"I hadn"t the chance. I was still in Australia," he said shortly.
"If you"ll wait a moment I"ll bring it to you," was the, to him, astonishing reply.
Miss Pendarth walked off with her quick, light footsteps towards the house, and Radmore, gazing after her, told himself that she was indeed a strange woman. In some ways he had liked her far better to-day than he had ever liked her before, but the low, silly bit of gossip she had just told him filled him with disgust.
Very soon she was back, holding in her hand a newspaper.
An inquest of the kind that was held on Colonel Crofton is a G.o.dsend to any local sheet, and Radmore saw at a glance that this county paper had made the most of it.
"Will you read it here, if you"re not in a hurry? I don"t want it taken away; so while you"re reading it, I"ll go and do some potting over there."
She disappeared into a gla.s.s-house built across a corner of her garden, and he settled down to read the long newspaper columns.
Soon his feeling quickened into intense interest. The local Ess.e.x reporter had a turn for descriptive writing, and, as he read, G.o.dfrey Radmore saw the scene described rise vividly before him. He seemed to visualise the intensely crowded little court-house, the kindly coroner, the twelve good men and true, and the motley gathering of small town and country folk drawn together in the hope of hearing something startling.
Yet the facts were simple enough. Colonel Crofton had died from either an accidental, or a deliberate, over-dose of strychnine. And his death had been a terrible one.
The outstanding points of interrogation were: Had he consciously added to a tonic which he was taking an ounce or more of the deadly drug? Or, as some people were inclined to believe, had the local chemist by some mistake or gross piece of carelessness, put a murderous amount of strychnine into a mixture which had been prescribed for his customer about a fortnight before?
But for the fact that a bottle of nux vomica had been actually found on the ledge of the dead man"s dressing-room window, it would have gone hard with the chemist. But there the bottle had been found, and in her evidence, evidently given very clearly and simply, Mrs. Crofton had explained that, during the war, while in Egypt, she had palpitations of the heart, and so many drops of diluted strychnine had been ordered her.
When asked why there was so large a bottle full of the deadly stuff, she had answered that it had come from the Army Stores, where they always did things in a big and generous way. At that there had been laughter in Court.
Mrs. Crofton had further explained that, as a matter of fact, she had brought the bottle back to England without really knowing that she had done so; and that she had never given it a thought till it had been found, as described, after her husband"s death, by the doctor who had been called in to attend Colonel Crofton in his agonizing seizure.
One thing stated by Mrs. Crofton much surprised Radmore. She had a.s.serted, quite definitely, that her husband had suffered from sh.e.l.l-shock. That Radmore believed to be quite untrue.
With quickened, painful interest he read her account of how odd and how cranky Colonel Crofton had become when wholly absorbed in his hobby of breeding wire-haired terriers. How, when one of his dogs had failed to win a prize, he would go about muttering to himself, and visiting his annoyance and disappointment on those about him.
She had drawn a sad picture of the last long months of their joint life together and Radmore began to feel very, very sorry for her.... What an awful ordeal the poor little woman had gone through!
The doctor"s evidence made painful reading, but what had really clinched the matter was the evidence of one Piper, the Croftons" general odd man and trusted servant. He had been Colonel Crofton"s batman during part of the war, and was evidently much attached to him. When Piper repeated the words in which his master had once or twice threatened to take his own life, his evidence had obviously made a strong impression on both coroner and jury.
Radmore remembered Piper with a faint feeling of dislike. It was Piper who had prepared the puppy, Flick, for the cross-country journey to Beechfield, and Radmore had given the man a handsome tip for all the trouble he had taken.
Yes, he had not liked Piper; so much he remembered. He had thought the man self-a.s.sertive, over self-confident, while disagreeably cringing in manner.
He read through the coroner"s charge, which was given fully, very attentively. It was quite clear that the coroner was strongly biased, if one could put it that way, in Mrs. Crofton"s favour. He had spoken touchingly of the difficult time the poor young lady had had with her husband. Then he had recalled that the Colonel"s own favourite terrier, Dandy, on which he had built great hopes, had only been commended, instead of winning, as he had hoped, the first prize at an important show, and that had thoroughly upset him. Indeed, according to Piper"s evidence, he had used the exaggerated phrase, "My life is no longer worth living." Finally the coroner had touched lightly, but severely, on evidence tendered by a spiteful ex-woman-servant of the Croftons who had drawn a very unpleasant picture of the relations existing between the husband and wife.
Yet when the verdict of _felo de se_ had been returned, there had been murmurs in Court, at once sharply checked by the coroner.
