'NOTHING COMES AMISS, SO MONEY COMES WITHAL.'
The inquest was held at two o'clock, and adjourned. Few facts were
elicited beyond those which had been in everybody's mouth that morning,
when Matthew Elgood heard of the murder at the bar of that tavern where
he took his noontide dram—the three penn'orth of gin and bitters which
revivified him after last night's orgies.
James Penwyn had been shot through the heart by a hidden assassin. It
seemed tolerably clear that the murderer had taken aim from behind the
ragged bushes which divided the low-lying land by the river from the
road just at this point. There were footprints on the marshy turf—not
the prints of a clodhopper's bulky boots. The line of footsteps
indicated that the murderer had entered the field by a gate a hundred
yards nearer the city, and had afterwards gone across the grass to
the towpath. Here, on harder ground, the footsteps ceased altogether.
They were the impressions of a gentleman's sole—or so thought the
detectives, who were anxious to find a correspondence between these
footprints and the boots of Maurice Clissold. Here, however, they were
somewhat at fault. Maurice's stout shooting boot made a wider and
longer print on the sward.
'He may have worn a smaller boot last night,' said Smelt. 'But they say
up at the inn that he has only two pairs, one off, one on, both the same
make. I looked at those he's wearing, and they are just as big as these.'
This was a slight check to the chain, which had run out pretty freely
till now. True that there seemed little or no motive for the crime; but
the one fact of the quarrel was something to go upon; and the curious
absence of Maurice Clissold on that particular night was a circumstance
that would have to be accounted for.
Who could tell how serious that quarrel might have been?—perhaps the
last outbreak of a long-smouldering flame; perhaps a dispute involving
deepest interests. Further evidence would come out by degrees. At any
rate, they had got their man.
Maurice was present at the inquest, very calm and quiet. He made no
statement whatever, by the advice of the local solicitor, Mr. Brent,
whose aid he had not rejected. He would have been more agitated,
perhaps, by the fact of his friend's untimely death, but for this
monstrous accusation. That made him iron.
The inquest was adjourned, the facts being so few, and Mr. Clissold
was taken to Eborsham Castle, a mediæval fortress, which our modern
civilization had converted into the county jail.
Here he was comfortable enough, so far as surroundings went; for he was
a young man of adventurous mind, and tastes so simple that a hard bed
and a carpetless room were no afflictions to him.
Mr. Brent, the solicitor, visited him in his confinement, and discussed
the facts of the case.
'It's hard upon you, both ways,' said the lawyer; 'hard to lose your
friend, and still harder to find yourself exposed to this monstrous
suspicion.'
'I don't care two straws for the suspicion,' answered Maurice, 'but I
do care very much for the loss of my friend. He was one of the best
fellows that ever lived—so bright, so brimming over with freshness and
vitality. If I had not seen him lying in that tavern, stark and cold, I
couldn't bring myself to believe in his death. It's hard to believe in
it, even with the memory of that poor murdered clay fresh in my mind.
Poor James! I loved him like a younger brother!'
'You have no knowledge of any circumstances in his life that can help
us to find the murderer?' asked Mr. Brent.
'I know of nothing. He had picked up some people I didn't care about
his being intimate with, strolling players, who are acting at the
theatre in this place. But my worst fear was that he might be trapped
into some promise of marriage. I can hardly fancy these people
concerned in a crime.'
'No. They are for the most part harmless vagabonds,' replied the
lawyer. 'Do you know where Mr. Penwyn spent last night?'
'With these people, no doubt—a man called Elgood, and his daughter.
The man ought to be called as a witness, I should think.'
'Unquestionably. We'll have him before the coroner next Saturday, and
we'll keep an eye upon him meanwhile.'
The inquest had been adjourned for three days, to give time for new
facts to be elicited.
'Your friend had no enemies, you say?'
'Not one,' answered Clissold. 'He was one of those men who never make
an enemy. He hadn't the strength of mind to refuse a favour to the
veriest blackguard. It was my knowledge of his character that made me
anxious about this Elgood's acquaintance. I saw that he was fascinated
by the girl, and feared he might be lured into some false position.
That was the sole cause of our dispute the other night.'
'Why did you leave him?'
'Because I saw that my interference irritated him, and was likely to
arouse a lurking obstinacy which I knew to be in his nature. He was
such a spoiled child of fortune that I fancied if I left him alone to
take his own way his passion would cool. Opposition fired him.'
