The Beechcourt Mystery

Part I

— A DARK PAST. PACK "Martin Rapeau" and His "Daughter" 1 Glimpses of a Dark Past 4 Jean Champlain's Victim 9 Pursued by Terror 14 Michel Champlain's Alibi 22 From Crime to Crime 28 The Gloom of Guilt 34 The Gendarme's Promise 41 On Ruin Bent 40 Treason in the House 53 The Ambuscade 61 A Step Deeper into Crime 66 Impending Horrors CONTENTS. PAfiE Justice Enters on the Scene 78 Jean Blanc's Kevelation 84 On-coming Doom 9° The Cellar's Secret 97 Crime's Dread Penalty 102 What the Light of the Lamp Revealed 107

Part II

— MATHILDE RAPEAU. A Midnight Summons Ill The Doctor's Secret 110 A Poacher's Daughter 121 United, yet Sundered 128 Lord Strogan 134 A Vain Appeal 139 Gilly's Last Exploit 143 Sampson Rudd's Expedient 15Q Twice Warned CONTENTS. III PAGE Montagues and Capulets 161 Dr. Melsey's Trust 106 Vengeance 172 Lord Strogan's Last Moments 178 A Last Resource 184 The Enigma oe Hatred Solved 192 "The Lady Protests Too Much, Methinks" 200 Sampson Rudd Speaks Out 204 Fatality's Web 212

PART IIL

-THE SQUIRREL Justice is Blind 218 Innocence Sometimes Looks Like Guilt 224 The Second Bullet 230 Footprints 237 Blood-Money 243 In the Spider's Web CONTEXTS. IV I'M IF. Unquenchable Hatred 255 In the Cause of Justice 261 Public Opinion 267 Beei hcourt's New Master 273 Anxieties 278 The Search for the Hunchback's Accomplice 285 Nearing the Solution 290 The Beading of the Will 294 After the Reading of the Will 298 Brought to Bay 303 Final Proofs of Guilt 309 Epilogue THE BEECHCOURT MYSTERY.

PART I.

-A DARK PAST.

Chapter I

"martin rapeau" and his "daughter." It was a bright summer afternoon, and the South-Eastern Bailway Company's express steamer, the Albert Victor, was making her rapid way across the Channel from Boulogne to Folkestone under the pleasantest conditions. As far as it was possible for "Monsieur" to enjoy a trip of one hour and twenty minutes' duration on the "briny," he was enjoying it, which leaves little more to be said, perhaps, as to the smooth ness of the passage. There were not a great many passengers on board, and none who, from an exterior sign, would have attracted the special attention even of an habitually close observer ; yet there were two persons present whose history, had it been known, would have made them the observed of all observers on board the Albert Victor that afternoon.

These were a thick-set elderly man with grizzled hair, sun tanned face, and the bearing of a farmer, or, at least, of a man used to the rough labour of the fields or woods ; a foreigner, evidently ; a Frenchman, it would have been discovered, had he spoken. But between him and his companion, a young woman of two or three and twenty, who might naturally have been taken for his daughter, complete silence was maintained. In regard to that young person, however, there was more that was noticeable. She was strikingly handsome. Above rather than below the middle height, lithe as to form, dark tomplexioned — like the women of the South — her eyes large i; ■■■> THE BEECHCOURT MYSTERY. and black, with something of wildness in their bold and penetrating gaze. Her dress was little to be distinguished from that of a well-to-do peasant girl save for a certain coquetry with which it had evidently been chosen.

Paris diamonds sparkled in her ears. The two had gone on board the steamer unnoticed, and had silently seated themselves in the fore part of the vessel. They had scarcely any luggage : the man a carpet-bag, the young woman a few articles of attire tied up in a small woollen shawl. One of the last passengers to go on board was a tall and handsome man, about two or three and thirty years of age apparently, and at a glance recognisable as an Englishman. He was dressed in an elegantly made travelling suit of grey homespun, a " bowler " of the same hue upon his head com pleting a thoroughly characteristic costume ; and as he strolled forward, smoking a genuine Villar-y-Villar, aristocrat and man of the world were marked in every trait of his bearing. The Earl of Strogan was what is euphemistically called "a man of the world," a term which, being inquired into, mostly turns out to be descriptive of a man who goes on his way through life selfishly and callously, amusing himself, at no matter what cost of injury to his fellow creatures, amenable only to a code of honour of which there is absolutely no enforcement so long as the offender is sufficiently astute or lucky enough to keep on the safe side of the written laws of his country.

