Elster's Folly Part 22

He turned away from the astonished man, went into the room he had called sacred, and closed the door. Hedges wondered whether the hitherto sweet-tempered, easy-mannered younger brother had changed his nature with his inheritance.

As the days went on, few, if any, further particulars were elicited as to the cause of accident. That the unfortunate Lord Hartledon had become partly, if not wholly, disabled, so as to be incapable of managing even the little skiff, had been drifted by the current towards the mills, and there upset, was a.s.sumed by all to have been the true history of the case. There appeared no reason to doubt that it was so. The inquest was held on the Thursday.

And on that same morning the new Lord Hartledon received a proof of the kindness of his brother. A letter arrived from Messrs. Kedge and Reck, addressed to Edward Earl of Hartledon. By it Percival found--there was no one else to open it now--that his brother had written to them early on the Tuesday morning, taking the debt upon himself; and they now wrote to say they accepted his responsibility, and had withdrawn the officer from Calne. Alas! Val Elster could have dismissed him himself now.

He sat with bent head and drooping eyelids. None, save himself, knew how bitter were the feelings within him, or the remorse that was his portion for having behaved unkindly to his brother within the last few hours of life. He had rebelled at his state of debt becoming known to Dr. Ashton; he had feared to lose Anne: it seemed to him now, that he would live under the doctor's displeasure for ever, would never see Anne again, could he recall his brother. Oh, these unavailing regrets! Will they rise up to face us at the Last Day?

With a suppressed e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n that was like a cry of pain, as if he would throw from him these reflections and could not, Lord Hartledon drew a sheet of paper before him and wrote a note to the lawyers. He briefly stated what had taken place; that his brother was dead from an accident, and he had inherited, and should take speedy measures for the discharge of any liabilities there might be against him: and he requested, as a favour, that the letter written to them by his brother might be preserved and returned to him: he should wish to keep it as the last lines his hand had traced.

CHAPTER XI.

THE INQUEST.

On this day, Thursday, the inquest was held. Most of the gay crowd staying at Hartledon had taken flight; Mr. Carteret, and one or two more, whose testimony might be wished for, remaining. The coroner and jury a.s.sembled in the afternoon, in a large boarded apartment called the steward's room. Lord Hartledon was present with Dr. Ashton and other friends: they were naturally anxious to hear the evidence that could be collected, and gather any light that might be thrown upon the accident.

The doors were not closed to the public, and a crowd, gentle and simple, pressed in.

The surgeon spoke to the supposed cause of death--drowning: the miller spoke to his house and mill having been that afternoon shut up. He and his wife went over in their spring-cart to Garchester, and left the place locked up, he said. The coroner asked whether it was his custom to lock up his place when he went out; he replied that it was, when they went out together; but that event rarely happened. Upon his return at dusk, he found the little skiff loose in the stream, and secured it. It was his servant-boy, David Ripper, who called his attention to it first of all.

He saw nothing of Lord Hartledon, and had not very long secured the skiff when Mr. Percival Elster came up in the pony-carriage, asking if his brother was there. He looked at the skiff, and said it was the one his lordship had been in. Mr. Elster said he supposed his brother was walking home, and he should drive slowly back and look out for him. Later Mr.

Elster returned: he had several servants with him then and lanterns; they had come out to look for Lord Hartledon, but could not find him. It was only just after they had gone away again that the Irish harvest-men came up and found the body.

This was the substance of the miller's evidence; it was all he knew: and the next witness called was the boy David Ripper, popularly styled in the neighbourhood young Rip, in contradistinction to his father, a day-labourer. He was an urchin of ten or twelve, with a red, round face; quite ludicrous from its present expression of terrified consternation.

The coroner sharply inquired what he was frightened at; and the boy burst into a roar by way of answer. He didn't know nothing, and hadn't seen nothing, and it wasn't him that drowned his lordship; and he couldn't tell more if they hanged him for it.

The miller interposed. The boy was one of the idlest young vagabonds he had ever had the luck to be troubled with; and he thought it exceedingly likely he had been off that afternoon and not near the mill at all. He had ordered him to take two sacks into Calne; but when he reached home he found the sacks untouched, lying where he had placed them outside. Mr.

Ripper had no doubt been playing truant on his own account.

"Where did you pa.s.s Tuesday afternoon during your master's absence?"

sternly demanded the coroner. "Take your hands from your face and answer me, boy."

David Ripper obeyed in the best manner he was capable of, considering his agitation. "I dun know now where I was," he said. "I was about."

"About where?"

Mr. Ripper apparently could not say where. He thought he was "setting his bird-trap" in the stubble-field; and he see a partridge, and watched where it scudded to; but he wasn't nigh the mill the whole time.

"Did you see anything of Lord Hartledon when he was in the skiff?"

"I never saw him," he sobbed. "I wasn't nigh the mill at all, and never saw him nor the skiff."

"What time did you get back to the mill?" asked the coroner.

He didn't know what time it was; his master and missis had come home.

This was true, Mr. Floyd said. They had been back some little time before Ripper showed himself. The first intimation he received of that truant's presence was when he drew his attention to the loose skiff.

"How came you to see the skiff?" sharply asked the coroner.

