st. mary's clock was chiming half-past seven when ephraim judd, suddenly turning the corner of a street on his way to the bank, all but ran against peggy lown. she was the very woman he was coming thus early to see. he wanted her to get the office floor washed before john brancker should arrive; but the sight of her white, scared face sent a sudden thrill of terror to his heart. was anything suspected? had anything been discovered? were his mental queries, thinking of himself alone.
"oh, mr. judd, thank heaven i've met you!" cried peggy, with a great gasp. "run to the bank, sir. there's been murder--murder! poor mr. hazeldine----" but here peggy caught sight of a policeman at the top of the street, and hurried off without a word more.
mr. hazeldine murdered! ephraim judd caught hold of a garden railing to keep himself from falling. for a moment or two the street and its houses faded away, and he was looking through the fanlight again, as on the previous night. a boy stopped and stared curiously at him; then ephraim's wits came back. a few rapid strides brought him to the bank. one of the heavy doors was open, left so by peggy lown. ephraim passed through, and made at once for mr. hazeldine's room. he took in the scene at a glance. mrs. sweet had had some water thrown over her, and showed signs of returning consciousness. sweet himself, only partially dressed, was kneeling on one knee a foot or two away from the murdered man. he had tried to lift up the body, but had been compelled to let it drop again, and now he was staring at it as though he could not believe the evidence of his senses. a short distance away lay the knife--no one would touch that till the police arrived. and then ephraim saw something else which sweet in his perturbation had failed to notice; the iron door which opened into the strong room was partially open. had there been robbery as well as murder?
mr. hazeldine was lying on his face, with one arm under his head, and the other outstretched, the hand of the latter being clenched as if in a spasm of mortal agony. mr. judd stooped and took hold of the hand; it was as cold as marble and apparently as senseless. no life was there.
"oh, mr. judd, sir, what a sight is this!" cried obed, while the tears streamed down his pudgy cheeks.
mr. judd did not answer. he heard the policeman's heavy footfall, and next moment that functionary came in, accompanied by peggy, and followed at a respectful distance by a crowd of some half-dozen people from the street, who felt sure that it must be a case of burglary at the least, and that, by good luck, there might perhaps be murder as well.
mrs. sweet was sitting up by this time, and staring round in a dazed sort of way. the sight of the constable roused her. she put her hands to her head and felt at her drenched cap and hair. "what a sight i must look! i wish i had my other cap on," was the first thought in her mind. then she whipped off her apron and hid her saturated head-dress with it. it was the touch of comedy which is seldom absent from even the grimmest of human tragedies.
the constable advanced without a word, and turned the body of the dead man over on its back. mr. hazeldine's vest was unbuttoned, the ends of his cravat were hanging loose, and his collar had apparently been torn by violence from the stud which had held it. his shirtfront had been cut by some sharp instrument just above the region of the heart, a small red patch marking the place.
"he's dead enough, poor gentleman," said he, with a shake of his head, as he let his fingers rest for a moment on mr. hazeldine's wrist. "but we shall have the doctor here in a minute or two."
then he picked up the knife and examined it curiously. the eyes of all present moved as with one accord from the dead man to the weapon that had slain him. fresh footsteps were heard outside, the crowd at the door divided for a moment, and in came mr. chief constable mace attended by one of his men and dr. barton.
the idlers were driven out, and the front door was shut and bolted. the news had spread, and already some half-hundred people had assembled outside the bank. those inside were waiting for the first words of dr. barton. not long had they to wait.
"he has been dead for several hours, probably since midnight, or even earlier," was the verdict. then he asked that a table might be brought in from some other room, and the body be laid upon it.
the knife was in mr. mace's possession by this time. he showed it to the doctor.
"yes, it looks like it, but we shall know better before long," said the latter. he was taking off his coat and rolling up his shirt-sleeves. sweet, who was trembling like a jelly, had gone with one of the constables to fetch a table.
"it seems to me as if there has been robbery as well as murder," said mr. judd, in a whisper to the chief constable, as he pointed to the open door of the strong room.
mr. mace nodded.
