Henry Dunbar, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [reading list txt] 📗

asking at what hour she could conveniently receive me to-day; and I returned to the cathedral. Joseph Wilmot was to deliver his message at the Ferns, and rejoin me in the cathedral."

"He was to return to the cathedral?"

"Yes."

"But why should he not have returned to the George Hotel? Why should you wait for him at the cathedral?"

Arthur Lovell listened, with a strange expression upon his face. If Henry Dunbar was pale, Henry Dunbar's legal adviser was still more so. The jurymen stared aghast at the coroner, as if they had been awe-stricken by his impertinence towards the chief partner of the great banking-house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby. How dared he--a man with an income of five hundred a year at the most--how dared he discredit or question any assertion made by Henry Dunbar?

The Anglo-Indian smiled, a little contemptuously. He stood in a careless attitude, playing with the golden trinkets at his watch-chain, with the hot August sunshine streaming upon his face from a bare unshaded window opposite him. But he did not attempt to escape that almost blinding glare. He stood facing the sunlight; facing the gaze of the coroner and the jurymen; the scrutinizing glance of Arthur Lovell. Unabashed and _nonchalant_ as if he had been standing in a ball-room, the hero of the hour, the admired of all who looked upon him, Mr. Dunbar stood before the coroner and jury, and told the broken history of his old servant's death.

"Yes," Mr. Lovell thought again, as he watched the rich man's face, "his nerves must be made of iron."


CHAPTER XII.


ARRESTED.

The coroner repeated his question:

"Why did you tell the deceased to join you at the cathedral, Mr. Dunbar?"

"Merely because it suited my humour at the time to do so," answered the Anglo-Indian, coolly. "We had been very friendly together, and I had a fancy for going over the cathedral. I thought that Wilmot might return from the Ferns in time to go over some portion of the edifice with me. He was a very intelligent fellow, and I liked his society."

"But the journey to the Ferns and back would have occupied some time."

"Perhaps so," answered Mr. Dunbar; "I did not know the distance to the Ferns, and I did not make any calculation as to time. I merely said to the deceased, 'I shall go back and look at the cathedral; and I will wait for you there.' I said this, and I told him to be as quick as he could."

"That was all that passed between you?"

"It was. I then returned to the cathedral."

"And you waited there for the deceased?"

"I did. I waited until close upon the hour at which I had ordered dinner at the George."

There was a pause, during which the coroner looked very thoughtful.

"I am compelled to ask you one more question, Mr. Dunbar," he said, presently, hesitating a little as he spoke.

"I am ready to answer any questions you may wish to ask," Mr. Dunbar replied, very quietly.

"Were you upon friendly terms with the deceased?"

"I have just told you so. We were on excellent terms. I found him an agreeable companion. His manners were those of a gentleman. I don't know how he had picked up his education, but he certainly had contrived to educate himself some how or other."

"I understand you were friendly together at the time of his death; but prior to that time----"

Mr. Dunbar smiled.

"I have been in India five-and-thirty years," he said.

"Precisely. But before your departure for India, had you any misunderstanding, any serious quarrel with the deceased?"

Mr. Dunbar's face flushed suddenly, and his brows contracted as if even his self-possession were not proof against the unpleasant memories of the past.

"No," he said, with determination; "I never quarrelled with him."

"There had been no cause of quarrel between you?"

"I don't understand your question. I have told you that I never quarrelled with him."

"Perhaps not; but there might have been some hidden animosity, some smothered feeling, stronger than any openly-expressed anger, hidden in your breast. Was there any such feeling?"

"Not on my part."

"Was there any such feeling on the part of the deceased?"

Mr. Dunbar looked furtively at William Balderby. The junior partner's eyelids dropped under that stolen glance.

It was clear that he knew the story of the forged bills.

Had the coroner for Winchester been a clever man, he would have followed that glance of Mr. Dunbar's, and would have understood that the junior partner knew something about the antecedents of the dead man. But the coroner was not a very close observer, and Mr. Dunbar's eager glance escaped him altogether.

"Yes," answered the Anglo-Indian, "Joseph Wilmot had a grudge against me before I sailed for Calcutta, but we settled all that at Southampton, and I promised to allow him an annuity."

"You promised him an annuity?"

"Yes--not a very large one--only fifty pounds a year; but he was quite satisfied with that promise."

"He had some claim upon you, then?"

"No, he had no claim whatever upon me," replied Mr. Dunbar, haughtily.

Of course, it could be scarcely pleasant for a millionaire to be cross-questioned in this manner by an impertinent Hampshire coroner.

The jurymen sympathized with the banker.

The coroner looked rather puzzled.

"If the deceased had no claim upon you, why did you promise him an annuity?" he asked, after a pause.

