excited stragglers after them, astonished Piefinch Cut not a little.
Figg the pawnbroker--who was originally from Alcester--considered
himself learned in the law. Anyway, he was a great talker, and liked to
give his opinion upon every topic that might turn up. His shop joined
Dovey's forge: and when we arrived there, Figg was outside, holding
forth to Dovey, who had his shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows as
usual, his leather apron on. Mrs. Dovey stood listening behind, in the
smart gown and red-ribboned bonnet she had worn at the inquest.
"Why--what on earth!--have they been and gone and took up Crew?" cried
Figg in surprise.
"It is an awful shame of old Jones," I broke in; speaking more to Dovey
than Figg, for Figg was no favourite of mine. "A whole week of the
lock-up! Only think of it, Dovey!"
"But have they brought it in again' him, Master Johnny?" cried Dovey,
unfolding his grimy arms to touch his paper cap to me as he spoke.
"_No_; that's what they have not done. The inquest is adjourned for a
week; and I don't believe old Jones has a right to take him at all. Not
legally, you know."
"That's just what her brought word," said Dovey, with a nod in the
direction of his wife. "'Well, how be it turned, Ann?' says I to her
when her come back--for I'd a sight o' work in to-day and couldn't go
myself. 'Oh, it haven't turned no ways yet, Jack,' says her; 'it be put
off to next week.' There he goes! right in."
This last remark applied to Abel Crew. After fumbling in his pocket for
the two big keys, tied together with string, and then fumbling at the
latch, old Jones succeeded in opening the door. Not being much used, the
lock was apt to grow rusty. Then he stood back, and with a flourish of
hands motioned Abel in. He made no resistance.
"They must know for certain as 'twere his pills what done it," struck in
Mrs. Dovey.
"No, they don't," said I. "What's more, I do not think it was his pills.
Abel Crew says he never put poison in his pills yet, and I believe him."
"Well, and no more it don't stand to reason as he would, Mr. Ludlow,"
said Figg, a man whose self-complaisance was not to be put down by any
amount of discouragement. "I were just a-saying so to Dovey---- Why have
old Jones took him up?" went on Figg to Gibbon the gamekeeper, who came
striding by.
"Jones says he has the coroner's orders for it," answered Gibbon.
"Look here, I know a bit about law, and I know a man oughtn't to be shut
up till some charge is brought again' him," contended Figg. "Crew's
pills is suspected, but he have not been charged yet."
"Anyway, it's what Jones has gone and done," said Gibbon. "Perhaps he is
right. And a week's not much; it'll soon pass. But as to any pills of
Abel Crew's having killed them children, it's just preposterous to think
of it."
"What d'ye suppose did kill 'em, then, Richard Gibbon?" demanded Ann
Dovey, a hot flush on her face, her tone full of resentment.
"That's just what has to be found out," returned Gibbon, passing on his
way.
"If it hadn't been for Dobbs and Butcher Perkins holding out again' it,
Crew 'ud ha' been brought in guilty safe enough," said Ann Dovey. And
the tone was again so excited, so bitterly resentful against Dobbs and
Perkins, that I could not help looking at her in wonder. It sounded just
as though the non-committal of Abel were a wrong inflicted upon herself.
"No, he would not have been brought in guilty," I answered her; "he
would have been committed for trial; but that's a different thing. If
the matter could be sifted to the bottom, I know it would be found that
the mischief did not lie with Abel Crew's pills. There, Mrs. Dovey!"
She was looking at me out of the corners of her eyes--for all the world
as if she were afraid of me, or of what I said. I could not make her
out.
"Why should you wish so particularly to bring it home to Crew?" I
pointedly asked her; and Figg turned round to look at her, as if
seconding the question.
"Me want particular to bring it home to Crew!" she retorted, her voice
rising with temper; or perhaps with fear, for she trembled like an aspen
leaf. "I don't want to bring it home particular to him, Mr. Ludlow. It
were his pills, though, all the same, that did it."
And with that she whisked through the forge to her kitchen.
* * * * *
On the morning following I got old Jones to let me into the lock-up. The
place consisted of two rooms opening into one another, and a small
square space, no bigger than a closet, at the end of the passage, where
they kept the pen and ink. For that small space had a window in it,
looking on to the fields at the back; the two rooms had only skylights
in the roof. In the inner room a narrow iron bedstead stood against the
wall, a mattress and blanket on it. Abel was sitting on that when we
went in.
"You must have been lively here last night, Abel!"
