Part 9

“Now I’ll tell you everything that’s happened,” she said.

He listened to her with alert attention. He interrupted her often to ask questions, but they were always questions that she could answer. He wanted all the facts, and what Lexy told him he unquestioningly accepted as fact. When she said she had seen Caroline at the doctor’s house, he believed her. He didn’t suggest that her eyes might have deceived her. He trusted her—not only her good intentions, but her good sense.

At last she came to the part of her story about which she was most doubtful—the episode of the emptied bottle. She told it with reluctance.

“I don’t know now,” she said. “Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps that really was wanton mischief. I did so hate that horrible drug that changed her so! When I did it, it seemed right; but now—”

“It was right,” said he. “Any one’s better off dead than being drugged. Everything you’ve done was right and splendid. You’re the pluckiest girl I ever heard of—the best and most loyal little pal to poor Caroline! There’s no one like you!”

After Mrs. Enderby’s cold and skeptical smile, after Dr. Quelton’s parting sneer, after Captain Grey’s doubts and uncertainties, this speech rather went to Lexy’s head. The world seemed a different place. She glanced at the young man, and he happened at that moment to be looking at her. They both looked away hastily.

“This fellow—this Captain Grey,” said Charles. “He seems to me to be rather a chump!”

“Oh, he’s not!” protested Lexy. “He’s as nice as can be!”

Charles Houseman, who had believed everything that Lexy had said, did not appear convinced of this; and for some inexplicable reason Lexy was not greatly displeased by his lack of belief.

XXI

Mrs. Royce was very much pleased to see her pet, Miss Moran, return. She was well disposed toward Mr. Houseman, too, and willingly agreed to put him up for a few days. She set to work at once to cook a good lunch for them, but she did not hum under her breath, as was her usual habit. In fact, she was greatly perplexed and worried.

When her guests were seated at the table, she retired, leaving them alone; but she did not go very far. She remained close to the door, so that she could look through the crack. She observed that Miss Moran seemed very lively and cheerful with this newcomer—though she had been quite as lively and cheerful with Captain Grey.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Royce to herself, with a sigh. “It beats _me_!”

For the question which so troubled her was—which young man was _the_ young man?

“Both of ’em as nice, polite young fellers as you’d want to see,” she repeated. “T’ other one’s handsomer, but he’s kind of foreign-like and gloomy. This one’s got more gumption. The way he walked in here, smart as a whip, and asked for Miss Moran, an’ when I says she’s gone to visit the Queltons, why, off he went, after her! I like a man with gumption!”

So did Miss Moran. Charles Houseman seemed to her the only living, vigorous creature in a world of ghosts, the only one whom she could really understand. There were no shadowy corners about him. He was altogether honest, direct, and uncomplicated. He had no tact and no caution. He had come now, in the midst of this wretched tangle, and she completely believed that he would cut the Gordian knot.

He had suggested that they should let the subject drop for a time.

“I think I’ve got the facts straight,” he said; “and now I want to think them over a bit. Let’s take a walk, and talk about something else.”

Lexy agreed to the entire program. If she was tired, she either didn’t know it, or she forgot it in the joy of this beautifully careless companionship. She could say exactly what came into her head to Charles Houseman. He understood her. He was interested in every word she spoke, and, what is more, she was aware of the profound admiration that underlay his interest. He thought she was wonderful, and that made her strangely happy.

“Do you know,” he said, “the first time I saw you, there in the park, I—I liked the way you talked to me!”

“How?” asked Lexy, with great interest. “I thought I must have seemed awfully irritating and mysterious.”

He grinned.

“You were awfully mad when I spoke to you,” he said; “but I liked that. I don’t know—somehow you made me think of Joan of Arc.”

“Me?” cried Lexy. “With freckles, and such a temper? You couldn’t imagine me listening to angels, could you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I could.”

She glanced at him to see if he was laughing, but he was not. His eyes met hers with a quiet and steady look.

“I didn’t need to imagine much,” he said. “You’ve told me what you’ve been through, and I can see for myself what you are. I don’t think there ever was another girl like you!”

