lifting of Philemon Webb’s head. “Our fastest rider has gone for him, but he’s out Portchester way, and it may be an hour yet before he can get here.”
“Philemon!”
Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend’s side.
“Philemon, what has become of your guests? You’ve waited for them here until morning.”
The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on either side of him and shook his head.
“James and John are getting proud,” said he, “or they forget, they forget.”
James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many others answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made another effort.
“Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for her!”
“Agatha’s sick, Agatha’s cross; she don’t care for a poor old man like me.”
“Agatha’s dead and you know it,” thundered back the constable, with ill-judged severity. “Who killed her? tell me that. Who killed her?”
A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old man’s eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with that strange gurgle which proclaims an utterly irresponsible mind, he cried:
“The pussy cat! It was the pussy cat. Who’s killed? I’m not killed.
Let’s go to Jericho.”
Mr. Sutherland took him by the arm and led him up-stairs. Perhaps the sight of his dead wife would restore him. But he looked at her with the same indifference he showed to everything else.
“I don’t like her calico dresses,” said he. “She might have worn silk, but she wouldn’t. Agatha, will you wear silk to my funeral?”
The experiment was too painful, and they drew him away. But the constable’s curiosity had been roused, and after they had found some one to take care of him, he drew Mr. Sutherland aside and said:
“What did the old man mean by saying she might have worn silk? Are they better off than they seem?” Mr. Sutherland closed the door before replying.
“They are rich,” he declared, to the utter amazement of the other. “That is, they were; but they may have been robbed; if so, Philemon was not the wretch who killed her. I have been told that she kept her money in an old-fashioned cupboard. Do you suppose they alluded to that one?”
He pointed to a door set in the wall over the fireplace, and Mr. Fenton, perceiving a key sticking in the lock, stepped quickly across the floor and opened it. A row of books met his eyes, but on taking them down a couple of drawers were seen at the back.
“Are they locked?” asked Mr. Sutherland.
“One is and one is not.”
“Open the one that is unlocked.”
Mr. Fenton did so.
“It is empty,” said he.
Mr. Sutherland cast a look toward the dead woman, and again the perfect serenity of her countenance struck him.
“I do not know whether to regard her as the victim of her husband’s imbecility or of some vile robber’s cupidity. Can you find the key to the other drawer?”
“I will try.”
“Suppose you begin, then, by looking on her person. It should be in her pocket, if no marauder has been here.”
“It is not in her pocket.”
“Hanging to her neck, then, by a string?”
“No; there is a locket here, but no key. A very handsome locket, Mr.
Sutherland, with a child’s lock of golden hair—”
“Never mind, we will see that later; it is the key we want just now.”
“Good heavens!”
“What is it?”
“It is in her hand; the one that lies underneath.”
“Ah! A point, Fenton.”
“A great point.”
“Stand by her, Fenton. Don’t let anyone rob her of that key till the coroner comes, and we are at liberty to take it.”
“I will not leave her for an instant.”
“Meanwhile, I will put back these books.”
He had scarcely done so when a fresh arrival occurred. This time it was one of the village clergymen.
Chapter IV.
The Full Drawer
This gentleman had some information to give. It seems that at an early hour of this same night he had gone by this house on his way home from the bedside of a sick parishioner. As he was passing the gate he was run into by a man who came rushing out of the yard, in a state of violent agitation. In this man’s hand was something that glittered, and though the encounter nearly upset them both, he had not stopped to utter an apology, but stumbled away out of sight with a hasty but infirm step, which showed he was neither young nor active. The minister had failed to see his face, but noticed the ends of a long beard blowing over his shoulder as he hurried away.
Philemon was a clean-shaven man.
Asked if he could give the time of this encounter, he replied that it was not far from midnight, as he was in his own house by half-past twelve.
“Did you glance up at these windows in passing?” asked Mr. Fenton.
“I must have; for I now remember they were both lighted.”
“Were the shades up?”
“I think not. I would have noticed it if they had been.”
“How were the shades when you broke into the house this morning?” inquired Mr. Sutherland of the constable.
“Just as they are now; we have moved nothing. The shades were both down—one of them over an open window.”
“Well, we may find this encounter of yours with this unknown man a matter of vital importance, Mr. Crane.”
“I wish I had seen his face.”
“What do you think the object was you saw glittering in his hand?”
“I should not like to say; I saw it but an instant.”
“Could it have been a knife or an old-fashioned dagger?”
“It might have been.”
“Alas! poor Agatha! That she, who so despised money, should fall a victim to man’s cupidity! Unhappy life, unhappy death! Fenton, I shall always mourn for Agatha Webb.”
“Yet she seems to have found peace at last,” observed the minister. “I have never seen her look so contented.” And leading Mr. Sutherland aside, he whispered: “What is this you say about money? Had she, in spite of appearances, any considerable amount? I ask, because in spite of her humble home and simple manner of living, she always put more on the plate than any of her neighbours. Besides which, I have from time to time during my pastorate received anonymously certain contributions, which, as they were always for sick or suffering children—”
“Yes, yes; they came from her, I have no doubt of it. She was by no means poor, though I myself never knew the extent of her means till lately. Philemon was a good business man once; but they evidently preferred to live simply, having no children living—”
“They