"Hold your tongue, sir. Johnny, fetch me the railway guide."
Upon looking at the guide, it was found there; "Montpellier-by-Sea;" the
last station before getting to Saltwater. As to Saltwater, it might be
common, as Tod said; for it was crowded with all sorts of people, but it
was lively and healthy.
Not on the next day, Friday, for it was impossible to get ready in such
a heap of a hurry, but on the following Tuesday we started. Tod had left
on the Saturday for Gloucestershire. His own mother's relatives lived
there, and they were always inviting him.
"Montpellier-by-Sea?" cried the railway clerk in a doubting tone as we
were getting the tickets. "Let's see? Where is that?"
Of course that set the Squire exploding. What right had clerks to
pretend to issue tickets unless they knew their business? The clerk in
question coolly ran his finger down the railway list he had turned to,
and then gave us the tickets.
"It is a station not much frequented, you see," he civilly observed.
"Travellers mostly go on to Saltwater."
But for the train being due, and our having to make a rush for the
platform, the Squire would have waited to give the young man a piece of
his mind. "Saltwater, indeed!" said he. "I wonder the fellow does not
issue his edict as to where people shall go and where they shan't go."
We arrived in due time at our destination. It was written up as large as
life on a white board, "Montpellier-by-Sea." A small roadside station,
open to the country around; no signs of sea or of houses to be seen; a
broad rural district, apparently given over entirely to agriculture.
On went the whistling train, leaving the group of us standing by our
luggage on the platform. The Squire was staring about him doubtfully.
"Can you tell me where Seaboard Terrace is?"
"Seaboard Terrace?" repeated the station-master. "No, sir, I don't know
it. There's no terrace of that name hereabouts. For that matter there
are no terraces at all--no houses in fact."
The Squire's face was a picture. He saw that (save a solitary farm
homestead or two) the country was bare of dwelling-places.
"This is Montpellier-by-Sea?" he questioned at last.
"Sure enough it is, sir. Munpler, it's called down here."
"Then Seaboard Terrace must be _somewhere_ in it--somewhere about. What
a strange thing!"
"Perhaps the gentlefolks want to go to Saltwater?" spoke up one of the
two porters employed at the little station. "There's lots of terraces
there. Here, Jim!"--calling to his fellow--"come here a minute. He'll
know, sir; he comes from Saltwater."
Jim approached, and settled the doubt at once. He knew Seaboard Terrace
very well indeed; it was at Saltwater; just out at the eastern end of
it.
Yes, it was at Saltwater. And there were we, more than two miles off
it, on a broiling hot day, when walking was impracticable, with all our
trunks about us, and no fly to be had, or other means of getting on. The
Squire went into one of his passions, and demanded why people living at
Saltwater should give their address as Montpellier-by-Sea.
He had hardly patience to listen to the station-master's
explanation--who acknowledged that we were not the first travelling
party that had been deluded in like manner. Munpler (as he and the rest
of the natives persisted in calling it) was an extensive, straggling
rural parish, filled with farm lands; an arm of it extended as far
as Saltwater, and the new buildings at that end of Saltwater had
rechristened themselves Montpellier-by-Sea, deeming it more aristocratic
than the common old name. Had the Squire been able to transport the
new buildings, builders and all, he had surely done it on the spot.
Well, we got on to Saltwater in the evening by another train, and to
No. 6, Seaboard Terrace. Mary Blair was just delighted.
"If I had but known you were coming, if you had only written to me, I
would have explained that it was Saltwater Station you must get out at,
not Montpellier," she cried in deprecation.
"But, my dear, why on earth do you give in to a deception?" stormed the
Squire. "Why call your place Montpellier when it's Saltwater?"
"I do what other people do," she sighed; "I was told it was Montpellier
when I came here. Generally speaking, I have explained, when writing
to friends, that it is really Saltwater, in spite of its fine name. I
suppose I forgot it when writing to you--I had so much to say. The
people really to blame are those who named it so."
"And that's true, and they ought to be shown up," said the Squire.
Seaboard Terrace consisted of seven houses, built in front of the sea a
little beyond the town. The parlours had bay windows; the drawing-rooms
had balconies and verandahs. The two end houses, Nos. 1 and 7, were
double houses, large and handsome, each of them being inhabited by a
private family; the middle houses were smaller, most of them being let
out in lodgings in the season. Mary Blair began talking that first
evening as we sat together about the family who lived in the house next
door to her, No. 7. Their name was Peahern, she said, and they had been
so very, very kind to her since she took her house in March. Mr. Peahern
had interested himself for her and got her several pupils; he was much
respected at Saltwater. "Ah, he is a good man," she added; "but----"
"I'll call and thank him," interrupted the Squire. "I am proud to shake
hands with such a man as that."
