Collected works of j s f.., p.852
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 852
The lawyer, who had bobbed up from his seat, answered firmly:
“With your permission, sir, I would like to put one or two supplementary questions to Mrs. Martenroyde.”
“But you have already had the opportunity of examining Mrs. Martenroyde, and,” glancing at his watch, “we’re all busy men, you know.”
“Yes, but I had not then heard the medical evidence. Counsel for the police elicited a statement from the witness which, taken in conjunction with the hypothesis put forward by the doctors, contains a suggestion most unfair to my client.”
“Be more explicit, please.”
“My client stated that she was entirely alone in the house at the time of the accident. The medical witnesses state that it is probable to the verge of certainty that death was caused by foul play.”
“Very well, then,” conceded the Coroner. “Mrs. Martenroyde, please!”
As soon as the enigmatical owner of Hannah’s Castle had taken the stand for the second time, Pybus questioned her thus:
“You said, Mrs. Martenroyde, that you were all alone in the house when deceased met with her accident. Can you be certain of this? Can you be certain that there was no door or window by which some third person might have entered?”
“I couldn’t say,” replied the witness, “that there mightn’t have been a window unsnibbed.”
“And you yourself were busy in another part of the house when the accident happened?”
“Ay, I was clattering among my dishes.”
“Clattering among your dishes. And in a different part of a large house. Thank you, Mrs. Martenroyde.”
Hannah resumed her seat, and the Coroner looked hard at Pybus, as if hoping and expecting that he would do the same. But the lawyer evidently wished there to be no possible misunderstanding as to the conclusion to be drawn from his client’s last statement.
“If you will bear with me for a moment longer, sir,” he said, “I will make my point quite clear to the jury. Even if conclusive medical evidence can be obtained that deceased was murdered, there still remains, as you can see from Mrs. Martenroyde’s statement, the possibility of the presence in the house of an unknown third party. He could have entered unheard while Mrs. Martenroyde was clattering in the kitchen, and he could have retired unheard while she was absorbed in ministering to the injured woman, fetching restoratives, going out into the street to find a messenger to send to the mill, and so on. In view of Dr. Ponsford’s statement that the wound bears a striking resemblance to those which struck down Mr. James Martenroyde, it would seem probable that the second ‘murder,’ should it ever by expert testimony be proved to be such, was committed by the same hand. Let us hope that if this poor old woman was murdered, the police will be more successful in bringing the murderer to justice than they have so far been in the case of James Martenroyde.”
“That is a most improper hope, Mr. Pybus,” commented the Coroner, “or, rather, a hope most improperly expressed. Excuse me, gentlemen of the jury, for a moment.”
Here he read a note which had been handed along to him and which I had noticed Beverley scribbling during Pybus’s last speech.
When he had absorbed its contents, the Coroner said:
“Pray be seated, Mr. Pybus. Should you wish to be heard further, I will grant you an opportunity later. For the moment I call Superintendent Beverley. You want to make a statement on behalf of the police, Superintendent?” he concluded, as my friend took the stand.
“I think it will be fairer to all concerned if I do so,” answered Beverley. “There was, as we agreed, sir, nothing to be gained by calling on the police, in the person of myself, as I did not reach the house until after the body had been moved and since the finding of the jury has to be made on medical evidence alone. But, now that Mr. Pybus has raised the subject, I wish to tell the jury that on the morning of the death of Mally Brewster I took the opportunity, while the two doctors were with the body and the three members of the Martenroyde family were talking to Mr. Eddison, of giving the house and grounds a necessarily hasty but sufficiently thorough examination.”
“And you made some discovery germane to Mr. Pybus’s suggestion of the presence of a third person?”
“I did. I saw no sign, mind you, of such a person’s entrance, presence, or exit, but I did satisfy myself that such entrance and exit would have been possible. One of the two French windows in the morning room, on the left side of the house as you face from the road, was slightly ajar, and within three feet of it runs a flagged path incapable of footprints and leading eventually both to the front gate and to the outbuildings at the back of the house. That is all, sir.”
