Lady Molly of Scotland Yard | Page 5

own, and could
obtain £5,000 or more quite easily at any time if she chose."
"Did you mention Mr. Lydgate's name to her at all?" asked the coroner.
"Yes, I did," said the vicar, after a slight hesitation.
"Well, what was her attitude then?"
"I am afraid she laughed," replied the Reverend Octavius, primly, "and
said very picturesquely, if somewhat ungrammatically, that 'some folks
didn't know what they was talkin' about.'"

All very indefinite, you see. Nothing to get hold of, no motive
suggested--beyond a very vague suspicion, perhaps, of blackmail--to
account for a brutal crime. I must not, however, forget to tell you the
two other facts which came to light in the course of this extraordinary
inquest. Though, at the time, these facts seemed of wonderful moment
for the elucidation of the mystery, they only helped ultimately to
plunge the whole case into darkness still more impenetrable than
before.
I am alluding, firstly, to the deposition of James Franklin, a carter in the
employ of one of the local farmers. He stated that about half-past six on
that same Saturday night, January 23rd, he was walking along
Ninescore Lane leading his horse and cart, as the night was indeed
pitch dark. Just as he came somewhere near Elm Cottages he heard a
man's voice saying in a kind of hoarse whisper:
"Open the door, can't you? It's as dark as blazes!"
Then a pause, after which the same voice added:
"Mary, where the dickens are you?" Whereupon a girl's voice replied:
"All right, I'm coming."
James Franklin heard nothing more after that, nor did he see anyone in
the gloom.
With the stolidity peculiar to the Kentish peasantry, he thought no more
of this until the day when he heard that Mary Nicholls had been
murdered; then he voluntarily came forward and told his story to the
police. Now, when he was closely questioned, he was quite unable to
say whether these voices proceeded from that side of the lane where
stand Elm Cottages or from the other side, which is edged by the low,
brick wall.
Finally, Inspector Meisures, who really showed an extraordinary sense
of what was dramatic, here produced a document which he had
reserved for the last. This was a piece of paper which he had found in
the red leather purse already mentioned, and which at first had not been

thought very important, as the writing was identified by several people
as that of the deceased, and consisted merely of a series of dates and
hours scribbled in pencil on a scrap of notepaper. But suddenly these
dates had assumed a weird and terrible significance: two of them, at
least--December 26th and January 1st followed by "10 a.m."--were
days on which Mr. Lydgate came over to Ninescore and took Mary for
drives. One or two witnesses swore to this positively. Both dates had
been local meets of the harriers, to which other folk from the village
had gone, and Mary had openly said afterwards how much she had
enjoyed these.
The other dates (there were six altogether) were more or less vague.
One Mrs. Hooker remembered as being coincident with a day Mary
Nicholls had spent away from home; but the last date, scribbled in the
same handwriting, was January 23rd, and below it the hour--6 p.m.
The coroner now adjourned the inquest. An explanation from Mr.
Lionel Lydgate had become imperative.

3
PUBLIC excitement had by now reached a very high pitch; it was no
longer a case of mere local interest. The country inns all round the
immediate neighbourhood were packed with visitors from London,
artists, journalists, dramatists, and actor-managers, whilst the hotels and
fly-proprietors of Canterbury were doing a roaring trade.
Certain facts and one vivid picture stood out clearly before the
thoughtful mind in the midst of a chaos of conflicting and irrelevant
evidence: the picture was that of the two women tramping in the wet
and pitch dark night towards Canterbury. Beyond that everything was a
blur.
When did Mary Nicholls come back to Ninescore, and why?
To keep an appointment made with Lionel Lydgate, it was openly
whispered; but that appointment--if the rough notes were interpreted

rightly--was for the very day on which she and her sister went away
from home. A man's voice called to her at half-past six certainly, and
she replied to it. Franklin, the carter, heard her; but half an hour
afterwards Mrs.
Hooker heard her voice when she left home with her sister, and she
visited Mrs. Williams after that.
The only theory compatible with all this was, of course, that Mary
merely accompanied Susan part of the way to Canterbury, then went
back to meet her lover, who enticed her into the deserted grounds of
Ash Court, and there murdered her.
The motive