Collected works of j s f.., p.889
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 889
But the judge was soon to learn that the folk who live amongst the finer things of Nature are as much concerned with personalities as the people of towns. He sat in a shadowed corner of the little parlour that night and watched and listened. Men came and went — men passing along the dale who stayed a few minutes, men who sat down for half an hour over a pint of ale, men who stayed longer, sitting in accustomed places. And there was but one topic of conversation — the result of the local murder case. Also there was but one opinion upon it — James Garth had undoubtedly been shot by Michael Cruddas.
But there was a difference of opinion as to the state of Michael Cruddas’ mind when the murder took place. The judge, although unused to the north country dialect, easily made out what the difference was. One set of critics held that Michael Cruddas shot his victim in cold blood; the other set held that he was drunk when he did the deed, and never knew that he had done it. And they were arguing these differences, each side supporting its arguments by recalling interesting characteristics in Michael Cruddas, when a young man strode into the place, at sight of whom everybody became suddenly silent.
The observant watcher in the shadowy corner, seeing the effect which the newcomer’s entrance had produced, looked at him with interest as he went up to the bar and demanded a glass of ale. He saw a tall, lumpish-looking fellow, heavy of face, cold of eye. His whole air and attitude showed a species of surly shyness, and when he looked around with a general nod at the company his expression was furtive and almost suspicious. He was evidently in no mood for conversation, and he flushed awkwardly when one of the men sitting near the bar addressed him.
“Been a fair day for t’ time o’ year, Mr. Cruddas,” he observed.
The newcomer turned away sullenly.
“Reight enough,” he muttered.
He drank off his ale and strode quickly out without further word, and the men looked at each other.
“Allus short o’ speech, is Marshall Cruddas,” observed one. “Ye nivver can get much out of him.”
“Happen he feels that a time like this it’s best to say naught,” remarked another man. “It’s none a pleasant reflection to know that a relative’s goin’ to be hanged by t’ neck till he’s dead, now, is it?”
The landlord, who was leaning over the bar in his shirt sleeves, smiled and scratched his elbows.
“Well, it’s an old saying that it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” he remarked. “It’s a bad thing for Michael Cruddas to come under t’ hangman’s hands, so to speak, but it’s a good thing for Marshall Cruddas yonder. Marshall’ll come in for all ‘at Michael leaves.”
There was a murmur of assent from the small company.
“Ay, that’s right enough, that is,” said an elderly man. “Land, at any rate. Marshall’s all the man-relative that Michael’s got. Oh, ay, he’ll come in for a nice thing, will Marshall!”
“So you see ‘at that old saying’s right,” observed the landlord. “T’ wind’s blowin’ bad for Michael — he’ll be hanged — but good for Marshall — he’ll get what Michael leaves.”
Then ten o’clock struck, and the two or three late sitters clumped away, and the landlord, having fastened the front door, returned to the parlour and looked at his guest. He was obviously inclined for a chat.
“Yon young feller that was in a bit since,” he said, “is cousin to him that was sentenced to death at th’ ‘sizes yesterday. As them men were saying, he’ll come in for all ‘at t’ poor chap leaves.”
“And that,” asked the judge, “is it much?”
“Niceish thing,” answered the landlord. He supplied himself with a drink, and began to fill his pipe. “Michael’s none badly off. There’s happen 150 acres of land ‘at’s been in the Cruddas family many a hundred year; it’s their own freehold, so it’s bound to come to Marshall — him that was in just now. Then I should think Michael has money put by. He’s allus done well, and, though he drank heavy of late over this love affair, he wasn’t a waster or a spender. And there’s nobody much for it but Marshall, ‘ceptin’ an old aunt or two ‘at he might leave a few pounds for.”
“Were the two cousins on friendly terms?” asked the judge.
“Oh, they were right enough with each other!” replied the landlord. “Neither of ’em the sort for makin’ much display o’ family feelin’, as you might say, but still the sort to reckon ‘at blood’s thicker than water.”
“Live together?” inquired the judge.
