Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Lord Oakburn's daughters - Part 5
LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER IX.THE CORONER'S INQUEST.
The rain was pouring down in torrents; nevertheless the street of South Wennock was alive with bustle, especially in the vicinity of the Red Lion Inn. It was Thursday, the day appointed for the inquest on the deceased Mrs. Crane.
The county coroner, whose residence was in the county town, was momentarily expected, and presently his gig dashed up, he and his clerk in it. It had been wished to hold the inquest on the Wednesday, but the coroner put it off to suit his own convenience. He was a lawyer; a short, stout man, with black hair and a jovial-looking face; and as he emerged from under the large gig umbrella, he shook hands with some of the bystanders, his acquaintances. The clerk followed with a blue bag.
The coroner popped into the bar, swallowed a glass of hot brandy-and-water, and then proceeded to the board-room to swear the jury. It was a long room, the club-room of the inn: a table covered with green baize ran down it, at which they seated themselves, and the coroner opened proceedings. Then they departed to Palace Street to view the body.
They went splashing through the rain and the mud, their umbrellas of little use, for the wind, remarkably high, kept turning them inside out. A genteel attendance escorted them: all the gentleman idlers in the place, all the curious tradespeople, the unwashed mob, and the street urchins. By the pertinacity with which these last dodged the jury's heels, it might be thought that they believed the august functionaries to be living curiosities from a travelling wild-beast show.
The necessary inspection over, they splashed back to the Red Lion, and the business began. We may glance at the evidence of two or three of the witnesses, but not at all, for it would only be a repetition of what is already known, and tire the reader. Difficulty the first was: What was the young lady's Christian name? Nobody could answer; her linen, it was said, was marked with a large C, the initial letter of the word Crane, but with nothing else. Some suggested that this was more probably the initial of her Christian name—Caroline or Charlotte—but it was impossible to say. Her boxes had been examined officially, the large trunk and the workbox; but no clue to whom she was, or what she was, was found; no scrap of paper indicated her previous abode, or why she came there.
Mrs. Fitch, the landlady of the Red Lion, told what she knew of the stranger's arrival by the omnibus, the previous Friday, and that she had recommended her to the lodgings in Palace Street. Mr. Stephen Grey testified to his being summoned to her on the same night, to the subsequent birth of the infant, and to her safe and healthy condition afterwards, up to seven o'clock on the Monday evening, at which hour he last saw her alive. Mr. John Grey and Mr. Brooklyn from Great Wennock, who had conjointly made the post-mortem examination, gave evidence of the cause of her death—poison, by prussic acid; and there were other points of evidence, technical or otherwise, not necessary to go into in detail.
There had been a question raised by the coroner as to whether Mr. Stephen Grey should give his evidence; that gentleman expressed himself anxious and willing to tender it; and at length the coroner decided to admit it, warning Mr. Stephen that he need not say anything to criminate himself, and that what he did say might possibly be used as evidence against him. Mr. Stephen smiled, and replied that all he had it in his power to say might be used against him if it could be. He spoke to the making up of the sleeping draught, to the ingredients of which it was composed. Frederick Grey, his son, testified that he had seen it made up, minutely describing what had been put into it, as his father had done, and to the sending the draught by Dick, the boy. Dick, who was the next witness, protested, with a very red and startled face, caused by finding himself before a coroner's court, that he had taken it safely and given it into the hands of Nurse Pepperfly.
"Call Nurse Pepperfly," said the coroner.
Nurse Pepperfly was called for in the adjoining room and escorted in, in rather a shaky state, not induced by the imbibing of strong waters—from such she had that morning kept herself free—but from the general agitation caused by the anticipated proceedings. She had attired herself in her best, of course; a short black stuff gown, the worse for stains and dirt, a scarlet woollen shawl, and a rusty black bonnet with a bow at the top. The wind, as she came along the street, had taken the shawl, the bonnet, and the grey hairs underneath, and played with them after its own boisterous fashion; so that altogether Nurse Pepperfly presented a somewhat bewildered and untidy appearance. She wore pattens and white stockings, the latter a mass of splashes, and very distinctly visible from the shortness of the gown; but the extraordinary rotundity of Mrs. Pepperfly’s person seemed almost to preclude the possibility of any gown’s being made long enough to hide her legs. She took off her pattens when close to the coroner, and held them in one hand; her umbrella, dripping with rain, being in the other. A remarkable umbrella, apparently more for show than use, since its sticks and wires projected a full foot at the bottom through the gingham, and there was no handle visible at the top. There was a smothered smile at her appearance when she came in, and her evidence caused some diversion, not only in itself, but from the various honorary titles she persisted in according to the coroner and jury.
“Your name’s Pepperfly?” began the coroner.
“Which it is, my lord, with Betsy added to it,” was the response, given with as deep a curtsy as the witness’s incumbrances of person would allow her.
“You mean Elizabeth?” said the coroner, raising his pen from his note-book, and waiting.
“Your worship, I never knowed myself called by any thing but Betsy. It may be as ‘Lizabeth was written in the register at my baptism, but I can’t speak to it. Mother———”
“That will do,” said the coroner, and after a few more questions he came to the chief point. “Did you take in some medicine last Monday evening for the lady you were nursing—Mrs. Crane?”
