Various - "Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893"

Alpheus Spring Packard - "Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution"

Caius Valerius Catullus - "The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus"

Dutton Cook - "Art in England"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Hand in the Dark

A >> Arthur J. Rees >> The Hand in the Dark




Caldew had not allowed for the change the murder had effected on the
village mind. His familiar relations with the inn customers had changed
overnight. He was no longer the former village lad, returned to his
native village, and welcomed from his old association with the place,
but a being invested with the dread powers and majesty of the law, from
which no man might deem himself safe.

Caldew walked out of the snuggery and opened a door at the side of the
house. It opened into a billiard room--a surprising novelty in an
English country inn, and the outcome of a piece of enterprise on the
part of the landlord, who had picked up a small table cheap at a sale,
and installed it in the clubroom, hoping to profit thereby. Again Caldew
was conscious of the same distinct air of constraint immediately he
entered. Two or three men who were talking and laughing loudly became as
mute as though their vocal organs had been suddenly smitten with
paralysis. The village butcher, who was at the billiard table in the act
of attempting some complicated stroke, stopped abruptly with his cue in
mid air, and gazed at the detective with open mouth and a look of
apprehension on his florid face, as though he expected instant
accusation and arrest for the moat-house murder.

With an irritated appreciation of his changed status in village eyes,
Caldew left the inn and walked home for a meal before setting forth to
Chidelham to interview Mrs. Weyne.

There was a strong smell of soap suds in his brother-in-law's house, and
a vision of his sister's broad back, in vigorous motion over a steaming
wash-tub in the kitchen, indicated that she was in the throes of her
weekly wash. She ceased her labours at the sound of footsteps, and
turned round.

"Oh, it's you, Tom. Come for a bite to eat? Jest sit you down, and I'll
have dinner on the table in no time. I got something good for you. Old
Upden, the shepherd, brought me a nice rabbit this mornin', and I've
stewed it. It's the last one we'll get, I expect. Upden was telling me
he ain't going to snare no more, because the boys steal his snares,
which ain't no joke, with copper wire at five shillings a pound."

Caldew took a seat at the table, and watched his sister dish up the
dinner. As Sergeant Lumbe's income was not sufficient to permit of all
the refinements of civilized life, such as a separate room for dining,
the family midday dinner was taken in the kitchen, which was the common
living room. Mrs. Lumbe's preparations for the meal were prompt and
effective. She carried the tub of clothes outside, opened the window to
let out the steam, laid knives and forks and plates on the deal table,
then put a liberal portion of stewed rabbit into each plate out of the
pot which was steaming on the side of the stove. Dinner was then ready,
and brother and sister commenced their meal.

Caldew ate in silence, and his sister glanced at him wistfully at
intervals. She had no children of her own, and she had a feeling of
admiration for the brother she had mothered as a boy, who had gone to
the great city and become a London detective. From her point of view he
had achieved great fame and distinction, and she cherished in her
workbox some newspaper clippings of crime cases in which his name had
been favourably mentioned by friendly reporters. She hoped he would be
successful in finding the moat-house murderer. She would have liked to
question him about the case, but she stood a little in awe of him and
his London ways.

"What's the best way to Chidelham, Kate?" asked Caldew, as he rose from
the table. "There used to be a footpath across by Dormer's farm which
cut off a couple of miles. Is it still open?"

"It's still open, Tom. Old Dormer tried to get it closed, and went to
law about it, but he lost. Be you going across to Chidelham?"

"Yes, I shall ride over on my bicycle this afternoon. Do you know where
the Weynes live?"

"The Weynes? Oh, you mean the writing chap that bought Billing's place.
Their house stands by itself a mile out of the village, just afore you
come to Green Patch Hill."

"Thanks. I know Billing's place very well, but I wasn't aware that he
had sold it. I'd better be getting along. It's a good long ride."

"What be you goin' there for, Tom?" asked Mrs. Lumbe, with keen
curiosity. "About this case?"

"Yes," replied Caldew shortly.

"Have you found out anything yet, Tom?" pursued his sister earnestly,
her curiosity overcoming her awe of her clever brother. "Jem was telling
me before he went to Tibblestone that a ter'ble gre'at detective come
down from Lunnon this mornin', and was stirrin' up things proper. Jem
says he's a detective what travels about with the King, and 'e's got
letters to his name because of that. Is he on the tracks of the murderer
yet, Tom?"

