THE CAPTAIN ASKS STRANGE QUESTIONS.
Two hours had passed; it was the full glowing noon now of the summer
day. The sun shone so brightly and warmly it was difficult to bear its
rays; the air was faint with the rich odor of countless flowers; it was
musical with the song of a thousand birds; the bright-winged butterfly
hovered round the roses. Then the sweet summer silence was broken by the
gallop of horses and the tramp of men.
Captain Ayrley had arrived with two clever officers; the whole town of
Anderley was astir: in the silence of the soft summer night, red-handed
murder had been among them, and robbed them of the fairest girl the sun
had ever shone on. Foul, sneaking, red-handed murder! The whole town was
roused: some went to the church where the rector awaited the bride, and
told him the beautiful girl who was to have been married that day had
been found dead, with a knife in her heart.
Up the broad staircase leading to the grand corridor they went slowly,
that little procession of strong men. Captain Ayrley would not use the
spiral staircase, he wished to see the place just as it was.
"If the outer door is locked," he said, "we will soon force it."
The next sound heard in that lordly mansion was the violent breaking
open of a door; then, the earl being with them, they entered,
accompanied by the doctor.
He could do nothing but declare how many hours she had been dead.
"Since two in the morning," he believed, and the earl shivered as he
listened.
That was the time when Earle had heard the stifled cry.
Captain Ayrley was shrewd and keen, a man of great penetration; nothing
ever escaped him. He asked each person to stand quite still while he
looked round the room.
"There has been no violent entrance," he said; "the murderer must have
come up the spiral staircase gently enough, there is not a leaf of the
foliage destroyed! he evidently entered no other room but this.
Strange--if he came for the purpose of robbery; for there, in the
sleeping chamber, I see costly jewels that would have repaid any mere
burglar."
He looked around again.
"There are no less than three bells," he said. "Where do they sound?"
"One went to the maid's room, another to the servants' hall, the third
to the housekeeper's room."
"It was a strange thing," said Captain Ayrley, "that the young lady,
having these bells at hand, did not sound an alarm; she had plenty of
time."
"How do you know," asked the earl, "that she had plenty of time?"
The officer pointed to the bridal costume, all lying in shreds upon the
floor.
"It must have taken some time to destroy those," he said; "they could
not have been so completely destroyed in one single instant. Look again;
you will find that they have been done with clean hands--there is not a
mark upon them. That was done before the murder; the proof is that the
lady has fallen, as you perceive, on the _debris_."
"You are right," said Lord Linleigh.
Then, with the same skill and care, he examined every other detail. The
earl told him about the knife.
"It is, you perceive," he said, "a pruning-knife. It was fetched from
one of the hot-houses yesterday, to cut some branches Lady Studleigh
said darkened her room. I saw it yesterday afternoon lying on that
table, when I had come to speak to my daughter. Would to Heaven I had
taken it away with me!"
Captain Ayrley looked very thoughtful.
"If that be the case, then it is quite evident the person did not come
_prepared_ to do murder! it must have been an afterthought."
"Perhaps my daughter made some resistance--tried to call for help, or
something of that kind," said the earl.
Still the captain looked puzzled.
"Why not have called for help while these things were being destroyed?"
he said. "I am sure there is a mystery in it, something that does not
quite meet the eye at the first glance. Will you call Lady Studleigh's
maid. Throw--throw a sheet over there first; that is not a fitting sight
for any woman's eye."
Then came Eugenie, with many tears and wailing cries. She had nothing to
tell, except that last evening her lady had, for the first time, spoken
to her of her marriage, and had shown her the wedding costume.
"I took up the dress and looked at it," she said, "then I laid it over
that chair. My lady wanted to see how large the veil was. I opened it,
and we placed it on this chair: the wreath lay in a small scented box on
the table. I remember seeing the knife there; it was left yesterday
after the branches were cut. My lady told me to take it back, but I
forgot it."
She knew no more, only that she had tried her hardest to open the door
that morning, and had not succeeded. She was evidently ignorant and
unconscious enough.
"Had your lady any enemy?" asked the earl.
"No," replied the maid; "I believe every one who saw her worshiped her.
"Was there any tramp or poacher to whom she had refused alms, or
anything of that kind?" asked the captain.
"I should say not; my lady always had an open hand."
"She expressed no fear last evening, but seemed just as usual?" asked
the earl.
"She was happier than usual, if anything, my lord," was the reply.
Then the medical details were taken down, and the body of the dead girl
was raised from the ground. The doctor and the maid washed the stains
from the golden hair. The housekeeper was summoned, and the two women,
with bitter tears, laid the fair limbs to rest. She was so lovely, even
in death! The cruel wound could not be seen. They would have arrayed her
in her wedding-dress had it not been destroyed. They found a robe of
plain white muslin, and put it on her: they brushed out the shining
ripples of golden hair, and let it lie like a long veil around her; they
crossed the perfect arms, and laid them over the quiet breast. Though
she had died so terrible a death, there was no trace of pain on the
beautiful face: it was calm and smiling, as though the last whisper from
her lips had been anything rather than the terrible words.
