Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 94

"I can't help the consequences," was Herbert's answer. "Where I was last night is no matter to any one, and I shall not say."

"Your not saying--if you can say--is just folly," interposed the sergeant. "It's the first question the magistrates will ask when you are placed before them."

Herbert looked up angrily. "Place me before the magistrates!" he echoed.

"What do you mean? You will not dare to take me into custody!"

"You have been in custody this half-hour," coolly returned the sergeant.

Herbert looked terribly fierce.

"I will not submit to this indignity," he exclaimed. "_I will not._ Sergeant Delves, you are overstepping----"

"Look here," interrupted the sergeant, drawing something from some unseen receptacle; and Mr. Herbert, to his dismay, caught sight of a pair of handcuffs. "Don't you force me to use them," said the officer.

"You are in custody, and must go before the magistrates; but now, you be a gentleman, and I'll use you as one."

"I protest upon my honour that I have had neither act nor part in this crime!" cried Herbert, in agitation. "Do you think I would stain my hand with the sin of Cain?"

"What is that on your hand?" asked the sergeant, bending forward to look more closely at Herbert's fingers.

Herbert held them out openly enough. "I was doing something last night which tore my fingers," he said. "I was trying to undo the fastenings of some wire. Sergeant Delves, I declare to you solemnly, that from the moment when my brother went to his chamber, as witnesses have stated to you, I never saw him until my father brought me down from my bed to see him lying dead."

"You drew a knife on him not many hours before, you know, Mr. Herbert!"

"It was done in the heat of pa.s.sion. He provoked me very much; but I should not have used it. No, poor fellow! I should never have injured him."

"Well, you only make your tale good to the magistrates," was all the sergeant's answer. "It will be their affair as soon as you are before them--not mine."

Herbert Dare was handed back to the constable; and, as soon as the justice-room opened, was conveyed before the magistrates--all, as the sergeant termed it, in a genteel, gentlemanly sort of way. He was charged with the murder of his brother Anthony.

To describe the commotion that spread over Helstonleigh would be beyond any pen. The college boys were in a strange state of excitement: both Anthony and Herbert Dare had been college boys themselves not so very long ago. Gar Halliburton--who was no longer a college boy, but a supernumerary--went home full of it. Having imparted it there, he thought he could not do better than go in and regale Patience with the news, by way of _divertiss.e.m.e.nt_ to her sick bed. "May I come up, Patience?" he called out from the foot of the stairs. "I have something to tell you."

Receiving permission, up he flew. Patience, partially raised, was sewing with her hands, which she could just contrive to do. Anna sat by the window, putting the b.u.t.tons on some new s.h.i.+rts.

"I have finished two," cried she, turning round to Gar in great glee.

"And my father's coming home next week, he writes us word. Perhaps thy mother has had a letter from William. Look at the s.h.i.+rts!" she continued, exhibiting them.

"Never mind bothering about s.h.i.+rts, now, Anna," returned Gar, losing sight of his gallantry in his excitement. "Patience, the most dreadful thing has happened. Anthony Dare's murdered!"

Patience, calm Patience, only looked at Gar. Perhaps she did not believe it. Anna's hands, holding out the s.h.i.+rts, were arrested midway: her mouth and blue eyes alike opening.

"He was murdered in their dining-room in the night," went on Gar, intent only on his tale. "The town is all up in arms; you never saw such an uproar. When we came out of school just now, we thought the French must have come to invade us, by the crowds there were in the street. You couldn't get near the Guildhall, where the examination was going on. Not more than half a dozen of us were able to fight our way in. Herbert Dare looked so pale; he was standing there, guarded by three policemen----"

"Thee hast a fast tongue, Gar," interrupted Patience. "Dost thee mean to say Herbert Dare was in custody?"

"Of course, he was," replied Gar, faster than before. "It is he who has done it. At least, he is accused of it. He and Anthony had a quarrel yesterday, and it came to knives. They were parted then; but he is supposed to have laid wait for Anthony in the night and killed him."

"Is Anthony dead? Is he----Anna! what hast thee----?"

Anna had dropped the s.h.i.+rts and the b.u.t.tons. Her blue eyes had closed, her lips and cheeks had grown white, her hands fell powerless. "She is fainting!" shouted Gar, as he ran to support her.

"Gar, dear," said Patience, "thee shouldst not tell ill news quite so abruptly. Thee hast made me feel queer. Canst thee stretch thy hands out to the bell? It will bring up Hester."

CHAPTER IV.

COMMITTED FOR TRIAL.

Helstonleigh could not recover its equanimity. Never had it been so rudely shaken. Incidents there had been as startling; crimes of as deep a dye; but, taking it with all its attendant circ.u.mstances, no occurrence, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, had excited the interest that was attaching to the death and a.s.sumed murder of Anthony Dare.

The social standing of the parties, above that in which such unhappy incidents are more generally found; the conspicuous position they occupied in the town, and the very uncertainty--the mystery, it may be said--in which the affair was wrapped, wrought local curiosity to the highest point.

Scarcely a shadow of doubt rested on the public mind that the deed had been done by Herbert Dare. The Police force, actively engaged in searching out all the details, held the same opinion. In one sense, this was, perhaps, unfortunate; for, when strong suspicion, whether of the police or of the public, is especially directed to one isolated point, it inevitably tends to keep down doubts that might arise in regard to other quarters.

