CHAPTER XVI.
When Miss Bostal, at the end of the proceedings, turned to Nell and told her to get up and come home, she found that the girl had fainted.
George Claris, who had not been near his niece during the inquest, but had stood in a corner by himself with folded arms watching the proceedings with a heavy frown, came forward sullenly at Miss Bostal’s imperious gesture.
“Look, look, Mr. Claris, don’t you see the poor child has fainted?” cried she, astonished at his apathy.
“Yes, I see,” replied he, shortly, with a cool nod.
“Poor little thing! The horror has been too much for her! Poor little thing!” went on the lady, as she quickly unfastened Nell’s cloak and loosened the front of her gown. “A glass of water, some one, please. And don’t crowd round her; let her have all the air we can.”
When the girl came to herself, as she did in a very few minutes, thanks to the ministrations of Miss Bostal, she was led away to the dog-cart, which was waiting outside.
“Take great care of her,” said Miss Bostal, solicitously, as Nell was hoisted in, very pale and lifeless and miserable. “And if you will take my advice, you will send her off to her aunt in London by the first train to-morrow morning.”
George Claris, who had remained taciturn, sullen, and on the whole rather neglectful of his niece, frowned as he threw a quick glance at her.
“Oh, she’s all right,” he said, with gruffness most unusual with him in speaking of his darling Nell. “She only wants the fresh air to bring her to. How are you going to get back, Miss Bostal? Can’t I give you a lift? We’ll make room for you.”
He looked up at Nell, expecting her to echo his words, and to make room for her friend; but the girl never moved.
Her uncle looked angry, but Miss Theodora smiled indulgently.
“Leave her alone,” she whispered. “She’s not herself yet. This wretched business has been too much for her.”
“Why should it be too much for her more than for anybody else?” asked the innkeeper, fiercely.
Nell turned with a start, and her eyes were full of horror as she met those of her uncle. Miss Theodora pulled him impatiently by the arm.
“Men have no sympathy,” she said reproachfully. “My father is just the same. You don’t make any allowance for a woman’s nerves. And yet, if we don’t have nerves, you complain that we are mannish and unlovable. Oh, Mr. Claris, I didn’t think it of you! I didn’t, indeed. I’ve often thought that your gentleness to Nell was a pattern to be copied by other men in their treatment of ladies.”
The excitement of the day had rendered Miss Bostal much more loquacious and condescending than was usual with her. Her father, who had not been in court, came up at this moment, and, with a nod to George Claris and a cold salutation to Nell, drew Miss Theodora away.
The old gentleman looked cold and was decidedly cross.
“Come away! Come along!” said he. “Mrs. Lansdowne will give us a lift on her way home. I don’t know what you want to go hanging about the place for a minute longer than you need. I should think you were glad to get this gruesome affair done with. Come along!”
And Miss Theodora dutifully allowed him to lead her away.
The cold drive home of George Claris and his niece began in silence. They were already in sight of the little group of buildings of which the Blue Lion was the principal, when the girl, turning suddenly to her uncle, asked:
“Uncle George, what is the matter? Why are you different, different to me?”
There was a pause. A struggle was going on in the man’s breast, a struggle pitifully keen, between the love he had always borne toward his Nell and the attacks of doubt and suspicion. It was in a husky, unnatural voice that he presently replied, parrying the question:
“Different! How different?”
“You know, you know,” Nell whispered back.
George Claris looked at her. And for a minute the old trust came back into his heart, and he told himself that he was a fool, a miserable old fool, to allow a doubt of her absolute goodness and truth to enter his mind. And then again the ugly thoughts which had begun to darken his mind, subtly instilled by the doubt and suspicion in all the minds around him, clouded over him once more. He could not give her an open answer, although he felt that it would have been better if he could have done so. He heaved a big sigh, and answered without looking.
“Ah, well, my girl, it’s not so easy to be lively and cheerful with such things as them,” and he vaguely indicated the recent occurrence, jerking his whip back in the direction of Stroan, “happening under one’s very windows, almost.”
And then they both were silent, both conscious at the same moment that they were close to the spot where the body of Jem Stickels had been found on the previous night. Both uncle and niece looked furtively at the spot, easily discernible by the trodden-down condition of the wayside grass. And then, quite suddenly, their furtive glances sought each other’s face, and for a moment their eyes met.
“Uncle,” asked Nell, in a whisper, “was the gun that fired the bullet found?”
George Claris shook his head in answer.
This, indeed, was the chief difficulty with which the local police, put on their mettle by the presence in their midst of Hemming, the London detective, had to contend.
The bullet found in the head of Jem Stickels had evidently been fired from an old-fashioned weapon, being of large size and of obsolete pattern. And no weapon had been found in the neighborhood, after a diligent and exhaustive search. The theory of the doctors was that the bullet had been discharged from a pistol at a distance of at least some yards; but at present this theory had borne no fruit except in the brain of the detective, Hemming.