"No, and he's not likely to, as far as I can see," said her brother a
little bitterly.

"Dear, dear, that's a pity, for it's a ter'ble thing, and an awful end
for the young lady. Jem came home all of a tremble like last night with
the ghastly sight of her corpse and I had to give him a drop of spirits
to help him to sleep. We was a talkin' about it in bed, and wond'ring
who could 'ave done it. Nobody hereabouts, for I'm sure there's nobody
in the village would hurt a fellow creature. Besides, the folk at the
big house is too respected for a living soul to think of harming them."

"They are popular with everybody, are they?" said Caldew, sitting down
again with the realization that he was likely to gather as much
information about the Heredith family from his sister as he could obtain
anywhere else.

"Oh, yes," replied his sister. "It's only nat'ral they should be. Sir
Philip is a good landlord, and he and Miss Heredith are very generous to
folk."

"Is Philip Heredith well-liked in the district?"

"He's been away so long that folk don't know much about him. But I never
heard anybody say anything against him. He's different from Sir Philip,
but he seems gentle and kind."

"He used to be a quiet and solitary little chap years ago," remarked
Caldew. "I remember climbing a tree in Monk's Hill wood for a bird's
nest for him. He couldn't climb himself because of his lameness."

"It doesn't seem like a Heredith to be small and lame," said Mrs. Lumbe
thoughtfully. "I've heard those who ought to know declare that Miss
Heredith never forgave his mother for bringing him into the world with a
lame foot. The servants at the big house say Mr. Phil has always been
ter'ble sensitive about his lameness. That's what made him so lonely in
his ways, though he was rare fond of animals and birds. We was all taken
aback when we heard of his marriage. He always seemed so shy of the
young ladies. The only girl I ever knowed him to take any notice of was
Hazel Rath. I have met them walking through the woods together."

"Who is Hazel Rath?"

"The daughter of the moat-house housekeeper. She came to the moat-house
with her mother nearly ten years agone. She was a pretty little thing.
Miss Heredith was very fond of her, and sent her to school. Mr. Philip
was fond of her too, in his way, though, of course, there could never
a'been anything between them. But nobody hereabouts ever expected him to
marry a London young lady."

"Why not?" asked Caldew.

"The Herediths have always married in the county, as far back as can be
counted. It was thought Miss Heredith would make a match between Mr.
Philip and the daughter of Sir Harry Ravenworth, of the Wilcotes. The
Ravenworths are the second family in the county, and well-to-do. 'Twould
a'been a most suitable match, as folk here agreed. But 'twas not to be,
more's the pity."

Caldew nodded absently. His original interest in his sister's talk was
relapsing into boredom because it seemed unlikely to lead to anything of
the slightest importance about the murder.

"The young lady he did marry was not a real lady, so I've heard say,"
continued Mrs. Lumbe, placidly pursuing the train of her reflections.
"She didn't come much into the village, but when she did she walked
about as though she were bettermost, and everybody else dirt beneath her
feet. But I have heard that she had to earn her own living in London
before Mr. Philip fell in love with her pretty face. If that's the
truth, she gave herself enough airs afterwards, and did all she could to
make Miss Heredith feel she'd put her nose out of joint, as the saying
is."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Caldew sharply, with all his senses
again alert.

"Well, you know, Tom, Miss Heredith has been the mistress of the
moat-house and the great lady of the county since Lady Heredith died.
But when Mr. Philip brought his young wife down from London that was all
changed. The young lady soon let her see that she wasn't going to be
ruled by her, and didn't care for her or her ways. They do say it was a
great trial to Miss Heredith, though she tried not to let anybody know
it."

"Where did you learn this?" Caldew asked abruptly.

"Lord, Tom, how short you pick me up! Milly Saker, who's parlourmaid at
the moat-house, told me in the strictest confidence, because she knew I
wouldn't tell anybody. And I wouldn't tell anybody but you, Tom. She
told me from the very first that she didn't think the two ladies would
get on together. They were so different, Milly said, and she was certain
Miss Heredith didn't think the young lady good enough to marry into the
Heredith family."

"Did she tell you if they had ever quarrelled?"

