by Ellen Wood
“Well, let us hear about that. What time was it?”
“It was past six, sir; I don’t know how much. I had washed up Mr. Ollivera’s dinner things, and was putting the plates and dishes on the dresser shelves, when Mr. Ollivera’s bell rang. It was for his lamp, which I lighted and took in: he always wanted it afore daylight was well over when he was busy. He seemed in a hurry, and drew down the window-blinds himself. I lighted the gas-burner outside the drawing-room door, and went back to the kitchen. No sooner was I there — leastways it couldn’t have been five minutes — when there came a ring at the street door bell. I went to answer it, and saw a tall gentleman, who asked for Mr. Ollivera, and I showed him upstairs to the drawingroom.”
“Who was that gentleman?”
“It was Mr. Greatorex. But I didn’t know him then, sir. I thought it was a barrister; he didn’t give no name.”
“Did you see Mr. Ollivera when you took this gentleman up?”
“Yes, sir. He was sitting with his back towards us, writing at the table, and I see the things on it. I hadn’t noticed them much when I took the lamp in. I see the papers put together tidy, which had been all about when he was at his dinner. I think he was very busy that evening,” urged the witness, as if the fact might plead an excuse for what afterwards took place: “when I removed the dinner things he told me to put the sherry wine away on the sideboard; sometimes, if he wanted to drink any, he’d have it left on the table.”
“Did he seem glad to see Mr. Greatorex?”
“Yes, sir, very. They shook hands, and Mr. Greatorex began telling him what he had come down about, and said his father had sent him in place of telegrumming. I asked Mr. Ollivera what time he’d like to have tea, but he said he didn’t know whether he should take any, he might be going out; if he wanted it, he’d ring. How was I to think, after that, that I ought to have went up to him, to see how he might be getting on, which missis has been a going on at me ever since for not doing?” demanded the witness, with a stream of tears.
“Come, come! there, wipe your face,” said one of the jury, with gruff kindness. And the questions went on, and the witness’s replies.
It was about an hour that Mr. Greatorex stayed, she thought. She saw him come out at the street door, and go away. Well, yes, she was a yard or two off, at a neighbour’s door, next house but one. After missis went out and the shop was shut, and Alfred Jones went out, and there wasn’t nobody indoors to want her, she had thought it no harm to stand at the street door a bit: and if she did go a step or two away from it, she never took her eyes off the door, and no person could go in or out without her seeing them, and that she’d swear. She saw Mr. Greatorex come out and walk away up High Street; and she never heard no sound in the house whatsoever.
“Did any one go in?” the coroner asked.
“No, sir, not a soul — barring Alfred Jones and Miss Rye. Alfred Jones came back after he first went out, saying he had forgot something, and he went upstairs to fetch it. He wasn’t there no time; and it was while he was up there that Mr. Greatorex came down and left. Soon after that, Miss Rye, she come in, and went up-stairs, and was there ever so long.”
“What do you call ‘ever so long?”’
“Well, sir, I’m sine she was there a quarter of an hour,” returned the witness, in a quick, positive sort of tone, as if the fact of Miss Rye’s being there so long displeased her. “I ought to know; and me a-standing inside the door-sill, afraid to move off it for fear she should come out.”
“Were you alone?”
“Well, yes, sir, I was. Mary, the housemaid at the big linendraper’s, next door but one, can bear me out that I was, for she was there all the time, talking to me.”
Perhaps the coroner thought the answer savoured of Hibernianism, for something like a smile crossed his face.
“And you heard no sound whatever upstairs all the evening, Susan Marks? You saw no one, except the persons mentioned, go in or come out; no stranger?”
“I never heard no sound, and never saw no stranger at all,” said the witness, earnestly. “I never even saw Godfrey Pitman leave. But I b’lieve he was away earlier.”
The concluding assertion fell with some surprise on the room; there ensued a pause, and the coroner lifted his head sharply. Godfrey Pitman? Who was Godfrey Pitman?
“Who is Godfrey Pitman, witness?”
