Colwyn found Mr. Oakham awaiting him in the hotel lobby, a little before
eleven the following morning, to inform him that the necessary
arrangements had been made to enable him to be present at his interview
with Penreath. Colwyn forbore to ask him on what pretext he had obtained
the gaol governor's consent to his presence, but merely signified that
he was ready. Mr. Oakham replied that they had better go at once, and
asked the porter to call a taxi.
On arriving at the gaol they passed through the double entrance gates,
Mr. Oakham turned to a door on the left just within the gates, and
entered. The door opened into a plainly furnished office, with walls
covered with prison regulations. Behind a counter, at a stand-up desk
opposite the door, a tall burly man in a uniform of blue and silver was
busily writing in a large ledger. Ranged in rows, on hooks alongside
him, were bunches of immense keys, and as he turned to attend to Oakham
and Colwyn another bunch of similar keys could be seen dangling at his
side. Mr. Oakham explained the purpose of their visit, and produced the
order for the interview. The functionary in blue and silver, who was the
entrance gaoler, perused it attentively, and pushed over two forms for
the solicitor and the detective to fill in. It was the last formality
that the law insisted on--a grim form of visiting card whereon the
visitor inscribes his name and business, which is sent to the condemned
man, who must give his consent to the interview before it is granted.
When Mr. Oakham and Colwyn had filled in their forms the entrance gaoler
took them and pulled a rope. Somewhere in a corridor a bell clanged, and
a moment afterwards a gaoler opened a small door on the other side of
the counter. The entrance gaoler gave him the forms, and he disappeared
with them. There ensued a long period of waiting, and nearly half an
hour elapsed before he reappeared again, accompanied by a warder. The
blue and silver functionary silently lifted the flap of the counter, and
beckoned Mr. Oakham and Colwyn to accompany the warder through the small
door at the other end of the room.
They went through and the bell clanged once more as the door closed
behind them. The warder took them along a corridor to a door at the
farther end, and ushered them into a room--a large apartment, not unlike
a board room, furnished with a table and chairs ranged on each side. It
was the governor of the gaol's room, where the interview was to take
place. Colwyn took one of the chairs at the table, Mr. Oakham took
another, and silently they awaited the coming of the condemned man.
Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the door at the other end of
the room opened, and Penreath appeared between two warders. They
conducted him to the table, and placed a chair for him. With a quick
glance at his visitors he sat down, and the warders seated themselves on
each side of him. The warder who had brought the visitors in then nodded
to Mr. Oakham, as an indication that the interview might begin.
In the brief glance that the young man cast at his visitors Colwyn
observed both calmness of mind and self-possession. Although deep
shadows under the eyes and the tenseness of the muscles round the mouth
revealed sleepless nights and mental agony, Penreath's face showed no
trace of insanity or the guilty consciousness of evil deeds, but had the
serene expression of a man who had fought his battle and won it.
Mr. Oakham began the interview with him in a dry professional way, as
though it were an interview between solicitor and client in the sanctity
of a private room, with no hearers. And, indeed, the prison warders
sitting there with the impassive faces of officialdom might have been
articles of furniture, so remote were they from displaying the slightest
interest in the private matters discussed between the two. No doubt they
had been present at many similar scenes, and custom is a deadening
factor. Mr. Oakham's object was to urge his client to consent to the
lodgement of an appeal against the jury's verdict, and to that end he
advanced a multitude of arguments and a variety of reasons. The young
man listened patiently, but when the solicitor had concluded he shook
his head with a gesture of finality which indicated an unalterable
refusal.
"It's no use, Oakham," he said. "My mind is quite made up. I'm obliged
to you for all the trouble you have taken in my case, but I cannot alter
my decision. I shall go through with it--to the end."
"In that case it is no use my urging you further." Mr. Oakham spoke
stiffly, and put his eye-glasses in his pocket with an air of vexation.
"Mr. Colwyn has something to say to you on the subject. Perhaps you will
listen to him. He believes he can help you."
"He helped to arrest me," said Penreath, with a slight indifferent look
at the detective.
"But not to convict you," said Colwyn. "I had hoped to help you."
"What do you want of me?" Penreath's tone was cold.
"In the first place, I have to say that I believe you innocent."
The young man lifted his eyebrows slightly, as if to indicate that the
other's opinion was a matter of indifference to him, but he remained
silent.
"I have come to beg of you, even at this late hour, to break your
silence, and give an account of your actions that night at the inn."