Radmore felt surprised. Surely everyone present should have rejoiced from every point of view. Had a different verdict been returned, it would have put the unfortunate chemist in a very difficult position, and might easily have ruined his business.
Though Radmore was grateful to Miss Pendarth for allowing him to read the report, it had an effect very different from that she had intended, for it made him pity Mrs. Crofton intensely. Somehow he had never realised what a terrible ordeal the poor little woman had been through.
CHAPTER XXII
A week later Enid Crofton lay in her drawing-room on the one couch which The Trellis House contained. She looked very charming in her new guise of invalid.
Several people had already called to know how she was, including Jack Tosswill and his father, but no visitor had yet been admitted. Now it was past four, and she was expecting the doctor--also, she hoped, in due course, G.o.dfrey Radmore. That was why she had come downstairs, after having had an early cup of tea in her bedroom, and lain herself on the sofa.
The door opened, and as his burly form came through the door, Dr.
O"Farrell told himself that he had seldom if ever attended such an attractive looking patient! She was still very pale, for the shock had been great; but to-day, for the first time since her widowhood, she had put on a pink silk jacket, and it supplied the touch of colour which was needed by her white cheeks. She had made up her mind that even a little rouge would be injudicious, but she had just used her lip-stick. It was pleasant to know that she had every right to be an interesting invalid with all an interesting invalid"s privileges.
And yet, well acquainted as she was with the turns and twists of masculine human nature, Mrs. Crofton would have been surprised to know how suddenly repelled was the genial Irishman when she exclaimed eagerly:--"I do hope that horrible cat has been killed! Didn"t I hear you say that you meant to shoot her yourself?"
It was not without a touch of sly satisfaction that Dr. O"Farrell answered:--"That was my intention certainly, Mrs. Crofton. But I was frustrated. The cat and her kittens vanished--just entirely away!"
"Vanished?" she exclaimed. "Then perhaps someone else has killed her?"
"Bless you, no. I"m afraid that the brute has still got her nine lives before her! She was spirited away by that broth of a boy. Timmy Tosswill"s a good hater and a good lover, and that"s the truth of it! I wasn"t a bit surprised when I got the news that my services wouldn"t be wanted--that the cat wasn"t any longer at Old Place."
"D"you mean you don"t know what"s happened to the horrible creature?" she exclaimed vexedly.
"That"s just what I do mean, Mrs. Crofton. That smart little fellow just spirited the creature away."
As he spoke, sitting with his back to the window, he was observing his pretty patient very closely. She had reddened angrily and was biting her lips. What a little vixen _she_ was, to be sure! And suddenly she saw what he was thinking.
"I"d like to put a question to you, Mrs. Crofton."
"Do!" she insisted, but his question, when it came, displeased her.
"Is it true that that wasn"t the first time you"d had an unpleasant experience with an animal at Old Place?"
Dr. O"Farrell had not meant to ask his patient this question to-day, but he really felt curious to know the truth concerning something G.o.dfrey Radmore had told him that morning.
"Yes," she answered, slowly, "the first time I was in Old Place, Timmy Tosswill"s dog frightened me out of my wits."
"That"s very strange," said the doctor, "Flick"s such a mild-mannered dog."
Enid Crofton lifted herself up from her reclining position. "Dr.
O"Farrell! I wouldn"t say so to anyone but you, but don"t you think there"s something uncanny about Timmy Tosswill? My little maid told me last night that the village people think he"s a kind of--well, I don"t know what to call it!--a kind of boy-witch. She says they"re awfully afraid of him, that they think he can do a mischief to people he doesn"t like." As he said nothing for a moment, she added rather defiantly:--"I daresay you think it is absurd that I should listen to village gossip, but the truth is, I"ve a kind of horror of the child. He terrifies me!"
Dr. O"Farrell looked round the room as if he feared eavesdroppers. He even got up and went to see if the door was really shut. "That"s very curious," he said thoughtfully. "Very curious indeed. But no, I"m not thinking you absurd, Mrs. Crofton. The child"s a very peculiar child.
Have you ever heard of thought transference?"
She looked at him, astonished. "No," she answered, rather bewildered, "I haven"t an idea what you mean by that."
"Well, you"ve heard of hypnotism?"
"Oh, yes, but I"ve never believed in it!"
To that remark he made no answer, and he went on, more as if speaking to himself than to her:--"We needn"t consider what the village people say. Timmy just tries to frighten them--like all boys he"s fond of his practical joke, and of course it"s a temptation to him to work on their fears. But the little lad certainly presents a curious natural phenomenon, if I may so express myself."