Adventures of Martin Hewitt (19 page)

Hewitt took the cutting and read as follows:—

“The epidemic of small-pox in County Mayo, Ireland, shows few signs of
abating. The spread of the disease has been very remarkable considering the
widely-scattered nature of the population, though there can be no doubt that
the market towns are the centres of infection, and that it is from these that
the germs of contagion are carried into the country by people from all parts
who resort thither on market days. In many cases the disease has assumed a
particularly malignant form, and deaths have been very rapid and numerous.
The comparatively few medical men available are sadly overworked, owing
largely to the distances separating their different patients. Among those who
have succumbed within the last few days is Mr. Algernon Rewse, a young
English gentleman who has been staying with a friend at a cottage a few miles
from Cullanin, on a fishing excursion.”

Hewitt placed the cutting on the table at his side. “Yes?” he said
inquiringly.

“It is to Mr. Algernon Rewse’s death you wish to draw my attention?”

“It is,” Mr. Bowyer answered; “and the reason I come to you is that I very
much suspect—more than suspect, indeed—that Mr. Algernon Rewse
has
not
died by smallpox, but has been murdered—murdered
cold-bloodedly, and for the most sordid motives, by the friend who has been
sharing his holiday.”

“In what way do you suppose him to have been murdered?”

“That I cannot say—that, indeed, I want you to find out, among other
things—chiefly perhaps, the murderer himself, who has made off.”

“And your own status in the matter,” queried Hewitt, “is that
of—?”

“I am trustee under a will by which Mr. Rewse would have benefited
considerably had he lived but a month or two longer. That circumstance indeed
lies rather near the root of the matter. The thing stood thus. Under the will
I speak of that of young Rewse’s uncle, a very old friend of mine in his
lifetime—the money lay in trust till the young fellow should attain
twenty-five years of age. His younger sister, Miss Mary Rewse, was also
benefited, but to a much smaller extent. She was to come into her property
also on attaining the age of twenty-five, or on her marriage, whichever event
happened first. It was further provided that in case either of these young
people died before coming into the inheritance, his Or her share should go to
the survivor: I want you particularly to remember this. You will observe that
now, in consequence of young Algernon Rewse’s death, barely two months before
his twenty-fifth birthday, the whole of the very large property—all
personalty, and free from any tie or restriction—which would otherwise
have been his, will, in the regular course, pass, on her twenty=fifth
birthday,
or on her marriage,
to Miss Mary Rewse, whose own legacy was
comparatively trifling. You will understand the importance of this when I
tell you that the man whom I suspect of causing Algernon Rewse’s death, and
who has been his companion on his otherwise lonely holiday, is engaged to be
married to Miss Rewse.”

Mr. Bowyer paused at this, but Hewitt only raised his eyebrows and
nodded.

“I have never particularly liked the man,” Mr. Bowyer went on. “He never
seemed to have much to say for himself. I like a man who holds up his head
and opens ‘his mouth. I don’t believe in the sort of modesty that he showed
so much of-it isn’t genuine, A man can’t afford to be genuinely meek and
retiring who has his way to make in the world—and he was clever enough
to know
that.”

“He is poor, then?” Hewitt asked.

“Oh yes, poor enough. His name, by-the-bye, is Main Stanley Main—and
he is a medical man. He hasn’t been practising, except as assistant, since he
became qualified, the reason being, I understand, that he couldn’t afford to
buy a good practice. He is the person who will profit by young Rewse’s
death—or at any rate who intended to; but we will see about that. As
for Mary, poor girl, she wouldn’t have lost her brother for fifty
fortunes.”

“As to the circumstances of the death, now?”

“Yes, yes, I am coming to that. Young Algernon Rewse, you must know, had
rather run down in health, and Main persuaded him that he wanted a change. I
don’t know what it was altogether, but Rewse seemed to have been having his
own little love troubles and that sort of thing, you know. He’d been engaged,
I think, or very nearly so, and the young lady died, and so on. Well, as I
said, he had run down and got into low health and spirits, and no doubt a
change of some sort would have done him good. This Stanley Main always seemed
to have a great influence over the poor boy—he was about four or five
years older than Rewse—and somehow he persuaded him to go away, the two
together, to some outlandish wilderness of a place in the West of. Ireland
for salmon-fishing. It seemed to me at the time rather a ridiculous sort of
place to go to, but Main had his way, and they went. There was a
cottage—rather a good sort of cottage, I believe, for the
district—which some friend of Main’s, once a landowner in the district,
had put up as a convenient box for salmon-fishing, and they rented it. Not
long after they got there this epidemic of small-pox got about in the
district—though that, I believe, has had little to do with poor young
Rewse’s death. All appeared to go well until a day over a week ago, when Mrs.
Rewse received this letter from Main.” Mr. Bowyer handed Martin Hewitt a
letter, written in an irregular and broken hand, as though of a person
writing under stress of extreme agitation. It ran thus:—

“My dear Mrs. Rewse,—” You will probably have heard
through the newspapers—indeed I think Algernon has told you in his
letters—that a very bad epidemic of small-pox is abroad in this
district. I am deeply grieved to have to tell you that Algernon himself has
taken the disease in a rather bad form. He showed the first symptoms to-day
(Tuesday), and he is now in bed in the cottage. It is fortunate that I, as a
medical man, happen to be on the spot, as the nearest local doctor is five
miles off at Cullanin, and he is working and travelling night and day as it
is. I have my little medicine chest with me, and can get whatever else is
necessary from Cullanin, so that everything is being done for Algernon that
is possible, and I hope to bring him up to scratch in good health soon,
though of course the disease is a dangerous one. Pray don’t unnecessarily
alarm yourself, and don’t think about coming over here, or anything of that
sort. You can do no good, and will only run risk yourself. I will take care
to let you know how things go on, so please don’t attempt to come. The
journey is long and would be very trying to you, and you would have no place
to stay at nearer than Cullanin, which is quite a centre of infection. I will
write again to-morrow.—Yours most sincerely,

“
Stanley Main
.”

