In every human drama where anguish, shame, despair, play a part, there
are always certain minor characters who deserve, though they never
receive, almost as much sympathy as do the principals in the tragedy.
As the doctor and his wife sat awaiting the return of Jean Bower, they
felt as if the whole of their happy, dignified house of life had fallen
into ruins about them. Deep in her troubled heart Mrs. Maclean was quite
as much concerned with the position of her husband as she was with that
of her niece, dearly as she loved the girl. For Jean was young enough to
start another life, and, as the years went on, all that was now
happening, and about to happen, would become a painful memory and
nothing more.
How different the case of her husband—to say nothing of herself!
Already Mrs. Maclean felt as if the doctor had aged perceptibly during
the last hour. He was sitting staring into the fire, doing nothing, not
even smoking. He had asked her to tell Elsie that he would not be at
home this morning to any patients, and that all calls must be telephoned
on at once to Dr. Tasker. It was worse, far worse, than if death,
unexpected, unheralded, and coming in some peculiarly terrible shape,
had entered the house.
The door opened, and they both turned round quickly. Speaking in a
hushed voice, Elsie said:
“I thought maybe you’d like to know that a machine has just driven past.
There was a policeman on the box, and I’m afraid—I make no doubt—that I
saw Mr. Garlett riding inside.”
She did not wait to hear her master’s comment on her piece of news, but,
with true delicacy, retreated quickly into her kitchen.
The husband and wife looked at each other, a dozen unspoken questions as
to the whereabouts of Jean remaining unuttered by either. At last Mrs.
Maclean said slowly: “I expect the child will be back in a few minutes;
she can’t but know what’s happened.”
“What you expect,” said her husband rather gruffly, “is neither here nor
there. What one expects never happens in this life. The only thing of
which we may be quite sure is that she won’t have been allowed into the
Thatched House. But as to whether she will know that Garlett has been
arrested depends on——”
And then as he said the word “on” they heard the front door open and
Jean’s steady, quiet voice: “Is Aunt Jenny upstairs, Elsie?” and Elsie’s
far more moved tones in answer: “The mistress is with the doctor, Miss
Jean, in the dining room.”
Dr. Maclean and his wife stood up—the door opened, and the girl looked
from one to the other.
“Harry’s been arrested for the murder of his wife,” she said, “and now
we’ve got to arrange for his defence.”
She turned and shut the door behind her.
“I couldn’t help hearing what you said to Elsie before I went out, for I
was just coming through the scullery. Was what you wanted to tell me,
both of you, anything about Harry?”
And then Mrs. Maclean did a fine thing. She would have given the world
to stay where she was, but she told herself that it would be far easier
for the girl to endure what had to be said if the two others were alone
together, and so, quietly, she left the room.
Jean came over to where the doctor was sitting. And though he still
remained silent, she saw his hand make an uncertain movement toward his
breast pocket.
“May I see the letter you had this morning? I think I ought to see it,
Uncle Jock.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I think you ought to see it. And I will go
further, my dear, and say you ought to ponder over its contents very
carefully.”
He handed her the letter his one-time fellow-student had written, and
she read it through—once quickly, and then once very slowly.
At last she let the piece of paper flutter down on to the hearth-rug.
He scarcely dared look at her, yet at last, when she did speak, there
was in her tone a ring of confidence, almost of happy confidence, that
somehow irritated him.
“The first thing we’ve go to do,” she exclaimed, “is to get Mr.
Kentworthy to come and see us. I don’t know what happens when an
innocent man is accused of murder. Who looks after his interests? Would
it be Mr. Toogood, the solicitor to the Etna China Company?”
“I suppose Mr. Toogood will be the solicitor in charge of the case,” he
answered gravely. “_I_ intend to get a London man.”
She gazed at him surprised. “How d’you mean? Why should you have a
solicitor, Uncle Jock?”
He got up. “Because,” he said, looking down into her flushed face, “I
gave a wrong death certificate.”
He could not help adding, with a touch of intense bitterness, “I am the
simple country doctor who was taken in, and who unwittingly abetted the
murderer in his foul deed.”