“Yes, my lord, I did. It were a composing draught; leastways, that’s what it ought to have been.”
“What time was that?”
“It were after dark, sir, and I was at my supper.”
“Can’t you tell the time?”
“It must have struck eight, I think, your worship, for I had begun to feel dreadful peckish afore I went down, and eight o’clock’s my supper hour. I had just finished it, sir, when the ring came; it were pickled herrings that we had———”
“The jury do not want to know what you had for supper; confine yourself to the necessary points. Who brought the medicine?”
“That boy of the Mr. Greys: Dick. An insolent young rascal, Mr. Mayor, as you ever set eyes on. He whips up the cover of his basket, and out he takes a small bottle wrapped in white paper and gives it me. I should like to tell you, my lord, what he said to me.”
“If it bears upon the case, you can tell it,” replied the coroner.
"'Now, Mother Pepperfly,’ said he, ‘how are you off for Old Tom to-night?’ My fingers tingled to get at his ears, my lord mayor and corporation, but he backed out of my reach.”
Mrs. Pepperfly in her indignation had turned round to the jury, expecting their sympathy, and the room burst into a laugh.
“He backed away out of my reach, gentlemen, afeard of getting his deserts, and he stopped in the middle of the road and made a mocking face at me, knowing I’d no chance of getting to him, for they are as lissome as cats, them boys, and I’m rather stout to set up a run.”
“I told you to confine yourself to evidence,” said the coroner, in a reproving tone. “What did you do with the medicine?”
“I took it up-stairs, gentlefolks, and Mr. Carlton came out of the lady’s room, for he had just called in, and asked what it was I had got. I said it was the sleeping draught from Mr. Grey’s, and he took it out of my hand, and said how it smelt of oil of almonds.”
“Oil of almonds? Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Of course I am sure,” retorted Mrs. Pepperfly, “I didn’t dream it. He took out the cork and he smelt the stuff, and then he said it. ‘What could Mr. Stephen Grey be giving her oil of almonds for?’ he said.”
“Did you smell it?”
“I can’t say I did, your lordship, much; though Mr. Carlton was surprised I couldn’t, and put it towards me but my nose hadn’t got no smell in it just at that particular moment, and so I told him.”
“Why had it not?” inquired the coroner.
Mrs. Pepperfly would have liked to evade the question. She fidgeted first on one leg, then on the other, put down her pattens and took them up again, and gave her umbrella a shake, the effect of which was to administer a shower of rain-drops to all the faces in her vicinity.
“Come,” said the coroner, sharply, “you stand there to tell the truth. If the stuff emitted so strong a smell, how was it you could not smell it?”
“I had just swallowed a wee drop of gin, sir,” replied Mrs. Pepperfly, in a subdued tone. “When my supper were over, Mrs. Gould says to me, ‘Just a drain, mum, to keep the herrings down, it’s obligatory for your health;’ and knowing I’m weak in the stomach, gentlefolks, which gets upset at nothing, I let myself be over-persuaded, and took a drain; but you couldn’t have put it into a thimble.”
“I daresay you couldn’t,” said the coroner, while the room tittered.
Mrs. Pepperfly’s slip of the tongue took her aback.
“I mean’t to say as ‘twouldn’t have filled a thimble, gentry, I did indeed, for that was the fact; but no wonder my wits is scared out of me, a-standing up here afore you all. Just as I was a swallowing of the wee drain, the ring came to the door, so that I had, as you may say, the gin actually in my mouth when I took the medicine up-stairs; and that’s the reason I hadn’t got no smell for anything else.”
“Who took possession of the draught? You, or Mr. Carlton, or the sick lady?”
“I did, your honours. I put it by the side of the rest of the bottles on the cheffonier in the sitting-room, and———"
“Was there any other bottle there that could have been mistaken for this?” interrupted the coroner.
“Not one in all the lot,” responded the witness. “They were most of them empty bottles, and bigger than the one the draught was in; and they are there still.”
“Had any person an opportunity of touching that bottle in the intermediate time between your placing it there, and your administering it to the patient?”
“There wasn’t nobody in the house to touch it,” returned the witness. “I was nearly all the time afterwards in the room, and there was nobody else. When I went to get it to give it to the lady, Mrs. Gould lighted me, and I’m sure it hadn’t been touched, for the shelf of that cheffonier’s a tilting, narrow sort of place, and I had put the draught bottle right in the corner, resting again’ the back, and there I found it.”
“Mr. Carlton was gone then?”
“Mr. Carlton? Oh, he went directly almost after the draught came. He didn’t stay long, your reverences.”
“Witness, I am going to ask you a question; be particular in answering it. There has been a rumour gaining credit, that Mr. Carlton warned you not to administer that draught; is it correct?”
“I declare, to the goodness gracious, that Mr. Carlton never said nothing of the sort,” returned the witness, putting herself into a flurry. “My lord—your worship—gentlemen of the honourable corporation all round” (turning herself about between the coroner and jury), “if it was the last blessed word I had to speak, I’d stand to it that Mr. Carlton never said a word to me about not giving the draught. He snifted at it, as if he’d like to snift out what it was made of, and he put a drop on his finger and tasted it, and he said it smelt of oil of almonds; but, as to saying he told me not to give it, it’s a barefaced falsehood, my lord judge. He says he ordered Mrs. Crane not to take it, but I declare that he never said anything about it to me; and she didn’t neither.”
