Kitabı oku: «Johnny Ludlow, Fourth Series», sayfa 19

“A quarrel and fight she says, sir. I told her I knew better.”

Captain Tanerton took his cap and started with Ferrar for Ship Street, plunging into a reverie. Presently he began to speak—as if he wished to account for his own movements.

“When you left me, Mr. Ferrar—you know”—and here he exchanged a significant glance with his new first mate—“I went on to Ship Street, and took a look at Pym’s room. A lamp was shining on the table, and his landlady had the window open, closing the shutters. This gave me an opportunity of seeing inside. Pym I saw; but not—not anyone else.”

Again Captain Tanerton’s tone was significant. Ferrar appeared to understand it perfectly. It looked as though they had some secret understanding between them which they did not care to talk of openly. The captain resumed.

“After fastening the shutters, Mrs. Richenough came to the door—for a breath of air, she remarked, as she saw me: and she positively denied, in answer to my questions, that any young lady was there. Mr. Pym had never had a young lady come after him at all, she protested, whether sister or cousin, or what not.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ferrar: for the captain had paused.

“I went in, and spoke to Pym. But, I saw in a moment that he had been drinking again. He was not in a state to be reasoned with, or talked to. I asked him but one question, and asked it civilly: would he tell me where Verena Fontaine was. Pym replied in an unwilling tone; he was evidently sulky. Verena Fontaine was at home again with her people; and he had not been able, for that reason, to see her. Thinking the ship had gone away, and he with it, Verena had returned home early in the afternoon. That was the substance of his answer.”

“But I—I don’t know whether that account can be true, sir,” hesitated Ferrar. “I was not sure, you know, sir, that it was the young lady; I said so–”

“Yes, yes, I understood that,” interrupted the captain quickly. “Well, it was what Pym said to me,” he added, after a pause: “one hardly knows what to believe. However, she was not there, so far as I could ascertain and judge; and I left Pym and came up here to my hotel. I was not two minutes with him.”

“Then—did no quarrel take place, sir?” cried Ferrar, thinking of the landlady’s story.

“Not an angry word.”

At this moment, as they were turning into Ship Street, Saxby, who seemed completely off his head, ran full tilt against Ferrar. It was all over, he cried out in excitement, as he turned back with them: the doctor pronounced Pym to be really dead.

“It is a dreadful thing,” said the captain. “And, seemingly, a mysterious one.”

“Oh, it is dreadful,” asserted young Saxby. “What will poor Miss Verena do? I saw her just now,” he added, dropping his voice.

“Saw her where?” asked the captain, taking a step backwards.

“In the place where I’ve just met you, sir,” replied Saxby. “I was running past round the corner into the street, on my way home from Clapham, when a young lady met and passed me, going pretty nearly as quick as I was. She had her face muffled in a black veil, but I am nearly sure it was Miss Verena Fontaine. I thought she must be coming from Pym’s lodgings here.”

Captain Tanerton and his chief mate exchanged glances of intelligence under the light of the street gas-lamp. The former then turned to Saxby.

“Mr. Saxby,” said he, “I would advise you not to mention this little incident. It would not, I am sure, be pleasant to Miss Verena Fontaine’s friends to hear of it. And, after all, you are not sure that it was she.”

“Very true, sir,” replied Saxby. “I’ll not speak of it again.”

“You hear, sir,” answered Ferrar softly, as Saxby stepped on to open the house-door. “This seems to bear out what I said. And, by the way, sir, I also saw–”

“Hush!” cautiously interrupted the captain—for they had reached the door, and Mrs. Richenough stood at it.

And what Mr. Ferrar further saw, whatever it might be, was not heard by Captain Tanerton. There was no present opportunity for private conversation: and Ferrar was away in the morning with the Rose of Delhi.

After parting with Captain Tanerton on leaving the ship, I made my way to the Mansion House, took an omnibus to Covent Garden, and called at the Tavistock to tell Mr. Brandon of the return of the ship. Mr. Brandon kept me to dinner. About eight o’clock I left him, and went to the Marylebone Road to see the Fontaines. Coralie was in the drawing-room alone.