Then he sat down, heavily, in his armchair by the fire.
She threw herself on her knees on the ground before him. “You don’t
mean, you can’t mean, that you think Harry——?”
And there was something so piteous, so terrible, in the eyes that looked
up into his that he quailed before that searching accusing glance.
“The one thing we know for certain is that Emily Garlett died as the
result of a huge dose of arsenic,” he said quietly.
He stood up, and, putting out his hands, raised her from the ground. “If
you want to help this man, you must face the truth, my dear.”
“The truth?” she echoed.
“The truth that the whole world, on the evidence now available, will
consider Garlett guilty. You, I understand, believe him to be absolutely
innocent?”
“Absolutely innocent,” she repeated, in a steady voice; but in her
wide-open eyes there was a look of anguished questioning as to what he
believed.
Dr. Maclean could not face that look, and, hardly knowing what he was
doing, he walked over to the window and looked out into the wintry
garden.
Behind him were uttered tonelessly the words: “Would you mind my sending
a telegram to Mr. Kentworthy?”
He turned round. “Do so, by all means. And then I suppose we’d better go
and see Mr. Toogood, and I’ll apply for permission to see Garlett.”
“Do go on calling him Harry, Uncle Jock!”
“I will,” he said quickly. “I will, my dear. But you know that till very
lately I always did call him Garlett.”
As she was going towards the door, he called her back. “Do you feel,
under the circumstances, that you ought to stay here in Terriford?”
“D’you want me to go away, Uncle Jock?”
He groaned. “Want you to go away? Don’t you know what a difference your
coming here has made to me—as well as to your Aunt Jenny? We’ve never
talked about it, even to one another, but it’s been the one blot on our
happy married life that we had no child. You’ve become our child. Want
you to go away!”
She walked up to him and put her hand through his arm. She was very
moved, and for one fleeting moment she forgot Harry Garlett.
“Then why,” she faltered, “why did you say that cruel, cruel thing just
now, Uncle Jock?—I mean about my leaving Bonnie Doon?”
“Because,” he answered painfully, “if you stay here your life will
become unendurable between now and Harry’s trial. Your aunt and I have
already talked it over. She suggests you and she going away together to
some quiet spot where you can pass as Miss Maclean.”
“But why should I do that?” asked the girl in a bewildered tone. “I
don’t understand.”
He looked at her and saw what she said was true—that she was still quite
unaware of the tide of noisome gossip which had flowed over her name and
her innocent, girlish past since the exhumation of Mrs. Garlett.
“I supposed,” he said slowly, “that you were aware, Jean, of what the
people who believe Harry Garlett guilty take to have been his motive.”
He waited a moment, then saw that still no glimmer of his meaning
crossed her mind.
“Has it never occurred to you that Harry Garlett is believed to have
fallen in love with you before his wife died?”
“No one can believe that.” She spoke with entire conviction. “He hardly
knew me, and admits that he did not even like me. He would far rather
have had some one at the factory quite unconnected with his private
life. Why, he almost always turned over to Mr. Dodson any letters to
which answers had to be dictated!”
“I’m not telling you what _I_ believe—but what other people believe,” he
said in a low voice, and suddenly the full meaning of what his words
implied became clear to her.
“I can’t bear it,” she whispered, “oh, Uncle Jock, I can’t bear it!”
As even the best and the kindest of human beings will feel under stress
of circumstances, Dr. Maclean gathered a cruel courage from seeing her
distress.
“It would be very wrong to conceal from you what you are up against, my
dear. As far as the average man and woman can see, Harry Garlett was the
only human being in the world who could be affected in the smallest
degree by his wife’s death. The question of money is ruled out—there
only remains love.”
She turned on him in a flash. “Then you ought to admit his absolute
innocence, for you know as well as I do that he was very much vexed with
me for having written the letter that brought him back. It took him some
time,” she hesitated, “something like a month, before we became even on
friendly terms together. After that,” there came a radiant look into her
face, “after that I admit he came to love me, though even then——”
She stopped abruptly and covered her face with her hands.
