Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  Silent and lifeless the great old mansion stood before him, and door or window gave no sign. Who could it be? What had happened? The image that constantly presented itself to his imagination was horrible and piteous enough. Had that gloomy, morbid, miserable man, Mark Shadwell, made away with himself in one of his paroxysms of malign despair? and if so, what a spectacle of agony awaited him!

  That poor weak lady, adoring that unhappy and ungrateful man, could she survive so frightful a shock? As he approached the other pair of demi-griffins, with upturned wings and monstrous eyes and beaks, awaiting him by the steps, and looked at the closed hall-door, his heart sank within him, and he felt almost faint as he anticipated the scene that was coming.

  He threw the bridle of his pony over the corner of the balustrade that flanks the steps at either side, and rang the bell. He had to repeat his summons more than once before the door was opened.

  “How is Mrs. Shadwell?” inquired the vicar.

  She was pretty well.

  “And Miss Shadwell?”

  The same answer. But the servant was looking at him with a stem countenance, which indicated something untold and dreadful.

  “And your master — he s well, I hope?” said the vicar, trying to read the man’s answer in his face, as he put the question.

  He was well, also. Stour Temple began to think that Carmel Sherlock’s warning was but a symptom of his crazy state.

  “Has Mr. Sherlock returned?” inquired the vicar.

  “No, sir,” said the man with a shake of his head, and a very odd look in the vicar’s eyes.

  “Can I see your master?” asked Stour Temple, who was willing to clear the matter up without more delay.

  “I’ll inquire, sir,” said the man.

  “Say it is I — perhaps he’ll see me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And the man walked across the spacious hall to the library door. It was locked; and he returned, and said:

  “He has locked the door, sir, please and he looked as if he would add, “I dare not disturb him.”

  “Well — thanks — don’t mind; I’ll try myself if he can see me.”

  The vicar knocked several times, and on a sudden the door half opened, and Mark Shadwell presented himself standing on the threshold.

  “Ho! Temple? So you’ve come. I’m sorry — sent for — eh?”

  “Well, yes; I got a kind of message, but very vague. I only heard you were in trouble,” said Stour Temple, struck by something suspicious and stony in the countenance of Mark Shadwell, and looking into it with a dark and anxious inquiry.

  “Trouble? — I! — well I can’t say I am; come in.” The vicar entered, and Mark shut the door. “Hardly trouble — but in a very painful situation. You did not hear about that — that — unfortunate fellow” — and saying this he averted his eyes— “Roke Wycherly?”

  “No, nothing; he’s — what is it?”

  “He’s — he’s dead; and what makes it worse, he has been killed.” Mark spoke nearly in a whisper, and looked very grim and pale.

  “Good God!” exclaimed the vicar, while his face paled with horror, “do you mean he has been murdered?”

  “Yes — there can’t be a doubt. No one could have inflicted those wounds on himself; and he was not a man to hurt himself.”

  “Is he quite dead?”

  “Yes; it must have happened as early as sunrise. At eight o’clock he was cold. It’s shocking, isn’t it? — quite well last night, you know; and now! I could scarcely go in myself. I never could bear the sight of a dead person since I saw my poor father — it’s a hateful sight; but I told them to leave everything as it was exactly, and nothing has been disturbed. There must be an inquest, of course. I’ll have the whole thing searched out, and all as light as day.”

  “Certainly,” acquiesced Temple; “and, depend upon it, you’ll succeed — these things always discover themselves. I’m very sorry to find you in so painful and horrible a situation. If I can be of any use I shall be only too happy.”

  “If it is not too painful, I should be so much obliged, Temple, if you would just go and look at what has happened, and examine the room, and make a note of anything that strikes you. I should much prefer that all evidence of that kind should come from some one not an inmate of the house, and some one both intelligent and unexceptionable; people are talking, I dare say, already. When did you hear?”

  “Well, it was at Applebury, this morning; there’s a fair there.”

  “Oh, yes — quite natural; they were talking about it, I dare say,” said Mark, in a low tone.

