CHAPTER XXVI.
Oh, that I had the lucid arrangement of the late Lord Tenderden, or the happy illustration of Francis Jeffrey, or the _curiosa felicitas_ of George Gordon Byron, or the nervous vein of Gifford, or the elegant condensation of Lockhart, or any of the peculiar powers of any of the great men of past or future ages, to help me to make this chapter both interesting and brief; for there are several facts to state, and small space to state them in; and--what is worse than all--they are so dry and pulverized, that they are enough to give any one who meddles with them, what the Spaniard gracefully terms a "_retortijon de tripas_." As, however, they are absolutely necessary to the clear understanding of what is to follow, I will at once place them all in order together, leaving the reader to swallow them in any vehicle he may think fit.
First, then, on his visit to Mrs. Darlington, Dr. Wilton obtained no information whatever, except that the tidings he had before heard were true. Sir Sidney Delaware and his daughter, Mrs. Darlington said, had indeed left her; but they had requested, as a particular favor, that she would not even inquire whither they were going; and, as the favor was a very small one, she had granted it of course. From the house of that worthy lady, Dr. Wilton proceeded to join Mr. Egerton at Ryebury, where--according to their own request--they were met by the coroner for the county. All the traces which had been observed by Cousins were verified, and a complete plan of the scene of the murder was made under the direction of the magistrates.
A long conference took place at the same time between the two justices and the coroner, who expressed less dissatisfaction at the escape of Captain Delaware than they had expected.
"We must share the blame between us, gentlemen," he said. "You, for not having remanded him to some secure place, I, for not having sent him five-and-twenty miles that night to the county jail. Certain it is, the case was a very doubtful one, and I would fain have had the jury adjourn till the following morning. But in truth," he added, "coroners' juries, knowing that their decision is not final, and disgusted and agitated by the horrible scenes they are obliged to examine, very often return a hasty and ill-considered verdict, in spite of all the officers of the crown can do. This was, I am afraid, the case in the present instance; and I have no doubt that the young man has made his escape more from apprehension of a long and painful imprisonment--which is a severe punishment in itself--than from any consciousness of guilt."
Finding his opinion thus far favorable, the two magistrates communicated to the crown-officer all that they had discovered in regard to Harding and Smithson, and also the faint suspicion which they entertained, that Harding, at the instigation of Mr. Tims, junior, had placed the money in the chamber of Captain Delaware.
The coroner, however, shook his head. "As to Harding and Smithson," he said, "the matter is sufficiently made out to justify us in issuing warrants for their apprehension; and Harding may perhaps--from some motive we know nothing of--have placed the money as you suspect, especially as he seems to have been well acquainted with Emberton Park; but I do not believe that Mr. Tims had any thing to do with it. To suppose so, would at once lead us to the conclusion that he was an accomplice in the murder of his uncle; and his whole conduct gave the lie to that. No--no--had he even known that his uncle was dead before he came here, his whole actual behavior afterward would have been very different. He did not affect any great sorrow for his uncle, as he would have done had he been at all culpable; but, at the same time, he was evidently vindictive in the highest degree against the murderers. No--no--you are mistaken there, gentlemen! But let us issue warrants against the other two, and intrust their execution to Cousins. We shall easily be able to get at the truth in regard to Captain Delaware from one of those gentry, if we can but catch them."
While the warrants were in preparation, it was announced to the magistrates that Mr. Peter Tims himself was below, with the undertakers; and, also, that the constable of a neighboring parish had brought up a boy who had found a hat upon the sea-shore, which, it was supposed, might throw some light upon the matter before the magistrates.
