The Terriford Mystery/Epilogue

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

 

EPILOGUE

I

It is a cold windy March morning. The trial of Henry Garlett has been fixed for ten o'clock, but since before eight o'clock there has been a crowd, growing larger and larger every minute, round the stately pillared portico of the Grendon Assize Court. The crowd has been compelled to spread out fan-fashion, owing to the stout walls which stretch on either side of the building, and women form by far the larger proportion of those who are determined to obtain places in the public galleries and in those seats, behind the jury, reserved for certain privileged persons.

These would-be spectators of Henry Garlett's ordeal, and of Jean Bower's agony, belong to all classes, and are of all ages. Some of the women there have walked ten miles and more, this morning, to be present at the trial of the man who a short six months ago was the most popular figure in the whole countryside.

Motor cars of every make and of every type are drawn up on the edge of the ever-growing crowd. Many of these motors are filled with well-dressed women, who have come provided with opera glasses. They have sent their servants to keep places in the queues which are already pressing round each of the three big doors. But soon it becomes known that the police will not allow this convenient plan, and to their disgust the ladies have to step out of their comfortable cars, and stand cheek by jowl with their humbler fellow women.

The great majority of the people who are waiting there on this cold morning have brought some form of food with them, for they mean to keep in their places all day, so as not to lose even the smallest thrill connected with what is indifferently called the Garlett Case and the Terriford Mystery.

It is known that there will be four important witnesses—Garlett himself, the famous amateur cricketer; Jean Bower, for whose sake, in the opinion of the vast majority of those who will be present at the trial, he committed a dastardly and cruel murder; Miss Prince, the spinster whose tardily tendered evidence is said to be of vital importance, though no one as yet knows of what that evidence consists; and last, though not least, Agatha Cheale, the mystery woman of the strange story.

Most of the men who have come, some of them very long distances, on cycles, in motors, in old-fashioned horse-drawn vehicles, and on their own feet, are looking forward to seeing Dr. Maclean in the box. Few of those in that ever-growing crowd but have come across the kindly Scots doctor, either as his patients themselves, or because of the illness of some one dear to them. But that makes no difference to their eager wish to see him cross-examined—heckled, as it would be called in his own country—by the celebrated Sir Harold Anstey.

At half-past nine the doors are thrown open to the public and the struggle for places begins. There are some ugly rushes, with much pushing, kicking, and even pinching and scratching, before the public galleries of the Court, which is exceptionally large for a country Assize Court, are filled to their utmost capacity.

The reserved seats are few, and they, too, are soon almost unpleasantly crowded with a number of pretty, well-dressed women, some with attendant squires to whom they are talking, while they glance with keen, curiosity-laden eyes at the unfamiliar scene.

In the well of the Court already the solicitors' clerks are busy at wide tables; the long bench which will soon be occupied by the witnesses is empty; and so is the railed-in dock, where the prisoner will soon be standing, exactly opposite the high, throne-like seat from which the judge, the keen and redoubtable Mr. Justice Freshwater, will direct the proceedings. It is known that this old-fashioned judge does not approve of ladies being present at murder trials, and accordingly the seats to his right and left will be occupied by his men friends and not by their wives.

The minutes go by fairly quickly for most of the people there, for almost everybody is talking to his or her neighbour. Also there is the excitement of watching the various parties connected with the case come slowly in.

The first of the witnesses to arrive are Dr. Maclean and his niece, and a stir runs through the Court as they come in. Every eye is fixed on Dr. Maclean's slight companion. Jean Bower is quietly dressed in a black coat and skirt, and a simple little hat with a touch of blue in it. She looks absolutely self-possessed, though very pale.

Somehow the sight of her irritates some of the spectators; they had expected a tragic figure, wrapped, maybe, in long, concealing veils; they tell each other disappointedly that she looks a very ordinary young woman. True, she is curiously pale, but then perhaps she is naturally pale.

There come in various other witnesses of no particular interest, or at least not yet of any particular interest. Then, all at once there appear, walking side by side, a young and an old lady. Again a stir runs through the court.

“That's Miss Prince,” some one says in a loud excited voice.

Miss Prince hears the words, and draws herself up somewhat haughtily. She is wearing a coat and skirt, and a plain, unbecoming round felt hat. The young lady with Miss Prince is dressed more in accordance with the popular idea of a female witness. She is heavily veiled—and looks indeed almost like a mourner at a funeral. The word is passed round that this is no other than Agatha Cheale.

She and Miss Prince walk past the other witnesses with averted eyes, and sit at the extreme end of the long bench.

Ten o'clock strikes, and now comes the moment when the judge, who embodies the majesty, the terror, the splendour of British justice, walks with slow, rhythmic steps to his place. He is a tall man, and shows off his red robes, deep ermine bands, and full-bottomed wig to great advantage. He sits himself down, gives one long stern glance round the crowded, now silent Court, and then he bends his head and busies himself with the notes and other documents laid on the high desk before him.

Now the legal lights concerned with the case begin to stream in. Sir Harold Anstey, bustling, smiling, his great frame well set off by his long black silk gown. His wig always looks just a little too small for his huge head, but still there is something very impressive about his strongly marked features and his keen eyes.

A great contrast, indeed almost a ludicrous contrast, is Sir Almeric Post, the leading counsel for the Crown. Sir Almeric is a thin man, and his wig looks too big for his head. He has a hatchet-shaped face, narrow, compressed lips, a straight nose, and two cold, thoughtful-looking gray eyes. Unlike Sir Harold, who is keenly aware of his audience, Sir Almeric does not even glance round the Court, but at once engages in an earnest discussion with one of his juniors.

There is a slight stir when the jury stumble into their places. The twelve good men and true are an extraordinarily ordinary-looking collection. Still, every one of them has a confident, self-important look. To some of those present the reflection that those twelve men are going to decide the awful question of a fellow being's life or shameful death brings with it a sensation of unease.

By some mistake, which will be severely noted in to-morrow's Press, the newspaper men have not been allowed, till now, to enter the Court. They file in and take the places allotted to them. Jean Bower, though she has no reason to love newspapers, tells herself that she wishes they composed the jury rather than the stolid, rather stupid-looking, men who are exactly opposite to her.

And then at last, very quietly, so quietly that half the people present do not immediately realize what is happening, the prisoner is brought up from the cells below and walks with firm step into the dock.

Henry Garlett is dressed in a blue serge suit, and wears a double collar and a black tie. He looks neither to the right nor to the left, but bows slightly to the judge.

Amid dead silence the clerk of assize reads the charge setting forth that Henry Garlett feloniously and wilfully murdered his wife, Emily Garlett.

The prisoner, in a voice which though the words are not loudly uttered is heard by every one present, says firmly: “Not guilty, my lord.”

The trial is now begun, and even the most frivolous spectators settle down to listen to what will certainly be a terrible and formidable indictment.

Sir Almeric Post, however, puts the case for the Crown quite simply, and as undramatically as possible. He tells, in ordinary, everyday language, the story of the painful death of Mrs. Garlett on the 27th of last May. He does not hurry over it. He tells it indeed at some length. And then he goes back to the past lives of the two people with whom he is concerned.

In a fair and passionless manner he describes the marriage of the penniless youth, Henry Garlett, to the considerable, not to say great, heiress, Emily Jones, and briefly mentions the fact that there were no children. He gives full credit to Garlett, as he calls him throughout, for his war service, and then very gravely he tells how this still young man came back to find his wife a hopeless, almost bedridden, invalid. Lightly, skilfully he touches on Garlett's great fame as a cricketer, and he even reminds the jury of that memorable match last spring, the first match played by the Australians in the old country.

