by Ellen Wood
“Oh, how wicked you are!”
“Mrs. Ball has been more careful of me than she’d be of gold,” went on Vera, her blue eyes dancing. “The eldest daughter, Louise, is at home now: she teaches music in a school: and, if you’ll believe me, Coral, the old mother would never let me stir out without Louise. When Edward Pym came up in the evening to take me for a walk, Louise must go with us. ‘I feel responsible to your papa and sister, my dear,’ the old woman would say to me. Oh, she was a veritable dragon.”
“Was Louise with you when you went on board the Rose of Delhi yesterday afternoon?” cried Coralie, while I began to put away the chessmen.
Verena opened her eyes. “How did you hear of that? No, we tricked Louise for once. Edward had fifty things to say to me, and he wanted me alone. After dinner he proposed that we should go to afternoon service. I made haste, and went out with him, calling to Louise that she’d catch us up before we reached the church, and we ran off in just the contrary direction. “I should like to show you my ship,” Edward said; and we went down in an omnibus. Mrs. Ball shook her head when we got back, and said I must never do it again. As if I should have the chance, now Edward’s gone!”
Coralie glanced at her. “He is gone, I suppose?”
“Yes,” sighed Vera. “The ship left the docks this morning. He took leave of me last night.”
Coralie looked doubtful. She glanced again at her sister under her eyelids.
“Then — if Edward Pym is no longer here to take walks with you, Vera, how is it you came home so late to-night?”
“Because I have been to a concert,” cried Vera, her tone as gay as a lark’s. “Louise and I started to walk here this afternoon. I wanted you to see her; she is really very nice. Coming through Fitzroy Square, she called upon some friends of hers who live there, the Barretts — he is a professor of music. Mrs. Barrett was going to a concert to-night and she said if we would stay she’d take us. So we had tea with her and went to it, and they sent me home in a cab.”
“You seem to be taking your pleasure!” remarked Coralie.
“I had such an adventure downstairs,” cried Verena, dropping her voice after a pause of thought. “Nearly fell into the arms of papa.”
“What — now?”
“Now; two minutes ago. While hesitating whether to softly tinkle the kitchen-bell and smuggle myself in and up to my room, or to storm the house with a bold summons, Ozias drew open the front-door. He looked so glad to see me, poor stupid old fellow. I was talking to him in the passage when I heard papa’s cough. ‘Oh, hide yourself, Missee Vera,’ cried Ozias, ‘the master, he so angry;’ and away I rushed into papa’s little library, seeing the door of it open — —”
“He has come out of it, then!” interjected Coralie.
“I thought papa would go upstairs,” said Vera. “Instead of that, he came on into the room. I crept behind the old red window-curtains, and — —”
“And what?” asked Coralie, for Verena made a sudden pause.
“Groaned out with fright, and nearly betrayed myself,” continued Verena. “Papa stared at the curtains as if he thought they were alive, and then and there backed out of the room. Perhaps he feared a ghost was there. He was looking so strange, Coralie.”
“All your fault, child. Since the night you went away he has looked more like a maniac than a rational man, and acted like one. I have just said so to Johnny Ludlow.”
“Poor papa! I will be good and tractable as an angel now, and make it up to him. And — why, Coralie, here are visitors.”
We gazed in surprise. It is not usual to receive calls at bedtime. Ozias stood at the door showing in Captain Tanerton. Behind him was Alfred Saxby.
The captain’s manner was curious. No sooner did he set eyes on us than he started back, as if he thought we might bite him.
“Not here. Not the ladies. I told you it was Sir Dace I wanted,” he said in quick sentences to Ozias. “Sir Dace alone.”
Ozias went back down the stairs, and they after him, and were shown into the library. It was a little room nearly opposite the front-entrance, and underneath the room called the boudoir. You went down a few stairs to it.
Verena turned white. A prevision of evil seized her.
“Something must be the matter,” she shivered, laying her hand upon my arm. “Did you notice Captain Tanerton’s face? I never saw him look like that. And what does he do here? Where is the ship? And oh, Johnny” — and her voice rose to a shriek— “where’s Edward Pym?”
