Chapter XXVII
The inquest took place in the justice-room.
It was not deemed probable that it would be necessary to summon Lady Gascoyne as witness. The evidence of the others who had been in the room at the time when Lord Gascoyne was taken ill was considered sufficient. The statement I had already made to the coroner’s officer was quite simple. I declared that I had not noticed any signs of illness on the part of Lord Gascoyne till we reached the room where the ladies were. There had certainly been nothing to arouse anxiety before we left the table.
The depositions of myself, Mrs. Gascoyne, my wife, and Miss Lane were taken first, and they then passed on to the medical evidence.
Dr. Grange was the first to be examined. He stated that on reaching the castle he found Lord Gascoyne in such a serious state that he immediately sent for the assistance of Dr. Phillimore. The latter seemed to think that Lord Gascoyne was suffering from poisoning, an opinion which he had not at first shared. At the post-mortem, however, a sufficient amount of arsenic was found in the body to have caused death.
Dr. Phillimore’s evidence was identical, but it was easy to see that it was he who had guided Dr. Grange’s opinion.
Finally, the expert was called, and the detective glanced at me to see what effect his appearance would have. I am glad to say that I gave him no satisfaction. I do not believe that I changed colour or moved a muscle. Indeed, I believe he has had the fairness to say that he never came across a criminal who had such complete self-control, and that it seemed incredible that a criminal so self-possessed should not have found means to get rid of the claret in the decanter. He afterwards declared that he had at one time hoped to trace more than one of the Gascoyne mysteries to me, but in that he failed.
The expert corroborated the evidence of the other doctors, and then stated that he had made an examination of the food.
“I naturally selected the one thing which was most particular to Lord Gascoyne,” he said, “and I began, principally for the sake of simplicity and so as to clear the way, on the claret.”
I found myself breathing hard. It was a moment of supreme test. Many things convinced me that there was at least some suspicion attaching to me. The detective imagined that I was not looking at him, whereas I was conscious of his least movement. It is indeed a pity that what ought to be a particularly brilliant profession is left to the lower middle classes. It accounts for the comparative lack of scandal in the higher ranks of life, for a gentleman does not find it difficult to hide his crimes and vices from those reared in perhaps the most obtuse section of society.
It was also easy to see that the servant Waters had been questioned about me, for directly the bottle of claret was mentioned he cast a furtive glance in my direction.
“I found this bottle,” continued the specialist, “to be full of arsenic—so full, that it would have been impossible to drink any of the contents without succumbing to its effects. To be brief, I found no traces of arsenic in any other bottle of claret taken from the same bin or in any of the other food.”
“You are quite sure of that?”
“Yes. The claret was a brand of which there was barely a dozen left. I believe Lord Gascoyne had been heard to regret that there was so little remaining.”
After the expert’s evidence there was a pause.
Mr. Gascoyne looked terribly worried. He had evidently not imagined that the matter was likely to become so serious and complicated.
The next witness was Gorby, the butler. He deposed to having fetched the wine from the cellar. No one had access to the wine-cellar but himself. He kept the keys. He had been in the family for forty years.
In reply to the coroner, he said that he himself placed the wine on the sideboard, and that it was his duty to pour out his lordship’s first glass before withdrawing.
No one drank claret after dinner but his lordship. Mr. Rank usually drank one glass of port, sometimes he drank nothing, but certainly never more than one glass.
“And on this particular evening?”
“Mr. Rank took port, sir.”
The coroner leaned forward and put the next question impressively.
“Was it possible for the arsenic to have been put into the decanter between your placing it on the sideboard and the arrival of the company for dinner?”
“I don’t think so, sir. I was late with some of the wine, and did not leave the dining-room at all till the company arrived.”
“It was possible, however, for anyone to reach the wine while you were out of the room?” persisted the coroner.
“It was possible; but the servants were very busy.”
“How many servants were there in the room besides yourself?”
“Two.”
“You yourself poured out the claret which Lord Gascoyne drank?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you do with the decanter?”
“As usual, I placed it in front of his lordship.”
“And then you left the room?”
“Yes.”
“And the other servants also, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a pause. An unaccountable whimsicality made me think of the game which children play, and which consists in sending someone out of the room and then hiding an article which the absent one is to find on his return. I felt almost inclined to cry hot and cold to the coroner as he hovered over the evidence. Not that I felt callous as to what might be going to occur. I had enjoyed life far too much. On the other hand, I had always reckoned the cost, and had never counted my chickens before they were hatched.
Mr. Gascoyne crossed over to me in the interval, and said in an undertone:
“What does it all mean?”
“I really do not know,” I said.
“Surely they are not trying to prove that his own servants poisoned him?”