It seemed scarcely possible to hope that Herbert was not guilty. All the facts tended to the a.s.sumption that he was so. There was the ill-feeling known to have existed between himself and his brother: the quarrel and violence in the dining-room not many hours before, in which quarrel Herbert _had_ raised a knife upon him. "But for the entrance of the servant Joseph," said the people, one to another, "the murder might have been done then." Joseph had stopped evil consequences at the time, but he had not stopped Herbert's mouth--the threat he had uttered in his pa.s.sion--still to be revenged. Terribly those words told now against Herbert Dare.

Another thing that told against him, and in a most forcible manner, was the cloak. That he had put it on to go out; nay, had been seen to go out in it by the housemaid, was indisputable; and his brother was found lying on this very cloak. In vain Herbert protested, when before the magistrates and at the coroner's inquest, that he returned before leaving the gates, and had flung this cloak into the dining-room, finding it too hot that evening to wear. He obtained no credit. He had not been seen to do this; and the word of an accused man goes for little. All ominous, these things--all telling against him, but nothing, taking them collectively, as compared with his refusal to state where he was that night. He left the house between eight and nine, close upon nine, he thought; he was not sure of the exact time to a quarter of an hour; and he never returned to it until nearly two. Such was his account. But, where he had been in the interim, he positively refused to state.

It was only his a.s.sertion, you see, against the broad basis of suspicion. Anthony Dare's death must have taken place, as testified by Mr. Glenn, somewhere about half-past eleven; who was to prove that Herbert at that time was not at home? "I was not," Herbert reiterated, when before the coroner. "I did not return home till between half-past one and two. The churches struck the half-hour as I was coming through the town, and it would take me afterwards some ten minutes to reach home. It must have been about twenty minutes to two when I entered."

"But where were you? Where had you been? Where did you come from?" he was asked.

"That I cannot state," he replied. "I was out upon a little business of my own; business that concerns no one but myself; and I decline to make it public."

On that score nothing more could be obtained from him. The coroner drew his own conclusions; the jury drew _theirs_; the police had already drawn theirs, and very positive ones.

These were the two facts that excited the ire of Sergeant Delves and his official colleagues: with all their searching, they could find no weapon likely to have been the one used; and they could not discover where Herbert Dare had gone to that evening. It happened that no one remembered to have seen him pa.s.sing in the town, early or late; or, if they had seen him, it had made no impression on their memory. The appearance of Mr. Dare's sons was so common an occurrence that no especial note was likely to have been taken of it. Herbert declared that in pa.s.sing through West Street, Turtle, the auctioneer, was leaning out at his open bedroom window, and that he, Herbert, had called out to him, and asked whether he was star-gazing. Mr. Turtle, when applied to, could not corroborate this. He believed that he _had_ been looking out at his window that night; he believed that it might have been about the hour named, getting on for two, for he was late going to bed, having been to a supper party; but he had no recollection whatever of seeing Mr.

Herbert pa.s.s, or of having been spoken to by him, or by any one else.

When pressed upon the point, Mr. Turtle acknowledged that his intellects might not have been in the clearest state of perception, the supper party having been a jovial one.

One of the jury remarked that it was very singular the prisoner could go through the dining-room, and not observe his brother lying in it. The prisoner replied that it was not singular at all. The room was in darkness, and he had felt his way through it on the opposite side of the table to that where his brother was afterwards found. He had gone straight through, and up to his chamber, as quietly as possible, not to disturb the house; and he dropped asleep as soon as he was in bed.

The verdict returned was "Wilful murder against Herbert Dare," and he was committed to the county gaol to take his trial at the a.s.sizes. Mr.

Dare's house was beyond the precincts of the city. Sergeant Delves and his men renewed their inquiries; but they could discover no trace, either of the weapon, or of where Herbert Dare had pa.s.sed the suspicious hours. The sergeant was vexed; but he would not allow that he was beaten. "Only give us time," said he, with a characteristic nod. "The Pyramids of Egypt were only built up stone by stone."

Tuesday morning--the morning fixed for the funeral of Anthony Dare. The curious portion of Helstonleigh wended its way up to the churchyard; as it is the delight of the curious portion of a town to do. What a sad sight it was! That dark object, covered by its pall, carried by its attendants, followed by the mourners; Mr. Dare, and his sons Cyril and George. He, the father, bent his face in his handkerchief, as he walked behind the coffin to the grave. Many a man in Helstonleigh enjoyed a higher share of esteem and respect than did Lawyer Dare; but not one present in that crowded churchyard that did not feel for him in his bitter grief. Not one, let us hope, that did not feel to his heart's core the fate of the unhappy Anthony, now, for weal or for woe, to answer before his Maker for his life on earth.

That same day, Tuesday, witnessed the return of Samuel Lynn and William Halliburton. They arrived in the evening, and of course the first news they were greeted with was the prevailing topic. Few things caused the ever-composed Quaker to betray surprise; but William was half-stunned with the news. Anthony Dare dead--murdered--buried that very day; and Herbert in prison, awaiting his trial for the offence! To William the whole affair seemed more incredible than real.

"Sir," he said to his master, when, the following morning, they were alone together in the counting-house at the manufactory, "do you believe Herbert Dare can be guilty?"

Mr. Ashley had been gazing at William, lost in thought. The change we often see, or fancy we see, in a near friend, after a few weeks'

absence, was apparent in William. He had improved in looks; and yet those looks, with their true n.o.bility, both of form and intellect, had been scarcely capable of improvement. Nevertheless, it was there, and Mr. Ashley had been struck with it.

"I cannot say," he replied, aroused by the question. "Facts appear conclusively against him; but it seems incredible that he should so have lost himself. To be suspected and committed on such a charge is grief enough, without the reality of guilt."