"I asked her that, and she said no. Miss Heredith is always the lady,
and she wouldn't lower herself by quarrelling with anybody, least of all
with anybody she did not consider as good a lady as herself. But Milly
says she was sorely tried at times. Milly thought it would end up in her
leaving the moat-house and marrying her old sweetheart, Mr. Musard,
who's just returned from his foreign travels. Perhaps you've seen him."

"Yes, I've seen him," said Caldew. "So he is her old sweetheart, is he?"

"So folk used to say," returned Mrs. Lumbe. "I remember there was some
talk of a match between them when I was a girl, but nothing came of it.
It's my opinion that Miss Heredith must have refused him then because of
his wild days, and he took to his travels to cure his broken heart. But
they still think a lot of each other, as is plain for everybody to see,
and go out for walks together arm in arm. So perhaps it will all come
right in the end."

With this comfortable doctrine of life, based on her perusal of female
romances, Mrs. Lumbe got up from her seat to clear the table.

"I trust it will," said her brother, but his remark had nothing to do
with the triumph of true love in the last chapter.

He left the room to get his bicycle to ride to Chidelham.




CHAPTER XI


On his way to Chidelham, Caldew again pondered over the murder, and for
the first time seriously asked himself whether Miss Heredith could have
committed the crime. He had glanced at that possibility before, and had
practically dismissed it on the score of lack of motive, but his
sister's story of the differences between Miss Heredith and her nephew's
wife supplied that deficiency in a startling degree. In reviewing the
whole of the circumstances by the light of the information his sister
had given him, it now seemed to him that Miss Heredith fitted into the
crime in a remarkable way.

The most important fact leading to that inference was that she alone, of
all the inmates of the moat-house the previous night, was out of the
dining-room when the murder was committed. That supposition took no
cognizance of the servants, but Caldew had all along eliminated the
servants in his consideration of the crime. In the next place, it
supplied an explanation for the disappearance of the bar brooch from the
bedroom. In all likelihood the butler had first acquainted his mistress
with his discovery of the unlocked staircase door, and she, realizing
where she had dropped her brooch, had seized upon the opportunity to
request Musard to call the detective downstairs and tell him about the
door. In his absence she returned to the bedroom for the brooch.

This theory seemed plausible enough at first blush, but as Caldew
examined it closely several objections arose in his mind. The hidden
motive of the crime, as innocently laid bare by his sister, was strong,
but was it strong enough to impel a woman like Miss Heredith, with the
rigid principles of her birth, breeding, and caste, and a woman,
moreover, who had spent her life in good works, to commit such an
atrocious murder? Caldew considered this point long and thoughtfully.
With his keener imagination he differed from Merrington by relying to
some extent on external impressions, and he could not shake off his
first impression of Miss Heredith as a woman of exceptionally good type.
He had to admit to himself that her graciousness and dignity were not
the qualities usually associated with a murderer. Religion, hypocrisy,
smugness, plausibility; these were the commonest counterfeit qualities
of criminals; not dignity, worth, and pride.

There was, of course, the possibility that Miss Heredith, grown
imperious with her long unquestioned sway at the moat-house, had
quarrelled with the young wife, and committed the murder in a sudden
gust of passion. The most unlikely murders had been committed under the
sway of impulse. Caldew recalled that Miss Heredith had been the last
person to see the murdered woman alive, and nobody except herself knew
what had occurred at that interview. It might be that the young wife had
said something to her which rankled so deeply that she conceived the
idea of murdering her.

Caldew, on reaching this stage of his reasoning, shook his head
doubtfully. He had to admit to himself that such a theory did not ring
true. If Miss Heredith had been maddened by some insult at the
afternoon's interview, she was far more likely to have killed Mrs.
Heredith immediately than have waited until dinner-time. And, if she had
committed the murder, why had she gone about it in the manner likeliest
to lead to discovery, openly leaving her guests a few minutes before,
and allowing herself to be seen afterwards descending the staircase?
Even the veriest neophyte in crime usually displayed some of the caution
of self-preservation.