"You cannot," she said; "he and his wife have gone abroad. A great
misfortune has lately befallen them."
"A great misfortune! What was it?"
I noticed a sort of cloud pass over Mary Blair's face, a hesitation in
her manner before she replied. Mrs. Todhetley was sitting by her on the
sofa; the Squire was in the armchair opposite them, and I at the table,
as I had sat at our tea-dinner.
"Mr. Peahern was in business once--a wholesale druggist, I believe; but
he made a fortune, and retired some years ago," began Mary. "Mrs.
Peahern has bad health and is a little lame. She was very kind to me
also--very good and kind indeed. They had one son--no other children; I
think he was studying for the Bar; I am not sure; but he lived in
London, and came down here occasionally. My young maid-servant, Susan,
got acquainted with their servants, and she gathered from their gossip
that he, Edmund Peahern, a very handsome young man, was in some way a
trouble to his parents. He was down at Easter, and stayed three weeks;
and in May he came down again. What happened I don't know; I believe
there was some scene with his father the day he arrived; anyway, Mr.
Peahern was heard talking angrily to him; and that night he--he died."
She had dropped her voice to a whisper. The Squire spoke.
"Died! Was it a natural death?"
"No. A jury decided that he was insane; and he was buried here in the
churchyard. Such a heap of claims and debts came to light, it was said.
Mr. Peahern left his lawyer to pay them all, and went abroad with his
poor wife for change of scene. It has been a great grief to me. I feel
so sorry for them."
"Then, is the house shut up?"
"No. Two servants are left in it--the two housemaids. The cook, who had
lived with them five and twenty years and was dreadfully affected at the
calamity, went with her mistress. Nice, good-natured young women are
these two that are left, running in most days to ask if they can do
anything for me."
"It is good to have such neighbours," said the Squire. "And I hope
you'll get on, my dear. How came you to be at this place at all?"
"It was through Mr. Lockett," she answered--the clergyman who had
been so much with her husband before he died, and who had kept up a
correspondence with her. Mr. Lockett's brother was in practice as a
doctor at Saltwater, and they thought she might perhaps do well if she
came to it. So Mary's friends had screwed a point or two to put her
into the house, and gave her besides a ten-pound note to start with.
* * * * *
"I tell you what it is, young Joe: if you run and reve yourself into
that scarlet heat, you shan't come here with me again."
"But I like to race with the donkeys," replied young Joe. "I can run
almost as fast as they, Johnny. I like to see the donkeys."
"Wouldn't it be better to ride a donkey, lad?"
He shook his head. "I have never had a ride but once," he answered:
"I've no sixpences for it. That once Matilda treated me. She brings me
on the sands."
"Who is Matilda?"
"Matilda at No. 7--Mr. Peahern's."
"Well, if you are a good boy, young Joe, and stay by me, you shall have
a ride as soon as the donkeys come back."
They were fine sands. I sat down on a bench with a book; little Joe
strained his eyes to look after the donkeys in the distance, cantering
off with some young shavers like himself on their backs, their
nursemaids walking quickly after them. Poor little Joe!--he had the
gentlest, meekest face in the world, with his thoughtful look and nice
eyes--waited and watched in quiet patience. The sands were crowded with
people this afternoon; organs were playing, dancing dolls exhibiting;
and vessels with their white sails spread glided smoothly up and down on
the sparkling sea.
"And will you really pay the sixpence?" asked the little fellow
presently. "They won't let me get on for less."
"Really and truly, Joe. I'll take you for a row in a boat some calm day,
if mamma will allow you to go."
Joe looked grave. "I don't _much_ like the water, please," said he,
timidly. "Alfred Dale went on it in a boat and fell in, and was nearly
drowned. He comes to mamma's school."
"Then we'll let the boats alone, Joe. There's Punch! He is going to set
himself up yonder: wouldn't you like to run and see him?"
"But I might miss the donkeys," answered Joe.
He stood by me quietly, gazing in the direction taken by the donkeys;
evidently they were his primary attraction. The other child, Mary, who
was a baby when her father died (poor Baked Pie, as we boys used to call
him at Frost's), was in Wales with Mrs. Blair's people. They had taken
the child for a few months, until she saw whether she should get along
at Saltwater.
