when the draught came, was Mr. Carlton, and when I heard him coming down the stairs to leave, I ran out of the kitchen to open the door for him. ‘Is there a man upstairs?’ asked he. ‘A man, sir,’ I answered. ‘No, sir; what sort of a man?’. ‘I thought I saw one hiding on the landing,’ said he, ‘a man with whiskers.’ ‘No, sir,’ says I, indignant. ‘ We don’t want no man in this house.” It was my fancy, no doubt,’ answered he; ‘ I thought I’d just mention it, lest any scamp should have got in.’ But now, gentlemen,” continued the widow wrathfully, “I just ask you, was there ever such an insinuation put to two respectable females? I can bear out Mother Pepperfly, and Mother Pepperfly can bear out me, that we had no man in the house, and didn’t want one; we’d rather be without ‘em. And one with whiskers too! Thank you for nothing, Mr. Carlton!”
The words seemed to strike the coroner, and he entered a note in the book before him. When Mrs. Gould’s indignation had subsided, she was again questioned. Her further evidence need not be given; it was only connected with points already discussed; and at its conclusion she was permitted to retire to the next room, where she had a prolonged fit of hysterics.
The coroner requested the presence again of Mr. Carlton. But it was found that Mr. Carlton had gone. This caused a delay in the proceedings. An officer was despatched for him in haste, and found him at his own home, engaged with a patient. He hurried him up to the court.
“What am I required for?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“I can’t say, sir. The coroner said you were to be produced.”
“I thought you had understood, Mr. Carlton, that it is expedient the witnesses should not depart until the inquiry be over,” began the coroner, when he appeared. “Questions sometimes arise which may render it necessary for them to be examined again.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Mr. Carlton; “I had no idea I was not at liberty to return home; or that I should be wanted again.” The coroner placed his arms on the table beside him, and leaned towards Mr. Carlton.
“What is this tale?” asked he, “about your having seen a man secreted on the stairs, or landing, on the night of the mur — ,” the coroner coughed, to drown the word which had all but escaped his lips—” on the night of the death?”
A scarlet tinge, born of emotion, flushed the face of Mr. Carlton. Were his superstitious feelings going to be probed for the benefit of the crowded court?
“Who says I saw one?” inquired he.
“That is not the question,” sharply returned the coroner. “Did you see one?”
“No, I did not.”
“The last witness, Eliza Gould, testifies that you did — or thought you did.”
“The facts are these,” said Mr. Carlton. “As I was leaving the patient, the moonbeams shone on the landing through the staircase window, and for the moment I certainly did think I saw a face — the face of a person leaning against the wall.”
“What sort of a face?” interrupted the coroner. “A man’s or a woman’s?”
“Oh, a man’s, decidedly. A pale face, as it appeared to me, with thick black whiskers. I believe now it was my fancy. It was just a momentary glimpse, or rather idea, and was over directly. Moonbeams, it is well known, play curious tricks and turns with the eyesight. I fetched the candle and examined the landing, but no person was to be seen. Before I had well got down the stairs, a conviction was stealing over me that I had deceived myself; that there had been really nothing there; but I certainly did ask the woman Gould, when she came to open the door for me, whether or not any strange man was in the house.”
“She said, ‘No’?”
“Yes: and was intensely offended at my putting the question.” The coroner mused. Turning to the jury, he spoke confidentially. “You see, gentlemen, had there been really any one concealed upon the stairs, it would be a most suspicious point; one demanding full investigation. That medicine was in the adjoining room, open to the landing, and within any one’s power who chose to enter; for the lady in bed could not be supposed to see what took place in the next apartment, and the two women were downstairs. Nothing more easy than for the cork to be abstracted from the medicine sent by the Messrs. Grey, and a few deadly drops poured into it. Provided, I say, the person so concealed there had a wish to do so.” The jury looked grave, and one of them addressed Mr. Carlton:
“Can’t you carry your mind back, sir, with any degree of certainty?”
“There is quite a sufficient degree of certainty in my mind,” replied Mr. Carlton. “I feel convinced, I feel sure, that the face existed only in my fancy. I had gone out from the light room to the dark landing, — dark except for the moonbeams — and—”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Carlton,” interrupted another juryman, “but the witnesses, Pepperfly and Gould, have deposed that the lady’s chamber was in darkness — that the candle was in the adjoining sitting-room, where she preferred to have it left.”
