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CHAPTER XIX

I was aroused at about eight o'clock in the morning by the arrival of the servants of the household whom Lauretta's mother had engaged for me, They comprised a housekeeper, who was to cook and generally superintend, and two stout wenches to do the rougher work. In such a village as Nerac these, in addition to Martin Hartog, constituted an establishment of importance.

They had been so well schooled by Lauretta's mother before commencing the active duties of their service, that when I rose I found the breakfast-table spread, and the housekeeper in attendance to receive my orders. This augured well, and I experienced a feeling of satisfaction at the prospect of the happy life before me. Like mother, like daughter. Lauretta would be not only a sweet and loving companion, but the same order and regularity would reign in our home as in the home of her childhood. I blessed the chance, if chance it was, which had led me to Nerac, and as I paced the room and thought of Lauretta, I said audibly, "Thank God!"

Breakfast over, I strolled into the grounds, and made a careful inspection of the work which Martin Hartog had performed. The conspicuous conscientiousness of his labours added to my satisfaction, and I gave expression to it. He received my approval in manly fashion, and said he would be glad if I always spoke my mind, "as I always speak mine," he added. It pleased me that he was not subservient; in all conditions of life a man owes it to himself to maintain, within proper bounds, a spirit of independence. While he was pointing out to me this and that, and urging me to make any suggestions which occurred to me, his daughter came up to us and said that a man wished to speak to me. I asked who the man was, and she replied, "The landlord of the Three Black Crows." Curious as to his purpose in making so early a call, and settling it with myself that his errand was on business, in connection, perhaps, with some wine he wished to dispose of, I told the young woman to send him to me, and presently he appeared. There was an expression of awkwardness, I thought, in his face as he stood before me, cap in hand.

"Well, landlord," I said smiling; "you wish to see me?"

"Yes, sir." And there he stopped.

"Go on," I said, wondering somewhat at his hesitation.

"Can I speak to you alone, sir?"

"Certainly. Hartog, I will see you again presently."

Martin Hartog took the hint, and left us together.

"Now, landlord," I said.

"It's about those two men, sir, you saw in my place last night."

"Those two men?" I said, pondering, and then a light broke upon me, and I thought it singular-as indeed it was-that no recollection, either of the men or the incidents in association with them should have occurred to me since my awaking. "Yes?"

"You are quite safe, sir," said the landlord, "I am glad to find."

"Quite safe, landlord; but why should you be so specially glad?"

"Nothing's happened here then, sir?"

"Nothing."

"That's what brought me round so early this morning, for one thing; I was afraid something might have happened."

"Kindly explain yourself," I said, not at all impatient, but amused rather. "What might have happened?"

"Well, sir, they might have found out, somehow or other, that you were sleeping in the house alone last night" – and here he broke off and asked, "You did sleep here alone last night?"

"Certainly I did, and a capital night's rest I had."

"Glad to hear that, sir. As I was saying, if they had found out that you were sleeping here alone, they might have taken it into their heads to trouble you."

"They might, landlord, but facts are stubborn things. They did not, evidently."

"I understand that now, sir, but I had my fears, and that's what brought me round for one thing."

"An expression you have used once before, landlord. 'For one thing.' I infer there must be another thing in your mind."

"There is, sir. You haven't heard then?"

"As yet I have heard nothing but a number of very enigmatical observations from you with respect to those men. Ah, yes, I remember; you had your doubts of them when I visited you on my road home?"

"I had sir; I told you I didn't like the looks of them, and that I was not easy in my mind about my own family, and the bit of money I had in my place to pay my rent with, and one or two other accounts."

"That is so; you are bringing the whole affair back to me. I saw the men after I left the Three Black Crows."

"You did, sir! When? Where?"

"To tell you would be to interrupt what you have come here to say. No more roundabouts, landlord. Say what you have to say right on."

"Well, sir, this is the way of it. I suspected them from the first, and you will bear witness of it before the magistrate. They were strangers in Nerac, but that is no reason why I should have refused to sell them a bottle of red wine when they asked for it. It's my trade to supply customers, and the wine was the worst I had, consequently the cheapest. I had no right to ask their business, and if they chose to answer me uncivilly, it was their affair. I wouldn't tell everybody mine on the asking. They paid for the wine, and there was an end of it. They called for another bottle, and when I brought it I did not draw the cork till I had the money for it, and as they wouldn't pay the price-not having it about 'em-the cork wasn't drawn, and the bottle went back. I had trouble to get rid of them, but they stumbled out at last, and I saw no more of them. Now, sir, you will remember that when we were speaking of them Doctor Louis's house was mentioned as a likely house for rogues to break into and rob."

