The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 24

EAN walked the whole way back to Coburg Square. She was numb, spent with misery. For the first time hope, that illusive yet infinitely comforting and uplifting companion, had left her side, and she felt to-night as if he had never been there. The knowledge that she had failed to secure anything that really mattered by what now seemed to her an absurd and inglorious adventure added to the load of misery and discouragement she was now carrying.

She made up her mind to go back to Terriford early to-morrow morning, as the need for make-believe was past.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when she reached the deserted square. Quietly she turned the old-fashioned latchkey in the big box lock. The hall was in darkness, but under the ailing lodger's door ran a thin streak of light. Did the poor man never go to sleep?

She felt her way down the kitchen stairs, and turning into the kitchen, lit the gas.

She felt extraordinarily wide awake, and yet tired, tired to death! The thought of going up to the cold bedroom where she had spent such excited hours of hope, suspense, and, to-day, of triumphant satisfaction, filled her with a feeling of sick depression. Suddenly she told herself that she would stay down here, in this warm, comfortable kitchen all night. Mrs. Lightfoot would never find it out, and if she did—what matter?

She made up the fire quietly. With luck there would still be a remnant of warmth when she awoke to-morrow morning at half-past six. She knelt down, but she found she could not say the simple, trusting prayers she had said from childhood, for she felt that God had forsaken her.

She got up, and by the light of the fire she pushed forward the black horsehair-covered armchair in which Mrs. Lightfoot generally sat of an evening. Then she put her own chair in front of it, and lay down.

Tap ... Tap ... Tap ...

Jean awoke with a clutch of fear at her heart. Was that the death watch of which her old nurse had once told her?

She sat up on her improvised couch, and again there came that strange sound repeated three times. But now, being thoroughly awake, she knew them at once for what they were—a signal, a summons, from the invalid lodger who lived in the back room on the ground floor of the house.

Jean did not wait to strike a match, but went quickly to the door. She was unwilling to be caught here, downstairs, by Mrs. Lightfoot, so she walked on tiptoe past the house keeper's bedroom, and then she ran lightly up the kitchen stairs and knocked on the sick lodger's door.

“Come in!” called out a clear, well-modulated voice.

She opened the door on a strange and, to her, a most unexpected sight.

The high, well-proportioned eighteenth-century room was well and even luxuriously furnished. Green damask curtains were drawn across the two windows. On the thick felt carpet which covered the floor, stood a mahogany chest of drawers and, facing the door, a high modern bedstead. By the bed was a table bearing a reading lamp, which, though shaded, lit up the finely shaped head and thin, bony face of the man lying in the bed. His head was covered with a thick thatch of fair hair, and he was propped up on three or four pillows placed at his back.

To Jean's pitying eyes he appeared to be dying.

And as she stood there, still close to the door outside the circle of light cast by the lamp, she gradually took in other, minor, details. There was a pile of books on the table, and on the blue silk eiderdown a small volume was open, face downward.

“Mrs. Lightfoot?” said the invalid in a doubtful tone. “I'm ashamed of having had to rouse you, but I feel much less well to-night, also parched with thirst.”

Jean took a few steps forward. “I'm Mrs. Lightfoot's 'help.' And as Mrs. Lightfoot is asleep I thought it better to come up.”

An amazing change came over the pallid face—it was suddenly animated with keen curiosity and cynical amusement.

“Bet Chart?” he exclaimed. “And most perfect of Hebes, according to good old Lightfoot. Come hither, fair maid”

Jean moved back rather than forward.

“What can I do for you?” she said quietly. “If you will tell me what it is you wanted Mrs. Lightfoot for—I will do it.”

He raised himself painfully on his right elbow and gave her a long, measuring, penetrating look.

“Come nearer,” he said in an authoritative voice. “You've nothing to be afraid of from the poor dying wretch I am now”

She came close up to the bed; and then, looking up at her, he said in a very different tone: “Your name is not Bet Chart; you are Miss Jean Bower, of Terriford village.”

She clasped her hands together.

