THE PASSING-BELL.
About half-past nine o’clock on that Saturday morning which has been
talked of as Sibyl Faunthorpe’s wedding day, Redcastle is disturbed
by a sound of ill omen. No blithe marriage peal rings out on the soft
summer air, but the slow and solemn passing-bell tolls dismally from
the minster tower, and strikes on every heart with its grim reminder
of mortality. Let that bell sound as often as it will, it carries
always the same message, and something less or more than mortal
must be the ear which can hear its direful note with indifference.
Before the day is old, Redcastle has subject-matter for the talk of a
year. Wonder, curiosity, and an atmosphere of excitement pervade the
town. Business, if not suspended, is performed in an absent-minded,
perfunctory manner. People group themselves in doorways, hang over
counters, lounge in public-house bars, gather at the street corners,
and there is but one name in every mouth, and that name is Trenchard.
A name worn no more upon earth--a name that is a name, and nothing
more henceforward. It is no longer the docket of humanity, but a mere
collection of letters to be engraven on a tombstone.
Stephen Trenchard is dead. He was found dead in his bed, at nine
o’clock this morning, by the expectant bridegroom, who went to his
room at that hour to wake him, and found him locked in a slumber for
which earth has no key.
‘Very sudden!’ exclaims Redcastle. ‘We knew that the dear old
gentleman was ailing, but we did not expect this. At his age, though,
of course, life is precarious, the thread worn to attenuation, easily
snapped. How about the old gentleman’s will? And is Miss Faunthorpe
sole heiress?’
‘That will not be known till after the funeral,’ says Redcastle, ‘and
we must languish for some days in suspense.’
‘How does Miss Faunthorpe take it?’ asks Redcastle, ‘and Mr. Pilgrim?
The match between those two will be off now, most likely. A sad loss
for the gentleman, a happy escape for the lady. She will marry Sir
Wilford Cardonnel after all, perhaps, and take a leading position
in the county. How uncertain is life! How wonderful are the ways of
Providence!’
Mrs. Stormont and Mrs. Groshen send out their pages for black-edged
note-paper of superfine quality, and rather deeper than the usual
complimentary mourning, and pen elaborate letters of condolence,
interlarded with appropriate quotations from the Scriptures. The
silver cord and the golden bowl are brought out, with various other
similes, which, by much use or misuse, have been, as it were, dragged
in the gutter of commonplace composition.
‘I will venture to call to-morrow, my sweet friend,’ concludes Mrs.
Stormont, ‘to mingle my tears with yours. I hope you will feel equal
to seeing me. Poor Fred is broken down with grief at the thought of
what you must suffer.’
Inside Lancaster Lodge there is confusion worse than death. Dr.
Mitsand has been summoned to the death-chamber, not at Joel Pilgrim’s
bidding. What can a doctor do for the dead? Mr. Pilgrim has asked
contemptuously. The best of them can do little enough for the living.
It is Mrs. Skinner, the housekeeper, who has sent for Dr. Mitsand.
Podmore is helpless and useless on this awful morning. He sits in his
pantry stricken, as if the blow had stupefied him.
The blinds are down in Stephen Trenchard’s room as they are
throughout the darkened house, but Joel, who has wandered in and out
of the room while the last offices have been performed for the dead,
has flung the windows wide open to the warm June morning, and the
scent of the roses floats in from the garden below, mingled with the
more subtle perfume of blossoming limes.
Dr. Mitsand had started on his morning rounds when the messenger was
sent for him, and it is noon when he calls at Lancaster Lodge.
Joel receives him in the study, grave, sorrowful of countenance, but
tranquil.
‘This is a sad event, Dr. Mitsand,’ he says.
‘Not more sad than it is unintelligible, Mr. Pilgrim,’ answers
the doctor. ‘There was not the slightest indication of a
fatal termination to Mr. Trenchard’s illness when I saw him
yesterday--nothing to alarm the most anxious of medical men.’
‘Something wrong about the heart, I suppose,’ suggests Joel.
‘We shall see if it was that.’
‘You mean----’
‘I mean that this is a case which calls for an inquest. You would
have no objection, I suppose? As Mr. Trenchard’s intended son-in-law,
I naturally regard you as in some manner a member of his family.’
‘Why should I object? But it is rather out of the usual course, is it
not, to hold an inquest upon a man who has been in failing health for
a long time, and whose death, although sudden, may be taken as the
natural termination of his illness?’
‘I beg your pardon. Death comes too soon and too suddenly to be
taken as a natural termination here. I am as much surprised at Mr.
Trenchard’s death as if I had left him yesterday in robust health. I
gave Miss Faunthorpe my positive assurance that there was no danger,
or likelihood of danger in her uncle’s condition. Poor young lady!
The blow will be a terrible one for her. How does she bear it?’
‘That is a question I cannot answer, for I have not seen her to-day.
She went out this morning before breakfast--indeed, before any of the
servants were up--and has not come in yet.’
‘That is very strange. This was to have been her wedding day.’
‘It was.’
‘And she leaves the house before the servants are up, and does not
appear again? It is now between twelve and one.’
‘It is strange, but true.’
