Olivia

Not within the memory of the oldest inhabitant had there been so much excitement in the county.

That a murder should have been committed within a quarter of a mile of the Grange, on Olivia Vanley’s wedding day, was bad enough; but that the suspected man should be the mysterious Mr. Faradeane of The Dell, raised popular curiosity and interest to fever heat. Then came the news that the bride had been stricken down with fever, and was lying dangerously ill at her father’s house.

Scarcely any other topic was discussed, and persons eagerly asked one another whether any new phase of what was already called “the Hawkwood tragedy” had appeared. The only man who seemed to have retained his calmness in the midst of the excitement was the prisoner himself. While everybody else was eagerly debating the probability of his guilt or innocence, and endeavoring to ascribe the motive for his crime, if indeed he committed it, Harold Faradeane uttered no word which could tend toward a solution of the mystery.

Some thought that it was impossible for him to be innocent; and when the coroner’s jury had returned a verdict of willful murder, people shook their heads, and pursed their lips significantly.

Then came the examination before the magistrates. Long before the hour appointed for the sitting, the small court at Wainford was crammed. Men who had met and taken a sudden liking to the grave, handsome stranger, and ladies who had admired and wondered about him, filled all the available seats. On the bench sat Lord Carfield, the chairman, and two of his brother magistrates, but, as was expected, the Squire of Hawkwood was absent; though it was remarked that a groom from the Grange was on his horse outside the court, ready to carry home the result of the examination.

A look of grave and painful earnestness sat upon the old earl’s face, and he leaned his head upon his hand, and bent his eyes upon his desk. He, like the squire, had taken a great liking to the man accused of this terrible crime, and, but that it was a principle of his life never to shirk a duty, however painful, he too would have been absent from the bench. In the well of the court, near the clerk, sat the commonplace-looking London detective, keenly noting every face and every voice around him, though to all appearance wrapped in stolid reflection.

Presently, in the midst of the hum and buzz, the clerk called “Harold Faradeane,” and a policeman opened the door of the dock, and the prisoner entered.

He was very pale, and those who knew him felt a thrill of pity as they saw how haggard and drawn his face had grown during the days of his imprisonment. But with the feeling of pity was mingled one of puzzled surprise. It seemed impossible to connect a vulgar crime with the grave, patrician face and bearing, which remained calm and dignified under the battery of eyes, and seemed to give a direct denial to the charge which the clerk read out. As he would not be required to plead guilty or not guilty until the trial—if the magistrates should decide to send him for trial—Harold Faradeane remained silent.

“I propose to produce sufficient evidence to warrant my demanding that the prisoner should be sent for trial, my lord,” said the superintendent of police, and he called the constable and Browne, the keeper.

They told the now-familiar story of the finding of the body, and Faradeane in close proximity, waiting, as it almost seemed, for detection, and the picking up of the revolver near to his feet.

The spectators listened breathlessly; some of them had heard the story in the Grange hall on Olivia’s wedding day; but they listened as intently now as if it were all new to them.

Faradeane stood with one hand resting on the rail in front of the dock, his eyes fixed on the ground, his whole bearing that of a man completely resigned to whatever might happen; not indifferent, but simply resigned.

The earl looked up and at him as the evidence was concluded.

“Have you any questions to ask, Mr. Faradeane?” he said in a grave voice, and the crowded court remarked that he addressed the accused by his name instead of as “prisoner.”

“No, my lord,” came the quiet reply.

Lord Carfield’s brows came together.

“Surely you must have some explanation to offer,” he said, just as he had said on the day of the murder. “Is it possible that you should fail to recognize the serious position in which you are placed?”

Faradeane raised his sad eyes, in which, sad as they were, there was nothing of craven fear or imploration.

“I fully appreciate my position, my lord,” he said, “and I regret that I have no explanation to offer.”

Lord Carfield pushed his notes aside with a grave impatience.

“Was there no one near the body excepting Mr. Faradeane?” he asked Browne.

“No, my lord.”

“You met no one? Think, and answer carefully. There was a large number of persons present at the Grange on that day; did you meet no one in the drive or in the wood?”

