Abergavenny Chronicle

 *-o < ? F [All Rights Reserved. ] 7 ?,? ?,? ?. ?V,? T X IN SPITE OF EVIDENCE $ BY 9 LILLI AS CAMPBELL DAVIDSON 9 5 Author of "The Missing Finger," Tempted," &c. X SYNOPSIS. I Okbat.d Vakk, with a letter of introduction, goes to dine with Mr. Harcourt, He is interested in jade, of which his host tins a wonderful collection. Mr. Hareourt's daughter Celia -dines with thein, and afterwards leares to go to a dance. Vane, who has recently come back to England from abroad, is much attracted by the girl, and, watching for her to cross the hall to the door, he sees a maid hand her a note, the leading of which oeciristo ugitate her. Hehetus lier say that •he Will start for the dauce now, although the maid says the cab has come too early, While examining the valuable jade ornaments with his host Vane fancies he sees a face at the window. Later on Mr. Harcoartgoes to another part of the "bouse to fetch some documents. He dees not return, and after waiting some tiuie nwroourt goes in search of him. He finds turn m the study dead. He has been shot. A small pistol lies doee by, and Vane Fees alllO a small white object, which he ficks up from the floor before the servants come In. CHAPTER IV. I THB HANDKBBCHIBF. I It seemed to Vane an age before the bounds of arrival heralded the doctor and two police constables. The men came into the room, taking off hat and helmets. The doctor's examination waa brief. He rup from it hastily. "Dead some time," said. "Shot through the temple. That's the pistol there, policeman, eh? A neat toy, but deadly as they make them." The constable-in-chief was entering1 details heavily with a thick pencil in a fat note- book. Vane had repeated hia simple story. He was aware that all three of them eyed him with reserve. He took the doctor on one side. "Look here," he said, "r suppose I'm likely to be the person first thought of. I can see for myself that it looks rather queer. I may as well tell you the whole affair now. I was in the other room, wait- ing for Mr. Harcourt to fetch some papers about the jades ho was showing me. I'd been dining here. I waited and waited, till I thought he must have gone to sleep, and I came to look for hhimav. e I found him on the floor. That's the whole of it." His tone was natural and quiet. The doctor looked at him, and his face cleared. This did not seem like a guilty man. **It may be suicide." Vane was just about to disagree. It had struck him that the position of the pistol over by the window wasn't quite what that theory would accord with. But suddenly it 4xcurired to him that it would be better to told one's peace. The least said the soonest J mended. "Where's Miss Harcourt? Has she gone to bed? She ought to be told." From the doctor's sudden interest it might have been gathered that he too had come under the spell of Miss Hareourt's fascination. The cook spoke. She seemed the only one of the kitchen brigade capable of speaking. "If you please, 6ir, Miss Hareourt's gone out to a dance. We was to sit up for her." The doctor turned his quick glance at her. "Ah, yes! The Bridgers, I expect. It was to be a Cinderella danoo-she'U be home before midnight." Vane glanced at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece. It was nearly twenty minutes to twelve now. Silence fell on them both, And they stood waiting and listening for the wheels of a cab in the drive. It came at last, that expected sound. Both men felt their courage quail a little before it. Then with a despairing glance the young doctor walked quickly and unfalteringly out into the hall. Vane, his hewt full of pity and apprehension, stood and waited H-pe ity and the voice of the girl in startled greeting. "My father! He isn't ill, is he?" The eight of the doctor had been some kind of opa.ra,tioa. Then came a deeper murmur. Vane heard a cry—a choked cry. The next moment she was in the study—had swept past him. She was beside the still thing on She floor. The doctor, hastily following, caught her hand as she would have lifted the handkerchief. "No, no! Not now. Better not. You okall see him afterwards." She turned on him her lovely eyes, Strained and staring. "What was it? What happened? Oh, and he was all alone! If I had not left him! Tell me how it was! Was it a fit- heart? What was it?" The doctor answered with reluctance: "'No one can tell yet how it happened. He Was found here dead. He had been shot by & pistol." ?ane was standing where he could see her. He had withdrawn out of her vision. Why did his mind leap back to the glimpse he had had of her when she went off to her party? What brought that same scared look to her eyes, that fear, that dread, that shrinkage? The exact repetition of the look that had made him wonder before now arrested him. She dropped her face for a moment into her hands, and held it there. When she spoke it was in a voioe muffled by Iter fingers. "It was suicide. He took his own life." The doctor raised his eyebrows. "That will be found out later." But again ehe re- seated it, with eager insistence. "It was. It must have been. Of course it was. My poor, poor father!" I There was silence again. Presently the doctor touched her lightly on her shoulder. "You must come away now," he said verv kindly, a" if he had been speaking to a