Page:How I Helped to Lay a Ghost.pdf/7

Rh agency had even recorded the fact of the bullet being found; but there was a later and more startling item, to this effect:—

Before I had read down the column I saw that any attempt to conceal matters from Meadowcroft might lead to unnecessary discussion, and probably excitement, which could only be injurious to him. The time had come to tell him everything. So I sat down beside the sofa and calmly, and in as few words as possible, told him all that I knew. I was relieved to find he took it very quietly; only occasionally did he interrupt me with questions, and their nature plainly showed that his memory was clarifying. Although I knew the counsel was rather impracticable, I endeavoured to persuade him not to let his thoughts dwell upon the matter, and during the rest of the day, which I spent with him, I took every precaution to lead the conversation into other channels; and when I got him off to bed at last I felt satisfied with my success.

The first visitor to the surgery on Monday morning was Jackson, the porter from the bank. It appeared that the noises which had so alarmed his wife persisted. He was, he agreed with her, a sound sleeper, and had never heard them; but last night she had roused him in the small hours, and insisted on his searching the premises. Of course he found nothing; but as his wife was highly nervous, starting at the slightest noise and becoming quite hysterical, he hoped I would come and see her. I agreed somewhat contemptuously, and was just setting out, when Major came in.

"Well, doctor," said he, "I had my journey to London for nothing."

"Indeed; I saw in the paper that the stolen property was found on a man arrested for stabbing someone."

"That's true enough, sir. He admits finding it in the trap, but he's put forward the best alibi possible concerning the bank business. He says he was on his way from Reading gaol when he met the trap about a mile away from there. And I called at the prison yesterday and found it was quite true. A man exactly answering to his description had been doing fourteen days, and for some insubordination was not discharged in the morning, but detained as punishment till four p.m."

"Then you are not much further forward?"

"Only as to recovering the money. It's all safe except about £30, which this man will have to answer for. But I've called, doctor, to ask you to let Mr. Meadowcroft come round to the bank. Perhaps, if he has a look round, he may remember something which will help us."

I was privately rather inclined to this course myself, and as Meadowcroft at once fell in with the suggestion, we all went round together.

"Well," said Major to the clerk, as we stood in the yard, “here you were found lying, and up above the door there I found the revolver bullet. Now, sir, can you remember who fired it?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Meadowcroft. "That newspaper report brought it all back to me yesterday. I seem to see it in a dream. I got into the trap with the bag, Wells handed me the reins, and I was driving off, when I remembered that I had laid down the revolver in the passage. Wells ran back for it, and I leant over and took it from him. The horse was restive, and attending more to him than to Wells, I caught the revolver awkwardly, and it went off as I held it."

"And then you fell?" I prompted him as he paused.

"Heaven knows!"

"Yes, but you did!" I insisted. "You were not wounded in any way; you were bruised exactly as you would have been by such a fall. The horse, as you tell us, was a restive brute, and of course it plunged about and perhaps kicked when the revolver went off, and so you were thrown out of the cart."