The Fourth Generation

“Not ‘as far as the wood.’ He said that on entering the wood he remembered an appointment, and turned back. Remembering the evidence of the boy and your timing of the distance, we must give him some little time in the wood.”

“Very well – the longer the better, because it would show that there was nobody lurking there.

“ ‘Then John Dunning deposed to finding the body. It lay on its back; the fore-part of the head was shattered in a terrible manner; the unfortunate gentleman was quite dead. Beside the body lay a heavy branch broken off. It would seem to have been caught up and used as a cudgel. Blood was on the thicker end.

“ ‘A medical man gave evidence as to the fact of death. He reached the house at about one, and after attending the unfortunate lady, who was dying or dead, he turned his attention to the body of the victim, who had then been dead sometime, probably two hours or thereabouts. The valet deposed, further that the pockets were searched, and that nothing had been taken from them.

“ ‘The coroner summed up. The only person who had gone into the wood after the deceased gentleman was the man John Dunning. Who but John Dunning could have committed this foul murder? The verdict of the jury was delivered at once – “Wilful murder against John Dunning.”

“ ‘We have next the trial of John Dunning. Mr. Campaigne was so fully persuaded in his own mind of the man’s innocence that he provided him, at his own expense, with counsel. The counsel employed was clever. He heard the evidence, the same as that given at the inquest, but instead of letting it pass, he pulled it to pieces in cross-examination.

“ ‘Thus, on examining Mr. Campaigne, he elicited the very important fact that Mr. Holme was six feet high and strong in proportion, while the prisoner was no more than five feet six, and not remarkably strong; that it was impossible to suppose that the murdered man would stand still to receive a blow delivered in full face by so little a man. That was a very strong point to make.

“ ‘Then he examined the doctor as to the place in which the blow was received. It appeared that it was on the top of the head, behind the forehead, yet delivered face to face. He made the doctor acknowledge that in order to receive such a blow from a short man like the prisoner the murdered man must have been sitting or kneeling. Now, the wood was wet with recent rain, and there was nothing to sit upon. Therefore it required, said the doctor, a man taller than Mr. Holme himself to deliver such a blow.’ ”

Leonard stopped for a brief comment:

“It shows how one may pass over things. I passed over this point altogether at first, and, indeed, until the other day, perhaps, because the newspaper cutting is turned over at this place. The murderer, therefore, was taller than Langley Holme, who was himself six feet high. The point should have afforded a clue. At all events, it effectively cleared the prisoner.”

“ ‘It appears that the crime created the greatest interest in the neighbourhood. There were kept up for a long time after the acquittal of John Dunning, discussions and arguments, for and against, as to his guilt or innocence. No one else was arrested and no one tried, and the police left off looking after the case. Indeed, there was nothing more than what I have set down in these notes.

“ ‘The friends of Mr. Campaigne, however, speedily discovered that he was entirely changed in consequence of the double shock of the deaths of brother and sister, brother-in-law and wife, in one day. He ceased to take interest in anything; he refused to see his friends; he would not even notice his children; he gradually retreated entirely into himself; he left his business affairs to an agent; he dismissed his servants. He sent his children to the care of a distant cousin to get them out of the way; he never left the house at all except to walk on the terrace; he kept neither horses nor dogs; he never spoke to anyone; he had never been known to speak for all these years except once, and then two or three words to me.”

“The following,” he went on, “is also a part of the case:

“ ‘We have been a very unfortunate family. Of Mr. Campaigne’s three children, the eldest committed suicide for no reason discoverable, the next was drowned at sea, the third married a bankrupt tradesman, and dropped very low down in the world. Of the next generation, the eldest, my father, died at an early age and at a time when his prospects were as bright as those of any young member of the House; his second brother has just confessed that he has led a life of pretence and deception; and his younger brother, who was sent abroad for his profligacy, told me yesterday that he is about to become bankrupt, while another member of the family is threatened with ruin, and, to judge from his terror, with worse than ruin.’ ”

“There are still two or three facts that you have omitted,” said Constance. “We had better have them all.”

