TROUBLES THICKEN.
There was plenty of work for Lucius in his surgery when he went home,
after inducting Mr. Otranto’s men in their duties at Cedar House. There
were the medicines to be made up, and to be taken round to the patients
that night, by the sleepy boy, who looked unutterable reproaches at his
master for this unwonted neglect of duty.
‘Some of the places will be shut, I should think,’ he said with an
injured air, as he ground some nauseous drug furiously with a stone
pestle; ‘and some of the folks gone to bed. We’ve never been so late
before.’
‘I don’t think our neighbours hereabouts are renowned for their early
habits,’ answered Lucius, unabashed by this reproof. ‘If you find
people are gone to bed, you can bring the medicines home, and take them
out again early to-morrow morning. You needn’t go on knocking and
ringing if you don’t get answered quickly.’
‘Very well, sir,’ murmured the boy with a yawn. ‘They’ll be up at all
the publics of course: there’s the liniment for Mrs. Purdew’s sprained
wrist, and the lotion for Mr. Tweaker’s black eye; and they’ll be
up at the butcher’s, and at the general round the corner, where the
children’s down with measles, I daresay. But I expect to find the
private gentlefolks gone to bed.’
‘Give me that rhubarb, and hold your tongue,’ said Lucius.
His medicines were soon made up and dispatched; and he was on the point
of leaving his surgery for the night, when he put his hand in his
pocket in search of a key, and found the bottle he had taken from Mr.
Sivewright’s bedside.
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed; ‘are mind and memory failing me
altogether that I could forget this?’
He held the bottle between him and the flame of the gas. The liquid,
which had been clear enough when he sent it out of his surgery, had now
a slightly clouded look.
‘I wonder whether I have such a thing as a bit of copper gauze?’ he
thought, as he put down the bottle.
He looked in several small drawers in the table on which he made up his
medicines, and finally found the object he sought for. He poured the
medicine into a glass vessel and applied his test.
The experiment showed him that there was arsenic in the medicine. The
quantity was of the smallest, but the poison was there. He repeated
his experiment, to make assurance doubly sure. Yes, there could be no
shadow of doubt. Arsenic had been introduced into the medicine since it
had left his hands yesterday afternoon.
Whose was the guilty hand which had done this thing? His vague
suspicion arose before him all at once in the shape of an awful fact,
and the horror of it almost paralysed thought. Who could have seemed
more secure than this harmless old man, lying on his sick bed, tenderly
watched by loving eyes, ministered to by dutiful hands—guarded, it
would seem, from the possibility of danger? Yet even there a murderer
had penetrated; and by slow steps, by means so gradual as almost to
defy suspicion, that feeble life was assailed.
Who could the assassin be but that old servant in whose fidelity
Homer Sivewright trusted from the mere force of habit? Yes; the case
seemed clear enough, looked at by the light of this new discovery.
Jacob Wincher, who knew the full value of the collection, had begun a
systematic course of plunder—who could tell how long it had gone on?
perhaps ever since Mr. Sivewright had taken to his bed—and, in order to
escape the detection which must have been inevitable on the old man’s
recovery, he had taken measures to make his master’s illness mortal.
‘Perhaps he argues that by dropping a pinch of arsenic into his
master’s medicine now and then he only assists the progress of the
disease, and that his crime is something less than murder,’ thought
Lucius bitterly.
He was angry with himself, because this very day—after suspecting
Jacob Wincher, nay, after feeling convinced of his guilt—he had
suffered himself to be hoodwinked, and had believed the old servant to
be an honest man. He remembered Mr. Otranto’s dictum, so absolutely
expressed, and smiled at the fatuity of a man whom the world deemed
possessed of almost superhuman powers.
‘Yes, the scheme is transparent. He has admitted the man I saw night
after night, and has doubtless made away with all that is most
valuable in the collection. He knows that his master’s recovery would
be his ruin, and he means to prevent that recovery. His apparent
candour this morning was a profound stroke of policy. He took alarm
from what I said to his wife—guessed that I had seen the entrance of
his accomplice, and played his cards accordingly. Not clever enough for
a thief, did you say, Mr. Otranto? Why, here is a man clever enough to
carry on simultaneous robbery and murder, and yet to wear the semblance
of most consummate innocence. This is evidently a development of
intellectual power among the dangerous classes for which your previous
experience has not prepared you.’
Lucius laughed the laugh of scorn at the thought of Mr. Otranto’s
shortsightedness.
But what was he, Lucius, to do? That was the question. How was he to
avert the danger from his patient, and yet avoid alarming him? To alarm
him might be fatal. To tell a man almost at Death’s door that he had
been brought to this pass by a slow poisoner in his own household,
would surely be to complete the murder. Where was the sick man with
nerves strong enough to endure such a revelation?