“Have they? I almost forget. Then in passing through the sitting-room my eyes must have been dazzled by the light, for I know that the landing appeared dark. You are right,” added Mr. Carlton. “I remember now that the candle was in the sitting-room, for it was from there I fetched it to search the landing.”
“Why did you not mention this, witness, when you were first examined?” asked the coroner.
“Mention what, sir? That I fancied I saw a face in the dark, which turned out to be all moonshine?” retorted the witness. “Verily I should be only too glad to mention anything that would bear upon the case, but I might have got laughed at for my pains.”
“You a
ttach no importance to it, then?”
“None whatever. I feel certain that it was only a freak of my own fancy.”
“Very well, sir. That will do for the present. Are there any more witnesses to examine?” continued the coroner, addressing the summoning-officer.
There were one or two who gave testimony of no importance, and they appeared to be all. Frederick Grey, who had been an eager listener to the witnesses, then stepped forward and addressed himself to the coroner.
“Will you allow me to make a statement, sir?”
“If it bears upon the case,” replied the coroner. “Does it do so?”
“Yes, it does,” warmly replied Frederick, his earnest, honest grey eyes flashing. “There has been a cruel suspicion of carelessness cast upon my father: I wish to state that it was I who destroyed the proofs by which it could have been refuted.”
And forthwith he told the story of his heedless wiping of the cob-webbed jar.
“Was any one present when you did this, besides you and your father?” asked the coroner.
“Sir, did you not hear me say so? My uncle John.”
“Let Mr. John Grey be called,” said the coroner. “Gentlemen,” he added to the jury, “I am going somewhat out of my legal way in admitting these statements; but I must confess that it does appear to me most improbable that Mr. Stephen Grey whose high character we all well know, should have been guilty of this fatal carelessness. It has appeared to me entirely improbable from the first; and I deem it right to hear any evidence that can be brought forward to refute the accusation — especially,” he impressively concluded, “after the statement made by Mr. Carlton, as to the face he saw, or thought he saw, lurking near the chamber where the draught was placed. I acknowledge, in spite of Mr. Carlton’s stated conviction, that I am by no means convinced that that face was not real. It may have been the face of some deadly enemy of the ill-fated young lady; one who may have followed her to South Wennock for the purpose of destroying her, and stolen nefariously into the house; and then, his work accomplished, have stolen out again.”
“With all due deference, Mr. Coroner, to your superior judgment,” interposed a juryman, “the suspicion that the poison may have been introduced into the draught after it was in the Widow Gould’s house, appears to be disposed of by the fact that it smelt strongly of it when it was first brought in — as sworn to by Mr. Carlton.”
“True, true,” said the coroner musingly. “It is involved in much mystery. Stand forward, Mr. Grey. Were you present when your nephew wiped the cobwebs and dust from the jar of hydrocyanic acid?” continued the coroner, after the new witness had been sworn.
“I was,” replied Mr. John Grey. “My brother Stephen reached down the jar, which he had to do by means of steps, from its usual place, and the dust and cobwebs were much collected on it, the cobwebs being woven over the stopper — a certain proof that it had not recently been opened.”
“This was after the death had taken place?”
“It was just after it; when we returned home from seeing the body. My brother remarked that it was a proof, or would be a proof — I forget his exact words — that he had not used the hydrocyanic acid; and whilst he and I were closely talking, Frederick, unconscious of course of the mischief he was doing, took a duster and wiped the jar. I was not in time to stop him. I pointed out what he had done, and how it might tell against his father, and he was overwhelmed with contrition; but the mischief was over and could not be remedied.”
“You had no other hydrocyanic acid in your house, except this?”
“None at all; none whatever.”.
The coroner turned to the jury.
“If this statement of Mr. John Grey’s be correct — and it bears out his nephew’s — we must acknowledge that Mr. Stephen could not have put prussic acid into the draught when making it up. He could not have done so, in my opinion.”
The jury assented. “Certainly he could not,” they said, “if the testimony were correct.”
“Well, gentlemen, we know John Grey to be an upright man and a good man; and he is on his oath before his Maker?
Scarcely had the coroner spoken when a commotion was heard outside — a noise as of a crowd in the street, swarming up to the Red Lion. What was it? What could it be? The coroner and jury suspended proceedings for a moment, until the disturbance should subside.
But, instead of subsiding, it only came nearer and nearer; and at length burst into the room — eager people with eager faces — all in a state of excitement, all trying to pour forth the news at once.