“Nonsense!” said Lexy, looking away. “I’m just pig-headed—that’s all.”

They had wandered across the fields until they came to a little river, running clear and swift under the elm trees. By tacit consent they sat down on the bank. They didn’t talk much. Houseman skipped stones with skill and earnest attention, and Lexy watched the minnows flitting past through the limpid water. The sky was an unclouded blue. The sunlight came through the branches, where the leaves were scarcely unfolded, and made little golden sparkles on the hurrying current. It was all so quiet—and yet it wasn’t peaceful. The world seemed too young, too warmly and joyously alive, for peace. The spring was waiting in eagerness for the summer. This still, fresh, sunlit day was only an interlude.

Casually, Houseman told her a good deal about himself.

“From Baltimore,” he said. “My people wanted me to go into the navy. My father and grandfather were both navy, but I couldn’t see it. Too cut and dried! I’m on a cargo steamer now, and I like it.”

And this information—with the additional facts that he was twenty-six, that he had two brothers in the navy and three married sisters, and that both of his parents were living—was all that he had to give about himself. Lexy was satisfied. There he was, and anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen could understand him. Honest, blunt, and careless, fearing nothing, shirking nothing, and facing life with cheerful unconcern, he was, she thought, a comrade and an ally without an equal.

The sun was setting when they turned homeward. The sky was swimming in soft, pale colors, and a little breeze blew, stirring the new leaves. It was a poetic and even a melancholy hour; but Houseman found nothing better to say than that he was hungry.

“So am I!” said Lexy.

They looked at each other as if they had discovered still another bond between them. They were happy—so happy!

Mrs. Royce saw them from the kitchen window. They were strolling along leisurely, side by side. They were quite composed and matter-of-fact, and their desultory conversation was upon the subject of shellfish. The young Baltimorean was an authority on oysters, but Lexy, as a New Englander, had something to say on the subject of clam chowder.

Mrs. Royce was suddenly enlightened.

“He’s the one!” she said to herself. “Well, I’m real glad, I’m sure!”

So glad was she that she at once began to make a superb chocolate cake, and she hummed a song about a young man on Springfield Mountain, who killed a “pesky sarpent.”

George Grey heard her. He was in the sitting room, smoking, and apparently reading a book; but he never turned a page. He lit one cigarette after another, and his hand was steady. He looked as he always looked—fastidiously neat, self-possessed, and a little haughty; but in spirit he was suffering horribly.

Lexy knew that as soon as she saw him, because she knew him and liked him so well. She held out her hand to him, not even pretending to smile, but searching his face with an anxious and friendly glance.

“Here’s Mr. Houseman, Caroline Enderby’s _fiancé_,” she said. “I’ve told him the whole thing, so if there’s anything new—”

Captain Grey stiffened perceptibly. He couldn’t see what possible connection anybody’s _fiancé_ could have with his affairs. He shook hands with Houseman, but not very nicely; and Houseman was not excessively cordial.

Lexy took no notice of this nonsense. Her mood of happy confidence had passed now, and the dark and mysterious shadow had come back. There was something of greater importance to think about than her personal affairs.

“Captain Grey,” she said, with a sort of directness, “I didn’t tell you before, but I’m going to tell you now. I saw Caroline in that house, and this morning I found—this.”

He looked at the handkerchief, and then at Lexy.

“But—” he began.

“It means that she’s been there, or that she’s there now,” Lexy went on. “It’s time we found out. Of course, I know how you feel about Dr. Quelton. He’s your sister’s husband, and you didn’t want—”

“It doesn’t make much difference now,” he said. “If you’ll wait a day or so, she—”

He turned away abruptly, and took out his cigarette case.

“What do you mean?” cried Lexy.

“It won’t be long,” he said quietly. “She—my sister—he says it won’t be more than twenty-four hours, at the most.”

“Oh, no! It can’t be! Captain Grey, don’t believe him!”

“I tried not to,” he said. “I—well, we had a bit of a row, and I made him let me bring in another doctor from the village here. He said the same thing.”

“What did the doctor say it was?” asked Houseman.

“Pernicious anæmia. There’s nothing to be done.”

