It was the great London philanthropist—by then made known and suitably reverenced—who caused the final sensation in the Coroner’s Court. Gilead had risen to account for his presence on the scene; he had described how, in the interests of his Agency, he had traced a very vilely-used young woman to the neighbourhood, with the purpose of redeeming her if possible from the shame, and saving her from the misery to which she appeared committed. And there he had hesitated and stopped. It had been unnecessary and quite useless to quote the supernatural raison d’être of his mission; but how was he going to deal with the illusion, if illusion it were, which had lured him to a pursuit otherwise unjustified? His companion on the occasion had already wavered, like the others, in his evidence: there might have been someone, he had ventured vacantly—he was not sure—the sun in his eyes, and so forth. And then even he, Gilead, had found himself unaccountably wondering if the apparition might not have been after all but a bugbear of the suicide’s own haunted conscience, hypnotically suggested to others. He answered a remark from the coroner, abstractedly looking down:—
“I believe that the young woman in question joined the deceased on the date specified—my information justifies the assumption—” and then he had glanced up, given a very palpable start, and continued mechanically, like one repeating a lesson: “I believe that he met her by appointment, that he took her to the boat, and that during the next two days she was often seen with him, in the flesh, upon the water. I believe that during the night of the third day he murdered her, and sunk her body in the deep pool under the houseboat, and that it lies there now. That is my opinion, sir—I cannot explain why—and I give it to you to act upon as you think fit.”
Exitus acta probat. Here was the sensation, and with every incitement, on the initiative of such a witness, to prosecute it to the end.
That end makes a well-known chapter in criminal history. The inquest was adjourned, the river dragged, and the body of the unfortunate girl actually found as suggested. She had been shot in the breast, lashed firmly to a heavy iron bar, and dropped overboard.
What provocation underlay the desperate horrible deed, whether it had been premeditated or committed in a moment of uncontrollable frenzy, will never be known.
Nor was it known for long, to any but himself and one other, what had inspired Gilead to that tragic statement. The explanation shall be given in his own words, as uttered, in awe and solemnity, to a young lady:—
“I had been trying to argue it out in my own mind; I had fallen into a state of odd moral confusion, when, looking up, I saw her. She stood beside the Coroner facing me, as she had stood that night in the office, and, as her lips moved without sound, I simply took from them and repeated the purport of their message. The moment I had uttered it she was gone.
“I spoke and walked for long afterwards as in a shattering, a tremendous dream. I hope and pray that such an experience can come to a man only once in his lifetime. Her spirit, have you realized, must have sprung to us—to you—for help, on the instant that his intention betrayed itself?”
“And afterwards?” whispered Vera. “That nature of hers, so persistent, so vindictive! O, wicked as he was, my whole soul shudders for him!”