AFTER EVENTS
Here was a freakish thing. I had talked about Destiny as a _dea ex
machina_, and the goddess personally had come to superintend the drama
in which I was supposed--as I shrewdly suspected by this time--to take
a leading part. However, as open confession is good for the soul, I
may as well state, and at the eleventh hour, that this story was
written when the mystery was solved and justice had been done--I threw
it, as it were, into a fictional form. Thus, as I knew the odd name of
the little lady when writing I played upon its oddity, and saw in her
the incarnation of the goddess who maps out the future. You can take
this explanation with or without the proverbial grain of salt, as you
choose. Meanwhile, here we are on the threshold of a mystery, and a
flesh and blood creature, with the significant name of Destiny appears
on the scene.
When the new-comer stood up and turned her face to the light I had a
better view of her. She was even smaller than Mrs. Giles--what one
would call a tiny woman--and was perfectly shaped. Not quite a dwarf,
but very nearly one, and her face, pointed, wrinkled, and of a
parchment hue, looked as old as the Pyramids. The most youthful thing
about her was the undimmed brilliancy of her eyes. These, dark,
piercing, unwinking, and marvellously steady, blazed--I use the word
advisedly--under a Marie Antoinette arrangement of wonderfully white
hair, like spun silk. Her hat had been removed by the officious Mrs.
Faith, so I could take in her looks very easily. She wore a shabby
black silk dress, much worn, an equally shabby black velvet mantle,
old-fashioned and trimmed sparsely with beads, and had cotton
gloves--black ones--on her skinny hands, with cloth boots on her tiny
feet. From her general appearance she might have stepped out of a
child's fairy-book, as a representation of Cinderella's godmother. As
her first faintness had passed away--thanks to Mrs. Giles' whisky--she
was now wonderfully composed, and stood before me dropping elfish
curtseys without a tremor of the face, or a blink of the eye.
"Miss Destiny," she said again; "and you, sir?"
"Cyrus Vance," I answered, "at present in custody as a suspected
robber."
Giles murmured something incoherent to the effect that this was not
so, but Miss Destiny paid no attention to him. "Robber of what, sir?"
"Of Mrs. Caldershaw's glass eye."
"O dear me!" The little lady sat down promptly. "Do you mean to say
that she has lost it at last, and that you took it?"
"I did not take it, madam, although I am credited with the theft, but
it is assuredly lost. But why--at last?"
Miss Destiny moved her hands in the shabby black cotton gloves
nervously and swallowed something--possibly the truth, although I had,
on the face of it, no reason to suspect her of lying. "I was on my way
to see Anne Caldershaw," she said timidly.
"What?" Mrs. Faith's dark countenance lighted up with curiosity. "You
knew her--you knew her."
"Intimately," replied Miss Destiny, somewhat primly. "She was my
brother's housekeeper at Burwain for years. Then he died, and Anne
came here. Burwain, which is between Gattlingsands and Tarhaven, is
subject to fogs," explained the little lady, "and Anne believed that
clear inland air would suit her chest better."
I knew Burwain as a somnolent hamlet set in a flat country and muffled
with woods and tall hedges. This very day had I passed it in the
Rippler, when conveying Cannington to Murchester. It was odd that this
little woman should mention it of all places.
"You know that Mrs. Caldershaw is dead," I ventured to remark.
Miss Destiny threw up her hands. "The shock of it," she whimpered. "I
was coming to see her and remain for the night. My servant, Lucinda,
drove me from Burwain in my trap."
"Cart," struck in Mrs. Faith vehemently, while Giles and his wife,
standing near the fire, held their peace.
"It is a cart," admitted Miss Destiny, "which I have turned into a
trap, as I am very, very, very poor." Her voice ascended to the last
word. "Yesterday morning I started, and stayed last night with a
friend at Saxham, which is half way to Murchester. This morning we
drove on again, and were approaching Mootley when the motor car nearly
smashed my trap."
"My motor car?" I asked quickly.
"I heard something about its belonging to a gentleman," said Miss
Destiny; "it was, however, driven by a woman in a long white
cloak----"
"The lady I saw," murmured Giles, of whom Miss Destiny took no notice.
