of crisis only three men did not lose their heads. Winter cleared away the gapers, while Furneaux remained with the body. P. C. Robinson came up the hill at a run, and was sent for a stretcher, bringing from Hobbs's shop the very one on which the ill-fated Adelaide Melhuish was carried from the river bank.
But where was Peters? In the post office, writing the first of a series of thrilling dispatches to a London evening newspaper. What journalist ever had a more sensational murder-case to supply "copy"? And when was "special correspondent" ever better primed for the task? He wrote on, and on, till the telegraphist cried halt. Then he hied him to London by train, and began the more ambitious "story" for next morning. What he did not know he guessed correctly. A fagged but triumphant man was Jimmie Peters when he "blew in" to the Savage Club at 1 A.M. to seek sustenance and a whiskey and soda before going home.
Furneaux was white and shaken when Winter escorted the stretcher-bearers to the orchard.
"Poor devil!" he said, as the men lifted the body. "Foredoomed from birth! We can eradicate these diseases from cattle. Why not from men!"
The villagers could not understand him. Already, in some mysterious way, the word had gone around that Siddle had murdered the actress, and taken his own life to avoid arrest, after shooting at the detective who was hot on his trail.
Not until Peters's articles came back to Steynholme did the public at large realize that the chemist undoubtedly meant to kill Doris Martin. He was going straight to the post office when the way was barred by Furneaux. The bullet which missed the latter actually pierced the zinc plate of the letter-box, and scored a furrow, inches long, in an oak counter which it struck laterally.
The village did not recover its poise for hours. Grant and Hart, to whom Bates brought the news about one o'clock, rose from an untasted luncheon and hurried to the high-street. Knots of people stared at Grant, some sheepishly, others with frank relief, because all who knew him liked him. One man, a retired ironmonger and an impulsive fellow, came forward and wrung his hand heartily. A few prominent residents followed suit. Grant was greatly embarrassed, but managed to endure these awkward if well-meant congratulations. There could be no mistaking their intent. He had been tried for murder at the bar of public opinion, and was now formally acquitted.
Even Fred Elkin, ignorant as yet of his own peril, yielded to the influences of the moment and bustled through the crowd.
"Mr. Grant," he cried outspokenly, "I ask your pardon. I seem to have made a d—d fool of myself!"
"Easier done than said," chimed in Hart. "But, among all this bell-ringing, can anyone tell what has actually happened? Where's Peters?"
"In the post office."
The two went in, and found the journalist scribbling against time. Hart coolly grabbed a few slips of manuscript, and commenced reading. Grant looked about for Doris. She was not visible, but Mr. Martin, pallid and nervous, nodded toward the sitting-room. The younger man, taking the gesture as a tacit invitation, entered the room.
Doris was sitting there, crying bitterly. Poor girl! She had seen that portion of the drama which was enacted in the street, and the shock of it was still poignant. She looked up and met her lover's eyes. Neither uttered a word, but Grant did a very wise thing. He caught her by the shoulders, raised her to her feet, and, after kissing her squarely on the lips, gave her a comforting hug.
"It will be all right now, Doris," he whispered tenderly. "Such thunderstorms clear the air."
An eminent novelist might have found many more ornate ways of avowing his sentiments, but never a more satisfactory one. At any rate, it served, so what more need be said?
Certain rills of evidence accumulated into a fair-sized stream before night fell. P. C. Robinson, for instance, scored a point by ascertaining that Peggy Smith had seen Furneaux dropping from the bedroom window of the chemist's shop. She was some hundreds of yards away, and could not be positive that some man, perhaps a glazier, had not been there legitimately effecting repairs. Still, when she met Siddle hurrying from the station, she told him of the incident.
"He never even thanked me," she said, "but broke into a run. The look in his eyes was awful."
The girl had, in fact, confirmed his worst fears, and her neighborly solicitude had merely hastened the end.
Again, the railway officials showed that Siddle had returned from Victoria instead of taking train to the asylum. Furneaux had guessed aright. The discovery that his keys had been left behind drove the man into a panic of fright.
It took nearly three weeks before the unhappy business was finally disposed of. A Treasury solicitor was given the chance of his career by the medico-legal disquisition which cleared up an extraordinary record. The annals of the disease which predisposed Theodore Siddle to crime went back many years. He was a fairly wealthy man by inheritance, and adopted the profession of chemistry as a hobby. One fact stood out boldly. He was aware of his hereditary taint, and had settled down in Steynholme believing that a quiet life, free from care or the distractions of a town, would enable him to overcome it. Probably, the lawyer held, the man owned two distinct individualities, and the baser instincts gradually overpowered the humane ones.
Of course, the whole history of those trying days had to come out in open court, and the postmaster's daughter was given a descriptive and pictorial boom which many an actress envied. Peters was restored to grace when he showed plainly that his articles had kept the fickle barometer of public opinion at "set fair," in so far as Grant and Doris were concerned.
"But," as Hart drawled during a dinner of reconciliation, "you needn't have been so infernally personal about my hat."
Grant and Doris were married before the year was out. Mr. Martin retired on a pension, and the young couple decided that they could never dissociate The Hollies from the tragic memories bound up with its ghost-window and lawn. So the place was sold, and Steynholme knows "the postmaster's daughter" no more. Winter and Furneaux week-ended with them recently at a pretty little nook in Dorset. Hart, just home from the Balkans, traveled from town with the detectives, and Doris, a radiant young matron, was as flippant as the best of them.
One evening, when the men were sitting late in the smoking-room, the talk turned on the now half-forgotten drama in which the hapless Adelaide Melhuish played her last rôle.
"I met Peters in the Savage Club the other night," said Hart, filling the negro-head pipe with care while he talked, "and he was chortling about his 'psychological study,' as he called it, of that unfortunate chemist. He still clings to the theory that your wife was the intended victim, Grant. Do you agree with him?"
"Rubbish!" cried Furneaux, before his host could answer. "At best, Peters is only a clever ass. Siddle never had the remotest notion of killing Miss Doris Martin, as Mrs. Grant was then. We shall never know for certain just what happened, but there are elements in the affair which give ground for reasonable guesswork. The first thing that impressed Winter and me—at least, I suppose I really evolved the idea, though my bulky friend elaborated it" (whereat Winter smiled forgivingly, and beheaded a fresh Havana) "was the complete noiselessness of the crime. Here we had Mr. Grant startled by the face at the window, and actually searching outside the house for the ghostly visitant, while Miss Doris was gazing at The Hollies from the other side of the river, and not a sound was heard, though it was a summer's night, without a breath of wind, and at an hour when the splash of a fish leaping in the stream would have created a commotion. Now, Miss Melhuish was an active and well-built young woman, an actress, too, and therefore likely to meet an emergency without instant collapse. Yet she allows herself to be struck dead or insensible without cry or struggle! How do you account for it?"
"Go on, Charles; don't be theatrical," jeered Winter. "You've got the story pat. Even that simile of the jumping fish is mine."
"True," agreed Furneaux. "I only brought it in as a sop. But, to continue, as the tub-thumper says. Isn't it permissible to assume that Siddle accompanied the lady, either by prior arrangement or by contriving a meeting which looked like mere chance? We know that she went to his shop. We know, too, that he was clever and unscrupulous, and any allusion to Grant would stir his wits to the uttermost. He would see instantly how interested