Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon
the carriage over the embankment. The act of standing on the footboard and clinging to the carriage would imply resistance.
“It might mean only hesitation,” said Heathcote. “How long do you suppose she remained standing on the footboard?”
“Hardly a minute——perhaps not more than thirty seconds. I heard the guard signal for the stopping of the train, and then I heard her shriek as she fell. It was almost instantaneous. The engine was just on the bridge when I first saw her. It was in the middle of the bridge when she fell. That will give you the best idea as to time.”
“Not more than thirty seconds,” said the Coroner, who knew every yard of the line. “Is there any one else here who can tell us anything about this poor girl’s death?”
There was no one else; though there were twenty people in the room who had been in the train yesterday evening, and who had gone down into the gorge to see that poor crushed form lying amidst ferns and foxgloves, to look curiously at the small white face, the childish lips for ever mute in death. No one could tell any more, or indeed as much about the details of the catastrophe as Dr. Menheniot and the guard, both of whom had seen the fall: whereas no one else happened to have been looking out of window on the near side of the train.
“We will adjourn the inquest for a fortnight,” said Mr. Heathcote presently, after a whispered consultation with the jury. “The matter is much too mysterious to be dismissed without a very careful investigation. A fortnight will give ample time for the friends of the deceased to come forward. I have ordered photographs to be taken, with a view to her identification. Burial cannot, of course, be delayed beyond the usual time.”
There were morbid minds among the spectators who envied the photographer his ghastly office. The inquest was felt to have been disappointing. Revelations had been expected, and none had come. But Mr. Heathcote had pronounced the case deeply mysterious: and there was comfort in the idea that he might know more than he cared to reveal yet awhile.
Julian Wyllard had driven from Penmorval in his own particular dog-cart, with one of the finest horses in the district. Bothwell Grahame, who was a great walker and altogether independent in his habits, had come across the hills, and over cornfields and meadows, as straight as the crow flies. The master of Penmorval’s smart trap and high-stepping gray were out of sight before Bothwell left the pathway in front of the Vital Spark, where he lingered to talk over the inquest with some of his Bodmin acquaintance. The young Scotchman was steeped to the eyes in true Caledonian pride of race; but he had none of the petty pride which makes a man scornful of that portion of the human family which earns its bread by humble avocations. He was as friendly with a railway-porter or a village tradesman as with the proudest landowner in the county; had not two sets of manners for high and low, or two distinct modes of speech for gentle and simple, the very intonation different for that inferior clay. Bothwell had never been able to understand why some of the men he knew talked to a tradesman or a servant just as they would have spoken to a dog, or, indeed, much less civilly than Bothwell spoke to his dogs. He was a staunch Conservative in most things; but in this one question of respect for his fellow-man he was an unmitigated Radical.
And now he loitered in front of the inn door, talking to the railway officials who had appeared at the inquest, and who knew Mr. Grahame as a frequent traveller between Bodmin Road and Plymouth.
“There was one thing that didn’t come out just now,” said the station-master, “and that was the girl’s ticket. The ticket was for Plymouth; and yet here was this poor young thing going on towards Penzance. Why was she going beyond her first destination, eh, Mr. Grahame? Why did she walk up and down the platform at Plymouth, as if she expected some one to meet her there? Why did she get into the train at the last moment, just as it was moving out of the station? Don’t it seem likely that the individual who was to have met her in the station for which she had taken her ticket was the same individual that helped her into the train, and that he made away with her? A husband, perhaps, who wanted to get rid of a troublesome foreign wife. And he tells her to meet him at Plymouth, and he is there to meet her, but not on the platform as she expects. He is there in hiding in a railway carriage, and he beckons her in just as the train is starting, when he is least likely to be observed in the bustle and hurry of the start.”
“You put your story together very well, Mr. Chafy,” said Bothwell somewhat indifferently, as if not deeply interested in the mystery which so enthralled the Bodmin mind. “You ought to have been a detective. But if this poor girl was murdered, and her murderer was in the train, how is it that you who are so sharp could not contrive to spot him when you took stock of the passengers? Mr. Wyllard gave you the office, I remember.”
“Murderers do not carry the brand of Cain, Mr. Grahame,” said Edward Heathcote, who had come out of the inn door in time to hear Bothwell’s speech. “The assassins of our civilised era are high-handed gentlemen, very cunning of fence, and have no more mark upon them than you or I.”
“I believe the girl’s death was an accident,” said Bothwell, with a touch of impatience—“one of those profound mysteries which are as simple as ABC. She may have been standing by the door, admiring the landscape, and the door may have opened as she leant against it. She might recover herself so far as to stand on the foot-board for a few seconds, clinging to the hand-rail, and then she fell and was killed.”
“Not a very plausible explanation, my dear Grahame. She was leaning against the door, looking out at the landscape, you suggest, and the door opened and let her out. How was it, then, that when Menheniot and the guard saw her, she was standing on the foot-board with her face to the carriage? Did she swing herself round on the footboard, as on a pivot, do you suppose? Rather a difficult achievement, even for an acrobat.”
“You need not be so deuced clever,” retorted Bothwell, who seemed altogether out of sorts this afternoon. “It is not my business to find out how the young woman came by her death.”
“No,” said the Coroner, “but it is mine; and I mean to do it.”
“It won’t be the first queer case you’ve got to the bottom of, Mr. Heathcote,” said the station-master, in a tone of respect that amounted almost to reverence. “You remember poor old uncle Taylor, who was found dead at the bottom of the Merrytree shaft over to Truro? You put a rope round the neck of the scoundrel that killed him, you did. There’s not many men clever enough to keep a secret from you.”
“Good-night, squire; good-night, Chafy,” said Bothwell, moving off.
Heathcote followed him.
“If you are walking home, I’ll go part of the way with you,” he said.
“What, are you on foot?” asked Bothwell, surprised. “What has become of Timour?”
“Timour is in a barn, with his shoes off, getting ready for the cub-hunting.”
“And the rest of your stud?”
“O, I have plenty of horses to ride, if that is what you mean; but I rather prefer walking, in such weather as this. How is it you did not drive home in your cousin’s dog-cart?”
“I hate sitting beside another man to be driven,” said Bothwell shortly. “There are times, too, when a fellow likes to be alone.”
If this were intended for a hint, Mr. Heathcote did not take it. He produced his cigar-case, and offered Bothwell one of his Patagas. He was a great smoker, and renowned for smoking good tobacco; so Bothwell accepted the cigar and lighted it, but did not relax the sullen air which he had assumed when Mr. Heathcote volunteered his company.
“You are not looking particularly well this afternoon, Grahame,” said Heathcote, when they had walked a little way, silently smoking their cigars.
“O, there’s nothing the matter with me,” the young man answered carelessly. “I was up late, and I had a bad night, that’s all.”
“You were troubled about yesterday’s business,” suggested the Coroner.
“The girl’s dead face haunted me; but I had troubles of my own without that.”
“You