"You might have saved yourself the trouble of coming here. I have
nothing whatever to say."
"That means that you continue in your refusal to speak. Will you answer
one or two questions?"
"No."
"Will you not tell me why you kept silence about what you saw in Mr.
Glenthorpe's room that night of the murder?"
"Man, how did you find that out?" Penreath's calm disappeared in a
sudden fury of voice and look. "What do you know?"
"I know whom you are trying to shield," replied the detective, with his
eyes fixed on Penreath's face. "You are wrong. She----"
"I beg of you to be silent! Do not mention names, for God's sake."
Penreath's face had grown suddenly white.
"It is in your power to ensure my silence."
"How?"
"By speaking yourself."
"That I will never do."
"Then you compel me to go to the authorities and tell them what I have
discovered. I will save you in spite of yourself."
"Do you think that I want to be saved--like that?"
Struggling desperately for self-control Penreath turned to Mr. Oakham.
"Why did you bring Mr. Colwyn here?" he asked the solicitor fiercely.
"To torture me?"
Before Mr. Oakham could reply Colwyn laughed aloud. A clear ringing
laugh of unmistakable satisfaction. The laugh sounded strangely
incongruous in such a place.
"Penreath," he said, "you've told me all that I came here to know.
You're a splendid young Briton, but finesse is not your strong point.
You've acted like a quixotic young idiot in this case, and got yourself
into a nice muddle for nothing. The girl is as innocent as you are, and
you are a pair of simpletons! Yes. I mean what I say," continued the
detective, answering the young man's amazed look with a reassuring
smile. "Do you think that I would want to save you at her expense? Now
perhaps, when I have told you what happened that night, you will answer
a few questions. Before you went to bed you sat down and wrote a letter
on a leaf torn from your pocket-book. That letter was to Miss
Willoughby, breaking off your engagement. After writing it you went to
bed. At that time it was raining hard.
"You must have fallen asleep almost immediately, and slept for half an
hour--perhaps a little more--for when you awoke the rain had ceased. You
heard a slight noise in your room, and lit your candle to see what it
was. There was a rat in the corner of the room. You got up to throw
something at it, but as soon as you moved the rat darted across the room
and disappeared behind the wardrobe at the side of the bed. You pushed
back the wardrobe and----"
"For God's sake, say no more!" said Penreath. His face was grey, and he
was staring at the detective with the eyes of a man who saw his heart's
secret--the secret for which he was prepared to die--being dragged out
into the light of day. "How did you learn all this?"
"That does not matter much just now. What you saw through the wall made
you determine to leave the house as speedily as possible, and also
caused you to destroy the letter you had written to Miss Willoughby.
"You were wrong in what you did. In the first place, you misinterpreted
what you saw through the door in the wall. By thinking Peggy guilty and
leaving the inn early in the morning, you not only wronged her
grievously, but brought suspicion on yourself. Peggy's presence in the
room was quite by accident. She had gone to ask Mr. Glenthorpe to assist
you in your trouble, by lending you money, and, finding the door open,
she impulsively went in and found him dead--murdered. And at the bedside
she picked up the knife--the knife you had used at dinner--and this."
Colwyn produced Penreath's match-box from his pocket and laid it on the
table in front of him.
"Because of the knife and this match-box she thought you guilty."
"I! Why I never left my room after I went into it," exclaimed Penreath.
"I left the match-box in the room where I had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe.
When I awoke after falling asleep, and heard the noise in the room--just
as you describe--I could not find my match-box when I wanted a match to
light my candle, then I remembered that I had left it in the
sitting-room on the mantelpiece. I happened to find a loose match in my
vest pocket."
"Peggy came to see me at my hotel, after the trial, and told me all she
knew," continued Colwyn. "It was well she did, for my second visit to
the inn brought to light a number of facts which will enable me to
establish your innocence."
"And what about the real murderer?" asked Penreath, in a hesitating
voice, without looking at the detective.
"We will not go into that just now, unless you have anything to tell me
that will throw further light on the events of the night." Colwyn shot a
keen, questioning glance at the young man.
"I will answer any questions you wish to put to me. It is the least I
can do after having made such a fool of myself. It was the shock of
seeing Peggy in the room that robbed me of my judgment. I should have
known her better, but you must remember that I had no idea she was in
the house until I looked through the door in the wall which I had
accidentally discovered, and saw her standing at the bedside, with the
knife in her hand. I started to follow her home that day because I
wished to know more about her. I lost my way in the mist. I met a man on
the marshes who directed me to the village and the inn."
