AN APPLICATION
The ferment increased. The arguments in the neighbourhood were worthy of
being listened to, if only from a logical point of view. If Rupert
Trevlyn had stated that he was going back to the Hold after the
proceedings at Barmester; and if Rupert Trevlyn never reached the Hold,
clearly Mr. Chattaway had killed and buried him. Absurd as the deduction
may be from a dispassionate point of view, to those excited gentry it
appeared not only a feasible but a certain conclusion. The thing could
not rest; interviews were held with Mr. Peterby, who was supposed to be
the only person able to take up the matter on the part of the missing
and ill-used Rupert; and that gentleman bestirred himself to make secret
inquiries.
One dark night, between eight and nine, the inmates of the lodge were
disturbed by a loud imperative knocking at their door. Ann
Canham--trying her poor eyes over some dark sewing by the light of the
solitary candle--started from her chair, and remarked that her heart had
leaped into her mouth.
Which may have been a reason, possibly, for standing still, face and
hands uplifted in consternation, instead of answering the knock. It was
repeated more imperatively.
Old Canham turned his head and looked at her, as he smoked his last
evening pipe over the fire. "Thee must open it, Ann."
Seeing no help for it, she went meekly to the door, wringing her hands.
What she feared was best known to herself; but in point of fact, since
Bowen, the superintendent, had pounced upon her a few days before, as
she was going past the police-station, handed her inside, and put her
through sundry questions as we put a boy through his catechism, she had
lived in a state of tremor. She may have concluded it was Bowen now,
with the fellow handcuffs to those which had adorned Jim Sanders.
It proved to be Mr. Peterby. Ann looked surprised, but lost three parts
of her fear. Dropping her humble curtsey, she was about to ask his
pleasure, when he brushed past her without ceremony, and stepped into
the kitchen.
"Shut the door," were his first words to her. "How are you, Canham?"
Mark had risen, and stood with doubtful gaze, wondering, no doubt, what
the visit could mean. "I be but middlin', sir," he answered, putting his
pipe in the corner of the hearth. "We ain't none of us too well, I
reckon, with this uncertainty hanging over our minds, as to poor Master
Rupert."
"It is the business I have come about. Sit down, Ann," Mr. Peterby
added, settling himself on the bench opposite Mark. "I want to ask you a
few questions."
"Yes, sir," she meekly answered. But her hands shook, and she nearly
dropped the work she had taken up.
"There's nothing to be afraid of," cried Mr. Peterby, noticing the
emotion. "I am not going to accuse you of putting him out of sight, as
it seems busy tongues are accusing somebody else. On the night the
encounter took place between Mr. Chattaway and Rupert Trevlyn, you were
passing near the spot, I believe. You must tell me all you saw. First of
all, as I am told, you encountered Rupert."
Ann Canham raised her shaking hand to her brow. Mr. Peterby had begun
his questioning in a hard, matter-of-fact tone, as if he were examining
a witness in court, and it did not tend to reassure her. Ann was often
laughed at for her timidity. She gave him the account of her interview
with Rupert as correctly as she could remember it.
"He said nothing of his intention of going off anywhere?" asked Mr.
Peterby, when she had finished.
"Not a word, sir. He said he had nowhere to go to; if he went to the
Hold, Mr. Chattaway might be for horsewhipping him again. He thought he
should lie under the trees till morning."
"Did you leave him there?"
"I left him sitting on the stile, sir, eating the bread. He had
complained of hunger, and I got him to take a part of a cake Mrs.
Freeman had given me for my father."
"You told Bowen, the superintendent of the police-station, that you
asked him to take refuge in the lodge for the night?"
"Yes, sir," after a slight pause. "Mr. Bowen put a heap of questions to
me, and what with being confused, and the fright of his calling me into
the place, I didn't well know what I said to him."
"But you did ask Rupert Trevlyn?"
"I asked him if he'd be pleased to take shelter in the lodge till the
morning, as he seemed to have nowhere to go to. But he spoke out quite
sharp, at my asking it, and said, did I think he wanted to get me and
father into trouble with Mr. Chattaway? So I went away, leaving him
there."
"Well, now, just tell me whom you met afterwards."
"I hadn't got above three-parts up the field, sir, when I met Mr.
Chattaway. I stood off the narrow path to let him pass, and wished him
good night, but he didn't answer me: he went on. Just as I came close to
the road-stile, I see Jim Sanders coming over it, so I asked him where
he had been, and how he had got back again, having heard he'd not been
found all day, and he answered rather impertinently that he'd been up in
the moon. The moon was uncommon bright that night, sir," she simply
added.
