'You didn't ought to have blurted it out like that,' exclaimed Mrs. Dempson, more sympathetic than grammatical. 'Run and get a glass of water, Dempson. Don't you fuss with her,' to the father. 'I'll bring her to, and take her home, and get her to lie down a bit. She shan't go on with the rehearsal, whatever Pyecroft says.' Pyecroft was the stage manager. 'She'll be all right at night.'
Justina, after having water splashed over her poor pale face, recovered consciousness, stared with a blank awful look at her father and the rest, and then went home to her lodgings meekly, leaning on Mrs. Dempson's arm. A bleak awakening from her dream.
Yes, it was all true. The gay, light-hearted lad, the prosperous lord of Penwyn Manor, had been taken away from the fair fresh world, from the life which for his unsated spirit meant happiness. Slain by a secret assassin's hand he lay in the darkened club-room of the 'Lowgate Arms,' awaiting the inquest.
The Eborsham police were hard at work, but not alone. The case was felt to be an important one. A gentleman of property was not to be murdered with impunity. Had the victim been some agricultural labourer, slain in a drunken fray, some turnpike-man murdered for plunder, the Eborsham constabulary would have felt itself able to cope with the difficulties of the case. But this was a darker business, a crime which was likely to be heard of throughout the length and breadth of the land, and the Eborsham constable felt that the eyes of Europe were upon him. He knew that his own men were slow and blundering, and, doubtful of their power to get at the bottom of the mystery, telegraphed to Spinnersbury for a couple of skilled detectives, who came swift as an express train could carry them.
'Business is business!' said the Eborsham constable. 'Whatever reward may be offered by and by—there's a hundred already, by our own magistrates—we work together, as between man and man, and share it honourably.'
'That's understood,' replied the gentlemen from Spinnersbury, the chief centre of that northern district. And affairs being thus established on an agreeable footing, the skilled detectives went to work.
The watch and purse had been found by the local police before the arrival of these Spinnersbury men. The purse was empty, so it still remained an open question whether plunder had not been the motive. The man who took the money might have been afraid to take the watch, as a compromising bit of property likely to bring him into trouble. Higlett, one of the Spinnersbury men, went straight to the 'Waterfowl,' to hunt up the surroundings of the dead man. Smelt, his companion, remained in Eborsham, where he made a round of the low-class public-houses, with a view of discovering what doubtful characters had been hanging about the town during the last day or two. A race meeting is an occasion when doubtful characters are apt to be abundant; yet it seemed a curious thing that Mr. Penwyn, whom nobody supposed to be a winner of money, should have been waylaid on his return from the town—rather than one of those numerous gentlemen who had gone home from the Rooms that night with full pockets and wine-bemused heads.
Mr. Higlett found the 'Waterfowl' people as communicative as he could desire. They had done nothing but talk about the murder all the morning with a ghoulish gusto, and could talk of nothing else. From them Mr. Higlett heard a good deal that set his sapient mind working in what he considered a happy direction.
'Smelt may do all he can in the town,' he thought, 'I'm not sorry I came here.'
The landlady, who was dolefully loquacious, took Mr. Higlett aside, having ascertained that he was a detective officer from Spinnersbury, and informed him that there were circumstances about the case she didn't like—not that she wished to throw out anything against anybody, and it would weigh heavy on her mind if she suspected them that were innocent, still, thought was free, and she had her thoughts.