Dr. Mitsand is evidently disturbed by this intelligence.
‘Pardon me, Mr. Pilgrim, if I say something not quite agreeable
to you,’ he says after a pause, ‘but was there no coercion used
on the subject of this marriage? It was arranged rather suddenly,
and we in Redcastle had an idea that Miss Faunthorpe’s affections
were engaged in another direction. When I spoke to this poor young
lady the day before yesterday, I certainly perceived indications of
mental disturbance. She was feverish, unduly excited, her appearance
haggard, her eyes sunken. Did she freely consent to this marriage,
Mr. Pilgrim? Were you and she on good terms?’
‘On the best possible terms. Ask Podmore, who waited upon us at
dinner yesterday when we dined _tête-à-tête_.’
‘Then you can imagine no reason for what I may call Miss Faunthorpe’s
disappearance?’
‘None whatever. Her trunks are packed for our Indian journey. She
directed them with her own hands. I do not say that the alliance was
a love match on her part, as it was on mine. But she knew that I was
devoted to her, that her uncle had set his heart upon our marriage,
and she was quite reconciled to the idea.’
‘I am glad to hear that; for I was inclined to fear that her
wandering away at such an early hour this morning might be the result
of mental disturbance--the mind thrown off its balance by extreme
distress. She left the house before any one knew of her uncle’s
death, you say?’
‘She certainly left the house before I knew of it,’ answers Joel,
gravely.
‘And before it was known to any of the household?’
‘Yes. She was gone when the servants went downstairs to open the
house. They found the chain and bolts of the front door unfastened.’
‘The lodgekeeper must have let her out.’
‘No; she must have gone out by a door in the garden wall which opens
into the lane that divides Sir John Boldero’s grounds from these.
The door is locked on the inside, and the key hangs on a nail beside
the door. This door was found to be unlocked and the key left in the
lock.’
‘Very deliberate,’ says Dr. Mitsand; ‘but lunatics and sleep-walkers
are wonderfully deliberate in their actions. The mind travels in a
certain groove, but it goes steadily enough in that groove.’
The doctor’s impression is that Sibyl, urged into an uncongenial
marriage, has been goaded into a state of temporary derangement.
That is the theory by which he explains her extraordinary absence.
‘This poor girl may be wandering about the country,’ he exclaims,
‘and may come to harm. Have you made no attempt to find her?’
‘No. I have had enough to think about in the awful event of this
morning. Until an hour or so ago I thought it possible that Miss
Faunthorpe had gone to her uncle Robert’s. She might have something
to say to her sisters, I thought, on so eventful a morning. It was
only when Marion came here at ten o’clock, expecting to find Sibyl,
that I began to take alarm. And even then my mind was too much
occupied to realize----’
‘I understand. I sympathize with you, my dear sir,’ cries the
good-natured doctor. ‘But I feel really concerned for this poor
girl. For the dead we can do but little. Science will enable us
to establish the cause of death, but beyond that last duty there
is, alas! nothing. But for the living we must be active. I should
recommend you to send in every direction you can think of to search
for Miss Faunthorpe, and to communicate with the police. With a mind
thrown off its balance, one knows not what may happen. There is
always the fear of a suicidal tendency.’
‘True,’ says Joel Pilgrim, with a gloomy look which may mean fear,
love, anxiety, or anything else, but which certainly indicates a mind
ill at ease. ‘I will go down to the police office at once. I will
send some of the servants to look for her.’
‘One word before you go. Tell me how and when you discovered our poor
friend’s decease.’
‘At nine o’clock in the morning. Podmore had gone to him at four
to give him his medicine, and had left him sleeping tranquilly. I
came down to breakfast at eight, breakfasted alone, and at nine went
upstairs to take my friend his letters, and to ask his advice about
a business letter which the post had brought me. I knocked at his
door--no answer; knocked again, and louder--the same result. This
alarmed me at once, for I knew him to be a light sleeper. I ran
downstairs to the hall, called Podmore, and went up the back stairs
with him to the other door of Mr. Trenchard’s room, a door always
left unlocked to admit Podmore, who, as you know, has valeted his
master of late. We went in, and found Mr. Trenchard lying to all
appearance in a quiet sleep, but it was the sleep of death.’
‘No sign of a struggle, no disturbance of the features?’
‘None.’
‘Very mysterious. There was nothing amiss with the heart; no organic
disease of any kind. I have used the stethoscope frequently since
the bronchial tubes have been a little irritated. There never was a
sounder organization.’
‘You would like to see him?’ says Joel, interrogatively.
‘Immediately.’
The doctor goes upstairs to that darkened room where the master of
Lancaster Lodge takes his last rest amidst the warm breath of roses
and limes. Every chair and table has been set in its place; every
fold of drapery straightened by methodical hands; every species
of litter--newspapers, medicine bottles, forgotten flowers left
to wither in their vases--all the familiar rubbish of every-day
existence has been cleared away--the chamber is funereal as death
itself--mathematically exact as the tomb.
Dr. Mitsand goes in alone, and remains there for about ten minutes.