“The poison must have come from somewhere.”
“Yes; that is obvious.”
He looked at me in some surprise. I noticed his almost startled expression, and began to analyse the remark I had made. Was it what I should have said had I been guiltless? If it had been, Mr. Gascoyne would not have displayed such discomfort—a vague discomfort, true, but an evidently indefinable sensation that something was wrong. He was from that moment uneasy about me, and yet almost unconscious of any uneasiness.
The other servants were recalled, and declared that neither of them had touched the wine. It would have been such an unusual thing that the one who had done so would have been noticed by the other. The claret was in a very peculiarly shaped flagon. By no possibility of means could anyone have mistaken it for the claret which was offered during the meal.
Evidence then followed as to all the wine which was handed round during the dinner. There was champagne, said Waters, but only Mrs. Gascoyne took any. Neither Lady Gascoyne nor Mrs. Rank drank anything. Lord Gascoyne drank nothing but claret—the claret—at the end of the meal. Mr. Rank drank port at the end of the meal.
The coroner persisted. I was thankful to him. His continued examination might make one of the witnesses nervous. The sleek Waters might contradict himself. The other two servants might relapse into a hopeless confusion of ideas as to what they had done and what they had seen.
It was a delusive hope. All three adhered strictly to their statements, and finally there was another pause.
Everyone appeared to wonder what was going to happen next. I thought I could guess the direction the proceedings would take. I was not mistaken. The detective passed a piece of paper to the coroner. The latter looked at it, and an expression of surprise crossed his face.
He mentioned me by name almost with a suggestion of apology, as if he were deprecating the official side of him which insisted on a course of action repugnant to his more social and well-bred half.
I did not look at Mr. Gascoyne, but I felt him stir in his chair uneasily as I rose to my feet. I moved to the foot of the table where the witnesses had stood during their examination.
“You were left alone with Lord Gascoyne after the ladies had withdrawn?”
“That is so.”
“Can you recollect his lordship making any remark as to a curious taste in the wine?”
“No.”
“He made no remark?”
“None at all.”
The coroner paused, and then said:
“Recall Richard Waters.”
Richard Waters stepped into my place. For one moment I felt dizzy. A curious unreality seemed to surround the scene and its actors. I saw things through an ecstasy which seemed to remove me afar off. Everybody in the room bore a strange profile expression like great gaunt marionettes. After a few minutes the sensation passed, and I felt myself growing abnormally tense and keen; in fact, the acuteness of intelligence which I felt was in proportion to the recession from realities which had just possessed me. It had been an unconscious recoil, but my perception advanced with greater force because of it.
“You came into the room when Lord Gascoyne and Mr. Rank were alone, I believe, to tell his lordship that Colonel Markham wished to see him in the library?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You then returned to the dining-room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What for?”
“His lordship told me to bring him his eye-glasses, which he had left on the table.”
“What did you see?”
“Mr. Rank had the decanter of claret in his hand.”
“What did you do?”
“I thought he had mistaken the decanter of claret for port, and I took it from him and helped him to port.”
“But you say that the claret and port were in two totally different decanters. The claret was in a flagon?”
“Yes, sir.”
The port decanter and the flagon were here produced. No one could have imagined that the claret flagon held port; at least, so I thought, but it may have been my guilty conscience.
The coroner continued his examination.
“Please be very careful in your answers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When you took the flagon from Mr. Rank, where was the stopper?”
“On the table.”
“You are quite sure?”
“Quite.”
“Why are you so positive?”
“I cannot say, but I am quite sure.”
“That will do.”
The coroner looked perplexed. The jurymen gazed at him as if for inspiration. The detective made no sign.
The coroner rose and announced that the inquiry was adjourned.
I realised the grim meaning of his laconic announcement.
It was apparent to everyone that the case had assumed an ugly complexion, and that there was a so far unspoken suspicion of foul play in men’s minds. Such a suspicion was not likely to remain unexpressed very long, and it soon rose from a whisper to a crescendo of excitement. Lord Gascoyne had been murdered, so everyone said, and the London papers that came down by the evening train already had the announcement in large letters. They hinted at a mystery, and declared that sensational developments might be expected at the adjourned inquest.
Mr. Gascoyne was in a state of the greatest nervous agitation. He took every care, however, that no suspicion of the dark things which were being said should reach any of the women, and the papers were carefully kept out of their way.
Worried as he was, I do not think that he in any way anticipated the blow which was about to fall.
Edith asked me one or two questions after the inquest as to what had taken place, but it was quite evident that she had not the least suspicion of what had occurred.
Mrs. Gascoyne, on the other hand, who had lived in the world, and had been brought up in a commercial family, had her eyes fairly wide open. I could see when we met at dinner that she was very uneasy.
