by Ellen Wood
Now what did Ann Dovey do? On that very Easter Tuesday, as it chanced, as soon as dusk had set in, off she went to Dame Chad’s general shop in Church Dykely, where the beetle-power was sold, and bought a packet of it. It seemed to her, that of the choice between two evils — to put up with the horrible black animals, or to disobey Dovey, the latter was the more agreeable. She could easily shake some of the powder down lightly of a night; the beetles would eat it up before morning, and Dovey would never know it. Accordingly, paying for the powder — a square packet, done up in blue paper, on which was labelled “Poison” in as large letters as the printer could get into the space — she thrust it into the depths of her gown-pocket — it was her holiday gown — and set off home again. Calling in at George Reed’s cottage on her way, she there assisted, as it also chanced, in administering the pills to the unfortunate children. And perhaps her motive for calling in was not so much from a love of presiding at physic-giving, as that she might be able, when she got home, to say “At Reed’s,” if her husband asked her where she had been. It fell out as she thought. No sooner had she put foot inside the forge than Dovey began, “Where’st been, Ann?” and she told him at Reed’s, helping with the sick little ones. Dovey’s work was over for the night; he wanted his supper; and she had no opportunity of using the beetle-powder. It was left untouched in the pocket of her gown. The following morning came the astounding news of the children’s death; and in the excitement caused by that, Mrs. Dovey lost sight of the powder. Perhaps she thought that the general stir might cause Dovey to be more wakeful than usual, and that she might as well let the powder be for a short time. It was safe where it was, in her hung-up gown. Dovey never meddled with her pockets: on or off, they were no concern of his.
But, on the Friday morning, when putting on this same holiday gown to attend the inquest, to which she had been summoned, what was her horror to find the packet burst, and her pocket filled with the loose powder. Mrs. Dovey had no greater love for beetle-powder in itself than she had for beetles, and visibly shuddered. She could not empty it out; there it had to remain; for Dovey, excited by his wife’s having to give evidence, was in and out of her room like a dog in a fair; and she went off perforce with the stuff in her pocket. And when during her examination the questions took the turn they did take, and the coroner asked her whether she had had any poison in her pocket that night at George Reed’s; this, with the consciousness of what had been that night in her pocket, of what was in her pocket at that very moment, then present, nearly frightened her into fits. From that hour, Ann Dovey had lived in a state of terror. It was not that she believed any of the beetle-powder could have got inside the ill-fated young ones (though she did not feel quite easy on the point), as that she feared the accusation might be shifted off Crew’s shoulders and on to hers. On this Thursday evening she could hold out no longer; and disclosed all to Dovey.
Dovey burst upon us in a heat. He was as straightforward a man as ever lived, of an intensely honest nature, and could no more have kept it in, now that he knew it, than he could have given up all righteous dealing together. His chief concern was to tell the truth, and to restore peace to his wife. He went through the narrative to Duffham without stopping; and seemed not in the least to care for my being present.
“It ain’t possible, sir, there ain’t a moral possibility that any o’ that there dratted powder could have come anigh the babies,” wound up Dovey. “I should be thankful, sir, if you’d come down and quieten her a bit; her be in a fine way.”
What with surprise, and what with the man’s rapid speech, Duffham had not taken in one-half of the tale. He had simply sat behind the teapot and stared.
“My good fellow, I don’t understand,” he said. “A pocketful of poison! What on earth made her take poison to George Reed’s?”
So Dovey went over the heads of the story again.
“’Twas in her pocket, sir, our Ann’s, it’s true; but the chances are that at that time the paper hadn’t burst. None of it couldn’t ha’ got to them there two young ones.”
To see the blacksmith’s earnestness was good. His face was as eager, his tone as imploring, as though he were pleading for his life.
“And it ‘ud be a work of charity, sir, if you’d just step down and see her. I’d pay handsome for the visit, sir; anything you please to charge. She’s like one going right out of her mind.”