"She drove headlong down a steep incline, and came within a
handbreadth of the trap, Mr. Vance. Then she swerved round and went
smashing through a wooden gate, not too securely fashioned, into a
field. I was very much upset, and Lucinda--always mindful of my
comfort--drove on to Mootley as quickly as possible. There"--Miss
Destiny rose and became quite dramatic--"I was met with the news that
Anne Caldershaw had been found dead. The news upset me so that I
nearly fainted. But this good woman," she indicated Mrs. Faith with a
gracious bend of the head, "brought me here; and I am obliged to these
honest people," she nodded towards Giles and his wife, "for reviving
me. Where I am to stop the night I don't know, as Anne informed me in
her letter that there is no inn here."
"There's a public-house," put in Giles reflectively, "but it isn't fit
for a lady like you. If you will stay here, ma'am, for the night----"
"If it's not very expensive," interrupted Miss Destiny.
"It will cost nothing, ma'am," said Giles curtly. "I'm none so poor,
but what I can't give a bite and a bed to a stranger."
"Then I accept with pleasure," replied Miss Destiny, and really seemed
delighted at the idea of getting bed and breakfast for nothing. Either
she was very poor, or she was avaricious. I could not decide which,
but gave her the benefit of the doubt, and looked upon her as a
reduced gentlewoman.
"What about me, Giles?" I asked when this was settled.
"It's early yet, sir, so if you will wait here until Lord Cannington
comes from Murchester, you can go back with him, after seeing
Warshaw."
"Oh, I don't want to go back. I am anxious to see the end of this
tragedy."
"In that case, sir, the missus can put you up too, if you don't mind a
shake-down. There's room enough for all."
"I can make you comfortable in the parlour," said Mrs. Giles, thinking
of ways and means, "the lady can sleep in the spare bedroom."
"With Lucinda," put in Miss Destiny. "She is outside with the trap,
and if you will see that the horse is put into some stable and that
Lucinda is brought in to have supper, you will be conferring a great
favour on me. I really couldn't sleep without Lucinda, as my nerves
are not what they ought to be, and this dreadful occurrence has upset
them greatly."
Giles, who seemed to be singularly generous and hospitable, nodded and
went out to see after Lucinda and the trap, while Mrs. Giles boiled a
couple of eggs for the visitor who had so unexpectedly appeared. Mrs.
Faith, with her hands on her hips, and her dark face alive with
curiosity, stared hard at the frail figure of the shabby little lady.
"About the glass eye," she asked eagerly, with a side glance at me,
"which this gentleman took?"
"I didn't take it," I said sharply, for the way in which the woman
assumed me to be guilty was unbearable. "So far as I remember, Mrs.
Caldershaw had two eyes when I saw her body, though, to be sure, I
might have been mistaken, seeing I had only a match. And I was
mistaken," I added vigorously, "for if the woman who stole my motor
car took the eye, she must have done so before I saw the corpse. But
why should the eye be stolen?" I looked at Miss Destiny for an answer.
The little old lady shook her head. "It's the oddest thing," she said
at length and in a lively manner. "When Anne was my brother's
housekeeper, it was well known that she had a glass eye to which she
appeared to attach a ridiculous value. She often declared that she
would not lose it for a fortune. What she meant I can't say; but since
the eye has been stolen, she must have meant something."
"It's remarkably strange," I muttered, for the mystery of the eye was
beginning to attract me. "Have you no idea----"
"I know nothing more than I have told you," said Miss Destiny sharply.
"By the way, how did Anne die?"
"No one knows," said Mrs. Faith, determined to join in the
conversation and restless at having kept silence for so long.
"Frampton declared that she had a fit."
"Nonsense. Anne, so far as I know, never had fits. A lean, spare woman
such as Anne was, could not have a fit."
"Lean people may have fits as well as fat ones," said I wisely.
"I am not doctor enough to say," said Miss Destiny wearily, "and I am
very tired with the journey and the news I have received. Poor Anne,
she was a good and faithful servant."
"She wasn't popular here," said Mrs. Faith tartly.
"She kept very much to herself," said Mrs. Giles, placing the eggs
before Miss Destiny; "a very close woman."