Captain Grey seemed to find some difficulty in lighting his cigarette; but when he had done so, and had drawn in a deep breath, he turned back toward Lexy with a smile that startled her. She had never imagined he could look like that. It was a wolfish kind of smile, lighting his dark face with a sort of savage mirth.

“When it’s over,” he said, “I’ll be very pleased to help you to hang him, if you can; or I’ll wring his neck myself.”

The other two stared at him in silence for a moment.

“You think he’s—” Houseman began.

“I don’t know whether he has actually murdered her or not,” said Captain Grey, “but he has destroyed her—utterly wasted and ruined her life. He taught her to take that damned drug; and when Miss Moran broke the bottle—”

“Oh! Did he tell you?”

“He did. He says you’ve killed her. There was some rare drug in it that he can’t get for a fortnight or so, and she can’t live without it.”

“Captain Grey!” she cried, white to the lips. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” he said gently. “You meant to help, and I’m glad you did it. She’s better dead. This afternoon, for a little while, she was—herself. She talked to me. She was very weak, but she was herself. She asked me to help her not to take it again. She thought she was getting better. Then that”—he paused—“that damned brute brought in a lawyer, so that she could make her will. She couldn’t believe it. She looked up at me. ‘Oh, I’m not going to _die_, am I?’ she said. Before I could answer her, he told her she must be prepared. Then I—”

Again he turned away.

“And you let him alone?” inquired Houseman.

“It’s not time to settle with him—yet,” said the other. “That’s why I came away, because I don’t want to kill him—yet. She’s unconscious now. She will be, until it’s finished. I’m going back later, but I wanted to come, here—” He ceased speaking. “To you,” his eyes said to Lexy.

She forgot everything else, then, except this tormented and suffering human being who had turned to her for comfort. She pushed him gently down into a chair, and seated herself on the arm of it. She took both his hands and patted them, while she racked her brain for the right thing to say.

“We’ll do _something_!” she said. “There’s no reason to be in despair. That young country doctor was probably entirely under the influence of Dr. Quelton. We’ll get some one else. We’ll telephone to one of the big hospitals in New York and find out who’s the very best man, and we’ll get him out here. Mr. Houseman will ring up—”

But Mr. Houseman had disappeared. Worse still, Mrs. Royce’s telephone was out of order.

“Never mind!” said Lexy. “We’ll have a nice hot cup of tea, and then we’ll go to the grocery store. There’s a telephone there.”

She made the captain drink his tea and eat a little. Then she ran upstairs for her hat; and she was very angry at Charles Houseman for running away.

XXII

They set off together down the village street. There was no one about at that hour. All Wyngate was partaking of its Sunday night supper within doors, and one or two of the little wooden houses showed lights in the front windows; but for the most part life was concentrated in the kitchen.

The drug store was locked, but a dim light was burning inside, and a vigorous ringing of the night bell brought Mr. Binz, the owner, to open the door. He was deeply interested in their errand. He suggested St. Luke’s Hospital, for the reason that he had once been there himself, and therefore held it almost sacred.

“But,” he said, in his slow and impressive way, “if I was you, I’d ring up Doc Quelton first, and find out how things are going up there; because you may find out—”

Lexy interrupted him hastily, for she didn’t want him to say what he evidently wished to say.

“There won’t be any change in Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It would only be a waste of time.”

It was not so much for that poor woman, who she feared was beyond hope, that she wanted the New York specialist, as for Captain Grey. It would help him so much to feel that something was being done, that some one was hurrying out here!

“Might be more of a waste of time,” said Mr. Binz, “if some one was to come all the way out here after she—”

“Oh, all right!” cried Lexy impatiently. Then suddenly she remembered. “They haven’t any telephone at the doctor’s house,” she said.

“Suppose I go out there first, and see?” suggested Captain Grey.

“No!” said Lexy. “Don’t!”

But the idea impressed him as a good one, and go he would.

“I’d rather see how she is, first,” he repeated. “If there’s no change, I’ll come back.”

Lexy looked at Mr. Binz with an angry and reproachful frown, which the poor man did not understand. He had only wanted to give helpful advice.

