Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  Mr. Carter told his assistant very briefly that he’d been wasting his time and trouble on a false track, and that he should give the matter up. Sawney Tom received this announcement with a great deal of champing and working of the jaws, and with rather a doubtful expression in his dull red eyes; but he accepted the payment which his employer offered him, and agreed to depart for London by the ten o’clock train.

  “And whatever I do henceforth in this business, I do single-handed,” Mr. Carter said to himself, as he turned his back upon his companion.

  At five o’clock that afternoon the detective found himself at the Shorncliffe station, where he hired a fly and drove on post-haste to Lisford cottage.

  The neat little habitation of the late naval commander looked pretty much as Mr. Carter had seen it last, except that in one of the upper windows there was a bill — a large paper placard — announcing that this house was to let, furnished; and that all information respecting the same was to be obtained of Mr. Hogson, grocer, Lisford.

  Mr. Carter gave a long whistle.

  “The bird’s flown,” he muttered. “It wasn’t likely he’d stop here to be caught.”

  The detective rang the bell; once, twice, three times; but there was no answer to the summons. He ran round the low garden-fence to the back of the premises, where there was a little wooden gate, padlocked, but so low that he vaulted over it easily, and went in amongst the budding currant-bushes, the neat gravel-paths and strawberry-beds, that had been erst so cherished by the naval commander. Mr. Carter peered in at the back windows of the house, and through the little casement he saw a vista of emptiness. He listened, but there was no sound of voices or footsteps. The blinds were undrawn, and he could see the bare walls of the rooms, the fireless grates, and that cold bleakness of aspect peculiar to an untenanted habitation.

  He gave a low groan.

  “Gone,” he muttered; “gone, as neat as ever a man went yet.”

  He ran back to the fly, and drove to the establishment of Mr. Hogson, grocer and general dealer — the shop of the village of Lisford.

  Here Mr. Carter was informed that the key of “Woodbine Cottage had been given up on the evening of that very day on which he had seen Joseph Wilmot sitting in the little parlour.

  “Yes, sir, it were the night before the last,” Mr. Hogson said; “it were the night before last as a young woman wrapped up about the face like, and dressed very plain, got out of a fly at my door; and, says she, ‘Would you please take charge of this here key, and be so kind as to show any one over the cottage as would like to see it, which of course the commission is understood? — for my master is leaving for some time on account of having a son just come home from India, which is married and settled in Devonshire, and my master is going there to see him, not having seen him this many a long year.’ She was a very civil-spoken young woman, and Woodbine Cottage has been good customers to us, both with the old tenants and the new; so of course I took the key, willin’ to do any service as lay in my power. And if you’d like to see the cottage, sir — —”

  “You’re very good,” said Mr. Carter, with something like a groan. “No, I won’t see the cottage to-night. What time was it when the fly stopped at your door?”

  “Between seven and eight.”

  “Between seven and eight. Just in time to catch the mail from Rugby. Was it one of the Rose-and-Crown flies, d’ye think?”

  “Oh, yes, the fly belonged to Lisford. I’m sure of that, for Tim Baling was drivin’ it and wished me good-night.”

  Mr. Carter left the Lisford emporium, and ran over to the Rose and Crown, where he saw the man who had driven him to Shorncliffe station. This man told the detective that he had been fetched in the evening by the same young woman who fetched him in the morning, and that he had driven another gentleman, who walked lame like the first, and had his head and face wrapped up a deal, not to Shorncliffe station, but to little Petherington station, six miles on the Rugby side of Shorncliffe, where the gentleman and the young woman who was with him got into a second-class carriage in the slow train for Rugby. The gentleman had said, laughing, that the young woman was his housemaid, and he was taking her up to town on purpose to be married to her. He was a very pleasant-spoken gentleman, the flyman added, and paid uncommon liberal.

  “I dare say he did,” muttered Mr. Carter.

  He gave the man a shilling for his information, and went back to the fly that had brought him to the station. It was getting on for seven o’clock by this time, and Joseph Wilmot had had eight-and-forty hours’ start of him. The detective was quite down-hearted now.

  He went up to London by the same train which he had every reason to suppose had carried Joseph Wilmot and his daughter two nights before, and at the Euston terminus he worked very hard on that night and on the following day to trace the missing man. But Joseph Wilmot was only a drop in the great ocean of London life. The train that was supposed to have brought him to town was a long train, coming through from the north. Half-a-dozen lame men with half-a-dozen young women for their companions might have passed unnoticed in the bustle and confusion of the arrival platform.

  Mr. Carter questioned the guards, the ticket-collectors, the porters, the cabmen; but not one among them gave him the least scrap of available information. He went to Scotland Yard despairing, and laid his case before the authorities there.

  “There’s only one way of having him,” he said, “and that’s the diamonds. From what I can make out, he had no money with him, and in that case he’ll be trying to turn some of those diamonds into cash.”

  The following advertisement appeared in the Supplement to the Times for the next day:

  “To Pawnbrokers and Others. — A liberal reward will be given to any person affording information that may lead to the apprehension of a tall man, walking lame, who is known to have a large quantity of unset diamonds in his possession, and who most likely has attempted to dispose of the same.”

