The Warrielaw Jewel, page 18
The room was dark and oppressively hot with its open fire as Bob obeyed a summons to enter. Mrs. Hay was seated beside the fire, nursing her baby. Through an open door Bob could see Annie bending down among the pots and pans in the little scullery to admire herself, at a mirror, in her funeral outfit.
“Mrs. Hay,” said Bob clearly and firmly, as he took out his pocket-book, “I’ve come to ask the meaning of this. Now don’t attempt to contradict me. You and your sister have seen this cloakroom ticket before?”
“There, Miss Rhoda’s told on the poor girl after all,” cried Mrs. Hay in despair, as she held out a trembling hand for the piece of paper. There was a noisy gasp from the scullery, followed by a clatter of cutlery as a drawer was pulled out hastily. Next moment Annie, her cheeks red and her eyes blazing, erect in her black hat and cloak, swept past Bob and her sister and ran out of the kitchen door.
“Oh, what’s the girl after?” cried Mrs. Hay distractedly. “Oh Sir, Sir, we must get hold of her, but have a care to yourself.”
Bob was out of the house before she had finished speaking and looked up the road. It was empty now, for the last mourners had drifted back to the village, but through the hedge Bob saw Annie moving towards the church. She was crossing a ploughed field, and her breath came in heavy gasps between her sobs. The sweat was running down her cheeks as she laboured on in the heat, in her heavy clothes, but Bob had to hurry his steps to keep parallel with her along the lane.
The churchyard wall was surrounded with thick stunted yew trees, and, as he shut the gate cautiously, Bob concealed himself behind one. The burying-ground was silent and deserted now, and the church door locked. The little square building, with its windows of plain green glass, looked down reprovingly from its long record of uneventful sabbaths and silent week-days, as Annie scrambled over the wall and alighted heavily on a grave.
Bob stood motionless. The black cloak had revealed, when the girl jumped, that in her hand was a long sharp knife. For a moment he thought of rushing at her, in the fear that she might be about to injure herself, but he changed his mind as she looked cunningly about her from side to side. She was here evidently with some definite purpose and at all costs he must find out what it could be.
She was clearly afraid of onlookers. One glance around her was not enough and she vanished round the far side of the church. Bob emerged from his shelter and followed her cautiously as she hurried round the building, staring anxiously from side to side. Then, feeling herself secure at last, she crept up to a grave by the side of the church wall which abutted on the road. Bob, taking cover behind a pretentious tomb crowned by a marble angel, stood watching her, lost in amazement. With one more anxious glance around her she knelt down and raised her knife. Then, very busily, she began scratching with it at the inscription on a tombstone.
“In affectionate remembrance”, read Bob, “of William Carruthers Reid, Farmer, of Stobo, Lower Carglin, of this parish. He deceased April 10th, 1906, and was interred in this grave with his wife Isabella Rose Reid on the first anniversary of her death.
“They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided.”
It was not, however, upon these words that Annie was making her impassioned attack. Above the inscription was an earlier one to Isabella Rose Reid, and out of the memorial composed for her by her surviving husband it was one detail only to which Annie apparently took exception. She was scraping vigorously with the knife, but the date stood out clearly before Bob’s eyes. It was the date we knew so well—April 13th.
The churchyard gate clicked suddenly as Bob stood transfixed in thought. Annie rose with a cry as Mrs. Hay ran towards her up the path, white and distracted. Bob sprang forward as he caught the wild glare of the hunted animal in Annie’s eyes, and was just in time to seize her arm as she raised her knife, as if to run upon him and her sister.
“Oh Annie, Annie! What’s to do now!” moaned Mrs. Hay, rocking herself to and fro.
“Come awa’ there’s but one thing for it. You must just come away home and confess to the gentleman just what you and Jock have done between you!”
It was an hour or more before Bob rejoined Dennis at the station, and then it was only to disappear into the station-master’s office. It was true that he offered to find his own way home and leave Dennis free, but by that time Dennis was too curious to leave his companion. When Bob emerged from the station he asked Dennis to drive him to the local doctor’s, and then at last, after a lengthy visit, owned that his business was finished now.
