HOW THE MURDER WAS DISCOVERED.
All murders past do stand excused in this—
And this so sole and so unmatchable
Shall prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
SHAKESPEARE.
Fearless he sees who is with virtue crowned
The tempest rage and hears the thunder sound—
Ever the same, though fortune smile or frown.
GRANVILLE.
It was inevitable that the murder of the girl in the railway carriage
must have been speedily discovered.
It was broad daylight when the train reached Yockley.
A group of ladies and children stood on the platform waiting to get
seats.
The guard, seeing them, and knowing that the “reserved” compartment,
“reserved” no longer, was the only vacant one on the train, went and
opened the door, put out the lamp, and turned to the new passengers.
“Ladies’ carriage, guard,” said the matron who appeared to be the mother
of the group.
“All right, mum, here you are! Only one lady in the carriage, and no
gentlemen. Plenty of room, mum!” answered the official, lifting the
children in one by one, and then assisting two young ladies and finally
the matron into the compartment.
The last mentioned was stout and clumsy, and pitched about for a moment,
and then stumbled and fell; but in falling she threw out her hand to
save herself, and struck upon the form of poor Kit.
Something “swashed” as she afterwards described it, like wet clothes in
a wash-tub when pressed upon.
She recovered her equilibrium and dropped into her seat; but that of the
poor murdered girl had been disturbed, and the body swayed helplessly
and sank heavily against the matron, who gave it a vigorous “hunch,” as
she exclaimed:
“Sit up, my dear! Or _wake_ up, if you are asleep—you _scrouge_ me!”
But at the same instant the woman looked at her glove, and the young
lady on the opposite seat looked on the supposed sleeper, and both awoke
the welkin with piercing shrieks, shriek upon shriek, as they burst open
the door and sprang tumultuously out of the carriage, followed by the
terrified and screaming children.
The whole station was aroused and came crowding to the door of the
compartment around the distracted group of women and children.
“What’s up? what’s up?” demanded the guard, who was the first on the
spot.
“Oh, in there! in there!” was all the pale and trembling women could
utter.
“It is—it is—” began one of the young girls; but she could get no
farther.
“In the compartment—in there! It’s dead! It’s a corpse!” cried a child
of twelve years old, who seemed to have better possession of her senses
than all the rest.
The startled guard entered the carriage—but sprang back as if he had
been shot!
He closed and locked the door, and rushed across the track to the office
of the station-master.
The train was to be delayed for five minutes, and this delay must be
telegraphed up and down the road to insure the safety of all on that
route.
Then back to the bloody scene, followed by station-master, ticket agent,
policemen, porters and passengers.
And the compartment was opened and its horrors revealed.
The babel of voices was hushed now!
Some one had taken a door off its hinges and brought it to the spot.
The guard and a constable entered the compartment and raised the body of
the unfortunate girl, and bore it out and laid it on the door. Two
porters were called to lift it, and while the constable made way through
the crowd, it was borne across the track and into the largest room of
the railway station.
The carriage containing the fatal compartment was detached from the
train, switched off the road and run into a safe place to await the
action of the coroner, and the carriages next before and after were run
together and locked, and so the sequence was complete again.
The guard of that train was detained as a witness and another guard was
put on duty, and then the train went on its way.
All this was done with railway celerity and within the stipulated five
minutes’ grace.
The sun was now above the horizon, and all Yockley—that is to say, the
industrious and laboring portion of Yockley—was up and about its
business. But little business was done after the news of the murder in
the railway carriage was bruited abroad.
The coroner had been promptly summoned, but the crowd gathered before
the coroner came.
By order of that officer, the body was removed to the Tawny Lion Tavern,
where it was laid out in the large public hall, used often for such
purposes in case of railway accidents, and a jury was summoned and
impannelled to hold an inquest.
A _post-mortem_ examination was ordered by Coroner Locke, and made by
Dr. Lowe, the village practitioner, and his assistants, who proved that
death had been caused by a wound through the heart, inflicted by some
fine, sharp, three-edged instrument.
The witnesses were Mrs. Bottom, Miss Bottom, and Miss Ann Jane Bottom,
who had first discovered the dead body in the carriage, and who, with
all the children of their party, had had their journey temporarily
interrupted, and were now stopping at the Tawny Lion, in attendance on
the inquest.
On a long table, some few feet in front of this one, lay the body of the
murdered girl, covered over with a sheet.
One witness, the guard who had been on duty that fatal night, was
already called to the stand and undergoing examination.
To the questions of the coroner he answered:
“Name, Thomas Potter; occupation, guard on the London and Northwestern
Railway. Was on duty last night.”
“Will you tell the jury what you know of this case?” inquired the
coroner.
“Yes, sir. Was on duty, as I had the honor of saying, last night. Train
left Paddington Station at 3:50. Just before she left observed a
gentleman in an ulster, with his black cap pulled down low on his brows;
had a lady in a long, waterproof cloak, on his arm; was looking for
seats and the train about to start. I showed them to an empty
compartment, and asked the gentleman if he would like to reserve it, for
I thought the two were bride and groom.”
