Such a circ.u.mstance was extraordinary. To me, as to Ambler Jevons who knew her well, it seemed almost inconceivable that old Mr. Courtenay should allow her to live there after receiving such a wild communication as that final letter. Especially curious, too, that Mary had never suspected or discovered her sister"s jealousy. Yet so skilfully had Ethelwynn concealed her intention of revenge that both husband and wife had been entirely deceived.
Love, considered under its poetical aspect, is the union of pa.s.sion and imagination. I had foolishly believed that this calm, sweet-voiced woman had loved me, but those letters made it plain that I had been utterly fooled. "Le mystere de l"existence," said Madame de Stael to her daughter, "c"est la rapport de nos erreurs avec nos peines."
And although there was in her, in her character, and in her terrible situation, a concentration of all the interests that belong to humanity, she was nevertheless a murderess.
"The truth is here," remarked my friend, laying his hand upon the heap of tender correspondence which had been brought to such an abrupt conclusion by the letter I have printed in its entirety. "It is a strange, romantic story, to say the least."
"Then you really believe that she is guilty?" I exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely.
He shrugged his shoulders significantly, but no word escaped his lips.
In the silence that fell between us, I glanced at him. His chin was sunk upon his breast, his brows knit, his thin fingers toying idly with the plain gold ring.
"Well?" I managed to exclaim at last. "What shall we do?"
"Do?" he echoed. "What can we do, my dear fellow? That woman"s future is in your hands."
"Why in mine?" I asked. "In yours also, surely?"
"No," he answered resolutely, taking my hand and grasping it warmly.
"No, Ralph; I know--I can see how you are suffering. You believed her to be a pure and honest woman--one above the common run--a woman fit for helpmate and wife. Well, I, too, must confess myself very much misled. I believed her to be all that you imagined; indeed, if her face be any criterion, she is utterly unspoiled by the world and its wickedness. In my careful studies in physiognomy I have found that very seldom does a perfect face like hers cover an evil heart. Hence, I confess, that this discovery has amazed me quite as much as it has you. I somehow feel----"
"I don"t believe it!" I cried, interrupting him. "I don"t believe, Ambler, that she murdered him--I can"t believe it. Her"s is not the face of a murderess."
"Faces sometimes deceive," he said quietly. "Recollect that a clever woman can give a truthful appearance to a lie where a man utterly fails."
"I know--I know. But even with this circ.u.mstantial proof I can"t and won"t believe it."
"Please yourself, my dear fellow," he answered. "I know it is hard to believe ill of a woman whom one loves so devotedly as you"ve loved Ethelwynn. But be brave, bear up, and face the situation like a man."
"I am facing it," I said resolutely. "I will face it by refusing to believe that she killed him. The letters are plain enough. She was engaged secretly to old Courtenay, who threw her over in favour of her sister. But is there anything so very extraordinary in that? One hears of such things very often."
"But the final letter?"
"It bears evidence of being written in the first moments of wild anger on realising that she had been abandoned in favour of Mary. Probably she has by this time quite forgotten the words she wrote. And in any case the fact of her living beneath the same roof, supervising the household, and attending to the sick man during Mary"s absence, entirely negatives any idea of revenge."
Jevons smiled dubiously, and I myself knew that my argument was not altogether logical.
"Well?" I continued. "And is not that your opinion?"
"No. It is not," he replied, bluntly.
"Then what is to be done?" I asked, after a pause.
"The matter rests entirely with you, Ralph," he replied. "I know what I should do in a similar case."
"What would you do? Advise me," I urged eagerly.
"I should take the whole of the correspondence, just as it is, place it in the grate there, and burn it," he said.
I was not prepared for such a suggestion. A similar idea had occurred to me, but I feared to suggest to him such a mode of defeating the ends of justice.
"But if I do that will you give me a vow of secrecy?" I asked, quickly. "Recollect that such a step is a serious offence against the law."
"When I pa.s.s out of this room I shall have no further recollection of ever having seen any letters," he answered, again giving me his hand.
