Chapter II: Maud Lewsome and Her Diary

I have mentioned a fourth inmate at Jex Farm at the time of the murder, in the person of Miss Maud Lewsome, a young lady friend of Miss Judson's, and a distant cousin of hers, but no blood relation of the Jex family. Miss Lewsome had come as a friend of Miss Judson, and had resided at the farm some five or six weeks. She is a tall, dark, handsome girl, gentle and reserved in manner, but, as I should judge, extremely intelligent. I hear that her profession in life is the literary one, but whether in the way of novel-writing, or journalism, I am not told. She had also been for a short time on the stage. I have, as yet, had hardly any conversation with Miss Lewsome, so overcome is she with the nervous shock of the tragedy of her dearest friend.

I need not reproduce here at any length the evidence of the country surgeon who made the post-mortem, as given at the inquest. It was to the effect that death had resulted from three bullet wounds in the side of the head, one just behind the ear and two just above it. The shots must have been fired from the distance of some few yards, for there was no burning or discoloration of the skin. That they must have been fired in rapid succession was evident from the fact of the three wounds being within a circle whose diameter was not more than three inches in length. The charges of powder, in the doctor's opinion, must have been light, for, after passing through the walls of the skull, there was little penetration. The bullets, all three, had been extracted--very small round leaden bullets hardly bigger than large peas, and not of the conical shape used in revolvers of the more expensive kind. Death must have been instantaneous, for the bullets were all three found buried in the brain, one still spherical, the others flattened by contact with bone.

Now, it is obvious that this circumstance increases the difficulty connected with the fact that no one at the farm, neither Mrs. Jex nor Miss Lewsome, nor any of the laborers or female servants, who were indoors and at supper at the time, had heard the sound of firearms. It is true that on the evening of the 17th half a gale of wind was blowing from the northwest, and the orchard, where the fatal shots were fired, is nearly south of the house. All doors and windows were closed, the night having turned cold and rainy, but the sitting-room faces the southeast, and, though a tall yew hedge interposed, it was difficult to understand how three pistol shots, fired less than forty yards away, should not be audible by the inmates of the room. Was Mrs. Jex hard of hearing? I asked her. Only very slightly so, she declared. Had she heard positively nothing? Nothing but the roaring of the wind in the chimney and, every now and then, the rattling of the windows. Was she absorbed in reading, or talk? No, she was knitting by the fireside. Miss Lewsome had been writing at the table all the evening. From time to time, Mrs. Jex told me, she had talked with Miss Lewsome, who had remained with her in the sitting-room from before sun-down till supper time.

I then examined Miss Lewsome by herself, as I had already examined Mrs. Jex. She corroborated what that lady had said. The wind was loud that night, said Miss Lewsome. It rattled the windows and made a great noise in the chimney. She was writing all the evening, she said.

"Forgive, my curiosity," I said, "was it something that took up your attention and would have prevented your hearing a noise outside?"

She hesitated. "I was writing up my diary," she answered.

"You keep a regular diary?"

"Yes."

"May I see it?"

"Oh, no!" she said. "That would be impossible. I could not show it to any one. You must really not ask to see it."

"I am sorry," I said, "I am afraid you must let me read it."

"Why?"

"Because I am a police officer, and am here to inquire into the death by violence of Miss Mary Judson, and because your diary may throw some light upon the circumstances of the crime."

"How can it help you? It is all--personal; all about myself."

"I am not in a position to say how the diary can help me till I have seen it; but see it I must."

She still hesitated; after a pause she asked:

"Do you really insist?"

"I am afraid I must."

She walked to her desk, opened it, and gave me a leather-covered book, locked, and put it, with the key, into my hands.

That night I read the diary. The entries were, as Miss Lewsome had told me, scanty, that is, at first, referring to such trivial events as her arrival at the farm, for the diary began with the beginning of her visit. As it went on, however, the entries became fuller, and the occurrences of the six or seven days previous to the murder were narrated with considerable fullness. Before I had ended my perusal of the book, certain vague suspicions that had already formed themselves in my mind began to gather in strength and to acquire full corroboration.

Inspector Morgan picked out, from the bundle of documents, one marked: _Extracts from Miss Lewsome's Diary_. This is what he read out to me:

_October_ 3.--The more I see of what is going on between Charles and Mary the more I blame myself for my fatal weakness. Had I only known of their engagement! ... why, oh, why, did they keep it a secret from me? He never should have learned my passion for him--never should have ... oh, fool, fool that I have been! Poor Charles, I hardly blame him. In honor he is bound to poor Mary, and yet I see, day by day, that he is getting colder and colder to her and more and more devoted to me. In honor he can't break off his engagement. Poor fellow, too, he needs his cousin's money. Without it, I know, ruin stares him in the face. Were it not for that, as he says, he would break with Mary to-morrow. I believe him.