Mr. Tims was accordingly directed to wait, while the boy was brought up, and the hat examined. The peculiarity of its form--a form unknown in Emberton--and of its color--a shade of that light russet-brown in which Shakspeare clothes the dawn for her morning's walk at once led Dr. Wilton to believe that it had belonged to his unfortunate friend, Henry Beauchamp. As Beauchamp, however, was not one of those men who write their names in their hats, the matter still remained in the most unpleasant state in the world--a state of doubt; and such a state being not less disagreeable to Dr. Wilton than to any one else--after catechising the boy, and discovering that nothing was to be discovered, except that the hat had been washed on shore at about five miles' distance from Ryebury, of which washing it bore ample marks--the worthy clergyman left his companions in magistracy to expedite the warrants, and returned in person to Emberton, in order to examine Mrs. Wilson, Beauchamp's late landlady, in regard to the hat, which he carried thither along with him.
As soon as Mrs. Wilson saw it, she declared that it was the identical hat that poor dear Mr. Burrel used always to wear in the morning. She had seen it, she said, full a hundred times, and knew it, because the leather in the inside was laced with a silk tag, for all the world like the bodices she could remember when she was young. Eagerly, also, did she question Dr. Wilton as to where it had been found; for it seems that Mr. Burrel had been no small favorite with the old lady; and when she was made acquainted with the facts, she wrung her hands, declaring that she was sure the poor young gentleman had gone and drowned himself for love of Miss Delaware. Now, Dr. Wilton had at his heart entertained a sort of vague suspicion that Beauchamp, notwithstanding all his strong moral and religious principles, might--in a moment of despair, and in that fancied disgust at the world, which he was somewhat too apt to pamper--do some foolish act. Perhaps I should have said that he _feared_ it might be so; and, as he would rather have believed any other thing and was very angry at himself for supposing it possible, he was, of course, still more angry at good Mrs. Wilson for so strongly confirming his apprehensions. He scolded her very heartily, therefore, for imagining what he had before imagined himself; and was just leaving her house, when he bethought him of making inquiries concerning the haunts and behavior of Mr. Burrel's valet, Harding. To his questions on this head, Mrs. Wilson--though a little indignant at the reprimand she had received--replied in the most clear and distinct manner, that Harding had never kept company with any one but Mr. Smithson, the chemist gentleman, who lodged farther up the town; that no one scarcely ever heard the sound of his voice; and that, for her part, so queer were his ways, that she should have thought that he was a conjuror, if he had not been a gentleman's servant--which two occupations she mistakenly imagined to be incompatible.
Dr. Wilton next inquired what was the size of the valet's foot, at which Mrs. Wilson looked aghast, demanding, "Lord! how should she know what was the size of the gentleman's foot? But stay," she cried the moment after, "Stay, stay, sir! Now I think of it, I can tell to a cheeseparing; for in the hurry that he went away in, he left a pair of boots behind him; and the groom, when he set off the morning after, would not take them, because he said Mr. Harding was always _jawing_ him, and meddling with his business, and some day or another he would tell him a thing or two."
Dr. Wilton demanded an immediate sight of the boots, with all the eagerness of a connoisseur, and with much satisfaction beheld a leathern foot bag, of extraordinary length, brought in by the landlady, who declared, as she entered, that "he had a very long foot after all."
The boot was immediately carried off to the inn; but as Mr. Egerton had the measurements with him at Ryebury, Dr. Wilton was obliged to wait one mortal hour and a half ere he could proceed to ascertain the correspondence of the valet's boot with the bloody mark of the murderer's foot, tormenting himself about Beauchamp in the mean while. After waiting that time, however, in fretful incertitude, as to going to the place itself, or staying his fellow-magistrate's return, Mr. Egerton appeared, the paper on which the footmarks had been traced was produced, and the boot being set down thereon, filled up one of the vacant spaces without the difference of a line.
"Now, now, we have him!" cried Dr. Wilton, rubbing his hands eagerly; "Now we have him. Beyond all question, the counsel for the crown will permit the least criminal to become king's evidence, and I doubt not, in the slightest degree, that we shall find poor William Delaware completely exculpated."
"You call to my mind, my dear friend," said Mr. Egerton, laying his hand on Di. Wilton's arm, as if to stop his transports--"you call to my mind a waggish receipt for dressing a strange dish."
"How so? how so?" demanded Dr. Wilton, with a subdued smile at the reproof of his eagerness, which he knew was coming in some shape or other. "What is your receipt, my dear sir?"
