A. That’s it.
Q. You weren’t taking it with a wire, I suppose? (Laughter.)
A. No, I weren’t. You keep a civil tongue in your head.
The witness, called sharply to order by the Coroner, stood glowering and muttering.
Q. Where is your inn situated?
A. Top o’ Stockford Down.
Q. How far is it from the high road?
A. Call it a mile and a half.
Q. Where were you on the hill when you saw the prisoner?
A. Nigher the road than the inn. Three-quarters way down, say.
Q. Were you anywhere near the prisoner when he emerged?
A. Nigh as close as I am to you.
Q. Did he see you?
A. No, he didn’t. I were hid in the ditch. (Laughter.)
Q. You didn’t recognise him?
A. Not likely. I’d never seen him before.
Q. Did anything strike you in his manner or expression?
A. He looked uncommon wild.
Q. Did he? Now, what time was it when you started to return to your inn?
A. It may have been an hour later.
Q. A little after three, say?
A. Aye.
Q. Did you pass anybody by the way?
A. No.
Q. The Red Deer is very lonely situated, is it not?
A. Lonely enough.
Q. High up, at the meeting of four cross roads, I understand?
A. That’s it.
Q. You don’t have many customers in the course of a day?
A. Maybe, maybe not.
Q. Not so many that you would forget this one or that having called yesterday or the day before?
A. What are you trying to get at?
Q. I must trouble you to answer questions, not put them. What time was it on that day when Mr Cleghorn looked in?
A. Put it at four o’clock.
Q. And you thought he looked unwell?
A. He said himself he was feeling out of sorts. The liquor seemed to pull him round a bit.
Q. Did he say anything else?
A. Not much. He went as soon a’most as he’d drunk it down. I thought he’d tired himself walking up the hill.
Q. What made you think that?
A. I see’d him a’coming when he was far off. I was crossing the yard to the pump at the time. That might have been at a quarter before four. He looked as if he’d pulled his cap over his eyes and turned his coat collar up; but I couldn’t make him out distinct.
Q. How did you know, then, that it was Mr Cleghorn?
A. Because he come in himself a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later. Who else could it be?
Q. What sort of coat and hat or cap was this figure wearing?
A. What I see when Mr Cleghorn come in, of course—same as he’s got now.
Q. Colour, style—the same in every particular?
A. That’s it.
Q. You made out the figure in the distance to be wearing a coat and cloth cap like Mr Cleghorn’s?
A. Nat’rally, as it were Mr Cleghorn himself.
Q. Now attend to me. Will you swear you could distinguish the colour of the coat and cap the figure was wearing?
A. I won’t go so far as to say that. It were a dull day, and my eyesight none of the best, and he were too far off, and down in the shadder of the hollers. He looked all one colour to me—a sort o’ misty purple. But I knew him for Mr Cleghorn, sure enough, when he walked into the tap.
Q. Wonderfully sagacious of you. (Laughter.) How far away was this figure when you saw it?
A. Couple o’ hundred yards, maybe.
Q. Was it climbing the hill fast?
A. What you might call fast—hurrying.
Q. Didn’t it strike you as odd, then, that it should take it a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to cover that short distance between the spot where you saw it and your inn?
A. No, it didn’t. I didn’t think about it. Mr Cleghorn, he might have stopped to rest himself, or to tie a bootlace, or anything.
Q. After seeing the figure did you return to the bar?
A. No. I went into the parlour to make tea.
Q. And remained there till Mr Cleghorn entered?
A. That’s it.
Counsel nodded across at the detective, as if to say, ‘Here’s possible matter for you, Sergeant,’ and with that he closed the examination, and told the witness he might stand down.