"A moment," I interrupted in agitation. "Doctor Louis is safe?"

"Quite safe, sir."

"And his wife and daughter?"

"Quite safe, sir."

"Go on."

"The villains couldn't hear what we said, no more than we could hear what they were whispering about. But they had laid their plans, and tried to hatch them-worse luck for one, if not for both the scoundrels; but the other will be caught and made to pay for it. What they did between the time they left the Three Black Crows and the time they made an attempt to break into Doctor Louis's is at present a mystery. Don't be alarmed, sir; I see that my news has stirred you, but they have only done harm to themselves. No one else is a bit the worse for their roguery. Doctor Louis and his good wife and daughter slept through the night undisturbed; nothing occurred to rouse or alarm them. They got up as usual, the doctor being the first-he is known as an early riser. As it happened, it was fortunate that he was outside his house before his lady, for although we in Nerac have an idea that she is as brave as she is good, a woman, after all, is only a woman, and the sight of blood is what few of them can stand."

"The sight of blood!" I exclaimed. But that I was assured that Lauretta was safe and well, I should not have wasted a moment on the landlord, eager as I was to learn what he had come to tell. My mind, however, was quite at ease with respect to my dear girl, and the next few minutes were not so precious that I could not spare them to hear the landlord's strange story.

"That," he resumed, "is what the doctor saw when he went to the back of his house. Blood on the ground-and what is more, what would have given the ladies a greater shock, there before him was the body of a man-dead."

"What man?" I asked.

"That I can't for a certainty say, sir, because I haven't seen him as yet. I'm telling the story second-hand, as it was told to me a while ago by one who had come straight from the doctor's house. There was the blood, and there the man; and from the description I should say it was one of the men who were drinking in my place last night. It is not ascertained at what time of the night he and his mate tried to break into the doctor's house, but the attempt was made. There is the evidence of it. They commenced to bore a hole in one of the shutters at the back; the hole made, it would have been easy to enlargen it, and so to draw the fastenings. However, they did not get so far as that. They could scarcely have been at their scoundrelly work a minute or two before it came to an end."

"How and by whom were they interrupted, landlord? That, of course, is known?"

"It is not known, sir, and it's just at this point that the mystery commences. There they are at their work, and likely to be successful. A dark night, and not a watchman in the village. Never a need for one, sir. Plenty of time before them, and desperate men they. Only one man in the house, the good doctor; all the others women, easily dealt with. Robbery first-if interfered with, murder afterwards. They wouldn't have stuck at it, not they! But there it was, sir, as God willed. Not a minute at work, and something occurs. The question is, what? The man lies dead on the ground, with a gimlet in his hand, and Doctor Louis, in full sunlight, stands looking down on the strange sight."

"The man lies dead on the ground," I said, repeating the landlord's words; "but there were two."

"No sign of the other, sir; he's a vanished body. People are out searching for him."

"He will be found," I said-

"It's to be hoped," interrupted the landlord.

"And then what you call a mystery will be solved."

"It's beyond me, sir," said the landlord, with a puzzled air.

"It is easy enough. These two scoundrels, would-be murderers, plan a robbery, and proceed to execute it. They are ill-conditioned creatures, no better than savages, swayed by their passions, in which there is no show of reason. They quarrel, perhaps, about the share of the spoil which each shall take, and are not wise enough to put aside their quarrel till they are in possession of the booty. They continue their dispute, and in such savages their brutal passions once roused, swell and grow to a fitting climax of violence. So with these. Probably the disagreement commenced on their way to the house, and had reached an angry point when one began to bore a hole in the shutter. This one it was who was found dead. The proof was in his hand-the gimlet with which he was working."

"Well conceived, sir," said the landlord, following with approval my speculative explanation.

"This man's face," I continued, "would be turned toward the shutter, his back to his comrade. Into this comrade's mind darts, like a lightning flash, the idea of committing the robbery alone, and so becoming the sole possessor of the treasure."

"Good, sir, good," said the landlord, rubbing his hands.

"No sooner conceived than executed. Out comes his knife, or perhaps he has it ready in his hand, opened."

"Why opened, sir? Would it not be a fixed blade?"

"No; such men carry clasp-knives. They are safest, and never attract notice."

"You miss nothing, sir," said the landlord admiringly. "What a magistrate you would have made!"

"He plunges it into his fellow-scoundrel's back, who falls dead, with the gimlet in his hand. The murder is explained."

The landlord nodded excitedly, and continued to rub his hands; then suddenly stood quite still, with an incredulous expression on his face.

