“I am the most fortunate man in England! I am the happiest man in the
world!”
As he swung along in the bright winter sunshine on the field path which
formed a short cut to the town, again and again these words seemed to
hammer themselves, in joyful cadence, on Harry Garlett’s brain.
What we call the human heart is full of the strangest twists and
turnings, and so, though Garlett’s heart was full of Jean Bower, he
threw an affectionately retrospective thought to his late wife. He and
“poor Emily” had never had a really cross word during those long, quiet
years before the war, when, most fortunately for himself, he had not
even dimly apprehended what the passion of love can mean in a human
life, and how it will make beautiful, and intimately delicious, even the
most prosaic facts of day-to-day existence.
He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten. In just twenty-four
hours from now he and Jean would be starting for their one week’s
honeymoon in London.
His face softened. There came upon it a great awe. God! How he loved
her. Every moment they spent together he seemed to discover some new,
hitherto hidden beauty of mind, soul, or body in this wonderful, still
mysterious, but wholly delightful young creature who not only allowed
him to worship her but—miracle of miracles—returned his passion.
Such were the disconnected but wholly contented thoughts which filled
half an hour of the last easy, unquestioning, and, as if for an immortal
moment, ecstatic morning of Harry Garlett’s life.
With no premonition of coming pain or evil Jean Bower’s fortunate lover
passed through the big paved courtyard of the Etna China factory. He
walked quickly into the early Victorian marble-papered hall and so past
the office where sat two clerks, into the high square room which had
been for so long known to the good folk of Grendon as “Mr. Dodson’s
room.”
His letters lay unopened on the shabby leather-covered writing table,
and as he sat down he saw that on the top of the pile was an unstamped
envelope marked “Private.” Opening it, he read:
The Red Lion, Grendon,
December 17th.
SIR,
I propose to call on you to-morrow at eleven with regard to an
important matter. Will you please arrange to be in at that time?
Yours faithfully,
JAMES KENTWORTHY.
He stared down at the sheet of paper, trying to remember if he had ever
heard the name Kentworthy before. But no, it meant nothing to him.
Whoever this Kentworthy might be he had no business to take it for
granted that he, Garlett, would be here, waiting his convenience, at
eleven o’clock!
He got up and went into the outer office.
“If a Mr. Kentworthy calls, I will see him. But say that I can only
spare him a few minutes, as I am very busy.”
As it was striking eleven, the door opened with: “Mr. Kentworthy, sir,”
and at once, with some surprise, Harry Garlett recognized in his visitor
a stranger he had seen walking about Terriford village during the last
week or so.
The first time he, Garlett, had noticed him, this gray-haired stout man
had been standing in the road just outside the gate of the Thatched
House, chatting with one of the gardeners. On another occasion he had
seen the same person looking at the inscriptions on the graves in the
beautiful churchyard, of which the high-banked wall bounded the top of
the broad village street. Also, this man whose name he now knew to be
Kentworthy had passed him more than once on the narrow field path along
which he had walked so joyously this morning.
“I have only just read your note, Mr. Kentworthy, for I was late this
morning. What can I do for you? I’m afraid I cannot spare you much time,
for, as you see, I haven’t even opened my letters.”
His burly, substantial-looking visitor came forward and stood close to
him.
“I may take it that you’ve no idea of the business which has brought me
here, Mr. Garlett?”
He looked straight into the face of the man he was addressing, and Harry
Garlett felt just a little disconcerted by that steady, steely stare.
“No,” he said frankly, “I have no idea at all of your business, but I
have lately seen you walking about Terriford village, so I take it that
you have some association with this part of the world?”
“This is my first visit to Grendon,” said the other slowly, “and I was
sent here, Mr. Garlett, on a most unpleasant errand.”
Again he looked searchingly at Garlett, and then he went on, speaking in
a deliberate, matter-of-fact voice:
“I am a police inspector attached to the Criminal Investigation
Department, and I was sent down here, about a week ago, to make
inquiries concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett, your late wife.”
Harry Garlett got up from his chair; he was so bewildered, so amazed,
and yes, so dismayed, at what the other had just said, that he wondered
whether he could have heard those strange, disturbing words aright.
“Concerning the death of my wife?” he repeated. “I don’t understand
exactly what you mean by that——?”
