'BRAVE SPIRITS ARE A BALSAM TO THEMSELVES.'
Maurice Clissold also looked at the girl as she stood up at the end
of the table in the little bit of clear space left for the witnesses.
A shaft of sunshine slanted from the skylight. The room was built out
from the house, and lighted from the top, an apartment usually devoted
to Masonic meetings and public dinners. In that clear radiance the
girl's face was wondrously spiritualized. Easy to fancy that some being
not quite of this common earth stood there, and that from those pale
lips the awful truth would speak as if by the voice of revelation.
So Maurice Clissold thought as he looked at her. Never till this moment
had she appeared to him beautiful; and now it was no common beauty
which he beheld in her, but a strange and spiritual charm impossible of
definition.
'You were the last person who saw Mr. Penwyn alive, except his
murderer?' said Mr. Pergament, interrogatively, after the usual formula
had been gone through.
'I opened the shop door for him when he went out, after supper.'
'At what o'clock?'
'Half-past two.'
'Was he perfectly sober at that time?'
'Oh yes,' with an indignant look.
'Was he going back to the "Waterfowl" alone?'
'Quite alone.'
'Did he say anything particular to you just at last?—anything that it
might be important for us to know?'
A faint colour flushed the pale face at the question.
'Nothing.'
'Is that all you can tell us?'
'There is only one thing more,' the girl answered, calmly. 'I stood at
the door a few minutes to watch Mr. Penwyn walking up the street, and
just as he turned the corner a man passed on the opposite side of the
way in the same direction.'
'Towards Lowgate?'
'Yes.'
'What kind of a man?'
'He was rather tall, and wore an overcoat, and a thick scarf around his
neck, as if it had been winter.'
'Did you see his face?'
'No.'
'Or notice anything else about him—anything besides the overcoat and
the muffler?'
'Nothing.'
'You say he was tall. Was he as tall as that gentleman, do you
suppose?—Stand up for a moment, if you please, Mr. Clissold.'
Clissold stood up. He was above the average height of tall men, well
over six feet.
'No, he was not so tall as that.'
'Are you sure of that? A man would look taller in this room than in the
street. Do you allow for that difference?' inquired Mr. Pergament.
'I do not believe that the man I saw that night was so tall as Mr.
Clissold, nor so broad across the shoulders.'
'That will do.'
The chief constable next gave evidence as to the finding of the body,
the watch buried in the ditch, the empty purse. Then came the landlady
of the 'Waterfowl,' with an account of the high words between the
two gentlemen, and Mr. Clissold's abrupt departure on the following
morning. The Spinnersbury detectives followed, and described Mr.
Clissold's arrest, the tracing of footsteps behind the hedge and down
to the towpath, and how they had compared Mr. Clissold's boot with the
footprints without being able to arrive at any positive conclusion.
'It might very easily be the print of the same foot in a different
boot,' said Higlett. 'It isn't so much the difference between the size
of the feet as the shape and cut of the boot. The man must have been
tall, the length of his stride shows that.'
There was no further evidence. The coroner addressed the jury.
After a few minutes' consultation they returned their verdict,—'That
the deceased had been murdered by some person or persons unknown.'
Thus Maurice Clissold found himself a free man again, but with the
uncomfortable feeling of having been, for a few days, supposed the
murderer of his bosom friend. It seemed to him that a stigma would
attach to his name henceforward. He would be spoken of as the man who
had been suspected, and who was in all probability guilty, but who had
been let slip because the chain of evidence was not quite strong enough
to hang him.
'I suppose if I had been tried in Scotland the verdict would have been
"Non Proven,"' he thought.
One only means of self-justification remained open to him, viz., to
find the real murderer. He fancied that Higlett and Smelt looked at him
with unfriendly eyes. They were aggravated by the loss of the reward.
They would turn their attention in a new direction, no doubt, but
considerable time had been lost while they were on a wrong scent.
Maurice Clissold could not quite make up his mind about those Bohemians
of the Eborsham Theatre; whether this vagabond heavy father might not
know something more than he cared to reveal about James Penwyn's fate.