Alas! we soon knew what the matter was — and where Edward Pym was. Dead. Murdered. That’s what young Saxby called it. Sir Dace, looking frightfully scared, started with them down to Ship Street. I went also; I could not keep away. George was to sit up for me at home if I were late.
“For,” as Miss Deveen had said to me in the morning, laughingly, “there’s no telling, Johnny, at what unearthly hour you may get back from Gravesend.”
IV.
It was a dreadful thing to have happened. Edward Pym found dead; and no one could tell for a certainty who had been the author of the calamity.
He had died of a blow dealt to him, the doctors said: it had struck him behind the left ear. Could it be possible that he had fallen of himself, and struck his head against something in falling, was a question put to the doctors — and it was Captain Tanerton who put it. It perhaps might be possible, the medical men answered, but not at all probable. Mr. Pym could not have inflicted the blow upon himself, and there was no piece of furniture in the room, so far as they saw, that could have caused the injury, even though he had fallen upon it.
The good luck of the Rose of Delhi seemed not to be in the ascendant. Her commander could not sail with her now. Neither could her newly-appointed third mate, Alfred Saxby. So far as might be ascertained at present, Captain Tanerton was the last man who had seen Pym alive; Alfred Saxby had found him dead; therefore their evidence would be required at the official investigation.
Ships, however, cannot be lightly detained in port when their time for sailing comes: and on the day following the events already told of, the Rose of Delhi finally left the docks, all taut and sound, the only one of her old officers, sailing in her, being Mark Ferrar. The brokers were put out frightfully at the detention of Tanerton. A third mate was soon found to replace Saxby: a master not so easily. They put in an elderly man, just come home in command of one of their ships. Put him in for the nonce, hoping Captain Tanerton would be at liberty to join her at Dartmouth, or some other place down channel.
On this same day, Tuesday, the investigation into the events of that fatal Monday, as regarded Edward Pym, was begun. Not the coroner’s inquest: that was called for the morrow: but an informal inquiry instituted by the brokers and Sir Dace Fontaine. In a back-room of the office in Eastcheap, the people met; and — I am glad to say — I was one of them, or I could not have told you what passed. Sir Dace sat in the corner, his elbow resting on the desk and his hand partly covering his face. He did not pretend to feel the death as an affectionate uncle would have felt it; still Pym was his nephew, and there could be no mistake that the affair was troubling him.
Mrs. Richenough, clean as a new pin, in her Sunday gown and close bonnet, a puzzled look upon her wrinkled face, told what she knew — and was longer over it than she need have been. Mr. Pym, who lodged in her parlour floor, had left her for good, as she supposed, on the Monday morning, his ship, the Rose of Delhi, being about to go out of dock. Mr. Saxby, who had lodged in the rooms above Mr. Pym, got appointed to the same ship, and he also left. In the afternoon she heard that the ship had got off all right: a workman at the docks told her so. Later, who should come to the door but Mr. Pym — which naturally gave her great surprise. He told her the ship had sprung a leak and had put back; but they should be off again with the next day’s tide, and he should have to be abroad precious early in the morning to get the cargo stowed away again ——
“What time was this?” interrupted Mr. Freeman.
“About half-past four
, I fancy, sir. Mr. Pym spoke rather thick — I saw he had been taking a glass. He bade me make him a big potful of strong tea — which I did at once, having the kettle on the fire. He drank it, and went out.”
“Go on, Mrs. Richenough.”
“An hour afterwards, or so, his captain called, wanting to know where he was. Of course, sirs, I could not say; except that he had had a big jorum of tea, and was gone out.”
Captain Tanerton spoke up to confirm this. “I wanted Pym,” he said. “This must have been between half-past five and six o’clock.”
“About nine o’clock; or a bit earlier, it might be — I know it was dark and I had finished my supper — Mr. Pym came back,” resumed the landlady. “He seemed in an ill-humour, and he had been having more to drink. ‘Light my lamp, Mother Richenough,’ says he roughly, ‘and shut the shutters: I’ve got a letter to write.’ I lighted the lamp, and he got out some paper of his that was left in the table-drawer, and the ink, and sat down. After closing the shutters I went to the front-door, and there I saw Captain Tanerton. He asked me — —”
“What did he ask you?” cried Mr. Freeman’s lawyer, for she had come to a dead standstill.