“Nay, they didn’t,” said the landlord, “though single men both. No; Michael, his place is High Gill. You can see it from your bedroom window. Marshall, he runs a mill lower down in the valley. He’d be on his way home, would Marshall, when he called in just now.”
“I read this case in the newspaper this morning,” remarked the judge. “I suppose there is no doubt in the opinion of the people hereabouts that Michael was guilty?”
“None!” answered the landlord, with decision. “None whatever! But, as you heard to-night, there’s some hold that Michael never knew he’d done it. Did it when he was drunk, they say.”
“Is that possible?” said the judge, more to himself than his companion. “Could he really have shot this man and never known anything of it?”
“In my opinion he could,” said the landlord calmly, “for I’ve known men do some queer things when they were in drink and have no recollection of doin’ them when they grew sober. Anyway, they’ve found Michael guilty, and I reckon he’ll hang, and Marshall yonder’ll step into his shoes.”
“There was a girl mentioned in the case,” said the judge.
The landlord nodded, and then shook his head.
“Avice Thormthwaite,” he said. “Ay, just so! There gen’ally is a woman i’ them cases, mister, isn’t there?”
“What about this woman?” asked the judge.
“Why, she played fast and she played loose,” answered the landlord. “She’s a beauty — no denyin’ that — but she’s skittish. First she was on with Michael Cruddas, and then with Jim Garth; then she’d change about again. What drove Michael mad in the end was that he got it into his head that Jim Garth had tricked him. But what is likely is that what trickery was done was done by her. And,” concluded the landlord, dropping his voice as he glanced round at his kitchen door, behind which sat his women folk— “and they do say — some of ’em — that Avice was tricking both of ’em, and that, instead of quarrelling over her, they’d ha’ done well to ha’ shaken hands and had no more to do wi’ her. See, mister?”
“I see,” said the judge.
Then he took his candle and went to bed; and as the murmur of the stream soothed him to sleep, he mused on the fact that when Michael Cruddas dropped into eternity through that gruesome hole in the floor of the scaffold, Marshall Cruddas would succeed to a very desirable bit of property, which would be none the less valuable because it had belonged to a murderer.
“That is,” murmured the judge, sleepily— “that is, if Michael really is a murderer. Now, I wonder—”
But then sleep overcame him.
CHAPTER III
NEXT MORNING FOUND Mr. Justice Machin, in his character of holiday-maker, exploring in the neighbourhood of High Gill. He came across an ancient woodman, who showed him where James Garth’s body was found, and he was able to trace for himself all the details of the scene on which the sordid tragedy was enacted. And as he looked about him he formed a new opinion — that in cases like this it would be an excellent thing if judge and jury took the trouble to visit the scene of a crime and make a study of its geography.
The woodman was inclined to be talkative; it was seldom that he had a chance of playing the part of showman. From a slight eminence in the road on which the judge met him, he pointed out one place after another.
“Ay,” he said, indicating a lonely farmstead in a deep dell just below, “yon’s High Gill Farm, as belongs to Michael Cruddas, him as is to die for murderin’ Jim Garth. Ye see yon little clump o’ trees, master — there a’ t’ end o’ the farm garden? That’s where they say Michael laid i’ wait to shoot him; that’s where t’ body was found, and that there cartridge that the lawyers made so much fuss about. Ye see, Jim Garth he were bound to pass that garden end on his way home — yon’s his house, up t’ hillside there. And yon cottage as ye see among t’ trees in t’ end o’ this valley, that’s where the lass lives ‘at they quarrelled over — Avice Thormthwaite they call her.”
“Is her father a farmer, too?” asked the judge.
The woodman laughed drily.
“It ‘ud take a cleverer man nor me to tell you what Thormthwaite is, master,” he answered. “He reckons to be a game watcher, but there’s them as would say he poaches a great deal more nor what he preserves. Queer lot is them Thormthwaites.”
The judge made no reply to this. He was examining the landscape.
“Which is the way to the market town — Highdale?” he suddenly asked.