"Yes, very, sir," answered he, with a half-smile. "I did not really mind
it; I am used to be alone. I could have done with fewer rats, though."
"Oh, are there rats here?"
"Lots of them, Master Johnny. I don't like rats. They came upon my face,
and all about me."
"Why does old Jones not set traps for them? He considers this place to
be under his special protection."
"There are too many for any trap to catch," answered Abel.
Old Jones had gone off to the desk in the closet, having placed some
bread and butter and milk on the shelf for Abel. His errand there was
to enter the cost of the bread in the account-book, to be settled for
later. A prisoner in the lock-up was commonly treated to bread and
water: old Jones had graciously allowed this one to pay for some butter
and milk out of his own pocket.
"I don't want to treat 'em harsher nor I be obliged, Master Ludlow," he
said to me, when coming in, in reference to the butter and the milk he
was carrying. "Abel Crew have been known as a decent man ever since he
come among us: and if he chooses to pay for the butter and the milk,
there ain't no law against his having 'em. 'Tain't as if he was a
burglar."
"No, he is not a burglar," I answered. "And you must mind that you do
not get into the wrong box about him. There's neither law nor justice in
locking him up, Jones, before he is charged."
"If I had never locked up nobody till they was charged, I should ha'
been in the wrong box many a time afore now," said old Jones, doggedly.
"Look at that there man last Christmas; what I caught prowling in the
grounds at Parrifer Hall, with a whole set of house-breaking things
concealed in his pockets! After I'd took him, and lodged him in here
safe, it was found that he was one o' the worst characters in the
county, only let out o' Worcester goal two days before. Suppose I'd
not took him, Master Johnny? where 'ud the spoons at Parrifer Hall ha'
been?"
"That was a different case altogether."
"_I_ know what I'm about," returned Jones. "The coroner, he just give me
a nod or two, looking at Crew as he give it. I knew what it meant, sir:
a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."
Anyway, Jones had him, here in the lock-up: and had gone off to enter
the loaf in the account-book; and I was sitting on the bench opposite
Abel.
"It is a wicked shame of them to have put you here, Abel."
"It is not legal--as I believe," he answered. "And I am sure it is not
just, sir. I swear those pills and that box produced at the inquest were
none of mine. They never went out of my hands. Old Jones thinks he is
doing right to secure me, I suppose, and he is civil over it; so I must
not grumble. He brought me some water to wash in this morning, and a
comb."
"But there's no _sense_ in it. You would not attempt to escape; you
would wait for the reassembling of the inquest."
"Escape!" he exclaimed. "I should be the first to remain for it. I am
more anxious than any one to have the matter investigated. Truth to say,
Master Johnny, my curiosity is excited. Hester Reed is so persistent in
regard to their being the pills and box that I gave her; and as she is a
truthful honest woman, one can't see where the mistake lies. There must
be a mystery in it somewhere."
"Suppose you are committed to take your trial? And found guilty?"
"That I shall be committed, I look upon as certain," he answered. "As to
being found guilty--if I am, I must bear it. God knows my innocence, and
I shall hope that in time He will bring it to light."
"All the same, Abel, they ought not to put you in here."
"That's true, sir."
"And then there will be the lying in prison until the assizes--two or
three good months to come! Don't go and die of it, Abel."
"No, I shall not do that," he answered, smiling a little. "The
consciousness of innocence will keep me up."
I sat looking at him. What light could get in through the dusty skylight
fell on his silver hair, which fell back from his pale face. He held his
head down in thought, only raising it to answer me. Some movement in the
closet betokened old Jones's speedy approach, and I hastened to assure
Abel that all sensible people would not doubt his innocence.
"No one need doubt it, Master Johnny," he answered firmly, his eye
kindling. "I never had a grain of arsenic in my house; I have never had
any other poison. There are herbs from which poison may be distilled,
but I have never gathered them. When it comes to people needing
poison--and there are some diseases of the human frame that it may be
good for--they should go to a qualified medical man, not to a herbalist.
No. I have never, never had poison or poisonous herbs withing my
dwelling; therefore (putting other reasons aside) it is _impossible_
that those pills can have been my pills. God hears me say it, and knows
that it is true."
Old Jones, balancing the keys in his hand, was standing within the
room, listening. Abel Crew was so respectable and courteous a prisoner,
compared with those he generally had in the lock-up, burglars, tipsy
men, and the like, returning him a "thank you" instead of an oath, that
he had already begun to regard him with some favour, and the assertion
seemed to make an impression on him.
