Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Prologue.

[CHAPTER I.]

IN THE MOONLIGHT.

The scene of this Prologue to the story about to be written was a certain cathedral town, of which most of you have heard before, and the time close upon midnight.

It was a warm night at the beginning of March. The air was calm and still; the bright moon was shedding her pure light with unusual brilliancy on the city, lying directly underneath her beams. On the pinnacles of the time-honoured cathedral; on the church-spire, whose tapering height has made itself a name; on the clustering roofs of houses; on the trees of what people are pleased to call the Park; on the river, silently winding its course along beneath the city walls; and on the white pavement of its streets: all were steeped in the soft and beautiful light of the Queen of Night.

Surely at that late hour people ought to have been asleep in their beds, and the town hushed to silence! Not so. A vast number of men--and women too, for the matter of that--were awake and abroad. At least, it looked a good number, stealing quietly in one direction along the principal street. A few persons, comparatively speaking, assembled together by daylight, will look like a crowd at night. They went along for the most part in silence, one group glancing round at another, and being glanced at, back again: whether drawn out by curiosity, by sympathy, by example, all seemed very much as if they were half ashamed to be seen there.

Straight through the town, past the new law-courts, past the squares and the good houses built in more recent years, past the pavements and the worn highway, telling of a city's bustle, into the open country, to where a churchyard abuts upon a side-road. A rural, not much frequented churchyard, dotted with old graves, its small, grey church standing in the middle. People were not buried there now. On one side of the church yard, open to the side way, the boundary hedge had disappeared, partly through neglect. The entrance was on the other side, facing the city; and where was the use of raising up again the trodden-down hedge, destroyed gradually and in process of time by boys and girls at play? So, at least, argued the authorities--when they argued about it at all.

People were not buried there now: and yet a grave was being dug. At the remotest corner of this open side of the churchyard, so close to the consecrated ground that you could scarcely tell whether they were on it or off it, two men with torches were working at the nearly finished, shallow, hastily-made grave. A pathway, made perhaps more of custom than of plan, led right over it into the churchyard--if any careless person chose to enter it by so unorthodox a route--and the common side-road, wide enough to admit of carts and other vehicles, crossed it on the exact spot where the grave was being dug. So that a spectator might have said the grave's destined occupant was to lie in a cross-road.

Up to this spot came the groups, winding round the front hedge silently, save from the inevitable hum which attends a number, their footsteps grating and shuffling on the still air. That there was some kind of reverence attaching to the feeling in general, was proved by the absence of all jokes and light words; it may be almost said by the absence of conversation altogether, for what little they said was spoken in whispers. The open space beyond the grave was a kind of common, stretching out into the country, so that there was room and to spare for these people to congregate around, without pressing inconveniently on the sides of the shallow grave. Not but what every soul went close to give a look in, taking a longer or shorter time in the gaze as curiosity was slow or quick to satisfy itself.

The men threw out the last spadeful, patted the sides well, and ascended to the level of the earth. Not a minute too soon. As they stamped their feet, like men who have been in a cramped position, and put their tools away back, the clock of the old grey church struck twelve. It was a loud striker at all times; it sounded like a gong in the stillness of the night, and a movement ran through the startled spectators.

With the first stroke of the clock there came up a wayfarer. Some traveller who had missed his train at Bromsgrove, and had to walk the distance. He advanced with a jaunty though somewhat tired step along the highway, and did not discern the crowd until close upon them, for the road wound just there. To say that he was astonished would be saying little. He stood still, and stared, and rubbed his eyes, almost questioning whether the unusual scene could be real.

"What on earth's the matter?" demanded he of someone near him. "What does it all mean?"

The man addressed turned at the question, and recognized the speaker for Mr. Richard Jones, an inhabitant of the town.

At least he was nearly sure it was he, but he knew him by sight but slightly. If it was Mr. Jones, why this same crowd and commotion had to do with him, in one sense of the word. Its cause had a great deal to do with his home.

"Can't you answer a body?" continued Mr. Jones, finding he got no reply.

"Hush!" breathed the other man. "Look there."

Along the middle of the turnpike-road, on their way from the city, came eight men with measured and even tread, bearing a coffin on their shoulders. It was covered with what looked like a black cloth shawl, whose woollen fringe was clearly discernible in the moonlight. Mr. Jones had halted at the turning up to the churchyard, where he first saw the assembly of people; consequently the men bearing the coffin, whose heavy tread and otherwise silent presence seemed to exhale a kind of unpleasant thrill, passed round by Mr. Jones, nearly touching him.

"What is it?" he repeated in a few seconds, nearly wild to have his understanding enlightened.

"Don't you see what it is?--a coffin. It's going to be buried in that there cross grave up yonder."

"But who is in the coffin?"

"A gentleman who died by his own hand. The jury brought it in self-murder, and so he's got to be put away without burial service."

"Lawk a mercy!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, who though a light shallow, unstable man, given to make impromptu excursions from his home and wife, and to spend too much money in doing it, was not on the whole a bad-hearted one. "Poor gentleman! Who was it?"

"One of them law men in wigs that come in to the 'sizes."

Mr. Jones might have asked more but for two reasons. The first was, that his neighbour moved away in the wake of those who were beginning to press forward to see as much as they could get to see of the closing ceremony; the next was, that in a young woman who just then walked past him, he recognized his wife's sister. Again Mr. Jones rubbed his eyes, mentally questioning whether this second vision might be real. For she, Miss Rye, was a steady, good, superior young woman, not at all likely to come out of her home at midnight after a sight of any sort, whether it might be a burying or a wedding. Mr. Jones really doubted whether his sight and the moonlight had not played him false. The shortest way to solve this doubt would have been to accost the young woman, but while he had been wondering, she disappeared. In truth it was Miss Rye, and she had followed the coffin from whence it was brought, as a vast many more had followed it. Not mixing with them; walking apart and alone, close to the houses, in the deep shade cast by their walls. She was a comely young woman of about seven-and-twenty, tall and fair, with steady blue eyes, good features, and a sensible countenance. In deep mourning for her mother, she wore on this night a black merino dress, soft and fine, and a black shawl trimmed with crape, that she held closely round her. But she had disappeared; and amidst so many Mr. Jones thought it would be useless to go looking for her.

A certain official personage or two, perhaps deputies from the coroner, or from the parish, or from the undertaker furnishing the coffin and the two sets of bearers--who can tell?--whose mission it was to see the appointed proceedings carried out, cleared by their hands and gestures a space around the grave. The people fell back obediently. They pressed and elbowed each other no doubt, and grumbled at others crushing them; but they kept themselves back in their places. A small knot, gentlemen evidently, and probably friends of the deceased, were allowed to approach the grave. The grave-diggers stood near, holding the torches. But for those flaring torches, the crowd would have seen better: they saw well enough, however, in the bright moonlight.

In the churchyard, having taken up his station there behind an upright tombstone, where tombstones were thick, stood an officer connected with the police. He was in plain clothes--in fact, nobody remembered to have seen him in other ones--and had come out tonight not officially but to gratify himself personally. Ensconced behind the stone, away from everybody, he could look on at leisure through its upper fretwork and take his own observations, not only of the ceremony about to be performed, but of those who were attending it. He was a middle-sized, spare man, with a pale face, deeply sunk green eyes, that had a habit of looking steadily at people, and a small, sharp, turned-up nose. Silent by nature and by habit, he imparted the idea of possessing a vast amount of astute keenness as a detector of crime: in his own opinion he had not in that respect an equal. Nobody could discern him, and he did not intend they should.

Amidst a dead silence, save for the creaking of the cords, amidst a shiver of sympathy, of pity, of awful thoughts from a great many of the spectators, the black covering was thrown aside and the coffin was lowered. There was a general lifting off of hats; a pause; and then a rush. One in the front rank--a fat woman, who had fought for her place--stepped forward in her irrepressible curiosity to take a last look inside the grave; another followed her; the movement was contagious, and there was a commotion. Upon which the men holding the torches swept them round; it threw out the flame rather dangerously, and the rushers drew back again with half a cry. Not quite all. A few, more adventurous than the rest, slipped round to the safer side, and were in time to read the inscription on the lid:

"JOHN OLLIVERA.
Aged 28."

Short enough, and simple enough, for the sad death. Only a moment after the cords were drawn away did it remain visible; for the grave-diggers, flinging their torches aside, threw in the earth, spadeful upon spadeful, and covered it up from sight.

The shallow grave was soon filled in; the grave-diggers flattened it down level with spades and feet: no ceremony accorded, you see, to such an end as this poor man had made. Before it was quite accomplished, those officially connected with the burial, or with the buried, left the ground and departed. Not so the mob of people: they stayed to see the last; and would have stayed had it been until morning light. And they talked freely now, one with another, but were orderly and subdued still.

Mr. Jones stayed. He had not mixed with the people, but stood apart in the churchyard, under the shade of the great yew-tree. Soon he began to move away, and came unexpectedly upon the detective officer standing yet behind the gravestone. Mr. Jones halted in surprise.

"Halloo!" cried he. "Mr. Butterby!"

"Just look at them idiots!" rejoined Mr. Butterby, with marked composure, as if he had seen Richard Jones from the first, and expected the address. "So you are back!" he added, turning his head sharply on the traveller.

"I come in from Bromsgrove on my legs; missed the last train there," said Mr. Jones, rather addicted to a free-and-easy kind of grammar in private life: as indeed was the renowned gentleman he spoke to. "When I got past the last turning and see these here folks, I thought the world must be gone mad."

"Did you come back on account of it?" asked Mr. Butterby. "Did they write for you?"

"On account of what? As to writing for me, they'd be clever to do that, seeing I left 'em no address to write to. I have been going about from place to place; today there, tomorrow yonder."

"On account of that," answered the detective, nodding his head in the direction of the grave, to which the men were then giving the last finishing strokes and treads of flattening.

To Mr. Jones's ear there was something so obscure in the words that he only stared at their speaker, almost wondering whether the grave officer had condescended to a joke.

"I don't understand you, sir."

Mr. Butterby saw at once how the matter stood: that Dicky Jones--the familiar title mostly accorded him in the city--was ignorant of recent events.

"The poor unfortunate man just put in there, Jones,"--with another nod to the grave--"was Mr. Ollivera, the counsel."

"Mr. Ollivera!" exclaimed the startled Jones.

"And he took his life away at your house."

"Lawk a mercy!" cried Mr. Jones, repeating his favourite expression, one he was addicted to when overwhelmed with surprise. "Whatever did he do it for?"

"Ah, that's just what we can't tell. Perhaps he didn't know himself what."

"How was it, sir? Poison?"

"Shot himself with his own pistol," briefly responded the officer.

"And did it knowingly?--intentional?"

"Intentional for sure, or he'd not have been put in here tonight. They couldn't have buried a dog with much less ceremony."

"Well, I never knew such a thing as this," cried Mr. Jones, scarcely taking in the news yet. "When I went away Mr. Ollivera, hadn't come; he was expected; and my wife----Halloa!"

The cause of the concluding exclamation was a new surprise, great as any the speaker had met with yet. Mr. Butterby, his keen eyes strained forward from their enclosed depths, touched him on the arm with authority to enjoin silence.

The young woman--it would be no offence against taste to call her a lady, with her good looks, her good manners, her usually calm demeanour--whom Mr. Jones had recognized as his wife's sister, had come forward to the grave. Kneeling down, she bent her face in her hands, perhaps praying; then lifted it, rose, and seemed about to address the crowd. Her hands were clasped and raised before her; her bonnet had fallen back from her face and her bright flaxen hair.

"It is Alletha Rye, isn't it, sir?" he dubiously cried.

"Hold your noise!" said Mr. Butterby.

"I think it would be a wicked thing to let you disperse this night with a false belief on your minds," began Miss Rye, her clear voice sounding quite loud and distinct in the hushed silence. "Wicked in the sight of God; unkind and unjust to the dead. Listen to my words, please, all you who hear me. I believe that a dreadful injury has been thrown upon Mr. Ollivera's memory; I solemnly believe that he did not die by his own hand. Heaven hears me assert it."

The solemn tone, the strange words, the fair appearance of the young woman, with her good and refined face deathly pale now, and the moonlight playing on her light hair, awed the listeners into something like statues. The silence continued unbroken until Miss Rye moved away, which she did at once and with a rather quick step in the direction of the road, pulling her bonnet on her head as she went, drawing her shawl round her. Even Mr. Jones made neither sound nor movement until she had disappeared, so entire was his astonishment.

"Was there ever heard the like of that?" he exclaimed, when he at length drew breath. "Do you think she's off her head, sir?"

He received no answer, and turned to look at Mr. Butterby. That gentleman had his note-book out, and was pencilling something down in it by moonlight.

"I never see such a start as this--take it for all in all," continued Mr. Jones to himself and the air, thus thrown upon his own companionship.

"And I'd not swear that you've seen the last of it," remarked Mr. Butterby, closing his note-case with a click.

"Well, sir, goodnight to you," concluded Mr. Jones. "I must make my way home afore the house is locked up, or I shall get a wigging from my wife. Sure to get that in any case, now this has happened," he continued, ruefully. "She'll say I'm always away when I'm wanted at home in particular."

He went lightly enough over the graves to the opposite and more frequented side of the churchyard, thus avoiding the assemblage; and took his departure. There being nothing more to see, the people began to take theirs. Having gazed their fill at the grave--just as if the silent, undemonstrative earth could give them back a response--they slowly made their way down the side-path to the high-road, and turned towards the city, one group after another.

By one o'clock the last straggler had gone, and Mr. Butterby came forth from his post behind the sheltering gravestone. He had his reasons, perhaps, for remaining behind the rest, and for wishing to walk home alone.

However that might be, he gave their progress a good margin of space, for it was ten minutes past one when he turned out of the churchyard. He had just gained the houses, when he saw before him a small knot of people emerge from a side-turning, as if they had not taken the direct route in coming from the heart of the city. Mr. Butterby recognized one or two of them, and whisked into a friendly doorway until they had passed by.

Letting them get on well ahead, he turned back and followed in their wake. That they were on their way to the grave, appeared evident: and the acute officer wondered why. A thought crossed him that possibly they might be about to take up what had been laid there.

He went into the churchyard by the front gate, and made his way cautiously across it, keeping under the shadow of the grey church walls. Thence, stooping as he crossed the open ground, and dodging behind first one grave then another, he took up his former position against the high stone. They were at the grave now, and he began to deliberate whether, if his thought should prove correct, he should or should not officially interrupt proceedings. Getting his eyes to the open fretwork of the stone, Mr. Butterby looked out. And what he saw struck him with a surprise equal to any recently exhibited by Mr. Jones: he, the experienced police official, who knew the world so thoroughly as to be surprised at little or nothing.

Standing at the head of the grave was a clergyman in his surplice and hood. Four men were grouped around him, one of whom held a lantern so that its light fell upon the clergyman's book. He was beginning to read the burial service. They stood with bowed heads, their hats off. The night had grown cold, but Mr. Butterby took off his.

"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

The solemn words doubly solemn at that time and place, came distinctly to the official ears. Perhaps in all the times he had heard them during his whole life--many and many that it had been--they had never so impressed him. But habit is strong; and Mr. Butterby found himself taking observations ere the psalm had well commenced, even while he was noticing how heartily the alternate verses were given by the spectators.