“No, my lord. The folks were all on the lawn listening to the singing and speech-making in the tent. I met no one, till I fetched the constable.”

Lord Carfield asked the same question of the constable, and received the same answer. No one had been seen in the wood or coming from it but the dead woman and the man Harold Faradeane, who stood so patiently and calmly waiting.

“Has the murdered woman been identified?” asked Lord Carfield. “Is anything known about her? There should be some evidence of motive.”

“The woman has been identified, my lord,” said the superintendent, entering the box. “Her name is Bella Lee, but she was known as Bella-Bella. She was a professional acrobat, and quite famous in London, my lord.”

“And in what way do you connect Mr. Faradeane—the prisoner—with her? I cannot see——”

He stopped. It was apparent that he was endeavoring to find any loophole for escape or explanation.

The superintendent hesitated; then, catching the placid eye of Mr. McAndrew, replied:

“Some information is in our possession, my lord; but we do not propose to produce it at this stage. We depend upon the evidence of the gamekeeper and constable.”

“Our duty is clear,” said Lord Carfield, but with a reluctance which was distinctly palpable. “We must commit the prisoner for trial. Have you anything to say?” he asked.

At this moment there was a slight disturbance among the closely-packed persons near the door, and Mr. Bartley Bradstone entered. He looked round him with the air of a man determined not to show nervousness, and then up at the face of the prisoner. Had he anything to say?

Harold Faradeane glanced ever so slightly at Bartley Bradstone, then met Lord Carfield’s grave and troubled regard.

“Nothing, my lord,” came the reply.

“Remove the prisoner,” said Lord Carfield in a low voice, and Faradeane followed the policemen from the dock.

A murmur of pent-up excitement rose from the crowded court, and several ladies who had grown pale and somewhat hysterical during the examination drew long and audible breaths of relief.

“That man is not guilty,” said one of them. “I am as certain of it as I am that I am sitting here. No man capable of shooting a defenceless woman could stand up and look as he did. If he were a bad man he would brazen it out, and he would show himself to be a hardened criminal; and if, on the other hand, he were only a weak man, who had yielded to a sudden temptation, he would, this morning, have been utterly cast down and overwhelmed with grief and remorse. Instead of presenting either appearance, he looks round like a man who—who is too noble to have committed the vulgar crime, and still too noble to despise us for suspecting him.”

Now, Mr. McAndrew was standing just beneath the lady who had delivered her opinion, by no means in a whisper, and he looked up at her, and smiled behind the hand which he passed over his mouth. And he was still smiling as, shouldering his way out of the court, he came upon Mr. Bartley Bradstone, who in a purposeless kind of fashion was standing and being generally pushed about, as he stared with a species of fascination at the dock in which Faradeane had just stood.

Mr. McAndrew touched his hat.

“Good-morning, sir; quite a crowd.”

“Y—es, yes,” replied Bartley Bradstone.

At that moment there came the tramp of drilled footsteps in the corridor in which they were standing, and a cry of “Make way there! Stand back!”

It was the prisoner being escorted to the closed fly which was to take him back to the prison.

Bartley Bradstone started, and took half a step forward, his eyes fixed on Faradeane’s face.

“How is Mrs. Bradstone this morning, sir?” asked Mr. McAndrew, standing right in the way of the policemen and their charge.

“Very ill, dangerously ill still,” said Bartley Bradstone, still with his eyes on Faradeane.

Faradeane started and stopped. He had caught the reply. His face went white, and seemed to quiver, as if with some sudden fury.

“Ill! Dangerously ill!” he said in a hollow voice.

There was still a crowd in the corridor, and all eyes were turned upon him.

“Move on, please, sir,” said the policeman, not roughly but firmly.

“One moment,” said Faradeane, with a kind of gasp. “Give me one moment. Is—is she in danger, do you say?”

“You must move on, sir; you cannot be permitted to talk,” said the sergeant.

Faradeane sighed and inclined his head, and was passing on, when Mr. McAndrew, who had never taken his eyes from his face, said:

“If Mr. Faradeane desires it, I can give him all the news; but I can only see him at his desire now.”

