He became so excited with the wish to see the ceremony that he left part of his work undone. As he went he had to pass the open window of the dining-room, where “master” was sitting. He was running, and actually passed the window without noticing anything; but before he had got to the front door he heard a groan. He ran back, and found his master prone on the floor of the apartment, in a pool of blood. He had evidently fallen out of his armchair forwards—started up and fallen. Witness, excessively frightened, lifted him up, and placed him in the chair, and it was in so doing that his shirt-front became saturated with the sanguinary stream, which also dyed his hands. He had on a shirt-front and a black suit, in order to wait at table at the wedding-breakfast. “Master” never spoke or groaned again. So soon as he was placed in the armchair his head dropped on one side as if quite dead, and witness then ran as fast as he could to the church, and crossed the fields by a short cut which brought him to the chancel-door.
The stranger, who had crossed, the narrow “green” or lawn before the house, had entirely disappeared, and he saw nothing of him in the house. In his haste and confusion, he did not see with what the deed had been committed.
This was the substance of his evidence. Cross-examine him as they might, neither the Coroner nor the jury, nor Mr Merton, could get any further light. The witness was evidently much perturbed. There were those who thought his manner that of a guilty man—or, at least, of a man who knew more than he chose to tell. On the other hand, it might be the manner of an aged and weakly man, greatly upset in mind and body by the frightful discovery he had made. All the jury knew the relations between the witness and the deceased. Jenkins had lived in the service of the Waldrons all his life, as had his father before him, and the deceased had always exhibited the greatest interest in his welfare. He had good wages, an easy occupation, and was well cared for in every way. The most suspicious could conceive of no ground of quarrel or ill-will.
The Coroner directed the witness to remain in attendance, and the first person who had seen the deceased after the alarm was given was called.
This was Phillip Lewis, a farmer’s son (one of the stewards at World’s End Races), who being swift of foot had outstripped the others in the run from the church to The Place.
Phillip Lewis found the deceased in his armchair, with his head drooping on one side—just as the gardener Jenkins described; only this witness at once caught sight of the weapon with which the fatal blow was given. It was lying on the ground, just outside the open window, stained with blood, and was now produced by the constable who had taken charge of it. It was a small bill-hook, not so large as would be used in cutting hedges, but much the same shape.
The edge of a bill-hook, as every one knows, curves inward like a sickle, and at the end the blade forms a sharp point, or spike. It is, therefore, a fearful instrument with which to deliver a blow upon a bare head.
Phillip Lewis said that the gardener Jenkins recognised this hook as his—the one he usually employed to lop the yew trees, and other favourite trees of the deceased, and for general work in the shrubberies.
This piece of evidence made the jury look very sternly upon Jenkins. He was asked if it was his, and at once admitted it. Where had he left it last? He would not be quite sure, but he believed in the tool-house, which was close to the gate in the garden wall, which led out into the fields. He had used it that morning.
There was a distinct movement among the jury. They evidently began to suspect Jenkins.