Wyllard's Weird (Mystery Classics Series). Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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      Nothing could be quieter or less pretentious than his manner as he took his seat at the head of the long table in the parlour of the Vital Spark; but there were signs of anxiety or emotion in the sombre fire of the deep-set gray eyes, and the nervous movement of the sun-burnt hand, which played with his dark chestnut-beard. He sat for some minutes looking down at his notes, and then slowly raised his eyes and surveyed the room, which was quite full.

      Julian Wyllard was sitting near the opposite end of the table, with little Dr. Menheniot by his side. Bothwell Grahame was seated apart from them and nearer the jury. He had a haggard look, Mr. Heathcote thought, as of a man who had passed a troubled night.

      There were three or four railway officials present, and these were the principal witnesses. First came the guard on the down train from Paddington, whose evidence was meagre, since it appeared that he had only seen the dead girl standing on the footboard a moment before she fell. She was standing on the footboard and clinging to the hand-rail, with her face to the coach; she seemed to be talking to some one inside. It had not seemed to him that she threw herself off the footboard. It had seemed rather as if she had dropped off.

      “Was it your impression that she was thrown off?” asked Heathcote.

      “No, sir. I can’t say that was my impression. But the whole thing was too quick for me to have a very clear idea either way. My first thought was how I could save her. I had only just stepped out upon the footboard when she gave a shriek and fell. She was at the farther end of the train. Before I could get to the carriage from which she had fallen, the engine had slackened and the passengers were getting out.”

      “Did you find the carriage out of which she fell?”

      “Yes, sir. There was an empty second-class next but one to the engine. I believe that was the compartment. There was a little basket with some refreshments, and a newspaper, which I believe belonged to the deceased.”

      The basket was on the table. It had a foreign look; a poor little basket, containing a few cherries in a cabbage-leaf, and a little bag of biscuits. The newspaper was the French Figaro. The Coroner handed the basket to the jury, who examined the contents curiously. There was no scrap of writing, no card or old letter; nothing to identify the dead girl, or to indicate the place from which she had come.

      “Her clothes and the contents of her pocket have been examined,” said Mr. Heathcote, in reply to a question from one of the jury, “but no mark or clue has been found. Nor has any luggage belonging to her been discovered, which is curious, since it is not often that any one travels from London to Cornwall without luggage. I have communicated with the London police; and I have sent an advertisement to the Times, and to a Parisian newspaper. Perhaps, by this means we shall discover the girl’s identity. In the mean time the question is, how did she come by her death?”

      The next witness was a porter from the Plymouth station, who had taken notice of the girl there while the train waited. He had seen her on the platform, alone. He was sure that he had not seen her speak to anybody. She walked up and down the platform two or three times, and he thought she looked puzzled and anxious, as if she expected to meet somebody who had not come. He was too busy looking after people’s luggage to watch her closely, but he had noticed her because she looked like a foreigner. He saw her get into a second-class compartment near the engine just as the train was starting. She got in hurriedly, and it seemed to him that some one inside the compartment had opened the door for her and helped her in; but he could not be positive about this, as he was a long way off at the time. He had seen the deceased, and he recognised her as the young person he had observed at Plymouth.

      Dr. Menheniot was the next witness. He gave technical evidence as to the cause of the girl’s death; but as to the circumstances that preceded her fall, he could say no more than the guard. Yes, a little more, for he had seen the carriage door opened and the girl stepping out on the footboard. Yes, in answer to the Coroner’s question, it had seemed to him that some one thrust her out, yet he could not swear that it was so. The door had opened suddenly; and he had seen her standing on the footboard, clinging to the open door. If she had meant to commit suicide, it appeared to him that she would have leapt at once from the carriage over the embankment. The act of standing on the footboard and clinging to the carriage would imply resistance.

      “It might mean only hesitation,” said Heathcote. “How long do you suppose she remained standing on the footboard?”

      “Hardly a minute——perhaps not more than thirty seconds. I heard the guard signal for the stopping of the train, and then I heard her shriek as she fell. It was almost instantaneous. The engine was just on the bridge when I first saw her. It was in the middle of the bridge when she fell. That will give you the best idea as to time.”

      “Not more than thirty seconds,” said the Coroner, who knew every yard of the line. “Is there any one else here who can tell us anything about this poor girl’s death?”

      There was no one else; though there were twenty people in the room who had been in the train yesterday evening, and who had gone down into the gorge to see that poor crushed form lying amidst ferns and foxgloves, to look curiously at the small white face, the childish lips for ever mute in death. No one could tell any more, or indeed as much about the details of the catastrophe as Dr. Menheniot and the guard, both of whom had seen the fall: whereas no one else happened to have been looking out of window on the near side of the train.

      “We will adjourn the inquest for a fortnight,” said Mr. Heathcote presently, after a whispered consultation with the jury. “The matter is much too mysterious to be dismissed without a very careful investigation. A fortnight will give ample time for the friends of the deceased to come forward. I have ordered photographs to be taken, with a view to her identification. Burial cannot, of course, be delayed beyond the usual time.”

      There were morbid minds among the spectators who envied the photographer his ghastly office. The inquest was felt to have been disappointing. Revelations had been expected, and none had come. But Mr. Heathcote had pronounced the case deeply mysterious: and there was comfort in the idea that he might know more than he cared to reveal yet awhile.

      Julian Wyllard had driven from Penmorval in his own particular dog-cart, with one of the finest horses in the district. Bothwell Grahame, who was a great walker and altogether independent in his habits, had come across the hills, and over cornfields and meadows, as straight as the crow flies. The master of Penmorval’s smart trap and high-stepping gray were out of sight before Bothwell left the pathway in front of the Vital Spark, where he lingered to talk over the inquest with some of his Bodmin acquaintance. The young Scotchman was steeped to the eyes in true Caledonian pride of race; but he had none of the petty pride which makes a man scornful of that portion of the human family which earns its bread by humble avocations. He was as friendly with a railway-porter or a village tradesman as with the proudest landowner in the county; had not two sets of manners for high and low, or two distinct modes of speech for gentle and simple, the very intonation different for that inferior clay. Bothwell had never been able to understand why some of the men he knew talked to a tradesman or a servant just as they would have spoken to a dog, or, indeed, much less civilly than Bothwell spoke to his dogs. He was a staunch Conservative in most things; but in this one question of respect for his fellow-man he was an unmitigated Radical.

      And now he loitered in front of the inn door, talking to the railway officials who had appeared at the inquest, and who knew Mr. Grahame as a frequent traveller between Bodmin Road and Plymouth.

      “There was one thing that didn’t come out just now,” said the station-master, “and that was the girl’s ticket. The ticket was for Plymouth; and yet here was this poor young thing going on towards Penzance. Why was she going beyond her first destination, eh, Mr. Grahame? Why did she walk up and down the СКАЧАТЬ