Three of them around the grave he recognized; the other one and the clergyman he did not. Of those three, one was a tall, fine man of forty years, Kene, the barrister; the next was a cousin of the deceased, Frank Greatorex, whom Mr. Butterby only knew by seeing him in the inquest-room, where he tendered some slight evidence; the third was a gentleman of the city. Neither the clergyman nor the one who held the light did Mr. Butterby remember to have seen before. The elder and other cousin of the deceased was not present, though Mr. Butterby looked for him; he had been the principal witness on the inquest--Mr. Bede Greatorex.

The officer could but notice also how singularly solemn, slow, and impressive was the clergyman's voice as he read those portions of the service that relate more particularly to the deceased and the faith in which he has died. "In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life." He almost made a pause between each word, as if he would impress on his hearers that it was his own belief the deceased had so died. And again, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." And towards the end, in the collect, in the beseeching prayer that when we depart this life we may rest in Christ, "as our hope is this our brother doth." It was not to be mistaken that the clergyman, at least, held firm faith in the absence of guilt of the deceased in regard to his own death. As indeed the reading of the service over him proved.

With the Amen of the concluding benediction, there ensued a silence; every head was bowed in prayer. The clergyman was the first to look up. He waited until the rest did.

"Allow me to say a word ere we depart," he began then, in a low tone; which nevertheless quick-eared Mr. Butterby distinctly caught. "From the bottom of my heart, I believe a foul deed of murder to have been committed on my good and dear brother. It shall be the business of my life to endeavour to bring it to light, to clear his name from the cruel stain pronounced upon it; and my whole time apart from what must be spent in my appointed duties, shall be devoted to this end. So help me, Heaven!"

"Amen!" responded the young man who stood by Mr. Kene.

"So! he's the deceased man's brother" was Mr. Butterby's comment on the clergyman, as he saw him take off his surplice and roll it up.

Blowing out the light in the lantern, they silently took their departure. Mr. Butterby watched them away, and then finally took his, his mind in full work.

"Just the same thing that the girl, Alletha Rye, said! It's odd. I didn't see any doubt about the business: in spite of what Kene said at the inquest; neither did the coroner; and I'm sure the jury didn't. Dicky Jones was right, though. Take it for all in all, it's the queerest start we've had in this town for many a day."

[CHAPTER II.]

UP TO THE MONDAY EVENING.

On the Saturday previous to the events recorded in the last chapter, the cathedral city had been the scene of unusual bustle. The judges came in from Oxford to hold the Spring Assize, bringing in their wake the customary multiplicity of followers: attendants, officers, barristers, and others. Some of the witnesses in the different cases to be tried, civil and criminal also came in that day, to remain until they should be wanted the following week: so that the town was full.

Amidst the barristers who arrived was Mr. Ollivera. He was a young man; and it was only the second time he had come on circuit. After leaving college he had travelled a good deal, and also sojourned in different foreign countries, acquiring legal experience, and did not take up his profession at home as early as some do. A fresh-coloured, pleasing, bright looking man was he, his curly hair of a light auburn, his eyes blue, his figure elastic and of middle height. All the world liked John Ollivera. He was essentially of a practical nature, of sound sense, of pure mind and habits, holding a reverence for all things holy; and in every respect just the last man who could have been suspected of a tendency to lay violent hands on himself.

He had written to secure his former lodgings at Mr. Jones's in High Street, and proceeded to them at once on arriving at the station. It was the third time he had lodged there. At the previous assizes in July he had gone there first; and the whole of the month of October, during the long vacation, he had been there again, having, as people supposed, taken a liking to the town. So that this was the third time.

He got in between six and seven on the Saturday evening. Ordered tea and two mutton chops, which were got for him at once, and then went out to pay a visit to a lady who lived within the precincts of the cathedral. She was a widow; her husband, Colonel Joliffe, having died about a year before, leaving her with a slender income and three expensive daughters. During the colonel's lifetime they had lived in good style, about two miles from the town; but a great part of his means died with him, and Mrs. Joliffe then took a small house in the city and had to retrench in all her ways. Which was a terrible mortification to the young ladies.

To this lady's house Mr. Ollivera took his way when his frugal dinner was over. He spent a couple of hours with them, and then returned to his rooms and got out his law papers, over which he remained until twelve o'clock, when he went to bed. He occupied the drawing-room, which was on the first floor over the shop, and looked to the street; and the bedroom behind it. On the following day, Sunday, he attended early prayers in the cathedral at eight o'clock, staying to partake of the Sacrament, and also the later service at eleven, when the judges and corporation were present. In the afternoon he attended the cathedral again, going to it with the Miss Joliffes; dined at home at five, which was also Mrs. Joliffe's dinner hour, and spent the rest of the evening at her house. Mrs. Jones, his landlady, who had a vast amount of shrewd observation--and a shrewd tongue too on occasions, as well as a sharp one--gave it as her opinion that he must be courting one of the Miss Joliffes. He had been with them a little in his few days' sojourn at the July assizes, and a great deal with them during his stay in October.

On Monday morning the trials commenced, and Mr. Ollivera, though he had no cause on, was in court a great portion of the day. He left it in the afternoon, telling Mr. Kene that he had an appointment for half-past three, a disagreeable commission that had been entrusted to him, he added, and must go and keep it. About half-past four he appeared at his rooms; Mrs. Jones met him in the hall, and spoke to him as he went upstairs. When his dinner was sent up at five, the maid found him buried in a heap of law papers. Hastily clearing a space at one end of the table, he told her to put the dinner there. In less than half an hour the bell was rung for the things to be taken away, and Mr. Ollivera was then bending over his papers again.

The papers no doubt related to a cause in which he was to appear the following day. It was a civil action, touching some property in which Mrs. Joliffe was remotely though not actively interested. The London solicitors were the good old firm of Greatorex and Greatorex; Mr. Ollivera was a relative of the house; nephew of old Mr. Greatorex, in fact; and to him had been confided the advocacy of the cause. The name of the local solicitor it does not signify to mention. It was not a very important cause: but a new barrister thinks all his causes important, and Mr. Ollivera was an earnest, painstaking man, sparing himself no trouble that could conduce to success. He had declined a proffered dinner engagement for that evening, but accepted an invitation for the next. So much was known of his movements up to the Monday evening.

On that same evening, Mr. Bede Greatorex arrived at the station by the six o'clock train from London; took a fly, and was driven to the Star and Garter Hotel. He was the son of old Mr. Greatorex, and the second partner in the firm. His journey down had reference to the next day's action: something new had unexpectedly arisen; some slight information been gained of a favourable nature, and Mr. Greatorex, senior, had despatched his son to confer with Mr. Ollivera in preference to writing or telegraphing. Bede Greatorex was nothing loth, and entered on his flying journey with high good-humour, intending to be back in London by the following midday. He was a tall, fine-looking man, in face not unlike Mr. Ollivera, except that his hair and eyes were dark, and his complexion a clear, pale olive; his age about thirty-four. The cousins were cordial friends.

On arriving at the Star and Garter he declined refreshment then, having taken an early dinner before leaving town and asked to be directed to Mr. Ollivera's lodgings in High Street: which was readily done, High Street being in a direct line with the hotel. Mr. Bede Greatorex gained the house, and found it to be one of commodious proportions, the lower part occupied as a hosier's shop, whose windows were of plate-glass. Over the door in the middle was inscribed "Richard Jones, hosier and patent shirt-front maker." There was a side entrance, wide and rather handsome; the house altogether being a good one. Ringing at the side bell, he inquired of the answering servant for Mr. Ollivera, and was at once shown up to him.

Mr. Ollivera was seated at the table, his back to the door. The papers he had been engaged upon were neatly stacked now, as if done with; he appeared to be writing a note; and a pistol lay at his elbow. All this was shown both to Mr. Bede Greatorex and the maid, by the bright flame of the moderator lamp; then lighted.

"Well, John!" cried the visitor, in a gay, laughing tone, before the girl could speak. "Don't be surprised at seeing me."

Mr. Ollivera turned round at the voice and evidently was surprised: surprised and pleased.

"Why, Bede!" he cried, starting up. "I'd as soon have expected to see a ghost."

They shook hands heartily, and Mr. Bede Greatorex sat down. The maid, to save coming up again to ask, took the opportunity of inquiring when Mr. Ollivera would like tea; and was answered that he might not want any; if he did, he'd ring: he might be going out. As the servant shut the door she heard the visitor begin to explain his errand, and that his father had sent him in preference to writing. Her ears were always full of curiosity.

In about an hour's time, Mr. Bede Greatorex departed. A young man belonging to the house, Alfred Jones, who happened to be passing up the stairs when Mr. Greatorex was quitting the drawing-room, heard that gentleman make an appointment with Mr. Ollivera for the morning.

Mr. Bede Greatorex walked back to the hotel, ordered a fire made in his bedroom against night, took a glass of brandy-and-water, for he felt cold, washed the travelling dust off his face and hands, which he had not done before, had his coat brushed, and went out again. It was nine o'clock then, and he bent his steps quickly towards the cathedral to call on Mrs. Joliffe, having to inquire the way. It took him through High Street again, and as he passed his cousin's lodgings, the same servant who had shown him in was standing at the front-door, recognized him and dropped a curtsey.

In the drawing-room with Mrs. Joliffe were her three daughters, Louisa, Clare, and Mary; some three or four friends were also assembled. They were astonished to see Mr. Bede Greatorex: none of them knew him well, except Louisa, who had paid a long visit to his father's house the previous year. She changed colour when he was announced: and it may have been that his voice took a tenderer tone as it addressed her; his hand lingered longer in clasping hers than it need have done. She was an excessively fashionable young lady: not very young, perhaps six or seven-and-twenty: and if Bede Greatorex coveted her for a wife it was to be hoped his pockets were well lined. He spoke just a word to Mrs. Joliffe of having come down on a mission to Mr. Ollivera; not stating explicitly what it was; and said he was going back home in the morning.

"We are expecting Mr. Ollivera here tonight," observed Mrs. Joliffe. "He is late."

"Are you?" was the reply of Mr. Greatorex. "John said he might be going out, I remember, but I did not know it was to your house. Don't make too sure of him, Mrs. Joliffe, he seemed idle, and complained of headache."

"I suppose he is busy," remarked Mrs. Joliffe. "All you law people are busy at assize time."

"Louisa, is it as it should be between us?" whispered Bede Greatorex, in an opportunity that occurred when they were alone near the piano.

"Don't be silly, Mr. Greatorex," was the answer.

"Silly!"

She bent her bead, not speaking.

"What do you mean, Louisa? Our engagement was entered upon deliberately: you gave me every hope. You cannot play with me now. Speak, Louisa."

He had taken possession of her hand, and was keeping her before him; his dark eyes, gleaming with their doubt and love, looked straight into hers.

"What?" she faintly asked. "Why do you question it?"

"Because your manner is strange: you have avoided me ever since I came in."

"The surprise was so great."

"Surely a pleasant surprise. I intended it as such. Do you suppose I should have cared to come down on this business to Mr. Ollivera, when writing would have answered every purpose? No: I came to see you. And to learn why----"

"Not now. Don't you see mamma is looking at me?"

"And what though she is? I should have liked to speak to your mother tonight, but for----"

"Not tonight. I pray you not tonight. Take another opportunity."

The words reassured him.

"Then, Louisa, it is all right between us."

"Yes, yes, of course it is. You offended me, Bede, last January, and I--I have been vexed. I'll write to you as soon as you get back home, and explain everything."

He pressed her hand with a lingering touch, and then released it. There was nothing in the wide world so coveted by Bede Greatorex as that false hand of hers: as many things, fair outside, false within, are coveted by us poor mortals, blind at the best. But Miss Joliffe looked half scared as she left him for a safer part of the room; her eyes and manner were alike restless. Bede followed her, and they were talking together at intervals in an undertone during the rest of the evening. Louisa being evidently ill at ease, but striving to conceal it.

At a quarter to eleven Mr. Bede Greatorex took his departure. In passing up High Street, his cousin's lodgings were on the opposite side of the way. He momentarily halted and stepped off the pavement as if he would have crossed to go in, and then hesitated, for the sitting-room was in darkness.

"The light's out: he's gone to bed, I dare say," said Mr. Greatorex, speaking aloud. "No good to disturb him." And a tradesman, who happened to be fastening his side-door and had got it about an inch open, overheard the words Mr. Greatorex having doubtless been quite unaware that he spoke to an auditor.

Towards the top of High Street he met Mr. Kene, the barrister. The latter, after expressing some surprise at seeing him, and assuming he had come direct from Mr. Ollivera's, asked whether the latter was in.

"In and in bed," replied Mr. Greatorex.

"Indeed! Why it's not eleven o'clock."

"At any rate, there's no light in his room, or I should have gone up. He complained of headache: perhaps he has gone to bed early to sleep it off."

"I want to see him particularly," said the barrister. "Are you sure he is in bed?"

"You can go and ascertain, Kene. Ring the people of the house up, should they have gone to bed too. I could see no light anywhere."

Mr. Kene did not care to ring people up, and decided to leave his business with Mr. Ollivera until the morning. He had been dining with some fellows he said, and had no idea how the time was running on. Linking his arm within that of Bede Greatorex, they walked together to the Star, and there parted. Mr. Greatorex went up at once to his chamber, stirred the fire into a blaze, rang for the waiter, and ordered another glass of hot brandy-and-water.

"I think I must have taken cold," he observed to the man when it was brought to him. "There has been a chill upon me ever since I came here."

"Nothing more likely, sir," returned the waiter. "Them trains are such draughty things."

However Mr. Greatorex hoped he should be all right in the morning. He gave directions to be called at a quarter before eight, and the night wore on.

Some time before that hour chimed out from the cathedral clock, when the morning had come, he found himself aroused by a knocking at his door. A waiter, speaking from the outside, said that something had happened to Mr. Ollivera. Mr. Bede Greatorex, thinking the words odd, and not best pleased to be thus summarily disturbed, possibly from dreams of Louisa Joliffe, called out from the downy pillow (in rather a cross tone, it must be confessed) to know what had happened to Mr. Ollivera: and was answered that he was dead.

Springing out of bed, and dressing himself quickly, Bede Greatorex went downstairs, and found that Kene, who had brought the news, was gone again, leaving word that he had gone back to High Street. Mr. Greatorex hastened to follow.

The tale to be told was very singular, very sad, and Bede Greatorex could not help shivering as he heard it. His cold was upon him still. It appeared that nothing more had been seen or heard of Mr. Ollivera after Mr. Greatorex left him the previous evening. Mrs. Jones, the mistress of the house, had gone out at seven, when the shop closed, to sit by the bed-side of a dying relative; her sister, Miss Rye, was also out: the maid left in charge, the only servant the house kept, had taken the opportunity to spend her time in the street; standing now at her own door, now at other doors half a score yards off, as she could get neighbours' servants to gossip with. About half-past ten it occurred to the maid that she might as well go up and inquire if Mr. Ollivera wanted anything: perhaps the fact of his not having rung at all struck her as singular. She knew he had not gone out, or she must have seen him, for she had contrived to keep a tolerably steady lookout on the street door, however far she had wandered from it. Up she went, knocked at the door, got no answer, opened it, saw that the room was in darkness, and regarded it as a sure proof that Mr. Ollivera had left the room for the night, for he never put the lamp out in any other case.

"He's gone to bed early tonight," thought the girl, shutting the door again. "I hope to goodness he didn't ring, and me not hear it. Wouldn't missis fly out at me!"

