The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 6

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

 

CHAPTER VI

I AM the most fortunate man in England! I am the happiest man in the world!”

As he swung along in the bright winter sunshine on the field path which formed a short cut to the town, again and again these words seemed to hammer themselves, in joyful cadence, on Harry Garlett's brain.

What we call the human heart is full of the strangest twists and turnings, and so, though Garlett's heart was full of Jean Bower, he threw an affectionately retrospective thought to his late wife. He and “poor Emily” had never had a really cross word during those long, quiet years before the war, when, most fortunately for himself, he had not even dimly apprehended what the passion of love can mean in a human life, and how it will make beautiful, and intimately delicious, even the most prosaic facts of day-to-day existence.

He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten. In just twenty-four hours from now he and Jean would be starting for their one week's honeymoon in London.

His face softened. There came upon it a great awe. God! How he loved her. Every moment they spent together he seemed to discover some new, hitherto hidden beauty of mind, soul, or body in this wonderful, still mysterious, but wholly delightful young creature who not only allowed him to worship her but—miracle of miracles—returned his passion.

Such were the disconnected but wholly contented thoughts which filled half an hour of the last easy, unquestioning, and, as if for an immortal moment, ecstatic morning of Harry Garlett's life.

With no premonition of coming pain or evil Jean Bower's fortunate lover passed through the big paved courtyard of the Etna China factory. He walked quickly into the early Victorian marble-papered hall and so past the office where sat two clerks, into the high square room which had been for so long known to the good folk of Grendon as “Mr. Dodson's room.”

His letters lay unopened on the shabby leather-covered writing table, and as he sat down he saw that on the top of the pile was an unstamped envelope marked “Private.” Opening it, he read:

The Red Lion, Grendon,
December 17th.

Sir,

I propose to call on you to-morrow at eleven with regard to an important matter. Will you please arrange to be in at that time?

Yours faithfully,

James Kentworthy.

He stared down at the sheet of paper, trying to remember if he had ever heard the name Kentworthy before. But no, it meant nothing to him. Whoever this Kentworthy might be he had no business to take it for granted that he, Garlett, would be here, waiting his convenience, at eleven o'clock!

He got up and went into the outer office.

“If a Mr. Kentworthy calls, I will see him. But say that I can only spare him a few minutes, as I am very busy.”

As it was striking eleven, the door opened with: “Mr. Kentworthy, sir,” and at once, with some surprise, Harry Garlett recognized in his visitor a stranger he had seen walking about Terriford village during the last week or so.

The first time he, Garlett, had noticed him, this gray-haired stout man had been standing in the road just outside the gate of the Thatched House, chatting with one of the gardeners. On another occasion he had seen the same person looking at the inscriptions on the graves in the beautiful churchyard, of which the high-banked wall bounded the top of the broad village street. Also, this man whose name he now knew to be Kentworthy had passed him more than once on the narrow field path along which he had walked so joyously this morning.

“I have only just read your note, Mr. Kentworthy, for I was late this morning. What can I do for you? I'm afraid I cannot spare you much time, for, as you see, I haven't even opened my letters.”

His burly, substantial-looking visitor came forward and stood close to him.

“I may take it that you've no idea of the business which has brought me here, Mr. Garlett?”

He looked straight into the face of the man he was addressing, and Harry Garlett felt just a little disconcerted by that steady, steely stare.

“No,” he said frankly, “I have no idea at all of your business, but I have lately seen you walking about Terriford village, so I take it that you have some association with this part of the world?”

“This is my first visit to Grendon,” said the other slowly, and I was sent here, Mr. Garlett, on a most unpleasant errand.”

Again he looked searchingly at Garlett, and then he went on, speaking in a deliberate, matter-of-fact voice:

“I am a police inspector attached to the Criminal Investigation Department, and I was sent down here, about a week ago, to make inquiries concerning the death of Mrs. Emily Garlett, your late wife.”

Harry Garlett got up from his chair; he was so bewildered, so amazed, and yes, so dismayed, at what the other had just said, that he wondered whether he could have heard those strange, disturbing words aright.

“Concerning the death of my wife?” he repeated. “I don't understand exactly what you mean by that——?”

