_THE SILENT POOL._
One of the things that used to make me the most nervous when we first
took to hotel-keeping was not knowing what sort of people you’d got
sleeping under your roof. Anybody that’s got a portmanteau can come and
stay at an hotel or an inn, and how are you to know who and what they
are? They may be murderers, hiding from justice; they may be thieves or
burglars; and they may be very respectable people; but, unless they’re
old customers, you must take them on trust. It’s not a bit of good
saying you can judge by appearances, because you can’t. The most
gentlemanly and good-natured-looking man that ever stopped at our house
gave us a cheque for his bill, and the cheque was never paid, and turned
out to be one he’d helped himself to out of somebody else’s cheque-book;
and, worse than that, when he left he took a good deal more away in his
portmanteau than he brought with him, and one thing was a beautiful new
suit belonging to a young gentleman staying in the house, which we had
to make good. It worried me terribly when we found out that we’d had a
regular hotel thief stopping with us, I can tell you; and, after we
found it out, I was all of a tremble for days, expecting every minute
something more to be found missing.
Fortunately, the suit, and a scarf-pin of Harry’s, and a silver-mounted
walking-stick were all he went off with, so far as we ever discovered.
Perhaps he didn’t have a chance of getting anything else, and was
satisfied with what he did get, and letting us in for £7 15s. He wanted
to draw the cheque for ten pounds and have the change, I remember; but
I said “No” to that, and very glad I was afterwards that I did. It was a
lesson to us, not getting the cheque paid. And after that we had a
notice printed across all our billheads, “No cheques taken,” like most
hotel-keepers do now. Some of them have a very nice collection of unpaid
cheques, which they keep as curiosities.
Having been “done,” as Harry calls it, once or twice, made us more
careful, and so young fellows without much luggage that we didn’t know
anything about, when they began to live extravagantly, having champagne,
and all that sort of thing, and staying for more than a day, we
generally kept an eye on.
When they were out, we used to go up to their rooms and just have a look
round and see if they’d got much clothes with them, because the
portmanteau is nothing to go by. It may be stuffed full of old books and
newspapers.
It was just while we were extra suspicious through having been swindled
and robbed by the man I’ve just told you about, that two gentlemen with
two small portmanteaus came in one evening by the last train, and wanted
two bedrooms and a sitting-room.
They were about thirty-five years old, I should say, by the look of
them. One was tall and thin, and the other was short and stout. They
certainly looked respectable, and were well dressed; but they talked in
rather a curious way to each other, using words that neither Harry nor I
could understand, and that made us a little suspicious, and so we kept a
sort of watch on them, and kept our ears open, too, as, of course, we
had a right to do, seeing we had not only the reputation of the house to
look after, but also the comfort and the property of the other
customers.
I showed them their bedrooms, and, as it was late, I said, “I suppose,
gentlemen, you won’t want a fire lighted in the sitting-room this
evening?”
What made me say that was, it was past eleven, and, of course, I
expected they would take their candles and go to bed.
The tall one said, “Oh yes, we do; we’re rather late birds.”
“That’s a nice thing,” I said to myself. “They’ll want the gas on half
the night, and somebody will have to sit up and turn it off.”
However, I said nothing to them, but rang the bell, and had the fire
lighted, and the gas lighted, and their portmanteaus carried upstairs.
They both pulled their chairs up to the fire, and the short gentleman
lit a pipe.
“Aren’t you going to smoke?” he said to the tall gentleman.
“I don’t know,” said the tall gentleman; “a cigar always makes me
queer.” Then he turned to me, and said, “Have you got any very mild
cigars?”
“Yes, sir,” I said; “I think so. Is there anything else you want?”
“What shall I have?” said the stout gentleman. “Can I have a cup of
tea?”
I looked at him. It was past eleven o’clock, and we were just on closing
up everything, and the fire was out in the kitchen.
“Well, sir,” I said; “if you particularly wish it--but----”
“Oh, don’t trouble,” he said. “Of course, we’re in the country. I
forgot. Bring me a whiskey-and-seltzer.”
“Yes, sir; and what will you have, sir?” I said, turning to the long
gentleman.
The long gentleman, if he was a minute making up his mind he was ten.
First he thought he’d have whiskey, and then he said whiskey made him
bilious; then he thought he’d have a brandy-and-soda; and then he
thought he’d have a plain lemonade.
“You couldn’t make my friend a basin of gruel, could you?” said the
stout gentleman; “he’s very delicate.”
