THE TILLING SHAW MYSTERY
"I will see Miss George now," assented Carrados. Parkinson retired andGreatorex looked round from his chair. The morning "clearing-up" wasstill in progress.
"Shall I go?" he inquired.
"Not unless the lady desires it. I don't know her at all."
The secretary was not unobservant and he had profited from hisassociation with Mr Carrados. Without more ado, he began to get hispapers quietly together.
The door opened and a girl of about twenty came eagerly yet halftimorously into the room. Her eyes for a moment swept Carrados with ananxious scrutiny. Then, with a slight shade of disappointment, shenoticed that they were not alone.
"I have come direct from Oakshire to see you, Mr Carrados," sheannounced, in a quick, nervous voice that was evidently the outcome of adesperate resolution to be brave and explicit. "The matter is adreadfully important one to me and I should very much prefer to tell itto you alone."
There was no need for Carrados to turn towards his secretary; thatdiscriminating young gentleman was already on his way. Miss Georgeflashed him a shy look of thanks and filled in the moment with a timidsurvey of the room.
"Is it something that you think I can help you with?"
"I had hoped so. I had heard in a roundabout way of your wonderfulpower--ought I to tell you how--does it matter?"
"Not in the least if it has nothing to do with the case," repliedCarrados.
"When this dreadful thing happened I instinctively thought of you. Ifelt sure that I ought to come and get you to help me at once. But I--Ihave very little money, Mr Carrados, only a few pounds, and I am not sochildish as not to know that very clever men require large fees. Thenwhen I got here my heart sank, for I saw at once from your house andposition that what seemed little even to me would be ridiculous toyou--that if you did help me it would be purely out of kindness of heartand generosity."
"Suppose you tell me what the circumstances are," suggested Carradoscautiously. Then, to afford an opening, he added: "You have recentlygone into mourning, I see."
"See!" exclaimed the girl almost sharply. "Then you are not blind?"
"Oh yes," he replied; "only I use the familiar expression, partly fromcustom, partly because it sounds unnecessarily pedantic to say, 'Ideduce from certain observations.'"
"I beg your pardon. I suppose I was startled not so much by theexpression as by your knowledge. I ought to have been prepared. But I amalready wasting your time and I came so determined to be business-like.I got a copy of the local paper on the way, because I thought that theaccount in it would be clearer to you than I could tell it. Shall I readit?"
"Please; if that was your intention."
"It is _The Stinbridge Herald_," explained the girl, taking a closelyfolded newspaper from the handbag which she carried. "Stinbridge is ournearest town--about six miles from Tilling Shaw, where we live. This isthe account:
"'MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY AT TILLING
"'WELL-KNOWN AGRICULTURALIST ATTEMPTS MURDER AND COMMITS SUICIDE
"'The districts of Great Tilling, Tilling Shaw and the immediate neighbourhood were thrown into a state of unusual excitement on Thursday last by the report of a tragedy in their midst such as has rarely marked the annals of our law-abiding country-side.
"'A _Herald_ representative was early on the scene, and his inquiries elucidated the fact that it was only too true that in this case rumour had not exaggerated the circumstances, rather the reverse indeed.
"'On the afternoon of the day in question, Mr Frank Whitmarsh, of High Barn, presented himself at Barony, the residence of his uncle, Mr William Whitmarsh, with the intention of seeing him in reference to a dispute that was pending between them. This is understood to be connected with an alleged trespass in pursuit of game, each relative claiming exclusive sporting rights over a piece of water known as Hunstan Mere.
"'On this occasion the elder gentleman was not at home and Mr Frank Whitmarsh, after waiting for some time, departed, leaving a message to the effect that he would return, and, according to one report, "have it out with Uncle William," later in the evening.
"'This resolution he unfortunately kept. Returning about eight-forty-five P.M. he found his uncle in and for some time the two men remained together in the dining-room. What actually passed between them has not yet transpired, but it is said that for half-an-hour there had been nothing to indicate to the other occupants of the house that anything unusual was in progress when suddenly two shots rang out in rapid succession. Mrs Lawrence, the housekeeper at Barony, and a servant were the soonest on the spot, and, conquering the natural terror that for a moment held them outside the now silent room, they summoned up courage to throw open the door and to enter. The first thing that met their eyes was the body of Mr Frank Whitmarsh lying on the floor almost at their feet. In their distressed state it was immediately assumed by the horrified women that he was dead, or at least seriously wounded, but a closer examination revealed the fact that the gentleman had experienced an almost miraculous escape. At the time of the tragedy he was wearing a large old-fashioned silver watch; and in this the bullet intended for his heart was found, literally embedded deep in the works. The second shot had, however, effected its purpose, for at the other side of the room, still seated at the table, was Mr William Whitmarsh, already quite dead, with a terrible wound in his head and the weapon, a large-bore revolver of obsolete pattern, lying at his feet.
"'Mr Frank Whitmarsh subsequently explained that the shock of the attack, and the dreadful appearance presented by his uncle when, immediately afterwards, he turned his hand against himself, must have caused him to faint.
"'Readers of _The Herald_ will join in our expression of sympathy for all members of the Whitmarsh family, and in our congratulations to Mr Frank Whitmarsh on his providential escape.