James Kentworthy did not take his eyes off the other's face. Long and successful as had been his career in the Criminal Investigation Department, he had never had a case of which the opening moves interested and, in a sense, puzzled him so much as did this case. He asked himself whether the man now standing opposite to him, whose face had gone gray under its healthy tan, was an innocent man, or that most dangerous and vile of criminals, a secret poisoner?

“From some information recently laid before the Home Office, it seems desirable that the cause of Mrs. Garlett's death should be fully ascertained,” he said slowly.

Harry Garlett sat down again.

“On whose information are you acting?” he asked.

“That, for obvious reasons, we are not prepared to divulge,” answered the other coldly. And he also sat down.

Harry Garlett's mind was darting hither and thither. Curse the gossips of Terriford! He had known them to create much smoke where he had felt convinced there was no fire—but never, never so noisome a smoke as this.

His heart became suddenly full of Jean—his darling, innocent little love. Such a child, too, as regarded the evil side of human nature, with all her common sense and practical cleverness. The thought of Jean almost unmanned him, but, in a flash, he realized that if only for her sake he must face this odious inquiry with courage and frankness.

“What is it you desire to know concerning my late wife's death?” he asked.

“Although Mrs. Garlett's death was exceedingly sudden, there does not seem to have been any question of an inquest,” observed the man Garlett now knew to represent all the formidable and mysterious powers of the C.I.D.

“There was not the slightest necessity for an inquest,” was the quiet answer. “Dr. Maclean, who had been my wife's medical attendant for many years, saw her the day before she died.”

Mr. Kentworthy took a thick, small, notebook out of his coat pocket, and opening it, began reading it to himself.

“I am aware of that fact,” he said, without looking up, “and of course my next step will be to call on Dr. Maclean. But before doing that I thought it only fair to come and tell you of my inquiries, Mr. Garlett.” He looked up. “Have you any objection to giving me an account of your wife's death—as far as you can remember the circumstances? Let me see—it's only seven months ago, isn't it?”

Again Harry Garlett made a mighty effort to pull himself together. He had all your honest man's instinctive, absolute trust in justice. No one believed more firmly than himself that “truth will out, even in an affidavit,” but even so, though he was not exactly an imaginative man, he did feel as if the gods, envious of the wonderful happiness with which his cup had been filled up to brimming over till a few moments ago, had devised this cruel, devilish trick....

“I am quite willing to tell you everything you wish to know,” he said frankly. “But there is very little to tell, Mr. Kentworthy.”

“It is a fact, is it not, that your wife was a lady of considerable means, and that she gave over to you the greater part of her fortune quite early in your married life?”

Garlett flushed. “That is so. But I beg you to believe that that was by no wish of mine. In fact, as I can prove to you, I remade my will at once, leaving the money back to her in case I predeceased her.”

James Kentworthy smiled. In spite of himself he was beginning to like Harry Garlett, and even to feel inclined to believe, to hope, he had been sent to this sleepy, old-world country town on a wild-goose chase.

“Look here!” he exclaimed, “I don't want you to be on the defensive with me, Mr. Garlett. If, as I trust will be the case, these inquiries of mine show that everything occurred in—well, in a regular and proper manner, no one will be more pleased than I shall be. I am not trying to catch you out in any way.”

Garlett's face lightened. “Thank you for saying that. But—but I feel so bewildered, Mr. Kentworthy.”

“I understand that. Still, in your own interest I beg you to tell me, as clearly as possible, whatever details you may remember as to your wife's sudden death. I propose to make a shorthand note of all you say, and then, after I have transcribed it, to ask you to read it over and sign the statement.”

He waited a moment, then added:

“I need hardly say that if you would prefer to ask your solicitor to be present, I shall raise no objection.”

“I would far rather say the little I have to say to you alone,” exclaimed Harry Garlett eagerly. “I have a very strong reason for hoping that the matter will never be known to any one but to us two—and, I suppose I must add, to Dr. Maclean?”

“Of course I shall have to see Dr. Maclean,” answered the police inspector. “But now, Mr. Garlett, go ahead! I would, however, suggest that you give orders that we be not interrupted. A great deal depends on your statement, as well as on that of Mrs. Garlett's medical attendant. If they both prove satisfactory, the Home Office will not issue what it is always reluctant to do—an exhumation order.”