"It runs thus," answered Mr. Egerton, "_How to dress a griffin_--First, catch a griffin!--and then, dress him any way you like!"
"Well, well!" answered Dr. Wilton, "we will try to catch the griffin, my dear sir, and you shall not find me wanting in ardor to effect the preliminary step, if you will aid me to bring about the second, and let me dress my griffin when I have caught him. To say the truth," he added, relapsing into grave seriousness, "the subject is not a laughing one; and I am afraid I have suffered my personal feelings to become somewhat too keenly interested--perhaps to a degree of levity. God knows, there is little reason for us to be eager in the matter, except from a desire that, by the punishment of the guilty, the innocent should be saved; and I am willing to confess, that I entertain not the slightest doubt of the innocence of William Delaware. A crime has certainly been committed by some one; and according to all the laws of God and man, it is one which should be punished most severely. Heaven forbid, however, that I should treat such a matter with levity. All I meant to say is, that if we do succeed in apprehending the real murderers, we must endeavor to make their conviction the means of clearly exculpating the innocent."
"I hope we shall be as successful as you could wish," replied Mr. Egerton; "and I think it would give me scarcely less pleasure than it would give yourself, to hear that Captain Delaware is innocent, although I will not suffer either a previous good character, or a gallant deportment, or a handsome countenance to weigh with me, except as presumptive testimony in his favor, and as a caution to myself to be on my guard against the natural predilections of man's heart. But what have you discovered regarding the hat?"
"Confirmation, I am afraid, too strong, of my worst fears," answered Dr. Wilton; and he related how positively Mrs. Wilson had declared it to have belonged to Mr. Beauchamp. Measures for investigating this event also, were immediately taken, and information of the supposed death, by drowning, of a gentleman lately residing at Emberton, was given to all the stations on that coast. This new catastrophe, of course, furnished fresh food to the gossiping propensities of the people of the town; and the tale, improved by the rich and prolific imaginations of its inhabitants, was sent forth connected by a thousand fine and filmy links with the murder of the miser, and the disappearance of the Delaware family. It instantly appeared in all the public prints, who, to do them but justice, were far too charitable to leave it in its original nakedness. Hence it was transferred, with new scenery, dresses, and decorations, to a broad sheet of very thin paper, and distributed by a man, with a loud voice, on the consideration of one halfpenny, to wondering housemaids, and keepers of chandler's shops, under the taking title of the "Ryebury Tragedy!" and there is strong reason to believe that it was alone owing to the temporary difficulties of Mr. ----, of the ---- theater, that Captain William Delaware was not brought upon the boards, with a knife in his hand, cutting the throat of the miser, while Henry Beauchamp threw himself from the rocks into the sea, for love of the murderer's sister. That this theatrical consummation did not take place is much to be wondered at; and it is to be hoped that, when the managers are furnished with all the correct particulars, they will give the public their version of the matter on every stage from Drury Lane to the very barn at Emberton itself.
As may be easily supposed, for two country magistrates, Dr. Wilton and Mr. Egerton had now their hands tolerably full; and consequently, on separating, they agreed to meet again at Emberton in two days. In the mean time, the funeral of the murdered man took place, conducted, as Mr. Peter Tims assured every body, with that attention to economy which would have been gratifying to the deceased himself, could he have witnessed it. Nobody could doubt that the nephew had probability on his side in this respect, though the undertaker grumbled, and the mercer called him a shabby person. After the interment, Mr. Tims took possession of the premises and the papers of the deceased; but, for reasons that may be easily divined, he did not choose to stay in the dwelling that his uncle had inhabited. Passing the ensuing evening and night at the inn, he had all the papers removed thither, and continued in the examination thereof for many an hour, in a room from which even his own clerk was excluded. Those who saw him afterward, declared that his countenance was as resplendent as a new sovereign; but he selfishly kept all his joy to his own bosom; and, after spending another day in Emberton, he set off post for London, with many a bag and tin case, to take out letters of administration.