The Crock of Gold | Page 8

arrive at no
verdict more specific than the obvious fact, that the poor old creature
had been "found dead." The great question lay between apoplexy and
murder; and the evidence tended to a well-matched conflict of opinions.
First, there lay the body, quietly in bed, tucked in tidily and undisturbed,
with no marks of struggling, none whatever--the clothes lay smooth,
and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple hue, the
tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might, indeed,
possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her sleep,
and killed her as she lay; but that the gripe of clutching fingers had left
their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced the dreadful thought
of strangulation!
Secondly, a surgeon (one Mr. Eager, the Union doctor, a very young
personage, wrong withal and radical) maintained that this actual
strangulation might have been effected by the hands of the deceased
herself, in the paroxysm of a rush of blood to the brain; and he fortified
his wise position by the instance of a late statesman, who, he averred,
cut his throat with a pen-knife, to relieve himself of pressure on the
temples: while another surgeon--Stephen Cramp, he was farrier as well,
and had been, until lately, time out of mind, the village Æsculapius,
who looked with scorn on his pert rival, and opposed him tooth and nail
on all occasions--insisted that it was not only physically impossible for
poor Mrs. Quarles so to have strangled herself, but more particularly
that, if she had done so, she certainly could not have laid herself out so
decently afterwards; therefore, that as some one else had kindly done
the latter office for her, why not the former too?
Thirdly, Sarah Stack, the still-room maid, deposed, that Mrs. Quarles
always locked her door before she went to bed, but that when she
(deponent) went to call her as usual on the fatal morning, the door was
just ajar; and so she found her dead: while parallel with this, tending to
implicate some domestic criminal, was to be placed the equally
uncommon fact, that the other door of Mrs. Quarles's room, leading to

the lawn, was open too:--be it known that Mrs. Quarles was a stout
woman, who could'nt abide to sleep up-stairs, for fear of fire; moreover,
that she was a nervous woman, who took extraordinary precautions for
her safety, in case of thieves. Thus, unaccountably enough, the
murderer, if there was any, was as likely to have come from the outside,
as from the in.
Fourthly, the murderer in this way is commonly a thief, and does the
deed for mammon-sake; but the new house-keeper, lately installed,
made her deposition, that, by inventories duly kept and entered--for her
honoured predecessor, rest her soul! had been a pattern of
regularity--all Mrs. Quarles's goods and personal chattels were found to
be safe and right in her room--some silver spoons among them too--ay,
and a silver tea-pot; while, as to other property in the house, with every
room full of valuables, nothing whatever was missing from the lists,
except, indeed, what was scarce worth mention (unless one must be
very exact), sundry crocks and gallipots of honey, not forthcoming;
these, however, it appeared probable that Mrs. Quarles had herself
consumed in a certain mixture she nightly was accustomed too, of rum,
horehound, and other matters sweetened up with honey, for her
hoarseness. It seemed therefore clear she was not murdered for her
property, nor by any one intending to have robbed the house.
Against this it was contended, and really with some show of reason,
that as Mrs. Quarles was thought to have a hoard, always set her face
against banks, railway shares, speculations, and investments, and
seemed to have left nothing behind her but her clothes and so forth, it
was still possible that the murderer who took the life, might have also
been the thief to take the money.
Fifthly, Simon Jennings--butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, and
general factotum every where to the Vincent interest--for he had
managed to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's
book to the cellar-man's key--the said Simon deposed, that on the night
in question, he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to
quiet him; but found no thieves, nor knew any reason why the dog
should have barked so much.

Now, the awkward matter in this deposition (if Mr. Jennings had not
been entirely above suspicion--the idea was quite absurd--not to
mention that he was nephew to the deceased, a great favourite with her,
and a man altogether of the very strictest character), the awkward
matters were these: the nearest way out to the dog, indeed the only way
but casement windows on that side of the house,