Moondyne/Following a Dark Spirit
About a week after the incident of the flower, Mr. Wyville, accompanied by his black servant, Ngarra-jil, left London on the Northern train. The black man was clad from throat to feet in a wrap or mantle of thick cloth, though the summer day was bland and warm. He settled silently into a corner of the railway carriage, watching his master with a keen and constant look. Mr. Wyville, sitting beside the window, seemed to observe the richly cultivated fields and picturesque villages through which the mail train flew without pausing; but, in truth, he neither saw nor thought of outward things.
There is a power in some minds of utterly shutting out externals— of withdrawing, the common functions from the organs of sense to assist the concentration of the introverted mind. At such a time the open eye is blind—it has become a mere lens, reflecting but not perceiving; the tympanum of the ear vibrates to the outward wave, but has ceased to translate its message to the brain. The soul within has separated itself from the moving world, and has retired to its cell like an anchorite, taking with it some high subject for contemplation or some profound problem for solution.
From this closet of the soul emerge the lightning thoughts that startle, elevate, and deify mankind, sweeping away old systems like an overflow of the ocean. Within this cell the Christ-mind reflected for thirty-three years, before the Word was uttered. Within this cell the soul of Dante penetrated the horrescent gloom of the infernal spheres, and beheld the radiant form of Beatrice. Within this cell the spirit that was Shakespeare bisected the human heart, and read every impulse of its mysterious network. Here the blind Milton forgot the earth, and lived an awful aeon beyond the worlds, amid the warring thoughts of God.
Great and sombre was the Thought which lay within the cell of this traveller's soul to be investigated and solved. Villages, and fields, and streams passed the outward eye, that was, for the time, the window of a closed and darkened room.
As the pale corpse lies upon the dissecting table, before the solitary midnight student, so lay upon the table, within this man's soul, a living body for dissection—the hideous body of Crime. For years it had lain there, and the brooding soul had often withdrawn from the outer world to contemplate its repulsive and mysterious aspect. The knife was in the hand of the student, but he knew not where to begin the incision. The hideous thing to be examined was inorganic as a whole, and yet every atom of its intertexture was a perfect organ.
To his unceasing vision, the miscreated form became luminous and transparent; and he saw that, throughout its entire being, beat one maleficent pulsation, accordant with the rhythm of some unseen and intermittent sea. He saw that the parts and the whole were one, yet many—that every atom had within itself the seminal part and the latent pulse of the ocean of Sin.
For years he had looked upon this fearful body, wonderful, observant, speculative. For years, when the contemplation had ceased, he had knelt beside the evil thing and prayed for light and knowledge.
Day and night were as an outward breath to the soul of the thinker. The light faded and the darkness fell, but he knew it not. His whole being was turned within, and he would have groaned with sorrow at what he saw, were it not for an adamantine faith in God, love, and justice, that bridged the gulf of doubt with a splendid arch.
It was midnight when the train arrived in Liverpool. The black man, Ngarra-jil, who had watched so long and tirelessly the marvellous face of his master, rose from his corner, purposely arousing Mr. Wyville's attention. He smiled kindly at Ngarra-jil, and spoke to him in his own language, continuing to do so as they were driven through the streets to a hotel.
Something of unusual importance had brought Mr. Wyville from London. That night, though the fatigue of the journey would have overpowered an ordinary man, he did not retire to rest till early morning, and then he slept scarcely three hours. In the forenoon of that day, leaving Ngarra-jil at the hotel, he took a further journey, to the little village of Walton-le-Dale—the native village of Alice Walmsley.
It was clear that Mr. Wyville had come to Lancashire on some purpose connected with this unhappy girl, for his first visit, having inquired at the inn, was to the quiet street where stood her old home. He walked up the weed-grown pathway to the deserted house, and finding the outer door of the porch unlocked, as it had been left five years before, he entered, and sat there on the decaying bench for a short time. Then he retraced his steps, and inquired his way to the police station.
The solitary policeman off Walton-le-Dale was just at that time occupied in painting a water barrel, which stood on its donkey-cart in the street.
There was only one well of sweet water in Walton, the village lying on very low land; and the villagers paid each week a half-penny a family to their policeman, in return for which he left in their houses every day two large pails of water.
Officer Lodge, they called him; and though he was a modest and unassuming fellow, he made a point of being deaf to any remark or request that was not prefaced by this title. He resented even "Mr." Lodge; but he was excited to an indignant glance at the offensive familiarity of plain " Lodge."