He had given his evidence with a sufficiently straightforward air,
and the girl was above doubt. Truth was stamped on the pale sorrowful
face,—truth, and a silent grief. Could that grief have its root in
some fatal secret? Did she know her father guilty of this crime, and
shield him with heroic falsehoods, only less sublime than truth?
She stood by her father's side, a little way apart from the crowd, as
she had stood throughout the inquiry, intently watchful.
While Maurice lingered, debating whether he should follow up the
strolling players, Churchill Penwyn came straight across the room
towards him, before the undispersed assembly.
'I congratulate you on your release, Mr. Clissold,' he said, offering
his hand with a friendly air, 'and permit me to assure you that I,
for one, have been fully assured of your innocence throughout this
melancholy business.'
'I thank you for doing me justice, Mr. Penwyn. I was very fond of your
cousin. I liked him as well as if he had been my brother, and if the
question had been put to me whether harm should come to him or me, I
believe I should have chosen the evil lot for myself. His mother was a
second mother to me, God bless her. She asked me to take care of him
a few hours before her death, and I felt from that time as if I were
responsible for his future. He was little more than a boy when his poor
mother died. He was little more than a boy the last time I saw him
alive, the night we had our first quarrel.'
'What was the quarrel about?'
Mr. Clissold shrugged his shoulders, and glanced round the room, which
was clearing by degrees, but not yet empty.
'It's too long a story to enter upon here,' he said.
'Come and dine with me at the "Castle," at eight o'clock, and tell me
all about it,' said Churchill.
'You're very good. No. I can't manage that. I have something to do.'
'What is that?'
'To begin a business that may take a long time to finish.'
'May I ask the nature of that business?'
'I want to find James Penwyn's murderer.'
Churchill shrugged his shoulders and smiled—a half compassionate smile.
'My dear sir,' he said, 'do you think that the murderer is ever found
in such a case as this—given a delay of three days and nights—ample
time for him to ship himself for any port in the known world? A low,
clodhopping assassin, no doubt, in no way distinguishable from other
clodhoppers. Find him! did you say? I can conceive no endeavour more
hopeless. It is the fashion to rail at our police because they find it
a little difficult to put their hands upon every delinquent who may be
wanted, but it is hardly the simplest business in the world, to pick
the right man out of ten or fifteen millions.'
Maurice Clissold heard him with a troubled look and short impatient sigh.
'I dare say you are right,' he said, 'but I shall do my best to unravel
the mystery, even if I am doomed to fail.'
He asked some questions about his friend's funeral. It was to be at
three o'clock on the following day, and Churchill was going back to
London by an early train in order to attend as chief mourner.
'I shall be there,' said Maurice Clissold, and they parted with a
friendly hand-shake.
Clissold was touched by Mr. Penwyn's friendliness. That stigma of _non
proven_ had not affected Churchill's opinion at any rate.
He followed Matthew Elgood and his daughter into the street, and joined
them as they walked slowly homeward, the girl's face half hidden by her
veil.
'I want to have a talk with you, Mr. Elgood, if you've no objection,'
said Maurice. 'Unless you consider me tainted by the suspicion that
has hung over me for the last three days, and object to hold any
intercourse with me.'
'No, sir, I suspect no man,' answered the actor, with dignity.
'Although you were pleased to object to your lamented friend's
inclination for my society I bear no malice, and I do you the justice
to believe you had no part in his untimely end.'
'I thank you, Mr. Elgood, for your confidence. Since I have been in
that abominable gaol I feel as if there were some odour of felony
hanging about me. With regard to the objections of which you speak, I
can assure you that they were founded upon no personal dislike, but
upon prudential reasons, which I need not enlarge upon.'
'Enough, Mr. Clissold, it boots not now! If you will follow to our
humble abode, and share the meal our modest means provide, I will
enlighten you upon this theme, so far as my scant knowledge serve
withal,' said the actor, unconsciously lapsing into blank verse.
Maurice accepted the invitation. He had a curious desire to see more of
that girl, whose pale face had assumed a kind of sublimity just now in
the crowded court. Could she really have cared for his murdered friend?
