Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar

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"Mr. Carter paused, and settled himself comfortably against the corner
of the chimney-piece. I was not surprised that he should have read my
thoughts in the railway carriage. I pondered the matter seriously. He
was right in the main, no doubt; but how could I tell a detective
officer my dearest secret--the sad story of my only love?

"'Trust me, Mr. Austin,' my companion said; 'if you want me to be of use
to you, trust me thoroughly. The very thing you are hiding from me may
be the clue I most want to get hold of.'

"'I don't think that,' I said. 'However, I have every reason to believe
you to be an honest, conscientious fellow, and I will trust you. I dare
say you wonder why I am so much interested in this business?'

"'Well, to tell the honest truth, sir, it does seem rather out of the
common to see an independent gentleman like you taking all this trouble
to find out the rights and wrongs of a murder committed going on for a
twelvemonth ago: unless you're any relation of the murdered man: and
even if you're that, you're very unlike the common run of relations, for
they generally take such things quieter than anybody else,' answered Mr.
Carter.

"I told the detective that I had never seen the murdered man in the
course of my life, and had never heard his name until after the murder.

"'Well, sir, then all I can say is, I don't understand your motive,'
returned, Mr. Carter.

"'Well, Carter, I think you're a good fellow, and I'll trust you,' I
said; 'but, in order to do that, I must tell you a long story, and
what's worse still, a love-story.'

"I felt that I blushed a little as I said this, and was ashamed of the
false shame that brought that missish glow into my cheeks. Mr. Carter
perceived my embarrassment, and was kind enough to encourage me.

"'Don't you be afraid of telling the story, because it's a sentimental
one,' he said: 'Lor' bless you, I've heard plenty of love-stories. There
ain't many bits of business come our way but what, if you sift 'em to
the bottom, you find a petticoat. You remember the Oriental bloke that
always asked, 'Who is she?' when he heard of a fight, or a fire, or a
mad bull broke loose, or any trifling calamity of that sort; because,
according to his views, a female was at the bottom of everything bad
that ever happened upon this earth. Well, sir, if that Oriental
potentate had lived in our times, and been brought up to the detective
line, I'm blest if he need have changed his opinions. So don't you be
ashamed of telling a love-story, sir. I was in love myself once, though
I do seem such a dry old chip; and I married the woman I loved too; and
she was a pretty little country girl, as fresh and innocent as the
daisies in her father's paddocks; and to this day she don't know what my
business really is. She thinks I'm something in the City, bless her dear
little heart!'

"This touch of sentiment in Mr. Carter's conversation was quite
unaffected, and I felt all the more inclined to trust him after this
little revelation of his domestic life. I told him the story of my
acquaintance with Margaret, very briefly giving him only the necessary
details. I told him of the girl's several efforts to see Henry Dunbar,
and the banker's persistent avoidance of her. I told him then of our
journey to Shorncliffe, and Margaret's strange conduct after her
interview with the man she had been so eager to see.

"The telling of this, though I told it briefly, occupied nearly an hour.
Mr. Carter sat opposite me all the time, listening intently; staring at
me with one fixed unvarying stare, and fingering musical passages upon
his knees, with slow cautious motions of his fingers and thumbs. But I
could see that he was not listening only: he was pondering and reasoning
upon what I told him. When I had finished my story, he remained silent
for some minutes: but he still stared at me with the same relentless and
stony gaze, and he still fingered his knees, following up his right hand
with his left, as slowly and deliberately as if he had been composing a
fugue after the manner of Mendelssohn.

"'And up to the time of that interview at Maudesley Abbey, Miss Wilmot
had stuck to the idea that Henry Dunbar was the murderer of her father?'
he said, at last.

"'Most resolutely.'

"'And after that interview the young lady changed her opinion all of a
sudden, and would have it that the banker was innocent?' asked Mr.
Carter.

"'Yes; when Margaret returned from Maudesley Abbey she declared her
conviction of Henry Dunbar's innocence.'

"'And she refused to fulfil her engagement with you?'

"'She did.'

"The detective left off fingering fugues upon his knees, and began to
scratch his head, slowly pushing his hand up and down amongst his
iron-grey hair, and staring at me. I saw now that this stony glare was
only the fixed expression of Mr. Carter's face when he was thinking
profoundly, and that the relentlessness of his gaze had very little
relation to the object at which he gazed.

