Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “Well, no, that could hardly have been, seeing that Charles never left the street-door after that,” returned Miss Betty, mildly. “It appears to be a certain fact that not a soul entered the room after the young man left it. And there lies the puzzle of it.”

  Putting it to be as Miss Betty put it — and I may as well say here that nothing turned up, then or later, to change the opinion — it looked rather suspicious for Sam Dene. I think the Squire saw it.

  “I suppose you are sure the box was on the table when you left the room, Miss Betty?” said he.

  “Why, of course I am sure, Squire,” she answered. “It was the last thing my eyes fell on; for, as I went through the door, I glanced back to see that I had left the table tidy. Susan can bear witness to that. Dutton, the police-sergeant, thinks some demon of mischief must be in that box — meaning the deuce, you know. Upon my word it looks like it.”

  Susan came in with some glasses and ale as Miss Betty spoke, and confirmed the testimony — which did not need confirmation. As she closed the parlour-door, she said, after her mistress had passed out, she noticed the box standing on the table.

  “Is Sam here to-day — in the office?” asked Mr. Jacobson.

  “Oh, my goodness, no,” cried Miss Betty in a fluster. “Why, Frederick, he has not been here since Thursday, when they had him up at the Guildhall. He couldn’t well come while the charge is hanging over him.”

  “Then I think we had better go out to find Sam, and hear what he has to say,” observed Mr. Jacobson, drinking up his glass of ale.

  “Yes, do,” said Miss Betty. “Tell poor Sam I’m as sorry as I can be — pestered almost out of my mind over it. And as to their having found one of the guineas in his pocket, please just mention to him that I say it might have slipped in accidentally.”

  “One of the guineas found in Sam’s pocket!” exclaimed Mr. Jacobson, taken aback.

  “Well, I hear so,” responded Miss Betty. “The police searched him, you see.”

  As the Squire and Mr. Jacobson went out, Mr. Cockermuth was coming in. They all turned into the office together, while we made a rush to Sam Dene’s lodgings in Edgar Street: as much of a rush, at least, as the Saturday’s streets would let us make. Sam was out, the young servant said when we got there, and while parleying with her Mrs. Parslet opened her sitting-room door.

  “I do not suppose Mr. Dene will be long,” she said. “He has to appear at the town hall this morning, and I think it likely he will come home first. Will you walk in and wait?”

  She handed us into her parlour, where she had been busy, marking sheets and pillow-cases and towels with “prepared” ink; the table was covered with them. Tod began telling her that Mr. Jacobson was at Worcester, and went on to say what a shame it was that Sam Dene should be accused of this thing.

  “We consider it so,” said Mrs. Parslet; who was a capable, pleasant-speaking woman, tall and slender. “My husband says it has upset Mr. Cockermuth more than anything that has occurred for years past. He tells his brother that he should have had it investigated privately, not have given Mr. Dene into custody.”

  “Then why did he let him do it, Mrs. Parslet?”

  She looked at Tod, as if surprised at the question. “Mr. Cockermuth knew nothing of it; you may be sure of that. Captain Cockermuth had the young man at the Guildhall and was preferring the charge, before Mr. Cockermuth heard a word of what was agate. Certainly that is a most mysterious box! It seems fated to give trouble.”

  At this moment the door opened, and a young lady came into the parlour. It was Maria. What a nice face she had! — what sweet thoughtful eyes! — what gentle manners! Sam’s friends in the town were accusing him of being in love with her — and small blame to him.

  But Sam did not appear to be coming home, and time was getting on. Tod decided not to wait longer, and said good-morning.

  Flying back along High Street, we caught sight of the tray of Dublin buns, just put fresh on the counter in Rousse’s shop, and made as good a feast as time allowed. Some people called them Doubling buns (from their shape, I take it), and I don’t know to this day which was right.

  Away with fleet foot again, past the bustle round the town hall, and market house, till we came to the next confectioner’s and saw the apple-tarts. Perhaps somebody remembers yet how delicious those apple-tarts were. Bounding in, we began upon them.