But we thought she would get along. Her school was a morning school for
little boys of good parentage, all of whom paid liberal terms; and she
would be able to let her best rooms for at least six months in the year.
"There's Matilda! Oh, there's Matilda!"
It was quite a loud shout for little Joe. Looking up, I saw him rush to
a rather good-looking young woman, neatly dressed in a black-and-white
print gown and small shawl of the same, with black ribbons crossed on
her straw bonnet. Servants did not dress fine enough to set the Thames
on fire in those days. Joe dragged her triumphantly up to me. She was
one of the housemaids at No. 7.
"It's Matilda," he said; and the young woman curtsied. "And I am going
to have a donkey-ride, Matilda; Mr. Johnny Ludlow's going to give the
sixpence for me!"
"I know you by sight, sir," observed Matilda to me. "I have seen you go
in and out of No. 6."
She had a pale olive complexion, with magnificent, melancholy dark eyes.
Many persons would have called her handsome. I took a sort of liking for
the girl--if only for her kindness to poor little fatherless Joe. In
manner she was particularly quiet, subdued, and patient.
"You had a sad misfortune at your house not long ago," I observed to
her, at a loss for something to say.
"Oh, sir, don't talk of it, please!" she answered, catching her breath.
"I seem to have had the shivers at times ever since. It was me that
found him."
Up cantered the donkeys; and presently away went Joe on the back of
one, Matilda attending him. The ride was just over, and Joe beginning
to enlarge on its delights to me, when another young woman, dressed
precisely similar to Matilda, even to the zigzag white running pattern
on the prim gown, and the black cotton gloves, was seen making her way
towards us. She was nice-looking also, in a different way--fair, with
blue eyes, and a laughing, arch face.
"Why, there's Jane Cross!" exclaimed Matilda. "What in the world have
you come out for, Jane? Have you left the house safe?"
"As if I should leave it unsafe!" lightly retorted the one they had
called Jane Cross. "The back door's locked, and here's the key of the
front"--showing a huge key. "Why shouldn't I go out if you do, Matilda?
The house is none so lively a one now, to stop in all alone."
"And that's true enough," was Matilda's quiet answer. "Little master
Joe's here; he has been having a donkey-ride."
The two servants, fellow-housemaids, strolled off towards the sea,
taking Joe with them. At the edge of the beach they encountered Hannah,
who had just come on with our two children, Hugh and Lena. The maids sat
down for a gossip, while the children took off their shoes and stockings
to dabble in the gently rising tide.
And that was my introductory acquaintanceship with the servant-maids at
No. 7. Unfortunately it did not end there.
* * * * *
Twilight was coming on. We had been out and about all day, had dined as
usual at one o'clock (not to give unnecessary trouble), and had just
finished tea in Mrs. Blair's parlour. It was where we generally took
tea, and supper also. The Squire liked to sit in the open bay window
and watch the passers-by as long as ever a glimmer of daylight lasted;
and he could not see them so well in the drawing-room above. I was at
the other corner of the bay window. The Mater and Mary Blair were on
their favourite seat, the sofa, at the end of the room, both knitting.
In the room at the back, Mary held her morning school.
I sat facing towards the end house, No. 7. And I must here say that
during the last two or three weeks I had met the housemaids several
times on the sands, and so had become quite at home with each of them.
Both appeared to be thoroughly well-conducted, estimable young women;
but, of the two, I liked Jane Cross best; she was always so lively and
pleasant-mannered. One day she told me why No. 7 generally called her by
her two names--which I had thought rather odd. It appeared that when she
entered her place two years before, the other housemaid was named Jane,
so they took to call her by her full name, Jane Cross. That housemaid
had left in about a twelvemonth, and Matilda had entered in her place.
The servants were regarded as equals in the house, not one above the
other, as is the case in many places. These details will probably be
thought unnecessary and uncalled for, but you will soon see why I
mention them. This was Monday. On the morrow we should have been three
weeks at Saltwater, and the Squire did not yet talk of leaving. He was
enjoying the free-and-easy life, and was as fond as a child of picking
up shells on the sands and looking at Punch and the dancing dolls.
Well, we sat this evening in the bay window as usual, I facing No. 7.
Thus sitting, I saw Matilda cross the strip of garden with a jug in her
hand, and come out at the gate to fetch the beer for supper.
"There goes Jane Cross," cried the Squire, as she passed the window.
"Is it not, Johnny?"
"No, sir, it's Matilda." But the mistake was a very natural one, for
the girls were about the same height and size, and were usually dressed
alike, the same mourning having been supplied to both of them.
