THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.
The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas
Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove
him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man
guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which
had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He,
a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,--as every one was now
very careful to call him,--had come to England, had got himself to be
ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married
a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living
in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been
better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which
added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the
bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,--our
old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,--would be rescued from his
clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been
strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was
perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young
and pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than
Yosef Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of
bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;--but would law, and
justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at
him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist
a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so
that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great
Britain.
The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of
the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost
sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that
his testimony would probably be required at another trial,--which
intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week
or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries.
But he would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A
man hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to
now,--professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man,
as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of
the key,--though it was that which made every one feel sure that
Mealyus was the murderer,--did not, in truth, afford the slightest
evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly
used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in
question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore
he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen
had been his enemy,--and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy.
But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to
touch him. Nobody doubted;--but then but few had doubted before as to
the guilt of Phineas Finn.
There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped,
still be reached. Mr. Bonteen had, of course, been killed by
the weapon which had been found in the garden. As to that a
general certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meager and Miss Meager, and the
maid-of-all-work belonging to the Meagers, and even Lady Eustace,
were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever
been seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been
so sly that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and
cupboards which he used, Mrs. Meager had always possessed duplicate
keys, and Miss Meager frankly acknowledged that she had a general and
fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles;
but there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock,--a
lock which required that even if you had the key you should be
acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could
open it,--and of that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter
of course, the weapon, when brought to London, had been kept
altogether hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man
cannot be hung because he has had a secret hiding place in which a
murderous weapon may have been stowed away.
But might it not be possible to trace the weapon? Mealyus, on his
return from Prague, had certainly come through Paris. So much was
learned,--and it was also learned as a certainty that the article
was of French,--and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be
proved that the man had bought this weapon, or even such a weapon, in
Paris then,--so said all the police authorities,--it might be worth
while to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skilful in unravelling
such mysteries were sent to Paris, and the police of that capital
entered upon the search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number
of life-preservers which had been sold altogether baffled them. It
seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about
with bludgeons in their pockets covered with leathern thongs. A young
woman and an old man who thought that they could recollect something
of a special sale were brought over,--and saw the splendour of London
under very favourable circumstances;--but when confronted with Mr.
Emilius, neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money
was expended,--no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr.
Bonteen had filled in the counsels of the nation; but it was expended
in vain. Mr. Bonteen had been murdered in the streets at the West End
of London. The murderer was known to everybody. He had been seen a
minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the
crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had
been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning
with which he had endeavoured to prove that he was in bed at home
had been unravelled, and the criminal purpose of his cunning made
altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from
the moment in which the murderer crept out of Mrs. Meager's house
with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and the life-preserver in
his pocket, till he was seen by Lord Fawn hurrying out of the mews
to his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very
moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very
act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen. And yet
nothing could be done. "It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on
circumstantial evidence," said Sir Gregory Grogram, who, a couple of
months since, had felt almost sure that his honourable friend Phineas
Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police
and magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless, and
indeed wrong, to send the case before a jury. But there had been
quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn!
In the meantime the trial for bigamy proceeded in order that poor
little Lizzie Eustace might be freed from the incubus which afflicted
her. Before the end of July she was made once more a free woman, and
the Rev. Joseph Emilius,--under which name it was thought proper that
he should be tried,--was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude
for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury
by a learned serjeant, who declared that his client was to lose his
wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a bigamist, because
it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of
murder. There was, perhaps, some truth in what the learned serjeant
said, but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Emilius was
found guilty as quickly as Phineas Finn had been acquitted, and was,
perhaps, treated with a severity which the single crime would hardly
have elicited. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts
which were being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon, and
when men hoped two or five or twenty-five years of threatened
incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Emilius. Could they have
succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon, his years
of penal servitude would have afflicted him but little. They did not
succeed; and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached
to the Bonteen murder, it has remained one of those crimes which are
unavenged by the flagging law. And so the Rev. Mr. Emilius will pass
away from our story.
There must be one or two words further respecting poor little
Lizzie Eustace. She still had her income almost untouched, having
been herself unable to squander it during her late married life,
and having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo
husband. And she had her title, of which no one could rob her, and
her castle down in Ayrshire,--which, however, as a place of residence
she had learned to hate most thoroughly. Nor had she done anything
which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of
society. As a married woman she had had no lovers; and, when a widow,
very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But
the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bonteen had been
her best friend, and, while it was still thought that Phineas Finn
had committed the murder, with Mrs. Bonteen she had remained. But
it was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it
became known,--for it was known,--that Mr. Bonteen had been murdered
by the man who was still Lizzie's reputed husband. Not that Lizzie
perceived this,--though she was averse to the idea of her husband
having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bonteen perceived it, and told her
friend that she must--go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched
widow changed her faith as to the murderer; but at last she found
herself bound to believe as the world believed; and then she hinted
to the wife of Mr. Emilius that she had better find another home.
"I don't believe it a bit," said Lizzie.
"It is not a subject I can discuss," said the widow.
"And I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband.
You have said that yourself very often, Mrs. Bonteen."
"It is better that we shouldn't be together, Lady Eustace."
"Oh, I can go, of course, Mrs. Bonteen. There needn't be the
slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be
convenient; but of course you know best."
She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street, close to the scene
of the murder, and was once more alone in the world. She had a child
indeed, the son of her first husband, as to whom it behoved many to
be anxious, who stood high in rank and high in repute; but such had
been Lizzie's manner of life that neither her own relations nor those
of her husband could put up with her, or endure her contact. And yet
she was conscious of no special sins, and regarded herself as one who
with a tender heart of her own, and a too-confiding spirit, had been
much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown.
Now she was alone, weeping in solitude, pitying herself with deepest
compassion; but it never occurred to her that there was anything in
her conduct that she need alter. She would still continue to play her
game as before, would still scheme, would still lie; and might still,
at last, land herself in that Elysium of life of which she had been
always dreaming. Poor Lizzie Eustace! Was it nature or education
which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth, when a lie
came to her hand? Lizzie, the liar! Poor Lizzie!