Collected works of j s f.., p.167
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 167
“It’s true, Mark. He’s not to die. And he’s a young man, remember. He’ll be a free man yet,” replied Wroxdale.
Taffendale rose unsteadily to his feet.
“Let me get into the air,” he said. “And — leave me alone a minute or two, Wroxdale.”
There was a dismal little garden outside the room, and on a bench which stood against a blank wall Taffendale sat down and stared at the patch of grey sky, which was all that he could see of the outer world. His mind was growing calmer and clearer and he began to see the future. For him and Rhoda, as human minds linked together, there was no future; he knew, had known ever since the hour in which he found her on the edge of the quarry, that whatever might chance, Perris, dead or alive, would always stand between them. And now Perris was alive and was to live, and was to atone for his sin, and hers would be to wait until the years of that atonement were over, and then to give him what cheer she could in the days that would yet be left. And his owni — his, Taffendale’s?
“She shall never want for aught until he’s free,” he said to himself. “And when he’s free they shall have a new life. But from to-day she and I shall never meet again.”
Then he went within, and found Wroxdale, and gave him instructions as to Rhoda’s care, and himself went away. And as the wicket-gate closed upon him with a harsh clang, he lifted his head and drew a deep and long breath. He knew that he had passed out of a worse prison, a harder captivity, than any Abel Perris would ever know.
THE END
The King versus Wargrave (1915)
CONTENTS
PART THE FIRST. THE AFFAIR OF THE GREAT FOG.
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
PART THE SECOND. THE PATH OF THE TIGER
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
PART THE THIRD. FROM A LIVING TOMB
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
The first edition’s title page
PART THE FIRST. THE AFFAIR OF THE GREAT FOG.
CHAPTER I
THE CORONER’S COURT
IN THE WESTERN half of London in the angle made by the meeting of the Edgware and the Harrow Roads, there lies a small oasis of trees and lawns set in the midst of a collection of dull and uninteresting houses and buildings, and having in its own midst a church which, in the eyes of some not undiscerning folk, is the very ugliest of the many ugly churches of the Metropolis. Strangers who know nothing of the district probably pass through, and by, this small lung of London without so much as a second glance at it and its surroundings, considering it no more than they would consider similar small lungs — old churchyards converted into playgrounds, what were formerly suburban greens transformed into recreation grounds — which are scattered in out-of-the-way corners on each side of the Thames. Yet this tiny slice out of the great Metropolitan wilderness has its associations. It is Paddington Green, and half an eye can see that for a long, long time it has been given up to the purpose of a burial-ground, and again given back to the living, as a place for children to play in, and for folk who have no work to do, or are past all work, to lounge and rest in. But those who know, those who can see ghosts in the brightest sunshine as well as in the gloom of a winter’s night, are well aware that many ghosts walk abroad in Paddington Green. For many famous folk lived about the Green or sleep beneath its turf. There was a certain — or, one should say, a reputed — pretty Polly Perkins, who is associated with it in a popular and pleasing ballad, now almost forgotten save by old fogies who prefer the ditties of Old England to the new numbers of the modern music-hall. Pretty Polly Perkins may have been — probably was — a creature of the imagination. But Emma, Lady Hamilton, who figured so largely in Nelson’s life-story — and, incidentally, in the life stories of several other people — was no creature of anybody’s imagination, but a very real and substantial personage, and here, at a corner of the Green, she dwelt. Here too, with her, dwelt Greville, that Clerk of the Privy Council who turned his knowledge of many great and illustrious folk to such good account in that famous journal of his, which owed half its success to its stock of scandal. And here the immortal Sarah Siddons, greatest of all English actresses, had her link with Mother Earth and still keeps a tight grip upon it. In a reserved strip of lawn she sits, throned, her marble counterfeit presentment looking with regal glances upon the shabby shops of the Harrow Road. And further back, away in the corner of the old graveyard, now turned into a playground for children, whosoever will seek may easily find an old-fashioned tomb, set about with iron railings, wherein the great tragedienne was laid to rest. There are, one sees, few corners of London which do not possess some history, some association of their own.