And when Mrs. Jones came in, as she did soon after the girl got downstairs again, and inquired after Mr. Ollivera, she was told he had gone to bed.

Now it appeared that Miss Rye sat over the sitting-room fire (a parlour behind the shop, underneath Mr. Ollivera's bedroom) for some time after the rest of the house had retired to rest. When at length she went to bed, she was unable to sleep. Towards morning she dropped into a doze and was awakened (according to her own account) by a dream. A very vivid dream, that startled and unnerved her. She dreamt she saw Mr. Ollivera in his sitting-room--dead. And, as she seemed to look at him, a terrible amount of self-reproach, far greater than any she could ever experience in life, rushed over her mind, for not having gone in earlier to discover him. It was this feeling that awoke her: it had seemed that he cast it on her, that it came out direct to her from his dead presence, cold and lifeless though he was. So real did it all appear, that for some minutes after Miss Rye awoke, she could not believe it to be only a dream. Turning to look at her watch she saw it was half-past six, and the sun had risen. An early riser always, for she had to get her living by dressmaking, Miss Rye got up and dressed herself: but she could not throw off the impression made upon her; and a little before seven she went down and opened the door of Mr. Ollivera's sitting-room. Not so much to see whether it might be true or not, as to show to herself by ocular demonstration that it was not true: she might forget the impression then.

But it was true. What was Miss Rye's horror and astonishment at seeing him, Mr. Ollivera, there! At the first moment of opening the door, she observed nothing unusual. The white blinds were down before the windows; the tables, chairs, and other furniture were as customary; but as she stood looking in, she saw in an easy-chair near the table, whose back was towards her, the head of Mr. Ollivera. With a strange bounding-on of all her pulses; with a dread fear at her heart, that caused it to cease beating, Miss Rye went in and looked at him, and then flew out of the room, uttering startled cries.

The cries arose the house. Mrs. Jones, the young man Alfred Jones, and the servant-maid came flocking forth: the two former were nearly dressed; the maid had been about her work downstairs. Mr. Ollivera lay back in the easy-chair, dead and cold. The right arm hung down over the side, and immediately underneath it on the carpet, looking as if it had dropped from the hand, lay the discharged pistol.

The servant and Alfred Jones ran two ways: the one for a doctor, the other to Mr. Kene the barrister, who had been intimate with Mr. Ollivera; Mrs. Jones, a shrewd, clever woman, locking the room up exactly as it was, until they should arrive.

But now, by a singular coincidence, it happened that Mr. Butterby, abroad betimes, was the first to meet the running servant-maid, and consequently, he was first on the scene. The doctor and Mr. Kene came next, and then Bede Greatorex. Such was the story as it greeted Bede's ears.

On the table, just as both he and the servant had seen them the night before, were the neatly-stacked law papers. Also a folded legal document that had been brought from town by himself, Bede Greatorex. There were also pens, ink, and a sheet of note-paper, on which some lines were written. They were as follows:--

"My Dear Friend,--It is of no use. Nothing more can be done. Should I never see you again, I beg you once for all to believe me when I say that I have made efforts, though they have been ineffectual. And when

"The pistol is ready to my hand. Goodbye."

The first portion of this letter, up to the point of the abrupt breaking off, was written in Mr. Ollivera's usual steady hand. The latter portion was scrawling, trembling, and blotted; the writing bearing but a faint resemblance to the rest. Acute Mr. Butterby remarked that it was just the kind of writing an agitated man might pen, who was about to commit an evil deed. There was no clue as to whom the note had been intended for, but it appeared to point too evidently to the intention of self-destruction. Nevertheless, there was one at least who doubted.

"Is it so, think you?" asked Mr. Kene, in a low tone, as he stood by the side of Bede Greatorex, who was mechanically turning over the papers on the table one by one.

"Is it what?" asked Bede, looking up, his tone sharp with pain.

"Self-destruction. There never lived a man less likely to commit it than your cousin, John Ollivera."

"As I should have thought," returned Mr. Greatorex. "But if it is not that, what else can it be?"

"There is one other possible solution, at least: putting any idea of accident aside."

The supposition of accident had not occurred to Bede Greatorex. A gleam of surprised cheerfulness crossed his face.

"Do you indeed think it could have been an accident, Kene? Then----"

"No; I think it could not have been," interrupted the barrister. "I said, putting the idea of that aside: it is the most improbable of any. I alluded to the other alternative."

Mr. Greatorex understood his meaning, and shrunk from its unpleasantness. "Who would harm Ollivera, Kene? He had not an enemy in the world."

"So far as we know. But I declare to you, Greatorex, I think it the more likely thing of the two."

Bede Greatorex shook his head. The facts, so far as they were yet disclosed, seemed decisive and unmistakable.

They passed into the bedroom. It was all just as the servant had left it the past evening, ready for the occupation of Mr. Ollivera. On a small table lay his Prayer-book, and the pocket Bible he was wont to carry with him in travelling. Bede Greatorex felt a sudden faintness steal over him as he looked, and leaned for a few moments against the wall.

But he had no time for indulging grief. He went out, inquiring for the telegraph office, and sent a message with the news to his father in town, softening it as well as circumstances allowed: as we all like to do at first when ill news has to be told. He simply stated that John (the familiar name Mr. Ollivera was known by at home) had died suddenly. The message brought down his brother, Frank Greatorex, some hours later.

To say that the town was thrown into a commotion almost equal to that of Mrs. Jones's house, would be superfluous. A young barrister, known to many of the inhabitants, who had come in with the judges only on Saturday; who was to have led in a cause in the Nisi Prius Court on that very morning, Tuesday, and to be junior in another cause set down for Wednesday, in which Mr. Kene, the experienced and renowned Queen's Counsel, led, had been found dead! And by such a death! It took the public by storm. Mrs. Jones's shop was besieged to an extent that she had to put up her shutters; High Street was impassable: and all those in the remotest degree connected with the deceased or with the circumstances, were followed about and stared at as though they were wild animals. Five hundred conjectures were hazarded and spoken: five hundred tales told that had no foundation. Perhaps the better way to collect the various items of fact together for the reader, will be to transcribe some of the evidence given before the coroner. The inquest was fixed to take place on the Wednesday morning, in the club-room of an inn lying conveniently near.

[CHAPTER III.]

BEFORE THE CORONER.

The coroner and jury assembled at an unusually early hour, for the convenience of Mr. Kene, who wished to be present. It had been thought that the only brother of the deceased, a clergyman, would have come down; but he had not arrived. After viewing the body, which lay still at Mrs. Jones's, the proceedings commenced. Medical testimony was given as to the cause of death--a pistol-shot that had penetrated the heart. The surgeon, Mr. Hurst, who had been called in at the first discovery on Tuesday morning, stated that to the best of his belief, death (which must have been instantaneous) had taken place early the previous evening, he should say about seven or eight o'clock. And this view was confirmed in rather a singular manner. Upon examining the quantity of oil in the lamp, which Mrs. Jones had herself filled, it was seen that it could not have burnt very much more than an hour: thus leaving it to be inferred that the deceased had put it out before committing the rash deed, and that it must have been done shortly after Mr. Bede Greatorex left him.

Alletha Rye was called. She spoke to the fact of finding Mr. Ollivera, dead; and electrified the court, when questioned as to why she had gone to the sitting-room, seeing that it was an entirely unusual thing for her to do, by saying that she went in to see whether Mr. Ollivera was there dead, or not. In the quietest, most composed manner possible, she related her singular dream, saying it had sent her to the room.

"Surely," said the coroner, "you did not expect to see Mr. Ollivera dead?"

"I cannot say I did! I went rather to convince myself that he was not there dead," was the witness's answer. "But the dream had been so vivid that I could not shake it from my mind; it made me uneasy, although my better reason did not put any faith in it whatever that it could be true. That is why I went to the room. And Mr. Ollivera lay dead in his chair, exactly as I had seen him in my dream."

The coroner, a practical man, did not know what to make of this statement: such evidence had never been tendered him before, and he eyed the witness keenly. To see her stand there in her black robes, tall, upright, of really dignified demeanour, with her fair features and good looks--but there were dark circles round her eyes today, and the soft colour had left her cheeks--to hear her tell of this in her sensible, calm accents, was something marvellous.

"Were you at home on Monday night?" asked the coroner. And it may as well be remarked that some of the questions put by him during the inquest, miscellaneous queries that did not appear to be quite in order, or have much to do with the point in question, had very probably their origin in the various rumours that had reached him, and in the doubt breathed into his ears by Mr. Kene. The coroner did not in the least agree with Mr. Kene; rather pitied the barrister as a visionary, for allowing himself to glance at such a doubt; but he was fond of diving to the bottom of things. Living in the same town, knowing all the jury personally, in the habit of exchanging a word of news with Mrs. Jones whenever he met her, the coroner may have been excused if the proceedings were slightly irregular, involving some gossip as well as law.

"No," replied the witness. "Except that I ran in for a few minutes. I had been at work that afternoon at a neighbour's, helping her to make a gown. I went in home to get a pattern."

"What time was that?"

"I cannot be particular as to the exact time. It must have been nearly eight."

"Did you see the deceased then?"

"No. I did not see any one except the servant. She was standing at the open street door. When I had been upstairs to get what I wanted I went out again."

"Did you hear any noise as you passed Mr. Ollivera's rooms?"

"Not any. I do not know anything more of the details, sir, than I have told you."

The next witness called was Mr. Bede Greatorex. He gave his evidence clearly, but at portions of it was evidently under the influence of some natural emotion, which he contrived to suppress. A man does not like to show such.

"My name is Bede Greatorex. I am the son of Mr. Greatorex, the well-known London solicitor, and second partner in the firm Greatorex and Greatorex. The deceased, John Ollivera, was my cousin, his father and my mother having been brother and sister. A matter of business arose connected with a cause to be tried in the Nisi Prius Court, in which Mr. Ollivera was to be the leading counsel, and my father despatched me down on Monday to communicate with him. I arrived by the six o'clock evening train, and was with him before half-past six. We held a business conference together; I stayed about an hour with him, and then went back to my hotel. I never afterwards saw him alive."

"I must put a few questions to you with your permission, Mr. Greatorex, for the satisfaction of the jury," observed the coroner.

"Put as many as you like, sir; I will answer them to the best of my ability," was the reply.

"First of all--what was the exact hour at which you reached Mr. Ollivera's rooms?"

"I should think it must have been about twenty minute after six. The train got in to time, six o'clock; I took a fly to the Star and Garter, and from thence walked at once to Mr. Ollivera's lodgings, the people at the hotel directing me. The whole could not have taken above twenty minutes."

"And how long did you remain with him?"

"An hour: perhaps rather more. I should think I left him about half-past seven. I was back at the hotel by quarter to eight, having walked slowly, looking at the different features of the streets as I passed. I had never been in the town before."

"Well, now, Mr. Greatorex, what was the manner of the deceased while you were with him? Did you perceive anything unusual?"

"Nothing at all. He was just as he always was, and very glad to see me. We"--the witness paused to swallow his emotion--"we had ever been the best of friends and companions. I thought him a little quiet, dull. As he sat, he bent his forehead on his hand and complained of headache, saying it had been close in court that day."

("True enough," murmured Mr. Kene.)

"The news you brought down to him was not bad news?" questioned the coroner.

"Quite the contrary. It was good: favourable to our cause."

"Did you see him write the note found on his table, or any portion of it?"

"When the servant showed me into the room, he appeared to be writing a note. As he sat down after shaking hands with me, he put the blotting paper over what he had written. He did not take it off again, or write at all while I remained."

"Was it the same note, think you, that was afterwards found?"

"I should think it likely. I noticed that some few lines only were written. About"--the witness paused a moment--"about the same quantity as in the first portion of the note."

"Did he put the blotting paper over it to prevent you seeing it, do you suppose, Mr. Greatorex?"

"I do not know. I thought he was only afraid it might get blotted. The ink was wet."

"Did any one come in while you were with him?"

"No. I wished him goodnight, intending to see him in the morning, and was shown out by some young man."

"Do you know to whom that note was written?"

"I have not the slightest idea. Neither do I know to what it alludes."

"Then--your theory, I presume, is--that he added that blotted concluding line after your departure? In fact, just when he was on the point of committing the rash act?"

"I do not see what else can be believed. The pen lay across the words when found, as if thrown there after writing them, and appeared to have caused the blots."

"Did he say anything to you about any appointment he had kept that afternoon?"

"Not anything."

"And now about the pistol, Mr. Greatorex. Did you see one on the table!"

"Yes."

"Did it not strike you as singular that it should be there?"

"Not at all. Mr. Ollivera never travelled anywhere without a pistol; it was a fancy he had. Some years ago, when in a remote part of Spain, he was attacked in his chamber at night, robbed, and rather seriously hurt; since then he has when travelling taken a pistol with him. I asked him what brought it on the table, and he said he had been putting a drop of oil on the lock.

"Did you know that it was loaded?"

"I did not. I really did not think much about it one way or the other. We were busy over the business on which I came down: and I knew as I have said, that he used to carry a pistol with him when travelling."

"Then--in point of fact, Mr. Greatorex, you can throw no positive light on this affair for us?"

The witness shook his head. "I wish I could. I have told you all I know."

"Do you think there can be any reasonable doubt--any doubt whatever--that he committed suicide?"

"I fear there can be none," replied Mr. Greatorex, in a low tone, and he shivered perceptibly as he gave it. It was a crime which Bede Greatorex had always held in shrinking, pitying abhorrence.

"One question more, and then we will release you and thank you for the clear manner in which you have given your evidence," said the coroner. "Did you see cause to suspect in that last interview that his mind was otherwise than in a sane state?"

"Oh no; certainly not."

"It was calm and clear as usual, for all you saw?"

"Quite so."

"Stay. There is one other point. Was the deceased in any kind of embarrassment, so far as your cognizance goes, pecuniary, or else?"

"I feel quite sure that he was in no pecuniary embarrassment whatever," returned the witness warmly, anxious to do justice to his cousin's memory. "As to any other kind of embarrassment, I cannot speak. I am aware of none; and I think he was one of the least likely men to get into any."

That was all. Mr. Greatorex bowed to the coroner and gave place to another witness. A little dark woman in black, with an old-fashioned black chip bonnet on, and silver threads beginning to mix with her black hair; but her eyebrows were very black still. Certainly no two women could present a greater contrast in appearance than she and Miss Rye, although they were sisters.

"Your name is Julia Jones," began the coroner's man, who knew Mrs. Jones intimately in private life.

"Yes, it is Julia Jones," in a tart voice, and with an accent on the "Jones," as if the name grated on her tongue. And Mrs. Jones was sworn.

After some preliminary evidence, touching Mr. Ollivera's previous visits to her, and the length of time he had stayed, which she entered upon of her own accord and was not checked, Mrs. Jones was asked what she knew of the calamity. How it was first brought to her knowledge.

"The first was through my sister, Alletha Rye shrieking out from the first-floor landing below, a little before seven o'clock on Tuesday morning," responded Mrs. Jones, in the same tart tone; which was, in fact, habitual to her. "I was in my bedroom, the front room on the second floor, dressed up to my petticoat, and out I flew, thinking she must be on fire. She said something about Mr. Ollivera, and I ran down, and saw him lying in the chair. Jones's nephew, in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and his face all in a lather, for he was shaving, got into the room when I did."

"When did you see the deceased last, Mrs. Jones?" was the next question put, after the witness had described the appearance of the room, the pistol on the carpet, the blotted note on the table, the quantity of oil in the lamp, and so forth.

