Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/451

 436 face very pale. Yes, even the hardened face (in one sense of the word) of Mr. Policeman Jones.

“Mr. Carlton has escaped, gentlemen. In spite of us and the law.”

And Lawyer Billiter, in his impulse, ran to the cell to regale his eyes with its emptiness, and two or three underlings, having caught the word “escaped,” rushed forth from the lock-up, partly as a vent to their feelings, partly from a vague idea of pursuing the prisoner. Sir Stephen Grey followed Jones and the lawyer to the cell.

Yes, the prisoner had escaped. Not escaped in the ordinary acceptation of that word, as it was just then agitating the crowd outside the lock-up, and raising the horrified hair of Mr. Policeman Bowler; but in a different manner. Mr. Carlton had escaped by death.

On the rude bed in the cell lay the inanimate remains of what was once Lewis Carlton, the active, moving, accountable human being. Accountable for the actions done in the body, whether they had been good or whether they had been evil.

The place was forthwith in a commotion; a far greater one than when the escape was assumed to have been of a different nature. The natural conclusion jumped to was “poison,” that he must have had poison of some subtle nature concealed upon his person, and had taken it. The route of the runners was changed; and instead of galloping up by-lanes and other obscure outlets from the town, in chase of the fugitive, they rushed to the house of Mr. John Grey, forgetting that the London physician, Sir Stephen, was already present.

No doctor, however, could avail with Mr. Carlton. He had been dead for several hours. He must have been long dead and cold when Mr. Policeman Bowler had stood in his cell and concluded he was fast asleep; and Mr. Policeman Bowler never overcame the dreadful regret that attacked him for not having been the first to find it out, and so have secured notoriety for himself for ever.

The most cut-up of anybody, to use a familiar term, was Mr. Jones. That functionary stood against the pallet looking down at what lay on it, his countenance more chap-fallen than any policeman’s was ever seen yet. Curious to say, that while Bowler took the blame to himself when it was thought Mr. Carlton had escaped by flight, Jones was taking it now.

“To think I should have been so green as to let him deceive me in that way!” he burst forth at length. ' You needn’t be particular, Jones,’ he says to me with a sort of laugh when I was searching him; ‘I’ve got nothing about me that you want.’ Well, I am a fool!”

“And didn’t you search him?” cried Lawyer Billiter.

“Yes, I did search him. But perhaps I wasn’t quite so particular over it as I might have been; it was his easy manner threw me off my guard. At any rate, I’ll vow there was no poison in his pockets: I did effectually search them.”

Sir Stephen Grey rose up from his examination of the prisoner, over whom he had been bent. “I don’t think you need torment yourself, Jones,” he said. “I see no trace of poison here. My belief is, that the death has been a natural one.”

“No!” exclaimed Mr. Jones with revived hope. “You don’t say so, sir, do you?”

“It is impossible to speak with any certainty yet,” replied Sir Stephen, “but I can detect no appearance whatever of poison. One thing appears certain; that he must have died in his sleep. See his calm countenance.”

A calmer countenance in death it was not well possible to see. The wonder was, that a man lying under the accusation of such a crime could show a face so outwardly calm. The eyes were closed, the brow was smooth, there was a faint smile upon the lips. No signs of struggle, whether physical or mental, was there, no trace of any parting battle between the body and the spirit. Lewis Carlton looked entirely at rest.

“I fancy it must have been the heart,” remarked Sir Stephen. “I remember years ago, just before I left South Wennock, I met Carlton at a post-mortem examination. It was over that poor fellow, that milkman who dropped down dead in the road; you must recollect, Jones. And, in talking of things, Carlton casually remarked to me that he had some doubts about his own heart being sound. How strange that it should occur to me now; I had quite forgotten it; and how more than strange that I should be the one, of all others, first to examine him!"

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Lawyer Billiter, gazing on the still countenance. “There’s something very awful in these sudden deaths, Sir Stephen, whether they proceed from—from one cause or another.”

Sir Stephen bowed his head. They quitted the cell, locking the door. Mr. Jones proceeded to deal with the intruders filling the outer room, and Sir Stephen went up to carry the news to Cedar Lodge. Bowler had said that Lady Laura was there.

The first to come to Sir Stephen was Lucy. Weak with her recent illness, the shock of this