He looked at her eagerly. Was it possible that she was going to reveal
some fact hitherto concealed by her that might throw light on the
mystery?
“Yes?” he said, “yes, Jean? What happened then?”
“Dr. Tasker happened,” she was smiling through her tears. “But for Dr.
Tasker, we might have gone on as we were for a long, long time. Don’t
think me unkind, for it wasn’t as if he had ever really cared, but I
have often thanked God for Dr. Tasker!”
It was fortunate for her that Jean Bower had no clue to the look which
came over Dr. Maclean’s face. He was seeing her in the witness-box,
admitting her love for Harry Garlett, unconscious that by so doing she
would provide for most members of the jury the strongest of all reasons
for the crime for which Harry Garlett was on trial for his life.
“And now,” she asked, “may I go and telephone a telegram to Mr.
Kentworthy, Uncle Jock?”
A few moments later his wife came into the room. “Jenny,” exclaimed the
doctor, “almost has that child convinced me of Harry Garlett’s
innocence!”
A hush, almost of death, over Bonnie Doon. A hush broken by a moment of
almost intolerable disappointment, for the reply to the telegram sent to
Mr. Kentworthy ran: “Am ill in bed. Will come as soon as possible.
Doctor forbids journey for three days.”
Dr. Maclean felt this to be a bad setback, all the worse because somehow
it was so entirely unexpected. And what he felt was experienced in a
far, far stronger and more anguished degree by Jean Bower. She had
pinned all her faith on James Kentworthy. She had felt that he would be
the one tower of strength in a world where everything was falling into
ruins about her. Her misery was much increased by the suspicion that her
uncle was inclined to believe Harry Garlett guilty. She knew only too
well the generous warmth he would have shown had he really believed her
lover innocent.
At last she suggested timidly that they might go to Grendon and see Mr.
Toogood. But to that suggestion he answered irritably, “After all, I
can’t wholly neglect my patients.”
“Go out, do, and get that job over!” exclaimed Mrs. Maclean sharply. And
he actually went out for his usual round, late in that long,
inexpressibly dreary morning, glad that he, at any rate, had something
to do, and so was not compelled to sit with his wife and Jean waiting
they knew not for what.
At last he came in. They all sat down to their midday meal, and then Dr.
Maclean suddenly lost his temper. Looking across the table he had seen
Jean surreptitiously pushing the little piece of meat with which her
aunt had served her under a salad leaf.
“Look here!” he called out sharply, “you won’t do Harry Garlett any good
by starving yourself, Jean. The one hope the poor fellow has got is that
we should all keep an even keel.”
Jean drew the little piece of meat out into the open again, and ate it.
At last a welcome diversion was caused by Elsie.
“There’s some one on the ’phone, sir, who wants to speak to you urgent.
It’s Lawyer Toogood, I’m thinking.”
The doctor jumped up and hurried into his consulting room. “Yes? Who is
it?”
“Toogood. I’ve seen Garlett, and I’d rather like to have a few words
with you, Maclean. Can you make it convenient to come early this
afternoon?”
“Of course I will. And, Toogood, may I bring my niece, Jean Bower?”
“Bring her by all means. But I should like to see you alone first.”
“Can you give me any word of hope?” Dr. Maclean’s voice instinctively
lowered.
“Wait till I see you; I don’t like to say much over the ’phone. The
town’s in a state of wild excitement. There’s actually a little crowd of
people round the door of my office at this moment, just waiting to catch
any one who comes in or out!”
And twenty minutes later, the patience of the idle folk who hung about
the High Street in the hope of catching a glimpse of some actor in what
was already beginning to be called the Terriford Mystery, was rewarded.
Dr. Maclean’s familiar covered-in two-seater dashed up to the fine old
red brick house on the door of which was a big brass plate bearing the
words, “Toogood, Lane & Co., Solicitors,” and the group of idlers
pressed forward to see the girl who was the heroine of the case alight
from the car.
“She looks a deep one,” ventured a voice; and then there came the answer
from more than one pair of lips, “Ay, ay, so she do!”