ehiid. There is nothing to be done while you stay. You must go upstairs and let the maids put you to bed. Perhaps you would like one of them to stay the night with you. Iø there any one you would like sent f or; She hesitated for a minute, looking at him from between her still shielding hands. To Vane it seemed that they were trembling greatly. Then she shook her head. "There is no one to come, she said piti- fully. "I haven't any aunts—or—or any- thing. Perhaps Mrs. Woods would come in -to-morrow." That was the doctor's mother, who kept house for him. "I think I d rather be all alone To-nignt. She got up from the carpet, helped by his quick hand, and stood swaying for a moment on her little feet, as if she were diny. Vane, watching her gravely and fntyingly from his corner, filled with a tender oonoern and compassion, thought he had never seen anything so frail, so help- I W &ever wen anytMhi i hso is breath as he two, so alone. He held his breath as he looked at her. She walked to the door led by the doctor's hand. He parted from her with tender obticitude. Vane would not come forward, would not stir or move, lest the sight of a stranger should further distress her. He kept back in the shadow. Yet he watched her all the way up the staircase, where she etumbted once or twice, and the housemaid But a compassionate arm round her. Then 3w turned and confronted the doctor. "I'm staying at the George Hotel/' he ftid. "I'll be there for some little time. I BaPpose I'll be wanted for the inquest. It's wretched affair altogether. Do you think ?M'e is any explanation ?" "He's been a little queer in hie speech of tate, Mdd the doctor Mgely. "I've noticed w '?ther. He was an odd man, you know, all r-Ound. Spending hia money and his  tboee stone idols of his. N"bOOy's lkoown hl-- very well here. Shut himself up "d didi2lt W&ut smiety. The daughter, cow t ?e. tt favou?ite everywhere. A lovely Feature! I fa.ncy it'll turn out the usual thing. Iheae audden auicidea are half the time brain-failure. Walking down to the Geor? Can I give you a lift? I came in my car. By good luck, I'd just reached liome in her when the message came for me." They went out of the house and down the drive, passing the policeman who stood «fca*oned there. As they sped down through the lamp-lit, silent streets, Vane's mind was full of the tragedy. To think that he had stood there, unconcerned, handling those carved jades, while in the next room almost—]ust across the hall there was death. Suicide or murder? He believed in his secret heart that the chances were equal. When Har- court had left him he was a sane as a man need wish to be. Why in Heavens name should he leave a room vaith a smile on his lips, go into another, find the papers he wanted, then blow his braing out? It didn't seem natural nor in reason, somehow. But murder! If that had really been a face one saw at the window! If someone had watched them from the room, then crept in to secure those valuable specimens scattered about there on chairs and tables! If Harcourt had suddenly been confronted with the thief, tried to snatch at him; if the thief had turned on him and fired! That pistol over by the window. Vane could not believe that even the rebound of its fall from an opening hand could have flung that pistol where it lay by the window. It was as if someone had dropped it in flight-boon in too great horror or haste to know of the loss of it. If he had gone in earlier! If, when he heard that sound he had taken for the crack of a whip, that dull thud that shook the floor, he had gone to see the meaning of it! Then he thought of the girl, kneeling by her dead father's, body, wailing out that he had killed himself. She must perhaps have known he had some tendency that way- have been fearful of some such thing hap- pening. Why else should she have asserted it so quickly, so earnestly-why have seemed so buirningly anxious that they should accept the truth? It puzzled him a little. Yet it made it but the more impor- tant that he should keep hidden in his own heart what no one but he in all the world knew of. "You won't come in and have a drink?" the doctor asked as they drew up at his door. The George Hotel was just round tho corner. Vane declined. "I think you'd better," urged the doctor, who would have liked a little more com- pany. "That kind of thing needs a correc- tive, when you're not used to it." It was on Vane's lips to say that he had Been violent and sudden death too often in his life to stand sickened at the sight of it. He only repeated-his thanks and his refusal, and went off to his hotel round the corner. The sleepy porter had to be rung up. The house was wrapped in slumber, Vane went oft along the winding passages of the old provincial town hotel to his bedroom. He took off his evening shoes, found his slippers, locked his door, went over to the eloctric light by the looking-glass. He felt in his pocket cautiously, and drew some- thing out. It was the thing he had found on the carpet of Hareourt's study, close by his stiffening elbow. He took it out and shook it open and laid it on his palm, and stood staring down at it gravely, wonder- ing, wondering. How on earth had it got there? Could it have fallen from Harcourt's pocket?