Lord Strogan had, so far, " led a rackety life." He was not rich ; that is to say, his income was not notably large ; but it served to allow of his participation in most of the costly self indulgences of men of his stamp, who " hold on " to single life as long as their fortune and health will bear the strain put upon them. At the moment when he stepped on board the Albert Victor he was returning to England, after passing the preceding winter and spring on the Biviera, where he enjoyed a reputation which was the unconcealed envy of some, and the subject of cautious, even of covert, allusion only with others, to whom it was known. "martin rapeau" and his "daughter." 3 On passing on to the fore-deck his eyes had instantly rested on the striking features of the French girl, and he stood for a few moments closely observing her and her companion, guessing at their probable relationship to each other, and at their condition in life.

He had not spent many minutes in this scrutiny before he became sensible of the fact that her wild attractiveness, in which he recognised something of Southern fervour, had made a strong impression on him — an impression against which he made no effort to defend himself. Presently he met her eyes, which were turned scarcely less inquiringly on him, and he unhesitatingly determined to address her under pretence of falling into conversation with her father, as he supposed her companion to be, and offering him a cigar. The interchange of a few sentences served to tell him that the Frenchman and his daughter were peasant-born, though to what part of France they belonged he could not judge by their accent ; and the man carefully avoided making any guiding reference to the department from which they had come.

When in the country Lord Strogan inhabited Beechcourt, the seat of his ancestors, where, for the service of his bachelor household, he kept but a small suite of domestics ; his conversation with the two foreigners reminded him of this circumstance, and suggested an idea to his mind. A few direct questions elicited from the Frenchman that his name was " Martin Bapeau " ; that he and " his only daughter" were proceeding to England in search of a comparatively rich relative ; or, failing the hopes they founded on receiving assist ance from this person, of seeking a living there, denied to them in their own country, owing to the poverty of the land in their district. This information, or, rather, the story to this effect told by " Martin Rapeau," to account for their emigration from France to a country to which they were both absolutely strangers, fell in happily with the idea which had entered Lord Strogan's mind.

In short, by the time the Al iert Victor reached the landing-pier at Folkestone, "Martin Rapeau" had beeu appointed the lodge-keeper at Beechcourt. His instalment in that position two days later caused not a little astonishment amongst the servants there, and in the minds of such of Lord Strogan's acquaintances as were not on terms of very close intimacy with his ways of living. But the most astonishing part of the whole matter was the absolute ignorance in which Lord Strogan himself stood in regard to the true characters of the two persons with whom he had thus conspicuously connected himself, whose previous history it now becomes necessary to relate at some length, and with some minuteness as to the sequence of the facts contained in it. Doubtless the position taken up by Lord Strogan has already been clearly enough implied.

Man of the world as he was, and deeply experienced as he was in the by-ways of its wickedness, he was yet weak enough, under the seductive influence of this woman's bold, bright eyes, to entangle himself in an adventure the end of which might be dangerous, and could hardly fail of being embarrassing ; from the consequences of which the smallest exercise of prudence would have sufficed to save him. But in this adventure he was, from first to last, both blind and reckless.

Chapter II. Climpses Of

A DARK PAST. About three years before Lord Strogan met with him on the Channel steamer, Jean Champlain— " Martin Rapeau" being only an assumed name— was living with his family in Sologne, one of the poorest agricultural districts in France. His dwelling-place was a miserable cottage surrounded by about half an acre of sandy and almost worthless land, the cultivation of which would not have afforded support for a GLIMPSES OF A DARK PAST. 5 single human being, and Jean Champlain's family consisted of four souls — a blind wife, two sons, and one daughter. But it was not, even in a minor degree, to the produce of his patch of semi-barren ground that Jean Champlain looked for the means of living for himself and family. As his father had been before him, and as he intended his sons to be after him, Jean Champlain was a poacher, and one of the most skilful as well as daring in the whole district, where, in spite of all that could ba done to put down the stealing of game, poaching was carried on by the peasantry almost with the openness of a recognised calling.

