Aurora Floyd. Volume 3. Braddon Mary Elizabeth
turned his back upon the "Softy," and walked rapidly away, retracing his steps in the direction of the roadside inn.
Stephen Hargraves stood staring after him until he was out of sight, and then turned and walked on slowly towards the turnstile leading into the wood.
"I know what they've found," he muttered; "and I know what they want with him. He'll be some time oop there; so I'll slip across the wood and tell her. Yes," – he paused, rubbing his hands, and laughing a slow voiceless laugh, which distorted his ugly face, and made him horrible to look upon, – "yes, it will be nuts for me to tell her."
CHAPTER II.
"MY WIFE! MY WIFE! WHAT WIFE? I HAVE NO WIFE."
The Golden Lion had reassumed its accustomed air of rustic tranquillity when John Mellish returned to it. The jurymen had gone back to their different avocations, glad to have finished the business so easily; the villagers, who had hung about the inn to hear what they could of the proceedings, were all dispersed; and the landlord was eating his dinner, with his wife and family, in the comfortable little bar-parlour. He put down his knife and fork as John entered the sanded bar, and left his meal to receive such a distinguished visitor.
"Mr. Hayward and Mr. Lofthouse are in the coffee-room, sir," he said. "Will you please to step this way?"
He opened the door of a carpeted room, furnished with shining mahogany tables, and adorned by half a dozen gaudily-coloured prints of the Doncaster meetings, the great match between Voltigeur and Flying Dutchman, and other events which had won celebrity for the northern race-course. The coroner was sitting at the bottom of one of the long tables, with Mr. Lofthouse standing near him. William Dork, the Meslingham constable, stood near the door, with his hat in his hand, and with rather an alarmed expression dimly visible in his ruddy face. Mr. Hayward and Mr. Lofthouse were both very pale.
One rapid glance was enough to show all this to John Mellish, – enough to show him this, and something more: a basin of blood-stained water before the coroner, and an oblong piece of wet paper, which lay under Mr. Hayward's clenched hand.
"What is the matter? Why did you send for me?" John asked.
Bewildered and alarmed as he had been by the message which had summoned him hurriedly back to the inn, he was still more so by the confusion evident in the coroner's manner as he answered this question.
"Pray sit down, Mr. Mellish," he said. "I – I – sent for you – at – the – the advice of Mr. Lofthouse, who – who, as a clergyman and a family man, thought it incumbent upon me – "
Reginald Lofthouse laid his hand upon the coroner's arm with a warning gesture. Mr. Hayward stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, and then continued speaking, but in an altered tone.
"I have had occasion to reprehend William Dork for a breach of duty, which, though I am aware it may have been, as he says, purely unintentional and accidental – "
"It was indeed, sir," muttered the constable submissively. "If I'd ha' know'd – "
"The fact is, Mr. Mellish, that on the night of the murder, Dork, in examining the clothes of the deceased, discovered a paper, which had been concealed by the unhappy man between the outer material and the lining of his waistcoat. This paper was so stained by the blood in which the breast of the waistcoat was absolutely saturated, that Dork was unable to decipher a word of its contents. He therefore was quite unaware of the importance of the paper; and, in the hurry and confusion consequent on the very hard duty he has done for the last two days, he forgot to produce it at the inquest. He had occasion to make some memorandum in his pocket-book almost immediately after the verdict had been given, and this circumstance recalled to his mind the existence of the paper. He came immediately to me, and consulted me upon this very awkward business. I examined the document, washed away a considerable portion of the stains which had rendered it illegible, and have contrived to decipher the greater part of it."
"The document is of some importance, then?" John asked.
He sat at a little distance from the table, with his head bent and his fingers rattling nervously against the side of his chair. He chafed horribly at the coroner's pompous slowness. He suffered an agony of fear and bewilderment. Why had they called him back? What was this paper? How could it concern him?
"Yes," Mr. Hayward answered; "the document is certainly an important one. I have shown it to Mr. Lofthouse, for the purpose of taking his advice upon the subject. I have not shown it to Dork; but I detained Dork in order that you may hear from him how and where the paper was found, and why it was not produced at the inquest."
"Why should I ask any questions upon the subject?" cried John, lifting his head suddenly, and looking from the coroner to the clergyman. "How should this paper concern me?"
"I regret to say that it does concern you very materially, Mr. Mellish," the rector answered gently.
John's angry spirit revolted against that gentleness. What right had they to speak to him like this? Why did they look at him with those grave, pitying faces? Why did they drop their voices to that horrible tone in which the bearers of evil tidings pave their way to the announcement of some overwhelming calamity?
"Let me see this paper, then, if it concerns me," John said very carelessly. "Oh, my God!" he thought, "what is this misery that is coming upon me? What is this hideous avalanche of trouble which is slowly descending to crush me?"
"You do not wish to hear anything from Dork?" asked the coroner.
"No, no!" cried John savagely. "I only want to see that paper." He pointed as he spoke to the wet and blood-stained document under Mr. Hayward's hand.
"You may go, then, Dork," the coroner said quietly; "and be sure you do not mention this business to any one. It is a matter of purely private interest, and has no reference to the murder. You will remember?"
"Yes, sir."
The constable bowed respectfully to the three gentlemen and left the room. He was very glad to be so well out of the business.
"They needn't have called me," he thought. (To call, in the northern patois, is to scold, to abuse.) "They needn't have said it was repri – what's its name – to keep the paper. I might have burnt it, if I'd liked, and said naught about it."
"Now," said John, rising and walking to the table as the door closed upon the constable, "now then, Mr. Hayward, let me see this paper. If it concerns me, or any one connected with me, I have a right to see it."
"A right which I will not dispute," the coroner answered gravely, as he handed the blood-stained document to Mr. Mellish. "I only beg you to believe in my heartfelt sympathy with you in this – "
"Let me alone!" cried John, waving the speaker away from him as he snatched the paper from his hand; "let me alone! Can't you see that I'm nearly mad?"
He walked to the window, and with his back to the coroner and Mr. Lofthouse, examined the blotched and blotted document in his hands. He stared for a long time at those blurred and half-illegible lines before he became aware of their full meaning. But at last the signification of that miserable paper grew clear to him, and with a loud cry of anguish he dropped into the chair from which he had risen, and covered his face with his strong right hand. He held the paper in the left, crumpled and crushed by the convulsive pressure of his grasp.
"My God!" he ejaculated, after that first cry of anguish, – "my God! I never thought of this. I never could have imagined this."
Neither the coroner nor the clergyman spoke. What could they say to him? Sympathetic words could have no power to lessen such a grief as this; they would only fret and harass the strong man in his agony; it was better to obey him; it was far better to let him alone.
He rose at last, after a silence that seemed long to the spectators of his grief.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a loud, resolute voice that resounded through the little room, "I give you my solemn word of honour that when Archibald Floyd's daughter married me, she believed this man, James Conyers, to be dead."
He struck his clenched first upon the table, and looked with proud defiance at the two men. Then, with his