"you know the premises, mr. judd," he said. "suppose you and i have a look."
the strong room was in darkness except for a sickly gleam of daylight which penetrated through the small grated opening in the outer wall, but ephraim struck a match and lighted the gas. the door of one of the three iron safes, the one in which bullion was always kept, was wide open. apparently the safe had been rifled. strewn about the floor were a number of documents, three or four empty cash-bags, and some books. there, too, open and empty, lay the black leather bag which had contained the twelve hundred pounds brought by mr. hazeldine from london the previous afternoon.
"it looks as if somebody had been here that had no right to," said mr. mace.
"it does indeed," assented ephraim. "i think we ought to have mr. brancker here as soon as possible."
"right you are; and there's the poor gentleman's relations to be told. who's to do that?"
"i will go and break the news to mr. clement--that's the doctor--if you like, and then he can tell the others."
"do so, please; and could you not call on mr. brancker at the same time?"
"he lives in an opposite direction. one of your men might fetch him in ten minutes. by-the-bye, i shouldn't be a bit surprised if mr. b. was the last person who saw the governor alive."
"ah; in that case the sooner we have him here the better. but what reason have you for saying so?"
"why, i met him about half-past ten last night on his way to the bank. he said that he was coming to fetch his umbrella, but he may have seen mr. h. at the same time."
"um! well, we shall hear what he has to say when he arrives."
"no doubt sweet can tell you more of the matter than i can."
in speaking thus of mr. brancker, ephraim had no ulterior motive, nor did it strike him at the time that his words might be the means of placing john in a very awkward position.
two more constables had arrived by now. mr. mace planted one of them at the door of the strong room.
"don't let anyone enter here without my permission," he said. the other man he sent in search of mr. brancker, while mr. judd left the bank at the same time to break the news to clement hazeldine. at the doctor's wish mrs. sweet and peggy had retired. they would be required later on, but at present they were only in the way.
"there seems to have been robbery here as well as murder," said mr. mace to sweet. "i suppose you have no idea how it has all come about?"
sweet had recovered his faculties in some measure by this time. sorry though he was for mr. hazeldine, he yet felt that he himself must of necessity be a personage of some note for a considerable time to come. now that he had partly recovered from his first fright, he was beginning to swell with a sense of self-importance, and he proceeded to put on his most official air, and began to enter into a long, rambling statement which might have lasted for half an hour had he not been sharply pulled up.
"tut-tut, man, can't you answer a plain question in a few plain words?" said mr. mace, impatiently. "do you, or do you not, know anything of this affair?"
"no, i don't," answered sweet, shortly, and very red in the face.
"i thought as much," said mr. mace, dryly. "in these cases the person one would naturally expect to know the most is nearly sure to know the least. but, don't be afraid, my good man; you will have an opportunity of telling all you know before long. meanwhile, the less you say the better, except when you are asked a question by those who have a right to know."
mr. mace mounted a chair, and examined the iron bars which protected the two windows of the office. there was nothing the matter with them. evidently no entrance had been effected that way.
"and now you and i will take a little walk round the premises," said mr. mace to obed; so away they went, the latter ungraciously enough, although he was in a dreadful state of puzzle as to how anyone could possibly have made his way into the bank overnight, and left it again without his knowledge.
the front door was first of all examined, and afterwards the back door, which opened into a small paved yard, shut in by a high wall protected by revolving iron spikes. there was nothing about either of them to show that they had been tampered with in any way. the two men went next into the general office, where everything seemed in its usual state, and from that they passed into the inner office. here mr. mace's sharp eyes seemed drawn as if by instinct to the blood-stains on the floor.
"ha! what are these? who has been here?" he said.
"god bless my heart! i know no more about 'em than you do, sir!" cried sweet, beginning once more to quake like a jelly.
"these are the marks of blood," said mr. mace, gravely. "and here are finger-marks of a similar kind outside this drawer."
"why, that is one of mr. brancker's drawers," said sweet.
"one of mr. brancker's drawers, hey? does that gentleman keep any money in it, do you know?"
"oh, no, sir; that's not one of the cash drawers; and, besides, the money's all put away in the strong room at night."
mr. mace made a careful examination of the rest of the office, but discovered nothing further out of the ordinary way. he then locked the two doors that opened into the office, and put the keys in his pocket. he and sweet were just crossing the corridor when john brancker, pale and breathless, came hurriedly in.