James Kentworthy did not take his eyes off the other’s face. Long and
successful as had been his career in the Criminal Investigation
Department, he had never had a case of which the opening moves
interested and, in a sense, puzzled him so much as did this case. He
asked himself whether the man now standing opposite to him, whose face
had gone gray under its healthy tan, was an innocent man, or that most
dangerous and vile of criminals, a secret poisoner?
“From some information recently laid before the Home Office, it seems
desirable that the cause of Mrs. Garlett’s death should be fully
ascertained,” he said slowly.
Harry Garlett sat down again.
“On whose information are you acting?” he asked.
“That, for obvious reasons, we are not prepared to divulge,” answered
the other coldly. And he also sat down.
Harry Garlett’s mind was darting hither and thither. Curse the gossips
of Terriford! He had known them to create much smoke where he had felt
convinced there was no fire—but never, never so noisome a smoke as this.
His heart became suddenly full of Jean—his darling, innocent little
love. Such a child, too, as regarded the evil side of human nature, with
all her common sense and practical cleverness. The thought of Jean
almost unmanned him, but, in a flash, he realized that if only for her
sake he must face this odious inquiry with courage and frankness.
“What is it you desire to know concerning my late wife’s death?” he
asked.
“Although Mrs. Garlett’s death was exceedingly sudden, there does not
seem to have been any question of an inquest,” observed the man Garlett
now knew to represent all the formidable and mysterious powers of the
C.I.D.
“There was not the slightest necessity for an inquest,” was the quiet
answer. “Dr. Maclean, who had been my wife’s medical attendant for many
years, saw her the day before she died.”
Mr. Kentworthy took a thick, small, notebook out of his coat pocket, and
opening it, began reading it to himself.
“I am aware of that fact,” he said, without looking up, “and of course
my next step will be to call on Dr. Maclean. But before doing that I
thought it only fair to come and tell you of my inquiries, Mr. Garlett.”
He looked up. “Have you any objection to giving me an account of your
wife’s death—as far as you can remember the circumstances? Let me
see—it’s only seven months ago, isn’t it?”
Again Harry Garlett made a mighty effort to pull himself together. He
had all your honest man’s instinctive, absolute trust in justice. No one
believed more firmly than himself that “truth will out, even in an
affidavit,” but even so, though he was not exactly an imaginative man,
he did feel as if the gods, envious of the wonderful happiness with
which his cup had been filled up to brimming over till a few moments
ago, had devised this cruel, devilish trick....
“I am quite willing to tell you everything you wish to know,” he said
frankly. “But there is very little to tell, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“It is a fact, is it not, that your wife was a lady of considerable
means, and that she gave over to you the greater part of her fortune
quite early in your married life?”
Garlett flushed. “That is so. But I beg you to believe that that was by
no wish of mine. In fact, as I can prove to you, I remade my will at
once, leaving the money back to her in case I predeceased her.”
James Kentworthy smiled. In spite of himself he was beginning to like
Harry Garlett, and even to feel inclined to believe, to hope, he had
been sent to this sleepy, old-world country town on a wild-goose chase.
“Look here!” he exclaimed, “I don’t want you to be on the defensive with
me, Mr. Garlett. If, as I trust will be the case, these inquiries of
mine show that everything occurred in—well, in a regular and proper
manner, no one will be more pleased than I shall be. I am not trying to
catch you out in any way.”
Garlett’s face lightened. “Thank you for saying that. But—but I feel so
bewildered, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“I understand that. Still, in your own interest I beg you to tell me, as
clearly as possible, whatever details you may remember as to your wife’s
sudden death. I propose to make a shorthand note of all you say, and
then, after I have transcribed it, to ask you to read it over and sign
the statement.”
He waited a moment, then added:
“I need hardly say that if you would prefer to ask your solicitor to be
present, I shall raise no objection.”
“I would far rather say the little I have to say to you alone,”
exclaimed Harry Garlett eagerly. “I have a very strong reason for hoping
that the matter will never be known to any one but to us two—and, I
suppose I must add, to Dr. Maclean?”
“Of course I shall have to see Dr. Maclean,” answered the police
inspector. “But now, Mr. Garlett, go ahead! I would, however, suggest
that you give orders that we be not interrupted. A great deal depends on
your statement, as well as on that of Mrs. Garlett’s medical attendant.
If they both prove satisfactory, the Home Office will not issue what it
is always reluctant to do—an exhumation order.”
“An exhumation order?”
