The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death."
If there had been any traces of a struggle, I had not noticed them whenI came to the edge of the pond. There may have been marks as if a foothad slipped. I was not thinking of evidence when I looked into thewater.
There were marks enough when the police came to investigate, but theywere the marks made by a twelve-stone man in hobnail boots, who hadscrambled into, and out of, the pond. As the inspector said, it was notworth while wasting any time in looking for earlier traces of footstepsbelow those marks.
Nor were there any signs of violence on the body. It was in no waydisfigured, save by the action of the water, in which it had lain forperhaps eighteen hours.
There was, indeed, only one point of any significance from the jury'spoint of view, and that they put on one side, if they considered it atall; the body was pressed into the mud.
The Coroner asked a few questions about this fact.
Was the mud very soft? Yes, very soft, liquid on top.
How was the body lying? Face downwards.
What part of the body was deepest in the mud? The chest. The witnesssaid he had hard work to get the upper part of the body released; thehead was free, but the mud held the rest. "The mooad soocked like," wasthe expressive phrase of the witness.
The Coroner passed on to other things. Had any one a spite against thechild? and such futilities. Only once more did he revert to thatsolitary significant fact. "Would it be possible," he asked of theabashed and self-conscious labourer, "would it be possible for the bodyto have worked its way down into the soft mud as you have described itto have been found?"
"We-el," said the witness, "'twas in the stacky mooad, 'twas through thesarft stoof."
"But this soft mud would suck any solid body down, would it not?"persisted the Coroner.
And the witness recalled the case of a duck that had been sucked intothe same soft pond mud the summer before, and cited the instance. Heforgot to add that on that occasion the mud had not been under water.
The Coroner accepted the instance. There can be no question that both heand the jury were anxious to accept the easier explanation.
II
But I know perfectly well that the Wonder did not fall into the pond byaccident.
I should have known, even if that conclusive evidence with regard to hisbeing pushed into the mud had never come to light.
He may have stood by the ash-tree and looked into the water, but hewould never have fallen. He was too perfectly controlled; and, with allhis apparent abstraction, no one was ever more alive to the detail ofhis surroundings. He and I have walked together perforce in manyslippery places, but I have never known him to fall or even begin tolose his balance, whereas I have gone down many times.
Yes; I know that he was pushed into the pond, and I know that he washeld down in the mud, most probably by the aid of that ash stick I hadheld. But it was not for me to throw suspicion on any one at thatinquest, and I preferred to keep my thoughts and my inferences tomyself. I should have done so, even if I had been in possession ofstronger evidence.
I hope that it was the Harrison idiot who was to blame. He was notdangerous in the ordinary sense, but he might quite well have done thething in play--as he understood it. Only I cannot quite understand hispushing the body down after it fell. That seems to arguevindictiveness--and a logic which I can hardly attribute to the idiot.Still, who can tell what went on in the distorted mind of that poorcreature? He is reported to have rescued the dead body of a rabbit fromthe undergrowth on one occasion, and to have blubbered when he could notbring it back to life.
There is but one other person who could have been implicated, and Ihesitate to name him in this place. Yet one remembers what terrific actsof misapplied courage and ferocious brutality the fanatics of historyhave been capable of performing when their creed and their authorityhave been set at naught.
III
Ellen Mary never recovered her sanity. She died a few weeks ago in theCounty Asylum. I hear that her husband attended the funeral. When shelost her belief in the supernal wisdom and power of her god, her worldmust have fallen about her. The thing she had imagined to be solid,real, everlasting, had proved to be friable and destructible like allother human building.
IV
The Wonder is buried in Chilborough churchyard.
You may find the place by its proximity to the great marble mausoleumerected over the remains of Sir Edward Bigg, the well-known brewer andphilanthropist.
The grave of Victor Stott is marked by a small stone, some six incheshigh, which is designed to catch the foot rather than the eye of theseeker.
The stone bears the initials "V. S.," and a date--no more.
V
I saw the Wonder before he was buried.
I went up into the little bedroom and looked at him in his tiny coffin.
I was no longer afraid of him. His power over me was dissipated. He wasno greater and no less than any other dead thing.
It was the same with every one. He had become that "poor little boy ofMrs. Stott's." No one spoke of him with respect now. No one seemed toremember that he had been in any way different from other "poor littlefellows" who had died an untimely death.
One thing did strike me as curious. The idiot, the one person who hadnever feared him living, had feared him horribly when he was dead....