CHAPTER XXVI

.

TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR.

“The last jury on earth he would have wanted!”

Doctor Houghton looked at the country neighbors whom the very irony of fate had assuredly brought together as jurors at the inquest on the death of Lord Levallion. He had systematically neglected or despised them all, and there was not a man among them who really wondered at the tragic ending of a man who had been so notoriously unpopular. Since not one of them owed either benefit or injury to Levallion they should give a strictly impartial verdict, Houghton thought, as he was sworn; yet it had struck a curious anger in him when, as they viewed the body, not one of them had said “poor Lady Levallion;” and he realized that the whole county thought her a victim to a loveless marriage.

He was apparently the first witness; and, stripped of its technicalities, the gist of his evidence was that the late Lord Levallion had certainly been poisoned with some form of prussic acid in the liqueur he drank. The post-mortem left no doubt of anything but the precise form in which the poison was administered.

“Some one, any one, might have been in his dressing-room during the evening,” he finished slowly. “I found this in the door, caught in the lock,” producing his little rag of tweed, “but I am afraid it is no clue; for the stuff is familiar to me, and was very likely a suit of Levallion’s own, which he might have worn that afternoon. Any thought of suicide is out of the question!” sharply, as a juror murmured something. “Lord Levallion was the last man to do such a thing. He was a man of very superior intellect, and was, of late, supremely happy.”

He did not notice that a girl was sitting in a dark corner behind him as he stepped down from the witness-stand, and stood where the face of each fresh witness would be clearly seen. For the servants were called in, and one by one dismissed as useless.

All of them had been sitting in the servants’ hall when Sir Thomas Annesley’s dog had come through there as if it were mad, and run all round the room and thence into the kitchen; where a terrified scullery-maid let it out.

Mrs. Briggs, the housekeeper, almost inaudible for nervous weeping, had heard nothing till told his lordship was dying. She had been sitting in her own parlor with Carrousel, the cook, who had a toothache. He was with her when the dreadful news came.

“No, neither of us,” she sobbed, “had ever left the room. I was dozing by the fire, he was walking up and down. No”--again--“it was impossible the chef should have left the room and come back without my knowledge.”

Carrousel came next, a tall man with a short, dark beard, and very blue eyes. He was neatly dressed in a black coat and gray trousers, and looked most unlike a cook.

On being sworn and interrogated, he shook his head.

“I can tell you nothing, monsieur,” he said. “I was not well; my teeth were aching; I walked the floor in the housekeeper’s room. I heard nothing.”

“What time did you go there?”

“At ten o’clock. At twenty minutes past eleven they came and told me his lordship was dying.” His florid face paled a little.

One juror asked if he had not heard Sir Thomas’ dog barking in the kitchen.

“No, monsieur,” respectfully. “The housekeeper’s room is some distance from the kitchen. I heard no noise. I was glad to sit by the fire, perhaps to doze. It was as well, perhaps. I have had no sleep since. Milord was an excellent patron to me. He understood eating.”

There was a listless detachedness in his voice, as of a stranger who is utterly apart from his surroundings.

“What did you serve his lordship for dinner?” the coroner said suddenly.

“It was not that which killed him,” Carrousel returned gravely; “since the whole society partook of the same plates. My cooking does not give even an indigestion, much less death. Monsieur does not mean that he suspects me?” patiently.

“You are here to answer, not ask,” Doctor Aston returned coldly. And with an extraordinary knowledge of cooking and flavoring and accidental poisoning, he asked question after question of the chef, fruitlessly. The man quietly, without anger, cleared himself. It was impossible that he could have tampered with any portion of the dinner, since every one of his four kitchen-maids had seen it all prepared. As for any of his almond flavoring--which in sufficient quantity was poisonous--having been put into the bottle which killed Lord Levallion, almond flavoring was a thing for small pastry cooks. When he required it he used almonds, of which his lordship was very fond. He had in his possession absolutely nothing with a smell of bitter almonds, which could have been stolen and added to the bottle to hide some other taste.

The jury stirred impatiently--there had been no question of poison in the dinner--till it suddenly occurred to them that from the coroner’s minute questions Carrousel had been obliged to account for every instant of his time from six o’clock till twenty minutes past eleven. If there had been any juggling with bottles in Levallion’s dressing-room, the busy cook could have had no hand in it; for the kitchen-maids’ evidence tallied with his.

Carrousel stood an instant, as if watching for a question that did not come.

“You can stand down,” said the coroner, and for one second the cook’s listlessness vanished. There was relief in his face, as of a man who has patiently despatched a disagreeable duty.