"'The inquest is fixed for Monday and it is anticipated that the funeral will take place on the following day.'"
"That is all," concluded Miss George.
"All that is in the paper," amended Carrados.
"It is the same everywhere--'attempted murder and suicide'--that is whateveryone accepts as a matter of course," went on the girl quickly. "Howdo they know that my father tried to kill Frank, or that he killedhimself? How can they know, Mr Carrados?"
"Your father, Miss George?"
"Yes. My name is Madeline Whitmarsh. At home everyone looks at me as ifI was an object of mingled pity and reproach. I thought that they mightknow the name here, so I gave the first that came into my head. I thinkit is a street I was directed along. Besides, I don't want it to beknown that I came to see you in any case."
"Why?"
Much of the girl's conscious nervousness had stiffened into an attitudeof unconscious hardness. Grief takes many forms, and whatever she hadbeen before, the tragic episode had left Miss Whitmarsh a little hurtand cynical.
"You are a man living in a town and can do as you like. I am a girlliving in the country and have therefore to do largely as my neighbourslike. For me to set up my opinion against popular feeling wouldconstitute no small offence; to question its justice would be held to beadding outrageous insult to enormous injury."
"So far I am unable to go beyond the newspaper account. On the face ofit, your father--with what provocation of course I do not know--didattempt this Mr Frank Whitmarsh's life and then take his own. You implyanother version. What reason have you?"
"That is the terrible part of it," exclaimed the girl, with risingdistress. "It was that which made me so afraid of coming to you,although I felt that I must, for I dreaded that when you asked me forproofs and I could give you none you would refuse to help me. We werenot even in time to hear him speak, and yet I know, _know_ with absoluteconviction, that my father would not have done this. Th
ere are thingsthat you cannot explain, Mr Carrados, and--well, there is an end of it."
Her voice sank to an absent-minded whisper.
"Everyone will condemn him now that he cannot defend himself, and yet hecould not even have had the revolver that was found at his feet."
"What is that?" demanded Carrados sharply. "Do you mean that?"
"Mean what?" she asked, with the blankness of one who has lost thethread of her own thoughts.
"What you said about the revolver--that your father could not have hadit?"
"The revolver?" she repeated half wearily; "oh yes. It was a heavy,old-fashioned affair. It had been lying in a drawer of his desk for morethan ten years because once a dog came into the orchard in broaddaylight light and worried half-a-dozen lambs before anyone could doanything."
"Yes, but why could he not have it on Thursday?"
"I noticed that it was gone. After Frank had left in the afternoon Iwent into the room where he had been waiting, to finish dusting. Thepaper says the dining-room, but it was really papa's business-room andno one else used it. Then when I was dusting the desk I saw that therevolver was no longer there."
"You had occasion to open the drawer?"
"It is really a very old bureau and none of the drawers fit closely.Dust lies on the ledges and you always have to open them a little todust properly. They were never kept locked."
"Possibly your father had taken the revolver with him."
"No. I had seen it there after he had gone. He rode to Stinbridgeimmediately after lunch and did not return until nearly eight. After heleft I went to dust his room. It was then that I saw it. I was doing thedesk when Frank knocked and interrupted me. That is how I came to bethere twice."
"But you said that you had no proof, Miss Whitmarsh," Carrados remindedher, with deep seriousness. "Do you not recognize the importance--thedeadly importance--that this one shred of evidence may assume?"
"Does it?" she replied simply. "I am afraid that I am rather dull justnow. All yesterday I was absolutely dazed; I could not do the mostordinary things. I found myself looking at the clock for minutestogether, yet absolutely incapable of grasping what time it was. In thesame way I know that it struck me as being funny about the revolver butI always had to give it up. It was as though everything was there butthings would not fit in."
"You are sure, absolutely sure, that you saw the revolver there afteryour father had left, and missed it before he returned?"
"Oh yes," said the girl quickly; "I remember realizing how curious itwas at the time. Besides there is something else. I so often had thingsto ask papa about when he was out of the house that I got into the wayof making little notes to remind me later. This morning I found on mydressing-table one that I had written on Thursday afternoon."
"About this weapon?"
"Yes; to ask him what could have become of it."
Carrados made a further inquiry, and this was Madeline Whitmarsh'saccount of affairs existing between the two branches of the family:
Until the time of William Whitmarsh, father of the William Whitmarshjust deceased, the properties of Barony and High Barn had formed oneestate, descending from a William senior to a William junior down amoderately long line of yeomen Whitmarshes. Through the influence of hissecond wife this William senior divided the property, leaving Baronywith its four hundred acres of good land to William junior, and HighBarn, with which went three hundred acres of poor land, to his otherson, father of the Frank implicated in the recent tragedy. But thoughdivided, the two farms still had one common link. Beneath their growingcorn and varied pasturage lay, it was generally admitted, a seam of coalat a depth and of a thickness that would render its working a payingventure. Even in William the Divider's time, when the idea was new,money in plenty would have been forthcoming, but he would have none ofit, and when he died his will contained a provision restraining eitherson from mining or exploiting his land for mineral without the consentand co-operation of the other.
