No new facts were elicited from any of the witnesses, and nothing had resulted from the elaborate search made, not only throughout Lord Cheriton’s domain, but in the neighbourhood. No suspicious prowlers had been heard of. The gipsies who had contributed to the gaiety of the wedding day had been ascertained to have left the Isle of Purbeck a fortnight before the murder, and to be delighting the larger world between Portsmouth and Havant. Nothing had been discovered; no sale of revolver or gun to any questionable purchaser at Dorchester; no indication, however slight, which might put a keen-witted detective upon the trail. Mr. Churton confessed himself completely at fault.
The jury drove to Cheriton House to view the body, and the inquest was adjourned for a fortnight, in the expectation that some discovery might be made in the interim. The funeral would take place at the usual time; there was nothing now to hinder the victim being laid in his last resting-place in the old Saxon church at Milbrook.
Bills offering a reward of £500 for any information leading to the discovery of the murderer were all over the village, and in every village and town within a radius of forty miles. The stimulus of cupidity was not wanting to sharpen the rural wit. Mr. Churton shook his head despondently when he talked over the inquest with Lord Cheriton later in the day, and owned himself “out of it.”
“I have been in many dark cases, my Lord,” he said, “and I’ve had many hard nuts to crack, but this beats ’em all. I can’t see my way to making anything of it; and unless you can furnish me with any particulars of the poor young gentleman’s past life, of an enlightening character, I don’t see much hope of getting ahead.”
“You stick to your idea of the murder being an act of revenge?”
“What other reason could there be for such a murder?”
That question seemed unanswerable, and Lord Cheriton let it pass. Matthew Dalbrook and his elder son were to dine with him that evening, in order to talk quietly and calmly over the terrible event of last week, and the bearing which it must have upon his daughter’s future life. Lady Cheriton and Lady Jane Carmichael had lived entirely on the upper floor, taking such poor apologies for meals as they could be induced to take in her ladyship’s morning-room. That closed door at the eastern end of the corridor exercised its solemn influence upon the whole house. Those mourning women never went in or out without looking that way—and again and again through the long still days they visited that chamber of death, carrying fairest blooms of stephanotis or camellia, whitest rose-buds, waxen lilies; kneeling in silent prayer beside that white bed.
During all those dismal days before the funeral Juanita lived secluded in her own room, only leaving it to go to that silent room where the white bed and the white flowers made an atmosphere of cold purity, which chilled her heart as if she too were dead. She counted the hours which remained before even this melancholy link between life and death would be broken, and when she must stretch out her hands blindly to find one whom the earth would hide from her for evermore. In the brief snatches of troubled sleep that had visited her since Friday night she had awakened with her husband’s name upon her lips, with outstretched hands that yearned for the touch of his, awakening slowly to consciousness of the horrible reality. In every dream that she had dreamed he had been with her, and in some of those dreams had appeared with a distinctness which involved the memory of her sorrow. Yes, she had thought him dead—yes, she had seen him stretched bleeding at her feet; but that had been dream and delusion. Reality was here, here in his strong voice, here in the warm grasp of his hand, here in the lying vision that was kinder than truth.
Mr. Dalbrook and his son arrived at a quarter to eight, and were received by Lord Cheriton in the library. The drawing-room was now a locked chamber, and it would be long doubtless before any one would have the courage to occupy that room. The Dalbrooks were to stay at Cheriton till after the funeral. Matthew Dalbrook had been Sir Godfrey’s solicitor, and it would be his duty to read the will.
He was also one of the trustees to Juanita’s marriage settlement, and the time had come—all too soon—when the terms of that settlement would have to be discussed.