“Yes, yes!” said Faradeane, quickly and anxiously, looking back over his shoulder. “Come at once, please.”

The crowd closed up after him, and the shouting and cheering and groaning announced the departure of the fly.

Bartley Bradstone stood in the corridor biting his lip, and looking after the prisoner in a dull, vacant fashion, and had quite forgotten Mr. McAndrew until that gentleman’s voice sounded at his elbow.

“Carrying it with a high hand, isn’t he, Mr. Bradstone?”

Bartley Bradstone started.

“Eh? Y—es, yes! You think that—that there isn’t any chance for him? You think he’s guilty still?”

The detective looked at him with a sudden and utterly expressionless stare.

“I never give an opinion myself, sir,” he said. “Never. It’s unprofessional. But I think the jury, when he goes for trial, will think him guilty.”

A strange expression, it almost seemed like relief, shot across Bartley Bradstone’s face, but it was gone in an instant, and, with a shake of his head, he said:

“They’ll be a parcel of fools, then. He’s no more guilty than I am.”

“Just so, sir,” remarked Mr. McAndrew. “But it’s strange he doesn’t say so, isn’t it? And Mrs. Bradstone is still in danger, sir?” he broke off, respectfully.

“Yes, yes,” assented Bartley Bradstone, with a heavy sigh and an anxious, troubled look, and he moved down the corridor to the door where a closed carriage and pair stood waiting. “Oh, stop!” he said, with his hand on the door and looking back at the detective. “I—I forgot. Mr. Vanley asked me to say that if there was anything that could be done for the—the prisoner, he should like to do it. I suppose there will be lawyers and—a counsel. Just see to it, will you?”

Mr. McAndrew regarded him with the same stolid stare.

“I’m afraid I can’t interfere, sir,” he said, thoughtfully. “You see, I’m for the prosecution; at least, I’m for the truth!”

Bartley Bradstone shot a glance at him; but the man’s face was so wooden that it robbed the words of any significance.

“But I’ll put Mr. Faradeane in the way he should go—I can do that without going beyond my duty, though whether he’ll pay any attention to my advice is quite another thing.”

Bartley Bradstone got into the carriage, and, as the footman in the gorgeous Maples livery closed the door, Bradstone leaned forward.

“Anything discovered about the woman—what’s her name?—Bella?” he asked.

Mr. McAndrew shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing of any consequence, sir,” he replied.

Bartley Bradstone sank back out of sight, and, being out of sight, wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

Mr. McAndrew looked after the carriage for a moment or two, passing his hand over his mouth in the manner peculiar to him; then turned and made his way to the jail.

The governor of her Majesty’s prison at Wainford was a certain Colonel Summerford; a gentleman, and a man of sound common sense. He had been governor for nearly twenty years, but during all that long experience he had never had so strange and puzzling an inmate as Harold Faradeane. Colonel Summerford knew the ordinary jail-bird by heart, and understood every song that bird could sing; but this man, charged with the murder of a woman in Hawkwood woods, scattered all the good colonel’s experiential theories and ideas, like chaff before the wind. In the first place, the colonel saw that his “new man” was a gentleman; and, secondly, that he was no fool, as some gentlemen—too many, alas!—often are. He felt greatly interested in him, and did his best to make him as comfortable as a prisoner committed for trial on a capital offence can be made. He gave him the largest and airiest cell, and, in fact, treated him as a man who, though accused, has not yet been found guilty.

Mr. McAndrew arrived at the prison about half an hour after Faradeane’s return, and found the colonel walking up and down his office in deep thought.

“Good-morning, colonel,” said the detective, putting his head in at the door and touching his hat with his forefinger in farmer fashion.

“Ah! is that you, Mr. McAndrew? Come in,” responded the governor. “You have just come from court, I suppose? You have got a more interesting case than country ones usually are, eh?”

“Yes,” assented Mr. McAndrew; “it is rather interesting.”

“Confound the man!” exclaimed the colonel. “I wish they hadn’t brought him here,” and he tugged at his mustache.

“Gives you a lot of trouble?”

“Not a bit. That’s just it. Look here, McAndrew, I can’t make him out.”