In these days, there runs alongside this ancient Paddington burying-ground, wherein children from the adjacent mean streets swarm in their hundreds from morning to night, a row of thoroughly modern houses of red brick, provided with all the proper adjuncts of bow-windows and the right number of steps leading up to the front door. They are just the sort of houses in which peaceable and law-abiding citizens of what may be termed the middle middle-class rejoice to dwell. They form a quiet backwater off the two neighbouring busy and crowded streams of life and turmoil. Past them at no time can any body of traffic proceed, because the road which separates them from the children’s playground leads to nowhere — save to one place. Now and then the folk who live in these little red-brick houses perhaps see a curiously-shaped vehicle driven by gloomy-faced men go past their front doors; now and then they see men lounge up the little road, looking very much bored and dissatisfied, and as if they would uncommonly like to be somewhere else and engaged on any other business — which means their own; now and then they see a hearse, with its proper complement of undertaker’s men lumber up the road and presently lumber back, bringing something within it. And if you were to ask one of the residents in these houses what these things meant, you would be answered — probably with great indifference — that the men who walked along to the head of the street were honest Englishmen, summoned to sit as jurors on what the common people — not without some reason and justification — will still, even in the twentieth century, persist in calling the “Crowner’s ‘Quest,” and that if you follow any of them you will find the coroner’s court, and the mortuary, and all the rest of the sordid and sombre surroundings and trappings which attend murders and suicides, and sudden death, at the end of the gay little villas, with their bow-windows, and their smart blinds, and their pots, of many-coloured flowers on the window ledges. So does palpitating and vigorous Life look with scornful indifference upon Death.
But this particular coroner’s court, seen from without and within, is not by any means a gloomy and foreboding building — save for one particular chamber into which men pass unwillingly and leave thankfully, with such thoughts within them as may have been prompted by what they saw there. We have changed many things in our times, and the “crowner” no longer holds his quest under such circumstances as those in which he found himself when he summoned Poor Jo to tell what he knew of the Unknown who had been “werry kind” to him. The coroner and his twelve good men and true no longer — in London, at any rate — sit around a table deeply marked with beerstains, rub the soles of their boots on sawdust or sand, or breathe an atmosphere in which the fumes of bad tobacco are mingled with those of worse spirits. Here for instance, looking down on the grave of the immortal Sarah Siddons, is quite a pleasant building — it is even pleasant, architecturally, which is something to be thankful for. It does not seem to be particularly associated with Death; it might be a small library, or an institute, or a reading-room: its outer appearance is quite friendly and smiling. But there is not one of the little group of men waiting outside it on this sharp-aired autumn morning who is not very well aware that somewhere inside it there lies Something which he will presently have to view in accordance with his duty — Something at which he will be bound to look, with however perfunctory a glance, but which cannot return his glance; will, indeed, never look or glance at anybody or anything again in this world.
They are a curious collection of persons, these good men and true, who will presently be duly sworn to enquire into the death of somebody of whom so far they know nothing and have never heard. Some of them are obviously tradesmen of the small sort; they make, amongst themselves, a mild grumble at being drawn away from business, and express a hope that the affair will quickly be over — they will, at any rate, get half a crown for their trouble, which is better than getting nothing at all.
There are two or three young men who write themselves down clerks and shop-assistants as plainly as if they wrote it with pen. There are a few nondescripts, who may be lodging-house keepers; may be canvassers, little travellers; may, in short, be anything. And there is one man, who, from his dress and air, evidently belongs to the professional classes, and looks critically at his companions, seeming to speculate on what precise degree of intelligence is needed to qualify men for a serious enquiry.
There is a murmured conversation going on amongst this little group; snatches of it are overheard by one section and another; desultory and unimportant they all are, but they all get to the same point eventually.
“If it hadn’t been for this, I should have been up at Cricklewood now. I’d an important bit of business there this morning. However—”
“What is it this time? A murder or what? I haven’t heard of—”
“Last time I was kept here four hours. And what I say is—” —
“Well, I hope there’s going to be no horrors. They turn me over and over. And in my opinion, such oughtn’t to be talked about in public. Now, why couldn’t they—”
“I wonder if it is a murder? There was a reporter came up before me — I’ve seen him at a football match, so I expect—”
“Suicide cases are often as bad and worse than murders. I remember—”
There is suddenly a general looking at watches — on the part of those who carry such things — and an official, who is obviously the coroner’s officer, comes bustling out, papers in his hands. He consults a list.
“Now, gentlemen, if you’ll answer to your names.”
The gentlemen answer to their names — they might all be at school again, at roll-call time, they answer so obediently. The official appears to be satisfied.
“Might save some time, gentlemen, by choosing your foreman,” he suggests. “Time’s up, by a minute or two, but we shall start directly.”
The gentlemen regard each other as gentlemen do under such circumstances, doubtfully, timidly, furtively. Not more than three are known to each other: a great shyness falls upon them. Then, suddenly, and as with one consent, eleven pairs of eyes fix themselves upon the man who is presumably of a superior class. The eldest man in the group nods at him.
“I daresay this gentleman—” he suggests.
A murmur of distinct approval runs over the group.
“If he’ll be so kind,” says another. “I daresay the gentleman’s had more experience than most of us.”
The man appealed to bows his consent.
“Certainly, if you wish it, gentlemen,” he says.
And, evidently knowing what is next to be done, and with a brief exchange of words with the burly official, he removes his hat and leads the way into the building, his fellow-jurymen following behind in procession. One, young and irreverent, whispers that this reminds him of going to church.
