Johnny Ludlow, Second Series. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ you take charge of the pill-box while she was gone?”

      “I had it in my hand, if you mean that.”

      “Did anybody come into the kitchen during that interval?”

      “No they didn’t,” was the tart response.

      “You were alone, except for the two infants?”

      “I were. What of it?”

      “Now, witness, did you do anything with that box? Did you, for instance, exchange it for another?”

      “I think you ought to be ashamed o’ yourselves, all on you, to sit and ask a body such a thing!” exploded Mrs. Dovey, growing every moment more resentful, at being questioned. “If I had knowed the bother that was to spring up, I’d have chucked the box, pills and all, into the fire first. I wish I had!”

      “Was the box, that you handed to Hester Reed on her return, the same box she left with you? Were the pills the same pills?”

      “Why, where d’ye think I could have got another box from?” shrieked Ann Dovey. “D’you suppose, sir, I carry boxes and pills about with me? I bain’t so fond o’ physic as all that comes to.”

      “Dovey takes pills on occasion for that giddiness of his; I’ve seen him take ’em; mayhap you’d picked up a box of his,” spoke Dobbs the blacksmith, mildly.

      That was adding fuel to fire. Two of a trade don’t agree. Dovey and Dobbs were both blacksmiths: the one in Church Dykely; the other in Piefinch Cut, not much more, so to say, than a stone’s-throw from each other. The men were good friends enough; but their respective ladies were apt to regard jealously all work taken to the rival establishment. Any other of the jurymen might have made the remark with comparative impunity; not so Dobbs. And, besides the turn the inquiry seemed to be taking, Mrs. Dovey had not been easy about it in her mind from the first; proof of which was furnished by the call, already mentioned, made by her husband on Abel Crew.

      “Dovey takes pills on occasion, do he!” she shrilly retorted. “And what do you take, Bill Dobbs? Pints o’ beer when you can get ’em. Who lamed Poole’s white horse the t’other day a-shoeing him?”

      “Silence!” sternly interrupted the coroner. While Dobbs, conscious of the self-importance imparted to him by the post he was now filling, and of the necessity of maintaining the dignity of demeanour which he was apt to put on with his best clothes, bore the aspersion with equanimity and a stolid face.

      “Attend to me, witness, and confine yourself to replying to the questions I put to you,” continued the coroner. “Did you take with you any pills or pill-box of your own when you went to Mrs. Reed’s that evening?”

      “No, I didn’t,” returned Ann Dovey, the emphasis culminating in a sob: and why she should have set on to shiver and shake was more than the jury could understand.

      “Do you wear pockets?”

      “What if I do?” she said, after a momentary pause. But her lips grew white, and I thought she was trying to brave it out.

      “Had you a pocket on that evening?”

      “Heaven be good to me!” I heard her mutter under her breath. And if ever I saw a woman look frightened nearly to death, Ann Dovey looked it then.

      “Had you a pocket on that evening, witness?” repeated the coroner, sharply.

      “Y—es.”

      “What articles were in it? Do you recollect?”

      “It were a key or two,” came the answer at length, her very teeth chattering and all the impudence suddenly gone out of her. “And my thimble, sir;—and some coppers; and a part of a nutmeg;—and—and I don’t remember nothing else, sir.”

      “No box of pills? You are sure you had not that?”

      “Haven’t I said so, sir?” she rejoined, bursting into a flood of tears. For which, and for the sudden agitation, nobody could see any reason: and perhaps it was only that which made the coroner harp upon the same string. Her demeanour had become suspicious.

      “You had no poison of any kind in your pocket, then?”

      But he asked the question in jest more than earnest. For when she went into hysterics instead of replying, he let her go. He was used to seeing witnesses scared when brought before him.

      The verdict was not arrived at that day. When other witnesses had been examined, the coroner addressed the jury. Ten of them listened deferentially, and were quite prepared to return a verdict of Manslaughter against Abel Crew; seemed red-hot to do it, in fact. But two of them dissented. They were not satisfied, they said; and they held out for adjourning the inquest to see if any more light could be thrown upon the affair. As they evidently had the room with them, the coroner yielded, and adjourned the inquest in a temper.

      And then it was discovered that the name was not Crew but Carew. Abel himself corrected the coroner. Upon that, the coroner sharply demanded why he had lived under a false name.

      “Nay, sir,” replied Abel, as dignified as you please, “I have had no intention of doing so. When I first came to this neighbourhood I gave my name correctly—Carew: but the people at once converted it into Crew by their mode of pronunciation.”

      “At any rate, you must have sanctioned it.”

      “Tacitly I have done so. What did it signify? When I have had occasion to write my name—but that has been very rare—I have written it Carew. Old Sir Peter Chavasse knew it was Carew, and used to call me so; as did Sir Geoffry. Indeed, sir, I have had no reason to conceal my name.”

      “That’s enough,” said the coroner, cutting him short. “Stand back, Abel Carew. The proceedings are adjourned to this day week.”

IV.

       ABEL CREW.

       Table of Contents

      Things are done in remote country places that would not be done in towns. Whether the law is understood by us, or whether it is not, it often happens that it is very much exceeded, or otherwise not acted upon. Those who have to exercise it sometimes show themselves as ignorant of it as if they had lived all their lives in the wilds of America.

      Old Jones the constable was one of these. When not checked by his masters, the magistrates, he would do most outrageous things—speaking of the law and of common sense. And he did one in reference to Abel Crew. I still say Crew. Though it had come out that his name was Carew, we should be sure to call him Crew to the end.

      The inquest might have been concluded at its first sitting, but for the two who stood out against the rest of the jury. Perkins the butcher and Dobbs the blacksmith. Truth to say, these two had plenty of intelligence; which could not be said of all the rest. Ten of the jury pronounced the case to be as clear as daylight: the infants had been poisoned by Abel Crew’s pills: and the coroner seemed to agree with them—he hated trouble. But Dobbs and Perkins held out. They were not satisfied, they said; the pills furnished СКАЧАТЬ