But no one called on Captain Johnstone—no one had a word either of certainty or surmise. The police officers, headed by intelligent men, made diligent search in the neighborhood of the pool; but nothing was found. There was no mark of any struggle; the soft, thick grass gave no sign of heavy footsteps. No weapon could be found, no trace of blood-stained fingers. It was all a mystery dark as night, without one gleam of light.
The pool had always been a favorite place with the hapless lady; and, knowing that, Sir Ronald had ordered a pretty, quaint golden chair to be placed there for her; and on the very morning when the event happened Lady Clarice Alden had taken her book and had gone to the fatal spot to enjoy the beauty of the morning, the brightness of the sun and the odor of the flowers. The book she had been reading lay on the ground, where it had evidently fallen from her hands. But there was no sign of anything wrong; the bluebells had not even been trampled under foot.
After twenty-four hours’ search the police relinquished the matter. Captain Johnstone instituted vigorous inquiries as to all the beggars and tramps who had been in the neighborhood—nothing suspicious came to light. One man, a traveling hawker, a gaunt, fierce-looking man, with a forbidding face, had been passing through Holme Woods, and the police tracked him; but when he was examined he was so evidently unconscious and ignorant of the whole matter it would have been folly to detain him.
In the stately mansion of Aldenmere a coroner’s inquest had been held. Mrs. Glynn declared that it was enough to make the family portraits turn on the wall—enough to bring the dead to life. Such a desecration as that had never occurred before. But the coroner was very grave. Such a murder, he said, was a terrible thing; the youth, beauty and position of the lady made it doubly horrible. He showed the jury how intentional the murder must have been—it was no deed done in hot haste. Whoever had crept with stealthy steps to the lady’s side, whoever had placed his hand underneath the white lace mantle which she wore, and with desperate, steady aim stabbed her to the heart, had done it purposely and had meditated over it. The jury saw that the white lace mantle must either have been raised or a hand stealthily crept beneath it, for the cut that pierced the bodice of the dress was not in the mantle.
He saw the red puncture on the white skin. One of the jury was a man who had traveled far and wide.
“It was with no English weapon this was done,” he said. “I remember a case very similar when I was staying in Sicily; a man there was killed, and there was no other wound on his body save a small red circle like this; afterward I saw the very weapon that he had been slain with.”
“What was it like?” asked the coroner eagerly.
“A long, thin, very sharp instrument, a species of Sicilian dagger. I heard that years ago ladies used to wear them suspended from the waist as a kind of ornament. I should not like to be too certain, but it seems to me this wound has been caused by the same kind of weapon.”
By the coroner’s advice the suggestion was not made public.
The verdict returned was one the public had anticipated: “Willful murder against some person or persons unknown.”