HOW THE SARK MEN FELT ABOUT IT
Every soul in the Island that could by any means get there, was in or outside the school-house, mostly outside, long before the clock struck two. Never in their lives had they hurried thither like that before.
A barricade of forms had been made across the room. Within it, at the school-master's table, sat the Sénéchal, Philip Guille, and the Doctor, and old Mr. Cachemaille, the Vicar, ageing rapidly since the tragic death of his good friend, the late Seigneur; beside them stood the Prévôt and the Greffier, behind them lay the body of Tom Hamon covered with a sheet.
It was a perfect day, with a cloudless blue sky and blazing sun, and all the windows were opened wide. Those inside dripped with perspiration, but felt cold chills below their blue guernseys each time they looked at that stark figure with the upturned feet beneath the cold white sheet.
Outside the barricade stood Elie Guille, the Constable, and his understudy Abraham Baker, the Vingténier, to keep order and call the witnesses.
The Seigneur, Mr. Le Pelley, was away or he would undoubtedly have been there too. In his absence the Sénéchal conducted the proceedings.
In the front row of school-desks, scored with the deep-cut initials of generations of Sark boys, sat the dead man's widow, tense and quivering, her eyes consuming fires in deep black wells, her face livid, her hands clenched still as though waiting for something to rend.
More than one of the men who sat beside her at the desk found, with a grim smile, his own name looking up at him out of the maltreated board. And one nudged his neighbour and pointed to the name of Tom Hamon, cut deeper than any of the others and with the N upside down.
Very briefly the Sénéchal stated that they were there to find out, if they could, how Tom Hamon came by his death, and added very gravely, in a deep silence, that after a most careful examination of the body the Doctor was of opinion that death had been caused, not by the fall from the Coupée, which accounted for the dreadful bruises, but by violent blows on the head with a hammer or some sueh thing prior to the fall. They wanted to find out all about it.
The Doctor stood up and confirmed what the Sénéchal had said, went somewhat more into detail to substantiate his opinion, and ended by saying, "The head, as it happens, is less bruised than any other part of the body, except on the crown, and that is practically beaten in, and not, I am prepared to swear, by a fall. These wounds were the immediate cause of death, and they were made before he fell down the rocks. Besides, he went down feet first. The abrasions on the legs and thighs prove that beyond a doubt. Then again, the base of the skull is not fractured, as it most certainly would have been if he had fallen on his head. Death was undoubtedly the result of those wounds in the head. It is impossible for me to say for certain with what kind of weapon they were made, but it was probably something round and blunt."
"Now," said the Sénéchal, when the Doctor had finished, and the hum and the growl which followed had died down again, "will any of you who know anything about this matter come forward and tell us all you know?"
Stephen Gard stood up at once and all eyes settled on him. Then Peter Mauger was pushed along from the back, with friendly thumps and growling injunctions to speak up. But the looks bestowed on Gard were of quite a different quality from those given to Peter, and the men at the table could not but notice it.
"We will take Peter Mauger first. Let him be sworn," said the Sénéchal, and Gard sat down.
The Greffier swore Peter in the old Island fashion—"Vous jurez par la foi que vous devez à Dieu que vous direz la vérité, et rien que la vérité, et tous ce que vous connaissez dans cette cause, et que Dieu vous soit en aide! (You swear by the faith which you owe to God that you will tell the truth, and only the truth, and all that you know concerning this case, and so help you God!)"
Peter put up his right hand and swore so to do.
"Now tell us all you know," said the Sénéchal.
And Peter ramblingly told how he and Tom had been drinking together the night before, and how Tom had started off home and he had gone to bed.
"Were you both drunk?"
"Well—"
"Very well, you were. Did you think it right to let your friend go off in that condition when he had to cross the Coupée?"
"I've seen him worse, many times, and no harm come to him."
"Well, get on!"
He told how Mrs. Tom woke him up in the morning, and how they had all gone in search of the missing man.
"Was it you that found him?"
"No, it was Charles Guille of Clos Bourel. But I found something too."
"What was it?"
"This"—and from under his coat he drew out carefully the white stone with its red-brown spots, and from his pocket the button and the scrap of blue cloth. And those at the back stood up, with much noise, to see.
The men at the table looked at these scraps of possible evidence with interest, as they were placed before them.
"Where did you find these things?"
"Between Plaisance and the Coupée."
"What do you make of them?"
"Seemed to me those red spots might be blood. The other's a button torn off some one's coat."
"Have you any idea whose blood and whose coat?"
"The blood I don't know. The button, I believe, is off Mr. Gard's coat,"—at which another growl and hum went round.
