Aurora Floyd

by M. E. Braddon

  "He had disappeared mysteriously and abruptly, and no efforts were made to find him," wrote the correspondent of the Guardian. "What assurance can be given for the safety of any man's life when such a crime as the Mellish-Park murder is investigated in this loose and indifferent manner? The catastrophe occurred within the boundary of the Park fence. Let it be discovered whether any person in the Mellish household had a motive for the destruction of James Conyers. The man was a stranger to the neighborhood. He was not likely, therefore, to have made enemies outside the boundary of his employer's estate, but he may have had some secret foe within that limit. Who was he? where did he come from? what were his antecedents and associations? Let each one of these questions be fully sifted, and let a cordon be drawn round the house, and let every creature living in it be held under the surveillance of the law until patient investigation has done its work, and such evidence has been collected as must lead to the detection of the guilty person."

  To this effect was the letter which the landlord read in a loud and didactic manner, that was very imposing, though not without a few stumbles over some hard words, and a good deal of slap-dash jumping at others.

  Samuel Prodder could make very little of the composition, except that it was perfectly clear he had been missed at the inquest, and his absence commented upon. The landlord and the shabby-genteel man talked long and discursively upon the matter; the man in the velveteen coat, who was evidently a thoroughbred Cockney, and only newly arrived in Doncaster, required to be told the whole story before he was upon a footing with the other two. He was very quiet, and generally spoke between his teeth, rarely taking the unnecessary trouble of removing his short clay pipe from his mouth except when it required refilling. He listened to the story of the murder very intently, keeping one eye upon the speaker and the other upon his pipe, and nodding approvingly now and then in the course of the narrative.

  He took his pipe from his mouth when the story was finished, and filled it from a gutta-percha pouch, which had to be turned inside out in some mysterious manner before the tobacco could be extricated from it. While he was packing the loose fragments of shag or bird's-eye neatly into the bowl of the pipe with his stumpy little finger, he said, with supreme carelessness:

  "I know'd Jim Conyers."

  "Did you, now?" exclaimed the landlord, opening his eyes very wide.

  "I know'd him," repeated the man, "as intimate as I know'd my own mother; and when I read of the murder in the newspaper last Sunday, you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Jim's got it at last,' I said; for he was one of them coves that goes through the world cock-adoodling over other people to sich an extent that, when they do drop in for it, there's not many particular sorry for 'em. He was one of your selfish chaps, this here; and when a chap goes through this life makin' it his leadin' principle to care about nobody, he must n't be surprised if it ends by nobody carin' for him. Yes, I know'd Jim Conyers," added the man, slowly and thoughtfully, "and I know'd him under rather pecooliar circumstances."

  The landlord and the other man pricked up their ears at this point of the conversation.

  The trainer at Mellish Park had, as we know, risen to popularity from the hour in which he had fallen upon the dewy turf in the wood, shot through the heart.

  "If there was n't any partiklar objections," the landlord of the "Crooked Rabbit" said, presently, "I should oncommonly like to hear anything you've got to tell about the poor chap. There's a deal of interest took about the matter in Doncaster, and my customers have scarcely talked of anything else since the inquest."

  The man in the velveteen coat rubbed his chin, and smoked his pipe reflectively. He was evidently not a very communicative man, but it was also evident that he was rather gratified by the distinction of his position in the little public-house parlor.

  This man was no other than Mr. Matthew Harrison, the dog-fancier, Aurora's pensioner, the man who had traded upon her secret, and made himself the last link between herself and the low-born husband she had abandoned.

  Samuel Prodder lifted himself from the Windsor chairs at this juncture. He was too much interested in the conversation to be able to simulate sleep any longer. He got up, stretched his legs and arms, made an elaborate show of having just awakened from a profound and refreshing slumber, and asked the landlord of the "Crooked Rabbit" to mix him another glass of that pineapple-rum grog.

  The captain lighted his pipe while his host departed upon this errand. The seaman glanced rather inquisitively at Mr. Harrison; but he was fain to wait until the conversation took its own course, and offered him a safe opportunity of asking a few questions.

