"Why, you see, the mischief must have lain between that beetle-powder and Crew"s pills. As Crew is so careful a man, I don"t think it could have been the pills; and that"s the truth."
"But how could the beetle-powder have got anigh the children out of my pocket, sir?" she asked, her eyes wild. "I never put my hand into my pocket while I sat there; I never did."
"You can"t be sure of that," returned Duffham. "We may put our hands into our pockets fifty times a day without remembering it."
"D"you suppose, sir, I should take out some o" that there beetle-powder and cram it down the poor innocents" throats?" she demanded, on the verge of further screaming.
"Where is the powder?" questioned Duffham.
The powder was where it had been all along: in the gown-pocket. Want of opportunity, through fear of Dovey"s eyes, or dread of touching the stuff, had kept her from meddling with it. When she took the gown off, the night of the inquest, she hung it up on the accustomed hook, and there it was still. The old mother went to the bedroom and brought it forward, handling it gingerly: a very smart print gown with bright flowers upon it.
Duffham looked round, saw a tin pie-dish, and turned the pocket inside out into it. A speckled sort of powder, brown and white. He plunged his fingers into it fearlessly, felt it, and smelt it. The blue paper it had been sold in lay amidst it, cracked all across. Duffham took it up.
"Poison!" read out he aloud, gazing at the large letters through his spectacles. "How came you to let it break open in your pocket, Ann Dovey?"
"I didn"t let it; it braked of itself," she sobbed. "If you saw the black-beedles we gets here of a night, sir, you"d be fit to dance a hornpipe, you would. The floor be covered with "em."
"If the ceiling was covered with "em too, I wouldn"t have that there dangerous stuff brought into the place--and so I"ve telled ye often,"
roared Dovey.
"It"s frightful uncomfortable, is black-beedles; mother knows it," said his wife, in a subdued voice--for Dovey in great things was master. "I thought if I just sprinkled a bit on"t down, it "ud take "em away, and couldn"t hurt n.o.body."
"And you went off on the sly that there Tuesday night and bought it," he retorted; "and come back and telled me you had been to Reed"s helping to physic the babies."
"And so I had been there, helping to physic "em."
"Did you go straight to Reed"s from the shop--with this powder?" asked Duffham.
"It was right at the bottom o" my pocket: I put it there as soon as Dame Chad had served me with it," sobbed Ann Dovey. "And I can be upon my Bible oath, Dr. Duffham, that I never touched it after; and I don"t believe it had then burst. A-coming hasty out of Reed"s back-gate, for I were in a hurry to get home, the pocket swung again" the post, and I think the blue paper must ha" burst then. I never knowed it had burst, for I"d never thought no more about the beedles till I put on the gownd to go up to the inquest. Master Johnny, you be a-staring at me fearful, but I"m telling nothing but the naked truth."
She did seem to be telling the truth. And as to my "staring at her fearful," that was just her imagination. I was listening to the talk from the elbow of the wooden chair, on which I had perched myself.
Duffham recommended Dovey to put the tin dish and its contents away safely, so that it did not get near any food, but not to destroy the stuff just yet. He talked a bit with Ann, left her a composing draught, and came away.
"I don"t see that the powder could have had anything to do with the children"s death," I said to him as we went along.
"Neither do I, Johnny!"
"Shall you have to declare this at the inquest to-morrow, Mr. Duffham?"
"I am sure I don"t know," he answered, looking up at the sky through his spectacles, just as a perplexed owl might do. "It might only serve to complicate matters: and I don"t think it"s possible it could have been the powder. On the other hand, if it be proved not to have been the pills, we have only this poisonous powder to fall back upon. It is a strange affair altogether, take it in all its bearings."
I did not answer. The evening star was beginning to show itself in the sky.
"I must feel my way in this, Johnny: be guided by circ.u.mstances," he resumed, when we halted at the stile that led across the fields to the Manor. "We must watch the turn matters take to-morrow at the inquest.
