The Warrielaw Jewel, page 20
At least she was safely out of the way for the moment, I thought, and I crept a little way down the passage, to tell the policeman to be ready to guard the room in case of need, as the intruder we must repel was already in the house. And even while I spoke to him the library door swung open a little wider and I could see into the room.
The big couch which had guarded one wall had been drawn into the centre of the room, and Mary lay upon it facing the window. The round ottoman which had marked out each sister’s territory was pushed aside, and the rearrangement seemed to make the room look more crowded than ever. But it was only one room now. Jessica’s corner stood empty and intact. The endless mirrors and dark pictures and china cupboards and chairs and desks, the whole jetsam of the Warrielaw past, crowded round Miss Mary alone. The garden, too, showed Jessica’s absence. The gardeners employed by Mary’s agents had cut the grass edges and cleared away the bulbs, but they had not bedded out any substitutes, so that the empty, formal beds lay in vacant mounds like newly-dug graves.
I must have made some slight movement, for Miss Mary raised her head a little.
“Is that John’s wife outside there?” she asked. “I should like her to come and sit beside me!”
In after days I wondered if that request meant that the poor old lady was rallying every possible defence to her side against the danger she dreaded.
I went up to the big couch, took the chair to which she beckoned me on her right. On her left sat Bob and Mr. Mair, his pen ready in his hand. Behind them on the wall hung a great Victorian mirror framed with silly smiling cupids and garlands in tarnished gilt. In it, from the angle at which I sat, I could see the reflection of Miss Jessica’s desk and work-table and arm-chair by the other French window, orderly and undisturbed now for ever. Beyond, the mirror reflected a narrow strip of the rhododendrons which circled round the formal garden. The flowers were overblown now and falling: and the big purple blossoms lay on the vacant mounds like funeral offerings falling to decay.
It was easier to look out of the window than to face Miss Mary. She was swathed in Shetland and cashmere shawls, from which she looked out with flushed cheeks but vacant eyes. Her hair was brushed back tightly, and the yellow mole I had observed so clearly at the station, whose significance had so entirely escaped me till this morning, stood out more clearly than ever. … Yet the chief impression I had of her was how small and how shrunken she seemed. I could feel nothing but pity for her, and no effort of my imagination could make me believe that the story which Bob was to tell was true, nor that down the pathway she and Rhoda had somehow between them, in an agony of fear and shame, carried Jessica to her last hiding-place.
“I’ll put what we have to say to you in the form of questions,” said Bob. “That will save you as much as we can. But they’re not simple questions, Miss Warrielaw. There comes a point where we have to learn from you whether the responsibility of this crime rests with you or your niece. Or again, it may be that your sister met with her death by an accident, and that the crime of which we must accuse you and Miss Macpherson is the far lesser crime of concealing all traces of her death. But remember before you tell us that you must first take your oath to tell us the truth and nothing but the truth.”
The Notary was leaning forward now, and I could see his clear-cut profile. His slow vigorous voice contrasted strangely with Mary’s mask-like face and lowered eyes as she listened to his formula. Upstairs, Rhoda was apparently growing desperate. I heard drawers open and shut noisily and a door banging in the wind, so that only a few phrases reached my mind—“freely and voluntarily … of sound and sober mind … emit this declaration … and warn you …”
The voice died away, and Bob spoke in his cold matter-of-fact voice.
“Did you”, he said “on the afternoon of April 12th await here with your niece, Rhoda Macpherson, the return of Miss Jessica Warrielaw from Edinburgh? Did you both at some subsequent hour that evening enter into a serious quarrel with her over the steps she proposed to take in disposing of a certain jewel belonging to the family?”
A low murmur of assent came from Mary, and Bob went on.
“Did Miss Jessica at some hour of that night meet with her death? I will question you more fully on that subject later. Most of all we wish to make sure of your subsequent movements, that your nephew may be acquitted before matters proceed further.