—been on the table and got brushed down-have lain in a corner of the room and been kicked forward by one of the two men who had stood there talking He remembered the two voices he had dimly heard. They had been too low fox him to distinguish them, but he violently repelled the suggestion that they had not both been men's voices. How had this come there? He did not know, he could not guess. One thing alone he was sure of: It had some perfectly inno- cent explanation. Of course it had. Never for a moment did he imagine anything else. He had only caught it up and hidden it to keep stupid fools from misconstruing its pre.sence. He looked at it again; for the thing that lay en his open palm, fine and sott and faintly scented, was a woman's little lace-bordered handkerchief-and he had seen it that very night in the hand of Celia Harcourt, as she sat at the head of her father's dinner-table. CHAPTER V. I THE INQUBST, I There was no mistaking it. He had noticed the dainty scra-p as she sat and twisted it between her fingers, waiting for the third course to come in, listening while her father held Vane in talk about foreign countries. He had followed with a covert eye her graceful movements. There had been a little rent in the lace edging where it joined the cambric. He had noticed that. too, so close was his attention to her, even while he had not seemed to look. This little handkerchief held the same rent. There in the corner, where two tiny initials were embroidered. "C. H." There the little let- ters stood. If they had risen and cried aloud to him with screaming tongues they could not hava spoken plainer. The same handkerchief he had seen in her hands at dinner. How had it come there- in that room by the dead man's elbow He could almost have sworn the study held no such thing when he and Harcourt had stood talking there. How had it come there? Where did it come from? Whatever the truth was, however the handkerchief had come there in Hareourt's study, he had been right in his instinct of hiding it-bringing it away with him. It would be only painful to Miss Harcourt to have it dragged before a coroner's jury, dis- cussed, speculated on. And there were people in this world who never accepted the simple, evident solution of a matter. They would want to knew why the handkerchief was there, how Miss Harcourt was con- cerned in the affair—if her father had killed himself because he and she didn't agree; some idiotic folly of that sort. It was best, kindest, to say nothing about the little womanly trifle, to bold one's tongue, as it might be best to hold one's tongue about the face at the window. Vane was quick of wit. A life such as his quickens wit in any man. He saw that there was already a somewhat grave case for himself in that evening's tragedy-the lonely house, the two men, lie, a stranger, come from no one in the town knew where. Any trifle might turn against himself the tide of groping suspicion. How was he to prove, when one came to think of it, that he had no part in the slaying of Harcourt? It was all very well to stand up before a coroner's jury and tell one's straightfor- ward story—say just how the thing had happened. It was another thing to get them to believe one. If he began wandering from the main issue, began hinting at mysterious half-seen faces at the window, what would that look like but the attempt of the guilty man to divert suspicion from himself? A clumsy device enough, everyone would call it, and everyone would be right. No, no; he could not be sure, even now, that the face had been anything but a figment of his fancy. It would be best to say nothing about it, only to answer questions that were asked one. So, with his mind made up to that con- clusion, he got into bed, but sleep evaded him. He lay and tossed till nearly morn- ing. Of course he was called to the inquest. That was inevitable. He stood up before the solemn-faced men in the room and told them in exact words what had happened. They had been in the study, looking at the jades. Then Mr. Harcourt had told him of other specimens it the drawing-room, and they had gone there to inspect them. The servants had already spoken 88 to find- ing the cabinets open, and the stones out. The maid who had brought the coffee into the study had seen her master opening the eases and showing the visitor the stones. Then, by and by. Mr. Harcourt had spoken of some papers bearing on the jade carvings, and had suggested going to find them in the study. He expressly declined. when he himself offered to go with him? Yes, that wao so, certainly. He asked him -Vane-to stay there for a short time, and he would come back. A little while after he had left the room, he couldn't exactly say how long, he thought he heard voices speak- ing somewhere, not quite near. No, he couldn't hear what they were saying. He fancied it might be irom ttte servants nan, or the road outside. The house was so still. Then there was a faint sound, as if some- one had cracked a whip. Of course he now knew it must have been the report of the toy pistol. He hadn't felt any apprehension when he heard it? Certainly not. Why should he? He took it for some quite ordi- nary natural sound. One would never have expected a pistol shot in a quiet English household. There was a sound, too, which he now felt sure must