The Curse of Carne's Hold Part 8

"So it did, so it did," Hiram agreed. "I can't gainsay you there, Jacob Carey; now you put it so, I see there is something in it, though never before have I heard of there being anything in the curse except in the family."

"Why, didn't Miles Jefferies, father of one of the boys as is in the stables, get his brains kicked out by one of the old Squire's horses?"

"So he did, Jacob, so he did; still grooms does get their brains kicked out at other places besides The Hold. But there is something in what you say, and if I had thought of it before, I would never have let my Ruth go up there to service. I thought it was all for the best at the time, and you knows right enough why I sent her up there, to be away from that George Forester; still, I might have sent her somewhere else, and I would have done if I had thought of what you are saying now. Sure enough no good has come of it. I can't hold that that fall of hers had aught to do with the curse of the Carnes, but this last affair, which seems to me worse for her than the first, sure enough comes from the curse."

"Who is this George Forester, if you don't mind my asking the question?"

the detective said. "You see it's my business to find out about people."

"Oh, George hadn't nothing to do with this business," Hiram replied.

"He's the son of a farmer near here, and has always been wild and a trouble to the old man, but he's gone away weeks ago. He got into a poaching sc.r.a.pe, and one of the keepers was hurt, and I suppose he thought he had best be out of it for a time; anyhow, he has gone. But he weren't that sort of a chap. No, there was no harm in George Forester, not in that way; he was lazy and fonder of a gla.s.s than was good for him, and he got into bad company down at Dareport, and that's what led him to this poaching business, I expect, because there was no call for him to go poaching. His father's got a tidy farm, and he wanted for nothing. If he had been there he couldn't have wanted to steal Miss Carne's jewellery. He was pa.s.sionate enough, I know, and many a quarrel has he had with his father, but nothing would have made me believe, even if he had been here, that old Jim Forester's son had a hand in a black business like this; so don't you go to take such a notion as that into your head."

"He would not be likely to have any quarrel with Miss Carne?" the detective asked.

"Quarrel? No," Hiram replied sharply, for he resented the idea that any possible suspicion of Margaret Carne's murder should be attached to a man with whom Ruth's name had been connected. "I don't suppose Miss Carne ever spoke a word to him in her life. What should she speak to him for? Why, he had left the Sunday school years before she took to seeing after it. 'Tain't as if he had been one of the boys of the village."

As Jacob Carey, Reuben Claphurst, and the landlord, each gave an a.s.senting murmur to Hiram's words, the detective did not think it worth while to pursue the point further, for there really seemed nothing to connect this George Forester in any way with Margaret Carne's death.

"Well," he said, taking up his hat, "I will go round to this beershop you speak of, and make inquiries as to whether any tramps have been staying there. It is quite certain this young lady didn't put an end to herself. What we have got to find out is: Who was the man that did it?"

CHAPTER V.

THE INQUEST.

It was six o'clock, and already quite dark, when, as Lieutenant Gulston was writing in his cabin, his servant told him that Dr. Mackenzie had just come off from the sh.o.r.e, and would be glad if he could spare him a few minutes' conversation.

"Tell him I will be on the quarter-deck in a minute." He added a few lines to the letter he was writing, put it in an envelope, and, taking his cap, went out, dropping the letter into the post-bag that hung near his cabin, and then went on to the quarter-deck. He was rather pleased with the doctor's summons, for he highly esteemed him, and regretted the slight estrangement which had arisen between them.

"Well, doctor," he asked, cheerily, "have some of the men been getting into mischief ash.o.r.e?"

"No, lad, no," the doctor replied, and the first-lieutenant felt that something more serious was the matter, for since he had obtained his rank of first-lieutenant the doctor had dropped his former habit of calling him lad. "No, I have heard some news ash.o.r.e that will affect you seriously. I am sorry, dear lad, very sorry. I may have thought that you were foolish, but that will make no difference now."

"What is it, doctor?" Lieutenant Gulston asked, with a vague alarm at the gravity of the doctor's manner of treating him.

"The evening papers came out with an early edition, Gulston, and the boys are shouting out the news of a terrible affair, a most terrible affair at your friends the Carnes'. Be steady, lad, be steady. It's a heavy blow for a man to have to bear. Miss Carne is dead."

"Dead! Margaret dead!" the lieutenant repeated, incredulously. "What are you saying, doctor? There must be some mistake. She was well yesterday, for I was over there in the evening and did not leave until nine o'clock. It can't be true."

"It is true, lad, unhappily; there is no mistake. She was found dead in her bed this morning."

The lieutenant was almost stunned by the blow.

"Good G.o.d!" he murmured. "It seems impossible."

The doctor walked away and left him for a minute or two to himself. "I have not told you all as yet, lad," he went on, when he returned; "it makes no difference to her, poor girl--none. She pa.s.sed out of life, it seems, painlessly and instantly, but it is worse for those who are left."

He paused a moment. "She was found stabbed to the heart by a midnight robber."

An exclamation of horror broke from the sailor. "Murdered? Good Heavens!"

"Ay, lad, it is true. It seems to have been done in her sleep, and death was instantaneous. There, I will leave you for a while, now. I will put the paper in your cabin, so that when you feel equal to reading the details you can do so. Try and think it is all for the best, lad. No one knows what trouble might have darkened her life and yours had this thing not happened. I know you will not be able to think so now, but you will feel it so some day."

