Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/401

 386 of certain words she says she heard pass between Mr. Carlton and the sick lady, there’s no evidence whatever that they were not strangers to each other"

“You forget the letter written by the lady to Mr. Carlton the night of her arrival,” interrupted one of the magistrates, alluding to the unfortunate letter found by Lady Laura, and which had brought on the trouble.

“Not at all, your worship,” undauntedly returned the lawyer. “There’s no proof that that letter was addressed to Mr. Carlton—was ever in his possession. The woman Smith’s story of its having been handed to her by the Lady Jane Chesney, and that Lady Jane received it from Mr. Carlton’s wife, goes for nothing. I might take a letter out of my pocket, and hand it to your worship, saying that the party from whom I received it told me he had had it from the Khan of Tartary; but it mightn’t be any the nearer truth for his saying it.”

There was a smile in the hall. Mr. Carlton touched his lawyer on the sleeve, and the latter bent to him.

“What letter is it that is in question?”

For it was a positive fact that Mr. Carlton, up to this moment, had heard nothing of the letter. The policeman who arrested him had not mentioned it: and, on his arrival at the Town Hall, the proceedings were commenced in so much haste and confusion that he had but a vague idea of the details of the charge. Lawyer Billiter was sent for afterwards; and he gathered his necessary information from others, more than from the prisoner.

“Don’t you know about it?” returned the lawyer, in a whisper. “Haven’t you seen the letter? Why, it’s that letter that has done three parts of the mischief.”

“I have not seen or heard of any letter. Where did it come from?”

“Out of some safe in your cellar,—as I am given to understand. It’s an awkward letter, mind you, Carlton,” added the lawyer, confidentially, “unless you can explain it away.”

“Have they been searching my house!” asked Mr. Carlton, haughtily, answering the only portion of the explanation which had struck him.

“Not at all. I’m not sure that the Bench know how it was obtained yet, except that Lady Jane Chesney lent it to that Mrs. Smith for an hour or two; and her ladyship said she got it from Lady Laura. I met Pepperfly"

“But there was no letter in the safe,” interrupted Mr. Carlton, puzzled by the words. “I can’t tell what you mean. Can I see the letter?”

Lawyer Billiter asked permission of the Bench, and the letter was handed to Mr. Carlton. To describe his inward astonishment when he saw the letter that he had thought he had burnt years and years before would be impossible. He turned it about in his hands, just as he had once turned about the torn portion of its copy before the coroner: he read it word by word; he gazed at its faded characters, faded by the hand of Time; and he could not make it out at all. The Court gathered nothing from his aspect, save surprise—surprise that looked genuine.

“I protest—I know nothing of this letter!” he exclaimed. “It is none of mine.”

“It was found in your possession, in a safe that you keep locked in your cellar,” said the Bench, who were wiser than Mr. Billiter thought.

“It never was found there,” returned Mr. Carlton, impressively. “I deny it entirely; I declare that I never had such a letter there as this. I thought some false conspiracy must be at work!”

“Don’t you recognise the letter, Mr. Carlton?” inquired the Bench, who were deferent to Mr. Carlton yet, and could not address him or treat him as they did prisoners in ordinary.

“How can I recognise a letter that I never saw before?”

“You have seen part of it before, at any rate. You must remember the portion of a letter produced at the inquest on Mrs. Crane. The inference to be drawn now is, that she abandoned that letter in writing it on account of the blot she made, and began this fresh one. The words in the two are the same.”

“Are they the same?” rejoined Mr. Carlton. “I had forgotten; it is a long while ago. But to whom was this letter written?”

“You perceive that it is addressed to you.”

“I perceive that my name is on the cover, the envelope. How it got there, or what it all means, I am at a loss to imagine. This letter appears to be written to the lady’s husband, not to me, her medical attendant.”

“The deduction sought to be drawn from the letter is, that it was written to you as her husband. Of course, that is not yet proved.”

“I beg to thank your worship for that admission,” volubly spoke Lawyer Billiter. “It is not proved. On the contrary, it will not be my client’s fault, or mine either, if we do not prove that the whole charge is false, arising, it may be, out of some strange mistake. A more improbable charge was certainly never brought against a medical man. Why should Mr. Carlton deliberately kill a patient—a young lady whom he was called in to attend, a perfect stranger to him? He "

“If the greeting, testified to by the witness