Kitabı oku: «The Lost Million», sayfa 14
Chapter Twenty Seven
In the Balance
“How did you get this?” I asked the youth. “Who are you?”
“I’m John May, sir,” was his answer. “I work in the gardens at Lydford, an’ last night, soon after eleven, as I was a-comin’ home from Rockingham, I met Miss Asta out in the drive. She was like a mad thing. She ’ad the letter and wanted it delivered at once. So I went to the stables and, sayin’ nothink, came away.”
“Then she had written this note, and gone out in the hope of finding some one to deliver it?” I exclaimed, glancing at his horse, and noticing that it was absolutely done up after an all-night ride.
“I didn’t know it was you, sir, that passed me in a motor-car,” the young gardener went on.
“No,” I said, re-reading the mysterious summons for help. “But you and your horse must remain here and rest. I shall return to Lydford in the car.”
Full of anxiety, I put on my mackintosh and cap, for it was raining steadily, and within a quarter of an hour of receiving the note I was already on my way along the autumn-tinted roads.
The morning was that of the first of November. Regardless of speed-limits or of police-traps, I tore along until, just before eleven, I again pulled up at the ancient stone porch of the Hall.
A maid-servant opened the door, and I eagerly inquired for Miss Seymour.
“She’s very ill, sir,” was the girl’s reply. “Mr Shaw’s been called on the Bench this morning, but he’ll be back in an hour. Doctor Redwood is here, sir.”
“Redwood! Then what’s the matter?” I gasped.
“I hardly know, sir. But here’s Mrs Howard!” and looking along the wide hall I saw the grave-faced woman in black standing out of the light.
“Oh, Mrs Howard?” I cried, walking up to her. “What’s happened to Miss Asta? Tell me. Is she ill?”
“Very, I’m afraid, sir,” replied the housekeeper in a low voice. “The doctor is upstairs with her. What happened in the night was most extraordinary and mysterious.”
“Tell me – tell me all, I beg of you,” I cried quickly.
“Well, sir, it was like this,” said the woman. “Last night, about eleven, I heard Miss Asta go along the corridor past my room, and downstairs into the servants’ quarters. She was gone, perhaps, twenty minutes, and then I heard her repass again to her room and lock the door. I know she did that, because I heard it lock distinctly. Miss Asta sleeps at the other end of the corridor to where I sleep – just at the corner as you go round to the front staircase. Well, I suppose, after that I must have dropped off to sleep. But just after two o’clock we were all awakened by hearing loud, piercing screams of terror. At the first moment of awakening I was too frightened to move, but realising that it was Miss Asta I jumped up instantly, slipped on a dressing-gown, and ran along to the door of her room. Several of the other servants, awakened by the cries, were out in the corridor. She had, however, locked her door, and we could not get in. I shouted to her to open it, for she was still shrieking, but she did not do so. At that moment Mr Shaw came along in his dressing-gown, greatly alarmed, and with his assistance we burst in the door.”
“Then he helped you to do that?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the woman. “Inside, we found the poor young lady in her nightdress crouched down on the floor by the ottoman at the foot of the bed. She was still crying hysterically and quivering with fear from head to foot. I bent, and taking her in my arms asked her what was the matter, for as we had entered, somebody had switched on the electric light. For a moment she looked at me fixedly with a strange intense expression, as though she did not recognise me. Then she gasped the words: ‘Death! – hand! – hand!’ That was all. Next moment she fell back in my arms, and I thought her dead. Mr Shaw was beside himself with grief. He helped to lift her on to her bed and tried all he could to restore her with brandy and sal volatile, but without avail. In the meanwhile I had telephoned to Doctor Redwood, who arrived about half an hour later, and he’s been here ever since.”
“And how is Miss Asta now?” I inquired eagerly. “Still unconscious. The doctor has, I fear, but little hope of her recovery, sir. She has, he declared, received some great and terrible shock which has affected her heart.”
The circumstances were strangely parallel with those of Guy Nicholson’s mysterious end.
“No one has formed any conclusion of what caused the shock?”
“No, sir. None of us, not even the doctor, can guess what ‘hand’ and ‘death’ could signify more than the usual figure of speech,” the woman replied. “To me, when she spoke, she seemed to be strangely altered. Her poor face seemed thin, pinched, and utterly bloodless, and when she fell back into my arms I was convinced that the poor thing had gone.”
“You are quite certain the door of her room was locked?”