Dealers who traversed the country ostensibly for the purpose of purchasing farm produce, butter, poultry, and eggs, regularly collected the game shot or entrapped by the poachers, paying them for their plunder, from 8d. to Is. for a hare, according to the season, and from 2d. to 5d. for a partridge — the lower price being given for a bird of the grey species, and the higher for one of the red kind. Of Jean Champlain's three children, the girl Gertrude was the eldest, the next in age, Michel, and the youngest, Nicolas. At the time we take up the dark history of this family, Gertrude was in her twentieth year, and out in service, Michel was nineteen, and Nicolas just turned fifteen. As we have said, Jean Champlain intended his two sons to be poachers like himself ; and as regarded the elder, Michel, his wishes met with no opposition whatever.

With regard to the lad Nicolas it was very different. There was, indeed, little in common between the two brothers ; for while Michel gave himself up heart and soul to the lawless and dangerous pursuits of his father, Nicolas revolted from them, and urged his brother to betake himself to honest labour in preference, his suggestions being invariably received with insults, and not infrequently resented with blows or kicks. One December night the discussion of this topic had, as usual, led to an angry demonstration on the part of Michel, when Jean Champlain rose from the supper table, took up his double-barrelled gun, and said to his sons :— "Come, both of you, with me. It snowed last night, and we shall be ablo to track a doe and her fawn I know of to the spol where they have hidden themselves for they have escaped from some other part of the country."

"Don't go out to-night, Jean," entreated the blind woman ; "you have already been fined twice this year, and if you are caught again you will certainly be thrown into prison." " Well, what of that ? If I am thrown into prison, while I am eating the Government bread you'll have the boys to look after you," replied the poacher. " Come on, you two, I tell you." "I'll not go," said Nicolas. " Come with me, I tell you ! " cried his father, fiercely, and raising the butt of his gun. "Do as 1 bid you — or it will be the worse for you," he added, seizing the lad by the collar and almost throwing him out of the cottage door. The poor lad offered no further resistance, seeing that it would be in vain to do so ; and his father's anger, after they had advanced some little distance into the forest which touched upon the inclosure surrounding their cottage, completely subsided.

"The light is as good for a shot as if it were noonday," remarked the old poacher, as he led the way along a narrow and evidently little-used path. Apparently only Jean Champlain was armed ; but in reality all the parts of a double-barrelled gun, similar to that carried by his father but of smaller calibre, were ingeniously concealed beneath Michel's slate-coloured linen blouse. " I have brought you both with me," said Jean Champlain, after they had penetrated a considerable distance into the forest, " because I did not want your mother to be all nhdit dinning into your ears her never-ceasing gabble about gen darmes and summonses and prisons." "Oh, if that's all you've brought us out for, you won't need me," said Michel. "You and the baby," as he was used to call his younger brother, contemptuously, " will be enough to deal with the deer, if you get a chance of a shot at her."

" Where arc you going ?" asked his father. "I )ver toward Claude Bourin's farm," replied Michel. " What are you going there for . " "Because," answered Michel, "I havo a notion that his daughter Justine is never very sorry to see me." GLIMPSES OF A DARK PAST. 7 " Likely enough. But Claude Bourin is well off, and will have four or five hundred crowns to give his girl when he chooses to let her marry. And they won't rattle in your pocket." "That's to be seen," replied Michel. "Justine is as hot headed as her father. Whatever she wishes to do she'll do. If the consent of Claude Bourin can't be got by fair means, I'll try others. I'll carry Justine off across the Loire. After that I'll lay a wager her father will bo glad enough to see us married." " What you talk of doing is shameful," exclaimed Nicolas.

