"How you men gossip!" Mabel exclaimed, tingling upon the piano-stool,
and laughing merrily.
"I wasn't aware that we had been very long," I answered, sinking into a
low armchair near her. "If so, I'm sure I apologise. The fact is, that
Mr Hickman was explaining a new system of how to break the bank at
Monte Carlo."
"Oh, Mr Hickman!" she cried, turning at once to him. "Do explain it,
and I'll try it when we go to the Riviera."
"Mabel, my dear," exclaimed her mother, scandalised, "you'll do nothing
of the kind. You know I don't approve of gambling."
"Oh, I think it's awfully good fun," her daughter declared.
"If you win," I added.
"Of course," she added; then, turning again to Hickman, she induced him
to explain his new and infallible system just as he had explained it to
me.
The trend of the conversation was, however, lost to me. My ears were
closed to all sound, and now that I reflect I am surprised that I
succeeded in retaining my self-possession. I know I sat there rigid, as
one held motionless in terror; I only replied in monosyllables to any
remark addressed to me, and I knew instinctively that the colour had
left my countenance. The discovery was as bewildering as it was
unexpected.
Every detail of that handsome room was exactly as I had pictured it.
The blind, with their keen sense of touch, are quick to form mental
impressions of places and things, and the general character of this
apartment I had riveted upon my mind with the fidelity of a photograph.
The furniture was of gilt, just as I had detected from its smoothness,
and covered with a rich brocade in wide stripes of art green and dull
red-brown--an extremely handsome pattern; the carpet was dark, with a
pile so thick that one's feet fell noiselessly; the three long windows,
covered by heavy curtains of brocade to match the furniture, reached
from the high-painted ceiling to the ground, exactly as I had found them
in my blind gropings. About the room were two or three tables with
glass tops, in trays beneath which were collections of choice
_bric-a-brac_, including some wonderful Chinese carvings in ivory, while
before the fireplace was spread the great tiger-skin, with paws and head
preserved, which I so well remembered.
I sat there speechless, breathless. Not a single detail was there
wanting. Never before, in all my life, had amazement held me so
absolutely dumbfounded.
Close to where I saw was a spacious couch, over the centre of which was
thrown an antimacassar of silken crochet-work. It was covered with the
same brocade as the rest of the furniture, and I stretched forth my
hand, with feigned carelessness and touched it. Its contact was the
same, its shape exact; its position in the room identical.
Upon that very couch I had reclined while the foul tragedy had been
enacted in that room. My head swam; I closed my eyes. The great gilt
clock, with its pendulum representing the figure of a girl swinging
beneath the trees, standing on the mantelshelf, ticked out low and
musically, just as it had done on that fateful night. In an instant, as
I sat with head turned from my companions and my eyes shut, the whole of
that tragic scene was re-enacted. I heard the crash, the woman's
scream, the awe-stricken exclamation that followed in the inner room. I
heard, too, the low swish of a woman's skirts, the heavy blow struck by
an assassin's hand, and in horror felt the warm life-blood of the
unknown victim as it trickled upon my hand.
Mabel suddenly ran her white fingers over the keys, and the music
brought me back to a realisation of my true position. I had at length
discovered the actual house in which the mysterious tragedy had been
enacted, and it became impressed upon me that by the exercise of
greatest care I might further be enabled to prosecute secret
investigations to a successful issue, and at length solve the enigma.
My eyes fixed themselves upon the couch. It was the very spot where I
had rested, sightless, helpless, while those strange events had taken
place about me. Was it any wonder that I became filled with
apprehensions, or that I sat there petrified as one turned to stone?
The square, dark-green antimacassar had been placed in the exact centre
of the couch, and sewed down in order to keep it in its place. Where I
was sitting was fortunately in the shadow, and when Mabel commenced
playing I rose--unsteadily I think--and reseated myself upon the couch,
as being more comfortable. Then, while the woman who held me entranced
played a selection from the "Trovatore," I, unnoticed by the others,
succeeded in breaking the stitches which tacked the antimacassar to the
brocade. The feat was a difficult one, for one does not care to be
detected tearing the furniture of one's hostess. Nevertheless, after
ten minutes or so I succeeded in loosening it, and then, as if by the
natural movement of my body, commenced to work aside.
The music ceased, and even though all my attention was now centred upon
my investigations, I congratulated Mabel upon her accurate execution.