“I’ll come,” said Duffham, who had his curiosity upon the point.
And the blacksmith set off on the run home again.
“Well, this is a curious thing!” exclaimed Duffham, when he had gone.
“Could the beetle-powder have poisoned the children?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Johnny. It is an odd tale altogether. We will go down and inquire into it.”
Which of course implied that he expected me to go with him. Nothing loath was I; more eager than he.
Finishing what was left of the tea and bread-and-butter, we went on to Piefinch Cut. Ann Dovey was alone, except for her husband and mother. She flung herself on the sofa when she saw us — the blacksmith’s house was comfortably off for furniture — and began to scream.
“Now, just you stop that, Ann Dovey,” said Duffham, who was always short with hysterics. “I want to come to the bottom of this business; you can’t tell it me while you scream. What in the world possessed you to go about with your pocket full of poison?”
She had her share of sense, and knew Duffham was not one to be trifled with; so she told the tale as well as she could for sobbing.
“Have you mentioned this out of doors?” was the first question Duffham asked when it was over.
“No,” interposed Dovey. “I telled ‘er afore I come to you not to be soft enough for that. Not a soul have heard it, sir, but me and her” — pointing to the old mother— “and you and Master Johnny. We don’t want all the parish swarming about us like so many hornets.”
“Good,” said Duffham. “But it is rather a serious thing, I fear. Uncertain, at any rate.”
“Be it, sir?” returned Ann, raising her heavy eyes questioningly. “Do you think so?”
“Why, you see, the mischief must have lain between that beetle-powder and Crew’s pills. As Crew is so careful a man, I don’t think it could have been the pills; and that’s the truth.”
“But how could the beetle-powder have got anigh the children out of my pocket, sir?” she asked, her eyes wild. “I never put my hand into my pocket while I sat there; I never did.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” returned Duffham. “We may put our hands into our pockets fifty times a day without remembering it.”
“D’you suppose, sir, I should take out some o’ that there beetle-powder and cram it down the poor innocents’ throats?” she demanded, on the verge of further screaming.
“Where is the powder?” questioned Duffham.
The powder was where it had been all along: in the gown-pocket. Want of opportunity, through fear of Dovey’s eyes, or dread of touching the stuff, had kept her from meddling with it. When she took the gown off, the night of the inquest, she hung it up on the accustomed hook, and there it was still. The old mother went to the bedroom and brought it forward, handling it gingerly: a very smart print gown with bright flowers upon it.
Duffham looked round, saw a tin pie-dish, and turned the pocket inside out into it. A speckled sort of powder, brown and white. He plunged his fingers into it fearlessly, felt it, and smelt it. The blue paper it had been sold in lay amidst it, cracked all across. Duffham took it up.
“Poison!” read out he aloud, gazing at the large letters through his spectacles. “How came you to let it break open in your pocket, Ann Dovey?”
“I didn’t let it; it braked of itself,” she sobbed. “If you saw the black-beedles we gets here of a night, sir, you’d be fit to dance a hornpipe, you would. The floor be covered with ‘em.”
“If the ceiling was covered with ’em too, I wouldn’t have that there dangerous stuff brought into the
place — and so I’ve telled ye often,” roared Dovey.
“It’s frightful uncomfortable, is black-beedles; mother knows it,” said his wife, in a subdued voice — for Dovey in great things was master. “I thought if I just sprinkled a bit on’t down, it ‘ud take ’em away, and couldn’t hurt nobody.”
“And you went off on the sly that there Tuesday night and bought it,” he retorted; “and come back and telled me you had been to Reed’s helping to physic the babies.”
“And so I had been there, helping to physic ‘em.”
“Did you go straight to Reed’s from the shop — with this powder?” asked Duffham.
