OF course when I woke next morning my first thought was of Philippa;
my second was of the weather. Always interesting, meteorological
observation becomes peculiarly absorbing when it entirely depends on the
thermometer whether you shall, or shall not, be arrested as an accessory
after the fact, or (as lawyers say) _post-mortem_. My heart sank into
my boots, or rather (for I had not yet dressed) into my slippers, when I
found that, for the first time during sixteen days, the snow had
ceased falling. I threw up the sash, the cold air cut me like a knife.
Mechanically I threw up the sponge; it struck hard against the ceiling,
and fell back a mass of brittle, jingling icicles, so severe was the
iron frost that had bound it.
I gathered up a handful of snow from the window-sill. It crumbled in
my fingers like patent camphorated tooth-powder, for which purpose I
instantly proceeded to use it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Then I turned, as a final test, to my bath. Oh, joy! it was frozen
ten inches thick! No tub for me today! I ran downstairs gleefully,
and glanced at the thermometer outside my study window. Hooray, it
registered twenty degrees below zero! It registered! That reminded me of
my oath! I registered it once more, regardless of legal expenses.
My spirits rose as rapidly as the glass had fallen. The wind was due
east, not generally a matter for indecent exultation.
But while the wind was due east, so long the frost would last, and that
white mass on the roadside would remain _in statu quo_.
So long, Philippa was safe.
After that her fate, and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a
jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of
the law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no
monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource,
on the letters of a sympathetic British public in the penny papers.
The penny papers, the criminal’s latest broadsheet anchor! Under the
exasperating circumstances, Philippa remained as well as could be
expected. She spoke little, but ate and drank a good deal. Day after day
the brave black frost lasted, and the snowy grave hid all that it would
have been highly inconvenient for me to have discovered. The heavens
themselves seemed to be shielding us and working for us. Do the heavens
generally shield accessories after the fact, and ladies who have
shortened the careers of their lords? These questions I leave to the
casuist, the meteorologist, the compilers of weather forecasts, and
other constituted authorities on matters connected with theology and the
state of the barometer.
I have not given the year in which these unobtrusive events occurred.
Many who can remember that mighty fall of snow, exceeding aught in the
recollection of the oldest inhabitant, and the time during which the
frost kept it on the earth, will be able and willing to fix the date.
I do not object to their thus occupying their leisure with chronological
research.
If they feel at all baffled by the difficulties of the problem, I will
give them an additional ‘light’: _Since that year there has been no
weather like it_.
Answers may be sent to the Puzzle Editor of _Truth_.
Day by day Philippa grew better and better. This appears to be the
usual result, of excessively seasonable weather acting on a constitution
previously undermined by bigamy, murder, and similar excesses.
I spare all technical summary of the case, sufficient to say that this
was one of the rare instances in which the mind, totally unhinged, is
restored to its balance by sixty drops of laudanum taken fasting, with a
squeeze of lemon, after violent exercise on an empty stomach.
The case is almost unique; but, had things fallen out otherwise, this
story could never have been got ready in time to romp in before the
other Christmas Annuals.
Matters would have become really _too_ complicated!
As Philippa recovered, it became more and more evident even to the most
dilatory mind that the sooner she left the scene of her late unrehearsed
performance the better.
The baronet had not yet been missed--indeed, he never _was_ missed, and
that is one of the very most remarkable points in the whole affair.
When he _did_ come to be missed, however, he would naturally be sought
for in the neighbourhood of the most recent and attractive of his wives.
That wife was Philippa.
Everything pointed to instant flight.
But how was I to get Philippa to see this? _Ex hypothesi_ she knew
nothing of the murder. On the other hand, all her pure, though
passionate nature would revolt against sharing my home longer than was
necessary. But would not the same purity prevent her from accompanying
me abroad?
Brother and sister we had called ourselves but Philippa had never been
the dupe of this terminology.
Besides, was not her position, in any case, just a little shady?
An idea now occurred to me for the first time. Many men would long ere
now have asked their mothers to _chaperon_ them. It flashed across me
that I had a mother.
He who says ‘mother’ says ‘chaperon.’
I would take my Philippa to my mother. Philippa was now completely
convalescent.
I can only attribute my lingering to the sense of fatality that all
things would come round and be all square.
Love I had laid aside till I could see my way a little clearer in
the certainly perplexing combination of circumstances. Nevertheless,
Philippa, I say it advisedly, seemed to me a good deal more pure and
innocent than when we first met. True, she had been secretly married to
a man under a name which she knew to be false.
True, she had given birth to a baby whose later fate remains a mystery
even to this day. True, her hands were stained with the blood of Sir
Runan Errand.
But why speak of Redistribution, why agitate for Woman’s Suffrage, if
trifles like these are to obstruct a girl’s path in society?
Philippa’s wrongs had goaded her to madness. Her madness was responsible
for the act. She was not mad any longer. Therefore she was not
responsible. Therefore Philippa was innocent.
If she became mad again, then it would be time to speak of guilt.
But would these arguments be as powerful with a British as they
certainly would have proved with a French jury?
Once Philippa seemed to awaken to a sense of the situation.
Once she asked me ‘How she came to my home that night?’
‘You came _out of_ the whirling snow, and _in_ a high state of
delirium,’ I answered, epigrammatically.
‘I thought I came on foot,’ she replied, dreamily.
‘But, Basil,’ she went on, ‘what afterwards? What’s the next move, my
noble sportsman?’
What, indeed! Philippa had me there.
Clearly it was time to move.
In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my
house.
For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account.
A man tires of only being an accessory.
William, the Sphynx, obviously ‘was in the know,’ as sporting characters
say. Was in the know of what was in the snow! I must silence William.
I took my measures quietly.
First I laid in two dozen of very curious pale sherry at half-a-crown.
I bought each bottle at a separate shop in a different disguise (making
twenty-four in all), that my proceedings might not attract attention.
I laid down the deadly fluid with all proper caution in the cellar.
At parting from William I gave him five shillings and the cellar key,
telling him to be very careful, and await my instructions.
I knew well that long before my ‘instructions’ could reach him, the
faithful William would be speechless, and far beyond the reach of human
science.
His secret would sleep with the White Groom.
Then Philippa and I drove to town, Philippa asking me conundrums, like
Nebuchadnezzar.
‘There was something I dreamed of. Tell me what it was?’ she asked.
But, though better informed than the Wise Men and Soothsayers of old, I
did not gratify her unusual desire.
On reaching town I drove straight to the hotel at which my mother was
staying.
It was one of those highly-priced private hotels in the New Out.
As, however, I had no desire to purchase this place of entertainment,
the exorbitant value set on it by its proprietors did not affect my
spirits.
In a few minutes I had told my mother all save two things: the business
of the baby, and the fate which had overtaken Sir Runan.
With these trifling exceptions she knew all.
To fall into Philippa’s arms was, to my still active parent, the work of
a moment.
Then Philippa looked at me with an artless wink.
‘Basil, my brother, you are really too good.’
Ah, how happy I should have felt could that one dark night’s work have
been undone!