"I watched his face as he pondered, in the hope of seeing some sudden
mental illumination light up his stolid countenance: but I watched in
vain. I saw that he was at fault: I saw that Margaret Wilmot's conduct
was quite as inexplicable to him as it had been to me.

"'Mr. Dunbar's a very rich man,' he said, at last; 'and money generally
goes a good way in these cases. There was a political party, Sir Robert
somebody--but not Sir Robert Peel--who said, 'Every man has his price.'
Now, do you think it possible that Miss Wilmot would take a bribe, and
hold her tongue?'

"'Do I think that she would take money from the man she suspected as the
murderer of her father--the man she knew to have been the enemy of her
father? No,' I answered, resolutely; 'I am certain that she is incapable
of any such baseness. The idea that she had been bribed flashed across
me in the first bitterness of my anger: but even then I dismissed it as
incredible. Now that I can think coolly of the business, I know that
such an alternative is impossible. If Margaret Wilmot has been
influenced by Henry Dunbar, it is upon her terror that he has acted.
Heaven knows how he may have threatened her! The man who could lure his
old servant into a lonely wood and there murder him--the man who,
neither early nor late, had one touch of pity for the tool and
accomplice of his youthful crime--not one lingering spark of compassion
for the humble friend who sacrificed an honest name in order to serve
his master--would have little compunction in torturing a friendless girl
who dared to come before him in the character of an accuser.'

"'But you say that Miss Wilmot was resolute and high-spirited. Is she a
likely person to be governed by her terror of Mr. Dunbar? What threat
could he use to terrify her?'

"I shook my head hopelessly.

"'I am as ignorant as you are,' I said; 'but I have strong reason to
believe that Margaret Wilmot was under the influence of some great
terror when she returned from Maudesley Abbey.'

"'What reason?' asked Mr. Carter.

"'Her manner was sufficient evidence that she had been frightened. Her
face was as white as a sheet of paper when I met her, and she trembled
and shrank away from me, as if even my presence was horrible to her.'

"'Could you manage to repeat what she said that night and the next
morning?'

"It was not very pleasant to me to re-open my wounds for the benefit of
Mr. Carter the detective; but it would have been absurd to thwart the
man when he was working in my interests. I loved Margaret too well to
forget anything she ever said to me, even in our happiest and most
careless hours: and I had special reason to remember that cruel farewell
interview, and the strange scene in the corridor at the Reindeer, on the
night of her return from Maudesley Abbey. I went over all this ground
again, therefore, for Mr. Carter's edification, and told him, word for
word, all that Margaret had said to me. When I had finished, he relapsed
once more into a reverie, during which I sat listening to the ticking of
an eight-day clock in the passage outside our sitting-room, and the
occasional tramp of a passing footstep on the pavement below our
windows.

"'There's only one thing strikes me very particular in all you've told
me,' the detective said, by-and-by, when I had grown tired of watching
him, and had suffered my thoughts to wander back to the happy time in
which Margaret and I had loved and trusted each other; 'there's only one
thing strikes me in all the young lady said to you, and that is these
words--'There is contamination in my touch,' Miss Wilmot says to you. 'I
am unfit to be the associate of an honest man,' Miss Wilmot says to you.
Now, that looks as if she had been bought over somehow or other by Mr.
Dunbar. I've turned it over in my mind every way; and however I reckon
it up, that's about what it comes to. The young woman was bought over,
and she was ashamed of herself for being bought over.'

"I told Mr. Carter that I could never bring myself to believe this.

"'Perhaps not, sir, but it may be gospel truth for all that. There's no
other way I can account for the young woman's carryings on. If Mr.
Dunbar was innocent, and had contrived, somehow or other, to convince
the young woman of his innocence, why, she'd have come to you free and
open, and would have said, 'My dear, I've made a mistake about Mr.
Dunbar, and I'm very sorry for it; but we must look somewhere else for
my poor pa's murderer.' But what does the young woman do? She goes and
scrapes herself along the passage-wall, and shudders and shivers, and
says, 'I'm a wretch; don't touch me--don't come near me.' It's just like
a woman, to take the bribe, and then be sorry for having taken it.'

"I said nothing in answer to this. It was inexpressibly obnoxious to me
to hear my poor Margaret spoken of as 'a young woman' by my
business-like companion. But there was no possibility of keeping any
veil over the sacred mysteries of my heart. I wanted Mr. Carter's help.
For the present Margaret was lost to me; and my only hope of penetrating
the hidden cause of her conduct lay in Mr. Carter's power to solve the
dark enigma of Joseph Wilmot's death.

