Tracks in the Snow

lane by a man riding a horse and leading another. Well, report said now that a man in a neighbouring parish, who had been greatly excited about the murder at the time, had been having dreams about it night after night, which impressed him with the notion that he was to discover the truth. Rooting about for all the recollections of that time which he could find among his neighbours, he heard that in the early morning after the murder a man with two horses had been seen between Peters’ house and the village, that another man, a stranger to the village, had come up from the direction of Peters’ house and had mounted the second horse, and that the two had ridden off together. Report added that the man whom Trethewy had seen had now been traced by the police, and that his answers as to the man who had joined him and ridden off with him were unsatisfactory and suspicious; and it added one more telling detail. The police (as I may have mentioned) had before I left Long Wilton noticed one window at the back of the house as in some respects the readiest way by which the house could have been wrongfully entered. It belonged to a housemaid’s closet, of which the door did not shut properly. It was very easy to climb up to it; but then the window itself was very small, and it was a question whether a man of ordinary stature could possibly have squeezed himself through it; now the strange man of this rumour was described as being ridiculously small and thin. There were many more picturesque details related, but the whole story professed only to consist of unsifted rumour. I believed little of it, but I naturally did accept the statement (quite mistaken) that the police were busy in the matter. With my fixed idea about Vane-Cartwright, I felt sure that they were upon a false scent. But I thought it very likely that this would for the present absorb their attention, and, between this and the great pressure of work in a new parish and of certain family anxieties, I made no further effort at this time to secure attention to the discovery which I believed I had made.

Twice in the few days just before Christmas my hopes of making further discoveries were vainly aroused. I made a call of civility in my new parish upon a notable Nonconformist parishioner, and, in my rapid survey of his sitting-room before he came to me, I noticed several indications that he had been in Australia, and I saw on the mantelpiece a framed photograph. It was rather a hazy and faded photograph which gave me no clear impression of its subject, but under it was written, “Walter Longhurst, Melbourne, 3rd April, 1875.” Could that be my Longhurst, and was this one of those relations of his, whom, as I had heard, Vane-Cartwright had treated with suspicious generosity? Might he not, in that case, be the possessor of information more valuable than he knew? He now came in. He was a truly venerable man, who in spite of great age was still active as a lay-preacher of one of the Methodist Churches, and I was attracted by the archaic but evidently sincere piety of his greeting when he entered the room. But unfortunately, when by adjusting his gold spectacles he had discovered of what profession I was, a cloud of suspicion seemed to arise in his mind, and he was more anxious to testify, in all charity but with all plain dealing, concerning priestly pretensions and concerning that educational policy which was then beginning to gather strength, than to enter into any such conversation as I desired. I made out, nevertheless, that this Walter Longhurst was probably my Longhurst, and my expectation rose unreasonably. My new friend (if he will let me call him so) was no relation of his, but had known him at a time when both were in Australia. Longhurst was from his point of view outside the fold besides being a rough kind of man, or, as he put it, a “careless liver”; but he evidently flattered himself that he had exercised a good influence over Longhurst, and the latter had given money, which he could then ill afford, though he made a good deal of money later, to help religious work with which my lay-preaching friend was connected. Later on, when my informant had returned to England and was for some time incapacitated by an accident which happened on the voyage, Longhurst, to his surprise, had from time to time sent him presents of money. They came in the form of banknotes, sent by a mysterious agent in London, who gave no address to which they could be returned, but who wrote stating Longhurst’s desire that he should use them for himself, or, if he absolutely would not, should at least use them in his work. All this the old man’s gratitude obliged him to relate, but, when I pressed him for information about Longhurst’s relations or friends, either he knew nothing or his ill-defined suspicion of me returned and shut his mouth. I did, however, ascertain that some years before (after Longhurst’s death) a rich gentleman, whose name the old man had forgotten, though I thought I could supply it, had heard of him in some way as one of Longhurst’s beneficiaries, and pressed upon him a pension which he had refused, as he would, if he could, have refused Longhurst’s bounty.

Two days later, on Christmas Eve, I was urgently summoned to visit Peters’ aunt, Miss Waterston, whom I had seen at his funeral. I had called upon her in the summer at her flat in London, but a lady who was staying with her remained in the room all the time, in spite, as I thought, of several hints that she might go, and Miss Waterston, when I left, said how glad she would be