Of course I took him seriously, so I said, “Well, sir, the cook’s gone
to bed; but----”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to what he says,” says the tall gentleman;
“he’s a lunatic. Bring me--let’s see--lemonade’s such cold stuff this
weather--I think I’ll have a port-wine negus.”
I was very glad to get the order and get out of the room, for I thought
they were going to keep me there half an hour.
When I got downstairs, I said to Harry, “I can’t make those two men out
quite, and I’m not sure I like them.”
“Oh,” said Harry, “I dare say they’re all right. I’ll take their measure
to-morrow.”
I took up the cigar, and the whiskey-and-seltzer, and the port-wine
negus, and put them down, and was just saying good night when the tall
gentleman called me back.
“You’ve put nutmeg in this wine?” he said.
“Yes, sir, it’s usual to put nutmeg in negus.”
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t take nutmeg--it makes me bilious. I think
I’ll have a bottle of lemonade, after all.”
“Bring him six of cod-liver oil hot, and a mustard-plaster,” said the
stout gentleman.
The tall gentleman certainly looked rather delicate. He had a very fair
face, and a lot of very fair hair, and there was a generally languid
appearance about him.
“I can make you a mustard-plaster, sir,” I said, “if you would really
like one.”
“Don’t you mind him,” said the tall gentleman; “he’s only trying to be
funny.”
All this time he was pinching the cigar, and looking at it as though it
were some nasty medicine.
“I’m afraid this is too strong for me,” he said. “Haven’t you anything
milder?”
“Bring him a halfpenny sweetstuff one,” said the stout gentleman.
I took the negus and the cigar downstairs, and I said to Harry, “I
shan’t go up again. Those two men are lunatics, I believe. They want
lemonade and a halfpenny sweetstuff cigar now.”
Harry laughed, and said, “Go on--they’re chaffing you.”
“Well, I’m not going to be chaffed,” I said. So I called Jane, the
waitress, who was just going to bed, poor girl, having to be up at six
in the morning, and I said, “Jane, you must wait on No. 16, please.” And
I gave her the lemonade.
She went up, and she was gone quite ten minutes. When she came down, I
said, “Jane, whatever made you so long?”
“Oh, ma’am,” she said, “they’ve been asking me such things!”
“What have they been asking you, Jane?” I said, getting alarmed; for I
was more than ever convinced the two men weren’t quite right.
“They’ve been asking me if ever there was a murder here, ma’am, and if
there isn’t a silent pool in the wood where a body’s been found. And the
stout gentleman says that the tall gentleman is mad, and he’s his
keeper.”
“I knew it,” I screamed. And then I said, “Harry, I’m not going to bed
to-night with a lunatic in the house. You must go upstairs and tell them
to go. We are not licensed to receive lunatics, and I won’t have it.”
“Nonsense!” said Harry. “It’s only their nonsense. They’ve been chaffing
Jane, that’s all. Don’t be a goose.”
“Well,” I said, “I shall ask them to-morrow to go somewhere else.”
“Let’s wait till to-morrow, then,” said Harry. “We’ve no reasonable
excuse for turning them out at this hour of the night. Let’s go to bed.”
“Very well,” I said. “Jane, take the candles into No. 16, and turn out
the gas.”
Jane took the candles, and presently she came down and said, “Please,
ma’am, the gentlemen say they’ll turn out the gas themselves.”
“Very well,” I said. “Then, Harry, you’ll have to sit up, for I’m not
going to leave the house at the mercy of these two fellows. They’ll go
to bed and leave the gas full on, or turn it off and turn it on again,
and there’ll be an escape, and we shall all be blown up, or some fine
thing.”
“All right, my dear; anything to please you. I don’t mind sitting up,”
said Harry; “only don’t fidget yourself so, for goodness’ sake, or
you’ll be ill.”
I said I shouldn’t fidget if he sat up, and I went to bed; but I was
awfully wild, because we didn’t want that sort of people at our quiet
little place. It was very good of Harry to sit up, and he certainly is
very kind and considerate, and I dare say I was fidgety and nervous; but
I hadn’t been very well, and the least thing upset me. The doctor said
it was “nerves,” and I suppose that was what it was. I had had a bad
illness, and that had left me low, and the least thing upset me. I think
I told you at the time Harry wanted me to go away to the seaside and
get better; but I wouldn’t do that, for I should have been fidgeting all
day and all night, lest something should go wrong while I was away.
I went to bed, leaving Harry in the bar-parlour smoking his pipe, and
reading the newspaper; and after a bit, I fell fast asleep.