"Oh, God! I am not fit to die!"--anything rather than that.
Eugenie went down into the garden and gathered fair white roses, she
crowned the golden head with them; she laid them on the white breast,
and over the silent figure, perfect in its pale loveliness as sculptured
marble; so beautiful, so calm! Oh, cruel death, to have claimed her!
Then the maid wept bitter tears over her, she could not tear herself
from the room where the beautiful figure lay. Silently the earl entered,
and bowed his head over the cold face, hot tears fell from his eyes upon
it.
"I will avenge you, my darling," he said. "I will hunt your murderer
down."
He went back to the room, where Captain Ayrley awaited him, with a
strange expression on his face.
"I do not like to own myself defeated, Lord Linleigh," he said; "but I
must own I am baffled here. I can see no motive for this most cruel
murder."
"Robbery," said the earl, shortly.
"No: I cannot think so. The maid, who evidently understands her
business, tells me that there is not so much as a ring, or an inch of
lace missing; whatever the motive may have been, it was certainly not
robbery; if so, when the victim lay helpless and dead, why not have
carried off the plunder? There is jewelry enough here to have made a
man's fortune; if any one risked murder for it, why not have taken it
away?"
"Perhaps there was some noise, some interruption; the man grew
frightened and ran away."
"I see no sign of it; there is nothing disturbed. Besides, my lord,
there is another thing that puzzles me more than all. Why should a man,
whose object was simply plunder, employ himself in tearing a
wedding-dress and bridal-veil to pieces; why should he have delayed in
order to crush her wedding-wreath in his hand, and trample it underneath
his feet, especially when, as circumstantial evidence goes to prove, his
victim must have been in his presence--must, if she had any fear, have
had plenty of time to have rung for help. I do not understand it."
"It certainly seems very mysterious," said Lord Linleigh. "I do not at
all understand the destruction of the wedding costume."
"Do not think me impertinent, my lord, if I ask whether there was any
rival in the case? This is not a common murder--I would stake the whole
of my professional skill on it. It is far more like a crime committed
under the maddening influence of jealousy than anything else."
"I do not see that it is possible. My daughter, as was only natural for
a beautiful girl in her position, had many admirers; but there was no
one who would be likely to be jealous. Another thing is, by her own
especial wish and desire, the fact of her marriage was to be kept a
profound secret; no one knew one single word about it except ourselves."
"And that was by her own especial desire?" said Captain Ayrley.
"Yes, it was her whim--her caprice."
"She may have had a reason for it," said the captain, gravely. "I should
imagine she had."
"And what would you imagine that reason to be?" asked the earl.
"I should say that, for some reason or other, she was afraid of its
being known. There are many things hidden in lives that seem calm and
tranquil; it seems to me that the unfortunate young lady was afraid of
some one, and perhaps had reason for it."
The earl sat in silence for some minutes, trying to think over all his
daughter's past life; he could not remember anything that seemed to give
the least color to the officer's suspicions. He raised his eyes gravely
to the shrewd, keen face.
"You may be right, Captain Ayrley," he said; "it is within the bounds of
possibility. But, frankly, on the honor of a gentleman, I know of
nothing in my daughter's life that bears out your suspicions; therefore
I should wish you not to mention them to any one else; they can only
give pain. For my part, not understanding the destruction of the
wedding-dress, I firmly believe that it is a case of intended burglary,
and that either while trying to defend herself or to give the alarm, she
was cruelly murdered. I believe that, and nothing more. At the same
time, if you like to follow out any clew, I will do all in my power to
help you. For the present we will not add to horror and grief by
assuming that such a crime can be the result of jealous or misspent
love. Try by all means to catch the murderer--never mind who or what he
is."
Captain Ayrley promised to obey. Yet, though they searched and searched
well, there was not the least trace, no mark of footsteps, no broken
boughs, no stains of red finger marks, nor could they find any trace, in
the neighborhood, of tramps, vagrants, or burglars. It seemed to Captain
Ayrley, that the Linleigh Court murder would be handed down as a mystery
to all time.
Lord Linleigh did not enter the room, where lay the beautiful, silent
dead, with Earle, he dreaded the sight of his grief, he could not bear
the thought of his sorrow.
Earle went in alone, closing the door behind him, that none might hear
or see when he bade his love farewell. Those who watched in the outer
room heard a sound of weeping and wild words: they heard sobs so deep
and bitter, that it was heartrending to remember it was a strong man
weeping there in his agony. They did not disturb him: perhaps Heaven in
its mercy sent him some comfort--none came from earth; nothing came to
soften the madness of anguish when he remembered this was to have been
his wedding day, and now his beautiful, golden-haired darling lay dead,
cold, silent, smiling--dead! What could lessen such anguish as his?