Ten minutes or so had elapsed when Matilda came back: she liked a gossip
with the landlady of the Swan. Her pint jug was brimful of beer, and she
shut the iron gate of No. 7 after her. Putting my head as far out at the
window as it would go, to watch her indoors, for no earthly reason but
that I had nothing else to do, I saw her try the front door, and then
knock at it. This knock she repeated three times over at intervals, each
knock being louder than the last.
"Are you shut out, Matilda?" I called out.
"Yes, sir, it seems like it," she called back again, without turning her
head. "Jane Cross must have gone to sleep."
Had she been a footman with a carriage full of ladies in court trains
behind him, she could not have given a louder or longer knock than she
gave now. There was no bell to the front door at No. 7. But the knock
remained unanswered and the door unopened.
"Matilda at No. 7 is locked out," I said, laughing, bringing in my head
and speaking to the parlour generally. "She has been to fetch the beer
for supper, and can't get in again."
"The beer for supper?" repeated Mrs. Blair. "They generally go out at
the back gate to fetch that, Johnny."
"Anyhow, she took the front way to-night. I saw her come out."
Another tremendous knock. The Squire put his good old nose round the
window-post; two boys and a lady, passing by, halted a minute to look
on. It was getting exciting, and I ran out. She was still at the door,
which stood in the middle of the house, between the sitting-rooms on
each side.
"So you have got the key of the street, Matilda!"
"I can't make it out," she said; "what Jane Cross can be about, or why
the door should be closed at all. I left it on the latch."
"Somebody has slipped in to make love to her. Your friend, the milkman,
perhaps."
Evidently Matilda did not like the allusion to the milkman. Catching a
glimpse of her face by the street lamp, I saw it had turned white. The
milkman was supposed to be paying court at No. 7, but to which of the
two maids gossip did not decide. Mrs. Blair's Susan, who knew them well,
said it was Matilda.
"Why don't you try the back way?" I asked, after more waiting.
"Because I know the outer door is locked, sir. Jane Cross locked it just
now, and that's why I came out this front way. I can try it, however."
She went round to the road that ran by the side of the house, and tried
the door in the garden wall. It was fastened, as she had said. Seizing
the bell-handle, she gave a loud peal--another, and another.
"I say, it seems odd, though," I cried, beginning to find it so. "Do you
think she can have gone out?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir. But--no; it's not likely, Master Johnny. I
left her laying the cloth for our supper."
"Was she in the house alone?"
"We are always alone, sir; we don't have visitors. Anyway, none have
been with us this evening."
I looked at the upper windows of the house. No light was to be seen in
any of them, no sign of Jane Cross. The lower windows were hidden from
view by the wall, which was high.
"I think she must have dropped asleep, Matilda, as you say. Suppose you
come in through Mrs. Blair's and get over the wall?"
I ran round to tell the news to our people. Matilda followed me slowly;
I thought, reluctantly. Even in the dim twilight, as she stood at our
gate in hesitation, I could see how white her face was.
"What are you afraid of?" I asked her, going out again to where she
stood.
"I hardly know, Master Johnny. Jane Cross used to have fits. Perhaps she
has been frightened into one now."
"What should frighten her?"
The girl looked round in a scared manner before replying. Just then I
found my jacket-sleeve wet. Her trembling hands had shaken a little of
the ale upon it.
"If she--should have seen Mr. Edmund?" the girl brought out in a
horrified whisper.
"Seen Mr. Edmund! Mr. Edmund who?--Mr. Edmund Peahern? Why, you don't
surely mean his ghost?"
Her face was growing whiter. I stared at her in surprise.
"We have always been afraid of seeing something, she and me, since last
May; we haven't liked the house at night-time. It has often been quite a
scuffle which of us should fetch the beer, so as not to be the one left
alone. Many a time I have stood right out at the back door while Jane
Cross has gone for it."
I began to think her an idiot. If Jane Cross was another, why, perhaps
she had frightened herself into a fit. All the more reason that somebody
should see after her.
"Come along, Matilda; don't be foolish; we'll both get over the wall."
It was a calm, still summer evening, almost dark now. All the lot of us
went out to the back garden, I whispering to them what the girl had said
to me.
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Todhetley, who had a sort of fellow-feeling for
ghosts. "It has been very lonely for the young women; and if Jane Cross
is subject to fits, she may be lying in one at this moment."
The wall between the gardens was nothing like as high as the outer one.
Susan brought out a chair, and Matilda could have got over easily. But
when she reached the top, she stuck there.
