| | 124

THE MYSTERY OF THE GRAVEL PITS FARM

A LONG and picturesque valley, with rounded heather-clad hills on either side; here and there a patch of woodland, or a tiny ravine running into the hills, green and cool, with ferns in their season, and moist and misty with some trickling stream. If you mounted to the hill-top and turned your eyes south you observed an extensive panorama of the fair English country, while northward was the line of the Cheviots, guarding, sentinel-like, the land of mountain and flood. It was a lonely valley, sparsely populated, and in one of the loneliest parts of it stood the Gravel Pits Farm, in the occupation, at the period of this story, of two brothers, George and David Sandeman. George was the elder. He was about forty; David not more than thirty-five. They had lived on the farm for about twelve years. It was not a very productive place, but the Sandemans managed to live fairly comfortably, although they were at times hard pressed to make ends meet. They had a long lease of the farm, which at one time they were very anxious to dispose of, but they were advised to hold on, for it was certain that sooner or later a branch railway would be pushed through the valley, and the Sandemans had been assured that whenever the railway did come, it must, in the natural order of things, sweep over the Gravel Pits Farm lands, and bowl the farm itself over. And so they hung on.

And one day men appeared with dumpy levels, theodolites, chains, and poles. And later the brothers got an intimation that their farm and land would be required; and, | | 125 later still, came a party of gentlemen—they were surveyors—to value the farm; and finally, after some haggling, the Sandemans agreed to accept a price which had been fixed by a board of arbitrators, and they were told that they must clear out in four months. During those four months David Sandeman mysteriously disappeared. George had been away in Scotland. When he returned to his home he was informed that a week before David had gone up the valley in search of a stray pony, but had not come back.

George searched high, and he searched low. He advertised. He offered a reward. He communicated with the police, but not a sign nor trace of the missing man was obtained. He had gone, and no one could say why he had gone, nor what his fate was. When the 'compensation for disturbance' had been settled by the railway company, and the brothers had accepted it, each made a will by which, in the event of the death of either, the survivor was to inherit the deceased's property. It should be mentioned that the brothers were bachelors, and there was a clause in the wills to the effect that marriage on the part of either should render the will null and void. At the expiration of the four months allowed by the board of arbitrators George Sandeman quitted the Gravel Pits Farm, and went to a farm in Perthshire.

For a whole year after that the Gravel Pits Farm remained desolate, forlorn, and owl-haunted. At last one morning a little party of engineers engaged on the new line of railway made the farm their quarters. A few weeks later a band of stalwart navvies, armed with spade, pick, and crowbar, began to demolish the buildings. In the course of their work they made a very startling discovery. They had begun to pull down a barn, over which was a small granary. In this granary was an old box which had been used as a bean bin. One of the navvies struck off the lid with his pick, and the box seemed to be packed full of turf. A great deal of bog turf was cut on the hillsides by the valley dwellers and used as fuel for their fires. The navvy began to prise the sides of the box out with a crowbar, and | | 126 to scatter the turf, when suddenly he started back with an exclamation of alarm, and called out to a mate near:

'I say, Jim, blowed if there ain't a dead 'un 'ere.'

Yes, sure enough, there was the dead body of a man, and the turf had preserved it to such an extent that, save that the flesh was brown and shrivelled, it did not seem to be decayed. The foreman was called, and he in turn communicated with the superintendent, who gave orders that the work of demolition should be suspended until the police and the coroner had been notified. Necessarily an inquest was ordered) and a medical man was instructed, in the interests of justice, to examine the body. This he did, and he found a hole in the skull and a bullet in the brain. The body was identified beyond all question of doubt as that of David Sandeman. And it was equally certain that David had been murdered.

George Sandeman came from Perthshire to give evidence at the inquest, but he could throw no light on the mystery. The verdict of the coroner's jury was murder—there could be no other—but by whom the murder was done it was impossible at that stage to say.

There were circumstances in connection with this Gravel Pits Farm tragedy which removed it somewhat out of the common, and aroused an extraordinary amount of public interest on account of the elements of romance and mystery surrounding it.

