"Pray, Johnson," said Geoffery, when the person so named made his
appearance, "what is all this that Davison has been saying, about a
paper of arsenic being missing from where it lay no later than
yesterday; and the groom's absurd assertion, that Sir Alfred was the
person who removed it? This is a mere excuse, to hide the carelessness
of some of you servants, who have probably flung the paper of poison in
among the glasses; and now that you see the consequences of your own
misconduct, you are all terrified. And very justly, for I make no doubt
of it, the half of you will be hung!--The plea of carelessness, let me
tell you, and I know something of the law, will not be taken; malicious
interest will be supposed. As I told Davison, if Sir Alfred chose to
have the arsenic removed, he would have given his orders to that effect,
and not have gone about the thing himself, in a skulking clandestine
manner: why should he take so much trouble, unless concealment were his
object; and what motive could he have for concealment?"
"The lad _sais_ it was Sir Alfred," answered Johnson.
"Can he swear to the fact?"
"He _sais_ he can."
"Poor Sir Alfred," proceeded Geoffery, "is not in a state of mind to be
spoken to; or the thing might be cleared up in a moment, by my asking
him the question. Indeed he has given orders that no one shall go near
him; besides, it would be the utmost cruelty to allude to such a subject
at present; particularly if he really has, by any carelessness about
this paper of which you speak, been the cause of the accident, he will
never forgive himself;--so that, in that case, from respect to his
feelings, the circumstance ought in fact to be hushed up." Geoffery was
well aware that ordering servants to hush a thing up, was the best
possible mode of giving it publicity.
The groom, when he appeared, was so firm to his text, that Geoffery
began to hope the assertion, whether true or false, might be turned to
account. He endeavoured, accordingly, to terrify the lad into a steady
evidence, by telling him, that what he once said, he must, on his peril,
stand to throughout; for that the slightest prevarication, or even
hesitation on so serious an affair, might hang him. "And I know
something of the law," he added, as usual. So saying, he dismissed the
groom, desiring him to send up the butler.
"This is a shocking business, Thomas," said Geoffery, as the butler
entered.
Thomas made no reply.
"Poor Sir Alfred," continued Geoffery, "thinks, it seems, that his
brother died of a fit, and it is better for his peace of mind, that he
should think so; although there is no doubt, that Sir Willoughby was
poisoned. Do you think, Thomas, that you will be able to clear
yourself?"
"Clear myself!" answered the man, his eyes flashing with rage, through
the honest tears he had been shedding for his master. "I'd be glad to
know who'll accuse--I who have served his father, and his grandfather
before him, man and boy these fifty-five years, and have nursed himself
and his brother one on each knee, many's the time."
"Far be it from me, Thomas, to accuse you or any one else of such a
crime as murder; I only suspect you of unpardonable carelessness; but I
must say, and I know something of the law, as you may suppose, that
circumstances are very strong against you; it may be thought that you
intended to poison both brothers, and rob the house; my arrival was
unexpected; such things you know have been done! Nothing I should think
can clear you, but its being satisfactorily proved who is to blame. You
brought up the glasses; poison has been found in one of them, and there
was no one in the room but Sir Willoughby, his brother, and yourself.
You certainly would get nothing by the death of Sir Willoughby, unless,
as I said before, you had made away with both gentlemen, and robbed the
house; that is so far in your favour: yet no one, you know, could think
of suspecting his own brother, and circumstances seem to lay the
mischief, however it happened, at the door of one or the other."
"No one who had not got the heart of the devil in his breast would lay
it at the door of either," replied the man, angrily.
Without noticing his irritation, Geoffery proceeded, "I still mean in
the way of accident or mistake. Some of you talk, I understand, of Sir
Alfred having been the person who removed the paper of arsenic." And
here he enlarged as before, on the affliction our hero would no doubt
suffer, could he at all blame himself for any thing that had happened,
and how cruel it would therefore be to mention the subject to him.
"Was the arsenic at any time kept in the same place with the glasses? Do
you think you might have scattered any quantity about, in lifting it
from shelf to shelf?"
"I wiped out the glasses with my own hands, the moment before I carried
them in. Besides, the arsenic was never in the cupboard with my things
at all, it lay on a shelf in the saddle-room, quite out of the way of
what was for any one's use, and was marked in large letters, "arsenic,
poison"; for Sir Willoughby was very particular in his orders to me to
be careful about it, and made me show him where I put it, and that Mr.
Alfred knows, for he was with his brother at the same time, no longer
since than yesterday forenoon."
"If your statement is correct, I do not see how it was possible for an
accident to have happened," said Geoffery, "could you swear that it was
not possible for an accident to have occurred?"
"Yes, I could," he replied, though sulkily. "That is," he added, "as
long as the arsenic lay where I left it."
This was one of the main points which Geoffery wanted to establish. He
now dismissed the butler, who was sobbing so violently, that he could
scarcely answer the questions put to him.
The coachman next entered; and it being Geoffery's object, with the
views already stated, to alarm all the servants for their own safety, he
looked extremely austere, and, aware that the individual he had now to
deal with was not overburdened with wisdom, began thus:
"So I find, James, you don't pretend to deny that you brought arsenic
from Arden, and the defence which I understand you pretend to set up,
is, that you did so by your master's orders, for the purpose of
poisoning rats. Now, this is quite too hackneyed an excuse; as to the
orders you _say_ you received, I fancy you have no proof that you
received any."
"I told the groom that went with me, and the boy at the apothecary's,
that my master sent me."
"You told them! What sort of proof is that? You don't suppose that your
own word will be taken for yourself, whatever it may against yourself!
This will never do. I know something of the law, and unless there is
stronger evidence against some one else, you will certainly be hung for
the murder. The only thing in your favour is, that you would get nothing
by Sir Willoughby's death."
"If they _chooses_ to hang an innocent man," replied James, very
philosophically, "I can't help it, I dun as I was bid."
"It's a very awkward thing having no witness in your favour but a dead
man. Are you sure it was not Sir Alfred who gave you the orders? for if
so, he is there, you know, to say so, which might save you."
"No, it was Sir Willoughby himself."
After a little more cross-questioning, James retired to the servants'
hall, where the effect of Geoffery's interference, was just what he
intended it should be: the utmost excitement existed. The one general
argument in their own favour, cunningly suggested to each by Geoffery,
that they would get nothing by the death of poor Sir Willoughby, was
constantly recurred to, while every time this was said, the remembrance
naturally suggested itself of who it was that would gain everything by
the melancholy event; not that any of the household yet dared in word,
or even perhaps in thought, to connect accusation or suspicion with the
mental recognition of the abstract fact. The strangeness, too, of
attempting to rinse the glass, and the strangeness of taking away the
paper of arsenic were named, while other still stranger circumstances
were from time to time, as they transpired, cautiously whispered to a
chosen few, by Geoffery's man, Davison, but no one ventured to draw
inferences. As the servants, however, of neighbouring families came in
to make inquiries respecting the sudden demise of Sir Willoughby,
already beginning to be generally known, many very extraordinary rumours
soon got abroad.