“It was the lodger at the top of the house, sir. He had the front bed-room there — and a fine dance it was to carry his meals up. Missis gave him the offer of eating them in the little room off the kitchen, but I suppose he was too proud to come down. Any way, he didn’t come.”
“Is he lodging there now?”
“Oh no, sir, he was only there a week and a day, and left on the Monday. He was a traveller in the spectacles line, he told me, passing through the town; which he likewise wore himself sometimes. Well, sir, I never see him go at all, and he didn’t give me never a shilling for having waited on him and carried his trays up all them stairs.”
The girl had told apparently what she knew, and the coroner requested Mrs. Jones to come in again. He questioned her about the lodger.
“It was a person of the name of Pitman,” she answered, readily. “He was only passing through the town, and occupied the room for a week.”
“Who was he?” asked the coroner. “Did you know him?”
“I didn’t know him from Adam,” answered Mrs. Jones, tartly; “I didn’t know anything about him. I called him Alletha Rye’s lodger, not mine, for it was she who picked him up. He may have told her all about himself, for aught I can say: she seemed to take a desperate fancy to him, and mended his travelling bag. He didn’t tell me. Not but what he seemed a civil, respectable man.”
“When did he leave you, Mrs. Jones?”
“On Monday, about half-past four, when he took the five o’clock train for Birmingham. He came to the inner shop door as he was going out, and thanked me for my kindness, as he called it, in taking him in at a pinch; he said it was not what every one would do for a stranger. Neither is it.”
“You are sure he left you at that hour?”
“Have I got the use of my eyes and senses?” demanded Mrs. Jones. “Sure! I walked to the side door after him, and saw him go up the street towards the railway with his blue bag. Of course I am sure. It was as I crossed the hall, on my way back, that Mr. Ollivera came in, and I spoke to him, as I have told you.”
It was therefore placed beyond doubt that the lodger, Mr. Pitman, could have no part or act in what took place in the house later. The coroner would have dismissed the subject summarily, but that one of the jury, a man who liked to hear himself talk, expressed an opinion that it might be satisfactory if they questioned Miss Rye. With a gesture of impatience the coroner called for her.
She came in, was asked what she knew of Mr. Pitman, and stood before them in silence, her face a little bent, her fore-finger, encased in its well-fitting black kid glove, pressed lightly on her lip, her clear blue eye looking out straight before her. It was as if she were trying to recall something to her memory.
“I recollect now,” she said, after a minute: “I could not remember what took me up by the railway station, where I met him. It was on last Sunday week, in the afternoon. Mrs. Hillman, who lives up there, was ill, and I had been to see her. As I was leaving her house, towards dusk, a few passengers were coming down from the station. I stood on the door-step until they should have passed; and one of them, who had a blue bag in his hand, like those that lawyers’ clerks carry, stopped and asked me if I had a room in my house that I could let him occupy for a week. I supposed he took the house where I stood for mine. He went on to say he was a traveller and stranger, had never before been to the town, felt very poorly, and would very much wish to be spared the bustle of an hotel. I knew that my sister, Mrs, Jones, had a bedroom ready for letting,” continued Miss Rye, “and I thought she might not object to oblige him; he spoke quite as a gentleman, and I felt rather sorry for him, for he looked haggard
and ill. That is how it happened.”
“And your sister admitted him, and he stayed the week?” cried the juror.
“Strictly speaking, I admitted him; for when we reached home I found Mrs. Jones had gone to sit with old Jenkins for the rest of the day. So I took it upon myself to do so. On Saturday last Mr. Pitman said he would, with our permission, remain a day over the week, and leave on Monday.”
“And did he pay the rent, Miss Rye?” asked the juror, who perhaps had a doubt on the point.
“He paid the first week’s rent as soon as he was admitted to the house, and gave a sovereign towards the purchase of his provisions,” was the answer. “What remained he settled for on the Monday, previous to his departure by the five o’clock train for Birmingham.”
“Who was he, witness? Where did he come from?”