'There is only one awkward circumstance in the whole case—as regards
yourself, I mean.'
'What is that?' asked Clissold.
'Your objection to state where you spent last night.'
'I should be sorry if I were driven to so poor a defence as an _alibi_.'
'I don't think there's any fear of that. The evidence against you
amounts to so little. But why not simplify matters by accounting for
your time up to your return to-day? You only came back to Eborsham by
the twelve o'clock train from Spinnersbury, you say?'
'I came by that train.'
'Do you think any of the porters or ticket collectors would remember
seeing you?'
'Not likely. The train was crowded with people coming to the races.
It was as much as I could do to get a seat. I had to scramble into a
third-class compartment as the train began to move.'
'But why not refer to some one at Spinnersbury, to prove your absence
from Eborsham last night?'
'When my neck is in danger I may do that. In the meantime you may as
well let the matter drop. I have my own reasons for not saying where I
was last night, unless I am very hard pushed.'
Mr. Brent was obliged to be satisfied. The case against his client was
of the weakest as yet; but it was curious that this young man should
so resolutely refuse to give a straightforward account of himself. Mr.
Brent had felt positive of his client's innocence up to this point; but
this refusal disturbed him. He went home with an uncomfortable feeling
that there was something wrong somewhere.
Messrs. Higlett and Smelt were not idle during the interval. Higlett
lodged at the 'Waterfowl,' and heard all the gossip of the house, where
the one absorbing topic was the murder of James Penwyn.
Among other details the Spinnersbury detective heard Mrs. Marport, the
landlady, speak of a certain letter which the morning's post brought
Mr. Clissold the day he went away. It came by the first delivery, which
was before eight o'clock. Jane, the housemaid, took it up to Mr.
Clissold's room with his boots and shaving water.
'I never set eyes upon such a letter,' said Mrs. Marport. 'It seemed
to have been all round the world for sport, as the saying is. It had
been to some address in London, and to Wales, and to Cumberland, and
was all over post-marks. I suppose it must have been something rather
particular to have been sent after him so.'
'A bill, I dare say—or a lawyer's letter, perhaps.'
'Oh no, it wasn't. It was a lady's handwriting. I took particular
notice of that.'
'Any cress or mornagarm,' asked Higlett.
'No, there was nothing on the envelope; but the paper was as thick as
parchment. Whoever wrote that letter was quite the lady.'
'Ah,' said Higlett, 'Mr. Clissold's sweetheart, very likely.'
'That's what I've been thinking, and that it was that letter, perhaps,
that took him off so suddenly, and that he really may have been far
away from Eborsham on the night of the murder.'
'If he was, he'll be able to prove it,' replied Mr. Higlett, who was
not inclined to entertain the idea of Mr. Clissold's innocence. To earn
his share of the reward he must find the murderer, and it mattered very
little to Higlett where he found him.
* * * * *
In the afternoon of the day succeeding the inquest, two persons of
some importance to the case arrived at Eborsham. They came by the
same train, and had travelled together from London. One was Churchill
Penwyn, the inheritor of the Penwyn estate. The other was Mr.
Pergament, the family solicitor, chief partner in the firm of Pergament
and Pergament, New Square, Lincoln's Inn.
Churchill Penwyn and the solicitor met at King's Cross station, five
minutes before the starting of the ten o'clock express for Eborsham.
They were very well acquainted with each other; Churchill's meagre
portion, inherited under the will of old Mrs. Penwyn, his grandmother,
who had been an heiress in a small way, having passed through Mr.
Pergament's hands. Nicholas Penwyn's will, which disposed of Penwyn
Manor for two generations, had been drawn up by Mr. Pergament's
father, and all business connected with the Penwyn estate had been
transacted in Mr. Pergament's office for the last hundred years.
Pergaments had been born and died during the century, but the office
was the same as in the time of Penruddock Penwyn, who, inheriting a
farm of a hundred and fifty acres or so, had made a fortune in the
East Indies, and extended the estate by various important additions
to its present dimensions. For before the days of Penruddock the
race of Penwyn had declined in splendour, though it was always known
and acknowledged that the Penwyns were one of the oldest families in
Cornwall.