“No, colonel?”

“No; and I’m an old hand at ’em, too. I didn’t think there could be a case that would puzzle me—I mean so far as the man goes. I’m used to reading them right off the reel; but this man Faradeane baffles me.”

“Ah,” commented the detective, thoughtfully; “doesn’t behave like the usual run, then, colonel?”

“Not a bit,” said the governor, testily. “Some of them are sullen, others are hysterical, and others again dogged and taciturn; while I’ve seen some half-mad. Now, this man just takes the whole thing as quietly as if there was nothing extraordinary in it. If the evidence was not so black I should be ready to swear that he is innocent. It is black, isn’t it?”

McAndrew nodded.

“About as black as it could be,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“And you can make nothing of it—of him?” asked the colonel. “It isn’t my way to be overcurious about my prisoners,” he added, half-apologetically, “but I will own to feeling a deep interest in this Mr. Faradeane.”

McAndrew nodded.

“A good many other people do that,” he said. “I do, for one. I don’t know yet whether he’s guilty or not; but I should like to know, if he is guilty, why he did it. By the way, colonel, I want to see him.”

The governor pulled up short and frowned.

“Come, you know, McAndrew,” he said, “you are engaged against him. I can scarcely give you admittance to him——”

“You can trust me, colonel,” said the detective, quietly. “If he told me straight out that he did it I shouldn’t use the information against him. So far as that goes, he hasn’t once denied it. But you can trust me, colonel. I shan’t do your friend any harm by seeing him. Besides, it is at his request.”

Strangely enough, the colonel, upright and honorable gentleman that he was, did not resent the prisoner being described as his friend, but rang the bell for a turnkey, and Mr. McAndrew was conducted to the prisoner’s cell.

Some articles of furniture, a table, a chair, and writing materials had been provided by the kind-hearted colonel; and the bed, though plain, was not so uncomfortable as it might have been. Faradeane was sitting on it, with his head resting in his hands; but he rose as the key clicked in the lock and the turnkey opened the door—rose to receive his visitor with the courtesy he would have displayed if it had been his own parlor at The Dell.

Mr. McAndrew waited until the door had clanged upon the turnkey.

“I hope you are as comfortable as you can be under the circumstances, sir,” he began.

“Yes, yes,” said Faradeane, “thanks to Colonel Summerford; he has done everything, has been very kind. I am obliged to you for coming to me so soon,” he went on, his voice sounding sad and anxious, yet strangely calm. “I overheard your inquiry concerning Miss Vanley—I mean Mrs. Bradstone,” he corrected himself with a slight catch in his voice, “and Mr. Bradstone’s reply. Will you tell me what has happened? I have heard nothing since my arrest. Mrs. Bradstone fell at my feet”—he paused a moment—“but I hope that it was nothing more than a fainting fit caused by the shock. Is it true that she is dangerously ill?”

With all his effort to keep calm, his hand, which rested on the plain deal table, quivered, and Mr. McAndrew’s keen eyes noted it.

“She is very ill and in danger,” replied the detective, watching him, and yet apparently doing nothing of the kind.

Faradeane went to the barred window, and looked out upon the prison yard in silence for a moment.

“It is my fault,” he said, huskily. “When they told me that they would take me to the Grange on my arrest I thought they would do so quietly, that she should not know—it is all my fault. Miss Vanley is a close and very dear friend of mine,” he added, as if to explain the emotion he suppressed with such difficulty.

“I understand,” said McAndrew, slowly. “It was the shock of seeing you in trouble and the story of the murder coming on the excitement of the wedding. You see, she wasn’t to know that you were innocent,” he added, easily and smoothly.

“No; she believed it, she believed it!” said Faradeane, unwarily, with a deep sigh.

The detective’s eyes twinkled, but only for a second.

“You see, things looked black against you. She wasn’t to know—no one was to know—that it would all come right at the trial.”

Faradeane turned and looked at him gravely, and with quick self-possession.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, calmly.

Mr. McAndrew shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, I suppose you’ll explain everything then, sir?” he said. “What surprises me and everybody else is that you don’t do it now. But I dare say you have your reasons.”

