CHAPTER III THE VERDICT OF THE JURY

Robin woke calmer after his rest. The nervous excitement had passed away, but the reaction had left him as weak as a child. He looked shrivelled up and pale when Herrick saw him. At once the doctor sat down to feel the little man's pulse, which was slow and faint.

"You must stay in bed to-day," ordered the doctor replacing his watch. "I shall send you up some strong soup. Sleep as much as you can, that is the best thing to pull you round."

"Should I not get up to look after this business with you?"

"There is no need. The police have taken charge of the Case. Your evidence is exactly the same as mine, so I shall represent you at the Inquest."

"Is there to be an inquest?" asked Joyce with languid interest.

"Certainly! This afternoon at the house. From what Inspector Bridge told me it would seem that Colonel Carr was shot on Tuesday night."

"Is the dead man's name Colonel Carr?"

"Yes! Wicked Colonel Carr. From all accounts he was one of the worst."

"Why did he commit suicide?"

"He did not, if Bridge is to be believed. He insists that the man was shot--perhaps by his servant, who has vanished. However we shall hear all that is to be heard this afternoon."

A colour crept into the wan cheek of Joyce. "I should like to get up and hear all about it," said he, "there might be material for a story."

"You can hear details later on. At present you must stay in bed, until we return to Town."

"What about our walking tour?"

"I have decided to cut that short," replied the doctor, "this adventure has given me a distaste for the trip. In a day or so, when you are rested we will return to London. My practice is small but I must attend to it."

"And what about me Jim?"

"Well!" reflected Herrick, "you are now well enough off not to make work an imperative necessity. I think you should go abroad for a time, and do nothing, until you are quite yourself. Explore Italy or Spain, and don't do a stroke of work. Change of scene and company will make you your old self again in a short time."

"Never, never!" moaned Joyce. "I shall never get over her death."

"Nonsense! Don't give way Robin. You must be a man--"

"It was so sudden," pleaded Robin piteously.

"I know. Didn't I attend her! But apoplexy always ends suddenly. Your mother was a stout woman and took no exercise. That fit might have been expected; I warned her often. You know I am sorry for your loss Robin; but sorrow will not bring back the dead. You have your part to play in the world, so you must put this grief behind you. If I talk a little brutally, you must excuse me. To a man of your temperament, sympathy is the worst thing possible."

In Herrick's hands Joyce was more or less of a child, so he submitted--rather against his will--to remain in bed, while his friend went forth to hear the news. As might have been guessed Robin employed his solitude in gloating over his sorrow. This weakness he did not dare to reveal to Jim, fearing lest he should be lectured again. Still, he could not but acknowledge to himself that Herrick's advice was sensible.

Meantime the doctor made a tour of the village. The villagers, swarming like bees in the excitement of the moment, recognised a stranger, and guessed that this was one of the two gentlemen said to have discovered the body. Hence Herrick found himself the subject of considerable curiosity, but was not molested or accosted in any way, until he met with a clergyman. This was on the outskirts of the village, where a gorse-covered common stretched up to the pine wood surrounding the house of Colonel Carr. The parson seemed to have been wandering on the waste land, for he appeared suddenly at Herrick's elbow like a ghost. Probably he had seen the stranger coming and had just stepped out from behind a bush.

"You are Dr. Herrick?" he asked nervously.

Jim signified that he was. "I am, addressing the vicar?" he hazarded.

"The rector," corrected the other. "I am Mr. Pentland Corn. You will excuse my breaking in on your meditations," he continued, "but I guessed that you were the finder of the body of our late lamented friend."

"Humph! From all I have heard, there is very little lamentation over the Colonel's death."

"Scandal and evil tongues," replied Mr. Corn rather tautologically, "Carr had his good points."

"That is what Miss Endicotte says."

"Indeed! I was not aware that you knew Miss Endicotte?"

"She came to the inn this morning to see Inspector Bridge about this--"

"Wait!" said the Revd. Pentland in a hurry, "some mistake. Miss Bess is the journalist. Her elder sister Miss Ida is the head of the family. The nominal head I should say, since Miss Bess manages everything."

The rector smiled as he spoke, and Herrick on account of that smile took rather a fancy to him. The Revd. Pentland Corn--wonderful name--was something under forty; and looked more like a soldier than a parson. He had a smart soldierly figure, wore a moustache, and his hair cropped close. But for his clothes, Herrick would have taken him for a military man. He looked pale, there were dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed to be labouring under considerable stress of emotion. Perhaps the death of Carr had been too much for him. Yet after the first remark he shirked the subject and talked of the Endicottes.

