Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold

the revolver. Finister, Sir Henry and even the sergeant all became alert, gazing at her with a sudden bright surmise. She could not but see, herself, that around Myfanwy Peel the motive and the weapon and the opportunity all most opportunely grouped themselves. Yet she could not bring herself to believe that Myfanwy Peel was a murderess, and did her best to damp any such belief that might be taking shape in Superintendent Finister’s mind. She stressed the fact that the revolver was unloaded.
    â€œEasy enough to reload it,” remarked Sir Henry.
    â€œBut of course we don’t know yet,” said Superintendent Finister, “that the weapon that killed Mr. Molyneux was a revolver. We’ll know more about that after the autopsy.”

Chapter Six
PRIVATE AFFAIRS
    Jeanie lay awake long in her raftered bedroom at Yew Tree Cottage that night, and woke at last from an exhausted sleep to find the pale November sunlight streaming through the window opposite her bed, outlining, as a nimbus a saint, the small angular figure of old Mrs. Barchard, holding a broom as a saint his symbol.
    â€œI knocked and knocked, Miss,” said Mrs. Barchard reproachfully.
    â€œI was asleep. What’s the time?”
    â€œGoing on for ten.”
    â€œGood Heavens!”
    â€œWhen I didn’t get no answer to my knocking, you see, Miss, I judged it best to enter.”
    â€œAnd I haven’t died in my sleep or anything after all,” said Jeanie, and with the words came back to the dreadful realities of yesterday. Mrs. Barchard gave an embarrassed snigger and then very suddenly became grave. She had in her time swept, scrubbed and drunk tea in nearly all the houses round Handleston, a little dark woman with the sallow skin of impaired digestion and the bright prominent eyes of volubility.
    â€œDreadful thing happened at Cleedons, Miss,” she now brought forth lugubriously.
    â€œYes, indeed.”
    â€œPoor Mr. Molyneux. Poor Mrs. Molyneux, I should say, because it’s the ones that’s left behind feels it most. Poor Mr. Molyneux, he’s gone to his rest. But them that’s left behind don’t get no rest.”
    Jeanie took up the cup of strong tea Mrs. Barchard had placed beside her.
    â€œFancy, to fall out of a tree like that. I had an uncle died in a stroke. Me uncle on me mother’s side, he was.”
    Jeanie let her run on. The village would know soon enough that Robert Molyneux had been murdered, without her information. She could not face the avid rapturous glee with which, she foresaw, Mrs. Barchard would receive enlightenment. She held her tongue, savouring on it the dark chill brew.
    â€œTo be took like that! Like being struck by lightning.” A queer, half-shocked, half-amused expression came over Mrs. Barchard’s thin lively face. She jabbed absently with her broom at the skirting board. “There’s some people says it was a kind of lightning. They says it was old Grim.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œIt’s silly talk, really, Miss, of course. Only Mr. Molyneux he had planned to open old Grim’s Grave to look for treasure. So they say. They say he was going to get a gentleman down from London to open it.”
    It was plain from the way Mrs. Barchard’s voice sank that she herself was somewhat awed.
    â€œWell, we don’t know, do we, Miss? I wouldn’t open old Grim’s Grave, not for a million thousand pounds’ worth of treasure, and plenty of people in Handleston thinks the same. Well, I mean, Miss, opening anybody’s grave isn’t very nice. And when it’s one of these old kings, I mean to say, one doesn’t know what misfortunes might happen.” 
    â€œOh, Mrs. Barchard, lots of these burial-mounds have been opened, you know!”
    â€œYes, and lots of misfortunes has happened,” replied Mrs. Barchard pertinently. “Not that I believes in it meself, exactly... Still, we don’t know , do