Aurora Floyd · Chapter 35 (3/3)

“I want to have a few words with you before you leave the Park, my friend,” he said quietly: “unless I’m very much mistaken, you are a member of the detective police, and come here with credentials from Scotland Yard.”

The man shook his head, with a quiet smile.

“I’m not obliged to tell everybody my business,” he answered coolly; “this footpath is a public thoroughfare, I believe?”

“Listen to me, my good fellow,” said Mr. Bulstrode. “It may serve your purpose to beat about the bush; but I have no reason to do so, and therefore may as well come to the point at once. If you are sent here for the purpose of discovering the murderer of James Conyers, you can be more welcome to no one than to the master of that house.”

He pointed to the Gothic chimneys as he spoke.

“If those who employ you have promised you a liberal reward, Mr. Mellish will willingly treble the amount they may have offered you. He would not give you cause to complain of his liberality, should you succeed in accomplishing the purpose of your errand. If you think you will gain anything by underhand measures, and by keeping yourself dark, you are very much mistaken; for no one can be better able or more willing to give you assistance in this than Mr. and Mrs. Mellish.”

The detective⁠—for he had tacitly admitted the fact of his profession⁠—looked doubtfully at Talbot Bulstrode.

“You’re a lawyer, I suppose?” he said.

“I am Mr. Talbot Bulstrode, member for Penruthy, and the husband of Mrs. Mellish’s first cousin.”

The detective bowed.

“My name is Joseph Grimstone, of Scotland Yard and Ball’s Pond,” he said; “and I certainly see no objection to our working together. If Mr. Mellish is prepared to act on the square, I’m prepared to act with him, and to accept any reward his generosity may offer. But if he or any friend of his wants to hoodwink Joseph Grimstone, he’d better think twice about the game before he tries it on; that’s all.”

Mr. Bulstrode took no notice of this threat, but looked at his watch before replying to the detective.

“It’s a quarter-past six,” he said. “Mr. Mellish dines at seven. Can you call at the house, say at nine, this evening? You shall then have all the assistance it is in our power to give you.”

“Certainly, sir. At nine this evening.”

“We shall be prepared to receive you. Good afternoon.”

Mr. Grimstone touched his hat, and strolled quietly away under the shadow of the beeches, while Talbot Bulstrode walked back to rejoin his friend.

It may be as well to take this opportunity of stating the reason of the detective’s early appearance at Mellish Park. Upon the day of the inquest, and consequently the next day but one after the murder, two anonymous letters, worded in the same manner, and written by the same hand, were received respectively by the head of the Doncaster constabulary and by the chief of the Scotland-Yard detective confederacy.

These anonymous communications⁠—written in a hand which, in spite of all attempt at disguise, still retained the spidery peculiarities of feminine caligraphy⁠—pointed, by a sinuous and inductive process of reasoning, at Aurora Mellish as the murderess of James Conyers. I need scarcely say that the writer was no other than Mrs. Powell. She has disappeared forever from my story, and I have no wish to blacken a character which can ill afford to be slandered. The ensign’s widow actually believed in the guilt of her beautiful patroness. It is so easy for an envious woman to believe horrible things of the more prosperous sister whom she hates.