Not only did the handwriting of this letter show signs of agitation, but
here and there words had been repeated, and sometimes a letter had been
omitted. Hewitt placed the letter on the table by the newspaper cutting, and
Mr. Bowyer proceeded.

“Another letter followed on the next day,” he said, handing it to Hewitt
as he spoke; “a short one, as you see; not written with quite such signs of
agitation. It merely says that Rewse is very bad, and repeats the former
entreaties that his mother will not think of going to him.”

Hewitt glanced at the letter and placed it with the other, while Mr.
Bowyer continued:

“Notwithstanding Main’s persistent anxiety that she should stay at home,
Mrs. Rewse, who was of course terribly worried about her only son, had almost
made up her mind, in spite of her very delicate health, to start for Ireland,
when she received a third letter announcing Algernon’s death. Here it is. It
is certainly the sort of letter that one might expect to be written in such
circumstances, and yet there seems to me at least a certain air of
disingenuousness about the wording. There are, as you see, the usual
condolences, and so forth. The disease was of the malignant type, it says,
which is terribly rapid in its action, often carrying off the patient even
before the eruption has time to form. Then—and this is a thing I wish
you especially to note—there is once more a repetition of his desire
that neither the young man’s mother nor his sister shall come to Ireland. The
funeral must take place immediately, he says, under arrangements made by the
local authorities, and before they could reach the spot. Now doesn’t this
obtrusive anxiety of his that no connection of young Rewse’s should be near
him during his illness, nor even at the funeral, strike you as rather
singular?”

“Well, possibly it is; though it may easily be nothing but zeal for the
health of Mrs. Rewse and her daughter. As a matter of fact what Main says is
very plausible. They could do no sort of good in the circumstances, and might
easily run into danger themselves, to say nothing of the fatigue of the
journey and general nervous upset. Mrs. Rewse is in weak health, I think you
said?”

“Yes, she’s almost an invalid in fact; she is subject to heart disease.
But tell me now, as an entirely impartial observer, doesn’t it seem to you
that there is a very forced, unreal sort of tone in all these letters?”

“Perhaps one may notice something of the sort, but fifty things may cause
that. The case from the beginning may have been worse than he made it out.
What ensued on the receipt of this letter?”

“Mrs. Rewse was prostrated, of course. Her daughter communicated with me
as a friend of the family, and that is how I heard of the whole thing for the
first time. I saw the letters, and it seemed to me, looking at all the
circumstances of the case, that somebody at least ought to go over and make
certain that everything was as it should be. Here was this poor young man,
staying in a lonely cottage with the only man in the world who had any reason
to desire his death, or any profit to gain by it, and he had a very great
inducement indeed. Moreover he was a medical man,
carrying his medicine
chest with him,
remember, as he says himself in his letter. In this
situation Rewse suddenly dies, with nobody about him, so far as there is
anything to show, but Main himself. As his medical attendant it would be Main
who would certify and register the death, and no matter what foul play might
have taken place he would be safe as long as nobody was on the spot to make
searching inquiries might easily escape even then, in fact. When one man is
likely to profit much by the death of another a doctor’s medicine chest is
likely to supply but too easy a means to his end.”

“Did you say anything of your suspicions to the ladies?”

“Well—well I hinted perhaps—no more than hinted, you know. But
they wouldn’t hear of it—got indignant, and ‘took on’ as people call
it, worse than ever, so that I had to smooth them over. But since it seemed
somebody’s duty to see into the matter a little more closely, and there
seemed to be nobody to do it but myself, I started off that very evening by
the night mail. I was in Dublin early the next morning and spent that day
getting across Ireland. The nearest station was ten miles from Cullanin, and
that, as you remember, was five miles from the cottage, so that I drove over
on the morning of the following day. I must say Main appeared very much taken
aback at seeing me. His manner was nervous and apprehensive, and made me more
suspicious than ever. The body had been buried, of course, a couple of days
or more. I asked a few rather searching questions about the illness, and so
forth, and his answers became positively confused. He had burned the clothes
that Rewse was wearing at the time the disease first showed itself, he said,
as well as all the bedclothes, since there was no really efficient means of
disinfection at hand.

“His story in the main was that he had gone off to Cullanin one morning on
foot to see about a top joint of a fishing-rod that was to be repaired. When
he returned early in the afternoon he found Algernon Rewse sickening of
small-pox, at once put him to bed, and there nursed him till he died. I
wanted to know, of course, why no other medical man had been called in. He
said that there was only one available, and it was doubtful if he could have
been got at even a day’s notice, so overworked was he; moreover he said this
man, with his hurry and over-strain, could never have given the patient such
efficient attention as he himself, who had nothing else to do. After a while
I put it to him plainly that it would at any rate have been more prudent to
have had the body at least inspected by some independent doctor, considering
the fact that he was likely to profit so largely by young Rewse’s death, and
I suggested that with an exhumation order it might not be too late now, as a
matter of justice to himself. The effect of that convinced me. The man gasped
and turned blue with terror. It was a full minute, I should think, before he
could collect himself sufficiently to attempt to dissuade me from doing what
I had hinted at. He did so as soon as he could by every argument he could
think of—entreated me in fact almost desperately.