“The God of love—_ah, benedicite_!
How mighty and how great a Lord is he!”
A week later Theodore Dalbrook was established in chambers on the
second floor of No. 2, Ferret Court, Temple.
Ferret Court is one of the few places in the Temple which have not
been improved and beautified out of knowledge within the last thirty
years. The architect and the sanitary engineer have passed by on the
other side, and have left Ferret Court to its original shabbiness.
Its ceilings have not been elevated, or its windows widened, nor has
the Early-English stone front replaced the shabby old brickwork. Its
time has not come. The rooms are small and low, the queer old closets
where generations of lawyers have kept their goods and chattels are
dark and redolent of mice. The staircases are rotten, the heavy old
balusters are black with age, and the deep old window-seats are set
in windows of the early Georgian era.
The chambers suited Theodore, first because they were cheap, and next
because the sitting-room, which was at the back, commanded a good
view of the river. The bedroom was a tolerable size, and there was a
dressing-room just big enough to hold bath and boots. He furnished
the rooms comfortably, with solid old-fashioned furniture, partly
consisting of surplus articles sent from the old house in Dorchester,
and partly of his own purchases in London. The rooms were arranged
with a sober taste which was by no means inartistic, and there was
just enough bright colouring in the Algerian portières and a few
handsome pieces of Oriental crockery to relieve the dark tones of old
oak and Spanish mahogany. Altogether the chambers had the established
look of a nest which was meant to last through wind and weather, a
shelter in which a man expected to spend a good many years of his
life.
He had another reason for choosing those old rooms in Ferret Court
in preference to chambers in any of those new and commodious houses
in the courts that had been rebuilt of late years. It was in this
house that James Dalbrook had begun his legal career; it was here,
on the ground floor, that the future Lord Cheriton had waited for
briefs nearly forty years ago; and it was here that fame and fortune
had first visited him, a shining apparition, bringing brightness into
the shabby old rooms, irradiating the gloomy old court with the glory
of triumphant ambition, hopes suddenly realized, the consciousness
of victory. James Dalbrook had occupied those dingy chambers fifteen
years, and long after he became a great man, and he had gone from
them almost reluctantly to a spacious first-floor in King’s Bench
Walk. He had enjoyed the reputation of a miser at that period of his
life. He was never known to give a dinner to a friend; he lived in a
close retirement which his enemies stigmatized as a hole-and-corner
life; he was never seen at places of amusement; he never played
cards, or bet upon a race. Socially he was unpopular.
Theodore had taken all the preliminary steps, and had arranged to
read with a well-known special pleader. He was thoroughly in earnest
in his determination to succeed in this new line. He wanted to prove
to his father that his abandonment of the Dorchester office was
neither a caprice nor a folly. He was even more in earnest in his
desire to keep his promise to his cousin Juanita.
Almost his first act upon arriving in London had been to go to
Scotland Yard in the hope of finding the detective who had been sent
to Cheriton, and his inquiries there were so far successful that he
was able to make an appointment with Mr. Churton for the next day but
one.
He had talked with Churton after the adjourned inquest, and had
heard all that the professional intellect had to offer in the way
of opinion at that time; but he thought it worth his while to find
out if the detective’s ideas had taken any new development upon
subsequent reflection, and also to submit Juanita’s theory to
professional consideration. He was not one of those amateurs who
think that they are cleverer at a trade than the man who has served a
long apprenticeship to it.
“Have you thought anything more about the Cheriton murder since last
July, Mr. Churton?” he asked; “or has your current work been too
engrossing to give you time for thought?”
“No, sir. I’ve had plenty of other cases to think about, but I’m not
likely to forget such a case as that at Cheriton, a case in which I
was worsted more completely than I have been in anything for the last
ten years. I’ve thought about it a good bit, I can assure you, Mr.
Dalbrook.”
“And do you see any new light?”
“No, sir. I stick pretty close to my original opinion. Sir Godfrey
Carmichael was murdered by somebody that bore a grudge against him;
and there’s a woman at the bottom of it.”
“Why a woman? Might not a man’s hatred be deadly enough to lead to
murder?”
