CHAPTER VI.
RUTH POWLETT.
Lieutenant Gulston and his companion had not long to wait to learn the verdict, for in a few minutes the people began to pour out of the house, and a constable came out, and, after looking round, walked up to the lieutenant.
"Mr. Gulston," he said, "your presence will be required to-morrow at eleven o'clock at Mr. Volkes's. Captain Mervyn will be brought up there at eleven o'clock to-morrow."
"Very well," Mr. Gulston replied. "What verdict have the coroners jury found?"
"They have found Captain Mervyn guilty of wilful murder," the man replied.
The next morning the inquiry was heard before Mr. Volkes and two other magistrates, and the doctor's evidence, that of Mr. Gulston, the gardener, the cook, and the constable who found the glove, was considered sufficient. Mr. Carne was not summoned, and although Ruth Powlett's name was called, she did not answer to it, Dr. Arrowsmith explaining to the bench that she was too ill to be present. Captain Mervyn was asked if he had any questions to ask the witnesses, or any statement to make; but he simply said that he should reserve his defence, and the case was then adjourned for a week to see if any further evidence would be forthcoming, the magistrates intimating that unless some altogether new light was thrown upon the subject they should commit the prisoner for trial.
Very gravely and silently the men who composed the coroner's jury walked down to Carnesford; scarce a word was spoken on the way, and a stranger, meeting them, might have supposed, not unnaturally, that they were returning from a funeral. The news had arrived before them, having been carried down at full speed by one of the few villagers who had been present. It had at first been received with absolute incredulity. The idea that Captain Mervyn should kill Margaret Carne seemed so wild a proposition that the first person to arrive with it was wholly disbelieved, and even the confirmation of those who followed him was also doubted. People, however, moved towards the foot of the hill to meet the jury, and a small crowd had collected by the time they had come down. The jury, upon being questioned, admitted that they had found Ronald Mervyn guilty, and when the fact was grasped, a sort of awed silence fell upon their hearers.
"Why, whatever were you all thinking of?" one of the men said. "Why, you must have been downright mad. You find that Captain Mervyn was the murderer of his own cousin, and Mr. Carne your own landlord, too! I never heard tell of such a thing."
The jury, indeed, were regarded almost as culprits; even to themselves now, their verdict seemed monstrous, though at the time the evidence had appeared so strong that they had felt themselves unable to resist the coroner's expressed opinion that, upon the evidence before them, they had no course open but to return a verdict of wilful murder against Ronald Mervyn.