‘I must get rid of these Winchers, yet not tell Mr. Sivewright the
cause of their dismissal,’ thought Lucius. ‘I can invent some plausible
excuse for their disappearance. And when they are gone—Stay, might
it not be better to let them stop, and to keep watch over my patient
myself—so close a watch, that if foul play were attempted I must
discover the delinquent?’
He meditated upon this question for some time; now leaning one way, now
the other.
‘No,’ he decided at last; ‘murder shall no longer lurk within the
shadow of those walls! At any cost I will get rid of those wretches,
with their pretence of long service and fidelity.’
He thought of Mrs. Wincher, whom he had a little while ago considered
one of the most well-meaning of women, completely devoted to her young
mistress, faithful, affectionate.
‘She may not know the extent of her husband’s iniquity,’ he thought;
for it was painful to him to believe that the woman who had hovered
about Love’s rosy pathway like a protecting angel was among the vilest
of her sex.
‘What about this night?’ he asked himself with painful anxiety. He
had left a guard upon the house and its treasures, but what guard had
he set upon that old man’s life? The doors of the sick room might be
locked ever so securely, and yet the assassin might enter. Wincher and
his accomplice might know of that secret staircase, in spite of the
old servant’s affectation of entire ignorance; and between the secret
staircase and the sick chamber there was only a sliding panel.
‘I’ll go back to-night,’ said Lucius. ‘I should be a dastard if, with
my present knowledge, I left that old man unprotected. I’ll go back,
and get into the garden from the creek. I shall find the detective
on his beat at the back, no doubt. I’ll warn him about the secret
staircase; so that no one shall get to Mr. Sivewright’s room that way,
at any rate.’
He lost no time in putting his resolve into execution. It was a few
minutes past eleven, and the distance to Cedar House was about half an
hour’s walk. Before midnight he would be there.
Fortune favoured him. The night was dark, and there was no one to
observe his trespass as he walked along the deserted wharf and stepped
lightly across the untenanted barges. From one of these it was easy to
get upon the low wall of Mr. Sivewright’s garden. He saw a light in the
brewhouse, where he had found the entrance to the secret stair. The
door was open, and the detective was lounging against the door-post,
smoking his pipe and enjoying the night air.
‘Who’s there?’ he demanded in cautious tones, as Lucius’s light
footstep sounded on the weedy gravel.
‘A friend—Davoren,’ answered Lucius, and then told the man the reason
of his return.
‘This is a worse case than even I thought it,’ he said. ‘There has been
an attempt to poison the old gentleman up-stairs, as well as to rob
him.’
The man looked incredulous. Lucius briefly stated his grounds for this
statement.
‘There has been nothing stirring here?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, except the beadles. They’re on short rations, and it seems to
make ’em active. I’ve been in and out ever since you left.’
‘Has Wincher gone to bed?’
‘Two hours ago.’
‘And you are sure he has never stirred since?’
‘Quite sure. I’ve been past his door about every ten minutes or so,
and have heard him and his wife snoring as peaceable as a pair of
turtle-doves.’
‘Well, I’ve come to share your watch till morning, if you’ve no
objection. After the discovery I’ve just told you about, I couldn’t
rest.’
‘No objections, sir. If you’d brought a casebottle with a trifle of
spirit it might have been welcome.’
‘I am sorry that I omitted to provide myself with such a thing,’
answered Lucius politely.
He showed the detective the door opening upon the secret staircase, and
told him not to leave the brewhouse while he, Lucius, went up-stairs to
see that all was right on the upper floor.
‘If the man who came last night should come again to-night, he will try
to enter by that door,’ said Lucius, pointing to the door by which he
had just come in. ‘Leave it open, and your light burning just where it
is. He’ll take that to mean that all’s right, most likely. But be sure
you keep in the background yourself till he’s fairly inside.’
‘I hope I know my business, sir,’ replied the detective with dignity.
Lucius went through the back premises to the hall. The doors in the
interior of the house had been left open for the convenience of the
watchers. His footsteps, cautiously as he trod, resounded on the
stone-paved floor; so at the foot of the staircase he drew off his
boots, and went up-stairs noiselessly in his stockings. He thought
of Mr. Sivewright’s complaint of that mysterious foot-fall which had
disturbed his slumbers in the deep of night,—the footstep of the secret
assassin. To-night he was surely guarded. From the lower part of the
house no one could approach him without the knowledge of the watcher
lying in wait below.