An hour later Lieutenant Gulston entered the doctor's cabin. There was a look of anger as well as of grief on his face that the doctor did not understand.

"Doctor, I believe this is no murder by a wandering tramp, as the paper says. I believe it was done from revenge, and that the things were stolen simply to throw people off the scent. I will tell you what took place yesterday. I drove up as far as the gate in the garden; there one road sweeps round in front of the house, the other goes straight to the stables; so I got down, and told the man he might as well drive straight in, while I walked up to the house. The road follows close under the drawing-room windows, and, one of these being open, as I pa.s.sed I heard a man's voice raised loud in anger, so loudly and so pa.s.sionately, indeed, that I involuntarily stopped. His words were, as nearly as I can recollect, 'You have fooled me and spoilt my life, but you shall regret it. You think after all these years I am to be thrown off like an old glove. No, by Heaven; you may throw me over, but I swear you shall never marry this sailor or anybody else, whatever I may have to do to prevent it. You say I have the curse of the Carnes in my blood! You are right, and you shall have cause to regret it.' The voice was so loud and pa.s.sionate that I believed the speaker was about to do some injury to Margaret, for I did not doubt that it was to her he was speaking, and I ran round through the hall-door to the door of the room; but I found Carne himself standing there. He, too, I suppose, when he had been about to enter, had heard the words. He said, 'Don't go in just at present, Margaret and her cousin are having a quarrel, but I think it's over now.' Seeing that he was there at hand I went away for a bit, and found afterwards that Mervyn had jumped from the window, gone to the stable and ridden straight off. Margaret didn't come down to dinner, making an excuse that she was unwell. Now, what do you think of that, doctor? You know that Mervyn's mother was a Carne, and that he has this mad blood that you warned me against in his veins. There is his threat, given in what was an almost mad outburst of pa.s.sion. She is found dead this morning; what do you think of it?"

"I don't know what to think of it, Gulston; I know but little of Mervyn myself, but I have heard men in his regiment say that he was a queer fellow, and though generally a most cheery and pleasant companion, he has at times fits of silence and moroseness similar, I should say, to those of his cousin, Reginald Carne. It is possible, lad, though I don't like to think so. When there is madness in the blood no one can say when it may blaze out, or what course it can take. The idea is a terrible one, and yet it is possible; it may indeed be so, for the madness in the family has twice before led to murder. The presumption is certainly a grave one, for although his messmates may consider Mervyn to be, as they say, a queer fellow, I do not think you would find any of them to say he was mad, or anything like it. Remember, Gulston, this would be a terrible accusation to bring against any man, even if he can prove--as probably he can prove--that he was at home, or here in Plymouth, at the time of the murder. The charge that he is mad, and the notoriety such a charge would obtain, is enough to ruin a man for life."

"I can't help that," the lieutenant said, gloomily. "I heard him threaten Margaret, and I shall say so at the coroner's inquest to-morrow. If a man is such a coward as to threaten a woman he must put up with any consequences that may happen to befall him."

The coroner and jury met in the dining-room at The Hold; they were all Carnesford men. Hiram Powlett, Jacob Carey, and the landlord of the "Carne's Arms" were upon it, for the summoning officer had been careful to choose on such an important occasion the leading men of the village.

After having gone upstairs to view the body, the coroner opened the proceedings. The room was crowded. Many of the gentry of the neighbourhood were present. Lieutenant Gulston, with a hard set look upon his face, stood in a corner of the room with the doctor beside him.

Ronald Mervyn, looking, as some of the Carnesford people remarked in a whisper, ten years older than he did when he drove through the village a few days before, stood on the other side of the table talking in low tones to some of his neighbours.

"We shall first, gentlemen," the coroner said, "hear evidence as to the finding of the body. Ruth Powlett, the maid of the deceased lady, is the first witness."

A minute later there was a stir at the door, and Ruth was led in by a constable. She was evidently so weak and unhinged that the coroner told her to take a chair.

"Now, Miss Powlett, tell us what you saw when you entered your mistress's room."

"Upon opening the door," Ruth said, in a calmer and more steady voice than was expected from her appearance, "I saw that the window was open and the blind up. I was surprised at this, for Miss Carne did not sleep with her window open in winter, and the blind was always down. I walked straight to the washstand and placed the can of hot water there; then I turned round to wake Miss Carne, and I saw her lying there with a great patch of blood on her nightdress, and I knew by her face that she was dead. Then I fainted. I do not know how long I lay there. When I came to myself I got up and went to the door, and went downstairs to the kitchen and gave the alarm."

"You did not notice that any of Miss Carne's things had been taken from the table?" the coroner asked.

"No, sir."

"Were there any signs of a struggle having taken place?"

"No, sir, I did not see any. Miss Carne lay as if she was sleeping quietly. She was lying on her side."

"The bedclothes were not disarranged?"

"No, sir, except that the clothes were turned down a short distance."

"You were greatly attached to your mistress, Miss Powlett?"

"Yes, sir."

"She was generally liked--was she not?"

"Yes, sir. Every one who knew Miss Carne was fond of her."

"Have any of you any further questions to ask?" the coroner asked the jury.

There was no reply.