“It's true!” she cried, oppressed, bewildered. “But for God's sake don't give me away to Mrs. Lightfoot”

“Of course I won't. And now tell me how is it that Dr. Maclean's niece comes to be here, in 106, Coburg Square?” And his sunken eyes were alive with a mocking, mischievous curiosity.

Instead of answering his question, she said again, “What can I do for you?”

And then, noticing that behind the pile of books was an empty glass, “D'you want something to drink?”

“I did—horribly. But now I'm no longer thirsty—or, rather, I'm only thirsty for information.”

It was amazing to see how he had changed in the last few minutes, and yet the long outlines of his body under the eiderdown looked like those of a skeleton.

Jean Bower looked round.

“The milk and soda water are over there—quite out of my reach. You may have already observed that Mrs. Lightfoot has nothing in common with Florence Nightingale.”

She turned and saw that on the chest of drawers there stood a siphon and a jug of milk. She went over and brought them both back with her.

“D'you remember the scrumptious refreshments at that cricket match, Miss Bower?”

She looked down into his pallid, smiling face, and as she met the direct glance of his heavy-lidded gray eyes, there came over Jean Bower a strong feeling that she had seen him before.

“Can't you guess who I am?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea who you are! Mrs. Lightfoot has never mentioned your name.”

Then he said, in a singular tone: “Why should I make a foolish mystery of it? My name is Guy Cheale. I am Agatha's brother. But she hates illness, and as it makes her wretched to see me in this state—well, we don't often meet. It's my fault I haven't a nurse.”

And then all at once his hand shot out—his bony left hand—and took hold of her dress.

“I know now why you're here,” he exclaimed. “How stupid of me not to guess it! You've come to spy on Agatha. But, believe me, Miss Bower, you're on the wrong track. You're not going to help your friend that way.”

“I know that now,” she whispered.

“There's nothing to find out about Agatha—nothing that will help you, at any rate. I suppose you know that she and Garlett were once great friends?”

“That's not true,” she said the words with passionate conviction.

“Not true?” he repeated. “Absolutely true! But one thing I'll grant you. Agatha was the one who cared. He didn't care—not even in the war hospital when he was so lonely. But she thought he did!”

As if speaking to himself, he added: “And I thought so, too. I used to think that if anything happened to his wife, to use the conventional paraphrase for death—sweet, delicate death—he would marry Agatha.”

Jean stared down at him. She was torn with conflicting feelings in which repulsion and anger for the moment predominated.

“I'm afraid you are very unhappy,” he said suddenly.

She whispered, “Very unhappy,” and yet, though what he had said about his sister and Harry Garlett both disturbed and offended her, it was an astonishing relief to find herself with some one with whom she could be herself.

“Bring up that chair,” he said in a low voice, “and let us talk it over.”

She brought the chair close to the bed.

“Ask yourself what use was Mrs. Garlett's life even to herself, and imagine, for the purposes of our argument, that your worthy rector, Mr. Cole-Wright, having in him a secret strain of what some people call madness, but what I should term supernormal sense, told himself that it would be a duty—I will not say a pleasure, but a duty—to send this poor woman to the heaven in which both he and she absolutely believe. Is that an utterly unreasonable supposition?”

“Yes,” said Jean, in a low voice, “utterly unreasonable.”

A sensation of mingled excitement, pain and indignation filled her heart. She felt she was doing wrong in staying with this strange, sinister, cruel-natured man a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. Yet he exercised a certain fascination over her, and again she felt what a real relief it was to be talking to some one with whom she need not pretend.

“Don't be hurt, Miss Jean, at my teasing you—for of course I am teasing you! I quite realize that in our present state of civilization the putting away of a human being is a serious thing—and not to be encouraged. Doctors alone are licensed by public opinion, as well as by decrees passed by themselves, to commit what other people call murder.”

She remained silent, and after a long pause, during which his eyes seemed to hold hers in fee, he asked abruptly:

“When is Harry Garlett's trial coming on?”

“In nine days.”

“That's very near,” he muttered, “nearer than I thought. Are you dreading the witness-box? My sister is horribly afraid of it—I know that much about her.”