As he repeated those ominous words, there was a tone of utter dismay and
horror in Harry Garlett’s voice, and the older man threw him a quick,
suspicious glance. Why did the suggestion of an exhumation order cause
Emily Garlett’s widower such unease? Then he reminded himself that,
after all, an absolutely innocent man might well quail before an ordeal
which, whatever the precautions taken, was bound to become public.
“That would obviously be the next step,” he said reluctantly.
Harry Garlett took up the telephone receiver which stood on his
writing-table. “I am not to be disturbed on any account,” he called
through.
And then, settling himself squarely in his chair, he faced his
tormentor:
“Ask me any questions you like, Mr. Kentworthy,” he said, “and I promise
to answer them fully and truthfully.”
The police inspector moved his chair a little nearer to the
writing-table.
“I understand, from the few inquiries I have been able to make, that
Mrs. Garlett was always in delicate health?”
“That is so; indeed my wife may be said to have been born delicate. She
told me once that she never remembered feeling really well. Her parents
made a very late marriage, and she was an only child.”
“She was a good deal older than you were, was she not?”
Harry Garlett reddened. The fact had always been a sensitive point with
him.
“I was twenty-two when I married, and my wife, at twenty-seven, seemed
in my eyes still quite a young woman. She was very slender, and, at that
time of her life, did not look more than twenty.”
“And I suppose I may assume that it was a marriage of affection on both
sides?”
A deeper flush came over Harry Garlett’s face. Though he had an open,
cheery manner, he was in some ways a very reserved man. It was,
therefore, with obvious, though restrained, emotion that he answered, in
a low voice:
“My mother died when I was a child, and I had no sister. My father
failed in business when I was a lad of fourteen, and a godfather paid
for my later education. Until I came to Grendon I had hardly ever spoken
to a young lady of refinement. At once the Thatched House became to me
what I had never known, a home, and its young mistress my—my ideal of
womanhood.”
“I see,” said the other man, touched by the candid admissions. “Then I
take it, Mr. Garlett, that yours was a love marriage?”
“In spite of my wife’s ill-health, and our disappointment at not having
children, I doubt if any married folk ever led a happier and more placid
existence than we did—till the war,” answered Harry Garlett earnestly,
but, as the other thought, a little evasively.
“My wife took the greatest pride and pleasure in my success as a
cricketer. Yet she was so far from strong that, even in the old days,
she could seldom sit out a match.”
“I know that you were the third man in Terriford to join up in August,
’14,” observed Mr. Kentworthy, “but that, I take it, did not mean that
you were not completely happy at home?”
“Indeed, it did not! I felt that every fit man, in a position to do so,
ought to join up at once. As for my wife, she was one of those
old-fashioned women who approve of everything their husbands do.”
“Very few of that sort about now,” said Mr. Kentworthy, smiling.
“Well, my wife was one of those few! I told her how I felt about it all,
and she said no word to stop me. And yet I have every reason to believe
that she went through a real martyrdom while I was at the front——” He
waited a moment, then concluded: “And when the war came to an end, and I
settled down at home again, I realized that she had become a permanent
invalid.”
“A terrible thing for a man of your age,” observed Mr. Kentworthy
thoughtfully.
Harry Garlett made no answer to that comment. Had he ever felt for poor
Emily a tithe of what he now felt for the girl who was to become his
wife to-morrow, the condition in which he had found her on his return
home would indeed have been a terrible thing. But with Emily, his
relations, though good, kindly, even in a sense, gratefully
affectionate, had not been such, even before the war, as greatly to
affect him. But that, after all, was entirely his own and most secret
business.
Thank God—he was thinking of Jean now, not of Emily—he had played fair
in the great game of life. Tempted? Of course he had been tempted. Once,
at least, more fiercely than he cared to remember now. But he had
fought, beaten down temptation, remaining not only in deed but even in
word, faithful to his marriage vow.
He came back with something of a mental start to the matter in hand.
This was the first time he had ever spoken, in an intimate sense, of his
married life to any human being, and he was surprised to feel that,
instead of finding it difficult, it was, in a sort of way, a relief.
“People may have told you, Mr. Kentworthy, that my wife was not a
good-tempered woman,” he said earnestly, “but all I can say is, she was
the most devoted and generous-natured of wives to me. I am aware that
among my neighbours I was criticized for being a good deal away from
home. No doubt I was selfish, absorbed in the game to which I give so
much of my life during the summer months, but it was always with her
eager encouragement that I went about and lived the kind of life I did
live.”
