"Pray, Johnson," said Geoffery, when the person so named made his appearance, "what is all this that Davison has been saying, about a paper of arsenic being missing from where it lay no later than yesterday; and the groom's absurd assertion, that Sir Alfred was the person who removed it? This is a mere excuse, to hide the carelessness of some of you servants, who have probably flung the paper of poison in among the glasses; and now that you see the consequences of your own misconduct, you are all terrified. And very justly, for I make no doubt of it, the half of you will be hung!—The plea of carelessness, let me tell you, and I know something of the law, will not be taken; malicious interest will be supposed. As I told Davison, if Sir Alfred chose to have the arsenic removed, he would have given his orders to that effect, and not have gone about the thing himself, in a skulking clandestine manner: why should he take so much trouble, unless concealment were his object; and what motive could he have for concealment?"

"The lad sais it was Sir Alfred," answered Johnson.

"Can he swear to the fact?"

"He sais he can."

"Poor Sir Alfred," proceeded Geoffery, "is not in a state of mind to be spoken to; or the thing might be cleared up in a moment, by my asking him the question. Indeed he has given orders that no one shall go near him; besides, it would be the utmost cruelty to allude to such a subject at present; particularly if he really has, by any carelessness about this paper of which you speak, been the cause of the accident, he will never forgive himself;—so that, in that case, from respect to his feelings, the circumstance ought in fact to be hushed up." Geoffery was well aware that ordering servants to hush a thing up, was the best possible mode of giving it publicity.

The groom, when he appeared, was so firm to his text, that Geoffery began to hope the assertion, whether true or false, might be turned to account. He endeavoured, accordingly, to terrify the lad into a steady evidence, by telling him, that what he once said, he must, on his peril, stand to throughout; for that the slightest prevarication, or even hesitation on so serious an affair, might hang him. "And I know something of the law," he added, as usual. So saying, he dismissed the groom, desiring him to send up the butler.

"This is a shocking business, Thomas," said Geoffery, as the butler entered.

Thomas made no reply.

"Poor Sir Alfred," continued Geoffery, "thinks, it seems, that his brother died of a fit, and it is better for his peace of mind, that he should think so; although there is no doubt, that Sir Willoughby was poisoned. Do you think, Thomas, that you will be able to clear yourself?"

"Clear myself!" answered the man, his eyes flashing with rage, through the honest tears he had been shedding for his master. "I'd be glad to know who'll accuse—I who have served his father, and his grandfather before him, man and boy these fifty-five years, and have nursed himself and his brother one on each knee, many's the time."

"Far be it from me, Thomas, to accuse you or any one else of such a crime as murder; I only suspect you of unpardonable carelessness; but I must say, and I know something of the law, as you may suppose, that circumstances are very strong against you; it may be thought that you intended to poison both brothers, and rob the house; my arrival was unexpected; such things you know have been done! Nothing I should think can clear you, but its being satisfactorily proved who is to blame. You brought up the glasses; poison has been found in one of them, and there was no one in the room but Sir Willoughby, his brother, and yourself. You certainly would get nothing by the death of Sir Willoughby, unless, as I said before, you had made away with both gentlemen, and robbed the house; that is so far in your favour: yet no one, you know, could think of suspecting his own brother, and circumstances seem to lay the mischief, however it happened, at the door of one or the other."

"No one who had not got the heart of the devil in his breast would lay it at the door of either," replied the man, angrily.

Without noticing his irritation, Geoffery proceeded, "I still mean in the way of accident or mistake. Some of you talk, I understand, of Sir Alfred having been the person who removed the paper of arsenic." And here he enlarged as before, on the affliction our hero would no doubt suffer, could he at all blame himself for any thing that had happened, and how cruel it would therefore be to mention the subject to him.

"Was the arsenic at any time kept in the same place with the glasses? Do you think you might have scattered any quantity about, in lifting it from shelf to shelf?"

"I wiped out the glasses with my own hands, the moment before I carried them in. Besides, the arsenic was never in the cupboard with my things at all, it lay on a shelf in the saddle-room, quite out of the way of what was for any one's use, and was marked in large letters, "arsenic, poison"; for Sir Willoughby was very particular in his orders to me to be careful about it, and made me show him where I put it, and that Mr. Alfred knows, for he was with his brother at the same time, no longer since than yesterday forenoon."

"If your statement is correct, I do not see how it was possible for an accident to have happened," said Geoffery, "could you swear that it was not possible for an accident to have occurred?"

"Yes, I could," he replied, though sulkily. "That is," he added, "as long as the arsenic lay where I left it."

This was one of the main points which Geoffery wanted to establish. He now dismissed the butler, who was sobbing so violently, that he could scarcely answer the questions put to him.

The coachman next entered; and it being Geoffery's object, with the views already stated, to alarm all the servants for their own safety, he looked extremely austere, and, aware that the individual he had now to deal with was not overburdened with wisdom, began thus:

"So I find, James, you don't pretend to deny that you brought arsenic from Arden, and the defence which I understand you pretend to set up, is, that you did so by your master's orders, for the purpose of poisoning rats. Now, this is quite too hackneyed an excuse; as to the orders you say you received, I fancy you have no proof that you received any."

"I told the groom that went with me, and the boy at the apothecary's, that my master sent me."

"You told them! What sort of proof is that? You don't suppose that your own word will be taken for yourself, whatever it may against yourself! This will never do. I know something of the law, and unless there is stronger evidence against some one else, you will certainly be hung for the murder. The only thing in your favour is, that you would get nothing by Sir Willoughby's death."

"If they chooses to hang an innocent man," replied James, very philosophically, "I can't help it, I dun as I was bid."

"It's a very awkward thing having no witness in your favour but a dead man. Are you sure it was not Sir Alfred who gave you the orders? for if so, he is there, you know, to say so, which might save you."

"No, it was Sir Willoughby himself."

After a little more cross-questioning, James retired to the servants' hall, where the effect of Geoffery's interference, was just what he intended it should be: the utmost excitement existed. The one general argument in their own favour, cunningly suggested to each by Geoffery, that they would get nothing by the death of poor Sir Willoughby, was constantly recurred to, while every time this was said, the remembrance naturally suggested itself of who it was that would gain everything by the melancholy event; not that any of the household yet dared in word, or even perhaps in thought, to connect accusation or suspicion with the mental recognition of the abstract fact. The strangeness, too, of attempting to rinse the glass, and the strangeness of taking away the paper of arsenic were named, while other still stranger circumstances were from time to time, as they transpired, cautiously whispered to a chosen few, by Geoffery's man, Davison, but no one ventured to draw inferences. As the servants, however, of neighbouring families came in to make inquiries respecting the sudden demise of Sir Willoughby, already beginning to be generally known, many very extraordinary rumours soon got abroad.