That astute person had been revolving in his mind an idea, which he took care to keep to himself, and which led him, within an hour of the conclusion of the inquest, in the direction of Shingle End.
Where would Nell be so likely to find a weapon with which to commit the crime which freed her from her fear of Jem Stickels as at the house of an old soldier? Somewhere about the house, and probably in a place with which she, an habitué of the house, was well acquainted, the old colonel would be sure to keep some mementos of his soldiering days, an inspection of which Hemming felt was very likely to give him the clue he wanted.
It was, as usual, Miss Bostal who opened the door to him. Her prim face seemed to light up on seeing who it was.
“Come in, do come in,” said she, throwing the door wide open, and inviting him to enter the drawing-room. “I do hope you have got some more news for us. Do you know I hope more from what you will find out than from all these country policemen! If they were to sit and talk till mid-summer, I don’t believe they would be any nearer to finding out who did it than they are now.”
The detective smiled.
“I think you’re too hard upon them, ma’am,” said he. “They think they’ve got a pretty good clue already. And they quite expect to make an arrest before many days are over.”
Miss Bostal, who had followed him into the drawing-room, and was proceeding to light a solitary candle, after her hospitable custom, shrugged her little, thin shoulders impatiently.
“They always say that. But what do you think?”
The detective did not answer at once. And when she turned to inquire the reason of this, she perceived by the expression of his face something had startled him.
“What is the matter?” she asked, quickly.
“I suppose these doings have made me nervous, like the rest of them, ma’am,” answered he, looking down at his hat, and brushing it carefully with his hand. “For I fancied I saw somebody looking in at the window.”
Miss Bostal looked at him curiously. It seemed to her that from where he stood he could see neither of the windows, nor even the reflection of one of them in the glass over the mantelpiece. However, she knew better than to argue with a detective. She walked to the windows, one after the other, and looked out.
“I don’t see anybody,” said she. “It may have been one of the urchins of the place, peeping in out of curiosity. This room is not much used, and the light may have attracted him.”
“Very likely, ma’am.”
“And now what is there we can do for you, for, of course, you have come on business?”
“Why, yes, ma’am. Things look very black against your young lady friend yonder.”
And he nodded in the direction of the Blue Lion.
“Now, Mr. Hemming, I will not hear a word against that girl,” said Miss Bostal, with sudden warmth. “I tell you the notion is absurd that the child should have had anything to do with it. And I am surprised to hear such a preposterous suggestion from a man of your discernment.”
The detective looked down at his hat.
“It does you credit, ma’am, to take her part,” he said, rather dryly. “Still, there are some questions I must ask the colonel, if he will give me five minutes. And I’m sure I shall be glad enough if he can help to clear her.”
“My father will see you, I am sure,” said Miss Bostal, promptly, going to the door. “Because he is as sure as I am that all light on this matter is in Miss Claris’s interest.”
And, rather resentfully glancing at him as she went out, she crossed the stone-flagged passage, and told her father that the London detective wished to see him.
“Show him in here,” Hemming heard the colonel answer, in tones much more disturbed than his daughter’s.
Miss Theodora ushered Hemming into the dining-room, which looked snug and warm after the cold bareness of the state apartment; and then she left the two men together.
“I’ve come to ask you, sir,” said Hemming, when he had apologized for intruding, “whether you have any firearms stored away about the house?”
“Firearms? No, certainly not,” answered the colonel, in a tone of indignation which showed that he scented Hemming’s desire to connect his property with the outrage.
“No offense, sir,” said Hemming, persuasively. “But I am bound to make inquiries, as you know. I see you’ve got a trophy on the wall outside, with spears, a long Afghan gun, and—”
“Why, that gun would do more harm to the man who fired it than it would to anything he fired at!”
“And there’s an old pistol there, too. May I look at that?”
“Certainly you can, if you choose.”
The detective availed himself of the permission, and brought into the room from the place where they had hung on the wall of the passage, the Afghan gun, a short and heavy camel-gun, and the pistol in question. It was an old cavalry pistol, of obsolete pattern.
This weapon Hemming proceeded to handle with interest.
“Take care,” said the colonel, suddenly ducking his head as the detective held it up and put his hand on the trigger. “It’s loaded.”
“I think not,” answered Hemming, quietly.
And he pulled the trigger three or four times without effect. The colonel jumped up.
“Why,” cried he, “I loaded it myself the other day! I was showing the ladies how it was used, and I know I loaded it before I put it back in its place.”
“Ah,” said Hemming, more dryly than ever, “it’s been used since then, sir. Will you show me the bullets you have by you? I want to compare them with one at the Stroan police station.”
“Why, man, you don’t mean to say you suppose—”
“That you showed it to the ladies to some purpose? I’m afraid I do, sir.”