After several remands, the proceedings against Trethewy before the
magistrates came to a close about the end of February. There was
nothing much to note about these proceedings, which ended, as I
suppose they must have ended, in his being committed for trial. The
reader knows by this time pretty nearly the whole case against him.
That Peters had been murdered was certain. The accused had had several
altercations with the murdered man. In one of them he had expressed a
wish to kill him, and he had repeated this wish to others upon the
fatal night. Footprints had been found which, as the reader knows,
seemed at first sight plainly indicative of his guilt. Then there was
the ladder. It was undoubtedly kept, before the murder, locked up in a
place of which only Trethewy had the key. That any one could have had
access to it between the murder and the discovery of the ladder was a
view supported only by the uncorroborated statement of the accused
that he had left the key of the pump-house that morning, when summoned
to speak to the police, and had forgotten to go back for it until the
next day. Lastly, the finding of the instrument case, though not very
important, at any rate disposed of any improbability that Trethewy
would have had such an instrument as the knife that was used.
I daresay this would have been enough to hang a man if this was all;
and against this there was nothing to be set, except the immovable
persistency of Trethewy and his wife from the first in the tale which
they told.
Nothing, that is, till after he had been committed for trial. But the
very evening after his committal, a slight but almost conclusive
circumstance was brought to light, and entirely altered the aspect of
the case. That evening I received a visit from Peters’ housemaid,
Edith Summers. She had, she said, something on her mind. She had told
a falsehood to the police-sergeant on the morning after the murder.
She had interrupted the housekeeper to say that the candle by Peters’
bed had been a long candle the night before; she had said this because
she had been very severely scolded by the housekeeper for forgetting
to put fresh candles in the candlestick; and so she had said what was
false, not meaning any harm, but thinking for the moment (as she now
tried to explain) that it was true, and that she had done what she had
intended. She had confessed to the housekeeper since, but the
housekeeper had only said she was an impudent girl to have put in her
word then, and had better not put it in again. She had gone to the
court expecting to be a witness on some small point and determined to
make the matter clear then; but she had not been called. She had
spoken to a policeman, and had been told to speak to one of the
lawyers. She had tried to get the attention of Trethewy’s lawyer, but
he had been too busy to listen to her.
I am ashamed to say that listening to her rather long explanation, I
entirely failed to see the significance of what she told me. I said
something quite well intentioned about the evil of saying what was not
true, and then told the girl kindly, that I did not think there was
any harm done. But she had thought about it and was in earnest, and
she made me see it in a moment. There were, she explained, other
candles in the room, but they were new candles, and they were not
lighted that night. From this and what we already knew the conclusion
was almost inevitable. Peters was murdered before two inches of
ordinary candle, which was burning at 11.30 P.M. on the 28th of
January, burnt down.
Stupid as it may seem, I had for some time been convinced of
Trethewy’s innocence, and yet had never really drawn the necessary
inference from it. Of course with the two premisses in my mind—Peters
was murdered, Trethewy did not murder him—I had been aware, in a
sense, of the conclusion, but it had taken no hold of my attention.
Now, however, I had evidence of Trethewy’s innocence, which was no
longer a private intuition of my own, but was something of which every
one must appreciate the force. Perhaps it was from this, perhaps it
was from the sentimental effect of having the time of the crime fixed
within such narrow limits; anyhow the thought, “Some one other than
Trethewy murdered Peters,” came upon me with a sudden horror which
could hardly have been greater if I had only that moment become aware
of the original fact of the murder.
I instantly went over in my mind the list of those few who were so
placed as to lie within the reach of suspicion. Trethewy could no
longer be suspected. Thalberg surely could not. I dismissed the two
women servants from my mind immediately. There remained two men—three
men—three men, of whom I was one. I knew how easily I could clear
myself, for the door had been locked behind me before that candle was
lit. But I was the last man known to have seen Peters, and my confused
current of thought included me as a man to be suspected. I asked
myself of each in turn, is he the guilty man? and in each case I
answered no. As I look back now, it seems to me, that the answer “no”
did not come to my mind with the same whole-hearted conviction in each
case. But I did not in the few moments for which I then reflected, I
did not till long after do more than go round in this circle: One of
us three men murdered Peters. Was it—— each of us in turn? No. Could
it after all be one of the servants? No! Was there not then in the
vast region of possibility some way of accounting for Peters’ death
without the guilt of any of us. The plainest reasons bade me answer
yes, and yet again I answered no. And so back round the circle.
But the girl was with me and I could not keep her waiting for ever. I
arrested my mental circle where it began, at the thought: it seems
Peters was murdered while two inches of ordinary candle, lighted
before 11.30 P.M. on the 28th of January, burnt out. I started up to
take the girl at once to see the police, but on a sudden idea I
desisted. I wrote a note to the housekeeper, asking that the girl
should again come to see me at eight in the evening, and I sent a
message to the police-sergeant, asking him to come at the same time.
Of course I had often interviewed him on parish matters, and having
got him settled into the arm-chair in my study, in which I could
usually put him at his ease, I fired upon him the question, “Sergeant,
were those tracks, which we found, really there when you came to Mr.
Peters’ house in the morning?” Now Sergeant Speke was a very honest
man, but he was (most properly, I am sure) a creature of discipline,
and his answer threw, for me, a flood of light on the problem how it
is that the very best of the police are so ready to back up one
another. He answered immediately and with conviction: “Well, you see,
sir, it is not for me to judge”. The answer was on the face of it
preposterous. He alone had searched the front of the house that
morning, and it was for him alone, of all men, to say whether the
tracks were there. He obviously did not see this at all, and I was
wise enough to let go an opportunity for moralising to him. I beguiled
him, with a glass of wine and other devices of the tempter, into
feeling himself off duty for the while, and talking with me as
fellow-mortal to fellow-mortal. I very soon discovered, first, that
Sergeant Speke had searched carefully enough around the house that
morning to have seen the tracks if they had been there, and, secondly,
that the man, Speke, as distinct from the Sergeant, knew perfectly
well that they were not there.
Not till then did I summon the girl Edith from the servants’ hall
where she was waiting. I made her tell her tale. I saw the Sergeant
take a due note of it for transmission to those, to me mysterious,
headquarters where I supposed all such matters were digested. I got
the assurance that Sergeant Speke was really man enough to see that
his own evidence, as to the non-existence of the tracks that morning,
would be noted and digested too. I dismissed the Sergeant and Edith,
and went slowly to bed. Did I suspect this person? No! Did I suspect
that person? N—no. At last I determined that I would not let my
suspicions fasten on any one man, while it might be just as reasonable
that his suspicions should fasten on me. But my mind remained full of
horror and of the image of a candle-end spluttering out, while the
man, who had lighted it to read by, lay dead in those bloody sheets.
Very, very glad I was that my wife was at last coming home next day.
I suppose it was from the association of two female names that my
dreams, when at last I slept, were of nothing more horrible than the
ship _Eleanor_, which, as the reader remembers, probably still sailed
the seas.