Every one stiffens into eager attention, and even Sir Almeric's clear, toneless voice changes a little, when he utters the words:

“And now I come to a new figure in the story of Henry Garlett and of Emily Garlett—I refer to Miss Jean Bower.”

For the first time he glances down at the paper, covered with pencilled notes, which he holds in his left hand; and then he gives the precise date of the arrival of the pretty young girl in Terriford village. He explains incidentally that her home with Dr. and Mrs. Maclean is only some ten minutes' to a quarter of an hour's walk from the Thatched House. There follows an account of how Garlett had given Jean Bower the position of official secretary to the limited company of which he, Garlett, was managing director. And just because Sir Almeric tells his tale in so simple and almost bald a manner, most of those present somehow realize very vividly how much may lie unsaid behind his measured words.

He does not propose, he says, to call much evidence as to the relations of these two people, but he will call three witnesses who saw them coming home together by the field path from Grendon to Terriford on the day which preceded Mrs. Garlett's death.

“Both this man and this woman affirm,” he observes in a considering voice, “that they were scarcely acquainted at that time, and yet they were sufficiently acquainted to walk something like two miles in each other's company, and Henry Garlett brought Jean Bower through his own garden, which, perhaps I ought in fairness to add, is something of a short cut to Bonnie Doon, where she was then living with her uncle and aunt.”

All too quickly for some of the ghouls in the public gallery, ay, and in the reserved seats, Sir Almeric sketches lightly but firmly what happened immediately after the return of the apparently disconsolate widower to the Thatched House.

“It is admitted by everybody concerned that from then onward Henry Garlett, the managing director of the Etna China works, and Jean Bower, official secretary of the company, became inseparable. Soon all the factory hands were commenting, though in no disagreeable way, or so I am informed, on their close friendship. I will bring to your notice the fact that Garlett, though besieged with invitations from old friends and acquaintances, scarcely ever went away during those autumn weeks. Now and again he took a Saturday to Monday off, but on the whole he stuck close to his work.”

Sir Almeric waits a few moments, and a glass of water is handed to him.

“And now, gentlemen, we come to a number of significant occurrences. Early in November these two people became betrothed. I cannot tell you the exact date of the engagement, which was kept more or less private by the wish of Dr. Maclean and his wife. But it is admitted that by early December this so-called private engagement was known to the whole of Terriford, and, as a matter of fact, the date of the marriage was actually fixed for December 19th.”

Sir Almeric ends his opening for the prosecution with a strange, dramatic suddenness, and calls in quick succession half a dozen witnesses, of whom by far the most important is Dr. Maclean.

The worthy physician's ordeal does not last as long as was expected. He is taken through Mrs. Garlett's long illness, and describes in very clear language her condition just before the night of her fatal illness.

Then he is made to narrate at length the circumstances of Mrs. Garlett's death—how he was fetched by the sick woman's husband, such a thing having never happened before—how Garlett showed a strange unwillingness to go upstairs, and how the witness then, proceeding alone through the sleeping house, suddenly encountered the parlour-maid, Lucy Warren. Finally, how, after a short colloquy with Miss Cheale, he turned his attention to the sick woman and discovered that she was dead.

The doctor makes it clear that, to the best of his belief, Mrs. Garlett was already dead when he arrived at the house; and then he explains somewhat haltingly why it was that he then made up his mind that his patient had died from heart failure.

In the course of his evidence Dr. Maclean has naturally mentioned Agatha Cheale several times, and so, at the end of the doctor's cross-examination and re-examination, the judge leans forward and asks Sir Almeric: “Are you going to call Miss Cheale now?” And Sir Almeric says, no, he is not going to call Miss Cheale yet. He would prefer to call certain witnesses who will testify as to the relations between the prisoner and Miss Bower both before and after Mrs. Garlett's death.

Five people then follow one after the other into the box—three men and two women. The two women each declare that they thought it very strange that a pretty young lady should be made secretary of the company, and one of them a forewoman, identifies a letter she had written to her sister containing the strangely prophetic sentence: “If anything was to happen to the missus, I should never be surprised if Miss B. became his second.”

An overseer at the factory swears that as early as October 1st—he remembers the date because it was his birthday—he told his wife that he hadn't a doubt that “the boss was sweet on Miss Bower.” But he asserts that he had also expressed surprise because he had never noticed anything of the kind before Mr. Garlett went away.

That fact is eagerly taken hold of by Sir Harold Anstey, and there follows a keen cross-examination. The great advocate makes some facetious remarks on love and on love-making generally, and the Court for the first time enjoys what perhaps Sir Harold would describe as “a little fun.”

Titters even come from the witnesses' bench, but Miss Prince looks severe, almost disgusted, and as for Jean Bower, the girl becomes even paler than she was before. The prisoner in the dock looks straight before him while all this goes on—he might be carved in stone.

“Call Miss Agatha Cheale!”

The words ring through the court, and a thickly veiled figure walks quickly round to the steps leading to the witness-box. But as she puts her second foot upon the ladderlike steps she trips and would have fallen but for one of the Court officials, who seizes her arm and pulls her to her feet again.

Miss Cheale is sworn and throws back her veil at the judge's bidding. She, too, is then taken through the story of the death night. To the surprise of many of those present she speaks in a composed, almost mincing, voice. She is asked what happened the afternoon before Mrs. Garlett's sudden death, and in reply she tells what has come to be called the “strawberry story”—that is, she explains how the strawberries were left by Miss Prince, how she put them on a plate outside Mrs. Garlett's door immediately after lunch eon, and then, how, late in the afternoon, having occasion to go upstairs, she distinctly saw a strange man making his way quickly down the passage.

She adds a detail of considerable interest. This is that she noticed that the plateful of strawberries had disappeared. She adds that this fact was noticed by her quite half an hour before Mr. Garlett went up to his wife's room.

Sir Harold Anstey, when cross-examining Agatha Cheale, naturally plays up to the story she has told. His object now is to increase, not diminish, the witness's credit. He draws out of her her very high opinion of both Mr. and Mrs. Garlett. She tells the Court what a devoted couple they were, and how excellent a husband Mr. Garlett was. In fact, she can't speak too well of them.

Then Miss Cheale has a few unpleasant moments to live through while she is re-examined by Sir Almeric. He presses her very hard, very ruthlessly, about her mysterious stranger. Does she really believe that the stranger she saw hastening down the passage committed the murder? She answers emphatically that yes, she does believe it. Has she anything that could account for such a monstrous and motiveless crime on an unknown man's part? She replies that there is a type of criminally minded human being who does commit motiveless crimes. Criminal lunatic asylums are full of them.

II

“Call Miss Prince!”

There is a look of tense excitement on almost every face in the crowded court-house when the tall, angular figure of Miss Prince steps up, composedly, into the witness-box. Even the dullest witted of the spectators present is aware by now that her evidence will be crucial, one way or the other, to the prisoner.

While she is being sworn, the man in the dock, Henry Garlett, looks at her with a long, steady, rather sad look. The sight of Miss Prince reminds him with painful vividness of his wife, of “poor Emily.”

He is the one person in Court who does not realize the fearful import of the evidence she is about to tender. For one thing, he is well aware that he has only been to the Thatched Cottage on one occasion in two years, and he does not yet understand how very difficult it is to prove a negative.

Sir Almeric Post, for the Prosecution, begins his examination of this witness in a conversational tone. It is almost as if he were calling on Miss Prince in her own house, and asking her a number of not very important questions. And she also answers in a clear, decided voice, the voice that some of the people of Terriford know only too well. It is the voice of the admonitory Miss Prince, not that of Miss Prince the eager gossip.