He comes out again looking very grave--nay, even troubled, like
a man who has something on his mind--something heavier than that
professional burden of a patient’s death which a family doctor
is called upon to carry so often that he acquires the knack of
supporting his load easily. He finds Joel Pilgrim waiting for him on
the broad landing outside--landing glorified by the bust of somebody
with a sunken nose, and no pupils to his eyes, staring steadily into
space.
‘He looks very peaceful, doesn’t he?’ asks Joel, in a subdued voice.
‘Very.’
‘His end must have been painless, I should think.’
‘It must have been instantaneous, Mr. Pilgrim. I am sure of that.’
‘The heart,’ suggests Joel.
‘No, sir. The heart was as sound as mine--or sounder. It is not a
case of heart disease.’
‘Of what then?’
‘The inquest will tell us that.’
‘You still hold to the necessity of an inquest.’
‘More than ever.’
‘Will you tell me why?’ Joel inquires thoughtfully, smoothing down
his silky moustache with a plump tawny hand.
‘Yes, when the inquest is over.’
Joel looks searchingly at the doctor’s face, but it tells him
nothing. The Greek philosopher--Truth’s first martyr--on the landing
does not present a more complete blankness of expression than Dr.
Mitsand offers to Joel’s observation.
‘Oh, by the way,’ says Dr. Mitsand, ‘that is the door of Miss
Faunthorpe’s sitting-room, is it not?’
‘Yes. That is the room she generally uses of a morning.’
‘I should like to look round before we go downstairs. There might be
something which would suggest the motive of her absence--a letter
perhaps. You have not been in that room this morning?’
‘No.’
‘Nor the servants?’
‘Yes, some one must have been in to draw down the blinds.’
‘True. Unless the blinds were down last night. They would be most
likely. But I suppose the housemaid would arrange the room this
morning in the common course of things?’
‘Naturally.’
Dr. Mitsand opens the door and goes in, followed by Joel. The room
has been dusted and arranged by the housemaid, but the table near
the window, covered with books, workboxes and feminine trifles of
various kinds, remains just as Sibyl left it the night before. It is
one of Sibyl’s laws that this table shall not be touched. There is to
be no tidying or arranging of the trifles she values--her books, her
writing materials, her fancy work.
The doctor’s eye surveys the pretty little room. The sunshine is shut
out by the lowered venetians, but there is light enough for him to
see everything.
‘I thought she might have left a letter somewhere,’ says Dr. Mitsand.
‘That is what young ladies generally do when they run away from home.’
‘We have no right to suppose that she has run away,’ observes Joel.
‘True. Yet it looks rather like it.’
He has looked at the mantelpiece, at the cabinet with its
upholsterer’s collection of pink and blue Sèvres teacups, the
inevitable Marie Antoinette,--the eternal De Maintenon, the
everlasting Pompadour, smirking behind plate-glass panels. No, there
is no letter on cabinet or mantelpiece. He goes to the table, glances
at the books, the dainty basket lined with rose-coloured satin, the
shreds of lace, and ivory needle-cases and filigree thimble-boxes.
Still no letter. How intently he examines all these trifles, peers
into the basket, raises the lid of the workbox, always looking for
that letter!
He comes upon something presently that engages his particular
attention, but it is not a letter, only a glass phial corked and
empty, nestling in the satin-lined basket among needle-cases and
reels of cotton.
‘Dilute prussic acid,’ he says, sniffing at the cork cautiously.
‘That’s curious.’
Joel watches him closely.
‘Very curious,’ echoes Joel, ‘but I believe young women sometimes use
it for their complexions, don’t they?’
‘No. I’ve heard of their using arsenic, never prussic acid in any
form. Miss Faunthorpe may have been taking the dilute acid as a
sedative. I’ll take care of the bottle. She ought not to leave such
things about.’
‘But an empty bottle can do no harm,’ says Joel.
‘Perhaps not, but I may as well keep it. You’ll remember where we
found this bottle, Mr. Pilgrim,’ says Dr. Mitsand, as he drops the
empty phial into his pocket.
‘Perhaps you will kindly call at the Registrar’s and certify my poor
friend’s death,’ says Mr. Pilgrim. ‘Podmore tells me there is some
kind of certificate necessary in these cases.’
‘It is just that certificate which I do not feel myself at liberty to
give until after the inquest,’ replies the doctor.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I do not know the cause of death.’
‘But the arrangements for the funeral----’
‘Must remain in abeyance till after the inquest.’
‘Very unpleasant,’ says Joel.
‘Yes, death is apt to be unpleasant for the survivors, especially
under certain circumstances,’ replies Dr. Mitsand, gravely.
He leaves Joel, and goes straight to the coroner, his old friend
and ally, a medical man who has retired from practice, and the two
talk together gravely of the event that has darkened the windows of
Lancaster Lodge. It is decided between them that the post-mortem
examination shall take place immediately, and that, if possible, Mr.
Pollintory, of Krampston, shall be ready to give evidence to-morrow
at the inquest. The coroner gives an order for the post-mortem
examination, and Dr. Mitsand writes a telegram to Mr. Pollintory, one
of the medical staff of the Krampston Infirmary, a skilled chemist
and analyst, and a man of some distinction in his own particular line.