“I really cannot tell much about him,” was Miss Rye’s reply. “I understood him to say he was a traveller; his name, as he wrote it down for us, was Godfrey Pitman. He was laid up with a bad cold and relaxed throat all the time he stayed, and borrowed some books of me to read.”
There appeared to be no further scope for the exercise of the juror’s powers; no possible loop-hole for bringing this departed Mr. Godfrey Pitman into connection with the death of Mr. Ollivera; and Miss Rye was allowed to depart.
Little more evidence was to be gleaned. Mr. Kene, tendering evidence, spoke of his long intimacy with the deceased, and of their last interview, when he was just the same that he ever had been: calm, cheerful, earnest-purposed. He could not understand, he added, how it was possible for Mr. Ollivera to have laid violent hands on himself — unless, indeed, the headache, of which he had complained, had proceeded from some derangement of the functions of the brain, and induced temporary insanity.
But this suggested theory was wholly incompatible with the letter that had been found, and with Mr. Bede Greatorex’s testimony of the sane mind of the deceased when he quitted him. The jury shook their heads: keen-eyed Mr. Butterby, looking on unobtrusively from a remote nook of the room, shook his.
The inquest drew to a close; the one fatal element in the evidence being the letter found on the table. The coroner and jury debated upon their verdict with closed doors, and only re-admitted the public when they had decided. It did not take them long.
“Felo-de-se.”
In accordance with the customary usage, a mandate was issued for a night interment, without Christian rites; and the undertaker promised to be ready for that same night.
The crowd filed out of the room, talking eagerly. That it was undoubtedly a case of self-murder, and that in the most unhappy sense of the word, none doubted. No, not one: even Mr. Kene began to waver.
As they were dispersing hither and thither along the street, there came hastily up a young man in the garb of a clergyman. It was the Reverend Henry William Ollivera, brother of the deceased gentleman. He had just arrived by train. In as few words as possible, his cousin, Frank Greatorex, and Mr. Kene imparted to him some hasty particulars of the unhappy event.
“He never did it,” said the clergyman, solemnly. “Bede” — for at that moment Bede Greatorex joined the speakers— “how could you suffer them to bring in a verdict so horrible?”
But Mr. Ollivera had not heard the full details yet. By common consent, as it were, they had not at first told him of the letter. Bede would not tell it now. Let the worst come out to him by degrees, thought he.
“I am going up to town,” said Bede Greatorex. “If—”
“And not stay for to-night?” interrupted one of them, in an accent that savoured of reproach.
“Nay, I must consider my father,” was the grave reply of Bede. “He is in suspense all this while, waiting for news.”
So they parted. Bede Greatorex hastened to catch the departing train for London. And the others remained to see the last of the illfated John Ollivera.
He was carried out of Mr. Jones’s in the bright moonlight, soon after eleven o’clock had struck. Whether intentionally, as best befitting the scanty ceremony to be performed, or whether in accidental forgetfulness, the undertaker had failed to provide a covering for the coffin. And Mrs. Jones, with sundry sharp and stinging words of reprimand to the man, as it was in the nature of Mrs. Jones’s tongue to give, brought down a long woollen black scarf-shawl, and helped to spread it over the coffin with her own hands.
Thus the procession started, preceded by many curious gazers, followed by more, Alletha Rye stealing on amidst the latter number; and so went on to the place of interment.
You have seen what took place there.
CHAPTER IV.
Going Home with the News.
IN the vicinity of Bedford Square, so near to it that we may as well designate the locality by that name throughout the story, stood the large professional residence of Greatorex and Greatorex. It was large in every sense of the word; both as to the size of the house, and to the extent of the business transacted in it. A safe, good, respectable firm was that of Greatorex and Greatorex, standing as well in the public estimation as any solicitors could stand: and deservedly so. Mr. Greatorex was a man of nice honour; upright, just, trustworthy. He would not have soiled his hands with what is technically called dirty work: if any client wanted underhand business done, swindling work (although it might be legal) that would not bear the light of day, he need not take it to Greatorex and Greatorex.