  "The pecooliar circumstances under which I know'd James Conyers," pursued the dog-fancier, after having taken his own time, and smoked out half a pipeful of tobacco, to the acute aggravation of his auditory, "was a woman—and a stunner she was, too; one of your regular spitfires, that'll knock you into the middle of next week if you so much as asks her how she does in a manner she don't approve of. She was a woman, she was, and a handsome one too; but she was more than a match for James, with all his brass. Why, I've seen her great black eyes flash fire upon him," said Mr. Harrison, looking dreamily before him, as if he could even at that moment see the flashing eyes of which he spoke—"I've seen her look at him as if she'd wither him up from off the ground he trod upon with that contempt she felt for him."

  Samuel Prodder grew strangely uneasy as he listened to this man's talk of flashing black eyes and angry looks directed at James Conyers. Had he not seen his niece's shining orbs flame fire upon the dead man only a quarter of an hour before he received his death-wound—only so long—Heaven help that wretched girl!—only so long before the man for whom she had expressed unmitigated hate had fallen by the hand of an unknown murderer?

  "She must have been a tartar, this young woman of yours," the landlord observed to Mr. Harrison.

  "She was a tartar," answered the dog-fancier; "but she was the right sort, too, for all that; and, what's more, she was a kind friend to me. There's never a quarter-day goes by that I don't have cause to say so."

  He poured out a fresh glass of beer as he spoke, and tossed the liquor down his capacious throat with the muttered sentiment, "Here's toward her."

  Another man had entered the room while Mr. Prodder had sat smoking his pipe and drinking his rum and water—a hump-backed, white-faced man, who sneaked into the public-house parlor as if he had no right to be there, and seated himself noiselessly at one of the tables.

  Samuel Prodder remembered this man. He had seen him through the window in the lighted parlor of the north lodge when the body of James Conyers had been carried into the cottage. It was not likely, however, that the man had seen the captain.

  "Why, if it is n't Steeve Hargraves, from the Park!" exclaimed the landlord, as he looked round and recognized the softy; "he'll be able to tell plenty, I dare say. We've been talking of the murder, Steeve," he added, in a conciliatory manner.

  Mr. Hargraves rubbed his clumsy hands about his head, and looked furtively, yet searchingly, at each member of the little assembly.

  "Ay, sure," he said, "folks don't seem to me to talk about aught else. It was bad enough up at the Park, but it seems worse in Doncaster."

  "Are you stayin' up town, Steeve?" asked the landlord, who seemed to be upon pretty intimate terms with the late hanger-on of Mellish Park.

  "Yes, I'm stayin' oop town for a bit; I've been out of place since the business oop there; you know how I was turned out of the house that had sheltered me ever since I was a boy, and you know who did it. Never mind that; I'm out of place now, but you may draw me a mug of ale; I've money enough for that."

  Samuel Prodder looked at the softy with considerable interest. He had played a small part in the great catastrophe, yet it was scarcely likely that he should be able to throw any light upon the mystery. What was he but a poor half-witted hanger-on of the murdered man, who had lost all by his patron's untimely death?

  The softy drank his bee
r, and sat, silent, ungainly, and disagreeable to look upon, among the other men.

  "There's a reg'lar stir in the Manchester papers about this murder, Steeve," the landlord said, by way of opening a conversation; "it don't seem to me as if the business was goin' to be let drop over quietly. There'll be a second inquest, I reckon, or a examination, or a memorial to the Secretary of State, or summat o' that sort, before long."

  The softy's face, expressionless almost always, expressed nothing now but stolid indifference; the stupid indifference of a half-witted ignoramus, to whose impenetrable intellect even the murder of his own master was a far-away and obscure event, not powerful enough to awaken any effort of attention.

  "Yes; I'll lay there'll be a stir about it before long," the landlord continued. "The papers put it down very strong that the murder must have been done by some one in the house—by some one as had more knowledge of the man, and more reason to be angry against him, than strangers could have. Now you, Hargraves, were living at the place; you must have seen and heard things that other people have n't had the opportunity to hear. What do you think about it?"

