The Revellers

“Yes.”

“And, after the accident, you remained with him until he died?”

“Yes – God help me!”

“Thank you. That is all.”

“Just one moment,” interposed the Coroner. “Were you previously acquainted with this man, Marshall, the groom?”

“No, sir. I saw him for the first time in my life when he met me at the hotel door and asked me if I was Miss Thwaites.”

“How did he obtain your Hereford address? It appears to be given in full on the envelope.”

“I don’t know, sir.”

Fred Marshall was the next witness. He was sober and exceedingly nervous. He had been made aware during the past week that public opinion condemned him utterly. His old cronies refused to drink with him. Mrs. Atkinson had dismissed him; he was a pariah, an outcast, in the village.

His evidence consisted of a disconnected series of insinuations against Kitty’s character, interlarded with protests that he meant no harm. Mr. Stockwell showed him scant mercy.

“You say you saw Mrs. Pickering, or Betsy Thwaites, as she was at that time, seize a knife from the table?”

“I did.”

“What did you think she meant to do with it?”

“What she did do – stick George Pickerin’. I heerd her bawlin’ that oot both afore an’ efther.”

The man was desperate. In his own parlance, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and he would spare no one.

“Oh, indeed! You knew she intended to commit murder?”

“I thowt so.”

“Then why did you not follow her?”

“I was skeered.”

“What! Afraid of a weak woman?”

“Well, I didn’t give a damn if she did stab him! There, ye hev it straight!”

Mr. Stockwell turned to Mr. Dane.

“If you are looking for accessories in this trumped-up case, you have one ready to hand,” he exclaimed.

“You must be careful what you are saying, Marshall,” observed the Coroner severely. “And moderate your language, too. This court is not a stable.”

“He shouldn’t badger me,” cried the witness in sullen anger.

“I’ll treat you with great tenderness,” said Mr. Stockwell suavely, and a general smile relieved the tension.

“How did you obtain Miss Thwaites’s address at Hereford?”

No answer.

“Come, now. Where are your wits? Will you accuse me of badgering you, if I suggest that you stole a letter from Kitty Thwaites’s pocket?”

“I didn’t steal it. It was in a frock of hers, hangin’ in her bedroom.”

“You are most obliging. And the sovereign you sent her? Did you, by any chance, borrow it from Mrs. Atkinson?”

“Frae Mrs. Atkinson? Wheä said that?”

“Oh, I mean without her knowledge, of course. From Mrs. Atkinson’s till, I should have said.”

The chance shot went home. The miserable groom growled a denial, but no one believed him. Quite satisfied that he had destroyed the man’s credibility, Mr. Stockwell sat down.

“Martin Court Bolland!” said the Coroner’s officer, and a wave of renewed interest galvanized the court. Mr. Dane arranged his papers and looked around with the air of one who says:

“Now we shall hear the truth of this business.”

Martin came forward. It chanced that the first pair of eyes he encountered were Angèle’s. The girl was gazing at him with a spiteful intensity he could not understand. He did not know then of the painful exposé which took place at The Elms when Mrs. Saumarez learnt on the preceding day that her daughter was a leading figure among the children in the “Black Lion” yard on the night of the tragedy.

Angèle blamed Martin for having betrayed her to the authorities. She did not know how resolutely he had declined to mention her name; he loomed large in her mind, to the exclusion of the others.

She regarded him now with a venomous malice all the more bitter because of the ultra-friendly relations she had forced on him.

He looked at her with genuine astonishment. She reminded him of the wildcat he choked to death in Thor ghyll. But he had to collect his wandering faculties, for the Coroner was speaking.

CHAPTER XV

THE UNWRITTEN LAW

Martin’s evidence was concise. He happened to be in the “Black Lion” yard with other children at a quarter past ten on Monday night. He heard a woman’s scream, followed by a man’s loud cry of pain, and both sounds seemed to come from the extreme end of the garden.

Kitty Thwaites ran toward the hotel shrieking, “Oh, Betsy, Betsy, you’ve killed him!” She screamed “Murder” and called for someone to come, “for God’s sake!” She fell exactly opposite the place where he was standing. Then he saw Betsy Thwaites – he identified her now as Mrs. Pickering – running after her sister and brandishing a knife. She appeared to be very excited, and cried out, “I’ll swing for him. May the Lord deal wi’ him as he dealt wi’ me!” She called her sister a “strumpet,” and said it would “serve her right to stick her with the same knife.” He was quite sure those were the exact words. He was not alarmed in any way, only surprised by the sudden uproar, and he saw the two women and the knife as plainly as if it were broad daylight.

Mr. Dane concluded the examination-in-chief, which he punctuated with expressive glances at the jury, by touching on a point which he expected his acute rival to raise.

“What were you doing in the ‘Black Lion’ yard at that hour, Bolland?”

“I was having a dispute with Master Frank Beckett-Smythe.”

“What sort of a dispute?”

“Well, we were fighting.”

A grin ran through the court.