It was a dismal meal. Lady Gascoyne did not, of course, appear. My wife was sad and preoccupied. Mrs. Gascoyne, with, I am sure, a full premonition of impending disaster, strove to be cheerful, but to little purpose. Mr. Gascoyne hardly spoke a word. When we were left alone he drew his chair nearer to me, evidently prepared for a long conversation.
It would have been amusing, had the subject not possessed such grim significance for me, to notice how very deprecatingly the servants offered us wine.
The castle cellar itself had, of course, been placed under lock and key, and the detective seemed to have disappeared from the premises.
“Israel,” said Mr. Gascoyne seriously, “if poison was found in that bottle, someone must have put it there.”
“That seems very obvious.”
“I could have understood it had there only been a very little arsenic in the bottle, but that it should have contained the quantity it did is amazing.”
Why Mr. Gascoyne should have understood it better had there not been so much arsenic in the bottle was not very apparent, but he was in the sort of mood in which people are apt to talk nonsense.
“Have you the least suspicion as to who might have put the poison in the bottle, Israel?”
He looked at me furtively.
“They might say that it was I, sir.”
I fancy that he gave almost a sigh of relief. He would never have dared to make such a suggestion himself, and I could see that he was thankful to me for giving him an opening.
“To tell you the truth, Israel, it has struck me that in the absence of anyone else being open to suspicion they might hint at such an absurdity.”
I laughed, a highly successful laugh.
“You see, sir, in my case there is motive.”
“I am almost afraid, Israel, that people may say unpleasant things. Reading the bare evidence, they may be tempted to come to ridiculous conclusions.”
I saw that it was time to affect a serious view of the matter. I kept a close watch on my tone of voice, however, and was most careful as to the light and shade of any expressions I used.
“You don’t mean to say, sir, that you seriously think anybody would connect me with the crime?”
“Seriously, no; but I think irresponsible gossip might make things very unpleasant.”
“It certainly would be unpleasant.”
“You are my heir, Israel. Failing me, the title passes on to the branch of Lord George Gascoyne, whose heir you are through your mother.”
“Exactly, sir; as I said, in my case there is motive.” I looked a little grave, and continued slowly:
“Someone must have put the poison in the bottle.” I was deliberately allowing my gravity to increase in order to emphasise my growing apprehension.
“I notice the detective has left the house,” I said.
“Detective!” echoed Mr. Gascoyne in amazement.
“Surely, sir, you knew that there was a detective in the house?”
“My dear Israel, I knew nothing of the kind.”
He thought for a moment, and then added: “I think I ought to have been told.”
“I thought you knew, sir.”
“Are you sure it was a detective?”
“Quite sure.”
But even as I spoke I remembered that I only had my own deductions to guide me. No one had told me he was a detective. I searched swiftly in my brain for some excuse, but could think of none.
“How did you know he was a detective?”
“I heard him questioning one of the servants.”
“Which servant?”
“Waters.”
“What about?”
“I did not quite catch what he said, but it was quite easy to see what he was.”
“He may have been gathering evidence for the inquest.”
“That is what I suggest.”
“Oh! I beg your pardon.”
He was evidently a little puzzled.
The next day Lord Gascoyne was buried. It was a beautiful sunlit morning, and as we crossed the courtyard following the coffin in procession I glanced up towards the windows of Lady Gascoyne’s apartment. I could see a white hand slightly drawing apart the closed curtains. I was sorry for her, but as matters were going I was a good deal more sorry for myself.
The affair had already attained the dignity of a first-class mystery in the London press, and as the victim was a Lord the sensation was twice what it would otherwise have been.
Most of them frankly admitted that as far as they knew there was no clue. But one halfpenny daily with an enormous circulation, whose consistent unveracity seemed a matter of supreme indifference to its readers, declared that there was a clue, and stated that someone had come forward to show that Lord Gascoyne had been in the habit of purchasing arsenic, that he was a confirmed arsenic eater, and that everything he ate was impregnated with it.
It was very unpleasant to have the searchlight of the entire press turned on the case so soon. It would put Scotland Yard on its mettle, and detective forces are apt to strain matters somewhat when their credit is publicly involved.
That evening I was walking up and down the terrace smoking a cigar with no very comfortable feelings, when I caught sight of the gleam of a white dress in the shadow of the battlements some way off. I guessed at once who it was. Esther Lane was watching me.
Why was she doing so? Was it possible that some suspicion of the truth had entered her brain? It dawned on me that, creature of instinct as she was, she might have arrived at the truth by the clear light of intuition.
I went swiftly towards her.
There was no time for her to evade me, but she shrank back into the shadow as I approached her.