Her ordeal, or rather Dr. Maclean’s ordeal, for she was unaware of the
glances levelled at her, did not last long, for the doctor and his niece
were kept only a moment standing outside the mahogany door.
Mr. Toogood had hurried downstairs as soon as he had heard the
two-seater drawing up in the street, and this alone would have marked
the great importance he attached to the visit, for he was not the man to
put himself out unnecessarily.
He shook hands with them both in a perfunctory, hurried way, and then
led the way up to the spacious first floor. Once there, he opened the
door of a back room:
“Now then, my dear young lady, you go in here! I’m afraid it will be
some time before I shall ask you to join us.”
He shut the door on her, and preceded Dr. Maclean into the large front
room which, though lined with tin boxes, each of which was inscribed in
white letters with the name of some local worthy, might have been the
comfortable study of a man of leisure.
On the flat writing table stood a bunch of sweet-smelling hot-house
flowers, for Mr. Toogood was a keen gardener.
“Well, Maclean? Sit ye down! This is a grim business, eh?”
Dr. Maclean sat down, and he noticed that Mr. Toogood’s round, genial
face was set in hard lines. The two men often had occasion to meet, and
sometimes on disagreeable business, but the doctor had never seen the
lawyer look as he looked now.
At last the doctor muttered: “I don’t know what to think, Toogood.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky—but in the course of my long practice I’ve never
even suspected the secret administration of poison.”
“I can’t say the same. I think you’d be surprised if you knew how often
I’ve suspected—perhaps I ought to say half suspected—murder! In our line
of country the longing for money is the thing that leads to crime.”
“There was nothing of the sort in this case,” exclaimed the doctor.
“Garlett had all the money he wanted.”
“I was going on to say,” observed the lawyer, significantly, “that next
to money _love_ is the most potent begetter of crime.”
Dr. Maclean remained silent, and the lawyer, fingering a ruler on his
table, said musingly:
“Garlett was a very good-looking chap, yet he never seemed to care for
women.”
Mr. Toogood unconsciously used the past tense, and Dr. Maclean, noticing
that he had done so, felt a slight shock.
He leaned forward: “D’you think Garlett in real danger, Toogood? I want
you to tell me the truth, for it’s of terrible moment to us—because of
our niece.”
A change came over the lawyer’s face. “It is indeed!” he exclaimed.
It was a curious fact, but a fact nevertheless, that during the last two
or three minutes Mr. Toogood had completely forgotten Jean Bower’s
connection with the man now talking to him. His mind had been full of
her—but entirely in connection with Harry Garlett. It was as Garlett’s
secretary, not as Dr. Maclean’s niece, that he had considered the girl’s
unhappy situation.
He told himself that he must go warily, the more so that two or three of
the men who had spoken to him of the case that morning had seemed to
think it possible that Jean Bower might find herself in the dock with
Harry Garlett. He now remembered, with a touch of acute dismay, that a
fellow lawyer had actually observed: “I’m told they found no arsenic at
the Thatched House—but that young woman, Garlett’s lady love, being a
doctor’s niece, must have access to all kinds of poisons, eh?”
So, setting a guard on his tongue, Mr. Toogood came back to the matter
in hand.
“You’ll be the most important witness, both before the magistrates and
at the trial, Maclean. I suppose you knew Mrs. Garlett very well
indeed—not only as her medical man, but as a friend?”
“Yes, I think I can say that,” said the doctor cautiously, “although the
poor woman never cared for anybody apart from the man she married. As
for female friends—well, Miss Prince was her only intimate acquaintance.
She was on bad terms with Mrs. Cole-Wright, and she never cared to see
my wife.” The doctor smiled a rueful smile—“Though she was prim and
old-fashioned, Emily Garlett liked men very much, more than she did
women. The day before she died she had two gentlemen callers—the rector
for one, I know.”
“You saw her pretty often, I suppose?”
“Yes, she often sent for me, though there was little I could do for
her.”
“You attributed her death to violent indigestion, acting on the heart?”
queried the lawyer, glancing down at a paper lying on the table before
him.