Briefly she admits she is the daughter of the late Dr. William Prince, that she helped her father in his dispensary, and that when there came the break-up of her home and the sale of the practice to Dr. Maclean, she thought it within her right to take with her to the Thatched Cottage what drugs were left in her father's dispensary.

And then there comes a sharp quickening of the public interest, and even the judge leans forward. Sir Almeric puts solemnly the question:

“And among those drugs I understand that there was a considerable quantity of arsenic in a stoppered glass jar?”

“There was,” she answers in a clear voice.

“Is it also a fact that the jar, marked with the word 'arsenic' printed on a blue label, stood open to the view of all those who were in a position to glance up into your medicine cupboard when it was open?”

“That is so,” says Miss Prince in a lower tone.

“And now I want you to cast your mind back to last spring.”

Miss Prince makes no answer, she simply looks quietly, thoughtfully at her questioner.

“Can you do that?”

“I think so. Though of course it's difficult for me to swear to anything that may have happened on any special day.”

“You do, however, remember a late April storm which caused the gutters of your house to overflow and which did damage to the ceiling of a servant's bedroom on the top floor of your house?”

Miss Prince admits that she remembers the circumstance.

“Now tell us in your own words what followed.”

“I wrote to Mr. Garlett, my landlord, and asked him if he would personally come over to my house and see the damage which had been done. We had never had a lawyer's agreement. I was an old friend, almost the oldest friend, of Mrs. Garlett. And I was well aware.that at any moment the Thatched Cottage could have been let for a considerably larger sum than the rent I was paying. On the other hand, I felt that Mr. Garlett would not mind my asking him to have the gutters of the house attended to. The expense considerable to me, would be, I felt, small to him; also I should like to say that he was known to me as an exceptionally generous man.”

There is a stir through the Court. The judge leans forward.

“Will you kindly keep to the matter in hand, madam?”

Miss Prince does not look in the least disturbed by this rebuke. She answers quietly:

“Would you prefer, my lord, that Sir Almeric should ask questions and I give answers?”

Miss Prince had once stayed in the company of Sir Almeric at a country house many years ago, and she feels quite at ease with him.

“No,” says the Judge sharply, “go on with your story. But keep to the matter in hand.”

“Mr. Garlett sent me a note saying that he would try and make time to come and see the damage.”

Another bustle in Court. “Is that note among the exhibits?” There is a hurried looking over of the papers scattered on the table where sit the Crown lawyers in pleasant amity with the prisoner's solicitor, Mr. Toogood. Yes, the letter is here; Sir Almeric holds it up before Miss Prince.

“Is this the letter?”

“Yes, I certify that that is the letter.”

“As a matter of fact, Miss Prince, you did not actually receive a visit from Mr. Garlett. But you think it almost certain that he came in one day when you happened to be out?”

Miss Prince hesitates. “I cannot say that I consider it almost certain.”

Sir Almeric says quickly: “We have a witness who will swear that you told her you regarded it as practically certain that Mr. Garlett did visit your house to look at the gutters.”

Miss Prince for the first time shows some discomfort.

“I may have said that,” she answers in a low voice, “but now that I am speaking on oath I wish to reassert the fact that I am not certain Mr. Garlett ever came to my house. The only certain thing is that he sent in his builder, and that the gutters were cleaned out and repaired.”

“Is it or is it not a fact that your medicine cupboard was often left open—the door of it, that is, unlocked?”

Sir Almeric's voice now takes a somewhat unpleasant edge. He had understood that Miss Prince would be a very willing witness against Henry Garlett.

“I am sorry to say that is true. The key did not work properly, and as I am constantly taking things out of my medicine cupboard, cough mixture and so on, for the village folk who come to consult me, I did get into the bad habit of leaving the cupboard door unlocked.”

“It is also a fact, is it not, Miss Prince, that you are constantly in and out of your house—in other words in and out of Terriford village?”

“That is so.”

“And during the month of April you were constantly in attendance on a dying woman who had been, or so I understand, for many years in your father's service. Now, who looked after the house while you were out?”

“During some of the time,” says Miss Prince hesitatingly, “I only had a woman from the village to come in and do for me; therefore, the house was frequently left empty. But when that was the case one of Mr. Garlett's gardeners was generally about the place.”

“Still, the house was often empty. Do you always lock your back door and your garden door as well when you leave home, or are they sometimes left open? Be careful, Miss Prince, as to your answer to this question.”

Miss Prince hesitates, but only for a moment. She knows only too well what her answer must be.

“I always locked the back door, that giving access to the kitchen, when I left the house empty,” she says in a low voice. “The garden door, which only communicates with the garden of the Thatched House, was generally left open.”

There follows a long pregnant silence. And then there runs a strange convulsive sigh through the Court, for the majority of those present realize that by the admission she has just made Miss Prince has gone far to sign Henry Garlett's death warrant.

“That means,” goes on Sir Almeric in the same quiet, emotionless tone, “that any one last May could gain access to the Thatched Cottage, and of course to your medicine room, so long as he or she came through the grounds of the Thatched House? It is, is it not, a fact that this entrance to your house—I mean the garden-door entrance—is more or less concealed by an evergreen hedge?”

“That is so,” says Miss Prince.

“To resume—nothing would have been easier for Mr. Garlett than to go to your back premises, open the garden door, and go upstairs to view the damage done by the rain in the gutters?”

“It would have been quite easy for him to do so,” replies Miss Prince hesitatingly, “but to my mind it would have been a very strange thing for a gentleman to do—to come into a lady's house without asking her leave, to go upstairs, and, if I may say so, poke about!”

A titter runs through the Court.

And then Sir Almeric observes suavely: “A strange thing to do, no doubt, but gentlemen, Miss Prince, have been known to do very strange things if they had certain objects in view.”

At that there is again “laughter in Court.”

“And now I ask you one last question: As far as you know, was Mr. Garlett aware that there was arsenic in your house?”

Miss Prince remains silent for what seems to her audience a very long time. Once or twice the judge glances down at her rather sharply, and then, just as he is about to ask her if she has understood the question put to her, she answers reluctantly, “Yes, I think Mr. Garlett was probably aware of that fact. He cut his finger very badly about two years ago, and came down to the Thatched Cottage to ask me to bind it up for him. I took him up to my medicine room, for of course I keep lint and bandages there. I remember——” and then Miss Prince stopped short.

“You remember, Miss Prince——?” says Sir Almeric encouragingly.

Miss Prince turns to the judge. “Am I compelled to answer, my lord, what it is that I remember?”

Up leaps Sir Harold Anstey, and there follows between the two great barristers a sharp interchange of words. But at last the judge decides in favour of the prosecution, and Miss Prince is instructed that she must state what it was that she remembers.

And then for the first time the witness becomes obviously very nervous. In a low voice she very hesitatingly admits:

“I remember that the door to my medicine cupboard happened that day to be wide open, and that Mr. Garlett and I had a talk about poisons. But I do not remember that we mentioned arsenic.”

Again there comes that curious stir through the Court.

“That will do, Miss Prince.”

And indeed every one feels that Miss Prince has indeed “done” for Harry Garlett.

And then Sir Harold Anstey takes the place left vacant by the Crown counsel.

“You told Sir Almeric, Miss Prince,” he begins, “that though you could cast your mind back to late April, it would be impossible for you to remember what happened on any special day at so great a distance of time. Yet during the last few minutes you have shown yourself possessed of a remarkable memory.”

“You must remember,” replies Miss Prince quickly, “that when I learned what had been the cause of my friend Mrs. Garlett's death, I realized at once that the only place in Terriford where arsenic could have been procured was in my house.”