Of course Mr. Pergament, knowing Nicholas Penwyn's will by heart,
was perfectly aware of the alteration which this awful event of the
murder made in Churchill's circumstances. Churchill had been a cadet
of the house heretofore, though his cousin James's senior by nearly
ten years—a person of no importance whatever. Mr. Pergament had
treated him with a free and easy friendliness—was always ready to do
him a good turn—sent him a brief now and then, and so on. To-day Mr.
Pergament was deferential. The old friendliness was toned down to a
subdued respect. It seemed as if Mr. Pergament's eye, respectfully
raised to Churchill's broad pale brow, in imagination beheld above it
the round and top of sovereignty, the lordship of Penwyn Manor.
'Very distressing event,' murmured the lawyer, as they seated
themselves opposite each other in the first-class carriage. This was a
comfortable train to travel by, not arriving at Eborsham till three.
The race traffic had been cleared off by a special, at an earlier hour.
'Very,' returned Churchill, gravely. 'Of course I cannot be expected
to be acutely grieved by an event which raises me from a working man's
career to affluence, especially as I knew so little of my cousin;
but I was profoundly shocked at the circumstances of his death. A
commonplace, vulgar murder for gain, I apprehend, committed by some
rustic ruffian. I doubt if that class of man thinks much more of murder
than of sparrow-shooting.'
'I hope they'll get him, whoever he is,' said the lawyer.
'If the acuteness of the police can be stimulated by the hope of
reward, that motive shall not be wanting; returned Churchill. 'I shall
offer a couple of hundred pounds for the conviction of the murderer.'
'Very proper,' murmured Mr. Pergament, approvingly. 'No, you had
seen very little of poor James, I apprehend,' he went on, in a
conversational tone.
'I doubt if he and I met half a dozen times. I saw him once at Eton,
soon after my father's death, when I was spending a day or two at a
shooting-box near Bracknell, and walked over to have a look at the
college. He was a little curly-headed chap, playing cricket, and
I remember tipping him, ill as I could afford the half-sovereign.
One can't see a schoolboy without tipping him. I daresay the young
rascal ran off and spent my hard-earned shillings on strawberry ices
and pound-cake as soon as my back was turned. I saw him a few years
afterwards in his mother's house, somewhere near Baker Street. She
asked me to a dinner party, and as she made rather a point of it, I
went. A slowish business—as women's dinners generally are—all the
delicacies that were just going out of season, and some elderly ladies
to adorn the board. I asked James to breakfast at my club—put him up
for the Garrick—and I think that's about the last time I ever saw him.'
'Poor lad,' sighed the family solicitor. 'Such a promising young
fellow. But I doubt if he would have kept the property together. There
was very little of his grandfather, old Squire Penwyn, about him. A
wonderful man that, vigorous in body and mind to the last year of his
life. I spent a week at Penwyn about seventeen years ago, just before
your poor uncle was killed by those abominable red-skins in Canada. I
can see the Squire before me now, a hale old country gentleman, always
dressed in a Lincoln-green coat, with basket buttons, Bedford cords,
and vinegar tops—hunted three times a week every season, after he
was seventy years of age—the Assheton Smith stamp of man. The rising
generation will never ripen into that kind of thing, Mr. Penwyn. The
stuff isn't in 'em.'
'I never saw much of my grandfather,' said Churchill, in his grave
quiet voice, which expressed so little emotion, save when deepest
passion warmed his spirit to eloquence. 'My father's marriage offended
him, as I dare say you heard at the time.'
Mr. Pergament nodded assent.
'Prejudice, prejudice,' he murmured, blandly. 'Elderly gentlemen who
live on their estates are prone to that sort of thing.'
'He did my mother the honour to call her a shopkeeper's daughter—her
father was a brewer at Exeter, in a very fair way of business—upon
which my father, who had some self-respect, and a great deal of respect
for his wife, told the Squire that he should take care not to intrude
the shopkeeper's daughter upon his notice. "If I hadn't made my will,"
said my grandfather, "it might be the worse for you. But I have made
my will, as you all know. I made it six years ago, and I don't mean to
budge from it. When I do a thing it's done. When I say a thing it's
said. I never undo or unsay. The estate will be kept together, for the
next half-century I think, come what may."'
'Just like him,' said Mr. Pergament, chuckling. 'The man to the life.
How well you hit him off.'
'I've heard my father repeat that speech a good many times,' answered
Churchill.
