AN ANXIOUS WEEK.
Edward Hazeldine and Mr. Prestwich retired to a private room in the
hotel, while John Brancker walked back to the Bank like a man utterly
dazed and confounded. He could not help noticing how the crowd that
lingered about the hotel divided and made way for him, nor how they
stared at him and broke into eager whisperings the moment he had
passed. To his excited fancy it seemed as if everybody shrank from
him. How could Strong swear as he had sworn! And yet there seemed the
ring of truth in all he said. And those mysterious blood-stains! It
was all a terrible mystery at present, but one which a few days at the
most would surely unravel.
John Brancker paused on the steps outside the Bank, feeling utterly
sick at heart. Not again to-day could he set foot inside those walls.
The man whom he had respected and looked up to for so many years lay
there dead, and he, John Brancker, was actually suspected of---- Great
heavens! could it be anything more than a horrible nightmare? He
turned and set off homeward at a rapid pace. Awaiting him there were
two loving hearts into which no vile breath of suspicion, not even if
the evidence against him were an hundredfold stronger than it was,
would ever find a moment's harborage. Never had his humble home seemed
so sweet and dear to him as that afternoon.
It was in no very enviable frame of mind that Ephraim Judd quitted the
jury-room and made his way towards the river-bank. He was in no mood
for business; he felt the need of being alone. How he despised himself
for what he had done! And yet he felt that, in similar circumstances,
he should be driven to do the same again. How was it possible for him
to tell the truth, when to do so meant ruin to himself? Not one day
longer would Mr. Avison retain him in his service if he were to become
aware of his practice of prying into other people's affairs, and, in
that case, what would become of him and his widowed mother?
To do Ephraim justice, in giving his evidence as he had given it, he
had thought only of screening himself, never dreaming that by so doing
he would be strengthening the web of suspicion which seemed to be
closing slowly round Mr. Brancker. With all his petty, tortuous ways
and crooked modes of reasoning, he shrank from doing anyone a direct
injury. If, in his dealings with others, however simple those dealings
might be, a roundabout course was sweeter to him than a
straightforward one--that was a little weakness which he shared in
common with many men far more highly placed than himself.
Truth to tell, Ephraim was not framed in the mould out of which your
more robust villains are turned out. It might be said of him that,
while to serve his own ends he would not have shrunk from pricking
anyone with a pin in the dark, had a dagger been thrust into his hand
he would have dropped it in terror and slunk away.
He had perjured himself to save himself, but nothing had been further
from his intention than to do John Brancker an injury. No one had been
more surprised than he at the turn Strong's evidence had taken; he was
utterly at a loss how to reconcile the statements of the two men.
As soon as Edward Hazeldine and Mr. Prestwich were alone, the latter
said:
"I wish you had heard the evidence this afternoon; it has taken quite
an unexpected turn."
"An unexpected turn! In what way?" asked Edward, with a quick,
suspicious glance at his companion.
"As tending to fix a shadow of suspicion on Mr. Brancker."
"On Mr. Brancker! What nonsense that must be!" exclaimed Edward,
impatiently.
"I should probably have been as sceptical as you are, had I not heard
the evidence in question," remarked Mr. Prestwich dryly.
He then went on to enlighten his companion, detailing the different
points of evidence as deposed to by each witness in turn. Edward
listened with growing wonder and uneasiness.
"That man Strong must have sworn to a lie," he said impetuously, when
Mr. Prestwich had done.
"I don't think so, and I watched him narrowly. The fellow may be
something of a dunderhead, but he seemed very much in earnest in what
he said."
"Then you mean to imply that John Brancker has not told the truth?"
"I imply nothing. I only take the evidence as it stands, and try to
consider it dispassionately. It seems to be fully understood that Mr.
Brancker called at the Bank about half-past ten last evening, and he
himself admits that he did not get home till midnight. It would appear
certain that Mr. Hazeldine came by his death within those two periods
of time. The nightwatchman is positive that he did not hear Mr.
Brancker enter the Bank, which is accounted for by the latter making
use of his pass-key. Both the murder and robbery would seem to be the
work of someone well acquainted with your father's habits, and who
knew in which particular safe the bullion was kept, and where to find
the key of it; and who also possessed the means of getting quietly
away after the deed was done. Mr. Brancker says that he knocked
several times at Strong's door; Strong says that no one knocked; Mr.
Brancker has a contusion over his left eye, which he accounts for by
saying that a woman hit him with a stone. Finally, how are we to
account for the blood-smears with which Mr. Brancker's drawer is
marked both inside and out, as well as the floor in front of it?"
"For all that you have said I do not care one jot," was Edward
Hazeldine's answer. "I am perfectly convinced that John Brancker had
no more to do with the death of my father than I had."
"I am not saying that he had. I am only showing you which way the
evidence is tending. In all probability the researches of the police
during the next few days will put an entirely different complexion on
the affair."