“You did not, however, see fit to reveal that very important fact till quite lately. Even then, you did not reveal it to the proper authorities. You told it to Dr. Maclean, thus putting him in a very painful position——”

“I deeply regret now that I did not write to the prosecution direct. But the Garletts had been my nearest neighbours and friends, and I hoped against hope that my arsenic had not been in question. I tried, in a quiet way, to find out if Mr. Garlett had ever been seen in my house, and I found that, as far as anybody knew, he never had been in my house—with the one exception when he came to see me about his cut finger—for two years or more.”

“I put it to you, Miss Prince”—Sir Harold looks at her fixedly—“that any one, by walking from the road into the grounds of the Thatched House, could obtain access to your house through the garden door?”

“That is so,” assents Miss Prince eagerly.

“Were any of your friends in the habit of using that door?”

“Yes, my friend Miss Agatha Cheale—Mrs. Garlett's housekeeper—always came into my house that way. So of course did any servant bringing a message or a note from the Thatched House to the Thatched Cottage. But you must remember that there was the back door, used by the tradesmen each morning, also the front door. I should like to repeat my conviction that Mr. Garlett would not naturally have thought of coming into my house by the garden door. The time he came to see me after cutting his finger he came to the front door.”

Sir Harold makes a note of this fact, and it is in a pleasant voice that he asks:

“As far as you know—and I gather you had many opportunities of knowing—Mr. and Mrs. Garlett were on very good terms the one with the other?”

“Excellent terms,” says Miss Prince emphatically.

Deep in her heart she knows that her evidence has gone far to ensure a conviction for murder against Henry Garlett, and now she is anxious to give him the benefit of every doubt that has ever assailed her during the last difficult anxious weeks.

And then Sir Harold makes one of the few mistakes of his brilliant professional life.

“You are acquainted,” he says, “with Miss Jean Bower. I take it, Miss Prince, that you have a very high opinion of that young lady?”

There follows a pause—a terrible pause. It is as if all in the crowded court-house are holding their breath.

“I know very little of Miss Jean Bower,” answers Miss Prince coldly.

Alas, that gives Sir Almeric his chance when re-examining Miss Prince. And he draws out of her with infinite skill, not only that she does not think well of the unhappy girl who will so soon stand where she is standing—that is, in the witness-box—but that, on the very day which preceded Mrs. Garlett's sudden and terrible death, she actually saw Jean Bower and Henry Garlett walking home together from the Etna China factory.

Miss Prince has proved a most damaging witness. Sir Harold looks grim, preoccupied, and what his enemies call “sour.”

To the surprise of the Court, the next witness is Mr. Garlett's builder. He is only a short time in the witness-box and what he says is regarded on the whole as bearing against his employer. While he declares that, as far as he can remember, Mr. Garlett had said nothing to him implying that he had actually seen the gutters, he admits that Mr. Garlett had shown a remarkable knowledge of the nature and extent of the damage.

When Sir Harold re-examines, he points out to the man that the letter written by Miss Prince had given the most detailed description of the havoc the rain and storm had caused. Even so, on the whole the general impression of the Court is that the builder unwillingly believes that Mr. Garlett had been to the house and seen the damage.

Every one is tired and just a little cross by now. What ever happens, people must eat, and it is long past one o'clock. The prisoner is taken below. Judge, jury, and lawyers leave the Court, and those spectators who are determined not to lose their places take out their little packets of sandwiches.

There is a buzz of conversation. Bets are freely offered and taken as to how long the trial will last. Only one man present bets on an acquittal. He is a widower, and takes the milk round Terriford village, and though some years younger than Elsie MacTaggart, is supposed to be “sweet” on her.

III

At last the judge comes up and the officials stream in.

“Call Jean Bower!”

What all the people there have been waiting for with almost savage longing is now about to take place, and every eye in Court save the prisoner's fastened on Jean Bower.

The slight girlish figure ascends the steps into the witness-box. She is painfully pale—her pallor enhanced by her plain black coat and skirt. Yet, strange to say, Jean Bower does not make a pleasant impression. She is too quiet, too self-possessed. It is difficult to visualize her as the heroine of a criminal love drama.

After she has been sworn, Sir Almeric takes her through the story which is now almost tiresomely familiar to most of those present. She sticks firmly to the unlikely tale that till the return of Henry Garlett, four months after his wife's death, he and she had been on terms of formal acquaintance—nothing more.

And then at last there comes the thrill for which all these men and women who crowd the public galleries to suffocation have been waiting.

“I suppose I may assume that after his return, this last autumn, you became deeply attached to Mr. Garlett?”

There follows a long pause—twice Jean Bower opens her pale lips, but no answer comes from them. Then, slowly, she bends her head.

“Do you still love him?”

The question is asked in a hard, unemotional voice. But it seems to galvanize the witness into eager, passionate, palpitating life.

She cries out strongly, almost triumphantly: “With all my heart and soul.”

The advocate for the Crown turns away. He has scored a great point. The jury have doubtless been moved by that cry of love and faith, but he, Sir Almeric Post, will soon show them, with the pitiless logic for which he is famed, that the very fact of this overwhelming passion discredits the whole of the evidence Jean Bower has just tendered in so lifeless and composed a manner.

The entire crux of the case turns on what were the real relations of Henry Garlett and Jean Bower before Mrs. Garlett's death. Were the girl to admit even warm innocent friendship on her employer's part she would be helping to prove the case for the Crown. And now, who, with any knowledge of feminine human nature, can doubt that she has lied—splendide mendax, as the old Latin tag puts it—a splendid lie, but a lie all the same?”

“Thank you, Miss Bower; that will do,” he says suavely.

As Sir Harold Anstey is taking the place of his brother advocate in order to re-examine the unhappy girl who all unwittingly has done his client such a fatal mischief by that cry of devoted love, there is an unwonted stir, even a struggle, at one of the doors. Across the now silent Court ring out the words:

“I must speak now—I must speak now!”

The judge leans forward, and Sir Harold turns round, a frown on his face. For the moment public attention is diverted from the slight figure in the witness-box.

Sir Harold, after a whispered word with the Crown counsel, observes:

“One of the female witnesses has only just arrived, my lord, and she seems to have become hysterical.”

Again the loud wailing, the unrestrained voice is heard:

“I must speak—I must speak now.”

Hastily Sir Almeric takes a hand.

“The young woman who desires so urgently to be heard, my lord, was formerly parlour-maid at the Thatched House. I doubt, however, if she is in a fit condition to go into the witness-box to-day at all. I understand she has just come from her husband's death-bed.”

The judge leans forward.

“Do you regard her as an important witness, Sir Almeric?”

“No, my lord. She was moving about the house during the night of Mrs. Garlett's death. Also she has evidence to tender concerning the secret meetings which took place between Henry Garlett and some unnamed young woman in a wood before Mrs. Garlett's death.”

Again there rises that strange, unnatural cry—loud, defiant:

“I demand to be heard now! I have the right to be heard now!”

The judge frowns. He peers forward till he thinks he distinguishes the hysterical young woman who has been making such an unseemly disturbance, and then he says, slowly, distinctly, and severely:

“You will be heard when I direct you to be heard. And I now direct that your evidence shall be taken after the rest of the witnesses for the prosecution have been examined, cross-examined, and re-examined.”

During this long altercation Jean Bower, standing in the witness-box, is growing paler and paler. She clutches convulsively the ledge before her, and Sir Harold looks at her with concern. He does not wish her to faint before she has answered his questions; on the other hand he tells himself that the sight of a fainting young woman always touches your more sentimental juryman.

