Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  From Mrs. Meggis, the deaf housekeeper, very little information of any kind could be extorted. She remembered having admitted Captain Duke on his arrival at the Hall, but was doubtful as to the hour; it might have been between seven and eight, or between eight and nine; she was quite sure that it was after dark, but she couldn’t take upon herself to say how long after dark. She remembered Captain Duke striding straight into the oak parlour, and bidding her light a fire: he was a noisy and insolent gentleman, and she was afraid of him, being timid by nature, and seventy-five years of age, your lordship, come next Michaelmas,” and he swore at her because the kindling was green and wouldn’t burn. She remembered preparing the garden room for him, according to Mrs. Duke’s orders. She had prepared no other room for Mrs. Duke, and did not know where she meant to sleep. She remembered getting the wine and brandy, which Mrs. Duke carried to the Captain with her own hands. This must have occurred, she thought, at about eleven o’clock, and immediately after this she, Mrs. Meggis, went to bed, and remembered no more till she was awakened next morning by the constable, and nigh frightened out of her poor old wits by seeing him standing at her bedside.

  This was all that Mrs. Meggis had to tell; and she, like Samuel Pecker, gave a great deal of trouble to her questioners before she could be induced to part with her information.

  Sarah Pecker was also examined, but she could tell nothing more than her husband had told already, and she broke down so often into sobs and pitying ejaculations about her old master’s daughter, that Mr. Bowers was glad to make the examination as brief as possible.

  All these people duly examined, their depositions read over to them, and signed by them, there was nothing more to be done but to ask the accused, Millicent Duke, what she had to say. She was informed that she was not obliged to speak, and was warned that whatever she might say would perhaps be hereafter used in evidence against her.

  She told her awful story with a quiet coherence, which none there assembled had expected from her. She described her horror at the Captain’s return, and the distracted state of her mind, which had been nigh upon madness all that dreadful night. She stated, as nearly as was in her power, the time at which she bade him good night, and retired to the chamber farthest from the garden room — the chamber which had been her mother’s. She grew a little confused here, when asked what she had done with herself between that time — a little after eleven o’clock — and the discovery of the murder. She said that she thought she must have sat, perhaps for hour’s, thinking of her troubles, and half unconscious of the lapse of time. She told how, by-and-by, in a passionate outburst of despair, she thought of her father’s old razors lying in that very chamber within reach of her bands, and remembered how one deep gash in her throat might end all her sorrow upon this earth. But the sight of the murderous steel, and the remembrance of the sinfulness of such a deed, had changed her purpose as suddenly as that purpose had sprung up in her heart, and she thrust the razor away from her in a wild hurry of terror and remorse. Then — with but little questioning and with quiet self-possession — she told how that other purpose, almost as desperate as the first, had succeeded it in her mind; and how she had determined to appeal to George Duke, imploring of him to leave her, and to suffer her to drag out her days in peace. How, eager to act upon this last hope, she had gone straight to his room, and there had found him lying murdered on his bed. The justice asked her if she had gone close up to the bedside to convince herself that the Captain really was dead. No, she had lacked the courage to do that; but she bad seen the fearful gash across his throat, the blood streaming from the open, wound, and she knew that he was dead.

  She spoke slowly, faltering a little sometimes, bat never embarrassed, though the clerk’s pen followed her every word as unrelentingly as if he had been a recording angel writing the history of her sins, and too severe an angel to blot out the smallest of them with a tear. There had been a death-like silence in the room while she told her story, broken only by the scratching of the clerk’s pen and the ticking of the solemn-faced clock.

  “I will but ask you one more question, Mrs. Duke,” said Montague Bowers; “and I beg you for your own sake to be careful how you answer it. Do you know of any person likely to have entertained a feeling of animosity against your husband?”

  She might have replied that she knew nothing of her husband’s habits, nor of his companions. He might have had a dozen enemies, whose names she had never heard, since his life had been altogether a mystery to her. But her simple and guileless mind was powerless to deal with the matter thus, and she only answered the question in its plainest meaning:

  “No; no one.”

  “Think again, Mrs. Duke. This is a terrible business for you, and I would not for the world hurry you, or deprive you of the smallest opportunity of exculpating yourself. Do you know of no one who had any motive for wishing your husband’s death?”

