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

a minute description of Henry Dunbar's watch and chain. The watch didn't open quite in the usual manner, and the gentleman was rather awkward in opening it, my friend the verger tells me. He was awkward with the key of his desk. He seems to have had a fit of awkwardness that day.'

"'You think that he was guilty, and that he was confused and agitated by the hideous business he had been concerned in?'

"Mr. Carter looked at me with a very queer smile on his face.

"'You're improving, Mr. Austin,' he said; 'you'd make a first-class detective in next to no time.'

"I felt rather doubtful as to the meaning of this compliment, for there was something very like irony in Mr. Carter's tone.

"'I'll tell you what I think,' he said, stopping presently, and taking me by the button-hole. 'I think that I know why the murdered man's coat, waistcoat, and shirt were stripped off him.'

"I begged the detective to tell me what he thought upon this subject; but he refused to do so.

"'Wait and see,' he said; 'if I'm right, you'll soon find out what I mean; if I'm wrong, I'll keep my thoughts to myself. I'm an old hand, and I don't want to be found out in a mistake.'

"I said no more after this. The disappearance of the murdered man's clothes had always appeared to me the only circumstance that was irreconcilable with the idea of Henry Dunbar's guilt. That some brutal wretch, who stained his soul with blood for the sake of his victim's poor possessions, should strip off the clothes of the dead, and make a market even out of them, was probable enough. But that Henry Dunbar, the wealthy, hyper-refined Anglo-Indian, should linger over the body of his valet and offer needless profanation to the dead, was something incredible, and not to be accounted for by any theory whatever.

"This was the one point which, from first to last, had completely baffled me.

"We found the man with the drags waiting for us under the dripping trees. Mr. Carter had revealed himself to the constabulary as one of the chief luminaries of Scotland Yard; and if he had wanted to dig up the foundations of the cathedral, they would scarcely have ventured to interfere with his design. One of the constables was lounging by the water's edge, watching the men as they prepared for business.

"I have no need to write a minute record of that miserable day. I know that I walked up and down, up and down, backwards and forwards, upon the soddened grass, from noon till sundown, always thinking that I would go away presently, always lingering a little longer; hindered by the fancy that Mr. Carter's search was on the point of being successful. I know that for hour after hour the grating sound of the iron drags grinding on the gravelly bed of the stream sounded in my tired ears, and yet there was no result. I know that rusty scraps of worn-out hardware, dead bodies of cats and dogs, old shoes laden with pebbles, rank entanglements of vegetable corruption, and all manner of likely and unlikely rubbish, were dragged out of the stream, and thrown aside upon the bank.

"The detective grew dirtier and slimier and wetter as the day wore on; but still he did not lose heart.

"'I'll have every inch of the bed of the stream, and every hidden hole in the bottom, dragged ten times over, before I'll give it up,' he said to me, when he came to me at dusk with some brandy that had been brought by a boy who had been fetching beer, more or less, all the afternoon.

"When it grew dark, the men lighted a couple of flaring resinous torches, which Mr. Carter had sent for towards dusk, and worked, by the patches of fitful light which these torches threw upon the water. I still walked up and down under the dripping trees, in the darkness, as I had walked in the light; and once when I was farthest from the red glare of the torches, a strange fancy took possession of me. In amongst the dim branches of the trees I thought I saw something moving, something that reminded me of the figure I had seen opposite the post-office on the previous night.

"I ran in amongst the trees; and as I did so, the figure seemed to me to recede, and disappear; a faint rustling of a woman's dress sounded in my ears, or seemed so to sound, as the figure melted from my sight. But again I had good reason to attribute these fancies to the state of my own brain, after that long day of anxiety and suspense.

"At last, when I was completely worn out by my weary day, Mr. Carter came to me.

"'They're found!' he cried. 'We've found 'em! We've found the murdered man's clothes! They've been drifted away into one of the deepest holes there is, and the rats have been gnawing at 'em. But, please Providence, we shall find what we want. I'm not much of a church-goer, but I do believe there's a Providence that lies in wait for wicked men, and catches the very cleverest of them when they least expect it.'

"I had never seen Mr. Carter so much excited as he seemed now. His face was flushed, and his nostrils quivered nervously.

"I followed him to the spot where the constable and two men, who had been dragging the stream, were gathered round a bundle of wet rubbish lying on the ground.

"Mr. Carter knelt down before this bundle, which was covered with trailing weeds and moss and slime, and the constable stooped over him with a flaming torch in his hand.