But how about those upper rooms, in one of whose windows he had seen
the light burning last night? Was there not some mystery there? He
determined to explore that topmost story, now, in the darkness of the
night even, rather than leave his doubts unsatisfied.
Vain determination! The door of communication between the corridor and
the upper staircase was locked. He tried it with a cautious hand, and
found it firmly secured against him. Then he remembered how Lucille
had locked that door and put the key in her pocket after they came
down-stairs from the loft.
If that door had been locked and the key in Lucille’s possession last
night, how came the light in the upper window? That was a new problem
for him to solve.
He crept along the passage, and listened at the old man’s door. He
could hear his patient’s breathing, laboured but regular. There was no
other sound in the room.
He waited here for some time, listening; but there was nothing save
the old man’s breathing to disturb the stillness, nothing until from
Lucille’s room there came the sound of a long deep sigh—a sigh from a
heart sorely oppressed.
That sound smote his own heart with unspeakable pain. It betrayed such
deep unhappiness—a sorrow which could only find vent in the dead of the
night, in deep heartbroken sighs.
‘Is it her grandfather’s danger that makes her so unhappy?’ he
wondered. ‘Strange; for the old man has never been particularly kind to
her—has always kept her at arm’s length, as it were. Yet, I daresay,
to her tender nature the thought of approaching death is too terrible.
She cannot face the inevitable doom; she lies awake and broods upon the
approaching calamity. Poor child! if she but knew how baseless has been
her dream of a father’s love, how vainly her tenderest feelings have
been wasted on a wretch who has not even the poor claim of kindred to
her love!’
For more than an hour he waited, sometimes outside his patient’s door,
sometimes by Lucille’s; but nothing happened to alarm him throughout
his watch, and he knew the approach to the secret staircase was
securely guarded. No intruder could reach Mr. Sivewright’s room that
night, at any rate.
Lucius went down-stairs at last, and smoked a cigar in the brewhouse
while the detective took his round through all the lower rooms. Thus
the night wore away, and in the gray dawn Lucius once more mounted the
stairs, and paced the corridor. Again all was silence. This time he
heard no sigh from Lucille. His heart was relieved by the thought that
she was sleeping peacefully.
With the dawn—Aurora the rosy-fingered showing poorly at this east-end
of London—he made his way back by the garden-wall, the barges, and the
wharf, and returned to his own abode, which looked sordid and cheerless
enough beneath the pale light of newborn day—cold and dreary and poor,
lacking the picturesqueness of a lodge in the primeval forest, and
but slightly surpassing it in luxury. He laid himself down and tried
his hardest to sleep; but the thought of old Homer Sivewright and his
hidden enemy, the domestic poisoner, drove away slumber.
‘I shall sleep no more till I have fathomed this mystery,’ he said to
himself wearily.
But at last, when the sun was shining through the poor screen afforded
by a calico blind, he did fall into a kind of sleep, or rather that
feverish condition which is neither sleeping nor waking. From this
state he woke with a start—that kind of shock which jars the nerves of
the dreamer when his vision ends on the brink of a precipice, whence he
feels himself descending to fathomless depths below. His forehead was
damp with a nameless horror; he trembled as he rose in his bed.
It was as if a voice had spoken in his ear as he slept.
‘What if Lucille were the poisoner?’
Great Heaven! how could so vile a thought shape itself in his mind? Yet
with the thought there arose before him, as if it had been shown to
him upon the open pages of a book, all those circumstances which might
seem to point to this hideous conclusion. Who else, in that lonely old
house, had the same power to approach the patient? In whom else would
Homer Sivewright trust as blindly?
He remembered Lucille’s agitation when he first hinted the possibility
of poison—that whitening cheek, that sudden look of horror. Might not
guilt look thus?
And then her emotion yesterday morning, when she had dropped lifeless
at his feet? Could anything _but_ guilt be thus stricken?
‘O God,’ he cried, ‘I am surely going mad! Or how else could such
horrible thoughts enter my mind? Do I not know her to be good and
pure, loving, unselfish, compassionate? And with the conviction of her
goodness firmly rooted in my heart, can I for one moment fear,—ay,
even though circumstances should weave a web of proof around her,
leaving not one loophole for escape?’
He wrenched his thoughts away from the facts which seemed to condemn
the woman he so deeply loved, and by a great effort of will dismissed a
fancy which seemed the most cruel treason against love.
‘Does the evil one inspire our dreams sometimes?’ he wondered. ‘So vile
a thought could never have entered my head if a voice had not whispered
the hateful suggestion into my sleeping ear. But there shall be an end
at once of suspicion and of mystery. I will no longer treat Lucille as
a child. I frightened her more by my hints and suggestions than I could
have done had I told her the plain facts. I will trust to her firmness
and fortitude, and tell her all without reserve—the discovery of the
attempted poisoning, the robbery, the secret entrance of the man I
watched the night before last. I will trust her most fully.’