“Did you therefore agree with your niece, Rhoda Macpherson, to remove the corpse of your sister to the stables? Did you seek to extract from her body the embroidery dagger which had, by design or accident, pierced her heart, and in so doing, from violent contact with the breast-bone of deceased, break it at the hilt? Did you then carry the body away, returning when it was so late and dark that you omitted to find the handle of the weapon and the handkerchief in which you had wrapped it, and were further prevented in your search by the heavy rain which fell that night?”
Again I hardly noticed the answer, for the door of Mary’s bedroom banged above us, and I heard Rhoda’s light foot in the corridor upstairs. Effie told me afterwards that she had seen her at the head of the stairs. From her words I gathered how Rhoda’s eyes were blazing in her face: how it was again a trapped animal who stood there, the fierce Warrielaw at bay; how the trim business woman had disappeared and it was the wild Border lady who glared down on the old maid. She made a step forward as if to rush down the stairs past Effie. Next moment she must have seen the constable and changed her mind. She turned, and I heard the swing door opposite the head of the staircase creak loudly. Evidently she was making her way down the back stairs, but whither I could not imagine. She must have lost by now all hopes of reaching the sitting-room door.
“Did you,” went on Bob’s voice remorselessly, “after consultation with Miss Rhoda Macpherson, agree to disguise the disappearance of your sister by taking her place next day, assuming the black coat and hat left on her bed? Did you take the train as far as Carstairs, get out there unnoticed in the holiday crowd and return thence by the slow train to Midcalder Station? Did you at some point on your way thither discard the black coat and hat, and replace them by those of your own which you carried in a parcel for that purpose? Did you or Miss Macpherson then parcel them up, and did she then bicycle with them to Bathgate, leaving them in charge of a porter, Jock Hay, in the cloakroom because she failed to meet Annie Hay for whom she destined them? Did she then join you at Erleigh, where you took your lunch? Did you then return here, hoping to find and take possession of the family jewel, and did the shock of its loss and your subsequent illness lead you to conceal thenceforward what you had done?”
“That is all true!” I could see Mary’s face in the mirror. It was flushed still and her lips were purple, but her eyes were clear and her voice firm. And then, even as I looked at her, a strange horror shook her as I could see her shawls quivering and her hands spread themselves nervously. The nurse and doctor bent over her. Bob and Mr. Mair on her other side, with their backs to the window, saw nothing but her natural shame and misery. But I could see something else. Reflected in the mirror was a dark form on the path among the laurels, pressed back among the branches, and through the leaves stood out a pale face lit up with anger. In the mirror Mary could see, as I could see, Rhoda gazing straight at her with fierce, compelling eyes.
“Shall I sign your form?” Mary’s voice came with obvious difficulty now. “I have told the truth.”
“There is one thing more we must ask you,” said Mr. Mair in a low solemn voice. “You have been very ill, Miss Warrielaw: even now you are not far from the presence of your Maker. On this paper I hold is this confession that you, Mary Warrielaw, did stab your sister to death. On this other paper is your confession that it was your niece, Rhoda Macpherson, who gave the fatal blow. And here again is a paper on which it is stated that by one unintentional push your sister fell before you, striking herself with such violence that her head struck the fender and the point of the instrument which she held pierced into her heart. Only you and one other person know which of these statements describes what really happened. Before you sign it, I ask you to remember that here, before God, you are pledged to tell the truth.” Mary’s eyes were fixed upon the mirror, and my eyes too were hypnotised by that pale terrible face staring from the shadowed shrubbery. Surely one of them must see Rhoda, I thought desperately. Was it my duty to interpose and point to her? What was the message she was trying to give but an urgent command to her aunt to incriminate herself? It was my duty to interfere, I knew it was, and yet I stood silent and motionless. It was of no use. I had seen one trapped animal in the Courts that morning, and now he would be set free. I could bear no more. I would take no part in this ghastly business. I must leave Mary alone to play out the hideous drama to its bitter end.
And then Mary spoke, her eyes still fixed on the shrubbery.
