Island’s Thorne

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 561, 14 January 1929, Page 5

Island’s Thorne

(Published by Special Arrangement) (Serial Story)

BY

FRANCIS VIPOND

CHAPTER XXII. —THE INQUEST.

The coroner's inquest was held at Island's Thorne, in the great banqueting hall, built by a Thorne, who had loved the society of his neighbours, in the 16th century. It was a long, lofty apartnient, with a musicians’ gallery at one end, and large windows tilled with coats of arms in rich stained glass. At a table sat the coroner, his clerk, John Wroule, Lord Francis Croft. Mackey, and a gentle-looking man with dreamy grey eyes, Inspector Hume, from Scotland Yard. After the preliminary formalities were got through, the first witness was called, Mattei Lucca, the dead man’s valet. “You have been in Mr. Thorne’s service for many years, I understand,” began the coroner. “Now, we want you to tell us exactly what happened last night as far as you know.” Lucca glanced round the crowded hall with mournful, dark eyes. He seemed numb and dazed with grief, and the shock had almost turned his brain. “I took my master his dinner,” he began in a low, mechanical voice, as if he were being prompted. “All was

as usual, and after he had eaten I cleared the things away. Then he sent me to ask Mr. Ormandy to come and see him, which I did, and Mr. Ormandy came. Later, as was customary, I took up a tray of fruit and whisky and soda with glasses. Mr. Thorne always liked a drink and some fruit before going to bed. He and Mr. Ormandy were sitting over by the writing table; master had a paper in his hand, and I think he had been reading to Mr. Hugh; anyhow, he stopped when I came in. Hugh was looking very cFoss and upset, and he scowled at me as if he was angry at being interrupted. The master dismissed me, telling qie he had all he wanted, and that I was to wait for him in his bedroom, which I did every night, and help him to get into bed. I waited and waited; I was worried, and it seemed a long time. I had the door of the room open, and I sat opposite it watching for Mr. Ormandy to leave the library, and my master to come. After a while Mr. Ormandy came down the corridor; he was in a rare hurry. I heard him go into liis own room; then, later, I heard a door open, and he came out dressed in a light shooting suit. I heard him go into the gallery from the corridor, and

run down the stairs of the side staircase, where there is no carpet. He seemed in a hurry, but took no pains to disguise his movements.” Lucca glanced round the court, and continued. “Again I waited, expecting Mr. Thorne to come to bed at any minute, but he did not come, and at last I got nervous. 'He had had several nasty heart attacks lately, so I went to see if he had been seized with another, and had been unable to reach the hell to summon me. I knocked at the door of the library; there was no answer, though I could

distinctly hear some one moving about the room. I listened, but did not hear the sound of voices, so concluded that master -was tidying up. But I was not happy in my mind, and something made me knock again, and getting no answer I went in.” The man paused and shuddered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably at the memory of the horror of that moment when he opened the door. Then, with a great effort, he continued his story. “The room was terrible,” his voice

broke. “The table on which the tray had stood had been overturned, and the fruit was strewn all over the floor, the glasses and decanter were all broken, and the master was lying there all doubled up. I went to him thinking he had fallen, hut when I turned him over I saw that he was dead, and that It had not been a heart attack, for his head was terribly injured.” "Do you remember if the windows were open or closed?” asked Hume, leaning forward as Lucca paused again and relieved himself with some heartbroken sobs. “They were wide open,” he said, “with the curtains drawn lightly across. It was a very warm night, and though Mr. Thorne always had a fire and complained of the cold, he liked plenty of air. I think I must have gone out of my mind after that, for I don’t know what I did, till something made me go and rouse Simmons and William. It was Simmons who woke the chauffeur and sent him in to Nidchester for the doctor and the police, and, of course, Mr. Hugh was not there; he had gone out. I told them all that Mr. Hugh had murdered his uncle, for I thought he had; we all thought it when he did not come hack. We found his dinner clothes all lying in a heap on the floor in his room just as he had stepped out of them, an unusual thing this, for Mr. Hugh is a tidy man, and very particular about his clothes as a rule. But what puzzles me most Is that the suit of pyjamas that William had laid out for him on his bed for the night was gone. “What colour was that suit of pyjamas?” asked Inspector Hume. “Pink, a bright pink, sir,” returned the valet. “They were a pair out of a new dozen that Mr. Hugh had just bought, and they had never been washed, so they were bright, as the colour had not faded.” “Were the two windows of Mr. Ormandy’s room open, too?” It was Mackey who put this question. Lucca turned to him. “Yes, they were wide open, and the curtains were drawn back,” he said; “Mr. Ormandy was a great person for fresh air, and if the blinds were down or the windows shut he was very angry. The rack which held his whips and the rifle he kept in his room had been wrenched off the wall, we noticed when we went to look for him, and we found the rifle lying by master in the library.” “You are quite certain that no one passed along the corridor before or after you saw Mr. Ormandy leave Mr. Thorne” asked Hume, in his tired, uninterested voice. “I am sure of it, sir,” replied Lucca with emphasis. He was told he might stand down, and did so with evident relief. Dr. Harting was the next witness. He told how he had been roused in the early hours of the morning by one of the chauffeurs from Island’s Thorne, who had told him that Mr. Thorne had been murdered by Mr. Ormandy. Further, how he had come to the scene of the tragedy without delay, and described the terrible injuries to the victim’s head, any u ne of which, he assured the company, would have been sufficient in itself to cause death. “The man who dealt those blows was insane,” was his summing up. “I think the murder was the work of a madman. In my opinion, Hugh Ormandy must have gone suddenly out of his mind, and he has probable made away with himself after killing

