第29章 A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH(2)

This Mrs Love did, but again got no reply.She then evolved the theory that Betty had died during the night, and that Nanny, Mrs Duncomb being confined to bed, had gone to look for help, possibly from her sister, and to find a woman who would lay out the body of the old servant.With this in her mind Mrs Love descended the stairs once more, and went to look for another friend of Mrs Duncomb's, a Mrs Rhymer.

Mrs Rhymer was a friend of the old lady's of some thirty years'

standing.She was, indeed, named as executrix in Mrs Duncomb's will.Mrs Love finding her and explaining the situation as she saw it, Mrs Rhymer at once returned with Mrs Love to Tanfield Court.

The two women ascended the stairs, and tried pushing the old lady's door.It refused to yield to their efforts.Then Mrs Love went to the staircase window that overlooked the court, and gazed around to see if there was anyone about who might help.Some distance away, at the door, we are told, of my Lord Bishop of Bangor,'' was the third of Friday night's visitors to Mrs Duncomb, the charwoman named Sarah Malcolm.Mrs Love hailed her.

Prithee, Sarah,'' begged Mrs Love, go and fetch a smith to open Mrs Duncomb's door.''

I will go at all speed,'' Sarah assured her, with ready willingness, and off she sped.Mrs Love and Mrs Rhymer waited some time.Sarah came back with Mrs Oliphant in tow, but had been unable to secure the services of a locksmith.This was probably due to the fact that it was a Sunday.

By now both Mrs Love and Mrs Rhymer had become deeply apprehensive, and the former appealed to Mrs Oliphant.I do believe they are all dead, and the smith is not come!'' cried Mrs Love.What shall we do, Mrs Oliphant?''

Mrs Oliphant, much younger than the others, seems to have been a woman of resource.She had from Mr Twysden, she said, the key of the vacant chambers opposite to Mrs Duncomb's.Now let me see,'' she continued, if I cannot get out of the back chamber window into the gutter, and so into Mrs Duncomb's apartment.''

The other women urged her to try.Mrs Oliphant set off, her heels echoing in the empty rooms.Presently the waiting women heard a pane snap, and they guessed that Mrs Oliphant had broken through Mrs Duncomb's casement to get at the handle.They heard, through the door, the noise of furniture being moved as she got through the window.Then came a shriek, the scuffle of feet.The outer door of Mrs Duncomb's chambers was flung open.Mrs Oliphant, ashen-faced, appeared on the landing.God! Oh, gracious God!'' she cried.They're allmurdered!

One account says it was Sarah Malcolm who entered via the gutter and window.Borrow, however, in his Celebrated Trials, quotes Mrs Oliphant's evidence in court on this point.

All four women pressed into the chambers.All three of the women occupying them had been murdered.In the passage or lobby little Nanny Price lay in her bed in a welter of blood, her throat savagely cut.Her hair was loose and over her eyes, her clenched hands all bloodied about her throat.It was apparent that she had struggled desperately for life.Next door, in the dining-room, old Betty Harrison lay across the press-bed in which she usually slept.Being in the habit of keeping her gown on for warmth, as it was said, she was partially dressed.She had been strangled, it seemed, with an apron-string or a pack-thread,'' for there was a deep crease about her neck and the bruised indentations as of knuckles.In her bedroom, also across her bed, lay the dead body of old Mrs Duncomb.There had been here also an attempt to strangle, an unnecessary attempt it appeared, for the crease about the neck was very faint.Frail as the old lady had been, the mere weight of the murderer's body, it was conjectured, had been enough to kill her.

These pathological details were established on the arrival later of Mr Bigg, the surgeon, fetched from the Rainbow Coffee-house near by by Fairlow, one of the Temple porters.But the four women could see enough for themselves, without the help of Mr Bigg, to understand how death had been dealt in all three cases.They could see quite clearly also for what motive the crime had been committed.A black strong-box, with papers scattered about it, lay beside Mrs Duncomb's bed, its lid forced open.It was in this box that the old lady had been accustomed to keep her money.

If any witness had been needed to say what the black box had contained there was Mrs Rhymer, executrix under the old lady's will.And if Mrs.Rhymer had been at any need to refresh her memory regarding the contents opportunity had been given her no farther back thanthe afternoon of the previous Thursday.On that day she had called upon Mrs Duncomb to take tea and to talk affairs.Three or four years before, with her rapidly increasing frailness, the old lady's memory had begun to fail.Mrs Rhymer acted for her as a sort of unofficial curator bonis, receiving her money and depositing it in the black box, of which she kept the key.

On the Thursday, old Betty and young Nanny being sent from the room, the old lady had told Mrs Rhymer that she needed some money--a guinea.Mrs Rhymer had gone through the solemn process of opening the black box, and, one must suppose--old ladies nearing their end being what they are--had been at need to tell over the contents of the box for the hundredth time, just to reassure Mrs Duncomb that she thoroughly understood the duties she had agreed to undertake as executrixAt the top of the box was a silver tankard.It had belonged to Mrs Duncomb's husband.In the tankard was a hundred pounds.Beside the tankard lay a bag containing guinea pieces to the number of twenty or so.This was the bag that Mrs Rhymer had carried over to the old lady's chair by the fire, in order to take from it the needed guinea.