Читать книгу The Devil's Advocate - Fred M. White - Страница 7

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Philippa started forward with the instinct of a mother defending her child. She burned to stand between her David and the danger that threatened him. They should not take him away, they should not cast a slur upon his good name. Surely no man or woman in the possession of their senses could imagine that David was capable of doing this thing. He seemed to grasp something of what was passing through her mind as he put her gently on one side.

"You cannot do anything, my dear girl," he said. "Don't make it any worse for me than it is."

Philippa fell back with her lip caught between her teeth and a suggestion of tears in her eyes. Still, she looked almost defiantly at the Inspector as he came into the room, nor was he particularly at ease, because he knew and liked both these young people, and his errand was anything but a pleasant one.

"I am sorry to intrude like this," he said. "Exceedingly sorry. But you must understand, Miss Goldfinch, that I have my duty to do, however repugnant it may be."

Philippa said nothing. She was beginning to see that Dent was right, and that she had been on the verge of behaving badly. She walked across to the window and looked out with eyes that saw nothing.

"I am quite ready for you," Macrae said.

"I don't think you quite understand," Dent replied. "It's not exactly what you think. I am going to ask you to come with me, for the present, at any rate, and—"

"Let me quite understand," Philippa said. "Are you arresting Mr. Macrae for the murder of Joseph Baines?"

"Well, not precisely," Dent explained. "There is a great difference, you see, between an arrest and detaining a person on suspicion. Perhaps, in the course of an hour or two—"

"But the thing is monstrous," Philippa cried. "Why should Mr. Macrae do this? He had no quarrel with Mr. Baines. They were not on speaking terms, I know, because of those articles in the 'Hitherfield Mercury.' Mr. Macrae has just been telling me all about them. He found Baines dead in his conservatory, and the first thing he did was to communicate with you. I ask you if that was the action of a man who is guilty of a crime?"

"Of course it wasn't," Dent hastened to agree. "Mr. Macrae has given us every assistance. But the body was found in his conservatory, late at night, and there is no getting away from the fact that those two were on very bad terms. Possibly we shall get to the bottom of the mystery, but please don't be angry with me, Miss Goldfinch, because I am merely doing my duty. For the present, at any rate, Mr. Macrae is not my prisoner."

"I am sorry," Philippa said. "All I want you to do is to understand my feelings in the matter."

"I think I had better come along with you, Inspector," Macrae said. "But perhaps you will allow me to have just five minutes alone with Miss Goldfinch."

Dent cast a professional eye round the room. There was only one door, and beyond it two windows that opened almost directly on to the common. There could be no sudden escape that way, and, besides, Dent was a man who had rather a tender heart, for a man of his profession, and he had a high regard for Macrae.

"Oh, certainly," he said. "I will just step outside and wait for Mr. Macrae in the garden."

"I want to give you this," David said, when the inspector had gone. "It is the letter that I had from Douglas & Co., with Baine's message scribbled across it. I did not show that to Dent, though perhaps I ought to have done so. Mind you, I don't want to conceal anything, but if this comes out without my volunteering the information, then it will look all the worse for me. That is why I am asking you to take care of the letter. I must have legal advice, Philippa. I must consult a lawyer."

"Richard Farrell," Philippa suggested. "I don't particularly like him, and he has no reason to be fond of you, but there is nobody else here capable of taking up the case. He is very shrewd and clever, and he will appreciate the opportunity of bringing his name prominently before the public. I wish there was somebody else, but there isn't, and I should like you to send for him."

"Very well," Macrae said, listlessly. "I will do as you suggest, not that I think it will make any difference."

So it came about that during the course of the day, and before the inquest, which took place in evening, Farrell had seen Macrae at the superintendent's private house, where the latter was detained, and had eagerly proffered his services. He had suggested also that Macrae should be present at the proceedings, ready to give evidence if necessary, though, in the circumstances, it was rather an unusual course. But then, Macrae, being an innocent man, had nothing to be afraid of and was eager to face every enquiry.

