Mary felt as though the haunting horror were a nightmare, a fearful dream, from which awakening would relieve her. The picture of the murdered body, far more ghastly than the reality, seemed to swim in the air before her eyes. Sally Leadbitter looked and spoke of her, almost accusingly, and made no secret now of Mary's conduct, more blameable to her fellow-workwomen for its latter changeableness, than for its former giddy flirting. "Poor young gentleman," said one, as Sally recounted Mary's last interview with Mr Carson. "What a shame!" exclaimed another, looking indignantly at Mary. "That's what I call regular jilting," said a third. "And he lying cold and bloody in his coffin now. Mary was more thankful than she could express, when Miss Simmonds returned, to put a stop to Sally's communications, and to check the remarks of the girls. She longed for the peace of Alice's sick room. No more thinking with infinite delight of her anticipated meeting with Jem; she felt too much shocked for that now; but longing for peace and kindness, for the images of rest and beauty, and sinless times long ago, which the poor old woman's rambling presented, she wished to be as near death as Alice; and to have struggled through this world, whose sufferings she had early learnt, and whose crimes now seemed pressing close upon her. Old texts from the Bible, that her mother used to read (or rather spell out) aloud in the days of childhood, came up to her memory. "Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," etc. And it was to that world Alice was hastening! Oh! that she were Alice! I must return to the Wilsons' house, which was far from being the abode of peace that Mary was picturing it to herself. You remember the reward Mr Carson offered for the apprehension of the murderer of his son? It was in itself a temptation, and to aid its efficacy came the natural sympathy for the aged parents mourning for their child, for the young man cut off in the flower of his days; and besides this, there is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty. This feeling, I am sure, gives much impetus to the police.
Their senses are ever and always on the qui-vive, and they enjoy the collecting and collating evidence, and the life of adventure they experience; a continual unwinding of Jack Sheppard romances, always interesting to the vulgar and uneducated mind to which the outward signs and tokens of crime are ever exciting. There was no lack of clue or evidence at the coroner's inquest that morning.
The shot, the finding of the body, the subsequent discovery of the gun, were rapidly deposed to; and then the policeman who had interrupted the quarrel between Jem Wilson and the murdered young man was brought forward, and gave his evidence, clear, simple, and straightforward. The coroner had no hesitation, the jury had none, but the verdict was cautiously worded.
"Wilful murder against some person unknown." This very cautiousness, when be deemed the thing so sure as to require no caution, irritated Mr Carson. It did not soothe him that the superintendent called the verdict a mere form,--exhibited a warrant em-powering him to seize the body of Jem Wilson, committed on suspicion,--declared his intention of employing a well known officer in the Detective Service to ascertain the ownership of the gun, and to collect other evidence especially as regarded the young woman, about whom the policeman deposed that the quarrel had taken p]ace; Mr Carson was still excited and irritable; restless in body and mind. He made every preparation for the accusation of Jem the following morning before the magistrates he engaged attorneys skilled in criminal practice to watch the case and prepare briefs; he wrote to celebrated barristers coming the Northern circuit, to bespeak their services. A speedy conviction, a speedy execution, seemed to be the only things that would satisfy his craving thirst for blood. He would have fain been policeman, magistrate, accusing speaker, all; but most of all, the judge, rising with full sentence of death on his lips. That afternoon, as Jane Wilson had begun to feel the effect of a night's disturbed rest, evinced in frequent droppings off to sleep while she sat by her sister-in-law's bed-side, lulled by the incessant crooning of the invalid's feeble voice, she was startled by a man speaking in the house-place below, who, wearied of knocking at the door, without obtaining any answer, had entered and was calling lustily for "Missis! Missis!" When Mrs Wilson caught a glimpse of the intruder through the stair-rails, she at once saw he was a stranger, a working man, it might be a fellow-labourer with her son, for his dress was grimy enough for the supposition. He held a gun in his hand. "May I make bold to ask if this gun belongs to your son?" She first looked at the man, and then, weary and half asleep, not seeing any reason for refusing to answer the enquiry, she moved forward to examine it, talking while she looked for certain old-fashioned ornaments on the stock. "It looks like his; aye, it's his, sure enough. I could speak to it anywhere by these marks. You see it were his grandfather's as were gamekeeper to some one up in th' north; and they don't make guns so smart now-a-days.