Charles Palliser (94 page)

37 Conduit-street, 24th. of September.

What she said upset me so much and made me think about those terrible-things. I had to go and see him. It was horible to see that place again. I must not say more for I do not want you ever to find it. The house was still there 430 THE

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and exactly as I remembered it, but even shabbyer and more delappidated. I rang the bell and waited and then rang it again several times before I realized that the bell-pull was not working. So I knocked and knocked. At last someone came to the door and opened it a few inches to peer out. I declared who I was and there was a long silence.

Then the door opened and Johnnie it was he! Just as he looked when I last saw him! I asked him if he lived there alone. He said:
Who should live with me? An old woman comes
in every day and cleans
—
unless she’s drunk.
When I asked if I could come in he did not move for a moment, and then swung the door open. The hall was cold and dark and appeared not to have been cleaned for many years. He followed me saying :
Why have
you come now when you never came nor wrote all these long years?
He seemed to be close to tears. I could not answer. I remembered how he had so often taken me upon his knee when I was a little child. But then I saw in the side-lobby that the sword and halbeard were hanging crossed on the wall in their old place. He saw me looking at them and said:
I
like things to be where they’ve always belonged.

He said:
Come to the plate-room. I have afire there.
Johnnie the thought of going into that room. I said no. So he led me to the front-parlour. All the windows had their shutters closed and their moth-eaten and ragged curtains were drawn. We sat down and he offerred me wine, and I nodded to let him pour it but when he placed it on the table beside me I found I could not drink anything. He said:
All these years I have wondered
where you were, not knowing if you were alive or dead. Fortisquince would tell me nothing.

Nothing. He always hated me. I don’t know why. Perhaps he believed something about me.

Or he was jealous because your Father loved me. This was his revenge, to turn you against
me and cut me out of your affections. What did he tell you? What evil thing did he make
you believe about me?
I tried to tell him there was nothing but he said:
He must have
poisoned your mind against me. Only consider, my whole working life has been passed in
the service of your Family. Nearly seventy years. And then suddenly when your Father
whom I loved like a son, when he … then to find myself shunned by … Oh Miss Mary, it
was unkind.
Nobody has called me that for so long. I began to weep. He took my hand and now in such a kindly tone he asked me to tell him everything that had happened to me. I told him a little and he said:
Was there a child born? A Huffam heir? I must know
that.
I remembered how Martin had insisted that your birth be kept a secret. I asked him why he wanted to know and he grew angry again and said that I distrusted him. He cried:
I’ve given the whole of my life to your Family. I’ve sacrificed everything
—
almost to
my very soul.
That seemed such a strange thing to say. I told him I knew how much my Family was indebted to him and he said No, I did not. Nobody living knew that. He said:
You know I attended your Great-grandfather Jeoffrey on his deathbed? That I served
your poor, wretched Grandfather as far as it lay within my power? And you ask why I
should wish to know what the fate of the Family is note and whether it will endure?
I said I would tell him what he wished to know if he would tell me what happened that night, the last time I had seen him. He said:
So that is why you have come. Sot to make amends
for your neglect but because you leant something from me.
I could not deny it. Then he said:
I
gave evidence at the inquest and before the Grand Jury. Fortisquince must have
told you. What more can I say note?
I told him what Peter had said to me, that the quarrel was a charade. Was it true? He was a

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431

long time before he said:
I will answer if you will tell me if a child was born?
I told him that I had a child. It was so strange. He looked away and bent over as if in pain or joy, I could not tell. When he turned back his eyes were full of tears. He said:
Then the Entail
still holds. But you only said you bore a child. Tell me, is it still living? And is it a boy or a
girl?
I said I would only answer if he would tell me what he had promised. And he said:
The quarrel was a charade.

So then I begged him to tell me: What was the purpose of it? Why had he not revealed it at the inquest? Then was Peter innocent? He said he would say no more and he told me to tell him whether my child lived. I said I would not unless he answered my questions. Now he grew angry and rose from his chair and came towards me and I was so frightened Johnnie. He is so big and queer-looking. I smelt brandy. He said:
What did
you really come for? You didn’t think of me for all these years, did you? Now you come here
making these accusations.
I started out of my chair and made for the door. I told him that I had wished to write to him but Mr Fortisquince prevented me. He said:
He poisoned
your mind against me.
I got out of the room and back into the hall and opened the vestibble-door. He followed me, saying:
He thought I cheated your Father. I suppose you
believe that, too. But if you think I have money you are wrong. I have nothing. Nothing
but this worthless house. I have been unlucky. Damnably unlucky.
I got out into the street and away. I don’t know if he truly meant to harm me, but one thing I am sure of: Johnnie, you must never go there. Never! I believe he is dangerous, that his wits have turned after all these years alone in that house. But at least now I know: Peter told me the truth about the quarrel. I don’t know what that means but at least he didn’t lie to me.

Now I must go back and tell you the rest. After Peter left me that day the long slow afternoon dragged past. I heard the sounds of arrivals and departures going on around me. Doors opened and shut and I heard steps along the passage outside, but nobody stopped at my door. I had no appetite to eat. Late in the evening the chamber-maid knocked to bring candles and a warming-pan, and was surprized to find me alone in the darkness. As you may imagine, I hardly closed my eyes that night. The next day came early for me, dark and overcast. Another weary day passed. I sat at the window watching everything that arrived, and whenever a post-chaise drove under the arch I waited for Peter’s tread, but it never came. Then, just before midnight, as I was about to retire to rest there was a knock at the door and Martin came in. He looked at me for a moment with an expression which I could not read and then he told me what had happened.

