THE MURDER
Up to this point there are many events which I have drawn with blurred
edges by reason of the distance of time; but from this to the end of my
story I have the pettiest details of it in mind, many of them with a
horrid distinctness.
On the evening of the twenty-third the Armstrongs held a dance in honor
of the marriage of their daughter Jean with one of John Graham's lads,
and a number of young folks were bid to dinner before this festivity
should begin, Nancy being one of the number. His Grace of Borthwicke
and I were asked for the dancing, a courtesy which he declined by
reason of his indisposition, as well as from the fact that he was to
start for the Highlands in the morning. Almost immediately after our
dinner he excused himself to me, saying that an important letter must
be got off on the early post. And his breeding was shown in the fact
that he allowed no doubt to remain with me that this was any invented
excuse to avoid my society, for he stated to whom the epistle was
destined, and the need for its immediate sending, a point of conduct
which seemed to me gentlemanly in the extreme.
"It's a letter to Pitt," he said.
"Ye are great friends now, are ye not?" I asked.
"He is the nearest friend I have in all the world," he answered. "We
are both rhymesters," he added with a smile. "But this letter is a
business one, for I have advices from France for which he is waiting,
and they must be sent in cipher because of the trouble brewing in that
country. If I do not get the letter off to-night he may not receive it
for a fortnight, as he accompanies his Majesty to the country on
Friday."
"Why not send it by special carrier?" I asked.
"It's not important enough for that," he answered lightly, as he
crossed to Nancy's writing-room, which had been given to his use as an
office during her absence at Allan-lough.
Left with the evening on my hands, I set out for Creech's with no
weightier purpose than to divert myself and have some merry talk over a
bowl of punch; but, as I entered, Blake, who was throwing dice with
Dundas at the other end of the room, called to me to ask if I had heard
whether Mr. Pitcairn was better.
"Is he ill?" I asked in surprise, as it was but the morning before he
was at Stair.
"He was carried from the court this afternoon," he answered, and at the
words I took up my coat and started for Pitcairn's house to see if
there was some help that I could offer. I found him wrapped in flannels
in front of a great fire in his own chamber, in as vile a frame of mind
as I have ever seen any human being, bearing his indisposition as
unphilosophically as I might have done myself, and I spent a highly
uncomfortable, dry, and sober evening with him, escaping from his
society somewhere at the back of the midnight with a feeling of relief
and the intention of getting something to drink. Going down,
unattended, I pulled the house-door hard after me to close it for the
night, when Pitcairn called me from the window above to ask that I stop
by the chemist's and hurry along a draught for which he was waiting.
A light and tricksey snow had begun to fall while I was in the house;
snow which blew in gusts, now from one side, now from another; snow
which came crosswise, to be caught by the high wind and carried up to
the tops of the houses; and over all and around all the fog of the sea
and beaten bells sounding far away, as of ships in trouble or as
warnings from the shore.
I pulled my hat over my eyes, turned the collar of my great-coat around
my ears, and took to the middle of the road, looking round warily from
side to side to make sure that I was followed by none, for the town had
been greatly excited during this winter by statements in the public
prints of mysterious disappearances. Folks had been suddenly missed
from their own doorways, of whom no subsequent traces could be found;
visitors entering the city were lost sight of; Irish haymakers on their
road to the agricultural districts of the lowlands had disappeared from
their companions as if by magic, and suspicions of a dreadful nature
were abroad.[9]
[9] Benson's Noted Trials.
It was a uncanny night, black as chaos; and with my mind excited by
these horrid tales, I hurried along to the chemist's, whose man was
outside putting up the shutters. I stated my errand to the doctor, who
said he would carry the medicine himself, as Mr. Pitcairn's house lay
on the road to another patient with whom he had promised to pass the
night. This occurrence seems of small moment, and I but set it down to
show how slight a thing may turn many lives, for it was this very dose
of rhubarb and jalap which brought about much of the trouble toward
which we were drawing.
Starting again toward Stair I came directly upon some of the
town-guard, who, with flaming torches held aloft, were carrying a
couple of drunken wretches to the gaol. Turning to look after them I
became aware that a man had stepped from the shadow and was walking
beside me, going in the same direction, but at a much quicker gait than
my own. By the uncertain flare of the torches I saw that he was tall,
carried himself with distinction, and, what seemed markedly strange on
such a night, wore no covering whatever upon his head. I felt that he
noted me not at all, and as the gloom swallowed him up, saw him throw
out his hand with a significant gesture, as of one who has neither hope
nor courage.
It was this motion which made my heart give a sudden leap and set it
throbbing light and quick in my throat, for the belief came to me that
the stranger was none other than Danvers Carmichael, though any
reasonable explanation for his being abroad alone at such an hour and
going toward Stair was far from clear to me. My first thought was to
call out to him, but a bit of caution held me back, and upon thinking
it over I made sure that my eyes and the fog had combined to deceive
me, and I put the thing out of my mind altogether and hurried on toward
home. Nearing the house I kept close to the high stone wall for
protection against the wind, thinking to enter the grounds from the
lower carriage-way, but the gates were closed, and I was forced to the
main gate, the irons of which were swung far back.
