When Miss Bostal, at the end of the proceedings, turned to Nell and
told her to get up and come home, she found that the girl had fainted.
George Claris, who had not been near his niece during the inquest,
but had stood in a corner by himself with folded arms watching the
proceedings with a heavy frown, came forward sullenly at Miss Bostal’s
imperious gesture.
“Look, look, Mr. Claris, don’t you see the poor child has fainted?”
cried she, astonished at his apathy.
“Yes, I see,” replied he, shortly, with a cool nod.
“Poor little thing! The horror has been too much for her! Poor little
thing!” went on the lady, as she quickly unfastened Nell’s cloak and
loosened the front of her gown. “A glass of water, some one, please.
And don’t crowd round her; let her have all the air we can.”
When the girl came to herself, as she did in a very few minutes, thanks
to the ministrations of Miss Bostal, she was led away to the dog-cart,
which was waiting outside.
“Take great care of her,” said Miss Bostal, solicitously, as Nell was
hoisted in, very pale and lifeless and miserable. “And if you will take
my advice, you will send her off to her aunt in London by the first
train to-morrow morning.”
George Claris, who had remained taciturn, sullen, and on the whole
rather neglectful of his niece, frowned as he threw a quick glance at
her.
“Oh, she’s all right,” he said, with gruffness most unusual with him in
speaking of his darling Nell. “She only wants the fresh air to bring
her to. How are you going to get back, Miss Bostal? Can’t I give you a
lift? We’ll make room for you.”
He looked up at Nell, expecting her to echo his words, and to make room
for her friend; but the girl never moved.
Her uncle looked angry, but Miss Theodora smiled indulgently.
“Leave her alone,” she whispered. “She’s not herself yet. This wretched
business has been too much for her.”
“Why should it be too much for her more than for anybody else?” asked
the innkeeper, fiercely.
Nell turned with a start, and her eyes were full of horror as she met
those of her uncle. Miss Theodora pulled him impatiently by the arm.
“Men have no sympathy,” she said reproachfully. “My father is just the
same. You don’t make any allowance for a woman’s nerves. And yet, if
we don’t have nerves, you complain that we are mannish and unlovable.
Oh, Mr. Claris, I didn’t think it of you! I didn’t, indeed. I’ve often
thought that your gentleness to Nell was a pattern to be copied by
other men in their treatment of ladies.”
The excitement of the day had rendered Miss Bostal much more loquacious
and condescending than was usual with her. Her father, who had not been
in court, came up at this moment, and, with a nod to George Claris and
a cold salutation to Nell, drew Miss Theodora away.
The old gentleman looked cold and was decidedly cross.
“Come away! Come along!” said he. “Mrs. Lansdowne will give us a lift
on her way home. I don’t know what you want to go hanging about the
place for a minute longer than you need. I should think you were glad
to get this gruesome affair done with. Come along!”
And Miss Theodora dutifully allowed him to lead her away.
The cold drive home of George Claris and his niece began in silence.
They were already in sight of the little group of buildings of which
the Blue Lion was the principal, when the girl, turning suddenly to her
uncle, asked:
“Uncle George, what is the matter? Why are you different, different to
me?”
There was a pause. A struggle was going on in the man’s breast, a
struggle pitifully keen, between the love he had always borne toward
his Nell and the attacks of doubt and suspicion. It was in a husky,
unnatural voice that he presently replied, parrying the question:
“Different! How different?”
“You know, you know,” Nell whispered back.
George Claris looked at her. And for a minute the old trust came back
into his heart, and he told himself that he was a fool, a miserable
old fool, to allow a doubt of her absolute goodness and truth to enter
his mind. And then again the ugly thoughts which had begun to darken
his mind, subtly instilled by the doubt and suspicion in all the minds
around him, clouded over him once more. He could not give her an open
answer, although he felt that it would have been better if he could
have done so. He heaved a big sigh, and answered without looking.
“Ah, well, my girl, it’s not so easy to be lively and cheerful with
such things as them,” and he vaguely indicated the recent occurrence,
jerking his whip back in the direction of Stroan, “happening under
one’s very windows, almost.”
And then they both were silent, both conscious at the same moment that
they were close to the spot where the body of Jem Stickels had been
found on the previous night. Both uncle and niece looked furtively
at the spot, easily discernible by the trodden-down condition of the
wayside grass. And then, quite suddenly, their furtive glances sought
each other’s face, and for a moment their eyes met.
“Uncle,” asked Nell, in a whisper, “was the gun that fired the bullet
found?”
George Claris shook his head in answer.
This, indeed, was the chief difficulty with which the local police, put
on their mettle by the presence in their midst of Hemming, the London
detective, had to contend.
The bullet found in the head of Jem Stickels had evidently been fired
from an old-fashioned weapon, being of large size and of obsolete
pattern. And no weapon had been found in the neighborhood, after a
diligent and exhaustive search. The theory of the doctors was that
the bullet had been discharged from a pistol at a distance of at least
some yards; but at present this theory had borne no fruit except in the
brain of the detective, Hemming.