Now, there was one curious fact in connection with this tragedy, which served, as a natural consequence, to heighten the mystery. The bullet extracted from the dead man's brain was an old-fashioned round bullet, and on a rafter in the granary where the body had lain so many months a pistol, rusty and dust-covered, was found. It was a single-barrelled, flint-lock weapon, such as was in use at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was a superior weapon of its class, for the barrel was damascened and the stock was inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The bullet exactly fitted the barrel. It therefore seemed pretty certain that it was with that pistol | | 127 the crime had been committed, and the granary itself was probably the scene of the crime. When, how, by whom, and why was the murder done? Those four points made up a pretty complex problem, and so keen became the public desire to have it solved that it was submitted to Tyler Tatlock, and an order was given that the demolition of the farm buildings was not to be proceeded with until a full and exhaustive inquiry had been made.

The first thing Tatlock did when he set to work in the matter was to determine the constitution of the household at the period when David disappeared. When it became evident that the property would be acquired by the railway company, the brothers reduced their establishment to the lowest possible limits, and for months before and at the time of the crime it was made up as follows. An old woman named Margaret Westcroft, who occupied the position of housekeeper; a dairy-maid, known as Sarah Giles, a smart, well-figured, good-looking lass of twenty-five; a boy of about fourteen or fifteen named Jimmy Martin. He may be described as a boy-of-all-work. For a pound or two a year and his 'grub' he made himself generally useful. These three persons slept in the farm itself. Of the outside hands there were Ronald Macfarlane, the herdsman, a middle-aged man, who had been in the service of the brothers for some years; a ploughman, Walter Hislop, who had been engaged six months before at the hiring fair in Carlisle; and a waggoner, Peter Grubb, also engaged at the hiring fair at the same time. These three men occupied a little cottage at the rear of the farm, and about fifty yards from the main building. All the people had been discharged, and had scattered about the country at least a year before the discovery of the body in the granary. Margaret Westcroft and Jimmy Martin were examined at the inquest, but could throw no light whatever on the occurrence, if we except a statement that before George Sandeman went away he and his brother had a quarrel, and on the day of his disappearance David seemed very restless and strange in his manner. By dint of perseverance, and not without some | | 128 trouble, Tatlock interviewed the others, with the exception of Sarah Giles. They did not furnish a scrap of information likely to be of use. Ronald Macfarlane, in fact, had been sent to Carlisle by David with some pigs three days before the crime. When he returned David had been missing for two days. Sarah Giles belonged to Hereford-shire, where her mother, a brother, and a sister lived; but she had quarrelled with her people, and held no communication with them. Consequently they did not know where she had gone to.

Tatlock's opinion was that every one he had seen who went to make up the Sandeman household at the time of the murder had taken no part in, and had no knowledge of; the murder. On this point he differed from the chief constable of the county. This gentleman's view was that George Sandeman had paid one of his servants to kill David, and his going away during the commission of the crime was a blind. The constable urged in support of his view that it was elicited in evidence before the coroner that George—it was noted at the time—when he returned and was informed of his brother's disappearance, did not seem at all surprised, and betrayed no concern at the continued absence of David, nor did he, so it was alleged, make any strenuous efforts to discover him. The constable was very firm in his view, and was anxious to arrest George, but, in the absence of any legal evidence to support such a step, could not do so.

Tatlock's theory was altogether different, and did not in any way incriminate George Sandeman, notwithstanding that there was a very strong public feeling against him. But according to the theory the motive was not desire for gain, but revenge.

It had been stated that on the day of his death David seemed restless and strange in his manner, and that he went up the valley in search of a stray pony and was seen no more. The latter part of the statement, however, was inaccurate, as Margaret Westcroft said her master came in at tea-time, and told her he had not found the pony. At that time Sarah Giles was in the dairy making some butter, and all | | 129 the men were out on various duties. David was silent and moody. He swallowed down some tea, and, putting on his hat, told his housekeeper he was going into the barn to get some rope which was stored there, and which he wanted. Mrs. Westcroft was bread-baking at the time, and she went on with her duties, thinking no more of David until the hands assembled for their supper, when she inquired where Mr. David was, but nobody could answer the question. He was expected to put in an appearance shortly, but he didn't. This caused no uneasiness, because it was deemed probable he had gone to smoke a pipe with a neighbour who lived lower down the valley, about a couple of miles away, where he was in the habit of spending a good deal of his time.