“Absolutely. I heard her lock it, as was her habit, and being the first person there on hearing the screams for help, I tried the door and found it still secured on the inside. Mr Shaw is half demented, and would not at first leave the poor young lady’s side – until compelled to go to the Petty Sessions. It seems that there is an important case, and no other magistrate is at home to take his place on such short notice. But I’m expecting him back at any moment now.”
“And is Miss Asta still in her room?” I asked. “I think you said that the door was broken open.”
“Yes, sir. For that reason we’ve carried her into the green guest-room, which is lower down the corridor, nearer to my own.”
“Thank you, Mrs Howard,” I said. “I’ll go up and find the doctor. I know my way.” Then, in quick anxiety, I breathlessly ascended the broad, thickly carpeted oak staircase, and a few moments later was in the room which I knew, by the door, was the apartment in which the weird occurrence had taken place.
I recollected only too vividly my own terrible experience, and by those ejaculations which had so puzzled everybody, I knew that she had again witnessed that claw-like hand.
The room, cosy, well-furnished and upholstered in pretty cretonne, was in great disorder. The bed – a brass one, with cretonne hangings over the head to match the furniture – was tumbled with half the clothes upon the floor, while the green satin down-quilt had been tossed some distance away. A chair lay overturned, and water and towels were about, showing the attempts at restoration.
Upon a little wicker-table near the bed stood a shaded electric light, and a novel which my love had evidently been reading on the previous night, lay open. Yet though I investigated the room with careful deliberation, fearing every moment lest Shaw should return, I could detect nothing to account for the singular phenomenon.
The window stood slightly open, but Mrs Howard had explained how it had been unlatched by herself.
I examined the lock of the door. The key was still on the inside, while the hasp was broken; while the hasp of a small brass safety-bolt above had also been forced off. Hence the door must have been both locked and bolted. Certainly there could have been no intruder in that room.
One object caused me curiosity, and my heart beat quickly. Upon the mantelshelf was a little framed snapshot of myself and her father which she had one day taken outside the Casino at Aix.
But what had she seen within that room to cause her such a shock – nay, to produce upon her almost exactly the same symptoms which in the case of Guy Nicholson had terminated fatally?
I heard a footstep in the corridor, and emerging from the room came face to face with the fussy old doctor in his rough tweeds.
My unexpected appearance caused him to utter an exclamation of surprise, but when I asked breathlessly for news of his patient, he looked very grave and said —
“A weak heart, and brain trouble, my dear Mr Kemball. To tell you frankly, alas! I fear the worst.”
“Come here a moment,” I said, taking him by the arm and pulling him into the disordered bedroom. “Now,” I added, as I pushed the door to as well as it would go. “Tell me truthfully. Doctor Redwood, what do you make of this affair?”
“Nothing at present,” he replied with a peculiar sniff, a habit of his, “Can’t make it out at all. But I don’t like the symptoms. Only once she has spoken. In her delirium she whispered something about a hand. She must have seen something or other – something uncanny, I think. And yet what can there be here?” he asked, gazing amazedly round the apartment.
“Look here, Redwood,” I exclaimed firmly, “the facts are very similar to those at Titmarsh. Poor Nicholson saw Something, you’ll recollect. And he had locked himself in – just as Miss Seymour did.”
The doctor stroked his ruddy, clean-shaven chin.
“I quite admit that in many of the details it is quite a parallel case. But I am hoping to get the young lady round sufficiently to describe what happened. The servants say that the screams were loud piercing ones of horror and terror. Shaw himself told me that he had the greatest difficulty in breaking down the door. They found her crouched down in fear – yonder, behind the ottoman. And she shrieked out something about a hand. To what could she have referred, do you think? She’s quite sane and of perfectly sound mind, or I should attribute the affair to some hallucination.”
“It was more than hallucination,” I assured him, recollecting my own experience, yet determined not to assist him towards the elucidation of the mystery. The dead man had evidently made a discovery immediately, before his fatal seizure. I recollected that brief urgent note of Asta’s. Had she, too, made a similar discovery?
Yes. There could be no evasion of the fact. The two cases were in every way identical.
For nearly a quarter of an hour I stood discussing the amazing affair with Redwood. I could see that he was both mystified and suspicious, therefore I extracted from him a pledge of secrecy, and promised to assist him towards a solution of the extraordinary problem. I made no mention to anybody of Asta’s message to me, which I intended should remain a secret.