"But the robbery is not committed," he exclaimed; "the house is not broken into, and the scoundrel gets nothing for his pains."

With superior wisdom I laid a patronising hand upon his shoulder.

"The deed done," I said, "the murderer, gazing upon his dead comrade, is overcome with fear. He has been rash-he may be caught red-handed; the execution of the robbery will take time. He is not familiar with the habits of the village, and does not know it has no guardians of the night. One may stroll that way and make discovery. Fool that he was! He has not only committed murder, he has robbed himself. Better to have waited till they had possession of the treasure; but this kind of logic always comes afterwards to ill-regulated minds. Under the influence of his newly-born fears he recognises that every moment is precious; he dare not linger; he dare not carry out the scheme. Shuddering, he flies from the spot, with rage and despair in his heart. Unhappy wretch! The curse of Cain is upon him."

CHAPTER XX

The landlord, who was profuse in the expressions of his admiration at the light I had thrown upon the case, so far as it was known to us, accompanied me to the house of Doctor Louis. It was natural that I should find Lauretta and her mother in a state of agitation, and it was sweet to me to learn that it was partly caused by their anxieties for my safety. Doctor Louis was not at home, but had sent a messenger to my house to inquire after me, and to give me some brief account of the occurrences of the night. We did not meet this messenger on our way to the doctor's; he must have taken a different route from ours.

"You did wrong to leave us last night," said Lauretta's mother chidingly.

I shook my head, and answered that it was but anticipating the date of my removal by a few days, and that my presence in her house would not have altered matters.

"Everything was right at home," I said. Home! What inexpressible sweetness there was in the word! "Martin Hartog showed me to my room, and the servants you engaged came early this morning, and attended to me as though they had known my ways and tastes for years."

"You slept well?" she asked.

"A dreamless night," I replied; "but had I suspected what was going on here, I should not have been able to rest."

"I am glad you had no suspicion, Gabriel; you would have been in danger. Dreadful as it all is, it is a comfort to know that the misguided men do not belong to our village."

Her merciful heart could find no harsher term than this to apply to the monsters, and it pained her to hear me say, "One has met his deserved fate; it is a pity the other has escaped." But I could not keep back the words.

Doctor Louis had left a message for me to follow him to the office of the village magistrate, where the affair was being investigated, but previous to going thither, I went to the back of the premises to make an inspection. The village boasted of one constable, and he was now on duty, in a state of stupefaction. His orders were to allow nothing to be disturbed, but his bewilderment was such that it would have been easy for an interested person to do as he pleased in the way of alteration. A stupid lout, with as much intelligence as a vegetable. However, I saw at once that nothing had been disturbed. The shutter in which a hole had been bored was closed; there were blood stains on the stones, and I was surprised that they were so few; the gate by which the villains had effected an entrance into the garden was open; I observed some particles of sawdust on the window-ledge just below where the hole had been bored. All that had been removed was the body of the man who had been murdered by his comrade.

I put two or three questions to the constable, and he managed to answer in monosyllables, yes and no, at random. "A valuable assistant," I thought, "in unravelling a mysterious case!" And then I reproached myself for the sneer. Happy was a village like Nerac in which crime was so rare, and in which an official so stupid was sufficient for the execution of the law.

The first few stains of blood I noticed were close to the window, and the stones thereabout had been disturbed, as though by the falling of a heavy body.

"Was the man's body," I inquired of the constable, "lifted from this spot?"

He looked down vacantly and said, "Yes."

"You are sure?" I asked.

"Sure," he said after a pause, but whether the word was spoken in reply to my question, or as a question he put to himself, I could not determine.

I continued my examination of the grounds. From the open gate to the window was a distance of forty-eight yards; I stepped exactly a yard, and I counted my steps. The path from gate to window was shaped like the letter S, and was for the most part defined by tall shrubs on either side, of a height varying from six to nine feet. Through this path the villains had made their way to the window; through this path the murderer, leaving his comrade dead, had made his escape. Their operations, for their own safety's sake, must undoubtedly have been conducted while the night was still dark. Reasonable also to conclude that, being strangers in the village (although by some means they must have known beforehand that Doctor Louis's house was worth the plundering), they could not have been acquainted with the devious turns in the path from the gate to the window. Therefore they must have felt their way through, touching the shrubs with their hands, most likely breaking some of the slender stalks, until they arrived at the open space at the back of the building.