Tatlock's theory was that David did go into the barn on that fatal evening; that he was murdered in the barn, carried up to the granary, thrown into the bean chest, and covered over at once with the handy turf, the winter stock of which was kept there. Here, again, the idea of revenge stood out prominently, and the deduction was that the murderer was well acquainted with the premises. The barn stood detached from the main building. All the farm-hands being out in the fields, the criminal had no fear of disturbance in his deadly work. Having committed the crime, he could easily slip off and decamp over the hills. One of the most curious and suggestive points in the whole of the case was the fact of the criminal having used such an antiquated weapon wherewith to commit the crime.

Having worked out his theory in his own way, Tatlock proceeded to act upon it. Firstly, the motive of the crime was—revenge. Secondly, the criminal must have been well acquainted with the place. Thirdly, he had carried out his fiendish work by means of an obsolete weapon, such as could only be met with in an old curiosity shop or a museum.

Having determined the constitution of the Sandeman household at the time of the crime, Tatlock next proceeded to learn something of it antecedent to that event, and his inquiries brought to light that about a year before David was slain the brothers had had in their employ, as a sort of | | 130 overseer, a man named Pierre Verne. He was believed to be a native of France, but had been the greater part of his life in England or Scotland, and had occupied himself with agriculture. It was known that he used to receive letters from France. He was clever in his way, but was singularly taciturn and reserved, and never talked of himself or his past. He and David did not get on very well together, and he was discharged. This was significant on the face of it, though it did not necessarily follow that Pierre Verne was the murderer. But Tatlock certainly deemed it his duty to try and track him. In the course of an interview Tatlock had with George Sandeman in Perth, the latter made a remark to the effect that he believed there had been some love-making between Verne and Sarah Giles. As previously stated, Giles was a good-looking young woman. She was regarded as a coquette—giddy, flighty, vain. She was fond of going to Carlisle—the nearest town—whenever she got the chance, and it was remembered that when she was away Verne frequently went away too. From this there was but one inference to be drawn—Giles and Verne were lovers. In this little fact Tatlock discerned certain potentialities.

'Search for the woman,' say the French, 'whenever there is mischief'; and wiseacres are never tired of declaring that a woman is at the bottom of all mischief. Poor woman! Many sins are laid at her door, but as woman inspires men with sentiments of love, and love is very jealous, such crime as that of the Gravel Pits Farm might have been the result entirely of jealousy. But jealousy of whom? According to the theory, the crime was the result of revenge. Jealousy often prompts revenge. If it did so in this case, was it not allowable to suppose that David Sandeman sought to insinuate himself between the passionate Frenchman, Pierre Verne, and the pretty, giddy Giles?

Turning his attention to Carlisle, Tatlock discovered in the most populous part of the town a tea and cake and sweetie shop, kept by an old lady, Margaret Janwick by name, and her daughter, Harriet. It was a small shop, but | | 131 did a thriving business, and Mrs. Janwick and her daughter made a comfortable living. Well, Sarah Giles and Harriet Janwick—they were about the same age—had been great chums. It was to the Janwicks that Miss Giles always went when in town; and, as Harriet was a pretty girl, like her friend, fond of a little flirtation and amusement, the two young women went about a good deal. So much did Tatlock unearth, and through it he unearthed a good deal more.

Harriet Janwick possessed a photograph of Sarah Giles and Pierre Verne. They had been taken together during one of their visits to the town.

Here, then, was direct evidence that they had sweet-hearted. They were standing arm-in-arm, Sarah decked out in her Sunday best, Pierre wearing kid gloves, and holding a stick and his hat in his hand. On the back of the photograph was written 'To dear Harriet, from Sarah.' Pierre was a somewhat striking-looking man, but with rather a saturnine expression. He had a good forehead, and an intelligent face, which was decidedly French in its type.

Although Verne and Sarah were ostensibly sweethearts, Miss Janwick did not think her friend cared very much for him. He was absurdly jealous, and grew angry if she even looked at another man. Nevertheless, on one occasion, when they had had a serious quarrel, Sarah wept fit to break her heart.