At my earnest appeal he allowed me to creep on tiptoe into the darkened chamber, wherein still lay unconscious the woman I loved so profoundly – she who was all the world to me.
I bent over the poor white face that presented the waxen transparency of death, and touched the thin, soft hand that lay outside the coverlet. Then, with eyes filled with tears, and half choked by the sob which I was powerless to restrain, I turned away and left the room.
“Will she recover?” I managed to ask the doctor. But he merely raised his thick eyebrows in blank uncertainty.
What devil’s work had been accomplished within that locked room? Ay, what indeed?
Against the man Shaw, who had so cleverly misled her into the honest belief that he adored her, there arose within me a deep and angry hatred. Why was he not there, knowing Asta’s precarious condition? His excuse of enforced attendance at the Petty Sessions was no doubt an ingenious one. Little did he dream that before the occurrence Asta had summoned me, and for that reason I was there at her side.
So strange had been all the circumstances from that moment when the man of mystery – Melvill Arnold – had breathed his last, that I had become utterly bewildered. And this amazing occurrence in the night now staggered me. Only one person had solved the mystery of the shadowy hand, and he, alas I had not lived to reveal what, no doubt, was a terrible truth.
In the corridor I stood discussing my beloved’s condition in low, bated whispers with the fussy country practitioner, a man of the old fox-hunting school – for nearly every one rides to hounds in that grass-country. He had already telephoned for Doctor Petherbridge, in Northampton, to come for consultation, and was now expecting him to come over in his car.
“I have done all I can, Mr Kemball,” he said. “But as we don’t know the cause, the exact remedy is rather difficult to determine. Every symptom is of brain trouble through fright.”
“Exactly the same symptoms as those you observed in Nicholson!” I remarked. Whereat he slowly nodded in the affirmative, and again stroked his rosy, clean-shaven chin.
“Well, doctor,” I said, “I intend to make it my business to investigate the cause of this peculiar phenomenon.”
And I sat down and wrote an urgent telegram to Cardew, who was, I knew, now stationed at Aldershot.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Another Revelation
The dark anxious hours of that dismal autumn morning went slowly by.
Doctor Petherbridge arrived in hot haste from Northampton, and had a long and earnest consultation with Redwood. Both men were greatly puzzled. I met them after a long and eager wait, when they emerged in silence from the sick-room.
“We are doing all we can, Mr Kemball,” declared Petherbridge. “The young lady is, I regret to say, in a most precarious condition – in fact, in a state of collapse.”
I begged him to remain, and he did so. For several hours they were constantly at her bedside, while Mrs Howard, anxious and solicitous for the welfare of her young mistress, expressed surprise that Mr Shaw did not return.
My own suspicion was that he had already fled, yet it proved ungrounded, for at half-past two he arrived in eager haste, in a hired carriage, his car having broken down. Both doctors came forward and explained that the condition of Miss Asta had in no way improved. She was suffering from some obscure malady which they had diagnosed as affecting both heart and brain.
“Poor girl! Poor girl!” he cried, tears welling in his eyes. “Do your best for her, I pray of you both,” he added. “She’s all the world to me. Can’t we summon a specialist?”
“Sir George Mortimer, in Cavendish Square, might see her,” remarked the doctor from Northampton.
“Let’s wire to him at once,” urged Shaw, eagerly. “I accept your diagnosis entirely, yet I would like to have a specialist’s opinion.”
Both medical men acquiesced, and a telegram was dispatched to the great specialist on brain trouble.
As Redwood, seated at the library table, wrote the telegram, his close-set eyes met mine. The glance we exchanged was significant.
“How did you know of this terrible affair, Kemball?” asked Shaw, abruptly, a little time afterwards.
“I came over to invite you both to dine next Wednesday,” I said, of course concealing the secret message I had received from the woman I had grown to love.
In response, he gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and walked down the hall in hasty impatience. Was his impatience an eagerness to hear of the poor girl’s end?
Surely that could not be, for was he not utterly devoted to her! And yet her seizure and her symptoms were exactly similar to those of poor Guy Nicholson!
The whole day I remained there, watching closely Shaw’s demeanour and his movements.
Once, when he found me alone looking forth from the window of the morning-room, he came up beside me, and, looking at me with those small quick eyes of his, said —
“This is a terrible blow for me, Kemball. I have been quite frank with you, therefore be frank with me. I’ve not been blind. I’ve noticed that you’ve been in love with the poor child, and – well, to tell the truth, I secretly hoped that one day you would propose marriage to her. My own position is, as you know, one of hourly insecurity, and my keenest wish was to see her happily settled before – before the crisis.”
