Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (27 page)

After some hesitation the
woman finally complied, looking very sulky the while.

We went into the
miserable little room wherein not only grinding poverty but also untidiness and
dirt were visible sill round. We sat down on two of the cleanest-looking
chairs, and waited whilst a colloquy in subdued voices went on in the room over
our heads.

The colloquy, I may say,
seemed to consist of agitated whispers on one part, and wailing complaints on
the other. This was followed presently by some thuds and much shuffling, and
presently Haggett, looking uncared-for, dirty, and unkempt, entered the
parlour, followed by his wife.

He came forward, dragging
his ill-shod feet and pulling nervously at his forelock.

“Ah!” said my lady,
kindly; “I am glad to see you down, Haggett, though I am afraid I haven’t very
good news for you.”

“Yes, miss!” murmured the
man, obviously not quite comprehending what was said to him.

“I represent the
workhouse authorities,” continued Lady Molly, “and I thought we could arrange
for you and your wife to come into the Union tonight, perhaps.”

“The Union?” here
interposed the woman, roughly. “What do you mean? We ain’t going to the Union?”

“Well! but since you are
not staying here,” rejoined my lady, blandly, “you will find it impossible to
get another situation for your husband in his present mental condition.”

“Miss Ceely won’t give us
the go-by,” she retorted defiantly.

“She might wish to carry
out her late father’s intentions,” said Lady Molly with seeming carelessness.

“The Major was a cruel,
cantankerous brute,” shouted the woman with unpremeditated violence. “Haggett
had served him faithfully for twelve years, and—”

She checked herself
abruptly, and cast one of her quick, furtive glances at Lady Molly.

Her silence now had
become as significant as her outburst of rage, and it was Lady Molly who
concluded the phrase for her.

“And yet he dismissed him
without warning,” she said calmly.

“Who told you that?”
retorted the woman.

“The same people, no
doubt, who declare that you and Haggett had a grudge against the Major for this
dismissal.”

“That’s a lie,” asserted
Mrs. Haggett, doggedly; “we gave information about Mr. Smethick having killed
the Major because—”

“Ah,” interrupted Lady
Molly, quickly, “but then Mr. Smethick did not murder Major Ceely, and your
information therefore was useless!”

“Then who killed the
Major, I should like to know?”

Her manner was arrogant,
coarse, and extremely unpleasant. I marvelled why my dear lady put up with it,
and what was going on in that busy brain of hers. She looked quite urbane and
smiling, whilst I wondered what in the world she meant by this story of the
workhouse and the dismissal of Haggett.

“Ah, that’s what none of
us know!” she now said lightly; “some folks say it was your husband.”

“They lie!” she retorted
quickly, whilst the imbecile, evidently not understanding the drift of the
conversation, was mechanically stroking his red mop of hair and looking
helplessly all round him.

“He was home before the
cries of ‘Murder’ were heard in the house,” continued Mrs. Haggett.

“How do you know?” asked
Lady Molly, quickly.

“How do I know?”

“Yes; you couldn’t have
heard the cries all the way to this cottage—why, it’s over half a mile from the
Hall!”

“He was home, I say,” she
repeated with dogged obstinancy.

“You sent him?”

“He didn’t do it—”

“No one will believe you,
especially when the knife is found.”

“What knife?”

“His clasp knife, with
which he killed Major Ceely,” said Lady Molly, quietly; “see, he has it in his
hand now.”

And with a sudden, wholly
unexpected gesture she pointed to the imbecile, who in an aimless way had
prowled round the room whilst this rapid colloquy was going on.

The purport of it all
must in some sort of way have found an echo in his enfeebled brain. He wandered
up to the dresser whereon lay the remnants of that morning’s breakfast,
together with some crockery and utensils.

In that same half-witted
and irresponsible way he had picked up one of the knives and now was holding it
Out towards his wife, whilst a look of fear spread over his countenance.

“I can’t do it, Annie, I
can’t—you’d better do it,” he said.

There was dead silence in
the little room. The woman Haggett stood as if turned to stone. Ignorant and superstitious
as she was, I suppose that the situation had laid hold of her nerves, and that
she felt that the finger of a relentless Fate was even now being pointed at
her.

The imbecile was
shuffling forward, closer and closer to his wife, still holding out the knife towards
her and murmuring brokenly:

“I can’t do it. You’d
better, Annie—you’d better—”

He was close to her now,
and all at once her rigidity and nerve-strain gave way; she gave a hoarse cry,
and snatching the knife from the poor wretch, she rushed at him ready to
strike.