"I can't go on by myself; I dare not," she said, turning her frightened
face towards us. "If Mr. Edmund is there----"
"Don't be a goose, girl!" interrupted the Squire, in doubt whether to
laugh or scold. "Here, I'll go with you. Get on down. Hold the chair
tight for me, Johnny."
We hoisted him over without damage. I leaped after him, and Susan,
grinning with delight, came after me. She supposed that Jane Cross had
slipped out somewhere during Matilda's absence.
The door faced the garden, and the Squire and Susan were the first
to enter. There seemed to be no light anywhere, and the Squire went
gingerly picking his way. I turned round to look for Matilda, who had
hung back, and found her with her hand on the trellis-work of the porch,
and the beer splashing over in her fear.
"I say, look here, Matilda; you must be a regular goose, as the Squire
says, to put yourself into this fright before you know whether there's
any cause for it. Susan says she has only stepped out somewhere."
She put up her hand and touched my arm, her lips the colour of chalk.
"Only last night that ever was, Mr. Johnny, as we were going up the
staircase to bed, we heard a sound in the room as we passed it. It was
just like a groan. Ask Jane Cross, else, sir."
"What room?"
"Mr. Edmund's; where he did it. She has heard him to-night, or seen him,
or something, and has fallen into a fit."
The kitchen was on the right of the passage. Susan, knowing the ways of
the house, soon lighted a candle. On a small round table was spread a
white cloth, some bread and cheese, and two tumblers. A knife or two had
seemingly been flung on it at random.
"Jane Cross! Jane Cross!" shouted the Squire, going forward towards the
front hall, Susan following with the candle. It was a good-sized hall;
I could see that, with a handsome well-staircase at this end of it.
"Halloa! What's this? Johnny! Susan!--all of you come here! Here's
somebody lying here. It must be the poor girl. Goodness bless my heart!
Johnny, help me to raise her!"
Still and white she was lying, underneath the opening of the staircase.
Upon lifting her head, it fell back in a curious manner. We both backed
a little. Susan held the candle nearer. As its light fell on the
upturned face, the girl shrieked.
"She is in a fit," cried Matilda.
"God help her!" whispered the Squire. "I fear this is something worse
than a fit. We must have a doctor."
Susan thrust the candlestick into my hand, and ran out at the back door,
saying she'd fetch Mr. Lockett. Back she came in a moment: the garden
gate was locked, and the key not in it.
"There's the front door, girl," stuttered the Squire, angry with her for
returning, though it was no fault of hers. He was like one off his head,
and his nose and cheeks had turned blue.
But there could be no more exit by the front door than by the back. It
was locked, and the key gone. Who had done these things? what strange
mystery was here? Locking the poor girl in the house to kill her!
Matilda, who had lighted another candle, found the key of the back gate
lying on the kitchen dresser. Susan caught it up, and flew away. It was
a most uncomfortable moment. There lay Jane Cross, pale and motionless,
and it seemed that we were helpless to aid her.
"Ask that stupid thing to bring a pillow or a cushion, Johnny! Ghosts,
indeed! The idiots that women are!"
"What else has done it? what else was there to hurt her?" remonstrated
Matilda, bringing up the second candle. "She wouldn't fall into a fit
for nothing, sir."
And now that more light was present, we began to see other features of
the scene. Nearly close to Jane Cross lay a work-basket, overturned, a
flat, open basket, a foot and a half square. Reels of cotton, scissors,
tapes, small bundles of work tied up, and such-like things lay scattered
around.
The Squire looked at these, and then at the opening above. "Can she have
fallen down the well?" he asked, in a low tone. And Matilda, catching
the words, gave a cry of dismay, and burst into tears.
"A pillow, girl! A pillow, or a cushion!"
She went into one of the sitting-rooms and brought out a sofa-cushion.
The Squire, going down on his knees, for he was not good at stooping,
told me to slip it under while he raised the head.
A sound of feet, a sudden flash of light from a bull's-eye, and a
policeman came upon the scene. The man was quietly passing on his beat
when met by Susan. In her excitement she told him what had happened, and
sent him in. We knew the man, whose beat lay at this end of Saltwater;
a civil man, named Knapp. He knelt down where the Squire had just been
kneeling, touching Jane Cross here and there.
"She's dead, sir," he said. "There can be no mistake about that."
"She must have fallen down the well of the staircase, I fear," observed
the Squire.
"Well--yes; perhaps so," assented the man in a doubtful tone. "But what
of this?"
