JOSEPH DISTIN.
Mrs. Wyllard was surprised and even horrified when, on the morning after the inquest, her husband told her that he had invited Distin, the criminal lawyer, to stay at Penmorval while he investigated the mystery of the nameless girl's death. The presence of such a man beneath her roof seemed to her like an outrage upon that happy home.
"My dear Dora, what a delightful embodiment of provincial simplicity you show yourself in this business!" said her husband laughingly. "I believe you confound the lawyer who practises in the criminal courts with the police-agent you have read about in French novels. A man of low birth and education, with nothing but his native wit to recommend him; a man whose chief talent is for disguises, and who passes his life in a false beard and eyebrows, in the company of thieves and murderers, whom it is his business to make friends with and then betray. Joe Distin is a solicitor of long standing, whose chief practice happens to be in the Old Bailey. He is a most accomplished person, and the friend of princes."
"He is your friend, Julian, so I ought not for a moment to have doubted that he is a gentleman," answered Dora sweetly, with her hand resting on her husband's shoulder. Such a lovely hand, with long tapering fingers, and dimples where other people have knuckles, like a hand in an early Italian picture. "Still, I wish with all my heart that he were going to stay at the hotel. I don't want you to be involved in this terrible business. Why should you concern yourself about it, Julian? Nothing you can do can be of use to the poor dead girl. What is it all to you? What have you to do with it?"
"My duty," answered Wyllard firmly. "As a magistrate I am bound to see that a terrible crime—if crime it be—shall not go unpunished in my district. I have no particular aptitude in unravelling mysteries. I therefore send for my old schoolfellow, who has won his reputation among the sinuous ways of crime."
"Ah, I remember. You and Mr. Distin were together at Marlborough," said Dora musingly. "That is enough to make him an interesting person in my mind."
"Yes, we were companions and rivals in the same form," answered Julian. "There were some who thought us two the sharpest lads in the school. In all our studies we were neck and neck: but in other points the difference between us was a wide one. Distin was the son of a rich London solicitor—an only son, who could draw upon an indulgent father for means to gratify every whim, who had his clothes made by a fashionable tailor, and could afford to hire a hunter whenever he got the chance of riding one. I was one of many children—the fourth son of a Warwickshire parson; so I had to reckon my cash by sixpences, and to wear my clothes till they were threadbare. Yes, there was an impassable gulf between Distin and me in those days."
"And now you must be a great deal richer than he, and you can receive him in this lovely old place."
"There will be some pride in that. Yes, Dora, Fortune was at home to me when I knocked at her door. I have been what is called a lucky man."
"And you are a happy one, I hope," murmured his wife, leaning her head upon his shoulder, as he stood before the open window, looking dreamily out at summer woods.