Oh, that I had the lucid arrangement of the late Lord Tenderden, or
the happy illustration of Francis Jeffrey, or the _curiosa felicitas_
of George Gordon Byron, or the nervous vein of Gifford, or the elegant
condensation of Lockhart, or any of the peculiar powers of any of the
great men of past or future ages, to help me to make this chapter both
interesting and brief; for there are several facts to state, and small
space to state them in; and--what is worse than all--they are so dry
and pulverized, that they are enough to give any one who meddles with
them, what the Spaniard gracefully terms a "_retortijon de tripas_."
As, however, they are absolutely necessary to the clear understanding
of what is to follow, I will at once place them all in order together,
leaving the reader to swallow them in any vehicle he may think fit.
First, then, on his visit to Mrs. Darlington, Dr. Wilton obtained no
information whatever, except that the tidings he had before heard were
true. Sir Sidney Delaware and his daughter, Mrs. Darlington said, had
indeed left her; but they had requested, as a particular favor, that
she would not even inquire whither they were going; and, as the favor
was a very small one, she had granted it of course. From the house of
that worthy lady, Dr. Wilton proceeded to join Mr. Egerton at Ryebury,
where--according to their own request--they were met by the coroner
for the county. All the traces which had been observed by Cousins were
verified, and a complete plan of the scene of the murder was made
under the direction of the magistrates.
A long conference took place at the same time between the two justices
and the coroner, who expressed less dissatisfaction at the escape of
Captain Delaware than they had expected.
"We must share the blame between us, gentlemen," he said. "You, for
not having remanded him to some secure place, I, for not having sent
him five-and-twenty miles that night to the county jail. Certain it
is, the case was a very doubtful one, and I would fain have had the
jury adjourn till the following morning. But in truth," he added,
"coroners' juries, knowing that their decision is not final, and
disgusted and agitated by the horrible scenes they are obliged to
examine, very often return a hasty and ill-considered verdict, in
spite of all the officers of the crown can do. This was, I am afraid,
the case in the present instance; and I have no doubt that the young
man has made his escape more from apprehension of a long and painful
imprisonment--which is a severe punishment in itself--than from any
consciousness of guilt."
Finding his opinion thus far favorable, the two magistrates
communicated to the crown-officer all that they had discovered in
regard to Harding and Smithson, and also the faint suspicion which
they entertained, that Harding, at the instigation of Mr. Tims,
junior, had placed the money in the chamber of Captain Delaware.
The coroner, however, shook his head. "As to Harding and Smithson," he
said, "the matter is sufficiently made out to justify us in issuing
warrants for their apprehension; and Harding may perhaps--from some
motive we know nothing of--have placed the money as you suspect,
especially as he seems to have been well acquainted with Emberton
Park; but I do not believe that Mr. Tims had any thing to do with it.
To suppose so, would at once lead us to the conclusion that he was an
accomplice in the murder of his uncle; and his whole conduct gave the
lie to that. No--no--had he even known that his uncle was dead before
he came here, his whole actual behavior afterward would have been very
different. He did not affect any great sorrow for his uncle, as he
would have done had he been at all culpable; but, at the same time, he
was evidently vindictive in the highest degree against the murderers.
No--no--you are mistaken there, gentlemen! But let us issue warrants
against the other two, and intrust their execution to Cousins. We
shall easily be able to get at the truth in regard to Captain Delaware
from one of those gentry, if we can but catch them."
While the warrants were in preparation, it was announced to the
magistrates that Mr. Peter Tims himself was below, with the
undertakers; and, also, that the constable of a neighboring parish had
brought up a boy who had found a hat upon the sea-shore, which, it was
supposed, might throw some light upon the matter before the
magistrates.
Mr. Tims was accordingly directed to wait, while the boy was brought
up, and the hat examined. The peculiarity of its form--a form unknown
in Emberton--and of its color--a shade of that light russet-brown in
which Shakspeare clothes the dawn for her morning's walk at once led
Dr. Wilton to believe that it had belonged to his unfortunate friend,
Henry Beauchamp. As Beauchamp, however, was not one of those men who
write their names in their hats, the matter still remained in the most
unpleasant state in the world--a state of doubt; and such a state
being not less disagreeable to Dr. Wilton than to any one else--after
catechising the boy, and discovering that nothing was to be
discovered, except that the hat had been washed on shore at about
five miles' distance from Ryebury, of which washing it bore ample
marks--the worthy clergyman left his companions in magistracy to
expedite the warrants, and returned in person to Emberton, in order to
examine Mrs. Wilson, Beauchamp's late landlady, in regard to the hat,
which he carried thither along with him.
