Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  ‘What am I to do about laying her out,’ asked Mrs. Evitt of the doctor. ‘I wouldn’t lay a finger upon her for a hundred pounds.’

  I’ll send round amuse from the workhouse,’ said the doctor, after a moment’s thought. ‘They’re not easily seared.’

  Half an hour later the workhouse nurse came, a tall, bony woman, who executed her horrible task in a business-like manner, which testified to the Strength of her nerve and the variety of. her experience.

  By five o’clock in the morning all was done, and La Chicot lay with meekly folded hands under clean white linen — the heavy lids closed for ever on the once lovely eyes, the raven hair parted on the classic brow.

  She’s the handsomest corpse I’ve laid out for the last ten years,’ said the nurse, ‘and I think she does me credit. If you’ve got a kettle on the bile, mum, and call give me a cup of tea, I shall be, thankful for it; and I think a teaspoonful of sperrits in it would do me good. I’ve been up all night with a fractious pauper in the smallpox ward.’

  ‘Oh, lor!’ cried Mrs. Evitt, with an alarmed countenance.

  ‘You’ve been vaccinated, of course, mum,’ said the nurse cheerfully. You don’t belong to none of them radical anti-vaccinationists, I’m sure. And is to catching complaints of that kind, mum, it’s only your pore-spirited, nervous people as does it. I never have no pity for such weak mortals. I look down on ’em too much.’

  CHAPTER IV. WHAT THE DIAMONDS WERE WORTH.

  THE inquest was held at noon next day. The news of the murder had spread far and wide already, and there was a crowd gathered round the house in Cibber Street all the morning, much to Mrs. Evitt’s aggravation. The newspaper reporters forced their way into her house in defiance of her protests, and finding her slow to answer their questions, got hold of Mr. Desrolles, who was very ready to talk and to drink with every comer.

  George Gerard called at the house in Cibber Street between nine and ten o’clock. He had heard of the murder on his way from the Black-friars Load, where he was now living as assistant to a general practitioner, to the hospital where he was still attending the clinical lectures. He had heard an exaggerated version of the event, and came expecting to find a case of murder and suicide, the husband stretched lifeless beside the wife he had sacrificed to his jealous fury.

  It was net without some difficulty that he got permission to enter the room where the dead woman lay. The hospital nurse lead been put in charge of that chamber by tile, police, and Gerard was obliged to enforce his arguments with a half-crown, which he could afford, before the lady’s conscientious scruples were quieted, and she gave him the key of the room.

  He went in with the nurse, and stayed for about a quarter of an hour, engaged in a careful and thoughtful examination of the wound. It was curious wound. La Chicot’s throat had not been cut, in the common acceptation of the phrase. The, blow that had slain her war a deep stab; a violent theist with some sharp, thin, and narrow instrument, which had pierced the hollow of her neck, and penetrated in a slanting, direction to the lungs.

  What had been the instrument? Was it a dagger? and, if so, what kind of dagger? George Gerard had never seen a, dagger thin enough to inflict that fine narrow slit through which the blood had oozed so slowly. The crimson stream that stained coverlet and floor had flowed from the livid lips of the corpse, betokening hæmorrhage of the lungs.

  There had been a struggle before that fatal wound was given. On the round, white wrist of the head a purple bruise showed where a savage hand had gripped that lovely arm; on the right shoulder, from which the loose night-dress had fallen, appeared the marks of strong fingers that had fastened their clutch there. The nurse showed Gerard these bruises.

  ‘They tell a tale, don’t they?’ she said.

  ‘If we could only read it aright,’ sighed Gerard.

  ‘It looks as if she had fought for her life, poor soul,’ suggested the nurse.

  Gerard made no further remark, but stood beside the bed, looking round him with thoughtful scrutinizing gaze, as if he would have asked the very walls to tell him the secret of the crime they had looked upon a few hours before.

  ‘The police have been here and have discovered nothing?’ he said, interrogatively.

  Whatever they’ve discovered they’ve kept to theirselves,’ answered the nurse, ‘but I don’t believe it’s much.’