The coroner had allowed her to spend her wrath, “You administered the draught yourself to Mrs. Crane?”
“Yes, I did, as it were my place to do, and Mrs. Gould stood by, a-lighting of me. I put it out into a wine-glass, sir, and then, my mouth being all right again, I smelt it strong enough, and so did Mrs. Gould.”
“The lady did not object to take it?”
“No, poor thing, she never objected to nothing as we give her, and she was quite gay over it. As I held it to her she gave a snift, as Mr. Carlton had done, and she smiled. ‘It smells like cherry pie, nurse,’ said she, and swallowed it down; and a'most before we could look round, she was gone. Ah, poor young lady! I should like to have the handling of them that put it in.”
Mrs. Pepperfly, in her sympathy with the dead, or rage against the destroyer, raised her hands before her and shook them. The rings of the pattens clanked together, and the umbrella was ejecting its refreshing drops, when an officer of the court seized her arms from behind, and poured an anathema into her ear.
“A coroner’s court was not a place to wring wet umbrellas in, and if she didn’t mind, she’d get committed.”
“Were you conscious that she was dead?” inquired the coroner.
“Not at first, my lord judge, not right off at the moment. I thought she was fainting, or took ill in some way. ‘What have upset her now?’ I says to Mrs Gould, and, with that, I took off her nightcap, and rose her head up. Not for long, though,” concluded the witness, shaking her head. “I soon see she was gone.”
“You know nothing whatever, then, nor have you any suspicion, how the poison could have got into the draught?”
The coroner put this question at the request of one of the jury.
“I!” returned Mrs. Pepperfly, amazed at its being asked her. “No; I wish I did. I wish I could trace it home to some such a young villain as that Dick who brought the bottle down; I’d secure a good place to go and see him hung, if I had to stand on my legs twelve hours for it—and they swell frightful in standing, do my legs, my lord.”
“The boy had not meddled with the medicine in bringing it?” cried the coroner.
“Not he, my lord mayor,” was the reply of the witness. “I wish he had, that I might have been down upon him, the monkey! But I be upon my oath, and must speak the truth, which is that the bottle came neat and untouched, the white paper round it, just as the Greys send out their physics.”
They had done with Mrs. Pepperfly for the present, and she made a curtsy to the four sides of the room, and sailed out of it.
The next Witness called was Lewis Carlton. His gentlemanly appearance, good looks, and the ready manner in which he gave his evidence, presented a contrast to the lady just retired.
“Upon my returning home from a journey last Sunday night,” he began, when the coroner desired him to state what he knew, “one of my servants handed me a note, which had been left for me, he said, on the previous Friday. It proved to be from a Mrs. Crane, requesting to see me professionally, and was dated from the house in Palace Street, where she now lies dead. I went there at once, found that she had been confined, and was being attended by Mr. Stephen Grey, who had been called to her in consequence of my absence———”
The coroner interposed with a question:
“Have you that note to produce?”
Now the witness had not that note to produce, and, what was somewhat singular, he did not know for certain what had become of the note. When he was going to visit Mrs. Crane on the Sunday night, he looked for the note, as may be remembered, and could not see it; therefore he came to the conclusion that he had thrown it into the fire with the other letters.
“I really do not think I saved it,” he answered. “It is not my custom to keep notes of that sort, and, though I do not positively recollect doing so, I have no doubt I put it in the fire as soon as read. There was nothing in it that would have thrown light upon the case; half-a-dozen formal lines, chiefly requesting me to call and see her, comprised it.”
“Was it signed with her full name?”
“Her full name?” repeated Mr. Carlton, as if he scarcely understood the question.
“We have no clue to her Christian name. This note may have supplied it. Or perhaps it was written in the third person.”
“Oh, of course; I scarcely comprehended you,” answered Mr. Carlton. “It was written in the third person. ‘Mrs. Crane presents her compliments to Mr. Carlton,’ &c. That’s how it was worded. I gathered from it that she did not expect to be ill before May.”
“In your interview with her that evening did you obtain any information as to who she was?”
“Not the slightest. It was late, and I thought it unwise to disturb her; what little passed between us related chiefly to her state of health. I regretted my absence, and said I was glad to find she was doing well, under Mr. Stephen Grey. She wished me to attend her, now I had returned, and I understood her to say she had been recommended to me by friends, previous to her coming to South Wennock.”
“Do you know by whom?”
“I have no idea whatever, and I am not absolutely certain that she did say it. She appeared drowsy, spoke in a low tone, and I did not precisely catch the words. I intended to ask her about it after she got better and was more equal to conversation. There are none of my own friends or acquaintance who hear the name of Crane—none that I can remember.”
“Did you take charge of her from that hour?”
“Certainly not. I should not do so, without her being professionally resigned to me by Mr. Stephen Grey. I met Mr. Stephen in High Street the following day, Monday, and I requested him as a favour to retain charge of her until that evening or the following morning. I found so much to do for my patients after my short absence, that I had not time to meet him, before that, at Mrs. Crane’s. It was arranged that I should be there at seven in the evening, if I were able; if not, at ten the next morning.”
“Did you keep the appointment at seven?”