As soon as Mrs. Wilson saw it, she declared that it was the identical
hat that poor dear Mr. Burrel used always to wear in the morning. She
had seen it, she said, full a hundred times, and knew it, because the
leather in the inside was laced with a silk tag, for all the world
like the bodices she could remember when she was young. Eagerly, also,
did she question Dr. Wilton as to where it had been found; for it
seems that Mr. Burrel had been no small favorite with the old lady;
and when she was made acquainted with the facts, she wrung her hands,
declaring that she was sure the poor young gentleman had gone and
drowned himself for love of Miss Delaware. Now, Dr. Wilton had at his
heart entertained a sort of vague suspicion that Beauchamp,
notwithstanding all his strong moral and religious principles,
might--in a moment of despair, and in that fancied disgust at the
world, which he was somewhat too apt to pamper--do some foolish act.
Perhaps I should have said that he _feared_ it might be so; and, as he
would rather have believed any other thing and was very angry at
himself for supposing it possible, he was, of course, still more angry
at good Mrs. Wilson for so strongly confirming his apprehensions. He
scolded her very heartily, therefore, for imagining what he had before
imagined himself; and was just leaving her house, when he bethought
him of making inquiries concerning the haunts and behavior of Mr.
Burrel's valet, Harding. To his questions on this head, Mrs.
Wilson--though a little indignant at the reprimand she had
received--replied in the most clear and distinct manner, that Harding
had never kept company with any one but Mr. Smithson, the chemist
gentleman, who lodged farther up the town; that no one scarcely ever
heard the sound of his voice; and that, for her part, so queer were
his ways, that she should have thought that he was a conjuror, if he
had not been a gentleman's servant--which two occupations she
mistakenly imagined to be incompatible.
Dr. Wilton next inquired what was the size of the valet's foot, at
which Mrs. Wilson looked aghast, demanding, "Lord! how should she know
what was the size of the gentleman's foot? But stay," she cried the
moment after, "Stay, stay, sir! Now I think of it, I can tell to a
cheeseparing; for in the hurry that he went away in, he left a pair of
boots behind him; and the groom, when he set off the morning after,
would not take them, because he said Mr. Harding was always _jawing_
him, and meddling with his business, and some day or another he would
tell him a thing or two."
Dr. Wilton demanded an immediate sight of the boots, with all the
eagerness of a connoisseur, and with much satisfaction beheld a
leathern foot bag, of extraordinary length, brought in by the
landlady, who declared, as she entered, that "he had a very long foot
after all."
The boot was immediately carried off to the inn; but as Mr. Egerton
had the measurements with him at Ryebury, Dr. Wilton was obliged to
wait one mortal hour and a half ere he could proceed to ascertain the
correspondence of the valet's boot with the bloody mark of the
murderer's foot, tormenting himself about Beauchamp in the mean while.
After waiting that time, however, in fretful incertitude, as to going
to the place itself, or staying his fellow-magistrate's return, Mr.
Egerton appeared, the paper on which the footmarks had been traced was
produced, and the boot being set down thereon, filled up one of the
vacant spaces without the difference of a line.
"Now, now, we have him!" cried Dr. Wilton, rubbing his hands eagerly;
"Now we have him. Beyond all question, the counsel for the crown will
permit the least criminal to become king's evidence, and I doubt not,
in the slightest degree, that we shall find poor William Delaware
completely exculpated."
"You call to my mind, my dear friend," said Mr. Egerton, laying his
hand on Di. Wilton's arm, as if to stop his transports--"you call to
my mind a waggish receipt for dressing a strange dish."
"How so? how so?" demanded Dr. Wilton, with a subdued smile at the
reproof of his eagerness, which he knew was coming in some shape or
other. "What is your receipt, my dear sir?"
