Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

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

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"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 not from any motive of revenge.

Arthur Lovell breathed more freely; until this moment his mind had been
racked in agonizing doubts. Dark suspicions had been working in his
breast. He had been tortured by the idea that the Anglo-Indian had
murdered his old servant, in order to remove out of his way the chief
witness of the crime of his youth.

But if this had been so, the murderer would never have lingered upon the
scene of his crime in order to strip the clothes from his victim's body.

No! the deed had doubtless been done by some savage wretch, some lost
and ignorant creature, hardened by a long life of crime, and preying
like a wild beast upon his fellow-men.

Such murders are done in the world. Blood has been shed for the sake of
some prize so small, so paltry, that it has been difficult for men to
believe that one human being could destroy another for such an object.

Heaven have pity upon the wretch so lost as to be separated from his
fellow-creatures by reason of the vileness of his nature! Heaven
strengthen the hands of those who seek to spread Christian enlightenment
and education through the land! for it is only those blessings that will
thin the crowded prison wards, and rob the gallows of its victims.

The robbery of the dead man's clothes, and such property as he might
have had about him at the time of his death, gave a new aspect to the
murder in the eyes of Arthur Lovell. The case was clear and plain now,
and the young man's duty was no longer loathsome to him; for he no
longer suspected Henry Dunbar.

The constabulary had already been busy; the spot upon which the murder
had been committed, and the neighbourhood of that spot, had been
diligently searched. But no vestige of the dead man's garments had been
found.

The medical man's evidence was very brief. He stated, that when he
arrived at the Foresters' Arms he found the deceased quite dead, and
that he appeared to have been dead some hours; that from the bruises and
marks on the throat and neck, some contusions on the back of the head,
and other appearances on the body, which witness minutely described, he
said there were indications of a struggle having taken place between
deceased and some other person or persons; that the man had been thrown,
or had fallen down violently; and that death had ultimately been caused
by strangling and suffocation.

The coroner questioned the surgeon very closely as to how long he
thought the murdered man had been dead. The medical man declined to give
any positive statement on this point; he could only say that when he was
called in, the body was cold, and that the deceased might have been dead
three hours--or he might have been dead five hours. It was impossible to
form an opinion with regard to the exact time at which death had taken
place.

The evidence of the waiter and the landlord of the George only went to
show that the two men had arrived at the hotel together; that they had
appeared in very high spirits, and on excellent terms with each other;
that Mr. Dunbar had shown very great concern and anxiety about the
absence of his companion, and had declined to eat his dinner until nine
o'clock.

This closed the evidence; and the jury retired.

They were absent about a quarter of an hour, and then returned a verdict
of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.

Henry Dunbar, Arthur Lovell, and Mr. Balderby went back to the hotel. It
was past six o'clock when the coroner's inquest was concluded, and the
three men sat down to dinner together at seven.

That dinner-party was not a pleasant one; there was a feeling of
oppression upon the minds of the three men. The awful event of the
previous day cast its dreadful shadow upon them. They could not talk
freely of this subject--for it was too ghastly a theme for
discussion--and to talk of any other seemed almost impossible.

Arthur Lovell had observed with surprise that Henry Dunbar had not once
spoken of his daughter. And yet this was scarcely strange; the utterance
of that name might have jarred upon the father's feelings at such a time
as this.

"You will write to Miss Dunbar to-night, will you not, sir?" the young
man said at last. "I fear that she will have been very anxious about you
all this day. She was alarmed by your message to Mr. Balderby."

"I shall not write," said the banker; "for I hope to see my daughter
to-night."

"You will leave Winchester this evening, then?"

"Yes, by the 10.15 express. I should have travelled by that train
yesterday evening, but for this terrible event."

Arthur Lovell looked rather astonished at this.

"You are surprised," said Mr. Dunbar.

"I thought perhaps that you might stay--until----"

"Until what?" asked the Anglo-Indian; "everything is finished, is it
not? The inquest was concluded to-day. I shall leave full directions for
the burial of this poor fellow, and an ample sum for his funeral
expenses. I spoke to the coroner upon that subject this afternoon. What
more can I do?"

"Nothing, certainly," answered Arthur Lovell, with rather a hesitating
manner; "but I thought, under the peculiar circumstances, it might be
better that you should remain upon the spot, if possible, until some
steps shall have been taken for the finding of the murderer."