"'Oh, by the bye,' exclaimed the detective, 'there was a letter, wasn't
there?'

"He held out his hand as I searched for the letter in my pocket-book.
What a greedy, inquisitive-looking palm it seemed! and how I hated Mr.
Henry Carter, detective officer, at that particular moment!

"I gave him the letter; and I did not groan aloud as I handed it to him.
He read it slowly, once, twice, three times--half-a-dozen times, I
think, in all--pushing the fingers of his left hand through his hair as
he read, and frowning at the paper before him. It was while he was
reading the letter for the last time that I saw a sudden glimmer of
light in his hard eyes, and a half-smile playing round his thin lips.

"'Well?' I said, interrogatively, as he gave me back the letter.

"'Well, sir, the young lady,'--Mr. Carter called Margaret a young lady
this time, and I could not help thinking that her letter had revealed
her to him as something different from the ordinary class of female
popularly described as a young woman,--'the young lady was in earnest
when she wrote that letter, sir,' he said; 'it wasn't written under
dictation, and she wasn't bribed to write it. There's heart in it, sir,
if I may be allowed the expression: there's a woman's heart in that
letter: and when a woman's heart is once allowed scope, a woman's brains
shrivel up like so much tinder. I put this letter to that speech in the
corridor at the Reindeer, Mr. Austin; and out of those two twos I verily
believe I can make the queerest four that was ever reckoned up by a
first-class detective.'

"A faint flush, which looked like a glow of pleasure, kindled all over
Mr. Carter's sallow face as he spoke, and he got up and walked about the
room; not slowly or thoughtfully, but with a brisk eager tread that was
new to me. I could see that his spirits had risen a great many degrees
since the reading of the letter.

"'You have got some clue,' I said; 'you see your way----'

"He turned round and checked my eager curiosity by a warning gesture of
his uplifted hand.

"'Don't be in a hurry, sir,' he said, gravely; 'when you lose your way
of a dark night, in a swampy country, and see a light ahead, don't begin
to clap your hands and cry hooray till you know what kind of light it
is. It may be a Jack-o'-lantern; or it may be the identical lamp over
the door of the house you're bound for. You leave this business to me,
Mr. Austin, and don't you go jumping at conclusions. I'll work it out
quietly: and when I've worked it out I'll tell you what I think of it.
And now suppose we take a stroll through the cathedral-yard, and have a
look at the place where the body was found.'

"'How shall we find out the exact spot?' I asked, while I was putting on
my hat and overcoat.

"'Any passer-by will point it out,' Mr. Carter answered; 'they don't
have a popular murder in the neighbourhood of Winchester every day; and
when they do, I make not the least doubt they know how to appreciate the
advantage. You may depend upon it, the place is pretty well known.'

"It was nearly five o'clock by this time. We went down the slippery
oak-staircase, and out into the quiet street. A bleak wind was blowing
down from the hills, and the rooks' nests high up in the branches of the
old trees about the cathedral were rocking like that legendary cradle in
the tree-top. I had never been in Winchester before, and I was pleased
with the quaint old houses, the towering cathedral, the flat meadows,
and winding streams of water rippled by the wind. I was soothed, somehow
or other, by the peculiar quiet of the scene; and I could not help
thinking that, if a man's life was destined to be miserable, Winchester
would be a nice place for him to be miserable in. A dreamy, drowsy,
forgotten city, where the only changes of the slow day would be the
varying chimes of the cathedral clock, the different tones of the
cathedral bells.

"Mr. Carter had studied every scrap of evidence connected with the
murder of Joseph Wilmot. He pointed out the door at which Henry Dunbar
had gone into the cathedral, the pathway which the two men had taken as
they went towards the grove. We followed this pathway, and walked to the
very place in which the murdered man had been found.

"A lad who was fishing in one of the meadows near the grove went with us
to show us the exact spot. It was between an elm and a beech.

"'There's not many beeches in the grove,' the lad said, 'and this is the
biggest of them. So that it's easy enough for any one to pick out the
spot. It was very dry weather last August at the time of the murder, and
the water wasn't above half as deep as it is now.'

"'Is it the same depth every where?' Mr. Carter asked.

"'Oh, dear no,' the boy said; 'that's what makes these streams so
dangerous for bathing: they're shallow enough in some places; but
there's all manner of holes about; and unless you're a good swimmer,
you'd better not try it on.'

