Whilst these events had been taking place, George Woodburn had written to Elizabeth Drury, to let her know that the mystery of her father’s end was now cleared up, and to inform her of the fate of Scammel. He also asked her for the key of her father’s desk, with permission to examine his books, to discover whether it would show the absence and amount of the money taken by Scammel from her father’s pocket. In her reply, which came by return of post, she said:—
“Thank God, that the horrible mystery of that dreadful event is at length cleared up, and that dear Mr. Woodburn is fully cleared from that most insulting, most impossible accusation. Give my kindest love and warmest congratulations to him. And that horrid Scammel! How is it that I never saw that before? That man was the scourge of the woods of the Bullockshed estate, and of other game-preserving estates round. Nobody could take him, and my father came to the conclusion that the keepers did not dare to encounter him. He, therefore, determined to accompany them, and watch with them. Many a dark wild night went he out in the woods with them. Oh, what dreadful nights of anxiety to us! The man conducted his operations with such silence and dexterity, that the game continued to decrease, and yet no trace of him could be discovered. There was no sound of discharge of guns, yet the pheasants went; no crash of hedge, or of forcing a way through bushes or underwood, yet the hares disappeared. It was clear that though they could not discover him, he saw them, for wherever they posted themselves, he was at work in a very different quarter. Did they quit that post, he was there the next night. Did they post watches in half a dozen places at once, he lay still; but as this could not be always done, he was only checked slightly; and even when this was the case, it was found that he was busy on some other property. Distance seemed nothing to him.
“At length my father, with three men, came suddenly face to face with this ogre of the night in a deep hollow of the woods, where he had been observed, by his shoe-prints, to cross from one pheasant copse to another. The villain instantly discharged his gun at my father, but fortunately missed; a rare thing with him; yet in this case owing, no doubt, to his sudden surprise. He was raising his piece again to his shoulder, when it was struck from his hands by a blow of the butt-end of the gun of one of the keepers, and then began a most terrible struggle. My father said it was like endeavouring to bind Proteus, or a Bengal tiger. Desperate and Herculean were the struggles of the man. But once down, all threw themselves upon him, and secured him, much as he must have been secured, at last, by your account. Then, they had to convey him to the hall in a cart, and all the way he uttered the most fearful oaths, and vows of vengeance against my father. He was condemned to six months’ labour on the treadmill, and could only just have come out. Poor father, how often did we wish that he would not himself meddle with such fearfully depraved men!
“I have sent off the key, wrapped in paper to make a packet of sufficient size not to be easily lost, and dispatched a man with it to the great north road, to deliver it to the guard of the mail himself; to pay him handsomely, and to say that the guard who delivers it safely at Castleborough will be also handsomely paid, as it contains what is helpful to the full discovery of the circumstances of the ——, I cannot write the word, of Mr. Drury, late of Garnside. That alone would insure its safe delivery, for the indignation is great all round this country at the deed. The packet is addressed to Mr. Heritage at the bank.”
No sooner was George Woodburn in possession of the key than he set to work. He found all Mr. Drury’s accounts in the nicest and most perfect order. His bill-book showed exactly that the three bills found in his pocket-book were all that he was in possession of. These bills had been presented by George Woodburn, soon after the perpetration of the murder, at the bank of Mr. Heritage, where they were payable, and they had been duly taken up, and credited to the account of the late Mr. Drury. The balance at the bank, which was large, agreed precisely with that in the pass-book; and on referring to the pay-book of Mr. Drury, he ascertained the time when the amount of his previous receipt at the bank had been exhausted; and that, besides the bank-notes in the pocket-book, which were of the several values of one hundred pounds, fifty pounds, and twenty pounds, he had received, at his visit to the bank, two days before, fifty pounds in one-pound notes, clearly for the payment of harvest workmen, had paid away ten pounds, and must consequently have had in his pocket—for there was only some small change in his desk—forty pounds at the time of his death. This must have been the roll of notes carried off by Scammel. The one hundred and seventy pounds found in his pocket-book appeared to have been received that very day by Mr. Drury for sale of corn, and were apparently put there to carry to the bank on the following day when the three acceptances became due. Thus was the fact made completely manifest, that the crime committed was both murder and theft. Singularly enough, on examining Scammel’s body and clothes at the inquest, twenty pounds of these one-pound bank-notes were still found upon him in a large old, oblong, iron tobacco-box, so close-fitting that they were uninjured by the water, and their numbers clearly identifying them as part of the notes paid to Mr. Drury at Heritage’s bank on his last visit there. No combination of circumstances could more perfectly determine the murder to be done by Scammel.
