Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

Roland staggered backwards, and grasped a chair for support. “When? – How? – Where?” said he, in a low voice, every accent of which trembled.

“All as yet is hidden in mystery, sir. We know nothing beyond the fact that his dead body was discovered in the Gap of Ennismore, and that a pistol-shot had penetrated his brain.” Sir Andrew grasped the weapon more tightly as these words were uttered.

“You left this in his company, Mr. Cashel?” asked Goring.

“Yes; we set out at daybreak for Drumcoologan, where an affair of business required our presence. We spent the whole of the day together, and as evening drew nigh, and our business had not been completed, I resolved to hasten back here, leaving him to follow whenever he could.”

“You have been on the best terms together, I believe?” said Goring.

“Stay – I cannot permit this,” interposed the Chief Justice, authoritatively. “There must be nothing done here which is not strictly honorable as well as legal. It is right that Mr. Cashel should understand that when an event of this nature has occurred, no one, however high his station, or umblemished his fame, can claim exemption from that scrutiny which the course of justice demands; and the persons latest in the company of the deceased are more peculiarly those exposed to such inquiry. I would, therefore, caution him against answering any questions here, which may be prejudicial hereafter.”

“Do I understand you aright, my Lord?” said Cashel, whose whole frame trembled with agitation as he spoke. “Do your words imply that I stand here in the light of a suspected party?”

“I mean to say, sir,” replied the judge, “that so long as doubt and obscurity veil the history of a crime, the accusation hangs over the community at large among whom it was enacted, and that those who were last seen in the presence of the victim have the greatest obligation to disconnect themselves with the sad event.”

“But you stopped me while about to do so,” cried Roland, angrily.

“I cautioned you, rather, against any disclosures which, whatever your innocence, might augment suspicion against you,” said the judge, mildly.

“These distinctions are too subtle for me, my Lord. The insult of such an accusation ought to be enough, without the aggravation of chicanery.” Then, turning to Meek, Roland went on: “You, at least, are above this meanness, and will listen to me patiently. Look here.” He took a sheet of paper as he spoke, and proceeded with a pen to mark out the direction of the two roads from Drumcoologan to Tubbermore. “Here stands the village; the road by which we travelled in the morning takes this line, skirting the base of the mountain towards the north: the path by which I returned follows a shorter course, and after crossing a little rivulet here, comes out at Ennismore, somewhere about this point.”

Just as Roland’s description reached thus far, a large drop of blood oozed from his wounded hand, and fell heavily upon the paper. There seemed something so terribly significant in its falling exactly on the very spot where the murdered body was found, that each looked at the other in anxious dread; and then, as if with a common impulse, every eye was bent on Cashel, who, heart-sick with indignant anger, stood unable to utter a word.

“I pray you, sir, do not misconstrue my advice,” said the judge, mildly, “nor resent a counsel intended for your good. Every explanation you may offer, hereafter, will be serviceable to your case; every detail you enter into, now, necessarily vague, and unsupported as it must be by other testimony, will only be injurious to you.”

Cashel seated himself in a chair, and crossing his arms, seemed to be lost in thought; then, suddenly starting to his feet, he cried, —

“Is all this a deep-laid scheme against my honor and my life, or do you, indeed, desire to trace this crime to its author? If so, let us mount our horses and scour the country; let us search every cabin; let us try if some discovery of a weapon – ”

“Ech, sirs, we hae the weapon!” said Sir Andrew, with a sardonic grin; “an’ it’s muckle like to its brither yonder,” pointing to the open pistol-case.

Roland turned suddenly, and now for the first time perceived that one of his pistols was missing from the case. Up to this moment his anger at the suspicions directed towards him was mingled with a degree of contemptuous disregard of them; but now, suddenly, a terrible fear shot through his heart that he was in the meshes of some deep-laid scheme for his ruin; and his mind ran over in eager haste every circumstance that seemed to point towards guilt. His presence with Kennyfeck on the mountain; his departure from Drumcoologan alone-, his unexplained reappearance in his own chamber, disordered and littered as it stood; his torn dress; his bleeding fingers; and lastly, the missing pistol, – arose in terrible array before him; and with a heart-sick sigh, he laid his forehead on the table, and never uttered a word.

It was at this juncture that a groom, splashed and heated from a hard ride, placed a small bit of twisted paper in Mr. Goring’s hand. It was written with pencil, and ran thus: —

Gap of Ennismore.

Dear G., – It looks badly; but I fear you have no other course than to arrest him. In fact, it is too late for anything else. Consult Malone and Meek.

Yours, in great haste, T. Linton.

Goring handed the note to the Chief Justice, who, having read it, passed it on to Meek. A nod from the latter, as he refolded the paper, seemed to accord concurrence with the counsel.

“Would it not be better to defer this till after the inquest?” he whispered.

“Are ye certain o’ findin’ him when ye want him?” dryly remarked Sir Andrew.

The Chief Justice conferred for a few seconds with Meek apart, and then approaching Cashel, addressed him in a tone inaudible to all but himself, —

“It would be excessively painful to us, Mr. Roland Cashel, to do anything which should subject you to vulgar remark or impertinent commentary; and as, until some further light be thrown upon this sad catastrophe, your detention is absolutely necessary, may I ask that you will submit to this rigor, without compelling us to any measures to enforce it?”

“Am I a prisoner, my Lord?” asked Roland, growing lividly pale as he spoke.

“Not precisely, sir. No warrant has been issued against you; but as it is manifestly for your advantage to disprove any suspicions that may attach to you in this unhappy affair, I hope you will see the propriety of remaining where you are until they be entirely removed.”

Roland bowed coldly, and said, —

“May I ask to be left alone?”