"When did I see him last? why on the Monday afternoon, when he came in from court," responded Mrs. Jones. "I was crossing the hall at the foot of the stairs, between the parlour and the shop, as he came in. He looked tired, and I said so; and he answered that he had been about all day, in the court and elsewhere, and was tired. That's when I saw him last: never after, till I saw him in his chair, dead."

"You heard nothing of his movements on that evening?"

"I wasn't likely to hear it, seeing I went out as soon as the shop was shut. Before it, in fact, for I left Jones's nephew to put up the shutters. Old Jenkins is dying, as all the parish knows, and I went to sit with him and take him some beef-tea. Jones's nephew, he went out too, to his debating club, as he calls it. And precious debating it must be," continued Mrs. Jones, with additional tartness, "if the debaters are all as green and soft as he! Alletha Rye, she was at work at Mrs. Wilson's: and so, as ill-luck had it, all the house was out."

"Except your servant, Susan Marks," observed one of the jury. "She was left at home to keep house, we hear."

"And in a very pretty manner she did keep it!" retorted Mrs. Jones, as if she had taken a pint of vinegar to set her teeth on edge; when Susan Marks, at the back, gave a kind of groan, and burst into fresh tears. "Up the street here, down the street there, over the way at the doors yonder, staring, and gossiping, and gampusing--that's how she kept it. And on an assize night, of all nights in the year, to be airing her cap in the street, when barristers and other loose characters are about!"

The gratuitous compliment paid to the barristers raised a laugh, in spite of the sad inquiry the court had met upon. Mrs. Jones's epithet sounded, however, worse to others than to herself.

"And she could tell me, when I got in just before eleven, that Mr. Ollivera had gone to bed!" resumed that lady, in intense aggravation: "which, of course, I believed, and we all went up to our rooms, suspecting nothing. Let me ever catch her out at the street door again! home she'll go to Upton Snodsbury."

Groans from the back, in the vicinity of Susan Marks.

"Had you known previously, Mrs. Jones, that Mr. Ollivera was in the habit of bringing with him a loaded pistol?"

"Yes; for he told me. One day last October, when I was up dusting his drawing-room, he had got it out of the case. I said I should not like to have such a weapon near me, and he laughed at that. He used to keep it on the chest of drawers in his bedroom: that is, the case; and I suppose the thing itself was inside."

"Your husband was not at home when this unfortunate event happened, Mrs. Jones?"

"No, he was not," assented Mrs. Jones; and it was as if she had swallowed a whole gallon of vinegar now. "He has been off to Wales last week and this, and is as likely as not to be there next."

Another question or two, not of much import, and Mrs. Jones gave place to her husband's nephew. He was known in the town for a steady, well-conducted young man, quite trustworthy. He had not very much to tell.

"My name is Alfred Jones," he said, "and I live with my uncle, Richard Jones, as assistant in the shop----"

"----Which wouldn't want any assistant at all, if Jones stayed at home and stuck to his duties," put in Mrs. Jones's sharp voice from the back. Upon which she was admonished to hold her tongue: and the witness continued.

"On Monday night, I put up the shutters at seven, as usual in the winter season; I changed my coat, washed my hands, and went to the debating club in Goose Lane. Soon after I got there I found I had forgotten a book that I ought to have taken back to the club's library. The time for my keeping it was up, and as we are fined twopence if we keep a book over time, I went back to get it. It was then half-past seven. The street door was open, and Susan, the servant, was standing at it outside. As I ran up the stairs, the book being in my bedroom at the top of the house, I heard the drawing-room door open just after I passed it; I turned my head, and saw a gentleman come out. He----"

"Did you know him, witness?"

"No, sir, he was a stranger to me. I know him now for Mr. Greatorex. He was talking to Mr. Ollivera. They were making an appointment for the next morning."

"Did you hear what was said?"

"Yes, sir. As I looked round at the gentleman he was turning his head back to the room, and said, 'Yes, you may rely upon my coming early; I'll be here before nine o'clock. Goodnight, John.' Those were, I think, the exact words, sir."

"Did you see Mr. Ollivera?"

"No, sir, he did not come out, and the gentleman only pushed the door back a little while he spoke. If it had been wide open I couldn't have seen in; I was too far, some two or three steps up the stairs. I turned back then to attend Mr. Greatorex to the street door. After that I ran up for my book, and left the house again. I was not two minutes in it altogether."

"Did you see Mr. Ollivera as you came down?"

"No, sir. The drawing-room door was closed, as Mr. Greatorex had left it. I never saw or heard of Mr. Ollivera again until Miss Rye's screams brought me down the next morning. That is all I know."

"At what hour did you go home on Monday evening?"

"It was close upon eleven, sir. We generally disperse at half-past ten but we stayed late that night. Mrs. Jones and Miss Rye had not long come in, and were in the sitting-room."

The next witness called was Susan Marks. The young woman, what with her own heinous offences on the eventful night, the dreadful calamity itself, and the reproaches of her mistress, had been in a state of tears ever since, fresh bursts breaking forth at the most unseasonable times.

Susan Marks, aged nineteen, native of Upton Snodsbury, cook and servant-of-all-work to Mrs. Jones. Such was the young woman's report of herself, as well as could be heard for her sobs and tears. She was attired neatly and well; in a print mourning gown and straw bonnet trimmed with black; her face, that would otherwise have been fresh and clear, had small patches of red upon it, the result of the many tears and of perpetual rubbing.

"Now, young woman," said the coroner briskly, as if he thought time was being lost, "what have you to tell us of the events of Monday night?"

"Nothing, sir," replied the young woman, in a fresh burst of grief that could be called nothing less than a howl. "I never see Mr. Ollivera at all after I showed the gentleman up to him."

"Well, let us hear about that. What time was it?"

"It was past six, sir; I don't know how much. I had washed up Mr. Ollivera's dinner things, and was putting the plates and dishes on the dresser shelves, when Mr. Ollivera's bell rang. It was for his lamp, which I lighted and took in: he always wanted it afore daylight was well over when he was busy. He seemed in a hurry, and drew down the window-blinds himself. I lighted the gas-burner outside the drawing-room door, and went back to the kitchen. No sooner was I there--leastways it couldn't have been five minutes--when there came a ring at the street door bell. I went to answer it, and saw a tall gentleman, who asked for Mr. Ollivera, and I showed him upstairs to the drawing-room."

"Who was that gentleman?"

"It was Mr. Greatorex. But I didn't know him then, sir. I thought it was a barrister; he didn't give no name."

"Did you see Mr. Ollivera when you took this gentleman up?"

"Yes, sir. He was sitting with his back towards us, writing at the table, and I see the things on it. I hadn't noticed them much when I took the lamp in. I see the papers put together tidy, which had been all about when he was at his dinner. I think he was very busy that evening," urged the witness, as if the fact might plead an excuse for what afterwards took place: "when I removed the dinner things he told me to put the sherry wine away on the sideboard; sometimes if he wanted to drink any, he'd have it left on the table."

"Did he seem glad to see Mr. Greatorex?"

"Yes, sir, very. They shook hands, and Mr. Greatorex began telling him what he had come down about, and said his father had sent him in place of telegrumming. I asked Mr. Ollivera what time he'd like to have tea, but he said he didn't know whether he should take any, he might be going out; if he wanted it, he'd ring. How was I to think, after that, that I ought to have went up to him, to see how he might be getting on, which missis has been a going on at me ever since for not doing?" demanded the witness with a stream of tears.

"Come, come! there, wipe your face," said one of the jury, with gruff kindness. And the questions went on, and the witness's replies.

It was about an hour that Mr. Greatorex stayed, she thought She saw him come out at the street door, and go away. Well, yes, she was a yard or two off, at a neighbour's door, next house but one. After missis went out and the shop was shut, and Alfred Jones went out, and there wasn't nobody indoors to want her, she thought it no harm to stand at the street door a bit: and if she did go a step or two away from it, she never took her eyes off the door, and no person could go in or out without her seeing them and that she'd swear. She saw Mr. Greatorex come out and walk away up High Street; and she never heard no sound in the house whatsoever.

"Did any one go in?" the coroner asked.

"No, sir, not a soul--barring Alfred Jones and Miss Rye Alfred Jones came back after he first went out, saying that he had forgot something, and he went upstairs to fetch it. He wasn't there no time; and it was while he was up there that Mr. Greatorex came down and left. Soon after that, Miss Rye, she come in, and went upstairs, and was there ever so long."

"What do you call 'ever so long'?"

"Well, sir, I'm sure she was there a quarter of an hour," returned the witness, in a quick, positive sort of tone, as if the fact of Miss Rye's being there so long displeased her. "I ought to know; and me a-standing inside the doorsill, afraid to move off it for fear she should come out."

"Were you alone?"

"Well, yes, sir, I was. Mary, the housemaid at the big linendraper's next door but one, can bear me out that I was, for she was there all the time, talking to me."

Perhaps the coroner thought the answer savoured of Hibernianism, for something like a smile crossed his face.

"And you heard no sound whatever upstairs all the evening, Susan Marks? You saw no one, except the persons mentioned, go in or come out; no stranger?"

"I never heard no sound, and never saw no stranger at all," said the witness, earnestly. "I never even saw Godfrey Pitman leave. But I b'lieve he was away earlier."

The concluding assertion fell with some surprise on the room; there ensued a pause, and the coroner lifted his head sharply. Godfrey Pitman? Who was Godfrey Pitman?

"Who is Godfrey Pitman, witness?"

"It was the lodger at the top of the house, sir. He had the front bedroom there--and a fine dance it was to carry his meals up. Missis gave him the offer of eating them in the little room off the kitchen, but I suppose he was too proud to come down. Anyway, he didn't come."

"Is he lodging there now?"

"Oh no, sir, he was only there a week and a day, and left on the Monday. He was a traveller in the spectacles line, he told me, passing through the town; which he likewise wore himself sometimes. Well, sir, I never see him go at all, and he didn't never give me a shilling for having waited on him and carried his trays up all them stairs."

The girl had told apparently what she knew, and the coroner requested Mrs. Jones to come in again. He questioned her about the lodger.

"It was a person of the name of Pitman," she answered, readily. "He was only passing through the town, and occupied the room for a week."

"Who was he?" asked the coroner. "Did you know him?"

"I didn't know him from Adam," answered Mrs. Jones, tartly; "I didn't know anything about him. I called him Alletha Rye's lodger, not mine, for it was she who picked him up. He may have told her all about himself, for aught I can say: she seemed to take a desperate fancy to him, and mended his travelling bag. He didn't tell me. Not but what he seemed a civil, respectable man."

"When did he leave you, Mrs. Jones?"

"On Monday, about half-past four, when he took the five o'clock train for Birmingham. He came to the inner shop door as he was going out, and thanked me for my kindness, as he called it, in taking him in at a pitch; he said it was not what every one would do for a stranger. Neither is it."

"You are sure he left you at that hour?"

"Have I got the use of my eyes and senses?" demanded Mrs. Jones. "Sure! I walked to the side door after him, and saw him go up the street towards the railway with his blue bag. Of course I am sure. It was as I crossed the hall, on my way back, that Mr. Ollivera came in, and I spoke to him as I have told you."

It was therefore placed beyond doubt that the lodger, Mr. Pitman, could have no part or act in what took place in the house later. The coroner would have dismissed the subject summarily, but that one of the jury, a man who liked to hear himself talk, expressed an opinion that it might be satisfactory if they questioned Miss Rye. With a gesture of impatience the coroner called for her.

She came in, was asked what she knew of Mr. Pitman, and stood before them in silence, her face a little bent, her forefinger, encased in its well-fitting black kid glove, pressed lightly on her lip, her clear blue eye looking out straight before her. It was as if she were trying to recall something to her memory.

"I recollect now," she said, after a minute "I could not remember what took me up by the railway station where I met him. It was on last Sunday week, in the afternoon. Mrs. Hillman, who lives up there, was ill, and I had been to see her. As I was leaving her house, towards dusk, a few passengers were coming down from the station. I stood on the doorstep until they should have passed; and one of them, who had a blue bag in his hand, like those that lawyers' clerks carry, stopped and asked me if I had a room in my house that I could let him occupy for a week. I supposed he took the house where I stood for mine. He went on to say he was a traveller and stranger, had never before been to the town, felt very poorly, and would very much wish to be spared the bustle of an hotel. I knew that my sister, Mrs. Jones had a bedroom ready for letting," continued Miss Rye, "and I thought she might not object to oblige him; he spoke quite as a gentleman, and I felt rather sorry for him, for he looked haggard and ill. That is how it happened."

"And your sister admitted him, and he stayed the week?" cried the juror.

"Strictly speaking, I admitted him; for when we reached home I found Mrs. Jones had gone to sit with old Jenkins for the rest of the day. So I took it upon myself to do so. On Saturday last Mr. Pitman said he would, with our permission, remain a day over the week, and leave on Monday.

"And did he pay the rent, Miss Rye?" asked the juror, who perhaps had a doubt on the point.

"He paid the first week's rent as soon as he was admitted to the house, and gave a sovereign towards the purchase of his provisions," was the answer. "What remained he settled for on the Monday, previous to his departure by the five o'clock train for Birmingham."

"Who was he, witness? Where did he come from?"

"I really cannot tell much about him," was Miss Rye's reply. "I understood him to say he was a traveller; his name, as he wrote it down for us, was Godfrey Pitman. He was laid up with a bad cold and relaxed throat all the time he stayed, and borrowed some books of me to read."

There appeared to be no further scope for the exercise of the juror's powers; no possible loophole for bringing this departed Mr. Godfrey Pitman into connection with the death of Mr. Ollivera; and Miss Rye was allowed to depart.

Little more evidence was to be gleaned. Mr. Kene, tendering evidence, spoke of his long intimacy with the deceased, and of their last interview, when he was just the same that he ever had been: calm, cheerful, earnest-purposed. He could not understand, he added, how it was possible for Mr. Ollivera to have laid violent hands on himself--unless, indeed, the headache, of which he had complained, had proceeded from some derangement of the functions of the brain, and induced temporary insanity.

But this suggested theory was wholly incompatible with the letter that had been found, and with Mr. Bede Greatorex's testimony of the sane mind of the deceased when he quitted him. The jury shook their heads: keen-eyed Mr. Butterby, looking on unobtrusively from a remote nook of the room, shook his.

The inquest drew to a close; the one fatal element in the evidence being the letter found on the table. The coroner and jury debated upon their verdict with closed doors, and only re-admitted the public when they had decided: It did not take them long.

"Felo-de-se."

In accordance with the customary usage, a mandate was issued for a night interment, without Christian rites; and the undertaker promised to be ready for that same night.

The crowd filed out of the room, talking eagerly. That it was undoubtedly a case of self-murder, and that in the most unhappy sense of the word, none doubted. No, not one: even Mr. Kene began to waver.

As they were dispersing hither and thither along the street, there came hastily up a young man in the garb of a clergyman. It was the Reverend Henry William Ollivera, brother of the deceased gentleman. He had just arrived by train. In as few words as possible, his cousin, Frank Greatorex, and Mr. Kene imparted to him some hasty particulars of the unhappy event.

"He never did it," said the clergyman, solemnly. "Bede"--for at that moment Bede Greatorex joined the speakers--"how could you suffer them to bring in a verdict so horrible?"