This restriction became a legacy of hate. The brothers were onlyhalf-brothers and William having suffered unforgettably at the hands ofhis step-mother had old scores to pay off. Quite comfortably prosperouson his own rich farm, and quite satisfied with the excellent shootingand the congenial life, he had not the slightest desire to increase hiswealth. He had the old dour, peasant-like instinct to cling to the houseand the land of his forefathers. From this position no argument movedhim.
In the meanwhile, on the other side of the new boundary fence, Franksenior was growing poorer year by year. To his periodical entreatiesthat William would agree to shafts being sunk on High Barn he receivedan emphatic "Never in my time!" The poor man argued, besought,threatened and swore; the prosperous one shook his head and grinned.Carrados did not need to hear the local saying: "Half brothers: wholehaters; like the Whitmarshes," to read the situation.
"Of course I do not really understand the business part of it," saidMadeline, "and many people blamed poor papa, especially when Uncle Frankdrank himself to death. But I know that it was not mere obstinacy. Heloved the undisturbed, peaceful land just as it was, and his father hadwished it to remain the same. Collieries would bring swarms of strangemen into the neighbourhood, poachers and trespassers, he said. The smokeand dust would ruin the land for miles round and drive away the game,and in the end, if the work did not turn out profitable, we should allbe much worse off than before."
"Does the restriction lapse now; will Mr Frank junior be able to mine?"
"It will now lie with Frank and my brother William, just as it didbefore with their fathers. I should expect Willie to be quitefavourable. He is more--modern."
"You have not spoken of your brother."
"I have two. Bob, the younger, is in Mexico," she explained; "and Williein Canada with an engineering firm. They did not get on very well withpapa and they went away."
It did not require preternatural observation to deduce that the lateWilliam Whitmarsh had been "a little difficult."
"When Uncle Frank died, less than six months ago, Frank came back toHigh Barn from South Africa. He had been away about two years."
"Possibly he did not get on well with his father?"
Madeline smiled sadly.
"I am afraid that no two Whitmarsh men ever did get on well together,"she admitted.
"Your father and young Frank, for instance?"
"Their lands adjoin; there were always quarrels and disputes," shereplied. "Then Frank had his father's grievance over again."
"He wished to mine?"
"Yes. He told me that he had had experience of coal in Natal."
"There was no absolute ostracism between you then? You were to someextent friends?"
"Scarcely." She appeared to reflect. "Acquaintances.... We metoccasionally, of course, at people's houses."
"You did not visit High Barn?"
"Oh no."
"But there was no particular reason why you should not?"
"Why do you ask me that?" she demanded quickly, and in a tone that wasquite incompatible with the simple inquiry. Then, recognizing the fact,she added, with shamefaced penitence: "I beg your pardon, Mr Carrados. Iam afraid that my nerves have gone to pieces since Thursday. The mostordinary things affect me inexplicably."
"That is a common experience in such circumstances," said Carradosreassuringly. "Where were you at the time of the tragedy?"
"I was in my bedroom, which is rather high up, changing. I had drivendown to the village, to give an order, and had just returned. MrsLawrence told me that she had been afraid there might be quarrelling,but no one would ever have dreamed of this, and then came a loud shotand then, after a few seconds, another not so loud, and we rushed to thedoor--she and Mary first--and everything was absolutely still."
"A loud shot _and then another not so loud_?"
"Yes; I noticed that even at the time. I happened to speak to MrsLawrence of it afterwards and then she also remembered that it had beenlike that."
Afterwards Carrados often recalled with g
rim pleasantry that the twoabsolutely vital points in the fabric of circumstantial evidence thatwas to exonerate her father and fasten the guilt upon another haddropped from the girl's lips utterly by chance. But at the moment thefacts themselves monopolized his attention.
"You are not disappointed that I can tell you so little?" she askedtimidly.
"Scarcely," he replied. "A suicide who could not have had the weapon hedies by, a victim who is miraculously preserved by an opportune watch,and two shots from the same pistol that differ materially in volume, alltaken together do not admit of disappointment."
"I am very stupid," she said. "I do not seem able to follow things. Butyou will come and clear my father's name?"
"I will come," he replied. "Beyond that who shall prophesy?"
It had been arranged between them that the girl should return at once,while Carrados would travel down to Great Tilling late that sameafternoon and put up at the local fishing inn. In the evening he wouldcall at Barony, where Madeline would accept him as a distant connexionof the family. The arrangement was only for the benefit of the domesticsand any casual visitor who might be present, for there was nopossibility of a near relation being in attendance. Nor was there anyappreciable danger of either his name or person being recognized inthose parts, a consideration that seemed to have some weight with thegirl, for, more than once, she entreated him not to disclose to anyonehis real business there until he had arrived at a definite conclusion.
It was nine o'clock, but still just light enough to distinguish theprominent features of the landscape, when Carrados, accompanied byParkinson, reached Barony. The house, as described by the man-servant,was a substantial grey stone building, very plain, very square, veryexposed to the four winds. It had not even a porch to break the flatsurface, and here and there in the line of its three solid storeys awindow had been built up by some frugal, tax-evading Whitmarsh of ahundred years ago.
