“Self-inflicted, indeed!” echoed Lambert, “I should think not. If ever there was a young man who had cause to set store by his life it was Sir Godfrey Carmichael. It’s murder, Mr. Dolby, rank murder.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s murder,” said Dolby, with an air which implied that suicide would have been a bagatelle in comparison.
“But who can have done it, and why?” he asked after a pause.
The servants inclined to the opinion that it was the act of a poacher. Lord Cheriton had always been what they called a mark upon poachers. There was doubtless a vendetta to which the pheasant-snaring fraternity had pledged themselves, and Sir Godfrey was the victim of that vendetta; however strange it might appear that hatred of Lord Cheriton should find its expression in the murder of Lord Cheriton’s son-in-law.
“We must wait for the inquest before we can know anything,” said Dolby, when he had done all that surgery could do for that cold clay, which was to compose the lifeless form in its final rest in a spare bedroom at the end of the corridor, remote from that bridal chamber where Juanita was lying motionless in her dumb despair.
The local policeman was on the scene at seven o’clock, prowling about the house with a countenance of solemn stolidity, and asking questions which seemed to have very little direct bearing on the case, and taking measurements between the spot where the murdered man had been found, too plainly marked by the pool of blood which had soaked into the velvet pile, and imaginary points upon the terrace outside, with the doctor at his elbow to make suggestions, and as far as in him lay behaving as a skilled London detective might have behaved under the same circumstances, which conduct on his part did not prevent Mr. Dolby telegraphing to Scotland Yard as soon as the wires were at his disposal.
He was in the village post-office when the clock struck eight, and the postmistress, who had hung out a flag and decorated her shop front with garlands on the wedding day, was watching him with an awe-stricken countenance as he wrote his telegrams.
The first was to Scotland Yard:—
“Sir Godfrey Carmichael murdered late last night. Send one of your most trustworthy men to investigate.”
The second was to Lord Cheriton, Grand Hotel, Paramé St. Malo, France:—