Part 15 (1/2)
The lawyer set down the decanter and coughed.
”A plain answer,” Dominey insisted.
Mr. Mangan adapted himself to the situation. He was beginning to understand his client.
”I am perfectly certain, Sir Everard,” he confessed, ”that there isn't a soul in these parts who isn't convinced of it. They believe that there was a fight and that you had the best of it.”
”Forgive me,” Dominey continued, ”if I seem to ask unnecessary questions. Remember that I spent the first portion of my exile in Africa in a very determined effort to blot out the memory of everything that had happened to me earlier in life. So that is the popular belief?”
”The popular belief seems to match fairly well with the facts,” Mr.
Mangan declared, wielding the decanter again in view of his client's more reasonable manner. ”At the time of your unfortunate visit to the Hall Miss Felbrigg was living practically alone at the Vicarage after her uncle's sudden death there, with Mrs. Unthank as housekeeper. Roger Unthank's infatuation for her was patent to the whole neighbourhood and a source of great annoyance in Miss Felbrigg. I am convinced that at no time did Lady Dominey give the young man the slightest encouragement.”
”Has any one ever believed the contrary?” Dominey demanded.
”Not a soul,” was the emphatic reply. ”Nevertheless, when you came down, fell in love with Miss Felbrigg and carried her off, every one felt that there would be trouble.”
”Roger Unthank was a lunatic,” Dominey p.r.o.nounced deliberately. ”His behaviour from the first was the behaviour of a madman.”
”The Eugene Aram type of village schoolmaster gradually drifting into positive insanity,” Mangan acquiesced. ”So far, every one is agreed. The mystery began when he came back from his holidays and heard the news.”
”The sequel was perfectly simple,” Dominey observed. ”We met at the north end of the Black Wood one evening, and he attacked me like a madman. I suppose I had to some extent the best of it, but when I got back to the Hall my arm was broken, I was covered with blood, and half unconscious. By some cruel stroke of fortune, almost the first person I saw was Lady Dominey. The shock was too much for her--she fainted--and--”
”And has never been quite herself since,” the lawyer concluded. ”Most tragic!”
”The cruel part of it was,” Dominey went on, standing before the window, his hands clasped behind his back, ”that my wife from that moment developed a homicidal mania against me--I, who had fought in the most absolute self-defence. That was what drove me out of the country, Mangan--not the fear of being arrested for having caused the death of Roger Unthank. I'd have stood my trial for that at any moment. It was the other thing that broke me up.”
”Quite so,” Mangan murmured sympathetically. ”As a matter of fact, you were perfectly safe from arrest, as it happened. The body of Roger Unthank has never been found from that day to this.”
”If it had--”
”You must have been charged with either murder or manslaughter.”
Dominey abandoned his post at the window and raised his gla.s.s of sherry to his lips. The tragical side of these reminiscences seemed, so far as he was concerned, to have pa.s.sed.
”I suppose,” he remarked, ”it was the disappearance of the body which has given rise to all this talk as to his spirit still inhabiting the Black Wood.”
”Without a doubt,” the lawyer acquiesced. ”The place had a bad name already, as you know. As it is, I don't suppose there's a villager here would cross the park in that direction after dark.”
Dominey glanced at his watch and led the way from the room.
”After dinner,” he promised, ”I'll tell you a few West African superst.i.tions which will make our local one seem anemic.”
CHAPTER IX
”I certainly offer you my heartiest congratulations upon your cellars, Sir Everard,” his guest said, as he sipped his third gla.s.s of port that evening. ”This is the finest gla.s.s of seventy I've drunk for a long time, and this new fellow I've sent you down--Parkins--tells me there's any quant.i.ty of it.”
”It has had a pretty long rest,” Dominey observed.
”I was looking through the cellar-book before dinner,” the lawyer went on, ”and I see that you still have forty-seven and forty-eight, and a small quant.i.ty of two older vintages. Something ought to be done about those.”
”We will try one of them to-morrow night,” Dominey suggested. ”We might spend half an hour or so in the cellars, if we have any time to spare.”