Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 17

And we had an audience round us before the words were well spoken. To see the lock-up made fast when there was a prisoner within it, was always a coveted recreation in Piefinch Cut. Several individuals had come running up; not to speak of children from the gutters. Dovey stood gazing in front of his forge; Figg, who liked to be lounging about outside when he had no customers transacting delicate negotiations within, backed against his shop-window, and stared in concert with Dovey. Jones flourishing the formidable keys, crossed over to them.

"How do he feel to-day?" asked Figg, nodding towards the lock-up.

"He don't feel no worse appariently than he do other days," replied old Jones. "It be a regular odd thing, it be."

"What be odd?" asked Dovey.

"How the pison could ha' got into them there pills. Crew says he has never had no pison in his place o' no kind, herbs nor else."

"And I would pledge my word that it is the truth," I put in.

"Well, and so I think it is," said Dovey. "Last night George Reed was in here a-talking. He says he one day come across Abel Crew looking for herbs in the copse behind the Grange. Crew was picking and choosing: some herbs he'd leave alone, and some he dug up. Reed spied out a fine-looking plant, and called to him. Up comes Crew, trowel in hand, bends down to take a look, and then gives his head a shake. 'That won't do for me,' says he, 'that plant has poisonous properties,' says he; 'and I never meddles with them that has,' says he. George Reed told us that much in this here forge last night. Him and his wife have a'most had words about it."

"Had words about what?" asked old Jones.

"Why, about them pills. Reed tells her that if it is the pills what poisoned the young ones, she have made some mull o' the box Abel give her and got it changed. But he don't believe as 'twere the pills at all.

And Hester Reed, she sticks to it that she never made no mull o' the box, and that the pills is the same."

At this juncture, happening to turn my head, I saw Mrs. Dovey at the door at the back of the forge, her face screwed round the doorpost, listening: and there was a great fear on it. Seeing me looking at her, she disappeared like a shot, and quietly closed the door. A thought flashed across me.

"That woman knows more about it than she will say! And it is frightening her. What can the mystery be?"

The children were buried on the Sunday afternoon, all the parish flocking to the funeral; and the next morning Abel Crew was released.

Whether old Jones had become doubtful as to the legality of what he had done, or whether he received a mandate from the coroner by the early post, no one knew. Certain it was, that before nine o'clock old Jones held the lock-up doors open, and Abel Crew walked out. It was thought that some one must have written privately to the coroner--which was more than likely. Old Jones was down in the mouth all day, as if he had had an official blowing-up.

Abel and his stick went home. The rest and his own doctoring had very nearly cured the instep. On the Sat.u.r.day old Jones had made a descent upon the cottage and cleared it of the pill-boxes. Jones found that every box had Abel's private mark upon it.

"Well, this is a curious start, Crew!" exclaimed Mr. Duffham, meeting him as he was turning in at his gate. "Now in the lock-up, and now out of it! It may be old Jones's notion of law, but it is not mine. How have you enjoyed it?"

"It would not have been so bad but for the rats, sir," replied Abel. "I could see a few stars shining through the skylight."

The days went on to the Thursday, and it was now the evening before the adjourned inquest. Tod and I, in consideration of the popular ferment, had taken the Squire at a favourable moment, and extracted from him another week's holiday. Opinions were divided: some believed in Crew, others in the poisoned pills. As to Crew himself, he was out in his garden as usual, attending to his bees, and his herbs and flowers, and quietly awaiting the good or the ill luck that Fate might have in store for him.

It was Thursday evening, I say; and I was taking tea with Duffham.

Having looked in upon him, when rushing about the place, he asked me to stay. The conversation turned upon the all-engrossing topic; and I chanced to mention that the behaviour of Ann Dovey puzzled me. Upon that, Duffham said that it was puzzling him. He had been called in to her the previous day, and found her in a regular fever, eyes anxious, breath hysterical, face hectic. Since the day of the inquest she had been more or less in this state, and the blacksmith told Duffham he could not make out what had come to her. "Them pills have drove her mad, sir," were Dovey's words; "she can't get 'em off her mind."

The last cup of tea was poured out, and Duffham was shaking round the old black pot to see if he could squeeze out any more, when we received an interruption. Dovey came bursting in upon us straight from his forge; his black hair ruffled, his small dark face hot with flurry. It was a singular tale he had come to tell. His wife had been making a confession to him. Driven pretty nearly out of her mind by the weight of a secret, she could hold it no longer.

To begin at the beginning. Dovey's house swarmed with black-beetles.

Dovey himself did not mind the animals, but Mrs. Dovey did; and no wonder, when she could not step out of bed in the night without putting her foot on one. But, if Dovey did not dislike black-beetles, there was another thing he did dislike--hated in fact; and that was the stuff called beetle-powder: which professed to kill them. Mrs. Dovey would have scattered some on the floor every night; but Dovey would not allow it. He forbid her to bring a grain of it into the house: it was nothing but poison, he said, and might chance to kill themselves as well as the beetles. Ann Dovey had her way in most matters, for Dovey was easy, as men and husbands go; but when once he put his veto on a thing, she knew she might as well try to turn the house round as turn him.