He flung the great light in front of poor Jane Cross's dress. A small
portion of the body, where the gown fastened in front, had been torn
away, as well as one of the wristbands.
"It's no fall," said the man. "It's foul play--as I think."
"Goodness bless me!" gasped the Squire. "Some villains must have got in.
This comes of that other one's having left the front door on the latch."
But I am not sure that any of us, including himself, believed she could
be really dead.
Susan returned with speed, and was followed by Mr. Lockett. He was
a young man, thirty perhaps, pale and quiet, and much like what I
remembered of his brother. Poor Jane Cross was certainly dead, he
said--had been dead, he thought, an hour.
But this could scarcely have been, as we knew. It was not, at the very
utmost, above twenty-five minutes since Matilda went out to fetch the
beer, leaving her alive and well. Mr. Lockett looked again, but thought
he was not mistaken. When a young doctor takes up a crotchet, he likes
to hold to it.
A nameless sensation of awe fell upon us all. Dead! In that sudden
manner! The Squire rubbed up his head like a helpless lunatic; Susan's
eyes were round with horror; Matilda had thrown her apron over her face
to hide its grief and tears.
Leaving her for the present where she was, we turned to go upstairs. I
stooped to pick up the overturned basket, but the policeman sharply told
me to let all things remain as they were until he had time to look into
them.
The first thing the man did, on reaching the landing above, was to open
the room doors one by one, and throw his bull's-eye light into them.
They were all right, unoccupied, straight and tidy. On the landing of
the upper floor lay one or two articles, which seemed to indicate that
some kind of struggle had taken place there. A thimble here, a bodkin
there, also the bit that had been torn out of the girl's gown in front,
and the wristband from the sleeve. The balustrades were very handsome,
but very low; on this upper landing, dangerously low. These bedrooms
were all in order; the one in which the two servants slept, alone
showing signs of occupation.
Downstairs went Knapp again, carrying with him the torn-out pieces, to
compare them with the gown. It was the print gown I had often seen Jane
Cross wear, a black gown with white zigzag lines running down it.
Matilda was wearing the fellow to it now. The pieces fitted in exactly.
"The struggle must have taken place upstairs: not here," observed the
doctor.
Matilda, questioned and cross-questioned by the policeman, gave as
succinct an account of the evening as her distressed state allowed. We
stood round the kitchen while she told it.
Neither she nor Jane Cross had gone out at all that day. Monday was
rather a busy day with them, for they generally did a bit of washing.
After tea, which they took between four and five o'clock, they went
up to their bedroom, it being livelier there than in the kitchen, the
window looking down the side road. Matilda sat down to write a letter
to her brother, who lived at a distance; Jane Cross sat at the window
doing a job of sewing. They sat there all the evening, writing, working,
and sometimes talking. At dusk, Jane remarked that it was getting
blind man's holiday, and that she should go on downstairs and lay the
supper. Upon that, Matilda finished her letter quickly, folded and
directed it, and followed her down. Jane had not yet laid the cloth,
but was then taking it out of the drawer. "You go and fetch the beer,
Matilda," she said: and Matilda was glad to do so. "You can't go that
way: I have locked the gate," Jane called out, seeing Matilda turning
towards the back; accordingly she went out at the front door, leaving it
on the latch. Such was her account; and I have given it almost verbatim.
"On the latch," repeated the policeman, taking up the words. "Does that
mean that you left it open?"
"I drew it quite to, so that it looked as if it were shut; it was a
heavy door, and would keep so," was Matilda's answer. "I did it, not to
give Jane the trouble to open it to me. When I got back I found it shut
and could not get in."
The policeman mused. "You say it was Jane Cross who locked the back door
in the wall?"
"Yes," said Matilda. "She had locked it before I got downstairs. We
liked to lock that door early, because it could be opened from the
outside--while the front door could not be."
"And she had not put these things on the table when you went out for the
beer?"--pointing to the dishes.
"No: she was only then putting the cloth. As I turned round from taking
the beer-jug from its hook, the fling she gave the cloth caused the air
to whiffle in my face like a wind. She had not begun to reach out the
dishes."
"How long were you away?"
"I don't know exactly," she answered, with a moan. "Rather longer than
usual, because I took my letter to the post before going to the Swan."
"It was about ten minutes," I interposed. "I was at the window next
door, and saw Matilda go out and come back."
"Ten minutes!" repeated the policeman. "Quite long enough for some
ruffian to come in and fling her over the stairs."
"But who would do it?" asked Matilda, looking up at him with her poor
pale face.
