After all, Lexy’s search for Charles Houseman was neither difficult nor
heroic, except in intention. She found him in the Lymewell Hospital. Joe
told her where he was, and Joe took her there.
Houseman himself was rigidly determined not to be heroic. He had refused
to go to bed, and Lexy found him in a bare, whitewashed waiting room,
where he sat on a bench.
“Just came in to get the hand dressed,” he said. “I’ll go back with you
now.”
The doctor advised him not to, but Charles was not very susceptible to
advice. He wished to be entirely casual and matter-of-fact, and Lexy
tried to humor him. They stood together in the hall of the hospital
while a nurse went to get him a bottle of lotion from the dispensary,
and he talked in what he intended to be an offhand manner; but Lexy
could see that he was in pain, and almost exhausted, and his hair was
all on end.
Somehow, that was the thing she couldn’t bear--that his hair should be
so ruffled. She could respect his determination to ignore the throbbing
anguish of his hand, she would, if he liked, pretend that there was
nothing at all tragic or unusual in the night’s adventure; but his
hair--
The nurse returned with the bottle, gave him directions for its use, and
told him sternly that he must come back the next morning for a dressing.
“All right!” he said impatiently. “Come on, Lexy!”
They got into Joe’s cab together, and off they went.
“What happened to your hand?” inquired Lexy, as if it didn’t much
matter.
“Knife through it,” he answered. “You see, I held the old fellow, to
give Mrs. Quelton a chance to get away. When I thought it was all right,
I gave him a shove backward, and started to climb over the balcony; and
he jabbed a knife through my hand. That’s what kept me so long--I
couldn’t get it out; and after I did, I--rested for a while. Then I
started for Wyngate, and I met Joe coming back to look for me. He said
he’d landed Mrs. Quelton all right. So that’s all!”
Lexy was silent for a moment.
“Of course you didn’t know it wasn’t Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It was
Caroline all the time.”
“Caroline?” he cried. “What do you mean? It couldn’t have been
Caroline!”
Lexy gave him a very brief, very bare account of Caroline’s narrative.
“Oh!” he said, when she had done; and again there was silence for a
time. “Does she still want to go on with the thing--marrying me, I
mean?” he asked finally, in a queer, flat tone.
“No,” said Lexy pleasantly. “No--she does not.”
“Oh!” he said again, with undisguised relief. “Well, then--it’s all
right, then!”
“You don’t seem to be much surprised,” said Lexy. “Don’t you think it’s
the most extraordinary story you ever heard?”
“Well, you see--I’m a bit tired,” he explained. “I haven’t grasped it
all yet; only, if she doesn’t want to marry me now, Lexy, dear, will
you?”
At last Lexy could do what she had longed to do for the last half
hour--she could stroke down his ruffled hair.
And this, as far as they were concerned, was the last act and the
fitting climax of the play. They were ready now for the curtain to rise
upon another play; but there were other people not so young, or not so
sturdy, for whom the first drama was not so readily dismissed.
There was Captain Grey, who was never to see his sister now, never to
know if she had really wanted him and needed him. He did not soon forget
what had happened at the Tower.
Mrs. Enderby was sent for, and arrived that morning before sunrise, with
her husband. She listened to Caroline’s strange story, and made what she
could of it. She had not one word of reproach for her daughter.
“We shall not cry over the spilled milk,” she said. “Let us see what is
to be done, before the police come.” She had a thoroughly European point
of view about the police. “If we are fortunate enough to find an officer
with discretion,” she added, “even yet a scandal may be averted.”
For that was still her passionate resolve--that there should be no
scandal. She thought and planned with desperate energy; she directed
every one as to the part he or she should play; and in the end she
succeeded. Nobody knew that Caroline had disappeared, and nobody ever
would know. Nobody knew that the so-called Mrs. Quelton was Caroline,
and that, too, would never be known. Only let Joe and Mrs. Royce be
persuaded to hold their tongues; as for Lexy, Captain Grey, and
Houseman, she could of course rely upon them.
So the police were, as they say, baffled. Mr. Houseman told them a tale.
He had been alarmed about the lady whom he knew as Mrs. Quelton, and he
had climbed up on the balcony, hoping to see her alone; but he had met
Dr. Quelton instead, and had been hurt in trying to escape from him.
Captain Grey also had a tale. He, too, had been alarmed about the lady
whom he believed to be his sister. He had gone with Miss Moran to call
upon her, and they had found the doctor dead, lying across the coffin.
There was an inquest, and Mr. Houseman had a very unpleasant time of it,
being the last one who had seen the doctor alive; but there was no
really serious suspicion against him. The _post-mortem_ showed that the
doctor had died of some unknown poison, at least half an hour after the
young man had arrived at the hospital. The verdict was suicide, although
the coroner’s jury had its own opinion about the mysterious dark woman
who had posed as the doctor’s wife. An autopsy revealed that Mrs.
Quelton had died from a natural cause--phthisis of the lungs. In short,
as far as could be discovered, there was no murder at all.
This was a disappointment to the public, but there was always the
mysterious dark woman. The police instituted a search for her, and there
was much about her in the newspapers, but she was never found.
Miss Enderby returned to the city from her visit to Miss Craigie, and
friends of the family were interested to learn that while away she had
met such a nice young man--a Captain Grey, from India. He had to return
to his regiment, but, before he went, Caroline’s engagement to him was
announced. Later he was to retire from the army and come back to live in
New York.
There was another item of news, of minor importance. That pretty little
secretary of Mrs. Enderby’s got married, and the Enderbys were
wonderfully kind about it--surprisingly so. It didn’t seem at all like
Mrs. Enderby to let the girl be married from her own house, and to give
her a smart little car for a wedding present. What is more, Mr. Enderby
found a very good position in his office for the young man.
“My dear Sophie,” said one of Mrs. Enderby’s old friends, with the
peculiar candor of an old friend, “I’ve never known _you_ to do so much
for any one before!”
Mrs. Enderby was standing on the top doorstep of her house, looking
after the car in which Lexy and her Charles had driven off for their
honeymoon, with Joe, of Wyngate, as their chauffeur.
“So much for her?” she said. “It’s not enough--not half enough!”
And there were actually tears in her eyes as she went back into the
house where Caroline was.