This resolve gave extreme relief to his mind. He dressed hurriedly,
took a brief breakfast of his own preparation, Mrs. Babb the charwoman
not yet having left her domestic circle to minister to his wants, and
at half-past eight o’clock found himself once more outside the iron
gate which shut in the chief object of his love. Mrs. Wincher admitted
him with a solemn and mournful visage.
‘Is there anything amiss?’ asked Lucius anxiously.
‘I don’t believe there’ll ever be anything more in this blessed
house that isn’t amiss,’ answered Mrs. Wincher obscurely, but with a
despondent air that augered ill.
‘Mr. Sivewright is worse, I suppose,’ said Lucius.
‘Mr. Sivewright is much as usual, grumble, grumble—this here don’t
agree with him, and that there turns sour on his stomach, and so
on—enough to worrit folks into early graves. But there’s a deal more
the matter than that this morning.’
‘For Heaven’s sake, speak plainly,’ cried Lucius impatiently.
‘Our missy is in a burning fever. She was heavy and lollopy-like all
yesterday afternoon, and her cheeks, that have been as white as a
chaney tea-plate latterly, was red and hot-looking, and she slept heavy
and breathed short in her sleep, for I stood and watched her; and she
moved about in a languid way that wasn’t a bit like her quick light
ways when she’s well. But I thought it was nothink more than what you
says yourself yesterday morning—want of rest. I should ’ave thought you
might ’ave knowed she was sickening for a fever,’ added Mrs. Wincher
reproachfully.
‘Misfortune does not always declare itself so plainly. I could see that
she was ill, and that was all. God grant the fever may not be very
much, after all!’
‘Not very much!’ exclaimed Mrs. Wincher. ‘Why, when I took her a hearly
cup of tea at half-past seven this morning, which was as soon as I
could get my kittle boiled, she was raving like a lunatic—going on
about her father, and such-like—in a dreadful way, and didn’t recognise
me no more nor if I’d been a stranger out of the street.’
This was a bad hearing; but Lucius bore the shock calmly enough.
Troubles and perplexities had rained thickly upon him of late, and
there is a kind of stoicism which grows out of familiarity with sorrow.
‘Take me to Miss Sivewright’s room,’ he said quietly, ‘and let me see
what is the matter.’
‘I’ve moved her out of the little dressing-room into her own room,’
said Mrs. Wincher; ‘me and my good gentleman carried the bed with her
on it while she was asleep. I thought as how it wouldn’t do for her
grandpa to hear her carrying on that wild.’
‘You were right enough there. Yet she was a faithful guardian, and
your master is now in the power of his foes.’
‘Foes, sir? What foes can he have in this house?’
‘The same people who found their way to the plate in the muniment chest
might find their way to Mr. Sivewright’s room,’ said Lucius.
‘Lor, sir, how you do frighten one! But what harm could even thieves
and robbers want to do to a harmless old man, unless he stood between
’em and the property?’
‘I won’t stop to discuss that question with you now, Mrs. Wincher. I
shall have something to say to you and your husband presently. Have the
detectives gone?’
‘Yes, sir; but they’re coming back the same time to-night. One of ’em
left a bit of a note for you. It’s on the kitchen chimleypiece. I’ll
run and fetch it if you like.’
‘Not till you have taken me to Miss Sivewright’s room. Is she alone all
this time?’
‘Yes, sir; but she was asleep when I left her. She dozes off every now
and then.’
‘She must have a nurse to watch her, sleeping or waking.’
Mrs. Wincher led the way up-stairs, and to one of the doors in the
corridor out of which Mr. Sivewright’s room opened. For the first time
Lucius found himself in Lucille’s room—a spacious airy apartment, with
three windows deep set in the solid walls, and provided with broad
oak window-seats. A scantily furnished chamber, yet with that grace
and prettiness of aspect which a girl’s taste can give to the poorest
surroundings. There were books, a few water-coloured sketches on the
walls, a few oddments of old china tastefully disposed on the high oak
chimneypiece, white muslin curtains to the windows, a well-worn Persian
carpet in the centre of the dark oak floor—everywhere the most perfect
neatness, cleanliness the most scrupulous.
Lucille was sleeping when Lucius and Mrs. Wincher entered; but at the
sound of her lover’s footsteps, lightly as he trod, she started, opened
her eyes, and looked at him.