“Not unless he was egged on by a woman; or had been jilted by a
woman; or was jealous of a woman; or thought he had a woman’s wrongs
to avenge.”
“Is that what your experience teaches you, Mr. Churton?”
“Yes, Mr. Dalbrook, that is what my experience teaches me.”
“And you think it was an enemy of Sir Godfrey’s who fired that shot?”
“I do.”
“Do you think the enemy was a woman—the hand that pulled the trigger
a woman’s hand?”
“No, I don’t. A woman couldn’t have been about the place without
being remarked—or got clear off, as a man might.”
“There are the servants. Could the murderer be one of them?”
“I do not think so, sir. I’ve taken stock of them
all—stables—lodges—everywhere. I never met with such a superior set
of servants. The person at the west lodge is a lady bred and born,
I should say. She gave me a good deal of information about the
household. I consider her a remarkably intelligent woman, and I know
she is of my opinion as to the motive of the murder.”
“And yet if I tell you that Sir Godfrey had not an enemy in
the world?” said Theodore, dwelling on the main point, and not
particularly interested in what the highly-intelligent Mrs. Porter
might have said upon the subject.
“I should tell you, sir, that no man can answer for another man.
There is something in the lives of most of us that we would rather
keep dark.”
“I don’t believe there was any dark spot in Sir Godfrey’s life. But
what if there were an enemy of Lord Cheriton’s—a man who has been a
judge is in a fair way to have made enemies—a foe vindictive enough
to strike at him through his son-in-law, to smite him by destroying
his daughter’s happiness? She is his only child, remember, and all
his hopes and ambitions centre in her.”
“Well, Mr. Dalbrook, if there was such a man he would be an
out-and-out blackguard.”
“Yes, it would be a refinement of cruelty—a Satanic hate; but such a
man might exist. Remember the murder of Lord Mayo—one of the wisest
and most beloved of India’s rulers. The wretch who killed him had
never seen his face till the day of the murder. He thought himself
unjustly condemned, and he killed the man who represented the Power
which condemned him. Might not some wrong-headed Englishman have the
same vindictive feeling against an English judge?”
“Yes, it is possible, no doubt.”
“My cousin, Lady Carmichael, has another theory.”
Theodore explained the positions of Lord Cheriton and the race that
preceded him as owners of the soil, and Juanita’s suspicion of some
unknown member of the Strangway family; but the detective rejected
this notion as unworthy of professional consideration.
“It is like a young lady to get such an idea into her head,” he
said. “If the estate had changed hands yesterday—well, even then
I shouldn’t suspect the former owners of wanting to murder the
purchaser’s son-in-law; but when you reflect that Lord Cheriton has
been in peaceful possession of the property for more than twenty
years the idea isn’t worth a moment’s thought. What put such a fancy
into the lady’s head, do you think, Mr. Dalbrook?”
“Grief! She has brooded upon her loss until her sorrow has taken
strange shapes. She thinks that it is her duty to help in bringing
her husband’s murderer to justice. She has racked her brains to
discover the motive of that cruel crime. She has conjured up the
image of incarnate hatred, and she calls that image by the name of
Strangway. I have pledged myself to act upon this idea of hers as if
it were inspiration, and the first part of my task will be to find
out any surviving member of Squire Strangway’s family. He only left
three children, so the task ought not to be impossible.”
“You don’t mean, sir, that you are going to act upon the young lady’s
theory?”
“I do mean it, Mr. Churton, and I want you to help me; or at any rate
to give me a lesson. How am I to begin?”
He laid his facts before the detective, reading over the notes which
he had elaborated from Jasper Blake’s reminiscences and from his own
recollection of various conversations in which the Strangways had
figured.
Churton listened attentively, nodded, or shook his head occasionally,
and was master of every detail after that one hearing.
“Jersey is not a large place. If I were following up this inquiry I
should go first for the son who is supposed to have died in Jersey,”
he said, when he had heard all. “I should follow that line as far as
it goes, and then I should hunt up the particulars of the Colonel’s
death, the gentleman who was drowned at Nice. If any Strangway had a
hand in the business, it must have been one of those two, or the son
of one of them. But I tell you plainly, Mr. Dalbrook, that I don’t
put any faith in that poor lady’s notion—no, not that much,” said the
detective, snapping his fingers contemptuously.