“You guessed the truth,” was my reply. “I do love her – I love her more than I can tell.”
He sighed deeply, a sigh that echoed through the big silent room.
“Well,” he said, “our grief must be mutual, I fear. Petherbridge has just told me that they do not believe she can live another hour.”
Hardly had those words left his mouth when Mrs Howard ushered in a tall, thin, white-haired man, the eminent specialist, Sir George Mortimer.
Without delay he was taken to the poor girl’s room, and then a long period of anxious waiting, while the trio of medical men remained with the door closed.
I suppose it must have been about an hour afterwards when, on passing along the carpeted corridor near Shaw’s room, next that of Asta, I saw that the door was shut, but as I passed I heard him utter that peculiar whistle, yet so very low that it was only just audible. Twice I heard it, and halting, found myself involuntarily copying him. He was whistling so softly that it could scarcely be overheard beyond the walls of his own room.
What was the meaning of that sound? Probably it only escaped his lips when deep in thought. Some men invariably whistle softly or hum tunes while dressing. Yet in any case it was curious that he should do this while Asta lay dying.
All was chaos and disorder in that usually calm, well-ordered household. Just about seven o’clock Redwood came to me and called me to one of the upstairs rooms, where the great specialist awaited me alone.
“I believe that a friend of yours, a Mr Nicholson, died a little time ago in somewhat similar circumstances to the present case,” said Sir George, standing upon the hearthrug with his arms folded. “Now, as far as I can make out, the young lady’s illness is due to brain trouble, brought on perhaps by fright. I have seen several similar cases in my experience – and I have treated them.”
“But Miss Seymour – will she live?” I asked in frantic anxiety.
“Ah! That I cannot foretell,” he replied calmly, in his soft-spoken voice. “I have administered two injections, and I’m glad to tell you that she is infinitely better. Indeed, I expect her very soon to regain consciousness, and we may hope for a turn.”
“Thank God! – thank God!” I cried, with over burdened heart. “She is very dear to me, Sir George,” I added with emotion, “and I thank you deeply for your efforts to save her.”
“I understand – I quite understand, my dear sir,” he said with professional calmness. “Yet, from what my two colleagues have told me, I can’t help thinking that there is – well, a little mystery somewhere, eh?”
“A little mystery?” I echoed. “Ah, Sir George, there is a very great mystery, one which I intend at all hazards to investigate – now that Asta has fallen a victim.”
But as I spoke the door was unceremoniously pushed open, and Shaw, who had put on a dark blue suit, and who looked unusually pale and haggard, entered, and inquired for the latest bulletin of the patient.
“I’m glad to tell you, Mr Shaw, that she will probably recover,” replied the eminent man. “In an hour we trust to have her conscious again, and then she will, I hope, tell us what happened – what she indicated when, in her fright, she made mention of this mysterious hand.”
The hand! I recollected those written words of Melvill Arnold.
“She was delirious, I suppose, poor girl!” Shaw said. “But this is real good news that she is getting better! You are quite sure that she will not be taken from us?”
“I hope not. I have treated similar cases.”
“Ah! then there is nothing abnormal in this?” he cried eagerly.
“I cannot exactly say that, Mr Shaw. When the poor young lady recovers she will be able to tell us what really occurred to cause her mysterious seizure,” Sir George replied gravely.
“Yes,” said Shaw. “I hope she will be able to clear up the mystery. You think in an hour or so she will be conscious again?”
“I sincerely hope so.”
And then both men left the room together. Towards nine o’clock the crafty-faced butler came to inform me that Captain Cardew wished to see me, and, a few seconds later, I grasped hands with Guy Nicholson’s friend.
The dining-room was empty, for, though the table had been laid, nobody had thought of dinner. Contrary to expectations, alas! Asta had not recovered consciousness. Only ten minutes before I had seen Redwood, who admitted that she had taken a slight turn for the worse, and that their anxiety had been considerably increased thereby.
I had then sought Shaw, but could not find him. He had gone over to the garage for a moment, Mrs Howard told me.
As soon as I got Cardew alone, however, I told him as briefly as I could what had occurred.
“Then Miss Seymour’s case and Guy’s are practically identical!” he cried, staring at me.
