CHAPTER XXX
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY MAJOR SMEDLEY TO HIS FRIEND MRS. EARLE, IN CALCUTTA.
. . . Amateurs are so foolish about such things. Look at Ian Hereward, a man of intelligence in some ways. He actually seemed to suppose that by that famous "statement" of his, which aroused such a sensation, he was freeing Barr from all possible suspicion, and tearing away the veil of mystery from Millicent Hereward's death. Why, a young and inexperienced boy might have known better! But that shows, when a thing comes very near to you, you lose the "point of view," so to speak. It's like holding the palm of your hand close in front of your eyes. Not only are you prevented from seeing it clearly but it shuts out everything distant from your sight.
They say Wilbraham, who was one of the best legal minds in England, advised Hereward that he would do harm to himself as well as fail to clear Barr, if he made the statement, but Hereward obstinately persisted. The gossip is that Miss Ricardo urged him to take the course, and I for one believe the story, as it would be like her, don't you think? Not that I wish to speak against her to you, especially now that you have become the wife of her brother-in-law, over whose household and children she ruled for so many years before you were chosen to reign as queen over the fortunate kingdom. But I know at one time, whether or no you may now have changed your mind in her regard, we agreed pretty nearly in our opinion of that (more or less) young lady. And in any case you'll admit that at best she is inclined to be quixotic and dramatic in her views of morality and conduct generally.
They say "two heads are better than one." Personally I think that would depend on the heads. If Hereward and Miss Ricardo put theirs together over this statement of his, it's not much to the credit of the conjunction that they didn't see certain points of objection, unassisted by the lawyers. I should have put my finger on them at once, if they had asked my advice.
You see, where Ian Barr is concerned, the statement could do him little, if any good, in a court of law. Bringing out the fact that he was in the View Tower at the time of Lady Hereward's death, indeed, was likely to tell against him. To be sure, there was the girl Nora Verney to swear that she was with him, and that they were together in an upper room when they heard the shots. But as she had perjured herself the first day of the inquest, her evidence wasn't much good to Barr. There was no proof but their own word that Barr didn't go downstairs and shoot Lady Hereward, when he had heard her voice and knew she was alone in the Tower. He, unassisted, couldn't have proved that she had taken his revolver, and was in the habit of going about with it in a handbag when she walked in the woods. Was the jury likely to believe that Barr left England with the one object of screening his late employer, Sir Ian Hereward, and that it was entirely for Hereward's sake, not at all for his own and Nora Verney's, that he intended to keep silent when arrested and brought back from France? Not they. Circumstantial evidence was strong against him.
On the other hand, there was no proof except Sir Ian's word that he had gone out of the Tower before the shots were fired. In his statement he actually called attention to the fact that neither Barr nor Miss Verney heard him go, and that they both believed him guilty of murder.
As he made the case stand, it was simply a question for the jury to decide whether his word should be taken or not. If not, which had killed Millicent Hereward, her husband, or the young man whose prospects in life she had tried to destroy?
As for the suicide theory, if it hadn't been for what happened afterward, it would have been very difficult if not impossible to establish. As you know (for I sent you the papers with that passage marked), two doctors gave it as their opinion on the first day of the inquest that it was unlikely the poor woman had killed herself. Eventually, after all these new developments, when they were recalled, they did agree in saying that a vain and self-conscious woman might put an end to her life by placing the revolver in the position indicated by the wound. That, a first shot aimed at the side having been deflected by a steel corset, a would-be suicide might have feared to try the same spot again, and have chosen a spot between the throat and the chest, sparing the face and the throat itself from disfigurement. Still, who was to prove what might or might not have gone on in Millicent Hereward's mind? Some of her women friends, Mrs. Forestier for instance, did volunteer evidence that she had been exceedingly vain, or words to that effect, doing all she could to keep her looks as she grew older; and her maid, Kate Craigie, testified to the same peculiarity. But all that was in the realm of supposition. And my firm opinion is, and will continue to be, that if this Anglican Priest Father Tennant hadn't come forward, with what to my idea was equivalent to violation of the confessional, either Ian Hereward or Ian Barr would have had to suffer for the crime of murder. Even if a jury hadn't dared to convict, there would always have been whispers.
As for me, I am asking myself whether there could have been collusion between Sir Ian and this priest; whether Hereward had heard from him, and knew what he was likely to do, before he ventured to take the course he did. I can't so far persuade any one else to take this view, however, I confess, though I have had some interesting discussions on the matter with men of importance, at my clubs.
Father Tennant is fortunate in being revered by men and worshipped by women. You know the type? It is particularly successful nowadays. Fashionable women love to hear their own follies denounced. They flock to this man's church; and his conduct in giving Millicent Hereward away (that is what I call it), when she is in her grave, is condoned by his admirers. They uphold his defence, that, not being a Roman Catholic, there is no "seal of the confessional." They say that he was justified in revealing her confidences on the plea that everything she had told him was already known to the world, from her husband's statement, except the fact that she threatened, if ever found out and not forgiven, to put an end to her life. Also because she would "herself have wished it," since it was to free the innocent from suspicion.
Well, all I can say is that it's lucky for both Barr and Hereward that poor Millicent's remorse had forced her to open her heart to a priest. Lucky for them, too, that in opening it she didn't forget to hint at her own intentions in the event of certain contingencies, and even to add obscurely, "I have secured the means, if I ever need to use them."
The two are safe from the clutches of the law, thanks to Father Tennant (who will in the future be burdened with fewer confidences from his female adorers, I prophesy), but they will never be safe from gossip. Wherever they go, whatever they do—unless they change their names, they will be marked men. I don't envy them! Indeed, I am sorry for young Barr and the girl who, I hear, intends to marry and go to America with him, to "begin over again." But as for Hereward, he hasn't much sympathy from me, and so I tell every one. His cruel repulse of that unfortunate creature when she pleaded to him for pardon undoubtedly caused her death. I wouldn't have that on my conscience. But I never thought him a man of deep feeling, and I have known him since his youth. He always was a haughty, arrogant fellow, and certainly has nothing to be proud of in the way he treated Miss Ricardo. As you say in your letter, he did not, to be sure, mention her name in his statement; but every one knew to whom he referred. Their engagement years ago was an open secret, as I have told you before—and have told others. Nevertheless, she seems to bear him no grudge. If I could see her, I would try to find out of what she was supposed to accuse herself in the forged letter which poor Millicent Latham showed Hereward, in the hope of alienating his love from the fair Teresina. It would be interesting to know. Also, whether the letter was really forged. I am mooting that theory now, and it is exciting interest among my friends.
The latest gossip is, that in spite of everything there is an understanding between Miss Ricardo and Hereward, which eventually may end in marriage. I wonder? Nothing is too strange to be true. But if this is not the exception which proves the rule, Miss Ricardo must be a brave woman.
THE END
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.