"'These are somebody's clothes, sure enough,' the detective said; 'and, unless I'm very much mistaken, they're what I want. Has anybody got a basket?'

"Yes. The boy who had fetched beer had a basket. Mr. Carter stuffed the slimy bundle into this basket, and put his arm through the handle.

"'You're not going to look 'em over here, then?' said the local constable, with an air of disappointment.

"'No, I'll take them straight to my hotel; I shall have plenty of light there. You can come with me, if you like,' Mr. Carter answered.

"He paid the men, who had been at work all day, and paid them liberally, I suppose, for they seemed very well satisfied. I had given him money for any expenses such as these; for I knew that, in a case of this kind, every insignificant step entailed the expenditure of money.

"We walked homewards as rapidly as the miserable state of the path, the increasing darkness, and the falling rain would allow us to walk. The constable walked with us. Mr. Carter whistled softly to himself as he went along, with the basket on his arm. The slimy green stuff and muddy water dripped from the bottom of the basket as he carried it.

"I was still at a loss to understand the reason of his high spirits; I was still at a loss to comprehend why he attached so much importance to the finding of the dead man's clothes.

"It was past eight o'clock when we three men--the detecting the Winchester constable, and myself--entered our sitting-room at the George Hotel. The principal table was laid for dinner; and the waiter, our friend of the previous evening, was hovering about, eager to receive us. But Mr. Carter sent the waiter about his business.

"'I've got a little matter to settle with this gentleman,' he said, indicating the Winchester constable with a backward jerk of his thumb; 'I'll ring when I want dinner.'

"I saw the waiter's eyes open to an abnormal extent, as he looked at the constable, and I saw a sudden blank apprehension creep over his face, as he retired very slowly from the room.

"'Now,' said Mr. Carter, 'we'll examine the bundle.'

"He pushed away the dinner-table, and drew forward a smaller table. Then he ran out of the room, and returned in about two minutes, carrying with him all the towels he had been able to find in my room and his own, which were close at hand. He spread the towels on the table, and then took the slimy bundle from the basket.

"'Bring me the candles--both the candles,' he said to the constable.

"The man held the two wax-candles on the right hand of the detective, as he sat before the table. I stood on his left hand, watching him intently.

"He touched the ragged and mud-stained bundle as carefully as if it had been some living thing. Foul river-insects crept out of the weeds, which were so intermingled with the tattered fabrics that it was difficult to distinguish one substance from the other.

"Mr. Carter was right: the rats had been at work. The outer part of the bundle was a coat--a cloth coat, knawed into tatters by the sharp teeth of water-rats.

"Inside the coat there was a waistcoat, a satin scarf that was little better than a pulp, and a shirt that had once been white. Inside the white shirt there was a flannel shirt, out of which there rolled half-a-dozen heavy stones. These had been used to sink the bundle, but were not so heavy as to prevent its drifting into the hole where it had been found.

"The bundle had been rolled up very tightly, and the outer garment was the only one which had been destroyed by the rats. The inner garment--the flannel shirt--was in a very tolerable state of preservation.

"The detective swept the coat and waistcoat and the pebbles back into the basket, and then rolled both of the shirts in a towel, and did his best to dry them. The constable watched him with open eyes, but with no ray of intelligence in his stolid face.

"'Well,' said Mr. Carter,' there isn't much here, is there? I don't think I need detain you any longer. You'll be wanting your tea, I dare say.'

"'I did'nt think there would be much in them,' the constable said, pointing contemptuously to the wet rags; his reverential awe of Scotland Yard had been considerably lessened during that long tiresome day. 'I didn't see your game from the first, and I don't see it now. But you wanted the things found, and you've had 'em found.'

"Yes; and I've paid for the work being done,' Mr. Carter answered briskly; 'not but what I'm thankful to you for giving me your help, and I shall esteem it a favour if you'll accept a trifle, to make up for your lost day. I've made a mistake, that's all; the wisest of us are liable to be mistaken once in a way.'

"The constable grinned as he took the sovereign which Mr. Carter offered him. There was something like triumph in the grin of that Winchester constable--the triumph of a country official who was pleased to see a Londoner at fault.

"I confess that I groaned aloud when the door closed upon the man, and I found myself alone with the detective, who had seated himself at the little table, and was poring over one of the shirts outspread before him.

"'All this day's labour and weariness has been so much wasted trouble,' I said; 'for it seems to have brought us no step nearer to the point we wanted to reach."

"'Hasn't it, Mr. Austin?" cried the detective, eagerly. 'Do you think I am such a fool as to speak out before the man who has just left