  While the feast was in progress, Sam Dene went by, walking very fast. We dashed out to catch him. Good Mrs. Mountford chanced to be in the shop and knew us, or they might have thought we were decamping without payment.

  Sam Dene, in answer to Tod’s hasty questions, went into a passion; swearing at the world in general, and Captain Cockermuth in particular, as freely as though the justices, then taking their places in the Guildhall, were not as good as within earshot.

  “It is a fearful shame, Todhetley! — to bring such a charge against me, and to lug me up to the criminal bar like a felon. Worse than all, to let it go forth to the town and county in to-day’s glaring newspapers that I, Sam Dene, am a common thief!”

  “Of course it is a fearful shame, Sam — it’s infamous, and all your friends know it is,” cried Tod, with eager sympathy. “My father wishes he could hang the printers. I say, what do you think has become of the box?”

  “Become of it! — why, that blundering Charles Cockermuth has got it. He was off his head with excitement at its being found. He must have come into the room and put it somewhere and forgotten it: or else he put it into his pocket and got robbed of it in the street. That’s what I think. Quite off his head, I give you my word.”

  “And what fable is it the wretches have got up about finding one of the guineas in your pocket, Sam?”

  “Oh, bother that! It was my own guinea. I swear it — there! I can’t stay now,” went on Sam, striding off down High Street. “I am due at the town hall this minute; only out on bail. You’ll come with me.”

  “You go in and pay for the tarts, Johnny,” called back Tod, as he put his arm within Sam Dene’s. I looked in, pitched a shilling on the counter, said I didn’t know how many we had eaten; perhaps ten; and that I couldn’t wait for change.

  Crushing my way amidst the market women and their baskets in the Guildhall yard, I came upon Austin Chance. His father held some post connected with the law, as administered there, and Austin said he would get me in.

  “Can it be true that the police found one of the guineas about him?” I asked.

  Chance pulled a long face. “It’s true they found one when they searched him — —”

  “What right had they to search him?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Austin, laughing a little; “they did it. To see perhaps whether all the guineas were about him. And I am afraid, Johnny Ludlow, that the finding of that guinea will make it rather hard for Sam. It is said that Maria Parslet can prove the guinea was Sam’s own, and that my father has had a summons served on her to appear here to-day. He has taken Sam’s case in hand; but he is closer than wax, and tells me nothing.”

  “You don’t think he can have stolen the box, Chance?”

  “I don’t. I shouldn’t think him capable of anything so mean; let alone the danger of it. Not but that there are circumstances in the case that tell uncommonly strong against him. And where the deuce the box can have got to, otherwise, is more than mortal man can guess at. Come along.”

  IV.

  Not for a long while had Worcester been stirred as it was over this affair of Samson Dene’s. What with the curious discovery of the box of guineas after its mysterious disappearance of years, and then its second no less mysterious loss, with the suspicion that Sam Dene stole it, the Faithful City was so excited as hardly to know whether it stood on its head or its heels.

  When the police searched the prisoner on Thursday morning, after taking him into custody, and found the guinea upon him (having been told that he had one about him), his guilt was thought to be as good as proved. Sam said the guinea was his own, an he
irloom, and stood to this so indignantly resolute that the police let him have it back. But now, what did Sam go and do? When released upon bail by the magistrates — to come up again on the Saturday — he went straight off to a silversmith’s, had a hole stamped in the guinea and hung it to his watch-chain across his waistcoat, that the public might feast their eyes upon it. It was in this spirit of defiance — or, as the town called it, bravado — that he met the charge. His lodgings had been searched for the rest of the guineas, but they were not found.

  The hour for the Saturday’s examination — twelve o’clock — was striking, as I struggled my way with Austin Chance through the crush round the Guildhall. But that Austin’s father was a man of consequence with the door-keepers, we should not have got in at all.

  The accused, arraigned by his full name, Samson Reginald Dene, stood in the place allotted to prisoners, cold defiance on his handsome face. As near to him as might be permitted, stood Tod, just as defiant as he. Captain Charles Cockermuth, a third in defiance, stood opposite to prosecute; while Lawyer Cockermuth, who came in with Sam’s uncle, Mr. Jacobson, openly wished his brother at Hanover. Squire Todhetley, being a county magistrate, sat on the bench with the City magnates, but not to interfere.