  Mr. Hargraves scratched his head reflectively.

  "The papers are cleverer nor me," he said at last; "it would n't do for a poor fond chap like me to go again' such as them. I think what they think. I think it was some one about the place did it; some one that had good reason to be spiteful against him that's dead."

  An imperceptible shudder passed over the softy's frame as he alluded to the murdered man. It was strange with what gusto the other three men discussed the ghastly subject, returning to it persistently in spite of every interruption, and in a manner licking their lips over its gloomiest details. It was surely more strange that they should do this than that Stephen Hargraves should exhibit some reluctance to talk freely upon the dismal topic.

  "And who do you think had cause to be spiteful agen him, Steeve?" asked the landlord. "Had him and Mr. Mellish fell out about the management of the stable?"

  "Him and Mr. Mellish had never had an angry word pass between 'em, as I've heard of," answered the softy.

  He laid such a singular emphasis upon the word Mr. that the three men looked at him wonderingly, and Captain Prodder took his pipe from his mouth, and grasped the back of a neighboring chair as firmly as if he had entertained serious thoughts of flinging that trifle of furniture at the softy's head.

  "Who else could it have been, then, as had a spite against the man?" asked some one.

  Samuel Prodder scarcely knew who it was who spoke, for his attention was concentrated upon Stephen Hargraves; and he never once removed his gaze from the white face, and dull, blinking eyes.

  "Who was it that went to meet him late at night in the north lodge?" whispered the softy. "Who was it that could n't find words that was bad enough for him, or looks that was angry enough for him? Who was it that wrote him a letter—I've got it, and I mean to keep it, too—askin' of him to be in the wood at such and such a time upon the very night of the murder? Who was it that met him there in the dark—as others could tell as well as me? Who was it that did this?"

  No one answered. The men looked at each other and at the softy with open mouths, but said nothing. Samuel Prodder grasped the topmost bar of the wooden chair still more tightly, and his broad bosom rose and fell beneath his tourist waistcoat like a raging sea; but he sat in the shadow of the queerly-shaped room, and no one noticed him.

  "Who was it that ran away from her own home, and hid herself after the inquest?" whispered the softy. "Who was it that was afraid to stop in her own house, but must run away to London without leaving word where she was gone for anybody? Who was it that was seen upon the mornin' before the murder meddlin' with her husband's guns and pistols, and was seen by more than me, as them that saw her will testify when the time comes? Who was this?"

  Again there was no answer. The raging sea labored still more heavily under Captain Prodder's waistcoat, and his grasp tightened, if it could tighten, on the rail of the chair; but he uttered no word. There was more to come, perhaps, yet, and he might want every chair in the room as instruments with which to appease his vengeance.

  "You was talkin', when I just came in, a while ago, of a young woman in connection with Mr. James Conyers, sir," said the softy, turning to Matthew Harrison; "a black-eyed woman, you said; might she have been his wife?"

  The dog-fancier started, and deliberated for a few moments before he answered.

  "Well, in a manner of speaking, she was his wife," he said at last, rather reluctantly.

  "She was a bit above him, loike, was n't she?" asked the softy. "She had more money than she knew what to do with, eh?"

  The dog-fancier stared at the questioner.

  "You know who she was, I suppose?" he said, suspiciously.

  "I think I do," whispered Stephen Hargraves. "She was the daughter of Mr. Floyd, the rich banker oop in London; and she married James Conyers, and she got tired of him; and she married our squire while her first husband was alive; and she wrote a letter to him that's dead, askin' of him to meet her upon the night of the murder."

  Captain Prodder flung aside the chair. It was too poor a weapon with which to wreak his wrath, and with one bound he sprang upon the softy, seizing the astonished wretch by the throat, and overturning a table, with a heap of crashing glasses and pewter pots, that rolled away into the corners of the room.