“What are they?”

“You have not mentioned that the boy went into the wood early in the morning and found no one; that the woman in the cottage – this was the voice of the grave that we asked for and obtained – said that nobody at all had been through the wood that day until the gentlemen appeared.”

“We will consider everything. But remember, Constance, we are sworn not to go through this ceremony again whatever the force that draws us.”

“We have forgotten; there is the half-finished letter that we found upon the table. Read that again, Leonard.”

It was in one envelope among the papers. Leonard took it out.

“There is nothing in it that we do not know. Langley was staying in the house.”

“Never mind; read it.”

He read it:

“ ‘Algernon and Langley have gone into the study to talk business. It is this affair of the Mill that is still unsettled. I am a little anxious about Algernon; he has been strangely distrait for the last two or three days. Perhaps he is anxious about me. There need be no anxiety; I am quite well and strong. This morning he got up very early, and I heard him walking about in the study below. This is not his way at all. However, should a wife repine because her Lord is anxious about her? Algernon is very determined about that Mill, but I fear that Langley will not give way. You know how firm he can be behind that pleasant smile of his.’

“Nothing much in that letter, Constance, is there?”

“I don’t know. It is the voice of the dead. So are these letters of Langley’s to his wife. They speak of a subject of disagreement: neither would give way. Mr. Campaigne was at times overcome with anger uncontrolled. Leonard, it is wonderful how much we have learned since we first began this inquiry – I mean, this new evidence of the quarrel and Mr. Campaigne’s ungovernable temper and his strange outburst in the evening. Oh! it is new evidence” – her face changed: she looked like one who sees a light suddenly shine in the darkness – a bright and unexpected light. “It is new evidence,” she repeated with wondering, dazzled eyes. “It explains, everything” – she stopped and turned white.

“Oh!”

She shrank back as if she felt a sudden pain at her heart: she put up her hands as if to push back some terrible creature. She sprang to her feet. She trembled and shook: she clasped her forehead – the gesture was natural to the face of terror and amazement and sudden understanding.

Leonard caught her in his arms, but she did not fall. She laid her hand upon his shoulder, and she bowed her head.

“Oh, God, help us!” she murmured.

“What is it? Constance, what is it?”

“Leonard, no one – no one – no one was in the wood but only those two – and they quarrelled, and the Squire was taller than his brother – and we have found the truth. Leonard, my poor friend – my cousin – we have found the truth.”

She drew herself away from him, and sank back into her chair, hiding her face in her hands.

Leonard dropped the papers.

“Constance!” he cried. For in a moment the truth flashed across his brain – the truth that explained everything – the despair of the wretched man, the resolve to save an innocent man, a remorse that left him not by day or night, so that he could do nothing, think of nothing, for all the long, long years that followed; a remorse which forbade him to hold converse with his fellow-man, which robbed him of every pleasure and every solace, even the solace of his little children. “Constance!” he cried again, holding out his hands as if for help.

She lifted her head but not her eyes; she took both his hands in hers.

“My friend,” she whispered, “have courage.”

So for a brief space they remained, he standing before her, she sitting, but holding both his hands, with weeping eyes.

“I said,” he murmured, “that nothing more would happen. There wanted only the last – the fatal blow.”

“We were constrained to go on until the truth came to us. It has come to us. After all these years – from the memory of the old man who scared the birds: from the innocent man who was tried – he spoke from the grave: from the murdered man himself. Leonard, this thing should be marvellous in our eyes, for this is not man’s handiwork.”

He drew away his hands.

“No. It is Vengeance for the spilling of blood.” She made no reply, but she rose, dashed the tears from her eyes, placed the papers in the book, closed it, tied it up again neatly with tape, and laid the parcel in the lowest drawer of the table.

“Let it lie there,” she said. “To-morrow, if this Possession is past, as I think it will be, we will burn it, papers and all.”

He looked on, saying nothing. What could he say?

“What are we to do with our knowledge?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Nothing. It is between you and me. Nothing. Let us nevermore speak of the thing. It is between you and me.”