The woodman raised his hand and pointed.
“Go down this lane to t’ corner of Cruddas’ garden — where I told yer Jim Garth was shot,” he said. “Turn there to your left and go straight over t’ shoulder o’ yon hill — ye’ll see Highdale then. That,” he added, “is t’ way ‘at Jim Garth walked to his death — he were coming back fro’ market when Cruddas laid i’ wait for him wi’ t’ gun.”
Mr. Justice Machin gave his informant a shilling, and set out in the direction indicated. He paused a moment at the clump of trees by which Garth had met his death. Certainly that was a likely place for a murder. The trees made good cover, and the murderer could easily slip away amongst them when the deed was done. And the judge was conjuring up the scene for his own benefit when the hasp of a gate snapped close by, and out of the farm garden came two people in such close converse that they did not see the stranger until they were close upon him.
One of these two was the man whom the judge had seen in the little inn on the previous evening — Marshall Cruddas. The other was a tall, finely-developed, black-haired, black-eyed, bold-looking young woman, whose beauty blazed out in those Arcadian surroundings like a peony in a garden of quiet colour. Both looked up sharply as the stranger moved; Marshall Cruddas, recognising him as the visitor at the inn, dropped his eye and turned his head. The girl stared the judge through and through, and when he had passed her for some distance and purposely glanced back, she was still staring.
“Avice Thormthwaite, of course,” murmured the judge, as he walked leisurely forward. “A bold beauty.”
He went on his way, lounging about as a holiday-maker would, until he topped the shoulder of the hill pointed out by the woodman. There, two miles off, he saw Highdale, a cluster of grey houses around a square-towered church. But Mr. Justice Machin had no intention of going into the little town; the only people who would be likely to recognise him lived there. They were not many — a police official or two, a solicitor or two, two or three witnesses who had heard Michael Cruddas use the threatening words. Still, the judge had an object in his walk. In the map of the district which had been laid before him at the trial, there was marked, on the roadside leading from Highdale to High Gill, an inn called the Pigeon Pie. And he had a certain notion concerning that inn, and he went forward until he found it, a queer, half ramshackle old place standing lonely amidst pine and fir; and he went in and asked for a glass of ale from a landlord who had obviously little to do.
It was an easy thing to lure this man into talking of the murder; he, in fact, was reading of it in a day-old newspaper when the judge entered the house.
“I suppose,” said the caller, “that you know all the parties concerned in this affair?”
The landlord shook his head with the knowingness of the man who believes himself unusually conversant with things.
“Know ’em, mister? Ay, all on ’em!” he answered. “I weren’t called as a witness, but I was one o’ them that heerd Michael Cruddas use them threats to Jim Garth. In the Three Crowns at Highdale yonder it war — market day. Drunk, of course, was Michael — but not drunk enough to know nowt about what he said. ‘Next time I come across yer when I’ve a gun in my hand,’ he says, ‘I’ll shoot yer as I’d shoot a mad dog,’ he says them words.”
“I read the case,” remarked the judge. “This house of yours would be on the way home for these men. Did Cruddas call here that night?”
“No, he didn’t,” replied the landlord. “I saw him go past, mutterin’ and talkin’ to hisself, just as it come dark, like. But Jim Garth come in — I’ve allus said, since, that I reckon I was the last he ever spok’ to. An’ I warned him agen Michael— ‘cause Michael had murder in him when he spok’ them words — ye could see it?”
“And what did Garth say?” said the judge.
“He said summit ‘at I’ve puzzled and studied over ever since,” answered the landlord, scratching his head. “It were this here — and he said it as he was sitting i’ that very chair ‘at you’re in now. ‘If Michael Cruddas knew t’ truth,’ he says, ‘he’d be for shakin’ hands wi’ me, i’stead o’ shootin’ me.’ ‘Why don’t you tell him t’ truth, then?’ I says. ‘ ’Cause he’s one o’ them ‘at’ll listen to nowt when he’s mad wi’ rage an’ drink,’ says Garth. ‘All t’ same,’ he says, ‘it’ll come out.’ ”
“What do you think he meant?” said the judge.