have been the fall of Mr. Harcourt to the ground. After that he waited for a long time. When he realised how long it was since Mr. Harcourt left the room, and how late it was getting, he fancied his host had forgotten all about him. Mr. Harcourt had more than once that evening complained of failing memory. He left the room, and crossed the hall to say good-night and take his leave. When he opened the study door he at first thought the place was empty. No one was visible. Then as he came round the table he saw a coat- sleeve on the floor, and knew there was something wrong. He had rung the bell in- stantly for the servants, and sent them for the doctor and the police. He had noticed the pistol by the window? Oh, yes; but he had kept the servants from meddling with it till the police came. There was never a clearer story, more simply told. The jury, some of whom had some doubts about him beforehand, looked at each other. There was no making any suspicious circumstance out of his narra- tive. Then came the doctor. He deposed briefly as to the cause of death. The bullet had entered the brain. Could it have been self-inflicted? Certainly; nothing more easy. Just the kind of shot a man mostly took at himself when he meant it to be deadly. In his opinion, could a man who had mortally injured himself fling the pistol over to the distance where it was found? Oh, yes, easily. Even if he had dropped it, it might have rebounded as far. The jury retired. They returned their verdict of "Suicide through temporary in- sanity." They expressed sympathy with the deceased gentleman's daughter, and filed out from their gruesome task, feeling they had acquitted themselves respectably. The funeral was two days after. Vane, still lingering in the town, met the young doctor the day before in the market place. The doctor stopped his car, sprang out, ran across to speak to him. "I say, you're here still? That's right. Glad of it. Are you going to be at the funeral to-morrow? I've wanted to ask you." "Why, no." Vane was slightly taken aback. "I hadn't thought of it. I'm not any sort of relation, you see, and not even a friend-a mere casual acquaintance." The doctor laid his hand on the other's arm firmly. "Come along, there's a good chap," he said. "I'll give you a lift in the car, if you'll come. You see, I'm supposed to go, and it's rather a beastly business, if one hasn't any company. I'd send the car alone if it was anybody else-but poor Miss Har- court. She won't have many to back her up as it is. It's a shame to leave her all alone to face it." "Oh, of course, if it's like that, I'll come," said Vane. He hesitated. "Have you seen her? How is she? Is there anybody with her "Not a soul except my mother. She's foing to the cemetery with her to-morrow. &bOe'e the sort they make angels of, my dear old mater. But I haven't eeen her. I bear she's pretty well, and' keeping up. I-I called to leave a wreath there," CHAPTER VL I THE FUNERAL. I A wreath! Vane hadn't thought of such a thing. He yielded to the doctor's en- treaties, and promised him support for to- morrow. Then he made his way to the chief florist in the place. He remembered she affected the scent of violets. They must be favourite flowers of hers. then. Violets were not in yet, not out-door grown. It was too early. But there were forced ones. Vane ordered a great bunch, tied with a silver ribbon, and left his card to be sent with them. It was a raw, chill day. All the glory and flow of September seemed to have departed. Vane, in the doctor's trim landau, arrived at the cemetery, where everything looked sodden, depressed, dripping. He waited for the sad little procession, the coffin borne aloft, with wreaths and crosses on it. Be- hind came a slight figure in deep mourning, the gentle head bent. She was carrying a great bunch of violets, and Vane felt his neart thrill suddenly to recognise his gift. How she was honouring it! Beside her walked an elderly woman with grey hair and a kindly face. A stout middle- aged man came behind, so evidently un- moved by more than decorous gravity, that Vane at once gave him his proper place as the lawyer. They went into the little chapel, passed cut again when the solemn, beautiful .?"t words had been said, the psalm chanted. They stood at the grave's edge. The short service was over. The voice of the clergy- man stopped. The book shut. There was an instant's silence and pause. Then Celia Har- court stepped forward, looked down into the grave for a moment, let the violets from her hand fall and scatter over the coffin. She turned away with her kind companion, but Vane had seen her face, as she stood looking down into the deep cavity. It struck him as he looked with a curious surprise. For once more he saw that expression of fear, of dread, of almost horror. It was not till the next day that he had further news of Celia. The doctor stopped Vane once more in the street, buttourholing him with direct intention. "I say, have you heard?" he asked. "I declare I was mad when my brother told me. That old fossil has gone and left most of his possessions to outside people. Hia daughter gets comparatively nothing." "That old fossil?" For an instant Vane could not think to whom to apply the des- cription. The doctor nodded. nyes All those stones of his, those red and green carved things-minxes, do you call them? No, no, jades, is it?