“Sir Godfrey Carmichael was murdered last night, between twelve and one o’clock. Murderer unknown. Death instantaneous. Pray come immediately.”
The third was to Matthew Dalbrook, more briefly announcing the murder.
He was going to send a fourth message to Lady Jane Carmichael, began to write her address, then thought better of it, and tore up the form.
“I’ll drive over and tell her,” he said to himself. “Poor soul, it will break her heart, let her learn it how she may. But it would be cruel to telegraph, all the same.”
Every one at Cheriton knew that Lady Jane’s affections were centred upon her only son. She had daughters, and she was very fond of them. They were both married, and had married well; but their homes lay far off, one in the Midlands, the other in the North of England, and although in each case there was a nursery full of grandchildren, neither the young married women nor the babies had ever filled Lady Jane’s heart as her son had filled it.
And now Mr. Dolby had taken upon himself to go and tell this gentle widow that the light of her life was extinguished; that the son she adored had been brutally and inexplicably murdered. It was a hard thing for any man to do; and Mr. Dolby was a warm-hearted man, with home ties of his own.
Before Mr. Dolby’s gig was half-way to Swanage, his telegram had been delivered at Dorchester, and Matthew Dalbrook and his son were starting for Cheriton with a pair of horses in the solicitor’s neat T cart, which was usually driven with one. Theodore drove, and father and son sat side by side in a dreary silence.
What could be said? The telegram told so little. They had speculated and wondered about it in brief broken sentences as they stood in the office fronting the sunny street, waiting for the carriage. They had asked each other if this ghastly thing could be; if it were not some mad metamorphose of words, some blunder of a telegraph clerk’s, rather than a horrible reality.
Murdered—a man who had been sitting at their table, full of life and spirits, in the glow of youth, and health, and happiness, less than twenty-four hours ago! Murdered—a man who had never known what it was to have an enemy, who had been popular with all classes! Had been! How awful to think of him as belonging to the past, he who yesterday looked forward to so radiant a future! And Theodore Dalbrook had envied him, as even the most generous of men must needs envy the winner in the race for love.
Could it be? Or if it were really true, how could it be? What manner of murderer? What motive for the murder? Where had it happened? On the highway—in the woody labyrinths of the Chase? And upon the mind of Theodore flashed the same idea which had suggested itself to the servants. It might be the work of a poacher whom Sir Godfrey had surprised during a late ramble. Yet a poacher must be hard bested before he resorts to murder, and Sir Godfrey—easy tempered and generous—was hardly the kind of man to take upon himself the functions of a gamekeeper, and give chase to any casual depredator. It was useless to wonder or to argue while the facts of the case were all unrevealed. It would be time to do that when they were at Cheriton. So the father and son sat in a dismal silence, save that now and again the elder man sighed, “Poor Juanita, my poor Juanita; and she was so happy yesterday.”