  But this advertisement remained unanswered.

  “They’re too clever for us, sir,” Mr. Carter remarked to one of the Scotland-Yard officials. “Whoever Joseph Wilmot may have sold those diamonds to has got a good bargain, you may depend upon it, and means to stick to it. The pawnbrokers and others think our advertisement a plant, you may depend upon it”

  CHAPTER XLVI.

  CLEMENT’S STORY. — BEFORE THE DAWN.

  “I went back to my mother’s house a broken and a disappointed man. I had solved the mystery of Margaret’s conduct, and at the same time had set a barrier between myself and the woman I loved.

  “Was there any hope that she would ever be my wife? Reason told me that there was none. In her eyes I must henceforth appear the man who had voluntarily set himself to work to discover her father’s guilt, and track him to the gallows.

  “Could she ever again love me with this knowledge in her mind? Could she ever again look me in the face, and smile at me, remembering this? The very sound of my name must in future be hateful to her.

  “I knew the strength of my noble girl’s love for her reprobate father. I had seen the force of that affection tested by so many cruel trials. I had witnessed my poor girl’s passionate grief at Joseph Wilmot’s supposed death: and I had seen all the intensity of her anguish when the secret of his existence, which was at the same time the secret of his guilt, became known to her.

  “‘She renounced me then, rather than renounce that guilty wretch,’ I thought; ‘she will hate me now that I have been the means of bringing his most hideous crime to light.’

  “Yes, the crime was hideous — almost unparalleled in horror. The treachery which had lured the victim to his death seemed almost less horrible than the diabolical art which had fixed upon the name of the murdered man the black stigma of a suspected crime.

  “But I knew too well that, in all the blackness of his guilt, Margaret Wilmot would cling to her father as truly, as tenderly, as she had clung to him in those early days when the suspicion of his worthlessness had been
only a dark shadow for ever brooding between the man and his only child. I knew this, and I had no hope that she would ever forgive me for my part in the weaving of that strange chain of evidence which made the condemnation of Joseph Wilmot.

  “These were the thoughts that tormented me during the first fortnight after my return from the miserable journey to Winchester; these were the thoughts for ever revolving in my tired brain while I waited for tidings from the detective.

  “During all that time it never once occurred to me that there was any chance, however remote, of Joseph Wilmot’s escape from his pursuer.

  “I had seen the science of the detective police so invariably triumphant over the best-planned schemes of the most audacious criminals, that I should have considered — had I ever debated the question, which I never did — Joseph Wilmot’s evasion of justice an actual impossibility. It was most likely that he would be taken at Maudesley Abbey entirely unprepared, in his ignorance of the fatal discovery at Winchester; an easy prey to the experienced detective.

  “Indeed, I thought that his immediate arrest was almost a certainty; and every morning, when I took up the papers, I expected to see a prominent announcement to the effect that the long-undiscovered Winchester mystery was at last solved, and that the murderer had been taken by one of the detective police.

  “But the papers gave no tidings of Joseph Wilmot; and I was surprised, at the end of a week’s time, to read the account of a detective’s skirmish on board a schooner some miles off Hull, which had resulted in the drowning of one Stephen Vallance, an old offender. The detective’s name was given as Henry Carter. Were there two Henry Carters in the small band of London detective police? or was it possible that my Henry Carter could have given up so profitable a prize as Joseph Wilmot in order to pursue unknown criminals upon the high seas? A week after I had read of this mysterious adventure, Mr. Carter made his appearance at Clapham, very grave of aspect and dejected of manner.

  “‘It’s no use, sir,’ he said; ‘it’s humiliating to an officer of my standing in the force; but I’d better confess it freely. I’ve been sold, sir — sold by a young woman too, which makes it three times as mortifying, and a kind of insult to the male sex in general!’

  “My heart gave a great throb.

  “‘Do you mean that Joseph Wilmot has escaped? I asked.

  “He has, sir; as clean as ever a man escaped yet. He hasn’t left this country, not to my belief, for I’ve been running up and down between the different outports like mad. But what of that? If he hasn’t left the country, and if he doesn’t mean to leave the country, so much the better for him, and so much the worse for those that want to catch him. It’s trying to leave England that brings most of ’em to grief, and Joseph Wilmot’s an old enough hand to know that. I’ll wager he’s living as quiet and respectable as any gentleman ever lived yet.’

  “Mr. Carter went on to tell me the whole story of his disappointments and mortifications. I could understand all now: the moonlit figure in the Winchester street, the dusky shadow beneath the dripping branches in the grove. I could understand all now: my poor girl — my poor, brave girl.

  “When I was alone, I rendered up my thanks to Heaven for the escape of Joseph Wilmot. I had done nothing to impede the course of justice, though I had known full well that the punishment of the evil-doer would crush the bravest and purest heart that ever beat in an innocent woman’s bosom. I had not dared to attempt any interposition between Joseph Wilmot and the punishment of his crime; but I was, nevertheless, most heartily thankful that Providence had suffered him to escape that hideous earthly doom which is supposed to be the wisest means of ridding society of a wretch.