Dr. Maclean hesitated; this was touching on what had already become a
very sore subject with him.
“I made a bad break there, Toogood,” he admitted painfully.
“Oh, well, we all make mistakes! It would have been strange indeed had
you suspected arsenic.”
He was debating within himself how he could introduce the subject of
Jean Bower, when the doctor suddenly gave him a lead.
“I hope my niece won’t be called as a witness,” he observed, with just
that touch of alteration in his voice which betrayed to the other’s
legal ear that the speaker felt very nervous.
Mr. Toogood did not answer for a few moments, and then he put his two
hands on the table and looked keenly across at his visitor. He felt the
time had come to speak plainly.
“It’s no use beating about the bush, Maclean. I suppose you know what’s
being said in Grendon to-day, and what will be said all over England
to-morrow?”
As the doctor remained silent, he went on:
“Your niece is regarded as having provided the only motive for the
crime—if crime there was.” And, as the doctor still said nothing, he
added: “I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know, or at least
suspect—eh, Maclean?”
And then, at last, the other spoke out, “I realize that what you say is
true, but, I’d like you to believe, at any rate, that that notion, or
suspicion—I don’t know what to call it—is a damned lie, Toogood! That’s
God’s truth—though I realize how difficult it will be to make the truth
apparent.”
Mr. Toogood took a mouthpiece from off his table and whistled down it,
“I’m not to be disturbed on any account.”
Then he got up, walked across to the door, opened it, looked out on to
the empty landing, and, shutting the door, came and stood by the doctor.
“Look here, Maclean! I don’t forget the night that you and I spent by
our boy’s beside just before he died—or how good you were to me and to
my poor wife. That’s why I’m going to do my very best to help you, and
to shield that unfortunate girl. But I feel I owe you the truth, and I’m
afraid—nay, I’m more than afraid—I’m _sure_ that if Garlett committed
this awful crime he did it for love of your niece. Even now he can think
of nothing else! When I saw him in the prison this morning the first
thing he said to me was: ‘I want you to convey a message to Miss Bower,
Toogood. I want you to explain to her that I don’t want her ever to come
here—to this horrible place.’”
Dr. Maclean opened his mouth to speak, and then he shut it again.
“And that wasn’t all! While I was trying to get out of him something
which might be of value when he is brought up before the magistrates,
his mind was so full of Miss Bower that he really could hardly attend to
what I was saying!”
“They’ve hardly seen one another, and never alone, since the exhumation
of Mrs. Garlett’s body,” observed the doctor in a low voice.
The lawyer stared at him.
“They were alone in the Thatched House this morning,” he said abruptly.
“I mean when Garlett was arrested.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true,” said the doctor firmly.
“My dear Maclean, it _is_ true. The Inspector came in about quite
another matter, and gave me the most moving account of how he found them
together in that empty house. He said it would have melted the heart of
a stone to see the way the poor girl behaved. She wouldn’t leave
Garlett—she clung to him—he said it reminded him of stories he had read
of couples in the Indian Mutiny.”
“My God!” exclaimed the doctor, “I knew nothing of this——”
The lawyer pursued his advantage.
“I’m afraid there have been many things of which you have known nothing,
Maclean.” Instinctively he lowered his voice: “To my mind, Garlett, who
has been starved so long of all natural human emotion, fell in love with
your niece at first sight. No doubt the girl was unaware of it for quite
a long time. But you’re not going to tell me that last winter, when she
first became secretary to his company, Garlett didn’t see enough of her
to have a hundred opportunities of finding out how far more attractive
she was than his wife?”
Dr. Maclean remained silent. With a feeling of sick dismay he realized
that what the other man said was only too true.
“In a way, for all his jolly, open manner, Garlett was a secretive
chap,” went on Mr. Toogood. “I’ve been his lawyer ever since he married,
but he’s never talked to me about his private affairs, or consulted me
in any way. As a matter of fact Mrs. Garlett was far more businesslike.
