Chapter XVII: Committed for Trial

The adjourned inquiry is again resumed before the coroner, two days after the return of Alexis from Liverpool, with his companion the butler, whom he has contrived to keep snugly hidden under Robert Faunthorpe’s roof, where Podmore, his wife and children, have been boarded and lodged, and kept in custody by the faithful Hester, who watches her charges as a cat watches a mouse.

‘Remember you are not one of you to put so much as your noses out of doors till I come for you,’ says Alexis, impressively; ‘not a creature in Redcastle is to know of your return till the right moment!’

‘As long as I have my meals regular I’m satisfied,’ replies Podmore, ‘I never was a prowler about the streets.’

So the Podmore family occupy the kitchen at Dr. Faunthorpe’s, and no one outside the doctor’s house knows anything about these extra inmates.

Alexis and Mr. Levison have crossed each other on the railroad, and that gentleman has returned from a bootless journey to the ‘Washington,’ considerably out of temper. He has reconciled himself, however, to this wasted expedition in finding what his client has done.

Joel Pilgrim is still at the ‘Coach and Horses’ where he lives well, and seems to enjoy life. He plays billiards and makes himself eminently agreeable to the youth of Redcastle, Fred Stormont included; but he complains loudly of his detention in the town, on account of this sad business of his old friend’s mysterious death, while his own affairs need his presence in Calcutta.

‘This dawdling old coroner may drag the inquiry out for the next month,’ he says, ‘and at last arrive at the conclusion that my poor friend was poisoned by some person or persons unknown. I don’t see that there’s evidence enough to bring the crime home to that poor girl, and it seems a hard thing that a young and lovely woman should be placed in such a position.’

Frederick sighs, and shakes his head, and shrugs his shoulders.

‘It is hard,’ he says, ‘and I’ve positively worshipped that girl, you know--devoted myself to her quite awfully. And now to find that there was a husband in the background all the while. Shows a want of candour, you know.’

‘Proves an artful disposition certainly,’ replies Mr. Pilgrim, ‘but if every artful young woman took to disposing of people with prussic acid there’d be an alarming decrease in the population.’

‘True,’ says Fred. ‘Well, I’m sure I hope she didn’t do it, poor thing. But I’m sorry to say the opinion of the town is against her.’

He says this with an air which implies that to be condemned by public opinion in Redcastle is to have received sentence from a supreme tribunal, and to be found guilty at a bar from which there is no court of appeal.

‘I really feel for her, you know,’ says Fred, as he prostrates himself upon the green cloth to aim at a distant ball, ‘but the town thinks badly of the case. She had the poison in her possession, you know, and she ran away, you know. It’s difficult to avoid making four out of two such twos.’

‘Looks suspicious, certainly,’ replies Mr. Pilgrim.

‘As far as the running away goes, she might have done that to avoid marrying you, certainly,’ says Fred, reflectively.

‘That would have been a very childish proceeding,’ answers Joel; ‘she had only to tell me the truth, and all question of marriage would have been at an end.’

‘But women do odd things sometimes, you know. They’re apt to get wrong in their heads when they’re frightened.’

‘I don’t think Sibyl is that sort of girl; she must have been a very cool hand to come here to her uncle--the wife of a man whose name he detested, and pass herself off as a single woman, and play her cards to inherit a fortune.’

‘True,’ says Frederick, despondently, and his opinion of Sibyl is a little worse than it was before Mr. Pilgrim undertook her defence.

It is just possible that Mr. Pilgrim would not remain at Redcastle quite so patiently were it not for a suspicion on his part that a certain shabby little man in black, who hangs about the public rooms of the hotel, and spends a good deal of his time in the hall and porch, and contrives always to be in the way when Mr. Pilgrim goes out, nay, even happens to have business or pleasure that takes him exactly the same way, has been set as a watch upon somebody’s movements, and that any attempt to hasten his intended journey to Calcutta might be attended with unpleasant consequences. Whatever perils may surround Mr. Pilgrim’s path will be best overcome by a calm adherence to his present policy, or at least so argues that gentleman; and he quietly awaits the conclusion of the examination in which his evidence is required.

On this bright summer morning the same crowd is again gathered in the well-known assembly-room--a room famous for town and county balls, for concerts, and fancy fairs, and other local festivities, but affording a scene of more absorbing interest to-day than the most aristocratic of dances or charity bazaars.