"Sombre enough," commented Carrados, "but the connexion betweenenvironment and crime is not yet capable of analysis. We get murders inbrand-new suburban villas and the virtues, light-heartedness andgood-fellowship, in moated granges. What should you say about it, eh,Parkinson?"
"I should say it was damp, sir," observed Parkinson, with his wisestair.
Madeline Whitmarsh herself opened the door. She took them down the longflagged hall to the dining-room, a cheerful enough apartment whateverits exterior might forebode.
"I am glad you have come now, Mr Carrados," she said hurriedly, when thedoor was closed. "Sergeant Brewster is here from Stinbridge policestation to make some arrangements for the inquest. It is to be held atthe schools here on Monday. He says that he must take the revolver withhim to produce. Do you want to see it before he goes?"
"I should like to," replied Carrados.
"Will you come into papa's room then? He is there."
The sergeant was at the table, making notes in his pocket-book, whenthey entered. An old-fashioned revolver lay before him.
"This gentleman has come a long way on hearing about poor papa," saidthe girl. "He would like to see the revolver before you take it, MrBrewster."
"Good-evening, sir," said Brewster. "It's a bad business that brings ushere."
Carrados "looked" round the room and returned the policeman's greeting.Madeline hesitated for a moment, and then, picking up the weapon, put itinto the blind man's hand.
"A bit out of date, sir," remarked Brewster, with a nod. "But in goodorder yet, I find."
"An early French make, I should say; one of Lefaucheux's probably," saidCarrados. "You have removed the cartridges?"
"Why, yes," admitted the sergeant, producing a matchbox from his pocket."They're pin-fire, you see, and I'm not too fond of carrying a thinglike that loaded in my pocket as I'm riding a young horse."
"Quite so," agreed Carrados, fingering the cartridges. "I wonder if youhappened to mark the order of these in the chambers?"
"That was scarcely necessary, sir. Two, together, had been fired; theother four had not."
"I once knew a case--possibly I read of it--where a pack of cards lay onthe floor. It was a murder case and the guilt or innocence of an accusedman depended on the relative positions of the fifty-first andfifty-second cards."
"I think you must have read of that, sir," replied Brewster,endeavouring to implicate first Miss Whitmarsh and then Parkinson in hismeaning smile. "However, this is straightforward enough."
"Then, of course, you have not thought it worth while to look foranything else?"
"I have noted all the facts that have any bearing on the case. Were youreferring to any particular point, sir?"
"I was only wondering," suggested Carrados, with apologetic mildness,"whether you, or anyone, had happened to find a wad lying aboutanywhere."
The sergeant stroked his well-kept moustache to hide the smile thatinsisted, however, on escaping through his eyes.
"Scarcely, sir," he replied, with fine irony. "Bulleted revolvercartridges contain no wad. You are thinking of a shot-gun, sir."
"Oh," said Carrados, bending over the spent cartridge he was examining,"that settles it, of course."
"I think so, sir," assented the sergeant, courteously but with a quietenjoyment of the situation. "Well, miss, I'll be getting back now. Ithink I have everything I want."
"You will excuse me a few minutes?" said Miss Whitmarsh, and the twocallers were left alone.
"Parkinson," said Carrados softly, as the door closed, "look round onthe floor. There is no wad lying within sight?"
"No, sir."
"Then take the lamp and look behind things. But if you find one don'tdisturb it."
For a minute strange and gigantic shadows chased one another across theceiling as Parkinson moved the table-lamp to and fro behind thefurniture. The man to whom blazing sunlight and the deepest shade wereas one sat with his eyes fixed tranquilly on the unseen wall before him.
"There is a little pellet of paper here behind the couch, sir,"announced Parkinson.
"Then put the lamp back."
Together they drew the cumbrous old piece of furniture from the wall andCarrados went behind. On hands and knees, with his face almost to thefloor, he appeared to be studying even the dust that lay there. Thenwith a light, unerring touch he carefully picked up the thing thatParkinson had found. Very gently he unrolled it, using his long,delicate fingers so skilfully that even at the end the particles of duststill clung here and there to the surface of the paper.
"What do you make of it, Parkinson?"
Parkinson submitted it to the judgment of a single sense.
"A cigarette-paper to all appearance, sir. I can't say it's a kind thatI've had experience of. It doesn't seem to have any distinct watermarkbut there is a half-inch of glossy paper along one edge."
"Amber-tipped. Yes?"
"Another edge is a little uneven; it appears to have been cut."
"This edge opposite the mouthpiece. Yes, yes."
"Patches are blackened, and little holes--like pinpricks--burnedthrough. In places it is scorched brown."
"Anything else?"
"I hope there is nothing I have failed to observe, sir," said Parkinson,after a pause.
Carrados's reply was a strangely irrelevant question.
"What is the ceiling made of?" he demanded.
"Oak boards, sir, with a heavy cross-beam."
"Are there any plaster figures about the room?"
"No, sir."
"Or anything at all that is whitewashed?"
"Nothing, sir."
Carrados raised the scrap of tissue paper to his nose again, and for thesecond time he touched it with his tongue.
"Very interesting, Parkinson," he remarked, and Parkinson's responsive"Yes, sir" was a model of discreet acquiescence.