Hickman was standing beside her, and together they began to search for
some piece he had requested her to play, while Miss Wells, with her
hearts and elephants jingling, turned to me and commenced to talk. By
this I was, of course, interrupted; nevertheless, some ten minutes
later, I rose, and naturally turned back to straighten the rumpled
antimacassar. In doing so I managed to lift it and glance beneath.
In an instant the truth was plain. Concealed beneath that square of
green crochet-work was a large dark-brown stain upon the brocade. It
was the mark of the life-blood of that thin, well-dressed, unknown
victim, who had, in an instant, been struck to the heart!
The shock at its discovery caused me to start, but next instant I
smoothed out the antimacassar into its former place without attracting
any attention, and passed across the room with the motive of inspecting
an object which I well remembered discovering when I had made my blind
search. Upon a pedestal of black marble stood an exquisite little
statuette of a Neapolitan dancing-woman, undoubtedly the work of some
Italian master. Without pausing to examine it, I took in its every
detail as I passed. It was exactly as I had felt it, and in the
self-same spot as on that fatal night.
Beside the couch, as I turned again to look, I saw that a large skin rug
had been thrown down. Without doubt it had been placed there to conceal
the ugly stain of blood upon the carpet.
And yet there, on the scene of one of the foulest and most cowardly
assassinations, we were actually spending the evening quietly, as became
a respectable household. The thing seemed absolutely incredible. A
dozen times I endeavoured to persuade myself that the whole discovery
was but a chimera, arising from my disordered imagination.
Nevertheless, it was impossible to disguise from myself the fact that in
every detail the truth was borne out. In that very room the unknown man
had been struck dead. The marks of his blood still remained as evidence
of the truth.
I saw that beside the high lamps at that moment in use, there was a
magnificent candelabra suspended from the ceiling, and in this were
electric lamps. Then, at the door, I noticed the switch, and knew that
it was the same which I had heard turned off by the assassin before
leaving the house.
At the end of the room, too, were the folding doors, now concealed by
curtains. It was through those very doors that Edna, my mysterious
protectress, had passed and repassed to that inner room whence had come
the sound of champagne being uncorked and the woman's piercing scream.
Mabel leaned over and spoke to me, whereupon I sank again into the chair
I had previously occupied. She began to chat, but although her
beautiful eyes held me fixed, and her face seemed more handsome than any
I had ever seen, the diamonds in her hair dazzled my eyes, and I fear
that my responses were scarcely intelligible.
"You are not quite yourself to-night, I think," she remarked at last,
rising from the piano, and taking the low chair that I drew up for her.
"Are you unwell?"
"Why?" I asked, laughing.
"Because you look rather pale. What's the matter?"
"Nothing," I answered, as carelessly as I could. "A slight headache.
But it has passed now."
My eyes wandered to those curtains of green plush. How I longed to
enter that room beyond!
At that moment she took out her handkerchief. Even that action added to
the completion of the mental picture I had formed. Her tiny square of
lawn and lace exhaled a sweet odour. It was that of _peau d'Espagne_,
the same subtle perfume used by the mysterious Edna! It filled my
nostrils until I seemed intoxicated by its fragrance combined with her
beauty.
Her dress was discreetly _decollete_, and as she sat chatting to me with
that bright vivaciousness which was so charming, her white neck slowly
heaved and fell. She had, it seemed, been striving all the evening to
get a tete-a-tete chat with me, but the chatter of that dreadful
Irritating Woman and the requests made by Hickman had prevented her.
As she gossiped with me, now and then waving her big feather fan, she
conveyed to my mind an impression of extreme simplicity in the midst of
the most wonderful complexity. She seemed to take the peculiar traits
from many characters, and so mingle them that, like the combination of
hues in a sunbeam, the effect was as one to the eye. I had studied her
carefully each time we had met, and had found that she had something of
the romantic enthusiasm of a Juliet, of the truth and constancy of a
Helen, of the dignified purity of an Isabel, of the tender sweetness of
a Viola, of the self-possession and intellect of a Portia--combined
together so equally and so harmoniously that I could scarcely say that
one quality predominated over the other. Her dignity was imposing, and
stood rather upon the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, was
not passive, and thus she stood wholly distinct in her sweetness from
any woman I had ever met.
The following day was one on which she was due to take her music-lesson,
and I inquired whether I might, as usual, meet her and escort her across
the Park.
"You are really very kind," she responded; "but I fear I take up far too
much of your time."
"Not at all," I hastened to assure her. "I always enjoy our walks
together."