The great advocate happens to be, however, a far more imaginative man than is Sir Almeric Post, and he realizes that Jean Bower's ordeal has lasted long enough. So, to the disappointment of the Court, he does not address many questions to the young woman who has just acknowledged her passionate love for Harry Garlett, and for the sake of whose love the immense majority—almost every human being present at the trial—believe he has committed a singularly foul and dastardly murder.

Sir Almeric does not trouble to re-examine the witness. He knows by now that he has practically won his case, and he has no wish to cause any of the hapless human beings connected with this painful story any unnecessary distress.

IV

Till comparatively lately a British prisoner could not give evidence in his own defence, but that is no longer so, and Henry Garlett is, as is known, eager to go into the witness-box.

At once, when he is facing the Court with a strained tense look, it becomes clear that Sir Almeric does not intend to play with the wretched man as a cat plays with a mouse. He leaves those methods to Sir Harold Anstey. To the deep disappointment of many of those present, after Harry Garlett has been sworn, only a comparatively short interchange of question and answer takes place between the man now on trial for his life and the man who leads the prosecution against him:

“I understand that your only answer to the terrible charge of which you stand accused is that you are absolutely and entirely innocent?”

“That is my answer,” says Henry Garlett in a firm voice.

“Well, I will just take you briefly through the principal points. You lived, I understand, for thirteen years with this poor lady whom you married when you were only twenty-two and she twenty-seven—you being a penniless lad, and she a considerable heiress?”

“That is so,” says the prisoner.

“Though you claim to have been attached to your wife, you were constantly away from home—in fact we have it on record that out of the three hundred sixty-five days of one year you were away one hundred forty-four days.”

“I think that is very possible.”

“If necessary I can prove it.”

“I accept your statement.”

“Miss Jean Bower became secretary to the Etna China Company on April 23rd. I understand that you claim to have been scarcely aware of the fact that a charming young woman had entered your employment in the capacity of official secretary to the limited company of which you were managing director?”

“Of course I was aware that Miss Jean Bower had become secretary to my company. But, as you yourself have just pointed out, I was away a great deal. Until, we walked home together the day before my wife's death, I had hardly done more than exchange a few words with Miss Bower.”

“And yet, during the month before your wife's death—a month which, curiously enough, coincided with the stay of Miss Bower at the Etna China factory—you were far more often at your china factory than had been the case for some time before.”

“I deny that!” exclaims Henry Garlett. “Or if it happens to be technically true, it was only because I was just then preparing for the Australian cricket match.”

“And now, Mr. Garlett, are you prepared to swear that you did not go the Thatched Cottage as a result of the note sent you by Miss Prince?”

“I swear that the only time I was in the Thatched Cottage for full two years was the day I went down to show a cut finger to Miss Prince.”

“Do you remember the circumstances of your visit to her?”

“Yes, very well. It was the first time I had ever been in her medicine room, though I had heard of it.”

“Can you recall any conversation you had with her?”

“Yes,” replies Harry Garlett firmly. “I recall our conversation quite clearly. What is more, I do not mind telling you frankly that Miss Prince did mention the fact that she possessed in her medicine cupboard three poisons—arsenic, morphia, and opium.”

There is a stir through the Court, and for a moment Sir Almeric is taken aback.

“Then you now admit that you were aware of the existence of arsenic in the Thatched Cottage?”

“I have never denied it——”

“Don't quibble, Garlett. Is there anything further you would like to say about this point?”

“Yes, I would like to say that I remember advising Miss Prince to hand over the three drugs in question to Dr. Maclean. But I should like to add, though no doubt you will not believe me——”

The judge intervened sternly: “You have no right to suggest such a thing to counsel for the Crown.”

“I beg your pardon. I should not have said that.”

“What is it you wish to add?”

“Simply that the fact of the conversation that day had actually slipped my memory till my solicitor, about a fortnight ago, told me of Miss Prince's admission as to her possession of arsenic.”

Sir Almeric moves some of the papers he is holding in one of his hands to the other hand, and then he asks in almost a casual tone:

“I suppose I may take it that you were exceedingly surprised when you learned that your wife had died from the administration of an enormous dose of arsenic?”

The prisoner stares at him. Then he answers quickly:

“I was more than surprised, I was astounded.”

At that Sir Almeric Post straightens himself.

“And yet you ask the jury to believe that while the whole village was ringing with the question as to where the poison administered to Mrs. Garlett could have come from, you had forgotten the all-important fact that there was a large supply of arsenic within a few yards of your front door?”

Henry Garlett looks manifestly troubled. For a few moments he loses that air of calm, quiet, rigid self-control.

“I admit it is very strange,” he says at last, in a hesitating voice, “but you must remember two things. First, that I was unaware of the importance attached to the question of how the arsenic had reached my house. Secondly, that I had always known in a vague way that Miss Prince had in her possession many dangerous drugs which, as a rule, can only be procured from a chemist. I mean by that, I was not specially surprised at her admission that she had a number of poisons in her medicine cupboard.”

He has spoken slowly, rather picking his words, and the admission—if admission it can be called—makes a bad impression on the Court. The audience in the galleries all feel that they would have certainly remembered such a startling fact as that a large amount of poison was in the possession of a maiden lady living in such a quiet place as Terriford seems to have been.

Other questions are put to the prisoner. After all, Sir Almeric Post is expected to work for his bread, and it would never do were he to conduct the examination of a man accused of murder in too rapid or perfunctory a manner.

Garlett is shown the letter which was written to him by Jean Bower, and which was the immediate cause of his return home earlier than he was expected. He is taken step by step through the various stages of his growing friendship with her, and pressed again and again as to the degree of his knowledge of her before his wife's death.

But when the counsel for the Prosecution has done, there is a general impression that the witness has been let off very lightly. It is clear that Sir Almeric regards the prisoner as already under sentence of death.

Then comes the turn of Sir Harold Anstey. Sir Harold goes on quite another tack to what he has done up to now. His object is to show what a good, genial, delightful fellow Harry Garlett has always proved himself to be.

Though in his heart of hearts he considers cricket to be an idiotic pastime, and though he has on occasion quoted with approval Kipling's famous line about “the flannelled fools at the wicket,” he has made a special study of cricket in the last week, and he now shows that knowledge to the admiration of the Court, and especially to the admiration of those present—they are a large number—who make a fetish of the national game. He shows that his client is not only a famous cricketer but also a remarkably modest cricketer—and not till he has made that fact quite clear does he begin on the real subject in hand.

The judge has hardly listened while all this is going on. In fact he has been leaning back, for the first time, a slight ironic smile on his face. But after all, this is a cause célèbre. Sir Harold Anstey is a popular figure, and must be allowed a fair run for his money. The judge reflects that fortunately for Sir Harold the money will be forthcoming this time, for, unlike the majority of murderers, Henry Garlett is a man of substance.

At last, however, Sir Harold gets down to real business. In an almost cooing voice he asks his client something as to his happy married life. But there he is not quite as successful as he had hoped to be, or Harry Garlett is curiously unwilling to make any play with that side of his past. He answers yes or no to the probing questions, though at one moment he is obviously so painfully moved that some few people began to believe that perhaps he did really care for his first wife.

However, Sir Harold, who is nothing if not tactful when dealing with a difficult witness, now turns to the question of the Etna China works. He draws from his client an account of all that has been done in the last ten years, and especially since the war, for the benefit of the workers. He makes it clear what a happy family they all were, and then, with light, skilful touches, he brings out how important was Miss Bower's share in promoting harmony and comfort at the factory. He is even successful in making the Court realize something of what a very charming, old-fashioned girl she seems to have been.