She knew what she wanted; I always enjoyed a talk with her.” He smiled
rather ruefully. “There were no flies on poor Emily——”
“But you must admit,” chipped in the doctor, “that she was never
jealous; in that she wasn’t at all true to type, if I may say so.”
“You’re right there!” exclaimed the lawyer. “She simply worshipped that
man. Nothing was too good for him. And yet—and yet, there was always
something spinsterish about her, eh, Maclean?”
Dr. Maclean nodded: “I know what you mean. It was that which accounted
for Garlett’s attitude to the poor soul. His attitude was much more that
of a kind and attentive nephew than that of a husband—still, he didn’t
seem to mind.”
“Rubbish—stuff! Of course he minded! You and I have met here to-day to
look facts in the face. To throw that still young man with an
exceedingly attractive, and, I’m told, lively, intelligent girl, was
just tempting providence.”
“It’s done every day—in all the business offices in the world,” said the
doctor defensively.
Mr. Toogood began toying with some of the papers on his table.
“I’ll tell you one thing I heard last night,” he observed without
looking up, “in the bar of the King’s Head Hotel, as a matter of fact.
It was asserted that within a week of Mrs. Garlett’s death your niece
received by post an anonymous gift of a most beautiful diamond ring. If
the purchase of that ring can be traced to Garlett, it will produce a
very unpleasant impression at the trial.”
The doctor felt a strange sensation suddenly sweep over him. He had
often seen a woman in hysterics, and he had all your medical man’s
contempt for that special form of disordered feminine nerves, but now he
felt as if he himself might easily burst out crying and laughing
together.
“That ring,” he exclaimed, “was my wife’s gift to her niece on the
girl’s twenty-second birthday. It is a poor little bit of a thing, with
a turquoise in the middle and two small pearls, one on either side. One
of the pearls had gone dead, and my wife sent it away to have it
replaced by a good pearl. So she arranged that the gift should reach our
niece anonymously on her birthday. If the stories that are being told of
Garlett and Jean are on a level with _that_ story——”
The other raised his hand.
“I should be deceiving you, Maclean, were I to admit that all, or even
most of the stories now being told concerning your niece and Garlett are
as easily refuted as is apparently this story of the diamond ring. Let
us simply take what we know to be true.”
“How d’you mean?”
“What happened after Mrs. Garlett’s death? Garlett gave out he was going
away for a long time—perhaps for as long as a year. I thought it odd
that he didn’t come to see me, to make the arrangements any ordinary man
of business makes when going away for so long a period. But he just sent
me a hasty note as to the proving of his wife’s will, and left the very
day of the funeral! I thought his conduct very strange then, and I don’t
mind telling you now that I hope the other side won’t get hold of it.
But there’s one thing we can’t keep from them—that is Garlett’s sudden
return at the end of three months. Now why did he do that?”
“Because of old Dodson’s state of health,” replied Dr. Maclean hotly.
“The direct cause of his return was a letter from your niece. He told me
that himself the first time I met him.”
“That letter,” said Dr. Maclean sharply, “was written on my advice—in
fact she showed me the letter before she sent it off to Garlett. The
girl was placed in a very difficult position at the factory.”
“I know that,” said the lawyer quickly. “Everybody knew that it was most
awkward for the girl. Old Dodson used to make love to her. I heard about
it at the time. I believe he went so far as to propose marriage more
than once!”
Dr. Maclean stared at Mr. Toogood in amazement. He knew that this was
true, but he had thought it was a secret between him and Jean. He had
not even told his wife. The other read what was passing in his mind.
“You’re surprised, my good friend, at that fact being known? Probably
Miss Jean never told a soul except, perhaps, you——”
The doctor nodded.
“Good God, man! D’you suppose that in such a place as the Etna China
factory every thing that happens isn’t known?”
“I hold to it that no one can say Harry Garlett fell in love with my
niece before his wife’s death,” said Dr. Maclean firmly.
“I suppose you wouldn’t go so far as to declare that Garlett didn’t fall
in love with her the moment he came back, eh?”
“I think he did,” was the reluctant answer, “but I’m convinced he didn’t
know it himself.”
