CHAPTER XIX.

The Inquest

The Coroner, having made a few commonplace remarks as to the terrible

nature of the tragedy which they had come to investigate that

afternoon, proceeded to outline the case to the jury. Witnesses would

be called to identify the deceased as Robert Ablett, the brother of the

owner of the Red House, Mark Ablett. It would be shown that he was

something of a ne’er-do-well, who had spent most of his life in

Australia, and that he had announced, in what might almost be called a

threatening letter, his intention of visiting his brother that

afternoon. There would be evidence of his arrival, of his being shown

into the scene of the tragedy—a room in the Red House, commonly called

“the office”—and of his brother’s entrance into that room. The jury

would have to form their own opinion as to what happened there. But

whatever happened, happened almost instantaneously. Within two minutes

of Mark Ablett’s entrance, as would be shown in the evidence, a shot

was heard, and when—perhaps five minutes later—the room was forced

open, the dead body of Robert Ablett was found stretched upon the

floor. As regards Mark Ablett, nobody had seen him from the moment of

his going into the room, but evidence would be called to show that he

had enough money on him at the time to take him to any other part of

the country, and that a man answering to his description had been

observed on the platform of Stanton station, apparently waiting to

catch the 3.55 up train to London. As the jury would realize, such

evidence of identity was not always reliable. Missing men had a way of

being seen in a dozen different places at once. In any case, there was

no doubt that for the moment Mark Ablett had disappeared.

“Seems a sound man,” whispered Antony to Bill. “Doesn’t talk too much.”

Antony did not expect to learn much from the evidence—he knew the facts

of the case so well by now—but he wondered if Inspector Birch had

developed any new theories. If so, they would appear in the Coroner’s

examination, for the Coroner would certainly have been coached by the

police as to the important facts to be extracted from each witness.

Bill was the first to be put through it.

“Now, about this letter, Mr. Beverley?” he was asked when his chief

evidence was over. “Did you see it at all?”

“I didn’t see the actual writing. I saw the back of it. Mark was

holding it up when he told us about his brother.”

“You don’t know what was in it, then?”

Bill had a sudden shock. He had read the letter only that morning. He

knew quite well what was in it. But it wouldn’t do to admit this. And

then, just as he was about to perjure himself, he remembered: Antony

had heard Cayley telling the Inspector.

“I knew afterwards. I was told. But Mark didn’t read it out at

breakfast.”

“You gathered, however, that it was an unwelcome letter?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Would you say that Mark was frightened by it?”

“Not frightened. Sort of bitter—and resigned. Sort of ‘Oh, Lord, here

we are again!’”

There was a titter here and there. The Coroner smiled, and tried to

pretend that he hadn’t.

“Thank you, Mr. Beverley.”

The next witness was summoned by the name of Andrew Amos, and Antony

looked up with interest, wondering who he was.

“He lives at the inner lodge,” whispered Bill to him.

All that Amos had to say was that a stranger had passed by his lodge at

a little before three that afternoon, and had spoken to him. He had

seen the body and recognized it as the man.

“What did he say?”

“‘Is this right for the Red House?’ or something like that, sir.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘This is the Red House. Who do you want to see?’ He was a bit

rough-looking, you know, sir, and I didn’t know what he was doing

there.”

“Well?”

“Well, sir, he said, ‘Is Mister Mark Ablett at home?’ It doesn’t sound

much put like that, sir, but I didn’t care about the way he said it. So

I got in front of him like, and said, ‘What do you want, eh?’ and he

gave a sort of chuckle and said, ‘I want to see my dear brother Mark.’

Well, then I took a closer look at him, and I see that p’raps he might

be his brother, so I said, ‘If you’ll follow the drive, sir, you’ll

come to the house. Of course I can’t say if Mr. Ablett’s at home.’ And

he gave a sort of nasty laugh again, and said, ‘Fine place Mister Mark

Ablett’s got here. Plenty of money to spend, eh?’ Well, then I had

another look at him, sir, because gentlemen don’t talk like that, and

if he was Mr. Ablett’s brother—but before I could make up my mind, he

laughed and went on. That’s all I can tell you, sir.”

Andrew Amos stepped down and moved away to the back of the room, nor

did Antony take his eyes off him until he was assured that Amos

intended to remain there until the inquest was over.

“Who’s Amos talking to now?” he whispered to Bill.

“Parsons. One of the gardeners. He’s at the outside lodge on the

Stanton road. They’re all here to-day. Sort of holiday for ’em.”

“I wonder if he’s giving evidence too,” thought Antony. He was. He

followed Amos. He had been at work on the lawn in front of the house,

and had seen Robert Ablett arrive. He didn’t hear the shot—not to

notice. He was a little hard of hearing. He had seen a gentleman arrive

about five minutes after Mr. Robert.

“Can you see him in court now?” asked the Coroner. Parsons looked round

slowly. Antony caught his eye and smiled.

“That’s him,” said Parsons, pointing.

Everybody looked at Antony.