Samuel Cleghorn, butler to Sir Calvin, was then called to give evidence. Witness appeared as a substantial, well-nourished man of forty, with a full, rather unexpressive face, a fixed eye (literally), and a large bald tonsure—not at all the sort of figure one would associate with a romantic story of passion and mystery. He admitted his quarrel with the prisoner, pleading excessive provocation, and that he had followed him out on the fatal afternoon with the intention actually suggested by the witness Ketchlove. He had failed, however, to discover him, or the direction in which he had gone, and had ultimately, after some desultory prying about the grounds, withdrawn himself to the upper kitchen gardens, where he had taken refuge in a tool-shed, and there remained, nursing his sorrow, until 3.30 or thereabouts, when, feeling still very overcome, he had decided to go up to the Red Deer for a little refreshment, which he had done, afterwards returning straight to the house.
Q. How did you leave the kitchen garden?
A. By a door in the wall, sir, giving on the downs; and by that way I returned.
Q. During all this time, while you were looking for the prisoner, or mourning in the tool-shed (Laughter) did you encounter anyone?
A. Not a soul that I can remember, sir.
Q. You were greatly attached to the deceased?
A. (With emotion) I was.
Q. And wished to make her your wife?
A. Yes.
Q. Though your acquaintance with her extended over only a couple of months?
A. That is so.
Q. Almost a case of love at first sight, eh?
A. As you choose, sir.
Q. Did she return your attachment?
A. Not as I could have wished.
Q. She refused you?
A. I never offered myself to her in so many words.
Q. Had you reason to suspect a rival?
A. None in particular—till the Frenchman came.
Q. Rivals generally, then?
A. Naturally there were many to admire her.
Q. But no one in especial to excite your jealousy?
A. No.
Q. Did the deceased give you her confidence?
A. Not what you might call her confidence. We were very friendly.
Q. She never spoke to you of her past life, or of her former situations, or of her relations?
A. No, never. She was not what you might call a communicative young woman.
Q. You had no reason to suspect that she was carrying on with anybody unknown to you?
A. No reason, sir. I can’t answer for my thoughts.
Q. What do you mean by that?
A. Why, I might have wondered now and again why she was so obstinate in resisting me.
Q. But you suspected no rival in particular? I ask you again.
A. A man may think things.
Q. Will you answer my question?
A. Well, then, I didn’t.
Q. Are you speaking the truth?
A. Yes.
Witness was subjected to some severe cross-questioning on this point, but persisted in his refusal to associate his suspicions with any particular person. He argued only negatively, he said, from the deceased’s indifference to himself, which (he declared amid some laughter) was utterly incomprehensible to him on any other supposition than that of a previous attachment. Counsel then continued:
Q. When, after leaving the garden, you were making for the Red Deer, did you observe any other figure on the hill, going in the same direction as yourself, but in advance of you?
A. There may have been. I won’t answer for sure.
>
Q. Will you explain what you mean by that?
A. I was what you might call preoccupied—not thinking much of anything but my own trouble. But—yes, I have an idea there was someone.
Q. How was he dressed?
A. I can’t say, sir. I never looked; it’s only a hazy sort of impression.
Q. Was he far ahead?
A. He may have been—very far; or perhaps it was only the shadows. I shouldn’t like to swear there was anyone at all.
Q. You have heard the witness Henstridge’s evidence. Are you sure you are not borrowing from it the idea of this second figure, a sort of simulacrum of yourself?
A. Well, I may be, unconscious as it were. I can’t state anything for certain.
Q. Were you walking fast as you got near the inn?
A. I dare say I was fast—for me. (Laughter.) What with one thing and another, my throat was as dry as tinder.
Q. Did you stop, or linger, for any purpose when approaching the inn?
A. Not that I can remember. I may have. What happened afterwards has put all that out of my head.
Q. You mean the news awaiting you on your return?
A. Yes.
Q. So that you can’t tell me, I suppose, whether or not, as you climbed the hill, your coat-collar was turned up and the peak of your cap pulled down?
A. It’s like enough they were. I had put the things on anyhow in my hurry. But it’s all a vague memory.
Counsel. Very well. You can stand down.