Mrs. Stormont is there again, with her constant ally Mrs. Groshen, wearing the same veils and bonnets, and seated in the same sheltered corner near the reporter’s table. There is Mr. Levison sitting near the Coroner, with that Memnon’s head of his, stony and inexpressive, but certainly not given to melodious breathings at sunrise or any other time. There sits Sibyl, pale as marble, and calm as a statue, her husband standing behind her chair.

To-day there are fresh witnesses to be examined--so runs the rumour, and there is an eager curiosity about these new witnesses and the evidence they may give.

The first witness called is Bathsheba Skinner, spinster, lately cook and housekeeper in the employment of the deceased.

‘What can that woman have to say about the case?’ mutters Joel Pilgrim to Colonel Stormont, who is standing next him.

‘Not much, I should think, unless she poisoned him in one of her curries,’ replies the colonel; ‘doocid good curries they were.’

Bathsheba Skinner is sworn, and stands up before the assembly, vinegar-faced, but eminently respectable, with black kid gloves, a trifle too long in the fingers, on her industrious hands, and a pictorial brooch a little smaller than a cheese-plate clasping her rusty black lace shawl.

‘You were in the habit of preparing all nourishment that was taken up to Mr. Trenchard’s room;’ says the coroner after a few preliminary questions, ‘broths, arrowroot, and so on.’

‘Yes, sir, I did it all with my own hands. There was many things I might have left to the kitchenmaid, but I felt it was my duty to see to it myself. There was not a thing in the way of beef tea, or jelly, or tapioca, or arrowroot, that went up to Mr. Trenchard which was not prepared by my own hands.

‘And are you sure that nothing of a poisonous nature entered into any of these things?’

‘As sure as I am that I’m alive, sir.’

‘Come, you may have used essences to flavour your jelly, or your tapioca. Essential oil of almonds, or at any rate essence of almonds. That is a favourite flavouring with cooks, and a dangerous one. Didn’t you use essence of almonds to flavour Mr. Trenchard’s jelly?’

‘I hadn’t a drop in the house, sir. I never have held with such stuff. When I want almond flavouring I use the best Jordans at two shillings a pound, but I know my business better than to use almond flavouring of any kind for an invalid. Invalid cookery can’t be too simple.’

‘You did not even use bitter almonds, or ratafia, peach kernels, or anything of that kind?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You slept on the same floor as Podmore, the butler, I believe?’

‘Yes, sir, my room was next to his.’

‘Did you hear anything remarkable, any unusual stir or movement,--in short, anything at all out of the common course in Podmore’s room or on the stairs leading to Podmore’s room during the night of your master’s death?’

‘Well, sir, I did hear something which struck me at the time as curious, and yet it might mean nothing. I mentioned it afterwards to Podmore, and he put me down----.’

‘You mustn’t tell us what you said to Podmore, or how he answered you. That isn’t evidence. We want to know what you heard on the night of the 23rd of June.’

‘Well, sir, I am a light sleeper at all times, and perhaps I was extra wakeful on that night on account of the wedding that was fixed for next day. It was to be quite a quiet wedding, and there was no breakfast ordered, but I’d cooked a tongue and a pair of fowls, and made a jelly and a cream or two, and boiled a bit of salmon for a mayonnaise, and got everything in order to put a pretty little luncheon on the table, and the fag and worry of that had over-tired me, so that I got very little sleep. It was broad daylight, and I was just dropping off, when I heard Podmore get up and go down stairs in his creaky slippers. “He’s gone down to give master his medicine,” says I to myself; “I won’t try to go to sleep no more till he comes up again or else he’ll be startling me just as I’m dropping off comfortable again. He won’t be gone above five minutes.” Well, I waited and waited but instead of being gone five minutes as usual, it was a good half-hour before Podmore came upstairs again.’

‘Did you look at your watch?’ asks a precise juryman.

‘Lor, no, sir, but I can guess a half-hour as well as any one. I’ve got into the way of it over my roasting; a good cook knows the value of time. It was a full half-hour before Podmore came up, and then he came up ever so slowly, holding to the baluster, and his footstep was as heavy as lead. And when he got into his room he flung himself down on his bed, and gave a groan. “What was the matter with you last night?” I asked him at breakfast-time. At first he didn’t seem as if he understood what I meant, but when I told him I’d heard him groaning, he said he’d had an attack of spasms, and he’d been down to the pantry to look for some mustard for a poultice. I didn’t think much more of it after that, and an hour later the house was all upset by my master’s death. But I’ve thought of it since many times.’

‘Do you know what time it was when Podmore went down stairs?’

‘It was a few minutes after five. I’d heard the stable clock strike a little before. And I took particular notice on account of its being just an hour late for Mr. Trenchard’s medicine, for four o’clock was the hour at which he ought to have took it.’

