In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 1 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

Mr. Hoskyns was somewhat scandalized. “I cannot get my client,” he explained to Tom, “to evince that interest in his trial, and the arrangements for his defence, that the importance of the occasion demands. It really almost seems as if Mr. Dering looked upon the whole business as referring, not to himself, but to some stranger in whose affairs he took only the faintest possible interest.”

“My dear Hoskyns,” said Lionel, “you pumped me dry long ago of every morsel of information that I could give you respecting this wretched business. You can get nothing more out of me, and may as well leave me in peace. Employ whom you will to defend me, if defence I need. That is your business, not mine.”

So Tom and Lionel had their game of chess, and a long talk together afterwards, and when Tom at last left the prison, it was with a promise to be there again at an early hour next morning.

Lionel Dering’s first care after his arrest was to write to Edith West, in order that she might learn the news direct from himself, and not through a newspaper or any other source.

“My darling Edith,” he wrote, “a terrible misfortune has befallen me. A gentleman, Mr. Percy Osmond by name, one of my guests at Park Newton, has been foully murdered, and I am accused of the crime. That my innocence will be made clear to the world at my trial, I do not doubt. Till that day comes I must submit, with what patience I may, to be kept closely under lock and key in this grim building from which I write. You see that I write quite calmly, and without any fear whatever as to the result. My greatest trouble in the matter is my enforced deprivation of your dear society for a little while. I will write you fuller particulars to-morrow. I am afraid that it will be necessary to fix the date of our marriage a month later than the time agreed upon, but certainly not more than a month. That of itself is very annoying. I beg that you will not fret or worry yourself on my account. This is but a little trial which will soon be over, and which, years hence, will shape itself into a seasonable story to be told round the Christmas fire.”

Lionel saw from the moment of his arrest that the evidence against him was far too strong to allow him to hope for any other issue than a commitment for trial at the assizes. And he was right. The magistrates before whom he was taken could not do otherwise than commit him for wilful murder. The jet stud found in the dead man’s hand, the saturated handkerchief, the streaks of blood on his shirt—damning proofs all, which Lionel Dering could neither explain nor extenuate—left them no other alternative.

And that, to the public at large, seemed the strangest feature of the case: Mr. Dering either could not or would not offer any explanation. If it seemed strange to the outside world that no explanation was forthcoming, how much stranger did it seem to Lionel himself, that he was utterly unable to offer any! How and by what means had those terrible evidences of guilt come there? Day and night, night and day, during his first week in prison, he kept on asking himself the same question, only to acknowledge himself utterly baffled, and as far from any satisfactory answer the last time he asked it as he was the first. All that he could say was, that he knew absolutely nothing; that his mind was an utter blank from the moment he flung himself, half stupefied, on his dressing-room sofa till the moment he woke next morning and found his handkerchief saturated with blood. Heartsick and brain-weary, he at length gave up all effort to solve a problem which, as far as he was concerned, seemed incapable of any solution; and set himself to face the inevitable with what patience and resignation he could summon to his aid. He could only trust and hope that on the day of the trial, something would turn up, some proof be forthcoming, which would exculpate him utterly, and prove once more the fallibility of even the strongest chain of circumstantial evidence. If not—but the alternative was not a pleasant one to contemplate.

As already stated, Lionel’s first act after his arrest was to write a note to Edith West. Twelve hours later, Mrs. Garside and Miss West stepped out of the train at Duxley station. The newspapers had told them that Mr. Dering’s case was in the hands of a certain Mr. Hoskyns, and the first person they accosted after leaving the station, directed them to that gentleman’s office. Fortunately, Mr. Hoskyns was at home. They told him who they were, and that their object in coming to Duxley was to see and be near Mr. Dering.

“I shall see Mr. Dering this evening,” said the lawyer. “I will tell him that you are in Duxley, and should he prove willing to see you—which I do not doubt that he will—you can accompany me to the prison at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”

Lionel was overjoyed to learn that Edith was so near him, and could not find in his heart to blame her for coming, however injudicious such a step might have seemed to many people. But even he, as yet, had conceived but a very vague idea of the infinite capabilities of a character such as hers.