I swooned and Martin summoned the servant who was waiting outside. She put me to bed and a surgeon was brought to prescribe a sleeping-draught. I awoke after a troubled sleep of a few hours and Martin told me the rest. When Peter had returned to the house yesterday, he had been searched and the bank-notes covered in blood had been found in his possesion. It had been confirmed that those very notes had been issued to Papa.

Peter had been taken up and charged with the murder. Martin assured me that he was absolutely convinced that a terrible mistake had been made. (Oh Johnnie, what could I say? For I knew that he had gone back to the house and come back with blood on his hands.) When examined, Peter had refused to say anything at first. At last Martin had spoken to him alone and he had told him where I was and asked him to come to me. He had only waited to give evidence at the inquest and had 432

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then come straight to me. Now he summarized the evidence. He had advised Peter to say nothing as he was fully entitled to do. The witnesses — himself, his wife, and Mr Escreet had managed to avoid mentioning the quarrel that had driven Peter from the house. Fortunately, the servants, being below stairs all this time, had seen and heard nothing. After Peter and I left the house, Mrs Fortisquince had withdrawn upstairs to make ready the tea-things leaving the three gentlemen in the dining-room. Martin then gave Papa a package he had been entrusted with, and my Father left the room with Mr Escreet in order to place it in a safe place in the plate-room. Martin said:
They were only
gone for a minute or two and I, having no heart for sitting over my wine alone after the
distressing events earlier that evening, was about to join my wife upstairs, when Escreet
returned to say that he and your Father would only be a little longer, and that your Father
begged me to wait since he wished to discuss the evening’s events in confidance. Escreet
happened not to close the door as he went away and just a minute or two later I saw a
strange man pass the door coming from the hall. I am certain it was not Peter for although
he was about the same build, he was not wearing Peter’s coat but a bright red one. I
assumed that it was a man-servant whom I had not been told was in the house. A few
moments later the same figure passed the door again. I began to wonder who it was, for it
occured to me as strange that I should not know a new servant. And if it were a servant, I
wondered why he did not seem to have come from the stairs down to the servants’ quarters.

Just a minute or two later I heard cries. I ran to the Library and found it empty. So I
went into the plate-room and there I found a terrible sight. Your Father was lieing face
downwards. He had been run through with the old sword that hangs on the wall of the
back-lobby and which was still in his body. Escreet was lieing beside him and at first I
thought he was dead, too, for his head was covered in blood. The strong-box was open and
had been rifled. Now this is something I did not tell the inquest: Escreet regained his senses
after a few minutes and told me that the person who had done this was Peter. I told him
he must be confused because Peter had left the house some time ago, but the old gentleman
insisted that he had come back. The servants were by now hysterical with fear that there
was a murderer in the house. So I searched it from top to bottom and established that no-one was there. I found that the back-door was locked and that the only copies of the key
were in the possesion of the cook and Mr Escreet. I went to the front of the house, where I
found that the vestibble-door was broken and the street-door unlocked and open. I believe
that the murderer entered the house by the street-door. Somehow he unlocked it and then
smashed his way through the glass and wooden frames of the vestibble-door. I assumed
that when I had seen him through the door of the dining-room he had been attempting to
leave by the back-door but had found it locked and had had to return to the front and leave
the way he had come. All this I worked out later. Now I called out to foot-passengers in the
street to summon the watch and they arrived within a few minutes. But before they came, I
went back to Escreet and told him that I had found nobody in the house and that he must
have been confused when he said that he had seen Peter. He accepted this and said that he
would not mention this to the authoraties. So when they arrived he told the constable that
he had not seen his attacker. However, the servants repeated his words to the constable
and so he was examined about them at the inquest. He said that he must have been
wandering in his mind when he made this alligation against
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433

Peter. He now insisted that he had been struck from behind and therefore had not seen his
attacker. But unfortunately, the coroner suggested to the Jury that he was lieing in order
to avoid incrimmanating Peter. The waiter at the coaching-inn was found and testyfied
that he saw you and Peter arrive and book seats for the night-coach. He then showed you to
a private room and said he did not see Peter leave the Inn but could not testyfy that he had
not done so. The result of the inquest was that, in accordance with the directions of the
coroner, the Jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Peter. He was charged and
detained in custardy. He will now be indited before a Grand Jury. If they decide that there
is enough evidence to return a True Bill against him he will be sent for trial. One other
thing: When he was asked where you were, he refused to say. You may imagine the fears
this provoked. But afterwards I saw him for a few minutes and he told me where you were
and insisted that you be kept out of London. His great fear was that his Father and
Brother would gain power over him again and perhaps thereby be the means of hurting
you.
Martin kept insisting that it was all a horible mistake and that Peter could not have been guilty. But he didn’t know what I knew. He pointed out that there was no evidence against him except the bank-notes and Papa might well have given them to Peter unbeknownst to Mr Escreet. And there was no evidence of any motive once this alligation of robbery was set aside since the quarrel had not been mentioned. Neither was there any evidence to show that Peter went back to the house. The person Martin had seen was, he was almost sure, not Peter. The only other point against Peter was that the murderer had somehow opened the front-door without forcing it and this impliccated someone who had the oportunity to take a copy of the key. But this applied to other inhabitants of the house as much as to Peter. Against this, the fact that the murderer had had to break through the vestibble-door in order to get in suggested that it was not Peter for he could have made a copy of that key as well. Instead it suggested that the murderer was someone not connected with the household who had been acting on a sudden oportunity to pick the lock of the door or perhaps had even found it unlocked for some reason. Martin asked me if I could give any testermoney on Peter’s behalf, for example by saying that he had staid with me all the time at the Inn. What could I do? I said nothing and he looked surprized and said that in that case I should stay out of it altogether and remain where I was until he returned to tell me the result of the Grand Jury hearing.