"Was that all Jim Sanders said?"
"Yes, sir, every word. He went on down the path as if he was in a
hurry."
"In the direction Mr. Chattaway had taken?"
"The very same. There is but that one path, sir."
"And that was the last you saw of them?"
Ann Canham stopped to snuff the candle before she answered. "That was
all, sir. I was hastening to get back to father, knowing he'd be wanting
me, for I was late. Mr. Bowen kep' on telling me it was strange I heard
nothing of the encounter, but I never did. I must ha' been out of the
field long before Mr. Chattaway could get up to Master Rupert."
"Pity but you had waited and gone back," observed Mr. Peterby, musingly.
"It might have prevented what occurred."
"Pity, perhaps, but I had, sir. It never entered my head that anything
bad would come of their meeting. Since, after I came to know what did
happen, I wondered I had not thought of it. But if I had, sir, I
shouldn't have dared go back after Mr. Chattaway. It wouldn't have been
my place."
Mr. Peterby sat looking at Ann, as she imagined. In point of fact he was
so buried in thought as to see nothing. He rose from the settle. "And
this is all you know about it! Well, it amounts to nothing beyond
establishing the fact that all three--Rupert Trevlyn, Mr. Chattaway, and
the boy--were on the spot at that time. Good night, Canham. I hope your
rheumatism will get easier."
Ann Canham opened the door, and wished him good night. When he was
fairly gone she slipped the bolt, and stood with her back against it, to
recover her equanimity.
"Father, my heart was in my mouth all the time he was here," she
repeated. "I be all of a twitter."
"More stupid you!" was the sympathising answer of old Canham.
The public ferment, I say, did not lessen, and the matter was at length
carried before the magistrates; so far as that the advice of one of them
was asked by Mr. Peterby. It happened that Mr. Chattaway had gone this
very day to Barmester. He was standing at the entrance to the inn-yard
where he generally put up, when his solicitor, Flood, approached,
evidently in a state of excitement.
"What a mercy I found you!" he exclaimed, quite out of breath. "Jackson
told me you were in town. Come along!"
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Chattaway.
"Matter? There's matter enough. Peterby's before the magistrates at this
very moment preferring a charge against you for having murdered Rupert
Trevlyn. I got word of it in the oddest manner, and----"
"_What_ do you say?" interrupted Chattaway, his face blazing, as he
stood stock still, and refused to stir another step without an answer.
"Come along, I say. There's some application being made to the
magistrates about you, and my advice is----Mr. Chattaway," added the
lawyer, in a deeper, almost an agitated tone, as he abruptly broke off
his words, "I assume that you are innocent of this. You _are_?"
"Before Heaven, I am innocent!" thundered Chattaway. "What do you mean,
Flood?"
"Then make haste. My advice to you is, go right into the midst of it,
and confront Peterby. Don't let the magistrates hear only one side of
the question. Make your explanation and set these nasty rumours at rest.
It is what you ought to have done at first."
Apparently eager as himself now, Mr. Chattaway strode along. They found
on reaching the courts that some trifling cause was being heard by the
magistrates, nothing at all connected with Mr. Chattaway. But the
explanation was forthcoming, Mr. Peterby was in a private room with one
of the Bench only--a Captain Mynn. With scant ceremony the interview was
broken in upon by the intruders.
There was no formal complaint being made, no accusation lodged, or
warrant applied for. Mr. Peterby, who was on terms of intimacy with
Captain Mynn, was laying the case before him unofficially, and asking
his advice as a friend. A short explanation on either side ensued, and
Mr. Peterby turned to Mr. Chattaway.
"This has been forced upon me," he said. "For days and days past I have
been urged to apply for a warrant against you, and have declined. But
public opinion is becoming so urgent, that if I don't act it will be
taken out of my hands, and given to those who have less scruple than I.
Therefore I resolved to adopt a medium course; and came here asking
Captain Mynn's opinion as a friend--not as a magistrate--whether I
should have sufficient grounds for acting. For myself, I honestly
confess I think them very slight; and assure you, Mr. Chattaway, that I
am no enemy of yours, although it may look like it at this moment."
"By whom have you been urged to this?" coldly asked Mr. Chattaway.
"By more than I should care to name: the public, to give them a
collective term. But how you obtained cognisance of my being here, I
can't make out," he added, turning to Mr. Flood. "Not a soul knew I was
coming."
