Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 16

"Jones says he has the coroner's orders for it," answered Gibbon.

"Look here, I know a bit about law, and I know a man oughtn't to be shut up till some charge is brought again' him," contended Figg. "Crew's pills is suspected, but he have not been charged yet."

"Anyway, it's what Jones has gone and done," said Gibbon. "Perhaps he is right. And a week's not much; it'll soon pa.s.s. But as to any pills of Abel Crew's having killed them children, it's just preposterous to think of it."

"What d'ye suppose did kill 'em, then, Richard Gibbon?" demanded Ann Dovey, a hot flush on her face, her tone full of resentment.

"That's just what has to be found out," returned Gibbon, pa.s.sing on his way.

"If it hadn't been for Dobbs and Butcher Perkins holding out again' it, Crew 'ud ha' been brought in guilty safe enough," said Ann Dovey. And the tone was again so excited, so bitterly resentful against Dobbs and Perkins, that I could not help looking at her in wonder. It sounded just as though the non-committal of Abel were a wrong inflicted upon herself.

"No, he would not have been brought in guilty," I answered her; "he would have been committed for trial; but that's a different thing. If the matter could be sifted to the bottom, I know it would be found that the mischief did not lie with Abel Crew's pills. There, Mrs. Dovey!"

She was looking at me out of the corners of her eyes--for all the world as if she were afraid of me, or of what I said. I could not make her out.

"Why should you wish so particularly to bring it home to Crew?" I pointedly asked her; and Figg turned round to look at her, as if seconding the question.

"Me want particular to bring it home to Crew!" she retorted, her voice rising with temper; or perhaps with fear, for she trembled like an aspen leaf. "I don't want to bring it home particular to him, Mr. Ludlow. It were his pills, though, all the same, that did it."

And with that she whisked through the forge to her kitchen.

On the morning following I got old Jones to let me into the lock-up. The place consisted of two rooms opening into one another, and a small square s.p.a.ce, no bigger than a closet, at the end of the pa.s.sage, where they kept the pen and ink. For that small s.p.a.ce had a window in it, looking on to the fields at the back; the two rooms had only skylights in the roof. In the inner room a narrow iron bedstead stood against the wall, a mattress and blanket on it. Abel was sitting on that when we went in.

"You must have been lively here last night, Abel!"

"Yes, very, sir," answered he, with a half-smile. "I did not really mind it; I am used to be alone. I could have done with fewer rats, though."

"Oh, are there rats here?"

"Lots of them, Master Johnny. I don't like rats. They came upon my face, and all about me."

"Why does old Jones not set traps for them? He considers this place to be under his special protection."

"There are too many for any trap to catch," answered Abel.

Old Jones had gone off to the desk in the closet, having placed some bread and b.u.t.ter and milk on the shelf for Abel. His errand there was to enter the cost of the bread in the account-book, to be settled for later. A prisoner in the lock-up was commonly treated to bread and water: old Jones had graciously allowed this one to pay for some b.u.t.ter and milk out of his own pocket.

"I don't want to treat 'em harsher nor I be obliged, Master Ludlow," he said to me, when coming in, in reference to the b.u.t.ter and the milk he was carrying. "Abel Crew have been known as a decent man ever since he come among us: and if he chooses to pay for the b.u.t.ter and the milk, there ain't no law against his having 'em. 'Tain't as if he was a burglar."

"No, he is not a burglar," I answered. "And you must mind that you do not get into the wrong box about him. There's neither law nor justice in locking him up, Jones, before he is charged."

"If I had never locked up n.o.body till they was charged, I should ha'

been in the wrong box many a time afore now," said old Jones, doggedly.

"Look at that there man last Christmas; what I caught prowling in the grounds at Parrifer Hall, with a whole set of house-breaking things concealed in his pockets! After I'd took him, and lodged him in here safe, it was found that he was one o' the worst characters in the county, only let out o' Worcester goal two days before. Suppose I'd not took him, Master Johnny? where 'ud the spoons at Parrifer Hall ha'

been?"