" You mind your own business ! " cried his father, striking him sharply with the back of his hand. " You do what you like," he added, addressing Michel. "Your mother won't livo for ever ; and since Gertrude has insisted on going away to service we have wanted another woman at home." Michel went his way, leaving Jean Champlain and his younger son alone together. The poor lad stood trembling in all his limbs. He w.vs of a delicate nature, nervous and impressionable and right-minded, in spite of the perverting influences which had surrounded him from his infancy. He had absolutely withstood the deplorable examples constantly presented by his father and elder brother. Conquering all fear of the personal violence which he knew he was risking, he addressed his father as soon as Michel was out of sight.

"Father," he said, as firmly as he could, "mother was right to-night when she reminded you of the prejudice there is against you amongst the gendarmes and forest-keepers." " Before they have me again they will have to catch me," replied the poacher ; " and to da tha,t, they'll ha,ve their work to, do, I promise them, ! " " If I could only persuade you to go back home, father !" the lad persisted. " Hold your tongue, you chicken-hearted young fool ! " cried his father. " Hold your baby tongue and go forward, or I'll let you feel the weight of the stock of my gun upon your shoulders !" Almost as he spoke an object caught his eye upon the hardened snow— the footprints of the refuge-seeking deer of which he was in search. After pausing to make a careful examination, the poacher came to the conclusion that the flying beast had in all probability come from the forests of Montargis or Orleans.

On the indications he had found, Jean Champlain formed his plan of action, and proceeded to load his gun, placing two balls in the left and one in the right barrel. But while engaged in this operation he suddenly paused and listened intently. "What is it, father?" asked Nicolas, instantly taking alarm. "I fancied I heard a sound," replied his father, kneeling down and placing his right ear against the ground. " No, it is only the wind," he added, rising. "The forest-keepers will not come out in such cold as this, and the gendarmes are all abed at this hour." After proceeding forwards for a hundred yards or so, Jean Champlain once more halted and pointed to a thick patch of underwood. "She's there, I'm certain," said the poacher, dropping his voice. " Now, stand here till you think I have had time to get round to the other side of the thicket ; then pick up a couple of stones and advance straight towards me, beating them together."

Without waiting to listen to any remark his son might lie disposed to make, Jean Champlain glided swiftly in the direction he had indicated. The poacher had calculated accurately. The stray deer and her fawn were crouched within the thicket, and, at the sharp sounds of the beaten stones approaching them, sprang to their feet in alarm, the head of the mother showing clearly in the moonlight within sixty paces of the spot at wdiich Jean Champlain was awaiting her appearance. The next instant she made a prodigious bound into the air and fell dead a bullet having passed through her heart. But as the poacher rushed forward to look upon the fallen beast, the sound of heavy footsteps plunging through the JEAN CHAMPLAIN'S VICTIM. 9 underwood met his ears, and the next moment the three cornered hat of a gendarme appeared above the bushes only a few yards from him, and a voice called out :— " This time, at least, Jean Champlain, you won't be able to say there was not light enough for one to recognise you !"

" Save yourself, boy ! " cried the poacher to Nicolas, whom he saw approaching him, at the same time taking to flight. The gendarme, who was young, active, and knew the forest perfectly, followed swiftly on his track, and was rapidly gaining upon him when the poacher, chancing to set one of his feet upon a loose stone, fell heavily to the ground, striking his forehead against the rough bark of a tree in his fall. " Surrender ! " cried the gendarme, springing forward to seize him. But before the soldier could approach near enough to lay hands upon him, Jean Champlain had regained his feet and, dashing away the blood which was streaming into his eyes, yelled rather than exclaimed : — " This is how I surrender ! " With the swiftness of a flash of lightning, he shouldered his gun and fired point-blank at the gendarme, who fell, as the deer had fallen a few moments previously.