“Never mind about your thoughts, guard; let us have the facts,” said the
coroner.
“Yes, sir. Gentleman _did_ reserve the compartment to himself and his
companion. I didn’t notice the gentleman’s face to recognize it then,
sir, for the train had not left the station and the light was bad.”
“Did you recognize him afterwards?” inquired one of the jurymen.
“Later on, sir, I did; but it was much later on; for, though the
gentleman got out at one or two stations, he kept the collar of his coat
up and the visor of his cap down, so that I did not recognize him; but
really I did not take much notice. It was not until we got to the Grand
Junction that I saw him to know him. He got out and went into the
refreshment-room, and stayed a few minutes, and then came out again; and
as I opened the door for him he turned down the collar of his ulster and
took off his cap, as if he was too warm, and then I saw he was Mr.
Valdimir Desparde.”
The announcement of this name caused a murmur of surprise throughout the
crowd, for the Baron Beaudevere and the heir of Cloudland were known all
along this line.
“Are you sure of what you say, witness?” inquired the coroner.
“Perfectly sure, sir! I wish to Heaven I wasn’t! I have known Mr.
Valdimir Desparde by sight ever since he was a boy. He used to travel by
this route many times a year.”
“Remember you are under oath.”
“I do remember it, sir; and I can swear to the fact that the gentleman
who reserved the compartment on my train last night for himself and the
young woman who was afterwards found murdered on it, was Mr. Valdimir
Desparde, and no other,” replied the guard.
“And from the time that Mr. Desparde reserved this compartment at
Paddington, until the time when the murder was discovered at Yockley
Station, did any other person except Mr. Desparde and the young woman
who was his companion enter that compartment?” inquired the foreman of
the jury.
“Not a single soul, sir.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“Because, the compartment being reserved, I watched it at every station,
locked the door when the gentleman came out, and unlocked it again when
he wished to come in.”
“How was it, then, that you admitted so large a party into this reserved
compartment as this one that discovered the murder?” inquired the
coroner.
“Because I had missed the gentleman ever since the train left the Miston
Junction, and after it had passed several stations I discovered that he
was nowhere on board of her. When we reached this station and found a
large party of women and children, and not a vacant seat on the train
except in that reserved compartment, where there were seven empty, and
one occupied only by a sleeping woman, I opened the door and put them
into it, and had scarcely gone ten steps away before they all burst
shrieking out of the carriage. The murder was discovered.”
Many more questions were put to the guard, without changing the aspect
of the old facts as related by him, or eliciting any new ones.
His testimony was very damaging to Valdimir Desparde.
Miss Ann Jane Bottom, being called upon to testify, went into hysterics
and had to be taken out.
Miss Maria Bottom had not noticed anything at all until she was hustled
out of the compartment by her screaming mother and sister.
But the inquest was not over yet. The jury wished to examine the inside
of the carriage, that up to this moment had remained locked and guarded
by a constable.
Way was cleared for them to leave the hall, and they went in a body to
the station where the carriage was left.
The compartment was then as thoroughly searched as its shocking
condition would permit; but nothing was found in it except a small gold
pencil-case marked with the initials V. D., and a traveling-bag
apparently the property of the dead woman.
These things were taken possession of by the coroner and carried back to
the hall in the Tawny Lion, where the inquest was resumed.
Then it was thought advisable that the body of the murdered girl should
be viewed, that it might if possible be identified by some one.
Accordingly arrangements were made so that the crowd should file in an
orderly manner by the right-hand door, pass around the table on which
the body was laid, and down and out by the left-hand door.
This procession occupied a full hour.
But among the hundreds of curious people that viewed the body only one
recognized it. This was a young man named Edward Hetley, who had once
been a railway porter at the Miston Station, since transferred to
Yockley.
He identified the body as that of Christelle Ken, the daughter of James
Ken, fisherman on the Miston coast.
When the inspection was over and all the testimony taken, the coroner
summed up the evidence.
He was a plain, straightforward man, this village coroner, and his
speech was brief and to the point.
The case was a very simple one, he said, and would give the jury but
little trouble.
The “intelligent jury” consulted about ten minutes, and returned a
verdict in accordance with the evident facts of the case, to the effect
that—
“The deceased, Christelle Ken, came to her death through a wound in the
heart, inflicted by a sharp-pointed instrument held in the hands of
Valdimir Desparde.”
As soon as the verdict was made known, the magistrate present, Mr.
George Gatton, issued a warrant for the apprehension of Valdimir
Desparde, and dispatched a constable, accompanied by the railway guard,
to Miston for the purpose of executing it.
At the same time a notification of his daughter’s death was sent to
James Ken.
When the hall was cleared of men, the women of the house were admitted
to it. They brought with them hot water and clean white clothing to
prepare the remains of poor Kit for the coffin in which it was to be
sent home to her friends.
The women, when they had done their work, silently covered it over and
withdrew from the hall, leaving it in perfect order.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]