'Very good,' he continued. 'I gave that locket and chain to the poor
old girl: it was the only valuable I possessed in the world; and Mrs
Parkway has the central carbuncle in her brooch now.'
'Nonsense!' I exclaimed, not knowing exactly what I did say at the
moment.
'It is a fact,' he said; 'and I can swear to it. What is more to the
point, perhaps, is, that although the stone is in a strange setting,
and no one but myself, probably, could recognise it, yet I can identify
it. On the side are my initials cut in almost microscopical characters.
If they are there, that settles it; if they are not, put me down as an
impostor, and fix the murder on me if you like.'
There was a good deal more said after this, but the upshot of it
was that we went over to Colchester, and laid the matter before the
authorities; when after a little hesitation, a warrant was granted for
the apprehension of Mr Philip Parkway; and two officers, accompanied by
Lytherly and myself, went over to execute it.
It was after nightfall when we arrived at the Mount; and on knocking at
the door, we found that Mr Parkway was in; but his wife was out, having
gone up (so the elderly woman that was called by the footboy informed
us), to play the harmonium at the weekly rehearsal of the village
choir. 'About the only amusement she has, poor thing,' the woman
muttered, and she seemed in a very bad temper about something. We said
we wanted to see her master, and that she need not announce us. And, as
I live, I believe that woman guessed directly who we were, and what we
had come for. At anyrate, quite a glow of triumph came into her face,
and she pointed to a door nearly opposite to where we stood. We opened
it, and found ourselves in a sort of large study, where, seated at a
table, reading, was the man we wanted. He looked up in surprise as we
entered, and the light falling strongly on his face, while all the rest
of the room was in darkness, I thought I saw a paleness come and go on
his gloomy features; but that might have been fancy.
'What is your business?' he began; but Mr Banes the chief constable cut
him short.
'I am sorry to inform you, Mr Parkway,' he said, 'that I hold a warrant
for your arrest, and you must consider yourself in custody.'
Parkway stared at him, mechanically closed the book he was reading, and
said: 'On what charge, sir?'
'For murder,' says Banes; and then I was sure Parkway did turn very
white. 'For the murder of Miss Parkway, at Combestead, in 186-.'
Parkway looked from one to the other of us for a few seconds without
speaking; at last his eyes settled for an instant on Lytherly; then
turning to Banes, he said, pointing straight at Lytherly: 'It was that
man, I have no doubt, who set you on.'
'You had better not say anything, sir,' said the chief constable, 'but
just give your servants what orders you wish, and come with us, as we
cannot stop.'
'I daresay it was he,' continued Parkway, not answering Mr Banes, but
seeming to go with his own thoughts. 'I fancied he was dead, for what
I took to be his ghost has been in my room every night for this month
past.--Where is my wife?'
We told him she was not at home, and that we were anxious to spare her
as far as possible; but he gave such a bitter smile, and said: 'She
will certainly be vexed to have had a husband that was hanged; but she
will be glad to be a widow on any terms.'
We didn't want to hear any more of this, so got him away; not without
some little trouble though; and if there had not been so many of us, we
should have had a scene; as it was, we were obliged to handcuff him.
The servants, four of them, were naturally alarmed, and were in the
hall when we went out. Mr Parkway gave a very few directions, and the
elderly woman grinned quite spitefully at him.
'Don't insult the man, now he's down,' I said in a whisper, while
Parkway and the two officers got into the fly. Lytherly and I were to
ride outside and drive.
'Insult _him_! the wretch!' she said. 'You don't mean to suppose _he_
has any feelings to hurt. He has been trying to drive my poor young
mistress--that I nursed when a baby--into her grave, and he would have
done it, if I had not been here. The only excuse is, he is, and always
has been, a dangerous lunatic.'
We drove off, and I saw no more of her, and never heard how Mrs Parkway
took the intelligence.
The lady was present at the preliminary examination; and to her
great surprise her carbuncle brooch was taken from her and used
against her husband. This examination was on the next morning, and we
obtained more evidence than we had at first expected. Not only was
the carbuncle marked as Lytherly had said it would be, but I had been
up at the station, being unable to shake off old habits, and had made
some inquiries there. Strangely enough, the man who was head-porter
now had been head-porter there five years ago (it is a very sensible
way railways have of keeping a good man in the same position always;
promotion generally upsets and confuses things); and he was able, by
secondary facts, to fix the dates and to shew that not only did Mr
Parkway go to Combestead for the funeral, but that he went to London
and back just before; from London, of course, he could easily get to
Combestead, and his absence left him about time to do so. We proposed
then to have a remand and get evidence from Combestead; but it was
never needed.
Parkway had been expecting this blow for years, and always kept some
deadly poison concealed in the hollow of his watch-seal. This he took,
on the night after his examination, and was found dead in his cell by
the officer who went the rounds. He first wrote a very long and minute
confession, or rather justification, shewing that his motive had been
to prevent his cousin's marriage with Lytherly, whom he seemed to hate
very much, although the young man had never harmed him. He said he went
expressly to Combestead to get possession of the money his misguided
relative had drawn, and to kill her. He felt that if he left her alive,
she would carry out her scandalous plan, and therefore it was his duty
to kill her; so in doing this he felt he had committed no crime, but
had only been an instrument of justice. So I suppose he was, as the
housekeeper declared, a dangerous lunatic.
However, the reward of one hundred pounds had never been withdrawn, and
I got it; it was paid out of Parkway's estate too, which was about the
strangest go I ever heard of. Lytherly and his wife are great friends
with Mrs Robinson and myself; indeed we have usually one of their
young ones staying with us, when we haven't one or two from my married
daughter. Mrs Parkway, I heard, sold off at the Mount, and went away;
and some time after I saw by the papers that she was married to some
one else. I hope she made a better match the second time.
On the whole, on looking back I am inclined to think that of all the
clues by which I ever found anybody out, this was really the queerest.