The head of the firm, John Greatorex, was still in what many call the prime of life. He was fifty-eight, active and energetic. Marrying when he was very young, he really did not look a great deal older than his son Bede. And Bede was not his first-born. The eldest son had entered the army; he was in India now, Captain Greatorex. He also had married young, and his little daughter and only child had been sent home to her grand-parents in accordance with the prevailing custom.
The wife of Mr. Greatorex had been Miss Ollivera, sister to the father of John Ollivera the barrister, whose sad end has been lately recorded. Mrs. Greatorex had fallen into ill health for some time past now; in fact she was slowly dying of an incurable complaint. But for not liking to leave her, Mr. Greatorex might have hastened down as soon as the sad news reached him of his nephew’s premature end. I say he “might;” but Mr. Greatorex was, himself, only recovering from an attack of illness, and was scarcely strong enough to travel. And so he waited at home with all the patience he could call up, understanding nothing but that his nephew John, who had been as dear to him as were his own children, was dead. His children had been many: eight. James (Captain Greatorex), the eldest; Bede the second, one year younger; next came two daughters, who were married and away; then a son, Matthew, who was working his way to competency in Spain; the two next had died, and Francis was the youngest. The latter, called Frank always, was in the house in Bedford Square, but not yet made a partner.
The young barrister just dead, John Ollivera, left no relations to mourn for him, except his brother Henry William, and the Greatorex family. The two brothers had had to make their own way in the world, their uncle Mr. Greatorex helping them to do it; the elder one choosing the Bar (as you have seen); Henry William, the Church. John had his chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, and would certainly have risen into note had he lived; Henry William was a curate.
Three o’clock was striking in London on Wednesday afternoon, as a train slackened its speed and drew into the Paddington terminus. One of the first of its passengers to alight was Mr. Bede Greatorex. He had a small black bag in his hand, and jumped with it into a hansom cab.
“Bedford Square!”
The cabman answered with a nod as he touched his hat. He had driven Mr. Bede Greatorex before, who was sufficiently well known in London. Instead, however, of being permitted to dash up to the well-known door, the man found himself stopped a few yards short of it.
“I’ll get out here,” said Bede Greatorex.
Paying the fare, he went on with his bag, and glanced up at the windows as he crossed to the house. All the blinds were down. It w
as a very large house: it had been two originally. In the old, old days, some thirty or more years ago, Mr. Greatorex had rented only one of the houses. As his family and business increased, he bought the one he occupied and the next adjoining, and made them into one. There were two entrances still; the one pertained to the house and Mrs. Greatorex; the other was the professional entrance. The rooms on the ground floor — and there were several — were taken up by the business; one of them, looking to the garden, was the sitting-room of Mr. Greatorex.
Bede went to the private entrance, and let himself in with his latch-key. Lodging his small bag at the foot of the handsome staircase, he walked through some passages to his father’s sitting-room; which was empty. Retracing his steps he went upstairs; a maidservant happened to meet him on the first landing; he handed her the bag and opened the door of the dining-room. A spacious, well-fitted up apartment, its paper white and gold, with streaks of crimson slightly intermingled to give it colour.
Mr. Greatorex was there. He sat over the fire and had fallen asleep. It surprised Bede: for Mr. Greatorex was a man not given to idleness or indulgence of any kind. Indeed, to see him sitting upstairs in the day time was an event almost unknown. Bede closed the door again softly. There was a haggard look in the elder man’s face, partly the effect of his recent illness; and Bede would not disturb him.
Outside the door, he stood a moment in hesitation. It was a spacious landing-place, something like an upper hall. The floor was carpeted with dark green; painted windows — yellow, blue, crimson — threw down a bright light of colour; there was a small conservatory at one end, containing odoriferous plants on which the sun was shining; and a chaste statue or two imparted still life to the whole.
Bede hesitated. None but himself knew how horribly he hated and dreaded the tale he had to tell about poor John Ollivera. All the way up he had been rehearsing to himself the manner in which he should break it for the best, but the plan had gone clean out of his head now.