'Then you never saw the old Squire?'
'Once only. I was a day boy at Westminster, and one afternoon when
I was playing ball in the quadrangle, a curious-looking elderly
gentleman, with a drab overcoat, and a broad-brimmed white hat,
breeches and topboots, a bunch of seals at his fob, and a gold-headed
hunting-crop in his hand, came into the court and looked about him. He
looked like a figure out of a sporting print. Yet he looked a gentleman
all the same. "Can anybody tell me where to find a boy called Penwyn?"
he inquired. I ran forward. "What, you're Churchill Penwyn, are you,
youngster?" he asked, with his hands upon my shoulders, looking at me
straight from under his bushy grey eyebrows. "Yes, you're a genuine
Penwyn, none of the brewer here. It's a pity your father was a younger
son. You wouldn't have made a bad Squire. I dare say you've heard of
your grandfather?" "Yes, sir, very often," I said; "are you he?" "I
am; I'm up in London for a week, and I took it into my head I should
like to have a look at you. It isn't likely the estate will ever come
to you, but if, by any chance, it should come your way, I hope you'll
think of the old Squire sometimes, when he lies under the sod, and try
and keep things together, in my way." He tipped me a five-pound note,
shook hands, and walked out of the quad., and that's the only time I
ever saw Nicholas Penwyn.'
'Curious,' said Mr. Pergament.
'By the way, talking of estates, what is Penwyn worth? My inheritance
seemed so remote a contingency that I have never taken the trouble to
ask the question.'
'The estate is a fine one,' replied the lawyer, joining the tips of his
fat fingers, and speaking with unction, as of a favourite and familiar
subject, 'but land in Cornwall, as you are doubtless aware, is not the
most remunerative investment. The farm lands of Penwyn produce on an
average a bare three per cent. on their value, that is to say, about
three pounds an acre. There are eleven hundred acres of farm land, and
thus we have three thousand three hundred pounds. But,' continued the
lawyer, swelling with importance, 'the more remunerative portion of
the estate consists of mines, which after lying idle for more than a
quarter of a century, were reopened at the latter end of the Squire's
life, and are now being worked by a company who pay a royalty upon
their profits, which royalty in the aggregate amounts to something
between two and four thousand a year, and is likely to increase, as
they have lately opened a new tin mine, and come upon a promising lode.'
'My grandfather risked nothing in the working of these mines, I
suppose?'
'No,' exclaimed the lawyer, with tremendous emphasis. 'Squire Penwyn
was much too wise for that. He let other people take the risks, and
only stood in for the profits.'
They talked about the estate for some little time after this, and
then Churchill threw himself back into his corner, opened a newspaper
and appeared to read—appeared only, for his eyes were fixed upon
one particular bit of the column before him in that steady gaze which
betokens deepest thought. In sooth he had enough to think of. The
revolution which James Penwyn's death had wrought in his fate was a
change to set most men thinking. From a struggling man just beginning
to make a little way in an arduous profession, he found himself all at
once worth something like seven thousand a year, master of an estate
which would bring with it the respect of his fellow-men, position and
power—the means of climbing higher than any Penwyn had yet risen on
the ladder of life.
'I shall not bury myself alive in a stupid old manor-house,' he
thought, 'like my grandfather. And yet it will be rather a pleasant
thing playing at being a country squire.'
Most of all he thought of her who was to share his fortunes—the new
bright life they could lead together—of her beauty, which had an
imperial grandeur that needed a splendid setting—of her power to
charm, which would be an influence to help his aggrandizement. He
fancied himself member for Penwyn, making his mark in the House, as
he had already begun to make it at the Bar. Literature and statecraft
should combine to help him on. He saw himself far away, in the fair
prosperous future, leader of his party. He thought that when he first
crossed the threshold of the Senate House as a member, he should say
to himself, almost involuntarily, 'Some day I shall enter this door as
Prime Minister.'
He was not a man whose desires were bounded by the idea of a handsome
house and gardens, a good stable, wine-cellar, and cook. He asked
Fortune for something more than these. If not for his own sake, for
his betrothed, he would wish to be something more than a prosperous
country gentleman. Madge would expect him to be famous. Madge would be
disappointed if he failed to make his mark in the world. He fell to
calculating how long it would have been in the common course of things,
plodding on at literature and his profession, before he could have won
a position to justify his marrying Madge Bellingham. Far away to the
extreme point in perspective stretched the distance.