“Mrs. Garlett must have been a most exceptional woman,” said the other,
and he spoke with no sarcastic intent.
“She came of a long line of high-minded, God-fearing people—her old
father was proud of the fact that he was descended from a man who at one
moment had been Cromwell’s right hand.”
He, Harry Garlett, hadn’t thought of that for years. Yet, what was
perhaps more singular, poor Emily’s personality, at once so commonplace
and yet, in a sense, forceful, became suddenly more present to him than
it had ever been since the last time they had talked together, on the
evening of their thirteenth wedding-day.
“I may take it that there was never even a passing cloud on your married
life?”
“Never a cloud!”
Harry Garlett added impulsively, “I don’t want you to think me a better
man than I am. I did not always find it an easy situation——”
The other cut him short: “I accept what you said just now—that you two
were happier, if anything, than the average married couple?”
“Yes, I think we were—in fact, I’m sure we were.” He spoke with sober
decision.
“Now, tell me something about last spring. Did you think Mrs. Garlett
more ailing than usual?”
“No,” said Garlett frankly, “I did not. She always made an effort to
appear bright during the comparatively short times we were alone
together, but, as I have already told you, she had become a complete
invalid.”
He went on in a rather lower tone: “I wonder if you will understand when
I tell you that she treated me, of late years, more as a loving mother
treats a dear son than as a wife treats her husband——”
Both men remained silent for a moment, and the police inspector made a
note in his book.
“Now, concerning the night your wife died? I understand the date was May
the 28th, the time early on a Sunday morning.”
“The 27th of May was the thirteenth anniversary of our wedding-day,”
began Harry Garlett. “And I’m ashamed to say I had forgotten it. But my
wife remembered. And I found a gift, as a matter of fact, this gold
cigarette case”—he took a small plain gold case out of his
pocket—“waiting for me on my breakfast plate that Saturday morning. I
then altered a plan I had made for going away for the week-end, and I
decided to come home at one o’clock and spend as much of the day as was
possible with my wife.”
“You were not alone during that walk back to your house?” suggested Mr.
Kentworthy, in an indifferent tone. “You were, I believe, with a young
lady.”
“A young lady?” echoed Harry Garlett, surprised. “I don’t think so.” And
then suddenly he exclaimed: “You’re quite right—but how very odd that
any one should have remembered it! I walked back with Miss Bower, the
niece of my wife’s medical attendant, Dr. Maclean. But she went on to
her home—she lives with the Macleans—and I had a tray lunch upstairs,
with my wife.”
“Were you at home all that afternoon?”
Again it was as if Harry Garlett were making an effort to remember.
“I think so,” he said slowly. “No, I’m wrong! I went to a tennis party.
My wife generally rested in the afternoon. But I was back a little after
six o’clock, and I sat with her for some time.”
He knitted his brows, trying hard to remember what had happened, and
slowly half-forgotten incidents started into life.
“There was a question of some fruit, some forced strawberries that a
friend had brought that morning. The lady who was then acting as our
housekeeper and as my wife’s nurse, thought I had given Mrs. Garlett the
strawberries in question. But that was a mistake. She certainly ate
them, so one of the maids must have given them to her. The matter is of
some moment, for, as Dr. Maclean will, I think, tell you, it was this
fruit which indirectly led to her death. Strawberries generally
disagreed with her, but she was very fond of them, and as these were
small Alpine strawberries I suppose she thought it would be all right.”
“When did you first become aware of your wife’s serious condition?”
“It must have been about four o’clock in the morning when Mrs. Garlett’s
nurse-companion called me. She said my wife was in great pain and had
asked if she could have some morphia. So I dressed and went at once for
the doctor, who lives about a quarter of a mile from my place.”
“And then?”
“I had some trouble in rousing Dr. Maclean, but I think we were back in
my house well under half an hour——”
“Had Mrs. Garlett become worse?”
“My wife could not bear for me to see her in the sort of state in which
I understood she was then. So I waited downstairs in my study, and
about—well, I don’t think it could have been more than twenty minutes
after he had come into the house, Dr. Maclean came down and broke to me
the fact that she was dead.”
“Had she died while you were fetching the doctor?”
