Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon
don’t they?”
“In your case there was some very fast-going, evidently.”
“I used to think then that Bothwell cared for me—just a little. And then there came a change. But I know the reason of that change now; and I know that he really loves me.”
“O, you are monstrous wise, child, and monstrous self-willed for nineteen years old,” said her brother, in those deep grave tones of his, a voice which gave weight and power to lightest words, “and you would take your own road in life without counting the cost. Well, Hilda, for your sake I will try to get at the root of this mystery. I will try to fathom your lover’s secret; and God grant I may discover that it is a far less guilty secret than I have deemed.”
He kissed Hilda’s downcast brow and left her. She was crying; but her tears were less bitter than they had been, for she felt that her brother was now on her side; and Edward Heathcote’s championship was a tower of strength.
Once having pledged himself to anything, even against his own convictions, Heathcote was the last man to go from his word; but if he needed a stronger inducement than his sister’s sorrowful pleading, that inducement was offered.
He received a note from Dora Wyllard within a few hours of his conversation with Hilda.
* * * * *
“Dear Mr. Heathcote,—My husband and I have both been wondering at your desertion of us. For my own part I want much to see you, and to talk to you upon a very painful subject. Will you call at Penmorval after your ride tomorrow afternoon, and let me have a few words with you alone?
“Always faithfully yours,
“DOROTHEA WYLLARD.”
* * * * *
He kissed the little note before he laid it carefully in a drawer of his writing-table. It was a foolish thing to do, but the act was quite involuntary and half unconscious. The sight of that handwriting brought back the feeling of that old time when a letter from Dora meant so much for him. He had trained himself to think of her as another man’s wife—to consider himself her friend, and her friend only. He felt himself bound in honour so to think; all the more because he was admitted to her home, because she was not afraid to call him friend. Yet there were moments when the old feeling came over him with irresistible force.
He did not ride that afternoon, but walked across the fields, and presented himself at Penmorval between four and five o’clock. Mrs. Wyllard was alone in her morning-room, a room in which everything seemed part of herself—her favourite books, her piano, her easel—all the signs of those pursuits which he remembered as the delight of her girlhood.
“You paint still, I see,” he said, glancing at the easel, on which there was an unfinished picture of a beloved Blenheim spaniel; “you have not forgotten your old taste for animals.”
“I have so much leisure,” she answered somewhat sadly; and then he remembered her childless home.
She was very pale, and he thought she had a careworn look, as of one who had spent anxious days and sleepless nights. He took the chair to which she motioned him, and they sat opposite each other for some moments in silence, she looking down and playing nervously with a massive ivory paper-knife which was lying on the table at which she had been writing when he entered. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to his face—pathetic eyes which had looked at him once before in his life with just that appealing look.
“It is very cruel of you to believe my cousin guilty of murder,” she said, coming straight to the point. “You knew my mother. Surely you must know our race well enough to know that it does not produce murderers.”
“Who told you that I believed such a thing?”
“Your own actions have told me. Bothwell has been cut by the people about here; and you, who should have been his staunch friend and champion, you have kept away from Penmorval as if this house were infected, in order to avoid meeting my cousin.”
“I cannot tell you a lie, Mrs. Wyllard, even to spare your feelings,” replied Heathcote, deeply moved, “and yet I think you must know that I would do much to save you pain. Yes, I must admit that it has seemed to me that circumstances pointed to your cousin, as having been directly or indirectly concerned in that girl’s death. His conduct became so strange at that date—so difficult to account for upon any other hypothesis.”
“Has your experience of life never made you acquainted with strange coincidences?” asked Dora. “Is it impossible, or even improbable, that Bothwell should have some trouble upon his mind—a trouble which arose just about the time of that girl’s death? Everything must have a date; and his anxieties happen to date from that time. I know his frank open nature, and how heavily any secret would weigh upon him.”
“You believe, then, that he has a secret?”
“Yes—there is something—some entanglement which prevented his answering Mr. Distin’s very impertinent questions.”
“Has he confided his trouble to you? Has he convinced you of his innocence?”
“He had no occasion to do that. I never believed him guilty—I never could believe him guilty of such a diabolical crime.”
Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, but she dried them hastily.
“Mr. Heathcote, you are a lawyer, a man of the world, a man of talent and leisure. You have been one of the first to do my kinsman a cruel wrong. Cannot you do something towards righting him? I am making this appeal on my own account—without Bothwell’s knowledge. I come to you as the oldest friend I have—the one friend outside my own home in whom I can fully confide.”
“You know that I would give my life in your service,” he answered, with suppressed fervour. He dared not trust himself to say much. “Yes, you have but to command me. I will do all that human intelligence can do. But this is a difficult case. The only evidence against your cousin is of so vague a nature that it could not condemn him before a jury; and yet that evidence is strong enough to brand him as a possible murderer in the opinion of those who saw him under Distin’s examination. He can never be thoroughly rehabilitated until the mystery of that girl’s death has been fathomed, and I doubt if that will ever be. Where Joseph Distin has failed, with all the detective-police of London at his command, how can any amateur investigator hope to succeed?”
“Friendship may succeed where mere professional cleverness has been baffled,” argued Dora. “I do not think that Mr. Distin’s heart was in this case. At least that is the impression I derived from a few words which I heard him say to my husband just before he left us.”
“Indeed! Can you recall those words?”
“Very nearly. He said he had done his best in the matter, and should not attempt to go further. And then with his cynical air he added, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie, Wyllard. That is a good old saying.’”
“Don’t you think that sounds rather as if he suspected your kinsman, and feared to bring trouble on your family by any further investigation?”
“It never struck me in that light,” exclaimed Dora, with a distressed look. “Good heavens! is all the world so keen to suspect an innocent man? If you only knew Bothwell as I know him, you would be the first to laugh this cruel slander to scorn.”
“For your sake I will try and believe in him as firmly as you do,” answered Heathcote, “and as Wyllard does, no doubt.”
Her countenance fell, and she was silent.
“Your husband knows of this cloud upon your cousin’s name, I suppose?” interrogated Heathcote, after a pause.
“Yes, I told him how Bothwell had been treated by his Bodmin acquaintance.”
“And he was as indignant as you were, I conclude?”
“He said very little,” answered Dora, with a pained expression. “My regard for Bothwell is the only subject upon which Julian and I have ever differed. He has been somewhat