That astute person had been revolving in his mind an idea, which he
took care to keep to himself, and which led him, within an hour of the
conclusion of the inquest, in the direction of Shingle End.
Where would Nell be so likely to find a weapon with which to commit the
crime which freed her from her fear of Jem Stickels as at the house
of an old soldier? Somewhere about the house, and probably in a place
with which she, an habitué of the house, was well acquainted, the old
colonel would be sure to keep some mementos of his soldiering days, an
inspection of which Hemming felt was very likely to give him the clue
he wanted.
It was, as usual, Miss Bostal who opened the door to him. Her prim face
seemed to light up on seeing who it was.
“Come in, do come in,” said she, throwing the door wide open, and
inviting him to enter the drawing-room. “I do hope you have got some
more news for us. Do you know I hope more from what you will find out
than from all these country policemen! If they were to sit and talk
till mid-summer, I don’t believe they would be any nearer to finding
out who did it than they are now.”
The detective smiled.
“I think you’re too hard upon them, ma’am,” said he. “They think
they’ve got a pretty good clue already. And they quite expect to make
an arrest before many days are over.”
Miss Bostal, who had followed him into the drawing-room, and was
proceeding to light a solitary candle, after her hospitable custom,
shrugged her little, thin shoulders impatiently.
“They always say that. But what do you think?”
The detective did not answer at once. And when she turned to inquire
the reason of this, she perceived by the expression of his face
something had startled him.
“What is the matter?” she asked, quickly.
“I suppose these doings have made me nervous, like the rest of them,
ma’am,” answered he, looking down at his hat, and brushing it carefully
with his hand. “For I fancied I saw somebody looking in at the window.”
Miss Bostal looked at him curiously. It seemed to her that from where
he stood he could see neither of the windows, nor even the reflection
of one of them in the glass over the mantelpiece. However, she knew
better than to argue with a detective. She walked to the windows, one
after the other, and looked out.
“I don’t see anybody,” said she. “It may have been one of the urchins
of the place, peeping in out of curiosity. This room is not much used,
and the light may have attracted him.”
“Very likely, ma’am.”
“And now what is there we can do for you, for, of course, you have come
on business?”
“Why, yes, ma’am. Things look very black against your young lady friend
yonder.”
And he nodded in the direction of the Blue Lion.
“Now, Mr. Hemming, I will not hear a word against that girl,” said Miss
Bostal, with sudden warmth. “I tell you the notion is absurd that the
child should have had anything to do with it. And I am surprised to
hear such a preposterous suggestion from a man of your discernment.”
The detective looked down at his hat.
“It does you credit, ma’am, to take her part,” he said, rather dryly.
“Still, there are some questions I must ask the colonel, if he will
give me five minutes. And I’m sure I shall be glad enough if he can
help to clear her.”
“My father will see you, I am sure,” said Miss Bostal, promptly, going
to the door. “Because he is as sure as I am that all light on this
matter is in Miss Claris’s interest.”
And, rather resentfully glancing at him as she went out, she crossed
the stone-flagged passage, and told her father that the London
detective wished to see him.
“Show him in here,” Hemming heard the colonel answer, in tones much
more disturbed than his daughter’s.
Miss Theodora ushered Hemming into the dining-room, which looked snug
and warm after the cold bareness of the state apartment; and then she
left the two men together.
“I’ve come to ask you, sir,” said Hemming, when he had apologized for
intruding, “whether you have any firearms stored away about the house?”
“Firearms? No, certainly not,” answered the colonel, in a tone of
indignation which showed that he scented Hemming’s desire to connect
his property with the outrage.
“No offense, sir,” said Hemming, persuasively. “But I am bound to make
inquiries, as you know. I see you’ve got a trophy on the wall outside,
with spears, a long Afghan gun, and--”
“Why, that gun would do more harm to the man who fired it than it would
to anything he fired at!”
“And there’s an old pistol there, too. May I look at that?”
“Certainly you can, if you choose.”
The detective availed himself of the permission, and brought into the
room from the place where they had hung on the wall of the passage, the
Afghan gun, a short and heavy camel-gun, and the pistol in question. It
was an old cavalry pistol, of obsolete pattern.
This weapon Hemming proceeded to handle with interest.
“Take care,” said the colonel, suddenly ducking his head as the
detective held it up and put his hand on the trigger. “It’s loaded.”
“I think not,” answered Hemming, quietly.
And he pulled the trigger three or four times without effect. The
colonel jumped up.
“Why,” cried he, “I loaded it myself the other day! I was showing the
ladies how it was used, and I know I loaded it before I put it back in
its place.”
“Ah,” said Hemming, more dryly than ever, “it’s been used since then,
sir. Will you show me the bullets you have by you? I want to compare
them with one at the Stroan police station.”
“Why, man, you don’t mean to say you suppose--”
“That you showed it to the ladies to some purpose? I’m afraid I do,
sir.”