"Ah, that's the question; that's what we must find out," said Knapp.
"Was the kitchen just as it was when you left it?"
"Yes--except that she had put the bread and cheese on the table. And the
glasses, and knives," added the girl, looking round at the said table,
which remained as we had found it, "but not the plates."
"Well now, to go to something else: Did she bring her work-basket
downstairs with her from the bedroom when she remarked to you that she
would go and put the supper on?"
"No, she did not."
"You are sure of that?"
"Yes. She left the basket on the chair in front of her where it had been
standing. She just got up and shook the threads from off her gown, and
went on down. When I left the room the basket was there; I saw it. And
I think," added the girl, with a great sob, "I think that while laying
the supper she must have gone upstairs again to fetch the basket, and
must have fallen against the banisters with fright, and overbalanced
herself."
"Fright at what?" asked Knapp.
Matilda shivered. Susan whispered to him that they were afraid at night
of seeing the ghost of Mr. Edmund Peahern.
The man glanced keenly at Matilda for a minute. "Did you ever see it?"
he asked.
"No," she shuddered. "But there are strange noises, and we think it is
in the house."
"Well," said Knapp, coughing to hide a comical smile, "ghosts don't tear
pieces out of gowns--that ever I heard of. I should say it was something
worse than a ghost that has been here to-night. Had this poor girl any
sweetheart?"
"No," said Matilda.
"Have you one?"
"No."
"Except Owen the milkman."
A red streak flashed into Matilda's cheeks. I knew Owen: he was Mrs.
Blair's milkman also.
"I think Owen must be your sweetheart or hers," went on Knapp. "I've
seen him, often enough, talking and laughing with you both when bringing
the afternoon's milk round. Ten minutes at a stretch he has stayed in
this garden, when he need not have been as many moments."
"There has been no harm: and it's nothing to anybody," said Matilda.
The key of the front door was searched for, high and low; but it could
not be found. Whoever locked the door, must have made off with the key.
But for that, and for the evidences of the scuffle above and the pieces
torn out of the gown, we should have thought Matilda's opinion was
correct: that Jane Cross had gone upstairs for her basket, and through
some wretched accident had pitched over the balustrades. Matilda could
not relinquish the notion.
"It was only a week ago that ever was--a week ago this very day--that
Jane Cross nearly fell over there. We were both running upstairs, trying
in sport which should get first into our bedroom; and, in jostling one
another on the landing, she all but overbalanced herself. I caught hold
of her to save her. It's true--if it were the last word I had to speak."
Matilda broke down, with a dreadful fit of sobbing. Altogether she
struck me as being about as excitable a young woman as one could meet in
a summer day's journey.
Nothing more could be made out of it this evening. Jane Cross had met
her death, and some evil or other must have led to it. The police took
possession of the house for the night: and Matilda, out of compassion,
was brought to ours. To describe the Mater's shock and Mary Blair's,
when they heard the news, would be beyond me.
All sorts of conjectures arose in the neighbourhood. The most popular
belief was that some person must have perceived the front door open,
and, whether with a good or a bad intention, entered the house; that he
must have stolen upstairs, met Jane Cross on the top landing, and flung
her down in a scuffle. That he must then have let himself out at the
front door and locked it after him.
Against this theory there were obstacles. From the time of Matilda's
leaving the house till her return, certainly not more than ten minutes
had elapsed, perhaps not quite as much, and this was a very short space
of time for what had been done in it. Moreover the chances were that I,
sitting at the next window, should have seen any one going in or out;
though it was not of course certain. I had got up once to ring the bell,
and stayed a minute or two away from the window, talking with Mary Blair
and the Mater.
Some people thought the assassin (is it too much to call him so?) had
been admitted by Jane Cross herself; or he might have been in hiding in
the garden before she locked the door. In short, the various opinions
would fill a volume.
But suspicion fell chiefly upon one person--and that was Thomas Owen the
milkman. Though, perhaps, "suspicion" is too strong a word to give to
it--I ought rather to say "doubt." These Owens were originally from
Wales, very respectable people. The milk business was their own; and,
since the father's death, which happened only a few months before, the
son had carried it on in conjunction with his mother. He was a young man
of three or four and twenty, with a fresh colour and open countenance,
rather superior in manners and education. The carrying out the milk
himself was a temporary arrangement, the boy employed for it being ill.
