Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 224: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

216 introduced him to Sergeant Wrightson of the De- tective Force as a fit and proper person to conduct the plans which were now requisite to bring home the crime to Mr. Timperley. Accordingly, the Sergeant set two of his subordinates to work to ferret out whatsoever fresh details they might pos- sibly obtain in the clue which was being followed up; while a third was appointed to keep watch on Mr. Timperley’s movements. At half-past eight o’clock on the ensuing even- ing, Lord Ormsby and Sergeant Wrightson called at the house in Norton Street; and they gave Mrs. Maddox full instructions how she was to act when Mr. Timperley should make his appearance. Two rooms separated by folding-doors, presented arrangements by means of which the nobleman and the detective could overhear everything which might take place. At nine o’clock Mr. Timperley knocked at the door of the house; and he was shown into the room where Mrs. Maddox awaited him. It is scarcely necessary to observe that his guilty soul was full of alarm ; for he knew full well that this was the house where Mrs. Chicklade had dwelt; and the wording of the landlady’s letter had shown him that she considered him to be in her power. She must therefore have disco- vered something! But that the matter could be settled for money, he had every reason to hope and believe from the private and stealthy way in which he was thus sent for. Mrs. Maddox faithfully followed out the course which Ormsby and the detective had suggested. She spoke to Mr. Timperley of the letter he had written to Mrs. Chicklade, and in which he had promised the sum of five thousand pounds as the purchase-money of her silence in respect to some discovery she had made materially damaging to his reputation as well as perilous to his personal safety. Mrs. Maddox likewise spoke of the visit of his niece Cicely Neale to procure Mrs, Chick- lade’s papers; and then she said, ‘ You know, Mr. Timperley, your niece obtained that letter which you penned to the woman; and you gave your niece a dowry of thirty thousand pounds, etther as a bribe for her silence, or else as the actual purchase-money for the damnatory docu- ment!” “Ah, then Cicely has betrayed me !” ejaculated the lawyer, who was thrown completely | off his guard, ** No—she did not intentionally betray you,” re- plied Mrs. Maddox: “ but I discovered the secret —it matters not how.” Then Mr. Timperley began to sound Mrs. Mad- dox as to what her views might be,—though at the same time he endeavoured tc impress upon her that he was really innocent of the crimp, but that for the sake of avoiding the chance of incurring disagreeable suspicion he had no objection to place the seal of silence upon her lips. He proposed that she should depart forthwith for America—that he would give her five hundred pounds on the day that she set off—and that he would annually remit her one-half of that sum. She gave her consent ; and he suggested that she should leave London on the morrow. To this also she agreed; and he took his departure, with the understanding that he should be there at seven o'clock in the morning to see her off. Aud at seven o'clock in the morning Ormsby _ AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLESSURE. ' \ and the detective were again concealed in the inner room separated from the front one by the folding: doors; and Mr. Timperley was punctual to the ap- pointment. He gave Mrs. Maddox the promised amount ; anc ho said, “I am even dealing with you more liberally than I had undertaken or than you could have expected; for there is a draft upon an American house—one of the principal firms in New York—for a further sum of five hundred pounds, which will be paid to you the instant you arrive in that city.” He accompanied the woman in a cab to Euston Square: he paid her fare to Liverpool—he saw her take her seat in the railway carriage—and he witnessed the departure of the train. His mind was then easy ; and he felt convinced there was nothing more to apprehend in that quarter. As for Mrs. Maddox herself, she left the train at some station at no great distance down the line, and on the ensuing night returned to London, where she took a temporary lodging in the suburbs that she might hold herself at the disposal of Sergeant Wrightson whenever the course of justice should require her presence in the witness-box. The money and the draft upon America which she had received from Mr. Timperley, she surrendered up into the officer’s keeping, Lord Ormsby guarantee- ing that she should not be a loser by the proceed- ing. In the mean time the two detectives who had been set to work to ferret out fresh details, had not been idle. They had communicated with the policemen who discovered the body of Mrs. Chick- lade at the time when the murder was committed : they obtained all requisite information from that source; and they procured copies of the deposi- tions taken at the examination of Winifred before the police-magistrate. The incident was then brought back to recollection that Mr. Timperley had actually presented himself at the time in the police-court—that he had voluntarily stood for- ward to announce himself as the attorney engaged to conduct the accused girl's defence; and this proceeeding on his part was now regarded as a mere cloak to shield himself against the possibility of suspicion. Then, too, there was a portion of Mr. Meadowbank the surgeon’s evidence, at the time of that examination, which now engaged the serious attention of the detectives ; inasmuch as it tended to prove that it was really more consis- tent to believe that the murder had been com- . mitted by the strong hands of a man than by the delicate fingers of a young female. We will quote, for the benefit of the reader, the particular part of the examination to which we now refer, and which was given in the fifteenth chapter of our narra- tive. “Do you think,” Mr. Wardour, the barrister, had asked of Mr. Meadowbank, “ that the hands of the prisoner were those which left their marks upon the neck of the deceased ?” ‘‘ T should indeed be very sorry to say that they were,” was Mr. Meadowbank’s answer: “ but as an honest man, I am compelled to admit that they might have been.” ‘You must endeavour, sir,” Mr. Wardour had gone on to say, “to give usa positive opinion. I will shape my question in another way. Do you think that those delicate fingers’”—pointing to- wards the prisoner—“could haye left upon the CORMICELOOL< (E@)