The unaccustomed tears blinded her eyes. Her eyes were filled with a real womanly pity. The student of books was gone, the woman of Nature stood in her place; and, woman-like, she wept over the shame and horror of the man.

“Leave me, Constance,” he said. “There is blood between us. My hands and those of all my house are red with blood – the blood of your own people.”

She obeyed. She turned away; she came back again.

“Leonard,” she said, “the past is past. Courage! We have learned the truth before that unhappy man dies. It is a sign. The day of Forgiveness draws nigh.”

Then she left him softly.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SIGNS OF CHANGE

LEONARD was left alone. He threw himself into a chair and tried to think. He could not. The power of concentration had left him. The tension of the last three weeks, followed by the wholly unexpected nature of the discovery, was too much for a brain even so young and strong as his. The horror of the discovery was not even felt: he tried to realise it: he knew that it ought to be there: but it was not: all he felt was an overwhelming sense of relief. He fell asleep in the chair before the fire. It was then about noon on Sunday. From time to time his man looked in, made up the fire, for the spring day was still chilly, but would not awaken his master. It was past seven in the evening when he woke up. Twilight was lying about the room. He remembered that Constance had laid the papers in a drawer. He opened the drawer. He took out the papers and the book. He held them in his hand. For the first time since his possession of those documents he felt no loathing of the book and its accursed pages: nor did he feel the least desire to open it or to read any more about the abominable case. He returned the packet to the drawer. Then he perceived that he was again down-laden with the oppression of sleep. He went into his bedroom and threw himself dressed as he was upon the bed, when he instantly fell sound asleep.

He was neither hungry nor thirsty: he wanted no food: he wanted nothing but sleep: he slept the clock round, and more. It was ten on Monday morning when he woke up refreshed by his long and dreamless sleep, and in a normal condition of hunger.

More than this, although the discovery – the tragic discovery – was fresh in his mind, he found himself once more free to think of anything he pleased.

He dressed, expecting the customary summons to the Book and the Case. None came. He took breakfast and opened the paper. For three weeks he had been unable to read the paper at all. Now, to his surprise, he approached it with all his customary interest. Nothing was suggested to his mind as to the book. He went into the study, he again opened the drawer; he was not afraid, though no compulsion obliged him, to take out the book: since he was not constrained, as before, to open it, he put it back again. He remarked that the loathing with which he had regarded it only the day before was gone. In fact, he heeded the book no longer: it was like the dead body of a demon which could do no more harm.

He turned to the papers on his writing-table; there were the unfinished sheets of his article lying piled up with notes and papers in neglect. He took them up with a new-born delight and the anticipation of the pleasure of finishing the thing; he wondered how he had been able to suspend his work for so long. There was a pile letters, the unopened, unanswered letters of the last three weeks; he hurriedly tore them open: some of them, at least, must be answered without delay.

All this time he was not forgetful of the Discovery. That was now made: it was complete. Strange! It did not look so horrible after four-and-twenty hours. It seemed as if the discovery was the long-looked for answer to the mystery which explained everything.

He sat down, his mind clear once more, and tried to make out the steps by which the truth had been recovered. To give his thoughts words, “We started with two assumptions, both of which were false; and both made it impossible to find the truth. The first of these was the assumption that the two were fast and firm friends, whereas they were for the moment at variance on some serious affair – so much at variance that on one occasion at least before the last, one of them had become like a madman in his rage. The second was the assumption that the Squire had turned and gone home at the entrance of the wood. Both at the inquest and the trial that had been taken for granted. Now, the boy had simply said that they went into the wood together, and that one had come out alone.

“In consequence of these two assumptions, we were bound to find some one in the wood who must have done the deed. The boy declared that no one was in the wood at half-past five in the morning, and that he saw no one but these two go in till John Dunning went in at noon. The cottage woman said that no one at all had used that path that day. The coppice was so light that the two who went in must have seen anybody who was lurking there. If we remove the two assumptions – if we suppose that they entered the wood quarrelling – if we remember that the evening before one of them had become like a madman for rage – if we give them ten minutes or a quarter of an hour together – if we remember the superior height of one, which alone enabled the blow to fall on the top of the other’s head – if we add to all this the subsequent behavior of the survivor, there can no longer be the least room for doubt. The murderer was Algernon Campaigne, Justice of the Peace, Master of Campaigne Park.”