“Of course, sir; we have neither the right nor the inclination to obtrude ourselves upon you. I ought to mention, perhaps, that if you desire to confer with any friends – ”

“Friend!” echoed Cashel, in bitter derision; “such friends as I have seen around my table make the selection difficult.”

“I used the phrase somewhat technically, sir, as referring to a legal adviser,” said the judge, hastily.

“I thank you, my Lord,” replied Roland, haughtily. “I am a plain man, and am well aware that in your trade truth is no match for falsehood.” He walked to the window as he spoke, and by his gesture seemed to decline further colloquy.

The Chief Justice moved slowly away, followed by the others; Meek withdrawing last of all, and seeming to hesitate whether he should not say something as he went. At last he turned and said, —

“I sincerely trust, Mr. Cashel, that you will not connect me with this most painful suspicion; your own good sense will show you how common minds may be affected by a number of concurring circumstances; and how, in fact, truth may require the aid of ingenuity to reconcile and explain them.”

“I am not certain that I understand your meaning, sir,” said Cashel, sternly; “but when a number of ‘concurring circumstances’ seemed to point out those with whom I associated as blacklegs, parasites, and calumniators, I gave them the benefit of a doubt, and believed them to be gentle-men; I almost expected they might return the favor when occasion offered.”

For a second or two Meek seemed as if about to reply; but he moved noiselessly away at last and closed the door, leaving Roland alone with his own distracted thoughts.

CHAPTER XXVIII. SCENE OF THE MURDER – THE CORONER’S VERDICT

Are there not proofs enough?
Or can the stubborn mind reject all truth
And cling to fallacy?

    The Will.
What a change did Tubbermore present to its aspect of the day before! All the emblems of joy and festivity, all the motley of pleasure, all the gay troops of guests hastening onward in glowing eagerness and anticipation, were gone; and in their stead a dreary and mysterious silence brooded over the place, interrupted at intervals by the bustle of some departure. For thus, without one word of sympathy, without even a passing good-bye, Roland’s “friends” hurried away, as if flying from the very memories of the spot.

It was a dreary winter’s day; the dark leaden clouds that flitted past, and the long-sighing wind, seemed to add their sad influence to the melancholy. The house itself already appeared to feel its altered fortunes. Most of the windows were closed and shuttered; the decorations of rare plants and shrubs and lamps were removed; instead of the movement of liveried servants to and fro, ill-favored and coarse-clad men, the underlings of the law, crept stealthily about, noticing each circumstance of the locality, and conferring together in mysterious whispers. Mounted messengers, too, came and went with a haste that boded urgency; and post-horses were each moment arriving to carry away those whose impatience to leave was manifested in a hundred ways. Had the air of the place been infected with some pestilential malady, their eagerness could scarce have been greater. All the fretful irritability of selfishness, all the peevish discontent of petty natures, exhibited themselves without shame; and envious expressions towards those fortunate enough to “get away first,” and petulant complaints over their own delay, were bandied on every side.

A great table was laid for breakfast in the dining-room, as usual. All the luxuries and elegances that graced the board on former occasions were there, but a few only took their places. Of these, Frobisher and some military men were the chief; they, indeed, showed comparatively little of that anxiety to be gone so marked in the others. The monotony of the barrack and the parade was not attractive, and they lingered like men who, however little they had of pleasure here, had even less of inducement to betake them elsewhere.

Meek had been the first to make his escape, by taking the post-horses intended for another, and already was many miles on his way towards Dublin. The Chief Justice and his family were the next. From the hour of the fatal event, Mrs. Malone had assumed a judicial solemnity of demeanor that produced a great impression upon the beholders, and seemed to convey, by a kind of reflected light, the old judge’s gloomiest forebodings of the result.

Mrs. Leicester White deferred her departure to oblige Mr. Howie, who was making a series of sketches for the “Pictorial Paul Pry,” showing not only the various façades of Tubbermore House, but several interesting “interiors:” such as the “Ball-room, when the fatal tidings arrived:” “Dressing-room of Roland Cashel, Esq., when entered by the Chief Justice and his party;” the most effective of all being a very shadowy picture of the “Gap of Ennismore – the scene of the murder;” the whole connected by a little narrative so ingeniously drawn up as to give public opinion a very powerful bias against Cashel, whose features, in the woodcut, would in themselves have made a formidable indictment.

Of the Kennyfecks, few troubled themselves with even a casual inquiry: except the fact that a fashionable physician had been sent for to Dublin, little was known about them. But where was Linton all this while? Some averred that he had set out for the capital, to obtain the highest legal assistance for his friend; others, that he was so overwhelmed by the terrible calamity as to have fallen into a state of fatuous insensibility. None, however, could really give any correct account of him; he had left Tubbermore, but in what direction none could tell.

As the day wore on, a heavy rain began to fall; and of those who still remained in the house, little knots of two and three assembled at the windows, to watch for the arrival of their wished-for “posters,” or to speculate upon the weather. Another source of speculation there was besides. Some hours before, a magistrate, accompanied by a group of ill-dressed and vulgar-looking men, had been seen to pass the house, and take the path which led to the Gap of Ennismore. These formed the inquest, who were to inquire into the circumstances of the crime, and whose verdict, however unimportant in a strictly legal sense, was looked for with considerable impatience by some of the company. To judge from the anxious looks that were directed towards the mountain road, or the piercing glances which at times were given through telescopes in that direction, one would have augured that some, at least, of those there, were not destitute of sympathy for him whose guests they had been, and beneath whose roof they still lingered. A very few words of those that passed between them will best answer how this impression is well founded.

“Have you sent your groom off, Upton?” asked Frobisher, as he stood with a coffee-cup in his hand at the window.