Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

Mr. Driesen did so; but not altogether sincerely. He stated broadly the fact of having gone up to Charles Tyrrell's room, and informed him that his father had been found murdered in the wood, and he dwelt much upon the surprise and horror which that young gentleman had seemed to feel, and which could not be affected. He also added that the servants had informed him, that Charles Tyrrell, on going into the room where his father's body lay, had been affected even to tears.

The servants were then recalled to prove these facts; but the coroner thought fit to question several of them in such a manner as to ascertain that there had been spots of fresh blood found upon Charles Tyrrell's shooting jacket, and that the water in which he had washed his hands after his return home, had been apparently bloody. The latter facts, as well as the fact of the door having been locked, Mr. Driesen had taken care to conceal; but it tended directly to increase the suspicions of the jury against Charles Tyrrell in a very great degree, and when the servants were again dismissed, the coroner sent at once to that young gentleman, in order to notify to him that his evidence would be required before the jury.

Charles immediately obeyed the summons, and the coroner, after a short pause, during which he seemed embarrassed by painful emotions, and feelings for the young man himself, he said: "I grieve very much, Sir Charles, to have to call you at all upon this painful business, and still more to have to caution you that there are circumstances connected with your conduct during yesterday, which may prove of such very great importance to yourself at an after period, that it will be well for you to weigh every word, and not to speak anything the tendency of which you have not fully considered."

The young gentleman merely bowed his head, and the coroner then asked him to go on, and to detail as much as he thought fit of the events which occurred to himself during the preceding day.

Charles replied at once: "Were it independent, sir, of the death of my father, that day would be, from various other events, the most painful of my life. On the morning of that day, which I had appointed for shooting, my mother explained to me the particulars of a discussion of a most unhappy kind, which had taken place between herself and my father, and which had ended in an agreement to separate for ever. Illness had prevented her previously from executing her resolution, but she deputed me to inform my father that that resolution was unchanged and to arrange with him the necessary preliminaries.

"I mention these painful facts to account for the serious dispute which ensued between my father and myself upon the subject. His conduct and his language became so violent, that feeling my own temper every moment giving way, I left him, and went out into the park. As I had intended to shoot, everything had been prepared for that purpose, and I took my gun from the hands of the servant quite unconsciously. The keepers were waiting without with the dogs, but feeling that I was in no state to enjoy such an amusement, I told them I should not want them, and walked on. I still had the gun in my hand, and kept it till I reached the door of the garden, when finding that it put me to inconvenience, I leaned it against the wall under the tool shed, and walked on, intending to take it up as I came back again. I forgot it, however, entirely, and returned to the house without it, nor thought of it more till I heard that it had been found near the dead body of my unhappy father. That father I never saw again from the time I left him in the library, at about half past eleven o'clock, till the time he was brought home a corpse. This, I believe, is all that I have to state. But any question which may be asked me I am very willing to answer, provided it affects myself alone."

"In the first place, then," asked the coroner, "will you permit me to inquire if there is any one on whom your own suspicions fix as the perpetrator of this horrid act?"

"On none," replied Charles Tyrrell, "in particular. My father informed me, and I understand, also informed Mr. Driesen, here present, that he had been threatened by some man in the wood a week or two ago, while I was still at Oxford. The particulars I never heard, but most likely Mr. Driesen, who was here at the time, can give them to you."

The coroner turned to Mr. Driesen, who was still in the room. But that gentleman replied: "I cannot, indeed, give any information of an accurate kind. Sir Francis Tyrrell returned one day in a state of very great excitement, and at dinner informed me that he had met with an old man in the wood, with whom he had quarrelled, and who had thereupon menaced him with the same fate which had befallen one of his ancestors, who had his brains knocked out. He added, that it would be some pleasure if they did murder him, to know that they would be hanged for it; but he did not add the old man's name, nor mention many of the particulars."

The coroner paused, and then again addressing Charles Tyrrell, he said: "You mean distinctly, sir, to state that you did not meet your father in the wood, nor see him at all again till after his death?"