AN OPEN VERDICT.
Three days had passed since the tragedy that cast such gloom over the
whole neighborhood had occurred; three long, dreary days. Outside the
world was in full beauty, fair, smiling summer flung her treasures with
a reckless hand; the sun was bright and the flowers sweet; inside the
stately mansion all was darkness, horror and gloom.
Murder is always terrible. It is so seldom known among the higher
classes that when a young and lovely woman like Lady Alden is its
victim the sensation caused is something terrible.
A reckless, brutal, drunken collier murders his wife, and though his
neighbors shake their heads and say it is a terrible thing, the idea of
a murder is unhappily too familiar to them to excite the disgust, the
repugnance and horror felt among a more cultivated and refined class.
But the murder of Lady Alden created a profound impression through the
whole kingdom; the papers were filled with it; any little detail that
could throw additional light on the subject was most eagerly grasped.
Several popular daily papers sent their special reporters down to
Leeholme. The circulation of the _Daily Wonder_ increased marvelously,
because each morning there was something fresh to say on the subject of
“The Terrible Tragedy in High Life,” and yet, write, guess, imagine
what they would, there was no glimmer of truth in anything written or
said.
Round Leeholme the sensation had been almost terrible. Dr. Mayne, left
to take the entire management of the business, had promptly sent for
the superintendent of police, Captain Johnstone, and had given him
_carte blanche_.
“Spare no money, no time, no labor,” he said, “but let the criminal be
found. Sir Ronald is too ill, too overwhelmed, to give any orders at
present; but you know what should be done. Do it promptly.”
And Captain Johnstone had at once taken every necessary step. There
was something ghastly in the pretty town of Leeholme, for there on the
walls was the placard, worded:
“MURDER!
“Two hundred pounds will be given to any one bringing certain
information as to a murder committed on Tuesday morning, June
19th, in the Holme Woods. Apply to Captain Johnstone, Police
Station, Leeholme.”
Gaping rustics read it, and while they felt heartily sorry for the
unhappy lady they longed to know something about it for the sake of the
reward.
But no one called on Captain Johnstone--no one had a word either of
certainty or surmise. The police officers, headed by intelligent men,
made diligent search in the neighborhood of the pool; but nothing was
found. There was no mark of any struggle; the soft, thick grass gave
no sign of heavy footsteps. No weapon could be found, no trace of
blood-stained fingers. It was all a mystery dark as night, without one
gleam of light.
The pool had always been a favorite place with the hapless lady; and,
knowing that, Sir Ronald had ordered a pretty, quaint golden chair
to be placed there for her; and on the very morning when the event
happened Lady Clarice Alden had taken her book and had gone to the
fatal spot to enjoy the beauty of the morning, the brightness of the
sun and the odor of the flowers. The book she had been reading lay on
the ground, where it had evidently fallen from her hands. But there was
no sign of anything wrong; the bluebells had not even been trampled
under foot.
After twenty-four hours’ search the police relinquished the matter.
Captain Johnstone instituted vigorous inquiries as to all the beggars
and tramps who had been in the neighborhood--nothing suspicious came to
light. One man, a traveling hawker, a gaunt, fierce-looking man, with a
forbidding face, had been passing through Holme Woods, and the police
tracked him; but when he was examined he was so evidently unconscious
and ignorant of the whole matter it would have been folly to detain him.
In the stately mansion of Aldenmere a coroner’s inquest had been held.
Mrs. Glynn declared that it was enough to make the family portraits
turn on the wall--enough to bring the dead to life. Such a desecration
as that had never occurred before. But the coroner was very grave. Such
a murder, he said, was a terrible thing; the youth, beauty and position
of the lady made it doubly horrible. He showed the jury how intentional
the murder must have been--it was no deed done in hot haste. Whoever
had crept with stealthy steps to the lady’s side, whoever had placed
his hand underneath the white lace mantle which she wore, and with
desperate, steady aim stabbed her to the heart, had done it purposely
and had meditated over it. The jury saw that the white lace mantle must
either have been raised or a hand stealthily crept beneath it, for the
cut that pierced the bodice of the dress was not in the mantle.
He saw the red puncture on the white skin. One of the jury was a man
who had traveled far and wide.
“It was with no English weapon this was done,” he said. “I remember a
case very similar when I was staying in Sicily; a man there was killed,
and there was no other wound on his body save a small red circle like
this; afterward I saw the very weapon that he had been slain with.”
“What was it like?” asked the coroner eagerly.
“A long, thin, very sharp instrument, a species of Sicilian dagger. I
heard that years ago ladies used to wear them suspended from the waist
as a kind of ornament. I should not like to be too certain, but it
seems to me this wound has been caused by the same kind of weapon.”
By the coroner’s advice the suggestion was not made public.
The verdict returned was one the public had anticipated: “Willful
murder against some person or persons unknown.”
Then the inquest was over, and nothing remained but to bury Lady
Clarice Alden. Dr. Mayne, however, had not come to the end of his
resources yet.
“The local police have failed,” he said to Sir Ronald; “we will send to
Scotland Yard at once.”
And Sir Ronald bade him do whatever in the interests of justice he
considered best.
In answer to his application came Sergeant Hewson, who was generally
considered the shrewdest and cleverest man in England.
“If Sergeant Hewson gives a thing up, no one else can succeed,” was
a remark of general use in the profession. He seemed to have an
instinctive method of finding out that which completely baffled others.
“The mystery will soon be solved now,” said Dr. Mayne; “Sergeant Hewson
will not be long in suspense.”
The sergeant made his home at Aldenmere; he wished to be always on the
spot.
“The murder must have been done either by some one in the house or some
one out of it,” he said; “let us try the inside first.”
So he watched and waited; he talked to the servants, who considered
him “a most affable gent;” he listened to them; he examined everything
belonging to them--in vain.
Lady Clarice Alden had been beloved and admired by her servants.
“She was very high, poor thing!--high and proud, but as generous and
kind a lady as ever lived. So beautiful, too, with a queer sort of way
with her! She never spoke an unkind word to any of us in her life.”
He heard nothing but praises of her. Decidedly, in all that large
household Lady Clarice had no enemy. He inquired all about her friends,
and he left no stone unturned; but, for once in his life, Sergeant
Hewson was baffled, and the fact did not please him.