"It runs thus," answered Mr. Egerton, "_How to dress a
griffin_--First, catch a griffin!--and then, dress him any way you
like!"
"Well, well!" answered Dr. Wilton, "we will try to catch the griffin,
my dear sir, and you shall not find me wanting in ardor to effect the
preliminary step, if you will aid me to bring about the second, and
let me dress my griffin when I have caught him. To say the truth," he
added, relapsing into grave seriousness, "the subject is not a
laughing one; and I am afraid I have suffered my personal feelings to
become somewhat too keenly interested--perhaps to a degree of levity.
God knows, there is little reason for us to be eager in the matter,
except from a desire that, by the punishment of the guilty, the
innocent should be saved; and I am willing to confess, that I
entertain not the slightest doubt of the innocence of William
Delaware. A crime has certainly been committed by some one; and
according to all the laws of God and man, it is one which should be
punished most severely. Heaven forbid, however, that I should treat
such a matter with levity. All I meant to say is, that if we do
succeed in apprehending the real murderers, we must endeavor to make
their conviction the means of clearly exculpating the innocent."
"I hope we shall be as successful as you could wish," replied Mr.
Egerton; "and I think it would give me scarcely less pleasure than it
would give yourself, to hear that Captain Delaware is innocent,
although I will not suffer either a previous good character, or a
gallant deportment, or a handsome countenance to weigh with me, except
as presumptive testimony in his favor, and as a caution to myself to
be on my guard against the natural predilections of man's heart. But
what have you discovered regarding the hat?"
"Confirmation, I am afraid, too strong, of my worst fears," answered
Dr. Wilton; and he related how positively Mrs. Wilson had declared it
to have belonged to Mr. Beauchamp. Measures for investigating this
event also, were immediately taken, and information of the supposed
death, by drowning, of a gentleman lately residing at Emberton, was
given to all the stations on that coast. This new catastrophe, of
course, furnished fresh food to the gossiping propensities of the
people of the town; and the tale, improved by the rich and prolific
imaginations of its inhabitants, was sent forth connected by a
thousand fine and filmy links with the murder of the miser, and the
disappearance of the Delaware family. It instantly appeared in all the
public prints, who, to do them but justice, were far too charitable to
leave it in its original nakedness. Hence it was transferred, with new
scenery, dresses, and decorations, to a broad sheet of very thin
paper, and distributed by a man, with a loud voice, on the
consideration of one halfpenny, to wondering housemaids, and keepers
of chandler's shops, under the taking title of the "Ryebury Tragedy!"
and there is strong reason to believe that it was alone owing to the
temporary difficulties of Mr. ----, of the ---- theater, that Captain
William Delaware was not brought upon the boards, with a knife in his
hand, cutting the throat of the miser, while Henry Beauchamp threw
himself from the rocks into the sea, for love of the murderer's
sister. That this theatrical consummation did not take place is much
to be wondered at; and it is to be hoped that, when the managers are
furnished with all the correct particulars, they will give the public
their version of the matter on every stage from Drury Lane to the very
barn at Emberton itself.
As may be easily supposed, for two country magistrates, Dr. Wilton and
Mr. Egerton had now their hands tolerably full; and consequently, on
separating, they agreed to meet again at Emberton in two days. In the
mean time, the funeral of the murdered man took place, conducted, as
Mr. Peter Tims assured every body, with that attention to economy
which would have been gratifying to the deceased himself, could he
have witnessed it. Nobody could doubt that the nephew had probability
on his side in this respect, though the undertaker grumbled, and the
mercer called him a shabby person. After the interment, Mr. Tims took
possession of the premises and the papers of the deceased; but, for
reasons that may be easily divined, he did not choose to stay in the
dwelling that his uncle had inhabited. Passing the ensuing evening and
night at the inn, he had all the papers removed thither, and continued
in the examination thereof for many an hour, in a room from which even
his own clerk was excluded. Those who saw him afterward, declared that
his countenance was as resplendent as a new sovereign; but he
selfishly kept all his joy to his own bosom; and, after spending
another day in Emberton, he set off post for London, with many a bag
and tin case, to take out letters of administration.