Beyond These Voices

by M. E. Braddon

"I think you're all too hard upon Andrew," he said. "I find him distinctly human."

With the ladies of the household he was at once friendly and gallant. He aired his little stock of French with Ma'mselle, and took her for evening walks in Regent's Park, which to dwellers north of Langham Place is "the Park." He bought her little gifts, and took her to the theatre. He played dummy whist with Mrs. Manby, who was sadly behind the age, and could not abide bridge; and the result of all this friendly intercourse, which had kept the establishment in good spirits during a period of gloom, culminated one evening, when he told Mrs. Provana that his residence under her roof had only a negative result, and that he had exhausted all the means in his power without arriving at any clue to the murderer of her husband.

"It has been a great disappointment to me, Madam," said Mr. Japp, standing before Vera, with his hat in his hand, serious and subdued in manner and bearing. The change from the sociable and trivial Johnson to the business-like and thoughtful Japp showed a remarkable power in the assumption of character.

"It has been the most disappointing case I have been engaged in for a long time. I came into this house assured that I should put my hand upon the guilty party under this roof. Every circumstance indicated that the crime had been committed by someone inside the house. The idea of an outsider seemed incredible. That a house with such a staff of servants—with five men and an Irish terrier sleeping on the ground floor—could have been entered by a burglar seemed out of the question. Mr. Provana being known to keep large sums of money in one shape and another in the safe in his private room, and no doubt being also known to carry the keys of that safe upon his person, there was a sufficient inducement for robbery; while it is our common experience that any man bold enough to attempt robbery on a large scale is not the man to shrink from murder, when his own skin is in danger. My theory was that one of your men servants had been waiting for his opportunity during Mr. Provana's absence in America; that he had provided himself with implements for forcing the lock of the safe, perhaps with the aid of an outside accomplice, and that, by a strange coincidence, he had stumbled upon the night of his master's unexpected return, and had been surprised at the beginning of his work. There are scratches on the polished steel about the lock of the safe that might be made by one of those graduated wedges which burglars use. I thought that, being surprised by Mr. Provana's entrance, he snatched up one of the pistols from the case on the table—which he might have examined previously—and fired within narrow range, as Mr. Provana was about to open the door of your room, without having seen him; that he took the keys from Mr. Provana's pocket after he fell, unlocked the safe, and abstracted the two parcels of bonds which are missing. The disordered state of the safe, and the keys left in the lock, indicate that everything was done in extreme haste. This was my theory before I came into your house, Madam; but after nearly five weeks' careful study of every individual under this roof, I have reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that nobody in your household is in it, either as principal or accomplice, before or after the fact. I think it is in an old play that the remark has been made that 'Murder will out,' also that 'Blood will have blood.' Both remarks are perfectly correct; but there is another remark that might have been made with even greater truth, and that is 'Money will out.' You can't hide money—at least the average criminal can't. That's where he gives himself away. He can't keep his plunder to himself—the money burns—it burns—he must spend it. Some spend it on drink; some, begging your pardon, Madam—spend it on ladies; some, the weakest of the lot, spend it on clothes and hansom cabs; but spend they must. There's not one of those four young men that could keep five or six thou' in his pocket and not give himself away—somehow or somewhere. Nor yet Mr. Sedgewick, fine gentleman and philosopher as he is—nor yet even the odd man. Being a poor creature, he'd have melted those securities with the first low fence he could hear of, and would have been on the drink night after night, till he got the horrors and gave himself up to the police. I've been looking for the money, Madam, and finding no trace of that, I know I've not come within range of the party we want. We must look outside, Madam, and we may have to look a long way off. If the possessor of those bonds is an old hand, he is not likely to turn them into money anywhere in this City; for though they are bonds to bearer, a transaction of that kind must leave some trace. I feel the humiliation of my failure, Madam, and I have no doubt you are disappointed."

Vera looked up at him with melancholy eyes, pale, hollow-cheeked, a sombre figure in the severest mourning that the Maison de Deuil near the Madeleine could supply, and French mourning knows no compromise.

"Disappointed," she repeated slowly in a low, tired voice, and then, to Mr. Japp's surprise and almost horror, she said, "I don't think it much matters whether the wretched creature who killed him is discovered or not. It can make no difference to him lying at rest, beyond all pain and sorrow, that his murderer is hidden somewhere out of reach of the law, and may escape the agony of a shameful death."

The horror in her widening eyes as she said these words showed that her imagination could realise the horror of the scaffold. "However he may escape human law," she went on, in the same slow, dull tones, "he must carry his punishment with him to the grave. He can never know one peaceful hour. He can never know the comfort of dreamless sleep. He will be a haunted man."

"Excuse me for differing with you, Madam, but you don't know what stuff the criminal classes are made of. They don't mind. One more or less sent to kingdom come don't prey upon their nerves. Where are they found, as a rule, when they do get nicked? Why at a theatre or in a music-hall, or at the Derby—and generally in ladies' society. The things you read of in novels, conscience, remorse, Banquo's ghost, don't trouble them."

Mr. Japp apologised for having expressed himself so freely, and stood for a few minutes fingering the brim of his hat, waiting for Mrs. Provana to speak. Her speech just now had been a surprise to him, for never had he met with so silent a lady. Night after night she had listened hungrily to his statement of his day's progress, his suspicions, his glimpses of light, now seeming full of promise, and anon delusive. She had listened with keen attention; but she had expressed no opinion, and had asked no questions. And now for him—the accomplished Criminal Investigator, the man who had worked at the science of detection as superior persons work at the higher mathematics—to hear this lady say that the discovery of her husband's murderer did not matter, that, for her part, he might go about the world a free man, with nothing worse than a mind full of scorpions and a sleepless bed, seemed too monstrous for comprehension. She, to whom the murdered man had left millions, not to hunger for the ignominious death of his murderer!

"It must be Christian Science," thought Mr. Japp, as he packed his portmanteau. "Nothing less can account for it."