"Anne never was one for gossip," observed Miss Destiny, sipping a cup
of hot tea. "None knew her better than I."
"Tell us all about her," said Mrs. Faith curiously.
Miss Destiny shook her head. "I am too tired," she confessed, "and
after I have had my supper I shall go to bed, if this honest woman
permits. To-morrow I shall tell the police all I know."
"The police," said Mrs. Giles, with a start.
"Certainly." Miss Destiny looked hard at the greengrocer's wife. "As
Anne is so mysteriously dead, and as her glass eye is missing, and as
this gentleman's motor car has been carried off--so they told me at
the shop--the police will certainly ask questions. I shall answer
them."
Mrs. Faith struck in again. "But can you give any reason?"
"I shall say nothing at present," interrupted Miss Destiny, with quite
a grand air of rebuke. "Oh, Lucinda!"
The door had opened while she spoke and a gigantic figure, whether of
man or woman, stepped cumbrously into the room. I doubted the sex,
because although Lucinda wore petticoats, she also wore a distinct
moustache, and displayed a rugged flat face, masculine in contour.
With a man's cap on her scanty drab-hued hair and a man's pea-jacket
clothing her spare body, with large driving-gloves and a red muffler,
and nothing feminine about her save a short dress of light blue,
beneath which appeared a pair of large lace-up boots, I may be excused
for my doubts. Her eyes were grey and small and tired-looking, but
they lighted with tender love when she beheld her mistress. Miss
Destiny, looked smaller than ever, as the huge woman strode towards
her to speak in one of the sweetest voices I have ever heard. These
nightingale notes, proceeding from a kind of female Blunderbore, were
scarcely in keeping with the coarse exterior.
"Are you rested, mistress? have you eaten? is your head bad? are your
feet cold?" demanded Lucinda in a breath and with a voice of an
archangel.
"I am much better, Lucinda," said Miss Destiny wearily, "but I should
like to go to my room," and she closed her bright black eyes.
"I'll take you there, mistress," said the Amazon, and picked up the
little woman like a feather, turning to address Mrs. Giles as she did
so. "Where's the bedroom, mum?"
"I'll show you," said Mrs. Giles, and conducted the odd couple into an
inner room with an air of amazement, which showed that Lucinda had
startled her also by the mixed sexual appearance she presented. I
could not help thinking that Giles and his wife were a singularly
good-natured couple to allow the house to be stormed in this fashion.
"What do you think of it all?" asked Mrs. Faith when we were alone. I
was beginning to dislike the woman for her unwarrantable curiosity.
"It is amusing."
"Amusing!" She stared aghast.
"The unexpected is always amusing," said I. "But come outside and
we'll see Giles. I want him to take me to Mrs. Caldershaw's shop
again. It is necessary for me to see Warshaw and tell him my story. I
don't want a garbled version to reach him, as it is hard to remove
first impressions."
Mrs. Faith, keeping a jealous eye on me--I verily believe that she
still credited me with knowing more about the death that I would
confess--shepherded me round the cottage into a small stable, where
Giles was attending to the horse. After delivering me into his charge
with the air of a police officer, she remarked that she would go home
and drink a cup of tea. I was glad to see the back of the inquisitive
woman, and said as much to Giles.
"Ay," he remarked, smiling quietly, "she's a rare one for other
people's business is Mrs. Faith. Well, sir, what's to be done now?"
"I want you to come with me to Mrs. Caldershaw's shop, as I must see
the policeman. And I say, Giles," I added, as we turned out of the
yard and walked along the dark, damp road, "it's ridiculous all of us
using your cottage as a hotel in this fashion. If Miss Destiny doesn't
pay you I shall do so, and in any case, I shall pay for myself."
"You're of a forgiving nature, Mr. Vance, seeing how nearly I broke
your neck, sir," said Giles, smiling again.
"Pooh! I would have done the same myself, seeing that I was taken, as
it were, red-handed. By the way, you heard of the way in which this
strange woman has run my motor into a field?"
"Yes, sir. Lucinda--she told me her name--explained what had
happened."