—much the same, anyhow. Well, they're all to go to museums. That wouldn't so much matter, a good riddance I should call them, only it seems they're worth a for- tune. He spent a mint of money over them. He kept on buying and buying, no matter what the cost was. When the rest of the estate is wound up-it was part annuity part pension that he lived on, it seems— there won't be more than the most moderate income for Miss Harcourt. Something like a hundred or so a year. That's all, if it pans out as much." Vane stood still enough now. "Great Scot! he said, and there was no mistak- ing the tone in which he said it. "Why, the jades must be worth a fortune!" The doctor nodded. "Yes. That's where the iniquity comes in. They might have been sold for her benefit, and Id h?. been quite a rich woman. It's shameful! To tell you the truth," he looked a trifle sheepish, lowered his eyes, scraped the pave- ment with his foot, "It's a blow to me, too; I can't help it. I daresay you've seen how much I admire Miss Harcourt. I'm not a mercenary man, don't think it. But I've got my old mother to keep, and I can't marry a penniless woman. I den't care hang for money where a woman a concerned. but the case stands just there. I can't marry a girl who hasn't enough to let me pension my dear old mater." "I see," said Vane gravely. Somehow the doctor's dilemma did not strike him aa oomic. The man was straightforward. He was not mercenary, as he had said. It was only a concession to duty. Vane felt sorry for him. He had looked on the doctor till now as a formidable rival. It is odd how a. minute or two can change one's estimate of people. "Of course," went on the doctor miserably, "she won't starve on what she's got, at least not if it pans out as the lawyer seems to think. But he wasn't very certain. But still, what's even a couple of hundred to a f;irl brought up as? she 8 been-used to t.irllury, and all that? It's pretty stiff for her. Here a lady, leaning from a brougham, made imperative gestures to the doctor, and he saw a patient wanting him. He said a hasty good-bye to Vane, ran across the street, and Vane walked on down the market-place. k Poor—poor and lonely! Wae that what the brilliant, dainty lady of his dreams had suddenly come to! Vane felt his heart go but to her in a passion of pity. She, the pearl amongst women, to have to count her pence, go without things she had been used to from her cradle. The cruelty, the in- justice of Harcourt, turned Vane's anger sud- denly against him. Alone in the world, without even a friend to stand by her, poor and homeless. She would have to turn out of the home she was used to. Poor little girl! Poor little girl! And he with more money than he quite knew what to do with, with & longing for such ft heme as only a gentle, sweet woman can make for a man, without anyone to care for him The conclusion of his thoughts was probably inevitable. He had been at- tracted by Celia the first moment he had laid eyes on her. She had seemed to him the type of charming, fascinating girlhood. Now, her need and her desolation gave the last touch to his feelings. They flamed into heat. He had made his mind up, as he crossed the wide market-place, after that interrupted talk with the doctor. If the young doctor himself had been first in the field, if his claim had been foremost, Vane might have felt that honour forbade him to try his own luck. But the unfortu- nate man had confessed his incompetency. There was nothing to hold one back now. The path was clear. He walked with a step that had taken a sudden elation. He had made up his mind. But there was something still to wait for. She had seen him but once. He was a stranger to her. He must teach her to care for him, win her trust, her love, before he asked her to marry him. He must go to work quietly, wisely. Win her confidence, get her to trust him. Try to make her care. His own love, flam- ing and burning within him now like a fire, must surely set hers alight. But he must go cautiously about it. She would be un- approachable, it might be, in the first daya of her mourning. He would stay on here, waiting his chance. When she could see him he might call surely. He didn't want to do anything to startle her, shock her, make her unhappy and add to her present posi- tion's bittergess. But the little, lonely deso- late girl! How one wanted to take her up in strong arms, protect her, take care of her! He spent the rest of the day in wandering about the town, finding himself often within sight of that house where the tragedy had happened. The blinds were raised. again now, those blinds that had given the place the look of a thing with bandaged eyes, all through these days since the night he dined there. Heavens! could it be only five days back? It seemed a lifetime! One cant count time by days and hours and minutes. It is measured by the events crowded into it. This was Saturday. He might perhaps make a call of inquiry on Monday. At least she need only refuse to see him, if she didn't care for receiving him. She would know at least that he wae anxious to hear of her, that he offered himself for her service, if she had need of him. j (To be Continued.)