Ripper spoke up with trembling lips. He was waiting outside after he came up, and afraid to go in lest his master should beat him for not taking the sacks, which went clean out of his mind, they did, and then he saw the little boat; upon which he called out and told his master.

"And it was also you who first saw the body in the water," observed the coroner, regarding the reluctant witness curiously. "How came you to see that? Were you looking for something of the sort?"

The witness shivered. He didn't know how he come to see it. He was on the strade, not looking for nothing, when he saw some'at dark among the reeds, and told the harvesters when they come by. They said it was a man, got him out, and then found it was his lordship.

There was only one peculiarity about the boy's evidence--his manner.

All he said was feasible enough; indeed, what would be most likely to happen under the circ.u.mstances. But whence arose his terror? Had he been of a timid temperament, it might have been natural; but the miller had spoken the truth--he was audacious and hardy. Only upon one or two, however, did the manner leave any impression. Pike, who made one of the crowd in the inquest-room, was one of these. His experience of human nature was tolerably keen, and he felt sure the boy was keeping something behind that he did not dare to tell. The coroner and jury were not so clear-sighted, and dismissed him with the remark that he was a "little fool."

"Call George Gorton," said the coroner, looking at his notes.

Very much to Lord Hartledon's surprise--perhaps somewhat to his annoyance--the man answering to this name was the one who had originally come to Calne on a special mission to himself. Some feeling caused him to turn from the man whilst he gave his evidence, a thing easily done in the crowded room.

It appeared that amidst the stirring excitement in the neighbourhood on the Tuesday night when the death became known, this stranger happened to avow in the public-house which he made his quarters that he had seen Lord Hartledon in his skiff just before the event must have happened. The information was reported, and the man received a summons to appear before the coroner.

And it may be as well to remark now, that his second appearance was owing to a little cowardice on his own part. He had felt perfectly satisfied at the time with the promise given him by Lord Hartledon to see the debt paid--given also in the presence of the Rector--and took his departure in the train, just as Pike had subsequently told Mr. Elster. But ere he had gone two stages on his journey, he began to think he might have been too precipitate, and to ask himself whether his employers would not tell him so when he appeared before them, unbacked by any guarantee from Lord Hartledon; for this, by a strange oversight, he had omitted to ask for.

He halted at once, and went back by the next return train. The following day, Tuesday, he spent looking after Lord Hartledon, but, as it happened, did not meet him.

The man--a dissipated young man, now that his hat was off--came forward in his long coat, his red hair and whiskers. But it seemed that he had really very little information to give. He was on the banks of the river when Lord Hartledon pa.s.sed in the skiff, and noticed how strangely he was rowing, one arm apparently lying useless. What part of the river was this, the coroner asked; and the witness avowed that he could not describe it. He was a stranger, never there but that once; all he knew was, that it was higher up, beyond Hartledon House. What might he have been doing there, demanded the coroner. Only strolling about, was the answer. What was his business at Calne? came the next question; and as it was put, the witness caught the eye of the new Lord Hartledon through an opening in the crowd. His business, the witness replied to the coroner, was his own business, and did not concern the public, and he respectfully declined to state it. He presumed Calne was a free place like other places, where a stranger might spend a few days without question, if he pleased.

Pike chuckled at this: incipient resistance to authority cheered that lawless man's heart. He had stood throughout, in the shadow of the crowd, just within the door, attentively watching the witnesses as they gave their evidence: but he was not prepared for what was to come next.

Did the witness see any other spectators on the bank? continued the coroner. Only one, was the answer: a man called Pike, or some such name.

Pike was watching the little boat on the river when he got up to him; he remarked to Pike that his lordship's arm seemed tired; and he and Pike had walked back to Calne together.

Pike would have got away had he been able, but the coroner whispered to an officer. For one single moment Mr. Pike seemed inclined to show fight; he began struggling, not gently, to reach the door; the next he gave it up, and resigned himself to his fate. There was a little hubbub, in the midst of which a slip of paper with a pencilled line from Lord Hartledon, was handed to the coroner.

"_Press this point, whether they returned to Calne at once and together._"

"George Gorton," cried the coroner, as he crushed the paper in his hand, "at what hour did you return to Calne?"

"I went at once. As soon as the little boat was out of sight."

"Went alone?"

"No, sir. I and the man Pike walked together. I've said so already."

"What made you go together?"

"Nothing in particular. We were both going back, I suppose, and strolled along talking."

It appeared to be all that the witness had to tell, and Mr. Pike came forward perforce. As he stood there, his elegant wide-awake bent in his hand, he looked more like the wild man of the woods he had been compared to, than a civilized being. Rough, rude, and abrupt were his tones as he spoke, and he bent his face and eyes downwards whilst he answered. It was in those eyes that lay the look which had struck Mr. Elster as being familiar to him. He persisted in giving his name as Tom, not Thomas.

But if the stranger in the long coat had little evidence to give, Pike had even less. He had been in the woods that afternoon and sauntered to the bank of the river just as Lord Hartledon pa.s.sed in the skiff; but he had taken very little notice of him. It was only when the last witness, who came up at the moment, remarked upon the queer manner in which his lordship held his arm, that he saw it was lying idle.

Not a thing more could he or would he tell. It was all he knew, he said, and would swear it was all. He went back to Calne with the last witness, and never saw his lordship again alive.