Now what did Ann Dovey do? On that very Easter Tuesday, as it chanced, as soon as dusk had set in, off she went to Dame Chad's general shop in Church d.y.k.ely, where the beetle-power was sold, and bought a packet of it. It seemed to her, that of the choice between two evils--to put up with the horrible black animals, or to disobey Dovey, the latter was the more agreeable. She could easily shake some of the powder down lightly of a night; the beetles would eat it up before morning, and Dovey would never know it. Accordingly, paying for the powder--a square packet, done up in blue paper, on which was labelled "Poison" in as large letters as the printer could get into the s.p.a.ce--she thrust it into the depths of her gown-pocket--it was her holiday gown--and set off home again.

Calling in at George Reed's cottage on her way, she there a.s.sisted, as it also chanced, in administering the pills to the unfortunate children.

And perhaps her motive for calling in was not so much from a love of presiding at physic-giving, as that she might be able, when she got home, to say "At Reed's," if her husband asked her where she had been.

It fell out as she thought. No sooner had she put foot inside the forge than Dovey began, "Where'st been, Ann?" and she told him at Reed's, helping with the sick little ones. Dovey's work was over for the night; he wanted his supper; and she had no opportunity of using the beetle-powder. It was left untouched in the pocket of her gown. The following morning came the astounding news of the children's death; and in the excitement caused by that, Mrs. Dovey lost sight of the powder.

Perhaps she thought that the general stir might cause Dovey to be more wakeful than usual, and that she might as well let the powder be for a short time. It was safe where it was, in her hung-up gown. Dovey never meddled with her pockets: on or off, they were no concern of his.

But, on the Friday morning, when putting on this same holiday gown to attend the inquest, to which she had been summoned, what was her horror to find the packet burst, and her pocket filled with the loose powder.

Mrs. Dovey had no greater love for beetle-powder in itself than she had for beetles, and visibly shuddered. She could not empty it out; there it had to remain; for Dovey, excited by his wife's having to give evidence, was in and out of her room like a dog in a fair; and she went off perforce with the stuff in her pocket. And when during her examination the questions took the turn they did take, and the coroner asked her whether she had had any poison in her pocket that night at George Reed's; this, with the consciousness of what had been that night in her pocket, of what was in her pocket at that very moment, then present, nearly frightened her into fits. From that hour, Ann Dovey had lived in a state of terror. It was not that she believed any of the beetle-powder _could_ have got inside the ill-fated young ones (though she did not feel quite easy on the point), as that she feared the accusation might be shifted off Crew's shoulders and on to hers. On this Thursday evening she could hold out no longer; and disclosed all to Dovey.

Dovey burst upon us in a heat. He was as straightforward a man as ever lived, of an intensely honest nature, and could no more have kept it in, now that he knew it, than he could have given up all righteous dealing together. His chief concern was to tell the truth, and to restore peace to his wife. He went through the narrative to Duffham without stopping; and seemed not in the least to care for my being present.

"It ain't _possible_, sir, there ain't a moral _possibility_ that any o'

that there dratted powder could have come anigh the babies," wound up Dovey. "I should be thankful, sir, if you'd come down and quieten her a bit; her be in a fine way."

What with surprise, and what with the man's rapid speech, Duffham had not taken in one-half of the tale. He had simply sat behind the teapot and stared.

"My good fellow, I don't understand," he said. "A pocketful of poison!

What on earth made her take poison to George Reed's?"

So Dovey went over the heads of the story again.

"'Twas in her pocket, sir, our Ann's, it's true; but the chances are that at that time the paper hadn't burst. None of it _couldn't_ ha' got to them there two young ones."

To see the blacksmith's earnestness was good. His face was as eager, his tone as imploring, as though he were pleading for his life.

"And it 'ud be a work of charity, sir, if you'd just step down and see her. I'd pay handsome for the visit, sir; anything you please to charge.

She's like one going right out of her mind."

"I'll come," said Duffham, who had his curiosity upon the point.

And the blacksmith set off on the run home again.

"Well, this is a curious thing!" exclaimed Duffham, when he had gone.

"Could the beetle-powder have poisoned the children?" I asked.

"I don't know, Johnny. It is an odd tale altogether. We will go down and inquire into it."

Which of course implied that he expected me to go with him. Nothing loath was I; more eager than he.

Finishing what was left of the tea and bread-and-b.u.t.ter, we went on to Piefinch Cut. Ann Dovey was alone, except for her husband and mother.

She flung herself on the sofa when she saw us--the blacksmith's house was comfortably off for furniture--and began to scream.

"Now, just you stop that, Ann Dovey," said Duffham, who was always short with hysterics. "I want to come to the bottom of this business; you can't tell it me while you scream. What in the world possessed you to go about with your pocket full of poison?"

She had her share of sense, and knew Duffham was not one to be trifled with; so she told the tale as well as she could for sobbing.

"Have you mentioned this out of doors?" was the first question Duffham asked when it was over.

"No," interposed Dovey. "I telled 'er afore I come to you not to be soft enough for that. Not a soul have heard it, sir, but me and her"--pointing to the old mother--"and you and Master Johnny. We don't want all the parish swarming about us like so many hornets."

"Good," said Duffham. "But it is rather a serious thing, I fear.

Uncertain, at any rate."

"Be it, sir?" returned Ann, raising her heavy eyes questioningly. "Do you think so?"