  “No; I met Carmel Sherlock, who gave me your message,” said the vicar.

  “Carmel Sherlock! At Applebury? Good heaven! Then he’s perfectly mad!”

  Looking at Mark Shadwell as he spoke, the vicar could see hardly anything but his flaming eyes, and a face pale as death.

  “I hope to God you arrested him?”

  “Arrested him? No — why?”

  “Why? Because he it was who indubitably murdered Roke Wycherly last night. Did you leave him still at the fair?”

  It was now the vicar’s turn to look horror-struck.

  “Is it credible? Mr. Sherlock — so gentle and harmless,” said the vicar, after a pause of several seconds.

  “The man has been growing mad this long-time — madder than any of us thought. Clewson’s evidence — Clewson, Roke’s servant, you know — is quite conclusive on that point, Was he arrested?”

  “No. I tell you, no one, I’m certain, knew anything of it. It can’t have been much past seven when I saw him. There did seem something very strange in his looks and manner; and he urged me to come here, as if he had a message from you; but he would not say what had happened. Would it not be well to give a hint to Cripps, the policeman in Raby, to look after the wretched man — I trust a lunatic — who has committed this dreadful crime?”

  “So I was just thinking,” said Mark, with a haggard start. “You saw him at about seven o’clock at Applebury fair?”

  “Yes; he rode away from the church porch, where he seemed to have appointed a boy to meet him with his horse, in a westerly direction, along the quiet little road that passes there.”

  “How was he mounted?” asked Mark, ringing the bell.

  “A strong bay horse.”

  “Ha! He rode the old black hunter from this — the horse you’ve often seen him on. He must have picked up the other at the fair, or hired it, perhaps. How was he dressed?”

  “Very much as usual, I think; a loose outside coat, and one of those broadleafed felt hats, with a low round crown, and — yes — a pair of those leather things, like jack-boots; and he was looking very ill, indeed.”

  Mark shook his head, and smiled drearily.

  “Ha! well he may,” said he. “Tell Clewson to come here for a moment,” he continued, addressing the servant who presented himself at the door, “and tell them to put the horse to the taxcart instantly; and do you come back here in five minutes. I’m so much obliged to you, Temple, for this call. I’ll just make a note of what you tell me, and send it, and Clewson’s information, which I took this morning, to Cripps; and I’ll tell my fellow to drive him over to Applebury, and put the people there on the alert, and I think we must catch him — don’t you?”

  “I’m quite certain of it; no fugitive, as a rule, can escape — the telegraph nets them round. There are two or three police at Applebury, and the railway not far; give them the description, and they will take care to transmit it.”

  “I do hope they may catch him — there are so many enemies — the people are talking about it? Not yet, I suppose — but they’d stick at nothing, some of them; they’d say I favoured that wretched fellow’s escape. I’m so delighted you came. I tell you the truth, I felt miserably till you came. I think they must find him, and then it will all be cleared up; at the same time, mad the poor wretch is. Roke heard him at his door — he told us all about it — one night before, trying to get in, very cautiously — i
t’s a very odd business — and he opened the door suddenly, and there was Sherlock face to face with him; and he seemed put out and half frightened, and talked some nonsense. You may rely on it he intended that night getting in, and murdering the poor fellow, as he did at last. But, be it how it may, could anything be more unlucky for me, surrounded as I am with slanderers; the d — d hornets will be all up, in a cloud, about my ears. But let them say their say; provided it is within the limits of law, they can’t hurt me — eh? I’ll be vigorous and energetic as the hardest of them. I pity the wretched madman, of course; but I could not — I couldn’t connive at his escape — eh?”

  “Of course not, my dear Shadwell; no one could be weak enough to fancy any such thing. You take the plain view. There are very few cases, indeed, in which duty is anything but simple.”

  “This is the key; the room is locked. I have not been there since early this morning, for a few minutes, with Clewson. He will show you the way, and point out everything to you. I sha’n’t visit it again until the coroner comes. So many enemies, God knows what they might say.”

  “Well, I hope you mistake them,” said the clergyman.