But Mr. Ollivera had not heard the full details yet. By common consent, as it were, they had not at first told him of the letter. Bede would not tell it now. Let the worst come out to him by degrees thought he.

"I am going up to town," said Bede Greatorex. "If----"

"And not stay for tonight?" interrupted one of them, in an accent that savoured of reproach.

"Nay, I must consider my father," was the grave reply of Bede. "He is in suspense all this while, waiting for news."

So they parted. Bede Greatorex hastened to catch the departing train for London. And the others remained to see the last of the ill-fated John Ollivera.

He was carried out of Mr. Jones's in the bright moonlight, soon after eleven o'clock had struck. Whether intentionally, as best befitting the scanty ceremony to be performed, or whether in accidental forgetfulness the undertaker had failed to provide a covering for the coffin. And Mrs. Jones, with sundry sharp and stinging words of reprimand to the man, as it was in the nature of Mrs. Jones's tongue to give, brought down a long woollen black scarf-shawl, and helped to spread it over the coffin with her own hands.

Thus the procession started, preceded by many curious gazers, followed by more, Alletha Rye stealing on amidst the latter number; and so went on to the place of interment.

You have seen what took place there.

[CHAPTER IV.]

GOING HOME WITH THE NEWS.

In the vicinity of Bedford Square, so near to it that we may as well designate the locality by that name throughout the story, stood the large professional residence of Greatorex and Greatorex. It was large in every sense of the word; both as to the size of the house, and to the extent of the business transacted in it. A safe, good, respectable firm was that of Greatorex and Greatorex, standing as well in the public estimation as any solicitors could stand; and deservedly so, Mr. Greatorex was a man of nice honour; upright, just, trustworthy. He would not have soiled his hands with what is technically called dirty work; if any client wanted underhand business done, swindling work (although it might be legal) that would not bear the light of day, he need not take it to Greatorex and Greatorex.

The head of the firm, John Greatorex, was still in what many call the prime of life. He was fifty-eight, active and energetic. Marrying when he was very young, he really did not look a great deal older than his son Bede. And Bede was not his first-born. The eldest son had entered the army; he was in India now, Captain Greatorex. He also had married young, and his little daughter and only child had been sent home to her grand-parents in accordance with the prevailing custom.

The wife of Mr. Greatorex had been Miss Ollivera, sister to the father of John Ollivera, the barrister, whose sad end has been lately recorded. Mrs. Greatorex had fallen into ill-health or some time past now; in fact, she was slowly dying of an incurable complaint. But for not liking to leave her, Mr. Greatorex might have hastened down as soon as the sad news reached him of his nephew's premature end. I say he "might;" but Mr. Greatorex was, himself, only recovering from an attack of illness, and was scarcely strong enough to travel. And so he waited at home with all the patience he could call up, understanding nothing but that his nephew John, who had been as dear to him as were his own children, was dead. His children had been many: eight. James (Captain Greatorex), the eldest; Bede the second, one year younger; next came two daughters, who were married and away; then a son, Matthew, who was working his way to competency in Spain; the two next had died, and Francis was the youngest. The latter, called Frank always, was in the house in Bedford Square, but not yet made a partner.

The young barrister just dead, John Ollivera, left no relations to mourn for him, except his brother Henry William, and the Greatorex family. The two brothers had to make their own way in the world, their uncle Mr. Greatorex helping them to do it; the elder one choosing the Bar (as you have seen); Henry William, the Church. John had his chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and would certainly have risen into note had he lived: Henry William was a curate.

Three o'clock was striking in London on Wednesday afternoon, as a train slackened its speed and drew into the Paddington terminus. One of the first of its passengers to alight was Mr. Bede Greatorex. He had a small black bag in his hand, and jumped with it into a hansom cab.

"Bedford Square!"

The cabman answered with a nod as he touched his hat. He had driven Mr. Bede Greatorex before, who was sufficiently well known in London. Instead, however, of being permitted to dash up to the well-known door, the man found himself stopped a few yards short of it.

"I'll get out here," said Bede Greatorex.

Paying the fare, he went on with his bag, and glanced up at the windows as he crossed to the house. All the blinds were down. It was a very large house: it had been two originally. In the old, old days, some thirty or more years ago, Mr. Greatorex had rented only one of the houses. As his family and business increased, he bought the one he occupied and the next adjoining, and made them into one. There were two entrances still; the one pertained to the house and Mrs. Greatorex; the other was the professional entrance. The rooms on the ground floor--and there were several--were taken up by the business; one of them, looking to the garden, was the sitting-room of Mr. Greatorex.

Bede went to the private entrance, and let himself in with his latchkey. Lodging his small bag at the foot of the handsome staircase, he walked through some passages to his father's sitting-room, which was empty. Retracing his steps he went upstairs; a maidservant happened to meet him on the first landing; he handed her the bag and opened the door of the dining-room. A spacious, well-fitted up apartment, its paper white and gold, with streaks of crimson slightly intermingled to give it colour.

Mr. Greatorex was there. He sat over the fire and had fallen asleep. It surprised Bede: for Mr. Greatorex was a man not given to idleness or indulgence of any kind. Indeed, to see him sitting upstairs in the day time was an event almost unknown. Bede closed the door again softly. There was a haggard look in the elder man's face, partly the effect of his recent illness; and Bede would not disturb him.

Outside the door, he stood a moment in hesitation. It was a spacious landing-place, something like an upper hall. The floor was carpeted with dark green; painted windows--yellow, blue, crimson--threw down a bright light of colour; there was a small conservatory at one end, containing odoriferous plants on which the sun was shining; and a chaste statue or two imparted still life to the whole.

Bede hesitated. None but himself knew how horribly he hated and dreaded the tale he had to tell about poor John Ollivera. All the way up he had been rehearsing to himself the manner in which he should break it for the best, but the plan had gone clean out of his head now.

"I'll go up and wash my hands first, at any rate," decided Bede. "The dust was worse than we had it on Monday."

Ascending to the second landing, he was quietly crossing it to his own room, when a door was flung open, and a pretty little girl in blue, her curling hair bound back with ribbons, came flying out. It was the daughter of Captain Greatorex. The young lady had naturally a will of her own; and since her arrival from India, the indulgence lavished on her had not tended to lessen it. But she was a charming child, and wonderfully keen.

"Oh, Bede, have you come back! Grandmamma has been asking for you all the day."

"Hush, Jane! I'll go in to grandmamma presently."

Miss Jane did not choose to "hush." She evaded Bede's hand, flew across the soft carpet of the landing, and threw open a bedroom door, calling out that Bede had come. As to styling him Uncle Bede, she had never done anything of the kind.

He heard his mother's voice, and could almost have boxed the child's ears. Back she came again, laying hold of him this time, her saucy dark brown eyes, grave now, lifted up to his face.

"Bede, how came John Ollivera to die?"

"Hush, Jane," he said again. This was precisely the point on which he did not care to hold present communication with his mother. He wished, if possible, to spare her; but the little girl was persistent.

"Is he dead, Bede?"

"Yes, child, he is dead."

"Oh, dear! And he can never kiss me again, or bring me new dolls! I broke the last one in two, and threw it at him."

Her eyes filled with tears. Bede, deep in thought, put away the little hands that had fastened on his arms.

"I liked him better than you, Bede. What made him die?"

"Bede! Bede! is that you?" called out his mother.

Bede had to go in. Mrs. Greatorex was on the sofa, dressed, her back supported by pillows. Her complexion was of dark olive, showing her Spanish extraction; a capable, kindly woman she had ever been in life; and was endeavouring now to meet the death that she knew could not be far off, as a Christian should. He stooped and kissed her. In features he resembled her more than any of her children.

"Do you feel better, mother?"

"My dear, you know that there can be no 'better' for me here. The pain is not heavy today. Have you just come up to town?"

"Just got in now."

"And what have you to tell me? I cannot believe that John is dead. When the telegram came yesterday morning, your father happened to be with me, and they brought it up. But for that, I dare say he would not have told me yet. He spares me all the trouble that he can, you know, dear. I fainted, Bede; I did indeed. The death must have been very sudden."

"Yes," replied Bede.

"Was it a fit? Jane, run to the schoolroom. Your governess will be angry at your staying away so long."

Jane's answer to this mandate was to perch herself on the arm of the sofa, side by side with the speaker, and to fix her eyes and her attention on the face of Bede.

"None of the Olliveras have been subject to fits; remember that, Bede," continued Mrs. Greatorex. "Neither did John himself look at all likely for one. To think that he should go before me! Jane, my little dear one, you must indeed go to Miss Ford."

"I am going to stay here, grand'ma, and to hear about John."

"There's nothing much to hear, or to tell," spoke Bede, as much perhaps for his mother's ear as for the child's. "If you do not obey your grandmamma, Jane, I shall take you myself to the schoolroom.

"No, you won't, Bede. Why don't you answer grand'ma about John?"

Mrs. Greatorex had nearly left off contending with Miss Jane; weary, sick, in pain, it was too much effort, and she generally yielded to the dominant little will. As she appeared to do now, for it was to Bede she spoke.

"Bede, dear, you are keeping me in suspense. Was it a fit?"

"No; it could not be called a fit."

"The heart, perhaps?"

"His death must have been quite sudden," said Bede, with pardonable evasion. "Instantaneous, the doctors thought: and therefore without pain."

"Poor John! poor John! The veil is lifted for him. Bede!"

Bede had begun to turn his attention to the young lady, and was putting her down from the sofa. He wheeled round at the word, and Miss Jane mounted again.

"What, mother?"

Mrs. Greatorex dropped her voice reverently: and her dark eyes, looking large from illness, had a bright, hopeful, yearning light in them as she spoke.

"I think he was fit to go."

"Yes," answered Bede, swallowing a lump of emotion. "It is the one drop of comfort amidst much darkness. At least----. But I must keep my word," he added, breaking suddenly off, and seizing the child again, as if glad of an excuse to cease; "you go now to Miss Ford, young lady."

She set up a succession of cries. Bede only carried her away the faster.

"You'll come back and tell me more, Bede," said Mrs. Greatorex.

"I will come by-and-by," he turned to say. "I have pressing things to do; and I have not yet spoken with my father. Try and get your afternoon's sleep, mother dear."

Miss Ford, a nursery governess, stood at the schoolroom door, and began to scold her pupil as she received her from the hands of Mr. Bede Greatorex. He shut himself into his room for a few minutes, and then descended the stairs in deep thought. He had begun to ask himself whether the worst could not be kept from his mother; not for very long could she be spared to them now.

Mr. Greatorex was then coming out of the dining-room. He shook hands with his son, and they went back and sat down together. Bede grew quite agitated at the task before him. He hated to inflict pain; he knew that John Ollivera had been dear to his father, and that the blow would be keenly felt. All the news as yet sent up by him to Bedford Square was, that John was dead.

Whence, then, that grey look on his father's face?--the haggard mouth, the troubled, shrinking eyes going searchingly out to Bede's? Mr. Greatorex was a fresh-looking man in general, with a healthy colour and smooth brown hair, tall and upright as his son. He looked short and shrinking and pale now.

"Bede, how came he to do it?"

Something like a relief came into Bede's heart as he heard the words. It was so much better for the way to have been paved for him!--the shock would not be so great.

"Then you know the particulars, sir.

"I fear I know the truth, Bede; not the particulars. The Times had a short paragraph this morning, saying that John Ollivera had died by his own hand. Was it so?"

Bede gravely nodded. His breath was coming and going faster than is consistent with inward calmness.

"My God!" cried Mr. Greatorex, from between his quivering lips, as he sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. But the sacred word was not spoken in irreverence; no, nor in surprise; rather, as it seemed, in the light of an appealing prayer.

"And what could have induced it?" came the question presently, as he let his hands fall.

"I had better tell you the whole from the beginning," said Bede, "you will then----"

"Tell it, of course," interrupted Mr. Greatorex. "Begin at the beginning."

Bede stood up, facing the fire; his elbow on the mantelpiece, his back partially turned to his father, while he told it: he did not care to watch the anguish and horror of the usually placid face. He concealed nothing: relating how he had reached the City and held an interview with his cousin; how he had left him after the lapse of an hour, promising to be with him in the morning before starting for town; and how he had been aroused from his bed by the tidings that John was dead. He described the state of the room when found; the pistol lying underneath the hand; the note on the table. As well as Bede Greatorex could repeat the details, as testified to before the coroner--and we may be very sure they were implanted with painful exactitude on his memory--he gave them all faithfully.

"It might have been an accident," urged Mr. Greatorex, in an imploring kind of tone, as if he wanted to be assured that it was.

Bede did not answer.

"I forgot the writing, Bede; I forgot the writing," said Mr. Greatorex, with a groan.

"Whatever it might be, whether accident or self-intended, it is an awful shame to bury him as they are going to do," burst forth Bede, in a sudden access of anger.

And the words served to tell Mr. Greatorex what the verdict had been.

"It is a sin, sir; yes, it is. I could not stay to see it."

"So it may be, Bede; but that's the least of it--that's the least of it. I'd as soon have believed myself capable of such a thing as that John Ollivera was. Oh, John! John!"

A painful silence. Bede felt glad that his task was so far over.

"His motive, Bede? What could have been his motive?"

"There was no motive, father; as far as I can see."

"You were young men together, Bede; of the same pursuits--frequent companions; did you ever suspect he had any care, or embarrassment, or trouble?"

"No. He had none, I feel sure."

"Those first words of the note, as you have related them, sound curious," resumed Mr. Greatorex. "What was it that he was trying to accomplish?"

"We cannot discover; no clue whatever has come to light. It would almost seem as though he had written them to the air, without foundation."

"That would be to say his senses had deserted him."

"Kene thinks that the headache of which he had complained may have proceeded from some disordered function of the brain, and induced insanity."

"Do you think it?" asked Mr. Greatorex, looking at his son. "You were the last person who saw him alive."

"I should be glad to think it if I could. He was quite calm and collected when I was with him; just as usual."

"The extraordinary thing to me is, that nobody should have heard the discharge of the pistol."

"The people of the house were all out. Even the servant-girl had gone about the neighbourhood gossiping."

"It might have been heard in the street."

"If the street were quiet, perhaps yes. But on assize nights, they tell me, there is an unusual deal of outdoor bustle."

Mr. Greatorex sat looking at the fire, and revolving the different points of the dreadful history. Bede resumed.

"I was wondering whether the worst of the details could be kept from my mother. They would try her terribly. She only thinks as yet, I find, that he died suddenly."

"Because she only knows as much as your telegram said. It will be impossible to keep it from her; the newspapers will be full of it. Three times today has your mother sent down for The Times, and I have returned an excuse. There's no help for it, Bede."

"Then you shall tell her, sir. I can't. It must be broken to her by degrees. How was it William Ollivera was so late in coming down?" he suddenly resumed. "He only arrived today as I was departing."

"William Ollivera was out of town, and did not return until last night. You have said nothing about our cause, Bede."

"That's all right. It was taken yesterday afternoon. Kene led in the place of John, and we got the verdict."

"Where are John's papers and things?"

"His brother and Frank will take charge of them. I have his private letters. I thought it best to come up to you at once, knowing you were in suspense."

"A suspense that has been grievous since I read that paragraph this morning, Bede. I have been fit for nothing."