  The proceedings began. Captain Cockermuth related how the little box, his property, containing sixty golden guineas, was left on the table in a sitting-room in his brother’s house, the accused being the only person in the room at the time, and that the box disappeared. He, himself (standing at the front-door), saw the accused quit the room; he went into it almost immediately, but the box was gone. He swore that no person entered the room after the prisoner left it.

  Miss Betty Cockermuth, flustered and red, appeared next. She testified that she was in the room nearly all the morning, the little box being upon the table; when she left the room, Mr. Dene remained in it alone, copying a letter for her brother; the box was still on the table. Susan Edwards, housemaid at Lawyer Cockermuth’s, spoke to the same fact. It was she who had fetched her mistress out, and she saw the box standing upon the table.

  The accused was asked by one of the magistrates what he had to say to this. He answered, speaking freely, that he had nothing to say in contradiction, except that he did not know what became of the box.

  “Did you see the box on the table?” asked the lawyer on the opposite side, Mr. Standup.

  “I saw it there when I first went into the room. Miss Betty made a remark about the box, which drew my attention to it. I was sitting at the far end of the room, at Mr. Cockermuth’s little desk-table. I did not notice the box afterwards.”

  “Did you not see it there after Miss Cockermuth left the room?”

  “No, I did not; not that I remember,” answered Sam. “Truth to say, I never thought about it. My attention was confined to the letter I was copying, to the exclusion of everything else.”

  “Did any one come into the room after Miss Cockermuth left it?”

  “No one came into it. Somebody opened the door and looked in.”

  This was fresh news. The town hall pricked up its ears.

  “I do not know who it was,” added Sam. “My head was bent over my writing, when the door opened quickly, and as quickly shut again. I supposed somebody had looked in to see if Mr. or Miss Cockermuth was there, and had retreated on finding they were not.”

  “Could that person, whomsoever it might be, have advanced to the table and taken the box?” asked the chief of the magistrates.

  “No, sir. For certain, no!” — and Sam’s tone here, he best knew why, was aggravatingly defiant. “The person might have put his head in — and no doubt did — but he did not set a foot inside the room.”

  Captain Cockermuth was asked about this: whether he observed any one go to the parlour and look in. He protested till he was nearly blue with rage (for he regarded it as Sam’s invention), that such a thing never took place, that no one whatever went near the parlour-door.

  Next came up the question of the guinea, which was hanging from his watch-guard, shining and bold as if it had been brass. Sam had been questioned about this by the justices on Thursday, and his statement in answer to them was just as bold as the coin.

  The guinea had been given him by his late father’s uncle, old Thomas Dene, who had jokingly enjoined him never to change it, always to keep it by him, and then he would never be without money. Sam had kept it; kept it from that time to this. He kept it in the pocket of an old-fashioned leather case, which contained some letters from his father, and two or three other things he valued. No, he was not in the habit of getting the guinea out to look at, he had retorted to a little badgering; had not looked at it (or at the case either, which lay in the bottom of his trunk) for months and months — yes, it might be years, for all he recollected. But on the Tuesday evening, when talking with Miss Parslet about guineas, he fetched it to show to her; and slipped it into his pocket afterwards, where, the police found it on the Thursday. This was the substance of his first answer, and he repeated it now.

  “Do you know who is said to be the father of lies, young man?” asked Justice Whitewicker in a solemn tone, suspecting that the prisoner was telling an out-and-out fable.

  “I have heard,” answered Sam. “Have never seen him myself. Perhaps you have, sir.” At which a titter went round the court, and it put his worship’s back up. Sam went on to say that he had often thought of taking his guinea into wear, and had now done it. And he gave the guinea a flick in the face of us all.

  Evidently little good could come of a hardened criminal like this; and Justice Whitewicker, who thought nothing on earth so grand as the sound of his own voice from the bench, gave Sam a piece of his mind. In the midst of this a stir arose at the appearance of Maria Parslet. Mr. Chance led her in; her father, sad and shrinking as usual, walked behind them. Lawyer Cockermuth — and I liked him for it — made a place for his clerk next to himself. Maria looked modest, gentle and pretty. She wore black silk, being in slight mourning, and a dainty white bonnet.