Lady Molly and I were
both young, active and strong; and there was nothing of the squeamish
grande dame
about my dear lady when quick
action was needed. But even then we had some difficulty in dragging Annie
Hagget away from her miserable husband. Blinded with fury, she was ready to
kill the man who had betrayed her. Finally, we succeeded in wresting the knife
from her.

You may be sure that it
required some pluck after that to sit down again quietly and to remain in the
same room with this woman, who already had one crime upon her conscience, and
with this weird, half-witted creature who kept on murmuring pitiably:

“You’d better do it,
Annie—”

Well, you’ve read the
account of the case, so you know what followed. Lady Molly did not move from that
room until she had obtained the woman’s full confession. All she did for her
own protection was to order me to open the window and to blow the police
whistle which she handed to me. The police-station fortunately was not very
far, and sound carried in the frosty air.

She admitted to me
afterwards that it had been foolish, perhaps, not to have brought Etty or
Danvers with her, but she was supremely anxious not to put the woman on the
alert from the very start, hence her circumlocutory speeches anent the workhouse,
and Haggett’s probable dismissal.

That the woman had had
some connection with the crime, Lady Molly, with her keen intuition, had always
felt; but as there was no witness to the murder itself, and all circumstantial
evidence was dead against young Smethick, there was only one chance of
successful discovery, and that was the murderer’s own confession.

If you think over the
interview between my dear lady and the Haggetts on that memorable morning, you
will realise how admirably Lady Molly had led up to the weird finish. She would
not speak to the woman unless Haggett was present, and she felt sure that as
soon as the subject of the murder cropped up, the imbecile would either do or
say something that would reveal the truth.

Mechanically, when Major Ceely’s
name was mentioned, he had taken up the knife. The whole scene recurred to his
tottering mind. That the Major had summarily dismissed him recently was one of
those bold guesses which Lady Molly was wont to make.

That Haggett had been
merely egged on by his wife, and had been too terrified at the last to do the
deed himself was no surprise to her, and hardly one to me, whilst the fact that
the woman ultimately wreaked her own passionate revenge upon the unfortunate
Major was hardly to be wondered at, in the face of her own coarse and elemental
personality.

Cowed by the quickness of
events, and by the appearance of Danvers and Etty on the scene, she finally
made full confession.

She was maddened by the
Major’s brutality, when with rough, cruel words he suddenly turned her husband
adrift, refusing to give him further employment. She herself had great
ascendency over the imbecile, and had drilled him into a part of hate and of
revenge. At first he had seemed ready and willing to obey. It was arranged that
he was to watch on the terrace every night until such time as an alarm of the
recurrence of the cattle-maiming outrages should lure the Major out alone.

This effectually occurred
on Christmas morning, but not before Haggett, frightened and pusillanimous, was
ready to flee rather than to accomplish the villainous deed. But Annie Haggett,
guessing perhaps that he would shrink from the crime at the last, had also kept
watch every night. Picture the prospective murderer watching and being watched!

When Haggett came across
his wife he deputed her to do the deed herself.

I suppose that either
terror of discovery or merely desire for the promised reward had caused the
woman to fasten the crime on another.

The finding of the ring
by Haggett was the beginning of that cruel thought which, but for my dear lady’s
marvellous powers, would indeed have sent a brave young man to the gallows.

Ah, you wish to know if
Margaret Ceely is married? No! Captain Glynne cried off. What suspicions
crossed his mind I cannot say; but he never proposed to Margaret, and now she
is in Australia—staying with an aunt, I think—and she has sold Clevere Hall.

“Well, we found out what’s
been clogging your chimney since last December, Miss Emmy.”

Time
has not been kind to Baynard Kendrick. A founding father of the Mystery Writers
of America, its first President and a Grand Master, his work was once widely
read. Now few of his books or stories remain in print, and his name has been
forgotten by all but the most serious mystery reader.

His series hero, Captain Duncan
Maclain, a blind detective, came to the screen three times, twice with actor
Edward Arnold (also a screen Nero Wolfe) in the role. In addition, there are
twelve novels, three novelettes and two short stories about the fascinating
detective whose finest hour occurs in “Silent Night.”

Remarkable for its strong sense of
mood, this tale is notable for its force of characterization. Maclain’s
blindness is no literary eccentricity, but a genuine affliction that is
integral to the personality of the detective and the development of the plot.

A reacquaintance with the work of
Baynard Kendrick may be something of a revelation to the contemporary reader.
Not only will it make his present neglect seem unjustified, but downright
incomprehensible.