“Hush!” she said; “it is my duty.”
She was obliged to pass the fatal window; she burst into tears, but hurried on. Aymer went with her, and assisted her along the very same route that Sally had come—over ditches and through the gaps in the hedges. Violet reached the Shepherd’s Bush bareheaded, panting. Involuntarily, the crowd hanging about, one and all, boors that they were, took off their hats. She knocked at the door where the jury sat astounded, they admitted her. Strung up to the highest pitch she burst upon them, cowed them, overcame them.
“He is innocent!” she cried, in the full tones of her beautiful voice. “He is innocent; let him go free! He served the dead for fifty years; they never quarrelled; they were, like old friends, not master and man. I am the daughter of the dead. I tell you with my whole heart and soul that that man must be innocent; if you injure him, it is you who are murderers!”
She turned and left the room; many started forward to help her, but she clung to Aymer’s arm and he got her home as quickly as he might.
It was a noble thing. It was a truly great spectacle to see that young girl standing there and defending the poor fellow upon whom cruel suspicion had fallen, notwithstanding her own irreparable loss. Its effect upon the jury was immediate and irremovable. They were silent for a time. Then one after another found twenty loopholes of doubt where before they had been so positive. After all, why should not the gardener’s story be true? It was a simple, artless tale; not one that would be concocted.
One juryman, who had served on the jury at the Quarter Sessions, remembered a great counsel in some important case laying it down as an axiom, that if a man made up a story to defend himself it was always too complete, too full of detail. Said the juryman: “If Jenkins had made up his story, he would have told us what the stranger wore, what colour hat, what sort of trousers, and every particular. There was a total absence of motive. Jenkins was a quiet, inoffensive man, whom they had all known for years and years. Very likely, indeed, for strangers to come to The Place on that day, the fame of which had been talked of everywhere. Perhaps the fellow wished to steal the plate on the breakfast table, and was surprised to find the invalid there. Hearing the gardener coming, he would make off at once, which accounted for the fact that not a single thing was stolen. Why should they condemn one of their own parish on such trivial evidence?” This was the right key, the local one.
When the Coroner was at last called in, he was astounded at the verdict delivered to him by the foreman—“Wilful murder against a person, or persons, unknown.” He argued with them, but in vain; the twelve had made up their minds and were firm as a rock. He had to submit with a bad grace!
Poor Sally had a moment of joy, and clasped her husband’s neck, but it was of brief duration. A minute afterwards the police sergeant present tapped Jenkins on the shoulder, and took him in custody on a charge of murder.
This is the peculiarity of the law in such cases. A suspected person has to run the gauntlet of two bodies—first, the coroner’s jury; next, the magistrates. Many a wretch who has escaped the one has been trapped by the other to his doom.
The handcuffs were slipped on the gardener’s wrists and he was led away unresistingly, followed by his weeping wife and a crowd of the villagers.
As the jury emerged from the Shepherd’s Bush, which was not till afternoon—for they had stayed to spend their ninepenny fees—there struck on their ears a mournful sound. It was the tolling of the village bell. The medical man had recommended immediate interment. Only three days before those bells had merrily rung for the daughter’s bridal; now they tolled for the father’s burial. They hastened to the church and watched the solemn ceremony. The low broken voice of the vicar failed at the words, as they stood by the open vault—“He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow … In the midst of life we are in death;” and the rest of the service was nearly inaudible.
VII
Everyone knows what a dull monotony of sorrow succeeds to a great loss. Perhaps it was fortunate for Violet that her mind was in some small measure withdrawn from too consuming grief by the unfortunate position of the poor old gardener. Over the very grave of the dead, as it were, she quarrelled—the word is hardly too strong—with Merton.
Mr. Merton was bitter against Jenkins. His professional mind, always ready to put the worst aspect upon anything, quick to suspect and slow to relinquish an idea, was convinced of the gardener’s guilt. In his zeal for the memory of his poor friend, he forgot that he might be injuring an innocent man. He even went so far as to speak strongly to Violet about her visit to the jury. Surely she should have been the last to protect the murderer. He said something like this in the heat of his temper, and regretted it afterwards. It was cruel, unjust, and inconsiderate. Violet simply left the room and refused to see him.
Merton left the house in a rage, and resolved to spare nothing to convict the miserable gardener. Now this quarrel produced certain events—it set on foot another chain of circumstances. Violet was now alone at The Place. Miss Merton could not stay longer. Before she went she asked if she should send back the dog Dando, which Merton had taken to Barnham. Violet,
