It was on the day of the funeral that the faint,
unheeded mutterings of the approaching storm
began to swell into audible and threatening rumblings,
though, even then, the ominous signs failed to deliver
their full significance.
How well do I recall the scene in the darkened
dining room where we sat in our sable raiment, “ready
to wenden on our pilgrimage” to the place of
everlasting rest and eternal farewell. There were but four
of us, for Amos Monkhouse had not yet arrived, though
it was within a few minutes of the appointed time to
start; quite a small party; for the deceased had but
few relatives, and no outsiders had been bidden.
We were all rather silent. Intimate as we were, there
was no need to make conversation. Each, no doubt,
was busy with his or her own thoughts, and as I
recall my own they seem to have been rather trivial
and not very suitable to the occasion. Now and again
I stole a look at Barbara and thought what a fine,
handsome woman she was, and dimly wondered why,
in all the years that I had known her, I had never
fallen in love with her. Yet so it was. I had always
admired her; we had been intimate friends, with a
certain amount of quiet affection, but nothing
more—at any rate on my part. Of her I was not so sure.
There had been a time, some years before, when I had
had an uneasy feeling that she looked to me for
something more than friendship. But she was always a
reticent girl; very self-reliant and self-contained. I
never knew a woman better able to keep her own
counsel or control her emotions.
She was now quite herself again; quiet, dignified,
rather reserved and even a little inscrutable. Seated
between Wallingford and Madeline, she seemed
unconscious of either and quite undisturbed by the
secretary’s incessant nervous fidgeting and by his
ill-concealed efforts to bring himself to her notice.
From Barbara my glance turned to the woman who
sat by her side, noting with dull interest the contrast
between the two; a contrast as marked in their bearing
as in their appearance. For whereas Barbara was a
rather big woman, dark in colouring, quiet and resolute
in manner, Madeline Norris was somewhat small and
slight, almost delicately fair, rather shy and retiring,
but yet with a suggestion of mental alertness under the
diffident manner. If Barbara gave an impression of
quiet strength, Madeline’s pretty, refined face was
rather expressive of subtle intelligence. But what
chiefly impressed me at this moment was the curious
inversion of their attitudes towards the existing
circumstances; for whereas Barbara, the person mainly
affected, maintained a quiet, untroubled demeanour,
Madeline appeared to be overcome by the sudden
catastrophe. Looking at her set, white face and the
dismay in her wide, grey eyes, and comparing her with
the woman at her side, a stranger would at once have
assumed the bereavement to be hers.
My observations were interrupted by Wallingford
once more dragging out his watch.
“What on earth can have happened to Mr. Amos?”
he exclaimed. “We are due to start in three minutes.
If he isn’t here by then we shall have to start without
him. It is perfectly scandalous! Positively indecent!
But there, it’s just like a parson.”
“My experience of parsons,” said I, “is that they
are, as a rule, scrupulously punctual. But certainly,
Mr. Amos is unpardonably late. It will be very
awkward if he doesn’t arrive in time. Ah, there he is,”
I added as the bell rang and a muffled knock at the
street door was heard.
At the sound, Wallingford sprang up as if the bell
had actuated a hidden spring in the chair, and darted
over to the window, from which he peered out through
the chink beside the blind.
“It isn’t Amos,” he reported. “It’s a stranger, and
a fool at that, I should say, if he can’t see that all
the blinds are down.”
We all listened intently. We heard the housemaid’s
hurried footsteps, though she ran on tip-toe; the door
opened softly, and then, after an interval, we heard
some one ushered along the hall to the drawing room.
A few moments later, Mabel entered with an obviously
scandalized air.
“A gentleman wishes to speak to you, Ma’am,” she
announced.
“But, Mabel,” said Barbara, “did you tell him what
is happening in this house?”
“Yes, Ma’am, I explained exactly how things were
and told him that he must call to-morrow. But he said
that his business was urgent and that he must see you
at once.”
“Very well,” said Barbara. “I will go and see what
he wants. But it is very extraordinary.”