Edward Hazeldine went his way, a thoroughly unhappy man. It is not too
much to say that the horror with which he had first heard of his
father's death was now to a certain extent overshadowed by the grief
and shame caused him by the reading of his father's letter. Under his
cold, practical, matter-of-fact exterior lay hidden a proud and, in
some things, a very sensitive nature, which was far more easily
wounded than anyone knew of, and very deep was the wound made in it
today. He prided himself on being a thoroughly just man, and it was
essential to his happiness that all his actions should meet with the
approval of his own conscience. But still more essential was it that
he should stand well in the eyes of the world, and be one of whom his
fellow-townsmen might have just reason to feel proud. Hidden in the
deepest recesses of his mind lay the half-formed hope of one day being
able to represent his native town in Parliament. It was a hope of
which he had never spoken to anyone, but none the less was it secretly
cherished. From the time when he was a boy of twelve, he had set
himself steadily to regard his advancement in life, and the
acquisition of wealth and social position, as the great ends for which
he must never cease to strive.
But what would Lord and Lady Elstree think and say, and in what way
would they act, should he ever be compelled to reveal to the world the
real facts connected with his father's death? In such a case he knew
full well that the doors of Seaham Lodge would be closed to him
forever, and that he must give up all hope of ever winning the hand of
Miss Winterton. Goshope Grange, one of the Earl's country seats, to
which he had been invited for a week's shooting last September, and
where he had for fellow-guests two lords, three baronets, and a host
of minor celebrities, would know him no more. Social extinction would
be the fate of him and his, should the contents of his father's letter
ever become known. After such an exposure, how could he bear to look
his fellow-townsmen in the face? He would have to give up his
business, if indeed, his partners did not insist on his seceding from
it; all his ambitious projects would fall in ruins around him, and he
would have to seek another home in some place where he was known to
none.
"And as matters were now turning out, it seemed only too probable that
he would feel himself compelled to reveal the contents of the letter.
It would never do to let an innocent man suffer under the stigma of so
terrible a crime. Whatever the cost to him and his might be, that
man's innocence must be proclaimed aloud on the housetops. Very bitter
were his thoughts as he walked slowly through the town, with his hat
pulled over his brows and his eyes bent on the ground, towards his
father's house. A chill shot through his heart as his fingers touched
the muffled knocker. The servant who let him in burst out crying
afresh the moment she set eyes on him, and he needed all his nerve
to enable him to retain his outward composure as he opened the
drawing-room door and went in. Clement was sitting on one side of the
fireplace, Fanny on the other. Edward touched his brother lightly on
the shoulder, and then the hands of both met in a long, affectionate
grip.
"Where is my mother?" asked the elder man.
"She is lying down in her own room," answered Fanny. "When I went to
her, a few minutes ago, she was asleep."
"Sleep is the best thing for her just now. I must leave it to you,
Clem, to induce her to keep up her strength as much as possible."
"You may rely upon it that I will look after her."
Presently Edward took his leave. He was restless and anxious to get
home. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The company of anyone
would have been distasteful to him just then. He shut himself up in
his study as soon as he reached home.
Next day Mr. Avison, who had been telegraphed for, arrived from Paris,
and he and John Brancker at once set to work to ascertain to what
extent the Bank was a sufferer by the recent robbery. The result was
that gold and notes to the amount of about three thousand one hundred
pounds proved to be missing, together with the twelve hundred pounds
which the dead man had brought with him from London.
The investigation served to bring to light one singular fact which
puzzled Mr. Avison and John Brancker not a little. Mr. Hazeldine's
private ledger was missing, as were also a number of check slips on
which the undercashiers entered the numbers of the notes which they
paid over at the close of each day's business.
"It certainly looks," said Mr. Avison, "as if the thief or thieves
were intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of our business, or
else why should they have taken away with them the only evidence by
means of which we should have been able to trace the missing notes?"
But John Brancker could only profess himself to be as utterly puzzled
over the affair as Mr. Avison was.
Although Mr. Avison had read the evidence taken at the inquest, he had
hitherto attached no importance to the fact that certain portions of
it seemed to point the finger of suspicion at John Brancker. John was
such an old and tried servant, and he had such implicit confidence in
his integrity, that he had only smiled to himself, as he thought how
wide of the truth people are often led by circumstantial evidence.
But now the case began to put on a very different complexion. A grave
suspicion was taking root in his mind, that no one but a man
thoroughly acquainted with the inner working of the Bank could be at
the bottom of the mystery. It troubled him more even than the loss of
the money troubled him, to think that his faith in human nature should
be so rudely shaken. But Mr. Avison was by nature a very reticent man,
a man who thought much but said little, and John had not the faintest
notion of the feelings at work in his employer's mind. The Banker said
to himself that some further evidence would probably be forthcoming at
the adjourned inquest, and that he could afford to wait till then.
Obed Sweet was another person who was considerably troubled in the
article he called his mind. That Mr. Hazeldine had come by his death
between half-past ten and half-past eleven o'clock, everybody seemed
fully agreed. Yet was Obed quite aware that during the greater portion
of the time in question, he had been asleep in his room downstairs.
This it was that troubled him. If he had only kept awake, as he ought
to have done, might he not have heard someone come in, or go out, or
have been alarmed by the noise of a struggle, or by some cry for help?
Unfortunately, he had heard nothing. He tried to argue himself into
the belief that he was a remarkably light sleeper. "Why, a mouse could
hardly scamper across the floor without my hearing it," he said to
himself again and again. Still he wished most fervently that he had
not fallen asleep on that fatal night.
Meanwhile, the needful authority having been granted by the Coroner,
Mr. Hazeldine's funeral took place. It was attended by nearly half the
population of Ashdown, either as followers or onlookers. A day or two
later, the jury met again for the adjourned inquest.