“That was about five minutes afterwards?”

“About that, sir.”

“Did anybody come out of the house before this gentleman’s arrival?”

“No, sir. That is to say I didn’t see ’em.”

Stevens followed. She gave her evidence much as she had given it to the

Inspector. Nothing new was brought out by her examination. Then came

Elsie. As the reporters scribbled down what she had overheard, they

added in brackets “_Sensation_” for the first time that afternoon.

“How soon after you had heard this did the shot come?” asked the

Coroner.

“Almost at once, sir.”

“A minute?”

“I couldn’t really say, sir. It was so quick.”

“Were you still in the hall?”

“Oh, no, sir. I was just outside Mrs. Stevens’ room. The housekeeper,

sir.”

“You didn’t think of going back to the hall to see what had happened?”

“Oh, no, sir. I just went in to Mrs. Stevens, and she said, ‘Oh, what

was that?’ frightened-like. And I said, ‘That was in the house, Mrs.

Stevens, that was.’ Just like something going off, it was.”

“Thank you,” said the Coroner.

There was another emotional disturbance in the room as Cayley went into

the witness-box; not “_Sensation_” this time, but an eager and, as it

seemed to Antony, sympathetic interest. Now they were getting to grips

with the drama.

He gave his evidence carefully, unemotionally—the lies with the same

slow deliberation as the truth. Antony watched him intently, wondering

what it was about him which had this odd sort of attractiveness. For

Antony, who knew that he was lying, and lying (as he believed) not for

Mark’s sake but his own, yet could not help sharing some of that

general sympathy with him.

“Was Mark ever in possession of a revolver?” asked the Coroner.

“Not to my knowledge. I think I should have known if he had been.”

“You were alone with him all that morning. Did he talk about this visit

of Robert’s at all?”

“I didn’t see very much of him in the morning. I was at work in my

room, and outside, and so on. We lunched together and he talked of it

then a little.”

“In what terms?”

“Well—” he hesitated, and then went on. “I can’t think of a better word

than ‘peevishly.’ Occasionally he said, ‘What do you think he wants?’

or ‘Why couldn’t he have stayed where he was?’ or ‘I don’t like the

tone of his letter. Do you think he means trouble?’ He talked rather in

that kind of way.”

“Did he express his surprise that his brother should be in England?”

“I think he was always afraid that he would turn up one day.”

“Yes.... You didn’t hear any conversation between the brothers when

they were in the office together?”

“No. I happened to go into the library just after Mark had gone in, and

I was there all the time.”

“Was the library door open?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did you see or hear the last witness at all?”

“No.”

“If anybody had come out of the office while you were in the library,

would you have heard it?”

“I think so. Unless they had come out very quietly on purpose.”

“Would you call Mark a hasty-tempered man?”

Cayley considered this carefully before answering.

“Hasty-tempered, yes,” he said. “But not violent-tempered.”

“Was he fairly athletic? Active and quick?”

“Active and quick, yes. Not particularly strong.”

“Yes.... One question more. Was Mark in the habit of carrying any

considerable sum of money about with him?”

“Yes. He always had one £100 note on him, and perhaps ten or twenty

pounds as well.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cayley.”

Cayley went back heavily to his seat. “Damn it,” said Antony to

himself, “why do I like the fellow?”

“Antony Gillingham!”

Again the eager interest of the room could be felt. Who was this

stranger who had got mixed up in the business so mysteriously?

Antony smiled at Bill and stepped up to give his evidence.

He explained how he came to be staying at ‘The George’ at Woodham, how

he had heard that the Red House was in the neighbourhood, how he had

walked over to see his friend Beverley, and had arrived just after the

tragedy. Thinking it over afterwards he was fairly certain that he had

heard the shot, but it had not made any impression on him at the time.

He had come to the house from the Woodham end and consequently had seen

nothing of Robert Ablett, who had been a few minutes in front of him.

From this point his evidence coincided with Cayley’s.

“You and the last witness reached the French windows together and found

them shut?”

“Yes.”

“You pushed them in and came to the body. Of course you had no idea

whose body it was?”

“No.”

“Did Mr. Cayley say anything?”

“He turned the body over, just so as to see the face, and when he saw

it, he said, ‘Thank God.’”

Again the reporters wrote “_Sensation_.”

“Did you understand what he meant by that?”

“I asked him who it was, and he said that it was Robert Ablett. Then he

explained that he was afraid at first it was the cousin with whom he

lived—Mark.”

“Yes. Did he seem upset?”

“Very much so at first. Less when he found that it wasn’t Mark.”

There was a sudden snigger from a nervous gentleman in the crowd at the

back of the room, and the Coroner put on his glasses and stared sternly

in the direction from which it came. The nervous gentleman hastily

decided that the time had come to do up his bootlace. The Coroner put

down his glasses and continued.

“Did anybody come out of the house while you were coming up the drive?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gillingham.”