The butler succeeded him, and, having charge of the cellar, was all but turned inside out with questions, the result of which was that there had been absolutely no other bottle of Eau de Vie Magique in the house, which could have been poisoned and substituted for Lord Levallion’s own, nor had he ever seen, or heard of, such a liqueur in his life. There was no doubting his honesty, nor his distress about his master’s death.

Levallion’s own man was called--the only old servant in the house. He did not look particularly honest--Levallion had more opinion of brains than honesty, perhaps--but Houghton thought, perhaps erroneously, that he was the only clever witness they had had so far; and the first who would not be content with clearing himself, but determined to find out the murderer.

“My name, sir? John Lacy,” he said, his hard, light eyes taking in every face in the jury, with as much scorn for their capacity as Levallion could have had. “I have been with his lordship ten years.”

“Did you ever see the bottle of liqueur with which Lord Levallion was poisoned?”

“I don’t know,” quietly. “I saw the bottle of Eau de Vie Magique which he kept in his dressing-room. It was given to him this summer by a gentleman in Aix.”

“Do you mean it was taken away and another substituted?”

“I couldn’t say that, sir. But I know the liqueur was all right last night at seven o’clock, for Sir Thomas Annesley came up to my master’s room with him, and his lordship made him drink a glass of it before my eyes. Sir Thomas seemed very down, and as if he wanted to speak about something. But his lordship put him off.”

A little rustle of interest ran along the jurors’ bench.

“Then if it was Lord Levallion’s own liqueur he drank, you contend it was poisoned during the evening?”

“I’m certain of it, sir.”

“Did Lord Levallion to your knowledge possess any poison?”

“No!” said Lacy flatly. “If you mean he committed suicide, it’s out of the question. His lordship was more contented than he had ever been in his life--or since I knew him. Somebody gave it to him!”

“Was he on bad terms with any one?”

“Plenty of people!” calmly; “but none of them would be likely to do it. I might about as well accuse her ladyship of doing it as sensibly as any of the”--he stammered--“the others!”

“Do you mean Lord and Lady Levallion were not on good terms?” sharply.

“I didn’t mean to imply that, sir,” flushing. “I said, and I think, Lord Levallion was more than happy. I never heard of any trouble between the two, except that last night I did hear them having a few words about going out or something, as I was passing through the hall. But it was nothing at all, sir!” hastily. “I beg you don’t think I’m insinuating anything against my lady.”

“Were you not in Lord Levallion’s dressing-room during the evening?”

“No, sir! I left it all neat, and was gone down-stairs almost as soon as his lordship left the room. I never went to his dressing-room of an evening till I was rung for.”

“You did not touch the bottle?”

“Yes, sir! I put it up on the shelf, and I scratched my hand on it for about the tenth time. It was a rough-made, molded bottle, with a sort of seam down each side, and time and again I’ve caught a scratch inside my hand from that rough seam.”

“Were you alone in the room?”

“No, sir; his lordship’s second man was with me. It was not either of us that tampered with the bottle.”

“Is that it?” The coroner pointed to some fragments of glass on a tray.

“I couldn’t say.” Lacy fingered each scrap slowly; none were bigger than a shilling. He looked up suddenly. “In my opinion it isn’t!” he said. “But you will understand that in the state the bottle is it can be only my opinion. I wouldn’t like to swear to it, but I think it. All I can say is that it is bits of glass and label which might be the one that was in the dressing-room. I wouldn’t swear it was the same.”

“Will you swear it is not?” sharply.

Lacy took the fragments and dust of paper-labeled glass to the light; went over each bit with the seeing fingers of a blind man, as well as faultless eyesight.

“It’s not the same bottle,” he said, after what seemed an hour. “There’s a pink smear on the label. His lordship’s bottle, when I left it, was clean.”

“That does not prove it a different bottle,” judicially. “Only perhaps that some one touched it.”

“To the best of my belief,” returned Lacy doggedly, “that is not his lordship’s bottle. I can’t find the seam on any of the pieces.”

“Or in the dust,” said a juror scathingly.

But Lacy stuck to his opinion and was let go. For some reason, and to Houghton’s wonder, the coroner never mentioned that rag of tweed.

A frightened footman took his place, who had taken coffee to the ladies after dinner.

“Were all the ladies in the room then?” asked Aston.

“Yes, that is--no, sir! I took in coffee and a note for her ladyship,” stammering, “and she gets up and leaves the room and Lady Gwendolen Brook after her.”

“With her,” the coroner half-corrected.

“Just as you say, sir,” abjectly. “I’d got out in the hall with my tray when Lady Gwendolen come out and run up-stairs after her ladyship.”

“Oh!” said the coroner quietly; “you can go.”

He called Lady Gwendolen for the next witness, and Houghton’s mouth tightened.

He remembered how the women had stood when he arrived, how aloof, how ironical. If he were not mistaken, the drama would begin with the new witness.

##