"And you know nothing more about the matter?"
"That's all I know."
"Very well. Sit down. Mr. Gard!" and Gard pushed his way among unyielding legs and shoulders, and stood before the grave-faced men at the table.
They all knew him and had all come to esteem what they knew of him. They knew also of his difficulties with his men, and that there was a certain feeling against him in some quarters. Not one of them thought it likely he had done this dreadful thing. But—there was no knowing to what lengths even a decent man might go in anger. All their brows pinched a little at sight of his torn coat and missing button.
He was duly sworn, and the Sénéchal bade him tell all he knew of the matter.
"That button is mine," he said quietly, holding out the lapel of his coat for all to see. "If there is blood on that stone it is mine also"—at which a growling laugh of derision went round the spectators.
Gard flushed at this unmistakable sign of hostility. The Sénéchal threatened to turn them all out if anything of the kind happened again, and Gard proceeded to recount in minutest detail the happenings of the previous night—so far as they concerned himself and Tom Hamon.
"What were you doing down at the Coupée at that time of night?" asked the Sénéchal.
"I had been having a smoke and was just about to turn in when I met Miss Hamon hurrying to the Doctor's for some medicine. I asked her permission to accompany her, and then took her home to Little Sark. It was when I was coming back that I met Tom Hamon."
"Yes, little Nance came to me about half-past ten," said the Doctor, "I remember I asked her if she was not afraid to go all that way home alone, and she said she had a friend with her."
"Was there any specially bad feeling between you and Tom Hamon?"
"There had always been bad feeling, but any one who knows anything about it knows that it was not of my making."
"Will you explain it to us?"
"If you say I must. One does not like to say ill things of the dead."
"We want to get to the bottom of this matter, Mr. Gard. Tell us all you know that will help us."
"Very well, sir, but I am sorry to have to go into that. It all began through Tom's bad treatment of his stepmother and step-sister and brother when I lived at La Closerie. I took sides with them and tried to bring him to better manners. We rarely met without his flinging some insult after me. They were generally in the patois, but I knew them to be insults by his manner and by the way they were greeted by those who did understand."
"Had you met last night before you met near the Coupée?"
"We passed Tom by La Vauroque as we came from the Doctor's. He shouted something after us, but I did not understand it."
"You don't know what it was that he said?" an unfortunate question on the part of the Sénéchal, and quite unintentionally so on his part. It necessitated the introduction of matters Gard would fain have kept out of the enquiry.
"Well," he said, with visible reluctance, "I learned afterwards, and by accident, something of what he said or meant."
"How was that, and what was it?"
"Is it necessary to go into that? Won't it do if I say it was a very gross insult?"
The three at the table conferred for a moment. Then the Sénéchal said very kindly, "I perceive we are getting on to somewhat delicate ground, Mr. Gard, but, for your own sake. I would suggest that no occasion should be given to any to say that you are hiding anything from the court."
"Very well, sir, I have nothing whatever to hide, and I have still less to be ashamed of. I found Miss Hamon was weeping bitterly at what her brother had said, and I tried to get her to tell me what it was, but she would not. I said I knew it was something against me, but I hoped by this time she had learned to know and trust me. I told her her sobs cut me to the heart and that I would give my life to save her from trouble. In a word, I told her I loved her, and in the excitement of the moment she dropped a word or two that gave me an inkling of what Tom had said. It was casting dirt at both her and myself. Then, as I came home, I met Tom as I have told you."
The Sénéchal considered the matter for a moment. He did not for one moment believe that Gard had had any hand in the killing of Tom Hamon. But he could not but perceive the hostile feeling that was abroad, and his desire was, if possible, to allay it.
"It is, I should think," he said gravely, "past any man's believing that, after asking Tom's sister to marry you, you should go straight away and kill Tom, even in the hottest of hot blood, though men at such times do not always know what they are doing. But you, from what I have seen and heard of you, are not such a man. I am going to ask you one question in the hope that your answer may have the effect of setting you right with all who hear it. Before God—had you any hand in the death of this man?—have you any further knowledge of the matter whatever?"
"Before God," said Gard solemnly, his uplifted right hand as steady as a rock, "I had no hand in his death. I know nothing more whatever about the matter."
"I believe you," said the Sénéchal.
"And I," said the Doctor.
"And I," said the Vicar gravely, and with much emotion.
But from the spectators there rose a dissentient murmur which caused the Vicar to survey his unruly flock with mild amazement and disapproval—much as the shepherd might if his sheep had suddenly shed their fleeces and become wolves.
And Julie Hamon sprang to her feet with blazing eyes, pointed a shaking hand at Gard, and screamed:
"Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!"