When I woke up it was just getting light. I turned to look for Harry.
_He wasn’t in bed._
I went hot and cold all over.
“Harry!” I called out.
There was no answer.
I jumped out of bed and looked at my watch by the window. It was five
o’clock in the morning.
“Oh,” I said, “this is wicked--this is infamous. The idea of those
fellows sitting burning the gas till this time in the morning in a
respectable house, and my great gaby of a husband not going up and
telling them of it.”
I hurried on some of my things, and went down the stairs.
I had to pass No. 16. The door was wide open and the gas was out.
Whatever could it mean?
A terrible thought flashed through my brain.
They had murdered Harry, robbed the house, and decamped.
How I got down to the bar-parlour I don’t know. Terror gave me strength.
Directly I got to the door I saw the gas was still on there. I pushed
the door open and ran in, and there was Harry fast asleep in the
arm-chair, with the newspaper in his lap and his pipe dropped out of his
mouth and lying on the hearthrug.
“Harry!” I said, seizing him by the arm--“Harry!”
He started and opened his eyes. “Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter!” I said. “Why, it’s five o’clock in the morning, and
you’ve given me my death of fright.”
He was flabbergasted when he found out what time it was, and he said he
supposed he must have dropped off sound asleep.
There wasn’t much suppose about it!
A nice thing, wasn’t it, to leave him to look after those two fellows,
and put the gas out for safety? and then for them to put _their_ gas out
themselves, and him to go to sleep with his burning, and drop his
lighted pipe on the hearthrug.
It’s a mercy we weren’t all burned alive in our beds.
* * * * *
What with the fright and the broken rest, I wasn’t at all well next day,
and I dare say I was a little disagreeable. I know I began at Harry
about those two gentlemen, and what we were going to do.
They didn’t get up till nearly ten, and it was past eleven before they’d
done breakfast. I went into the sitting-room to ask about dinner; but
really to have another look at them.
They didn’t look anything very dreadful in the daylight, and they were
certainly very pleasant with me, though a bit more jokey than I felt
inclined for.
They said they’d have dinner at five o’clock; and then they asked me all
about the village and the neighbourhood, and they were on again about
that silent pool. There had been a murder committed there years and
years ago, and they must have heard about it somehow, for they asked me
all about it, and I told them the story as well as I could remember it.
There was a young woman, the daughter of a farmer, who lived near the
wood, and she was engaged to be married to a young fellow who was a
farmer’s son. But it seems that she had been carrying on with a young
gentleman of quality, who lived in a fine mansion some miles away. The
young farmer had his suspicions, and watched her, and one moonlight
night he saw her go out, and meet her gentleman lover in the wood near
this pool. The lovers parted at the pool, after a very stormy scene, the
poor girl saying that he had broken her heart, and that she would drown
herself. An old man, a farm labourer, who was going through the wood,
heard the girl say that she would drown herself. He didn’t see her, he
only heard those words.
The next morning the poor girl was found lying drowned in the pool, and
it was supposed to be suicide. The old man’s evidence of what he had
heard, and something that the doctor said at the inquest, made it quite
clear why the poor thing should have done so. But after the inquest was
over and it had been brought in suicide, the rumour got about that it
wasn’t a suicide after all, but a murder. Some people said that the
young farmer had pushed her in, in a mad fit of jealousy and revenge,
and others that the young gentleman had done it, because the poor girl
had threatened to tell everything, and make a scandal; and it seems he
was dreadfully in debt, and engaged to be married to a very rich young
lady.
The rumour got so strong, and such a lot of evidence kept being found
out by the girl’s father, that the young gentleman was
arrested--arrested on the very morning that he was to have been
married--and was charged with the murder. The pool had been dragged, and
at the bottom of the pool was found, among other things, a piece of
linen, with a small diamond pin still in it. It was in the days when
gentlemen wore frill shirts, with a diamond pin in them--sometimes one
pin and a little chain, and a smaller pin attached to that. I dare say
you remember them, because it is not so long ago that some old-fashioned
gentlemen wore them still. It was said that this belonged to the man who
had pushed the poor girl in--that there had been a struggle, and she had
clung to him, and the shirt-front had been torn away, and the girl had
gone into the pool with it in her hand, and opening her hands struggling
in the water, it had gone to the bottom.
At the trial, when the gentleman’s servants were examined, it was proved
that he had come home that night very excited, and one of them had
noticed that he wore his coat buttoned over his chest, and it was found
out that a pin, which he was known to have had, had not been seen
since--that he could not produce it, though he swore he was innocent.
