The Herapath Property Part 18

"Oh!" responded Triffitt. He had caught sight of Carver a few yards off, and he hurried his notebook into his pocket, and bustled off. "Much obliged to you, Mr. Selwood," he said with a grin. "Even we with all our experience, don't know everybody, you know--many thanks." He hastened over to Carver who was also busy pencilling, and drew him away into the shelter of a particularly large and ugly monument. "I say!" he whispered. "Here's something! Shove that book away now--I've got all the names--and attend to me a minute. Don't look too obtrusively--but do you see that chap--looks like an actor--who is just coming away from the graveside--tall, well-dressed chap?"

Carver looked across. His face lighted up.

"I know that man," he said. "I've seen him at the club--he's been in once or twice, though he's not a member. He does theatre stuff for the _Magnet_. His name's Burchill."

Triffitt dropped his friend's arm.

"Oh!" he said. "So you know him--by sight, anyhow? And his name's Burchill, eh? Very good. Let's get."

He walked Carver out of the cemetery, down the Harrow Road, and turned into the saloon bar of the first tavern that presented itself.

"I'm going to have some ale and some bread and cheese," he observed, "and if you'll follow suit, Carver, we'll sit in that corner, and I'll tell you something that'll make your hair curl. Two nice plates of bread and cheese, and two large tankards of your best bitter ale, if you please,"

he continued, approaching the bar and ringing a half-crown on it. "Yes, Carver, my son--that will curl your hair for you. And," he went on, when they had carried their simple provender over to a quiet corner, "about that chap now known as Burchill--Burchill. Mr.--Frank--Burchill; late secretary to the respected gentleman whose mortal remains have just been laid to rest. Ah!"

"What's the mystery?" asked Carver, setting down his tankard. "Seems to be one, anyway. What about Burchill?"

"Speak his name softly," answered Triffitt. "Well, my son, I suddenly saw--him--this morning, and I just as suddenly remembered that I'd seen him before!"

"You had, eh?" said Carver. "Where?"

Triffitt sank his voice to a still lower whisper.

"Where?" he said. "Where? In the dock!"

Carver arrested the progress of a lump of bread and cheese and turned in astonishment.

"In the dock?" he exclaimed. "That chap? Good heavens! When--where?"

"It's a longish story," answered Triffitt. "But you've got to hear it if we're going into this thing--as we are. Know, then, that I have an aunt--Eliza. My aunt--maternal aunt--Eliza is married to a highly respectable Scotsman named Kierley, who runs a flour-mill in the ancient town of Jedburgh, which is in the county of Roxburgh, just over the Border. And it's just about nine years (I can tell the exact date to a day if I look at an old diary) that Mr. and Mrs. Kierley were good enough to invite me to spend a few weeks in Bonnie Scotland. And the first night of my arrival Kierley told me that I was in luck, for within a day or two there was going to be a grand trial before the Lords Justiciar--Anglice, judges. A trial of a man for murder!"

"Great Scott!" said Carver. "Murder, eh? And"--he nodded his head in the direction of the adjacent cemetery. "Him?"

"Let me explain a few legal matters," said Triffitt, disregarding the question. "Then you'll get the proper hang of things. In Scotland, law's different in procedure to ours. The High Court of Justiciary is fixed permanently at Edinburgh, but its judges go on circuit so many times a year to some of the princ.i.p.al towns, where they hold something like our own a.s.sizes. Usually, only one judge sits, but in cases of special importance there are two, and two came to Jedburgh, this being a case of very special importance, and one that was arousing a mighty amount of interest. It was locally known as the Kelpies' Glen Case, and by that name it got into all the papers--we could find it, of course, in our own files."

"I'll turn it up," observed Carver.

"By all means," agreed Triffitt; "but I'll give you an outline of it just now. Briefly, it was this. About eleven years ago, there was near the town of Jedburgh a man named Ferguson, who kept an old-established school for boys. He was an oldish chap, married to a woman a good deal younger than himself, and she had a bit of a reputation for being overfond of the wine of the country. According to what the Kierleys told me, old Ferguson used to use the tawse on her sometimes, and they led a sort of cat-and-dog life. Well, about the time I'm talking about, Ferguson got a new undermaster; he only kept one. This chap was an Englishman--name of Bentham--Francis Bentham, to give him his full patronymic, but I don't know where he came from--I don't think anybody did."

"F. B., eh?" muttered Carver. "Same initials as----"

"Precisely," said Triffitt, "and--to antic.i.p.ate--same man. But to proceed in due order. Old Ferguson died rather suddenly--but in quite an above-board and natural fas.h.i.+on, about six months after this Bentham came to him. The widow kept on the school, and retained Bentham's services. And within half a year of the demise of her first husband, she took Bentham for her second."

"Quick work!" remarked Carver.