“Well, the captain asked me whether any young lady had been there. He had asked the same question afore, sir: Mr. Pym’s cousin, or sister, I b’lieve he meant. I told him No, and he went into the parlour to Mr. Pym.”
“What then?”
“Well, gentlemen, I went back to my kitchen, and shut myself in by my bit o’ fire; and, being all lonely like, I a’most dozed off. Not quite; they made so much noise in the parlour, quarrelling.”
“Quarrelling?” cried the lawyer.
“Yes, sir; and were roaring out at one another like wolves. Mr. — —”
“Stay a moment, ma’am. How long was it after you admitted Captain Tanerton that you heard this quarrelling?”
“Not above three or four minutes, sir. I’m sure of that. ‘Mr. Pym’s catching it from his captain, and he is just in the right mood to take it unkindly,’ I thought to myself. However, it was no business of mine. The sounds soon ceased, and I was just dozing off again, when Mr. Saxby came home. He went into the parlour to see Mr. Pym, and found him lying dead on the floor.”
A silent pause.
“You are sure, ma’am, it was Captain Tanerton who was quarrelling with him?” cried the lawyer, who asked more questions than all the rest put together.
“Of course I am sure,” returned Mrs. Richenough. “Why, sir, how could it be anybody else? Hadn’t I just let in Captain Tanerton to him? Nobody was there but their two selves.”
Naturally the room turned to Jack. He answered the mute appeal very quietly.
“It was not myself that quarrelled with Pym. No angry word of any kind passed between us. Pym had been drinking; Mrs. Richenough is right in that. He was not in a state to be reproved or reasoned with, and I came away at once. I did not stay to sit down.”
“You hear this, Mrs. Richenough?”
“Yes, sir, I do; and I am sure the gentleman don’t speak or look like one who could do such a deed. But, then, I heard the quarrelling.”
An argument indisputable to her own mind. Sir Dace looked up and put a question for the first time. He had listened in silence. His dark face had a wearied look on it, and he spoke hardly above a whisper.
“Did you know the voice to be that of Captain Tanerton, Mistress Landlady? Did you recognize it for his!”
“I knew the voice couldn’t be anybody else’s, sir. Nobody but the captain was with Mr. Pym.”
“I asked you whether you recognized it?” returned Sir Dace, knitting his brow. “Did you know by its tone that it was Captain Tanerton’s?”
“Well, no, sir, I did not, if you put it in that way. Captain Tanerton was nearly a stranger to me, and the two shut doors and the passage was between me and him. I had only heard him speak once or twice before, and then in a pleasant, ordinary voice. In this quarrel his voice was raised to a high, rough pitch; and in course I could not know it for his.”
“In point of fact, then, it comes to this: You did not recognize the voice for Captain Tanerton’s.”
“No, sir; not, I say, if you put it in that light.”
“Let me put it in this light,” was Sir Dace Fontaine’s testy rejoinder: “Had three or four people been with Mr. Pym in his parlour, you could not have told whose voice it was quarrelling with him? You would not have known?”
“That is so, sir. But, you see, I knew it was his captain that was with him.”
Sir Dace folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, his cross-questioning over. Mrs. Richenough was done with for the present, and Captain Tanerton entered upon his version of the night’s events.
“I wished particularly to see Mr. Pym, and went to Ship Street in search of him, as I have already said. He was not there. Later, I went down again — —”
“I beg your pardon, Captain Tanerton,” interrupted the lawyer; “what time do you make it — that second visit?”
“It must have been nearly nine o’clock. Mr. Pym was at home, and I went into his parlour. He sat at the table writing, or preparing to write. I asked him the question I had come to ask, and he answered me. Scarcely anything more passed between us. He was three-parts tipsy. I had intended to tell him that he was no longer chief mate of my ship — had been superseded; but, seeing his condition, I did not. I can say positively that I was not more than two minutes in the room.”