He was committed for trial, I think--at any rate, after the examination
before the magistrates there was another grand trial at the assizes, and
everybody thought he would be found guilty, when suddenly the young
farmer came into the court, and made a tremendous sensation by saying
that he had murdered the girl himself, in a fit of passion.
He had overheard the conversation between the lovers, and he had sprung
out on them, and attacked the young gentleman. The poor girl had clung
to him to protect him, badly as he had used her, and that was how the
piece of shirt and the diamond pin came away in her hand. The young
gentleman, who was a coward, or he could never have treated a trusting
girl as he did, slunk away, for the farmer threatened he would kill him
like a dog if he did not. And as soon as he was gone, leaving the girl
half-fainting, the young farmer turned on her, and she answered him, and
said she hated him, and upbraided him for attacking the man she loved;
and this made him so mad that he pushed her into the pool, and she was
drowned.
I couldn’t tell the gentlemen all the details, because I didn’t know
them, but that was the story as I had heard it. The young farmer was put
in the dock in the place of the young gentleman, and was found guilty,
and sentenced to be hanged; but he managed to hang himself in his cell
before the day of execution. The young gentleman lost his rich bride,
and went away abroad, and they say that he was stabbed soon afterwards
in a row in a low gambling-house, which was a terrible tragedy, and
three young lives lost because a man was wicked and a woman was weak;
but I suppose there will be tragedies of that sort as long as the world
lasts.
The gentlemen seemed very interested in what I told them, and I began to
think better of them, because it is always nice to tell a story to
intelligent people, and to see that you have made an impression.
After breakfast, they asked me to direct them to the pool in the wood,
and they went off there, and didn’t come back till dinner-time.
When they came in I asked them if they had seen the pool.
“Yes,” said the tall gentleman; “it is a lovely place for a murder.”
“A _lovely_ place for a murder,” I thought to myself. “That’s a nice way
to talk certainly;” but I was wanted in the bar, and we didn’t have any
more conversation.
That evening Harry had gone upstairs into one of the rooms that was
being repapered, and when he came down he looked very serious.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“Well,” he said, “I was passing No. 16, and, hearing them talking rather
loud, I stopped for a minute, not exactly to listen; but I couldn’t help
hearing what they said, and I heard something that’s rather worried me.”
“What is it?” I said. “You’d better tell me, or I shall think all manner
of things.”
I had to press him; but he told me at last.
“I heard one say to the other,” he said, “that he thought they couldn’t
do better than get the girl to that pool, and then have her pushed in.”
“‘Yes,’ said the other; ‘but who is to do it?’
“‘Why, James Maitland,’ said the other.
“‘But suppose she screamed--wouldn’t her screams be heard? And if her
screams were heard, everybody would know it wasn’t suicide.’
“‘No,’ said the other, ‘there are no houses near. This other girl was
murdered there, and everybody thought it was suicide.’
“There was silence for a minute, and then the other (the short one, I
think, by his voice) said, ‘Let’s do it.’”
“Oh, Harry!” I said, “how awful!”
“We must keep our heads,” said Harry, “and not let them think we’ve
heard anything.”
“Did you hear any more?”
“Yes, I heard the long one say that they’d better go up to the pool
to-night, so as to see how it looked in the dark, and then they would be
able to arrange all the details.”
“Harry,” I said, “not another moment do I rest in this house, with two
men plotting murder in it. Go and tell them that we know all, and order
them off the premises.”
Harry thought a minute, and then he said--
“No; we’ve got no proof yet. I’d better go and put the matter in the
hands of the police.”
“Yes; go at once,” I said.
Harry went up to the station and told his story to the inspector, and
the inspector said we had better not say anything to the two men, but
have them watched. He said they wouldn’t know him, so he’d put on plain
clothes and do the job himself; he didn’t care to trust it to Jones, as
Jones was a bit of a fool. You remember Jones--he was the policeman that
Dashing Dick had such a game with, with the empty revolver.
I said to Harry, “Well, if he doesn’t arrest them to-night, they don’t
come back here. I’ve made up my mind to that.”
The inspector came down to our house soon afterwards in plain clothes,
and sat in our bar-parlour. Harry persuaded him to let him go with him
to the wood, and he promised he should, if he’d be careful.
About seven o’clock, the two fellows went out, and as soon as they’d
gone the inspector and Harry went off, and took a short cut, so as to
get to the pool first and conceal themselves.
Harry told me all about what happened afterwards.