That he had often lingered at No. 7, laughing with the two young women,
was well known; he had also been seen to accost them in the street. Only
the previous day, he and Matilda had stayed talking in the churchyard
after morning service when everybody else had left it; and he had
walked up nearly as far as Seaboard Terrace with Jane Cross in the
evening. A notion existed that he had entered the house on the Monday
evening, for who else was it likely to have been, cried everybody.
Which was, of course, logic. At last a rumour arose--arose on the
Tuesday--that Owen had been _seen_ to leave the house at dusk on the
fatal evening; that this could be proved. If so, it looked rather black.
I was startled, for I had liked the man.
The next day, Wednesday, the key was found. A gardener who did up the
gardens of the other end house, No. 1, every Wednesday, was raking the
ground underneath some dwarf pines that grew close against the front
railings, and raked out a big door-key. About a dozen people came
rushing off with it to No. 7.
It was the missing key. It fitted into the door at once, locked and
unlocked it. When the villain had made his way from the house after
doing the mischief, he must have flung the key over amidst the pines,
thinking no doubt it would lie hidden there.
The coroner and jury assembled; but they could not make more of the
matter than we had made. Jane Cross had died of the fall down the
well-staircase, which had broken her neck; and it was pretty evident she
had been flung down. Beyond the one chief and fatal injury, she was not
harmed in any way; not by so much as a scratch. Matilda, whose surname
turned out to be Valentine, having got over the first shock, gave her
testimony with subdued composure. She was affected at parts of it, and
said she would have saved Jane Cross's life with her own: and no one
could doubt that she spoke the truth. She persisted in asserting her
opinion that there had been no scuffle, in spite of appearances; but
that the girl had been terrified in some way and had accidentally fallen
over.
When Matilda was done with, Thomas Owen took her place. He was all
in black, having dressed himself to come to the inquest and wearing
mourning for his father; and I must say, looking at him now, you'd never
have supposed he carried out milk-pails.
Yes, he had known the poor young woman in question, he readily said in
answer to questions; had been fond of chaffing with the two girls a bit,
but nothing more. Meant nothing by it, nothing serious. Respected both
of them; regarded them as perfectly well-conducted young women.--Was
either of them his sweetheart? Certainly not. Had not courted either of
them. Never thought of either of them as his future wife: should not
consider a servant eligible for that position--at least, his mother
would not. Of the two, he had liked Jane Cross the best. Did not know
anything whatever of the circumstances attending the death; thought it a
most deplorable calamity, and was never more shocked in his life than
when he heard of it.
"Is there any truth in the report that you were at the house on Monday
evening?" asked the coroner.
"There is no truth in it."
"I see him come out o' No. 7: I see him come out o' the side door in the
garden wall," burst forth a boy's earnest voice from the back of the
room.
"You saw me _not_ come out of it," quietly replied Thomas Owen, turning
round to see who it was that had spoken. "Oh, it is you, is it, Bob
Jackson! Yes, you came running round the corner just as I turned from
the door."
"You _were_ there, then?" cried the coroner.
"No, sir. At the door, yes; that's true enough; but I was not inside
it. What happened was this: on Monday I had some business at a
farmhouse near Munpler, and set out to walk over there early in the
evening. In passing down the side road by No. 7, I saw the two maids
at the top window. One of them--I think it was Jane Cross--called out
to ask me in a joking kind of way whether I was about to pay them
a visit; I answered, not then, but I would as I came back if they
liked. Accordingly, in returning, I rang the bell. It was not
answered, and I rang again with a like result. Upon that, I went
straight home to my milk books, and did not stir out again, as my
mother can prove. That is the truth, sir, on my oath; and the whole
truth."
"What time was this?"
"I am not quite sure. It was getting dusk."
"Did you see anything of the young women this second time?"
"Not anything."
"Or hear anything?--Any noise?"
"None whatever. I supposed that they would not come to the door to me
because it was late: I thought nothing else. I declare, sir, that this
is all I know of the matter."
There was a pause when he concluded. Knapp, the policeman, and another
one standing by his side, peered at Owen from under their eyebrows,
as if they did not put implicit faith in his words: and the coroner
recalled Matilda Valentine.
She readily confirmed the statement of his having passed along the side
road, and Jane Cross's joking question to him. But she denied having
heard him ring on his return, and said the door-bell had not rung at all
that night. Which would seem to prove that Owen must have rung during
the time she had gone out for the beer.
So, you perceive, the inquest brought forth no more available light, and
had to confess itself baffled.
"A fine termination this is to our pleasure," cried the Squire,
gloomily. "I don't like mysteries, Johnny. And of all the mysteries I
have come across in my life, the greatest mystery is this at No. 7."