  “But for the wretch himself, surely long years of penitence must make a better expiation of his guilt than that one short agony — those few spasmodic throes, which render his death such a pleasant spectacle for a sight-seeing populace.

  “I was glad, for the sake of the guilty and miserable creature himself, that Joseph Wilmot had escaped. I was still gladder for the sake of that dear hope which was more to me than any hope on earth — the hope of making Margaret my wife.

  “‘There will be no hideous recollection interwoven with my image now,’ I thought; ‘she will forgive me when I tell her the history of my journey to Winchester. She will let me take her away from the companionship that must be loathsome to her, in spite of her devotion. She will let me bring her to a happy home as my cherished wife.’

  “I thought this, and then in the next moment I feared that Margaret might cling persistently to the dreadful duty of her life — the duty of shielding and protecting a criminal; the duty of teaching a wicked man to repent of his sins.

  “I inserted an advertisement in the Times newspaper, assuring Margaret of my unalterable love and devotion, which no circumstances could lessen, and imploring her to write to me. Of course the advertisement was so worded as to give no clue to the identity of the person to whom it was addressed. The acutest official in Scotland Yard could have gathered nothing from the lines ‘From C. to M.,’ so like other appeals made through the same medium.

  “But my advertisement remained unanswered — no letter came from Margaret.

  “The weeks and months crept slowly past. The story of the evidence of the clothes found at Winchester was made public, together with the history of Joseph Wilmot’s flight and escape. The business created a considerable sensation, and Lord Herriston himself went down to Winchester to witness the exhumation of the remains of the man who had been buried under the name of Joseph Wilmot.

  “The dead man’s face was no longer recognizable. Only by induction was the identity of Henry Dunbar ever established: but the evidence of the identity was considered conclusive by all who were interested in the question. Still I doubt whether, in the fabric of circumstantial evidence against Joseph Wilmot, legal sophistry could not have discovered some loophole by which the murderer might have escaped the full penalty of his crime.

  “The remains were removed from Winchester to Lisford Church, where Percival Dunbar was buried in a vault beneath the chancel. The murdered man’s coffin was placed beside that of his father, and a simple marble tablet recording the untimely death of Henry Dunbar, cruelly and treacherously assassinated in a grove near Winchester, was erected by order of Lady Jocelyn, who was abroad with her husband when the story of her father’s death was revealed to her.

  “The weeks and months crept by. The revelation of Joseph Wilmot’s guilt left me free to return to my old position in the house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby. But I had no heart to go back to the old business now the hope that had made my commonplace city life so bright seemed for ever broken. I was surprised, however, into a confession of the truth by the good-natured junior partner, who lived near us on Clapham Common, and who dropped in sometimes as he went by my mother’s gate, to while away an idle half-hour in some political discussion.

  “He insisted upon my returning to the office directly he heard the secret of my resignation. The business was now entirely his; for there had been no one to succeed Henry Dunbar, and Mr. John Lovell had sold the dead man’s interest on behalf of his client, Lady Jocelyn. I went back to my old post, but not to remain long in my old position; for a week after my return Mr. Balderby made me an offer which I considered as generous as it was flattering, and which I ultimately and somewhat reluctantly accepted.

  “By means of this new and most liberal arrangement, which demanded from me a very moderate amount of capital, I became junior partner in the firm, which was now conducted under the names of Dunbar, Dunbar, Balderby, and Austin. The double Dunbar was still essential to us, though the last of the male Dunbars was dead and buried under the chancel of Lisford Church. The old name was the legitimate stamp of our dignity as one of the oldest Anglo-Indian banking firms in the city of London.

  “My new life was smooth enough, and there was so much business to be got through, so much responsibility vested in my hands — for Mr. Balderby was getting fat and lazy, as re
garded affairs in the City, though untiring in the production of more forced pine-apples and hothouse grapes than he could consume or give away — that I had not much leisure in which to think of the one sorrow of my life. A City man may break his heart for disappointed love, but he must do it out of business hours if he pretends to be an honourable man: for every sorrowful thought which wanders to the loved and lost is a separate treason against the ‘house’ he serves.

  “Smoking my after-dinner cigar in the narrow pathways and miniature shrubberies of my mother’s garden, I could venture to think of my lost Margaret; and I did think of her, and pray for her with as fervent aspirations as ever rose from a man’s faithful heart. And in the dusky stillness of the evening, with the faint odour of dewy flowers round me, and distant stars shining dimly in that far-off opal sky; against which the branches of the elms looked so black and dense, I used to beguile myself — or it may be that the influence of the scene and hour beguiled me — into the thought that my separation from Margaret could be only a temporary one. We loved each other so truly! And after all, what under heaven is stronger than love? I thought of my poor girl in some lonely, melancholy place, hiding with her guilty father; in daily companionship with a miserable wretch, whose life must be made hideous to himself by the memory of his crime. I thought of the self-abnegation, the heroic devotion, which made Margaret strong enough to endure such an existence as this: and out of my belief in the justice of Heaven there grew up in my mind the faith in a happier life in store for my noble girl.