"I made that promise for the sake of 'auld lang syne,'" answered Mr. Dunbar. "Joseph Wilmot was a favourite servant of mine five-and-thirty years ago. We were young men together. I believe that he had, at one time, a very sincere affection for me. I know that I always liked him."

"How long were you in the grove with the deceased?"

"Not more than ten minutes."

"And you cannot describe the spot where you left him?"

"Not very easily; I could point it out, perhaps, if I were taken there."

"What time elapsed between your leaving the cathedral yard with the deceased and your returning to it without him?"

"Perhaps half an hour."

"Not longer?"

"No; I do not imagine that it can have been longer."

"Thank you, Mr. Dunbar; that will do for the present," said the coroner.

The banker returned to his seat.

Arthur Lovell, still watching him, saw that his strong white hand trembled a little as his fingers trifled with those glittering toys hanging to his watch-chain.

The verger was the next person examined.

He described how he had been loitering in the yard of the cathedral as the two men passed across it. He told how they had gone by arm-in-arm, laughing and talking together.

"Which of them was talking as they passed you?" asked the coroner.

"Mr. Dunbar."

"Could you hear what he was saying?"

"No, sir. I could hear his voice, but I couldn't hear the words."

"What time elapsed between Mr. Dunbar and the deceased leaving the cathedral yard, and Mr. Dunbar returning alone?"

The verger scratched his head, and looked doubtfully at Henry Dunbar.

That gentleman was looking straight before him, and seemed quite unconscious of the verger's glance.

"I can't quite exactly say how long it was, sir," the old man answered, after a pause.

"Why can't you say exactly?"

"Because, you see, sir, I didn't keep no particular 'count of the time, and I shouldn't like to tell a falsehood."

"You must not tell a falsehood. We want the truth, and nothing but the truth."

"I know, sir; but you see I am an old man, and my memory is not as good as it used to be. I _think_ Mr. Dunbar was away an hour."

Arthur Lovell gave an involuntary start. Every one of the jurymen looked suddenly at Mr. Dunbar.

But the Anglo-Indian did not flinch. He was looking at the verger now with a quiet steady gaze, which seemed that of a man who had nothing to fear, and who was serene and undisturbed by reason of his innocence.

"We don't want to know what you _think_," the coroner said; "you must tell us only what you are certain of."

"Then I'm not certain, sir."

"You are not certain that Mr. Dunbar was absent for an hour?"

"Not quite certain, sir."

"But very nearly certain. Is that so?"

"Yes, sir, I'm very nearly certain. You see, sir, when the two gentlemen went through the yard, the cathedral clock was chiming the quarter after four; I remember that. And when Mr. Dunbar came back, I was just going away to my tea, and I seldom go to my tea until it's gone five."

"But supposing it to have struck five when Mr. Dunbar returned, that would only make it three quarters of an hour after the time at which he went through the yard, supposing him to have gone through, as you say, at the quarter past four."

The verger scratched his head again.

"I'd been loiterin' about yesterday afternoon, sir," he said; "and I was a bit late thinkin' of my tea."

"And you believe, therefore, that Mr. Dunbar was absent for an hour?"

"Yes, sir; an hour--or more."

"An hour, or more?"

"Yes, sir."

"He was absent more than an hour; do you mean to say that?"

"It might have been more, sir. I didn't keep no particular 'count of the time."

Arthur Lovell had taken out his pocket-book, and was making notes of the verger's evidence.

The old man went on to describe his having shown Mr. Dunbar all over the cathedral. He made no mention of that sudden faintness which had seized upon the Anglo-Indian at the door of one of the chapels; but he described the rich man's manner as having been affable in the extreme. He told how Henry Dunbar had loitered at the door of the cathedral, and afterwards lingered in the quadrangle, waiting for the coming of his servant. He told all this with many encomiums upon the rich man's pleasant manner.

The next, and perhaps the most important, witnesses were the two labourers, Philip Murtock and Patrick Hennessy, who had found the body of the murdered man.

Patrick Hennessy was sent out of the room while Murtock gave his evidence; but the evidence of the two men tallied in every particular.

They were Irishmen, reapers, and were returning from a harvest supper at a farm five miles from St. Cross, upon the previous evening. One of them had knelt down upon the edge of the stream to get a drink of water in the crown of his felt hat, and had been horrified by seeing the face of the dead man looking up at him in the moonlight, through the shallow water that barely covered it. The two men had dragged the body out of the streamlet, and Philip Murtock had watched beside it while Patrick Hennessy had gone to seek assistance.

The dead man's clothes had been stripped from him, with the exception of his trousers and boots, and the other part of his body was bare. There was a revolting brutality in this fact. It seemed that the murderer had stripped his victim for the sake of the clothes which he had worn. There could be little doubt, therefore, that the murder had been committed for the greed of gain, and