Sir Almeric, who is very tired by now, and who knows that to-morrow he will have to make a long, clear speech to the stolid jury, does not re-examine, and when, after two hours in the witness-box, Harry Garlett goes back to the dock, he is mercifully quite unaware that, had there been the slightest doubt in anybody's mind as to his guilt, he might have been kept in that box for four or five hours.

V

And now opens the second day of the trial of Henry Garlett on the charge of having murdered his wife. The crowds round the doors of the Assize Court are almost as large as ever, and yet there is not the same feeling of excitement that there was on the first day.

For one thing, all the most important witnesses have already been in the box. For another, the trial, though the verdict is regarded as a foregone conclusion, is not expected to conclude till to-morrow. A good many unimportant witnesses have still to be examined, among them a number of well-known men, each of whom, when the issue of the trial appeared far more uncertain than it does now, had expressed themselves willing to tender evidence as to “character.” These gentlemen will testify that is, that they have always regarded Henry Garlett as a high-minded man, the best of good fellows, and so on.

After all these minor witnesses have been called, examined, cross-examined, and re-examined, then Sir Almeric Post will begin his address to the jurymen. Though it is known that Sir Almeric never cuts a speech short, it is thought he will finish in time to allow Sir Harold to make a start to-day. Sir Harold's speeches to a jury are a delight to listen to, but there seems some doubt as to whether the famous advocate, who is known not to like interrupting a great oration in the middle, may not so manœuvre matters, with the kindly connivance of his brother in the law, Sir Almeric, as to put off the beginning of his speech till to-morrow morning.

Yes, to-morrow is likely to be a very exciting day! There will be Sir Harold's pathetic powerful plea for the murderer; the clear summing-up by the judge, who, although an old man, has his wits keenly about him; and then the jury's retirement, maybe for quite a short time, maybe for a long time—one can never tell which, even when the verdict is a foregone conclusion.

However, as was said a great, great many times—perhaps a million times by various men and women all over the kingdom that same evening and the next morning—it is the unexpected in life that very often happens, and makes the best-laid plans go wrong.

Behold the Court assembled, the galleries full to bursting, but the ladies in the reserved seats are not all of them quite so distinguished-looking as those who graced the first day of the trial. On the other hand, two noted novelists—one a man the other a woman—have come down from London to be present at the closing scenes.

The judge has just taken his seat, but the prisoner has not yet been brought up from below into the dock, when Sir Harold Anstey rises and asks to be heard.

“I have received, my lord, a very important communication,” he says, in a tone of such marked gravity that every one stiffens into attention.

And then—was it by some mistake, or in the natural course of events?—the prisoner is brought up between two warders to take his usual place.

He looks tired, dispirited, and for the first time his eyes seem to seek out hungrily, thirstily, the figure of Jean Bower, sitting below him on the witnesses' bench. As if drawn by some magnetic influence, she turns her head round at last, and they exchange a long, piteous look.

In answer to Sir Harold, the judge observes in a slow, unimpassioned tone:

“I, too, have received what is no doubt a copy of what you term an important communication, Sir Harold. I am exceedingly surprised that the parties in question should have waited till this morning—in fact, till just half an hour ago—to put this communication before me. I have already taken certain steps, and I have no doubt you have done the same, to test, shall we say, the value? of this communication. I understand that both the solicitors for the Crown and Mr. Toogood, the prisoner's solicitor, are even now in telephonic communication with London.”

The judge's words are listened to in absolute silence, and no one can make head or tail of what they mean. But it is plain that both Mr. Justice Freshwater and those two great protagonists, Sir Almeric Post and Sir Harold Anstey, are very much disturbed.

All kinds of wild rumours are current, but the low murmur of conversation is stilled by the loud voices of the ushers ordering “Silence, silence in Court!”

Every ear is strained to miss not a word as Sir Almeric takes up the ball in this mysterious legal game. He says in a very low voice:

“In all the circumstances, my lord, I have arranged with Sir Harold Anstey that he shall call Mrs. Cheale, formerly Lucy Warren, as his witness, not mine. He proposes, with your leave, to put her at once into the box.”

A feeling of intense relief sweeps through the Court. Then everything is going on according to plan? True, those with sharper ears than the others had caught the name of Mrs. Cheale. But most of the eager listeners suppose that it is Miss Agatha Cheale who is going to be re-examined. Into just a few minds there darts a sudden, lightning suspicion. Agatha Cheale had always been something of a dark horse; has she any revelation to make which she studiously concealed while in the witness-box yesterday?

Here and there some expert in criminology asked himself or herself whether, after all, Agatha Cheale was not in some way “in it,” an accomplice, maybe, of Henry Garlett?

But curiosity will have to wait; for all at once, and strange to say without her name being called out in the usual way, a tall young woman is seen almost running up the steps of the witness-box.

She wears what, to the expert feminine eyes now insistantly fastened on her, are obviously cheap, ready-made, badly cut mourning clothes; a rusty black serge coat and skirt, and a curious-looking little black bonnet of the kind which some of the older people in Court can remember having been worn when they were young—a princess bonnet it used to be called. This particular princess bonnet has a queer wispy veil hanging down behind. In fact the young woman—she is not only a young but a very good-looking woman, so all the men in Court notice—looks like a widow of the humblest working class.

Instead of being ordered to stand down, in order that Agatha Cheale may be called, to the general surprise the stranger is sworn.

With this witness the taking of the oath is not a perfunctory formality, as it seemed to be with so many of the witnesses, but a very solemn act. And, while she is being sworn, she looks at the judge as if he were the only person in that crowded Court.

Sir Harold rises to his feet, and then the witness suddenly cries out: “May I speak now?”

The judge leans forward.

“No, madam, you may not speak now. You are here to answer questions put to you by counsel.”

She is obviously cowed by those quiet firm cold tones, and clasps her hands nervously together on the ledge of the witness-box as she stares distrustfully at the tall, stout gentleman who is now going to put to her those questions to which alone she may make answer.

“Your name,” begins Sir Harold in a very kindly, conversational voice, “is Lucy Cheale?”

Most of the general public in Court are surprised. What an odd mistake for the great advocate to have made! But of course he is tired—tired and worried no doubt by that important communication concerning which he and the judge have just had that curious little mysterious interchange of words.

He goes on quickly: “You were Lucy Warren?”

Now he has corrected himself—so think all those who have not noted that little word “were.”

“Yes, sir, and I——”

“Stop! Allow me to put my question—it will be far quicker in the end. I mean by that, Mrs. Cheale——”

Hullo! Mrs. Cheale? What is happening to Sir Harold—the quick, the bold, the resourceful, the man whose astonishing memory is almost proverbial? Another thing happens which is extraordinarily unusual with him—that is a piece of paper is handed to him by his junior, and from it he reads the following questions, and in each case without waiting for an answer.

“You are the daughter of Mrs. Warren of the Thatched Farm? Your age is now twenty-four? Till ten days ago you were in the employment of Miss Prince at the Thatched Cottage? Before that you were for a considerable time head parlour-maid at the Thatched House?”

He reads over these questions, or rather assertions, very rapidly, and each time the woman witness nods her head.

“And now I ask you to recall what happened nine—or was it ten—days ago?”

Nine or ten days ago? Sir Harold surely means nine months ago?

Again the witness nods, this time eagerly.

“You received the following telegram?”

Again Sir Harold turns round, and again a piece of paper is handed up to him.

The witness holds out her hand.

“No, the jury must hear the telegram, so I will read it out.”

In clear tones Sir Harold, turning to face the jury, reads out slowly the address, “Miss Lucy Warren, The Thatched Cottage, Terriford.” Then he pauses dramatically, and goes on:

This conveys an offer of marriage from one who is your devout lover. I am dying, and I want you. Lose not an hour. Come at once to 106, Coburg Square, London.—Guy Cheale.