  “No one,” answered Millicent.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Bowers,” interrupted Darrell; “but my cousin forgets to tell you that the Captain of the Vulture was at the best a mysterious individual. He would never have been admitted into our family but for a whim of my poor uncle, who at the time of his daughter’s marriage was scarcely accountable for his actions. No one in Compton knew who George Duke was, or where he came from, and no one but the late squire believed him when he declared himself to be a captain in His Majesty’s navy. Six years ago I made it my business to ascertain the truth of that matter, and found that no such person as Captain George Duke had ever been heard of at the Admiralty. Whatever he Was, nothing of his past life was known to either his wife or her relatives. My cousin Millicent is not, therefore, in a position to answer your question.”

  “Can you answer it, Mr. Markham?”

  ‘“No more than Mrs. Duke.”

  “I am sorry,” said Mr. Bowers gravely, “very sorry; for under these circumstances my duty leaves me but one course. I shall be compelled to commit Millicent Duke to Carlisle gaol for the murder of her husband.”

  A woman’s shriek vibrated through the chamber as these words were said, but it came from the lips of Sarah Pecker, and not from those of the accused. Calm as if she had been but a witness of the proceedings, Millicent comforted her old friend, imploring her not to give way to this passion of grief; for that Providence always set such things right in due time.

  But Sarah was not to be comforted so easily. “No, Miss Millicent, no,” she said; “Providence has suffered innocent people to be hung before this, and Heaven forgive us all for thinking so little about them! Heaven forgive us for thinking so little of the poor guiltless creatures who have died a shameful death! O, Mr. Darrell,” exclaimed Sarah, with sudden energy, “speak, speak, Mr. Darrell dear; Samuel Pecker, speak, if you’re not struck dumb and stupid, and tell his worship that of all the innocent creatures in the world, my old master’s daughter is the most innocent; that of all the tender and pitiful hearts God ever made, hers is the most pitiful. Tell him that from her birth until this day her hand was never raised to harm the lowliest thing that lives; how much less, then, against a fellow-creature’s life. Tell him this, Mr. Darrell, and he cannot have the heart to send my innocent darling to a felon’s gaol.”

  Darrell Markham turned his face to the wall and sobbed aloud, nor did any of those present see anything unmanly in the proceeding. Even that recording angel, the clerk, was at length moved to compassion, and something very much like a tear dropped upon the closely written page of evidence lying before him. But whatever pity Mr. Montague Bowers might feel for the helpless girl, who awaited his will in all quiet patience and resignation, he held to the course which he considered his duty, and made out the warrant which was to commit Millicent Duke to Carlisle prison, there to await the spring assizes.

  Millicent started when they told her that she would leave Compton for Carlisle as soon as the only postchaise in Compton, which of course belonged to the inn and posting-house kept by Samuel Pecker, could be prepared for her; but she ev
inced no other surprise whatever. The written depositions were folded and locked in the justice’s desk; the clerk retired; and the prisoner was left in the safe keeping of Hugh Martin and his fellow-constable, to await the coming of the postchaise which was to carry her the first stage of her dismal journey. Darrell and Sarah remained with her to the last, only parting-from her at the door of the chaise. The young man took her in his arms before he lifted her into the vehicle, and pressed his lips to her cold forehead.

  “Listen to me, Millicent, my beloved and my darling,” he said, “and keep the memory of my words with you in your trouble, for trust me they are no idle promises. I dedicate my life to the solution of this mystery. Remember this, Millicent, and fear nothing. I have powerful friends, and can get all needful help in the unravelling of this dark enigma. Trust me, darling, trust me, and rest in peace. Think every clay that I am working for you; and sleep tranquilly at night, knowing that even in the night my mind will be busy planning the work of the morrow. The mystery shall be solved, darling, and speedily. Believe this, and have no fear. And now, God bless you, my own dear love, and farewell!”

  He kissed her once more before he lifted her into the vehicle. In the last glimpse which Darrell and Sarah had of her, she was sitting quietly, with Hugh Martin by her side, looking out at them through the window of the chaise.

