The belief prevalent in the town ascribed the murder of Sir Philip to
the violence of some vulgar robber, probably not an inhabitant of L----.
Mr. Vigors did not favour that belief. He intimated an opinion, which
seemed extravagant and groundless, that Sir Philip had been murdered,
for the sake not of the missing purse, but of the missing casket. It was
currently believed that the solemn magistrate had consulted one of
his pretended clairvoyants, and that this impostor had gulled him
with assurances, to which he attached a credit that perverted into
egregiously absurd directions his characteristic activity and zeal.
Be that as it may, the coroner’s inquest closed without casting any
light on so mysterious a tragedy.
What were my own conjectures I scarcely dared to admit,--I certainly
could not venture to utter them; but my suspicions centred upon
Margrave. That for some reason or other he had cause to dread Sir
Philip’s presence in L---- was clear, even to my reason. And how could
my reason reject all the influences which had been brought to bear on my
imagination, whether by the scene in the museum or my conversation
with the deceased? But it was impossible to act on such
suspicions,--impossible even to confide them. Could I have told to any
man the effect produced on me in the museum, he would have considered
me a liar or a madman. And in Sir Philip’s accusations against Margrave,
there was nothing tangible,--nothing that could bear repetition. Those
accusations, if analyzed, vanished into air. What did they imply?--that
Margrave was a magician, a monstrous prodigy, a creature exceptional to
the ordinary conditions of humanity. Would the most reckless of mortals
have ventured to bring against the worst of characters such a charge,
on the authority of a deceased witness, and to found on evidence so
fantastic the awful accusation of murder? But of all men, certainly I--a
sober, practical physician--was the last whom the public could excuse
for such incredible implications; and certainly, of all men, the last
against whom any suspicion of heinous crime would be readily entertained
was that joyous youth in whose sunny aspect life and conscience alike
seemed to keep careless holiday. But I could not overcome, nor did I
attempt to reason against, the horror akin to detestation, that had
succeeded to the fascinating attraction by which Margrave had before
conciliated a liking founded rather on admiration than esteem.
In order to avoid his visits I kept away from the study in which I had
habitually spent my mornings, and to which he had been accustomed to
so ready an access; and if he called at the front door, I directed
my servant to tell him that I was either from home or engaged. He
did attempt for the first few days to visit me as before, but when my
intention to shun him became thus manifest, desisted naturally enough,
as any other man so pointedly repelled would have done.
I abstained from all those houses in which I was likely to meet him,
and went my professional round of visits in a close carriage, so that I
might not be accosted by him in his walks.
One morning, a very few days after Strahan had shown me Sir Philip
Derval’s letter, I received a note from my old college acquaintance,
stating that he was going to Derval Court that afternoon; that he should
take with him the memoir which he had found, and begging me to visit
him at his new home the next day, and commence my inspection of the
manuscript. I consented eagerly.
That morning, on going my round, my carriage passed by another drawn up
to the pavement, and I recognized the figure of Margrave standing beside
the vehicle, and talking to some one seated within it. I looked back,
as my own carriage whirled rapidly by, and saw with uneasiness and
alarm that it was Richard Strahan to whom Margrave was thus familiarly
addressing himself. How had the two made acquaintance?
Was it not an outrage on Sir Philip Derval’s memory, that the heir he
had selected should be thus apparently intimate with the man whom he had
so sternly denounced? I became still more impatient to read the memoir:
in all probability it would give such explanations with respect to
Margrave’s antecedents, as, if not sufficing to criminate him of legal
offences, would at least effectually terminate any acquaintance between
Sir Philip’s successor and himself.
All my thoughts were, however, diverted to channels of far deeper
interest even than those in which my mind had of late been so
tumultuously whirled along, when, on returning home, I found a note from
Mrs. Ashleigh. She and Lilian had just come back to L----, sooner than
she had led me to anticipate. Lilian had not seemed quite well the last
day or two, and had been anxious to return.