“Come on, then!” she said to Captain Grey.

“I’ll leave you at Mrs. Royce’s,” he told her.

“No, you won’t!” she contradicted with a trace of severity. “If you _will_ go, I’m going with you!”

He protested against this, but she would not listen, and so they went to the garage for Joe’s taxi; but Joe and his taxi had gone out. An interested bystander said that they could get a “rig” from the livery stable with no trouble at all. They had only to find the proprietor, and he, in turn, would find the driver, who would harness up the horse.

“No, thanks,” said Captain Grey. He turned to Lexy. “I can’t wait,” he told her. “I’m going to walk. Thank you for—”

“I can walk, too,” said Lexy. “It’s only three miles.”

“I don’t want you to, Miss Moran.”

“I’m coming anyhow,” she replied.

For that instinct in her, the thing which was beyond reason, drove her forward. She could not let him go alone. She had walked that three miles once before to-day, and she had walked farther than that with Houseman in the afternoon. She was tired, terribly tired, and filled with a queer, sick reluctance to approach that sinister house again; but she had to go. She had said to herself that morning that she was coming back, and now she was going to do so.

They did not try to talk much on the way. What had they to say? They were both filled with a dread foreboding. They hurried, yet they wished never to come to the end of the journey.

They turned down the lane, leaving the lights of the highway behind, and went forward in thick darkness, under the shadow of the trees. The sound of the sea came to them—the loneliest sound in all the world.

“There’s a light in the house, anyhow!” said Lexy suddenly.

Her own voice sounded so small, so pert, so futile, in the dark, that she felt no surprise when Captain Grey showed a faint trace of impatience in answering.

“Naturally!” he said.

Only, to her, it did not seem natural, that one little light shining out through the glass of the front door. It would be more natural, she thought, if there were only the darkness and the sound of the sea.

They turned into the drive. Their footsteps sounded strangely and terribly loud on the gravel, and became as sharp as pistol shots when they mounted the veranda. The captain rang the bell, and the sound of it ran through the house like a shudder; but no one came. He rang again and again, but nothing stirred inside the house. He knocked on the glass, and they waited, looking into the bright and empty hall; but no one came.

Captain Grey turned the knob, the door opened, and they went in. The door of the library was open, showing only darkness. The stairs ran up into darkness. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Then, suddenly, a little breeze rose, and the front door slammed with a crash behind them. Lexy cried out, and caught the young man’s arm.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said; but his face was ashen. For a moment they stood where they were. “Miss Moran,” he went on, “would you rather wait here while I go upstairs?”

“No,” said Lexy. “I’ll come with you.”

He started up the stairs, and she followed him closely. At almost every step she looked behind her, and she did not know which was the more horrible to her, the brightly lit hall or the darkness before them. Suppose she saw some one in the hall behind them!

Captain Grey did not once glance behind. He went on steadily. When he reached the top of the flight, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the gas. There was the long corridor, with the row of closed doors. He turned down in the direction of Mrs. Quelton’s room, but Lexy touched him on the shoulder.

“I think you had better let me go first,” she suggested. “Perhaps she won’t be ready to see you.”

Their eyes met.

“Thank you, Lexy!” he said simply, and went on again.

He had never used her name before. He was trying to tell her that he understood what she had wished to do for him. She had offered to go first, alone, into the silent room, to see whatever might be there—to spare him something, if she could.

But he would not have it so. He stopped outside the door, and knocked twice. Then he went in.

It was dark and still in there, with the night wind blowing in through the open windows. He struck a match and lit the gas. The room was empty.

He went across to the long windows and out on the balcony. There was no gas connection there. He struck one match after another, and went from one end of the balcony to the other. There was nothing.

“Not here!” he said, in a dazed, flat voice.

Lexy could not speak at all. She had come out on the balcony, and stood beside him. The sound of the sea was loud in her ears—or was it the beating of her own heart? She held her breath and strained her eyes in the darkness.

“There’s—something—here!” she whispered tensely.

“No!” he said aloud. “I looked. Come! We’ll go through the house.”

