A Secret Inheritance (Volume 2 of 3)

  CHAPTER XX.

  The landlord, who was profuse in the expressions of his admiration atthe light I had thrown upon the case, so far as it was known to us,accompanied me to the house of Doctor Louis. It was natural that Ishould find Lauretta and her mother in a state of agitation, and itwas sweet to me to learn that it was partly caused by their anxietiesfor my safety. Doctor Louis was not at home, but had sent a messengerto my house to inquire after me, and to give me some brief account ofthe occurrences of the night. We did not meet this messenger on ourway to the doctor's; he must have taken a different route from ours.

  "You did wrong to leave us last night," said Lauretta's motherchidingly.

  I shook my head, and answered that it was but anticipating the date ofmy removal by a few days, and that my presence in her house would nothave altered matters.

  "Everything was right at home," I said. Home! What inexpressiblesweetness there was in the word! "Martin Hartog showed me to my room,and the servants you engaged came early this morning, and attended tome as though they had known my ways and tastes for years."

  "You slept well?" she asked.

  "A dreamless night," I replied; "but had I suspected what was going onhere, I should not have been able to rest."

  "I am glad you had no suspicion, Gabriel; you would have been indanger. Dreadful as it all is, it is a comfort to know that themisguided men do not belong to our village."

  Her merciful heart could find no harsher term than this to apply tothe monsters, and it pained her to hear me say, "One has met hisdeserved fate; it is a pity the other has escaped." But I could notkeep back the words.

  Doctor Louis had left a message for me to follow him to the office ofthe village magistrate, where the affair was being investigated, butprevious to going thither, I went to the back of the premises to makean inspection. The village boasted of one constable, and he was now onduty, in a state of stupefaction. His orders were to allow nothing tobe disturbed, but his bewilderment was such that it would have beeneasy for an interested person to do as he pleased in the way ofalteration. A stupid lout, with as much intelligence as a vegetable.However, I saw at once that nothing had been disturbed. The shutter inwhich a hole had been bored was closed; there were blood stains on thestones, and I was surprised that they were so few; the gate by whichthe villains had effected an entrance into the garden was open; Iobserved some particles of sawdust on the window-ledge just belowwhere the hole had been bored. All that had been removed was the bodyof the man who had been murdered by his comrade.

  I put two or three questions to the constable, and he managed toanswer in monosyllables, yes and no, at random. "A valuableassistant," I thought, "in unravelling a mysterious case!" And then Ireproached myself for the sneer. Happy was a village like Nerac inwhich crime was so rare, and in which an official so stupid wassufficient for the execution of the law.

  The first few stains of blood I noticed were close to the window, andthe stones thereabout had been disturbed, as though by the falling ofa heavy body.

  "Was the man's body," I inquired of the constable, "lifted from thisspot?"

  He looked down vacantly and said, "Yes."

  "You are sure?" I asked.

  "Sure," he said after a pause, but whether the word was spoken inreply to my question, or as a question he put to himself, I could notdetermine.

  I continued my examination of the grounds. From the open gate to thewindow was a distance of forty-eight yards; I stepped exactly a yard,and I counted my steps. The path from gate to window was shaped likethe letter S, and was for the most part defined by tall shrubs oneither side, of a height varying from six to nine feet. Through thispath the villains had made their way to the window; through this paththe murderer, leaving his comrade dead, had made his escape. Theiroperations, for their own safety's sake, must undoubtedly have beenconducted while the night was still dark. Reasonable also to concludethat, being strangers in the village (although by some means they musthave known beforehand that Doctor Louis's house was worth theplundering), they could not have been acquainted with the deviousturns in the path from the gate to the window. Therefore they musthave felt their way through, touching the shrubs with their hands,most likely breaking some of the slender stalks, until they arrived atthe open space at the back of the building.

  These reflections impelled me to make a careful inspection of theshrubs, and I was very soon startled by a discovery. Here and theresome stalks were broken and torn away, and here and there wereindisputable evidences that the shrubs had been grasped by humanhands. It was not this that startled me, for it was in accordance withmy own train of reasoning, but it was that there were stains of bloodon the broken stalks, especially upon those which had been roughlytorn from the parent tree. I seemed to see a man, with blood abouthim, staggering blindly through the path, snatching at the shrubs bothfor support and guidance, and the loose stalks falling from his handsas he went. Two men entered the grounds, only one left--that one, themurderer. The blood stains indicated a struggle. Between whom? Betweenthe victim and the perpetrator of the deed? In that case, what becameof the theory of action I had so elaborately described to the landlordof the Three Black Crows? I had imagined an instantaneous impulse ofcrime and its instantaneous execution. I had imagined a death assudden as it was violent, a deed from which the murderer had escapedwithout the least injury to himself; and here, on both sides of me,were the clearest proofs that the man who had fled must have beengrievously wounded. My ingenuity was at fault in the endeavour tobring these signs into harmony with the course of events I hadinvented in my interview with the landlord.