“Is it you, Johnny Ludlow!” she gaily cried, when old Ozias showed me in. “You are as welcome as flowers in May. Here I am, without a soul to speak to. You must have a game at chess with me.”

“Your sister is not come home, then?”

“Not she. I thought it likely she would come, as soon as the ship’s head was turned seaward—I told you so. But she has not. And now the ship’s back again, I hear. A fine time you must have had of it!”

“We just had. But how did you know?”

“From papa. Papa betook himself to the docks this afternoon, to assure himself, I presume, that the Rose of Delhi was gone. And my belief is, Johnny, that he will work himself into a nervous fever,” Coralie broke off to say, in her equable way, as she helped me to place the pieces. “When he got there, he found the ship was back again. This put him out a little, as you may judge; and something else put him out more. He heard that Vera went on board with Pym yesterday afternoon when the ship was lying in St. Katherine’s Docks. Upon that, what notion do you suppose he took up? I have first move, don’t I?”

“Certainly. What notion did he take up?” The reader must remember that I knew nothing of Sir Dace’s visit to the ship.

“Why, that Vera might be resolving to convert herself into a stowaway, and go out with Pym and the ship. Poor papa! He went searching all over the vessel. He must be off his head.”

“Verena would not do that.”

“Do it?” retorted Coralie. “She’d be no more likely to do it than to go up a chimney, as the sweeps do. I told papa so. He brought me this news when he came home to dinner. And he might just as well have stayed away, for all he ate.”

Coralie paused to look at her game. I said nothing.

“He could only drink. It was as if he had a fierce thirst upon him. When the sweets came on, he left the table and shut himself in his little library. I sent Ozias to ask if he would have a cup of tea or coffee made; papa swore at poor Ozias, and locked the door upon him. When Verena does appear I’d not say but he’ll beat her.”

“No, no: not that.”

“But, I tell you he is off his head. He is still shut up: and nobody dare go near him when he gets into a fit of temper. It is so silly of papa! Verena is all right. But this disobedience, you see, is something new to him.”

“You can’t move that bishop. It leaves your king in check.”

“So it does. The worst item of news remains behind,” added Coralie. “And that is that Pym does not sail with the ship.”

“I should not think he would now. Captain Tanerton would not take him.”

“Papa told me Captain Tanerton had caused him to be superseded. Was Pym very much the worse for what he took, Johnny? Was he very insolent? You must have seen it all?”

“He had taken quite enough. And he was about as insolent as a man can be.”

“Ferrar is appointed to his place, papa says; and a new man to Ferrar’s.”

“Ferrar is! I am glad of that: very. He deserves to get on.”

“But Ferrar is not a gentleman, is he?” objected Coralie.

“Not in one sense. There are gentlemen and gentlemen. Mark Ferrar is very humble as regards birth and bringing-up. His father is a journeyman china-painter at one of the Worcester china-factories; and Mark got his learning at St. Peter’s charity-school. But every instinct Mark possesses is that of a refined, kindly, modest gentleman; and he has contrived to improve himself so greatly by dint of study and observation, that he might now pass for a gentleman in any society. Some men, whatever may be their later advantages, can never throw off the common tone and manner of early habits and associations. Ferrar has succeeded in doing it.”

“If Pym stays on shore it may bring us further complication,” mused Coralie. “I should search for Verena myself then—and search in earnest. Papa and old Ozias have gone about it in anything but a likely manner.”

“Have you any notion where she can be?”

“Just the least bit of notion in the world,” laughed Coralie. “It flashed across me the other night where she might have hidden herself. I don’t know it. I have no particular ground to go upon.”

“You did not tell Sir Dace?”

“Not I,” lightly answered Coralie. “We two sisters don’t interfere with one another’s private affairs. I did keep back a letter of Vera’s; one she wrote to Pym when we first left home; but I have done so no more. Here comes some tea at last!”