"In this matter my desire is only to help you. If, as you believe, Ethelwynn is innocent, then no harm can be done in destroying the letters, whereas if she is actually the a.s.sa.s.sin she must, sooner or later, betray her guilt. A woman may be clever, but she can never successfully cover the crime of murder."
"Then you are willing that I, as finder of those letters, shall burn them? And further, that no word shall pa.s.s regarding this discovery?"
"Most willing," he replied. "Come," he added, commencing to gather them together. "Let us lose no time, or perhaps the constable on duty below or one of the plain-clothes men may come prying in here."
Then at his direction and with his a.s.sistance I willingly tore up each letter in small pieces, placed the whole in the grate where dead cinders still remained, and with a vesta set a light to them. For a few moments they blazed fiercely up the chimney, then died out, leaving only black tinder.
"We must make a feint of having tried to light the fire," said Jevons, taking an old newspaper, twisting it up, and setting light to it in the grate, afterwards stirring up the dead tinder with the tinder of the letters. "I"ll remark incidentally to the constable that we"ve tried to get a fire, and didn"t succeed. That will prevent Thorpe poking his nose into it."
So when the whole of the letters had been destroyed, all traces of their remains effaced and the safe re-locked, we went downstairs--not, however, before my companion had made a satisfactory explanation to the constable and entirely misled him as to what we had been doing.
CHAPTER XII.
I RECEIVE A VISITOR.
The adjourned inquest was resumed on the day appointed in the big room at the Star and Garter at Kew, and the public, eager as ever for sensational details, overflowed through the bar and out into the street, until the police were compelled to disperse the crowd. The evening papers had worked up all kinds of theories, some worthy of attention, others ridiculous; hence the excitement and interest had become intense.
The extraordinary nature of the wound which caused Mr. Courtenay"s death was the chief element of mystery. Our medical evidence had produced a sensation, for we had been agreed that to inflict such a wound with any instrument which could pa.s.s through the exterior orifice was an absolute impossibility. Sir Bernard and myself were still both bewildered. In the consulting room at Harley Street we had discussed it a dozen times, but could arrive at no definite conclusion as to how such a terrible wound could possibly have been caused.
I noticed a change in Sir Bernard. He seemed mopish, thoughtful, and somewhat despondent. Usually he was a busy, bustling man, whose manner with his patients was rather brusque, and who, unlike the majority of my own profession, went to the point at once. There is no profession in which one is compelled to exercise so much affected patience and courtesy as in the profession of medicine. Patients will bore you to death with long and tedious histories of all their ailments since the days when they chewed a gutta-percha teething-ring, and to appear impatient is to court a reputation for flippancy and want of attention. Great men may hold up their hands and cry "Enough!" But small men must sit with pencil poised, apparently intensely interested, and listen through until the patient has exhausted his long-winded recollections of all his ills.
Contrary to his usual custom, Sir Bernard did not now return to Hove each evening, but remained at Harley Street--dining alone off a chop or a steak, and going out afterwards, probably to his club. His change of manner surprised me. I noticed in him distinct signs of nervous disorder; and on several afternoons he sent round to me at the Hospital, saying that he could not see his patients, and asking me to run back to Harley Street and take his place.
On the evening before the adjourned inquest I remarked to him that he did not appear very well, and his reply, in a strained, desponding voice, was:
"Poor Courtenay has gone. He was my best friend."
Yes, it was as I expected, he was sorrowing over his friend.
When we had re-a.s.sembled at the Star and Garter, he entered quietly and took a seat beside me just before the commencement of the proceedings.
The Coroner, having read over all the depositions taken on the first occasion, asked the police if they had any further evidence to offer, whereupon the local inspector of the T Division answered with an air of mystery:
"We have nothing, sir, which we can make public. Active inquiries are still in progress."
"No further medical evidence?" asked the coroner.
I turned towards Sir Bernard inquiringly, and as I did so my eye caught a face hidden by a black veil, seated among the public at the far side of the room. It was Ethelwynn herself--come there to watch the proceedings and hear with her own ears whether the police had obtained traces of the a.s.sa.s.sin!