  Mr. Dene was asked to take tea with them in the parlour on the Tuesday evening, as a matter of convenience, Maria’s evidence ran, in answer to questions, and she briefly alluded to the reason why. Whilst waiting together, he and she, for her father to come in, Mr. Dene told her of the finding of the ebony box of guineas at Mr. Cockermuth’s. She laughingly remarked that a guinea was an out-of-date coin now, and she was not sure that she had ever seen one. In reply to that, Mr. Dene said he had one by him, given him by an old uncle some years before; and he went upstairs and brought it down to show to her. There could be no mistake, Maria added to Mr. Whitewicker, who wanted to insinuate a word of doubt, and her sweet brown eyes were honest and true as she said it; she had touched the guinea and held it in her hand for some moments.

  “Held it and touched it, did you, Miss Parslet?” retorted Lawyer Standup. “Pray what appearance had it?”

  “It was a thin, worn coin, sir,” replied Maria; “thinner, I think, than a sovereign, but somewhat larger; it seemed to be worn thin at the edge.”

  “Whose image was on it? — what king’s?”

  “George the Third’s. I noticed that.”

  “Now don’t you think, young lady, that the accused took this marvellous coin from his pocket, instead of from some receptacle above stairs?” went on Mr. Standup.

  “I am quite sure he did not take it from his pocket when before me,” answered Maria. “He ran upstairs quickly, saying he would fetch the guinea: he had nothing in his hands then.”

  Upon this Lawyer Chance inquired of his learned brother why he need waste time in useless questions; begging to remind him that it was not until Wednesday morning the box disappeared, so the prisoner could not well have had any of its contents about him on Tuesday.

  “Just let my questions alone, will you,” retorted Mr. Standup, with a nod. “I know what I am about. Now, Miss Parslet, please attend to me. Was the guinea you profess to have seen a perfect coin, or was there a hole in it?”

/>   “It was a perfect coin, sir.”

  “And what became of it?”

  “I think Mr. Dene put it in his waistcoat-pocket: I did not particularly notice. Quite close upon that, my father came home, and we sat down to tea. No, sir, nothing was said to my father about the guinea; if it was, I did not hear it. But he and Mr. Dene talked of the box of guineas that had been found.”

  “Who was it that called while you were at tea?”

  “Young Mr. Chance called. We had finished tea then, and Mr. Dene took him upstairs to his own sitting-room.”

  “I am not asking you about young Mr. Chance; we shall come to him presently,” was the rough-toned, but not ill-natured retort. “Somebody else called: who was it?”

  Maria, blushing and paling ever since she stood up to the ordeal, grew white now. Mr. Badger had called at the door, she answered, and Mr. Dene went out to speak to him. Worried by Lawyer Standup as to whether he did not come to ask for money, she said she believed so, but she did not hear all they said.

  Quiet Mr. Parslet was the next witness. He had to acknowledge that he did hear it. Mr. Badger appeared to be pressing for some money owing to him; could not tell the amount, knew nothing about that. When questioned whether the accused owed him money, Parslet said not a shilling; Mr. Dene had never sought to borrow of him, and had paid his monthly accounts regularly.

  Upon that, Mr. Badger was produced; a thin man with a neck as stiff as a poker; who gave his reluctant testimony in a sweet tone of benevolence. Mr. Dene had been borrowing money from him for some time; somewhere about twenty pounds, he thought, was owing now, including interest. He had repeatedly asked for its repayment, but only got put off with (as he believed) lame excuses. Had certainly gone to ask for it on the Tuesday evening; was neither loud nor angry, oh dear, no; but did tell the accused he thought he could give him some if he would, and did say that he must have a portion of it within a week, or he should apply to Mr. Jacobson, of Elm Farm. Did not really mean to apply to Mr. Jacobson, had no wish to do any one an injury, but felt vexed at the young man’s off-handedness, which looked like indifference. Knew besides that Mr. Dene had other debts.