These reflections impelled me to make a careful inspection of the shrubs, and I was very soon startled by a discovery. Here and there some stalks were broken and torn away, and here and there were indisputable evidences that the shrubs had been grasped by human hands. It was not this that startled me, for it was in accordance with my own train of reasoning, but it was that there were stains of blood on the broken stalks, especially upon those which had been roughly torn from the parent tree. I seemed to see a man, with blood about him, staggering blindly through the path, snatching at the shrubs both for support and guidance, and the loose stalks falling from his hands as he went. Two men entered the grounds, only one left-that one, the murderer. The blood stains indicated a struggle. Between whom? Between the victim and the perpetrator of the deed? In that case, what became of the theory of action I had so elaborately described to the landlord of the Three Black Crows? I had imagined an instantaneous impulse of crime and its instantaneous execution. I had imagined a death as sudden as it was violent, a deed from which the murderer had escaped without the least injury to himself; and here, on both sides of me, were the clearest proofs that the man who had fled must have been grievously wounded. My ingenuity was at fault in the endeavour to bring these signs into harmony with the course of events I had invented in my interview with the landlord.

I went straight to the office of the magistrate, a small building of four rooms on the ground floor, the two in front being used as the magistrate's private room and court, the two in the rear as cells, not at all uncomfortable, for aggressors of the law. It was but rarely that they were occupied. At the door of the court I encountered Father Daniel. He was pale, and much shaken. During his lifetime no such crime had been perpetrated in the village, and his only comfort was that the actors in it were strangers. But that did not lessen his horror of the deed, and his large heart overflowed with pity both for the guilty man and the victim.

"So sudden a death!" he said, in a voice broken by tears. "No time for repentance! Thrust before the Eternal Presence weighed down by sin! I have been praying by his side for mercy, and for mercy upon his murderer. Poor sinners! poor sinners!"

I could not sympathise with his sentiments, and I told him so sternly. He made no attempt to convert me to his views, but simply said, "All men should pray that they may never be tempted."

And so he left me, and turned in the direction of his little chapel to offer up prayers for the dead and the living sinners.

Doctor Louis was with the magistrate; they had been discussing theories, and had heard from the landlord of the Three Black Crows my own ideas of the movements of the strangers on the previous night.

"In certain respects you may be right in your speculations," the magistrate said; "but on one important point you are in error."

"I have already discovered," I said, "that my theory is wrong, and not in accordance with fact; but we will speak of that presently. What is the point you refer to?"

"As to the weapon with which the murder was done," replied the magistrate, a shrewd man, whose judicial perceptions fitted him for a larger sphere of duties than he was called upon to perform in Nerac. "No knife was used."

"What, then, was the weapon?" I asked.

"A club of some sort," said the magistrate, "with which the dead man was suddenly attacked from behind."

"Has it been found?"

"No, but a search is being made for it and also for the murderer."

"On that point we are agreed. There is no shadow of doubt that the missing man is guilty."

"There can be none," said the magistrate.

"And yet," urged Doctor Louis, in a gentle tone, "to condemn a man unheard is repugnant to justice."

"There are circumstances," said the magistrate, "which point so surely to guilt that it would be inimical to justice to dispute them. By the way," he continued, addressing me, "did not the landlord of the Three Black Crows mention something to the effect that you were at his inn last night after you left Dr. Louis's house, and that you and he had a conversation respecting the strangers, who were at that time in the same room as yourselves?"

"If he did," I said, "he stated what is correct. I was there, and saw the strangers, of whom the landlord entertained suspicions which have been proved to be well founded."

"Then you will be able to identify the body, already," added the magistrate, "identified by the landlord. Confirmatory evidence strengthens a case."

"I shall be able to identify it," I said.

We went to the inner room, and I saw at a glance that it was one of the strangers who had spent the evening at the Three Black Crows, and whom I had afterwards watched and followed.

"The man who has escaped," I observed, "was hump backed."

"That tallies with the landlord's statement," said the magistrate.

"I have something to relate," I said, upon our return to the court, "of my own movements last night after I quitted the inn."

I then gave the magistrate and Doctor Louis a circumstantial account of my movements, without, however, entering into a description of my thoughts, only in so far as they affected my determination to protect the doctor and his family from evil designs.

They listened with great interest, and Doctor Louis pressed my hand. He understood and approved of the solicitude I had experienced for the safety of his household; it was a guarantee that I would watch over his daughter with love and firmness and protect her from harm.

"But you ran a great risk, Gabriel," he said affectionately.

"I did not consider that," I said.

The magistrate looked on and smiled; a father himself, he divined the undivulged ties by which I and Doctor Louis were bound.

"At what time," he asked, "do you say you left the rogues asleep in the woods?"