He did not like to give utterance to the thought that was in his mind;
for he was thinking that some people would perhaps suspect Mr. Dunbar
himself, and that it might be well for him to remain upon the scene of
the murder until that suspicion should be done away with by the arrest
of the real murderer.

The banker shook his head.

"I very much doubt the discovery of the guilty man," he said; "what is
there to hinder his escape?"

"Everything," answered Arthur Lovell, warmly. "First, the stupidity of
guilt, the blind besotted folly which so often betrays the murderer. It
is not the commission of a crime only that is horrible; think of the
hideous state of the criminal's mind _after_ the deed is done. And it is
at that time, immediately after the crime has been perpetrated, when the
breast of the murderer is like a raging hell; it is at that time that he
is called upon to be most circumspect--to keep guard upon his every
look, his smallest word, his most trivial action,--for he knows that
every look and action is watched; that every word is greedily listened
to by men who are eager to bring his guilt home to him; by hungry men,
wrestling for his conviction as a result that will bring them a golden
reward; by practised men, who have studied the philosophy of crime, and
who, by reason of their peculiar skill, are able to read dark meanings
in words and looks that to other people are like a strange language. He
knows that the scent of blood is in the air, and that the bloodhounds
are at their loathsome work. He knows this; and at such a time he is
called upon to face the world with a bold front, and so to fashion his
words and looks that he shall deceive the secret watchers. He is never
alone. The servant who waits upon him, or the railway guard who shows
him to his seat in the first-class carriage, the porter who carries his
luggage, or the sailor who looks at him scrutinizingly as he breathes
the fresh sea-air upon the deck of that ship which is to carry him to a
secure hiding-place--any one of these may be a disguised detective, and
at any moment the bolt may fall; he may feel the light hand upon his
shoulder, and know that he is a doomed man. Who can wonder, then, that a
criminal is generally a coward, and that he betrays himself by some
blind folly of his own?"

The young man had been carried away by his subject, and had spoken with
a strange energy.

Mr. Dunbar laughed aloud at the lawyer's enthusiasm.

"You should have been a barrister, Mr. Lovell," he said; "that would
have been a capital opening for your speech as counsel for the crown. I
can see the wretched criminal shivering in the dock, cowering under that
burst of forensic eloquence."

Henry Dunbar laughed heartily as he finished speaking, and then threw
himself back in his easy-chair, and passed his handkerchief across his
handsome forehead, as it was his habit to do occasionally.

"In this case I think the criminal will be most likely arrested," Arthur
Lovell continued, still dwelling upon the subject of the murder; "he
will be traced by those clothes. He will endeavour to sell them, of
course; and as he is most likely some wretchedly ignorant boor, he will
very probably try to sell them within a few miles of the scene of the
crime."

"I hope he will be found," said Mr. Balderby, filling his glass with
claret as he spoke; "I never heard any good of this man Wilmot, and,
indeed, I believe he went to the bad altogether after you left England,
Mr. Dunbar."

"Indeed!"

"Yes," answered the junior partner, looking rather nervously at his
chief; "he committed forgery, I believe; fabricated forged bank notes,
or something of that kind, and was transported for life, I heard; but I
suppose he got a remission of his sentence, or something of that kind,
and returned to England."

"I had no idea of this," said Mr. Dunbar.

"He did not tell you, then?"

"Oh, no; it was scarcely likely that he should tell me."

Very little more was said upon the subject just then. At nine o'clock
Mr. Dunbar left the room to see to the packing of his things, at a
little before ten the three gentlemen drove away from the George Hotel,
on their way to the station.

They reached the station at five minutes past ten; the train was not due
until a quarter past.

Mr. Balderby went to the office to procure the three tickets. Henry
Dunbar and Arthur Lovell walked arm-in-arm up and down the platform.

As the bell for the up-train was ringing, a man came suddenly upon the
platform and looked about him.

He recognized the banker, walked straight up to him, and, taking off his
hat, addressed Mr. Dunbar respectfully.

"I am sorry to detain you, sir," he said; "but I have a warrant to
prevent you leaving Winchester."

"What do you mean?"

"I hold a warrant for your apprehension, sir."

"From whom?"

"From Sir Arden Westhorpe, our chief county magistrate; and I am to take
you before him immediately, sir."