"Look here," said he. "Whose pills could they have been, if they warn't
yours?"
"I cannot imagine," returned Abel Crew. "I am as curious about it as any
one else--Master Ludlow here knows I am. I dare say it will come out
sometime. They _could not_ have been made up by me."
"What was that you told the coroner about your pill-boxes being marked?"
asked old Jones.
"And so they are marked; all of them. The pill-box I saw there----"
"I mean the stock o' boxes you've got at home. Be they all marked?"
"Every one of them. When I have in a fresh lot of pill-boxes the first
thing I do, on bringing them home, is to mark them."
"Then look here. You just trust me with the key of your place, and tell
me where the boxes are to be found, and I'll go and secure 'em, and lay
'em afore the coroner. If they be all found marked, it'll tell in your
favour."
The advice sounded good, and Abel Crew handed over his key. Jones looked
solemn as he and I went away together.
"It's an odd thing, though, Master Johnny, ain't it, how the pison could
ha' got into them there pills," said he slowly, as he put the big key
into the lock of the outer door.
And we had an audience round us before the words were well spoken. To
see the lock-up made fast when there was a prisoner within it, was
always a coveted recreation in Piefinch Cut. Several individuals had
come running up; not to speak of children from the gutters. Dovey stood
gazing in front of his forge; Figg, who liked to be lounging about
outside when he had no customers transacting delicate negotiations
within, backed against his shop-window, and stared in concert with
Dovey. Jones flourishing the formidable keys, crossed over to them.
"How do he feel to-day?" asked Figg, nodding towards the lock-up.
"He don't feel no worse appariently than he do other days," replied old
Jones. "It be a regular odd thing, it be."
"What be odd?" asked Dovey.
"How the pison could ha' got into them there pills. Crew says he has
never had no pison in his place o' no kind, herbs nor else."
"And I would pledge my word that it is the truth," I put in.
"Well, and so I think it is," said Dovey. "Last night George Reed was in
here a-talking. He says he one day come across Abel Crew looking for
herbs in the copse behind the Grange. Crew was picking and choosing:
some herbs he'd leave alone, and some he dug up. Reed spied out a
fine-looking plant, and called to him. Up comes Crew, trowel in hand,
bends down to take a look, and then gives his head a shake. 'That won't
do for me,' says he, 'that plant has poisonous properties,' says he;
'and I never meddles with them that has,' says he. George Reed told us
that much in this here forge last night. Him and his wife have a'most
had words about it."
"Had words about what?" asked old Jones.
"Why, about them pills. Reed tells her that if it is the pills what
poisoned the young ones, she have made some mull o' the box Abel give
her and got it changed. But he don't believe as 'twere the pills at all.
And Hester Reed, she sticks to it that she never made no mull o' the
box, and that the pills is the same."
At this juncture, happening to turn my head, I saw Mrs. Dovey at the
door at the back of the forge, her face screwed round the doorpost,
listening: and there was a great fear on it. Seeing me looking at her,
she disappeared like a shot, and quietly closed the door. A thought
flashed across me.
"That woman knows more about it than she will say! And it is frightening
her. What can the mystery be?"
The children were buried on the Sunday afternoon, all the parish
flocking to the funeral; and the next morning Abel Crew was released.
Whether old Jones had become doubtful as to the legality of what he had
done, or whether he received a mandate from the coroner by the early
post, no one knew. Certain it was, that before nine o'clock old Jones
held the lock-up doors open, and Abel Crew walked out. It was thought
that some one must have written privately to the coroner--which was more
than likely. Old Jones was down in the mouth all day, as if he had had
an official blowing-up.
Abel and his stick went home. The rest and his own doctoring had very
nearly cured the instep. On the Saturday old Jones had made a descent
upon the cottage and cleared it of the pill-boxes. Jones found that
every box had Abel's private mark upon it.
"Well, this is a curious start, Crew!" exclaimed Mr. Duffham, meeting
him as he was turning in at his gate. "Now in the lock-up, and now out
of it! It may be old Jones's notion of law, but it is not mine. How have
you enjoyed it?"
"It would not have been so bad but for the rats, sir," replied Abel. "I
could see a few stars shining through the skylight."