"I hope my car isn't smashed up," I grumbled, turning up my coat
collar, for the night was growing chilly. "I don't suppose that thief
of a woman could drive for nuts. Well, well, it's a queer business
altogether. I wonder how it will all end?"
"We must wait and see, Mr. Vance. These things are in the hands of
Providence, you know," said Giles soberly, and then I gathered that
the retired greengrocer had a strong religious vein--evangelistical
for choice.
"Or in the hands of Miss Destiny," I murmured, for I still held to the
fantastical belief that the shabby little woman had come from Olympus.
During the two hours which had elapsed since Giles took me into
custody, law and order had been established in and about the tragic
shop. Warshaw--as I afterwards learned--had come post-haste from
Arkleigh, which was no very great distance away, and had brought with
him a brother constable. This last was on guard at the shop door,
before which a group of people were chattering excitedly, and Warshaw
himself attended to the inside of the house. A few words to the
Cerebus gained Giles and myself admission, and we were informed
incidentally that a messenger on bicycle had been sent to the
Murchester Inspector with details of the death and of the loot of the
motor car. Shortly, said the policeman at the door, the Inspector
would arrive to take charge of the case.
Warshaw proved to be a lean, red-haired, sedate young constable, who
had been in the army and who knew a gentleman when he saw one. He was
therefore extremely civil to me, and heard my story with great
gravity. Afterwards he questioned Giles, and then logged both tales in
his pocket-book. He did not seem to suspect that I was guilty of
assault or robbery, but intimated politely that it would be just as
well if I remained in his company until Inspector Dredge arrived from
Murchester. Then I offered him a cigarette and we began to chat.
"What do you think of the case?" I asked, lighting up.
"I don't know what to think of it, sir," he replied with a doubtful
air. "The deceased is dead, but, not being a doctor, I can't see
how she came by her death. Her left eye--which I believe was a glass
one--is missing, and a man said it was in her head at five o'clock
when she attended to him in the shop. Yes," he shook his closely
cropped hair, "it's a queer case."
"Do you think she was assaulted and rendered insensible for the sake
of this glass eye?"
"I can't say, sir, and if I might suggest to you, sir, it will be best
to ask no questions and to say nothing on your part until Inspector
Dredge arrives."
"I shall only ask one question, Warshaw. Has anything been stolen?"
"No, sir. It isn't a case of burglary, I swear."
After Warshaw's hint, of course, I held my tongue. We were in the back
room, and the corpse of Mrs. Caldershaw was still lying on the floor
with a rug over it. Until Dredge and a doctor arrived the local
policeman wisely decided to leave it as it had been found. I shuddered
a trifle at the cold clay of the unfortunate woman, which I knew lay
under the gaudy rug, and glanced round the room. It was of no great
size and furnished in a plain way--comfortable enough, but not
luxurious. The walls were adorned with a flamboyant red paper,
scrolled aggressively with some unnatural green vegetation; and on the
floor a diapered black and white linoleum lay under a white-washed
ceiling. The furniture consisted of an Early Victorian horsehair
mahogany suite, adorned with vividly tinted antimacassars; a
sticky-looking varnished side-board, upon which stood a decayed
wedding-cake top under a glass shade; a moderately sized round table
covered with a blue cloth, and over it a home-made swing bookcase,
containing antique and uninviting volumes, chiefly concerned, as I
discovered, with religion. Also there was an old-fashioned grate in
which a diminutive fire smouldered, a grandfather clock--now
indicating the hour of nine--and finally, on the glaringly covered
walls a few cheap oleographs, apparently taken from the Christmas
numbers of illustrated papers. A tall brass-pillared lamp, giving out
an exceedingly bad light, stood on the round table, and but faintly
illuminated the homely apartment.
Later my attention was attracted by a photograph on the mantelpiece--a
sumptuous photograph by an artistic London firm, set in an ornate
silver frame, far too expensive for the late Mrs. Caldershaw to
have purchased herself. I struck a match to examine it. Out of the
semi-darkness flashed a truly lovely face, with the sweetest smile I
had ever beheld. In the flickering light, I saw the head and shoulders
and bust of a girl--a lady, a goddess I might say. She was arrayed in
an evening dress of the simplest kind, untrimmed and unadorned in any
way. Not even a necklace appeared on the swan-like grace of the neck,
and no bracelets accentuated the outline of the finely-moulded arms.