“No, I could not. I did get down, but it was more than an hour later, and Mr. Stephen had gone. Mrs. Crane appeared to be very well, except that she was a little heated; she was in very good spirits, and I told her I should take formal possession of her the next morning at ten. She seemed to think I might have done so that day, and I explained to her how I had been driven with my patients. I inquired if she was not satisfied with Stephen Grey, but she expressed herself as being perfectly satisfied with him, and said he had been very kind to her.”
“Did you inquire of her then by whom she was recommended to you?”
“I did not. She seemed restless, a little excited; therefore I put no questions to her of any sort, save as regarded her health.”
“Did the draught come while you were there?”
“Yes. Whilst I was talking with Mrs. Crane, I heard a ring at the front bell, and some one came up the stairs, and entered the sitting-room. I thought it might be Mr. Stephen Grey, and stepped there to see, but it was the nurse. She had a small bottle of medicine in her hand, which she said was the composing draught, and upon looking at the direction, I saw that it was.”
“Did you perceive that it bore any peculiar smell?”
“Yes, the moment I had it in my hands. Before I had well taken out the cork, the strong smell struck me; I thought it was oil of almonds; but I soon found it was prussic acid.”
“It smelt of prussic acid?”
“Very strongly. The nurse professed not to be able to smell it, which I could scarcely believe. I wondered why Mr. Grey should be administering prussic acid, especially in a composing draught, but it was not for me to question his treatment, and I returned the bottle to the nurse.”
“You did not suspect there was sufficient in to kill her?”
Mr. Carlton stared, and then broke into a of bitter smile.
“The question is superfluous, sir. Had I suspected that, I would have taken better care than I did that she did not drink it. Minute doses of prussic acid are sometimes necessary to be given, and I could not tell what symptoms had arisen in the patient that day. When I returned to Mrs. Crane’s chamber, which I did a few minutes before leaving, I could not get the smell out of my head. The thought occurred to me, could there have been any mistake in the making up of the draught?—for of course we all know that such errors have occurred, and not unfrequently, especially when inexperienced apprentices have been entrusted to do it. An impulse prompted me to desire Mrs. Crane not to take the draught, and I did so. I———"
“Did you acquaint her with your fears that there might be poison in it?”
Again the witness smiled. “Pardon me, Mr. Coroner; you do not know much of sick treatment, or you would not ask the question. Had I said to the patient that I thought her medicine might have been poisoned by mistake, I should possibly have given her a dangerous fright; and all frights are dangerous for women in her condition. I told her I did not quite approve of the draught Mr. Stephen Grey had sent in, and that I would go and speak to him about it; but I charged her not to take it, unless she heard again from me, or from Mr. Grey, that she might do so,”
“How do you account, then, for her having taken it?”
“I cannot account for it: my words were as positive as they could well be, short of alarming her. I can only think that she forgot what I said to her.”
“Did you also warn the woman—Pepperfly?”
“No. I deemed my warning to Mrs. Crane sufficient; and I did not see Mrs. Pepperfly about, when I left the house.”
“Do you not think, Mr. Carlton, it would have been the safer plan, had you put the suspected draught into your pocket?” inquired one of the jury.
“If we could foresee what is about to happen, we should act differently in many ways, all of us,” retorted the witness, who seemed cross that his prudence should be reflected on, and who possibly felt vexed at there being any grounds for its being so. “When a calamity has happened, we say, ‘If I had known, I would have done so and so, and prevented it.’ You may be sure, sir, that had I known there was enough poison in that draught to kill Mrs. Crane, or that she would disregard my injunction, and imbibe it, I should have brought it away with me. I have regretted not doing so ever since, But where’s the use of regretting? it will not recall her to life.”
“Go on, sir,” said the coroner.
“I went to the Messrs. Greys. My intention was to see Mr. Stephen, to tell him of the smell the draught bore, and inquire if it was right. But I could not see Mr. Stephen: the assistant, Mr. Whittaker, said he was out. I considered what to do; and determined to go home, make up a proper composing draught, and bring it down. I was rather longer over this than I thought to be, for I found myself obliged to see a patient in the interim.”
“You deemed a composing draught necessary for her yourself, then?”
“Mr. Stephen Grey had deemed so, and we medical men rarely like to call in question another’s treatment. But I did think it expedient that she should take a soothing draught, for she appeared to be flushed—rather excited, I should say. I was coming down with the fresh draught in my pocket, when I met the landlady in a wild state of alarm, with the news that Mrs. Crane was dead.”
“Were you the first with her after death?”
“I was the first, except the nurse; but I had not been in the room above a minute when the Reverend Mr. Lycett followed me. We found her quite dead.”
“And, in your opinion, what was the cause?”
“The taking of prussic acid. There is no doubt about it: there was no mistaking the smell from her mouth.”
“Look at this phial, Mr. Carlton,” continued the coroner: “does it bear any resemblance to the one which contained the fatal draught?”
“It appears to be like it, The directions and handwriting are similar. Oh, yes,” he added, as he took out the cork, “it is the game: the smell is in it still.”
“Did you observe where the last witness, Pepperfly, put the bottle containing the draught, after you returned it to her? I mean when it was first delivered at the house.”
“I cannot tell where she put it. I did not notice.”
“You did not touch the bottle again, before you left the house?”