"Upon what charge?" cried Arthur Lovell.

"Upon suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of Joseph
Wilmot."

The millionaire drew himself up haughtily, and looked at the constable
with a proud smile.

"This is too absurd," he said; "but I am quite ready to go with you. Be
good enough to telegraph to my daughter, Mr. Lovell," he added, turning
to the young man; "tell her that circumstances over which I have no
control will detain me in Winchester for a week. Take care not to alarm
her."

Everybody about the station had collected on the platform, and made a
circle about Mr. Dunbar. They stood a little aloof from him, looking at
him with respectful interest: altogether different from the eager
clamorous curiosity with which they would have regarded any ordinary man
suspected of the same crime.

He was suspected; but he could not be guilty. Why should a millionaire
commit a murder? The motives that might influence other men could have
had no weight with him.

The bystanders repeated this to one another, as they followed Mr. Dunbar
and his custodian from the station, loudly indignant against the minions
of the law.

Mr. Dunbar, the constable, and Mr. Balderby drove straight to the
magistrate's house.

The junior partner offered any amount of bail for his chief; but the
Anglo-Indian motioned him to silence, with a haughty gesture.

"I thank you, Mr. Balderby," he said, proudly; "but I will not accept my
liberty on sufferance. Sir Arden Westhorpe has chosen to arrest me, and
I shall abide the issue of that arrest."

It was in vain that the junior partner protested against this. Henry
Dunbar was inflexible.

"I hope, and I venture to believe, that you are as innocent as I am
myself of this horrible crime, Mr. Dunbar," the baronet said, kindly;
"and I sympathize with you in this very terrible position. But upon the
information laid before me, I consider it my duty to detain you until
the matter shall have been further investigated. You were the last
person seen with the deceased."

"And for that reason it is supposed that I strangled my old servant for
the sake of his clothes," cried Mr. Dunbar, bitterly. "I am a stranger
in England; but if that is your English law, I am not sorry that the
best part of my life has been passed in India. However, I am perfectly
willing to submit to any examination that may be considered necessary to
the furtherance of justice."

So, upon the second night of his arrival in England, Henry Dunbar, chief
of the wealthy house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby, slept in
Winchester gaol.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PRISONER IS REMANDED.

Mr. Dunbar was brought before Sir Arden Westhorpe, at ten o'clock, on
the morning after his arrest. The witnesses who had given evidence at
the inquest were again summoned, and--with the exception of the verger,
and Mr. Dunbar, who was now a prisoner--gave the same evidence, or
evidence to the same effect.

Arthur Lovell again watched the proceedings in the interest of Laura's
father, and cross-examined some of the witnesses.

But very little new evidence was elicited. The empty pocket-book, which
had been found a few paces from the body, was produced. The rope by
which the murdered man had been strangled was also produced and
examined.

It was a common rope, rather slender, and about a yard and a half in
length. It was made into a running noose that had been drawn tightly
round the neck of the victim.

Had the victim been a strong man he might perhaps have resisted the
attack, and might have prevented his assailant tightening the fatal
knot; but the surgeon bore witness that the dead man, though tall and
stalwart-looking, had not been strong.

It was a strange murder, a bloodless murder; a deed that must have been
done by a man of unfaltering resolution and iron nerve: for it must have
been the work of a moment, in which the victim's first cry of surprise
was stifled ere it was half uttered.

The chief witness upon this day was the verger; and it was in
consequence of certain remarks dropped by him that Henry Dunbar had been
arrested.

Upon the afternoon of the inquest this official had found himself a
person of considerable importance. He was surrounded by eager gossips,
greedy to hear anything he might have to tell upon the subject of the
murder; and amongst those who listened to his talk was one of the
constables--a sharp, clear-headed fellow--who was on the watch for any
hint that might point to the secret of Joseph Wilmot's death. The
verger, in describing the events of the previous afternoon, spoke of
that one fact which he had omitted to refer to before the coroner. He
spoke of the sudden faintness which had come over Mr. Dunbar.