‘There was nothing else you remarked that night.’

‘No sir.’

‘I think that will do.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ interposes Mr. Levison, ‘I should like to ask the witness one or two questions.--Pray will you be kind enough, Mrs. Skinner, to tell the jury of a conversation which you heard outside Mr. Trenchard’s door on the last evening but one before his death?’

‘I did certainly overhear a conversation, sir.’

‘What can any such conversation, or any eavesdropping whatever, have to do with the question at issue,’ cries Joel Pilgrim, livid with anger or fear. The change in his countenance is noticed by every one, just as the less marked change during the last examination was noticed by a few.

‘We shall see how far the conversation is relevant, sir,’ replies the coroner, ‘when Mrs. Skinner has answered Mr. Levison’s question.’

‘I did hear a conversation, sir, between my master and Mr. Pilgrim,’ says Mrs. Skinner, with a vindictive look at Joel, ‘but I was not eavesdropping. I’ve lived too long in the best of families to be an eavesdropper, or to be suspected of being such by any gentleman calling himself a gentleman. What I heard that night I heard promiscuous, and I stayed to hear no more than reached my ears promiscuous as I went past Mr. Trenchard’s door.’

Mrs. Skinner goes on to relate the conversation which she had described to Alexis on his visit to Lancaster Lodge.

‘Gentlemen,’ cries Joel, vehemently, ‘this is an abominable fabrication, prompted by some hidden influence. No such conversation took place. My----Mr. Trenchard held no such threat over me. Mrs. Skinner must have been a long time crossing the landing to hear all this, gentlemen of the jury. I tell you that she could not have heard it in that time, she did not hear it at any time; but she invented it, or it has been invented for her----’

‘Mr. Pilgrim, I really cannot allow this,’ says the coroner.

‘You will better appreciate Mr. Pilgrim’s warmth when you have heard the next witness,’ says Mr. Levison.

A faint flush of colour warms Sibyl’s marble cheek. She feels as if light were coming swiftly through the gloom. Her husband has told her nothing, except to trust in Providence and in him. She has so trusted, and those quiet monotonous days in Redcastle jail are the most peaceful days she has known since she fled from Dixon Street and poverty more than three years ago.

Joel Pilgrim looks intently to the other end of the room, watching for the appearance of that witness of whom Mr. Levison has spoken. He starts, and the leaden hue of his countenance takes a more death-like shade when some one calls ‘Joseph Podmore!’

Podmore advances to the little railed-off space which has been made for the witnesses. He is very pale, and is evidently nervous; but he is perfectly sober.

‘Now, Mr. Podmore,’ says Levison, when a few questions, chiefly repetitive, have been asked by the coroner, ‘will you be good enough to state what happened within your knowledge on the night of Mr. Trenchard’s death?’

The ex-butler rubs his hands nervously, looks round the assembly, shifts his balance from one foot to the other, coughs dubiously, and then begins,--

‘Gentlemen of the jury, and your worship, I am about to make a statement which I ought to have made before. It has preyed upon my mind havin’ kep’ it back; but I am a pore man, with a young fambly dependent upon my exertions in service. I was ackshally on my way to New York, gentlemen of the jury and your honour, and had got as far on my voyage as Liverpool, when the facks in question preyed upon my mind to that degree that I felt I must come back to this town to reveal them. I hope this will plead in my faviour, your worship and gentlemen of the jury, if there is any irregularity in my not having made this revelation sooner.’

‘The man is drunk or mad!’ cries Joel, savagely.

‘The man is sober to-day, Mr. Pilgrim,’ says the coroner. ‘Go on, Mr. Podmore.’

