'Thereabouts, my lamb; jes' arter nine!'

'Was he sober or drunk?'

'Betwix' an' between, lovey; he cud walk straight an' talk straight, an'

look arter his blessed life.'

'Humph! seems as though he couldn't,' said Mr Inspector, dryly.

'Duvel! that's a true sayin',' said Mother Jael, with a nod, 'but I don'

know wot c.u.m to him, dearie.'

At the inquest Mother Jael was called as a witness, and told the jury much the same story as she had related to Tinkler, with further details as to the movements of the gipsies on that night. She declared that none of the tribe had left the camp; that Jentham had gone away alone, comparatively sober; and that she did not hear of his murder until late the next day. In spite of examination and cross-examination, Mother Jael could give no evidence as to Jentham's real name, or about his past, or why he was lingering at Beorminster. 'He c.u.m'd an' he go'd,' said Mother Jael, with the air of an oracle, and that was the extent of her information, delivered in a croaking, shuffling, unconvincing manner.

The carter, Giles Crake, who had found the body, was a stupid yokel whose knowledge was entirely limited to his immediate surroundings.

Perched on his cart, he had seen the body lying in a ditch half full of water, on the other side of an earthen mound, which extended along the side of the main road. The spot where he discovered it, was near Beorminster, and about five miles from the gipsy camp. The man had been shot through the heart; his pockets had been emptied and turned inside out; and evidently after the murder the robber had dragged the body over the mound into the ditch. Giles had not touched the corpse, being fearful of getting into trouble, but had come on at once to Beorminster to inform the police of his discovery.

It was Dr Graham who had examined the body when first discovered, and according to his evidence the man had been shot through the heart shortly before ten o'clock on Sunday night. The pistol had been fired so close that the clothing of the deceased over the heart was scorched and blackened with the powder of the cartridge. 'And from this fact,' added Graham, with one of his shrewd glances, 'I gather that the murderer must have been known to Jentham!'

'How is that, doctor?' asked one of the jury.

'Because he must have held him in talk while contemplating the crime, sir. The murderer and his victim must almost have been breast to breast, and while the attention of the latter was distracted in some way, the a.s.sa.s.sin must have shot him at close quarters.'

'This is all theory, Dr Graham,' said the coroner, who was a rival pract.i.tioner.

'It seems to me that the whole case rests on theory,' retorted Graham, and shrugged his shoulders.

Before the evidence concerning the matter closed, Inspector Tinkler explained how difficult it had been to collect even the few details which the jury had heard. He stated also that although the strictest search had been made in the vicinity of the crime, the weapon with which it had been committed could not be found. As the shooting had been done during a downfall of rain, the a.s.sa.s.sin's and his victim's footmarks were visible in the soft clay of the roadway; also there were the marks of horses' hoofs, so it was probable that the murderer had been mounted.

If this were so, neither gipsies nor harvesters could have killed the wretched man, as neither the one lot nor the other possessed horses and--'

'The gipsies have horses to draw their caravans!' interrupted a sharp-looking juryman.

'To draw their caravans I admit,' said the undaunted Tinkler, 'but not to ride on. Besides, I would remind you, Mr Jobson, as Mother Jael declares, that none of her crowd left the camp on that night.'

'Oh, she'd declare anything,' muttered Jobson, who had no great opinion of Tinkler's brains. 'Have the footmarks in the road been measured?'

'No, they haven't, Mr Jobson!'

'Then they should have, Mr Inspector; you can tell a lot from a footmark, as I've heard. It's what the French call the Bertillon system of identification, that's what it is.'

'I don't need to go to France to learn my business,' said Tinkler, tartly, 'and if I did get the measurements of them footmarks, how am I to know which is which--Jentham's or his murderer's? and how can I go round the whole of Beorminster to see whose feet fit 'em? I ask you that, Mr Jobson, sir.'

At this point, judging that the discussion had gone far enough, the coroner intervened and said that Mr Inspector had done his best to unravel a very difficult case. That he had not succeeded was the fault of the case and not of Mr Inspector, and for his part, he thought that the thanks of the Beorminster citizens were due to the efforts of so zealous and intelligent an officer as Tinkler. This sapient speech reduced the recalcitrant Jobson to silence, but he still held to his opinion that the over-confident Tinkler had bungled the matter, and in this view he was silently but heartily supported by shrewd Dr Graham, who privately considered that Mr Inspector Tinkler was little better than an a.s.s. However, he did not give vent to this offensive opinion.

The summing-up of the coroner called for little remark. He was a worthy country doctor, with as much brains as would cover a sixpence, and the case was beyond him in every way. His remarks to the jury--equally stupid, with the exception of Jobson--were to the effect that it was evidently impossible to find out who had killed Jentham, that the man was a quarrelsome vagabond who probably had many enemies; that no doubt while crossing the common in a drunken humour he had met with someone as bad as himself, and had come to high words with him; and that the unknown man, being armed, had no doubt shot the deceased in a fit of rage. 'He robbed the body, I daresay, gentlemen,' concluded the coroner, 'and then threw it into the ditch to conceal the evidence of his crime.

As we don't know the man, and are never likely to know him, I can only suggest that you should find a verdict in accordance with the evidence supplied to you by the zeal of Inspector Tinkler. Man has done all he can to find out this Cain, but his efforts have been vain, so we must leave the punishment of the murderer to G.o.d; and as Holy Scripture says that "murder will out," I have no doubt that some day the criminal will be brought to justice.'