All this he reasoned out coldly and clearly. That he could once more reason on any subject at all gave him so much relief that the blow and shame of the discovery were greatly lessened. He remembered, besides, that the event happened seventy years before; that there could be no further inquiry; that the secret belonged to himself and to Constance; and that there was no need to speak of it to any other members of his family.

By this time, what was left of the family honour? He laughed bitterly as he reflected on the blots upon that once fair white scutcheon. Suicide – bankruptcy – the mud and mire of dire poverty – forgery – shame and pretence, and at last the culminating crime beyond which one can hardly go – the last crime which was also the first – the slaying of a man by his brother – MURDER!

A knock at the door roused him. Was it more trouble? He sat up instinctively to meet it. But he was quite calm. He did not expect trouble. When it comes, one generally feels it beforehand. Now he felt no kind of anticipation. It was, in fact, only a note from Constance:

“I write to tell you that the misfortunes of your House are over. There will be no more. I am certain of what I say. Do not ask me how I learned this, because you would not believe. We have been led – and this you will not believe – by the hand of the man who was killed, and none other – to the Discovery which ends it all.

“Constance.”

“The Discovery,” he thought, “which is worse than all the rest put together. No more misfortunes? No more consequences, then. What does she mean? Consequences must go on.”

You remember how, one day, there came to a certain Patriarch one who told of trouble, and almost before he had finished speaking there came also another with more trouble, and yet a third with more. You remember also how to this man there came, one after the other, messengers who brought confession of fraud and disgrace.

This afternoon the opposite happened. There came three; but there were not messengers of trouble, but of peace, and even joy.

The first was his cousin Mary Anne.

“I’ve come,” she said, “with a message from my brother. Sam is very sorry that he carried on here as he says he did. I don’t know how he carried on, but Sam is very nasty sometimes, when his temper and his troubles get the better of him.”

“Pray do not let him be troubled. I have quite forgotten what he said.”

“It seems that he brought his precious bill against granny, and showed it to you. He says that he’s put it in the fire, and that he didn’t mean it, except in the hope that you’d lend him a little money.”

“I see. Well, my cousin, is that all?”

“Oh, he begs your pardon humbly. And he says that the builder has got the Bank to back him after all: and he’ll be contented to wait now for his share of the accumulations.”

“I am sorry that he still entertains hopes in that direction.”

“Oh! he thinks about nothing else. He has got the whole amount worked out: he knows how much there will be. If it is left to you or to anybody else he will dispute the will. He’ll carry it up to the Lords, he says.”

“Very good. We may wait until the will is produced. Meantime, Mary Anne, there is a little point which he seems to forget. It his grandmother and not himself who could have a right to dispute the will. Can he be so poor in law as not to know that?”

“He makes granny sign papers. I don’t know how many she has signed. He is always thinking about some other danger to be met, and then he draws up a paper and makes her sign it with me as witness. Granny never asks what the paper means.”

“Signing documents is dangerous. You must not allow it, my cousin. If there is anything coming to your branch of the family from Campaigne Park, you are as much concerned as Sam.”

She laughed. “You don’t know Sam. He means to have it all. He says that he’s arranged to have it all.”

“Let us talk about something else. Is your grandmother content to go on living as she does now?”

“No. But she has always been so unhappy that a few years more of Sam’s bad temper and selfishness don’t seem to matter. I came here this morning partly to tell you that I’ve arranged it at last. I had it out with Sam yesterday. I told him that he could go on living with mother, and I would take granny – she’s so vexed, you can’t think – that Sam should have gone and made out a bill for her keep and presented to you – that I was able to persuade her. Granny will live with me – I can afford it – and mother will go on with Sam. And I do hope, Mr. Campaigne, that you will come and see her sometimes. She says, have you read the book?”

