On Wednesday, the 2nd of February, Candlemas Day, I read the burial
service over my friend’s body. I will not dwell upon what that service
was to me, but like many funerals of my friends it is associated in my
mind with the singing of birds. The inquest had taken place on the
Monday and Tuesday, and while it clearly established the fact that the
death had been caused by murder, not suicide, nothing was laid before
the jury which would have justified a verdict against any particular
person. I believe that some doubt had arisen as to the identification
of the boots. The village shoemaker, whose expert opinion was asked,
had said that though he never arranged hobnails in that way himself,
he had seen the same arrangement in boots that had been brought to him
to be repaired, by some man who was not Trethewy. Later on, however,
it was ascertained, I fancy through Callaghan’s ingenuity, that
Trethewy, who liked dabbling in various handicrafts, had cobbled and
nailed some boots for a friend, that this friend was the man whose
hobnails had been noticed by the shoemaker, and that he had been safe
out of the way at the time of the murder. Moreover—perhaps I forgot
it, perhaps I assumed that they would find it out for themselves and
preferred that they should—anyhow I had not mentioned to the police
that I heard Trethewy alone had had access to the ladder (they found
it out later).
Callaghan and Vane-Cartwright stayed with me for the funeral. A large
crowd of merely impertinent people, as I confess I regarded them,
collected from the neighbourhood and even from far away for the
occasion. Two only of Peters’ family were there, or could have been
there. He had two nephews in the Army, but they were then in India.
The rest of his near belongings were an old gentleman (a cousin of his
father’s, whom I had heard Peters himself describe as a relative whom
he had only met at burials, but whom he regarded as an essential part
of the funeral ceremony) and a maiden aunt, his mother’s sister. Both
of them came; both insisted on staying at the hotel, instead of at the
Rectory, for the night before, but they had luncheon and tea at the
Rectory after the funeral, and departed by the evening train. The old
gentleman was, I believe, a retired stipendiary magistrate.
Vane-Cartwright very obligingly devoted himself to entertaining him
and took him for a walk after luncheon, while Callaghan roamed about,
observing the people who had come for the funeral, expecting, as he
told me, that there might be something to discover by watching them. I
was thus left alone for a while with Peters’ aunt, who, by the way,
appeared to have known Vane-Cartwright as a boy.
Having with some difficulty overcome her formidable reserve and
shyness, I learnt from her much that I had not known about my friend,
her nephew, how really remarkable had been the promise of his early
days, though he had idled a little at Oxford; and how he had left
Oxford prematurely and taken up an appointment abroad, because he felt
that his parents could not well afford to keep him at the university
until he could earn his living in a profession at home. Of his later
life too, including his latest projects of study, she had much to tell
me, for she had followed him and his pursuits with an affectionate
interest. This contrasted strangely both with her evident indifference
on her own account to books and such matters as delighted him, and
with the strange calmness with which she seemed to regard his death
and the manner of his death. I was becoming greatly attracted by this
quiet, lonely old lady, when the return of the cousin and
Vane-Cartwright and of Callaghan at the same time put an end to our
conversation. Probably it was only that she did not feel equal to the
company of such a number of gentlemen, but I half-fancied that some
one of the number—I could not guess which, but I suspected it was the
old cousin—was antipathetic to her.
I went to London myself that night, returning next afternoon. I had to
go and see my wife and children. They had gone soon after Christmas to
stay with my wife’s father, and she had taken the children for a night
to London on their way home. She was compelled to stop there because
my daughter, who was delicate, caught a bad chill. It was now so cold
for travelling that I urged her to remain in London yet a little
longer.
I am not sure why I am being so precise in recording our movements at
that time. Perhaps it is merely from an impulse to try and live over
again a period of my life which was one of great and of increasing,
not diminishing, agitation. But having begun, I will proceed.
I returned to my rectory the day after the funeral hoping to be free
from any share in a kind of investigation which consorted ill with the
ordinary tenour of my work. But of course I could not remove myself
from the atmosphere of the crime. To begin with, I had an important
interview with Trethewy (which I will relate later) the day after my
return. But, besides, rumours of this clue or that, which had been
discovered, came to me in the common talk of my parish, for every
supposed step towards the discovery of the criminal seemed to be
matter of general knowledge. So the crime went with me in my parish
rounds, and in the privacy of my house I was still less able to escape
from it, for Callaghan was with me, and Callaghan’s mind was on fire
with the subject.
I discovered very soon that Callaghan, whom I had asked to stay for
the funeral, was bent upon staying in the village as long as he could.
He conceived that, with the knowledge he possessed and his experience
in India, he might, if on the spot, be able to contribute to the ends
of justice; and he seemed to find a morbid satisfaction, most unlike
my own feeling, in being near to the scene of crime and the scene of
detection. Moreover, he exhibited an esteem and love for Peters and a
desolate grief at his loss which, though I had not known that the two
men were quite such friends, I was almost forced to think unaffected.