She rose, and nearly colliding with Wallingford, who
had rushed to open the door—which was, in fact, wide
open—walked out quickly, closing the door after her.
After a short interval—during which Wallingford
paced the room excitedly, peered out of the window,
sat down, got up again and looked at his watch—she
came back, and, standing in the doorway, looked at me.
“Would you come here for a minute, Rupert,” she
said, quietly.
I rose at once and walked back with her to the
drawing room, on entering which I became aware of a
large man, standing monumentally on the hearth-rug
and inspecting the interior of his hat. He looked to me
like a plainclothes policeman, and my surmise was
verified by a printed card which he presented and which
bore the inscription “Sergeant J. Burton.”
“I am acting as coroner’s officer,” he explained in
reply to my interrogatory glance, “and I have come
to notify you that the funeral will have to be
postponed as the coroner has decided to hold an inquest.
I have seen the undertakers and explained matters to
them.”
“Do you know what reason there is for an inquest?”
I asked. “The cause of death was certified in the
regular way.”
“I know nothing beyond my instructions, which were
to notify Mrs. Monkhouse that the funeral is put off
and to serve the summonses for the witnesses. I may
as well do that now.”
With this he laid on the table six small blue papers,
which I saw were addressed respectively to Barbara,
Madeline, Wallingford, the housemaid, the cook and
myself.
“Have you no idea at all why an inquest is to be
held?” I asked as I gathered up the papers.
“I have no information,” he replied, cautiously, “but
I expect there is some doubt about the exact cause of
death. The certificate may not be quite clear or it
may be that some interested party has communicated
with the coroner. That is what usually happens, you
know, Sir. But at any rate,” he added, cheerfully,
“you will know all about it the day after to-morrow,
which, you will observe, is the day fixed for the
inquest.”
“And what have we to do meanwhile?” Barbara
asked. “The inquest will not be held in this house,
I presume.”
“Certainly not, Madam,” the sergeant replied. “A
hearse will be sent round to-night to remove the body
to the mortuary, where the post mortem examination
will be carried out, and the inquest will be held in the
parish hall, as is stated on the summons. I am sorry
that you should be put to this inconvenience,” he
concluded, moving tentatively towards the door,
“but—er—it couldn’t be helped, I suppose. Good morning,
Madam.”
I walked with him to the door and let him out, while
Barbara waited for me in the hall, not unobserved by
Wallingford, whose eye appeared in a chink beside the
slightly open dining room door. I pointedly led her
back into the drawing room and closed the door audibly
behind us. She turned a pale and rather shocked face
to me but she spoke quite composedly as she asked:
“What do you make of it, Rupert? Is it Amos?”
I had already reluctantly decided that it must be.
I say, reluctantly, because, if this were really his
doing, the resigned tone of his last words to me would
appear no less than sheer, gross hypocrisy.
“I don’t know who else it could be,” I answered.
“The fact that he did not come this morning suggests
that he at least knew what was happening. If he did,
I think he might have warned us.”
“Yes, indeed. It will be a horrid scandal; most
unpleasant for us all, and especially for me. Not that
I am entitled to any sympathy. Poor Harold! How
he would have hated the thought of a public fuss over
his dead body. I suppose we must go in now and tell
the others. Do you mind telling them, Rupert?”
We crossed the hall to the dining room where we
found the two waiting impatiently, Madeline very pale
and agitated while Wallingford was pacing the room
like a wild beast. Both looked at us with eager
interrogation as we entered, and I made the
announcement bluntly and in a dozen words.
The effect on both was electrical. Madeline, with
a little cry of horror, sank, white-faced and trembling,
into a chair. As for Wallingford, his behaviour was
positively maniacal. After staring at me for a few
moments with starting eyes and mouth agape, he flung
up his arms and uttered a hoarse shout.
“This,” he yelled, “is the doing of that accursed
parson! Now we know why he kept out of the way—and
it is well for him that he did!”