She followed close at his heels. He went into every room, lit the gas, looked about, and found nothing. Lexy grew confused with the opening and closing of doors, the sudden flare of light in the darkness, the succession of empty rooms.

He went up into the cupola. Nothing there, nor in the servants’ rooms. Then downstairs, through the long library, the dining room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the pantry. He proceeded with a sort of merciless deliberation, opened every door, looked into every cupboard.

Finding a stable lantern in the kitchen, he lighted it and carried it with him. The door to the cellar stood open. He went through it, down the steep wooden stairs, and Lexy followed him.

To her exhausted and frightened gaze the cellar seemed enormous—as vast and august as some great ancient tomb. The lantern made a little pool of light, and outside it the shadows closed in on them thickly. She came near to him and caught him by the sleeve.

“Oh, let’s go away!” she cried. “Let’s go away! We’ve looked—”

“This is the last place,” he said gently. “After this, we’ll give it up.”

Fighting down the sick terror that had come over her, she walked beside him in the little circle of light, and tried not to look at the shadows.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed.

“Oh, what?” she cried.

He went back a few paces and set down the lantern. Then he advanced again and bent over, staring at the floor.

“Do you see?” he asked.

She did see. A narrow strip of light lay along the floor.

“It comes up from below,” he said. “There must be a subcellar. Let’s see!”

He brought back the lantern and examined the floor by its light, going down on his hands and knees.

“Stand back!” he said suddenly. “It’s a trapdoor. See—here’s a ring to lift it.”

Captain Grey pulled at the ring, but nothing happened.

“I’m on the wrong side,” he said.

Moving over, he pulled again, and a square of stone lifted. A clear light came from below, showing a short ladder clamped to the floor.

“Stay there, please,” he told Lexy. “You have the lantern. I shan’t be a minute.”

But as soon as he had reached the foot of the ladder, Lexy climbed down after him; and just at the same moment, they saw—

They were standing in a tiny room with roughly mortared walls. A powerful electric torch stood on end in one corner, and at their feet lay the body of a man, face downward across a wooden chest. It was Dr. Quelton.

With a violent effort Captain Grey lifted the doctor’s heavy shoulder, while Lexy covered her eyes. She knew that he was dead. No living thing could lie so.

Her head swam, her knees gave way, and she tottered back against the wall, half fainting, when the captain’s voice rang out, with a note of agony and despair that she never forgot.

“My God! My God!” he wailed. “Oh, Muriel!”

She opened her eyes. For a moment she was too giddy to see. Then, as her vision cleared, she saw him on his knees beside the chest.

Not a chest—it was a coffin; and on it was a strange little plate glittering like gold, with an inscription:

MURIEL QUELTON BELOVED WIFE OF PAUL QUELTON

XXIII

When she looked back upon the experiences of that dreadful night, it seemed to Lexy that both she and her companion displayed almost incredible endurance. Since morning they had lived through a very lifetime of emotion, to end now in this tragedy more horrible than anything they could have feared.

Yet, not five minutes after his cry of agony, Captain Grey had recovered his self-control. He was able to speak quietly to Lexy, and she was able to answer him no less quietly.

“We’d better go,” he said. “We can do nothing here. It’s a case for the police now.”

“I’ve got to go back to the balcony,” Lexy told him. “There was something there.”

“Very well!” he agreed, and, without another word or a backward glance, he went up the ladder.

They returned through the house. He had left the lights burning and the doors open, so that there was a monstrous air of festivity in the emptiness. They went into Mrs. Quelton’s room again, and crossed through it to the balcony. He carried the lantern with him, and by its steady yellow flame they could see into every corner. There was the couch upon which she had lain—disarranged, as if she had just risen from it. There was a little table with medicine bottles on it. All the usual things were in the usual places.

“Nothing here,” said Captain Grey.

Lexy was sure, however, that there was. She stepped to the balcony railing, to look down into the garden below, and there, on the white paint of the railing, she found something.

“Look!” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “What’s this?”

He came to her side.

“It’s the print of a hand,” he said. “In blood, I should imagine.”

For a moment they stared at the ghastly mark, a strange evidence of pain and violence in this quiet place.

“We’d better look in the garden,” he suggested.