Of course if I find it necessary to declare it, I shall declare it.
Meanwhile, lad, you had better not mention it to any one."
"All right, Mr. Duffham. Good-evening."
The jury went straggling into the Silver Bear by twos and threes. Up dashed the coroner"s gig, as before, he and his clerk seated side by side. All the parish had collected about the doors, and were trying to push into the inquest-room.
Gliding quietly in, before the proceedings were opened, came Abel Crew in his quaint velvet suit, his silver hair gleaming in the sunlight, his pale face calm as marble. The coroner ordered him to sit on a certain chair, and whispered to old Jones. Upon which the constable turned his gouty legs round, marched up, and stood guard over Crew, just as though Abel were his prisoner.
"Do you see that, sir?" I whispered to Duffham.
"Yes, lad, and understand it. Crew"s pills have been a.n.a.lyzed--officially this time, as the jury put it--and found to contain a.r.s.enic. Pettipher was right. The pills killed the children."
Well, you might have knocked me down with a feather. I had been fully trusting in Crew"s innocence.
About the first witness called, and sworn, was the professional man from a distance who had a.n.a.lyzed the pills. He said that they contained a.r.s.enic. Not in sufficient quant.i.ty to hurt a grown-up person; more than sufficient to kill a little child. The coroner drew in his lips.
"I thought it must be so," he said, apparently for the benefit of the jury. "Am I to understand that these were improper pills to send out?--pills that no medical man would be likely to send?"
"Not improper at all, sir," replied the witness. "A medical man would prescribe them for certain cases. Not for children: to an infant one would be what it has been here--destruction."
I felt a nudge at my elbow, and turned to see the Squire"s hot face close to mine.
"Johnny, don"t you ever stand up for that Crew again. He ought to be hanged."
But the coroner, after a bit, seemed puzzled; or rather, doubtful. Led to be so, perhaps, by a question put by one of the jury. It was Perkins the butcher.
"If these pills were furnished by Abel Crew for Hester Reed, a growed woman, and she went and gave one of her own accord to the two babies, ought Crew to be held responsible for that?"
Upon which there ensued some cavilling. Some of the jury holding that he was _not_ responsible; others that he was. The coroner reminded them of what Hester Reed had stated in her evidence--that she had asked Crew"s opinion about the suitability of the pills for children, and he had told her they were suitable.
Hester Reed was called. As the throng parted to make way for her to advance, I saw Ann Dovey seated at the back of the room, looking more dead than alive. Dovey stood by her, having made himself spruce for the occasion. Ann would have gone off a mile in some opposite direction, but old Jones"s orders to all the witnesses of the former day, to appear again, had been peremptory. They had been wanted before, he told them, and might be wanted again.
"You need not look such a scarecrow with fright," I whispered in Ann Dovey"s ear, making my way to her side to rea.s.sure her, the woman was so evidently miserable. "It was the pills that did the mischief, after all--didn"t you hear? Nothing need come out about your pocket and the powder."
"Master Johnny, I"m just about skeered out o" my life, I am. Fit to go and drown myself."
"Nonsense! It will be all right as far as you are concerned."
"I said it was Crew"s pills, all along, I did; it couldn"t have been anything else, sir. All the same, I wish I was dead."
As good try to console a post, seemingly, as Ann Dovey. I went back to my standing-place between the Squire and Duffham. Hester Reed was being questioned then.
"Yes, sir, it were some weeks ago. My little boy was ailing, and I ran out o" the house to Abel Crew, seeing the old gentleman go past the gate, and asked whether I might give him one of them there same pills, or whether it would hurt the child. Crew said I might give it freely; he said two even wouldn"t hurt him."
"And did you give the pill?" asked the coroner.
"No, sir. He"s a rare bad one to give physic to, Gregory is, and I let him get well without it."
"How old is he?"
"Turned of three, sir."