Neither was Bede that day. Mr. Greatorex rose to go to his wife's room, there to enter upon his task--just as his son had been entering upon it with him. Bede paced the carpet for a few minutes alone. It was a long room; the furniture not dark and heavy, but light-looking and pleasant to the eye, though comprising all the requisites for a well-appointed dining-room. Bede took a look at himself in the pier-glass, and pushed his hair off his forehead--his sisters used to accuse him of inordinate vanity. And then quitted the room and the house.

He was bending his steps to Lincoln's Inn, to the chambers occupied by his cousin. Not many yards had he gone, before someone darted across the street and pounced upon him.

"Halloa, Greatorex! What's this, that's up about Ollivera?"

It was a Chancery barrister, who had known John Ollivera well. Bede Greatorex explained in a few short words, and hurried off.

"I can't stay to tell you more now," he said in apology. "There's a great deal to do and to be thought of, and I hardly know whether our heads are on our shoulders or off. I'm on my way to his chambers to search if there may be any paper, or aught else, that can throw light on it."

A hansom passed at the moment, and Bede jumped into it. He might have met fifty questioners, else, and reached his destination after dark. The chambers were on the third floor, and he went up to them. Mr. Ollivera's clerk, a small youth of nineteen, was at his post; and the laundress, who waited on Mr. Ollivera, was there also. The news had brought her up in tears.

Perhaps it was excusable that they should both begin upon Mr. Bede Greatorex in their thirst for information. Respectfully, of course, but eagerly. He responded in a few quiet words, and passed into the rooms, the woman's sobs following him.

Here was the sitting-room where John saw people; next to it his bedroom; all in neat order. Near the bed was a small mahogany stand, and a cushioned chair. On the stand lay his Bible--just as the other one was seen but yesterday resting on its stand elsewhere. Bede knew that his cousin never failed to read that Bible, and to fall on his knees before the chair morning and evening. He turned away with a groan, and proceeded to his work of search.

Only a casual search today; there was no time for minute examination. Just a look here and there, lest haply he might come upon some paper or letter of elucidation. But he could not find any.

"I am going to lock the rooms up, Jenner," he said to the clerk. "Things must be left as they are until the Reverend Mr. Ollivera comes to town. He will have the arrangement of matters. I don't suppose there's any will."

"Am I to leave the service at once, sir?--now?" asked Mr. Jenner, in excessive surprise.

"You must leave the rooms now--unless you would like to be locked up in them," returned Bede Greatorex. "Call in Bedford Square tomorrow morning; we may be able to recommend something you to: and perhaps you will be wanted here again for a few days."

They quitted the chambers together; and Mr. Bede Greatorex took possession of the key. "I suppose," he said to the clerk, as they went down, "that you never observed any peculiarity of manner in Mr. Ollivera that might tend to induce suspicion of aberration of mind?"

The young man turned round and stared, scarcely taking in the sense of the question. Certainly there had not been anything of the kind observable in Mr. Ollivera.

"He was cheerful and sensible always, sir: he didn't seem to have a care."

Bede sighed, and proceeded homeward. A recollection came over him, as he went along in the dusk, of the last evening he had walked home from his cousin's chambers; it was only the night before John had gone on circuit. Oh, the contrast between that time and this! And Bede thought, in the bitter grief and sorrow of the moment, that he would willingly forfeit his own life could he recall that of John Ollivera.

[CHAPTER V.]

MR. BUTTERBY IN PRIVATE LIFE.

The bustle of the assizes was over; the tramp and tread and hum had gone out of the streets; the judges, the barristers, and the rest of the transitory visitors had departed, to hold their assize at the next county town.

A great deal of the bustle and the hum of another event had also subsided. It does not linger very long when outward proceedings are over, and sensational adjuncts have ceased; and Mr. Ollivera, at the best, had been but a stranger. The grave where he lay had its visitors still; but his brother and other friends had left for London, carrying his few effects with them. Nothing remained to tell of the fatal act of the past Monday evening; but for that grave, it might have seemed never to have had place in reality.

The Reverend Mr. Ollivera had been firm in refusing to admit belief in his brother's guilt. He did not pretend to judge how it might have happened, whether by accident or by some enemy's hand; but he felt convinced the death could not have been deliberately self-inflicted. It was an impossibility, he avowed to Mr. Butterby--and he was looked upon, by that renowned officer, as next door to a lunatic for his pains. There was no more shadow of a doubt on Mr. Butterby's mind that the verdict had been in accordance with the facts, than there was on other people's.

Always excepting Alletha Rye's. She had been silent to the public since the avowal at the grave; but, in a dispute with Mrs. Jones, had repeated her assertion and belief. Upon a report of the display coming to Mrs. Jones's ears, that discreet matron--who certainly erred on the side of hard, correct, matter-of-fact propriety, if on any--attacked her sister in no measured terms. There were several years between them, and Mrs. Jones considered she had a right to do it. Much as Mrs. Jones had respected Mr. Ollivera in life, she entertained no doubt whatever on the subject of his death.

"My opinion is, you must have been crazy," came the sharp reprimand. "Go off after that tramping tail to the grave! I wish I'd seen you start. A good name is easier lost than regained, Alletha Rye."

"I am not afraid of losing mine," was the calm rejoinder.

"Folks seldom are till they find it gone," said Mrs. Jones, tartly. "My goodness! not content with trapesing off there in the middle of the night, you must go and make an exhibition of yourself besides!--kneeling down on the damp earth to pray, in the face and eyes of all the people; and then rising to make a proclamation, just as if you had been the town bellman! Jones says it struck him dumb."

Alletha Rye was silent. Perhaps she had felt vexed since, that the moment's excitement had led her to the act.

"Who are you, that you should put yourself up against the verdict?" resumed Mrs. Jones. "Are you cleverer and sharper than the jury, and the coroner, and me, and Mr. Ollivera's friends, and the rest of the world, all of us put together? There can't be a doubt upon the point, girl."

"Let it drop," said Alletha, with a shiver.

"Drop! I'd like to see it drop. I'd like the remembrance of it to drop out of men's minds, but you've took care that shan't be. What on earth induced you to go and do it?"

"It was a dreadful thing that Mr. Ollivera should lie under the imputation of having killed himself," came the answer, after a pause.

"Now, you just explain yourself, Alletha Rye. You keep harping on that same string, about Mr. Ollivera; what grounds have you for it?"

The girl's pale face flushed all over. "None," she presently answered. "I never said I had grounds. But there's that vivid dream upon me always. He seemed to reproach me for not having sooner gone into the room to find him; and I'm sure no self-murderer would do that. They'd rather lie undiscovered for ever. Had I kept silence," she passionately added, "I might have become haunted."

Mrs. Jones stared at the speaker with all the fiery fervour of her dark, dark eyes.

"Haunted! Haunted by what?"

"By Mr. Ollivera's spirit; by remorse. Remorse for not doing as I am sure he is wishing me to do--clear his memory."

Mrs. Jones lifted her hands in wonder, and for once made no retort. She began to question in real earnest whether the past matters had not turned her sister's brain.

Dicky Jones was present during this passage-at-arms, which took place on the Thursday, after breakfast. He had just been enduring a battery of tongue on his own score; various sins, great and small, being placed before him in glaring colours by his wife; not the least heinous of which was the having arrived home from his pleasure trip at the unseasonable hour of half after one o'clock in the morning. In recrimination he had intimated that others of the family could come in at that hour as well as himself; not to do Alletha Rye harm, for he was a good-natured man, as people given to plenty of peccadilloes are apt to be; but to make his own crime appear the less. And then it all came out; and Mrs. Jones's ears were regaled with Alletha Rye's share in the doings at the interment.

On this same Thursday, but very much later in the day, Frank Greatorex and the Reverend Mr. Ollivera departed from the city, having stayed to collect together the papers and other effects of the deceased gentleman. Which brings us (the night having passed, and a great portion of the ensuing day) to the opening of the chapter.

Mr. Butterby sat in his parlour: one of two rooms he occupied on the ground floor of a private house very near a populous part of the city. He was not a police-sergeant; he was not an inspector; people did not know what he was. That he held sway at the police-station, and was a very frequent visitor to it, everybody saw. But Mr. Butterby had been so long in the town that speculation though rife enough at first upon the point, had ceased as to what special relations he might hold with the law. When any one wanted important assistance, he could, if he chose, apply to Mr. Butterby, instead of to the regular police-inspector; and, to the mind of the sanguine inquirer, that application appeared to constitute a promise of success.

Mr. Butterby's parlour faced the street. Its one sash window, protected by shutters thrown back in the day, and by green dwarf venetian blinds and a white roller-blind inside, was not a very large one. Nevertheless, Mr. Butterby contrived to keep a tolerable lookout from it on those of his fellow citizens who might chance to pass. He generally had the white blinds drawn down to meet, within an inch, the mahogany top of the venetian ones; and from that inch of outlet, Mr. Butterby, standing up before the window, was fond of taking observations. It was an unpretending room, with a faded carpet and rug on the floor; a square table in the middle, a large bureau filled with papers in a corner; some books in a case opposite, and a stock of newspapers on the top of that; and a picture over the mantelpiece representing Eve offering the apple to Adam.

Mr. Butterby sat by the fire at his tea, taking it thoughtfully. He wore an old green coat with short tails sprouting out from the waist, not being addicted to fashion in private life, and a red-and-black check waistcoat. It was Friday evening and nearly dusk. He had been out on some business all the afternoon but his thoughts were not fixed on that, though it was of sufficient importance; they rested on the circumstances attending the death of Mr. Ollivera.

Before the brother of the deceased had quitted the town, he had made an appointment with Mr. Butterby, and came to it accompanied by Frank Greatorex; the fly, conveying them to the station, waiting at the door. The purport of his visit was to impress upon that officer his full conviction that the death was not a suicide, and to request that, if anything should arise to confirm his opinion, it might be followed up.

"He was a good, pure-minded man; he was of calm, clear, practical mind, of sound good sense; he was fond of his profession, anxious to excel in it; hopeful, earnest, and without a care in the world," urged the Reverend Mr. Ollivera, with emotion. "How, sir, I ask you, could such a man take away his own life?"

Mr. Butterby shook his head. It might be unlikely, he acknowledged; but it was not impossible.

"I tell you it is impossible," said Mr. Ollivera. "I hold a full, firm, positive conviction that my brother never died, or could have died, by his own wilful hands: the certainty of it in my mind is so clear as to be like a revelation from heaven. Do you know what I did, sir? I went to the grave at night after he was put into it, and read the burial service over him."

"I see you doing it," came the unexpected answer of Mr. Butterby. "The surplice you wore was too long for you and covered your boots."

"It belonged to a taller man than I am--the Reverend Mr. Yorke," the clergyman explained. "But now, sir, do you suppose I should have dared to hold that sacred service over a man who had wilfully destroyed himself?"

"But instead of there being proof that he did not wilfully destroy himself, there's every proof that he did," argued Mr. Butterby.

"Every apparent proof; I admit that; but I know--I know that the proofs are in some strange way false; not real."

"The death was real; the pistol was real; the writing on the note-paper was real."

"I know. I cannot pretend to explain where the explanation may be hidden; I cannot see how or whence the elucidation shall come. One suggestion I will make to you, Mr. Butterby it is not clear that no person got access to the drawing-room after the departure from it of Mr. Bede Greatorex. At least, to my mind. I only mentioned this thought," concluded Mr. Ollivera, rising to close the interview; for he had no time to prolong it. "Should you succeed in gleaning anything, address a communication to me, to the care of Greatorex and Greatorex."

"Stop a moment," cried Mr. Butterby, as they were going out. "Who holds the paper that was found on the table?"

"I do," said Frank Greatorex. "Some of them would have had it destroyed; Kene and my brother amidst them; they could not bear to look at it. But I thought my father might like to see it first, and took it into my own possession."

A smile crossed the lip of the police agent. "Considering the two gentlemen you mention are in the law, it doesn't say much for their forethought, to rash at destroying the only proof there may remain to us of anybody else's being guilty."

"But then, you know, they do not admit that any one else could have been guilty," replied Frank Greatorex. "At least my brother does not; and Kene only looks upon it as a possible case of insanity. Do you want to see the paper? I have it in my pocket."

"Perhaps you'd not mind leaving it with me for a day or two," said Mr. Butterby. "I'll forward it up safe to you when I've done with it."

Frank Greatorex took the paper from his pocketbook and handed it to the speaker. It was folded inside an envelope now. Mr. Butterby received possession of it and attended his guests to the door, where the fly was waiting.

"You'll have to drive fast, Thompson," he said to the man. And Thompson, touching his hat to the officer, who was held in some awe by the city natives, whipped his horse into a canter.

It was upon this interview that Mr. Butterby ruminated as he took his tea on the Friday evening. In his own opinion it was the most unreasonable thing in the world, that anybody should throw doubt upon the verdict. Nothing but perversity. He judged it--and he was a keen-sighted man--to be fully in accordance with the facts, as given in evidence. Excepting perhaps in one particular. Had he been on the jury he should have held out for a verdict of insanity.

"They are but a set of bumble-heads at the best," soliloquised Mr. Butterby, respectfully alluding to the twelve men who had returned the verdict, as he took a large bite out of his last piece of well-buttered pikelet. "Juries for the most part always are: if they have got any brains they send them a wool-gathering then. Hemming, the butter-and-cheese man, told me he did say something about insanity; and he was foreman, too; but the rest of 'em and the coroner wouldn't listen to it. It don't much matter, for he got the burial rites after all, poor fellow: but if I'd been them, I should have gave him the benefit of the doubt."

Stopping in his observations to put the rest of the pikelet in his mouth, Mr. Butterby went on again as he ate it.

"It might have been that, insanity; but as to the other suspicion, there's no grounds whatever for it on the face of things at present. If such is to be raised I shall have to set to work and hunt 'em up. Create 'em as it were. 'Don't spare money,' says that young clergyman last night when he sat here; 'your expenses shall be reimbursed to you with interest.' As if I could make a case out of nothing! I'm not a French Procureur-Imperial."

Drinking down his tea at a draught, Mr. Butterby tried the teapot, lest a drop might be left in it still, turning it nearly upside down in the process. The result was, that the lid came open and a shower of tea-leaves descended on the tray.

"Bother!" said Mr. Butterby, as he hastily set the teapot in its place, and went on with his arguments.

"There's something odd about the case, though, straightforward as it seems; and I've thought so from the first. That girl's dream, for example, which she says she had; and her conduct at the grave. It was curious that Dicky Jones should just be looking on at her," added Mr. Butterby, slightly diverging from the direct line of consecutive thought: "curious that Dicky should have come up then at all. First, Alletha Rye vows he didn't do it; and, next, the parson vows it, Reverend Ollivera. Kene, too--but he points to insanity; and now the young fellow, Francis Greatorex. Suppose I go over the case again?"

Stretching out his hand, Mr. Butterby pulled the bell-rope--an old-fashioned twisted blue cord with a handle at the end; and a young servant came in.

"Shut the shutters," said he.

While this was in process, he took two candles from the mantelpiece, and lighted them. The girl went away with the tea-tray. He then unlocked his bureau, and from one of its pigeon-holes brought forth a few papers, memoranda, and the like, which he studied in silence, one after the other.

"The parson's right," he began presently; "if there is a loophole it's where he said--that somebody got into the room after the departure of Mr. Greatorex. Let's sum the points up."

Drawing his chair close to the table on which the papers lay, Mr. Butterby began to tell the case through, striking his two forefingers alternately on the table's edge as each point came flowing from his tongue. Not that "flowing" is precisely the best word to apply, for his speech was thoughtfully slow, and the words dropped with hesitation.

