However, as she could not, he had to act. So, after a hasty whisper with Dobbins—it was now getting late in the December night—he determined to proceed to Havre alone. Somebody had to go, for much had to be done; so much does not fall on all lawyer’s shoulders as rested on Mr Trump’s then. The dowager was accordingly left in the hands of Dobbins—who said that Doctor Jolly would probably return the next day, when he would undoubtedly take charge—and of the old woman-servant, who had described herself as being as hard-worked as “a pore nigger slave,” but who now cheerfully attended to her mistress, with whom she had lived for some twenty years, having treated with indignation the suggestion of calling in a hired nurse. “Not if I knows it,” she said, vehemently, “these hands wot ’ave worked for her twenty year will nuss her now; I should like ter know who else has any right to displace I?” So Dobbins conceded the points, at all events until Aesculapius proper should return; and he and the old woman nursed the dowager between them, and got her to bed, while Mr Trump went off on his travels. There was quite a revolution and a dark shadow in the old house, while the leafless poplars which encircled it seemed like funeral plumes, and the old house itself a hearse, in the hazy light of the dull December night.
The lawyer’s journey was a comparatively easy one in comparison with that which our old friend the doctor had taken some time before.
He travelled rapidly to Southampton by the express, which he caught at Bigton—only occasional trains stopped at Hartwood—and was in plenty of time to despatch sundry telegraphic instructions to his clerks in London before embarking in the night boat for Havre. At midnight, instead of going to his warm bed in his comfortable suburban retreat, as he usually did at that hour, Mr Trump had to pull on his nightcap between the rolls of the waves, and ensconce himself in the narrow bunk that fell to his share of the cabin in the channel-crossing steam-packet. However, Mr Trump was a man of the world besides being a man of business, and knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and make matters as comfortable as he could under unforeseen data. So there is little doubt that he went to sleep at last, in spite of the narrowness of his lodging, and just as probably, he snored harmoniously to the accompaniment of the steamboat’s paddles.
The morning found him at Havre, prepared to set about his business as methodically as if he were only going down to his chambers in Bedford Row as usual, instead of being in a strange country.
He first went to the police office, and subsequently to the address given by Miss Kingscott. Mr Trump never trusted to individual evidence. With the governess and Monsieur le Chef, he proceeded to view the remains of what had been Susan Hartshorne, and identify them. The inspection was merely a work of detail, for the face was irrecognisable, even more so now than when it had been first taken out of the water. The lawyer, to the best of his belief, thought it to be Susan. And then the corpse was buried in the cemetery with a single headstone above the grave, on which the name “Susan,” alone was inscribed, and her age.
Mr Trump had already explained his position, and stated himself to be the representative of the deceased’s family to the chief of the police, who was most cordial and polite to him on learning that he was un avocat Anglais. The chef, to the lawyer’s astonishment, spoke English fluently, just as if he were a native, and told him he knew Bedford Row as well as the Palais Royal in Paris. From him also, Mr Trump learnt a more coherent, and less one-sided story than from Miss Kingscott, although her statements were confirmed. From the evidence of the one witness, the case was evidently strong against Markworth, both the chef and the lawyer determined; but then the one witness was, on her own testimony, and from Mr Trump’s previous knowledge, strongly antagonistic to Markworth; and his legal mind compassed the probabilities of something to be said on the other side. Markworth’s disappearance was the great thing against him, for the girl might have drowned herself, and the scene which Clara Kingscott described never have taken place at all. It is true her story was somewhat corroborated, and the doctors had said, on the examination of the dead girl’s body, that death might have ensued from a jagged wound in the head which probably had been caused by a fall; but they had only said this when they had been asked their opinion on these points, and Miss Kingscott’s revelations been told them.
Altogether, Mr Trump thought it better to let the French police pursue their own course in the matter, and not interfere with them by any proceedings of his own. He also gave up to their possession all the poor girl’s things which had been left behind at the Rue Montmartre; and he had a kindly word to say to the Mère Cliquelle and her husband for their kindness and treatment towards the ill-fated Susan.
Miss Kingscott was in a rage of mortification at the lawyer’s apparent apathy; but her words had no weight with him; he had conceived a species of aversion towards her ever since her disclosure to him that night in Bedford Row; and the avowal of her purpose since, to track Markworth to the death, had not increased his regard, although it heightened his judgment on her as a “woman with a purpose.”
After an absence of three days or more, Mr Trump returned to England. His hands drew up the advertisement of Susan’s death, which he caused to be inserted in the Times. The circumstances of the mystery had not got abroad, and he did not wish to court public enquiry as yet, so he worded the announcement very simply:
At Havre, on the 27th ultimo, from an accident, Susan, wife of Allynne Markworth, and only daughter of Roger Hartshorne, Esq., of The Poplars, Sussex.