“An exhumation order?”

As he repeated those ominous words, there was a tone of utter dismay and horror in Harry Garlett's voice, and the older man threw him a quick, suspicious glance. Why did the suggestion of an exhumation order cause Emily Garlett's widower such unease? Then he reminded himself that, after all, an absolutely innocent man might well quail before an ordeal which, whatever the precautions taken, was bound to become public.

“That would obviously be the next step,” he said reluctantly.

Harry Garlett took up the telephone receiver which stood on his writing-table. “I am not to be disturbed on any account,” he called through.

And then, settling himself squarely in his chair, he faced his tormentor:

“Ask me any questions you like, Mr. Kentworthy,” he said, “and I promise to answer them fully and truthfully.”

The police inspector moved his chair a little nearer to the writing-table.

“I understand, from the few inquiries I have been able to make, that Mrs. Garlett was always in delicate health?”

“That is so; indeed my wife may be said to have been born delicate. She told me once that she never remembered feeling really well. Her parents made a very late marriage, and she was an only child.”

“She was a good deal older than you were, was she not?”

Harry Garlett reddened. The fact had always been a sensitive point with him.

“I was twenty-two when I married, and my wife, at twenty-seven, seemed in my eyes still quite a young woman. She was very slender, and, at that time of her life, did not look more than twenty.”

“And I suppose I may assume that it was a marriage of affection on both sides?”

A deeper flush came over Harry Garlett's face. Though he had an open, cheery manner, he was in some ways a very reserved man. It was, therefore, with obvious, though restrained, emotion that he answered, in a low voice:

“My mother died when I was a child, and I had no sister. My father failed in business when I was a lad of fourteen, and a godfather paid for my later education. Until I came to Grendon I had hardly ever spoken to a young lady of refinement. At once the Thatched House became to me what I had never known, a home, and its young mistress my—my ideal of womanhood.”

“I see,” said the other man, touched by the candid admissions. “Then I take it, Mr. Garlett, that yours was a love marriage?”

“In spite of my wife's ill-health, and our disappointment at not having children, I doubt if any married folk ever led a happier and more placid existence than we did—till the war,” answered Harry Garlett earnestly, but, as the other thought, a little evasively.

“My wife took the greatest pride and pleasure in my success as a cricketer. Yet she was so far from strong that, even in the old days, she could seldom sit out a match.”

“I know that you were the third man in Terriford to join up in August, '14,” observed Mr. Kentworthy, “but that, I take it, did not mean that you were not completely happy at home?”

“Indeed, it did not! I felt that every fit man, in a position to do so, ought to join up at once. As for my wife, she was one of those old-fashioned women who approve of everything their husbands do.”

“Very few of that sort about now,” said Mr. Kentworthy, smiling.

“Well, my wife was one of those few! I told her how I felt about it all, and she said no word to stop me. And yet I have every reason to believe that she went through a real martyrdom while I was at the front——” He waited a moment, then concluded: “And when the war came to an end, and I settled down at home again, I realized that she had become a permanent invalid.”

“A terrible thing for a man of your age,” observed Mr. Kentworthy thoughtfully.

Harry Garlett made no answer to that comment. Had he ever felt for poor Emily a tithe of what he now felt for the girl who was to become his wife to-morrow, the condition in which he had found her on his return home would indeed have been a terrible thing. But with Emily, his relations, though good, kindly, even in a sense, gratefully affectionate, had not been such, even before the war, as greatly to affect him. But that, after all, was entirely his own and most secret business.

Thank God—he was thinking of Jean now, not of Emily—he had played fair in the great game of life. Tempted? Of course he had been tempted. Once, at least, more fiercely than he cared to remember now. But he had fought, beaten down temptation, remaining not only in deed but even in word, faithful to his marriage vow.

He came back with something of a mental start to the matter in hand.

This was the first time he had ever spoken, in an intimate sense, of his married life to any human being, and he was surprised to feel that, instead of finding it difficult, it was, in a sort of way, a relief.

“People may have told you, Mr. Kentworthy, that my wife was not a good-tempered woman,” he said earnestly, “but all I can say is, she was the most devoted and generous-natured of wives to me. I am aware that among my neighbours I was criticized for being a good deal away from home. No doubt I was selfish, absorbed in the game to which I give so much of my life during the summer months, but it was always with her eager encouragement that I went about and lived the kind of life I did live.”