Miss Janwick confessed that she could never quite make Sarah out. At one time she seemed very serious; and at others she was so flighty and giddy that it was impossible to get her to rivet her attention on anybody or anything. But some little time before Gravel Pits Farm was vacated, Sarah seemed to entirely change in her nature. She grew more thoughtful, more sedate; lost interest in the things that before had pleased her, and appeared to be suffering from dejection. Harriet Janwick had never been able to get a satisfactory explanation of this, though she thought it was due to Pierre Verne having gone away. After his departure Sarah rarely spoke about him, but she did impart to her | | 132 friend the information that he had gone to Bordeaux, his native town, where he had obtained a situation in some wine merchant's office.

After he had gone away Sarah's visits to Carlisle became less and less. The very last time that she went, that is so far as Miss Janwick knew, was then David Sandeman's strange disappearance was causing a good deal of talk. She visited her friend that afternoon, and stayed to tea. She seemed unusually depressed and nervous, and once or twice burst into tears. When Harriet pressed her for the cause of this, she exclaimed petulantly:

'Oh, nothing. I'm ill, that's all.'

Harriet had never seen her in such a strange mood, and naturally felt much distressed. She was going to visit a cousin, and asked her friend to accompany her, but Sarah replied:

'No. I must get back to that horrid farm ; but I wish I hadn't to go, for I hate the place.'

'Why, you used to say you liked being there,' said her friend.

'Yes, so I did one time; but those were happy times.'

'In what way have they changed?' asked Miss Janwick.

'Oh, lors!' exclaimed Sarah half angrily, 'there's no need to ask that. The farm's going to be given up, as you know, and we've all got to clear out. That's one reason. And then Pierre's gone, and David Sandeman's disappeared. Everything's changed.'

Harriet accepted that explanation as a good and sufficient reason for her friend's unhappiness, and, sympathising and condoling with her, she and her mother persuaded her to stay with them all night. She yielded to the persuasion, and later on the two girls and a young man, an acquaintance of Harriet's, went to see a travelling theatrical company.

The piece in which the company appeared was the sensational melodrama of 'Maria Martin,' based upon a well-known case many years ago, in which a young girl was foully murdered in a barn by a man named Martin. During the performance, much to the alarm of her friends, Sarah | | 133 Giles fainted, and, as Harriet said, 'Sarah seemed about the last girl in the world to faint'; for she had always seemed so strong, so sturdy, with robust, country health. Nevertheless, she went off on that particular night, and had to be carried out into the open air, where brandy was administered to her. When she recovered she said she thought the heat had overcome her. She and Harriet went straight home, and all night Sarah seemed so uneasy and restless that her friend was much concerned about her. The next morning, as the two girls lay in bed talking, the conversation turned upon the mysterious disappearance of Mr. David Sandeman, and she incidentally mentioned that he had made love to her.

'I wonder what has become of him,' remarked Harriet.

'The Lord knows,' answered Sarah with a sigh.

'Perhaps he's been murdered,' suggested Harriet.

This suggestion caused Sarah Giles to cover her face with her hands and burst into tears; and when her friend wished to caress and soothe her, she pushed her away with her elbow, and in sobbing tones said:

'Oh, what a horrible thing you are! Whatever put such an idea as that into your head?'

Miss Janwick tried to justify the suggestions she had thrown out by saying that the valley was so lonely, and referring to a local tradition that a farmer had been murdered in that very valley by a tramp some thirty years before. The end of it all was Sarah Giles sprang out of bed and began to dress herself, and, in the performance of her toilet, she seemed to brighten up and become more like her old self, while during the breakfast she was quite merry. She parted from her friends at noon, and left the town with the country carrier, who was going part of the way, and had offered to give her a lift as far as he went. She promised the Janwicks she would come in the following week on market day, and visit them. Whether she came or not they did not know. Anyway she did not visit them, and they had never set eyes upon her since, nor had she even condescended to write. Both mother and daughter referred to her in somewhat bitter | | 134 terms, considering she had been ungrateful, as they had shown her much kindness and hospitality.

These new facts which Tatlock had elicited set him pondering. They certainly seemed to throw some light on hitherto dark places. Sarah Giles's conduct and changes of mood, as described by the Janwicks, was full of significance, and her fainting during the performance of Maria Martin' was particularly so. It was like a handwriting on the wall, and yet it was not quite easy to interpret it. It was difficult to suppose that she committed the murder herself. Nevertheless, her behaviour in Carlisle subsequent to the murder indicated apparently some guilty knowledge.