She, who had but known him two days? Or was there some dark secret
which moved her thus deeply? The man seemed frank and open enough. Hard
to believe that villainy lurked beneath the Bohemian's rough kindliness.
They went straight to the lodging in the narrow street leading down
to the river. Here all seemed comfortable enough. The evening meal,
half tea, half dinner, was ready laid when Mr. Elgood and his visitor
went in, and Mr. and Mrs. Dempson were waiting with some impatience for
their refreshment. They looked somewhat surprised at the appearance
of Clissold, and Mrs. Dempson returned his greeting with a certain
stiffness. 'It isn't the pleasantest thing in the world to sit down to
table with a suspected murderer,' she remarked afterwards, to which
Justina replied, with a sudden flash of anger, 'Do you suppose I would
sit in the same room with him if I thought him guilty?'
The low comedian took things more easily than his wife.
'Well, Mat,' he said, 'I thought you were never coming. I've been down
at the "Arms," and heard the inquest. Glad to see you at liberty again,
Mr. Clissold. A most preposterous business, your arrest. I heard all
the evidence. I think those Spinnersbury detectives ought to get it
hot. I dare say the press will slang 'em pretty tolerably. Well done,
Judy!' he went on, with a friendly slap on Justina's shoulder, 'you
spoke up like a good one. If you spoke as well as that on the stage,
you'd soon be fit for the juvenile lead!'
Justina spoke no word, but took her place quietly at the table, where
Mrs. Dempson was pouring out the tea, while Mr. Elgood dispensed a
juicy rump-steak.
'I went to the butcher's for it myself,' he said. 'There's nothing like
personal influence in these things. They wouldn't dare give me a slice
off some superannuated cow. They know when they've got to deal with a
judge. "That's beef," said the butcher, as he slapped his knife across
the loin, and beef it is. Do you like it with the gravy in it, Mr.
Clissold?'
There was a dish of steaming potatoes, and a bowl of lettuces, which
greenstuff Mrs. Dempson champed as industriously as if she had been a
blood relation of Nebuchadnezzar's.
Never had Maurice Clissold seen any one so silent or so self-sustained
as this pale, thin, shadowy-looking girl, whom her friends called
Judy. She interested him strangely, and he did sorry justice to Mr.
Elgood's ideal steak, while watching her. She herself hardly ate
anything; but the others were too deeply absorbed in their own meal to
be concerned about her. She sat by her father, and drank a little tea,
sat motionless for the most part, with her dark thoughtful eyes looking
far away, looking into some world that was not for the rest.
So soon as the pangs of hunger were appeased, and the pleasures of the
table in some measure exhausted, Mr. Elgood became loquacious again.
He gave a detailed description of that last day on the racecourse—the
supper—all that James Penwyn had said or done within his knowledge.
And then came a discussion as to who could have done the deed.
'He was in the theatre all the evening, you say,' said Maurice. 'Is
it possible that any of the scene-shifters, or workmen of any kind,
may have observed him—seen him open a well-filled purse, perhaps—and
followed him after he left this house? It was one of his foolish habits
to carry too much money about him—from twenty to fifty pounds, for
instance. He used to say it was a bore to sit down and write a cheque
for every trifle he wanted. And of course, in our travels, ready money
was a necessity. Could it have been one of your people, do you think?'
'No, sir,' replied Mr. Elgood. 'The stage has contributed nothing to
the records of crime. From the highest genius who has ever adorned
the drama to the lowest functionary employed in the working of its
machinery, there has been no such thing as a felon.'
'I am glad to hear you say so, Mr. Elgood; yet it is clear to me
that this crime must have been committed by some one who watched and
followed my poor friend—some one who knew enough of him to know that
he had money about him.'
'I grant you, sir,' replied the actor.
It was now time for these Thespians to repair to the theatre, all but
Justina, who, for a wonder, was not in the first piece. Maurice took
notice of this fact, and after walking to the theatre with Mr. Elgood,
went back to that gentleman's lodgings to have a few words alone with
his daughter.
He passed through the shop unchallenged, visitors for the lodgers
being accustomed to pass in and out in a free and easy manner. He went
quietly upstairs. The sitting-room door stood ajar. He pushed it open,
and went in.