The Solitary Farm. Hume Fergus
had no reason to do so, and in fact had every inducement to keep Huxham alive. Bella could not read the riddle of the murder. All she knew was that it would be necessary for her to hold her tongue about Lister's unexpected visit to the Solitary Farm.
"But I shall never be able to marry him after this," she wailed.
CHAPTER VI
THE INQUEST
Tunks lost no time in delivering his gruesome message and in spreading the news of the death. While the village policeman telegraphed to his superior officer at Pierside, the handy-man of the late Captain Huxham adopted the public-house as a kind of St. Paul's Cross, whence to promulgate the grim intelligence. Here he passed a happy and exciting hour detailing all that had happened, to an awe-stricken crowd, members of which supplied him with free drinks. The marsh-folk were a dull, peaceful, law-abiding people, and it was rarely that crimes were committed in the district. Hence the news of the murder caused a tremendous sensation.
Captain Jabez Huxham was well known, and his eccentricity in the matter of planting Bleacres with yearly corn had been much commented upon. In Napoleonic times the fertile marsh farms had been golden with grain, but of late years, owing to Russian and American competition, little had been sown. Huxham, as the rustics argued, could not have got even moderate prices for its crops, so it puzzled one and all why he persisted in his unprofitable venture. But there would be no more sowing at Bleacres now, for the captain himself was about to be put under the earth. "And a grand funeral he'll have," said the rustics, morbidly alive to the importance of the grim event. For thirty years no crime of this magnitude had been committed in the neighbourhood, and the violent death of Huxham provided these bovine creatures with a new thrill.
Meanwhile the policeman, Dutton by name, had proceeded to Bleacres, followed – when the news became more widely known – by a large and curious throng. For that day and for the following days, until Huxham's body was buried, Bleacres could no longer be called the solitary farm, in one sense of the word. But the inherent respect of the agriculturist for growing crops kept the individual members of the crowd, male and female, to the narrow path which led from the boundary channel to the front door of the Manor-house. When Inspector Inglis arrived with three or four policemen from Pierside, he excluded the public from the grounds, but the curious still hovered in the distance – beyond Jordan as it were – with inquisitive eyes fastened on the quaint old mansion. To them, one and all, it now assumed portentous proportions as the abode of terror.
Inspector Inglis was a very quiet man, who said little, but who kept his eyes on the alert. He inspected the body of the dead man, and then sent for a doctor, who delivered his report in due course. The study was examined thoroughly, and the entire house was searched from cellar to garret. Then Bella and her aunt were questioned, and Tunks was also put in the witness box. But in spite of all official curiosity, backed by official power on the part of Inglis, he convened the jury of the inquest, as ignorant of the truth as when he had begun his search. He certainly found a blood-stained dagger behind the massive mahogany desk, with which undoubtedly the crime had been committed; but he could discover no trace of the assassin, and three or four days later, when the inquest took place in the Manor-house, the mystery of the murder was still unsolved. Nor, on the evidence procurable, did there seem to be any chance of solution.
During the early part of the inquiry, Mrs. Coppersley had told Inglis how her late brother had sent her with a note to Marshely asking Silas Pence to call. When questioned, the preacher, not without agitation and dismay, stated that he had been absent from his lodgings until eleven o'clock on the fatal evening, and had not obeyed the summons of the deceased. Certainly on his return he had found and read the note asking him to call, but as the hour was late, he had deferred the visit until the next morning. Then, of course, the news of the murder had been made public, and Pence had said nothing until questioned by the Inspector. But he was quite frank and open in his replies, and Inglis was satisfied that the young preacher knew nothing about the matter.
From the moment when informed by Mrs. Coppersley of the crime until the inquest, Bella suffered greatly. At her request, Dr. Ward – the medical man who had reported on the time and manner of Huxham's death – had examined the dregs of the tea-cup. Beyond doubt, as he discovered, laudanum had been poured into the tea, and so largely, that it was little wonder she had slept so soundly. Even had there been a struggle, as Ward assured her, she would not have heard the commotion. And, as the state of the study showed that the murderer had taken his victim unawares, it was little to be wondered at that Bella woke in ignorance of what had taken place during the night. She was thankful to have the testimony of the young physician as to the drugging, since thereby she was entirely exonerated from complicity in the crime. For, dreadful as it may seem, there were those evil-seekers who hinted that Huxham's daughter, having been alone in the house, must be aware of the truth, if not actually guilty herself. But Bella knew that the evidence of Dr. Ward and Mrs. Coppersley as to the drugging and the locking of the bedroom door would clear her character.
It was therefore not on this account that she suffered, but because of the inexplicable absence of Cyril Lister. Since she had seen him enter the house shortly after eight o'clock on the fatal night she had not set eyes on him, nor had she received any communication. At a time when she needed him so greatly, it seemed strange that her lover should be absent, since the fact of the murder, now being known all over England, it appeared incredible that he alone should be ignorant. In spite of her desire to believe him guiltless, this conduct looked decidedly suspicious. If nothing serious had taken place between Cyril and her father on the night in question, why had Lister gone away? At least she surmised that he had gone away, as he did not appear to be in the village, and she heard no mention of his name from the many people who haunted the house. Try as she might, Bella, dearly as she loved the young man, could not rid herself of the frightful belief that he had struck the blow. Considering the circumstances, which she alone knew fully, he had every reason to commit the crime. Yet in the face of the strongest circumstantial evidence, Bella could not bring herself to credit Cyril's guilt. Day after day, like sister Anne, she climbed to the quarter-deck to see if he was coming. But the day of the inquest came in due course, and even then he had not put in an appearance.
The Coroner was a grim, snappy old doctor, who set forth the object of the inquest gruffly and tersely. The jury under his direction inspected the body and then gathered in the large and stately dining-room of the Manor-house to consider the evidence. Inspector Inglis confessed that he had few witnesses, and that there was nothing in the evidence likely to lead to the arrest of the murderer. Robbery, said the officer, was undoubtedly the cause of the crime, since the desk had been rifled, and the safe had been forced open. Mrs. Coppersley, the sister of the deceased, he went on to say, could state that she knew her brother kept at least one hundred pounds in gold in the safe. This was missing, so probably —
"We'll take things in order, if you please," snapped the gruff Coroner at this point of the Inspector's speech. "Call your witnesses."
Inglis was only too willing, and Dr. Ward gave his evidence, which proved that in his opinion, after an examination of the body, the deceased had been stabbed to the heart between the hours of eight and eleven on the night in question. Witness could not be more precise, he said, a confession which brought a grunt from the Coroner. The old doctor lifted his eye-brows to intimate that the young doctor did not know his business over well, else he would have been more explicit. But Dr. Ward avoided an argument by hurriedly stating that, according to his opinion – another grunt from the snappy Coroner – the wound had been inflicted with the dagger found behind the mahogany desk.
This remark led to the production of the dagger, a foot-long steel, broad towards the hilt and tapering to a sharp point. This was set in a handle of jet-black wood, carved into the semblance of an ugly negro. And the odd part about the blade was that the middle portion of the steel was perforated with queer letters of the cuneiform type, and filled in with copper. The Coroner frowned when he examined this strange weapon, and he looked inquiringly at Mrs. Coppersley.
"Does this belong to your late brother?" he asked jerkily.
Mrs. Coppersley looked at the knife. "Jabez, being a sailor, had all manner of queer things," she said hesitatingly, "but I never set my eyes on that. He wasn't one to show what he had, sir."
"Was your brother ever in Africa