"That is the proper name of the family," said Corn hurriedly, "a very old family in these parts. But Miss Bess calls her collective brothers and sisters 'The Biff's.'"

Dr. Jim smiled. There seemed to be something fascinating about the name, something characteristic of the girl he had met at the inn. "The Biff's," he repeated laughing outright, "and how is that derived from the high sounding name of Endicotte?"

"It is not derived from that at all Dr. Herrick. It is simply the initials of the family. There are five of them. Bess, Ida, Frank, Flo, and Sidney."

"I see; Biff's! Ha! Ha, how amusing. Do they live near here?"

"A quarter of a mile away, at the back of my house. Sidney is my pupil and a strange boy he is. But I have no business to tell all these things to a stranger," added Corn in confusion.

"Anything you say to me is perfectly safe," replied Herrick pleasantly. "I think Miss Bess a clever young lady."

"And as good as she is clever."

"A great friend of the late Colonel's I believe," said Jim.

Pentland Corn moistened his dry lips. "He was kind to her," was his reply delivered in a faint voice. "You will excuse my emotion Dr. Herrick but I am rather shaken by this death. Usually we are free from crime, and for this to happen in my parish! It is terrible.

"You knew Colonel Carr well?"

"Very well. I tried to win him from his evil ways. But he was cut off in the midst of his sin. Oh, it is awful. Yet I liked him. He was a good friend to me on one occasion. The reason I stopped you, was to ask if you met anyone in the house last night."

"No one. Myself and my friend hunted all over it. The servant bolted, I have been told."

"Frisco has certainly disappeared," responded Corn looking at the ground, "but I do not think he is the guilty person. He was devoted to the Colonel."

"Then why did he run away?"

"Ah! who can say! There was a mystery in Colonel Carr's life Mr. Herrick, which I fear will never be cleared up. You will be at the Inquest?"

"Yes. It takes place at three this afternoon. And you sir?"

"No! I shall not be there. I cannot bear to--but that is neither here nor there," broke off Corn hurriedly, "tell me, was the house alight?"

"Every room was lighted. It blazed like a palace in the wood."

"Colonel Carr's whim. He surrounded himself with the most beautiful things and installed the electric light. Water power you know," added the rector rather inconsequently. "I expect the wheel was going constantly for the two days before the body was discovered."

Herrick recollected the murmur in the wood, and now guessed that it came from the waterfall, which turned the wheel for the dynamos. There was no doubt that Colonel Carr surrounded himself with every comfort. "Did he ever have guests to stay with him?" he asked.

The rector made a gesture of surprise. "If you had known Colonel Carr you would not ask such a question. He hated his fellow-mortals."

"Then why had he so many bedrooms?"

"I cannot tell you. But I am certain that he never had anyone to stay in the house. I have been in it once or twice myself, and Miss Bess has paid a visit. But no other person has ever entered."

"Humph! Quite a mystery. What about Marsh?"

"Ah I expect you heard of him from Miss Bess. He is a great friend of the Biffs. Stephen Marsh will inherit the Colonel's property I expect."

"What relation was he to Carr?"

"His nephew. But the two never spoke. They hated each other."

"Mrs. Marsh then is the Colonel's sister?"

"Oh, dear me no. The present Mrs. Marsh is only step-mother to Stephen. A violent terrible woman with Italian blood in her veins. It was she I think who put Stephen against his uncle."

"She is very ill I hear. Pneumonia."

"Dear me," said Corn startled, "why she was at my house on Tuesday! But it was raining when Stephen came for her. I expect she got a chill then."

"No doubt. At all events she is seriously ill now I understand."

"Ha!" said the rector and looked down again. "I wonder if any doctor will attend her. She has quarrelled with them all. Well, there is no more to be said Dr. Herrick. By the way, if I have talked freely, you must excuse me for doing so. I have a reason. Some day I hope to tell it to you. Are you stopping here for long?"

"A day or so. I am on a walking tour with my friend Mr. Joyce. We return shortly to London. Good-day Mr. Corn."

"Good-day," replied the rector raising his hat, and slipped away into the gorse bushes like a ghost.

Herrick walked on somewhat puzzled. What was the meaning of this frank speech, to a stranger. The parson looked smarter and more of a man of the world than many serious minded people would have approved of. Yet he had talked, to say the least of it, in a most indiscreet manner. Moreover he had promised (quite unnecessarily) to explain his reason for doing so to the doctor. What did it all mean? "Does he know something, as well as Miss Bess?" thought Herrick returning to the inn. "Both of them seem to have a better opinion of Colonel Carr, than the rest of the people. Humph! I seem to be surrounded by mysteries here. Well. We shall see what the inquest will do."