Daniel Groome, gardener, was next called. He stated that he was sweeping up leaves in the drive to the east side of the house—that is to say, the side furthest from the copse—on the afternoon of the murder. Had heard the stable clock strike three, and shortly afterwards had seen the young master come out of the head of the Bishop’s Walk and go towards the house, which he entered by the front door. He was looking, he thought, in a bit of a temper: but the young master was like that—all in a stew one moment over a little thing, and the next laughing and joking over something that mattered. Had wondered at seeing him back so soon from the shooting, but supposed he had shot wild, as he sometimes would, and was in a pet about it. Did not see him again until he, witness, was summoned to the copse to help remove the body.
Q. During the time you were sweeping in the drive, did you hear the sound of a shot?
A. A’many, sir. The gentlemen was out with their guns.
Q. Did any one shot sound to you nearer than the others?
A. One sounded pretty loud.
Q. As if comparatively close by?
A. Yes, it might be.
Q. From the direction of the Bishop’s Walk?
A. I couldn’t rightly say, sir. It wasn’t a carrying day. Sounds on such a day travel very deceptive. It might have come from across the road, or further.
Q. At what time did you hear this particular shot?
A. It might have been three o’clock, or a little later; I couldn’t be sure.
Q. Think again.
A. No, I couldn’t be sure, sir. I shouldn’t like to swear.
Q. Might it have been nearer half-past three?
A. Very like. I dare say it might.
This point was urged, but the witness persisted in refusing to commit himself to any more definite statement.
John Tugwood, coachman, Edward Noakes, groom, and Martha Jolly, lodge-keeper, were called and examined on the same subject. They had all distinguished, or thought they had distinguished, the louder shot in question; but their evidence as to its precise time was so hopelessly contradictory that no reliance whatever could be placed on it.
Sergeant-Detective Ridgway deposed that, having been put in charge of the case by Sir Calvin Kennett, he had proceeded to make an examination of the spot where the body had been found. This was some twenty-four hours after the commission of the alleged crime, and it might be thought possible that certain local changes had occurred during the interval. He understood, however, that the police had, when first called in, conducted an exhaustive investigation of the place, and that their conclusions differed in no material degree from his own, so that he was permitted to speak for them in the few details he had to place before the jury. Briefly, his notes comprised the following observations: The measured distance from the wicket in the boundary hedge to the tree against which the witness, Mr Hugo Kennett, had stated that he rested his gun was nineteen and a quarter yards: thence to the beech-tree by which the body had been found was another fifteen feet. Between the wicket and the first tree there was a curve in the track, sufficient to conceal from anyone standing by the second, or inner, tree the movements of one approaching from the direction of the gate. All about this part of the copse, down to the hedge, was very dense thicket, which in one place, in close proximity to the first tree supporting the gun, bore some tokens as of a person having been concealed there. If such were the case, the movements of the person in question had been presumably stealthy, the growth showing only slight signs of disturbance, not easily detected. His theory was that this person had entered possibly by the gate from the road, had crept along the path, or track, until he had caught a glimpse through the trees of the deceased in conversation with Mr Kennett, had then slipped into the undergrowth and silently worked his way to the point of concealment first mentioned, where he would be both eye and ear witness of what was passing between the two, and had subsequently, whether torn by the passion of revenge or of jealousy, issued noiselessly forth, some few minutes after Mr Kennett’s departure, seized up the gun, and either at once, or following a brief altercation, shot the deceased dead as she was moving to escape from him. Conformably with this theory, there was no sign of any struggle having occurred; but there were signs that the murderer had moved and conducted himself with great caution and circumspection. Unfortunately no evidence as to footprints could be adduced, the ground being in too hard and dry a state to record their impression. Finally, he was bound to say that there was nothing in his theory incompatible with the assumption that the prisoner was the one responsible for the deed. On the other hand, it was true that the man’s movements between the time when the witness Henstridge had seen him descending towards the road, and the time of the commission of the crime—which could not have been earlier than three o’clock—had still to be accounted for. But it was possible, of course, that he had occupied this interval of three-quarters of an hour in stalking, and in finally running to earth his victim. If he could produce witnesses to prove the contrary, the theory of course collapsed.