"this terrible tale, that i have just heard, cannot be true, mr. mace," he said.
"only too true, i am sorry to say, mr. brancker. come and see for yourself," answered the chief constable, and he led the way into mr. hazeldine's office.
the body had been covered with a sheet, and doctor barton was in the act of putting on his overcoat. he shook hands with mr. brancker, whom he had known for years. john's glance traveled from the table with its terrible burden to the doctor's face, and then tears rushed to his eyes. it seemed all like a hideous dream.
"we can do no more at present," said the doctor to mr. mace. "there will have to be a 'post-mortem,' of course; but that, i apprehend, will merely serve to verify what we know pretty well already. the tissue of the heart has doubtless been punctured by some sharp instrument--probably by the knife in your possession--and death must have been almost instantaneous."
"but who can have done it?" asked john, in a stupor of horror and grief. he lifted a corner of the sheet, and gazed for a moment on the well-known face, on which there now rested such an awful calm, while the firm-set lips gave john the impression of keeping back by main force some grim secret, untold in life and now frozen into silence for ever.
"that's just what we would all like to know," answered mr. mace, dryly.
"there was a light in his office when i called for my umbrella about half-past ten," said john.
"but did you see mr. hazeldine, and speak to him at that time?" asked mace.
"no, i never saw him at all yesterday evening. he did not get back from london till late, and i would not disturb him."
"then it must have been you, sir, that i heard going out about that time," said sweet.
"most probably. i let myself in with my pass-key, found my umbrella in the dark, and was out of the bank again in three minutes."
"and i came upstairs when i heard the door bang, thinking it was mr. hazeldine who had gone," said sweet. "i was quite dumbfounded when i opened the office-door and saw him sitting there in his chair. 'i shall not be done for about half an hour yet,' says he. 'i will let myself out when i'm ready. you needn't trouble any more, sweet.' so with that i went, leaving him sitting there. little did i think----"
"never mind what you thought; tell us what happened next," said mr. mace.
"what happened next was that i went downstairs and got my supper," responded sweet, with a resentful glance at the chief constable. "after that i sat and had a pipe, waiting to hear mr. hazeldine go, that i might lock up for the night."
sweet paused and rubbed his nose with his forefinger.
"but you never heard him go, hey?" queried mace.
"no, i never heard him go. i waited till half-past eleven, and then i went upstairs again."
"perhaps you had a little snooze meanwhile," said mace, insinuatingly.
"me go to sleep when i'm on dooty!" exclaimed sweet, with an indignant sniff. "no, sir, i'm not one of that sort, and nobody ever hinted at such a thing before."
"i am glad to hear it. but tell us what happened when you came upstairs for the second time."
"not caring to disturb mr. hazeldine again if he was still there, i peeped through the keyhole to see whether there was a light, but i couldn't see one. still, to make sure, i knocked, but there was no answer, so i opened the door and looked in. everything was in darkness; the gas was out and the fire was out. says i to myself, 'he's gone;' and with that i locked the door on the outside, feeling sure that everything was right."
"but ought not the fact of your not having heard mr. hazeldine leave the premises have caused you to suspect that something was wrong?"
"mr. hazeldine was a very quiet gentleman. he would shut the front door and make hardly any noise about it. mr. brancker here, begging his pardon for saying so, generally bangs the door after him."
"what did you do when you found, as you thought, that mr. hazeldine was gone?"
"i did what i always do--i put out the gas in the lobby and fastened up the front door for the night, and then went the rest of my rounds to see that everything was right."
"how often in the course of the night are you supposed to go your rounds?"
"once every hour; and i'm not only supposed to go 'em, but do go 'em."
"and you neither saw nor heard anything last night out of the ordinary way--nothing, in fact, to make you suspicious that anything was wrong?"
"nothing whatever. i was as comfortable in my mind when i turned into bed between six and seven this morning as ever i was in my life."
"the inference would seem to be that the crime was committed between the hours of half-past ten and half past eleven," said mace. "but that is a point which will have to be inquired into more minutely later on." then turning to john, he added, "you, mr. brancker, will probably be able to tell us whether there has been robbery here as well as murder," and beckoning him to follow, he led the way into the strong room.