* * * * *
The days went on to the Thursday, and it was now the evening before the
adjourned inquest. Tod and I, in consideration of the popular ferment,
had taken the Squire at a favourable moment, and extracted from him
another week's holiday. Opinions were divided: some believed in Crew,
others in the poisoned pills. As to Crew himself, he was out in his
garden as usual, attending to his bees, and his herbs and flowers, and
quietly awaiting the good or the ill luck that Fate might have in store
for him.
It was Thursday evening, I say; and I was taking tea with Duffham.
Having looked in upon him, when rushing about the place, he asked me
to stay. The conversation turned upon the all-engrossing topic; and I
chanced to mention that the behaviour of Ann Dovey puzzled me. Upon
that, Duffham said that it was puzzling him. He had been called in to
her the previous day, and found her in a regular fever, eyes anxious,
breath hysterical, face hectic. Since the day of the inquest she had
been more or less in this state, and the blacksmith told Duffham he
could not make out what had come to her. "Them pills have drove her mad,
sir," were Dovey's words; "she can't get 'em off her mind."
The last cup of tea was poured out, and Duffham was shaking round the
old black pot to see if he could squeeze out any more, when we received
an interruption. Dovey came bursting in upon us straight from his forge;
his black hair ruffled, his small dark face hot with flurry. It was a
singular tale he had come to tell. His wife had been making a confession
to him. Driven pretty nearly out of her mind by the weight of a secret,
she could hold it no longer.
To begin at the beginning. Dovey's house swarmed with black-beetles.
Dovey himself did not mind the animals, but Mrs. Dovey did; and no
wonder, when she could not step out of bed in the night without putting
her foot on one. But, if Dovey did not dislike black-beetles, there was
another thing he did dislike--hated in fact; and that was the stuff
called beetle-powder: which professed to kill them. Mrs. Dovey would
have scattered some on the floor every night; but Dovey would not allow
it. He forbid her to bring a grain of it into the house: it was nothing
but poison, he said, and might chance to kill themselves as well as the
beetles. Ann Dovey had her way in most matters, for Dovey was easy, as
men and husbands go; but when once he put his veto on a thing, she knew
she might as well try to turn the house round as turn him.
Now what did Ann Dovey do? On that very Easter Tuesday, as it chanced,
as soon as dusk had set in, off she went to Dame Chad's general shop in
Church Dykely, where the beetle-power was sold, and bought a packet of
it. It seemed to her, that of the choice between two evils--to put up
with the horrible black animals, or to disobey Dovey, the latter was the
more agreeable. She could easily shake some of the powder down lightly
of a night; the beetles would eat it up before morning, and Dovey would
never know it. Accordingly, paying for the powder--a square packet, done
up in blue paper, on which was labelled "Poison" in as large letters as
the printer could get into the space--she thrust it into the depths of
her gown-pocket--it was her holiday gown--and set off home again.
Calling in at George Reed's cottage on her way, she there assisted, as
it also chanced, in administering the pills to the unfortunate children.
And perhaps her motive for calling in was not so much from a love of
presiding at physic-giving, as that she might be able, when she got
home, to say "At Reed's," if her husband asked her where she had been.
It fell out as she thought. No sooner had she put foot inside the forge
than Dovey began, "Where'st been, Ann?" and she told him at Reed's,
helping with the sick little ones. Dovey's work was over for the
night; he wanted his supper; and she had no opportunity of using the
beetle-powder. It was left untouched in the pocket of her gown. The
following morning came the astounding news of the children's death; and
in the excitement caused by that, Mrs. Dovey lost sight of the powder.
Perhaps she thought that the general stir might cause Dovey to be more
wakeful than usual, and that she might as well let the powder be for a
short time. It was safe where it was, in her hung-up gown. Dovey never
meddled with her pockets: on or off, they were no concern of his.
But, on the Friday morning, when putting on this same holiday gown to
attend the inquest, to which she had been summoned, what was her horror
to find the packet burst, and her pocket filled with the loose powder.
Mrs. Dovey had no greater love for beetle-powder in itself than she had
for beetles, and visibly shuddered. She could not empty it out; there it
had to remain; for Dovey, excited by his wife's having to give evidence,
was in and out of her room like a dog in a fair; and she went off
perforce with the stuff in her pocket. And when during her examination
the questions took the turn they did take, and the coroner asked her
whether she had had any poison in her pocket that night at George
Reed's; this, with the consciousness of what had been that night
in her pocket, of what was in her pocket at that very moment, then
present, nearly frightened her into fits. From that hour, Ann Dovey had
lived in a state of terror. It was not that she believed any of the
beetle-powder _could_ have got inside the ill-fated young ones (though
she did not feel quite easy on the point), as that she feared the
accusation might be shifted off Crew's shoulders and on to hers. On this
Thursday evening she could hold out no longer; and disclosed all to
Dovey.