Robin proved more fractious than Herrick expected. He was most anxious to be present at the inquest: but in the end over-ruled by the stronger will of his friend, he consented to remain where he was. The doctor walked by himself to the Pines, and was received by Inspector Bridge who introduced him to the Coroner, and to Dr. Tiler, who had examined the body. After some discussion, Bridge collected a jury of mixed villagers and Beorminster citizens. After these had inspected the body, the witnesses were called.

Herrick gave evidence of his discovery, of the position of the body, and of the condition of the house. He was followed by Tiler, who declared that in his opinion Carr had been shot on Tuesday night (going by the condition of the body). He flouted the idea of suicide.

"The shirt-front was neither blackened nor singed," said Tiler, "and it would have been had the deceased fired the revolver at so close a range. He was shot through the heart, and as I believe, by someone who stood at the door. It seems to me, that he was standing by the bed, and heard a footstep on the stairs. At once he turned, only to meet the levelled revolver. The shot passed through his heart and imbedded itself in the opposite wall. Again, there are three other shots in different parts of the body. One in the neck, another in the abdomen, and a third in the right leg. But the shot that killed the deceased was the the first that went through the heart."

"How do you know that such a shot was the first?" asked the Coroner.

"From an examination of the wounds," replied Tiler, "the remaining three shots were fired when the man was down.

"And dead!" said the Coroner aghast.

"Certainly. The deceased must have died almost instantaneously."

A thrill of horror passed through those present at the idea, that the assassin had fired three more shots at the dead body. There was something horrible about the wreaking of such vengeance. And vengeance it must have been, for Bridge proved that no robbery had taken place.

But the most interesting part of Bridge's evidence was yet to come. He produced the revolver found in the hand of the dead man. All six chambers proved to be loaded. Therefore it would not have been this weapon which had been used. The idea of suicide was out of the question.

"Also gentlemen," continued the Inspector, "the first shot was fired with a different weapon to that employed to fire the other three. The bullet which passed through the heart and embedded itself in the wall, has been extracted. Here it is. The other three shots were found in the body and in the floor. Here they are."

The pieces of evidence thus produced were placed before the jury. The first bullet was round--of the old-fashioned kind fired from a muzzle-loading pistol. The remaining three were conical in shape, and of the most modern manufacture. Plainly then two pistols had been used. One of an antique pattern to fire the first shot--the shot which killed the Colonel: and the other a revolver of the most modern type. And this latter had been merely employed to make a target of the dead body. "Finally," said Bridge after explaining all this, "the third pistol--or rather revolver found in the hand of the deceased, was not fired at all. The chambers are loaded--there is no smoke-stain on the barrels. It was simply put into the left hand of the dead to hint at suicide. The person who did so, knew that Colonel Carr was left-handed, but in his agitation forgot that the six chambers were loaded. In fact he defeated his own scheme."

This evidence was surprising enough. Why should the assassin use two pistols, when one would have sufficed? "And?" asked the Coroner, "why do you say 'he' Mr. Inspector? Do you then think that the guilty person is a man?"

"I don't think a woman would have committed so brutal a murder," said Bridge bluntly. "She would have been satisfied with killing the man, and not have proceeded to mutilate the body. Also the idea of putting a revolver into the hand of the dead would not occur to a woman."

"There I differ from you Mr. Inspector," contradicted the Coroner, "a woman might do such a thing, and it is more likely a woman would forget in her agitation that the revolver was loaded, than would a man in the like circumstances."

Inspector and Coroner argued out this point. At length Bridge losing his temper stated that he believed Frisco shot his master and called Napper as a witness.

The landlord stated that on Tuesday night at six o'clock Frisco had been drinking rum at the Carr Arms. He seemed to be angry with his master whom he alleged had treated him badly. As he left the inn, about seven o'clock, he said, "let him take care, or he won't live long." At the time Napper thought it was merely a drunken threat; but in the face of the death and Frisco's flight he thought that the man was guilty. Of course the Coroner, who had lost his temper with Bridge, told Napper that he did not want his opinion, but simply his evidence. There was further trouble about this remark, in which the Inspector got the worst of it.

A final witness was Stephen Marsh. He was a tall slight young man with bowed shoulders, and a pensive face. He stated that he had called on the evening of the murder for his mother at the rectory. She had been up at "The Pines" in the afternoon, and as she drove home told him, that Colonel Carr had expressed his intention of living for many a long day.