_October_ 5.--What am I to do? The situation becomes more and more difficult every day. I see that I must leave Jex Farm, but it will break my heart, and I fear it will break Charles's too.

_October_ 6.--Mary suspects nothing, though Charles grows daily colder to her.

_October_ 11.--Charles and I have had an explanation. I have told him that I can bear it no longer. He said he could not break off the engagement; if he could, he would. He spoke almost brutally. "I must have Mary's money," he said. "Without it my mother, I, my sisters and brothers and the farm must all go to the devil. I hate the woman!" he cried out. "Don't--don't say that, Charles; it is so dreadfully cruel and wicked. What has poor Mary done to you?" "She has come between me and the only woman I ever loved. Is not that enough?" "But you have told me that your cousin's money must come to you some day or other?" "Yes, but only on her death." "Don't, Charles, it is too dreadful." "Yes, isn't it? Just awful!" "Well, but--" He laughed. "Oh, women never understand business, but I see what you are driving at, my dear, a _post obit_, or a sale of the reversion of Mary's estate, eh?" I nodded, just wishing to see what his meaning was, but, of course, never dreaming of anything so mercenary and hateful. He went on: "Then you think, I suppose, that with the cash in hand I could break off with Mary and make amends for the wrong I have done you? Is that your little game?" At that moment I almost hated Charles. Tears of mortification came into my eyes. "Oh, Charles, don't think so meanly of me!" "Meanly! Why, hang it, it was in my own head, why should it not be in yours, too? You are the cleverest girl I know, for all you are so quiet; of course, you thought of it! So did I, only that cock won't fight, my girl. Oh, no; I consulted a lawyer, and he upset all my little plans. 'You could not raise a penny,' says he, 'for Miss Judson might marry, and if she does and dies, her estate goes to her children, if she has any. Anyhow, you can't touch the reversion till she dies single, or dies childless.'" "Then, Charles, there is nothing for me to do but to go out into the wide world, poor, abandoned and miserable, with all the weight of my sin on me!" He looked at me a long time with a curious expression in his eyes, frowning. Then he kissed me suddenly on the mouth. "Maud," he said, "you love me--really? really? really?" "I love you," I said, "with all my heart and soul and strength." "And what?" he asked, "what would you do to gain my--my company forever?" I made him no answer, for I did not understand him. I do not understand him now. Then he said suddenly, "If you look at me like that with those great brown eyes of yours and kiss me with those lips I would ... by Jove! there is nothing, nothing I would not--" Then, without another reasonable word and with an oath, he broke from me and left the room.

The last entry in Miss Lewsome's diary was made and dated on the evening of the murder, and it was no doubt written at the very moment that the tragedy was being enacted within a few yards of the farmhouse windows. The handwriting of this last entry, I noticed, was as firm as it had been throughout--such a hand as I should have expected from what I knew and had heard of this young lady's character and temperament. She is a strikingly beautiful, dark-skinned girl, quiet and reticent in manner, impulsive and headstrong, perhaps, where her passions lead her--the diary proves this only too clearly--but gentle, repressed in all her ways and speech; a woman, in short, with such powers of fascination as few men can resist. It is just such a girl as this for whom men commit untold follies, and just such a girl as would hold such an obstinate, dull-witted, overbearing, young fellow as I see Charles Jex to be, in the hollow of her hand. These lines that follow are the last in the diary.

"I have had a long talk with Mary to-day. Charlie has at last spoken to her about his feelings toward her and his feelings toward me. He has told her plainly that he no longer cares for her, but that he will marry her if she insists upon holding him to his promise. The communication has come upon her as a shock, she said. She was overwhelmed. She could give him no answer. She could not believe that I had encouraged him. Did I love him? she asked me. Did he really love me? Was it not all a horrible dream? I told her the truth, or as much of it as I dared. I told her he had made me care for him long before I knew, or even guessed, there was anything between him and her. I would go at once. To-morrow I could take the train to town and never trouble him, or her, or any one connected with Jex Farm again. Poor Mary cried--she behaved beautifully. She said, 'Maud, you love him, he loves you. You can make him happy, I see now that I cannot. His happiness is more to me than my own. I will go away, and you shall be his wife. I will never marry any one.' We did not speak for several minutes. I could not at first believe in such a reversal of misery. Then all the difficulties of the situation flashed upon me. My poverty; the financial ruin he had to face; the wealth that would save him. 'No,' I said, 'Mary, it cannot be. You are generous, and I love you, but it cannot be! I cannot allow you to make this sacrifice.' We talked long together, and we both of us cried a great deal. I do not think the world holds so sweet and unselfish a woman as Mary Judson. Whatever our lots are in life, hers and mine, we shall always be as sisters one to the other. To-morrow I leave Jex Farm."