He was constrained to go over again to Salisbury in order that he might, if possible, learn from Carry how to find some trace to her brother, and of this visit the Puddlehamites also informed themselves. There were men and women in Bullhampton who knew exactly how often the Vicar had visited the young woman at Salisbury, how long he had been with her on each occasion, and how much he paid Mrs. Stiggs for the accommodation. Gentlemen who are quixotic in their kindness to young women are liable to have their goings and comings chronicled with much exactitude, if not always with accuracy.
His interview with Carry on this occasion was very sad. He could not save himself from telling her in part the cause of his inquiries. “They haven’t taken the two men, have they?” she asked, with an eagerness that seemed to imply that she possessed knowledge on the matter which could hardly not be guilty.
“What two men?” he asked, looking full into her face. Then she was silent and he was unwilling to catch her in a trap, to cross-examine her as a lawyer would do, or to press out of her any communication which she would not make willingly and of her own free action. “I am told,” he said, “that two men have been taken for the murder.”
“Where did they find ’em, sir?”
“They had escaped to America, and the police have brought them back. Did you know them, Carry?” She was again silent. The men had not been named, and it was not for her to betray them. Hitherto, in their interviews, she had hardly ever looked him in the face, but now she turned her blue eyes full upon him. “You told me before at the old woman’s cottage,” he said, “that you knew them both—had known one too well.”
“If you please, sir, I won’t say nothing about ’em.”
“I will not ask you, Carry. But you would tell me about your brother, if you knew?”
“Indeed I would, sir;—anything. He hadn’t no more to do with Farmer Trumbull’s murder nor you had. They can’t touch a hair of his head along of that.”
“Such is my belief;—but who can prove it?” Again she was silent. “Can you prove it? If speaking could save your brother, surely you would speak out. Would you hesitate, Carry, in doing anything for your brother’s sake? Whatever may be his faults, he has not been hard to you like the others.”
“Oh, sir, I wish I was dead.”
“You must not wish that, Carry. And if you know ought of this you will be bound to speak. If you could bring yourself to tell me what you know, I think it might be good for both of you.”
“It was they who had the money. Sam never seed a shilling of it.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Jack Burrows and Larry Acorn. And it wasn’t Larry Acorn neither, sir. I know very well who did it. It was Jack Burrows who did it.”
“That is he they call the Grinder?”
“But Larry was with him then,” said the girl, sobbing.
“You are sure of that?”
“I ain’t sure of nothing, Mr. Fenwick, only that Sam wasn’t there at all. Of that I am quite, quite, quite sure. But when you asks me, what am I to say?”
Then he left her without speaking to her on this occasion a word about herself. He had nothing to say that would give her any comfort. He had almost made up his mind that he would take her over with him to the mill, and try what might be done by the meeting between the father, mother, and daughter, but all this new matter about the police and the arrest, and Sam’s absence, made it almost impossible for him to take such a step at present. As he went, he again interrogated Mrs. Stiggs, and was warned by her that words fell daily from her lodger which made her think that the young woman would not remain much longer with her. In the meantime there was nothing of which she could complain. Carry insisted on her liberty to go out and about the city alone; but the woman was of opinion that she did this simply with the object of asserting her independence. After that the necessary payment was made, and the Vicar returned to the Railway Station. Of Sam he had learned nothing, and now he did not know where to go for tidings. He still believed that the young man would come of his own accord, if the demand for his appearance were made so public as to reach his ear.
On that same day there was a meeting of the magistrates at Heytesbury, and the two men who had been so cruelly fetched back from San Francisco were brought before it. Mr. Gilmore was on the bench, along with Sir Thomas Charleys, who was the chairman, and three other gentlemen. Lord Trowbridge was in the court house, and sat upon the bench, but gave it out that he was not sitting there as a magistrate. Samuel Brattle was called upon to answer to his bail, and Jones, the attorney appearing for him, explained that he had gone from home to seek work elsewhere, alluded to the length of time that had elapsed, and to the injustice of presuming that a man against whom no evidence had been adduced, should be bound to remain always in one parish—and expressed himself without any doubt that Mr. Fenwick and Mr. George Brattle, who were his bailsmen, would cause him to be found and brought forward. As neither the clergyman nor the farmer were in court, nothing further could be done at once; and the magistrates were quite ready to admit that time must be allowed. Nor was the case