  “I’d rather not trust them; I’ll leave nothing in their power. Here’s Clewson,” said Mark, as the man entered, very grave, very quiet, with air and looks beseeming the dismal occasion: and I am sure he would much have preferred that the accident had not happened, for his place was a good one. “You’ll move nothing; do you mind: everything is to be left precisely as you find it,” said Mark, addressing Clewson, who with, this charge accompanied the vicar, and led him by many rooms and passages to the backstairs, which, having mounted, they unlocked the door of the room which had been Clewson’s.

  Now Mr. Clewson pointed out the spot where Carmel had stood, and he showed bloody footprints leading to it, through the dressing-room, more distinctly marked the nearer it approached to the scene of the catastrophe, the room from which it started.

  The vicar hesitated for a moment at the door of the room where Sir Roke had slept; a sensation of fear and repugnance chilled him as he was about to step into the scene of crime. He opened the door. One window-shutter and curtain was partly open. It was a sudden change from the clear light of the dressing-room to the shadow of this chamber, which contained the object he almost feared to see. A cross light from a far window, leaving the greater part of the room in darkness, just touched an odd-looking figure that reclined in the cushioned chair, some way off, by the table.

  “There?” whispered the vicar, interrogatively, indicating the indistinct figure with his hand.

  “Yes, sir, please; in his dressing gown and slippers, with the cap on as he always wore when he put off his wig, which he had ‘ung it on the small block, by the looking-glass. Sir Roke’s caps, sir, was made to cover his ears, that he shouldn’t take cold, he ‘aving ‘ad a bad habcess in his left ear, last year, sir, in Florence, where we was for three months— “

  “Is that door open?” whispered Temple, nodding towards the door that opens on the great gallery.

  “We found it locked, sir, on the hinside; Sir Roke, being shy-like, or something, he usu’lly locked his door before he put his wig hoff.”

  “I’ll go over and see,” said the vicar, with a sigh that was nearly a groan: “we’ll not open the shutter; we must move nothing. Hush! — yes!”

  He was now standing about two steps away from the sitting, or rather reclining figure. There was Sir Roke, leaning back in the great cushioned chair. He had on a thick flowered silk dressing-gown, and a quilted white nightcap, that covered his ears, and was tied under his chin, giving a grotesque air to his costume. His chin was sunk upon his breast. Upon his thin lips was a faint piteous smirk; his eyes were fixed in a dim stare, as if upon something illimitably remote and awful. There was in this dead face a strange discord of fear and mockery. The narrow line of light from the partially opened shutter touched its features, and its odd white coiffure. The vicar had no notion that Sir Roke could have looked so old and worn; such a tracery of fine lines and wrinkles — lines of dissimulation and selfishness it seemed to him, as well as of exhaustion. In the thin high nose and almost transparent nostrils; in the thin lips and haggard face, was recognisable no one trait of manliness. You might have mistaken the face for that of a wicked old woman who had died whilst listening to an amusing scandal.

  The right arm of the corpse was extended on the table, and the slender hand was cramped and drawn together as if in the effort to clutch something. The fingers of the other were closed on the arm of the chair.

  The evidences of violence were only too apparent. Blood had flowed from the corner of the mouth, and stained the lip and chin with a black streak. There was a dreadful wound in the throat, nearly under the jaw, about an inch away from the ear — a stab with a broad-bladed knife or dagger. There was plainly another fearful wound on the breast, for the shirt, which the opening in the dressing-gown displayed, was cut, and immediately below this the white was stained with a broad red gush. There must have been other wounds, the vicar thought, for the carpet was saturated with a wide pool of blood.

  With the frown of a horrible compassion, the vicar gazed in silence upon the image before him for some time.

  “My God!” he exclaimed at last, with a great sigh, “who could have dreamed this of Sherlock? — so refined and gentle, and yet such a cruel villain! Mad, I hope, he may prove. What depths below depths in the heart of man. Lord, in Thee only is safety, Thou Bock of Ages!”

  With clasped hands, the vicar, looking up, spoke thus, and then turned away, and treading lightly, and speaking low, from point to point they went together in the room.

