“Everybody knows that, my dear sir!” answered Chilford. “When Mrs. Tretheroe was Veronica Leighton—her father was Vicar of Markenmore, you know—she was a decided and incorrigible flirt, and she’d no end of young men running after her. But these two were first in the running, and I’ve always felt that it was through her, and because of her, that both of them left home as they did. She either married old Colonel Tretheroe out of pique, or for his money—money, I should say. There’s some mystery about what happened at that time—some strange mystery that’s never been made clear.”
“And now there’s another!” said Mr. Fransemmery. “And—she seems to be in it.”
“Aye!” observed the solicitor with a dry laugh. “She let things out just now. But Markenmore was with her last night. Now, where?—and how long?”
Mr. Fransemmery made no reply. He had caught sight of something, and he lifted a hand, pointing to it. The men carrying Guy Markenmore’s dead body were just emerging from the fringe of wood.
CHAPTER VI
THE CORONER SITS
Two days later, Mr. Fransemmery summoned to discharge the functions of a juror at that ancient institution, a Coroner’s inquest, found himself acting as foreman of twelve good men and true in the old dining-hall of Markenmore Court. That venerable apartment had been specially prepared and fitted up for the occasion; it was the first time, observed Braxfield mournfully, that it had ever been used since the grand state dinner which Sir Anthony had given to his friends and neighbours when Guy came of age. It was a room of vast size: baronial in appearance, and in its time there had been many gay and striking scenes in it. But never, since its first building by a dead and gone Markenmore, had it been so filled with folk of various degree as on this bright spring morning. There were jurymen and police and witnesses; there was Chilford, representing the family, and another solicitor representing Harborough; there was a London barrister in charge of the case as it presented itself to the authorities; there were officials of many sorts; there were reporters from the local Press, and two or three representatives sent specially from London newspapers. But all these were as nothing to the crowd of spectators—village folk; county family folk; folk from near and far. Already, decided Mr. Fransemmery, as he adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and looked around him, the Markenmore problem bade fair to be a cause célèbre.
Mr. Fransemmery at that moment could truly say that he and his fellow-jurymen brought open, unbiassed, and uninformed minds to that important enquiry. During the forty-eight (to be exact, fifty-two) hours which had elapsed since the discovery of Guy Markenmore’s dead body, nothing further had leaked out to the general public. Much had been going on. Police had been drafted into the usually quiet village in considerable numbers; they had been searching woods, towns, all the immediate surroundings of the crime. Blick, with two or three lesser satellites, had been pursuing enquiries all round the neighbourhood; there was scarcely a soul in a side area round Markenmore that had not been questioned for news.
But all through these investigations those who made them had preserved an unusually strict silence, and outside the police there was not a soul in the big dining-hall, now transformed into a court, who had the faintest notion of what was about to be revealed. Yet one thing was known. Mrs. Tretheroe had not been content with her denunciation of John Harborough before the brother and sister and the men assembled in the morning-room. She had denounced him again—to the Vicar; to the village folk; to other people; it was already well and widely known that she firmly believed that Harborough had killed Guy Markenmore. Naturally, therefore, she was the object of great interest as she sat near the big tables arranged in the centre of the room, attired, somewhat theatrically, in deep mourning. She was not alone; although her house-party had dispersed on the day of the tragedy, two of her friends had remained with her; one, a Mrs. Hamilton, a middle-aged woman of fashion: the other, a Baron von Eckhardstein, a handsome and well-preserved man of fifty who was said to be a great European financier. These two sat on either side of Mrs. Tretheroe; a little distance away Harborough sat, grave and imperturbable, by the side of Mr. Walkinshaw, his solicitor.