“I should have told,” I continued in a low tone. “Or taken means myself to see whether my notion was right or wrong.”

“What did it signify?—when Pym was going away in a day or two. Check to you, Johnny Ludlow.”

That first game, what with talking and tea-drinking, was a long one. I won it. When Ozias came in for the tea-cups Coralie asked him whether Sir Dace had rung for anything. No, the man answered; most likely his master would remain locked in till bed-time; it was his way when any great thing put him out.

“I don’t think I can stay for another game,” I said to Coralie, as she began to place the men again.

“Are you in such a hurry?” cried Coralie, glancing round at the clock: which said twenty minutes to ten.

I was not in any hurry at all that night, as regarded myself: I had thought she might not care for me to stay longer. Miss Deveen and Cattledon had gone out to dinner some ten miles away, and were not expected home before midnight. So we began a fresh game.

“Why! that clock must have stopped!”

Chancing to look at it by-and-by, I saw that it stood at the same time—twenty minutes to ten. I took out my watch. It said just ten minutes past ten.

“What does it signify?” said Coralie. “You can stay here till twenty minutes to twelve if you like—and be whirled home in a cab by midnight then.”

That was true. If–

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Coralie.

She was looking at the door with surprised eyes. There stood Verena, her bonnet on; evidently just come in.

Verena tripped forward, bent down, and kissed her sister. “Have you been desperately angry, Coral?” she lightly asked, giving me her hand to shake. “I know papa has.”

“I have not been angry,” was Coralie’s equable answer: “but you have acted childishly, Verena. And now, where have you been?”

“Only in Woburn Place, at Mrs. Ball’s,” said Verena, throwing off her bonnet, and bringing her lovely flushed face close to the light as she sat down. “When I left here that evening—and really, Johnny, I was sorry not to stay and go in to dinner with you,” she broke off, with a smile—“I went straight to our old lodgings, to good old Mother Ball. ‘They are frightful tyrants at home,’ I said to her, ‘I’m not sure but they’ll serve me as Bluebeard did his wives; and I want to stay with you for a day or two.’ There’s where I have been all the time, Coral; and I wondered you and papa did not come to look for me.”

“It is where I fancied you might be,” returned Coral. “But I only thought of it on Saturday night. Does that mean check, Johnny?”

“Check and mate, mademoiselle.”

“Oh, how wicked you are!”

“Mrs. Ball has been more careful of me than she’d be of gold,” went on Vera, her blue eyes dancing. “The eldest daughter, Louise, is at home now: she teaches music in a school: and, if you’ll believe me, Coral, the old mother would never let me stir out without Louise. When Edward Pym came up in the evening to take me for a walk, Louise must go with us. ‘I feel responsible to your papa and sister, my dear,’ the old woman would say to me. Oh, she was a veritable dragon.”

“Was Louise with you when you went on board the Rose of Delhi yesterday afternoon?” cried Coralie, while I began to put away the chessmen.

Verena opened her eyes. “How did you hear of that? No, we tricked Louise for once. Edward had fifty things to say to me, and he wanted me alone. After dinner he proposed that we should go to afternoon service. I made haste, and went out with him, calling to Louise that she’d catch us up before we reached the church, and we ran off in just the contrary direction. “I should like to show you my ship,” Edward said; and we went down in an omnibus. Mrs. Ball shook her head when we got back, and said I must never do it again. As if I should have the chance, now Edward’s gone!”

Coralie glanced at her. “He is gone, I suppose?”

“Yes,” sighed Vera. “The ship left the docks this morning. He took leave of me last night.”

Coralie looked doubtful. She glanced again at her sister under her eyelids.

“Then—if Edward Pym is no longer here to take walks with you, Vera, how is it you came home so late to-night?”