  ‘Did they go in there?’ asked Gerard, pointing to the open door of that small inner room, a mere den, where Jack Chicot had painted in the days when, he cherished the hope of earning his living is a painter. Here of late he had drawn his woodblocks, and here, on a wretched narrow couch, he had slept.

  ‘Yes, they went in,’ replied the nurse, ‘but I’m sure they didn’t find anything particular there.

  Gerard passed into the dusty little den. There was all old easel with an unfinished picture, half covered with a ragged chintz curtain. Gerard plucked the curtain aside, and looked at the picture. It was crude, but full of a certain melodramatic power. The subject was from a poem of De Musset’s, a Venetian noble, crouching in the shadow of a doorway, at dead of night, dagger in land, waiting to slay his enemy. There was a deal table, ink-stained, decrepid, scattered with papers, pens, pencils, a battered pewter inkstand, an empty cigar-box, a file of ‘Folly as it Flies,’ and odd numbers of other comic journals. On the old-fashioned window-seat — for these houses in Cibber Street were two hundred years old — there was a large wooden paint box, full of empty tubes, brushes, a couple of palettes, an old palette-knife, rags, sponges. At the bottom of the box, hidden under rats and rubbish, there lay a long thin dagger, of Italian workmanship, the handle of finely wrought silver, oxydised with age, just such a dagger as an artist would fancy for his armoury. One glance at the canvas yonder told Gerard that this was the dagger in the picture.

  George Gerard took up the dagger and looked at it curiously — a long thin blade, flexible, sharp, a deadly weapon in a strong hand, a weapon to inflict just such a wound as that deep stab which had slain La Chicot.

  He examined the blade, the handle — looking at both through his pocket microscope. Both were darkly tarnished, possibly with the recent stain of blood; but the weapon had been carefully cleansed, and there was no actual speck of blood upon either handle or blade.

  ‘Strange that the detectives should have overlooked this,’ he said to himself, replacing the dagger in the box.

  Mrs. Evitt had told him of Jack Chicot’s unaccountable disappearance, how he had gone out to call the police, and had never come back. What could this mean, except guilt? And here in the husband’s colour box was just such weapon as that with which the wife had been stabbed.

  ‘And I know that he was weary of her, I know that he wanted her to die,’ mused Gerard. ‘I read that secret in his face six months ago.’

  He left the room presently, without any expression of opinion to the hospital nurse, who was eager to ,discuss the deed that had been done, and had theories of her own about it. He left the house and walked the neighbouring streets for an hour, waiting for the inquest.

  ‘Shall I volunteer my opinion before the Coroner?’ he asked himself, ‘To what end? It is but a theory, after all. And a Coroner is rarely a man inclined to give his ear to speculations of that hind. I’d better write to one of the newspapers. Would it do any good if I were to bring the crime home to the husband? Not much, perhaps. Wherever the wretch goes he carries with him a conscience that must be a worse punishment than the condemned cell. And to hang him would not bring her back to life. Poor, foolish, lost creature, the only woman I ever loved’

  The Prince of Wales’s Feathers — more popularly known as the Feathers — a publichouse at the corner of Cibber-street and Woodpecker-court, was the scene of the inquiry. The witnesses were the doctor, the police-sergeant, the detective who had assisted in the examination of the premises, Desrolles, Mrs. Evitt, and Mrs. Rawber. Jack Chicot, the most important witness of all, had not been seen since he left the house under the pretence of summoning
the police. This disappearance of the husband, after giving an alarm which roused the sleeping household — an altogether unnecessary and foolish act, supposing him to be the murderer — was the moat remarkable feature in the case, and puzzled the Coroner.

  He questioned Mrs. Evitt closely as to the habits of the dancer and her husband.

  ‘You say they quarrelled frequently,’ he said. ‘Were their disputes of a violent character?’

  ‘I have heard her violent, but never him. She was very fond of him, poor thing; though she wasn’t a woman to give way or to be guided by a husband. She was fonder of drink than she ought to be, and he tried to keep her from it, leastways, when they first came to my house. Later he seemed to have give her up, as you may say, and let her go her own way.’

  ‘Did he seem attached to her?’