“I wish I was as sure of that as you are. But I agree that he wouldn’t
have spoken so soon if it hadn’t been that he found that Tasker was
after her, eh?”
Dr. Maclean stared in fresh astonishment at the lawyer. “There’s very
little going on hereabouts that _I_ don’t know,” remarked Mr. Toogood.
There was a pause, then: “Whom are you going to get to defend Garlett?”
asked Dr. Maclean eagerly, “or haven’t you yet made up your mind?”
The other smiled—a superior smile. “The moment I learned that Garlett
was to be arrested I got a call through to our London agents and I
secured Sir Harold Anstey.”
“The man who got Mrs. Panford off?”
“Of course! He’s the greatest of living advocates, and at first I was
afraid there was going to be a hitch. The man’s so gorged with money and
success that he can pick and choose his cases——”
Dr. Maclean looked uncomfortable.
“Surely you don’t think we could have done better?” asked the lawyer,
nettled.
“I suppose not—and yet, Toogood, only last week I read somewhere that
Anstey’s nickname is ‘the murderer’s friend.’ We don’t want to condemn
Garlett beforehand, eh?”
Mr. Toogood leaned forward.
“It will take the whole of Sir Harold Anstey’s wit and skill to save our
man from the gallows. Make no mistake about that! Still, there’s one
hopeful feature. I’ve found out—unofficially, of course—that the Crown
people have been in touch with every chemist in every place where our
friend ever played cricket in the last ten years! But they’ve found
nothing.”
“Then they haven’t traced arsenic in any form to Garlett’s possession?”
asked the doctor eagerly.
“So far that’s the one missing link—and a very important link it is! By
the way, you’ve never had a dispensary, have you?”
The question was asked carelessly, but the doctor knew very well what
was in the lawyer’s mind, and his thoughts flew to the other side of the
book-lined wall to his left—to the room where Jean Bower was sitting,
waiting for this long interview to end.
“No,” he said quietly, “I have never had a dispensary, Toogood. For what
it’s worth, I may tell you that I make it a rule to keep no drugs in my
house at all. Were it otherwise, I should be constantly worried by the
village people. When I prescribe anything of the kind they’ve got to
trudge into Grendon to get it.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to mention Miss Prince and her amateur
doctoring, but he refrained. After all, Miss Prince, whatever her
special knowledge, could no more procure poison than could the simplest
cottage wife in Terriford village. So, after a moment’s pause, he only
added: “How about a statement from me, Toogood?”
“I think we had better let the Crown people see you first,” said the
solicitor thoughtfully. “After all, you’ve nothing to conceal. So it may
be better for you to be a Crown witness friendly to our side.”
Both men stood up.
“I should like to ask you one delicate question, Maclean”; the lawyer
hesitated, then went on: “Of course you are aware that the fellow who
got up this case originally—I mean Kentworthy—procured a deposition
stating that Garlett and some young woman used to meet in a wood at
night last spring. Are you certain that that young woman was not your
niece? Forgive me for asking the question. I won’t press it, if you’d
rather not answer.”
“I’d stake my life that it was not my niece!” exclaimed the doctor.
“Without going quite so far as that, I’m inclined to agree with you, and
it confirms a view I’ve formed in the last few hours.”
“What view is that?” asked Dr. Maclean, eagerly.
“My view,” said the solicitor quietly, “is that there was a second woman
in Garlett’s life. A woman who was never seen in Terriford at all—whom
he probably came to know years before he ever saw your niece. If he had
some secret married woman friend who had, say, lately become a widow, we
have a second person who may have had an interest in Mrs. Garlett’s
death.”
“That seems very far-fetched,” observed the doctor.
“In a murder case, nothing is too far-fetched if it throws an element of
doubt into the jury’s mind.”
“I see what you mean,” said the other doubtfully.
“Has any one turned up yet to take a statement from Miss Bower?”
Dr. Maclean was taken much aback by the ominous question.
“D’you mean,” he exclaimed, “that my niece can be compelled to be a
witness at Garlett’s trial for murder?”
