Her lips were pressed together and her eyes shining, and a touch of
colour had come into each of her cheeks. It just wanted that to make her
the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. “You’ve done it now!” said I. “Yes,” said she, in her quiet way, “I’ve done it now.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked. “They’ll have you for murder as
sure as fate.”

“Never fear about me. I have nothing to live for, and it does not
matter. Give me a hand to set him straight in the chair. It is horrible
to see him like this!”

I did so, though it turned me cold all over to touch him. Some of his
blood came on my hand and sickened me. “Now,” said she, “you may as well have the medals as any one else. Take
them and go.”

“I don’t want them. I only want to get away. I was never mixed up with a
business like this before.”

“Nonsense!” said she. “You came for the medals, and here they are at
your mercy. Why should you not have them? There is no one to prevent
you.”

I held the bag still in my hand. She opened the case, and between us we
threw a hundred or so of the medals into it. They were all from the one
case, but I could not bring myself to wait for any more. Then I made for
the window, for the very air of this house seemed to poison me after
what I had seen and heard. As I looked back, I saw her standing there,
tall and graceful, with the light in her hand, just as I had seen her
first. She waved good-bye, and I waved back at her and sprang out into
the gravel drive. I thank God that I can lay my hand upon my heart and say that I have
never done a murder, but perhaps it would be different if I had been
able to read that woman’s mind and thoughts. There might have been two
bodies in the room instead of one if I could have seen behind that last
smile of hers. But I thought of nothing but of getting safely away, and
it never entered my head how she might be fixing the rope round my neck. I had not taken five steps out from the window skirting down the shadow
of the house in the way that I had come, when I heard a scream that
might have raised the parish, and then another and another. “Murder!” she cried. “Murder! Murder! Help!” and her voice rang out in
the quiet of the night-time and sounded over the whole country-side. It
went through my head, that dreadful cry. In an instant lights began to
move and windows to fly up, not only in the house behind me, but at the
lodge and in the stables in front. Like a frightened rabbit I bolted
down the drive, but I heard the clang of the gate being shut before I
could reach it. Then I hid my bag of medals under some dry fagots, and I
tried to get away across the park, but some one saw me in the moonlight,
and presently I had half a dozen of them with dogs upon my heels. I
crouched down among the brambles, but those dogs were too many for me,
and I was glad enough when the men came up and prevented me from being
torn into pieces. They seized me, and dragged me back to the room from
which I had come. “Is this the man, your Ladyship?” asked the oldest of them—the same whom
I found out afterwards to be the butler. She had been bending over the body, with her handkerchief to her eyes,
and now she turned upon me with the face of a fury. Oh, what an actress
that woman was! “Yes, yes, it is the very man,” she cried. “Oh, you villain, you cruel
villain, to treat an old man so!”

There was a man there who seemed to be a village constable. He laid his
hand upon my shoulder. “What do you say to that?” said he. “It was she who did it,” I cried, pointing at the woman, whose eyes
never flinched before mine. “Come! come! Try another!” said the constable, and one of the
men-servants struck at me with his fist. “I tell you that I saw her do it. She stabbed him twice with a knife. She first helped me to rob him, and then she murdered him.”

The footman tried to strike me again, but she held up her hand. “Do not hurt him,” said she. “I think that his punishment may safely be
left to the law.”

“I’ll see to that, your Ladyship,” said the constable. “Your Ladyship
actually saw the crime committed, did you not?”

“Yes, yes, I saw it with my own eyes. It was horrible. We heard the
noise and we came down. My poor husband was in front. The man had one of
the cases open, and was filling a black leather bag which he held in his
hand. He rushed past us, and my husband seized him. There was a
struggle, and he stabbed him twice. There you can see the blood upon his
hands. If I am not mistaken, his knife is still in Lord Mannering’s
body.”

“Look at the blood upon her hands!” I cried. “She has been holding up his Lordship’s head, you lying rascal,” said
the butler. “And here’s the very sack her Ladyship spoke of,” said the constable, as
a groom came in with the one which I had dropped in my flight. “And here
are the medals inside it. That’s good enough for me. We will keep him
safe here to-night, and to-morrow the inspector and I can take him into
Salisbury.”

“Poor creature,” said the woman. “For my own part, I forgive him any
injury which he has done me. Who knows what temptation may have driven
him to crime? His conscience and the law will give him punishment enough
without any reproach of mine rendering it more bitter.”

I could not answer—I tell you, sir, I could not answer, so taken aback
was I by the assurance of the woman. And so, seeming by my silence to
agree to all that she had said, I was dragged away by the butler and the
constable into the cellar, in which they locked me for the night. There, sir, I have told you the whole story of the events which led up
to the murder of Lord Mannering by his wife upon the night of September
the 14th, in the year 1894. Perhaps you will put my statement on one
side as the constable did at Mannering Towers, or the judge afterwards
at the county assizes. Or perhaps you will see that there is the ring of
truth in what I say, and you will follow it up, and so make your name
for ever as a man who does not grudge personal trouble where justice is
to be done. I have only you to look to, sir, and if you will clear my
name of this false accusation, then I will worship you as one man never
yet worshipped another. But if you fail me, then I give you my solemn
promise that I will rope myself up, this day month, to the bar of my
window, and from that time on I will come to plague you in your dreams
if ever yet one man was able to come back and to haunt another. What I
ask you to do is very simple. Make inquiries about this woman, watch
her, learn her past history, find out what use she is making of the
money which has come to her, and whether there is not a man Edward as I
have stated. If from all this you learn anything which shows you her
real character, or which seems to you to corroborate the story which I
have told you, then I am sure that I can rely upon your goodness of
heart to come to the rescue of an innocent man. THE END


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