Mr. Carlton turned sharply round, facing the audience at the back of the room.
“Who called me?” he inquired.
There had been a great deal of talking the last minute or two, amidst this crowd, and Mr. Carlton’s name was heard mentioned in conjunction with others; but nobody would confess to having called him.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Coroner,” he said, turning back to resume his evidence, “I certainly thought some one called me; and that, whoever it might be, was guilty, considering the time and place, of disrespect to the law. You were inquiring if I touched the phial again before I left the house, after resigning it to Mrs. Pepperfly: I neither touched it nor knew where it was.”
“If the proceedings are interrupted by spectators, I shall order the room to be cleared,” said the coroner, directing his eyes and voice to the part whence the noise had proceeded. “Those who want to talk can go outside.”
The coroner glanced over his notes; he had apparently come to an end, or nearly so, of the examination of Mr. Carlton.
“Before you retire, I must ask you one more question,” said he, looking up. “Have you any clue to this mystery—any suspicion of how the poison could have got into the draught?”
Mr. Carlton remained silent. Was he debating with himself whether he should tell of the face he had seen on the staircase but an hour before the death—the strange, dread face on which the moon was shining? It is certain that that mysterious face had haunted Mr. Carlton’s mind more than was pleasant, both at the time and since. Was he doubting whether to denounce it now, as something which had no business in the house, and which might have been connected with the mystery? or did he shrink from the ridicule that would attach to him, at confessing to superstitious fears?
“You do not answer,” said the coroner, amidst the dead silence of the court.
Mr. Carlton drew a long breath. His thoughts took a different bent, unconnected with the face.
“I cannot say that I suspect any one,” he said, at length. “Neither can I imagine how the poison could have been introduced to the draught, except in the making up, seeing that it smelt of it when it came to Mrs. Crane’s.”
Another silence, which the coroner broke.
“Very well; that is, I believe, all I have to ask you, Mr. Carlton. And I am sure,” he added, “that the jury feel obliged to you for the ready and candid manner in which you have given your evidence.”
Mr. Carlton bowed to the coroner, and was retiring; but the coroner’s clerk, who appeared to have certain memoranda before him to which he occasionally referred, whispered something in the ear of the coroner.
‘Oh, ay; true,” remarked the latter, “A moment yet, Mr. Carlton. Did you not encounter at Great Wennock, on Sunday evening, the person called Mrs. Smith, who took away this unhappy lady’s child?”
“I saw a person there in the waiting-room of the station, who had a very young infant with her. There is little doubt it was infant in question.”
“You had some conversation with her. Did she give any clue as to who the lady was?”
“She gave me none. I did not now what had occurred, and supposed the child to be the offspring of some resident at South Wennock. I told her that the child was too young and feeble to travel with safety, and she replied that necessity had no law—or something to that effect. I was talking with her but a minute or two, and chiefly about the omnibus, which she said had bruised her much, in its reckless jolts over the ruts and stones. That was all.”
“Should you know her again?”
“I might; I am not sure, I had no very clear view of her face, for it was dusk.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No, she did not.”
“That’s all then, I think, Mr. Carlton.”
CHAPTER X.MR. CARLTON RECALLED.
After Mr. Carlton’s dismissal, the coroner and jury spoke for some time together, and the result was that Betsy Pepperfly was called for again.
“Now, Mrs. Pepperfly,” the coroner began, “do you mean to repeat to me that the deceased lady made no objection to take that draught?”
“She didn’t make none at all, my lord mayor. If she had, why should she have took it? she was missis. Quite the conterairy of her objecting, it were; for she asked for it as soon as she’d swallowed her gruel; but I told her she must not take one right atop of t’other.”
“Mr. Carlton says he gave her a charge not to touch the draught. And you tell me upon your oath that she took it without making any demur?”
“I tell you so, Mr. Mayor, upon my Bible oath, and I’d take twenty oaths to it, if you liked. But if you and the honourable corporation” (turning to the jury) “can’t believe me, why don’t you please ask the Widow Gould?—From nine o’clock, or a little before it, the time Mrs. Crane had her gruel, the widow never was out of the room at all, and she can speak to all that passed as correctly as me. Not that you’ll get much out of her,” added Mrs. Pepperfly, in a parenthesis, “for she’s a-shaking and sobbing with fright in the next room, afeard of being called in here. She thinks it’s like being tried, you see, gentlefolks, and she says she never was had afore a lord judge and jury in her life, and never stood at a transportation bar.”
After this luminous piece of information, Betsy Pepperfly finally retired, and the shaky Mrs. Gould was supported in, attired in the poke bonnet and the plaid shawl she had lent to Judith. To try to convince the widow that she was not about to be arraigned at a criminal bar was a hopeless task; her mind upon the subject of bars in general and courts in particular, presenting a mass of inextricable confusion. She carried some pungent smelling salts, and somebody had thrust into her hand a pint bottle of vinegar, wherewith to bedew her handkerchief and her face; but her shaky hand poured so much aside, that the whole room was impregnated with the odour.
“What’s your name, ma'am?” asked the coroner, when the business of swearing her had been got over with difficulty.
“Oh, dear gentlemen, do be merciful to me! I’m nothing but a poor widow!” was the sobbing answer.