“Thank you, Superintendent,” said the Coroner, and while Beverley returned to his place, he continued:
“Are you satisfied, Mr. Pybus? Or have you anything else to add which bears on the present case?”
“Only one thing, sir,” answered Pybus, as ungraciously as ever. “I wish to ask for an adjournment so that a third and expert opinion — that of Dr. Browning, of Leeds Medical School — may be obtained as to the cause of death.”
“What, three medical opinions, Mr. Pybus? This is most unusual.”
“It may be unusual,” maintained Pybus, “but I have the interests of my client to consider. We have had two medical opinions which might be considered distinctly prejudicial to her, but in reality I submit that they are really only one opinion, that of two friends, quite ordinary practitioners, if I may say so without offence, and seeing, I contend, with the same eyes.”
“Very well,” acquiesced the Coroner, after a considerable pause for cogitation. “It is a most unusual case, and I therefore adjourn this inquest for three weeks, in order that Dr. Browning may be consulted and that the police may take what steps they think fit.”
As Mrs. Martenroyde left the schoolroom and, escorted on each side by one of her sons, embarked upon her return to the Mill House, black looks and harsh murmurs accompanied her. And as she receded, these murmurs swelled into a sort of muffled angry roar, as if to keep pace with her.
The inquest had been adjourned, but the mill hands of Todmanhawe were recording their verdict.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE GUILTY WIFE
ON THE EVENING after the inquest, perhaps the strangest and least satisfactory function of its kind in all my experience, I was sitting with Stephen Eddison and discussing the events of the morning above a bright fire. We had planned an early bed, but lingered to talk over the evidence of the two doctors.
“I suppose it’s a foregone conclusion that Dr. Browning will agree with Ponsford and Reeves-Norton?” I asked.
“I should say so,” answered Eddison, “though if the case ever comes to trial he might leave a lawyer’s loophole as Reeves-Norton did. But it never will. The Coroner’s verdict is sure to be murder against some person or persons unknown, and the police will continue to investigate.”
“The spectators made it pretty clear what they thought.”
“And Pybus had the sense to face that issue and to show that there was no legal case against his client. Poor Mally! I wish that picturesque cap she always wore had been substantial enough to deaden the blow!”
So saying, Eddison drew his chair closer to the blaze and relighted his pipe. Then he continued:
“Yes. It’s sad enough, after thirty years. I don’t know which murder you are trying to prove on Hannah, but you must admit that thirty years of the mistress-servant relation presumes, to an unbiased audience at least, a mutual devotion telling strongly against the possibility of her mistress brutally murdering Mally.”
“Not if Hannah’s own life were in danger,” I argued. “And why does Mally run away? Because she can’t stand seeing James’s ghost every night. What is that but her own way of saying that James’s murder is somehow connected with the Mill House? Or, if she really thought she saw it, what is that but the reaction of guilty knowledge?”
“Two murders laid at Hannah’s door? And not an atom of proof for either. And I can’t say I’m sorry. I’ve known Hannah for thirty years. She has been upright, though never generous; done her duty — though never more than her duty — according to her lights; was an adoring sister and has been a devoted mother.”
“Well,” said I, “you can’t expect me to sympathize with your point of view. I have only known Hannah for a week or two, and in that time I have seen her try to take possession of her benefactor’s house before he was buried, and with an evident enjoyment of the good fortune she thought his death had brought her that was simply revolting. Also, and still more revolting, I have heard her blackguard him because it turned out he had not left her his money, and I’ve seen her give an exhibition of temper which had all the violence of a fishwife’s with none of its saving geniality.”
“You must remember that she never forgave James for jilting Deborah,” countered Eddison. “Still, it was a disgusting exhibition and, I would add, proof of her innocence of any complicity in James’s death, were it not that her temper is getting less controllable with age.”
“Has she always been something like that?” I asked.