"When she heard your voice, and saw you going upstairs, she waited about
in the hope of seeing you before she went to bed, as she wished to avoid
meeting you in the presence of her father. When she saw Mr. Glenthorpe's
door open she acted on a sudden impulse, and went in."
"I have been rightly punished for my stupidity and my folly," said
Penreath. "I have wronged her beyond forgiveness."
"You really have not much to blame yourself for except your obstinate
silence. That was really too quixotic, even if things had been as you
imagined. No man is justified in sacrificing his life foolishly. And you
had much to live for. You had your duty to do in life. Nobody knew that
better than you--a soldier who had served his country gallantly and
well. In fact, your silence has been to me one of the puzzles of this
case, and even now it seems to me that you must have had a deeper motive
than that of shielding the girl, because you could have asserted your
innocence without implicating her."
"You are a very clever man, Colwyn," said the other slowly. "There was
another reason for my silence."
"What was it?"
"I am supposed to be an epileptic. I happen to know a little of the
course of that frightful disease, and it seemed to me that it was better
to die--even at the hands of the hangman--than to live on to be a burden
to my friends and relations, particularly when by dying I could shield
the girl I loved. That is why I was glad when the plea put up for my
defence failed. I preferred to die rather than live branded as a
criminal lunatic. So, you see, it was not such a great sacrifice on my
part, after all."
"What brought you back to the wood where you were arrested?"
"To see her. I do not know if I wanted to speak to her; but I wanted
above all things to see her once again. When I left the inn that morning
I had no idea that I might fall under suspicion for having committed the
murder, but I was desperately unhappy after what I had seen the night
before, and I didn't care what I did or where I went. Instead of walking
back to Durrington I struck across the marshes in the opposite
direction. I walked along all day, through a desolate area of marshes,
meeting nobody except an old eel fisherman in the morning, and, later
on, a labourer going home from his work. I was very tired when I saw the
labourer, and I asked him to direct me to some place where I could
obtain rest and refreshment. He pointed to a short cut across the
marshes, which, he said, led to a hamlet with an inn. I went along the
path he had pointed out, but I lost my way in the gathering darkness.
After wandering about the marshes for some time I saw the light of a
cottage window some distance off, and went there to inquire my way. The
occupant, an old peasant woman, could not have heard anything about the
murder, for she was very kind to me, and gave me tea and food.
Afterwards I set out for the inn again, and when I reached the road I
sat down by the side of it to rest awhile.
"While I was sitting there two men came along. They did not see me in
the dark, and I heard them talking about the murder, and from what they
said I knew that I was suspected, and that the whole country side was
searching for me. It seemed incredible to me, and my first instinct was
to fly. I sat there until the men's voices died away in the distance,
then I turned off the road, and hurried across some fields, looking for
a place to hide. After walking some distance I came to a large barn,
standing by itself. The door was open, and I went in. I had no matches,
but I felt some hay or straw on the floor. I lay down and pulled some
over me, and fell fast asleep.
"I had only intended to rest in the barn for a while, but I was so tired
that I slept all night. When I awoke it was broad daylight. I did not
know where I was at first, but it all came back to me, and I started up
in a fright, determined to leave the barn as quickly as possible, for I
knew it was an unsafe hiding place, and likely to be searched at any
time. But before I could get away I heard loud voices approaching, and I
knew I should be seen. I looked hastily around for some place of
concealment. It was just a big empty shed with one or two shelves
covered with apples, and a lot of straw on the floor. In desperation,
as the voices came nearer, I lay down on the floor again, and pulled
straw over me till I was completely hidden from view.
"The door opened, and some men looked in. Through the straw that covered
me I could see them quite distinctly--three fishermen and a farm
labourer--though apparently they couldn't see me. From their
conversation I gathered that they formed part of a search party looking
for me, and had been told off to search the barn. This apparently they
were not anxious to do, for they merely peeped in at the door, and one
of them, in rather a relieved tone, said I wasn't in there, wherever I
was. One of the fishermen replied that he expected that I was far enough
off by that time. They stood at the door for a few moments, talking
about the murder, and then they went away.