He was followed by Inspector Birch. The Inspector, realizing that this

was his afternoon, and that the eyes of the world were upon him,

produced a plan of the house and explained the situation of the

different rooms. The plan was then handed to the jury.

Inspector Birch, so he told the world, had arrived at the Red House at

4.42 p.m. on the afternoon in question. He had been received by Mr.

Matthew Cayley, who had made a short statement to him, and he had then

proceeded to examine the scene of the crime. The French windows had

been forced from outside. The door leading into the hall was locked; he

had searched the room thoroughly and had found no trace of a key. In

the bedroom leading out of the office he had found an open window.

There were no marks on the window, but it was a low one, and, as he

found from experiment, quite easy to step out of without touching it

with the boots. A few yards outside the window a shrubbery began. There

were no recent footmarks outside the window, but the ground was in a

very hard condition owing to the absence of rain. In the shrubbery,

however, he found several twigs on the ground, recently broken off,

together with other evidence that some body had been forcing its way

through. He had questioned everybody connected with the estate, and

none of them had been into the shrubbery recently. By forcing a way

through the shrubbery it was possible for a person to make a detour of

the house and get to the Stanton end of the park without ever being in

sight of the house itself.

He had made inquiries about the deceased. Deceased had left for

Australia some fifteen years ago, owing to some financial trouble at

home. Deceased was not well spoken of in the village from which he and

his brother had come. Deceased and his brother had never been on good

terms, and the fact that Mark Ablett had come into money had been a

cause of great bitterness between them. It was shortly after this that

Robert had left for Australia.

He had made inquiries at Stanton station. It had been market-day at

Stanton and the station had been more full of arrivals than usual.

Nobody had particularly noticed the arrival of Robert Ablett; there had

been a good many passengers by the 2.10 train that afternoon, the train

by which Robert had undoubtedly come from London. A witness, however,

would state that he noticed a man resembling Mark Ablett at the station

at 3.53 p.m. that afternoon, and this man caught the 3.55 up train to

town.

There was a pond in the grounds of the Red House. He had dragged this,

but without result....

Antony listened to him carelessly, thinking his own thoughts all the

time. Medical evidence followed, but there was nothing to be got from

that. He felt so close to the truth; at any moment something might give

his brain the one little hint which it wanted. Inspector Birch was just

pursuing the ordinary. Whatever else this case was, it was not

ordinary. There was something uncanny about it.

John Borden was giving evidence. He was on the up platform seeing a

friend off by the 3.55 on Tuesday afternoon. He had noticed a man on

the platform with coat collar turned up and a scarf round his chin. He

had wondered why the man should do this on such a hot day. The man

seemed to be trying to escape observation. Directly the train came in,

he hurried into a carriage. And so on.

“There’s always a John Borden at every murder case,” said Antony to

himself.

“Have you ever seen Mark Ablett?”

“Once or twice, sir.”

“Was it he?”

“I never really got a good look at him, sir, what with his collar

turned up and the scarf and all. But directly I heard of the sad

affair, and that Mr. Ablett was missing, I said to Mrs. Borden, ‘Now I

wonder if that was Mr. Ablett I saw at the station?’ So then we talked

it over and decided that I ought to come and tell Inspector Birch. It

was just Mr. Ablett’s height, sir.”

Antony went on with his thoughts....

The Coroner was summing up. The jury, he said, had now heard all the

evidence and would have to decide what had happened in that room

between the two brothers. How had the deceased met his death? The

medical evidence would probably satisfy them that Robert Ablett had

died from the effects of a bullet-wound in the head. Who had fired that

bullet? If Robert Ablett had fired it himself, no doubt they would

bring in a verdict of suicide, but if this had been so, where was the

revolver which had fired it, and what had become of Mark Ablett? If

they disbelieved in this possibility of suicide, what remained?

Accidental death, justifiable homicide, and murder. Could the deceased

have been killed accidentally? It was possible, but then would Mark

Ablett have run away? The evidence that he had run away from the scene

of the crime was strong. His cousin had seen him go into the room, the

servant Elsie Wood had heard him quarrelling with his brother in the

room, the door had been locked from the inside, and there were signs

that outside the open window some one had pushed his way very recently

through the shrubbery. Who, if not Mark? They would have then to

consider whether he would have run away if he had been guiltless of his

brother’s death. No doubt innocent people lost their heads sometimes.

It was possible that if it were proved afterwards that Mark Ablett had

shot his brother, it might also be proved that he was justified in so

doing, and that when he ran away from his brother’s corpse he had

really nothing to fear at the hands of the Law. In this connection he

need hardly remind the jury that they were not the final tribunal, and

that if they found Mark Ablett guilty of murder it would not prejudice

his trial in any way if and when he was apprehended.... The jury could

consider their verdict.

They considered it. They announced that the deceased had died as the

result of a bullet-wound, and that the bullet had been fired by his

brother Mark Ablett.

Bill turned round to Antony at his side. But Antony was gone. Across

the room he saw Andrew Amos and Parsons going out of the door together,

and Antony was between them.