  ‘Not to my fancy. I thought the love was all on her side.’

  ‘Was he a man of violent temper?’

  ‘No; he was one that took things very quiet. I used to think there was something underhand in his character. I can call to mind her saying to me once, after they bad been quarrelling, ‘Mrs. Evitt, that man hates me too much to strike me. If he was once to give way to his temper he’d be the death of me.’ Those words of hers made an impression upon me at the time — —’

  ‘Come, come,’ interrupted the Coroner, ‘we can’t hear anything about your impressions. This isn’t evidence,’ but Mrs. Evitt’s slow speech flowed onward like a tranquil stream meandering through a valley.

  ‘“I’d rather have a low brute that beat me black and blue,’” she said to me another time, poor dear thing, ‘“if he was sorry for it afterwards, than a cold-hearted gentleman that can sting me to death with a word.”’

  ‘I want to hear facts, not assertions,’ said the Coroner, impatiently. ‘Did you ever know the husband of the deceased to be guilty of any act of violence, either towards his wife or any one else?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Do you know if Madame Chicot had money or any other valuables in her possession?’

  ‘I should say she had neither. She was a woman of extravagant habits. It wasn’t in her to save money.’

  Mrs. Rawber’s evidence merely confirmed Mrs. Evitt as to the hour at which they had been aroused, and the conduct of Jack Chicot. The two women agreed as to the ghastly look of his face, and the sudden eagerness with which he had caught at the idea of going to fetch a policemen, an idea suggested by Desrolles.

  Desrolles was the last witness examined. As he stood up to answer the Coroner, he caught, sight of a familiar face in the crowd near the door-way. It was the countenance of Joseph Lemuel, the stock broker, sorely changed since Desrolles had seen it last. Close by Mr. Lemuel’s side appeared a well-known criminal lawyer. Desrolles’ bister complexion grew a shade grayer at sight of these two faces, both intently watchful.

  The evidence of Desrolles threw no new light upon the mystery. He had known Mr. Chicot and his wife intimately — rarely had passed it day without seeing them. They were both excellent creatures, but not suited to each other. They did not live happily together. He had never seen Jack Chicot guilty of any act of absolute violence towards his wife, but he believed that there was a good deal of bitterness in his mind, in short that they could not have gone on living together peaceably much longer. Mr. Chicot had absented himself from home very much of late. He had kept late hours, and avoided his wife’s company. In a word, it was an ill-assorted marriage, and they were a very unhappy couple — much to be pitied, both.

  This was all. The Coroner adjourned the inquiry for a week, in the hope that further evidence would be forthcoming. There was a feeling in the court that a very strong suspicion attached to the dead woman’s husband, and that if he did not turn up speedily he would have to be looked for.

  George Gerard watched the inquest from a crowded corner of the room, but he held his peace as to that discovery of the dagger in Jack Chicot’s colour-box.

  La Chicot was buried two days afterwards, and there was a tremendous crowd at Kensal Green to see the foreign dancing woman laid in her untimely grave. Mr. Smolendo, with his own hands, placed a wreath of white camellias on the coffin. Desrolles stood beside the grave, decently attired in a suit of black, hired for the occasion from a dealer in cast-off clothes, and ‘looking quite the gentleman,’ Mrs. Evitt said to her gossips afterwards. Mrs. Evitt and Mrs. Rawber were both at the funeral; indeed, it may be said that the whole of Cibber Street turned out for the occasion. There had not been such it crowd since the burial of Cardinal Wiseman. All the company from the Prince Frederick was there, be-sides much more of dramatic and equestrian London.

  Poor Mr. Smolendo was in the depth of despair. He had found an all-accomplished lady to take La Chicot’s place in the burlesque; but the public did not believe in the all-accomplished lady — who was old enough to have been La Chicot’s mother — and Mr. Smolendo saw his theatre a desert of empty benches. No matter that his scenery, his ballet, his orchestra, his lime-lights were the best and most costly in London. The public had run after La Chicot, and her unhappy fate cast a gloom over the house, not easily to be dispersed. The tide of fashion rolled away to other theatres; and the bark that carried Mr. Smolendo’s fortunes was left stranded on the shore.