"Mr. Carter gave the boy sixpence and dismissed him. We strolled a
little farther on, and then turned and went back towards the cathedral.
My companion was very silent, and I could see that he was still
thinking. The change that had taken place in his manner after he had
read Margaret's letter had inspired me with new confidence in him, and I
was better able to await the working out of events. Little by little the
solemn nature of the business in which I was engaged grew and gathered
force in my mind, and I felt that I had something more to do than to
solve the mystery of Margaret's conduct to myself: I had to perform a
duty to society, by giving my uttermost help towards the discovery of
Joseph Wilmot's murderer.

"If the heartless assassin of this wretched man was suffered to live and
prosper, to hold up his head as the master of Maudesley Abbey, the chief
partner in a great City firm that had borne an honourable name for a
century and a half, a kind of premium was offered to crime in high
places. If Henry Dunbar had been some miserable starving creature, who,
in a fit of mad fury against the inequalities of life, had lifted his
gaunt arm to slay his prosperous brother for the sake of
bread--detectives would have dogged his sneaking steps, and watched his
guilty face, and hovered round and about him till they tracked him to
his doom. But because in this case the man to whom suspicion pointed had
the supreme virtues comprised in a million of money, Justice wore her
thickest bandage, and the officials, who are so clever in tracking a
low-born wretch to the gallows, held aloof, and said respectfully,
'Henry Dunbar is too great a man to be guilty of a diabolical crime.'

"These thoughts filled my mind as I walked back to the George Hotel with
Mr. Carter.

"It was half-past six when we entered the house, and we had kept dinner
waiting half an hour, much to the regret of the most courteous of
waiters, who expressed intense anxiety about the condition of the fish.

"As the man hovered about us at dinner, I expected every moment that Mr.
Carter would lead up to the only topic which had any interest either for
himself or me. But he was slow to do this; he talked of the town, the
last assizes, the state of the country, the weather, the prosperity of
the trout-fishing season--everything except the murder of Joseph Wilmot.
It was only after dinner, when some petrified specimens of dessert, in
the shape of almonds and raisins, figs and biscuits, had been arranged
on the table, that any serious business began. The preliminary
skirmishing had not been without its purpose, however; for the waiter
had been warmed into a communicative and confidential mood, and was now
ready to tell us anything he knew.

"I delegated all our arrangements to my companion; and it was something
wonderful to see Mr. Carter lolling in his arm-chair with what he called
the 'wine-cart' in his hand, deliberating between a forty-two port,
'light and elegant,' and a forty-five port, 'tawny and rich bouquet.'

"'I think we may as well try number fifteen,' he said, handing the list
of wines to the waiter after due consideration; 'and decant it
carefully, whatever you do. I hope your cellar isn't cold.'

"'Oh, no, sir; master's very careful of his cellar, sir.'

"The waiter went away impressed with the idea that he had to deal with a
couple of connoisseurs.

"'You've got those letters to write before ten o'clock, eh, Mr. Austin?'
said the detective, as the waiter re-entered the room with a decanter on
a silver salver.

"I understood the hint, and accordingly took my travelling-desk to a
side-table near the fireplace. Mr. Carter handed me one of the
wax-candles, and I sat down before the little table, unlocked my desk,
and began to write a few lines to my mother; while the detective smacked
his lips and knowingly deliberated over his first glass of port.

"'Very decent quality of wine,' he said, 'very decent. Do you know where
your master got it, eh? No, you don't. Ah! bottled it himself, I
suppose. I thought he might have got it at the Warren-Court sale the
other day, at the other end of the county. Fill a glass for yourself,
waiter, and put the decanter down by the fender; the wine's rather cold.
By the bye, I heard your wines very well spoken of the other day, by a
person of some importance, too--of considerable importance, I may say.'

"'Indeed, sir,' murmured the waiter, who was standing at a respectful
distance from the table, and was sipping his wine with deferential
slowness.

"'Yes; I heard your house spoken of by no less a person than Mr. Dunbar,
the great banker.'

"The waiter pricked up his ears. I pushed aside the letter to my mother,
and waited with a blank sheet of paper before me.

"'That was a strange affair, by the bye,' said Mr. Carter. 'Fill
yourself another glass of wine, waiter; my friend here doesn't drink
port; and if you don't help me to put away that bottle, I shall take too
much. Were you examined at the inquest on Joseph Wilmot?'