“But if you’ll believe me,” said Dennis indignantly, “he never said a word to me all the way home. He just gave me this note for you, John, and then walked straight off. Do open it at once, for he’s got hold of something—there’s no doubt of that.”
But there was nothing to satisfy Dennis in the pencil note, scrawled in the car as Bob neared Moray Place.
“I have a new and puzzling clue,” read John, “but I must get away to think it over by myself. There may be unexpected developments to-morrow, but I must see my way clearly as to how to deal with them before I speak to anyone. Ask my pardon of Mr. Dennis. Don’t count too much on this. B.S.”
“Oh, there is some hope after all!” I cried, but John refused to take comfort.
“No, I can’t think so. He can’t find out anything at Carglin that can materially affect the case, it seems to me. If it were anything of importance he would be asking me to make arrangements to postpone the trial. My God, if only it were all over!”
“How is Neil?” I ventured at last to ask the question which had been on my lips all day.
“Very brave. It doesn’t bear thinking about,” said John briefly.
“The doctor rang up before tea to say Mary is much better. They’re even getting her down to the library now,” I said to change the subject. “She’s been asking all sorts of questions. She knows about Neil now: she got it out of Effie.”
“Poor old soul! Well, it’s something she’s better. Cora Murray is worse, they say. No one’s seen Charles for the last day or two. You know Betty, you’re not to be called on for your evidence to-morrow morning, that’s certain. It’s strange to think you were the only witness at first! But it’s a queer case. The prosecution and the defence are both addressing the Court first, by Firle’s special request, though it’s a most unusual procedure.”
“Then I can go there with Alison? She’s been begging me to.”
“Oh yes, that’s all right. You and Dennis can go to look after her and Rhoda if you want to. It’ll be a pretty hateful show for you, but it’s a good thing for you to get accustomed to the atmosphere of it in case you’re ever called in the future. I’m glad they have decided that. Small’s cabman and Peter Carruthers are all that’s necessary, and as Neil’s own story admits that he was at Carstairs and Warrielaw, even your evidence about his car won’t be wanted. As I say, it’s a strange affair. It was only through you that Neil was suspected at first. If it hadn’t been for you he’d hardly have been arrested, Betty!”
“Oh John, did he do it?” I cried involuntarily.
“We’ll know by the end of this week, I hope,” was all the comfort John could give. We sat up till far into the night reading, for what was the use of taking our bodies to bed while our two minds were imprisoned with Neil Logan in his cell, awaiting the morrow.
STOP
THIS IS A CHALLENGE TO YOU. At this point all the characters and clues have been presented. It should now be possible for you to solve the mystery.
CAN YOU DO IT? Here’s your chance to do a little detective work on your own—a chance to test your powers of deduction. Review the mystery and see if you can solve it at this point.
Remember! THIS IS A SPORTING PROPOSITION, made in an effort to make the reading of mystery stories more interesting to you. So—don’t read any further. Reach your solution now. Then proceed.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRIAL OF NEIL LOGAN
There are not many hot days in an Edinburgh summer. It seemed a hideous irony that on one when the sun was shining in shimmering heat on the rocks of Arthur’s Seat, on the gay window-boxes of Princes Street and the distant waters of the shining North Sea, we should only see it beat inexorably through beams of glancing dust on to the panelled walls and wooden compartments of a stuffy Court Room in Parliament House. In that light the clothes of the prisoner and the witnesses, the robes of the judges and the lawyers and the uniforms of the officials were toned into one drabness, and every line on every face stood out mercilessly clear. I felt as I stared before me, at everyone but the prisoner, that for the rest of my life I should remember every wrinkle on the macer’s face, every hair of each wig, every turn and twist of each mouth. Only at Neil I dare not look lest I should lose my composure altogether.