“Because I have been to a concert,” cried Vera, her tone as gay as a lark’s. “Louise and I started to walk here this afternoon. I wanted you to see her; she is really very nice. Coming through Fitzroy Square, she called upon some friends of hers who live there, the Barretts—he is a professor of music. Mrs. Barrett was going to a concert to-night and she said if we would stay she’d take us. So we had tea with her and went to it, and they sent me home in a cab.”

“You seem to be taking your pleasure!” remarked Coralie.

“I had such an adventure downstairs,” cried Verena, dropping her voice after a pause of thought. “Nearly fell into the arms of papa.”

“What—now?”

“Now; two minutes ago. While hesitating whether to softly tinkle the kitchen-bell and smuggle myself in and up to my room, or to storm the house with a bold summons, Ozias drew open the front-door. He looked so glad to see me, poor stupid old fellow. I was talking to him in the passage when I heard papa’s cough. ‘Oh, hide yourself, Missee Vera,’ cried Ozias, ‘the master, he so angry;’ and away I rushed into papa’s little library, seeing the door of it open–”

“He has come out of it, then!” interjected Coralie.

“I thought papa would go upstairs,” said Vera. “Instead of that, he came on into the room. I crept behind the old red window-curtains, and–”

“And what?” asked Coralie, for Verena made a sudden pause.

“Groaned out with fright, and nearly betrayed myself,” continued Verena. “Papa stared at the curtains as if he thought they were alive, and then and there backed out of the room. Perhaps he feared a ghost was there. He was looking so strange, Coralie.”

“All your fault, child. Since the night you went away he has looked more like a maniac than a rational man, and acted like one. I have just said so to Johnny Ludlow.”

“Poor papa! I will be good and tractable as an angel now, and make it up to him. And—why, Coralie, here are visitors.”

We gazed in surprise. It is not usual to receive calls at bedtime. Ozias stood at the door showing in Captain Tanerton. Behind him was Alfred Saxby.

The captain’s manner was curious. No sooner did he set eyes on us than he started back, as if he thought we might bite him.

“Not here. Not the ladies. I told you it was Sir Dace I wanted,” he said in quick sentences to Ozias. “Sir Dace alone.”

Ozias went back down the stairs, and they after him, and were shown into the library. It was a little room nearly opposite the front-entrance, and underneath the room called the boudoir. You went down a few stairs to it.

Verena turned white. A prevision of evil seized her.

“Something must be the matter,” she shivered, laying her hand upon my arm. “Did you notice Captain Tanerton’s face? I never saw him look like that. And what does he do here? Where is the ship? And oh, Johnny”—and her voice rose to a shriek—“where’s Edward Pym?”

Alas! we soon knew what the matter was—and where Edward Pym was. Dead. Murdered. That’s what young Saxby called it. Sir Dace, looking frightfully scared, started with them down to Ship Street. I went also; I could not keep away. George was to sit up for me at home if I were late.

“For,” as Miss Deveen had said to me in the morning, laughingly, “there’s no telling, Johnny, at what unearthly hour you may get back from Gravesend.”

IV

It was a dreadful thing to have happened. Edward Pym found dead; and no one could tell for a certainty who had been the author of the calamity.

He had died of a blow dealt to him, the doctors said: it had struck him behind the left ear. Could it be possible that he had fallen of himself, and struck his head against something in falling, was a question put to the doctors—and it was Captain Tanerton who put it. It perhaps might be possible, the medical men answered, but not at all probable. Mr. Pym could not have inflicted the blow upon himself, and there was no piece of furniture in the room, so far as they saw, that could have caused the injury, even though he had fallen upon it.

The good luck of the Rose of Delhi seemed not to be in the ascendant. Her commander could not sail with her now. Neither could her newly-appointed third mate, Alfred Saxby. So far as might be ascertained at present, Captain Tanerton was the last man who had seen Pym alive; Alfred Saxby had found him dead; therefore their evidence would be required at the official investigation.