"That was a different case altogether."

"_I_ know what I'm about," returned Jones. "The coroner, he just give me a nod or two, looking at Crew as he give it. I knew what it meant, sir: a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse."

Anyway, Jones had him, here in the lock-up: and had gone off to enter the loaf in the account-book; and I was sitting on the bench opposite Abel.

"It is a wicked shame of them to have put you here, Abel."

"It is not legal--as I believe," he answered. "And I am sure it is not just, sir. I swear those pills and that box produced at the inquest were none of mine. They never went out of my hands. Old Jones thinks he is doing right to secure me, I suppose, and he is civil over it; so I must not grumble. He brought me some water to wash in this morning, and a comb."

"But there's no _sense_ in it. You would not attempt to escape; you would wait for the rea.s.sembling of the inquest."

"Escape!" he exclaimed. "I should be the first to remain for it. I am more anxious than any one to have the matter investigated. Truth to say, Master Johnny, my curiosity is excited. Hester Reed is so persistent in regard to their being the pills and box that I gave her; and as she is a truthful honest woman, one can't see where the mistake lies. There must be a mystery in it somewhere."

"Suppose you are committed to take your trial? And found guilty?"

"That I shall be committed, I look upon as certain," he answered. "As to being found guilty--if I am, I must bear it. G.o.d knows my innocence, and I shall hope that in time He will bring it to light."

"All the same, Abel, they ought not to put you in here."

"That's true, sir."

"And then there will be the lying in prison until the a.s.sizes--two or three good months to come! Don't go and die of it, Abel."

"No, I shall not do that," he answered, smiling a little. "The consciousness of innocence will keep me up."

I sat looking at him. What light could get in through the dusty skylight fell on his silver hair, which fell back from his pale face. He held his head down in thought, only raising it to answer me. Some movement in the closet betokened old Jones's speedy approach, and I hastened to a.s.sure Abel that all sensible people would not doubt his innocence.

"No one need doubt it, Master Johnny," he answered firmly, his eye kindling. "I never had a grain of a.r.s.enic in my house; I have never had any other poison. There are herbs from which poison may be distilled, but I have never gathered them. When it comes to people needing poison--and there are some diseases of the human frame that it may be good for--they should go to a qualified medical man, not to a herbalist.

No. I have never, never had poison or poisonous herbs withing my dwelling; therefore (putting other reasons aside) it is _impossible_ that those pills can have been my pills. G.o.d hears me say it, and knows that it is true."

Old Jones, balancing the keys in his hand, was standing within the room, listening. Abel Crew was so respectable and courteous a prisoner, compared with those he generally had in the lock-up, burglars, tipsy men, and the like, returning him a "thank you" instead of an oath, that he had already begun to regard him with some favour, and the a.s.sertion seemed to make an impression on him.

"Look here," said he. "Whose pills could they have been, if they warn't yours?"

"I cannot imagine," returned Abel Crew. "I am as curious about it as any one else--Master Ludlow here knows I am. I dare say it will come out sometime. They _could not_ have been made up by me."

"What was that you told the coroner about your pill-boxes being marked?"

asked old Jones.

"And so they are marked; all of them. The pill-box I saw there----"

"I mean the stock o' boxes you've got at home. Be they all marked?"

"Every one of them. When I have in a fresh lot of pill-boxes the first thing I do, on bringing them home, is to mark them."

"Then look here. You just trust me with the key of your place, and tell me where the boxes are to be found, and I'll go and secure 'em, and lay 'em afore the coroner. If they be all found marked, it'll tell in your favour."

The advice sounded good, and Abel Crew handed over his key. Jones looked solemn as he and I went away together.

"It's an odd thing, though, Master Johnny, ain't it, how the pison could ha' got into them there pills," said he slowly, as he put the big key into the lock of the outer door.