TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR.
“The last jury on earth he would have wanted!”
Doctor Houghton looked at the country neighbors whom the very irony of
fate had assuredly brought together as jurors at the inquest on the
death of Lord Levallion. He had systematically neglected or despised
them all, and there was not a man among them who really wondered at the
tragic ending of a man who had been so notoriously unpopular. Since not
one of them owed either benefit or injury to Levallion they should give
a strictly impartial verdict, Houghton thought, as he was sworn; yet it
had struck a curious anger in him when, as they viewed the body, not
one of them had said “poor Lady Levallion;” and he realized that the
whole county thought her a victim to a loveless marriage.
He was apparently the first witness; and, stripped of its
technicalities, the gist of his evidence was that the late Lord
Levallion had certainly been poisoned with some form of prussic acid in
the liqueur he drank. The post-mortem left no doubt of anything but the
precise form in which the poison was administered.
“Some one, any one, might have been in his dressing-room during the
evening,” he finished slowly. “I found this in the door, caught in the
lock,” producing his little rag of tweed, “but I am afraid it is no
clue; for the stuff is familiar to me, and was very likely a suit of
Levallion’s own, which he might have worn that afternoon. Any thought
of suicide is out of the question!” sharply, as a juror murmured
something. “Lord Levallion was the last man to do such a thing. He was
a man of very superior intellect, and was, of late, supremely happy.”
He did not notice that a girl was sitting in a dark corner behind him
as he stepped down from the witness-stand, and stood where the face of
each fresh witness would be clearly seen. For the servants were called
in, and one by one dismissed as useless.
All of them had been sitting in the servants’ hall when Sir Thomas
Annesley’s dog had come through there as if it were mad, and run
all round the room and thence into the kitchen; where a terrified
scullery-maid let it out.
Mrs. Briggs, the housekeeper, almost inaudible for nervous weeping, had
heard nothing till told his lordship was dying. She had been sitting in
her own parlor with Carrousel, the cook, who had a toothache. He was
with her when the dreadful news came.
“No, neither of us,” she sobbed, “had ever left the room. I was dozing
by the fire, he was walking up and down. No”--again--“it was impossible
the chef should have left the room and come back without my knowledge.”
Carrousel came next, a tall man with a short, dark beard, and very blue
eyes. He was neatly dressed in a black coat and gray trousers, and
looked most unlike a cook.
On being sworn and interrogated, he shook his head.
“I can tell you nothing, monsieur,” he said. “I was not well; my teeth
were aching; I walked the floor in the housekeeper’s room. I heard
nothing.”
“What time did you go there?”
“At ten o’clock. At twenty minutes past eleven they came and told me
his lordship was dying.” His florid face paled a little.
One juror asked if he had not heard Sir Thomas’ dog barking in the
kitchen.
“No, monsieur,” respectfully. “The housekeeper’s room is some distance
from the kitchen. I heard no noise. I was glad to sit by the fire,
perhaps to doze. It was as well, perhaps. I have had no sleep since.
Milord was an excellent patron to me. He understood eating.”
There was a listless detachedness in his voice, as of a stranger who is
utterly apart from his surroundings.
“What did you serve his lordship for dinner?” the coroner said suddenly.
“It was not that which killed him,” Carrousel returned gravely; “since
the whole society partook of the same plates. My cooking does not give
even an indigestion, much less death. Monsieur does not mean that he
suspects me?” patiently.
“You are here to answer, not ask,” Doctor Aston returned coldly. And
with an extraordinary knowledge of cooking and flavoring and accidental
poisoning, he asked question after question of the chef, fruitlessly.
The man quietly, without anger, cleared himself. It was impossible that
he could have tampered with any portion of the dinner, since every one
of his four kitchen-maids had seen it all prepared. As for any of his
almond flavoring--which in sufficient quantity was poisonous--having
been put into the bottle which killed Lord Levallion, almond flavoring
was a thing for small pastry cooks. When he required it he used
almonds, of which his lordship was very fond. He had in his possession
absolutely nothing with a smell of bitter almonds, which could have
been stolen and added to the bottle to hide some other taste.
The jury stirred impatiently--there had been no question of poison
in the dinner--till it suddenly occurred to them that from the
coroner’s minute questions Carrousel had been obliged to account for
every instant of his time from six o’clock till twenty minutes past
eleven. If there had been any juggling with bottles in Levallion’s
dressing-room, the busy cook could have had no hand in it; for the
kitchen-maids’ evidence tallied with his.
Carrousel stood an instant, as if watching for a question that did not
come.
“You can stand down,” said the coroner, and for one second the cook’s
listlessness vanished. There was relief in his face, as of a man who
has patiently despatched a disagreeable duty.
The butler succeeded him, and, having charge of the cellar, was all but
turned inside out with questions, the result of which was that there
had been absolutely no other bottle of Eau de Vie Magique in the house,
which could have been poisoned and substituted for Lord Levallion’s
own, nor had he ever seen, or heard of, such a liqueur in his life.