After this wise speech it was not surprising that the jury brought in a verdict, 'That the deceased Jentham met with a violent death at the hands of some person or persons unknown,' that being the kind of verdict which juries without brains--as in the present instance--generally give.

Having thus settled the matter to their own bovine satisfaction, the jury went away after having been thanked for their zeal by the coroner.

That gentleman was great on zeal.

'Hum! Hum! Hum!' said Dr Graham to himself, 'there's too much zeal altogether. I wonder what M. de Talleyrand would have thought of these cabbages and their zeal. Well, Mr Inspector,' he added aloud, 'so you've finished off the matter nicely.'

'We have done our best, Dr Graham, sir.'

'And you don't know who killed the man?'

'No, sir, I don't; and what's more, I don't believe anybody ever will know.'

'Humph, that's your opinion, is it? Do you read much, Mr Inspector?'

'A novel at times, sir. I'm fond of a good novel.'

'Then let me recommend to your attention the works of a French author, by name Gaboriau. There's a man in them called Lecoq, who would have found out the truth, Mr Inspector.'

'Fiction, Dr Graham, sir! Fiction.'

'True enough, Mr Inspector, but most fiction is founded on fact.'

'Well, sir,' said Tinkler, with a superior wise smile, 'I should like to see our case in the hands of your Mr Lecoq.'

'So should I, Mr Inspector, or in the hands of Sherlock Holmes. Bless me, Tinkler, they'd do almost as much as you have done. It is a pity that you are not a character in fiction, Tinkler.'

'Why, sir? Why, may I ask?'

'Because your author might have touched you up in weak parts, and have gifted you with some brains. Good-day, Mr Inspector.'

While Graham walked away chuckling at his banter of this red-tape official, the official himself stood gasping like a fish out of the water, and trying to realise the insult levelled at his dignity.

Jobson--a small man--sidled round to the front of him and made a comment on the situation.

'It all comes of your not measuring them footmarks,' said Jobson. 'In detective novels the clever fellows always do that, but you'd never be put into a book, not you!'

'You'll be put into jail,' cried the outraged inspector.

'It's more than Jentham's murderer will if you've got the catching of him,' said Jobson, and walked off.

CHAPTER XVII

A CLERICAL DETECTIVE

All this time Mr Michael Cargrim had not been idle. On hearing of the murder, his thoughts had immediately centred themselves on the bishop.

To say that the chaplain was shocked is to express his feelings much too mildly; he was horrified! thunderstruck! terrified! in fact, there was no word in the English tongue strong enough to explain his superlative state of mind. It was characteristic of the man's malignant nature that he was fully prepared to believe in Dr Pendle's guilt without hearing any evidence for or against this opinion. He was aware that Jentham had been cognisant of some weighty secret concerning the bishop's past, for the concealing of which he was to have been bribed, and when the report of the murder reached the chaplain's ears, he quite believed that in place of paying the sum agreed upon, Dr Pendle had settled accounts with the blackmailer by shooting him. Cargrim took this extreme view of the matter for two reasons; firstly, because he had gathered from the bishop's movements, and Jentham's talk of Tom Tiddler's ground, that a meeting on Southberry Heath had been arranged between the pair; secondly, because no money was found on the dead body, which would have been the case had the bribe been paid. To the circ.u.mstantial evidence that the turned-out pockets pointed to robbery, Mr Cargrim, at the moment, strangely enough, paid no attention.

In considering the case, Cargrim's wish was very much the father to the thought, for he desired to believe in the bishop's guilt, as the knowledge of it would give him a great deal of power over his ecclesiastical superior. If he could only collect sufficient evidence to convict Dr Pendle of murdering Jentham, and could show him the links in the chain of circ.u.mstances by which he arrived at such a conclusion, he had little doubt but that the bishop, to induce him to hide the crime, would become his abject slave. To gain such an immense power, and use it for the furtherance of his own interests, Cargrim was quite prepared to compound a possible felony; so the last case of the bishop would be worse than the first. Instead of being in Jentham's power he would be in Cargrim's; and in place of taking the form of money, the blackmail would a.s.sume that of influence. So Mr Cargrim argued the case out; and so he determined to shape his plans: yet he had a certain hesitancy in taking the first step. He had, as he firmly believed, a knowledge that Dr Pendle was a murderer; yet although the possession of such a secret gave him unlimited power, he was afraid to use it, for its mere exercise in the present lack of material evidence to prove its truth was a ticklish job. Cargrim felt like a man gripping a comet by its tail, and doubtful whether to hold on or let go. However, this uncertain state of things could be remedied by a strict examination into the circ.u.mstances of the case; therefore Cargrim set his mind to searching them out. He had been present at the inquest, but none of the witnesses brought forward by the bungling Tinkler had made any statement likely to implicate the bishop.

Evidently no suspicion connecting Dr Pendle with Jentham existed in the minds of police or public. Cargrim could have set such a rumour afloat by a mere hint that the dead man and the bishop's strange visitor on the night of the reception had been one and the same; but he did not think it judicious to do this. He wanted the bishop's secret to be his alone, and the more spotless was Dr Pendle's public character, the more anxious he would be to retain it by becoming Cargrim's slave in order that the chaplain might be silent regarding his guilt. But to obtain such an advantage it was necessary for Cargrim to acquaint himself with the way in which Dr Pendle had committed the crime. And this, as he was obliged to work by stealth, was no easy task.