She made no answer to that, and he muttered: “Poor little girl—poor, pretty little girl. Too bad! Too bad!”

And again Jean Bower felt sure they had met—nay, even more, that he had uttered pitying, familiar words to her before. But as to when and where, memory supplied no clue.

Guy Cheale lay back on his pillows. He closed his eyes, and Jean felt a pang of sick fear. Ought she to call his sister and Mrs. Lightfoot?

Suddenly he opened his eyes. “Your guardian angel surely brought you here to-night.”

“Why?” she asked.

“In order that I might cheer you up by telling you that Harry Garlett is sure to be acquitted, to be given, as it were, the benefit of the doubt.”

“What makes you say that?” asked Jean in a trembling tone.

She was sobbing now, bitterly. He leaned over with difficulty and took her soft right hand in his bony fingers.

“Not,” he exclaimed, “because I believe in British justice—forfar [sic] from it—but there's just one little fact that will save him.”

She looked at him, all her soul now in her eager eyes.

“What fact?” she asked.

“The fact,” he said deliberately, “that no arsenic has been traced to Garlett's possession. Practically all the resources of the Crown have been used to find where he procured the arsenic—and they have failed.”

“They have not failed,” said Jean quietly, “in finding where Harry could have procured arsenic. I saw Sir Harold Anstey this evening. He told me that Miss Prince, who is a doctor's daughter and lives close to the Thatched House, has now admitted that she kept quite a lot of arsenic in her medicine cupboard. Miss Prince is Harry's tenant”

The sick man dropped her hand and stared at her in dismay.

“My God!” he muttered. “That is a bit of rough luck.”

“I'm going home to-morrow,” Jean went on drearily. “There's nothing left for me to do here. I'm sorry to be going so—so abruptly, because Mrs. Lightfoot has been very kind to me.”

“Yes, she's a good old soul.”

He lay back and again shut his eyes. His face had gone very gray. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then he opened his eyes wide again.

“D'you know Lucy Warren?” he asked in a singular tone.

And suddenly Jean remembered the talk there had been concerning poor Lucy and the strange man who lay there dying before her, his body disintegrating, while his mind, his intellect, remained so sound and clear.

The colour rushed into her face.

“Yes, I know her quite well.”

“Lucy's a good girl,” he said thoughtfully, and then, “I didn't behave well to Lucy, Miss Bower.”

“I'm afraid you didn't.”

“Did she tell you so?” he asked.

“Lucy has never mentioned you to me. I don't believe she's ever spoken of you to anybody.”

“I want you to do something for me,” there was a touch of urgency in his voice. “It's to take down a message for Lucy at my dictation, and then, in the morning, to telegraph it to her. You will find some money over there in a drawer. I'd write it myself, but I'm too weak.”

There came a spot of colour into his cheeks.

“There's a paper and pencil near where the siphon stood just now. I used to write notes to my sister, but I can no longer manage it.”

Jean brought what he asked for, and then he dictated, scarce hesitating for a word:

“It's a matter of supreme indifference to me that the post-mistress of that gossiping little place should know the truth, and the doctor who looks after me here is a good chap. He'll arrange about getting the ring, parson, bell, and book.”

As she looked at him, dazed, he said with a slight smile:

“Death-bed marriages are not as unusual as you may happen to think them, Miss Bower. And if there were more such marriages, there would be fewer unhappy wives.”

She smiled wanly, and in the midst of her own wretchedness, felt glad that Lucy would have her heart's wish.

“They were more merciful in the old days,” muttered Guy Cheale. “In the days of the rack and the stake, any poor wretch in prison for murder could marry his sweetheart. You're sorry that's not the case now, eh, Miss Jean?”

“Yes,” said Jean, looking down at him. “I am very sorry that that's not the case now.”

“Still there are various forms of prison, you know? I'm in prison here—very much in prison, if I may say so. Oh, how I've got to loathe the look of this room—for all poor Agatha tried to make it comfortable for me! I little thought when I first arrived here—only six weeks ago, Miss Bower—that it would become my marriage room. But in life—now don't forget this, for it's the last thing I shall say to you—in life it's the strange, the unexpected, the astounding thing that as often as not happens”

“That's true,” she said heavily.