Guy Cheale? Who on earth is he?

There is great excitement in Court, and again the ushers have to command “Silence!”

Here is a rare slice of human nature with a vengeance! Though what all this can have to do with Henry Garlett is a complete mystery. Many of the spectators in their eagerness rise from their seats in order to get a better view of the young woman who has inspired so strange, so pathetic, so desperate an offer of marriage.

One or two stupid people ask themselves whether, when a witness has married in the interval between the commission of a crime and the trial of the criminal, he or she has to explain how and why the marriage came about.

Sir Harold looks at his witness with his kindest, most benignant expression, as he asks in a soft tone, and yet one which is heard throughout all the Court:

“I take it that you were deeply attached to this man Guy Cheale—that you and he had some kind of an understanding?”

Her head drops, she whispers inaudibly: “Yes, I loved him dearly.”

The great advocate repeats, for the benefit of those who had not heard, the whispered words, “You loved him dearly. And so, without even waiting to ask your mistress's permission, you left a note on the kitchen table, went to the village post office and drew out some money from the Savings Bank, and went straight off to London?”

Again there comes an almost inaudible “Yes.”

“And now, Mrs. Cheale, we come to a very important part of your evidence. You realize that you are on oath?”

This time she answers quite loud, “I do, sir.”

“I pass over quickly the fact that within twenty-four hours of your arrival you were married to this man, Guy Cheale, on what was practically his death bed. But even before the marriage he made to you a certain communication?”

She bends her head.

“Now tell his lordship and the jury in your own words what that communication was?”

The witness straightens herself, and the judge, leaning forward, looks at her keenly.

“I must ask you,” he says, but in no unkind tone, “to speak up, madam. Otherwise the jury will not hear you.” He might have added, “And I myself am a little hard of hearing.”

The witness begins in a loud voice:

“Mr. Cheale told me that before we were married he had something to tell me about himself——”

She stops short. Every one is staring at her. What is all this about? Who is Mr. Cheale? By this time every one in Court realizes that he must be related to Agatha Cheale, as Cheale is such an odd name. Also, a good many people know that Agatha Cheale has a brother. Is it conceivable that he gave his sister away? Can it be that Agatha Cheale committed the murder?

Almost alone of all those present, the man in the dock looks uninterested in what is going on. He has become so tired, so utterly weary.

But there is one person in Court—nobody is looking at her—who is almost fainting with excitement and suspense. That person is Jean Bower. Her head is thrown back. She is gazing up into the troubled face of the woman who is in the box just above her.

“He asked me,” goes on the witness, her voice gathering strength, “if I would mind marrying a murderer.”

There is an extraordinary stir, by far the greatest stir there has yet been in that Court.

“I answered him prompt—'No, not if he was the murderer.'”

One or two women giggle hysterically, and there comes a stern “Silence!” from the judge himself.

“He then went on to tell me that it was he who had poisoned Mrs. Garlett.”

A strange sound, a kind of strangled half-sigh, half-groan, issues from the man in the dock. He slips down, and is seen through the railings of the dock lying in a heap on the floor.

One of the warders, after stooping down, stands up and says stolidly:

“The prisoner has fainted, my lord. Shall we take him below?”

“Yes, and do not bring him back till I direct you to do so.”

But this occurrence, which would have made such an impression at any other time, is scarcely noticed.

Sir Harold addresses the witness encouragingly:

“I understand you to say that Guy Cheale, your late husband, confessed to you before the marriage took place that he had poisoned Mrs. Garlett. Did he tell you what motive inspired him to commit this crime?”

For the first time the witness falters. She turns to the judge.

“Have I got to answer that, your worship?”

The judge hesitates.

“No,” he says at last. “I do not direct you to answer that question.”

Sir Harold, now frowing a little, turns again to his witness, “What happened after this conversation with Guy Cheale?”

“I got him to let me send for the doctor, because I thought he was going to die right then.”

“But to the best of your belief—this is a very important point, Mrs. Cheale—he was absolutely in his right mind when he made this strange communication to you?”

“Yes, absolutely in his right mind, sir. In fact, he wanted me to have in somebody to take down the statement he had just made to me. But I was frightened—I thought he would be taken to prison. Cruel things are done, sir, sometimes, to us poor folk, even when we're dying.”

Sir Harold in a moved tone says:

“I fear that is so, though I would fain hope not, Mrs. Cheale.”

He waits a moment. He is so obviously, so genuinely moved, that every one in Court feels a sudden wave of liking for him.

“Very well,” he says, recovering himself. “Now tell me what happened next.”

“We was married then, sir. He'd fixed it all up before I came.”

Her face suddenly relaxes; it becomes almost cheerful as she adds:

“Of course he'd known all along that nothing he'd done would make any difference to me.”

Sir Harold goes on in a matter-of-fact tone:

“The moment the marriage had been solemnized, he insisted, I understand, on your sending for what I may call an unofficial witness?”

“Yes, sir. The minute the clergyman and all that was gone, he made me call the landlady of the place where he was living—Mrs. Lightfoot's her name. She had got quite fond of him before I came. She was the marriage witness—leastways one of them. He says to her: 'Mrs. Lightfoot, I've something to tell you. It's very grave—you've got to remember it. Maybe you'll be sworn and asked about it.' Then he told her what he had told me.”

“You mean he repeated to her the statement that he had poisoned Mrs. Emily Garlett?”

The witness again became almost inaudible, but it was evident that she had answered, “Yes, sir.”

“I understand, Mrs. Cheale, that it was not till the day before his death that he succeeded in persuading you to send for a commissioner for oaths?”

She answers in a low, halting voice:

“When the doctor told me he couldn't last out the night, I didn't think it mattered what happened. Besides, I knew they couldn't do much till the next day, and I believed that the next day he would be dead—and so he was.”

“The commissioner for oaths,” Sir Harold looked at one of the papers in his hand, “is Mr. Theophilus Jones——”

There runs a nervous laugh through the Court. The judge looks very stern.

Sir Harold goes on—“of 15, London Wall. That gentleman, or so I understand, has influenza. That is why he is not here to-day.”

The witness answers, “Yes, sir—I'm afraid he caught cold coming out to see my husband at night time.”

There is another titter, which is quickly suppressed.

“You see, sir, I didn't know what to do! And then Mrs. Lightfoot, she says to me, 'There's a gentleman as is a commissioner for oaths living in this very square. It was him as had to do with the lease of this house.' So I went round to his home, sir, and I just told him the truth—that my dear husband was dying and wanted to make a confession to him. He's an old gentleman, and he was very kind to me. He said it wasn't in order, but that he'd come. And he did, sir. My husband had made me put down—he was too weak to write himself—what he wanted said, and the old gentleman, Mr. Jones, he read it over to him, and then my husband swore it was all true.”

At this point Mr. Toogood is seen entering the Court, and a memorandum is handed up to the judge.

Meanwhile the witness remains standing quite still in the box staring before her as if hardly knowing where she is.

Sir Harold reads a note from the judge, and then he goes on with his examination of the witness.

“Your husband, I understand, died within five hours of making this statement?”

“That is so, sir.”

“That was early yesterday morning?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you started at once, Mrs. Cheale, for Grendon? I understand you did this in obedience to a desire expressed by him?”