“Give me that last paper,” she muttered. “It was an accident, all an accident! I—we—were going to speak if Neil were convicted. I would have spoken long ago, but I was ill and—and—I was not allowed to—”
There was a long pause while the Notary produced a pen and Mary wielded it in her powerless, swollen fingers. It was difficult to believe they would ever have the strength to trace laboriously that ill-omened Border name, but the sound of the slow scratching of the pen stopped at last. The Notary took the paper and, as he and the other two men bent over it to sign their names as witnesses, I turned to Miss Mary, longing to express some of the pity in my heart. But at one glimpse at her face I drew back in horror. On that grey, lined countenance was no misery nor shame: her eyes were still fixed on the mirror, and in them was a queer ugly glance of triumph.
My eyes followed hers to the mirror, and as they did so I started and tried to cry out a warning, but in my terror my voice failed me. For a moment I saw Rhoda’s pale face in the bushes, convulsed with sudden fear and horror. She was struggling to turn; her arms were raised as if to free herself from some unseen force that was pinioning her from behind. The bushes rustled, branches snapped, and next moment Rhoda’s form disappeared, and I saw another figure, tall and ungainly, pushing her into the depth of the shrubbery towards the stable wall. No one noticed my effort to speak or my movement of horror, for Miss Mary was speaking again.
“Annie!” she muttered, raising herself upright from her pillows, “Annie! At last Rhoda’s gone! At last!”
The doctor and nurse sprang to her side as Mary fell backwards with staring eyes and convulsive breath. She was dying, I told myself, she was dying, and yet through my mind passed the incongruous thought that even at such a moment, as all her life through, she was taking a second place in the thoughts of those around her. Before the doctor could speak I dragged Bob somehow to the French window.
“Something queer is going on there,” I panted inarticulately. “Something I don’t understand. I saw Rhoda in the bushes! Then I saw Annie! She—she’s trying to hurt her! Someone must go and see!”
Upon our ears fell suddenly an appeal more urgent than mine. From the distant bushes came a sudden cry of terror and the sound of a heavy thud. Next moment Effie darted in from the passage and ran past us to the French window.
“There’ll have been an accident in the yard!” she cried. “The workmen warned us we were no to go that way to the yard. They’n been digging holes by the gate right under the yard! Someone will have taken a fall! Eh, Sirs! Eh, Sirs!”
Even as she spoke the bushes parted and Annie emerged, breathless and dishevelled, with a strange secret smile in her vacant eyes.
“Miss Rhoda’s awa’,” she said shrilly. “She’s awa’ down one of yon holes, and she looks awfu’ bad!”
“Whist, lassie, whist!” cried poor old Effie, running to her side, as we paused in sudden horror. “Now don’t you be saying any more. Come you ben with me—”
But Annie was past commands or persuasion now.
“I pit her doun there!” she said in the same high voice. “I threw her doun! She’ll no’ go trying to get me taken awa’ in the yellow van any more! Yon was a bad yin!”
At that cursory epitaph Bob started forward and motioned to the constable. The girl made no effort to move as he took her arm, and Mr. Mair turned back to the library and summoned the doctor to the garden hastily.
“Miss Warrielaw’s still breathing,” said the doctor, as he realised the urgency of the new task before him. “Would you sit beside her, Mrs. Morrison, and let Nurse come with me? We may need help, and there’s nothing to be done for our patient there, nothing. It’s only a question of hours or even minutes now.”
I have no coherent memories of those long minutes during which I sat by Miss Mary’s side, listening dully to her fitful breathing, and hearing now and again men’s voices raised in orders or suggestions from the yard. The events of the morning had left me incapable of thought. While one part of my mind grappled vainly with the hideous knowledge that Annie had tried to drive Rhoda to her death, I could visualise nothing clearly but queer pitiful visions of three children playing hide-and-seek in and out of the rhododendron bushes with their purple blossoms. Before my eyes ran visions of a tall, fair, laughing boy pursued endlessly by a dark, beautiful, tragic little girl, while from the bushes a sullen, jealous child with staring eyes watched them at their play. Neil, Cora, and Rhoda ran in and out of the shadows of glossy branches before me, as they had been running in and out of the shadows of death for the last few months. They were more real to me than the glimpse of a still, huddled figure, borne by Bob and the policeman on an improvised stretcher towards the kitchen door; their cries were clearer than the low moans which came from the stretcher. Then my dreams faded and I sat listening while upstairs and downstairs I heard doors opening and shutting and men’s voices raised in consultation.