He clenched his fists and glared around him,
showing his tobacco-stained teeth in a furious snarl while
the sweat gathered in beads on his livid face. Then,
suddenly, his mood changed and he dropped heavily on
a chair, burying his face in his shaking hands.
Barbara admonished him, quietly.
“Do try to be calm, Tony. There is nothing to get
so excited about. It is all very unpleasant and
humiliating, of course, but at any rate you are not
affected. It is I who will be called to account.”
“And do you suppose that doesn’t affect me?”
demanded Wallingford, now almost on the verge of tears.
“I am sure it does, Tony,” she replied, gently, “but
if you want to be helpful to me you will try to be calm
and reasonable. Come, now,” she added, persuasively,
“let us put it away for the present. I must tell the
servants. Then we had better have lunch and go our
several ways to think the matter over quietly each of
us alone. We shall only agitate one another if we
remain together.”
I agreed emphatically with this sensible suggestion.
“Not,” I added, “that there is much for us to think
over. The explanations will have to come from
Dimsdale. It was he who failed to grasp the seriousness of
poor Harold’s condition.”
While Barbara was absent, breaking the news to the
servants, I tried to bring Madeline to a more composed
frame of mind. With Wallingford I had no patience.
Men should leave hysterics to the other sex. But I
was sorry for Madeline; and even if she seemed more
overwhelmed by the sudden complications than the
occasion justified, I told myself that the blow had fallen
when she was already shaken by Harold’s unexpected
death.
The luncheon was a silent and comfortless function;
indeed it was little more than an empty form. But it
had the merit of brevity. When the last dish had been
sent away almost intact, Wallingford drew out his
cigarette case and we all rose.
“What are you going to do, Madeline?” Barbara
asked.
“I must go to the school, I suppose, and let the
secretary know that—that I may have to be absent for
a day or two. It will be horrid. I shall have to tell
him all about it—after having got leave for the funeral.
But it will sound so strange, so extraordinary. Oh!
It is horrible!”
“It is!” exclaimed Wallingford, fumbling with
tremulous fingers at his cigarette case. “It is diabolical!
A fiendish plot to disgrace and humiliate us. As
to that infernal parson, I should like—”
“Never mind that, Tony,” said Barbara; “and we
had better not stay here, working up one another’s
emotions. What are you doing, Rupert?”
“I shall go to my chambers and clear off some
correspondence.”
“Then you might walk part of the way with Madeline
and see if you can’t make her mind a little more
easy.”
Madeline looked at me eagerly. “Will you, Rupert?”
she asked.
Of course I assented, and a few minutes later we set
forth together.
For a while she walked by my side in silence with an
air of deep reflection, and I refrained from interrupting
her thoughts, having no very clear idea as to what I
should say to her. Moreover, my own mind was pretty
busily occupied. Presently she spoke, in a tentative
way, as if opening a discussion.
“I am afraid you must think me very weak and silly
to be so much upset by this new trouble.”
“Indeed, I don’t,” I replied. “It is a most disturbing
and humiliating affair and it will be intensely
unpleasant for us all, but especially for Barbara—to
say nothing of Dimsdale.”
“Dr. Dimsdale is not our concern,” said she, “but
it will be perfectly horrible for Barbara. For she
really has been rather casual, poor girl, and they are
sure to make things unpleasant for her. It will be
a most horrid scandal. Don’t you think so?”
To be candid, I did. Indeed, I had just been picturing
to myself the possibilities with an officious
coroner—and he would not need to be so very officious,
either—and one or two cross-grained jurymen. Barbara
might be subjected to a very unpleasant examination.
But I did not think it necessary to say this to
Madeline. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. I
contented myself with a vague agreement.
There was another interval of silence. Then, a little
to my surprise, she drew closer to me, and, slipping
her hand under my arm, said very earnestly: “Rupert,
I want you to tell me what you really think. What is
it all about?”
I looked down, rather disconcerted, into the face
that was turned up to me so appealingly; and suddenly—and
rather irrelevantly—it was borne in on me that it
was a singularly sweet and charming face. I had never
quite realized it before. But then she had never before
looked at me quite in this way; with this trustful,
coaxing, appealing expression.
