The Tragedy of the Chain Pier | Page 7

sink to the bottom,
like lead. It is true, sir, and murder will out."
"But is nothing known?" I asked. "Surely such a thing could never be
done without some one seeing or knowing something about it."
"I am afraid, sir, no one knows but the one who did it. Some woman,
sir, had dressed the little thing--a man would never have thought of the
soft woolen cap. And I can tell you another thing, sir--a man would

never have killed a child like that; not that I am upholding men--some
of them are brutes enough--but I do not think any man would throw a
little babe into the water. When a woman is bad, she is bad, and there is
nothing vile enough for her."
I though of the beautiful and desperate face. Heaven grant that she
might have nothing to do with this! And yet--the black and gray shawl!
"Whereabouts was it?" I asked.
He pointed with his hand to the very spot where she had stood.
"Just there," he said. "It was there the little bundle was thrown, and
there, just below the line of the jetty, it was caught by the hooks."
The identical spot where she had stood. Oh, beautiful, despairing face,
what was hidden underneath your mask of stone?
"You should go on the pier, sir, and see for yourself," said the old man.
"The superintendent of the police is there now; but they will never find
out who did that. Women are deep when they are wicked, and the one
who did this was wicked enough."
There was a slight suggestion on the part of the little group as to the
morning being a dry one. We parted on very satisfactory terms.
I went on the pier, and under the wooden shelter where I had sat last
night I saw a group--the superintendent of the police with one of the
officers, the manager of the pier, the keepers of the different stalls, a
few strangers, and Jim, the boatman, who had found the little bundle
dripping wet. Oh, Heaven, the pathos of it! On the wooden seat lay the
little bundle, so white, so fair, like a small, pale rose-bud, and by it, in a
wet heap, lay the black and gray shawl. I knew it in one moment; there
was not another word to be said; that was the same shawl I had seen in
the woman's hands when she dropped the little bundle into the sea--the
self-same. I had seen it plainly by the bright, fitful gleam of the moon.
The superintendent said something to me, and I went forward to look at
the little child--so small, so fair, so tender--how could any woman, with

a woman's heart, drop that warm, soft little nursling into the cold, deep
sea? It was a woman who killed Joel--a woman who slew
Holofernes--but the woman who drowned this little, tiny child was
more cruel by far than they.
"What a sweet little face!" said the superintendent; "it looks just as
though it were made of wax."
I bent forward. Ah! if I had doubted before, I could doubt no longer.
The little face, even in its waxen pallor, was like the beautiful one I had
seen in its white despair last night. Just the same cluster of hair, the
same beautiful mouth and molded chin. Mother and child, I knew and
felt sure. The little white garments were dripping, and some kind,
motherly woman in the crowd came forward and dried the little face.
"Poor little thing!" she said; "how I should like to take those wet things
off, and make it warm by a good fire!"
"It will never be warm again in this world," said one of the boatmen.
"There is but little chance when a child has lain all night in the sea."
"All night in the sea!" said the pitiful woman; "and my children lay so
warm and comfortable in their little soft beds. All night in the sea! Poor
little motherless thing!"
She seemed to take it quite for granted that the child must be
motherless; in her loving, motherly heart she could not think of such a
crime as a mother destroying her own child. I saw that all the men who
stood round the body were struck with this.
"What will be done with it?" she asked.
"It will go to the dead-house at the work-house," said the
superintendent, "and the parish will bury it."
Then I stood forward.
"No!" I cried; "if the authorities will permit, I will take upon myself the

expense of burying that little child--it shall not have a pauper's funeral;
it shall be buried in the beautiful green cemetery in the Lewes Road,
and it shall have a white marble cross at the head of