The Sergeant delivered his statement with a hard, clear-cut precision which was in curious and rather deadly contrast with the nervous hesitation displayed by other witnesses. There was a suggestion about him of the expert surgeon, demonstrating, knife in hand, above the operating table; and in a voice as keen and cold as his blade.
Raymond, Baron Le Sage, was the next witness called. It was noticed once or twice, during the course of the Baron’s evidence, that the prisoner looked reproachfully and imploringly towards his master.
Q. The prisoner is your servant?
A. He is my servant.
Q. Since when, will you tell me?
A. He has been in my service now over a year.
Q. You took him with a good character?
A. An excellent character.
Q. He is a Gascon, I believe?
A. Yes, a Gascon.
Q. A hot-blooded and vindictive race, is it not?
A. A warm-blooded people, certainly.
Q. Practising the vendetta?
A. You surprise me.
Q. I am asking you for information.
A. I have none to give you.
Q. Very well; we will leave it at that. On the afternoon of the murder, about half-past two, you entered the Bishop’s Walk?
A. I had been out driving with Miss Kennett, and, passing the gate, asked her whither it led. She told me, and I decided to go by the path, leaving her to drive on to the house alone.
Q. Why did you so decide
?
A. I had caught a glimpse among the trees, of, as I thought, the maid, Annie Evans, and I wished to speak with her.
Q. Indeed? (Counsel was evidently a little taken aback over the frankness of his admission.) Would you inform me on what subject?
A. I had been accidental witness the night before of the scrimmage between her and Louis already referred to, and I wished at once to apologise to her for Louis’s behaviour, and to warn her against any repetition of the punishment she had inflicted.
Q. On what grounds?
A. On the grounds that, the man being quick-tempered and impulsive, I would not answer for the consequences of another such assault. (Sensation.)
Q. And what was the deceased’s answer?
A. She thanked me, and said she could look after herself.
Q. Anything further?
A. Nothing. I went on and joined my friend, Sir Calvin, in the house.
Q. The deceased, while you were with her, offered no sort of explanation of her presence in the copse?
A. None whatever.
Q. And you did not seek one?
A. O, dear, no! I should not have been so foolish. (Laughter.)
Q. Did you speak to the prisoner on the subject of the assault?
A. At the time, yes.
Q. And what did you gather from his answer?
A. I gathered that, in his quick ardent way, he was very much enamoured of the girl’s beauty.
Q. And was correspondingly incensed, perhaps, over her rejection of his advances?
A. Not incensed. Saddened.
Q. He uttered no threat?
A. No.
Q. On the afternoon of the murder, on your return to the house, as just described, you inquired for the prisoner?
A. I inquired for him, then, and again later on our return from the copse after we had been to view the body.
Q. You were troubled about him, perhaps?
A. I was uneasy, until I had seen and questioned him.
Q. When was that?
A. He came in about five o’clock, and was immediately sent up to me.
Q. You asked him, perhaps, to account for his absence?
A. I did.
Q. And what was his explanation?
A. He made a frank confession of his quarrel with Mr Cleghorn, described how his first intention on rushing from the house had really been to find the girl and throw himself upon her mercy; but how, once in the open air, his frenzy had begun to cool, and to yield itself presently to indecision. He had then, he said, gone for a long walk over the downs, fighting all the way the demon of rage and jealousy which possessed him, and had finally, getting the better of his black unreasoning mood, grown thoroughly repentant and ashamed of his behaviour, and had returned to make amends.
The Mystery of the Skeleton Key Page 9