‘The statement I have to make relates to the night of my master’s death, the night of June 23rd. I was an hour late, gentlemen, on that night in going downstairs to give my master his medicine. I had slep’ extra heavy, and it was five o’clock instead of four when I woke. I went down as usual. The house was very quiet; but I took notice that the door of Mr. Pilgrim’s bedroom--the secondary door opening on to the landing--stood ajar. So, thinks I, Mr. Pilgrim is with my master, perhaps he has given the old gentleman his medicine. I wasn’t so much surprised as I might have been at Mr. Pilgrim being astir so early, for he always was early. It was one of his Indian ways. Well, gentlemen of the jury, I goes to my master’s door, and when I puts my hand against it, the door opens a little way, without any noise; for the locks at Lancaster Lodge are old-fashioned box locks, and the catches give way, so that half your time though a door looks to be shut it’s not really fastened. The door gave way to my hand, and I looked in. Mr. Trenchard was sitting up in bed, and Mr. Pilgrim was opening a bottle of soda water on the dressing-table. I saw him pour some of the soda water into a tumbler, and then I saw him, quick as lightning, pour something out of a bottle in his other hand. As I live, gentlemen of the jury, it didn’t strike me at that moment that there was any harm. I thought it was some kind of medicine or drops, like choraldyne, or choral, or some of those new-fangled oppiates, and I didn’t feel myself called on to interfere. There was no time for me to turn it over in my mind, you see; there wasn’t a moment between Mr. Pilgrim’s pouring the stuff into the glass and his handing the glass to my master. Mr. Trenchard drank it off at a draught. It weren’t above a third of a bottle of soda water. He sat for an instant bolt upright, his eyes straining out of his head and glassy; then he gave one long gasp, and fell back on his pillow purple in the face, as if you’d clutched him by the throat and strangled him. I rushed into the room, and lifted him up in my arms. I thought at first he was in a fit; but when I stooped over him I smelt a sharp strong smell like bitter almonds, and then I knew it was prussic acid. “What have you given him?” I asked. But Mr. Pilgrim made no answer. “You’ve killed him,” I said, and then he told me that it was accident. He had taken the wrong bottle. He had taken a bottle of prussic acid which Mr. Trenchard kept in his medicine-chest, among other drugs, instead of choral. He seemed in a dreadful state of mind. I couldn’t help feeling for him. Who could tell whether it wasn’t accident? and, if it was, anybody might have found theirselves in the same position.’

‘Spare us your reflections, if you please,’ says the coroner. ‘Had your master any medicine-chest in his room?’

‘Yes, there was a small box, with about half a dozen bottles in partitions.’

‘Do you know one of these bottles to have contained prussic acid in any form whatever?’

‘I can’t say that I do, your worship. There was hartshorn, and caddleput oil, and tincter of rhubub, and such like.’

‘You have named three bottles out of the half-dozen,’ says the coroner.

Mr. Levison whispers into his ear.

‘Yes, that would be best,’ says the coroner, and he beckons one of the men in attendance and despatches him on some errand.

‘Did Mr. Pilgrim offer you money to hold your tongue about what you had seen?’ asks the coroner.

Podmore fences with this question for a little, but ends by confessing that Joel Pilgrim did offer him money; that he gave him twenty pounds on the spot, and promised to provide for him hereafter. He further admits that Joel had instigated him to emigrate to America, and had given him neither rest nor peace till he had made all arrangements for his departure. Mr. Pilgrim had paid his passage on board the _Oronoko_.

By the time this question is settled the man who has been sent out by the coroner returns, carrying a small mahogany case, with brass plates at the corners, an old-fashioned case divided into six compartments, each containing a small square bottle of very thick glass.

These bottles the coroner takes out one by one, examines them, and exhibits them to the jury. The six bottles contain hartshorn, sal volatile, opium, tincture of rhubarb, cajeput oil, and syrup of squills.

Each bottle is carefully labelled with a label in Stephen Trenchard’s handwriting pasted on the glass.

‘Gentlemen,’ says the coroner, ‘I think we have now arrived at a stage in this inquiry when a further adjournment will be necessary. It will be as well to give time for the inquiry which is going on before the magistrate.’

There is a little consultation, and the jury are dismissed.

White to the very lips, Joel Pilgrim turns to Colonel Stormont with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

‘Was there ever anything so absurd as the manner of this inquiry?’ he asks. ‘There is actually a premium offered for perjury! This man, Secretan, has had ample time to bribe any number of false witnesses. What more easy than for him to get up this story, and pay the housekeeper and butler for perjuring themselves?’

Colonel Stormont makes no reply. He feels rather uncomfortable in Mr. Pilgrim’s neighbourhood after the butler’s evidence. The story may be a tissue of lies, woven by Sibyl’s husband; but, on the other hand, it is as likely to be true--and that dark face of Joel Pilgrim’s tells strange tales.

There is a general move towards the door. Mr. Pilgrim is about to pass out with the rest, when a hand is laid upon his shoulder, and Mr. Judbury, the detective officer, takes possession of him.

‘What do you mean by this?’ asks Joel, indignantly.

‘Only that I have a warrant for your apprehension under suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mr. Trenchard,’ replies Judbury, coolly. ‘I’ve had my eye upon you for a good time; but it’s always foolish to hurry these things, and if we’d hurried you we shouldn’t have had Podmore’s attempt to get away to New York, which brought matters to what I call a focus. Come along, sir, I’ve got a fly outside. You may just as well come quietly.’