“Yes, sir. He made a joke like; he says to me: 'You won't have many opportunities of keeping your marriage vow—to obey me, Lucy—but I do give you an opportunity now. The minute the breath's out of my body,' he says, 'you're to go straight off with that paper of which you've got a copy. You're to go to the office of that—'” she hesitates—“'that rascally lawyer, Toogood,' he called him, but then, sir, he always said all lawyers were rascals, and he often would have his joke. 'There,' he says, 'you're to find Toogood, and you're to put this before him. No good telegraphing,' he said, 'to judge or counsel. Lawyers are dull, hide-bound villains, they'd take no notice of a telegram, they'd think it was a hoax.'”

The audience in Court turned amused eyes on the gentlemen who are hearing themselves so candidly described. But if they expect to see any signs of self-conscious confusion, they are disappointed. All the lawyers remain perfectly calm, and the witness goes on:

“He says to me, 'Have you enough money for a motor, Lucy? That would perhaps be quickest of all. Then, on the other hand,' he says, 'you might be killed in the motor. So best go by train,' he said. So I did what he wished. The moment he was dead I left him alone with that kind soul, Mrs. Lightfoot, and I only stopped long enough on the way to the station to get the black clothes I'm now wearing——”

And now the judge leans forward.

“I regret,” he said somewhat severely, “that this statement of yours was not put in yesterday.”

“I never had no chance, sir—your worship. I did try to be heard.”

Sir Harold interposes:

“May I ask your lordship to allow me to read the sworn statement made by Guy Cheale?”

Then Sir Almeric jumps up. He looks ruffled and disturbed, as he intimates:

“I do not oppose my learned friend's application, my lord.”

The next thing to do is to release the witness.

“That will do, Mrs. Cheale,” says Sir Harold in a courteous tone. “We thank you very much for the clear way in which you have given your evidence. I understand that you wish to go back to London as soon as possible. If so, I hope you will use my motor car.”

A murmur of admiration for Sir Harold's thoughtful kindness runs through the Court. But to the judge Sir Harold's public announcement of his kindness seems highly irregular, and his lordship hastens to creat a diversion.

“Sir Almeric Post,” he observes in his frigid tones, “in view of what is contained in that sworn statement, it is for you to read it to the jury, and not Sir Harold Anstey.”

“Very good, my lord,” says Sir Almeric, and then, in his passionless, clear tones he reads out the following words:

“I, Guy Cheales, in full possession of all my faculties though a dying man, wish to put it on record that I administered the arsenic to Mrs. Emily Garlett for reasons best known to myself, and which from my point of view were sufficiently good and conclusive at the time, though I do not expect any one else in the present state of our peculiar, complex civilization, built as it is on a pyramid of lies, to agree with me.

“My sister, Agatha Cheale, then lady housekeeper at the Thatched House, asked me three days before Mrs. Emily Garlett's death to take a note for her to Miss Prince's house, the Thatched Cottage. She informed me I could get straight into the house through a garden door.

“I followed her directions and found myself in the empty house. I laid the letter on the hall table. I then bethought myself that I would go upstairs, as I'd heard Miss Prince had a curious collection of medicaments, and I have always been much interested in drugs.

“I found the room in which they were kept with no difficulty. The cupboard door was open, and I noticed the stoppered bottle of arsenic. I took out about an ounce of the white powder and put it in an envelope which I had in my pocket. I then walked back to the Thatched Farm. There I transferred the arsenic to a large empty pill-box. To the best of my belief the pill-box, with some of the arsenic still in it, will be found behind the fourth row of books in the small glazed bookcase in the parlour there.

“I ought here to add that when in the medicine room of Miss Prince's house I turned up the entry 'Arsenic' in a medical work on her table. I thus discovered the right dose for an adult. On the afternoon which preceded Mrs. Garlett's death I was one of two or three people who went and sat with her for a time. In a sense I may say I acted on a sudden impulse, for when I saw the small plateful of strawberries outside her door with the sugar sifter close to it I thought it an ideal opportunity for the accomplishment of my purpose.

“I asked her whether she would care to have the strawberries, and she said yes, that she had not known there were strawberries there. I went out of the room and mixed the arsenic with the sugar, then I brought the plate into her room. After she had eaten the strawberries I bade her good-bye and removed the plate—she thought outside the door—as a matter of fact I took it away with me, and threw it under a bush in the little wood, where it doubtless still is.

“I left the house as far as I know without having been seen, though Lucy Warren had admitted me, and we had had a short talk. Lucy was on the point of leaving the house owing to our having been found together—I may add not in any compromising sense—in the drawing room the night before by my sister and Mrs. Garlett. Mrs. Garlett, of course, had not recognized me. My sister, who is a generous woman, handed over to me practically the whole of her legacy—her unexpected legacy of a thousand pounds, which Mrs. Garlett left her in her will.”

Suddenly there breaks across the level, passionless tones of Sir Almeric's voice a loud groan, and for the second time that day a man faints in Court. He is hastily taken below, but not before the Grendon folk present recognize him as Enoch Bent, Lucy Cheale's uncle and Mr. Toogood's highly respected head clerk. Few, however, of those who recognize him ask themselves why Guy Cheale's reference in his statement to Mrs. Garlett's will and the legacy to Guy Cheale's sister should have had such an effect on the worthy Bent.

Fortunately for Bent, there is no need for him to be put in the witness-box, there to have drawn from him, by the persuasive arts of Sir Harold Anstey, an account—nay, a confession—of certain highly reprehensible and most unprofessional confidences concerning Mrs. Garlett's will, made before that lady's tragic death. That other and greater confession—the confession of Guy Cheale on his death-bed—has shed an amply sufficient light on the Terriford Mystery.

After the slight interruption caused by Bent's collapse and removal, Sir Almeric goes on reading Guy Cheale's statement from the exact place where he broke off:

“With this money I went abroad, and I was still abroad when the exhumation of Mrs. Garlett took place, and when Mr. Garlett was committed for trial. While abroad—in Spain, as a matter of fact—I became exceedingly ill. I therefore made for home. My sister unwillingly consented to hire a room in the house in which she was then living, namely the house in which I am now.

“In a sense it has been a race between my life and that of Henry Garlett. I hope—I try to persuade myself—that I should, in any case, have made this confession even had I not been a dying man. Had I done so I should of course have put myself first out of the power of English law, which would not have been difficult, as I have always been a rolling stone, as the silly saying is.

“I hope it will not be considered egotistic on my part to put on record my high appreciation of my wife's fine nature. She is a thoroughly good woman, and I hope that in time she will forgive me, and that some man—a thousand-fold better man than I can claim to be—will make her yet a happy woman.”

And what is happening meantime in the cold, rather dark cell, where so many unhappy prisoners have sat, waiting to be taken upstairs to hear the verdict?

By special leave of the judge, Jean Bower has been allowed to go below and join her lover, who will not now be a prisoner for long.

Together again at last, Harry Garlett and Jean Bower are sitting on a hard wooden bench, hand in hand. They are not alone. Two warders are watching them with stolid faces, and they are still feeling bewildered, oppressed, by this wonderful thing that has happened to them.

Harry Garlett is saying to himself, “Guy Cheale? Guy Cheale! Why, Emily liked him—she liked him.”

The door opens. “Mr. Garlett,” says a kind voice—the voice of the Governor of Grendon Gaol. “Will you and Miss Bower come upstairs to hear the verdict?”

They get up. Still hand in hand they mount the dark stairs. Then the prisoner—he is still a prisoner—raises Jean's hand and kisses it.

They emerge into the crowded Court, all eyes upon them, and he goes on up into the dock for the last time, while she walks round to the witness bench, where Dr. Maclean has preceded her.

The jury are all in their places. They have evidently had no difficulty in arriving at their verdict.

Then the clerk of the Court calls out:

“How say you, gentlemen—guilty or not guilty?”

The foreman of the jury, looking very pale, answers in a firm voice:

“Not Guilty.”

THE END