And the face--I fell in love with it at sight--with its haunting eyes
and grave, tender, wishful smile. The hair was dressed in the plain
Greek fashion, and the head, being turned a trifle to one side,
ravished me with its chaste loveliness. Doubtless the picture
represented a modern young lady, but to me it gleamed forth from the
darkness as a revelation of Diana, but not of the Ephesians. No! here
was the virginal huntress, who slew Actæn, who solaced the dying
Hippolytus, and who came to Endymion in dreams on Mount Latmus. I was
no raw boy, and--I have confessed it before--I had never been in love;
but this exquisite face captured my heart, my fancy, my psychic
senses, and all that there was in me to respond to the mystery of sex.
Love at first sight was a mighty truth after all. Here was--my wife.
"Nonsense," said I aloud at this point, and the match went out after
burning my fingers. The men looked up inquiringly, and keeping well
back in the gloom I coloured warmly. "It's nothing. An idle thought
passed through my mind. I wonder,"--here I hesitated, as I was on the
verge of asking the two what they knew about the portrait. But an
inexplicable sense of nervous shame kept me silent on this point and I
finished my sentence in another way. "I wonder when the Inspector will
arrive," said I with a yawn.
At that moment, as if in answer to my question, the sound of
approaching wheels was heard, and we sharply walked into the shop to
see a trap halting before the door. A tall, military-looking man
descended and stalked forward, followed by a policeman and a cheerful
red-faced individual, who looked what he was--a country practitioner.
A carefully cultivated habit of observation--invaluable to playwright
or novelist--has quickened my comprehension, so I guessed the doctor's
profession the moment he entered the shop. Dredge was grim and
hard-mouthed and steady-eyed, and sparing of words on all occasions.
He listened to Warshaw's report without committing himself to speech,
and then tersely asked the doctor--Scoot was his queer name--to
inspect the corpse in his presence. I remained with Giles in the shop,
as I had no desire to participate in the gruesome examination. The
policeman who had come from Murchester, took up his station at the
door along with his comrade, and to him I addressed myself.
"Do you know if the messenger who came to see Inspector Dredge went on
to the Barracks?" I asked, for I was wondering why Cannington had not
arrived.
"Yes, sir," said the officer saluting. "As soon as the Inspector heard
of the murder he sent him on, and then we drove here."
"Strange!" I murmured, for I knew that Cannington was not the boy to
let grass grow under his feet when a friend was in trouble. As it was
still early he would not be in bed, and as some hours had elapsed,
there was ample time for him to arrive. Indeed I had expected him to
precede the police.
Giles frowned and shook his head. "I think Ashley was sent," he said
in his rough voice, "and he's but a wastrel. I only hope he has gone
to the Barracks, and is not drinking in some public-house. News of a
murder will get him many free drinks."
I shrugged my shoulders. "That may be the case, Giles. However, it
doesn't matter. I can stay with you, and to-morrow we can send a more
reliable messenger to Lord Cannington."
"Oh, his lordship may arrive yet," ventured the ex-greengrocer.
"Perhaps. But I doubt it. He would have arrived before had he heard of
my dilemma. Ah, here's the Inspector."
Dredge looked more gloomy and forbidding than ever. I understood,
although he did not inform me, that Dr. Scoot was still examining the
dead body, and that Dredge had come to ask questions. I was right in
my latter surmise, at all events, for he examined me thoroughly and
set down my replies in a book. Then he gave me a piece of information.
"Your motor car, sir, is standing in a field some distance from
Murchester, abandoned. We saw it through the broken gate, when we
drove past. A hasty examination showed us that it has not been much
injured."
Before I could reply, the agitated voice of Scoot was heard calling
for the Inspector. I followed Dredge into the back room. The doctor
had opened the dead woman's bodice and was pointing to a gleam of blue
glass.
"See! see!" he said loudly, "the head of a hat-pin!" He drew it out.
"Yes, this poor wretched woman has been murdered by having a hat-pin
thrust into her heart."
I thought of the white-cloaked female who had stolen my car, but said
nothing.