"Will you join me, squire?" asked de Chava.s.se, as he lifted the small tumbler and gazed with marked appreciation at the glistening and transparent liquid.

"Nay, thanks," replied Boatfield with a laugh, "I care naught for these foreign decoctions. Another mug, or even two, of b.u.t.tered ale, good landlord," he added, turning to Master Mounce.

In the meanwhile petty constable Pyot had stood respectfully at attention ready to relate for the hundredth time, mayhap, all that he knew and all that he meant to know about the mysterious crime.

Sir Marmaduke would of a surety ask many questions, for it was pa.s.sing strange that he had taken but little outward interest in the matter up to now.

"Well, Pyot," he now said, beckoning to the man to approach, "tell us what you know. By Gad, 'tis not often we indulge in a genuine murder in Thanet! Where was it done? Not on my land, I hope."

"The watches found the body on the beach, your Honor," replied Pyot, "the head was mutilated past all recognition ... the heavy chalk boulders, your Honor ... and a determined maniac methinks, sir, who wanted revenge against a personal enemy.... Else how to account for such a brutal act? ..."

"I suppose," quoth Sir Marmaduke lightly, as he sipped the brandy, "that the ident.i.ty of the man has been quite absolutely determined."

"Aye! aye! your Honor," rejoined Pyot gravely, "the opinion of all those who have seen the body is that it is that of a foreigner ... Prince of Orleans he called himself, who has been lodging these past months at this place here!"

And the petty constable gave a quick nod in the direction of the cottage.

"Ah! I know but little about him," now said Sir Marmaduke, turning to speak to Squire Boatfield, "although he lived here, on what is my own property, and haunted my park, too ... so I've been told. There was a good deal of talk about him among the wenches in the village."

"Aye! I had heard all about that prince," said Squire Boatfield meditatively, "lodging in this cottage ... 'twas pa.s.sing strange."

"He was a curious sort of man, your Honor," here interposed Pyot. "We got what information about him we could, seeing that the smith is from home, and that Mistress Lambert, his aunt, I think, is hard of hearing, and gave us many crooked answers. But she told us that the stranger paid for his lodging regularly, and would arrive at the cottage unawares of an evening and stay part of the night ... then he would go off again at c.o.c.k-crow, and depart she knew not whither."

The man paused in his narrative. Something apparently had caused Sir Marmaduke to turn giddy.

He tugged at his neckbands and his hand fell heavily against the trestle-table.

"Nay! 'tis nothing," he said with a harsh laugh as Master Mounce with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of deep concern ran round to him with a chair, whilst Squire Boatfield quickly put out an arm as if he were afraid that his friend would fall. "'Tis nothing," he repeated, "the tramp in the cold, then this heady draught.... I am well I a.s.sure you."

He drank half a gla.s.s of brandy at a draught, and now the hand which replaced the gla.s.s upon the table had not the slightest tremor in it.

"'Tis all vastly interesting," he remarked lightly. "Have you seen the body, Boatfield?"

"Aye! aye!" quoth the squire, speaking with obvious reluctance, for he hated this gruesome subject. "'Tis no pleasant sight. And were I in your shoes, de Chava.s.se, I would not go in there," and he nodded significantly towards the forge.

"Nay! 'tis my duty as a magistrate," said Sir Marmaduke airily.

He had to steady himself against the table again for a moment or two, ere he turned his back on the hospitable board, and started to walk round towards the forge: no doubt the shaking of his knees was attributable to the strong liquor which he had consumed.

The little crowd parted and dispersed at his approach. The lean-to wherein Adam Lambert was wont to do his work consisted of four walls, one of which was that of the cottage, whilst the other immediately facing it, had a wide opening which formed the only entrance to the shed. A man standing in that entrance would have the furnace on his left: and now in addition to that furnace also the three elm chairs, whereon rested a rough deal case, without a lid, but partly covered with a sheet.

To anyone coming from the outside, this angle of the forge would always seem weird and even mysterious even when the furnace was blazing and the sparks flying from the anvil, beneath the smith's powerful blows, or when--as at present--the fires were extinguished and this part of the shed, innocent of windows, was in absolute darkness.

Sir Marmaduke paused a moment under the lintel which dominated the broad entrance. His eyes had some difficulty in penetrating the density which seemed drawn across the place on his left like some ink-smeared and opaque curtain.

The men a.s.sembled outside, watched him from a distance with silent respect. In these days the fact of a gentleman drinking more liquor than was good for him was certes not to his discredit.

