CHAPTER XIX IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA
The Captain of a British ship is every kind of civil authority, from magistrate and chaplain to hangman. In his capacity as coroner, Robert Ching held an enquiry in the saloon on the morning which followed the death of Willatopy. He was supported by those of his officers who were not on duty above and below deck. Marie, sore and grievously bruised from shoulder to knee, was carried in and laid at length upon a sofa. Her bones were unbroken, and though she suffered much pain, she was a very happy Marie Lambert. Madame Gilbert had passed the sponge of forgiveness over the maid's disreputable past; her one act of self-forgetting courage had blotted out the treachery in France, and the fatal amour in Tops Island. Marie had won her final reprieve.
John Clifford, broken down by days of drunkenness and by the collapse of his professional ambition, attended the inquest as the legal adviser of the slain Baron of Topsham. His spirit of the night before had faded out of him with the alcohol which stimulated it. It was a very miserable and draggled Hedge Lawyer who met for the last time his fellow voyagers in the Humming Top.
I will not trouble the reader with the whole enquiry, which was long and tedious. Ching, foreseeing scandal and legal complications when the tragic story came to be told in England, wrote down in his round, slow sailor's hand, every word that was spoken, and obtained the signatures of all present, even that of the reluctant John Clifford, to the evidence as given on oath.
No new facts were disclosed, except by Marie. She described how she had been awakened, and had felt Lord Topsham's face against hers and his dagger's point at her breast. She had tried to cry out, but his rude hand upon her mouth commanded silence. She had whispered urging him to go, and warning him that Madame, in the adjoining room, would hear.
"How did he get into your room?" asked Ching.
Marie said that he had come through Madame's cabin, crawling along the floor. He must have entered by the bathroom. The door of that room which gave upon the corridor was always bolted, had naturally always been kept bolted. Willie must have slipped in sometime when the rooms were empty, and unfastened that door. The slipping of the bolt had not been perceived. She had been afraid to cry out, even when Lord Topsham removed his hand from her mouth, for the dagger which he carried was very sharp. She had already felt its point. Yet she struggled, and whispered that Madame would hear, that Madame would interpose furiously, and that she would be a Marie Lambert doomed to a cruel death in France. Lord Topsham's breath smelled strongly of wine, and she was sure that he was half drunk. Had he been sober he would never have raised his hand against Madame Gilbert. But when Marie urged that her life would pay the toll for any further indiscretions, Willie had ground his teeth in rage.
"'It is always Madame,' he growled. 'I am tired of Madame. She stands between me and you, and she threatens you with death. Wait, Marie,' he had said. 'I will kill this Madame nuisance, and then will come back to you. I am a great English Lord, and will kill anyone who interferes with me.'"
Marie went on to say that Lord Topsham had then let her go, and turned to enter Madame's room. He held the trench dagger in his right hand. Marie was terribly frightened, but she could not lie still and let Madame be murdered in her sleep. She did not know that Madame Gilbert was already awake and watching. So, as the half-drunken savage boy approached the door of communication with Madame's room, she slipped out of bed, and followed behind him. And when he opened the door she jumped upon his back and screamed.
"He couldn't kill me then," she explained simply, "until Madame had awakened and got ready to meet him. I knew that she slept with her pistol beside her. I jumped on Lord Topsham's back to save Madame's life."