But Caldew was too experienced in criminal investigation to reject a
theory merely because it was contrary to experience. There existed
presumptions for suspicion of Miss Heredith which at least warranted
further inquiry. And, thinking over these presumptions, he arrived at
the additional conclusion that the theory of her guilt could also be
made to account for the puzzle of the open window in Mrs. Heredith's
bedroom. Caldew believed that the open window had some bearing on the
crime. His first impression had been that the murderer had entered and
escaped by that means. The Virginia creeper to which Weyling had
directed attention that morning had strengthened that belief, in spite
of Merrington's opinion that the plant would not bear a man's weight.
But now it seemed to him that Miss Heredith might have opened the window
for the purpose of throwing the revolver into the moat so that it should
not be found. He determined to investigate that possibility as soon as
he returned to the moat-house.

He reached his destination only to learn that Mr. and Mrs. Weyne had
motored over to the moat-house to pay their condolences to the family.
He remounted his bicycle and rode back as fast as he could, chagrined to
think that he had wasted the best part of an afternoon in a fruitless
errand.

It was evening when he reached Heredith again, and rode through the
woods towards the moat-house. It looked deserted in the gathering
twilight. A fugitive gleam of departing sunshine fell on the bronze and
blood-red chrysanthemums in the circular beds, but the shadows were
lengthening across the lawn, and the mist from the green waters of the
moat was creeping up the stained red walls.

His ring at the front door was answered by the pretty parlourmaid who
had been dusting the hall before breakfast. He recognized in Milly Saker
a village playmate of nearly twenty years ago, and he recalled that it
was she who had told his sister of the difference which had existed
between Miss Heredith and her nephew's wife.

Milly greeted the detective with a coquettish smile of recognition.

"How are you?" she said. "You wouldn't look at me this morning. You
seemed as if you didn't want to recognize old friends."

Caldew's mind was too preoccupied to meet these rural pleasantries in
the same spirit.

"Is Miss Heredith in?" he asked, stepping into the hall.

"I shouldn't be here talking to you if she was," replied the girl
pertly. "She's gone to the village in the motorcar to meet Mr. Musard.
She's just got a telegram to say he's coming back."

"I thought he was going to France," said Caldew.

"Well, he's not. The telegram says he's not. So Miss Heredith's gone to
meet him by the evening train. Tufnell's out too. I don't know where
he's poked to, but I shan't cry my eyes out if he never comes back."

"Have Mr. and Mrs. Weyne been here?"

"Yes. They drove over in their car, and saw Miss Heredith and Sir
Philip. They weren't here very long."

"Where are Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill?"

"In the library. They come in about an hour ago. The big gentleman has
to go back to London to-night--I heard him say so. A good riddance too.
He had all the servants in the library this morning, bullying them
dreadfully."

"What did he say to you?" asked Caldew, with a smile.

"Nothing," responded the girl promptly, "except what he said early this
morning, when he stopped me in the hall here, and put his great ugly
hand under my chin, and told me he'd have a talk with me by-and-by. But
he didn't get the chance, because I was over in the village all the
morning with my mother, who's been ill. But he gave all the other girls
such a time that they haven't done talking of it yet. Gwennie Harden,
who sleeps with me, says he must have thought one of us murdered Mrs.
Heredith, and the cook was so angry with the questions he asked her that
she was going to give a month's warning on the spot, but old Tufnell
talked her over, saying that it was only done in the way of duty, no
personal reflection being intended. Tufnell begged her pardon for what
she'd had to put up with, and the cook granted it, and there the matter
ended. But they do say that Mrs. Rath--that's the housekeeper--came out
of the library looking fit to drop. But Hazel Rath didn't go into the
library, although she stayed here last night, and has been with her
mother all day. Favouritism, I call it. Why should they put all us
servants through our facings, and leave her alone?"

The mention of Hazel Rath's name recalled to Caldew's mind the
information his sister had given him about the early association between
her and Philip Heredith. But the import of that statement, and the
significance of the piece of news Milly Saker had just given him, were
not made clear to him until later. At the moment his thoughts were fixed
on the idea of testing his new theory about the open window while Miss
Heredith was absent. As he turned away, he asked the girl where Sir
Philip was.

"He's sitting with Mr. Phil," was the reply.

"I suppose there is nobody upstairs in the left wing?" he added.

"Nobody but the corpse," responded Milly, with a slight shiver. "Miss
Heredith's had her bedroom shifted. Last night she slept downstairs, but
this morning she gave orders for the white bedroom in the right wing to
be prepared for her. I reckon she wants to get as far away from it as
possible, and I don't blame her."

