As a pack of hounds thrown off the scent, but a moment before hot, now
cold, are the Coroner and his jury.
But only in one sense like the dogs these human searchers. There is
nothing of the sleuth in their search, and they are but too glad to find
the game they have been pursuing and lost is a noble stag, instead of a
treacherous wicked wolf.
Not a doubt remains in their minds of the innocence of Captain
Ryecroft--not the shadow of one. If there were, it is soon to be
dissipated. For while they are deliberating on what had best next be
done, a noise outside, a buzz of voices, excited exclamations, at length
culminating in a cheer, tell of some one fresh arrived and received
triumphantly.
They are not left long to conjecture who the new arrival is. One of the
policemen stationed at the door stepping aside tells who--the man after
Captain Ryecroft himself most wanted. No need saying it is Jack
Wingate.
But a word about how the waterman has come thither, arriving at such a
time, and why not sooner. It is all in a nutshell. But the hour before
he returned from the duck-shooting expedition on the shores of the
Severn sea, with his boat brought back by road--on a donkey cart. On
arrival at his home, and hearing of the great event at Llangorren, he
had launched his skiff, leaped into it, and pulled himself down to the
Court as if rowing in a regatta.
In the _patois_ of the American prairies he is now "arrove," and, still
panting for breath, is brought before the Coroner's Court, and submitted
to examination. His testimony confirms that of his old fare--in every
particular about which he can testify. All the more credible is it from
his own character. The young waterman is well known as a man of
veracity--incapable of bearing false witness.
When he tells them that after the Captain had joined him, and was still
with him in the boat, he not only saw a lady in the little house
overhead, but recognised her as the young mistress of Llangorren--when
he positively swears to the fact--no one any more thinks that she whose
body lies dead was drowned or otherwise injured by the man standing
bowed and broken over it. Least of all the other, who alike suffers and
sorrows. For soon as Wingate has finished giving evidence, George
Shenstone steps forward, and holding out his hand to his late rival,
says, in the hearing of all--
"Forgive me, sir, for having wronged you by suspicion! I now make
reparation for it in the only way I can--by declaring that I believe you
as innocent as myself."
The generous behaviour of the baronet's son strikes home to every heart,
and his example is imitated by others. Hands from every side are
stretched towards that of the stranger, giving it a grasp which tells of
their owners being also convinced of his innocence.
But the inquest is not yet ended--not for hours. Over the dead body of
one in social rank as she, no mere perfunctory investigation would
satisfy the public demand, nor would any Coroner dare to withdraw till
everything has been thoroughly sifted, and to the bottom.
In view of the new facts brought out by Captain Ryecroft and his
boatman--above all that cry heard by them--suspicions of foul play are
rife as ever, though no longer pointed at him.
As everything in the shape of verbal testimony worth taking has been
taken, the Coroner calls upon his jury to go with him to the place where
the body was taken out of the water. Leaving it in charge of two
policemen, they sally forth from the house two and two, he preceding,
the crowd pressing close.
First they visit the little dock, in which they see two boats--the
_Gwendoline_ and _Mary_--lying just as they were on that night when
Captain Ryecroft stepped across the one to take his seat in the other.
He is with the Coroner--so is Wingate--and both questioned give minute
account of that embarkation, again in brief _resume_ going over the
circumstances that preceded and followed it.
The next move is to the summer-house, to which the distance from the
dock is noted, one of the jurymen stepping it--the object to discover
how time will correspond to the incidents as detailed. Not that there
is any doubt about the truth of Captain Ryecroft's statements, nor those
of the boatman; for both are fully believed. The measuring is only to
assist in making calculation how long time may have intervened between
the lovers' quarrel and the death-like cry, without thought of their
having any connection--much less that the one was either cause or
consequence of the other.
Again there is consultation at the summer-house, with questions asked,
some of which are answered by George Shenstone, who shows the spot where
he picked up the ring. And outside, standing on the cliff's brink,
Ryecroft and the waterman point to the place, near as they can fix it,
where their boat was when the sad sound reached their ears, again
recounting what they did after.
Remaining a while longer on the cliff, the Coroner and jury, with craned
necks, look over its edge. Directly below is the little embayment in
which the body was found. It is angular, somewhat horse-shoe shaped;
the water within stagnant, which accounts for the corpse not having been
swept away. There is not much current in the backwash at any part;
enough to have carried it off had the drowning been done elsewhere. But
beyond doubt it has been there. Such is the conclusion arrived at by
the Coroner's jury, firmly established in their minds, at sight of
something hitherto unnoticed by them. For though not in a body,
individually each had already inspected the place, negligently. But now
in official form, with wits on the alert, one looking over detects
certain abrasions on the face of the cliff--scratches on the red
sandstone--distinguishable by the fresher tint of the rock--
unquestionably made by something that had fallen from above, and what
but the body of Gwendoline Wynn? They see, moreover, some branches of a
juniper bush near the cliff's base, broken, but still clinging. Through
that the falling form must have descended!
There is no further doubting the fact. There went she over; the only
questions undetermined being, whether with her own will, by
misadventure, or man's violence. In other words, was it suicide,
accident, or murder?
To the last many circumstances point, and especially the fact of the
body remaining where it went into the water. A woman being drowned
accidentally, or drowning herself, in the death struggle would have
worked away some distance from the spot she had fallen, or thrown
herself in. Still the same would occur if thrown in by another; only
that this other might by some means have extinguished life beforehand.
This last thought, or surmise, carries Coroner and jury back to the
house, and to a more particular examination of the body. In which they
are assisted by medical men--surgeons and physicians--several of both
being present, unofficially; among them the one who administers to the
ailings of Miss Linton. There is none of them who has attended
Gwendoline Wynn, who never knew ailment of any kind.
Their _post-mortem_ examining does not extend to dissection. There is
no need. Without it there are tests which tell the cause of death--that
of drowning.
Beyond this they can throw no light on the affair, which remains
mysterious as ever.
Flung back on reasoning of the analytical kind, the Coroner and his jury
can come to no other conclusion than that the first plunge into the
water, in whatever way made, was almost instantly fatal; and if a
struggle followed it ended by the body returning to, and sinking in the
same place where it first went down.
Among the people outside pass many surmises, guesses, and conjectures.
Suspicions also, but no more pointing to Captain Ryecroft.
They take another, and more natural, direction. Still nothing has
transpired to inculpate any one, or, in the finding of a Coroner's jury,
connect man or woman with it.
This is at length pronounced in the usual formula, with its customary
tag:--"Found Drowned. But how, etc, etc."
With such ambiguous rendering the once beautiful body of Gwendoline Wynn
is consigned to a coffin, and in due time deposited in the family vault,
under the chancel of Llangorren Church.
Volume Two, Chapter XXVII.