"I stayed in the barn all day, but nobody else came near me. When it was
dark, I filled my pockets with apples from the shelves, and went out. I
wandered about all night, and found myself close to a railway station at
daybreak. I had been in that part of the country before, so I knew where
I was--not far from Heathfield, with Flegne about three miles away
across the fields. The country was nearly all open, and consequently
unsafe. As I walked through a field I spied a little hut, almost hidden
from view in a clump of trees. The door was open, and I could see it was
empty. I went in, lay down, and fell fast asleep.
"When I awoke it was getting dusk. I was very stiff and cold, so I
started out walking again to get myself warm. It was then, I remember
well, that the longing came over me to see Peggy again. I cursed myself
for my weakness, knowing what I knew--or thought I knew, God forgive
me.
"I found myself making my way back to Flegne as fast as my legs would
carry me--which wasn't very fast, because I was weak from want of food,
and so footsore that I could hardly stumble along. But I got over the
three miles somehow, and reached the wood, where I crawled into some
undergrowth, and lay there all night, sometimes dozing, sometimes wide
awake, and sometimes a bit light-headed, I think. It was there you found
me next day, and I was glad you did. I was about finished when I saw you
looking through the bushes and only too glad to come out. I didn't care
what happened to me then. And now, I have told you all."
The young man, as he finished his story, buried his face in his hands,
as though overcome by the recollection of the mental anguish he had been
through, and what he had endured.
"Not quite all, I think," said Colwyn, after a pause.
"I have told you everything that counts," said Penreath, without looking
up.
"You have not," replied the detective firmly. "You have not told me all
you saw when you were looking through the door between the two rooms the
night of the murder."
Penreath raised his head and regarded the other with startled eyes.
"What do you mean?" he said, in a whisper.
"I mean that you have kept back that you saw the body removed," he said
grimly.
"Are you a man or a wizard?" cried Penreath fiercely. "God! how did you
find that out?"
"By guess work, if you like," responded the other coolly. "Listen to me!
There has been too much concealment about this case already, so let us
have no more of it. It was because of what you saw afterwards that your
suspicions were doubly fastened on the girl, is that not so? I thought
as much," he continued, as the other nodded without speaking. "How long
after Peggy left the room was it before the body was removed?"
"Not very long," replied Penreath. "After she went out of the room I sat
on the bedside. I did not close the small door I had discovered, or
replace the wardrobe. I was too overwhelmed. In a little while--perhaps
ten minutes--I saw a light shine through the hole again. I went to it
and looked through--God knows why--and I saw somebody walking stealthily
into the room, carrying a candle. He went to the bedside and, with a
groan, lifted the body on to his shoulders, and carried it out of the
room. I crept to my door, and looked out and saw him descending the
stairs. God in heaven, what a horror, what a horror!
"I waited to see no more. I shut the door in the wall, pulled the
wardrobe back into its place and determined to leave the accursed inn as
soon as it was daylight. In my cell at nights, when I hear the footsteps
of the warder sounding along the corridor and dying away in the
distance, it reminds me of how I stood at the door that night, listening
to the sound of the footsteps stumbling down the staircase."
"You heard the footsteps distinctly, then?" said the detective.
"Distinctly and clearly. The staircase is a stone one, as you know."
"Did you put your boots out to be cleaned before you went to bed?"
"Yes."
"And were they there when you looked out of the door?"
"I do not remember. But I know they were there in the morning, dirty
and covered with clay. I took them in, and was about to put them on,
when the servant knocked at the door with a cup of morning tea. I
answered the door with the boots in my hand. She offered to clean them
for me, and was taking them away, but I called her back and said I would
not wait for them. I was too anxious to get away from the place."
"Do you remember when you lost the rubber heel of one of them?"
"It must have been when I was walking the previous day. They were only
put on the day before. I happened to mention to a bootmaker at
Durrington that my left heel had become jarred with walking. He
recommended me to try rubber heels to lessen the strain, and he put them
on for me. I had never worn them before, and found them very
uncomfortable when I was walking along the marshes. They seemed to hold
and stick in the wet ground."
"And now there are one or two other points I want you to make clear. Why
did you register in the name of James Ronald at the Durrington Hotel?"
"That was merely a whim. I was disgusted with London and society after
my return from the front. Those who have been through this terrible war
learn to see most things at their true worth, and the frivolity, the
snobbishness, and the shams of London society at such a time sickened
and disgusted me. They tried to lionise me in drawing rooms and make me
talk for their entertainment. They put my photograph in the illustrated
papers, and interviewed me, and all that kind of thing. What had I done!