  The press was very vehement upon the case of La Chicot. The more popular of the penny dailies went into convulsions of indignation against every-body concerned. They reviled the Coroner; they denounced the surgeon as a simpleton; they insinuated dark things about the landlady; they banded the witnesses as perjurers; but they reserved their most scathing denunciations for the police.

  Here was an atrocious murder committed in the very heart of civilized London; in the midst of a calmly slumbering household; in a house in which almost every room was occupied; and yet the murderer is suffered to escape, and yet no ray of light from the combined intelligence of Scotland Yard pierces the gloom of the mystery.

  The husband of the victim, against whom there is the strongest presumptive evidence, whose own conduct is all-sufficient to condemn him, this wretch is suffered to roam at large over the earth, a modern Cain, without the brand upon his brow by which his fellow-men may know him. Perhaps at this very hour he is haunting our taverns, dining at our restaurants, polluting the innocent atmosphere of our theatres, a guilty creature sitting at a play — nay, even, with the hypocrite’s visage, crossing the hallowed threshold of a church! Where are the police? What are they doing that this scoundrel leas not been found? They should be able to recognise him at a glance, even without the brand of Cain. Are there no photographs of the monster, who has been described as good-looking, and who was doubtless vain? Letters pour in to the Morning Shrieker by the bushel, every correspondent suggesting his own particular and original method for catching a murderer.

  Strange to say, Jack Chicot, although a fair subject for the camera, has had no passion for seeing what kind of picture the sun can make of him. At any rate, there is no portrait of him, large or small, good, bad, or indifferent to be found in Cibber Street, where the police naturally came to look for one. Mr. Desrolles, who, throughout the case, shows himself accommodating without being officious, gives a graphic description of his late fellow lodger; but no verbal picture ever yet conjured up the image of a man, and the detectives leave Cibber Street possessed of the idea of a personage no more like Jack Chicot than Jack Chicot was like the Emperor of China. This imaginary Chicot they hunt assiduously in all the worst parts of London, and often seem on the brink of catching him. They watch him dining at low eating-houses, they see him playing billiards in dubious taverns, they follow him on to penny steamers, and accompany him on railroad journeys, always to find that, although sufficiently disreputable, he is not Jack Chicot.

  Working thus conscientiously, it was hard to be girded at by the Morning Shrieker, and an army of letter-writers.

  Assuredly the evidence against the missing husband was strong enough to weave the rope that should hang him.

  A le
tter to the Times from George Gerard describing the dagger found in the colour box had attracted the attention of the famous surgeon who set La Chicot’s broken leg, and that gentleman had hurried at once to Cibber Street to examine the wound. He afterwards saw the dagger which with the rest of the missing man’s effects, was in the custody of the police. He wrote to the Times next day, confirming Gerard’s statement. Such a wound could have been inflicted by just such a dagger, and hardly by any other form of knife or dagger known to civilization. The thin flexible blade was unlike the blade of any other dagger the surgeon had ever seen. — the wound corresponded to the form of the blade.

  The leader-writers on the popular journals took up the idea. They depicted the whole scene as vividly as if it had been shown to them in a charmed sleep. They gashed as they described the beauty of the wife; they wept as they told of her in-temperate habits. The husband they painted in the darkest dyes of iniquity. A man who had battened on his wife’s earnings — a poor creature — a led captain — idle, luxurious, intemperate, since it was doubtless his example which had taught that glorious creature to drink. They painted, in a blaze of lurid light, the scene of the murder. The husband’s midnight return from haunts of vice — the wife’s recriminations — her natural outbreak of jealousy — hot words on both sides. The husband brutalised by drink, stung to fury by the wife’s well-merited reproaches, snatches the dagger from the table where he had lately flung it after a, desultory half-hour of labour, and plunges the blade into his wife’s bosom. The leader writer saw the whole thing as in a picture. The public read, and at street corners and on the roofs of omnibuses the public talk for the next three weeks was of Jack Chicot’s crime, and the miserable stupidity of the police in not being able to find him.

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