“I don’t know—I don’t think so. I was terribly upset, and I asked no
questions. Though she was an invalid, she always seemed, in a way, full
of life—a steady, if a low, flame. And she had seemed so well, so happy,
that afternoon! But wait a bit. I _have_ forgotten something. My wife
had had a disagreeable shock. One of our servants had admitted her
sweetheart into the house the night before—as a matter of fact into the
drawing room, which has a French window opening into the garden. Mrs.
Garlett heard sounds, and thought there were burglars in the house. She
actually went downstairs herself, and caught the girl red-handed, as it
were. I remember suggesting to Dr. Maclean that the shock—for she was
very particular about such things—might have affected her heart. But he
didn’t think so.”
He stopped speaking. Mr. Kentworthy was busily writing, and Harry
Garlett stared at his visitor’s bent head. Though assuring himself that
it would be “all right,” he felt an eerie feeling of apprehension
wrapping him round.
“I thank you for the straightforward way in which you have answered my
questions,” said the police inspector, getting up from his chair, “and
now I propose to see Dr. Maclean.”
“Would you like me to make a telephone appointment for you with him?”
asked Garlett. “He’s a very busy man.”
“Why, yes, I should. But I hope you won’t think it unreasonable of me to
ask you to give him no hint as to my business?”
“You will hear everything I say to him,” answered the other quickly.
He took his telephone receiver off. “Put me through to Dr. Maclean’s
house.”
James Kentworthy, who was now standing close to the writing-table, heard
the answer: “Miss Bower is already on the line, sir; we told her you
didn’t want to be disturbed—shall I put her through?”
“Yes, please.”
And then, unmindful of the presence of a stranger, more unmindful no
doubt because James Kentworthy was still so entirely a stranger to him,
Harry Garlett put his whole heart into the question he breathed into the
receiver.
“Is that you, my dearest?” And then—“I want to speak to the doctor.”
The other heard, as from afar off, a bright, happy voice exclaim: “He’s
in the meadow with Aunt Jenny! I’ll run along and get him. But you’d
better hang up the receiver, for I’m afraid it’ll be full five minutes.”
Garlett hung up the receiver, and again faced his visitor.
“I should like to tell you, Mr. Kentworthy, that I am just about to be
married.”
“Just about to be married?”
The police inspector wondered if he had kept out of his voice, not only
the surprise, but the dismay which he felt at this to him astounding
disclosure.
“My fiancée is the niece of Dr. Maclean. She was on the telephone just
now.”
“The young lady who, for a while, was your secretary?”
In spite of himself, there was a note of deep disappointment in the
voice in which Mr. Kentworthy asked the question.
Harry Garlett instinctively straightened himself.
“Miss Bower became secretary to the Etna China Company—not my personal
secretary—just before my wife’s death.”
There was an awkward silence between the two men.
“I see,” said Mr. Kentworthy at last. “I see, Mr. Garlett.”
But, as a matter of fact, he felt as if he had walked from the bright
sunshine into an evil-smelling fog. Quite a number of pages in his thick
little notebook bore the heading “Miss Jean Bower.”
“Is the date of your wedding fixed?”
“Well, yes, it is.” Harry Garlett hesitated, then exclaimed
impulsively—“We are to be married to-morrow morning, by special license!
No one, however, knows that fact excepting the vicar and his wife, and,
of course, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean.”
Again there followed a strange, painful silence.
“I take it you will postpone your marriage till this matter is
thoroughly cleared up?” said the police inspector at last.
As the younger man, dismayed, made no immediate answer, the other added:
“_I_ should do so, in your place, Mr. Garlett.”
Before he could speak the telephone bell rang and Harry Garlett took up
the receiver and in a falsely cheerful tone—a tone with which, alas,
James Kentworthy was painfully familiar as a result of his life work—he
called out: “Is that you, Dr. Maclean? Garlett speaking. Would you be in
if Mr. Kentworthy, a gentleman who wants to see you, on urgent private
business, were to come along now? Yes? Right!”
He hung up the receiver. “Dr. Maclean will see you at once.”
Both men got up.
“One word before you go, Mr. Kentworthy.”
“Yes, Mr. Garlett?”
Try as he might, he could not bring back the kindly tone into which he
felt he had been betrayed during the latter part of their conversation.
“I suppose the only thing that would set the matter absolutely at rest
would be the exhumation of my wife’s body?”
“That is so—obviously,” answered the other, briefly.