  "It's a lie!" roared the sailor, "you foulmouthed hound! you know that it's a lie! Give me something," cried Captain Prodder, "give me something, somebody, and give it quick, that I may pound this man into a mash as soft as a soaked ship's biscuit; for if I use my fists to him I shall murder him, as sure as I stand here. It's my sister Eliza's child you want to slander, is it? You'd better have kept your mouth shut while you was in her own uncle's company. I meant to have kep' quiet here," cried the captain, with a vague recollection that he had betrayed himself and his purpose; "but was I to keep quiet and hear lies told of my own niece? Take care," he added, shaking the softy, till Mr. Hargraves' teeth chattered in his head, "or I'll knock those crooked teeth of yours down your ugly throat, to hinder you from telling any more lies of my dead sister's only child."

  "They were n't lies," gasped the softy, doggedly; "I said I've got the letter, and I have got it. Let me go, and I'll show it to you."

  The sailor released the dirty wisp of cotton neckerchief by which he had held Stephen Hargraves, but he still retained a grasp upon his coat-collar.

  "Shall I show you the letter?" asked the softy.

  "Yes."

  Mr. Hargraves fumbled in his pockets for some minutes, and ultimately produced a dirty scrap of crumpled paper.

  It was the brief scrawl which Aurora had written to James Conyers, telling him to meet her in the wood. The murdered man had thrown it carelessly aside, after reading it, and it had been picked up by Stephen Hargraves.

  He would not trust the precious document out of his own clumsy hands, but held it before Captain Prodder for inspection.

  The sailor stared at it, anxious, bewildered, fearful; he scarcely knew how to estimate the importance of the wretched scrap of circumstantial evidence. There were the words, certainly, written in a bold, scarcely feminine hand. But these words in themselves proved nothing until it could be proved that his niece had written them.

  "How do I know as my sister Eliza's child wrote that?" he asked.

  "Ay, sure; but she did, though," answered the softy. "But, coom, let me go now, will you?" he added, with cringing civility; "I did n't know you was her uncle. How was I to know aught about it? I don't want to make any mischief agen Mrs. Mellish, though she's been no friend to me. I did n't say anything at the inquest, did I? though I might have said as much as I've said tonight, if it comes to that, and have told no lies. But when folks bother me about him that's dead, and ask this, and that, and t' other, and go on as if I had a right to know all about it, I'm free to tell my thoughts, I suppose—surely I'm free to tell my thoughts?"

  "I
'll go straight to Mr. Mellish, and tell him what you've said, you scoundrel!" cried the captain.

  "Ay, do," whispered Stephen Hargraves, maliciously; "there's some of it that'll be stale news to him, anyhow."

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  DISCOVERY OF THE WEAPON WITH WHICH

  JAMES CONYERS HAD BEEN SLAIN.

  Mr. and Mrs. Mellish returned to the house in which they had been so happy; but it is not to be supposed that the pleasant country mansion could be again, all in a moment, the home that it had been before the advent of James Conyers, the trainer, and the tragedy that had so abruptly concluded his brief service.

  No; every pang that Aurora had felt, every agony that John had endured, had left a certain impress upon the scene in which it had been suffered. The subtle influences of association hung heavily about the familiar place. We are the slaves of such associations, and we are powerless to stand against their silent force. Scraps of color and patches of gilding upon the walls will bear upon them, as plainly as if they were covered with hieroglyphical inscriptions, the shadows of the thoughts of those who have looked upon them. Transient and chance effects of light or shade will recall the same effects, seen and observed—as Fagin observed the broken spike upon the guarded dock—in some horrible crisis of misery and despair. The commonest household goods and chattels will bear mute witness of your agonies: an easy-chair will say to you, "It was upon me you cast yourself in that paroxysm of rage and grief;" the pattern of a dinner-service may recall to you that fatal day on which you pushed your food untasted from you, and turned your face, like grief-stricken King David, to the wall. The bed you lay upon, the curtains that sheltered you, the pattern of the paper on the walls, the common every-day sounds of the household, coming muffled and far-away to that lonely room in which you hid yourself, all these bear record of your sorrow, and of that hideous double action of the mind which impresses these things most vividly upon you at the very time when it would seem they should be most indifferent.