There was no doubting his honesty, nor his distress about his master’s
death.
Levallion’s own man was called--the only old servant in the house. He
did not look particularly honest--Levallion had more opinion of brains
than honesty, perhaps--but Houghton thought, perhaps erroneously, that
he was the only clever witness they had had so far; and the first who
would not be content with clearing himself, but determined to find out
the murderer.
“My name, sir? John Lacy,” he said, his hard, light eyes taking in
every face in the jury, with as much scorn for their capacity as
Levallion could have had. “I have been with his lordship ten years.”
“Did you ever see the bottle of liqueur with which Lord Levallion was
poisoned?”
“I don’t know,” quietly. “I saw the bottle of Eau de Vie Magique which
he kept in his dressing-room. It was given to him this summer by a
gentleman in Aix.”
“Do you mean it was taken away and another substituted?”
“I couldn’t say that, sir. But I know the liqueur was all right last
night at seven o’clock, for Sir Thomas Annesley came up to my master’s
room with him, and his lordship made him drink a glass of it before my
eyes. Sir Thomas seemed very down, and as if he wanted to speak about
something. But his lordship put him off.”
A little rustle of interest ran along the jurors’ bench.
“Then if it was Lord Levallion’s own liqueur he drank, you contend it
was poisoned during the evening?”
“I’m certain of it, sir.”
“Did Lord Levallion to your knowledge possess any poison?”
“No!” said Lacy flatly. “If you mean he committed suicide, it’s out of
the question. His lordship was more contented than he had ever been in
his life--or since I knew him. Somebody gave it to him!”
“Was he on bad terms with any one?”
“Plenty of people!” calmly; “but none of them would be likely to do it.
I might about as well accuse her ladyship of doing it as sensibly as
any of the”--he stammered--“the others!”
“Do you mean Lord and Lady Levallion were not on good terms?” sharply.
“I didn’t mean to imply that, sir,” flushing. “I said, and I think,
Lord Levallion was more than happy. I never heard of any trouble
between the two, except that last night I did hear them having a few
words about going out or something, as I was passing through the hall.
But it was nothing at all, sir!” hastily. “I beg you don’t think I’m
insinuating anything against my lady.”
“Were you not in Lord Levallion’s dressing-room during the evening?”
“No, sir! I left it all neat, and was gone down-stairs almost as soon
as his lordship left the room. I never went to his dressing-room of an
evening till I was rung for.”
“You did not touch the bottle?”
“Yes, sir! I put it up on the shelf, and I scratched my hand on it for
about the tenth time. It was a rough-made, molded bottle, with a sort
of seam down each side, and time and again I’ve caught a scratch inside
my hand from that rough seam.”
“Were you alone in the room?”
“No, sir; his lordship’s second man was with me. It was not either of
us that tampered with the bottle.”
“Is that it?” The coroner pointed to some fragments of glass on a tray.
“I couldn’t say.” Lacy fingered each scrap slowly; none were bigger
than a shilling. He looked up suddenly. “In my opinion it isn’t!” he
said. “But you will understand that in the state the bottle is it can
be only my opinion. I wouldn’t like to swear to it, but I think it. All
I can say is that it is bits of glass and label which might be the one
that was in the dressing-room. I wouldn’t swear it was the same.”
“Will you swear it is not?” sharply.
Lacy took the fragments and dust of paper-labeled glass to the light;
went over each bit with the seeing fingers of a blind man, as well as
faultless eyesight.
“It’s not the same bottle,” he said, after what seemed an hour.
“There’s a pink smear on the label. His lordship’s bottle, when I left
it, was clean.”
“That does not prove it a different bottle,” judicially. “Only perhaps
that some one touched it.”
“To the best of my belief,” returned Lacy doggedly, “that is not his
lordship’s bottle. I can’t find the seam on any of the pieces.”
“Or in the dust,” said a juror scathingly.
But Lacy stuck to his opinion and was let go. For some reason, and to
Houghton’s wonder, the coroner never mentioned that rag of tweed.
A frightened footman took his place, who had taken coffee to the ladies
after dinner.
“Were all the ladies in the room then?” asked Aston.
“Yes, that is--no, sir! I took in coffee and a note for her ladyship,”
stammering, “and she gets up and leaves the room and Lady Gwendolen
Brook after her.”
“With her,” the coroner half-corrected.
“Just as you say, sir,” abjectly. “I’d got out in the hall with my tray
when Lady Gwendolen come out and run up-stairs after her ladyship.”
“Oh!” said the coroner quietly; “you can go.”
He called Lady Gwendolen for the next witness, and Houghton’s mouth
tightened.
He remembered how the women had stood when he arrived, how aloof, how
ironical. If he were not mistaken, the drama would begin with the new
witness.