These particulars were duly forwarded to Miss Drury, and, by her order, the bank-notes, amounting to one hundred and seventy pounds, were paid in to the account of the late Mr. Drury, and the pass-book made up to that date. The bank-notes found on Scammel were retained by the coroner to be produced, if necessary, on the trial of Hopcraft. But another important document was found by George Woodburn in Mr. Drury’s desk—his will. By this he had left the whole of his real and personal property to his only daughter, and an annuity, payable out of it, of five hundred pounds a-year to his widow. There were, besides, several small bequests to relatives, and sixty pounds each to the two trustees, whom George, to his great surprise, found to be himself and Mr. Fairfax of Castleborough. The afflicted wife and daughter had never had the heart to inquire after the will. They knew there was one, and believed it was all right. This document was now duly executed by the trustees, and George found himself the accredited manager of Bilts’ Farm for the leaseholder, Elizabeth Drury. Immediately on receiving this authority, George Woodburn made a formal claim on the coroner for the bank-notes found on Scammel, they being by their numbers clearly identified as the late Mr. Drury’s property, and received an engagement to deliver them up to him immediately after the March assizes.
The great mystery cleared up of Mr. Drury’s death, a cloud had passed from Woodburn Grange. Mr. Woodburn lost that depressing melancholy which had hung upon him, and made him shut himself up in gloomy moodiness. Once more he could mount his horse, and range over his farm, and enjoy a chat with his workmen as in past times. Once more he could meet and salute a neighbour without thinking. “And that man can suspect me of so foul and beastly a crime as murder!” There were moments in which the very idea that it had been possible for any man who had ever known him in the least degree to believe such a thing of him, made his blood glow with indignation. But all the world now knew and acknowledged that he had been falsely accused, and thus most injuriously treated, and that gave him again the possession of equanimity and of a healthy enjoyment of life. He also reflected with emotion on the love of his own family, of the affectionate assiduity of his wife and daughters, on the tender and manly carefulness and management of George, on the decided and nobly asserted faith in him of Elizabeth Drury. He had a feeling that Mrs. Drury had not been so free from suspicion; “but she is a weak creature,” he said, “and so, no matter.” He thought proudly of the firm and generous truth of all his friends, and especially of the devoted and untiring zeal of his new son-in-law, Sir Henry Clavering. Once more he saw Thorsby, solemn and quiet, pursuing a steady life of business, and fast regaining the esteem of his townsmen. Once more he could see his little flaxen-haired, curly-headed namesake and grandson climb his knee, ride round the room on his walking-stick, and come and look up in his face with a laughing archness that made him forget his least remaining touch of sadness.
Betty Trapps was once more herself again. Betty had been dreadfully tried by the suspicion cast on her master. That anybody should dare to think of such a thing of such a man as Mr. Woodburn—to even him down to common thieves and murderers—it was little short of blasphemy! “Such men,” she said, “would spit at the sun, and showed what was in their own nasty stomachs. As for that Hopcraft, to be concerned in murdering a gentleman, and throwing the blame on a man like Mr. Woodburn, she’d have him hanged out and out.” “But,” said Sylvanus Crook one day, “Betty, if we expect mercy ourselves, we must be willing to wish mercy to others.”
“Mercy to Hopcraft!” said Betty; “a dirty grub him!—ay, as much mercy I’d give him, if I were judge and jury, as a gardener has on a snail—as a miller on a rat that charms[1] his flour-sacks, or a farmer on a mowdy-warp[2] in his best meadows—as a miser on a thief or a pickpocket, or a country squire on a fox on hunting day—as a cat on a mouse, though she plays with it awhile, as the squire does with the fox. Mercy!—ay, faith, shark’s mercy—hawk’s mercy—leech’s mercy—fire’s mercy, when it gets the mester on us—watter’s mercy, when a man’s drowning—lawyer’s mercy—creditor’s mercy—death’s mercy! Oh! I’d give him mercy enough, I warrant ye, Mester Crook.”
“But,” said Sylvanus, “thou shouldst make allowances for Nathan Hopcraft; he is but a poor, ignorant, stupid sort of creature.”