Ships, however, cannot be lightly detained in port when their time for sailing comes: and on the day following the events already told of, the Rose of Delhi finally left the docks, all taut and sound, the only one of her old officers, sailing in her, being Mark Ferrar. The brokers were put out frightfully at the detention of Tanerton. A third mate was soon found to replace Saxby: a master not so easily. They put in an elderly man, just come home in command of one of their ships. Put him in for the nonce, hoping Captain Tanerton would be at liberty to join her at Dartmouth, or some other place down channel.

On this same day, Tuesday, the investigation into the events of that fatal Monday, as regarded Edward Pym, was begun. Not the coroner’s inquest: that was called for the morrow: but an informal inquiry instituted by the brokers and Sir Dace Fontaine. In a back-room of the office in Eastcheap, the people met; and—I am glad to say—I was one of them, or I could not have told you what passed. Sir Dace sat in the corner, his elbow resting on the desk and his hand partly covering his face. He did not pretend to feel the death as an affectionate uncle would have felt it; still Pym was his nephew, and there could be no mistake that the affair was troubling him.

Mrs. Richenough, clean as a new pin, in her Sunday gown and close bonnet, a puzzled look upon her wrinkled face, told what she knew—and was longer over it than she need have been. Mr. Pym, who lodged in her parlour floor, had left her for good, as she supposed, on the Monday morning, his ship, the Rose of Delhi, being about to go out of dock. Mr. Saxby, who had lodged in the rooms above Mr. Pym, got appointed to the same ship, and he also left. In the afternoon she heard that the ship had got off all right: a workman at the docks told her so. Later, who should come to the door but Mr. Pym—which naturally gave her great surprise. He told her the ship had sprung a leak and had put back; but they should be off again with the next day’s tide, and he should have to be abroad precious early in the morning to get the cargo stowed away again–

“What time was this?” interrupted Mr. Freeman.

“About half-past four, I fancy, sir. Mr. Pym spoke rather thick—I saw he had been taking a glass. He bade me make him a big potful of strong tea—which I did at once, having the kettle on the fire. He drank it, and went out.”

“Go on, Mrs. Richenough.”

“An hour afterwards, or so, his captain called, wanting to know where he was. Of course, sirs, I could not say; except that he had had a big jorum of tea, and was gone out.”

Captain Tanerton spoke up to confirm this. “I wanted Pym,” he said. “This must have been between half-past five and six o’clock.”

“About nine o’clock; or a bit earlier, it might be—I know it was dark and I had finished my supper—Mr. Pym came back,” resumed the landlady. “He seemed in an ill-humour, and he had been having more to drink. ‘Light my lamp, Mother Richenough,’ says he roughly, ‘and shut the shutters: I’ve got a letter to write.’ I lighted the lamp, and he got out some paper of his that was left in the table-drawer, and the ink, and sat down. After closing the shutters I went to the front-door, and there I saw Captain Tanerton. He asked me–”

“What did he ask you?” cried Mr. Freeman’s lawyer, for she had come to a dead standstill.

“Well, the captain asked me whether any young lady had been there. He had asked the same question afore, sir: Mr. Pym’s cousin, or sister, I b’lieve he meant. I told him No, and he went into the parlour to Mr. Pym.”

“What then?”

“Well, gentlemen, I went back to my kitchen, and shut myself in by my bit o’ fire; and, being all lonely like, I a’most dozed off. Not quite; they made so much noise in the parlour, quarrelling.”

“Quarrelling?” cried the lawyer.

“Yes, sir; and were roaring out at one another like wolves. Mr. –”

“Stay a moment, ma’am. How long was it after you admitted Captain Tanerton that you heard this quarrelling?”

“Not above three or four minutes, sir. I’m sure of that. ‘Mr. Pym’s catching it from his captain, and he is just in the right mood to take it unkindly,’ I thought to myself. However, it was no business of mine. The sounds soon ceased, and I was just dozing off again, when Mr. Saxby came home. He went into the parlour to see Mr. Pym, and found him lying dead on the floor.”

A silent pause.

