The Blotting Book (12 page)

Then suddenly a newsboy, with a sheaf of papers still hot from the press,
came running from the corner of the street just above them, and as he
ran he shouted out the news which was already making little groups of
people collect and gather in the streets.

Mr. Taynton turned quickly as the words became audible, seized a paper
from the boy, giving him the first coin that he found, and ran back into
the hall of his house, Morris with him, to beneath the electric light
that burned there. The shrill voice of the boy still shouting the news of
murder got gradually less loud as he went further down the street.

They read the short paragraph together, and then looked at each other
with mute horror in their eyes.

The inquest was held at Falmer on the Monday following, when the body was
formally identified by Mr. Taynton and Mills's servant, and they both had
to give evidence as regards what they knew of the movements of the
deceased. This, as a matter of fact, Mr. Taynton had already given to
Figgis, and in his examination now he repeated with absolute exactitude
what he had said before including again the fact that Morris had gone up
to town on Friday morning to try to find him there. On this occasion,
however, a few further questions were put to him, eliciting the fact that
the business on which Morris wanted to see him was known to Mr. Taynton
but could not be by him repeated since it dealt with confidential
transactions between the firm of solicitors and their client. The
business was, yes, of the nature of a dispute, but Mr. Taynton regarded
it as certain that some amicable arrangement would have been come to, had
the interview taken place. As it had not, however, since Morris had not
found him at his flat in town, he could not speak for certain on this
subject. The dispute concerned an action of his partner's, made
independently of him. Had he been consulted he would have strongly
disapproved of it.

The body, as was made public now, had been discovered by accident,
though, as has been seen, the probability of Mills having got out at
Falmer had been arrived at by the police, and Figgis immediately after
his interview with Mr. Taynton on the Saturday evening had started for
Falmer to make inquiries there, and had arrived there within a few
minutes of the discovery of the body. A carpenter of that village had
strolled out about eight o'clock that night with his two children while
supper was being got ready, and had gone a piece of the way up the path
over the downs, which left the road at the corner of Falmer Park. The
children were running and playing about, hiding and seeking each other
in the bracken-filled hollows, and among the trees, when one of them
screamed suddenly, and a moment afterward they both came running to
their father, saying that they had come upon a man in one of these
copses, lying on his face and they were frightened. He had gone to see
what this terrifying person was, and had found the body. He went
straight back to the village without touching anything, for it was clear
both from what he saw and from the crowd of buzzing flies that the man
was dead, and gave information to the police. Then within a few minutes
from that, Mr. Figgis had arrived from Brighton, to find that it was
superfluous to look any further or inquire any more concerning the
whereabouts of the missing man. All that was mortal of him was here, the
head covered with a cloth, and bits of the fresh summer growth of fern
and frond sticking to his clothing.

After the identification of the body came evidence medical and otherwise
that seemed to show beyond doubt the time and manner of his death and the
possible motive of the murderer. The base of the skull was smashed in,
evidently by some violent blow dealt from behind with a blunt heavy
instrument of some sort, and death had probably been instantaneous. In
one of the pockets was a first edition of an evening paper published in
London on Thursday last, which fixed the earliest possible time at which
the murder had been committed, while in the opinion of the doctor who
examined the body late on Saturday night, the man had been dead not less
than forty-eight hours. In spite of the very heavy rain which had fallen
on Thursday night, there were traces of a pool of blood about midway
between the clump of bracken where the body was found, and the path over
the downs leading from Falmer to Brighton. This, taken in conjunction
with the information already given by Mr. Taynton, made it practically
certain that the deceased had left London on the Thursday as he had
intended to do, and had got out of the train at Falmer, also according to
his expressed intention, to walk to Brighton. It would again have been
most improbable that he would have started on his walk had the storm
already begun. But the train by which his bag was conveyed to Brighton
arrived at Falmer at half-past six, the storm did not burst till an hour
afterward. Finally, with regard to possible motive, the murdered man's
watch was missing; his pockets also were empty of coin.

This concluded the evidence, and the verdict was brought in without the
jury leaving the court, and "wilful murder by person or persons unknown"
was recorded.

Mr. Taynton, as was indeed to be expected, had been much affected during
the giving of his evidence, and when the inquest was over, he returned to
Brighton feeling terribly upset by this sudden tragedy, which had crashed
without warning into his life. It had been so swift and terrible; without
sign or preparation this man, whom he had known so long, had been hurled
from life and all its vigour into death. And how utterly now Mr. Taynton
forgave him for that base attack that he had made on him, so few days
ago; how utterly, too, he felt sure Morris had forgiven him for what was
perhaps even harder to forgive. And if they could forgive trespasses like
these, they who were of human passion and resentments, surely the reader
of all hearts would forgive. That moment of agony short though it might
have been in actual duration, when the murderous weapon split through the
bone and scattered the brain, surely brought punishment and therefore
atonement for the frailties of a life-time.

Mr. Taynton, on his arrival back at Brighton that afternoon, devoted a
couple of solitary hours to such thoughts as these, and others to which
this tragedy naturally gave rise and then with a supreme effort of will
he determined to think no more on the subject. It was inevitable that
his mind should again and again perhaps for weeks and months to come
fall back on these dreadful events, but his will was set on not
permitting himself to dwell on them. So, though it was already late in
the afternoon, he set forth again from his house about tea-time, to
spend a couple of hours at the office. He had sent word to Mr. Timmins
that he would probably come in, and begin to get through the arrears
caused by his unavoidable absence that morning, and he found his head
clerk waiting for him. A few words were of course appropriate, and they
were admirably chosen.