“Well, what’s your name, if you are a widow?” returned the coroner.
“It’s Eliza Gould. Oh, goodness, be good to me!”
“Now, if you don’t just calm yourself and show a little common sense, perhaps you’ll be made to do it,” cried the coroner, who was a hot-tempered man. “What are you afraid of?—that you are going to be eaten?”
“I never did no wrong to nobody, as I can call to mind—and it’s a dreadful disgrace to be brought here, and me a lone widow!” hysterically answered Mrs. Gould, while the vinegar was dropping from her eyebrows and nose.
“How old are you, ma'am?” snappishly asked the coroner.
“Old?” shrieked Mrs. Gould. “Is this a court of that sort of inquiry?”
“It’s a court where you must answer what questions are required of you. How old are you, ma'am?”
Mrs. Gould moaned, and brought out in a tone scarcely audible, that she believed she might be as much as forty-two.
The coroner looked at her grey hairs and her wrinkles, and perhaps he was not disinclined for a minute’s sport.
“Forty-two,” said he, in a loud voice, to his clerk; “take it down. You have spoken correctly, ma'am, I hope,” he added, turning again to the witness, “This is a court of justice, remember, and you are upon your oath; you would not like to be tried for perjury.”
Mrs. Gould sobbed, and shrieked, and finally went off into real hysterics. When the bustle was over, the coroner began again.
“We have not quite got over the question of age. How old did you say you were?”
"Must I tell it?” sobbed Mrs. Gould.
“Of course you must, And now, ma'am, take notice that I ask you for the last time; I cannot have the moments of the court wasted in this manner. How old are you?”
“I’m only fifty-six,” howled Mrs. Gould, amidst a torrent of tears and vinegar and a roar of laughter from the room.
“Draw your pen through forty-two, Mr. Clerk; and now perhaps we can go on to business. What do you know regarding the young lady who took your rooms, Mrs. Gould?”
“I don’t know anything of her, except that she had a ring on her finger, and therefore must have been married,” replied the witness, whose answers in general life had a frequent tendency to veer from the question.
“Do you know where she came from, or why she came, or who her relations might be, or whether she had any?”
“She said Mrs. Fitch sent her to me, and she said her husband was travelling, and she said no more,” continued the witness between her sighs.
“Did she say where he was travelling, or what he was?”
“No, sir, Oh me, I think I shall faint!”
“Perhaps you’ll be so complaisant as to wait till your evidence is over, and then faint,” suggested the coroner, blandly. “Did she tell you that she purposed making a long stay?”
“She told me she meant to be ill at my house, and that she did not expect the illness until May. She made me tell her the names of the doctors at South Wennock, which I did, and I spoke up for the Mr. Greys, as was only neighbourly, but she said she would have Mr. Carlton.”
“Did she give any particular reason for choosing Mr. Carlton?”
“She said she had a prejudice against the Greys, through something she’d heard; and she said some friends of hers had recommended Mr. Carlton. But, I’ve had it upon my mind, all along, that it was the cabrioily did it.”
“What it was what did it?” exclaimed the coroner, while the jury raised their faces.
“The cabrioily. She got me to describe about the Mr. Greys to her, what they were like; and she got me to describe about Mr. Carlton, what he was like; and I did, sir, meaning no harm. I said that the Mr. Greys were pleasant gentlemen who contented themselves with a gig; and that Mr. Carlton was pleasant too, but grand, and had set up his cabrioily. I think that did it, sir, the cabrioily; I think she couldn’t resist choosing Mr. Carlton, after that.”
There was a coughing and choking in the room, and the coroner’s clerk shook as he took down the evidence. The witness called words after her own fashion of pronunciation, and the stress she laid upon the “oil” in cabrioily was something new; indeed the word, altogether, was now, in her lips—“cab-ri-oil-y.”
“She wrote a note to Mr. Carlton,” proceeded the witness, “and I got it taken to his house. And when the messenger came back with the news that he was away, she cried.”
“Cried!” echoed the coroner.
“Yes, sir, She said the note she had sent to Mr. Carlton engaged him, and she could not afford to pay two doctors. But we told her that if Mr. Grey attended for Mr. Carlton, she would only have to pay one. And that, or something else, seemed to reconcile her, for she let Mr. Stephen Grey be fetched, after all; and when it was over, she said how glad she was to have had him, and what a pleasant man he was. The oddest part of it all is, that she had no money.”
“How do you know she had none?”
“Because, sir, none has been found, and them police gentlemen is keen at searching; nothing escapes ’em. She had the best part of a sovereign in her purse—nineteen and sixpence, they say, but no more. So, how she looked to pay her expenses, her doctor and her nurse, and me—and Mother Pepperfly a boarding with me at the lady’s request, and she don’t eat a trifle—she best knew, and I say that it does look odd.”
“You regaled Mrs. Pepperfly with gin,” spoke up one of the jury, relaxing from the majesty of his office. “Was that to be charged, or was it a spontaneous treat?”
“Oh, dear, good gentlemen, don’t pray throw it in my teeth,” sobbed the widow. “I did happen to have a drop of the vulgar stuff in the house; which it must have been some I got for the workmen when I moved into it, three years ago, and have stopped ever since on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard, in a cracked bottle. I couldn’t touch a drop of gin myself without heaving, gentlemen; my inside would turn against it.”