  The dusky afternoon closed about the horses as they galloped off; the wheels of the vehicle rolled away through the snow as noiselessly as if it had been Rome ghostly chariot drawn by spectral steeds; and she was gone.

  It was to be observed that neither Millicent Duke nor the old woman, Mrs. Meggis, had made any allusion to the stranger who called at the Hall a few hours before the discovery of the murder. The truth was, that this circumstance, being apparently unconnected with the terrible event of the night, had been completely blotted out of the addled brain of the deaf housekeeper, as well as from the mind of Mrs. Duke.

  CHAPTER XXI. THE FOREIGN-LOOKING PEDLAR PAYS A SECOND VISIT TO THE BLACK BEAR.

  THREE days after Millicent’s removal to Carlisle, an unlooked-for visitor made his appearance at the Black Bear. This visitor was no less a personage than the West-country baronet, whom Sarah Pecker had last seen close against the doors of St. Mary’s church, London.

  This distinguished guest arrived in the dusk of evening by the Marley Water coach, alone and unattended, but wrapped in a princely travelling cloak bedizened with far, and wearing the flaxen wig and velvet coat, the glittering sword - hilt and military boots with clanking spurs, and all those braveries which had made such an impression at the Black Bear a short time before.

  Striding straight up to the bar, where Samuel Pecker sat in an attitude of melancholy abstraction staring at the fire, the West-country baronet inquired if his friend Captain Duke had left any message for him.

  Samuel, overpowered by the sudden mention of this name, which since the murder seemed to carry a ghastly significance of its own, had only strength to murmur a feeble negative.

  “Then,” said Captain Fanny, “I consider it d — d unhandsome of him!”

  He looked so fiercely at Samuel Pecker, that the landlord, being, as we know, of a nervous temperament, began to think that he might be in some way held accountable for Captain Duke’s shortcomings, and felt himself called upon to apologize.

  “Why, the truth of the matter is, sir,” he stammered, faltering under the light of the West-country baronet’s searching black eyes, “that when people have their throats cut in their sleep — no notice being given as to its going to be done — they’re apt to leave these little matters unattended to.”

  “People have their throats cut in their sleep!” echoed the highwayman. “What people? Whose throat has been cut? Speak, man, can’t you?”

  “Don’t be violent,” said Samuel; “please don’t be violent. We’ve been a good deal shook by what’s been going forward these last few days at Compton; for there are shocks that the strongest constitution can’t stand against. My wife Sarah keeps her bed; and my nerves, never being overmuch, are of very little account just now. Give me time, and I’ll explain everything.”

  “Give you time, man,” cried Captain Fanny; “can’t you answer a plain question without beating about the bush for an hour? Whose throat has been cut?”

  “Captain Duke’s.”

  “Captain Duke has had his throat cut?”

  “From ear to ear!”

  “Where? — when?”

  “At Compton Hall — on the night of his return.”

  “And that was—”

  “Five nights ago.”

  “Good heavens! this is most extraordinary,” exclaimed Captain Fanny. “George Duke returned five nights since, and murdered upon the very night of his return! But by whom — by whom?”

  “Ah, there it is,” cried Samuel Pecker piteously; “that’s what has upset everybody at Compton, including Sarah, who took to her bed the day before yesterday, never before having been a day out of the business since she first set foot in the Black Bear, whereby there’s everything at sixes and sevens, and Joseph, the waiter, always the most sober of men while Sarah kept the keys, drunk two nights running, and shedding tears about poor Mrs. Duke, as is now in Carlisle gaol.”

  “Mrs. Duke in Carlisle gaol?”

  “Yes, for the murder of her husband, which never harmed a fly,” said Samuel, with more sympathy than grammar.

  “Mrs. Duke accused of her husband’s murder?”

  “Yes, poor dear! how should she do it, — a poor delicate creature with scarce strength in her wrist to carve a chicken, let alone a turkey? How should she do it, I should like to know; and if she did do it, where’s the body? How can there be a murder without a body?” exclaimed Mr. Pecker, returning to that part of the question which had always been too much for him; “why, the very essence of a murder is the body. What is the worst inconvenience to the murderer? Why, the body! What leads to the discovery of the murder? Why, the body! what’s the good of coroner’s juries? Why, to sit upon the body! Then how can there be a murder without a body? It’s my belief that Captain Duke is alive and well, hiding somewhere — maybe nigh at hand to this very place — and laughing in his sleeve to think of his poor wife being suspected of making away with him. He’s wicked enough for it, and it would be only like him to do it.”