The fact that Sir Marmaduke seemed to sway visibly on his legs, as he thus stood for a moment outlined against the dark interior beyond, roused no astonishment in the minds of those who saw him.

Presently he turned deliberately to his left and the next moment his figure was merged in the gloom.

Round the angle of the wall Squire Boatfield was still standing, sipping b.u.t.tered ale.

Less than two minutes later, Sir Marmaduke reappeared in the doorway.

His face was a curious color, and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and as he came forward he would have fallen, had not one of the men stepped quickly up to him and offered a steadying arm. But there was nothing strange in that.

The sight of that which lay in Adam Lambert's forge had unmanned a good many ere this.

"I am inclined to believe, my good Boatfield," quoth Sir Marmaduke, as he went back to the trestle-table, and poured himself out another half-gla.s.s full of brandy, "I am inclined to believe that when you advised me not to go in there, you spoke words of wisdom which I had done well to follow."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE GIRL-WIFE

But the effort of the past few moments had been almost more than Marmaduke de Chava.s.se could bear.

Anon when the church bell over at Acol began a slow and monotonous toll he felt as if his every nerve must give way: as if he must laugh, laugh loudly and long at the idiocy, the ignorance of all these people who thought that they were confronted by an impenetrable mystery, whereas it was all so simple ... so very, very simple.

He had a curious feeling as if he must grip every one of these men here by the throat and demand from each one separately an account of what he thought and felt, what he surmised and what he guessed when standing face to face with the weird enigma presented by that mutilated thing in its rough deal case. He would have given worlds to know what his friend Boatfield thought of it all, or what had been the petty constable's conjectures.

A haunting and devilish desire seized him to break open the skulls of all these yokels and to look into their brains. Above all now the silence of the cottage close to him had become unendurable torment. That closed door, the tiny railing which surrounded the bit of front garden, that little gate the latch of which he himself so oft had lifted, all seemed to hold the key to some terrible mystery, the answer to some fearful riddle which he felt would drive him mad if he could not hit upon it now at once.

The brandy had fired his veins: he no longer felt numb with the cold. A pa.s.sion of rage was seething in him, and he longed to attack with fists and heels those curtained windows which now looked like eyes turned mutely and inquiringly upon him.

But there was enough sanity in him yet to prevent his doing anything rash: an uncontrolled act might cause astonishment, suspicion mayhap, in the minds of those who witnessed it. He made a violent effort to steady himself even now, above all to steady his voice and to veil that excited glitter which he knew must be apparent in his eyes.

"Meseems that 'tis somewhat strange," he said quite calmly, even lightly, to Squire Boatfield who seemed to be preparing to go, "that these people--the Lamberts--who alone knew the ... the murdered man intimately, should keep so persistently, so determinedly out of the way."

Even while the words escaped his mouth--certes involuntarily--he knew that the most elementary prudence should have dictated silence on this score, and at this juncture. The man was about to be buried, the disappearance of the smith had pa.s.sed off so far without comment. Peace, the eternal peace of the grave, would soon descend on the weird events which occupied everyone's mind for the present.

What the old Quakeress thought and felt, what Richard--the brother--feared and conjectured was easy for Sir Marmaduke to guess: for him, but for no one else. To these others the silence of the cottage, the absence of the Lamberts from this gathering was simple enough of explanation, seeing that they themselves felt such bitter resentment against the dead man. They quite felt with the old woman's sullenness, her hatred of the foreigner who had disturbed the serenity of her life.

Everyone else was willing to let her be, not to drag her and young Lambert into the unpleasant vortex of these proceedings. Their home was an abode of mourning: it was proper and seemly for them to remain concealed and silent within their cottage; seemly, too, to have curtained their windows and closed their doors.

No one wished to disturb them; no one but Sir Marmaduke, and with him it was once again that morbid access of curiosity, the pa.s.sionate, intense desire to know and to probe every tiny detail in connection with his own crime.

"The old woman Lambert should be made to identify the body, before it is buried," he now repeated with angry emphasis, seeing that a look of disapproval had crossed Squire Boatfield's pleasant face.

"We are satisfied as to the man's ident.i.ty," rejoined the squire impatiently, "and the sight is not fit for women's eyes."

"Nay, then she should be shown the clothes and effects.... And, if I mistake not, there's Richard Lambert, my late secretary, has he laid sworn information about the man?"

"Yes, I believe so," said Boatfield with some hesitation.