"John Ollivera, counsel-at-law. He comes in on the Saturday with the other barristers, ready for the 'sizes. Has a cause or two coming on at 'em, in which he expects to shine. Goes to former lodgings at Jones's, and shows himself as full of sense and sanity as usual; and he'd got his share of both. Spends Saturday evening at his friend's, Mrs. Joliffe's, the colonel's widow; is sweet, Mrs. Jones thinks, on one of the young ladies; thought so when he was down last October. Gets home at ten like a decent man, works at his papers till twelve, and goes to bed."

Mr. Butterby made a pause here, both his fingers resting on the table. Giving a nod, as if his reflections were satisfactory, he lifted his hands and began again.

"Sunday. Attends public worship and takes the sacrament. That's not like the act of one who knows he is on the eve of a bad deed. Attends again after breakfast, with the judges, and hears the sheriff's chaplain preach. (And it was not a bad sermon, as sermons go," critically pronounced Mr. Butterby in a parenthesis). "Attends again in the afternoon to hear the anthem, the Miss Joliffes with him. Dines at Jones's at five, spends evening at Joliffes'. Home early, and to bed."

Once more the hands were lifted. Once more their owner paused in thought. He gave two nods this time, and resumed.

"Monday. Up before eight. Has his breakfast (bacon and eggs), and goes to the Nisi Prius Court. Stays there till past three in the afternoon, tells Kene he must go out of court to keep an appointment that wasn't a particularly pleasant one, and goes out. Arrives at Jones's at half-past four; passes Mrs. Jones in that there small back hall of theirs; she tells him he looks tired; answers that he is tired and has got a headache; court was close. Goes up to his sitting-room and gets his papers about; (papers found afterwards, on examination, to relate to the cause coming on on Tuesday morning). Girl takes up his dinner; he eats it, gets to his papers again, and she fetches things away. Rings for his lamp early, quarter-past six may be, nearly daylight still; while girl puts it on table, draws down blinds himself as if in a hurry to be at work again. Close upon this Mr. Bede Greatorex calls, (good firm that, Greatorex and Greatorex," interspersed Mr. Butterby, with professional candour). "Bede Greatorex has come down direct from London (sent by old Greatorex) to confer with Ollivera on the Tuesday's cause. Stays with him more than an hour. Makes an appointment with him for Tuesday morning. Jones's nephew, going upstairs at the time, hears them making it, and shows Mr. Bede Greatorex out. Might be half-past seven then, or two or three minutes over it; call it half-past. Ollivera never seen again alive. Found dead next morning in arm-chair; pistol fallen from right hand, shot penetrated heart. Same chair he had been sitting in when at his papers, but drawn aside now at corner of table. Alletha Rye finds him. Tells a cock-and-bull of having been frightened by a dream. Dreamt he was in the sitting-room dead, and goes to see (she says) that he was not there, dead. Finds him there dead, however, just as (she says) she saw him in her dream. Servant rushes out for doctor, meets me, and I am the first in the room. Doctor comes, Hurst; Kene comes, Jones's nephew fetching him; then Kene fetches Bede Greatorex. Doctor says death must have took place previous evening not later than eight o'clock. Mrs. Jones says lamp couldn't have burnt much more than an hour: is positive it didn't exceed an hour and a half; but she's one of the positive ones at all times, and women's judgment is fallible. Now then, let's stop."

Mr. Butterby put his hands one over the other, and looked down upon them, pausing before he spoke again.

"It draws the space into an uncommon narrow nutshell. When Bede Greatorex leaves at half-past seven, Ollivera is alive and well--as he and Jones's nephew both testify to--and, according to the evidence of the surgeon, and the negative testimony of the oil in the lamp, he is dead by eight. If he did not draw the pistol on himself, somebody came in and shot him.

"Did he draw it on himself? I say Yes. Coroner and jury say Yes. The public say Yes. Alletha Rye and the Reverend Ollivera say No. If we are all wrong--and I don't say but that there's just a loophole of possibility of it--and them two are right, why then it was murder. And done with uncommon craftiness. Let's look at the writing.

"Those high-class lawyers are not good for much in criminal cases, can't see an inch beyond their noses; they don't practise at the Old Bailey, they don't," remarked Mr. Butterby, as he took from the papers before him the unfinished note found on Mr. Ollivera's table, the loan of which he had begged from Frank Greatorex. "The idea of their proposing to destroy this, because 'they couldn't bear to look at it!' Kene, too; and Bede Greatorex! they might have known better. I'll take care of it now."

Holding it close to one of the candles, the detective scanned it long and intently, comparing the concluding words, uneven, blotted, as if written with an agitated hand, with the plain collected characters of the lines that were undoubtedly Mr. Ollivera's. When he did arrive at a conclusion it was a summary one, and he put down the paper with an emphatic thump.

"May I be shot myself if I believe the two writings is by the same hand!"

Mr. Butterby's surprise may plead excuse for his grammar. He had never, until this moment, doubted that the writing was all done by one person.

"I'll show this to an expert. People don't write the same at all times; they'll make their capitals quite different in the same day, as anybody with any experience knows. But they don't often make their small letters different--neither do men study to alter their usual formation of letters when about to shoot themselves; the pen does its work then, spontaneous; naturally. These small letters are different, several of them, the r, the p, the e, the o, the d; all them are as opposite as light and dark, and I don't think the last was written by Mr. Ollivera."

It was a grave conclusion to come to; partially startling even him, who was too much at home with crime and criminals to be startled easily.

"Let's assume that it is so for a bit, and see how it works that way," resumed the officer. "We've all been mistaken, let's say; Ollivera, did not shoot himself, someone goes in and shoots him. Was it man or woman; was it an inmate of the house, or not an inmate? How came it to be done? what was the leading cause? Was the pistol (lying convenient on the table) took up incidental in the course of talking and fired by misadventure?--Or did they get to quarrelling and the other shot him of malice?--Or was it a planned, deliberate murder, one stealing in to do it in cold blood? Halt a bit here, Jonas Butterby. The first--done in misadventure? No: if any honest man had so shot another, he'd be the first to run out and get a doctor to him. No. Disposed of. The second--done in malice during a quarrel? Yes; might have been. The third--done in planned deliberation? That would be the most likely of all, but for the fact (very curious fact in the supposition) of the pistol's having been Mr. Ollivera's, and put (so to say) ready there to hand. Looking at it in either of these two views, there's mystery. The last in regard to the point now mentioned; the other in regard to the secrecy with which the intruder must have got in. If that dratted girl had been at her post indoors, as she ought to have been, with the chain of the door up, it might never have happened," concluded Mr. Butterby, with acrimony.

"Between half-past seven and eight? Needn't look much before or much beyond that hour. Girl says nobody went into the house at all, except Jones's nephew and Jones's sister-in-law. Jones's nephew did not stay; he got his book and went off again at half-past seven, close on the heels of Bede Greatorex, Mr. Ollivera being then alive. Presently, nearer eight, Alletha Rye goes in, for a pattern, she says, and she stays upstairs, according to the girl's statement, a quarter of an hour."

Mr. Butterby came to a sudden pause. He faced the fire now, and sat staring into it as if he were searching for what he could not see.

"It does not take a quarter of an hour to get a pattern. I should say not. And there was her queer dream, too. Leastways, the queer assertion that she had a dream. Dreams, indeed!--moonshine. Did she invent that dream as an excuse for having gone into the room to find him? And then look at her persistence from the first that it was not a suicide! And her queer state of mind and manners since! Dicky Jones told me last night when I met him by the hop-market, that she says she's haunted by Mr. Ollivera's spirit. Why should she be, I wonder? I mean, why should she fancy it? It's odd; very odd. The young woman, up to now, has always shown out sensible, in the short while this city has known her.

"That Godfrey Pitman," resumed the speaker. "The way that man's name got brought up by the servant-girl was sudden. I should like to know who he is, and what his business might have been. He was in hiding; that's what he was. Stopping indoors for a cold and relaxed throat! No doubt! But it does not follow that because he might have been in some trouble of his own, he had anything to do with the other business; and, in fact, he couldn't have had, leaving by the five o'clock train for Birmingham. So we'll dismiss him.

"And now for the result?" concluded Mr. Butterby, with great deliberation. "The result is that I feel inclined to think the young parson may be right in saying it was not a suicide. What it was, I can't yet make my mind up to give an opinion upon. Suppose I inquire into things a bit in a quiet manner?--and, to begin with, I'll make a friendly call on Dicky Jones and madam. She won't answer anything that it does not please her to, and it never pleases her to be questioned; on the other hand, what she does choose to say is to be relied upon, for she'd not tell a lie to save herself from hanging. As to Dicky--with that long tongue of his, he can be pumped dry."

Mr. Butterby locked up his papers, changed his ornamental coat for a black one, flattened down the coal on his fire, blew out the candles, took his hat, and went away.

[CHAPTER VI.]

GODFREY PITMAN.

Mrs. Jones was in her parlour, doing nothing: with the exception of dropping a tart observation from her lips occasionally. As the intelligent reader cannot have failed to observe, tartness in regard to tongue was essentially an element of Mrs. Jones's nature; when anything occurred to annoy her, its signs increased four-fold; and something had just happened to annoy her very exceedingly.

The parlour was not large, but convenient, and well fitted-up. A good fire burnt in the grate, throwing its ruddy light on the bright colours of the crimson carpet and hearthrug; on the small sideboard, with its array of glass; on the horsehair chairs, on the crimson cloth covering the centre table, and finally on Mrs. Jones herself and on her sister.

Mrs. Jones sat at the table, some work before her, in the shape of sundry packages of hosiery, brought in from the shop to be examined, sorted, and put to rights. But she was not doing it. Miss Rye sat on the other side the table, stitching the seams of a gown-body by the light of the moderator lamp. The shop was just closed.

It had happened that Dicky Jones, about tea-time that evening, had strayed into his next-door neighbour's to get a chat: of which light interludes to business Dicky Jones was uncommonly fond. The bent of the conversation fell, naturally enough, on the recent calamity in Mr. Jones's house: in fact, Mr. Jones found his neighbour devouring the full account of it in the Friday evening weekly newspaper, just damp from the press. A few minutes, and back went Dicky to his own parlour, his mouth full of news: the purport of which was that the lodger, Godfrey Pitman, who had been supposed to leave the house at half-past four, to take the Birmingham train, did not really quit it until some two or three hours later.

It had not been Mrs. Jones if she had refrained from telling her husband to hold his tongue for a fool; and of asking furthermore whether he had been drinking or dreaming. Upon which Dicky gave his authority for what he said. Their neighbour, Thomas Cause, had watched the lodger go away later, with his own eyes.

Mr. Cause, a quiet tradesman getting in years, was fetched in, and a skirmish ensued. He asserted that he had seen the lodger come out of the house and go up the street by lamplight, carrying his blue bag; and he persisted in the assertion, in spite of Mrs. Jones's tongue. She declared he had not seen anything of the sort; that either his spectacles or the street lights had deceived him. And neither of them would give in to the other.

Leaving matters in this unsatisfactory state, the neighbour went out again. Mrs. Jones exploded a little, and then had leisure to look at her sister, who had sat still and silent during the discussion. Still and silent she remained; but her face had turned white, and her eyes wore a wild, frightened expression.

"What on earth's the matter with you?" demanded Mrs. Jones.

"Nothing," said Miss Rye, catching hold of her work with nervous, trembling fingers. "Only I can't bear to hear it spoken of."

"If Mr. Pitman didn't go away till later, that accounts for the tallow-grease in his room," suddenly interposed Susan Marks, who, passing into the parlour, caught the thread of the matter in dispute.

Mrs. Jones turned upon her. "Tallow-grease!"

"I didn't see it till this afternoon," explained the girl. "With all the commotion there has been in the house, I never as much as opened the room-door till today since Mr. Pitman went out of it. The first thing I see was the carpet covered in drops of tallow-grease; a whole colony of them: and I know they were not there on the Monday afternoon. They be there still."

Mrs. Jones went upstairs at once, the maid following her. Sure enough the grease drops were there. Some lay on the square piece of carpet, some on the boarded floor; but all were very near together. The candlestick and candle, from which they had no doubt dropped, stood on the wash-hand-stand at Mrs. Jones's elbow, as she wrathfully gazed.

"He must have been lighting of his candle sideways," remarked the girl to her mistress; "or else have held it askew while hunting for something on the floor. If he stopped as late as old Cause says, why in course he'd need a candle."

Mrs. Jones went down again, her temper by no means improved. She did not like to be deceived or treated as though she were nobody; neither did she choose that her house should be played with. If the lodger missed his train (as she now supposed he might have done) and came back to wait for a later one, his duty was to have announced himself, and asked leave to stay. In spite, however, of the tallow and of Mr. Cause, she put but little faith in the matter. Shortly after this there came a ring at the side-door, and Mr. Butterby's voice was heard in the passage.

"Don't say anything to him about it," said Miss Rye hastily, in a low tone.

"About what?" demanded Mrs. Jones, aloud.

"About that young man's not going away as soon as we thought he did. It's nothing to Butterby."

There was no time for more. Mr. Butterby was shown in and came forward with a small present for Mrs. Jones. It was only a bunch of violets; but Mrs. Jones, in spite of her tartness, was fond of flowers, and received them graciously: calling to Susan to bring a wine-glass of water.

"I passed a chap at the top of High Street with a basketfull; he said he'd sold but two bunches all the evening, so I took a bunch," explained Mr. Butterby. "It was that gardener's man, Reed, who met with the accident and has been unfit for work since. Knowing you liked violets, Mrs. Jones, I thought I'd just call in with them."

He sat down in the chair, offered him, by the fire, putting his hat in the corner behind. Miss Rye, after saluting him, had resumed work, and sat with her face turned to the table, partially away from his view; Mrs. Jones, at the other side of the table, faced him.

"Where's Jones?" asked Mr. Butterby.

"Jones is off, as usual," replied Jones's wife. "No good to ask where he is after the shop's shut; often not before it."

It was an unlucky question, bringing back all the acrimony which the violets had partially soothed away. Mr. Butterby coughed, and began talking of recent events in a sociable, friendly manner, just as if he had been Mrs. Jones's brother, and never in his life heard of so rare an animal as a detective.

"It's an uncommon annoying thing to have had happen in your house, Mrs. Jones! As if it couldn't as well have took place in anybody else's! There's enough barristers lodging in the town at assize time, I hope. But there! luck's everything. I'd have given five shillings out of my pocket to have stopped it."

"So would I; for his sake as well as for mine," was Mrs. Jones's answer. And she seized one of the parcels of stockings and jerked off the string.

"Have you had any more dreams, Miss Rye?"

"No," replied Miss Rye, holding her stitching closer to the light for a moment. "That one was enough."

"Dreams is curious things; not to be despised," observed crafty Mr. Butterby; than whom there was not a man living despised dreams, as well as those who professed to have them, more than he. "But I've knowed so-called dreams to be nothing in the world but waking thoughts. Are you sure that one of yours was a dream, Miss Rye?"

"I would rather not talk of it, if you please," she said. "Talking cannot bring Mr. Ollivera back to life."

"What makes you persist in thinking he did not kill himself?"

Mr. Butterby had gradually edged his chair forward on the hearthrug, so as to obtain a side view of Miss Rye's face. Perhaps he was surprised, perhaps not, to see it suddenly flush, and then become deadly pale.