“She’ll be a leading witness,” was the answer. “I thought you realized
that.”
“She never even saw Mrs. Garlett,” said the doctor in a low voice.
“Miss Bower will not be questioned as to her relations with Mrs.
Garlett, but with Mrs. Garlett’s husband,” observed Mr. Toogood.
Dr. Maclean groaned.
“It’s hard, Maclean, but if your view is the right one, if the girl is
absolutely innocent of any wrong-doing, she’ll come through all right.
I’m a firm believer in the old saying that ‘Truth will out—even in an
affidavit!’ And now we’d better have her in, for I must give her that
message from poor Garlett.”
He left the room, and a moment later returned with Jean Bower.
“I had a talk with Mr. Garlett this morning, and he asked me to tell you
that he hopes you will make no effort to see him while he is in prison,
Miss Bower.”
As a look of deep unhappiness flooded her quivering face, he added
hastily:
“I’m sure he is acting in the wisest, as well as in the kindest, way for
both of you. Though I should not have suggested his message, I heartily
approve of his having sent it.”
“Shall I be able to write to him freely? Or will our letters be read?”
she asked.
“I’m afraid that your letters will all be perused by the governor. Mr.
Garlett is allowed to communicate with me, as his legal adviser, quite
privately, and I think it possible that Dr. Maclean may be allowed to
see him alone. But with regard to you—well, I doubt if even a wife’s
letters are given unopened to a prisoner.”
“I see,” said the girl dully.
“But that must not prevent your writing him cheerful letters,” went on
the solicitor. “The great thing you’ve got to do is to keep up the man’s
spirits. Your uncle here tells me that you are absolutely convinced of
Mr. Garlett’s innocence?”
She was too choked with tears to do more than nod.
“We have a splendid counsel—the best, I think I may say, in Europe. I’m
sure you’ve heard of Sir Harold Anstey?”
Now Jean Bower had also seen a photograph of the famous advocate in a
picture paper, and underneath the portrait had been printed the words:
“Sir Harold Anstey, affectionately known at the Bar as ‘the murderer’s
friend.’”
“Sir Harold is a wonderful man,” went on Mr. Toogood eagerly; “I shall
never forget having seen him once in court. It was in the great Panford
case. There didn’t seem a hope for the woman in the dock, but he got her
off! He has an astonishing way with a jury.”
“I see,” said Jean, again in that toneless, dull voice.
“And then there’s another thing. It’s everything for a witness to have
Sir Harold with him or her. I suppose—” he hesitated uncomfortably—“I
suppose, Miss Bower, that you realize that a gentleman will soon come
from London in order to take a statement from you. On that statement you
will be examined and cross-examined—so you must be careful what you say
or admit when answering his questions.”
“I quite understand that.”
Jean had already regained her composure, and it was well that she had
done so, for, as Mr. Toogood escorted his important visitors down to the
front door, by some curious accident every human being in the
substantial house happened at that moment either to have business in the
hall, or to be standing at one of the doors that gave into the hall.
The lawyer felt vexed. And yet——? Yet even he felt the general
excitement contagious. He could not help being glad that his firm was
about to play a prominent part in what was evidently going to be a
famous case. It was also satisfactory to reflect that Harry Garlett,
unlike the vast majority of criminals, was a wealthy man, and that the
huge costs were thus certain to be paid.
Even so, as he walked upstairs back to his own room, Mr. Toogood told
himself that Jean Bower was the last kind of young woman for whom he
would have been tempted to commit murder twenty years ago. She seemed so
quiet, so dull, so unemotional.
Mr. Toogood recalled the last time he had been out to Terriford. It had
been to take the poor doomed woman’s instructions as to her will. She
had only a few thousand pounds to leave, for she had settled the bulk of
her fortune on her husband years ago. And suddenly he reminded himself
that neither he nor the doctor had mentioned Miss Agatha Cheale, one of
Mrs. Garlett’s legatees, who had been actually present at her death. She
would be a witness, and an important witness, for the defence, for she,
at any rate, could testify as to the excellent terms on which the
husband and wife had been.