“It was right at the bottom o’ my pocket: I put it there as soon as Dame Chad had served me with it,” sobbed Ann Dovey. “And I can be upon my Bible oath, Dr. Duffham, that I never touched it after; and I don’t believe it had then burst. A-coming hasty out of Reed’s back-gate, for I were in a hurry to get home, the pocket swung again’ the post, and I think the blue paper must ha’ burst then. I never knowed it had burst, for I’d never thought no more about the beedles till I put on the gownd to go up to the inquest. Master Johnny, you be a-staring at me fearful, but I’m telling nothing but the naked truth.”
She did seem to be telling the truth. And as to my “staring at her fearful,” that was just her imagination. I was listening to the talk from the elbow of the wooden chair, on which I had perched myself. Duffham recommended Dovey to put the tin dish and its contents away safely, so that it did not get near any food, but not to destroy the stuff just yet. He talked a bit with Ann, left her a composing draught, and came away.
“I don’t see that the powder could have had anything to do with the children’s death,” I said to him as we went along.
“Neither do I, Johnny!”
“Shall you have to declare this at the inquest to-morrow, Mr. Duffham?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” he answered, looking up at the sky through his spectacles, just as a perplexed owl might do. “It might only serve to complicate matters: and I don’t think it’s possible it could have been the powder. On the other hand, if it be proved not to have been the pills, we have only this poisonous powder to fall back upon. It is a strange affair altogether, take it in all its bearings.”
I did not answer. The evening star was beginning to show itself in the sky.
“I must feel my way in this, Johnny: be guided by circumstances,” he resumed, when we halted at the stile that led across the fields to the Manor. “We must watch the turn matters take to-morrow at the inquest. Of course if I find it necessary to declare it, I shall declare it. Meanwhile, lad, you had better not mention it to any one.”
“All right, Mr. Duffham. Good-evening.”
The jury went straggling into the Silver Bear by twos and threes. Up dashed the coroner’s gig, as before, he and his clerk seated side by side. All the parish had collected about the doors, and were trying to push into the inquest-room.
Gliding quietly in, before the proceedings were opened, came Abel Crew in his quaint velvet suit, his silver hair gleaming in the sunlight, his pale face calm as marble. The coroner ordered him to sit on a certain chair, and whispered to old Jones. Upon which the constable turned his gouty legs round, marched up, and stood guard over Crew, just as though Abel were his prisoner.
“Do you see that, sir?” I whispered to Duffham.
“Yes, lad, and understand it. Crew’s pills have been analyzed — officially this time, as the jury put it — and found to contain arsenic. Pettipher was right. The pills killed the children.”
Well, you might have knocked me down with a feather. I had been fully trusting in Crew’s innocence.
About the first witness called, and sworn, was the professional man from a distance who had analyzed the pills. He said that they contained arsenic. Not in sufficient quantity to hurt a grown-up person; more than sufficient to kill a little child. The coroner drew in his lips.
“I thought it must be so,” he said, apparently for the benefit of the jury. “Am I to understand that these were improper pills to send out? — pills that no medical man would be likely to send?”
“Not improper at all, sir,” replied the witness. “A medical man would prescribe them for certain cases. Not for children: to an infant one would be what it has been here — destruction.”
I felt a nudge at my elbow, and turned to see the Squire’s hot face close to mine.
“Johnny, don’t you ever stand up for that Crew again. He ought to be hanged.”
But the coroner, after a bit, seemed puzzled; or rather, doubtful. Led to be so, perhaps, by a question put by one of the jury. It was Perkins the butcher.
“If these pills were furnished by Abel Crew for Hester Reed, a growed woman, and she went and gave one of her own accord to the two babies, ought Crew to be held responsible for that?”
Upon which there ensued some cavilling. Some of the jury holding that he was not responsible; others that he was. The coroner reminded them of what Hester Reed had stated in her evidence — that she had asked Crew’s opinion about the suitability of the pills for children, and he had told her they were suitable.