And Joel submits, knowing quite enough about English law and English customs to be aware that anything in the way of resistance would be worse than useless. He shrugs his shoulders, and affects to take the matter lightly, though those white lips and haggard eyes of his give the lie to his assumed carelessness.

‘If your Redcastle magistrates choose to take me into custody on a fabricated charge, they do it at their own peril,’ he says, loud enough for those round him to hear. ‘I shall make them pay as heavily for their pig-headed folly as the law will enable me.’

‘Step inside, sir,’ says Mr. Judbury; ‘you shall have plenty of law, free, gratis, for nothing.’

The fly drives off, and Joel makes his entrance for the first time under that mediæval archway whose gates were opened just a week ago to admit Sibyl.

There is a further examination before the magistrates next day. The same witnesses repeat the same evidence. Mr. Levison cross-questions, and is unusually active. Joel Pilgrim sits in the seat of the accused, side by side with Sibyl. He is defended--or rather, the case is watched for him--by a rival of Mr. Levison’s, a gentleman equal in renown in the criminal courts. Further details are extorted from Podmore under this cross-firing of interrogation; but Joel Pilgrim’s solicitor strives in vain to shake one iota of his testimony. If this be perjury, there never was a more accomplished perjurer, or a false witness that held more firmly to the lesson he had learnt.

When the examination of witnesses is concluded Mr. Levison addresses the magistrates, and urges that his client shall be dismissed without a stain upon her character.

The magistrates confer together, and agree that there is not sufficient evidence to connect Sibyl Secretan with the murder, and that she may therefore be set at liberty.

This being done, Mr. Levison suggests that she shall be placed in the witness-box, and examined as to her possession of the prussic acid.

Pale, and trembling a little, Sibyl takes the necessary oath upon the small black book, and waits to answer the magistrate’s questions.

‘You have heard your sister’s evidence as to your abstraction of the prussic acid from the bottle in your uncle’s surgery?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you admit the truth of that statement?’

‘Yes. I was in great distress of mind at the time, and I thought if there were no other way out of my troubles I might destroy myself. I do not say that I meant to do such a wicked thing. I only considered it as a means of release from my difficulties--open to me at the very last extremity.’

‘And you took the prussic acid with that idea?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had no other design whatever in taking it?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Did Mr. Pilgrim know that you had this poison in your possession?’

‘He did.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Am I obliged to answer this question?’ asks Sibyl.

‘Yes, it is positively necessary for you to tell us everything relating to your possession of this prussic acid.’

‘It had been arranged by my uncle Trenchard that Mr. Pilgrim and I were to be married. My uncle did not know that I was married already. He had a prejudice against my husband’s family, and I had been so foolish as to keep my marriage secret from him. Mr. Pilgrim went to York to obtain the licence, and we were to have been married on the Saturday, the day on which I left Lancaster Lodge. I made up my mind to run away at the last rather than to tell Mr. Trenchard about my marriage. It was a cowardly act, I dare say, but I had deceived him so long that I feared his anger on hearing the truth.’

‘How does this bear upon Mr. Joel Pilgrim’s knowing about the prussic acid?’

‘I am coming to that. It was on the night of his return from York with the marriage licence. He came up to my little sitting-room late that night, between ten and eleven, and told me about the licence. He had been dining, and he seemed in very high spirits.’

‘Do you mean that he was intoxicated?’

‘Oh no, he was only a little more excited than usual. He talked a good deal about our marriage, and for the first time in his life he tried to kiss me. I showed him the prussic acid bottle, and told him that I would sooner poison myself than let him touch my lips. He was very angry, and he told me that prussic acid was a dangerous thing for a woman to carry about her, and that I was playing with edged tools.’

‘Did he take the bottle from you?’

‘No.’

‘What became of the bottle after that?’

‘I really can’t tell. My intention was to put it back into my pocket, but I was very much flurried at this time. I may have left it on the table among the books and other things. There were a great many things on the table.’

‘When did you miss the bottle?’

‘Not till I was in London, when it recurred to my memory. I searched my pocket for it, but it was not to be found.’

‘Were you wearing the same dress you had on upon the evening when you showed Mr. Pilgrim the bottle?’

‘Yes. It is the dress I am wearing now.’

This is all. The inquiry is again adjourned.

The inquiry before the coroner is concluded next day, the verdict wilful murder against Joel Pilgrim. The inquiry before the magistrates is concluded the day after by Joel Pilgrim’s committal for trial, on the capital charge.