“I don’t quite understand you, Madeline,” I said,
evasively. “I know no more about it than you do.”
“Oh, but you do, Rupert. You are a lawyer and you
have had a lot of experience. You must have formed
some opinion as to why they have decided to hold an
inquest. Do tell me what you think.”
The coaxing, almost wheedling tone, and the entreaty
in her eyes, looking so earnestly into mine, nearly
conquered my reserve. But not quite. Once more I
temporized.
“Well, Madeline, we all realize that what Dimsdale
has written on the certificate is little more than a
guess, and quite possibly wrong; and even Detling
couldn’t get much farther.”
“Yes, I realize that. But I didn’t think that
inquests were held just to find out whether the doctors’
opinions were correct or not.”
Of course she was perfectly right; and I now
perceived that her thoughts had been travelling along the
same lines as my own. An inquest would not be held
merely to clear up an obscure diagnosis. There was
certainly something more behind this affair than
Dimsdale’s failure to recognize the exact nature of the
illness. There was only one simple explanation of the
coroner’s action, and I gave it—with a strong suspicion
that it was not the right one.
“They are not, as a rule, excepting in hospitals.
But this is a special case. Amos Monkhouse was
obviously dissatisfied with Dimsdale, and with Barbara,
too. He may have challenged the death certificate and
asked for an inquest. The coroner would be hardly
likely to refuse, especially if there were a hint of
negligence or malpractice.”
“Did Mr. Amos say anything to you that makes you
think he may have challenged the certificate?”
“He said very little to me at all,” I replied, rather
casuistically and suppressing the fact that Amos had
explicitly accepted the actual circumstances and
deprecated any kind of recrimination.
“I can hardly believe that he would have done it,”
said Madeline, “just to punish Barbara and Dr.
Dimsdale. It would be so vindictive, especially for a
clergyman.”
“Clergymen are very human sometimes,” I rejoined;
and, as, rather to my relief, we now came in sight of
Madeline’s destination, I adverted to the interview
which she seemed to dread so much. “There is no
occasion for you to go into details with the secretary,”
I said. “In fact you can’t. The exact cause of death
was not clear to the doctors and it has been considered
advisable to hold an inquest. That is all you know,
and it is enough. You are summoned as a witness and
you are legally bound to attend, so you are asking no
favour. Cut the interview dead short, and when you
have done with it, try, like a sensible girl, to forget
the inquest for the present. I shall come over
to-morrow and then we can reconstitute the history of the
case, so that we may go into the witness-box, or its
equivalent, with a clear idea of what we have to tell.
And now, good-bye, or rather au revoir!”
“Good-bye, Rupert.” She took my proffered hand
and held it as she thanked me for walking with her.
“Do you know, Rupert,” she added, “there is something
strangely comforting and reassuring about you. We
all feel it. You seem to carry an atmosphere of quiet
strength and security. I don’t wonder that Barbara
is so fond of you. Not,” she concluded, “that she
holds a monopoly.”
With this she let go my hand, and, with a slightly
shy smile and the faintest suspicion of a blush, turned
away and walked quickly and with an air quite
cheerful and composed towards the gateway of the
institution. Apparently, my society had had a beneficial
effect on her nervous condition.
I watched her until she disappeared into the entry,
and then resumed my journey eastward, rather relieved,
I fear, at having disposed of my companion. For I
wanted to think—of her among other matters; and it
was she who first occupied my cogitations. The change
from her usual matter-of-fact friendliness had rather
taken me by surprise; and I had to admit that it was
not a disagreeable surprise. But what was the
explanation? Was this intimate, clinging manner merely
a passing phase due to an emotional upset, or was it
that the special circumstances had allowed feelings
hitherto concealed to come to the surface? It was an
interesting question, but one that time alone could
answer; and as there were other questions, equally
interesting and more urgent, I consigned this one to
the future and turned to consider the others.