"I am sorry that I had to leave you," said Miss Whitmarsh, returning,"but Mrs Lawrence is out and my father made a practice of offeringeveryone refreshment."
"Don't mention it," said Carrados. "We have not been idle. I came fr
omLondon to pick up a scrap of paper, lying on the floor of this room.Well, here it is." He rolled the tissue into a pellet again and held itbefore her eyes.
"The wad!" she exclaimed eagerly. "Oh, that proves that I was right?"
"Scarcely 'proves,' Miss Whitmarsh."
"But it shows that one of the shots was a blank charge, as you suggestedthis morning might have been the case."
"Hardly even that."
"What then?" she demanded, with her large dark eyes fixed in a curiousfascination on his inscrutable face.
"That behind the couch we have found this scrap of powder-singed paper."
There was a moment's silence. The girl turned away her head.
"I am afraid that I am a little disappointed," she murmured.
"Perhaps better now than later. I wished to warn you that we must proveevery inch of ground. Does your cousin Frank smoke cigarettes?"
"I cannot say, Mr Carrados. You see ... I knew so little of him."
"Quite so; there was just the chance. And your father?"
"He never did. He despised them."
"That is all I need ask you now. What time to-morrow shall I find youin, Miss Whitmarsh? It is Sunday, you remember."
"At any time. The curiosity I inspire doesn't tempt me to encounter myfriends, I can assure you," she replied, her face hardening at therecollection. "But ... Mr Carrados----"
"Yes?"
"The inquest is on Monday afternoon.... I had a sort of desperate faiththat you would be able to vindicate papa."
"By the time of the inquest, you mean?"
"Yes. Otherwise----"
"The verdict of a coroner's jury means nothing, Miss Whitmarsh. It isthe merest formality."
"It means a very great deal to me. It haunts and oppresses me. If theysay--if it goes out--that papa is guilty of the attempt of murder, andof suicide, I shall never raise my head again."
Carrados had no desire to prolong a futile discussion.
"Good-night," he said, holding out his hand.
"Good-night, Mr Carrados." She detained him a moment, her voice vibrantwith quiet feeling. "I already owe you more than I can ever hope toexpress. Your wonderful kindness----"
"A strange case," moralized Carrados, as they walked out of thequadrangular yard into the silent lane. "Instructive, but I more thanhalf wish I'd never heard of it."
"The young lady seems grateful, sir," Parkinson ventured to suggest.
"The young lady is the case, Parkinson," replied his master rathergrimly.
A few score yards farther on a swing gate gave access to a field-path,cutting off the corner that the high road made with the narrow lane.This was their way, but instead of following the brown line of troddenearth Carrados turned to the left and indicated the line of buildingsthat formed the back of one side of the quadrangle they had passedthrough.
"We will investigate here," he said. "Can you see a way in?"
Most of the buildings opened on to the yard, but at one end of the rangeParkinson discovered a door, secured only by a wooden latch. The placebeyond was impenetrably dark, but the sweet, dusty smell of hay, and,from beyond, the occasional click of a horse's shoe on stone and therattle of a head-stall chain through the manger ring told them that theywere in the chaff-pen at the back of the stable.
Carrados stretched out his hand and touched the wall with a singlefinger.
"We need go no farther," he remarked, and as they resumed their wayacross the field he took out a handkerchief to wipe the taste ofwhitewash off his tongue.
Madeline had spoken of the gradual decay of High Barn, but Carrados washardly prepared for the poverty-stricken desolation which Parkinsondescribed as they approached the homestead on the following afternoon.He had purposely selected a way that took them across many of youngWhitmarsh's ill-stocked fields, fields in which sedge and charlock wrotean indictment of neglected drains and half-hearted tillage. On the land,the gates and hedges had been broken and unkempt; the buildings, as theypassed through the farmyard, were empty and showed here and there askeletonry of bare rafters to the sky.
"Starved," commented the blind man, as he read the signs. "The thirstyowner and the hungry land: they couldn't both be fed."
Although it was afternoon the bolts and locks of the front door had tobe unfastened in answer to their knock. When at last the door was openeda shrivelled little old woman, rather wicked-looking in a comic way,and rather begrimed, stood there.
"Mr Frank Whitmarsh?" she replied to Carrados's polite inquiry; "oh yes,he lives here. Frank," she called down the passage, "you're wanted."
"What is it, mother?" responded a man's full, strong voice ratherlazily.
"Come and see!" and the old creature ogled Carrados with her beady eyesas though the situation constituted an excellent joke between them.
There was the sound of a chair being moved and at the end of the passagea tall man appeared in his shirt sleeves.
"I am a stranger to you," explained Carrados, "but I am staying at theBridge Inn and I heard of your wonderful escape on Thursday. I was sointerested that I have taken the liberty of coming across tocongratulate you on it."
"Oh, come in, come in," said Whitmarsh. "Yes ... it was a sort ofmiracle, wasn't it?"
He led the way back into the room he had come from, half kitchen, halfparlour. It at least had the virtue of an air of rude comfort, and someof the pewter and china that ornamented its mantelpiece and dresserwould have rejoiced a collector's heart.
"You find us a bit rough," apologized the young man, with something ofcontempt towards his surroundings. "We weren't expecting visitors."