“Yet it was you yourself who first mooted the idea of a vendetta.”
“So it was; but I didn’t mean a vendetta on such grounds as that. An
estate changes hands, and—after twenty years and more—the original
holders try to murder the son-in-law of the purchaser! That won’t
hold water, sir. There’s not enough human passion in it. I’ve had to
study humanity, Mr. Dalbrook. It’s been a part of my profession, and
perhaps I’ve studied human nature closer than many a philosopher who
sits in his library and writes a book about it. Now, there’s no human
nature in that notion of Lady Carmichael’s. A man may be very savage
because his spendthrift father has squandered his estate, and he may
feel savage with the lucky man who bought and developed that estate,
and may envy him in his enjoyment of it—but he won’t nurse his wrath
for nearly a quarter of a century, and then give expression to his
feelings all at once with a revolver. _That_ isn’t human nature.”
“How about the exception to every rule? Might not this be an
exceptional case?”
“It might, of course. There’s no truer saying than that fact is
stranger than fiction; but, for all that, this notion of Lady
Carmichael’s is a young lady’s notion, and it belongs to fiction and
not to fact. I wouldn’t waste my time upon it, if I were you, Mr.
Dalbrook.”
“I must keep my promise, Mr. Churton. I am obliged to you for your
plain speaking, and I am inclined to agree with you; but I have made
a promise, and I must keep it.”
“Naturally, sir; and if in the course of your inquiries I can be of
any use to you, I shall be very glad to co-operate.”
“I rely on your help. Remember there is a handsome reward to be
earned by you if you can bring about the discovery of the murderer.
My part in the search will count for nothing.”
“I understand, sir. That’s a stimulus, no doubt; but I hardly wanted
it. When a case baffles me as this case has done, I would work day
and night, and live on bread and water for a month, to get at the
rights of it. Good day. You’ve got my private address, and you can
wire me anywhen.”
“You’re a Sussex man, Mr. Churton, I fancy?”
“Born in the village of Bramber.”
* * * * *
Theodore left Waterloo the following evening, and landed at St.
Heliers on the following morning an hour or so before noon. He landed
on the island as an absolute stranger, and with the vaguest idea of
the work that lay before him, but with the determination to lose no
time in beginning that work. He sent his valise to Brett’s Hotel,
and he walked along the pier to the town, and inquired his way to
the Police Office. He was not going in quest of information about a
member of the criminal classes; but the man he was hunting had been a
notorious drunkard, and it seemed to him that in a small settlement
like St. Heliers such a man would have been likely to attract the
attention of the police at some stage of his downward career.
The first official whom Theodore interrogated had never heard of
the name of Strangway in the island; but an elderly inspector
appearing presently upon the scene, and listening attentively to the
conversation, made a suggestion.
“You say the gentleman was fond of drink, sir, and in that case
he’d be likely to have his favourite public, where they’d know all
about him. Now, there are not so many taverns in St. Heliers where
a sea-captain, and a broken-down gentleman, would care to enjoy
himself. He wouldn’t go to a low place, you see; and he wouldn’t
fancy a swell place. It would be some house betwixt and between,
where he’d be looked up to a bit—and it would be something of a
seafaring place, you may be sure. There ain’t so many but what
you could look in at ’em all, and ask a few questions, and get on
the right track. I can give you the names of two or three of the
likeliest.”
“I shall be much obliged,” said Theodore. “I think it’s a capital
idea.”
The inspector wrote down the names of three taverns, tore the leaf
out of his pocket-book, and handed it to Mr. Dalbrook.
“If you don’t hear of him at one of those, I doubt if you’ll hear
of him anywhere on the island,” he said. “Those houses are all near
the pier and the quays. It won’t take you long to go from one to the
other. ‘The Rose and Crown,’ that’s where the English pilots go; ‘La
Belle Alliance,’ that’s a French house with a _table d’hôte_. They’ve
got a very good name for their brandy, and it’s a great place for
broken-down gentlemen. You can get a good dinner for half-a-crown
with _vin ordinaire_ included.”