“Mrs. Garlett must have been a most exceptional woman,” said the other, and he spoke with no sarcastic intent.

“She came of a long line of high-minded, God-fearing people—her old father was proud of the fact that he was descended from a man who at one moment had been Cromwell's right hand.”

He, Harry Garlett, hadn't thought of that for years. Yet, what was perhaps more singular, poor Emily's personality, at once so commonplace and yet, in a sense, forceful, became suddenly more present to him than it had ever been since the last time they had talked together, on the evening of their thirteenth wedding-day.

“I may take it that there was never even a passing cloud on your married life?”

“Never a cloud!”

Harry Garlett added impulsively, “I don't want you to think me a better man than I am. I did not always find it an easy situation——”

The other cut him short: “I accept what you said just now—that you two were happier, if anything, than the average married couple?”

“Yes, I think we were—in fact, I'm sure we were.” He spoke with sober decision.

“Now, tell me something about last spring. Did you think Mrs. Garlett more ailing than usual?”

“No,” said Garlett frankly, “I did not. She always made an effort to appear bright during the comparatively short times we were alone together, but, as I have already told you, she had become a complete invalid.”

He went on in a rather lower tone: “I wonder if you will understand when I tell you that she treated me, of late years, more as a loving mother treats a dear son than as a wife treats her husband——”

Both men remained silent for a moment, and the police inspector made a note in his book.

“Now, concerning the night your wife died? I understand the date was May the 28th, the time early on a Sunday morning.”

“The 27th of May was the thirteenth anniversary of our wedding-day,” began Harry Garlett. “And I'm ashamed to say I had forgotten it. But my wife remembered. And I found a gift, as a matter of fact, this gold cigarette case”—he took a small plain gold case out of his pocket—“waiting for me on my breakfast plate that Saturday morning. I then altered a plan I had made for going away for the weekend, and I decided to come home at one o'clock and spend as much of the day as was possible with my wife.”

“You were not alone during that walk back to your house?” suggested Mr. Kentworthy, in an indifferent tone. “You were, I believe, with a young lady.”

“A young lady?” echoed Harry Garlett, surprised. “I don't think so.” And then suddenly he exclaimed: “You're quite right—but how very odd that any one should have remembered it! I walked back with Miss Bower, the niece of my wife's medical attendant, Dr. Maclean. But she went on to her home—she lives with the Macleans—and I had a tray lunch upstairs, with my wife.”

“Were you at home all that afternoon?”

Again it was as if Harry Garlett were making an effort to remember.

“I think so,” he said slowly. “No, I'm wrong! I went to a tennis party. My wife generally rested in the afternoon. But I was back a little after six o'clock, and I sat with her for some time.”

He knitted his brows, trying hard to remember what had happened, and slowly half-forgotten incidents started into life.

“There was a question of some fruit, some forced strawberries that a friend had brought that morning. The lady who was then acting as our housekeeper and as my wife's nurse, thought I had given Mrs. Garlett the strawberries in question. But that was a mistake. She certainly ate them, so one of the maids must have given them to her. The matter is of some moment, for, as Dr. Maclean will, I think, tell you, it was this fruit which indirectly led to her death. Strawberries generally disagreed with her, but she was very fond of them, and as these were small Alpine strawberries I suppose she thought it would be all right.”

“When did you first become aware of your wife's serious condition?”

“It must have been about four o'clock in the morning when Mrs. Garlett's nurse-companion called me. She said my wife was in great pain and had asked if she could have some morphia. So I dressed and went at once for the doctor, who lives about a quarter of a mile from my place.”

“And then?”

“I had some trouble in rousing Dr. Maclean, but I think we were back in my house well under half an hour——”

“Had Mrs. Garlett become worse?”

“My wife could not bear for me to see her in the sort of state in which I understood she was then. So I waited downstairs in my study, and about—well, I don't think it could have been more than twenty minutes after he had come into the house, Dr. Maclean came down and broke to me the fact that she was dead.”

“Had she died while you were fetching the doctor?”