“You are sure, ma’am, it was Captain Tanerton who was quarrelling with him?” cried the lawyer, who asked more questions than all the rest put together.

“Of course I am sure,” returned Mrs. Richenough. “Why, sir, how could it be anybody else? Hadn’t I just let in Captain Tanerton to him? Nobody was there but their two selves.”

Naturally the room turned to Jack. He answered the mute appeal very quietly.

“It was not myself that quarrelled with Pym. No angry word of any kind passed between us. Pym had been drinking; Mrs. Richenough is right in that. He was not in a state to be reproved or reasoned with, and I came away at once. I did not stay to sit down.”

“You hear this, Mrs. Richenough?”

“Yes, sir, I do; and I am sure the gentleman don’t speak or look like one who could do such a deed. But, then, I heard the quarrelling.”

An argument indisputable to her own mind. Sir Dace looked up and put a question for the first time. He had listened in silence. His dark face had a wearied look on it, and he spoke hardly above a whisper.

“Did you know the voice to be that of Captain Tanerton, Mistress Landlady? Did you recognize it for his!”

“I knew the voice couldn’t be anybody else’s, sir. Nobody but the captain was with Mr. Pym.”

“I asked you whether you recognized it?” returned Sir Dace, knitting his brow. “Did you know by its tone that it was Captain Tanerton’s?”

“Well, no, sir, I did not, if you put it in that way. Captain Tanerton was nearly a stranger to me, and the two shut doors and the passage was between me and him. I had only heard him speak once or twice before, and then in a pleasant, ordinary voice. In this quarrel his voice was raised to a high, rough pitch; and in course I could not know it for his.”

“In point of fact, then, it comes to this: You did not recognize the voice for Captain Tanerton’s.”

“No, sir; not, I say, if you put it in that light.”

“Let me put it in this light,” was Sir Dace Fontaine’s testy rejoinder: “Had three or four people been with Mr. Pym in his parlour, you could not have told whose voice it was quarrelling with him? You would not have known?”

“That is so, sir. But, you see, I knew it was his captain that was with him.”

Sir Dace folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, his cross-questioning over. Mrs. Richenough was done with for the present, and Captain Tanerton entered upon his version of the night’s events.

“I wished particularly to see Mr. Pym, and went to Ship Street in search of him, as I have already said. He was not there. Later, I went down again–”

“I beg your pardon, Captain Tanerton,” interrupted the lawyer; “what time do you make it—that second visit?”

“It must have been nearly nine o’clock. Mr. Pym was at home, and I went into his parlour. He sat at the table writing, or preparing to write. I asked him the question I had come to ask, and he answered me. Scarcely anything more passed between us. He was three-parts tipsy. I had intended to tell him that he was no longer chief mate of my ship—had been superseded; but, seeing his condition, I did not. I can say positively that I was not more than two minutes in the room.”

“And you and he did not quarrel?”

“We did not. Neither were our voices raised. It is very probable, in his then condition, that he would have attempted to quarrel had he known he was discharged; but he did not know it. We were perfectly civil to each other; and when I wished him good-night, he came into the passage and shut the front-door after me.”

“You left no one with him?”

“No one; so far as I saw. I can answer for it that no one was in the parlour with us: whether any one was in the back room I cannot say. I do not think so.”

“After that, Captain Tanerton?”

“After that I went straight to my hotel in the Minories, and ordered tea. While taking it, Mr. Ferrar came in and told me Edward Pym was dead. I could not at first believe it. I went back to Ship Street and found it too true. In as short a time as I could manage it, I went to carry the news to Sir Dace Fontaine, taking young Saxby with me.”

Jack had spoken throughout in the ready, unembarrassed manner of one who tells a true tale. But never in all my life had I seen him so quiet and subdued. He was like one who has some great care upon him. The other hearers, not knowing Jack as I knew him, would not notice this; though I cannot answer for it that one of them did not James Freeman. He never took his eyes off Jack all the while; peered at him as if he were a curiosity. It was not an open stare; more of a surreptitious one, taken stealthily from under his eyebrows.