Chapter III. Jean Champlain's Victim

Down to that time Jean Champlain had never committed any crime, any offence against the laws, save that of game stealing, which, in the mind of the poacher, is no offence at all ; and the sight of the gendarme falling death-stricken by his act instantly filled him with terror. His hair was bristling upon his head, his eyes became injected with blood, his heart stood still ; and before him, in imagination, rose the red scaffold. Utterly possessed and de moralized by horror and alarm, forgetting his son, the deer which had been the cause of his guilt, without even thinking of ascertaining whether the prostrated gendarme was dead or not, he took to flight with all the speed his trembling limbs were capable of attaining. The wounded gendarme had been struck in the chest by one of the two bullets inserted by Jean Champlain in the left barrel of his gun, the second bullet lodging in the trunk of a tree.

Insensible and bathed in blood lay the unfortunate soldier of the law ; but he was not dead, and after a while returned to consciousness, under the impression of strong sensations of alternating heat and cold. A lad was bending over him, endeavouring to reanimate him by rubbing his forehead and face with snow. The poacher's son had not argued with himself that to save the wounded gendarme's life was to insure the destruction of his father. All that he had seen, all that he had thought oft was that a man was lying there, under his eyes, in danger of death, and he had flown to his assistance, leaving his father to pursue his cowardly flight. A deep sigh was the first sign of returning animation given by the wounded man, followed the next moment by the opening of his eyes. " Who are you ? " he asked, presently.

Nicolas, who had torn off the front of his shirt and reduced it to strips with the help of his teeth, so forming a rough sort of compress which he had laid upon the wound in the gendarme's chest, made no reply at once, but went on with his endeavours to stanch the flow of blood which continued. " Monsieur," he said at length, " if you were only able to walk about fifty paces, there's a woodman's hut with nobody there. I could make a fire and then go in search of assistance for you." The gendarme made an effort to rise, but fell back again, upon the ground, murmuring faintly :— = " I'm-cold." JEAN CHAMPLAIN'S VICTIM. 11 Nicolas saw, to his increased distress, that the gendarme had relapsed into insensibility. Small of stature and ordinarily weak, he was yet — in common with people of nervous tempera ment — capable of exhibiting considerable bodily strength under the impulse of any great excitement.

It was evident to him that to leave the wounded man exposed to the cold for another hour was to abandon him to certain death. To save him from this fate, therefore, he made an almost superhuman effort, and succeeded in lifting the inanimate form on to his back. That clone, he staggered with his burden some thirty yards to the hut of which he had spoken, on the inside of which the last occupants had left a heap of moss and dried leaves, which had no doubt served them for a bed. Upon this couch Nicolas laid the helpless gendarme with as much care as he could employ, and then, without the loss of a moment, set about making a fire from a pile of dry branches stored in a corner of the hut. The warmth which, in the course of a few minutes, spread from the rough hearth, brought back the gendarme to con sciousness much more quickly than the snow with which the lad liad rubbed his face ; and, besides giving him this relief, the poacher's son had unbuttoned his uniform and, guided by the wonderful instinct which sympathetic kindness calls into play, had laid a thick layer of snow upon his wound "You are a good lad ; you do not wish me to die, then ?" asked the gendarme, in a faint voice.

" If I was only sure that no harm would happen to you while I was away," replied Nicolas, " I would run to Salbris, and fetch Dr. Chipot to you. I should not be more than an hour going and returning." "No; stay with me," said the gendarme, succeeding in raising himself into a sitting posture. He was not yet five-and-thirty years of age ; he had had two turns of service in Africa before becoming a gendarme, and his chest was covered with scars, attesting the hard and dangerous service he had seen. " Bah ! " he said, with a faint smile, " I have had rougher knocks than this. I sha'n't lose mynumber this time. I don't think the ball has entered my chest at all, but has glanced off my side," he added, after touching the wound from which the snow and the shreds of the lad's shirt had allayed the effusion of blood.