“I have nothing to explain. I am almost tired of repeating it,” said Faradeane, and he turned to the window with a weary gesture.

The detective watched him closely.

“Well, yes, you’ve said it often enough; but how much longer do you mean to stick to it?” and he leaned forward with sudden earnestness.

Faradeane remained silent.

“Look here, sir,” continued McAndrew, quietly but impressively. “I’ve no business sitting here talking to you. I’ve got the case in hand, and it’s my duty to prove you guilty, if you are guilty. But I’m not so sure that you are. It’s right out of the ordinary track, this business, and I come to you, knowing you to be a gentleman, and I say, ‘Here’s a hard-working man trying to earn his living honestly; will you help him?’ That sounds strange to you, I dare say, sir, but it’s my fancy to lay all my cards on the table, and I’ll tell you”—he spread his palms out as if they really held cards—“I tell you, sir, that I’ve got enough evidence already to——”

He did not utter the dreadful word, but the pause supplied it.

Faradeane looked down at him with pale, calm face.

“Now, most men would be satisfied with that,” continued Mr. McAndrew, “but I’m not. I don’t want you to give me any information that shall go further toward convicting you. No, I could get that for myself, but I want you to tell me,” he rose and stretched out one forefinger, “who did this murder?”

It was a strange and startling speech, and another man would have been thrown off his guard and committed himself; but Faradeane had steeled himself for all ordeals.

“Be content,” he said, gravely, almost solemnly. “You have your evidence; act upon it, and do your duty, sir!”

Mr. McAndrew reached for his hat at once.

“Very good, sir!” he said, as if he accepted Faradeane’s response to his appeal as final. “I shall do my duty. Is there anything I can do for you—any message? You will communicate with your lawyers at once, of course?”

Faradeane was silent for a moment, then he said:

“I shall not need a lawyer.”

The detective looked at him fixedly.

“No lawyer! No counsel!” he said.

“What lawyer, clever though he might be, could disprove the evidence?” said Faradeane, wearily. “You yourself have said it is conclusive.”

Mr. McAndrew turned his hat round in his hands, still watching him.

“Very good, sir; and there is nothing I can do—no message?”

Faradeane went to the window, and his lips twitched.

“If you should see Mr. Vanley—the squire,” he began, “will you tell him, please——” He stopped, then shook his head. “No, I can send no message even to him. Things must take their course.”

“And no message to—Mrs. Bradstone, sir?” inquired Mr. McAndrew, softly, and with the deepest respect.

For a moment Faradeane’s face changed color, then he said, almost haughtily:

“What message should I have to send to that lady?”

Mr. McAndrew inclined his head.

“Very good, sir,” he said. “I wish you good-day.” He tapped at the door, and as the warder opened it for him he looked over his shoulder. “I forgot to say that Mr. Bradstone asked me if there was anything he could do for you, Mr. Faradeane.”

Faradeane’s face did not move a muscle.

“Thank him; no,” he replied, firmly.

Mr. McAndrew paused outside the closed door, with his hand to his mouth, looking hard at the stone floor; then he went out. As he was passing the office the governor tapped at the window.

“Well?” he said, with an affectation of carelessness.

“It isn’t well; it’s bad, colonel,” replied Mr. McAndrew, grimly, and with just a shade of annoyance and disappointment. “Your friend—Mr. Faradeane, the prisoner—is resolved upon giving himself away, as the Americans say, and I’m afraid he’ll be sorry when it’s too late.”

With these oracular words Mr. McAndrew left the governor, and went to the hotel for his lunch. Several times during the consumption of a modest chop he paused with a morsel on his fork, and stared thoughtfully before him, as if he were struggling with some knotty problem; and after his lunch was finished and paid for, he lit a cigar and sauntered to Hawkwood Woods. He stood in the glade where the murder had been committed and Faradeane arrested, for several minutes, carefully noting the fallen tree, and indeed every inch of ground; then he walked back to the Grange, and back from the Grange to The Maples. Having surveyed that huge pile of red brick for some minutes, he made his way to the railway station and disappeared.