What could be the meaning of this inquest? The
supposition that Amos had suddenly turned vindictive
and resolved to expose the neglect, to which he
probably attributed his brother’s death, I could not
entertain, especially after what he had said to me. It would
have written him down the rankest of hypocrites. And
yet he was in some way connected with the affair as
was proved by his failure to appear at the funeral. As
to the idea that the inquiry was merely to elucidate the
nature of the illness, that was quite untenable. A
private autopsy would have been the proper procedure for
that purpose.
I was still turning the question over in my mind
when, as I passed the Griffin at Temple Bar, I became
aware of a tall figure some distance ahead walking in
the same direction. The build of the man and his long,
swinging stride seemed familiar. I looked at him more
attentively; and just as he turned to enter Devereux
Court I recognized him definitely as a fellow Templar
named Thorndyke.
The chance encounter seemed a singularly fortunate
one, and at once I quickened my pace to overtake him.
For Dr. Thorndyke was a medical barrister and
admittedly the greatest living authority on medical
jurisprudence. The whole subject of inquests and Coroners’
Law was an open book to him. But he was not only a
lawyer. He had, I understood, a professional and very
thorough knowledge of pathology and of the science
of medicine in general, so that he was the very man to
enlighten me in my present difficulties.
I overtook him at the Little Gate of the Middle
Temple and we walked through together into New
Court. I wasted no time, but, after the preliminary
greetings, asked him if he had a few minutes to spare.
He replied, in his quiet, genial way: “But, of course,
Mayfield. I always have a few minutes to spare for a
friend and a colleague.”
I thanked him for the gracious reply, and, as we
slowly descended the steps and sauntered across
Fountain Court, I opened the matter without preamble and
gave him a condensed summary of the case; to which
he listened with close attention and evidently with
keen interest.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that your family doctor
will cut rather a poor figure. He seems to have
mismanaged the case rather badly, to judge by the fact
that the death of the patient took him quite by
surprise. By the way, can you give me any idea of the
symptoms—as observed by yourself, I mean?”
“I have told you what was on the certificate.”
“Yes. But the certified cause of death appears to
be contested. You saw the patient pretty often, I
understand. Now what sort of appearance did he
present to you?”
The question rather surprised me. Dimsdale’s
opinion might not be worth much, but the casual and
inexpert observations of a layman would have seemed
to me to be worth nothing at all. However, I tried to
recall such details as I could remember of poor
Monkhouse’s appearance and his own comments on his
condition and recounted them to Thorndyke with such
amplifications as his questions elicited. “But,” I
concluded, “the real question is, who has set the coroner
in motion and with what object?”
“That question,” said Thorndyke, “will be answered
the day after to-morrow, and there is not much utility
in trying to guess at the answer in advance. The real
question is whether any arrangements ought to be made
in the interests of your friends. We are quite in the
dark as to what may occur in the course of the inquest.”
“Yes, I had thought of that. Some one ought to be
present to represent Mrs. Monkhouse. I suppose it
would not be possible for you to attend to watch the
case on her behalf?”
“I don’t think it would be advisable,” he replied.
“You will be present and could claim to represent Mrs.
Monkhouse so far as might be necessary to prevent
improper questions being put to her. But I do think
that you should have a complete record of all that
takes place. I would suggest that I send Holman, who
does most of my shorthand reporting, with instructions
to make a verbatim report of the entire proceedings.
It may turn out to be quite unnecessary; but if any
complications should arise, we shall have the complete
depositions with the added advantage that you will
have been present and will have heard all the evidence.
How will that suit you?”
“If you think it is the best plan there is nothing
more to say, excepting to thank you for your help.”
“And give me a written note of the time and place
to hand to Holman when I give him his instructions.”
I complied with this request at once; and having by
this time reached the end of the Terrace, I shook hands
with him and walked slowly back to my chambers in
Fig Tree Court. I had not got much out of Thorndyke
excepting a very useful suggestion and some valuable
help; indeed, as I turned over his extremely cautious
utterances and speculated on what he meant by
“complications,” I found myself rather more uncomfortably
puzzled than I had been before I met him.