"And productive of much wagging of tongues, you may bet!" said Triffitt.

"Many things were said--not all of them charitable. Well, this marriage didn't mend the lady's manners. She still continued, now and then, to take her drops in too generous measure. Rumour had it that the successor to Ferguson followed his predecessor's example and corrected his wife in the good, old-fas.h.i.+oned way. It was said that the old cat-and-dog life was started again by these two. However, before they'd been married a year, the lady ended that episode by quitting life for good. She was found one night lying at the foot of the cliff in the Kelpies'

Glen--with a broken neck."

"Ah!" said Carver. "I begin to see."

"Now, that Kelpies' Glen," continued Triffitt, "was a sort of ravine which lay between the town of Jedburgh and the school. It was traversed by a rough path which lay along the top of one side of it, amongst trees and crags. At one point, this path was on the very edge of a precipitous cliff; from that edge there was a sheer drop of some seventy or eighty feet to a bed of rocks down below, on the edge of a brawling stream. It was on these rocks that Mrs. Bentham's body was found. She was dead enough when she was discovered, and the theory was that she had come along the path above in a drunken condition, had fallen over the low railings which fenced it in, and so had come to her death."

"Precisely," a.s.sented Carver, nodding his head with wise appreciation.

"Her alcoholic tendencies were certainly useful factors in the case."

"Just so--you take my meaning," agreed Triffitt. "Well, at first n.o.body saw any reason to doubt this theory, for the lady had been seen staggering along that path more than once. But she had a brother, a canny Scot who was not over well pleased when he found that his sister--who had come into everything that old Ferguson left, which was a comfortable bit--had made a will not very long before her death in which she left absolutely everything to her new husband, Francis Bentham. The brother began to inquire and to investigate--and to cut the story short, within a fortnight of his wife's death, Bentham was arrested and charged with her murder."

"On what evidence?" asked Carver.

"Precious little!" answered Triffitt. "Indeed next to none. Still, there was some. It was proved that he was absent from the house for half an hour or so about the time that she would be coming along that path; it was also proved that certain footprints in the clay of the path were his. He contended that he had been to look for her; he proved that he had often been to look for her in that way; moreover, as to the footprints, he, like everybody in the house, constantly used that path in going to the town."

"Aye, to be sure;" said Carver. "He'd a good case, I'm thinking."

"He had--and so I thought at the time," continued Triffitt. "And so a good many folks thought--and they, and I, also thought something else, I can tell you. I know what the verdict of the crowded court would have been!"

"What?" asked Carver.

"Guilty!" exclaimed Triffitt. "And so far as I'm concerned, I haven't a doubt that the fellow pushed her over the cliff. But opinion's neither here nor there. The only thing that mattered, my son, was the jury's verdict!"

"And the jury's verdict was--what?" demanded Carver.

Triffitt winked into his empty tankard and set it down with a bang.

"The jury's verdict, my boy," he answered, "was one that you can only get across the Border. It was '_Not Proven_'!"

CHAPTER XV

YOUNG BRAINS

Carver, who had been listening intently to the memory of a bygone event, pushed away the remains of his frugal lunch, and shook his head as he drew out a cigarette-case.

"By gad, Triff, old man!" he said. "If I'd been that chap I'd rather have been hanged, I think. Not proven, eh?--whew! That meant----"

"Pretty much what the folk in court and the mob outside thought,"

a.s.serted Triffitt. "That scene outside, after the trial, is one of my liveliest recollections. There was a big crowd there--chiefly women.

When they heard the verdict there was such yelling and hooting as you never heard in your life! You see, they were all certain about the fellow's guilt, and they wanted him to swing. If they could have got at him, they'd have lynched him. And do you know, he actually had the cheek to leave the court by the front entrance, and show himself to that crowd! Then there was a lively scene--stones and brickbats and the mud of the street began flying. Then the police waded in--and they gave Mr.

Francis Bentham pretty clearly to understand that there must be no going home for him, or the folks would pull his roof over his head. And they forced him back into the court, and got him away out of the town on the quiet--and I reckon he's never shown his face in that quarter of the globe since."

"That will?" asked Carver. "Did it stand good--did he get the woman's money?"

"He did. My aunt told me afterwards that he employed some local solicitor chap--writers, as they call 'em there--to wind everything up, convert everything into cash, for him. Oh, yes!" concluded Triffitt. "He got the estate, right enough. Not an awful lot, you know--a thousand or two--perhaps three--but enough to go adventuring with elsewhere."

"You're sure this is the man?" asked Carver.

"As certain as that I'm myself!" answered Triffitt. "Couldn't mistake him--even if it is nine years ago. It's true I was only a nipper then--sixteen or so--but I'd all my wits about me, and I was so taken with him in the dock, and with his theatrical bearing there--he's a fine hand at posing--that I couldn't forget or mistake him. Oh, he's the man!