So this is the place where the holder of one of the most ancient of English legal officers sits to make inquest, on behalf of his Majesty, into the manner and cause of death of some particular one of His Majesty’s lieges. Quite a comfortable, even cosy, well-appointed little court this — the foreman, who, after all, is really a professional man, compares it with certain other places of a similar nature which he has seen. There is actually panelling and stained glass about it. There is a desk, on a dais, for the coroner; there are two quite ecclesiastical-looking pews on his right hand for the jury. There is a witness-box which resembles a small pulpit. In the well of the court there is a table at which legal gentlemen, Press gentlemen, and other folk who have proper business may sit. And for the accommodation of such as come, having concern in the matter, there are more pew-like seats at the end of the court, and a bench running along the wall at the back of the witness-box and in these seats, and on this bench, there are quite a number of persons seated.
Having nothing to do until the coroner takes his seat, the jurymen occupy themselves by looking at these persons; some of the persons look at the jurymen. The foreman, speculating on matters in his own way, perceives that just beneath him is a well-known legal personage whom he knows to have come from the Treasury, and he argues from that, that whatever it is they are going to enquire into, it is something of a serious nature, or a Treasury solicitor would not be there. He perceives that there are other legal gentlemen there, too. He also sees two medical men. He sees a policeman. He regards with interest a couple of young men who are whispering together in the floor-space between the public seats and the table. One is a big, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed young fellow, attired in a rough Norfolk jacket and carrying a tweed cap in his hand; the other is a medium-sized, dark-eyed, smoothed-hair young man, very correctly dressed. The foreman, who has had some experience of the world, sets them both down as medical students. And in two quietly dressed men who move here and there and exchange whispers with many people, he recognizes two well-known detectives from Scotland Yard. Clearly this case is going to be out of the ordinary. Have those two or three darkeyed, olive-skinnned men and women, sitting in a group and staring around them with uneasy faces, anything to do with it?
“Silence!”
The coroner comes bustling into his desk between the two standard lights, amidst the reverence with which we still have the manners to treat our legal officials of high rank. He shuffles his papers; he tells the twelve probi et legales homines that their first duty is to choose a foreman from one of their number; the coroner’s officer informs the coroner that this is already done; the foreman indicates himself by a bow, though everybody knows that he is foreman because he sits next to the coroner. He and his eleven compeers dedicate themselves to their duty by taking the oath in batches; the spectators sit open-mouthed; hungrily expectant. The coroner regards the jury benignantly. “Your first duty, gentlemen, is to view the body!”
The twelve jurymen rise. They file out slowly and solemnly. They walk quietly. Some of them walk on the tips of their toes. What are they going to see?
CHAPTER II
THE DEAD MAN
MARSHALLED BY OFFICIALS, the jurymen cross the hall; they turn corners; they are, somehow, conscious that they are entering upon a scene, an atmosphere, which is totally different to that they have just left. No one speaks; each man seems to have suddenly developed an inclination to bow his head. But the foreman, walking alongside the coroner’s officer, whispers to him:
“What is this case?”
The coroner’s officer glances out of his eye-corners. He, too, whispers:
“That Austeritz Mansions affair the other night. Murder.”
The foreman comprehends then, and he starts a little, and his eyebrows go up. The affair of the Austerlitz Mansions — why, of course! But he cannot make any remark then, nor can anybody, for he and his company are arrived before what is in reality a wall of glass. They lift their heads and look, some peering over the shoulders of the others.
Behind the glass lies, slightly tilted up at the head, the shrouded body of a dead man.
There is, probably, more than probably, amongst these twelve men, no man who has not already looked upon death. Some have, perhaps, seen it in sad form, some in horrible form. One man of the twelve looks as if he had been a soldier; he may have seen death in the terrifying forms of the battlefield. But every man now gazing through the somewhat dull glass at the dead man lying within seems impressed. Yet why? The dead man into whose death they are presently to enquire is nothing to them; he is neither relation nor friend, acquaintance nor neighbour. But they linger longer than is usual, staring. One of them whispers, very softly, under his breath, but the silence is so profound in that sombre place that everybody hears what he says: “Uncommmon handsome old gentleman!”
This juryman, whoever he may be, has a conception of beauty. The dead man is handsome. It is easy to see, in spite of the shroud and the wrappings, that in life he was a tall man of fine figure. A snow-white beard hangs over his breast; the statuesque features above it, now the colour of fine ivory, are beautifully cut. Some hand has carefully drawn a black velvet skull-cap over the quiet head, but it does not hide it, only accentuates the high, broad forehead. And the foreman, watching keenly, notices the length and the slimness of the pallid fingers folded below the patriarchal beard.
There is another whisper heard somewhere amidst the watching group.
“Them Austerlitz Mansions affair this ’ere is. Stabbed through the ‘art, ’e was! Ain’t no signs of it now, of course. But that’s it — stabbed through the ‘art!”