It was all wrong and out of place, I felt confusedly. As we drove up through the streets of that old town which lie wholly outside the ordinary orbit of Edinburgh domestic and social life, between frowning stone houses three hundred years old, breaking, like cliffs, to reveal, through narrow closes, glimpses of the Forth and the far Highland hills, it was borne in upon me that the Warrielaws and their story did not belong to this world at all. Their tale was a ballad tale of internecine strife and sorrow. It was in a lonely burn beside a rowan tree that Jessica’s dead body should have been found, and high upon a gallows tree that her retainers should have strung up her murderers, while in a plaintive refrain the Fairy Jewel told the story of the Curse of the Little People upon the House. Somewhere in my mind echoed the memory of a Chief of the Forty-Five, who, led to execution on Tower Hill, stared round the crowding London houses and complained that the faces fixed upon his were like a pack of rotten oranges. Upon these Warrielaws, strayed from the Border minstrelsy, such rotten oranges were gazing now. On their wild feuds the reason and justice of a new strange world sat in condemnation. It was all wrong and out of focus, I felt, just as this narrow, stuffy place with its commonplace officials refused to fit into my imagination of a vast hall of judgment where remote judges sat enthroned. Nothing seemed real to me, and yet I knew that all the ultimate reality of Neil’s life depended on the words and thoughts of those queer ordinary staring faces on the bench and in the jury and in the seats reserved for the witnesses.
Dennis sat on one side of me, and Alison, poor, pale fairy princess, strayed into a drab ugly world of reality, on the other. Rhoda was some way off: she had made it clear that she must be alone that day, though she sat cool and composed as ever. Bob Stewart was near me, and I took what comfort I could from John’s bent head at his desk, and Askew Firle’s inscrutable face with its air of bland assurance. But I hardly noticed the rustling around me as the proceedings began at last. Late the night before I had sat over an old murder trial in my husband’s library, and the words of the old-fashioned indictment, now wholly disused, drifted through my mind, fitting themselves erratically to the present circumstances.
“Neil Warrielaw Logan, you are indicted and accused … that albeit by the laws of this and of every other well-governed realm murder, as also theft, are crimes of a heinous nature; yet true it is and of verity that you the said Neil Warrielaw Logan are guilty of the said crime of murder, and of the said crime of theft in so far as (i) On the 13th day of April, 1909, in or near the house of Warrielaw of Midlothian, lately occupied by Jessica Warrielaw, spinster, deceased, of the aforesaid Warrielaw House, you did with a sharp instrument strike the said Jessica Warrielaw, piercing her heart, and also inflicted upon her skull blows … you ought to be punished with the pains of law, to deter others from committing the like crimes in all time coming.”
I felt Alison’s head on my shoulder and, as I fumbled for my smelling-salts, the dream voice faded from my bewildered mind and I awoke to the present. For the Judge was speaking, in so sharp and clear a voice that it seemed as if the sword of justice was proceeding in actual fact from his mouth.
“You have read the indictment charging you with the crime of murder and also of theft. Do you plead guilty to either of these crimes?”
Neil stood up, but again I did not dare to look at him. Only the odd, charming, affected drawl made the words sound like some casual epigram rather than a statement of fact as he replied: “Not guilty, my Lord.”
Bob was at my side and took Alison’s arm, and together we led her into the passage outside.
“You must get her round while the jury’s being empanelled and sworn,” he said. “Can’t you persuade her sister to take her away? Miss Alison’s not to be called, and she’ll do no good here.”
“I won’t go,” muttered Alison. “I must stand by Neil. I won’t go.”
Bob motioned to a policeman standing near.
“MacDougall,” he said, “would you be so kind as to show this young lady a window where she can get some fresh air and recover herself? Mrs. Morrison, I want a word with you.”