“I don't know—I don't think so. I was terribly upset, and I asked no questions. Though she was an invalid, she always seemed, in a way, full of life—a steady, if a low, flame. And she had seemed so well, so happy, that afternoon! But wait a bit. I have forgotten something. My wife had had a disagreeable shock. One of our servants had admitted her sweetheart into the house the night before—as a matter of fact into the drawing room, which has a French window opening into the garden. Mrs. Garlett heard sounds, and thought there were burglars in the house. She actually went downstairs herself, and caught the girl red-handed, as it were. I remember suggesting to Dr. Maclean that the shock—for she was very particular about such things—might have affected her heart. But he didn't think so.”

He stopped speaking. Mr. Kentworthy was busily writing, and Harry Garlett stared at his visitor's bent head. Though assuring himself that it would be “all right,” he felt an eerie feeling of apprehension wrapping him round.

“I thank you for the straightforward way in which you have answered my questions,” said the police inspector, getting up from his chair, “and now I propose to see Dr. Maclean.”

“Would you like me to make a telephone appointment for you with him?” asked Garlett. “He's a very busy man.”

“Why, yes, I should. But I hope you won't think it unreasonable of me to ask you to give him no hint as to my business?”

“You will hear everything I say to him,” answered the other quickly.

He took his telephone receiver off. “Put me through to Dr. Maclean's house.”

James Kentworthy, who was now standing close to the writing-table, heard the answer: “Miss Bower is already on the line, sir; we told her you didn't want to be disturbed—shall I put her through?”

“Yes, please.”

And then, unmindful of the presence of a stranger, more unmindful no doubt because James Kentworthy was still so entirely a stranger to him, Harry Garlett put his whole heart into the question he breathed into the receiver.

“Is that you, my dearest?” And then—“I want to speak to the doctor.”

The other heard, as from afar off, a bright, happy voice exclaim: “He's in the meadow with Aunt Jenny! I'll run along and get him. But you'd better hang up the receiver, for I'm afraid it'll be full five minutes.”

Garlett hung up the receiver, and again faced his visitor.

“I should like to tell you, Mr. Kentworthy, that I am just about to be married.”

“Just about to be married?”

The police inspector wondered if he had kept out of his voice, not only the surprise, but the dismay which he felt at this to him astounding disclosure.

“My fiancée is the niece of Dr. Maclean. She was on the telephone just now.”

“The young lady who, for a while, was your secretary?”

In spite of himself, there was a note of deep disappointment in the voice in which Mr. Kentworthy asked the question.

Harry Garlett instinctively straightened himself.

“Miss Bower became secretary to the Etna China Company—not my personal secretary—just before my wife's death.”

There was an awkward silence between the two men.

“I see,” said Mr. Kentworthy at last. “I see, Mr. Garlett.”

But, as a matter of fact, he felt as if he had walked from the bright sunshine into an evil-smelling fog. Quite a number of pages in his thick little notebook bore the heading “Miss Jean Bower.”

“Is the date of your wedding fixed?”

“Well, yes, it is.” Harry Garlett hesitated, then exclaimed impulsively—“We are to be married to-morrow morning, by special license! No one, however, knows that fact excepting the vicar and his wife, and, of course, Dr. and Mrs. Maclean.”

Again there followed a strange, painful silence.

“I take it you will postpone your marriage till this matter is thoroughly cleared up?” said the police inspector at last.

As the younger man, dismayed, made no immediate answer, the other added: “I should do so, in your place, Mr. Garlett.”

Before he could speak the telephone bell rang and Harry Garlett took up the receiver and in a falsely cheerful tone—a tone with which, alas, James Kentworthy was painfully familiar as a result of his life work—he called out: “Is that you, Dr. Maclean? Garlett speaking. Would you be in if Mr. Kentworthy, a gentleman who wants to see you, on urgent private business, were to come along now? Yes? Right!”

He hung up the receiver. “Dr. Maclean will see you at once.”

Both men got up.

“One word before you go, Mr. Kentworthy.”

“Yes, Mr. Garlett?”

Try as he might, he could not bring back the kindly tone into which he felt he had been betrayed during the latter part of their conversation.

“I suppose the only thing that would set the matter absolutely at rest would be the exhumation of my wife's body?”

“That is so—obviously,” answered the other, briefly.