Coroner. "Why is Mrs. Marsh not here to give evidence?"

Marsh. "My mother is seriously ill in bed and could not come."

Coroner. "Her evidence must be taken. Did she say how the conversation came about to induce the deceased to make such a speech."

Marsh. "Yes! My mother wanted the Colonel to lend her some money. He refused. She said that he might as well, as when he died the estate would come to me. It was then that my uncle expressed his determination to live for many a long day. I merely give this evidence to show that my uncle had no thought of committing suicide."

Coroner. "Have you seen your uncle lately?"

Marsh. "No! Not for six months. We were not on good terms."

Coroner. "How was it then that Mrs. Marsh called to see him on the afternoon of the murder?"

Marsh. "She was determined to go. I asked her not to, but she insisted."

At this reply there came a smile upon the faces of those of the jury who lived at Beorminster. Afterwards Herrick learned that Mrs. Marsh was well known as possessed of a violent temper, and there was no doubt (as some one remarked) that she had given the Colonel a good talking to.

However the evidence of Marsh did not point to who had killed Carr. At the time there was no more available evidence. Bridge insisted that Frisco was guilty. He had left the house in the clothes he stood up in, evidently driven forth in a panic. He had made inquiries, and had heard from the police at Southberry, that Frisco--or a person answering to the description of Frisco--had gone to London by the morning train. At this moment Herrick asked to be allowed to give further evidence. He had just recollected that he had seen such a man as was described.

"I was stopping at Southberry," said Herrick, "waiting for my friend Mr. Joyce who had gone to London. He went up on Tuesday morning. I was stopping at an inn near the railway station. I got up early--about seven--to send a wire to my house in London. I had to go to the telegraph office at the station. On the platform I saw a stout man with a soft hat pulled over his face. He was dressed in a blue serge suit with a red tie, and looked like a sailor. I waited until the London train went, and saw him get into a third class carriage."

Coroner. "How is it Dr. Herrick that you recollect this only now?"

"Because I never thought of the matter before. Since Inspector Bridge has given a description of the dress and especially the red tie. I am sure the man was Frisco. I did not see his face."

The Coroner was displeased with this evidence, and said so. In fact he was a disagreeable man, with a strong animus against Bridge. As there was no more evidence, he summed up, trying to prove that Frisco could have had nothing to do with the murder. However the jury were of a different opinion and more sensible, so they brought in a verdict of wilful murder against Frisco. This made the Coroner ill-tempered again and he left "The Pines" in a great rage. However the verdict was given, the inquest was at an end, and the jury left the house.

Stephen Marsh as the nearest relative of the dead man, asked Bridge to allow the three policeman to remain in the house, as he had to return to his mother. Bridge consented, and then Marsh went up to Herrick who was standing in the hall.

"Doctor," said he, "will you come with me to Beorminster? I want you to attend my mother."

Herrick stared. "She has a doctor already has she not Mr. Marsh?"

Marsh shook his head. "No," he replied in a low voice "no Beorminster doctor will attend her. Please come sir. She is so ill."

Although he was partly prepared for this explanation, Herrick could not help staring. What had Mrs. Marsh done that the medical fraternity at Beorminster should boycott her in this way? "You are quite sure that no one will attend her?" he asked incredulously.

"Perfectly. She has quarrelled with all the doctors. I am very lucky to find you Dr. Herrick, or I should be obliged to send to London or to Southberry. And we are so poor, that the expense would be too much for us. You will come I hope."

Jim liked the young man's face. It was soft and mild, but remarkably handsome in a dark way. He could quite understand from such a face that a woman of imperious temper such as Mrs. Marsh appeared to be, could dominate and bully her step-son. If fact Stephen gave Herrick the impression of being crushed. It seemed to be Herrick's fate to meet with people who needed to be bolstered up,--witness Robin Joyce. Also he had a shrewd suspicion that the Revd. Pentland Corn was of the weak type. The proverb says that some men come into the world booted and spurred others saddled and bridled. Herrick was of the former type, and these three weaklings of the latter. However, in spite of his strong will, and dominating character, Jim had a kind heart. He therefore consented to do Marsh the favour he asked.

"But I must go first to the inn," he said, "my friend is there, and I must see after him."

"I'll wait for you," said Stephen, "but pray do not be long. I think my mother is dying."

"Nonsense," said Dr. Jim cheerily, "I'll pull her round. Never give way."

Marsh put out his hand and shook Jim's. "I have wanted a friend for many a long day," he said. "I believe I have found one in you."

"That's all right Marsh," and so Jim took a second burden on his shoulder.