"And I was hesitating to come because I thought that you would besurrounded by your friends."
This very ordinary remark seemed to afford Mrs Whitmarsh unboundedentertainment and for quite a number of seconds she was convulsed withsilent amusement at the idea.
"Shut up, mother," said her dutiful son. "Don't take any notice of her,"he remarked to his visitors, "she often goes on like that. The fact is,"he added, "we Whitmarshes aren't popular in these parts. Of course thatdoesn't trouble me; I've seen too much of things. And, taken as aboiling, the Whitmarshes deserve it."
"Ah, wait till you touch the coal, my boy, then you'll see," put in theold lady, with malicious triumph.
"I reckon we'll show them then, eh, mother?" he responded bumptiously."Perhaps you've heard of that, Mr----?"
"Carrados--Wynn Carrados. This is my man, Parkinson. I have to beattended because my sight has failed me. Yes, I had heard somethingabout coal. Providence seems to be on your side just now, Mr Whitmarsh.May I offer you a cigarette?"
"Thanks, I don't mind for once in a way."
"They're Turkish; quite innocuous, I believe."
"Oh, it isn't that. I can smoke cutty with any man, I reckon, but thepaper affects my lips. I make my own and use a sort of paper with an endthat doesn't stick."
"The paper is certainly a drawback sometimes," agreed Carrados. "I'vefound that. Might I try one of yours?"
They exchanged cigarettes and Whitmarsh returned to the subject of thetragedy.
"This has made a bit of a stir, I can tell you," he remarked, withcomplacency.
"I am sure it would. Well, it was the chief topic of conversation when Iwas in London."
"Is that a fact?" Avowedly indifferent to the opinion of his neighbours,even Whitmarsh was not proof against the pronouncement of themetropolis. "What do they say about it up there?"
"I should be inclined to think that the interest centres round theexplanation you will give at the inquest of the cause of the quarrel."
"There! What did I tell you?" exclaimed Mrs Whitmarsh.
"Be quiet, mother. That's easily answered, Mr Carrados. There was a bitof duck shooting that lay between our two places. But perhaps you sawthat in the papers?"
"Yes," admitted Carrados, "I saw that. Frankly, the reason seemedinadequate to so deadly a climax."
"What did I say?" demanded the irrepressible dame. "They won't believ
eit."
The young man cast a wrathful look in his mother's direction and turnedagain to the visitor.
"That's because you don't know Uncle William. _Any_ reason was goodenough for him to quarrel over. Here, let me give you an instance. WhenI went in on Thursday he was smoking a pipe. Well, after a bit I tookout a cigarette and lit it. I'm damned if he didn't turn round and starton me for that. How does that strike you for one of your own family, MrCarrados?"
"Unreasonable, I am bound to admit. I am afraid that I should have beeninclined to argue the point. What did you do, Mr Whitmarsh?"
"I hadn't gone there to quarrel," replied the young man, half sulky atthe recollection. "It was his house. I threw it into the fireplace."
"Very obliging," said Carrados. "But, if I may say so, it isn't so mucha matter of speculation why he should shoot you as why he should shoothimself."
"The gentleman seems friendly. Better ask his advice, Frank," put in theold woman in a penetrating whisper.
"Stow it, mother!" said Whitmarsh sharply. "Are you crazy? Her idea of acoroner's inquest," he explained to Carrados, with easy contempt, "isthat I am being tried for murder. As a matter of fact, Uncle William wasa very passionate man, and, like many of that kind, he frequently wentbeyond himself. I don't doubt that he was sure he'd killed me, for hewas a good shot and the force of the blow sent me backwards. He was avery proud man too, in a way--wouldn't stand correction or any kind ofauthority, and when he realized what he'd done and saw in a flash thathe would be tried and hanged for it, suicide seemed the easiest way outof his difficulties, I suppose."
"Yes; that sounds reasonable enough," admitted Carrados.
"Then you don't think there will be any trouble, sir?" insinuated MrsWhitmarsh anxiously.
Frank had already professed his indifference to local opinion, butCarrados was conscious that both of them hung rather breathlessly on tohis reply.
"Why, no," he declared weightily. "I should see no reason foranticipating any. Unless," he added thoughtfully, "some clever lawyerwas instructed to insist that there must be more in the dispute thanappears on the surface."
"Oh, them lawyers, them lawyers!" moaned the old lady in a panic. "Theycan make you say anything."
"They can't make me say anything." A cunning look came into hiscomplacent face. "And, besides, who's going to engage a lawyer?"
"The family of the deceased gentleman might wish to do so."
"Both of the sons are abroad and could not be back in time."
"But is there not a daughter here? I understood so."
Whitmarsh gave a short, unpleasant laugh and turned to look at hismother.
"Madeline won't. You may bet your bottom tikkie it's the last thing shewould want."
The little old creature gazed admiringly at her big showy son andresponded with an appreciative grimace that made her look morehumorously rat-like than ever.
"He! he! Missie won't," she tittered. "That would never do. He! he!"Wink succeeded nod and meaning smile until she relapsed into a state ofquietness; and Parkinson, who had been fascinated by her contortions,was unable to decide whether she was still laughing or had gone tosleep.