As I turned into the path my eye was caught by a wide cone of light
which came from the window of the room in which I had left his Grace of
Borthwicke. Looking more attentively, I saw to my amazement that the
window nearest the writing-table was wide open, and I thought to go
directly to this place, for there was a low porch outside from which an
entrance to the house could be effected. I had started across the lawn
when I heard a pistol shot, followed by a pause, and then another,
quick upon the heels of the first, which had seemed to come from the
house. But the second, whether because of my confusion of mind or the
blowing of the wind, appeared to have been somewhere behind me, and
with a thought for my own safety I stepped under some frozen vines
which hung above the gateway. As I did so, a small figure, coming from
I know not what direction, passed through the cone of light. It ran low
to the ground and light, and with incredible swiftness disappeared
somewhere in the rose-garden by the south wall. Then a silence fell,
and for a few seconds I stood waiting to hear a disturbance in the
house, but finding naught happening I ran up the path in a
preternatural hurry of spirits, and set the knocker of the main door
clanging so that it might disturb the dead.
Even with all this racketing it was full five minutes before Huey
MacGrath stuck his head, with a white nightcap upon it, from the attic
window, holding a lighted candle high in his hand as he peered into the
dark.
"I'll have ye arrestit!" he called down.
"Whist, Huey!" I cried. "It's I, the laird himself. There're burglars
in the house!"
"Ye've no been drinkin'?" he shouted back, questioningly.
"Didn't ye hear the shots?" I asked.
"I heard nothing," he answered in an unconvinced manner.
"Do you want to be murdered in your bed?" I called up to him, "rather
than come down to see what's going about?"
"There's just naething the matter at all," he returned. "Ye've been
drinkin'. Is Rab Burns with ye?" he asked, resting his elbows
imperturbably on the window-ledge.
His conduct, in my excited state, enraged me to the extent of using
language which acquainted him with my wishes if not with my sobriety,
and I noted him withdraw his head hastily, and the light grow bright
and dim, and bright again, in his turning of the stairs, before the
bars were let down and the door opened to me.
"There's just naething the matter at all," was his greeting. "Aye, ye
will have been drinkin'!"
Although he carried such a brave front I saw that he had taken the
precaution to bring an old blunderbuss with him, and two of the
serving-men, who appeared from a rear stairway in a sleep-befuddled
condition.
As we stood in the silence of the great dark hall a fear came over me
that I had up-turned the house to no purpose, but underneath it lay the
premonition of a great trouble, a feeling so strong that I was unable
to put it by. The doors on both sides of the hall were closed, and
there was no light save one small gleam which trickled from the keyhole
of Nancy's writing-room. Advancing to the door I rapped boldly upon it,
and waited for the duke to bid me enter; no voice answered, nor was any
sound to be heard save the tick, tick, tick of a great clock that stood
near. Again I beat upon the door, and called Montrose loudly by name,
and with baited breath listened to the tick-ticking of the clock, and
nothing else.
"He's fell asleep," Huey suggested, and upon this, thinking the door
locked, I threw my weight against it, precipitating myself into the
room with unnecessary violence, to find the duke sitting at the desk,
his head thrown back upon the cushions, and one hand on the arm of the
great chair in an attitude of peaceful slumber. But there came to me a
dread of the sleep which could keep a man of his temperament
unconscious while the house was being pulled about his ears. As I drew
nearer to him the wind from the opened casement blew the curtains far
into the room and rustled the papers on the table, the light of which
was pushed back and the papers redd up, as if the business of the
evening were by with.
I stepped softly to the sitting man and touched him on the shoulder,
and, as I did so, fell back with a loud cry, while a voice with which I
seemed to have nothing to do cried out:
"He's been murdered! He's shot! He's dead!"
I can not recall what other words this personless voice cried out, but
I know that I stood staring at this man who but a few hours before had
been so hated, feared, aye, and admired; staring at his dreadful
pallor, his inhuman repose, and his inscrutable smile, as he sat before
me with the blood trickling down the side of his face from a
bullet-hole just over the temple.
In the first sight I had of him I knew that he was dead; the feeling of
death was around him; there was death in the air, in the awful serenity
of the pale face, in the hands which lay motionless and relaxed, as if
surrendering all; in the faint smile, as though Death himself had come
before the great man's vision and had been regarded calmly before his
work was done; and while the four of us were standing, drunk with fear
at this awful sight, there came to us the sound of carriage-wheels and
gay voices, and before the power of action was with any of us, Nancy
stood in the doorway, her eyes filled with laughter, her scarlet lips
curved backward in a smile as she came forward to the place where I
stood.
"Are ye giving a ball while the mistress of the house is from home?"
she inquired, gayly; and, as the queerness of our actions struck her:
"What is it?" she cried; and again, "What is it?"
To save her, some power of thought came back to my disordered mind.
"Come away, Nancy! Come away with me!" I cried; but before I could
reach her she had moved forward toward the dead, her head lowered, her
eyes widened with terror, and at sight of the blood clapped her hands
over her eyes to shut out the horrid sight, and went white, and but for
me would have fallen.