“Yes. I will go to see her sometimes. Tell her so. And as for the book, I have read it all through.”

“And did it do you good to read the book? To me it always makes that old gentleman so grand and good – finding lawyers for the poor innocent man and all.”

“Tell her the book has produced all the effect she desired and more.”

While she was still speaking, Uncle Fred burst in. Mary Anne retired, making way for the visitor, who, she perceived, from the family likeness, was a large and very magnificent specimen of the Campaigne family.

He burst in. He came in like an earthquake, making the furniture crack, and the glasses rattle, and the picture-frames shake. He showed the most jovial, happy, benevolent air possible. No one could look happier, more benevolent, and more contented with himself.

“Congratulate me, my dear boy!” he cried, offering the most friendly hand in the world. There was a fine and large forgiveness in that extended hand. The last conversation was forgotten and dismissed from memory. “Barlow Brothers is saved!”

“Oh! how have you saved it?”

“I will tell you how. It has been a most wonderful stroke of luck for Australian enterprise. Nothing short of a national disaster has been averted.”

“Indeed! I gathered from your last communication that the business was – well, not worth saving.”

“Not worth saving? My dear Leonard! it is colossal – colossal!”

Leonard is still mystified, whenever he thinks of it, by this abrupt change of front. What did he mean?

“I am immediately going back to Australia to put things on a right footing.”

“Oh! You have made a Company in the City after all!”

“No,” he replied with decision. “The City has had its chance and has refused its opportunity. I leave the City to lament its own short-sighted refusal. I am sorry for the City. I now return to Australia. The firm of Barlow Brothers may rise conspicuous and colossal, or it may continue to be a purveyor of sardines and blacking, or it may go smash.”

At this point his eye fell upon a letter. It was one of the documents in the Case; in fact, it was the letter from Australia which came with John Dunning’s memorandum. By accident it had not been put away with the rest. He read the superscription on the seal: “John Dunning’s Sons.”

“John Dunning’s Sons?” he asked. “John Dunning’s Sons?”

“It’s an old story. Your grandfather helped John Dunning in early life.” Leonard took out the letter. “His family write to express the gratitude – a post-mortem gratitude – of the late John Dunning to the family generally. Would you like to read it?”

Uncle Fred read it. His jovial face became grave – even austere in thoughtfulness. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.

“By your leave,” he said. “My dear boy, the Dunnings are the richest people in the colony. I am a made man. Their gratitude simply warms my heart. It inspires once more the old youthful belief in human nature. With this letter – with this introduction – Barlow Brothers vanish. Damn the sardine boxes! Fred Campaigne returns to Australia, and Fortune smiles. My boy, farewell. With this letter in my pocket, I start to-morrow.”

“Stop, stop!” cried Leonard. “How about the colossal business? How about the saving of that important shanty where you dispensed sardines?”

Uncle Fred looked at his watch.

“But you say that you have saved it – how?”

“I have just time” – again he looked at his watch – “to keep – ah! a most important appointment. I shall go out to Australia next week. On the way out I will amuse myself by writing you an account of the Barlow Brothers – in several chapters – The Conception, The First Box of Sardines, The Shanty, the Realisation, the Millionaire. Novels would not be more thrilling.”

“But you abandon this Colossal undertaking?”

“I give it up. Why? Because an easier way lies open. I should be more than human if I did not take the easier way.”

“You are going out to Mr. Dunning with that letter in your pocket?”

“I am, going, sir, to throw myself into the arms of gratitude. Human Nature! Human Nature! How lovely a thing is Human Nature when it is grateful!”

Leonard grunted.

“I am not sure,” he said, “that I did right in giving you that letter.”

“You can have it back again. I know the contents. And now, my dear nephew, there is but one small duty to perform – I allude to the Hotel Bill. My brother has found the passage-money – Christopher was always a selfish beast, but his language at parting with that money was inexcusable. He refuses the Hotel Bill.”