"As we have met here, we had better have it out," was Mr. Flood's
indirect answer. "It is my advice to Mr. Chattaway, and he wishes it. If
Captain Mynn hears your side unofficially he must, in justice, hear
ours. That's fair, all the world over."
It was, doubtless, a very unusual, perhaps unorthodox, mode of
proceeding; but things far more unorthodox than that are done in local
courts every day. Captain Mynn knew all the doubts and rumours just as
well as Mr. Peterby could state them, but he listened attentively, as in
duty bound. Mr. Chattaway did not deny the encounter with Rupert: never
had denied it. He acknowledged they were neither of them very cool;
Rupert was the first to strike, and Rupert fell or was knocked down.
Immediately upon that, he, Chattaway, heard a sound, went to see what it
was, and found they had had an eavesdropper, who was then making off
across the field, on the other side of the grove. Chattaway, angry at
the fact, gave pursuit, in the hope of identifying the intruder (whom he
had since discovered to be Jim Sanders), but was unable to catch him.
When he got back to the spot, Rupert was gone.
"How long were you absent?" inquired Captain Mynn of Mr. Chattaway.
"About six or seven minutes, I think. I ran to the other end of the
field, and looked into the lane, but the boy had escaped out of sight,
and I walked back again. It would take about seven minutes; the field is
large."
"And after that?"
"Finding, as I tell you, that Rupert had disappeared, I re-traversed the
ground over the lower field, and went on to Barbrook, where I had
business. I never saw Rupert Trevlyn after I left him on the ground. The
inference, therefore--nay, the absolute certainty--is, that he got up
and escaped."
A pause. "You did not reach home, I believe, until midnight, or
thereabouts," remarked Captain Mynn. "Some doubts have been raised as to
where you could have spent your time."
And this question led to the very core of the suspicion. Mr. Chattaway
appeared to feel that it did, and hesitated. So far he had spoken freely
and openly enough, not with the ungracious, sullen manner that generally
characterised him, but he hesitated now.
"Strange to say," he resumed, "I could not account for the whole of my
time that evening. That is, if I were asked for proof, I am not sure
that it could be furnished. I was anxious to see Hurnall, the agent for
the Boorfield mines, and that's where I went. My son had brought home
news from Blackstone, that they were going to force me to make certain
improvements in my pit, and I wanted to consult Hurnall about it. He is
up to every trick and turn, and knows what they can compel an owner to
do and what they can't. When I reached Hurnall's house, he was out;
might return immediately, the servant said, or might not be home till
late. She asked me if I would go in and wait; but I had no fancy for a
close room, after being boxed up all day in the court _here_, and said I
would walk about. I walked about for two mortal hours before Hurnall
came; and then went indoors with him. That's the whole truth, I'll
swear."
"Then I would have avowed it before, had I been you," cried Mr. Peterby.
"It's your silence has done half the mischief, and given colouring to
the rumours."
"Silence!" cried Mr. Chattaway, angrily. "When a man's accused of murder
by a set of brainless idiots it is punishment he'd like to give them,
not self-defence."
"Ah!" said the lawyer, "but we can't always do as we like; if we could,
the world might be better worth living in."
Mr. Chattaway turned to the magistrate. "I have told you the whole
truth, so far as I know it; and you may judge whether these
unneighbourly reports have not merited all my contempt. You can question
Hurnall, who will tell you where he met me, and how long I stayed with
him. As to Rupert Trevlyn, I have no more idea where he is than Mr.
Peterby himself has. He will turn up some time, there's not the least
doubt about it; and I solemnly declare that I'll then bring him to
justice, should it be ten years hence."
There was nothing more for Mr. Chattaway to wait for, and he went out
with his solicitor. Mr. Peterby turned to Captain Mynn with a
questioning glance.
The magistrate shook his head. "My opinion is that you cannot proceed
with this, Mr. Peterby. Were you to bring the matter officially before
the Bench, I for one would not entertain it; neither, I am sure, would
my brother-magistrates. Mr. Chattaway is no favourite of ours, but he
must receive justice. That there are suspicious points connected with
the case, I can't deny; but every one may be explained away. If what he
says be true, they are explained now."
"All but the two hours, when he says he was walking about, waiting for
Hurnall."
"It may have been so. No; upon these very slight grounds, it is of no
use to press for a warrant against Mr. Chattaway. The very enormity of
the crime would almost be its answer. A man of position and property, a
county magistrate, guilty of the crime of murder in these enlightened
days! Nonsense, Peterby!"
And Mr. Peterby mentally echoed the words; and went forth prepared to
echo them to those who had urged him to make the charge.