Perhaps Mrs. Gould’s eyes likewise turned against it, for they were cast up with the fervour of her assertion till nothing but the whites were visible.
“Ahem!” interrupted the coroner, “you are on your oath;” and Mrs. Gould’s eyes came down with a start at the words, and her mouth with them.
“Leastways unless I feel ill,” she interjected.
“This is wasting time, ma'am,” said the coroner; “we must hasten on. Can you account for the poison getting into the composing draught sent in by Mr. Grey? Did it get into it after it came into your house?”
The witness was considerably astonished at the question; considerably flustered.
“Why, you don’t think I’d go and put it in!” she uttered, subsiding into another fit of sobs.
“I ask you,” said the coroner, “as a matter of form, whether there was any one likely to do such a thing; any one of whom you can entertain a suspicion?”
“Of course, gentlemen, if you mean to accuse me and Mrs. Pepperfly of poisoning her by prussic acid, the sooner you do it the better,” howled the widow. “We never touched the bottle,. As the Greys’ boy brought it, so it was given to her. And there was nobody else to touch it—although Mr. Carlton as good as accused us of having got a whiskered man in the house on the sly!”
The coroner pricked up his ears, “When was that?”
“The night of the death, sir. He was there when the draught came, was Mr. Carlton, and when I heard him coming down the stairs to leave, I ran out of the kitchen to open the door for him. ‘Is there a man up-stairs?’ asked he. ‘A man, sir,’ I answered. ‘No, sir; what sort of a man?’ ‘I thought I saw one hiding on the landing,’ said he, ‘a man with whiskers,’ ‘No, sir,’ says I, indignant, ‘we don’t want no man in this hose.’ ‘It was my fancy, no doubt,’ answered he; ‘I thought I’d just mention it, lest any blackguard should have got in.’ But now, gentlemen,” continued the widow, wrathfully, “I just ask you, was there ever such an insinuation put to two respectable females? I bear out Mother Pepperfly, and Mother Pepperfly can bear out me, that we had no man in the house, and didn’t want one; we’d rather be without ’em. And one with whiskers too! Thank you for nothing, Mr. Carlton!”
The words seemed to strike the coroner, and he made a note in the book before him. When Mrs. Gould’s indignation had subsided, she was again questioned. Her further evidence need not be given, it was only connected with points already discussed, and at its conclusion she was permitted to retire to the next room, where she had a prolonged fit of hysterics.
The coroner requested the presence again of Mr. Carlton. But it was found that Mr. Carlton had gone. This caused a delay in the proceedings. An officer was despatched for him in haste, and found him at his own home, engaged with a patient. He hurried him up to the court.
“What am I required for?” asked Mr. Carlton.
“I can’t say, sir. The coroner said you were to be produced.”
“I thought you had understood, Mr. Carlton, that it is expedient the witnesses should not depart until the inquiry be over,” began the coroner, when he appeared. “Questions sometimes arise which may render it necessary for them to be examined again.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied Mr. Carlton; “I had no idea I was not at liberty to return home; or that I should be wanted further.”
The coroner placed his arms on the table beside him, and leaned towards Mr. Carlton.
“What in this tale,” asked he, “about your having seen a man secreted on the stairs, or landing, on the night of the mur—,” the coroner coughed, to drown the word which had all but escaped his lips—“on the night of the death?”
A scarlet tinge, born of emotion, flushed the face of Mr. Carlton. Were his superstitious feelings going to be hauled out for the benefit of the crowded court?
“Who says I saw one?” inquired he.
“That is not the question,” sharply returned the coroner. “Did you see one?”
“No, I did not.”
“The last witness, Eliza Gould, testifies that you did—or thought you did.”
“The facts are these,” said Mr. Carlton. “As I was leaving the patient, the moonbeams shone on the landing through the staircase window, and for the moment I certainly did think I saw a face—the face of a person leaning against the wall.”
“What sort of a face?” interrupted the coroner. “A man’s or a women’s?”
“Oh, a man’s, decidedly. A pale face, as it appeared to me, with thick black whiskers. I believe now it was my fancy: it was just a momentary glimpse, or rather idea, as was over directly. Moonbeams, it is well known, play the eyesight curious tricks and turns. I fetched the candle and examined the landing, but no person was to be seen. Before I had well got down the stairs, a conviction was stealing over me that I had deceived myself, that there had been really nothing there, but I certainly did ask the woman, Gould, when she came to open the door for me, whether or not any strange man was in the house.”
“She said, No?”
“Yes: and was intensely offended at my putting the question.”
The coroner mused. Turning to the jury, he spoke in a confidential tone.
“You see, gentlemen, had there been really any one concealed upon the stairs, it would be a most suspicious point; one demanding full investigation. That medicine was in the adjoining room, open to the landing, and unprotected by any guard; for the lady in bed could not be supposed to see what took place in the next apartment, and the two women were down-stairs. Nothing more easy than for the cork to be abstracted from the medicine sent by the Messrs. Grey, and a few deadly drops poured into it. Provided, I say, the person so concealed there, had a design to do so.”
The jury looked grave, and one of them addressed Mr. Carlton:
“Can’t you take your mind back, sir, with any degree of certainty?”