Caldew proceeded upstairs, and entered the death-chamber in the silent
wing. On his way back from Chidelham he had picked up a round stone,
which he now took from his pocket, intending to throw it from the
window, and mark the spot where it fell into the moat. He opened the
window, and looked out across the garden. The distance to the moat was
much farther than he had imagined; so great, indeed, that his own shot
at the water fell short by several feet. It was impossible that Miss
Heredith could have accomplished such a remarkable feat as to hurl a
revolver across the intervening space between the window and the moat.
No woman could throw so far and so straight.

This unforeseen obstacle rather disconcerted Caldew at first, but on
looking out of the window again it seemed to him, by the lay of the
house, that the window of Miss Heredith's bedroom was closer to the moat
than the window at which he was standing. As Miss Heredith had
transferred her bedroom to the other wing, he decided to go into the
room and see if he were right. He still clung to his new idea that the
revolver had been thrown into the moat, although his altered view that
it might have been thrown from Miss Heredith's window meant the
abandonment of his other assumption that the disposal of the revolver by
that means accounted for the open window in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom.
Caldew realized as he left the room that the question of the open window
still remained to be solved. What he did not realize was that he was
distorting the facts of the case in order to establish the possibility
of his own theory.

The door of the room which Miss Heredith had occupied was ajar. He
pushed it open and entered. There was within that deserted and desolate
air which a room so quickly takes on when the occupant has vacated it.
The heavier furniture and the bed remained to demonstrate the ugliness
of utility after the accessories and adjuncts of luxury had been carried
away.

The blind was down and the room in partial darkness. Caldew went to the
window, raised the blind, and looked out. The distance to the moat was
appreciably nearer, compared with the window of the room he had just
left, but the distance was still considerable.

As Caldew turned from the window, with the reluctant conviction that he
had been nursing an untenable theory, a last ray of sunshine shot
through the open window, causing the dust he had raised by his entrance
to quiver and gyrate like a host of mad bacilli dancing a jig. The shaft
of light, falling athwart the dismantled toilet-table, brought something
else into view--a tiny fragment of gold chain dangling from the polished
satinwood drawer.

Caldew pulled the drawer open. Inside was a lady's thin gold neck chain,
with a bundle of charms and trinkets attached to the end, which had
evidently been left behind and forgotten. He glanced at the chain
carelessly, and was about to replace it in the drawer, when his eye was
arrested by one of the trinkets. It was a small image, not much over an
inch in length; a squatting heathen god, with crossed arms and a satyr's
face--a wonderful example of savage carving in miniature.

It was not the perfection of the carving or the unusual nature of the
ornament which attracted Caldew's attention, but the material, of which
it was composed, a clear almost transparent stone, with the faintest
possible tinge of green. Holding it in the sunlight, Caldew was able to
detect one or two minute black flecks in the stone. There was no doubt
about it--the image was of the same peculiar material as the trinket he
had seen in the murdered woman's room the previous night.

As he stood there examining the charm, the murmur of voices not far away
fell on his ears. Looking cautiously out of the window, he saw Musard
and Miss Heredith walk round the side of the house to the garden, deep
in earnest conversation. Caldew backed away to an angle where he was not
visible from beneath, and watched them closely. Musard was talking,
occasionally using an impressive gesture, and Miss Heredith was
listening attentively, with a downcast face, and eyes which suggested
recent tears. As she passed underneath the window at which he was
watching, she raised a handkerchief to her face and sobbed aloud. Caldew
wondered to see the proud and reserved mistress of the moat-house show
her grief so freely in the presence of Musard, until he remembered what
his sister had told him of their supposed early love for each other. And
with that thought came another. It must have been Musard, the explorer,
the man who had wandered afar in strange lands in search of precious
stones, who had brought to the moat-house the peculiar stone of which
the missing brooch and the little image had been fashioned.

Acting on the swift impulse to take the image to Miss Heredith and see
how she received it, Caldew slipped the chain into his pocket and
hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase he was stopped by
Tufnell, who had evidently been waiting for him to descend. The usually
imperturbable dignity of the butler was for once ruffled, and he looked
slightly flushed and dishevelled.

"I have been down to the village looking for you," he said, in a
querulous tone. The majesty of the law had not vested Caldew with any
dignity in the old butler's eyes. He saw in him only the village urchin
of a score of years ago, whose mischievous pranks on the Heredith estate
had been a constant source of worry to him.

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