The landlord shook his head and stared at the smoke-blackened rafters.
“Don’t know, mister,” he said. “But — very — like — summat about yon lass. She played fast and loose wi’ Jim, and she played t’ same wi’ Michael — and if she could do that wi’ t’ two on ’em, separate like, she could do it w’ i’ both put together.”
“But you don’t know anything?” suggested the judge.
“Nowt,” said the landlord. “Nowt! All t’ same, that were what Garth said, sittin’ i’ that chair an hour afore he met his end.”
The judge said no more, and presently he rose to depart, and the landlord, following him to the door, looked critically at the lowering sky.
“There’s goin’ to be a heavy rain,” he remarked. “It’ll come within twelve hours. Stayin’ i’ these parts, mister?”
“For a day or two,” answered the judge.
“Then ye’ll see what ye’ve very like never seen afore,” said the landlord. “When it rains here — it rains.”
The judge went slowly back to Muirdale, thinking of anything but weather.
He was chiefly wondering if the evidence brought before men in his capacity is always as carefully prepared as it might be. If he had known of James Garth’s remark to the landlord of the Pigeon Pie during the course of Michael Cruddas’s short trial, he would have insisted on knowing more. But — of what — of whom?
“There is time yet, however,” he mused.
He spent that afternoon in pottering around the neighbourhood of the inn; in the evening, after his simple meal, he once more repaired to the quiet corner of the parlour in which he had sat the previous night. And as he became accustomed to the gloom, he saw in another corner a strange face, which when he looked at it was fixed attentively on his own. Mr. Justice Machin knew when he saw that face that he had seen it before; he knew, too, that he had cause to remember it. But, in spite of an instant searching of memory, he could neither remember where he had seen it or when or why he preserved a recollection of it. It was a face that suggested gipsy blood — very dark, sinister, crafty; even in that dim light the judge could make out the black locks which framed it, and the gleam of the black eyes looking out from beneath shaggy eyebrows. And as he looked, it moved out of the shadow, and its owner, a wiry, muscular-looking fellow of middle age, clad in velveteens and whipcord, came across to him, pulling at his fur cap with an affectation of almost servile politeness.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the man. “Gentleman as is stopping in the house, I think, sir?”
“Well?” said the judge, quietly.
“I hear as how you were after a bit o’ fishing, sir,” continued the other. “The landlord mentioned of it. If you like, sir, I can take you to a spot to-morrow, after the rain — it’s coming to-night, sir — where you’ll enjoy yourself. Grand spot, sir.”
“Is it a place you have a right to fish in?” asked the judge.
“Oh, yes, sir; all right. Common fishing, sir — not preserved,” answered the man, readily enough. “But,” he added, with a knowing wink, “there ain’t many as knows of it.”
The judge reflected a moment.
“Very good,” he said. “Come for me to-morrow when you think fit. It will rain to-night, you say?”
“Rain within half an hour, sir,” replied the other, confidently. “To-morrow, then, sir? It’ll be towards evening.”
The judge nodded and the man, again pulling his forelock, moved off and presently left the inn. The landlord entered as he went out, and exchanged a word with him at the door.
“The man who has just gone out,” remarked the judge presently, “is not, I think, a North countryman?”
“You’re right, sir — he isn’t,” answered the landlord. “Comes from southern parts, though he’s been here, game watching, these six or seven years. That’s Thormthwaite. Father,” he continued, drawing nearer to the judge and whispering, “of her that was talked of in the murder case.”
“Ah, indeed,” said the judge, indifferently. “He has promised to show me a bit of good fishing to-morrow. Will he be all right?”
The landlord laughed.
“Nobody better, sir,” he answered. “Although he’s not a native, there’s nobody knows these parts better than Dan Thormthwaite. He’ll take you where you can pull ’em out fast as you can throw in. There’ll be good fishing after this rain — it’s coming.”