“I've got an idea—a good idea, too! I'll be your mediator with the outraged Lightfoot. I'll tell her you had to go away—that it was really urgent. And then I'll break to her that a new help is coming—a good worker, too, much more experienced than poor little Bet Chart is ever likely to be. A tall, dark, magnificent-looking girl, with a will of her own, mind you. So then Lucy will be sure, I won't say of a welcome—but of a greeting.”

She leaned down and began to shake up his pillows.

“Give Mrs. Lightfoot her cup of tea before you steal away,” he said.

And as he caught a look of surprise in her face:

“Mrs. Lightfoot is my only friend. If it wasn't that she is such a good, kindly-natured human creature, God knows what I should have done with myself. Well, good-bye, good luck, and thank you for what you're going to do for me. You won't be sorry, Miss Bower, that you've obliged a dying man.”

“Sorry?” she said. “No, indeed, Mr. Cheale, I shall always be very glad we've had this talk.”

“I hope I shall,” he said doubtfully, and helplessly began to cough.

She stood quietly by his side till the painful paroxysm was over, and then:

“Good-bye,” she said, torn between a feeling of intense pity and almost equally intense repulsion.

“Good luck!” he exclaimed. “And remember that in this country we are taught to believe that no innocent man is ever wrongly convicted.”

A queer, mocking smile came over his face, and then once more he began to cough, and again she waited, till the painful sounds ceased.

After giving Mrs. Lightfoot a cup of tea, she wrote a note of what she felt to be lame apology, and, leaving it on the kitchen table, crept out and went to the nearest post office.

The young woman who accepted the strangely worded telegram for transmission looked very hard at Jean Bower:

“This a practical joke, or what?” she asked suspiciously.

Jean answered soberly: “No, it's not a joke. It's exactly what it pretends to be—an offer of marriage from a dying man.”

“Some girls seem to have all the luck! Forty-one words.”

Jean was so tired that she slept away the journey which would otherwise have been so full of disappointed, bitter thoughts, and she felt as if she had been away months instead of days when she came out into the big station yard of Grendon, and saw her Uncle Jock's familiar two-seater with him at the wheel waiting for her. He had not come on to the platform to greet her, and for that she was grateful, for she was shrinkingly aware that there were prying eyes and listening ears everywhere—everywhere, that is, where she was recognized as the heroine of “The Terriford Mystery.”

Dr. Maclean said very little while he drove his niece to Bonnie Doon. It was not till after she had taken off her things and come downstairs, feeling so strange, so little at home there, that it seemed almost impossible to believe she had been so short a time away, that her aunt suddenly asked: “I suppose Kentworthy has told you about Miss Prince?”

Jean answered slowly: “I've seen Sir Harold Anstey, and he told me.”

“She came and told me, of all people in the world,” said the doctor ruefully. “Let me see—it must have been two days before you went away. It gave me an awful shock. I could think of nothing else, and yet of course I was bound, professionally, to keep the fact to myself.”

He hit the table with his hand. “I have always disliked that woman!” He turned to his wife. “You can bear me out in that, Jenny, eh?”

“Ay,” she said, “and sometimes I did not think you were quite reasonable about it, Jock. But now I see how right you were. Miss Prince must have had enough poison in that medicine cupboard of hers to have killed every man, woman, and child in the place!”

And then Jean suddenly got up.

“I think I would like to go a walk by myself,” she said. “I didn't get half walking enough while I was in London.”

After she had shut the door behind her, husband and wife looked at one another.

“I can't but be glad that she doesn't yet realize that Garlett's as good as hanged already,” said the doctor sombrely.

“I think she does realize it,” said Mrs. Maclean pitifully. “You weren't watching her face while we spoke of Miss Prince. Fancy her having got into touch with Sir Harold Anstey!”

“That was a bit of a surprise to me,” admitted the doctor. “But not all the Ansteys in the world could get off yon man Garlett now,”