Wyllard's Weird

"I noticed nothing more than you have been told by these two, and I saw less than they saw. I did not look out of the window till I heard the girl's shriek, and I saw her in the act of falling."

"Good. But you may have observed this solitary girl – a foreigner, and therefore more noticeable – on the platform at Plymouth. You were on the platform at Plymouth, you know."

"I was. But I did not see the girl at the station."

"Strange that she should have escaped your observation, although the porter who was busy with his duties had time to notice her," said Mr. Distin.

"Would it surprise you to hear that during the four or five minutes I spent in the station before the train started I was standing at the bookstall buying papers, with my back to the platform?"

"That would account for your not having seen this noticeable young stranger. You were in Plymouth for several hours, I believe, Mr. Grahame?"

"I was; but upon my word I don't see what hearing that fact can have upon this inquiry."

"Perhaps not. Still, you will not object to tell us what you were doing in Plymouth – how you disposed of your time there."

This question evidently troubled Bothwell, simple as it was, and easy as it ought to have been to answer.

"I played a game at billiards at the Duke of Cornwall," he said.

"I am sure you are too good a player for that to occupy more than half an hour," said Mr. Distin, with his silky air, as if he were employed in a very pleasant business, and were bent upon being as cheery as possible.

"I had to wait for the table."

"Come now, Mr. Grahame, you need not be mysterious about so simple a matter," exclaimed Mr. Distin. "You don't mean to tell us that you went to Plymouth by the 12.15 train" – he had ascertained this fact before the inquiry began – "and spent the whole of the day there, in order to play a game at billiards in a public billiard-room. You must have had other business in Plymouth."

"Certainly. I had other business there."

"Will you kindly tell us what that business was?"

"As it concerned others besides myself, and as it has not the faintest bearing upon this case, I must decline to answer that question."

"Really, now, I should advise you to be more frank. You leave Bodmin early in the day – without giving any notice of your departure – and you return late in the evening. A most mysterious catastrophe occurs in the train which brings you home – a death so strange, so horrible, that it casts a cloud over all the passengers travelling by that train – leaves a stigma upon all, as it were, until the guilt of that deed can be brought home to one. Surely, under such circumstances, the utmost frankness is desirable. Every traveller in that train should be ready to answer any question which those who are charged with the elucidation of this mystery may ask."

"I have answered your questions as to what occurred to me in the train, and at the station; but I decline to be catechised about my business in Plymouth," answered Bothwell doggedly.

"That will do," said Distin; and Bothwell went to his seat next Julian Wyllard, whose handsome presence appeared in the front rank of spectators, amongst those of the élite who were favoured with chairs, while the commonalty stood in a mob at the back of the room.

The audience had been breathless during this examination of Bothwell Grahame. The young man's sunburnt face was clouded with anger, his dark strongly-marked brows were scowling over those gray-blue eyes which once had such a pleasant expression.

"I can't think what has come to Grahame," muttered a sporting squire to his next neighbour. "He used to be such a pleasant fellow, but to-day he looks like a murderer."

"You don't think he threw the girl out of the train, do you?" asked the other.

"God forbid! But by that London lawyer's questions one would think he suspected Grahame of having had a hand in the business."

The jury gave their verdict presently, "Death from misadventure."

"Tell Dora not to expect me at dinner," said Bothwell to Julian Wyllard, before they left the inn; "I shall dine in Bodmin."

"Have you any engagement?"

"No, but I can easily make one. I am not going to break bread with your lawyer friend. So long as he is at Penmorval I shall be missing."

"My dear Bothwell, you have no right to be angry at a simple question which you might have so easily answered," remonstrated Wyllard gravely.

"It was a question which I did not choose to answer, and which he had no right to ask. It was an outrage to ask such a question – to press it as he did. Fifty years ago he might have been shot for a lesser insult. By Jove, I never felt more sorry that the good old duelling days are over – the days when one man could not insult another with impunity."

"How savage you are, Bothwell, and against a man who was only in the exercise of his profession!"

"He had no right to question me as if I were a murderer," retorted Bothwell savagely. "Did he think that I spent my time in Plymouth plotting that girl's death? If I had made up my mind to push a woman over an embankment, I should not have wanted to spend a day in Plymouth in order to plan the business. A murder of that kind must be touch and go – no sooner thought of than done."

"All trouble would have been saved, my dear fellow, if you had given a straight answer to a simple question."

"To answer would have been to acknowledge his right to question me. No judge would have allowed counsel to have asked such a motiveless question. Nowhere except at a petty rustic inquiry would such a thing be permitted."

"I can only say that you are needlessly angry, Bothwell," said Wyllard. "Here comes Distin. You had better drive home with us."

"No, thank you; I shall be home before the house shuts up; but you'll see no more of me to-night."

"Good-night, then."

The Penmorval barouche was waiting before the porch of the Vital Spark – a great day for that rural hostelry when such a carriage could be seen waiting there – a great day at the bar, where all the strength of the establishment could not serve brandies-and-sodas and pale ales fast enough. Joseph Distin came tripping out, and took his place in the carriage beside Julian Wyllard. He had lingered at the inn for a few minutes' talk with the Coroner.

"Is not Mr. Grahame going back with us?" he asked, as they drove towards the town.

"No. You wounded his dignity by those questions of yours. He is a curious young man, and is easily offended."

"He is a very curious young man," answered the lawyer, with a thoughtful air.

He was looking at the landscape intently as they drove along the shady road, between deep banks and luxuriant hedges; but he would have found it rather difficult to say afterwards what kind of timber prevailed in the hedgerows, or what crops grew in the fields.

He was thoughtful all that evening, though he did his utmost to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Wyllard at dinner, talking to her of art, music, the drama, society, all the arts and graces and pleasures of life – doing everything in his power to distract her thoughts from that one grim theme which was the motive of his presence in that place.

When she was gone, and Distin and his host were alone together over their claret, the lawyer dropped his society manner as if it had been a mask, and began to talk seriously.

"For the first time for a good many years I find myself completely at fault," he said, leaning across the table, and cracking filberts in sheer distraction of mind. "I thought that I should be able to get up a case while I was in London, but not a shred of evidence have I discovered. If this girl had dropped from the moon, it could not be more difficult to trace her."

"Well, my dear Distin, you have done your best, and we must be satisfied," replied Wyllard quietly. "I felt it to be my duty as a magistrate to do all in my power to fathom the mystery of that poor girl's death. The best thing I could do was to put the case in your hands. If you cannot help us, no one can. We must be satisfied."

"But I am not satisfied, Julian; I never shall be satisfied until I have solved this problem," said Distin resolutely. "I am not the sort of man who can stand being baffled in a matter of this kind. Is all my professional training to go for nothing, do you think? And yet in your interest it might be best that I should let this business drop out of my mind – forget the whole story if possible."

"How do you mean, in my interest?" exclaimed Wyllard, surprised. "What bearing can the case have upon me or my interest, beyond my desire to do my duty as a magistrate?"

"I fear that this mystery touches you nearer than you suppose. Surely, Wyllard, you must have been struck by the manner of your wife's kinsman under my examination."

"Great Heaven!" cried Wyllard, "you don't mean to tell me that you suspect Bothwell Grahame of any hand in this business?"

"In perfect frankness, between man and man, I believe that young man to be in some way – either as principal or accessory – concerned in the murder of that girl."