bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.—proverbs.

fatality at grasmere

the inquest on the body of major trent, who was killed by a fall at the easedale hotel, grasmere, on thursday evening, was conducted by dr. ellis, coroner for westmorland, at the easedale hotel on friday.

mr. helmsley trent, of perche place, marybourne, hants, identified the body as that of his brother, major guy glisson trent, of thurlow park, surrey, and stated that the age of the deceased was thirty-nine years. he was traveling in the lakes with his wife on a motoring tour.

mr. h. c. gardiner, proprietor of the easedale hotel, stated that the deceased, accompanied by his wife and her maid, came to the hotel on thursday evening and engaged rooms for the night. they dined in their own apartments. about 9.30 p.m. deceased came to witness's private parlor and made a complaint about his room. it was not usual for guests to come to his parlor. deceased was not drunk, but he was in a quarrelsome mood, and inclined to make a row. witness satisfied him that the inconvenience complained of was due to the house being full. deceased then stayed on talking in a friendly way. about ten o'clock witness suggested that it was getting late. deceased came to the table to fill his glass, and was standing by it when his feet slipped from under him, and he fell backwards. no one was in the room except witness and his friend, mr. merion-smith. they were sitting by the window. the table was between them and the deceased. they could not have reached him[pg 27] in time to prevent his falling. witness went at once to his assistance, and found that he was already dead. his head had struck the fender, which was about eight inches high, and had a sharp edge. deceased did not speak or move at all after the fall.

by the coroner: deceased had helped himself to whisky several times uninvited. it was witness's private whisky. he had a tumbler in his hand which was broken when he fell. witness suggested that it was getting late because he thought deceased had had enough. he was not drunk.

by the jury: deceased was perfectly friendly after the first. he was talking about india, where they had discovered mutual friends.

miss emily marvin, housekeeper at the easedale hotel, said that the deceased came to her to complain of his room. he was not drunk, but he had had a drop. he seemed a very irritable sort of gentleman. witness took the complaint to mr. gardiner because she felt she could not manage him herself. the floors were beeswaxed every thursday morning. they had been done that day. they were often a bit slippery at first. she had once slipped down herself and broken a tray of glasses.

mr. denis arthur merion-smith, aeronautical engineer, of bredon, stated that he was in the parlor with mr. gardiner when deceased came in. witness did not join in the conversation, but he saw all that passed. deceased's feet seemed to fly up in the air. he was quite dead when they reached him. witness loosened his collar, but was sure it would do no good.

the foreman: what in your opinion was the cause of the deceased's fall?—i should not like to say. he was not intoxicated, but he was not quite steady on his feet. a perfectly sober man would probably have saved himself.

dr. leonard scott, of westby, said that he was staying at the easedale hotel, and was called to attend deceased at about 10.30 p.m. deceased had apparently been dead about ten minutes when he examined him. there was bleeding from the ears, with a deep cut at the back of the head;[pg 28] also a very slight abrasion on the forehead, but this was of no significance. it might have been caused by a splinter of glass flying up and striking him. death was due to fracture of the base of the skull, and was probably instantaneous. in cases of severe fracture that is not unusual.

by the jury: if the deceased's feet slipped from under him, as described by the other witnesses, his head would strike the fender first. deceased was a heavy man, and such a fall would be quite sufficient to fracture his skull.

p. c. thornborough gave details of the position of the body....

there was plenty more. dr. scott skimmed through it all to the verdict of accidental death, and the jury's expressions of sympathy with the widow. he read it standing in the street of ambleside, and then doubled the paper under his arm and trudged the five miles back to grasmere.

the easedale hotel was no longer full. a violent death, an inquest, and a confinement had emptied the house and attracted instead a crowd of casual sightseers. the lounge and terrace were full of them. scott asked for gardiner, and climbed many stairs to the roof. coming out of a last trap-door, he beheld gardiner and his friend among the chimney-pots, in close conversation, which died instantly on his appearance.

there was a table, there were chairs, there was a bed beneath an awning. gardiner, at full length on a lounge, swung his feet to the ground and welcomed his visitor. merion-smith acknowledged him with a distant nod.