“Yes. And I want you to stay here with me and investigate,” I said. Then I related how, on the door of her room being burst in, she had, before losing consciousness, made reference to some mysterious hand.
“That’s distinctly curious,” Cardew declared. “I wonder what she could have meant?”
“Ah! that remains to us to discover. Will you assist me?”
“Of course,” cried the Captain enthusiastically. “Only I hope the poor young lady will recover. Surely the doctors ought to be able to diagnose something!”
“They can’t say anything definite. It’s for you and me to furnish proofs.”
“What do you suspect, Kemball?” he asked, looking straight into my face.
“Wait and see,” I replied. “At eleven o’clock, if Asta is not then conscious, we will go and investigate the room in which she was lying when seized.”
We ate some cold meat and drank a glass of claret, for I had touched nothing that day, while he had had a long journey from Aldershot. Then again we sought news of my beloved.
Her precarious condition had not altered, and she remained still unconscious. Afterwards I was told by Mrs Howard that Shaw was in the library, writing. He was greatly upset at the girl’s continued unconsciousness, and had expressed a desire not to be disturbed. As I passed the door I heard him speaking over the telephone to some one. All I heard was the number – the number of the woman Olliffe! I tried to gather what he said, but was unable. He was purposely speaking in a low voice – so as not to be overheard.
When the long old grandfather’s clock in the hall had chimed eleven, I ascended the wide staircase with Cardew, and with an electric torch which I had several hours ago found in the library, we gained the landing.
Redwood brushed past in haste, and in reply to my question gave but little hope of my poor love’s recovery. “Mortimer is about to make a last effort with another injection,” he said. “But I fear, Mr Kemball, that we must now abandon all hope.”
My heart stood still. His words fell upon me as though he had struck me a blow.
“No hope?” I managed to gasp.
“No, none, Mr Kemball,” replied the doctor, and he hurried away to fetch something from the servants’ quarters.
I made no further remark. Mere words failed me. If Asta were lost to me, then it was my duty to avenge her death. Therefore I drew Cardew into the dark bedroom in which the dying girl had witnessed the hideous apparition of the hand, and then, with difficulty – for one hinge was broken – I closed the door.
Afterwards, I switched on the electric light and we made a minute and careful examination of the apartment. But we discovered nothing. Before entering there I noticed that the door of Shaw’s room adjoining was closed, for he was still downstairs writing.
Presently, when we had satisfied ourselves that in the room was nothing suspicious, I pointed out to my friend that if we remained quietly in the darkness, without speaking, no one would suspect us of being there.
“Now,” I added, “I’m going to lie on that bed while you sit in yonder armchair in the corner; you take the torch, and at sign of the slightest movement flash on a light at anything you may see. Don’t hesitate, for – well, perhaps my life may be in danger, like Guy’s. Who knows?”
I had taken from the corner Asta’s small ash walking-stick which she sometimes used when tramping about the country, and with this in my hand I lay down upon the pillow, fully dressed as I was.
Then Cardew, breathless with excitement, switched off the electric light, plunging the room in darkness.
Gradually, when our eyes became used to it, we could distinguish a faint grey light from the window, but it was not sufficient for me to distinguish my friend, seated as he was in the corner with light and weapon ready.
An hour passed, but nothing happened. We were waiting there, every nerve strained to the utmost tension, but in vain.
At last a sudden suggestion crossed my mind, and leaving Cardew in the room, with his torch ready, I went next door into Shaw’s room, which was still dark, and, having closed the door, imitated that peculiar whistle of his. Three or four times I whistled, surprised that I could imitate him so exactly. Then I waited, listening intently.
I could hear nothing.
So I crept back again to the bed in Asta’s room, for I think Cardew was now becoming impatient. Then, while lying upon the bed, I cautioned him to be very careful.
“Open your light at the slightest sound, remember.”
I held my breath, and could hear my own heart beating in the dead silence. Then after the lapse of a few moments – for we were both listening to the hum of a receding motor-car, and wondering whose it was – I suddenly gave vent to that low, curious whistle.
Once, twice, thrice I repeated it, low and cautious, so that any one passing the door might not be attracted by it.
Then I listened again with bated breath.
A few seconds went by – seconds of intense anxiety.
Then, of a sudden, my quick ears caught a curious ticking sound, and next moment a flood of white light fell upon the bedclothes close to my head.
I sprang up with a shriek, for there – close to me – I saw Something– the terrible claw-like Hand!