“Why are you watching me?” I said as gently as I could, putting out my hands nervously.
She shrank back, thrusting me from her.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”
Her voice was low, tense with a latent hysteria, which must have caused her an immense effort to control.
“Why are you watching me?” I asked again.
She looked at me silently, the terror in her eyes growing.
She began to give me a strangely uneasy feeling.
“Oh, it’s horrible, horrible,” she murmured, and then stole away, moving along the parapet like a ghost.
I was afraid of her, and of what she might do. She was evidently losing her self-control fast. That she had guessed the truth was obvious.
I went towards her rooms. They were dark. Perhaps she was still wandering on the battlements with her unquiet thoughts.
I found my wife sitting up when I returned. She had been with Lady Gascoyne.
“Such an utter loneliness, Israel. It is terrible. She seems to have lost all interest in life. I have never seen such desolation.”
People have a way of being superlative when talking of those in grief. I, too, was very sorry for Lady Gascoyne, but though she had no children, she had everything else in the world to console her.
I comforted my wife and took her in my arms, wondering curiously whether this would be the last night we should spend together, which, indeed, it turned out to be.
The next day the inquest was resumed. None of the ladies of the castle were present. Mr. Gascoyne—or Lord Gascoyne, as he was now called—looked haggard and worn, and, as I thought, avoided my eye. His manner, however, was extraordinarily kindly.
The servants were recalled and closely re-examined. They were still quite consistent.
The bottle of claret had been opened and decanted by Waters. He had placed it on the sideboard. No one else had touched it. The servants were all devoted to their master. There was not the slightest reason or motive for foul play on their part.
I noticed the detective sitting with the representatives of the county police, the chief constable himself being present. I smiled grimly as I surveyed all the materials for a very dramatic arrest.
The coroner then called me.
“After the ladies had withdrawn from the dinner-table on the evening in question you were left alone with Lord Gascoyne?”
“That is so.”
“He was called out of the room and a servant entered whilst he was away?”
“Yes.”
“Who declares that you had in your hand the claret decanter from which Lord Gascoyne had been drinking.”
“I don’t remember. The servant took the decanter from me and poured out some port.”
It was just as well I admitted this, for the servant’s statement received curious corroboration.
“That will do.”
The next two witnesses were disconcerting. They were the chemist from whom I had bought the arsenic and his assistant. I was confronted with every proof of my folly.
I shall never forget the awful grayness which came over Lord Gascoyne’s face when these witnesses gave their evidence. I noticed that when they had finished everyone avoided looking at me. They seemed afraid. The case appeared so simple that at first it also appeared incredible. Those around hardly grasped it.
The coroner asked me if I would like to explain why I had bought the arsenic.
Perhaps I made a mistake in saying that I used it as a tonic.
“Had I been in the habit of doing so?” was the next question.
“Yes, I had done so before.”
“Have you ever bought arsenic from that chemist before?”
“No.”
Here the family lawyer interposed, advising me to be very careful of my answers. I was not obliged to reply to anything which might incriminate me.
There was nothing more to be done. Towards the end of the inquest the chief constable crossed to my side, and, sitting down in quite a friendly manner, asked me to accompany him after the inquest into the next room.
The jury, evidently taking into consideration the fact that I was the next heir, that I had arsenic in my possession, that there was every motive, and that I was the only person who could have done it, returned a verdict of ‘Wilful murder’ against me. In my own eyes I stood convicted as the veriest bungler who ever danced at the end of a few yards of rope.
Lord Gascoyne was inexpressibly horrified, and there was a something in his face which I had not seen before. Was it suspicion? Perhaps he was thinking of the occasion when he learned that I was in the Lowhaven hotel at the time of his son’s death. Truly I had made some inexcusable mistakes.
If nothing succeeds like success, it is also true that nothing fails like failure.
I found it somewhat difficult to play a sentimental role which should be convincing. I felt that I ought to take a dramatic farewell of my wife. Scenes of this sort, however, were distasteful to me. I asked Lord Gascoyne to go and explain the situation to her, and when she arrived I received her with a manner which entirely forbade any outward expression of anguish. To do her justice, she was not the kind of woman who was likely to make a scene. She displayed the most perfect self-control, although I could see that she was suffering acutely. It came as a terrible blow to her. No suspicion, I am sure, of the possibility of such a thing had before entered her mind. I don’t think anybody really thought me guilty, which was, to say the least of it, peculiar, for it seemed to me as though the evidence were plain enough. From his manner the chief constable might have been driving me over to his place to stay for a day or two, and the first intimation I received of the unpleasant reality of the situation was the passing under the great gates of the county prison and the knowledge that for the future I was not free to go where I liked.