Bob’s voice and manner were urgent, so urgent that I trembled a little. Queerly and irrationally, a text flashed across my mind, words that had taken my fancy in my schooldays: “And God hath sent his angel and stopped the mouth of the lions.” It seemed to me that Bob was about to entrust me with a secret of real importance, a service of real moment at last. But his request seemed so small, so inconsequent, that as he made it I could only stare at him blankly:
“Mrs. Morrison, when Miss Warrielaw’s pulled herself together, I want you to go back into Court. And when you’re there I want you to look as hard as you can at Mr. Logan. I want you to look at him and then try to remember every detail you can of Miss Jessica Warrielaw as you saw her on the morning of April 13th, and of Miss Mary Warrielaw as you saw her yesterday. Will you do this for me during the speech for the prosecution? And then, if you’ve anything to tell me, beckon to me, and come and see me when you can slip out easily, before Mr. Firle begins? I can’t speak more plainly because it’s for you to remember all you can. Will you do your best, and look at him and remember both the old ladies as if you’d never seen them before?”
“Let’s go back, Betty!” Alison was at my elbow, shuddering still but composed now, and we crept back to our seats. The speech for the prosecution had begun, and the cold clear voice of the Crown Counsel numbed for a little my bewilderment at Bob’s request. My subconscious mind puzzled vacantly over Bob’s words, while my conscious attention was riveted to the story unfolded for the Crown. He offered no dramatic story, he made no sort of appeal to the emotions. Only in the fewest possible words he sketched the story which we knew so well. He pictured the lonely lives of the two Misses Warrielaw in their old country house: he told of Jessica’s love for her nephew and how that love had been requited by indifference and dislike. He told of the sacrifices and economies made by Jessica for Neil and of the legacy he would inherit on her death. He told of the discord in the family over the famous heirloom which Jessica proposed to sell. The case looked black enough to me before he began to recount the incidents of that 13th of April: as he went through the story he did not fail to point out at every turn how Neil, and probably Neil Logan alone, had reason to know that the house would be empty in the middle of the day. It was useless for the defence to attach the crime to some unknown thief who passed by. What passer-by could know of the different domestic reasons which had left the house unguarded? What tramp would dare to assume that he could commit murder with impunity and conceal a corpse in a house like Warrielaw? As the remorseless story went on, to the discovery of Jessica’s body and the subsequent discovery of the jewel in the studio, my heart sank lower and lower. Up till now I had at least believed in Neil, and trusted in John and Mr. Firle for his salvation. Now it seemed to me that there could be no doubt that there before me sat Neil Logan, a murderer and a thief.
And at that conclusion Bob’s words suddenly came back to me and I steeled my heart; for the first time looked straight before me and fixed my eyes on Neil.
The light fell full upon his face, and I saw at once that his chalky pink colour had faded, and that new lines of misery and anxiety marked his brow: that he was much thinner and his hair was more closely cut. But none of those details affected me so much as the sudden knowledge that here before me sat an imprisoned man, that here was a fellow animal in a trap. As I gazed, my predominant feeling was one which distinguishes above all, I believe, the man in the street who watches a trial or reads of a murder case. He does not remember the crime which preceded the imprisonment: he does not consider the rights or wrongs of the case. If the verdict is given for the prisoner he cheers: if against him he signs endless petitions in his favour. Only the few of judicial and legal habit of mind, only the jury strung up by their consciences to view the affair impartially with due concern for the ultimate welfare of society, can escape the universal instinct to loose the trap and let the prisoned animal free. That was, as I first gazed at Neil, my predominant instinct. Never, I realised, could I bear to do or say anything which might ensnare another human being into captivity.
And then that first passionate instinct of revolt against the orderly working of justice faded, and I stared at Neil, not as a prisoner, but as a Warrielaw. Still my mind refused to see any point in Bob’s request, but now as Neil moved a little and let his head sink forward, I saw beneath his carefully assumed pose of nonchalance a weary patience that recalled Miss Mary’s face as she lay helpless on her bed. And then as a ray of sun fell from the high window I saw his eyes with their large yellow-green irises and narrowed pupils, and I saw something else. It was not only his weary air of discouragement which made me see Miss Jessica’s face as she sat, half-averted from me, in the railway carriage at Princes Street Station on the morning of April 13th. The light fell direct on a small golden mole surrounded by freckles. I had noticed a similar one on Jessica’s forehead then. How strangely persistent these family peculiarities could be! And how prominent the mole on Mary’s forehead had seemed the other day, as she lay in the bedroom. …