The telling of this takes longer than the acting of it, for it was less
than a minute before she called, with some authority in her tone:
"Send them away, Jock. Send them all away! Leave me alone with him."
I motioned the men from the room. It was the common belief that his
grace was Nancy's accepted lover, and there seemed nothing strange in
her request to be alone with him. As I came back she held me by the
sleeve.
"Have you found anything----" she began. "Do you know of anybody?"
"Nothing has been found," I answered, and a look passed between us
which told me that my dread was her own.
"Jock, darling," she went on, "stay here! but don't _see_ anything you
may have to tell of afterward," and a vision of the hatless man in the
snow came back to me at her words.
"Fetch me some water," she went on, "and let none come in but you."
I stood holding the door ajar while the water for which she asked was
being brought; but though my back was toward her I knew she made a
hasty move between the open window and the desk, and as I drew near
again she pointed out a pistol lying directly under the duke's left
hand, at sight of which I fell back with a cry of dismay, for it was
one of a brace which I had given Danvers Carmichael on his birthday two
years before.
How this could have escaped my sight at the first look I had of the
dead was a thing I could not understand, for it lay well in the light,
and by its reflections would naturally be an object to hold the eye,
and even in my confusion of mind I felt certain that it had been placed
there since my first entrance to the room.
Turning to Nancy for some explanation, I found her conduct of a piece
with the rest of her life, for every power of her mind was focused on
present action, and there was something unnatural, beyond belief, and
not like a feminine creature, in the manner with which she stood
regarding each object in the room, and at sight of this self-control
McMurtrie's talk came back to me.
"I will not have you here," I cried, putting my arm around her to lead
her away. "It's horrible--horrible to think of such a trial for you,"
to which she paid no heed whatever, drawing herself from me in silence,
to cross to the open window and peer out into the night.
"Thank God!" she cried, "it's snowing in clouds. It will be a foot deep
by morning! But we must make an effort to search the grounds. We must
seem to leave nothing undone," and the thought being conceived, it was
executed on the instant.
"Why do you stand doing nothing?" she cried, throwing the door back and
confronting the huddled servants. "Get your lanterns out, and the
coach-lamps as well; the murderer may not be far gone. Search the
carriage-way toward the town," she called twice, and even in the
confusion I knew she was sending them as far from the road to Arran as
she could.
Father Michel, Jamie Henderlin, and some other of the burn people had
arrived by this time, but it was Nancy who thought for all of us,
refusing to go to her rooms, and insisting upon taking a part in the
search with us. Aside from the strain upon her, I was grateful in my
soul for this determination, for laws and courts and country
notwithstanding, my mind was fixed to do everything possible to prevent
suspicion falling on the son of Alexander Carmichael, who, I began to
fear, would be accused of a hand in the affair.
During the rest of the night, through all the talk and the searching of
the grounds, there were two lines of thought in my mind, the one
planning, explaining, and excusing Danvers, the other seeming to assist
in present conduct and to suggest immediate courses of action.
It was Nancy herself who was first upon the little balcony of the
window by which the dead man was still sitting. Father Michel, Huey
MacGrath, and I followed, and going down the steps I struck my foot
against some light object, kicking it far ahead of me, and on the
instant Nancy sprang forward, leaned over and picked up something in
the snow.
"What is it?" I cried.
She held out to me the piece of lace she had worn as a head covering to
the dance--held it far out, so that all could see what it was, but made
no response in words--and after the fruitless search was finished
consented to go to her room. As I stood by her door, undecided whether
or not to tell her of the hatless man I had met in the snow, she
suddenly threw her arms wide apart and dropped unconscious at my feet.
I lifted her up, wild with this new anxiety, and as I did so the lace
unrolled, and from it fell a cap, with snow upon it, a man's cap with a
strangely embroidered band which Nancy had worked for Danvers
Carmichael the summer before. At sight of it I could have cried out as
a woman does, for I knew it to be the object I had struck with my foot
under the window, and the last hope for Danvers Carmichael seemed to
vanish from my mind at sight of it.
Her consciousness was not long in returning, and before it came back I
had wrapped the cap in the lace again, trusting her woman's wit to do
the wise thing concerning it.
"Leave me alone, Jock," she said suddenly, as to my amazement she went
to the wash-hand-stand, filled the basin with cold water, and dipped
the whole top of her curly head into it.
"There must be no trifling with headaches to-night!" she explained.
"I've others to think of than myself. Pray for me, dearest!" she cried,
putting her hands on my breast and looking up pleadingly in my eyes.
"Pray for your little girl, as she sits here all alone. Pray that I may
have presence of mind!" and God knows the awe I felt as I saw the
courage and spirit in that slim girlish body.
"Nancy," said I, for I felt that without words, we were banded together
for the protection of a life dear to both of us, "with your knowledge
of the law----" but before I could finish she interrupted me:
"Yesterday in my presence Danvers Carmichael threatened the duke's life
not once but many times, with Pitcairn lying just outside the door. The
law!" she cried. "It's not the law I'm afraid of--it's Hugh Pitcairn!"