"i've brought you the local rag," said scott, planting himself firmly on a hard upright chair. "it has a full report. i walked over to ambleside for it."

gardiner thanked him amiably, glanced over the sheet, and passed it to denis, who read solidly through from end to end; this to keep out of the conversation. "here's a man i don't know: safe to be a bounder: confound his impudence!"—such was his attitude to the casual stranger. he did not like the middle classes.

[pg 29]

"we're up here because he didn't fancy the parlor," said gardiner, with a lazy nod towards his friend. "says the place makes him sick. you'd expect a flying man to have cranks, wouldn't you? he has enough to stock an engine. what do you recommend for nerves, doctor?"

"m'm! you don't look up to much yourself. you're the color of brown holland."

"me? i'm as limp as a rag; never felt so pale in my life. all these agitations are so trying," said gardiner, filling his pipe and pushing the cigarettes across the table. "help yourself. i can recommend them; that fellow never buys a cheap smoke. how's mrs. trent?"

"as well as can be expected."

"poor little woman," said gardiner. "i say, doctor, i am beastly sorry about this. sorrier than i've been about most things in my life."

the sincere feeling behind his words drew out scott's impatient reply.

"woman! she's a child: not a day over twenty. a girl's too young at that age to marry and face this sort of thing. i'd make it illegal."

"my dear man, don't shout at me! i don't know how old she is: couldn't tell her from eve, if i met her. i never saw her without that motor veil thing hanging over her face. she's lost her child, hasn't she?"

"she has."

"do you know where she comes from, or anything about her people?"

"what the maid told me. she has no people. lived till her marriage with an uncle and aunt who owed her a grudge about some money that was left to her over the uncle's head. they wouldn't let her speak to a man, for fear she should marry and they lose the enjoyment of it. trent made her elope with him. naturally she looked on him as a sort of st. george."

"a good thing he died before she found him out, then."

"he was a rascal, was he?"

"well, he wasn't precisely a st. george."

[pg 30]

"h'm!" said scott. it was an expression he used often, and with varying meaning. gardiner smoked in silence. denis, who had read to the end of the inquest, propped his tall, immaculate person against a chimney-stack and watched them both. when he did not snap, the little doctor expressed himself like an educated man, and his voice was pure in quality. these things were in his favor.

"has she still got that idea in her head about me?" asked gardiner.

"how do i know, man? do you suppose i talk to my patients about things of that kind? she hasn't mentioned you at all, so far as i know. lies still, says nothing, asks no questions—brooding over that scamp, i suppose. well, she's getting better, and that's all that concerns me."

"yes," said gardiner. he looked very tired. "if you see a chance, give her my regrets and condolences and all that, will you? you might pitch it pretty strong. i shan't be here to do it myself."

"you won't? where are you going?"

"oh, i've sold the place, and i'm clearing out. didn't you know? i was going in any case at the end of the month, and i've put it forward a bit, to give my successor a chance. all this fuss is very bad for trade. it's emptied the house. it'll fill up again quicker if i'm out of it."

"where are you going yourself, hey?"

"to the most beautiful place in the ardennes, which i design to run as a sanatorium—no, not a common open-air shop, but healthful bracing breezes for the jaded, don't you know? very great it's going to be. i invite you to come out and pay me a visit."

"h'm! do you think i have nothing to do but run about the continent enjoying myself?"

"oh, i thought you might combine business with pleasure—see the place, and then recommend it to your patients. i should be charmed to receive them."

"you would, would you? not half so pleased as they'd be to come."

[pg 31]

"why, who are your patients?" asked gardiner, idly answering the significance of his tone.

"criminals," said the little man. "i'm doctor at westby jail—where you'd be at this minute, if mrs. trent had had her way."

denis would not look at his friend. "i can't say i envy you your job," remarked the young man.