“I’ll try the ‘Belle Alliance’ first,” said Theodore. “It sounds
likely.”
“Yes, I believe it’s about the likeliest,” replied the inspector.
The “Belle Alliance” fronted the quay, and stood at the corner of
a shabby old street. There was a church close by, and a dingy old
churchyard. Everything surrounding the “Belle Alliance” was shabby
and faded, and its outlook on the dirty quay and the traffic of ugly
waggons and uglier tracks, hogsheads and lumber of all kinds, was
depressing in the extreme.
But the tavern itself had an air of smartness which an English tavern
would hardly have had in the same circumstances. The interior was
gay with much looking-glass, and a good deal of tarnished gilding.
There were artificial flowers in sham silver vases on the tables,
and there was a semi-circular counter at one end of the restaurant,
behind which a ponderous divinity, still youthful, but expansive, sat
enthroned, her sleek, black hair elaborately dressed, her forehead
ornamented with accroche-cœurs, and a cross of Jersey diamonds
sparkling upon her swan-like throat, which was revealed by one of
those open collars which are dear to the lower order of French women.
There was a row of tables in front of the windows which looked
towards the quay, and there was a long, narrow table in the middle of
the room, laid for the _table d’hôte dejeuner_; but as yet the room
was empty, save for one young man and woman, of the tourist order,
who were whispering and tittering over a _café complet_ at one of the
small tables furthest from the buffet.
Theodore went straight to the front of the buffet, and saluted the
lady enthroned there.
“Madame speaks English, no doubt?”
“Oh, yes, but a leetle. I am live long time in Jairsey, where is more
English as French peoples.”
After this sample speech it seemed to him that he might get on better
with the lady in her native tongue, so he asked her for a cup of
coffee in her own language, and stood at the counter while he drank
it, and talked to her of indifferent matters, she nothing loth.
“You have lived a long time in Jersey,” he said. “Does that mean a
long time in this house?”
“Except one year I have lived in this house all the time, nine
years. I was only nineteen when I undertook the position of _dame du
comptoir_. I could not have undertaken such a responsibility with
a stranger, but the proprietor is my uncle, and he knew how to be
indulgent to my youth and inexperience.”
“And then, a handsome face is always an attraction. You must have
brought him good fortune, madame.”
“He is kind enough to say so. He found it difficult to dispense with
my services while I was absent, though he had a person from London
who had been much admired at the Crystal Palace.”
“And you, madame,—was it a feminine caprice, the desire for change,
which made you abandon your uncle during that time?”
“I left him when I married,” replied the lady, with a profound sigh.
“I returned to him a heart-broken widow.”
“Pray forgive me for having recalled the memory of your grief. I am a
stranger in this place, and I am here on a somewhat delicate mission.
My first visit is to this house, because I knew I should find
intelligence and sympathy here rather than among my own countrymen.
I am fortunate in meeting with a lady who has occupied an important
position at St. Heliers for so long a period. I have strong reasons
for wishing to discover the history of a gentleman who came to the
Island some years ago—I do not know how many—after having been
unfortunate in the world. He was a naval man.”
“My poor husband was a naval man,” sighed the _dame du comptoir_.
“A pilot, no doubt,” thought Theodore.
Theodore’s manner, which was even more flattering than his words,
had made a favourable impression, and the lady was disposed to be
confidential. She glanced at the clock, and was glad to see that it
was only twenty minutes past twelve. There was time for a little
further conversation with this handsome, well-bred Englishman,
before the habitués of the “Belle Alliance” came trooping in for the
half-past twelve o’clock _table d’hôte_. Already the atmosphere was
odorous with fried sole and _ragout de mouton_.
“The gentleman of whom I am in quest is reported to have died on the
Island,” he continued; “but this is very likely to have been a false
report, and it is quite possible that Captain Strangway may still——”
“Captain Strangway,” echoed the woman, with an agitated air.
“Yes, I see you know all about him. You can help me to find him.”
“Know him!” cried the woman. “I should think I did know him, to my
bitter cost. Captain Strangway was my husband.”
“Good Heavens!”
“He was my husband. The people will be here in a few minutes. If
monsieur will do me the honour to step into my sitting-room, we can
talk without interruption.”