He gave a short bitter sigh of very weariness. 'It would have been
ten or fifteen years before I could have given her as good a home as
her father's,' he said to himself. 'Why fatigue one's brain by such
profitless speculations? She would never have been my wife. She is a
girl who must have made a great marriage. She might be true as steel,
but everybody else would have been against me. Her father and her
sister would have worried her almost to death, and some morning while I
was marching bravely on towards the distant goal I should have received
a letter, tear-blotted, remorseful, telling me that she had yielded
to the persuasions of her father, and had consented to marry the
millionaire stockbroker, or the wealthy lordling, as the case might be.'
'Who is this Mr. Clissold?' Churchill asked by and by, throwing aside
his unread paper, and emerging from that brown study in which he had
been absorbed for the last hour or so.
'A college friend of poor James's, his senior by some few years. They
had been reading together in the north. You must have met Clissold in
Axminster Square, I should think, when you dined with your aunt. He
and James were inseparable.'
'I have some recollection of a tall, dark-browed youth, who seemed one
of the family.'
'That was young Clissold, no doubt.'
'Civil of him to telegraph to me,' said Churchill, and there the
subject dropped. The two gentlemen yawned a little. Churchill looked
out of the window, and relapsed into thoughtfulness, and so the time
went on, and the journey came to an end.
Churchill and the lawyer drove straight to the police station, to
inquire if the murderer had been found. There they heard what had
befallen Maurice Clissold.
'Absurd!' exclaimed the solicitor. 'No possible motive.'
The official in charge shook his head sagely.
'There appears to have been a quarrel,' he said, in his slow ponderous
way, between the two young gents, the night previous. High words was
over'eard at the hinn, and on the night of the murder Mr. Cliss'll was
absent, which he is unwilling to account for his time.'
Mr. Pergament looked at Churchill, as much as to say, 'This is serious.'
'Young men do not murder each other on account of a few high words,'
said Mr. Penwyn. 'I dare say Mr. Clissold will give a satisfactory
account of himself when the proper time comes. No one in their right
senses could suspect a gentleman of such a crime—a common robbery,
with violence, on the high road. In the race week, too, when a place is
always running over with ruffians of every kind.'
'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the superintendent, 'but that's the
curious part of the case. The footsteps of the murderer have been
traced. Mr. Penwyn was shot at from behind a hedge, you see, and the
print of the sole looks like the print of a gentleman's boot—narrow,
and a small heel; nothing of the clodhopper about it. The ground's a
bit of marshy clay just there, and the impression was uncommonly clear.'
Churchill Penwyn looked at the man thoughtfully for a moment, with
that penetrating glance of his which was wont to survey an adverse
witness in order to see what might be made of him—the glance of a man
familiar with the study of his fellow-men.
'There are vagabonds enough in the world who wear decently made boots,'
he said, 'especially your racing vagabonds.'
He made all necessary inquiries about the inquest, and then adjourned
to one of the chief hotels, crowded with racing men, though not to
suffocation, as at the Summer Meeting.
'You'll watch the case in the interests of the family, of course,' he
said to Mr. Pergament. 'I should like you to do what you can for this
Mr. Clissold, too. There can be no ground for his arrest.'
'I should suppose not—he and James were such friends.'
'And then the empty purse shows that the murder was done for gain. My
cousin may have won money, or have been supposed to have won, on the
racecourse, and may have been watched and followed by some prowling
ruffian—tout, or tramp, or gipsy.'
'It's odd that Mr. Clissold refused to account for his time last night.'
'Yes, that is curious; but I feel pretty sure the explanation will come
when he's pressed.'
And then the gentlemen dined together comfortably.
A little later on, Mr. Pergament got up to go out.
'There are the last melancholy details to be arranged,' he said; 'have
you any wish on that point, as his nearest relation?'
'Only that his own wishes should be respected.'
'His father and mother are buried at Kensal Green. I dare say he would
rather be there than at Penwyn.'
'One would suppose so.'
'Then I'll go and see about the removal, and so on,' said Mr.
Pergament, taking up his hat. 'By the way—perhaps, before it is too
late, you would like to see your cousin?'
Churchill gave a little start, almost a shudder.
'No,' he said, 'I never went in for that kind of thing.'