A week of horror and anxiety, during which the customary legal processes had been gone through.
A jury had visited the Dark House and been conducted through the two rooms, to go away disappointed at not seeing the inside of the great iron safe. Then, after the evidence had been given, by the various witnesses at the inquest, including that of the two doctors who had performed the post-mortem examination, a verdict was returned which charged Charles Pillar with wilful murder, and stated that the Indian had committed justifiable homicide.
The doctors had differed, as it is proverbially said that they will, Dr Heston, the young medical man, who had been called in first, telling the jury that he was not satisfied that the blows given had caused the death, and drawing attention to the peculiar odour he had noticed. But the Coroner, an old medical man, sided with the colleague, who pooh-poohed the idea, and the verdict was given.
The coroner was a good deal exercised in his mind whether some proceedings ought not to have been taken in respect to the remains of the late Colonel, but he obtained no legal support, and the terrible murder and attempted robbery at Number 9A, Albemarle Square, with the history of the embalming, and the mysterious inner chamber, were public property for the usual nine days, when something fresh occurred, and the interest died away.
Then, once more, there was the old peace in the Dark House, where the remains of Colonel Capel lay in state in the mystery-haunted room.
The servants were very reticent, and consequently but little was heard of the proceedings in Albemarle Square. A good many loiterers had stopped to stare at the darkened windows of the great mansion; but as two coffins had been borne from the place, it was forgotten outside that another still remained. What might have been some busy-body’s business, became no one’s, and the horrible tragedy tended towards the simplification, of the dead man’s instructions.
“It is nine days now since the Colonel’s commands should have been fulfilled,” said Mr Girtle, as they were seated at lunch in the darkened dining-room—the same party, for Katrine had expressed her determination to stay in the house through all the trouble, and Lydia had offered to remain with her.
Katrine and Lydia had kept a great deal to their rooms; Mr Girtle spent most of his time in the library, busy over papers, only appearing at meal times, and, consequently, Paul Capel was thrown a great deal into the society of Gerard Artis, treating him always in the most friendly way, and declining to notice the barbs of the verbal arrows the other was fond of launching.
One of Artis’s favourite allusions was to the house his companion inherited.
“I felt horribly jealous of you at first,” he said. “Seemed such a pot of money; but with special commands to live here with a haunted room, and a mausoleum beyond it—no, thank you.”