So I readily invited him to stay at the Rectory, and he stayed there
some ten days altogether, when he declared that he would put himself
upon me no more and would move to the hotel. At the last moment he
changed his mind, and said he had taken a fancy to stay at Peters’
house if he might. I was persuaded to acquiesce in this, and there he
stayed, with occasional absences in London, till nearly a month later,
shortly after the time when, as I shall tell, Trethewy was committed
for trial at the Assizes.
Vane-Cartwright, who remained quiet and reserved, thanked me very much
the night after the murder for having him at the Rectory, saying, with
a feeling that I had not quite expected, that either to hurry away on
that day of agitation or to stay a night longer in Peters’ house,
would have been a trial for him. He added that he purposed returning
to London immediately after the funeral, and after an important City
meeting, for which he must stay in England, he was going out to meet
his young lady on the Riviera. I suppose that without intending I
betrayed before the funeral the fact that I was a little worried by my
impending duties as executor, duties which strangely enough I had
never had to perform before, and in which I was now a little
embarrassed by the absence from England of my fellow-executor and the
principal legatees, and by the prospect of having to carry out a
charitable bequest which left me a large discretion and might possibly
involve litigation. Vane-Cartwright very unobtrusively put me in the
way of doing whatever was immediately incumbent on me. I suppose I
appeared as grateful as I felt; anyhow, it ended with a delicate
suggestion from Vane-Cartwright that he would be very glad to stay at
the hotel for a day or two and make himself useful to me in any way
that he could. Of course I pressed him to stay at the Rectory, and, in
spite of an apparent preference for staying at the hotel, he after a
while agreed. I was expecting that I might soon be leaving home for
some time, as it might be necessary to take my little daughter for a
month abroad in a warmer climate, and after that I knew I should be
very busy with Confirmation classes and other matters, so that I was
anxious to make immediate progress, if I could, with winding up
Peters’ estate, and was very glad that Vane-Cartwright would stay, as
he did stay, at the Rectory. On the Saturday however (a week after the
murder) he received a telegram which compelled him to leave that
afternoon. I had by this time begun to like him, which I confess I did
not at first; men of his stamp, who have long relied on themselves
alone and been justified in their reliance, often do not show their
attractive qualities till the emergency occurs in which we find them
useful.
Trethewy was arrested the day that Vane-Cartwright left. I wondered
why he was not arrested earlier (for there did not seem to be any real
room for doubt that he had made those footmarks), but I have never
ascertained, and can only guess that the police felt sure of securing
him if he attempted to escape, and hoped that, if left alone, he might
betray himself by such an attempt or otherwise. He never did. He sat
in his cottage, as I gathered, constantly reading the Bible, but once
or twice a day pacing thoughtfully and alone up and down the drive. He
did the few necessary jobs for the house with punctuality, but he
never lingered in it, never visited the field or the lane, and hardly
spoke to any one, except on the day before his arrest, when, to my
astonishment (for he was known to be hostile to the Church), he sent
for me, and we had the memorable interview to which I have already
referred.
During the days before his arrest, as well as after, all sorts of
enquiry, of which I knew little, were going on. Thalberg’s movements
after the murder were traced. Some attempt was made, I believe, to
find the man who, according to Trethewy, had passed him with two
horses in the lane. But there seems to have been some bungling about
this, and the man, about whom there was no real mystery (he was a farm
servant who had started off early to take a horse, which his master
had sold, to its new owner), was not then found. Two important
discoveries were made about Trethewy. After his arrest his cottage was
searched, and he was found to be the possessor of inconceivably
miscellaneous articles. Among them were several weapons which he might
naturally have picked up on his travels, but among them (which was
more to the point) was a small case of surgical instruments. Two
instruments were missing from that case, and the instrument used by
the murderer might, though not very neatly, have fitted into one of
the vacant places. The case was found, as Callaghan, who contrived to
be present, told me, at the back of a shelf in a cupboard filled with
all sorts of lumber and litter that had lain there who can say how
long. Callaghan, however, professed to have observed, from marks on
the dust of the shelf, that the contents of the cupboard had been
recently disturbed, in order, he had no doubt, to hide the instrument
case at the back of everything.
The other new discovery had occurred two days before. Trethewy’s uncle
and the guests who had been at his party on that ill-omened night were
of course sought and questioned. They all corroborated Trethewy’s own
account of his movements, but they added something more. Trethewy it
seemed had been normal and cheerful enough as the evening began, but,
as the night and the drinking went on, fell first into melancholy,
then into sullenness, lastly and a little before he went home into
voluble ferocity. He recurred to the topic, to which his uncle said he
had more than once alluded on previous days when he had met him, of
his quarrel with Peters, against whom he had conceived an irrational
resentment, and he actually, though those who heard him did not take
him seriously at the time, uttered threats against his life.