Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 14

But when she did so, and was further questioned, she only kept to what she had said before, strenuously denying that the box _could_ have been changed. It had never been touched by any hands but her own while it stood in its place on the press, and had never been removed from it at all until she took it downstairs on the past Tuesday night.

"Is the room where this press stands your own sleeping-room?" asked the coroner.

"No, sir. It's the other room, where my three children sleep."

"Could these children get to the box?"

"Dear no, sir! 'Twould be quite impossible."

"Had any one an opportunity of handling the box when you took it down on Tuesday night?" went on the coroner after a pause.

"Only Mrs. Dovey, sir. n.o.body else was there."

"Did she touch it?"

"She laid hold of it to look at the pills."

"Did you leave her _alone_ with it?"

"No, sir. Leastways--yes, I did for a minute or so, while I went into the back'us to get the sugar and a saucer and spoon."

"Had she the box in her hands when you returned?"

"Yes, sir, I think she had. I think she was still smelling at the pills.

I know the poor little innocents was lying one on one knee, and one on t'other, all flat, and her two hands was lifted with the box in 'em."

"It was after that that you took the pills out of it to give the children?"

"Yes, sir; directly after. But Ann Dovey wouldn't do nothing wrong to the pills, sir."

"That will do," said the coroner in his curt way. "Call Ann Dovey."

Ann Dovey walked forward with a face as red as her new bonnet-strings.

She had heard the whole colloquy: something seemed, too, to have put her out. Possessing scant veneration for coroners at the best of times, and none for the jury at present a.s.sembled, she did not feel disposed to keep down her temper.

The few first questions asked her, however, afforded no opportunity for resentment, for they were put quietly, and tended only to extract confirmation of Mrs. Reed's evidence, as to fetching the pill-box from upstairs and administering the pills. Then the coroner cleared his throat.

"Did you see the last witness, Hester Reed, go into the back kitchen for a spoon and saucer?"

"I saw her go and fetch 'em from somewhere," replied Ann Dovey, who felt instinctively the ball was beginning, and gave the reins to her temper accordingly.

"Did you take charge of the pill-box while she was gone?"

"I had it in my hand, if you mean that."

"Did anybody come into the kitchen during that interval?"

"No they didn't," was the tart response.

"You were alone, except for the two infants?"

"I were. What of it?"

"Now, witness, did you do anything with that box? Did you, for instance, exchange it for another?"

"I think you ought to be ashamed o' yourselves, all on you, to sit and ask a body such a thing!" exploded Mrs. Dovey, growing every moment more resentful, at being questioned. "If I had knowed the bother that was to spring up, I'd have chucked the box, pills and all, into the fire first.

I wish I had!"

"Was the box, that you handed to Hester Reed on her return, the same box she left with you? Were the pills the same pills?"

"Why, where d'ye think I could have got another box from?" shrieked Ann Dovey. "D'you suppose, sir, I carry boxes and pills about with me? I bain't so fond o' physic as all that comes to."

"Dovey takes pills on occasion for that giddiness of his; I've seen him take 'em; mayhap you'd picked up a box of his," spoke Dobbs the blacksmith, mildly.

That was adding fuel to fire. Two of a trade don't agree. Dovey and Dobbs were both blacksmiths: the one in Church d.y.k.ely; the other in Piefinch Cut, not much more, so to say, than a stone's-throw from each other. The men were good friends enough; but their respective ladies were apt to regard jealously all work taken to the rival establishment.

Any other of the jurymen might have made the remark with comparative impunity; not so Dobbs. And, besides the turn the inquiry seemed to be taking, Mrs. Dovey had not been easy about it in her mind from the first; proof of which was furnished by the call, already mentioned, made by her husband on Abel Crew.

"Dovey takes pills on occasion, do he!" she shrilly retorted. "And what do you take, Bill Dobbs? Pints o' beer when you can get 'em. Who lamed Poole's white horse the t'other day a-shoeing him?"

"Silence!" sternly interrupted the coroner. While Dobbs, conscious of the self-importance imparted to him by the post he was now filling, and of the necessity of maintaining the dignity of demeanour which he was apt to put on with his best clothes, bore the aspersion with equanimity and a stolid face.

"Attend to me, witness, and confine yourself to replying to the questions I put to you," continued the coroner. "Did you take with you any pills or pill-box of your own when you went to Mrs. Reed's that evening?"

"No, I _didn't_," returned Ann Dovey, the emphasis culminating in a sob: and why she should have set on to s.h.i.+ver and shake was more than the jury could understand.

"Do you wear pockets?"

"What if I do?" she said, after a momentary pause. But her lips grew white, and I thought she was trying to brave it out.

"Had you a pocket on that evening?"

"Heaven be good to me!" I heard her mutter under her breath. And if ever I saw a woman look frightened nearly to death, Ann Dovey looked it then.

"Had you a pocket on that evening, witness?" repeated the coroner, sharply.

"Y--es."

"What articles were in it? Do you recollect?"

"It were a key or two," came the answer at length, her very teeth chattering and all the impudence suddenly gone out of her. "And my thimble, sir;--and some coppers; and a part of a nutmeg;--and--and I don't remember nothing else, sir."

"No box of pills? You are sure you had not that?"

"Haven't I said so, sir?" she rejoined, bursting into a flood of tears.

For which, and for the sudden agitation, n.o.body could see any reason: and perhaps it was only that which made the coroner harp upon the same string. Her demeanour had become suspicious.

"You had no poison of any kind in your pocket, then?"

But he asked the question in jest more than earnest. For when she went into hysterics instead of replying, he let her go. He was used to seeing witnesses scared when brought before him.