“And you and he did not quarrel?”
“We did not. Neither were our voices raised. It is very probable, in his then condition, that he would have attempted to quarrel had he known he was discharged; but he did not know it. We were perfectly civil to each other; and when I wished him good-night, he came into the passage and shut the front-door after me.”
“You left no one with him?”
“No one; so far as I saw. I can answer for it that no one was in the parlour with us: whether any one was in the back room I cannot say. I do not think so.”
“After that, Captain Tanerton?”
“After that I went straight to my hotel in the Minories, and ordered tea. While taking it, Mr. Ferrar came in and told me Edward Pym was dead. I could not at first believe it. I went back to Ship Street and found it too true. In as short a time as I could manage it, I went to carry the news to Sir Dace Fontaine, taking young Saxby with me.”
Jack had spoken throughout in the ready, unembarrassed manner of one who tells a true tale. But never in all my life had I seen him so quiet and subdued. He was like one who has some great care upon him. The other hearers, not knowing Jack as I knew him, would not notice this; though I cannot answer for it that one of them did not James Freeman. He never took his eyes off Jack all the while; peered at him as if he were a curiosity. It was not an open stare; more of a surreptitious one, taken stealthily from under his eyebrows.
Some testimony as to Pym’s movements that afternoon was obtained from Mrs. Ball, the lawyer having already been to Woburn Place to get it. She said that young Pym came to her house between five and six o’clock nearer six than five, she thought, and seemed very much put out and disappointed to find Miss Verena Fontaine had left for her own home. He spoke of the ship’s having sprung a leak and put back again, but he believed she would get out again on the morrow. Mrs. Ball did not notice that he had been drinking; but one of her servants met him in the street after he left the house, heard him swearing to himself, and saw him turn into a public-house. If he remained in it until the time he next appeared in Ship Street, his state then was not to be wondered at.
This was about all that had been gathered at present. A great deal of talking took place, but no opinion was expressed by anybody. Time enough for that when the jury met on the morrow. As we were turning out of the back-room, the meeting over, Mr. Freeman put his hand upon Jack, to detain him. Jack, in his turn, detained me.
“Captain Tanerton,” he said, in a grave whisper, “do you remember making a remark to me not
long ago, in this, my private room — that if we persisted in sending Pym out with you in the ship, there would be murder committed?”
“I believe I do,” said Jack, quietly. “They were foolish words, and meant nothing.”
“I do not like to remember them,” pursued Mr. Freeman. “As things have turned out, it would have been better that you had not used them.”
“Perhaps so,” answered Jack. “They have done no harm, that I know of.”
“They have been singularly verified. The man has been murdered.”
“Not on board the Rose of Delhi.”
“No. Off it.”
“I should rather call it death by misadventure,” said Jack, looking calmly at the broker. “At the worst, done in a scuffle; possibly in a fall.”
“Most people, as I think you will find, will call it murder, Captain Tanerton.”
“I fear they will.”
Mr. Freeman stood before Jack, waiting — at least it struck me so — to hear him add, “But I did not commit it” — or words to that effect. I waited too. Jack never spoke them: he remained silent and still. Since the past day his manner had changed. All the light-hearted ease had gone out of it; the sunny temperament seemed exchanged for one of thought and gloom.
Fine tidings to travel down to Timberdale!
On Wednesday, the day following this, the Squire stood at the gate of Crabb Cot after breakfast, looking this way and that. Dark clouds were chasing each other over the face of the sky, now obscuring the sun, now leaving it to shine out with intense fierceness.
“It won’t do to-day,” cried the Squire. “It’s too windy, Joe. The fish would not bite.”
“They’d bite fast enough,” said Tod, who had set his mind upon a day’s fishing, and wanted the Squire to go with him.
“Feel that gust, Joe! Why, if — halloa, here comes Letsom!”
Colonel Letsom was approaching at the pace of a steam-engine, his mild face longer than usual. Tod laughed.
The colonel, never remembering to say How d’ye do, or to shake hands, dragged two letters out of his pocket, all in a flurry.