  Captain Fanny was silent for a few moments, thinking deeply.

  “Strange — strange — strange!” he said, rather to himself than to the innkeeper; “some men are unlucky from the first, and that man was one of ‘em. Murdered on the night of his return; on the very night on which he thought to have fallen into a good thing. Strange!”

  “Don’t say murdered,” remonstrated Samuel; “say missing.”

  “Missing or murdered — it’s pretty much the same, if he never comes back, man. Then, supposing Mrs. Duke to be tried and found guilty, the Compton Hall property will go to the Crown?”

  “I suppose it will,” answered Samuel; “these sort of things generally falls to the Crown. The Crown must feel an uncommon interest in murders.”

  “Now, look you here, Samuel Pecker,” said the distinguished guest; “the best thing you can do is to bring a bottle of decent Madeira with you, and show me the way to a snug sitting-room, where you can tell me all about this business.”

  The innkeeper desired nothing better than this. He had sprung into popularity in a most sudden and almost miraculous manner since the murder at Compton Hall, and that examination before Justice Bowers in which he had played so prominent a part. And now he found himself called upon to relate the story of Captain Duke’s disappearance to no less a person than the elegant West-country baronet, whose appearance was in itself enough to set the Black Bear in a flutter of excitement.

  Samuel Pecker was perfectly correct in his description of that hostelry. It was indeed at sixes and sevens. Betty the cook abandoned herself to the current of popular feeling, and was flurried and uncertain in all her movements, thinking a great deal mor
e of the murder than of her culinary operations, and making perpetual blunders in consequence, encouraging gossips and slovenly loitering women to hang about the kitchen of the Black Bear, wasting half an hour at a time talking to the carrier at the back door, and altogether falling into an idle slipshod way, utterly out of the ordinary course; while the waiter Joseph added his quota to the general confusion, by getting up in the morning in a maudlin and reflective stage of semi-intoxication, lurking about all day in strange corners, wiping dirty glasses upon a dirtier apron, breaking four or five articles of crockery-ware per diem, and going to bed early in the evening crying drunk. Sarah Pecker had been the keystone of this simple domestic arch; and without her the whole edifice fell to ruin. The honest creature, unable to bear up against that bitter parting with her old master’s daughter, had taken to her bed, and lay there, refusing to be comforted.

  Poor Sarah had no stronger mind on which to lean for consolation than that of her husband Samuel, for Darrell Markham had quitted the Black Bear upon the night of Millicent’s removal from Compton, leaving a brief note addressed to Mrs. Pecker, and worded thus:

  “DEAR SARAH, — I leave you on an errand which, I trust in Providence, may save my poor Millicent. Keep a good heart, and pray God to shield and comfort my afflicted darling.

  “DARRELL MARKHAM.”

  Invalid though Mrs. Pecker was, she was not destined to remain long undisturbed; for upon the very night on which Sir Lovel Mortimer arrived at the Black Bear to keep that appointment with his friend, Captain Duke, which death had stepped in to break, there came another and equally unexpected visitor to the head inn of the quiet Cumbrian village.

  Joseph the waiter, after weeping plentifully, and relating a new version of the occurrences of the night of the murder to a select party of listeners, content to hear him in the absence of his master, who was closeted all that evening with his distinguished guest in the white parlour — Joseph the waiter had bade good-night to the ordinary customers of the Black Bear, locked the doors, and retired to rest. The infallible clock upon the landing-place had struck eleven; Samuel and Captain Fanny were still drinking and talking in the sitting-room above-stairs; Sarah lay awake listening to the sign before the inn-door flapping to and fro in the night wind; and Betty the cook, waiting lest the distinguished visitor in the white parlour should require supper, sat by the fire in the kitchen, nodding every now and then over the grey worsted stocking she was trying to darn. Presently the hand armed with the needle dropped by her side, her head fell forward upon her ample bosom, and Betty the cook fairly gave up the struggle and fell fast asleep.