Nothing! Not a tithe of what thousands of better men are doing every day
out there. So I went away from it all. I had no intention, when I went
into the hotel, of not registering in my full name though. That came
about in a peculiar way. It was the first registration form I had
seen--it was the first hotel I had stayed at after nearly eighteen
months at the front--and I put down my two christian names, James
Ronald, in the wrong space, the space for the surname, which is the
first column. I saw my error as I glanced over the form, but the girl,
thinking I had filled it up, took it away from me. It then struck me
that it was just as well to let it go; it would prevent my being worried
by fools."
"And how came it that you ran so short of money that you had to leave
the hotel?"
"I have practically nothing except what my father allows me, and which
is paid quarterly through his bankers in London. I left London with a
few pounds in my pocket, and thought no more about money until the hotel
proprietor stopped me one morning and asked me politely to discharge my
bill, as I was a stranger to him. It was then that I first realised the
difference between a name like Penreath of Twelvetrees and plain James
Ronald. I was furious, and told him he should have the money in two
days, as soon as I could communicate with my London bankers. I wrote
straight away, and asked them to send me some money. The money came, the
morning I was turned out of the hotel; I saw the letter in the rack,
addressed to J. R. Penreath, but what good was that to me? I could not
claim it because I was booked in the name of James Ronald. I knew nobody
in the place to whom I could apply. I had some thoughts of confiding in
the hotel proprietor, but one look at his face was sufficient to put
that out of the question.
"So I went in to breakfast, desperately angry at being treated so, and
feeling more than a little ill. You know what happened at the breakfast
table. I began to feel pretty seedy, and left my place to get to the
fresh air, when that doctor--Sir Henry Durwood--jumped up and grabbed
me. I tried to push him off, but he was too strong for me, and I found
myself going. The next thing I knew was that I was lying in my bedroom,
and hearing somebody talk. After you had left the room I determined to
leave the hotel as quickly as possible. I packed a small handbag, and
told the hotel-keeper on my way downstairs that he could keep my things
until I paid my bill. Then I walked to Leyland Hoop, where I had an
appointment with Peggy, as you know. I seem to have acted as a pretty
considerable ass all round," said the young man, with a rueful smile.
"But I had a bad gruelling from shell-shock. I wouldn't mention this,
but it's really affected my head, you know, and I don't think I'm always
quite such a fool as this story makes me appear to be."
"And your nerves were a bit rattled by the Zeppelin raid at Durrington,
were they not?" said Colwyn sympathetically.
"You seem to know everything," said the young man, flushing. "I am
ashamed to say that they were."
"You have no cause to be ashamed," replied Colwyn gently. "The bravest
men suffer that way after shell-shock."
"It's not a thing a man likes to talk about," said Penreath, after a
pause. "But if you have had experience of this kind of thing, will you
tell me if you have ever seen a man completely recover--from
shell-shock, I mean?"
"I should say you will be quite yourself again shortly. There cannot be
very much the matter with your nerves to have stood the experience of
the last few weeks. After we get you out of here, and you have had a
good rest, you will be yourself again."
"And what about this other thing--this _furor epilepticus_, whatever it
is?" asked Penreath, anxiously.
"As you didn't murder anybody, you haven't had the epileptic fury,"
replied Colwyn, laughing.
"But Sir Henry Durwood said at the trial that I was an epileptic,"
persisted the other.
"He was wrong about the _furor epilepticus_, so it is just as likely
that he was wrong about the epilepsy. His theory was that you were going
to attack somebody at the breakfast table of the hotel, and you have
just told us that you had no intention of attacking anybody--that your
only idea was to get out of the room. You are neither an epileptic nor
insane, in my opinion, but at that time you were suffering from the
after effects of shell-shock. Take my advice, and forget all about the
trial and what you heard there, or, if you must think of it, remember
the excellent certificate of sanity and clear-headedness which the
doctors for the Crown gave you! When you get free I'll take you to half
a dozen specialists who'll probably confirm the Crown point of view."
Penreath laughed for the first time.
"You've made me feel like a new man," he said. "How can I thank you for
all you have done?"
"The only way you can show your gratitude is by instructing Mr. Oakham
to lodge an appeal for you--at once. Have you the necessary forms with
you, Mr. Oakham?"
"I have," said the solicitor, finding voice after a long silence.