" I may leave you, then, while I run to Salbris ?" asked the poacher's son. " No ; stay with me," replied the gendarme, contriving as he spoke to move nearer to the fire. " I'm desperately thirsty," he added. Nicolas hurried out of the hut, and returned in a few seconds with a double handful of snow, which the wounded man eagerly conveyed to his mouth. Then, by the flickering light of the fire, the gendarme examined as well as he could the lad who was doing him this inestimable service. "Who are you, my good lad 1" he once again asked. Nicolas held down his head without answering. A vague light broke in upon the gendarme's mind. " You are the younger son of Jean Champlain . " he said. " Yes," stammered the lad. "And yet you talk of fetching the doctor to me from Salbris?" " I couldn't leave you here to die without help," replied Nicolas, tremulously.

" But don't yon know who it was who fired on me ?" The lad hung down his head still lower, but did not answer. "The man who fired the shot was your father !" continued the gendarme; "and at a word from me he would go to the galleys." " Spare him ! " cried Nicolas, joining his hands in an agony of entreaty. " So be it," replied the gendarme ; " but if you wish me to hold my tongue, you must at once leave me." "Oh, no !" cried the lad, "I cannot leave you in the state you are in. Even now the faintness is coming over you again." While speaking the gendarme had, in fact, been obliged to lie back upon the couch he had partially quitted for the purpose of approaching nearer the fire. Nicolas had perfectly understood the purport of the gen- JEAN CHAMPLAIN'S VICTIM. 13 darme's words. If he went to Salbris for the doctor, a report of what had happened would spread rapidly, an inquiry would instantly be set on foot, and his presence in attendance upon the wounded man might furnish terrible evidence against his father.

The gendarme held out his hand to him. " Listen to me, my lad," he said. " But for you I should be lying out yonder in the snow, dead, for the cold would certainly have finished me, and then, possibly, my murderer would never have been discovered. That being so, the service you have done me mustn't be allowed to bring you into trouble. Stay with me, then, and as soon as I feel strong enough I'll try, by rest ing on your shoulders, to reach the edge of the forest nearest to Salbris." Nicolas passed the rest of the night doing whatever he could to mitigate the gendarme's suffering from his wound, keeping up the fire, and quenching his ardent thirst with hands uls of snow A little before dawn the moon sank below the horizon. " Now," said the gendarme, " let me see whether I can reach my home."

With feeble steps, resting both his hands upon the lad's shoulders, the wounded man set out from the hut in the direction of Salbris. The walk was long and painful ; causing him often to sit down and rest, and now and again appearing to have exhausted his last remains of strength. Day had dawned by the time they had reached the skirt of the forest and come within sight of the little sleeping town. " Leave me, now," said the gendarme ; " I shall manage to crawl the rest of the way, somehow, by myself. Don't be afraid, I shall not denounce your father."

Chapter IV Pursued By Terror

His crime accomplished, Jean Champlain had fled. For upwards of an hour, aimlessly, urged only by delirious terror, he had made his way, half-running, half-staggering, through the depths of the forest, his forehead bathed with blood and cold perspiration, his eyes dilated yet blind to all but one object— a vision of the guillotine, which seemed to rise up before him at every turn of the tortuous path he was taking. But this wild superexcitation, easily understandable in the mind of one who had never before been guilty of any offence more heinous than that of poaching, subsided after awhile, as the pain in his head — which had doubtle3sly been the first cause of the commission of his crime — relented. Then came reflection, and with reflection was actively awakened the instinct of self-preservation natural to all criminals.

The ground was covered with snow, and every step he took left an imprint. Involuntarily the direction he had at first taken in his breathless flight was towards his home ; but from the moment he began to reflect upon his position he saw that what he was doing must lead to his destruction inevitably. It was imperative, therefore, that he should destroy this trace before returning to the cottage. Jean Champlain never missed his mark ; and, having seen the gendarme fall to his shot, he firmly believed that he had killed him outright. Then, he argued, the other gendarmes, on finding that their comrade had not returned from his beat, would go in search of him, would find his body, and by tho footprints left by his assassin in the snow, would assuredly be enabled to trace the criminal. He made most of these reflections in the open space from which he had fired at the deer, and towards which his steps had, as if instinctively, turned— the instinct of the hardened poacher, possibly, for a moment gaining the ascendency over the terror of the murderer.