Dovey burst upon us in a heat. He was as straightforward a man as ever
lived, of an intensely honest nature, and could no more have kept it in,
now that he knew it, than he could have given up all righteous dealing
together. His chief concern was to tell the truth, and to restore peace
to his wife. He went through the narrative to Duffham without stopping;
and seemed not in the least to care for my being present.
"It ain't _possible_, sir, there ain't a moral _possibility_ that any o'
that there dratted powder could have come anigh the babies," wound up
Dovey. "I should be thankful, sir, if you'd come down and quieten her a
bit; her be in a fine way."
What with surprise, and what with the man's rapid speech, Duffham had
not taken in one-half of the tale. He had simply sat behind the teapot
and stared.
"My good fellow, I don't understand," he said. "A pocketful of poison!
What on earth made her take poison to George Reed's?"
So Dovey went over the heads of the story again.
"'Twas in her pocket, sir, our Ann's, it's true; but the chances are
that at that time the paper hadn't burst. None of it _couldn't_ ha' got
to them there two young ones."
To see the blacksmith's earnestness was good. His face was as eager, his
tone as imploring, as though he were pleading for his life.
"And it 'ud be a work of charity, sir, if you'd just step down and see
her. I'd pay handsome for the visit, sir; anything you please to charge.
She's like one going right out of her mind."
"I'll come," said Duffham, who had his curiosity upon the point.
And the blacksmith set off on the run home again.
"Well, this is a curious thing!" exclaimed Duffham, when he had gone.
"Could the beetle-powder have poisoned the children?" I asked.
"I don't know, Johnny. It is an odd tale altogether. We will go down and
inquire into it."
Which of course implied that he expected me to go with him. Nothing
loath was I; more eager than he.
Finishing what was left of the tea and bread-and-butter, we went on to
Piefinch Cut. Ann Dovey was alone, except for her husband and mother.
She flung herself on the sofa when she saw us--the blacksmith's house
was comfortably off for furniture--and began to scream.
"Now, just you stop that, Ann Dovey," said Duffham, who was always short
with hysterics. "I want to come to the bottom of this business; you
can't tell it me while you scream. What in the world possessed you to go
about with your pocket full of poison?"
She had her share of sense, and knew Duffham was not one to be trifled
with; so she told the tale as well as she could for sobbing.
"Have you mentioned this out of doors?" was the first question Duffham
asked when it was over.
"No," interposed Dovey. "I telled 'er afore I come to you not to be
soft enough for that. Not a soul have heard it, sir, but me and
her"--pointing to the old mother--"and you and Master Johnny. We don't
want all the parish swarming about us like so many hornets."
"Good," said Duffham. "But it is rather a serious thing, I fear.
Uncertain, at any rate."
"Be it, sir?" returned Ann, raising her heavy eyes questioningly. "Do
you think so?"
"Why, you see, the mischief must have lain between that beetle-powder
and Crew's pills. As Crew is so careful a man, I don't think it could
have been the pills; and that's the truth."
"But how could the beetle-powder have got anigh the children out of my
pocket, sir?" she asked, her eyes wild. "I never put my hand into my
pocket while I sat there; I never did."
"You can't be sure of that," returned Duffham. "We may put our hands
into our pockets fifty times a day without remembering it."
"D'you suppose, sir, I should take out some o' that there beetle-powder
and cram it down the poor innocents' throats?" she demanded, on the
verge of further screaming.
"Where is the powder?" questioned Duffham.
The powder was where it had been all along: in the gown-pocket. Want of
opportunity, through fear of Dovey's eyes, or dread of touching the
stuff, had kept her from meddling with it. When she took the gown off,
the night of the inquest, she hung it up on the accustomed hook, and
there it was still. The old mother went to the bedroom and brought it
forward, handling it gingerly: a very smart print gown with bright
flowers upon it.
Duffham looked round, saw a tin pie-dish, and turned the pocket inside
out into it. A speckled sort of powder, brown and white. He plunged his
fingers into it fearlessly, felt it, and smelt it. The blue paper it had
been sold in lay amidst it, cracked all across. Duffham took it up.
"Poison!" read out he aloud, gazing at the large letters through his
spectacles. "How came you to let it break open in your pocket, Ann
Dovey?"