Eddison took a few meditative puffs before replying and then answered judicially: “I must say she has always been liable to outbursts of rage which were abnormal in her social position. There’s a queer streak in the family. Deborah was a strange girl. Sometimes she would be quite charming to meet, sometimes you could get neither word nor smile from her. A melancholy type, but of course that might have been her disappointment over James. Sugden is like his mother without her strength. He has got the worst of both parents, the mother’s temper and the father’s weakness. As a child he would fall into black tempers that made him ill. It was dangerous to his health to cross him — and he was the youngest — so he never learned self-control. When he is suddenly transplanted from our dead-alive Todmanhawe to the lights of London, he goes right off the hooks, as they say. But what was James to do? Ramsden would have been hopeless in London and was needed at the mill. Sugden had address, smartness, and readiness of speech.”
“Ramsden seems a thoroughly good chap,” I ventured.
“Ramsden’s pure Martenroyde,” he answered; “little of James’s initiative, but all his character.”
Eddison had just adjured me to fill up my glass before turning in and we were both in process of concocting night-caps when Beverley was announced.
“Come in, come in, Superintendent,” said Eddison heartily. “We were just going to turn in early, having exhausted the topic of the inquest, but no doubt you have some fresh thoughts for us.”
“I have come to be comforted,” growled Beverley, approaching the fire and warming his hands at it. “It’s a rough night. Half a gale, and with wet in it.”
“Then make yourself comfortable,” urged Eddison, pointing to the third easy chair, “and join us in a drink. Say when!”
“Never!” said Beverley, as he lapsed into the chair with a grunt of dissatisfaction, but his eye brightened somewhat when Eddison handed him a hospitably dark whisky and soda.
“I don’t suppose you found the inquest too exhilarating?” I asked.
“No,” replied the Superintendent. “Yet what else could I expect? But that’s not to say I’m pleased. An adjourned inquest and two murders on my hands, and not a clue to either — at least, not one that comes near to justifying another warrant!”
“But you have your suspicions?”
“Oh, I agree with the spectators. It was pretty clear what they thought. Two murders in one family, so to speak, and done the same way. I can’t credit there’s no connection.”
“But,” objected Eddison, “remember that the mill has it in for Mrs. Martenroyde, and we’re all mill-folk more or less round here.”
“May be. But you can’t deny that everything points to her. And that stick she carries round is just the thing to do the damage in both cases.”
Not for the first time I felt supremely uncomfortable. It was all very well for Eddison to take a typical lawyer’s pleasure in withholding Ann Kitteridge’s evidence from the police, but I, though I was equally in honour bound, hated to “hold out,” as the Americans say, on a brother detective.
“It looks as if you’d have to call in the Yard,” said Eddison at length.
“And they’ll be able to do nothing. And they’ll put their failure down to being called in when the scent’s cold. I know.”
“And you’ll all have to fall back on the homicidal maniac,” chuckled our host, “our dear old friend who leaves no trace of his presence, the murderous lunatic at large. He’s saved the face of law and order before now.”
“Oh, don’t be too funny!” grumbled poor Beverley. “You see my position. My only hope is to get into the Mill House again and see as much of the Mill House people as possible. If there’s any clue, it’s there. If I could get those three talking off their guard, they might drop something that would give me a lead. Even if none of them committed either of the murders, I swear they know something. But with things left as they are, how am I going to get in? Until Dr. Browning has seen the body, I can do nothing.”
He rose impatiently from his chair, went over to the window, drew back the curtains a little, and shivered. “It’s a hell of a night, but I suppose I must get out into it.” He raised the sash a few inches, and the wind howled into the room.
“Shut down the window,” begged Eddison, “and get your coat on, if you must go. Camberwell and I will see you to your car. I hope there’s nothing amiss with your headlights. You’ll have a dark run into Shipton.”
Beverley was in the act of shutting down the window when he paused. Then he threw it wide open and leaned out into the rough wind. Finally he turned back into the room with an exclamation of annoyance.