"Poor gentleman!" he said, "I don't think I ever see the like of
anything as come over him so sudden. He walked along the aisle with his
head up, dashing and millingtary-like; but, all in a minute, he reeled
as if he'd been dead drunk, and he would have fell if there hadn't been
a bench handy. Down he dropped upon that bench like a stone; and when I
turned round to look at him the drops of perspiration was rollin' down
his forehead like beads. I never see such a face in my life, as
ghastly-like as if he'd seen a ghost. But he was laughin' and smilin'
the next minute; and it was only the heat of the weather, he says."

"It's odd as a gentleman that's just come home from India should
complain of the heat on such a day as yesterday," said one of the
bystanders.

This was the substance of the evidence that the verger gave before Sir
Arden Westhorpe. This, with the evidence of a boy who had met the
deceased and Henry Dunbar close to the spot where the body was found,
was the only evidence against the rich man.

To the mind of Sir Arden Westhorpe the agitation displayed by Henry
Dunbar in the cathedral was a very strong point; yet, what more possible
than that the Anglo-Indian should have been seized with a momentary
giddiness? He was not a young man; and though his broad chest, square
shoulders, and long, muscular arms betokened strength, that natural
vigour might have been impaired by the effects of a warm climate.

There were new witnesses upon this day, people who testified to having
been in the neighbourhood of the grove, and in the grove itself, upon
that fatal afternoon and evening.

Other labourers, besides the two Irishmen, had passed beneath the shadow
of the trees in the moonlight. Idle pedestrians had strolled through the
grove in the still twilight; not one of these had seen Joseph Wilmot,
nor had there been heard any cry of anguish, or wild shrieks of terror.

One man deposed to having met a rough-looking fellow, half-gipsy,
half-hawker, in the grove between seven and eight o'clock.

Arthur Lovell questioned this person as to the appearance and manner of
the man he had met.

But the witness declared that there was nothing peculiar in the man's
manner. He had not seemed confused, or excited, or hurried, or
frightened. He was a coarse-featured, sunburnt ruffianly-looking fellow;
and that was all.

Mr. Balderby was examined, and swore to the splendid position which
Henry Dunbar occupied as chief of the house in St. Gundolph Lane; and
then the examination was adjourned, and the prisoner remanded, although
Arthur Lovell contended that there was no evidence to justify his
detention.

Mr. Dunbar still protested against any offer of bail; he again declared
that he would rather remain in prison than accept his liberty on
sufferance, and go out into the world a suspected man.

"I will never leave Winchester Gaol," he said, "until I leave it with my
character cleared in the eyes of every living creature."

He had been treated with the greatest respect by the prison officials,
and had been provided with comfortable apartments. Arthur Lovell and Mr.
Balderby were admitted to him whenever he chose to receive them.

Meanwhile every voice in Winchester was loud in indignation against
those who had caused the detention of the millionaire.

Here was an English gentleman, a man whose wealth was something
fabulous, newly returned from India, eager to embrace his only child;
and before he had done more than set his foot upon his native soil, he
was seized upon by obstinate and pig-headed officials, and thrown into a
prison.

Arthur Lovell worked nobly in the service of Laura's father. He did not
particularly like the man, though he wished to like him; but he believed
him to be innocent of the dreadful crime imputed to him, and he was
determined to make that innocence clear to the eyes of other people.

For this purpose he urged on the police upon the track of the strange
man, the rough-looking hawker, who had been seen in the grove on the day
of the murder.

He himself left Winchester upon another errand. He went away with the
determination of discovering the sick man, Sampson Wilmot. The old
clerk's evidence might be most important in such a case as this; as he
would perhaps be able to throw much light upon the antecedents and
associations of the dead man.

The young lawyer travelled along the line, stopping at every station. At
Basingstoke he was informed that an old man, travelling with his
brother, had been taken ill; and that he had since died. An inquest had
been held upon his remains some days before, and he had been buried by
the parish.

It was upon the 21st of August that Arthur Lovell visited Basingstoke.
The people at the village inn told him that the old man had died at two
o'clock upon the morning of the 17th, only a few hours after his
brother's desertion of him. He had never spoken after the final stroke
of paralysis.

There was nothing to be learned here, therefore. Death had closed the
lips of this witness.

But even if Sampson Wilmot had lived to speak, what could he have told?
The dead man's antecedents could have thrown little light upon the way
in which he had met his death. It was a common murder, after all; a
murder that had been done for the sake of the victim's little property;
a silver watch, perhaps; a few sovereigns; a coat, waistcoat, and shirt.

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