Hester Reed was called. As the throng parted to make way for her to advance, I saw Ann Dovey seated at the back of the room, looking more dead than alive. Dovey stood by her, having made himself spruce for the occasion. Ann would have gone off a mile in some opposite direction, but old Jones’s orders to all the witnesses of the former day, to appear again, had been peremptory. They had been wanted before, he told them, and might be wanted again.
“You need not look such a scarecrow with fright,” I whispered in Ann Dovey’s ear, making my way to her side to reassure her, the woman was so evidently miserable. “It was the pills that did the mischief, after all — didn’t you hear? Nothing need come out about your pocket and the powder.”
“Master Johnny, I’m just about skeered out o’ my life, I am. Fit to go and drown myself.”
“Nonsense! It will be all right as far as you are concerned.”
“I said it was Crew’s pills, all along, I did; it couldn’t have been anything else, sir. All the same, I wish I was dead.”
As good try to console a post, seemingly, as Ann Dovey. I went back to my standing-place between the Squire and Duffham. Hester Reed was being questioned then.
“Yes, sir, it were some weeks ago. My little boy was ailing, and I ran out o’ the house to Abel Crew, seeing the old gentleman go past the gate, and asked whether I might give him one of them there same pills, or whether it would hurt the child. Crew said I might give it freely; he said two even wouldn’t hurt him.”
“And did you give the pill?” asked the coroner.
“No, sir. He’s a rare bad one to give physic to, Gregory is, and I let him get well without it.”
“How old is he?”
“Turned of three, sir.”
“You are absolutely certain, Mrs. Reed, that these pills, from which you took out two to give the deceased children, were the very self-same pills you had from Abel Crew?”
“I be sure and certain of it, sir. Nobody never put a finger upon the box but me. It stood all the while in the corner o’ the press-shelf in the children’s bedroom. Twice a week when I got upon a chair to dust the shelf, I see it there. There was nobody in the house but me, except the little ones. My husband don’t concern himself with the places and things.”
Circumstantial evidence could not well go farther. Mrs. Reed was dismissed, and the coroner told Abel Crew to come near the table. He did as he was bid, and stood there upright and manly, a gentle look on his face.
“You have heard the evidence, Abel Crew,” said the coroner. “The pills have been analyzed and found to contain a certain portion of arsenic — a great deal more than enough to kill a child. What have you to say to it?”
“Only this, sir; only what I said before. That the pills analyzed were not my pills. The pills I gave to Mrs. Reed contained neither arsenic nor any other poison.”<
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“It is showing great obstinacy on your part to repeat that,” returned the coroner, impatiently. “Mrs. Reed swears that the pills were the same pills; and she evidently speaks the truth.”
“I am sure she thinks she speaks it,” replied Abel, gently. “Nevertheless, sir, I assure you she is mistaken. In some way the pills must have been changed whilst in her possession, box and all.”
“Why, man, in what manner do you suppose they could have been changed?”
“I don’t know, sir. All I do know is, that the pills and the box produced here last week were not, either of them, the pills and the box she had from me. Never a box went out from me, sir, but had my private mark on it — the mark I spoke of. Jones the constable searched my place whilst I was detained in the lock-up, and took away all the pill-boxes out of it. Let him testify whether he found one without the mark.”
At this juncture a whole cargo of pill-boxes were shot out of a bag on the table by old Jones, some empty, some filled with pills. The coroner and jury began to examine them, and found the mark on all, lids and boxes.
“And if you’d be so good as to cause the pills to be analyzed, sir, they would be found perfectly free from poison,” resumed Abel. “They are made from herbs that possess healing properties, not irritant; a poisonous herb, whether poisonous in itself, or one from which poison may be extracted, I never plucked. Believe me, sir, for I am telling the truth; the truth before Heaven.”
The coroner said nothing for a minute or two: I think the words impressed him. He began lifting the lid again from one or two of the boxes.
“What are these pills for? All for the same disorder?”
“They were made up for different disorders, sir.”