“It sounds as if you were due for a visitor before you get your beauty sleep,” he said. “Someone has just run up to your front door in a mighty excitement, judging by the rumpus she’s making. Let’s hope it isn’t Mrs. John and her walking-stick. I, for one, don’t feel equal to her tonight!”
Eddison looked at me apologetically. “I wonder who it can be,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It’s only just nine, but our talk by the fire has made me so drowsy that no visitor will be very welcome, especially an agitated female.”
Even as he spoke, Mrs. Heggus burst headlong into the room, without waiting for the formality of announcement, a wild figure blown to us from a wild night. Her mass of hair was disarranged and falling about her shoulders. She was breathing hard and seemed on the verge of a collapse.
“Who’s here?” she called in a loud voice. “Who’s here that will help a poor woman to her rights? Happen there’s be someone at least to lend me a hand in my troubles.”
She stood staring at the three of us, swaying lightly on her feet. Eddison approached her and took her hand. He spoke solicitously to her, but she flung him off.
“Nay, nay — I’m put off no longer with fine soft talk. It’s doings I want.” She rushed out the words, throwing the hair back impatiently from her forehead and making an imploring gesture. “It’s a man I want who will see me right after others have cheated me. Dakin’s no use. Poor Dakin’s no use! And God forgive me for my ways to him!”
At these words, and to our consternation, she burst into a violent storm of weeping, calling alternately on God and her husband. We gathered round her in dismay as she flung herself into a chair and rocked to and fro in an abandonment of misery. Eddison spoke soothingly to her and motioned us to leave her to him. So Beverley and I retired to the doorway and conferred in whispers, while the woman gradually took command of herself again. The Superintendent told me in a low voice that he thought he had better stay on awhile since this outburst seemed to promise something for him. I replied that apparently his summing up of his Yorkshire friends was correct — they held out longer than most people, but when they did let themselves go, it was without restraint.
“And I may profit by that now!” he whispered grimly. “I’ll get something out of this before we’re done, you’ll see.”
“Now then, Mrs. Heggus; now then, Mira,” Eddison was saying; “are you able to tell us what’s troubling you? You know who these two gentlemen are — Superintendent Beverley and Mr. Camberwell, from London. They called on you the other day, and you took them up to see Prissy Mallison, you mind. Either will help you if he can; and you know well that you can count on me as an old friend to yourself and your husband.”
At this mention of Dakin Heggus, Mira seemed likely to start weeping afresh, but a glass from the ever hospitable decanter and the counsels of her host brought back the flash to her eye and calmed her rapid breathing. She sprang to her feet when she had drained her glass, and addressed us all:
“It’s sick I am of the Mill House folk — sick to death of ’em! What do they want meddling and muddling and spoiling my life? I was an honest God-fearing woman till Sugden Martenroyde crossed my path, bad success to him! Then he made me wish my poor husband dead— ‘our’ Sugden, with his grand cunning speech and his smart London ways. God may never forgive me for that; but it’s deeds I want now; there’s no more time left for weeping. I’ll have vengeance on them all from now on, I will.”
And then, after tactful solicitation from the three of us, she reseated herself and recited a page of past history.
CHAPTER XXIV. PAST HISTORY
MIRA SPOKE EARNESTLY, as if to let no detail go unuttered now that she had made up her mind to tell her story; and we listened intently.
Stephen Eddison lay back and bit at his pipe; Beverley sat upright in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the narrator’s face, a dog ready to bristle to attention at any scent that might interest the police. I lazed and admired the expressions which flitted across Mira’s handsome face.
She told of the beginning of a sorrowful epoch in the lives of her husband and herself, when Dakin was first attacked by the fatal malady that now had him fast in its grip. She had started to chafe at the enforced attendance, the ever strengthening tie of a helpless husband. She asked us to imagine how the long days irked her with no break in their monotony. She pleaded that we should picture her horror at the thought that there would be no release for her as long as her husband lived — her, a young and handsome woman, but two years wedded.
