A tragedy of love and hate

Three days had passed since the tragedy that cast such gloom over the whole neighborhood had occurred; three long, dreary days. Outside the world was in full beauty, fair, smiling summer flung her treasures with a reckless hand; the sun was bright and the flowers sweet; inside the stately mansion all was darkness, horror and gloom.

Murder is always terrible. It is so seldom known among the higher classes that when a young and lovely woman like Lady Alden is its victim the sensation caused is something terrible.

A reckless, brutal, drunken collier murders his wife, and though his neighbors shake their heads and say it is a terrible thing, the idea of a murder is unhappily too familiar to them to excite the disgust, the repugnance and horror felt among a more cultivated and refined class.

But the murder of Lady Alden created a profound impression through the whole kingdom; the papers were filled with it; any little detail that could throw additional light on the subject was most eagerly grasped. Several popular daily papers sent their special reporters down to Leeholme. The circulation of the Daily Wonder increased marvelously, because each morning there was something fresh to say on the subject of “The Terrible Tragedy in High Life,” and yet, write, guess, imagine what they would, there was no glimmer of truth in anything written or said.

Round Leeholme the sensation had been almost terrible. Dr. Mayne, left to take the entire management of the business, had promptly sent for the superintendent of police, Captain Johnstone, and had given him carte blanche.

“Spare no money, no time, no labor,” he said, “but let the criminal be found. Sir Ronald is too ill, too overwhelmed, to give any orders at present; but you know what should be done. Do it promptly.”

And Captain Johnstone had at once taken every necessary step. There was something ghastly in the pretty town of Leeholme, for there on the walls was the placard, worded:

“MURDER!

Gaping rustics read it, and while they felt heartily sorry for the unhappy lady they longed to know something about it for the sake of the reward.

But no one called on Captain Johnstone—no one had a word either of certainty or surmise. The police officers, headed by intelligent men, made diligent search in the neighborhood of the pool; but nothing was found. There was no mark of any struggle; the soft, thick grass gave no sign of heavy footsteps. No weapon could be found, no trace of blood-stained fingers. It was all a mystery dark as night, without one gleam of light.

The pool had always been a favorite place with the hapless lady; and, knowing that, Sir Ronald had ordered a pretty, quaint golden chair to be placed there for her; and on the very morning when the event happened Lady Clarice Alden had taken her book and had gone to the fatal spot to enjoy the beauty of the morning, the brightness of the sun and the odor of the flowers. The book she had been reading lay on the ground, where it had evidently fallen from her hands. But there was no sign of anything wrong; the bluebells had not even been trampled under foot.

After twenty-four hours’ search the police relinquished the matter. Captain Johnstone instituted vigorous inquiries as to all the beggars and tramps who had been in the neighborhood—nothing suspicious came to light. One man, a traveling hawker, a gaunt, fierce-looking man, with a forbidding face, had been passing through Holme Woods, and the police tracked him; but when he was examined he was so evidently unconscious and ignorant of the whole matter it would have been folly to detain him.

In the stately mansion of Aldenmere a coroner’s inquest had been held. Mrs. Glynn declared that it was enough to make the family portraits turn on the wall—enough to bring the dead to life. Such a desecration as that had never occurred before. But the coroner was very grave. Such a murder, he said, was a terrible thing; the youth, beauty and position of the lady made it doubly horrible. He showed the jury how intentional the murder must have been—it was no deed done in hot haste. Whoever had crept with stealthy steps to the lady’s side, whoever had placed his hand underneath the white lace mantle which she wore, and with desperate, steady aim stabbed her to the heart, had done it purposely and had meditated over it. The jury saw that the white lace mantle must either have been raised or a hand stealthily crept beneath it, for the cut that pierced the bodice of the dress was not in the mantle.

He saw the red puncture on the white skin. One of the jury was a man who had traveled far and wide.

“It was with no English weapon this was done,” he said. “I remember a case very similar when I was staying in Sicily; a man there was killed, and there was no other wound on his body save a small red circle like this; afterward I saw the very weapon that he had been slain with.”

“What was it like?” asked the coroner eagerly.

“A long, thin, very sharp instrument, a species of Sicilian dagger. I heard that years ago ladies used to wear them suspended from the waist as a kind of ornament. I should not like to be too certain, but it seems to me this wound has been caused by the same kind of weapon.”

By the coroner’s advice the suggestion was not made public.

The verdict returned was one the public had anticipated: “Willful murder against some person or persons unknown.”

Then the inquest was over, and nothing remained but to bury Lady Clarice Alden. Dr. Mayne, however, had not come to the end of his resources yet.

“The local police have failed,” he said to Sir Ronald; “we will send to Scotland Yard at once.”

And Sir Ronald bade him do whatever in the interests of justice he considered best.

In answer to his application came Sergeant Hewson, who was generally considered the shrewdest and cleverest man in England.

“If Sergeant Hewson gives a thing up, no one else can succeed,” was a remark of general use in the profession. He seemed to have an instinctive method of finding out that which completely baffled others.

“The mystery will soon be solved now,” said Dr. Mayne; “Sergeant Hewson will not be long in suspense.”

The sergeant made his home at Aldenmere; he wished to be always on the spot.

“The murder must have been done either by some one in the house or some one out of it,” he said; “let us try the inside first.”

So he watched and waited; he talked to the servants, who considered him “a most affable gent;” he listened to them; he examined everything belonging to them—in vain.

Lady Clarice Alden had been beloved and admired by her servants.

“She was very high, poor thing!—high and proud, but as generous and kind a lady as ever lived. So beautiful, too, with a queer sort of way with her! She never spoke an unkind word to any of us in her life.”

He heard nothing but praises of her. Decidedly, in all that large household Lady Clarice had no enemy. He inquired all about her friends, and he left no stone unturned; but, for once in his life, Sergeant Hewson was baffled, and the fact did not please him.