Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/640

 tenance. Triumph now. The unnaturally pale hue which had overspread it during the ceremony had given place to its usual aspect, and he felt more inclined to laugh in Lord Oakburn's face than to fear him. Even the earl could not part them now.

Mr. Carlton entered his home with his wife. He snatched a hasty breakfast, and then started on his visits to his patients, who were in a state of rebellion, deeming themselves greatly aggrieved by the past week's unaverted absence. In the course of the morning his way took him past the police-station. Standing at its door was a middle-aged man, with an intelligent face and small snub nose, who looked at Mr. Carlton as he passed with that quiet regard that keen men, curious as to their neighbour's movements, sometimes display. It was Medler, the new inspector. The surgeon had gone some yards beyond the building, when he, perhaps recollecting the previous night's interview, wheeled round and spoke.

"Can I see the inspector?"

"You see him now," was the answer, "I am he."

"I am told you want me," returned the surgeon. "Mr. Carlton," he added in explanation, finding he was not known.

"Oh, ah, yes, sir; I beg your pardon," said the inspector, intelligence replacing the questioning expression of his face. "Be so kind as to step inside."

He shut himself in a little bit of a room with Mr. Carlton, a room not much bigger than a short passage. The surgeon had been in it once before. It was when he had gone to give what information he could to the previous inspector, relative to the business for which he was now brought there again.

"I don't know any more than I did before," he observed, after alluding to the policeman's visit to him the previous night. "I gave the police at the time of the death all the information I possessed upon the matter—which was not much."

"Yes, sir, it's not that. I did not suppose you had come into possession of more facts. What I want of you is this—to relate to me quietly all that you know about it, as you did to my predecessor. I fear the affair has been mismanaged."

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure it has," continued Mr. Medler, improving upon his former assertion. "If the thing had been followed up properly, it might have been brought to light at the time. That's my opinion."

"It is not mine," dissented Mr. Carlton. "I do not see that anything more could be done than was done."

"Why, they never unearthed that Mrs. Smith who came down and took away the child; never found out anything about her at all!"

"True," said Mr. Carlton. "They went to a hundred Mrs. Smiths, or so, in London, without finding the right one. And the conclusion they arrived at was, that Smith was not her name at all, but one she had assumed for the purpose of the visit here."

"It was the name by which the sick lady wrote to her on the night of her arrival, at all events," remarked the officer, with a nod that seemed to say he had made himself master of the whole business.

"But that may have been only part of a concerted plan. One thing appears to be inindisputableindisputable [sic]—that the lady came down with the determination of remaining unknown. For my part, I am inclined to think that she did not come from London at all; that the woman Smith—if Smith was her name—did not come from London. I believe that all that was said and done here was done with one motive—to blind us."

Mr. Carlton was leaning with his elbow on the narrow table, or counter, that ran along the wall, as he said this, slightly stooping, and making marks with the point of his umbrella on the floor. The inspector, watchful by nature and by habit, became struck with a sudden change in his face. A shiver seemed to pass over it.

"It is the most miserable business I ever had to do with," he said, lifting his eyes to the officer's; "I heartily hope I shall never become personally cognisant of such another. People persisted in mixing me up in it, just because Mrs. Crane was thought to have said that some friends recommended her to me as her medical attendant."

"And you cannot find that anyone did so recommend you?"

"I cannot. I wrote to all the friends and acquaintances I possess in town, inquiring if they had recommended any lady to me; but could find out nothing. None of them so much as knew a Mrs. Crane."

"I think it is by no means sure that her name was Crane," remarked Mr. Medler.

"Just so. Any more than that the other's name was Smith. There's nothing sure about any part of the business, except the death. That, poor thing, is sure enough."

"What is your own opinion, Mr. Carlton?" inquired the inspector, his tone becoming confidential. "Your private one, you know."

"As to what?"

"The cause of death. Of course we all know it was caused by the sleeping draught,"