"He pushed away the dinner-table, and drew forward a smaller table. Then he ran out of the room, and returned in about two minutes, carrying with him all the towels he had been able to find in my room and his own, which were close at hand. He spread the towels on the table, and then took the slimy bundle from the basket.
""Bring me the candles--both the candles," he said to the constable.
"The man held the two wax-candles on the right hand of the detective, as he sat before the table. I stood on his left hand, watching him intently.
"He touched the ragged and mud-stained bundle as carefully as if it had been some living thing. Foul river-insects crept out of the weeds, which were so intermingled with the tattered fabrics that it was difficult to distinguish one substance from the other.
"Mr. Carter was right: the rats had been at work. The outer part of the bundle was a coat--a cloth coat, knawed into tatters by the sharp teeth of water-rats.
"Inside the coat there was a waistcoat, a satin scarf that was little better than a pulp, and a shirt that had once been white. Inside the white shirt there was a flannel shirt, out of which there rolled half-a-dozen heavy stones. These had been used to sink the bundle, but were not so heavy as to prevent its drifting into the hole where it had been found.
"The bundle had been rolled up very tightly, and the outer garment was the only one which had been destroyed by the rats. The inner garment--the flannel shirt--was in a very tolerable state of preservation.
"The detective swept the coat and waistcoat and the pebbles back into the basket, and then rolled both of the shirts in a towel, and did his best to dry them. The constable watched him with open eyes, but with no ray of intelligence in his stolid face.
""Well," said Mr. Carter," there isn"t much here, is there? I don"t think I need detain you any longer. You"ll be wanting your tea, I dare say."
""I did"nt think there would be much in them," the constable said, pointing contemptuously to the wet rags; his reverential awe of Scotland Yard had been considerably lessened during that long tiresome day. "I didn"t see your game from the first, and I don"t see it now. But you wanted the things found, and you"ve had "em found."
"Yes; and I"ve paid for the work being done," Mr. Carter answered briskly; "not but what I"m thankful to you for giving me your help, and I shall esteem it a favour if you"ll accept a trifle, to make up for your lost day. I"ve made a mistake, that"s all; the wisest of us are liable to be mistaken once in a way."
"The constable grinned as he took the sovereign which Mr. Carter offered him. There was something like triumph in the grin of that Winchester constable--the triumph of a country official who was pleased to see a Londoner at fault.
"I confess that I groaned aloud when the door closed upon the man, and I found myself alone with the detective, who had seated himself at the little table, and was poring over one of the shirts outspread before him.
""All this day"s labour and weariness has been so much wasted trouble,"
I said; "for it seems to have brought us no step nearer to the point we wanted to reach."
""Hasn"t it, Mr. Austin?" cried the detective, eagerly. "Do you think I am such a fool as to speak out before the man who has just left this room? Do you think I"m going to tell him my secret, or let him share my gains? The business of to-day has brought us to the very end we want to reach. It has brought about the discovery to which Margaret Wilmot"s letter was the first indication--the discovery pointed to by every word that man told us last night. Why did I want to find the clothes worn by the murdered man? Because I knew that those garments must contain a secret, or they never would have been stripped from the corpse. It ain"t often that a murderer cares to stop longer than he"s obliged by the side of his victim; and I knew all along that whoever stripped off those clothes must have had a very strong reason for doing it. I have worked this business out by my own lights, and I"ve been right. Look there, Mr.
Austin."
"He handed me the wet discoloured shirt, and pointed with his finger to one particular spot.
"There, amidst the stains of mud and moss, I saw something which was distinct and different from them. A name, neatly worked in dark crimson thread--a Christian and surname, in full.
""How do you make that out?" Mr. Carter asked, looking We full in the face.
"Neither I nor any rational creature upon this earth able to read English characters could have well made out that name otherwise than I made it out.
"It was the name of Henry Dunbar.
""You see it all now, don"t you?" said Mr. Carter; "that"s why the clothes were stripped off the body, and hidden at the bottom of the stream, where the water seemed deepest; that"s why the watch and chain changed hands; that"s why the man who came back to this house after the murder was slow to select the key of the desk. You understand now why it was so difficult for Margaret Wilmot to obtain access to the man at Maudesley Abbey; and why, when she had once seen that man, she tried to shield him from inquiry and pursuit. When she told you that Henry Dunbar was innocent of her father"s murder, she only told you the truth. The man who was murdered was Henry Dunbar; the man who murdered him was----"
"I could hear no more. The blood surged up to my head, and I staggered back and dropped into a chair.
"When I came to myself, I found the detective splashing cold water in my face. When I came to myself, and was able to think steadily of what had happened, I had but one feeling in my mind; and that was pity, unutterable pity, for the woman I loved.
"Mr. Carter carried the bundle of clothes to his own room, and returned by-and-by, bringing his portmanteau with him. He put the portmanteau in a corner near the fireplace.
""I"ve locked the clothes safely in that," he said; "and I don"t mean to let it out of my sight till it"s lodged in very safe hands. That mark upon Henry Dunbar"s shirt will hang his murderer."
""There may have been some mistake," I said; "the clothes marked with the name of Henry Dunbar may not have really belonged to Henry Dunbar.
He may have given those clothes to his old valet."