  I went straight to the office of the magistrate, a small building offour rooms on the ground floor, the two in front being used as themagistrate's private room and court, the two in the rear as cells, notat all uncomfortable, for aggressors of the law. It was but rarelythat they were occupied. At the door of the court I encountered FatherDaniel. He was pale, and much shaken. During his lifetime no suchcrime had been perpetrated in the village, and his only comfort wasthat the actors in it were strangers. But that did not lessen hishorror of the deed, and his large heart overflowed with pity both forthe guilty man and the victim.

  "So sudden a death!" he said, in a voice broken by tears. "No time forrepentance! Thrust before the Eternal Presence weighed down by sin! Ihave been praying by his side for mercy, and for mercy upon hismurderer. Poor sinners! poor sinners!"

  I could not sympathise with his sentiments, and I told him so sternly.He made no attempt to convert me to his views, but simply said, "Allmen should pray that they may never be tempted."

  And so he left me, and turned in the direction of his little chapel tooffer up prayers for the dead and the living sinners.

  Doctor Louis was with the magistrate; they had been discussingtheories, and had heard from the landlord of the Three Black Crows myown ideas of the movements of the strangers on the previous night.

  "In certain respects you may be right in your speculations," themagistrate said; "but on one important point you are in error."

  "I have already discovered," I said, "that my theory is wrong, and notin accordance with fact; but we will speak of that presently. What isthe point you refer to?"

  "As to the weapon with which the murder was done," replied themagistrate, a shrewd man, whose judicial perceptions fitted him for alarger sphere of duties than he was called upon to perform in Nerac."No knife was used."

  "What, then, was the weapon?" I asked.

  "A club of some sort," said the magistrate, "with which the dead manwas suddenly attacked from behind."

  "Has it been found?"

  "No, but a search is being made for it and also for the murderer."

  "On that point we are agreed. There is no shadow of doubt that themissing man is guilty."

  "There can be none," said the magistrate.

  "And yet," urged Doctor Louis, in a gentle tone, "to condemn a manunheard is repugnant to justice."

  "There are
circumstances," said the magistrate, "which point so surelyto guilt that it would be inimical to justice to dispute them. By theway," he continued, addressing me, "did not the landlord of the ThreeBlack Crows mention something to the effect that you were at his innlast night after you left Dr. Louis's house, and that you and he had aconversation respecting the strangers, who were at that time in thesame room as yourselves?"

  "If he did," I said, "he stated what is correct. I was there, and sawthe strangers, of whom the landlord entertained suspicions which havebeen proved to be well founded."

  "Then you will be able to identify the body, already," added themagistrate, "identified by the landlord. Confirmatory evidencestrengthens a case."

  "I shall be able to identify it," I said.

  We went to the inner room, and I saw at a glance that it was one ofthe strangers who had spent the evening at the Three Black Crows, andwhom I had afterwards watched and followed.

  "The man who has escaped," I observed, "was hump backed."

  "That tallies with the landlord's statement," said the magistrate.

  "I have something to relate," I said, upon our return to the court,"of my own movements last night after I quitted the inn."

  I then gave the magistrate and Doctor Louis a circumstantial accountof my movements, without, however, entering into a description of mythoughts, only in so far as they affected my determination to protectthe doctor and his family from evil designs.

  They listened with great interest, and Doctor Louis pressed my hand.He understood and approved of the solicitude I had experienced for thesafety of his household; it was a guarantee that I would watch overhis daughter with love and firmness and protect her from harm.

  "But you ran a great risk, Gabriel," he said affectionately.

  "I did not consider that," I said.

  The magistrate looked on and smiled; a father himself, he divined theundivulged ties by which I and Doctor Louis were bound.

  "At what time," he asked, "do you say you left the rogues asleep inthe woods?"

  "It was twenty minutes to eleven," I replied, "and at eleven o'clock Ireached my house, and was received by Martin Hartog's daughter. Hartogwas absent, on business his daughter said, and while we were talking,and I was taking the keys from her hands, Hartog came home, andaccompanied me to my bedroom."