Mary was still breathing. Rhoda, I gathered from the sounds above, must still be alive, but to what purpose I wondered should either aunt or niece struggle their way back to life? Surely the ghosts of the black Borderers who still lingered round their home must rejoice over so wild a ballad of crime and madness as their house knew to-day.
Time seemed to have stood still for ever when the doctor joined me at last. Bob and Mr. Mair had to return at once, to place the astounding dénouement of the case before the Courts during the lunch interval. He asked me to remain with Miss Mary till someone could be spared from Rhoda’s side.
“Yes, she may live,” he said soberly, in answer to my hushed question. “But her head’s badly damaged. It’s doubtful if she can ever conceivably be herself again. Try not to think about her if you can. I am very sorry to leave you here, but if you could just sit here till the other nurse gets down? Or till Miss Alison comes? Someone must bring her at once, but she’ll need a friend like you so badly when she gets here.”
So I sat and waited while the shadows fell slowly, hour by hour, over the formal garden and the circling rhododendrons and the tall beech trees behind. Beyond and above them the sun was shining and the doves were murmuring, but I sat beside Mary, it seemed to me, in the cavern to which I had likened the room long ago, in the green depths where the ghosts of the dead and their doomed vessels floated restlessly for ever.
CHAPTER XV
MR. STUART EXPLAINS
These events, as I said, took place before the Great War. It was not till the August of 1914 that the story faded into insignificance. Even now, I believe, in the legal world, the tale of the trial ranks as unique, but the strain laid on the imaginations and memories of our generation by the years 1914-1918 makes it possible to-day to mention the name of Warrielaw without arousing a storm of comment and controversy. All that day while I sat in the library at Warrielaw, trying in vain to understand the whole tangled story, the Edinburgh Law Courts were enjoying to the full the greatest sensation of the century.
The Court had adjourned for lunch when Bob hurried to John, and the two men at once sought out Askew Firle and his junior counsel. I should love to have been present at that conversation, especially as Mr. Firle was, according to John, rather disappointed than relieved by Bob’s revelations. He had been delighted with his theory of the fatal accident, and he had looked forward keenly to his cross-questioning of the Crown witnesses. Still he allowed himself to relent in the end and spare a thought of congratulation for Neil. After all, as he handsomely admitted, it is probably more pleasant to escape outright than to listen to the most brilliant advocacy of your cause when your life is at stake, and you are aware that a verdict of Not Proven is the best you can hope!
The lunch interval was almost over when the defence approached the Lord Advocate, and there was barely time to acquaint the Judge with the change in affairs before the Court sat once more. Neil had been put out of his misery at once by a scribbled note from John, and appeared in Court so urbane and patronising that, said Dennis, any judge and jury would have sentenced him to death at once if they had had the chance. (This, I should add, was Dennis’s later opinion. Bob told me that the boy was uproarious with relief when he first heard the news on the way to the Courts, and was only sobered a little when he heard more of the story, and realised what the effect of the news would be on poor little Alison.) The Court was crowded to overflowing, and stifling in the July sunshine, when the Lord Advocate arose to make his statement that important information had just been received which altered the nature of the case. Amid stupefied silence Mary’s statement was read aloud. The Judge made a few almost commonplace remarks and urged the jury not to try at this moment to disentangle the whole extraordinary tale. The confession of the dying woman could not be used as evidence, yet the fact that the murder was committed at another time and in other circumstances, gave him no alternative but to discharge the prisoner on the major count. Further, the confession of Mary Warrielaw confirmed in every point Mr. Logan’s story of his own doings. They must remember that the story of the theft remained as yet obscure, yet it might be natural to suppose that Mr. Logan had told the truth over the one affair as over the other. On the count of theft, however, they must give a separate verdict. The jury retired for exactly one minute and returned with a verdict of Not Guilty. In scenes of indescribable excitement and enthusiasm Neil left the court a free man only an hour or two after Bob’s return from Warrielaw.