""That"s not likely, sir; for the old valet only met him at Southampton two or three hours before the murder was committed. No; I can see it all now. It"s the strangest case that ever came to my knowledge, but it"s simple enough when you"ve got the right clue to it. There was no probable motive which could induce Henry Dunbar, the very pink of respectability, and sole owner of a million of money, to run the risk of the gallows; there were very strong reasons why Joseph Wilmot, a vagabond and a returned criminal, should murder his late master, if by so doing he could take the dead man"s place, and slip from the position of an outcast and a penniless reprobate into that of chief partner in the house of Dunbar and Company. It was a bold game to hazard, and it must have been a fearfully perilous and difficult game to play, and the man has played it well, to have escaped suspicion so long. His daughter"s conscientious scruples have betrayed him."
"Yes, Mr. Carter spoke the truth. Margaret"s refusal to fulfil her engagement had set in motion the machinery by means of which the secret of this foul murder had been discovered.
"I thought of the strange revelation, still so new to me, until my brain grew dazed. How had it been done? How had it been managed? The man whom I had seen and spoken with was not Henry Dunbar, then, but Joseph Wilmot, the murderer of his master--the treacherous and deliberate a.s.sa.s.sin of the man he had gone to meet and welcome after his five-and-thirty years" absence from England!
""But surely such a conspiracy must be impossible," I said, by-and-by; "I have seen letters in St. Gundolph Lane, letters in Henry Dunbar"s hand, since last August."
""That"s very likely, sir," the detective answered, coolly. "I turned up Joseph Wilmot"s own history while I was making myself acquainted with the details of this murder. He was transported thirty years ago for forgery: he made a bold attempt at escape, but he was caught in the act, and removed to Norfolk Island. He was one of the cleverest chaps at counterfeiting any man"s handwriting that was ever tried at the Old Bailey. He was known as one of the most daring scoundrels that ever stepped on board a convict-ship; a clever villain, and a bold one, but not without some touches of good in him, I"m told. At Norfolk Island he worked so hard and behaved so well that he got set free before he had served half his time. He came back to England, and was seen about London, and was suspected of being concerned in all manner of criminal offences, from card-sharping to coining, but nothing was ever brought home to him. I believe he tried to make an honest living, but couldn"t: the brand of the gaol-bird was upon him; and if he ever did get a chance, it was taken away from him before the sincerity of any apparent reformation had been tested. This is his history, and the history of many other men like him."
"And Margaret was the daughter of this man. An inexpressible feeling of melancholy took possession of me as I thought of this. I understood everything now. This n.o.ble girl had heroically put away from her the one chance of bright and happy life, rather than bring upon her husband the foul taint of her father"s crime. I could understand all now. I looked back at the white face, rigid in its speechless agony; the fixed, dilated eyes; and I pictured to myself the horror of that scene at Maudesley Abbey, when the father and daughter stood opposite to each other, and Margaret Wilmot discovered _why_ the murderer had persistently hidden himself from her.
"The mystery of my betrothed wife"s renunciation of my love had been solved; but the discovery was so hideous that I looked back now and regretted the time of my ignorance and uncertainty. Would it not have been better for me if I had let Margaret Wilmot go her own way, and carry out her sublime scheme of self-sacrifice? Would it not have been better to leave the dark secret of the murder for ever hidden from all but that one dread Avenger whose judgments reach the sinner in his remotest hiding-place, and follow him to the grave? Would it not have been better to do this?
"No! my own heart told me the argument was false and cowardly. So long as man deals with his fellow-man, so long as laws endure for the protection of the helpless and the punishment of the wicked, the course of justice must know no hindrance from any personal consideration.
"If Margaret Wilmot"s father had done this hateful deed, he must pay the penalty of his crime, though the broken heart of his innocent daughter was a sacrifice to his iniquity. If, by a strange fatality, I, who so dearly loved this girl, had urged on the coming of this fatal day, I had only been a blind instrument in the mighty hand of Providence, and I had no cause to regret the revelation of the truth.
"There was only one thing left me. The world would shrink away, perhaps, from the murderer"s daughter; but I, who had seen her nature proved in the fiery furnace of affliction, knew what a priceless pearl Heaven had given me in this woman, whose name must henceforward sound vile in the ears of honest men, and I did not recoil from the horror of my poor girl"s history.
""If it has been my destiny to bring this great sorrow upon her," I thought, "it shall be my duty to make her future safe and happy."
"But would Margaret ever consent to be my wife, if she discovered that I had been the means of bringing about the discovery of her father"s crime?
"This was not a pleasant thought, and it was uppermost in my mind while I sat opposite to the detective, who ate a very hearty dinner, and whose air of suppressed high spirits was intolerable to me.
"Success is the very wine of life, and it was scarcely strange that Mr.
Carter should feel pleased at having succeeded in finding a clue to the mystery that had so completely baffled his colleagues. So long as I had believed in Henry Dunbar"s guilt, I had felt no compunction as to the task I was engaged in. I had even caught something of the detective"s excitement in the chase. But now, now that I knew the shame and anguish which our discovery must inevitably entail upon the woman I loved, my heart sank within me, and I hated Mr. Carter for his ardent enjoyment of his triumph.
""You don"t mind travelling by the mail-train, do you, Mr. Austin?" the detective said, presently.
""Not particularly; but why do you ask me?"
""Because I shall leave Winchester by the mail to-night."
""What for?"
""To get as fast as I can to Maudesley Abbey, where I shall have the honour of arresting Mr. Joseph Wilmot."
"So soon! I shuddered at the rapid course of justice when once a criminal mystery is revealed.
""But what if you should be mistaken! What if Joseph Wilmot was the victim and not the murderer?"