"No, sir,' answered the waiter, eagerly. 'I were not, sir; and they do
say as we ought every one of us to have been examined; for you see
there's little facks as one person will notice and as another won't
notice, and it isn't a man's place to come forward with every little
trivial thing, you see, sir; but if little trivial things was drawn out
of one and another, they might help, you see, sir.'

"There could be no end gained by taking notes of this reply, so I amused
myself by making a good nib to my pen while I waited for something
better worth jotting down.

"'Some of your people were examined, I suppose?' said Mr. Carter.

"'Oh, yes, sir,' answered the waiter; 'master, he were examined, to
begin with; and then Brigmawl, the head-waiter, he give his evidence;
but, lor', sir, without unfriendliness to William Brigmawl, which me and
Brigmawl have been fellow-servants these eleven year, our head-waiter is
that wrapped up in hisself, and his own cravats, and shirt-fronts, and
gold studs, and Albert chain, that he'd scarcely take notice of an
earthquake swallering up half the world before his eyes, unless the muck
and dirt of that earthquake was to spoil his clothes. William Brigmawl
has been head-waiter in this house nigh upon thirty year; and beyond a
stately way of banging-to a carriage-door, or showing visitors to their
rooms, or poking a fire, and a kind of knack of leading on timid people
to order expensive wines, I really don't see Brigmawl's great merit. But
as to Brigmawl at an inquest, he's about as much good as the Pope of
Rome.'

"'But why was Brigmawl examined in preference to any one else?'

"'Because he was supposed to know more of the business than any of us,
being as it was him that took the order for the dinner. But me and Eliza
Jane, the under-chambermaid, was in the hall at the very moment when the
two gentlemen came in.'

"'You saw them both, then?'

"'Yes, sir, as plain as I now see you. And you might have knocked me
down with a feather when I was told afterwards that the one who was
murdered was nothing more than a valet.'

"'You're not getting on very fast with your letters,' said Mr. Carter,
looking over his shoulder at me.

"'I had written nothing yet, and I understood this as a hint to begin. I
wrote down the waiter's last remark.

"'Why were you so surprised to find he was a valet?' Mr. Carter asked of
the waiter.

"'Because, you see, sir, he had the look of a gentleman,' the man
answered; 'an out-and-out gentleman. It wasn't that he held his head
higher than Mr. Dunbar, or that he was better dressed--for Mr. Dunbar's
clothes looked the newest and best; but he had a kind of languid
don't-careish way that seems to be peculiar to first-class gentlemen.'

"'What sort of a looking man was he?'

"'Paler than Mr. Dunbar, and thinner built, and fairer.'

"I jotted down the waiter's remarks; but I could not help thinking that
this talk about the murdered man's manner and appearance was about as
useless as anything could be.

"'Paler and thinner than Mr. Dunbar,' repeated the detective; 'paler and
thinner, eh? This was one thing you noticed; but what was it, now, that
you could have said at the inquest if you had been called as a witness?'

"'Well, sir, I'll tell you. It's a small matter, and I've mentioned it
many a time, both to William Brigmawl and to others; but they talk me
down, and say I was mistaken; and Eliza Jane being a silly giggling
hussey, can't bear me out in what I say. But I do most solemnly declare
that I speak the truth, and am not deceived. When the two
gentlemen--which gentlemen they both was to look at--came into our hall,
the one that was murdered had his coat buttoned tight across his chest,
except one button; and through the space left by that one button I saw
the glitter of a gold chain.'

"'Well, what then?'

"'The other gentleman, Mr. Dunbar, had his coat open as he got out of
the carriage, and I saw as plain as ever I saw anything, that he had no
gold-chain. But two minutes after he had come into the hall, and while
he was ordering dinner, he took and bottoned his coat. Well, sir, when
he came in, after visiting the cathedral, his coat was partially
unbuttoned and I saw that he wore a gold-chain, and, unless I am very
much mistaken, the same gold-chain that I had seen peeping out of the
breast of the murdered man. I could almost have sworn to that chain
because of the colour of the gold, which was a particular deep yaller.
It was only afterwards that these things came back to my mind, and I
certainly thought them very strange.'

"'Was there anything else?'

"'Nothing; except what Brigmawl dropped out one night at supper, some
weeks after the inquest, about his having noticed Mr. Dunbar opening his
desk while he was waiting for Joseph Wilmot to come home to dinner; and
Brigmawl do say, now that it ain't a bit of use, that Mr. Dunbar, do
what he would, couldn't find the key of his own desk for ever so long.'

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