He was a small old man, of a gentle and feminine disposition; but he had "served his time" on a man-of-war, and had been pensioned for some active service in certain vague Chinese bombardments. It was queerly inconsistent to hear the old fellow relate wild stories of carnage, with a woman's voice and a timid maiden air.
As Mr. Wyville approached Officer Lodge, that guardian of the peace was laboriously trying to turn the barrel in its bed, so that he might paint the under side. The weight was too great for the old man, and he was puzzled. He stood looking at the ponderous cask with a divided mind.
"Raise it on its end," said Mr. Wyville, who had reached the spot unseen by the aquarian policeman.
Officer Lodge looked at him in distrust, fearing sarcasm in the remark; but he met the grave impressive look, and was mollified. Besides, the advice struck him as being practical. Without a word, he easily heaved the cask into an upright position, and found that he could paint its whole circumference. This put him in good humour.
"If that were my barrel, I should paint the hoops red instead of green," said Mr. Wyville.
"Why?" asked Officer Lodge, dipping his brush in the green paint.
"Because red lead preserves iron, while the verdigris used to colour green paint corrodes it."
Officer Lodge wiped his brush on the rim of the paint-pot, and looked at Mr. Wyville timidly, but pleasantly.
"You know things, you do," he said. "But suppose you hadn't no red paint?"
"I should paint the whole barrel white—white lead preserves iron—and then give the hoops a smart coat of black. That would make a handsome barrel."
"I should think so! By jewkins! wouldn't it so?" said Officer Lodge.
Mr. Wyville stood on the road talking with the old man, until that personage had quite decided to paint the barrel white.
"Now, my friend," said Mr. Wyville, "could you direct me to the office of the police inspector of this village?"
Officer Lodge was rather taken aback. He was in his shirtsleeves, like a common labourer, and here was a gentleman, evidently a foreigner, in search of the police inspector; he was gratified at the important title. He took his coat from the cart, and slipped it on, obtruding its brass buttons on the stranger.
"There ain't exac'ly a hinspector in Walton," he said, with an air of careless pomp; "but I'm the police, at your service, sir."
"I am very glad," said Mr. Wyville, gravely; "I wish to make some inquiries about a case of murder that occurred in this village some years ago. Can you assist me?"
"There was only one such a case, sir," said Officer Lodge, the kindliness of his feminine heart speaking in his saddened tone, "I know all about it. It was me as arrested her; and it was unwilling work on my side. But a hofficer must do his duty, sir."
"Can we not sit down somewhere, and talk it over?" asked Mr. Wyville.
"At the inn, sir, certingly," replied Officer Lodge and a good glass a' hale you can 'ave, too, sir."
They were soon seated in a quiet little room, and each had his "glass a' hale" before him.
Officer Lodge told the story like a man who had often told it before: all the angles were rounded, and the dramatic points brought out with melodramatic emphasis. Mr. Wyville let him run on till he had no more to say.
"And this strange woman, who came to the village on the morning of the murder," he said, when he had heard all; "this woman who was Draper's first wife—has she ever been heard of since?"
"O, Harriet Draper, bless you, yessir." said Officer Lodge she comes back periodical, and gets into quod—parding me, sir, I mean into jail."
"What does she do?" asked Mr. Wyville.
"Well, she's a bad 'un. We don't know where she comes from, nor where she goes to. She drinks 'cavy, and then she goes down there near Draper's 'ouse, and the other 'ouse, an' she kicks up a muss of crying and shouting. She does it periodical; and we has to lock her up."
"When was she here last?" asked Mr. Wyville.
Officer Lodge pulled out a leather-covered pass-book, and examined it.
"She's out of her reg'lar border, this time," he said; "she 'aven't been 'ere for a year. But I heerd of her later than that in the penitentiary at Liverpool."
Mr. Wyville asked no more questions. He wrote an address on a card, and handed it to Officer Lodge.
If this woman return here," he said, "or if you find out where she is, write to that address, and you shall be well rewarded."
"Head Office of Police, Scotland Yard, London," read Officer Lodge from the card. "Yessir, I'll do it. Oh no, none of that," he said, firmly, putting back some offering in Mr. Wyville's hand; "I'm in your debt, sir; I was a'most going to make a fool of myself with that bar'l. I'm obliged to you, sir, and I'll do this all the better for remembering of your kindness."
Mr. Wyville took a friendly leave of good-natured Officer Lodge, and returned to Liverpool by the next train. Arrived there, he did not proceed straight to his hotel, but drove to the city penitentiary, where he repeated his inquiries about Harriet Draper; but he only learned that she had been discharged eight months before.
Neither police nor prison books could give him further information. Disappointed and saddened, next day he returned to London.