Carrados stayed a few more minutes and before they left he asked to seethe watch.
"A unique memento, Mr Whitmarsh," he remarked, examining it. "I shouldthink this would become a family heirloom."
"It's no good for anything else," said Whitmarsh practically. "A famoustime-keeper it was, too."
"The fingers are both gone."
"Yes; the glass was broken, of course, and they must have caught in thecloth of my pocket and ripped off."
"They naturally would; it was ten minutes past nine when the shot wasfired."
The young man thought and then nodded.
"About that," he agreed.
"Nearer than 'about,' if your watch was correct. Very interesting, MrWhitmarsh. I am glad to have seen the watch that saved your life."
Instead of returning to the inn Carrados directed Parkinson to take theroad to Barony. Madeline was at home, and from the sound of voices itappeared that she had other visitors, but she came out to Carrados atonce, and at his request took him into the empty dining-room whileParkinson stayed in the hall.
"Yes?" she said eagerly.
"I have come to tell you that I must throw up my brief," he said. "Thereis nothing more to be done and I return to town to-night."
"Oh!" she stammered helplessly. "I thought--I thought----"
"Your cousin did not abstract the revolver when he was here on Thursday,Miss Whitmarsh. He did not at his leisure fire a bullet into his ownwatch to make it appear, later in the day, as if he had been attacked.He did not reload the cartridge with a blank charge. He did notdeliberately shoot your father and then fire off the blank cartridge. He_was_ attacked and the newspaper version is substantially correct. Thewhole fabric so delicately suggested by inference and innuendo falls topieces."
"Then you desert me, Mr Carrados?" she said, in a low, bitter voice.
"I have seen the watch--the watch that saved Whitmarsh's life," hecontinued, unmoved. "It would save it again if necessary. It indicatesten minutes past nine--the time to a minute at which it is agreed theshot was fired. By what prescience was he to know at what exact minutehis opportunity would occur?"
"When I saw the watch on Thursday night the fingers were not there."
"They are not, but the shaft remains. It is of an old-fashioned patternand it will only take the fingers in one position. That positionindicates ten minutes past nine."
"Surely it would have been an easy matter to have altered thatafterwards?"
"In this case fate has been curiously systematic, Miss Whitmarsh. Thebullet that shattered the works has so locked the action that it willnot move a fraction this way or that."
"There is something more than this--something that I do not understand,"she persisted. "I think I have a right to know."
"Since you insist, there is. There is the wad of the blank cartridgethat you fired in the outbuilding."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, in the moment of startled undefence, "how doyou--how can you----"
"You must leave the conjurer his few tricks for effect. Of course younaturally would fire it where the precious pellet could not getlost--the paper you steamed off the cigarette that Whitmarsh threw intothe empty fire-grate; and of course the place must be some distance fromthe house or even that slight report might occasion remark."
"Yes," she confessed, in a sudden abandonment to weary indifference, "ithas been useless. I was a fool to set my cleverness against yours. Now,I suppose, Mr Carrados, you will have to hand me over to justice?
"Well; why don't you say something?" she demanded impatiently, as heoffered no comment.
"People frequently put me in this embarrassing position," he explaineddiffidently, "and throw the responsibility on me. Now a number of yearsago a large and stately building was set up in London and it wasbeautifully called 'The Royal Palace of Justice.' That was its officialname and that was what it was to be; but very soon people got into theway of calling it the Law Courts, and to-day, if you asked a Londoner todirect you to the Palace of Justice he would undoubtedly set you down asa religious maniac. You see my difficulty?"
"It is very strange," she said, intent upon her own reflections, "but Ido not feel a bit ashamed to you of what I have done. I do not even feelafraid to tell you all about it, although of some of that I mustcertainly be ashamed. Why is it?"
"Because I am blind?"
"Oh no," she replied very positively.
Carrados smiled at her decision but he did not seek to explain that whenhe could no longer see the faces of men the power was gradually given tohim of looking into their hearts, to which some in their turn--strong,free spirits--instinctively responded.
"There is such a thing as friendship at first sight," he suggested.
"Why, yes; like quite old friends," she agreed. "It is a pity that I hadno very trusty friend, since my mother died when I was quite lit
tle.Even my father has been--it is queer to think of it now--well, almost astranger to me really."
She looked at Carrados's serene and kindly face and smiled.
"It is a great relief to be able to talk like this, without thenecessity for lying," she remarked. "Did you know that I was engaged?"
"No; you had not told me that."
"Oh no, but you might have heard of it. He is a clergyman whom I metlast summer. But, of course, that is all over now."
"You have broken it off?"
"Circumstances have broken it off. The daughter of a man who had themisfortune to be murdered might just possibly be tolerated as a vicar'swife, but the daughter of a murderer and suicide--it is unthinkable! Yousee, the requirements for the office are largely social, Mr Carrados."
"Possibly your vicar may have other views."
"Oh, he isn't a vicar yet, but he is rather well-connected, so it isquite assured. And he would be dreadfully torn if the choice lay withhim. As it is, he will perhaps rather soon get over my absence. But, yousee, if we married he could never get over my presence; it would alwaysstand in the way of his preferment. I worked very hard to make itpossible, but it could not be."
