The Solitary Farm Part 8

"I left the house last night at the same time as you, ma'am," said Tunks, addressing himself to the housekeeper. "You locked the back door after me."

"Yes," acknowledged Mrs. Coppersley promptly, "so you did. That would be at seven, as I came up and saw you, Bella, a few minutes before, with the tea and toast. You didn't come back, Tunks?"

"No, I didn't," retorted the gypsy sullenly. "You went on to Marshely, and I got back home. I never came near this house again until this morning. You can ask my granny if I wasn't in bed early last night."

"When did you see your master last?" questioned Bella.

Tunks removed his dingy cap to scratch his untidy locks. "It would be about six, just before I had my tea. He wanted to reduce my wages, too, and I said I'd give him notice if he did. But I suppose," growled Tunks, with his eyes on the remains, "it's notice in any case now."

"Never you mind bothering about yourself," cried Mrs. Coppersley sharply. "Go to Marshely, and tell the policeman to come here. Bella,"

she moved to the door, "let us leave the room and lock the door. Nothing must be touched until the truth is known."

"Will the truth ever be known?" asked the girl drearily, as she went into the hall, and watched her aunt lock the door of the death-room.

"Of course," retorted the elder woman, "one person cannot murder another person without being seen."

"I don't know so much about that, Aunt Rosamund. You and Tunks were away, and I was locked in my room, so anyone could enter, and----" she glanced towards the study door and shuddered.

"Did _you_ see anyone?" asked Mrs. Coppersley quickly.

Bella started. "No," she replied, with unnecessary loudness; "how could I see anyone when I was drugged?"

"Drugged, miss?" cried Tunks, p.r.i.c.king up his ears.

Mrs. Coppersley turned on the handy-man, and stamped. "How dare you linger here?" she cried. "You should be half way to the village by this time. Miss Bella was having wakeful nights, and her father gave her a sleeping draught. Off with you," and she drove Tunks out of the front door.

"Why did you tell such a lie?" asked Bella when the man was hurrying down the path, eager, like all his tribe, to carry bad news.

"A lie! a lie!" Mrs. Coppersley placed her arms akimbo and looked defiant. "Why do you call it a lie? You _did_ complain of sleepless nights, and you did say that the tea, poured out by Jabez, was drugged."

"That is true enough," admitted the girl quietly, "but I merely slept badly because of the hot weather, and never asked my father for a sleeping----"

"Oh!" interrupted Mrs. Coppersley, tossing her head. "What does it matter. I can't even say if the tea was drugged."

"I'll learn that soon," replied Bella drily, "for I have locked up the cup containing the dregs of tea. My father no doubt feared lest I should run away with Cyril, and so drugged it."

"The least said the soonest mended, Bella. Say nothing of the drugging at the inquest, as there is no need to blacken your father's character."

"I don't see that anything I could say would blacken my father's character, Aunt Rosamund. Of course, he had no business to drug me, but if I am asked at the inquest I shall tell the truth."

"And so your connection with that Lister person will come out."

Bella turned on her aunt in a fury. "What do I care?" she cried, stamping. "I have a right to marry him if I choose, and I don't care if all the world knows how I love him. In fact, the whole world soon will know."

"Well," said Mrs. Coppersley, with an air of washing her hands of the entire affair, "say what you like; but don't blame me if you find yourself in an unpleasant position."

Bella, who was ascending the stairs, turned to answer this last remark promptly. "Why should I find myself in an unpleasant position?" she demanded. "Do you accuse me of murdering father?"

"G.o.d forbid! G.o.d forbid!" cried Mrs. Coppersley piously and with a shudder, "but you cannot deny that you were alone in the house."

"And locked in my bedroom, as you can testify."

"Oh, I'll say that willingly. But you'd better wash out that cup of dregs, and say nothing more."

"I have already mentioned the matter in Tunks' hearing, so I must explain further if necessary. But I'll say why I believe my father acted so. Your story of sleepless nights will not do for me."

"You'll blacken the memory of the dead," groaned Mrs. Coppersley dismally. "Ah, you never loved your poor father."

"Did you?" asked Bella suddenly.

"In a way I did, and in a way I didn't," said her aunt evasively. "Jabez never was the brother he should have been to me. But a daughter's nearer than a sister, and you should have loved him to distraction."

"In spite of the way he behaved to me."

"He had to keep a firm hand over your high spirit."

"Aunt Rosamund," burst out Bella at white heat. "Why do you talk in this silly way? You know that both to you and to me my father acted like a cruel tyrant, and that while he was alive we could do nothing to please him. I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but you know what I say is true."

"We are none of us perfect," snuffled Mrs. Coppersley, wiping her eyes, "and I daresay Jabez was worse than many others. But I was a good sister to him, in spite of his horrid ways. I'm sure my life's been spent in looking after other people: first my mother, then my husband, and afterwards Jabez. Now I'll marry Henry Vand, and be happy."

"Don't talk of happiness with that"--Bella pointed downward to the study--"in the house. Go and make yourself tidy, aunt, and I'll do the same. We have a very trying day before us."

"So like Jabez, so very like Jabez," wailed Mrs. Coppersley, while Bella fled up the stairs. "He always brought trouble on everyone. Even as a little boy, he behaved like the pirate he was. Oh, dear me, how ill I feel. Bella! Bella! come down and see me faint. Bella! Bella!"

But the girl did not answer, as she knew that Mrs. Coppersley only wished to gossip. Going to her own room, she again examined the cup with the dregs, which she had not locked up, in spite of her saying so to Mrs. Coppersley. Undoubtedly, the tea tasted bitter, and she resolved to have it a.n.a.lysed so as to prove to herself the fact of the drugging. She knew perfectly well that her father had attended to the tea himself, evidently to render her helpless in case she meditated flight with Cyril. And in dong so, he had indirectly brought about his own death, for had she been awake she could have descended from the window to be present at the interview which had ended so fatally. And at this point--while she was locking up the cup in a convenient cupboard--Bella became aware that she was thinking as though her lover were actually guilty of the deed.

Of course he could not be, she decided desperately, even though things looked black against him. Lister, honest and frank, would not murder an old man in so treacherous a manner, however he might be goaded into doing so. And yet she had a.s.suredly seen him enter the house. If she could only have seen him depart; but the drug had prevented that welcome sight. Pence might have struck the blow, but Pence 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 pa.s.sed 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 compet.i.tion, 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 a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.sive mahogany desk, with which undoubtedly the crime had been committed; but he could discover no trace of the a.s.sa.s.sin, 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.