"It was twenty minutes to eleven," I replied, "and at eleven o'clock I reached my house, and was received by Martin Hartog's daughter. Hartog was absent, on business his daughter said, and while we were talking, and I was taking the keys from her hands, Hartog came home, and accompanied me to my bedroom."

"Were you at all disturbed in your mind for the safety of your friends in consequence of what had passed?"

"Not in the least. The men I left slumbering in the woods appeared to me to be but ordinary tramps, without any special evil intent, and I was satisfied and relieved. I could not have slept else; it is seldom that I have enjoyed a better night."

"Cunning rascals! May not their slumbers have been feigned?"

"I think not. They were in a profound sleep; I made sure of that. No, I could not have been mistaken."

"It is strange," mused Doctor Louis, "how guilt can sleep, and can forget the present and the future!"

I then entered into an account of the inspection I had made of the path from the gate to the window; it was the magistrate's opinion, from the position in which the body was found, that there had been no struggle between the two men, and here he and I were in agreement. What I now narrated materially weakened his opinion, as it had materially weakened mine, and he was greatly perplexed. He was annoyed also that the signs I had discovered, which confirmed the notion that a struggle must have taken place, had escaped the attention of his assistants. He himself had made but a cursory examination of the grounds, his presence being necessary in the court to take the evidence of witnesses, to receive reports, and to issue instructions.

"There are so many things to be considered," said Doctor Louis, "in a case like this, resting as it does at present entirely upon circumstantial evidence, that it is scarcely possible some should not be lost sight of. Often those that are omitted are of greater weight than those which are argued out laboriously and with infinite patience. Justice is blind, but the law must be Argus-eyed. You believe, Gabriel, that there must have been a struggle in my garden?"

"Such is now my belief," I replied.

"Such signs as you have brought before our notice," continued the doctor, "are to you an indication that the man who escaped must have met with severe treatment?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Therefore, that the struggle was a violent one?"

"Yes."

"And prolonged?"

"That is the feasible conclusion."

"Such a struggle could not have taken place without considerable disarrangement about the spot in which it occurred. On an even pavement you would not look for any displacement of the stones; the utmost you could hope to discover would be the scratches made by iron heels. But the path from the gate of my house to the back garden, and all the walking spaces in the garden itself, are formed of loose stones and gravel. No such struggle could take place there without conspicuous displacement of the materials of which the ground is composed. If it took place amongst the flowers, the beds would bear evidence. I observed no disorder in the flower beds. Did you?"

"No."

"Then did you observe such a disarrangement of the stones and gravel as I consider would be necessary evidence of the struggle in which you suppose these men to have been engaged?"

I was compelled to admit-but I admitted it grudgingly and reluctantly-that such a disarrangement had not come within my observation.

"That is partially destructive of your theory," pursued the doctor. "There is still something further of moment which I consider it my duty to say. You are a sound sleeper ordinarily, and last night you slept more soundly than usual. I, unfortunately, am a light sleeper, and it is really a fact that last night I slept more lightly than usual. I think, Gabriel, you were to some extent the cause of this. I am affected by changes in my domestic arrangements; during many pleasant weeks you have resided in our house, and last night was the first, for a long time past, that you slept away from us. It had an influence upon me; then, apart from your absence, I was thinking a great deal of you." (Here I observed the magistrate smile again, a fatherly benignant smile.) "As a rule I am awakened by the least noise-the dripping of water, the fall of an inconsiderable object, the mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog. Now, last night I was not disturbed, unusually wakeful as I was. The wonder is that I was not aroused by the boring of the hole in the shutter; the unfortunate wretch must have used his gimlet very softly and warily, and under any circumstances the sound produced by such a tool is of a light nature. But had any desperate struggle taken place in the garden it would have aroused me to a certainty, and I should have hastened down to ascertain the cause. Gabriel, no such struggle occurred."

"Then," said the magistrate, "how do you account for the injuries the man who escaped must have undoubtedly received?"

The words were barely uttered when we all started to our feet. There was a great scuffling outside, and cries and loud voices. The door was pushed open and half-a-dozen men rushed into the room, guarding one whose arms were bound by ropes. He was in a dreadful condition, and so weak that, without support, he could not have kept his feet. I recognised him instantly; he was the hump backed man I had seen in the Three Black Crows.

He lifted his eyes and they fell on the magistrate; from him they wandered to Doctor Louis; from him they wandered to me. I was gazing steadfastly and sternly upon him, and as his eyes met mine his head drooped to his breast and hung there, while a strong shuddering ran through him.