Some testimony as to Pym’s movements that afternoon was obtained from Mrs. Ball, the lawyer having already been to Woburn Place to get it. She said that young Pym came to her house between five and six o’clock nearer six than five, she thought, and seemed very much put out and disappointed to find Miss Verena Fontaine had left for her own home. He spoke of the ship’s having sprung a leak and put back again, but he believed she would get out again on the morrow. Mrs. Ball did not notice that he had been drinking; but one of her servants met him in the street after he left the house, heard him swearing to himself, and saw him turn into a public-house. If he remained in it until the time he next appeared in Ship Street, his state then was not to be wondered at.

This was about all that had been gathered at present. A great deal of talking took place, but no opinion was expressed by anybody. Time enough for that when the jury met on the morrow. As we were turning out of the back-room, the meeting over, Mr. Freeman put his hand upon Jack, to detain him. Jack, in his turn, detained me.

“Captain Tanerton,” he said, in a grave whisper, “do you remember making a remark to me not long ago, in this, my private room—that if we persisted in sending Pym out with you in the ship, there would be murder committed?”

“I believe I do,” said Jack, quietly. “They were foolish words, and meant nothing.”

“I do not like to remember them,” pursued Mr. Freeman. “As things have turned out, it would have been better that you had not used them.”

“Perhaps so,” answered Jack. “They have done no harm, that I know of.”

“They have been singularly verified. The man has been murdered.”

“Not on board the Rose of Delhi.”

“No. Off it.”

“I should rather call it death by misadventure,” said Jack, looking calmly at the broker. “At the worst, done in a scuffle; possibly in a fall.”

“Most people, as I think you will find, will call it murder, Captain Tanerton.”

“I fear they will.”

Mr. Freeman stood before Jack, waiting—at least it struck me so—to hear him add, “But I did not commit it”—or words to that effect. I waited too. Jack never spoke them: he remained silent and still. Since the past day his manner had changed. All the light-hearted ease had gone out of it; the sunny temperament seemed exchanged for one of thought and gloom.

Fine tidings to travel down to Timberdale!

On Wednesday, the day following this, the Squire stood at the gate of Crabb Cot after breakfast, looking this way and that. Dark clouds were chasing each other over the face of the sky, now obscuring the sun, now leaving it to shine out with intense fierceness.

“It won’t do to-day,” cried the Squire. “It’s too windy, Joe. The fish would not bite.”

“They’d bite fast enough,” said Tod, who had set his mind upon a day’s fishing, and wanted the Squire to go with him.

“Feel that gust, Joe! Why, if—halloa, here comes Letsom!”

Colonel Letsom was approaching at the pace of a steam-engine, his mild face longer than usual. Tod laughed.

The colonel, never remembering to say How d’ye do, or to shake hands, dragged two letters out of his pocket, all in a flurry.

“Such fearful news, Todhetley!” he exclaimed. “Pym—you remember that poor Pym?”

“What should hinder me?” cried the Squire. “A fine dance we had, looking for him and Verena Fontaine the other night in London! What of Pym!”

“He is dead!” gasped the colonel. “Murdered.”

The pater took off his spectacles, thinking they must affect his hearing, and stared.

“And it is thought,” added the colonel, “that—that Captain Tanerton did it.”

“Good mercy, Letsom! You can’t mean it.”

Colonel Letsom’s answer was to read out portions of the two letters. One of them was written to his daughter Mary Ann by Coralie Fontaine; three sheets full. She gave much the same history of the calamity that has been given above. It could not have been done by any hand but Captain Tanerton’s, she said; though of course not intentionally; nobody thought that: her father, Sir Dace, scorned any worse idea. Altogether, it was a dreadful thing; it had struck Verena into a kind of wild despair, and bewildered them all. And in a postscript she added what she had apparently forgotten to say before—that Captain Tanerton denied it.