Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

For he knew now that whoever it was, was dead.

Again and again Manners cried out until from across a field he saw the glimmer of a lantern coming his way. Eventually the lantern revealed a man who turned out to be James Crosby, a laborer on the farm close by.

Serious Evidence

Crosby held up the lantern to the young attorney’s face and recognized him. “Did you call, sir? Lawd, how mired you look!”

Then his lantern showed the body in the road.

“Lord bless me!” Crosby cried. “Is he drunk or—”

“Good God! It’s Lascelles! And he’s dead!”

Crosby, frightened though he was, could not help noting the consternation of the other man.

The farm man was not bright, but it did not take much intelligence to read fear in George Manners’s tone. And now that Crosby raised his lantern again he saw that the attorney was smeared with something that could not be plain honest mud.

In the poverty-stricken life of the community the gossip of the state of affairs between Lawyer Manners and Edmund Lascelles was eagerly discussed for the color and drama it afforded. Even James Crosby knew of it.

Now there lay Edmund Lascelles in the road. On his face and head were blood and the marks of a savage beating, many wounds pointing to an attack with fury.

And standing by his side, smeared with mire and blood, was Lawyer Manners.

“Don’t keep staring at me!” Manners shouted. “Go and fetch help!”

If Manners were not so appalled with the vision of what he must convey to Eva he would have noticed a change in the manner of the farm hand toward him.

A Tragic Blow

“How do you know he’s dead?” Crosby asked, with what he thought was well concealed suspicion.

But Manners curtly sent him off. Then he left for the Lascelles home.

Crosby returned with several farmers and a cart. They stooped to lift the body into the cart when simultaneously from two newcomers there broke a cry.

“Good Lord, his hand is gone!”

It was the right hand that was missing, hacked off at the wrist.

Meanwhile George Manners rang the bell of the Lascelles home and Mrs. Marsh, the housekeeper, opened the door. As the light from the hall fell on his face she cried out at the sight he made. But her emotion did not concern him — at least not at that time.

“I must see Miss Eva—” he began.

The bell had already brought Eva Lascelles out on the stairs. She heard her lover’s voice and Mrs. Marsh’s exclamation. His appearance, even before he could say a word, already cried out disaster; and his words were no less appalling.

“Eva — bear up, my dear! Edmund has been — murdered!”

For awhile she stared at him, her eyes distending with horror. Then she fell to the floor.

Manners started forward to raise her but realized that he was mired from head to foot. “Mrs. Marsh, please tend her!”

The housekeeper drew back from him as if there were something leprous in his very speaking to her. “I don’t need you to tell me my duty!” she snapped.

The two maids came running with cold water and helped Mrs. Marsh in her efforts to revive the girl. To Manners it seemed an endless time before Eva showed signs of coming back; and indeed it did take a long time to bring her back to consciousness.

The brutal blow of the news and the sight of her lover as he told it were terrible enough in themselves. But what had struck hardest was the thought that seared her like a bolt of lightning.

Her lover had killed her brother.

The moment she came back to consciousness she slipped off again and none of the household remedies the servants tried availed. Manners in his fear for her ran to call a doctor.

Incriminating Words

While he was still away the battered and mutilated body of Edmund Lascelles was brought home. In its train was an increasing crowd of farmer neighbors. In undertones but agitatedly news and comment flew from lip to lip.

“Manners’s hands and face were a-drip with blood!” James Crosby reported.

“And Mr. Lascelles’s right hand has been hacked off! What I says is—”

Mrs. Marsh hurrying in and out of Eva’s room stopped to contribute habit! And indeed it was an important contribution.

“No more than a couple of hours ago,” she said to those who had brought the body, “I heard and saw Manners and Mr. Lascelles quarrel in that very doorway. And Manners’s last words were, ‘By God, Lascelles, if you won’t shake hands with me now I’ll take your right hand from you whether you like it or no!’ And that’s how he’s done it!”

“I knew he must ’a’ done it!” Crosby explained.

“Are you sure o’ what yer saying, Mrs. Marsh?” asked a substantial farmer seriously. “Because, you know, it’s a serious thing yer telling us!”

The two maids of the house pushed forward.

“We heard ’im, too! Word fer word, as Mrs. Marsh tells yer!”

By the time Manners came back with the doctor, a committee of farmers had left for the nearest police station.

In the Lantern Light