"Just look here, Miss Rye. If he did not do it, somebody else did. And I should like to glean a little insight as to whether or not there are grounds for that new light, if there's any to be gleaned."

"Why, what on earth! are you taking up that crotchet, Butterby?"

The interruption came from Mrs. Jones. That goes without telling, as the French say. Mr. Butterby turned to warm his hands at the blaze, speaking mildly enough to disarm an enemy.

"Not I. I should like to show your sister that her suspicions are wrong: she'll worrit herself into a skeleton, else. See here: whatever happened, and however it happened, it must have been between half-past seven and eight. You were in the place part of that half-hour, Miss Rye, and heard nobody."

"I have already said so."

"Shut up in your room at the top of the house; looking for--what was it?--a parcel?"

"A pattern--a pattern of a sleeve. But I had to open parcels, for I could not find it, and stayed searching. It had slipped between one drawer and another at the back."

"It must have took you some time," remarked Mr. Butterby, keeping his face on the genial fire and his eyes on Miss Rye.

"I suppose it did. Susan says I was upstairs a quarter of an hour, but I don't think it was so long as that. Eight o'clock struck after I got back to Mrs. Wilson's."

Mr. Butterby paused. Miss Rye resumed after a minute.

"I don't think any one could have come in legitimately without my hearing them on the stairs. My room is not at the top of the house, it is on the same floor as Mrs. Jones's; the back room immediately over the bedroom that was occupied by Mr. Ollivera. My door was open, and the drawers in which I was searching stood close to it. If any----"

"What d'ye mean by legitimate?" interrupted Mr. Butterby, turning to take a full look at the speaker.

"Openly; with the noise one usually makes in coming upstairs. But if any one crept up secretly, of course I should not have heard it. Susan persists in declaring she never lost sight of the front door at all; I don't believe her."

"Nobody does believe her," snapped Mrs. Jones, with a fling at the socks. "She confesses now that she ran in twice or thrice to look at the fires."

"Oh! she does, does she," cried Mr. Butterby. "Leaving the door open, I suppose?"

"Leaving it to take care of itself. She says she shut it; I say I know she didn't. Put it at the best, it was not fastened; and anybody might have opened it and walked in that had a mind to and robbed the house."

The visitor, sitting so unobtrusively by the fire, thought he discerned a little glimmer of possibility breaking in amidst the utter darkness.

"But, as the house was not robbed, why we must conclude nobody did come in," he observed. "As to the verdict--I don't see yet any reason for Miss Rye's disputing it. Mr. Ollivera was a favourite, I suppose."

The remark did not please Miss Rye. Her cheek flushed, her work fell, and she rose from her seat to turn on Mr. Butterby.

"The verdict was a wrong verdict. Mr. Ollivera was a good and brave and just man. Never a better went out of the world."

"If I don't believe you were in love with him!" cried Mr. Butterby.

"Perhaps I was," came the unexpected answer; but the speaker seemed to be in too much agitation to heed greatly what she said. "It would not have hurt either him or me."

Gathering her work, cotton, scissors in her hands, she went out of the room. At the same moment there arrived an influx of female visitors, come, without ceremony, to get an hour's chat with Mrs. Jones. Catching up his hat, Mr. Butterby dexterously slipped out and disappeared.

The street was tolerably empty. He took up his position at the edge of the facing pavement, and surveyed the house critically. As if he did not know all its aspects by heart! Some few yards higher up, the dwellings of Mr. Cause and the linendraper alone intervening, there was a side opening, bearing the euphonious title of Bear Entry, which led right into an obscure part of the town. By taking this, and executing a few turnings and windings, the railway station might be approached without touching on the more public streets.

"Yes," said the police agent to himself, calculating possibilities, "that's how it might have been done. Not that it was, though: I'm only putting it. A fellow might have slipped out of the door while that girl was in at her fires, cut down Bear Entry, double back again along Goose Lane, and so gain the rail."

Turning up the street with a brisk step, Mr. Butterby found himself face to face with Thomas Cause, who was standing within the shade of his side door. Exceedingly affable when it suited him to be so, he stopped to say a good evening.

"How d'ye do Cause? A fine night, isn't it?"

"Lovely weather; shall pay for it later. Has she recovered her temper yet?" continued Mr. Cause. "I saw you come out."

Which was decidedly a rather mysterious addition to the answer. Mr. Butterby naturally inquired what it might mean, and had his ears gratified with the story of Godfrey Pitman's later departure, and of Mrs. Jones's angry disbelief in it. Never had those ears listened more keenly.

"Are you sure it was the man?" he asked cautiously.

"If it wasn't him it was his ghost," said Mr. Cause. "I was standing here on the Monday night, just a step or two for'arder on the pavement, little thinking that a poor gentleman was shooting himself within a few yards of me, and saw a man come out of Jones's side door. When he was close up, I knew him in a moment for the same traveller, with the same blue bag in his hand, that I saw go in with Miss Rye on the Sunday week previous. He came out of the house cautiously, his head pushed forward first, looking up the street and down the street, and then turned out sharp, whisked past me as hard as he could walk, and went down Bear Entry. It seemed to me that he didn't care to be seen."

But that detectives' hearts are too hard for emotion, this one's might have beaten a little faster as he listened. It was so exactly what he had been fancifully tracing to himself as the imaginary course of a guilty man. Stealing out of the house down Bear Entry, and so up to the railway station!

"What time was it?"

"What time is it now?" returned Mr. Cause: and the other took out his watch.

"Five-and-thirty minutes past seven."

"Then it was as nigh the same time on Monday night, as nigh as nigh can be. I shut up my shop at the usual hour, and I'd stood here afterwards just about as long as I've stood here now. I like to take a breath of fresh air, Mr. Butterby, when the labours of the day are over."

"Fresh air's good for all of us--that can get it," said Mr. Butterby, with a sniff at the air around him. "What sort of a looking man was this Godfrey Pitman?"

"A well-grown, straight man; got a lot of black hair about his face; whiskers, and beard, and moustachios."

"Young?"

"Thirty. Perhaps not so much. In reading the account in the Herald this evening, I saw Jones's folks gave evidence that he had left at half-past four to catch the Birmingham train. I told Jones it was a mistake, and he told his wife; and didn't she fly out! As if she need have put herself in a tantrum over that! 'twas a matter of no consequence."

In common with the rest of the town, not a gleam of suspicion that the death was otherwise than the verdict pronounced it to be, had been admitted by Mr. Cause. He went on enlarging on the grievance of Mrs. Jones's attack upon him.

"She'd not hear a word: Jones fetched me in there. She told me to my face that, between spectacles and the deceitful rays of street lamps, one, come to my age, was unable to distinguish black from white, round from square. She said I must have mistaken the gentleman, Mr. Greatorex, for Godfrey Pitman or else Jones's nephew, both of them having gone out about the same time. I couldn't get in a word edgeways, I assure you Mr. Butterby, and Dicky Jones can bear me out that I couldn't. Let it go, 'tis of no moment; I don't care to quarrel with my neighbours' wives."

Mr. Butterby thought it was of a great deal of moment. He changed the conversation to something else with apparent carelessness, and then took a leisurely departure. Turning off at the top of High Street, he increased his pace, and went direct to the railway station.

The most intelligent porter employed there was a man named Hall. It was his duty to be on the platform when trains were starting and, as the detective had previous cause to know, few of those who departed by them escaped his observation. The eight o'clock train for London was on the point of departure. Mr. Butterby waited under some sheds until it had gone.

Now for Hall, thought he. As if to echo the words the first person to approach the sheds was Hall himself. In a diplomatic way, Mr. Butterby, when he had made known his presence, began putting inquiries about a matter totally foreign to the one he had come upon.

"By the way, Hall," he suddenly said, when the man thought he was done with, "there was a friend of mine went away last Monday evening, but I'm not sure by which train. I wonder if you happened to see him here? A well-grown, straight man, with black beard and whiskers--about thirty."

Hall considered, and shook his head. "I've no recollection of any one of that description, sir."

"Got a blue bag in his hand. He might have went by the five o'clock train, or later. At eight most likely; this hour, you know."

"Was he going to London, or the other way, sir?"

"Can't tell you. Try and recollect."

"Monday?--Monday?" cried Hall, endeavouring to recal what he could. "I ought to remember that night, sir, the one of the calamity in High Street; but the fact is, one day is so much like another here, it's hard to single out any in particular."

"Were you on duty last Sunday week, in the afternoon?"

"Yes, sir; it was my Sunday on."

"The man I speak of arrived by train that afternoon, then. You must have seen him."

"So I did," said the porter, suddenly. "Just the man you describe, sir; and I remember that it struck me I had seen his face somewhere before. It might have been only fancy; I had not much of a look at him; he got mixed with the other passengers, and went away quickly. I recollect the blue bag."

"Just so; all right. Now then, Hall: did you see him leave last Monday evening?"

"I never saw him, to my recollection, since the time of his arrival. Stop a bit. A blue bag? Why, it was a blue bag that--And that was Monday evening. Wait an instant, sir. I'll fetch Bill."

Leaving the detective to make the most of these detached sentences, Hall hurried off before he could be stopped. Mr. Butterby turned his face to the wall, and read the placards there.

When Hall came back he had a lad with him. And possibly it might have been well for that lad's equanimity, that he was unconscious the spare man, studying the advertisements, was the city's renowned detective, Jonas Butterby.

"Now then," said Hall, "you tell this gentleman about your getting that there ticket, Bill."

"'Twas last Monday evening," began the boy, thus enjoined, "and we was waiting to start the eight o'clock train. In that there dark corner, I comes upon a gentleman set down upon the bench; which he called to me, he did, and says, says he, 'This bag's heavy,' says he, 'and I don't care to carry it further nor I can help, nor yet to leave it,' says he, 'for it's got val'able papers in it,' says he; 'if you'll go and get my ticket for me,' says he, 'third class to Oxford,' says he, 'I'll give you sixpence,' says he: which I did, and took it to him," concluded the speaker; "and he gave me the sixpence."

"Did he leave by the train?"

"Why in course he did," was the reply. "He got into the last third class at the tail o' the train, him and his bag; which were blue, it were."

"An old gentleman, with white hair, was it?" asked Mr. Butterby, carelessly.

The boy's round eyes opened. "White hair! Why, 'twas black as ink. And his beard, too. He warn't old; he warn't."

Mr. Butterby walked home, ruminating; stirred up his fire when he arrived, lighted his candles, for he had a habit of waiting on himself, and sat down, ruminating still. Sundry notes and bits of folded paper had been delivered for him from his confrères at the police-station--if Mr. Butterby will not be offended at our classing them with him as such--but he pushed them from him, never opening one. He did not even change his coat for the elegant green-tailed habit, economically adopted for home attire, and he was rather particular in doing so in general. No: Mr. Butterby's mind was ill at ease: not in the sense, be it understood, as applied to ordinary mortals; but things were puzzling him.

To give Mr. Butterby his due, he was sufficiently keen of judgment; though he had made mistakes occasionally. Taking the surface of things only, he might have jumped to the conclusion that a certain evil deed had been committed by Godfrey Pitman; diving into them, and turning them about in his practised mind, he saw enough to cause him to doubt and hesitate.

"The man's name's as much Pitman as mine is," quoth he, as he sat looking into the fire, a hand on each knee. "He arrives here on a Sunday, accosts a stranger he meets accidentally in turning out of the station, which happened to be Alletha Rye, and gets her to accommodate him with a week's private lodgings. Thought, she says, the house she was standing at was hers: and it's likely he did. The man was afraid of being seen, was flying from pursuit, and dare not risk the publicity of an inn. Stays in the house nine days, and never stirs out all the mortal time. Makes an excuse of a cold and relaxed throat for stopping in; which was an excuse," emphatically repeated the speaker. "Takes leave on the Monday at half-past four, and goes out to catch the Birmingham train. Is seen to go out. What brought him back?"

The question was not, apparently, easy to solve, for Mr. Butterby was a long while pondering it.

"He couldn't get back into the house up through the windows or down through the chimneys; not in anyway but through the door. And the chances were that he might have been seen going in and coming out. No: don't think he went back to harm Mr. Ollivera. Rather inclined to say his announced intention of starting by the five o'clock train to Birmingham was a blind: he meant to go by the one at eight t'other way, and went back to wait for it, afeared of hanging about the station itself or loitering in the streets. It don't quite wash, neither, that; chances were he might have been seen coming back," debated Mr. Butterby.

"Wonder if he has anything to do with that little affair that has just turned up in Birmingham?" resumed the speaker, deviating to another thought. "Young man's wanted for that, George Winter: might have been this very selfsame Godfrey Pitman; and of course might not. Let's get on.

"It don't stand to reason that he'd come in any such way into a town and stop a whole week at the top of a house for the purpose of harming Mr. Ollivera. Why 'twas not till the Tuesday after Pitman was in, that the Joneses got the barrister's letter saying he was coming and would occupy his old rooms if they were vacant. No," decided Mr. Butterby; "Pitman was in trouble on his own score, and his mysterious movements had reference to that: as I'm inclined to think."

One prominent quality in Mr. Butterby was pertinacity. Let him take up an idea of his own accord, however faint, and it took a vast deal to get it out of him. An obstinate man was he in his self-conceit. Anybody who knew Mr. Butterby well, and could have seen his thoughts as in a glass, might have known he would be slow to take up the doubts against Godfrey Pitman, because he had already them up against another.

"I don't like it," he presently resumed. "Look at it in the best light, she knows something of the matter; more than she likes to be questioned about. Put the case, Jonas Butterby. Here's a sober, sensible, steady young woman, superior to half the women going, thinking only of her regular duties, nothing to conceal, open and cheerful as the day. That's how she was till this happened. And now? Goes home on the Monday night at nigh eleven o'clock (not to speak yet of what passed up to that hour), sits over the parlour-fire after other folks had went to bed, 'thinking,' as she puts it. Goes up later; can't sleep; drops asleep towards morning, and dreams that Mr. Ollivera's dead. Gets flurried at inquest (I saw it, though others mightn't); tramps to see him buried, stands on the fresh grave, and tells the public he did not commit suicide. How does she know he didn't? Come. Mrs. Jones is ten times sharper-sighted, and she has no doubt. Says, next, to her sister in confidence (and Dicky repeats it to me as a choice bit of gossip) that she's haunted by Ollivera's spirit.

"I don't like that," pursued Mr. Butterby, after a revolving pause. "When folks are haunted by dead men's spirits--leastways, fancy they are--it bodes a conscience not at rest in regard to the dead. To-night her face was pale and red by turns; her fingers shook so they had to clutch her work; she won't talk of it; she left the room to avoid me. And," continued Mr. Butterby, "she was the only one, so far as can be yet seen, that was for any length of time in the house between half-past seven and eight on Monday evening. A quarter of an hour finding a sleeve-pattern!

"I don't say it was her; I've not got as far as that yet, by a long way. I don't yet say it was not as the jury brought it in. But she was in the house for that quarter of an hour, unaccounting for her stay in accordance with any probability; and I'm inclined to think that Godfrey Pitman must have been out of it before the harm was done. Nevertheless, appearances is deceitful, deductions sometimes wrong, and while I keep a sharp eye on the lady, I shall look you up, Mr. Godfrey Pitman."

One drawback against the "looking up" was--and Mr. Butterby felt slightly conscious of it as he rose from his seat before the fire--that he had never seen Godfrey Pitman in his life; and did not know whence he came or whither he might have gone.