Although Tatlock had managed to put together several parts of the puzzle, the key pieces were still wanting, and he deemed it his duty to betake himself to Bordeaux, armed with that photograph with the inscription on the back:'To dear Harriet, from Sarah.' Of course, the first thing he did was to present himself at the head police quarters, where he was supplied with some information which was almost a story in itself.

Pierre Verne was in the employment of a large firm of wine growers. His duties lay out of doors in connection with the cultivation of the vines. Some time after he had held this position he was joined by a young woman from England who did not speak French, and she was understood to be his wife. They lived together in a small cottage just on the outskirts of Bordeaux. Within a very few weeks of her arrival a baby was brought into the world prematurely, and made all haste to get out of it, for it died within a week of bronchitis. Soon after that event it became known to the workpeople on the estate that Pierre Verne and his English wife were leading a cat-and-dog sort of life. The young woman seemed very unhappy, and it was believed that Pierre was in the habit of beating her. Their cottage was situated in a lonely spot at the edge of a wood. One day Pierre went about inquiring for his wife. He said she had taken herself off, and he wanted to bring her back. But nobody could give him any information. Nobody had seen | | 135 her. In a few days he ceased to talk about her, and for a time the people forgot the circumstance, until one evening Verne beat a boy who was working in the vineyard mercilessly for some petty fault. The women who were weeding were furious, and one exclaimed:

'I believe now you murdered your poor wife.'

Perhaps as far as she was concerned it was only a meaningless taunt, but it suited the incident and the occasion; it was taken up and repeated by others. He was jeered and hooted, and the suggestiveness of the taunt appealed so forcibly to the people that they talked about it until it seemed to them it must be true. It came to the ears of the police, and they called upon Pierre Verne for some explanation about his wife's sudden disappearance.

His answers were considered so unsatisfactory that he was arrested. Then the murder idea strengthened. It became a sort of phantom that lashed people into a fury against the prisoner. The man was examined according to French procedure. A Judge of Instruction (Juge d'Instruction) examined him, interrogated him pitilessly again and again and again, but throughout the ordeal the man maintained his innocence. The police made the most determined and exhaustive efforts to get evidence. For a long time they were baffled, until at last Verne's nerves gave way. He could stand the torture no longer. The living death he had endured during these months of incarceration maddened him, and, sending for the judge, he laid bare his soul.

Yes, he had killed Sarah, and her body was buried in the wood above his cottage. Sure enough, there it was found. He had strangled her with a silk handkerchief, which was still round her throat. From that moment he lapsed into silence. They could get nothing further from him. Through the awful ordeal of trial he passed silently and apparently indifferent. He heard his doom pronounced unmoved. He endured the suspense and terror of the weeks that intervened between the sentence and the fall of the knife without a murmur or complaint, and when suddenly in the grey dawn of morning he was awakened from his | | 136 sleep, and told to have courage, he preserved his stoicism. It was only when he went forth and heard the roar of the rabble, and glancing upward saw the gleaming steel blood-red in the light of the dawning day, that he betrayed his human nature. He shuddered and fretted, and sobbed out twice:

'I loved her, I loved her!'

An instant later there was a spurting of hot blood, a mighty shout from the surging mob, and a severed head lay in a basket of sawdust. Justice had smitten! The tragedy was done!

That Pierre Verne slew poor, misguided Sarah Giles there was not the shadow of a doubt. But did he slay David Sandeman? it will be asked.

Well, here are two little items that Tatlock brought to light. From a museum in Bordeaux a flintlock pistol, said to have belonged to Napoleon the First, had been stolen. How, by whom, and when it was not known.

At the time of the crime at the Gravel Pits Farm, Pierre Verne was absent from Bordeaux. He had obtained leave of absence to go to England, where he said he had some business to settle.

The flintlock pistol with the damascened barrel and inlaid stock was identified by the museum people, and returned to them by Tatlock. Circumstantial evidence, then, convicts Pierre Verne of having killed David Sandeman. Sarah Giles in all probability was a party to the crime. At any rate, she knew of it.

Why did Verne kill Sandeman?

Because he was jealous; because Sandeman was his rival; because he desired to be revenged. Why did he kill Sarah Giles? To this question the reader can supply the answer. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' Through the instrumentality of man the Lord had avenged the double crime.