  "Were you at all disturbed in your mind for the safety of your friendsin consequence of what had passed?"

  "Not in the least. The men I left slumbering in the woods appeared tome to be but ordinary tramps, without any special evil intent, and Iwas satisfied and relieved. I could not have slept else; it is seldomthat I have enjoyed a better night."

  "Cunning rascals! May not their slumbers have been feigned?"

  "I think not. They were in a profound sleep; I made sure of that. No,I could not have been mistaken."

  "It is strange," mused Doctor Louis, "how guilt can sleep, and canforget the present and the future!"

  I then entered into an account of the inspection I had made of thepath from the gate to the window; it was the magistrate's opinion,from the position in which the body was found, that there had been nostruggle between the two men, and here he and I were in agreement.What I now narrated materially weakened his opinion, as it hadmaterially weakened mine, and he was greatly perplexed. He was annoyedalso that the signs I had discovered, which confirmed the notion thata struggle must have taken place, had escaped the attention of hisassistants. He himself had made but a cursory examination of thegrounds, his presence being necessary in the court to take theevidence of witnesses, to receive reports, and to issue instructions.

  "There are so many things to be considered," said Doctor Louis, "in acase like this, resting as it does at present entirely uponcircumstantial evidence, that it is scarcely possible some should notbe lost sight of. Often those that are omitted are of greater weightthan those which are argued out laboriously and with infinitepatience. Justice is blind, but the law must be Argus-eyed. Youbelieve, Gabriel, that there must have been a struggle in my garden?"

  "Such is now my belief," I replied.

  "Such signs as you have brought before our notice," continued thedoctor, "are to you an indication that the man who escaped must havemet with severe treatment?"

  "Undoubtedly."

  "Therefore, that the struggle was a violent one?"

  "Yes."

  "And prolonged?"

  "That is the feasible conclusion."

  "Such a struggle could not have taken place without considerabledisarrangement about the spot in which it occurred. On an evenpavement you would not look for any displacement of the stones; theutmost you could hope to discover would be the scratches made by ironheels. But the path from the gate of my house to the back garden, andall the walking spaces in the garden itself, are formed of loosestones and gravel. No such struggle could take place there withoutconspicuous displacement of the materials of which the ground iscomposed. If it took place amongst the flowers, the beds would bearevidence. I observed no disorder in the flower beds. Did you?"

  "No."

  "Then did you observe such a disarrangement of the stones and gravelas I consider would be necessary evidence of the struggle in which yousuppose these men to have been engaged?"

  I was compelled to admit--but I admitted it grudgingly andreluctantly--that such a disarrangement had not come within myobservation.

  "That is partially destructive of your theory," pursued the doctor."There is still something further of moment which I consider it my dutyto say. You are a sound sleeper ordinarily, and last night you sleptmore soundly than usual. I, unfortunately, am a light sleeper, and itis really a fact that last night I slept more lightly than usual. Ithink, Gabriel, you were to some extent the cause of this. I amaffected by changes in my domestic arrangements; during many pleasantweeks you have resided in our house, and last night was the first, fora long time past, that you slept away from us. It had an influenceupon me; then, apart from your absence, I was thinking a great deal ofyou." (Here I observed the magistrate smile again, a fatherlybenignant smile.) "As a rule I am awakened by the least noise--thedripping of water, the fall of an inconsiderable object, the mewing ofa cat, the barking of a dog. Now, last night I was not disturbed,unusually wakeful as I was. The wonder is that I was not aroused bythe boring of the hole in the shutter; the unfortunate wretch musthave used his gimlet very softly and warily, and under anycircumstances the sound produced by such a tool is of a light nature.But had any desperate struggle taken place in the garden it would havearoused me to a certainty, and I should have hastened down toascertain the cause. Gabriel, no such struggle occurred."

  "Then," said the magistrate, "how do you account for the injuries theman who escaped must have undoubtedly received?"

  The words were barely uttered when we all started to our feet. Therewas a great scuffling outside, and cries and loud voices. The door waspushed open and half-a-dozen men rushed into the room, guarding onewhose arms were bound by ropes. He was in a dreadful condition, and soweak that, without support, he could not have kept his feet. Irecognised him instantly; he was the hump backed man I had seen in theThree Black Crows.

  He lifted his eyes and they fell on the magistrate; from him theywandered to Doctor Louis; from him they wandered to me. I was gazingsteadfastly and sternly upon him, and as his eyes met mine his headdrooped to his breast and hung there, while a strong shuddering ranthrough him.