They concealed themselves behind a clump of trees near the pool, and
presently those two fellows came along talking earnestly together.
When they got to the pool they were silent for a bit, and walked all
round it, looking at the ground.
“This’ll be the place,” said the tall one presently; “this mound gives a
man a good foothold, and he can throw the girl in instead of pushing
her.”
“Yes,” said the other. “James Maitland mustn’t make the appointment with
the girl here, but in the wood, and then they can walk this way. He’ll
start quarrelling with her here, and then he can throw her in.”
“Where’s he to go to when he’s done it? Run away?”
“No; stop and brazen it out. Nobody will see him or the girl together.
We can arrange that, and the suspicion is sure to fall on the other
fellow, because of what’s already passed between him and Norah.
Besides,” said the short fellow, “who’s going to accuse Maitland? Nobody
knows that he’s mixed up with the girl.”
The tall fellow thought a bit.
“Yes,” he said, “I think that’ll be the best. I don’t see how we can get
rid of the girl in any better way than that. If she was shot or stabbed,
nobody could set up the theory of suicide; but if she’s found drowned,
of course there’ll be nothing to prove that she didn’t go in of her own
accord.”
When Harry got to that, I said, “Oh, Harry, it makes one’s blood run
cold to think of the villains coolly plotting to murder a young girl
like that!”
“Yes,” he said, “it made me feel creepy, and the inspector said, ‘I
think I’ll collar them now. We’ve heard enough. If we let it go on they
may make up their minds to have this poor girl murdered somewhere else,
and then we may be too late.’
“He was just about to spring out and collar them, when the short fellow
said to the long fellow, ‘One minute, my boy. I’ve got a magnificent
idea. There’ll be an inquest. Can’t we make the comic man foreman of the
jury? I can see a splendid scene--the comic man rubbing it into the
villain and getting roars of laughter.’”
“What!” I exclaimed. “A comic man on a jury!”
“Don’t you see, little woman,” said Harry, “what it all meant? The
inspector did in a minute. These gentlemen aren’t murderers. They’ve
come down here to write a play, and they’re going to make the Silent
Pool their big sensation scene.”
* * * * *
I didn’t take it all in for a minute; but when I did I laughed till I
cried. Everything was explained at once. But how on earth were we to
know that those two eccentric gentlemen were play-writers, and that they
had come down to our inn so as to study the Silent Pool as a sensation
scene for a drama.
I wasn’t a bit afraid of them after that, and I let them turn their own
gas out at all hours of the night, for they generally sat and wrote till
the small hours, and a nice noise they made sometimes, shouting at each
other--“trying the dialogue,” they called it. They stayed with us nearly
a fortnight, and we got to like them very much. Harry called them Mr.
Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt; but, of course, not to their faces. They used
to come into our parlour and tell us funny stories, and we were quite
sorry when they went. They told us what they were doing at last, when
they found we could be trusted, and they had a gentleman down from
London, who was going to paint the scene.
When the play was brought out, Harry and I had two beautiful seats sent
us to go and see it, and we enjoyed it tremendously. The Silent Pool was
as real as though it had come from our wood; and there was the murder
and everything. And fancy our thinking that two play-writers were two
murderers! How they would have laughed if they had known! I noticed two
or three little things in the play that they had picked up in our place;
and one room in one of the acts was our bar-parlour exactly.
When I saw it, I said, “Oh, Harry, I do believe they’ve put us in
it!”--and it was quite a relief when the landlady came on and wasn’t me
at all, but a comic old lady who made everybody scream every time she
opened her mouth.
Mr. Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt promised us that when they were writing
another play they would come and stay with us again, and I hope they
will. Whenever I hear their play spoken about I always say, “Ah, that
play was written in our house.” But I never say that we thought they
were murderers, and had them watched by the police.
One thing I was very thankful for, and that is that Mr. Wilkins didn’t
get hold of them to tell them about the murder in the Silent Pool. If he
had, he’d have gone about and told everybody that he’d collaborated in
the drama.
As it is, if anybody could claim the credit of having had a hand in it,
it was not Mr. Wilkins, but me.
* * * * *
Good gracious me! Isn’t supper ready? Hasn’t cook got a fit? Doesn’t
Harry want the key of the cash-box? Has nothing gone wrong downstairs or
upstairs? Wonders will never cease! I’ve actually been able to finish my
“Memoir” of Mr. Lampost and Mr. Waterbutt, and their visit to the
‘Stretford Arms,’ without anybody knocking at the door, and saying,
“Please, ma’am, you’re wanted.” Thank goodness!