"that just shows you don't know anything about it," was the instant retort. "criminals have souls as well as you, haven't they? there are better men in prison than scores i've met outside, whom our ungodly laws can't or won't touch. i've known one man get eighteen months for stealing a pair of boots, and another let off with a fine and a caution for roasting a cat on the fire. christians? why, we haven't got up to the ten commandments yet! the jews did put thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit adultery before thou shalt not steal; but impurity's nothing to us, and cruelty not much more. christians! we reserve our jails for any one who dares to meddle with our sacred property. upon my soul, i wonder any man can find the face to refuse the women a share in mending the laws of this land, considering the pretty mess we've made of them ourselves!"

he shot out of his chair and marched to the edge of the roof. gardiner followed, laughing, and sat on the parapet. a rose and silver sunset was darkening the fells above easedale tarn, and the moon, a globe of pearl, made beautiful the cold gray eastern sky.

"i don't know what you want to leave your own country for," said scott, still irascible, but simmering into calm. "isn't this good enough for you?"

"oh, i'm out for a land where they have more christian laws," said gardiner easily. "england's too civilized to be livable," he added.

scott did not hear him. he was studying the house under their feet.

"that's mrs. trent's room below, i suppose? and your[pg 32] parlor below that, on the ground floor? any one in that south wing opposite could see straight in. lucky for you there was nobody watching on thursday evening."

"lucky? what the devil do you mean?"

scott turned round and stared in the face.

"you didn't want any visitors in hysterics, did you? enough people involved in it already, aren't there? what do you mean yourself?"

"i thought," said gardiner, "i thought you were echoing mrs. trent's idea, and suggesting i'd done him in."

it was the best he could do, but it was not good. scott stared at him with his bright eyes, shifted them to denis, and brought them back to gardiner again. gardiner knew that in the first moment of surprise he had started violently, changed color, showed all the signs of guilt. nothing could erase that impression.

"your nerves must be in a bad way for you to jump like that at an innocent remark," said scott dryly.

"they are, i told you so. you can give me something for them, if you like. i don't mind swallowing your beastlinesses."

"no," said scott. he pulled out his watch. "i must go to my patient. good-night to you both." he climbed down through the trap-door, and then poked his head up again to add: "mind, i never meddle with what isn't my concern. never."

he was seen no more, and they heard him descending the ladder.

"damn," said gardiner.

"he won't make any use of it," said denis. "that's not a bad little chap, harry."

"not a bad little chap? he's a most confoundedly inquisitive little chap! he won't rest till he's ferreted out the whole thing. oh, damn! i wouldn't have had this happen for anything. why the devil couldn't i keep my countenance? i thought i might have trusted myself for that!"

he paced up and down in a fury.

[pg 33]

"you've had a tryin' time."

"trying? i've had a scarifying time! that inquest, when the foreman began pumping you—i'd have murdered you as well, denis, if you hadn't been adroit. but if i'm going to lose my nerve over such trifles as this—what an ass! oh, what an ass!"

he threw himself back on the lounge. denis could not help feeling that he took it rather weakly. he did not allow for the rift in his friend's armor, that demoralizing fear of confinement. in these last few days their positions seemed to have been reversed.

"scott can't do anything," he said rather coolly. "it's no use his suspectin' if there's no one he can pump, and there isn't. i'm not going to give it away, and you aren't either, when you're yourself again. as to mrs. trent, she can't prove anything from the chisel—you might have left it there from openin' the case. besides, scott wouldn't discuss it with her. he's above that."

"i dare say you're right, but i wish i hadn't been such an ass, and i wish he weren't the doctor at westby," said gardiner, with a huge yawn, "it brings it so unpleasantly near. oh, lord! i am tired. do you mind clearing out now? i expect i shall sleep like a log. please the pigs, in another couple of weeks' time i'll be out of this over-civilized, over-populated country!"