Some additional evidence had been found.
The whole room rose, even the coroner and jury, so apt are the most official of us to be led away by excitement. What had come to light? Imaginations are quick, and the jury were allowing theirs a wide range. Some few of them jumped to the conclusion that, at least, Dick, the boy, had confessed to having been waylaid and bribed, to allow of poison being put into the draught; but by far the greater number anticipated that the body and legs belonging to the mysterious face had turned up, and were being marched before the coroner.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TORN NOTE.
THE whole inquest-room, metaphorically speaking, was on its legs — coroner, jury, spectators — as the rushing tide of eager faces surged into it. What were the tidings they had brought? — what new evidence had come to light? Nothing very great, after all.
It was only a part of a letter. In the pocket of the dress which the unhappy lady had worn on the Friday, the day of her arrival at South Wennock, had just been found a half-sheet of note-paper, with some lines of writing on it and a great blot of ink. It was a somewhat remarkable fact that this dress, hanging up the whole time behind the bedroom door, had been overlooked both by the police and by Mr. Carlton, and was not searched by either. The coroner smoothed the crumpled sheet of writing, read it aloud for the information of the jury, and then passed it round for their inspection. It ran as follows
“13, Palace Street,
South Wennock,
“Friday Evening,
March 10, 1848.
“MY DEAREST HUSBAND, — You will be surprised to hear of my journey, and that I am safe at South Wennock. I know you will be angry, but I cannot help it, and we will talk over things when we meet. I have asked the people here about a medical man, and they strongly recommend one of the Messrs. Grey, but I tell them I would prefer Mr. Carlton. What do you say? I must ask him to come and see me this evening, for the railway omnibus shook me dreadfully, and I feel anything but—”
In that abrupt manner ended the writing. There was nothing more except the great blot of ink referred to. Whether she had been suddenly interrupted, or whether the accident of the blot caused her to begin a fresh letter, could not be told; and perhaps would now never be known.
But with all the excitement, the noise, and the expectation, it positively threw no light whatever upon the mystery — of the mystery of who she was, of her arrival, or the greater mystery of her death. The coroner sat, after the letter had been passed back to him, mechanically smoothing the creased sheet with his fingers, while he thought.
“Call Mr. Carlton,” he suddenly said.
Mr. Carlton was found in the yard of the inn, talking to some of the many outside idlers whom the proceedings had gathered together. After the rebuff administered to him by the coroner, as to his having gone away before, he was determined not so to offend a second time, but waited within call.
“Wanted again!” he exclaimed, when the officer came to him. “I hope the jury will have enough of me.”
“There’s something fresh turned up, sir. You might have heard here the noise they made, bringing it up the street.”
“Something fresh!” the surgeon eagerly repeated. “What is it? Not about the face?” he added, a strange dread mingling with his whispered tones.
“I don’t rightly know what it is, sir. The crowd jammed into the room so that I couldn’t hear.”
“Mr. Carlton
, look at this, will you,” said the coroner, handing him the torn note, when he appeared. “Can you tell me if it is in the handwriting of the deceased?”
Mr. Carlton took the sheet, glanced at it, clutched it in his hand, and strode to a distant window. There he stood reading it, with his back to the room. He read it twice; he turned it over and looked at the other side; he turned it back and read it again. Then he returned to the table where sat the coroner and jury, who had followed his movements in eager expectation.
“How can I tell, Mr. Coroner, whether it is in her handwriting or not?”
“You received a note from her. Can you not remember what the writing was like?”
Mr. Carlton paused a moment, and then slowly shook his head. “I did not take particular notice of the handwriting. If we had the two together we might compare them. By the way,” he added, “I may perhaps mention that I searched thoroughly for the note in question when I went home just now, and could not find it. There’s no doubt I threw it into the fire at the time.”
Perfectly true. As soon as Mr. Carlton had returned home from his first examination, he had made a thorough search for the note. His conviction at the time was that he must have burnt it with the letters and envelopes lying on the table, those which he had thrown on the fire; it had been his conviction ever since; nevertheless he did again institute a search on going home from the inquest. He emptied some card-racks which stood on the mantel-piece; he opened the drawers of the sideboard: he went upstairs to his bedroom, and searched the pockets of the clothes he had worn that night; he looked in every likely place he could think of. It seemed rather a superfluous task, and it brought forth no results; but Mr. Carlton wished to feel quite sure upon the point.