AND THEN EVERY ONE WENT HOME
Though the hour was getting late, no one among the crowd thought of
leaving the court. Even the desire for tea, so peculiarly insistent at
a certain hour of the day in the whole of the British race, was
smothered beneath the wave of intense excitement which swept right
over every one.
Although the next witnesses--who each in their turn came forward to
the foot of the table--swore to tell the truth and faced the coroner
with more or less assurance, they could but repeat the assertions of
the head of the family; nevertheless the public seemed ready to listen
with untiring patience to the story which went to prove that the man
whom everybody believed to be the heir of one of the oldest titles and
richest rent-rolls in England was the son of a Clapham bricklayer, a
master of audacity and of fraud.
The mother--a worthy and simple soul--was the first to explain that
Paul, her only son, had always been something of a gentleman. He had
done very well at school, and never done a stroke of work like 'is
father. When he was fifteen he was quite stage-struck. "Always
play-acting," as the mother put it, "and could recite poetry
beautiful!"
Mrs. Baker seemed distinctly proud of her son's deeply rooted horror
of work. She thought that all the instincts of a gentleman were really
in him. When he was a grown lad, he went as footman in a gentleman's
family somewhere in the Midlands. The mother loftily supposed that it
was there that Paul learned his good manners.
"He was a perfect gentleman, sir," she reiterated complacently.
It appeared too that the wastrel had had a period in his career when
the call of the stage proved quite irresistible, for he seemed to have
left the gentleman's family in the Midlands somewhat abruptly and
walked on as super for a time in the various melodramas produced at
the Grand Theatre, Nottingham, whenever a crowd was required on the
stage. There seems also to have existed a legend in the heart of the
fond mother and of the doting sister that Paul had once really played
a big part in a serious play. But this statement was distinctly
wanting in corroboration.
What was obviously an established fact was that the man had a certain
spirit of adventure in him, and that he had been a regular rolling
stone, a regular idle, good-for-nothing wastrel, possessing a certain
charm of manner which delighted his family and which was readily
mistaken by the simple folk for that of a gentleman.
They were all called in turn; the sister, and young Smith "from next
door," and the latter's sister. Not one of them swerved for a moment
from the original story told by Jim Baker. Emily and young Smith told
of the meeting which occurred on a fine summer's afternoon between
themselves and Paul. By the strange caprice of wanton coincidence the
meeting occurred inside Green Park. Paul seemed a little worried,
thinking that the passers-by would see him talking to "poor people
like us," as Emily Baker had it, "although," she added proudly, "I 'ad
me new 'at on, with the pink roses." Otherwise he was quite pleasant
and not at all "off-'and."
The account of this interview was fully corroborated by young Smith
"from next door." Jane Smith, who at one time had considered herself
engaged to Paul Baker, had a few tender reminiscences to recount. She
had seen the prodigal once on the boards of the Queen's Theatre,
Lewisham, and she declared that he looked "a perfect gentleman."
The day wore on, or rather the commencement of evening. The
evil-smelling fog from outside had made its home inside the dismal
room. People there only saw one another through a misty veil; the
corners of the room were wrapped in gloom. Exciting as was the story
which had been unfolded this afternoon, one or two among the audience
had given way to sleep. Lady Ducies' feathers nodded ominously, and
the old dame who had munched sandwiches was inclined to give forth an
occasional snore.
Louisa's eyes were aching. Constant watching had tired them; they even
ceased to see clearly. Her brain too had become somnolent. She was
tired of hearing these people talk. From the moment that Jim Baker had
stated that the murdered man was his own son, Louisa had known that he
had spoken the truth. Instinct was guiding her toward the truth,
showing her the truth, wherever possible. She listened at
first--deeply interested--to the scrappy evidence which told of Paul
Baker's early life, but the family from Clapham Junction Road had
marvellously little to relate. They no more understood their
adventurous-spirited son than they would have been capable of aiding
and abetting the fraud which he concocted.
They themselves were far too simple and too stupid to be dangerously
criminal. And so the evidence quickly lost its interest for Louisa.
She herself, with the fragmentary statements which she heard, could
more easily surmise the life history of Paul Baker than could the
doting mother, who retailed complacently every mark on the skin and on
the body of her son, and knew nothing whatever--less than nothing--of
his thoughts, his schemes, of the evil that was in him, and the
ambition which led to his end.
And now the last of the Baker contingent was dismissed. Jane Smith,
the sweetheart of the murdered man, was the last to leave the
coroner's table. She did so in a flood of tears, in which the others
promptly and incontinently joined.
The coroner, somewhat impatient with them all, for their vague notions
on the most important bearings of the case had severely tried him,
adjourned the inquiry until the morrow.
He ordered the jury to be present at a quarter before ten, and gave
the signal for general withdrawal.
After which every one went home.