[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
"Nor peace nor ease, the heart can know,
That, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe,
But, turning, trembles too."
GREVILLE.
"Things seem to be taking a new turn," said the captain, meditatively, over his coffee the next morning. "I own I thought we were at the bottom of the mystery, yesterday, but this woman's testimony seems to set us all adrift again, and we're no nearer a conclusion than we were a week ago."
"What woman's?" asked Ellerton, who had just come in.
"The man's wife," said the captain.
"What man's?" demanded Ella, who generally arrived at a subject about ten minutes after it had been introduced.
"Why the man who was supposed to have murdered the doctor, Miss Ella, and whose body was found in the lake. We were all mightily relieved yesterday, and thought the murderer had found his reward, and were only sorry that he'd cheated the hangman. But in the meantime his wife turns up, and brings a lot of things to light; swears that on the night of the murder he was at Brandon, on an errand for the doctor, and brings the landlord and barkeeper of the 'Brandon Shades' to testify to his remaining there till after eleven o'clock. She also states that the doctor and her husband were on good terms, and that the doctor often employed him in a confidential way; that there was a person who, she knew, bore malice against the doctor; she had overheard a conversation between her husband and Dr. Hugh, in which"——
"But her testimony goes for nothing," I interrupted, eagerly. "She is well known to be half crazy, and hardly ever sober. Her testimony can't be worth a straw—nobody would listen to her for a moment."
"I don't know about that; her story hangs together, she's sober enough now, and will be kept so till they have done with her. She says that the doctor came to their shanty late the night before the murder, and called John out; she crept to the keyhole and listened. She lost a good deal of what they said for a little while, they talked so low; then John raised his voice, and said with an oath, he'd take down the villain's pride for him a bit; he wondered the doctor had stood his cursed ugliness so long; for his part, he'd put a bullet through him to-morrow, with pleasure. The doctor hushed him, and said, 'Not so fast, John, not so fast, wait awhile; we must get a little more out of him before we send him to his long account. We'll settle up old scores with pleasure, after we've no further use for him. Attend to this little errand for me to-morrow, and don't let him slip, and that'll be the first step toward a reckoning.'"
"Well, but I cannot see," said Mr. Rutledge, "what it all amounts to, even if the woman's testimony is received, which is more than doubtful. She didn't hear any names. Nobody has any doubt but that the doctor had plenty of enemies, and that her man John was a scoundrel, and I cannot see what else her evidence goes to prove."