“There is quite a sufficient degree of certainty in my mind,” replied Mr. Carlton. “I feel convinced, I feel sure, that the face existed but in my fancy. I had gone out from the light room to the dark landing,—dark, except for the moonbeams—and———”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Carlton,” interrupted another juryman, “but the witnesses, Pepperfly and Gould, have deposed that the lady’s chamber was in darkness—that the candle was in the sitting-room adjoining, where she preferred to have it left.”
“Have they? I almost forget. Then in passing through the sitting-room I must have got my eyes in contact with the light, for I know that the landing appeared dark. You are right,” added Mr. Carlton. “I remember now that the candle was in the sitting-room, for it was from thence I fetched it to search the landing.”
“Why did you not mention this, witness, when you were first examined?” asked the coroner.
“Mention what, sir? That I fancied I saw a face in the dark, which turned out to be all moonshine?” retorted the witness. “Verily, I should be only too glad to mention anything that would bear upon the case, but I might have got laughed at for my pains.”
“You attach no importance to it, then?”
“None whatever. I feel certain that it was but a freak of my own fancy.”
“Very well, sir. That will do for the present. Are there any more witnesses to examine?” continued the coroner, addressing the summoning officer.
There were one or two, who gave testimony of no importance, and they appeared to be all. Frederick Grey, who had been an eager listener to the witnesses, then stepped forward and addressed himself to the coroner.
“Will you let me make a statement, sir?”
“If it bears upon the case,” replied the coroner. “Does it do so?”
“Yes it does,” warmly replied Frederick, his earnest, honest gray eyes flashing. “There has been a cruel suspicion of carelessness cast upon my father, and I destroyed the proofs by which it could have been refuted.”
And forthwith he told the story of his heedless wiping of the cobwebbed jar.
“Was any one present when you did this, but you and your father?” asked the coroner.
“Sir, did you not hear me say so? My uncle John.”
“Let Mr. John Grey be called,” said the coroner. “Gentlemen,” he added to the jury, “I am going somewhat out of my legal way in admitting these statements; but I must confess that it does appear to me most improbable that Mr. Stephen Grey, whose high character we all well know, should have been guilty of this fatal carelessness. It has appeared to me entirely improbable from the first; and I deem it right to hear any evidence that can be brought forward to refute the accusation—especially,” he impressively concluded, “after the statement made by Mr. Carlton, as to the face he saw, or thought he saw, lurking near the chamber where the draught was placed. I acknowledge, in spite of Mr. Carlton’s stated conviction, that I am by no means convinced that face was not real. It may have been the face of some deadly enemy of the ill-fated young lady, one who may have followed her to South Wennock for the purpose of destroying her, and stolen nefariously into the house; and then, his work accomplished, have stolen out again.”
“With all due deference, Mr. Coroner, to your superior judgment,” interposed a juryman, “the suspicion that the poison may have been introduced into the draught after it was in the widow Gould’s house, appears to be disposed of by the fact that it smelt strongly of it when it was first brought—as sworn to by Mr. Carlton.”
“True, true,” said the coroner, musingly. “It is involved in much mystery. Stand forward, Mr. Grey. Were you present when your nephew wiped the cobwebs and dust from the jar of hydrocyanic acid?” continued the coroner, after he was sworn.
“I was,” replied Mr. John Grey. “My brother Stephen reached down the jar, which he had to do by means of steps, from its usual place, and the dust and cobwebs were much collected on it, the cobwebs being woven over the stopper—a certain proof that it had not recently been opened.”
“This was after the death had taken place?”
“It was just after it; when we got home from seeing the body. My brother remarked that it was a proof, or would be a proof—I forget his exact words—that he had not used the hydrocyanic acid; and whilst he and I ware closely talking, Frederick, unconscious, of course, of the mischief he was doing, took a duster and wiped the jar. I was not in time to stop him. I pointed out what he had done, and how it might tell against his father, and he was overwhelmed with contrition; but the mischief was over, and could not be remedied.”
“You had no other hydrocyanic acid in your house, except this?”
“None at all; none whatever.”
The coroner turned to the jury.
“If this statement of Mr. John Grey’s be correct—and it bears out his nephew’s—we must acknowledge that Mr. Stephen could not have put prussic acid into the draught when making it up. He could not, in my opinion.”
The jury assented. “Certainly he could not,” they said, “if the testimony were correct.”
“Well, gentlemen we know John Grey to be an upright man and a good man; and he is on his oath before his Maker."
Scarcely had the coroner spoken when a strange commotion was heard outside—a noise as of a crowd of people in the street, swarming up to the Red Lion. What was it? What could it be? The coroner and jury suspended proceedings for a moment, until the disturbance should subside.
But, instead of subsiding, it only came nearer and nearer; and at length burst into the room—eager people with eager faces—all in a state of excitement, all trying to pour forth the news at once.
Some additional evidence had been found.
The whole room rose, even the coroner and jury, so apt are the most official of us to be led away by excitement. What had come to light? Imaginations are quick, and the jury were allowing theirs a wide range. Some few of them jumped to the conclusion that, at least, Dick, the boy, had confessed to having been waylaid and bribed, to allow of poison being put into the draught; but by far the greater number anticipated that the body and legs belonging to the mysterious face had turned up, and were being marched before the coroner.