his uncle in a fit of insane frenzy Such cases are not unknown.” Wroule took the doctor’s place. His evidence was short and concise. He related the story of the two wills, and the arrangements which had been made for signing the later document ou the previous day. There was a sensation among the crowd of villagers, who composed the “general public,” as he quietly explained the difference that this second will made to Ormandy’s prospects, owing to the latter’s marriage some time previously to Miss Katherine Drury. Katherine appeared in the witnessbox after Wroule. She \yas dressed in black, and looked white and tired, but she gave her evidence in a low, clear voice, and was quite self-con-trolled. She informed the Court that she had not seen her husband for several days before the murder. Neither had she seen him since, nor had she any idea as to his present whereabouts. As far as he had confided to her he had no idea that Mr. Thorne contemplated imposing such stringent conditions on his nephew in his new will. She was entirely in the dark, and could throw no light whatever on Hugh’s mysterious disappearance. “John. Wilson!” called the policeman who acted as usher; and Jowny stepped jauntily to the witness-stand. He surveyed his audience with the confidence of the orator who is sure of an attentive hearing. The old man had never felt more important in all his long life. He was arrayed in'the suit of clothes which he reserved exclusively for weddings and funerals. They were of heavy black cloth, and had been made for him when he had not been so shrunken. With them he wore a snowy white waistcoat, with

fancy buttons, and in his black kid gloved hand he held a glossy top hat of prehistoric pattern. From the crown of this article of headgear he extracted a large silk handkerchief of green and gold with a large scrawling pattern in bright scarlet, and with this gaudy article he wiped his ruddy face, after which he restored it to the crown of his hat, and with a shrewd glance at the coroner seemed to indicate that now he was ready and would tell them all they wanted to know. “Now, Mr. Wilson,” said the officer, “we want you to kindly tell us all you can about what happened on Thursday night, the night of the tragedy at Island’s Thorne.” “Weel, ladies and gentlemen,” commenced Jowny, “I w r as out on Thornewater on Thursday neet, in Island’s Thorne Bay, close in under t’ hoose. I were workin’ an otter, I were.” “What on earth does he mean by that?” demanded the coroner, who was a townsman, and not a Cumberland man. “He means he was poaching trout,” explained Wroule, and Jowny, regardless of the interruption, proceeded with his story. He repeated the same tale as he

had already told Sydney and Neil Fraser in the garden at “The Nest.” “This is a most extraordinary story,’* said the coroner, when the long rigmarole at last came to an end. “You say you are sure you saw Mr. Ormandy go through the wood on the old track to Park Head? What, then, became of Mr. Ormandy? And where is this man in pink? A man cannot roam the countryside In pink pyjamas without being seen and attracting some attention to himself.” Katherine Ormandy was seen at this juncture to lean forward and w'hisper to the policeman standing near her. The man made a sign, and she rose to her feet. “I should like to say,” she said, amid the attentive silence which greeted her action, “that my husband often came to me by the old track through, the woods and across the bog. It was the most direct way to Park Head, also the least observed. I think he was most probably on bis w r ay to me when Jowny saw him. It is natural his first impulse should have been to come to me and tell me the fix he was in, and what he had learned of Mr. Thorne’s intentions. He would, T know, be perturbed at the thought of losing Island’s Thorne, and there was very little time left for him to decide how he was going to act before the will was irrevocably signed the following morning. Mr. Thorne would never have forgiven us for our secret marriage, of that we were well enough aware, and there was not the slightest hope that he would be brought to see things in any light but his own; therefore, I say the will was irrevocable ; once it was signed. He could be like j adamant. Something must have happened in the wood. I feel convinced ! that all is not well with my husband.” (To be continued.)