  Every now and again Stour Temple made a little note as he had promised Mark Shadwell. These little pencilled memoranda were after all but few, and were nearly as follows:

  “Sir Roke Wycherly’s bedroom, examined by me, Stour Temple, Clk., in presence of Mr. T. Clewson, on — , the — , presented the following indications, &c.:

  “The carpet, to the extent of about a yard in one direction and a little more in the other, is saturated with a pool of blood, partly in front, partly at the side of the chair in which the body reclines, and towards the right side of the body.

  “This blood seems to have discharged itself from the body, partly through the trouser of the right leg, which is stained by it, and the slipper of the right foot shows marks of having been full of blood, which flowed over.

  “The fragments of a large decanter of cut-glass, lie on the floor, at the same side, and partly under the table.

  “The three shutters and curtains of the three windows are closed, with the exception of that which is farthest from the bed, a small portion of which is open.

  “The door of the room which opens upon the great gallery, is locked, and the handle of the key and the brass of the door bear marks of what appears to me to be blood.

  “There are footprints, indicated by blood, leading from the chair to the door already mentioned, and also to that of the dressing-room next Sir Roke’s bedroom, across the floor of it, and upon the floor of Mr. T. Clewson’s bedroom, the latter very faintly traceable.

  “On the carpet is a sharp-pointed knife, with a broad, wavy blade; it is very much marked with blood. The cloth of this table is dragged to one side. On the table is one letter, addressed, ‘Pepys Adderly, Esq.’

  “There are pens, an ink-bottle, and a blotting-book on the floor.

  “There is a small table with a cloth on it, and a pack of cards, standing near the wall with no indication of having been disturbed.

  “There are four silver candlesticks on a small marble table at the left side of the body, the candles in which seem to have burned out in their sockets.

  “STOUR TEMPLE, Clerk.”

  And then the date.

  Having completed his survey of these rooms, Stour Temple hesitated for a moment, and then returned and looked once more at the dead man, reclining in the chair. There were the fixed attitude, the odd smile,
the awful clouded gaze. It is these returning visits after an interval of absence, the strange literality of the impression reproduced, the mobile lines, and transient gleams of living emotion, fixed where the moment found them, the immutable smile, the unchanged compression of the lip, the stem brow and changeless eye, that strike one with a sense of that awful anomaly in a world of life — the inexorable and irrevocable character of the change.

  “As à thief — in the night! The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me,” repeated the vicar, almost unconsciously, as he looked woefully upon this spectacle. “Let us go, Mr. Clewson, if you please.”

  Accordingly the vicar and the servant emeritus, took their departure, carefully locking the doors, and these chambers and their tenant were abandoned to silence and solitude.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE EVE OF THE INQUEST.

  “WELL, you’ve seen it?” said Shadwell, gloomily, when the. vicar had entered the study again.

  “Yes,” said Temple, very pale. “I’m almost sorry I have seen it. I sha’n’t easily recover the impression. I wish I could forget it.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been very unreasonable and thoughtless. I dare say I should have made my request to some other friend, although, except your brother Roger, I can hardly reckon another,” said Mark, sourly.

  “Pray, don’t mistake me. I would willingly do a great deal more, and for people in whom I took a much less interest, in so deplorable an emergency. I only meant to say, how very awfully that scene has impressed me.

  But I do assure you I’m only anxious to be of any use in my power.” And so saying, he extended his hand to Mark, who took it, and held it for a moment, looking gloomily at him.

  “I wrote to the coroner at eight o’clock this morning,” said he, “to entreat that he would summon his jury without any loss of time, and I have just had a letter from him to say they will be here at eleven o’clock tomorrow. Would it be asking too much if I were to beg that you and your brother in this, as you say, emergency, would come here at that hour? Think as you may. I have enemies, and bitter enemies, some of whom will be no doubt upon this jury. I don’t say avowed enemies — it may be even unconscious ones — but on this account the more unscrupulous. Of course such fellows as Mervyn and Desborough would be only too glad to reflect upon me.”