"You were even prepared to send an innocent man to the gallows?"
"I think so, at one time," she admitted frankly. "But I scarcely thoughtit would come to that. There are so many well-meaning people who alwaysget up petitions.... No, as I stand here looking at myself over there, Ifeel that I couldn't quite have hanged Frank, no matter how much hedeserved it.... You are very shocked, Mr Carrados?"
"Well," admitted Carrados, with pleasant impartiality, "I have seen theyoung man, but the penalty, even with a reprieve, still seems to me alittle severe."
"Yet how do you know, even now, that he is, as you say, an innocentman?"
"I don't," was the prompt admission. "I only know, in this astonishingcase, that so far as my investigation goes, he did not murder yourfather by the act of his hand."
"Not according to your Law Courts?" she suggested. "But in the greatPalace of Justice?... Well, you shall judge."
She left his side, crossed the room, and stood by the square, uglywindow, looking out, but as blind as Carrados to the details of thesomnolent landscape.
"I met Frank for the first time after I was at all grown-up about threeyears ago, when I returned from boarding-school. I had not seen himsince I was a child, and I thought him very tall and manly. It seemed afrightfully romantic thing in the circumstances to meet himsecretly--of course my thoughts flew to Romeo and Juliet. We putimpassioned letters for one another in a hollow tree that stood on theboundary hedge. But presently I found out--gradually and incredulouslyat first and then one night with a sudden terrible certainty--that myideas of romance were not his.... I had what is called, I believe, anarrow escape. I was glad when he went abroad, for it was only myself-conceit that had suffered. I was never in love with him: only inlove with the idea of being in love with him.
"A few months ago Frank came back to High Barn. I tried never to meethim anywhere, but one day he overtook me in the lanes. He said that hehad thought a lot about me while he was away, and would I marry him. Itold him that it was impossible in any case, and, besides, I wasengaged. He coolly replied that he knew. I was dumbfounded and asked himwhat he meant.
"Then he took out a packet of my letters that he had kept somewhere allthe time. He insisted on reading parts of them up and telling me whatthis and that meant and what everyone would say it proved. I washorrified at the construction that seemed capable of being put on myfoolish but innocent gush. I called him a coward and a blackguard and amean cur and a sneaking cad and everything I could think of in one longbreath, until I found myself faint and sick with excitement and thenameless growing terror of it.
"He only laughed and told me to think it over, and then walked on,throwing the letters up into the air and catching them.
"It isn't worth while going into all the times he met and threatened me.I was to marry him or he would expose me. He would never allow me tomarry anyone else. And then finally he turned round and said that hedidn't really want to marry me at all; he only wanted to force father'sconsent to start mining and this had seemed the easiest way."
"That is what is called blackmail, Miss Whitmarsh; a word you don't seemto have applied to him. The punishment ranges up to penal servitude forlife in extreme cases."
"Yes, that is what it really was. He came on Thursday with the lettersin his pocket. That was his last threat when he could not move me. I canguess what happened. He read the letters and proposed a bargain. And myfather, who was a very passionate man, and very proud in certain ways,shot him as he thought, and then, in shame and in the madness ofdespair, took his own life.... Now, Mr Carrados, you were to be myjudge."
"I think," said the blind man, with a great pity in his voice, "that itwill be sufficient for you to come up for Judgment when called upon."
* * * * *
Three weeks later a registered letter bearing the Liverpool postmark wasdelivered at The Turrets. After he had read it Carrados put it away in aspecial drawer of his desk, and once or twice in after years, when hiswork seemed rather barren, he took it out and read it. This is what itcontained:
"DEAR MR CARRADOS,--Some time after you had left me that Sunday afternoon, a man came in the dark to the door and asked for me. I did not see his face for he kept in the shade, but his figure was not very unlike that of your servant Parkinson. A packet was put into my hands and he was gone without a word. From this I imagine that perhaps you did not leave quite as soon as you had intended.
"Thank you very much indeed for the letters. I was glad to have the miserable things, to drop them into the fire, and to see them pass utterly out of my own and everybody else's life. I wonder who else in the world would have done so much for a forlorn creature who just flashed across a few days of his busy life? and then I wonder who else could.
"But there is something else for which I thank you now far, far more, and that is for saving me from the blindness of my own passionate folly. When I look back on the abyss of meanness, treachery and guilt into which I would have wilfully cast myself, and been condemned to live in all my life, I can scarcely trust myself to write.
"I will not say that I do not suffer now. I think I shall for many years to come, but all the bitterness and I think all the hardness have been drawn out.
"You will see that I am writing from Liverpool. I have taken a second-class passage to Canada and we sail to-night. Willie, who returned to Barony last week, has lent me all the money I shall need until I find work. Do not be apprehensive. It is not with the vague uncertainty of an indifferent typist or a downtrodden governess that I go, but as an efficient domestic servant--a capable cook, housemaid or 'general,' as need be. It sounds rather incredible at first, does it not, but such things happen, and I shall get on very well.
"Good-bye, Mr Carrados; I shall remember you very often and very gratefully.
"MADELINE WHITMARSH.
"_P.S._--Yes, there is friendship at first sight."