"You have seen the result of the inquest, no doubt, Mr. Timmins," he
said, "and yet one hardly knows whether one wishes the murderer to be
brought to justice. What good does that do, now our friend is dead? So
mean and petty a motive too; just for a watch and a few sovereigns. It
was money bought at a terrible price, was it not? Poor soul, poor soul;
yes, I say that of the murderer. Well, well, we must turn our faces
forward, Mr. Timmins; it is no use dwelling on the dreadful irremediable
past. The morning's post? Is that it?"

Mr. Timmins ventured sympathy.

"You look terribly worn out, sir," he said. "Wouldn't it be wiser to
leave it till to-morrow? A good night's rest, you know, sir, if you'll
excuse my mentioning it."

"No, no, Mr. Timmins, we must get to work again, we must get to work."

Nature, inspired by the spirit and instinct of life, is wonderfully
recuperative. Whether earthquake or famine, fire or pestilence has
blotted out a thousand lives, those who are left, like ants when their
house is disturbed, waste but little time after the damage has been done
in vain lamentations, but, slaves to the force of life, begin almost
instantly to rebuild and reconstruct. And what is true of the community
is true also of the individual, and thus in three days from this dreadful
morning of the inquest, Mr. Taynton, after attending the funeral of the
murdered man, was very actively employed, since the branch of the firm in
London, deprived of its head, required supervision from him. Others also,
who had been brought near to the tragedy, were occupied again, and of
these Morris in particular was a fair example of the spirit of the
Life-force. His effort, no doubt, was in a way easier than that made by
Mr. Taynton, for to be twenty-two years old and in love should be
occupation sufficient. But he, too, had his bad hours, when the past rose
phantom-like about him, and he recalled that evening when his rage had
driven him nearly mad with passion against his traducer. And by an awful
coincidence, his madness had been contemporaneous with the slanderer's
death. He must, in fact, have been within a few hundred yards of the
place at the time the murder was committed, for he had gone back to
Falmer Park that day, with the message that Mr. Taynton would call on the
morrow, and had left the place not half an hour before the breaking of
the storm. He had driven by the corner of the Park, where the path over
the downs left the main road and within a few hundred yards of him at
that moment, had been, dead or alive, the man who had so vilely slandered
him. Supposing—it might so easily have happened—they had met on the
road. What would he have done? Would he have been able to pass him and
not wreaked his rage on him? He hardly dared to think of that. But, life
and love were his, and that which might have been was soon dreamlike in
comparison of these. Indeed, that dreadful dream which he had had the
night after the murder had been committed was no less real than it. The
past was all of this texture, and mistlike, it was evaporated in the
beams of the day that was his.

Now Brighton is a populous place, and a sunny one, and many people lounge
there in the sun all day. But for the next three or four days a few of
these loungers lounged somewhat systematically. One lounged in Sussex
Square, another lounged in Montpellier Road, one or two others who
apparently enjoyed this fresh air but did not care about the town itself,
usually went to the station after breakfast, and spent the day in
rambling agreeably about the downs. They also frequented the pleasant
little village of Falmer, gossiping freely with its rural inhabitants.
Often footmen or gardeners from the Park came down to the village, and
acquaintances were easily ripened in the ale-house. Otherwise there was
not much incident in the village; sometimes a motor drove by, and one,
after an illegally fast progress along the road, very often turned in at
the park gates. But no prosecution followed; it was clear they were not
agents of the police. Mr. Figgis, also, frequently came out from
Brighton, and went strolling about too, very slowly and sadly. He often
wandered in the little copses that bordered the path over the downs to
Brighton, especially near the place where it joined the main road a few
hundred yards below Falmer station. Then came a morning when neither he
nor any of the other chance visitors to Falmer were seen there any more.
But the evening before Mr. Figgis carried back with him to the train a
long thin package wrapped in brown paper. But on the morning when these
strangers were seen no more at Falmer, it appeared that they had not
entirely left the neighbourhood, for instead of one only being in the
neighbourhood of Sussex Square, there were three of them there.

Morris had ordered the motor to be round that morning at eleven, and it
had been at the door some few minutes before he appeared. Martin had
driven it round from the stables, but he was in a suit of tweed; it
seemed that he was not going with it. Then the front door opened, and
Morris appeared as usual in a violent hurry. One of the strangers was on
the pavement close to the house door, looking with interest at the car.
But his interest in the car ceased when the boy appeared. And from the
railings of the square garden opposite another stranger crossed the road,
and from the left behind the car came a third.

"Mr. Morris Assheton?" said the first.

"Well, what then?" asked Morris.

The two others moved a little nearer.

"I arrest you in the King's name," said the first.

Morris was putting on a light coat as he came across the pavement. One
arm was in, the other out. He stopped dead; and the bright colour of his
face slowly faded, leaving a sort of ashen gray behind. His mouth
suddenly went dry, and it was only at the third attempt to speak that
words came.

"What for?" he said.

"For the murder of Godfrey Mills," said the man. "Here is the warrant. I
warn you that all you say—"

Morris, whose lithe athletic frame had gone slack for the moment,
stiffened himself up again.

"I am not going to say anything," he said. "Martin, drive to Mr.
Taynton's at once, and tell him that I am arrested."

The other two now had closed round him.

"Oh, I'm not going to bolt," he said. "Please tell me where you are going
to take me."

"Police Court in Branksome Street," said the first.

"Tell Mr. Taynton I am there," said Morris to his man.

There was a cab at the corner of the square, and in answer to an
almost imperceptible nod from one of the men, it moved up to the
house. The square was otherwise nearly empty, and Morris looked round
as the cab drew nearer. Upstairs in the house he had just left, was
his mother who was coming out to Falmer this evening to dine; above
illimitable blue stretched from horizon to horizon, behind was the
free fresh sea. Birds chirped in the bushes and lilac was in flower.
Everything had its liberty.