Shortly after 6 o'clock the inquest took place in the lounge hall of the Bungalow. After a few preliminaries, Inspector Dent came forward and tendered his evidence. He had been sent for on his evidence, the previous evening shortly after 11 o'clock by a messenger from David Macrae, and, in consequence, he had gone off to the Bungalow. There he found the body of Joseph Baines lying precisely in the attitude that the jury had witnessed, and, upon questioning Macrae, had been informed that the latter had come in to the Bungalow late the previous evening and found deceased lying there. When Dent had finished Farrell stood up.

"I would like to ask you a few questions, inspector," he said. "Did Mr. Macrae tell you that he had taken over the Bungalow only a few hours before the murder!"

"Certainly he did," Dent said.

"And that he was sleeping there alone?"

"So I gathered. There was no one else in the house, as, up to the present, Mr. Macrae has no servant."

"He sent for you at once, didn't he? And he told you everything that had happened. Did he tell you, for instance, that he had gone out somewhere about 10 o'clock, with the purpose of calling upon the man who is now lying dead?"

"Yes, he told me that," Dent said. "I understood they had some sort of business together, which was not of a very pleasant nature. Mr. Macrae went to deceased's cottage, but could not make anybody hear, so that he returned home again.

"And when he found Baines lying there, he sent for you, without delay? I merely want to point out to you, sir, that this was hardly the action of a guilty man."

"Oh, quite so, Mr. Farrell," the coroner said. "Quite so."

"One or two further questions, and I have finished," Farrell went on. "Inspector, you knew Mr. Baines very well, didn't you?"

"Certainly, I have known him for a good many years."

"And he was a small man, wasn't he? Very slender and light, and, therefore, would be easily handled by a man of my client's physique. What I merely want to suggest is this—if Baines had fallen by the hand of my client in his own house, then it would have been an easy matter to have carried him out on to the common and thrown him down on the gorse there. It was late at night, there was no one about, and the common, at that hour, is always deserted. I have alluded to this, merely because it seems to me that no guilty man could have behaved in the way my client has done. Had he been a criminal he would have got rid of the body with the greatest ease, and have said nothing about it. However, I shall have an opportunity, no doubt, of alluding to this again."

"Is your client prepared to give evidence?" the coroner asked. "You know best, of course."

"Thank you, sir. My client is going to give evidence. He will tell you exactly what happened in his own words, and it will be for the jury to draw their own conclusions."

The proceedings dragged on, with Macrae sitting there, wondering vaguely if it were not all a dream from which he would awake presently, and trying to read something of what the jury was thinking from the expression of their faces. But he dropped this presently, and relapsed into his own gloomy thoughts. So far as he could see, he had few friends there, and it occurred to him uneasily that most of the sensation-mongers crowded into that pretty hall-sitting-room of his had already made up their minds.

Then he seemed to hear someone calling his name a long way off, and gradually he recognised that the time had come for him to stand up there and tell his story over again. He told it simply and straightforwardly, with the air of a man who is uttering nothing but the truth, and who has little to conceal. The coroner put one or two questions to him, supplemented with some further ones at the suggestion of Inspector Dent. Then the coroner summed up at considerable length, and the jury retired to consider their verdict. They came back presently, and took their places again.

"Well, gentlemen," the coroner asked. "Have you agreed upon your verdict?"

"Yes, sir," the foreman said. "We have come to the conclusion that Joseph Baines met his death at the hands of some person or persons unknown. More than that we don't feel called upon to say. And we are quite unanimous."

"Then there is no more to be said," the coroner went on. "I thank you, gentlemen, for your attendance."

It was all over, and presently the jury with the rest of the spectators, filed out leaving Macrae with Farrell and Inspector Dent alone in the bungalow. Farrell turned to the inspector and asked him what he proposed to do.

"Well," Dent said, cautiously, "I shall be guided by evidence. I may point out to you, Mr. Macrae, that the coroner's jury is not final, and, meanwhile he is free to do what he likes without interference on my part. But, beyond question, Baines was murdered, and it is my business to find the criminal."

"And may it not be long before you do," David said. "I suppose I am free now, to go back to my business?"

"I have already told you so," Dent replied. "And I hope sincerely that you have heard the last of it."