O, how sad to see those sweet eyes looking at him thus, without
recognition! how sad to mark that dreamy unconscious stare in eyes that
yesterday had been full of meaning! Lucius sank into a chair by the
bed, fairly overcome. It was some moments before he was sufficiently
master of himself to approach the case professionally, to go through
the usual formula, with an aching heart.
She was very ill, with such an illness as might have been easily
induced by long-continued anxiety and want of rest—anxious days,
sleepless nights. The gravest feature in the case was the delirium—the
inability to recognise familiar faces.
‘Lucille,’ he said, in a low tender voice, ‘don’t you know me?’
She did not answer him. Her head moved wearily on the pillow from side
to side, while her lips murmured faintly. Lucius bent over her to catch
the words.
‘You shouldn’t have come here, father,’ she said, ‘if you couldn’t
forgive him. But no, no, you could not do him any harm—you could
not be so vile as that. I have loved you so dearly. Papa, don’t you
remember—the violin—our happy evenings?’
Thus the parched lips went on, in low broken murmurs, which were
sometimes quite unintelligible.
‘It’s been all her father since she was took that way,’ said Mrs.
Wincher.
‘Strange that her mind should brood thus upon that one memory,’ thought
Lucius—‘the one tender remembrance of her childhood.’
He lingered for some time by the bedside, listening to those indistinct
murmurs in which the name of ‘father’ was so often repeated. Then he
began to consider what he must do to secure the safety of this beloved
sufferer.
To leave her in the custody of people whom he believed guilty of the
deepest iniquity was not to be dreamed of. He must get rid of these
Winchers at any hazard, bring in a sick nurse upon whose fidelity
he could rely, and, so far as it was possible, keep watch upon the
premises himself by day and night.
Get rid of the Winchers? How was that to be done? He had no authority
for their dismissal.
There was one way, he thought, hazardous perhaps for his patient, but
tolerably certain of immediate success. He must inform Mr. Sivewright
of the robbery, and state on whom his suspicions fell. There was little
doubt that on learning he had been robbed the _bric-à-brac_ dealer
would dismiss his old servants. The first thing to be done was to get
the sick nurse and secure Lucille’s safety, come what might.
He told Mrs. Wincher that he would return in half an hour or so to see
her master, and left the house without giving her any farther hint as
to his intention. He knew of a nurse in the immediate neighbourhood, a
woman of the comfortable motherly order, of whose ministrations among
his patients he had had ample experience, and he hailed the first cab
that hove in sight, and drove off in quest of this honest matron.
Fortune favoured him. Mrs. Milderson, the nurse—like Mrs. Gamp, sick
and monthly—had just returned from an interesting case in the West
India-road.
On this worthy woman Lucius descended like a whirlwind: would hardly
give her time to rummage up an apron or two and a clean print gown, let
alone her brush and comb—as she said plaintively—ere he whisked her
into the devouring jaws of the hansom, which swallowed her up, bundle
and all, and conveyed her with almost electric speed to Cedar House.
Mrs. Wincher stared amain at this interloper, and would fain have kept
her on the outer side of the iron gate.
‘And pray, Dr. Davory, what may this good lady want?’ she asked,
surveying the nurse and bundle with looks of withering scorn.
‘This good lady’s name is Milderson; she is an honest and trustworthy
person, and she has come to nurse Miss Sivewright.’
‘May I ask, Dr. Davory, by whose orders?’
‘By mine, the young lady’s medical attendant and her future husband,’
answered Lucius. ‘This way, if you please, Milderson. I’ll talk to you
presently, Mrs. Wincher.’
He passed that astonished female, who stood agape, staring after him
with bewildered looks, and then raising her eyes aloft to outraged
Heaven—
‘And me not thought good enough to nurse our missy!’ she ejaculated.
‘Me, that took her through the measles, and had her on my lap three
blessed days and nights with the chicken-pox. I couldn’t have thought
it of you, Dr. Davory. And a stranger brought into this house without
by your leave nor with your leave! Who’s to be respounceable for the
safety of the bricklebrack after this, I should like to know!’
Having propounded this question to the unresponsive sky, Mrs. Wincher
uttered a loud groan, as if disappointed at receiving no answer, and
then slowly dragged her weary way to the house, sliding one slippered
foot after the other in deepest dejection. She walked up-stairs with
the same slipshod step, and waited in the corridor outside Lucille’s
room with folded arms and a countenance in which a blank stare had
succeeded to the workings of indignation.
This stony visage confronted Lucius when he emerged from the sick room,
after about a quarter of an hour employed in giving directions to Mrs.
Milderson.
‘Do you mean to say, Dr. Davory, that I’m not to nurse my young
missy?’ asked Mrs. Wincher, stifled emotion trembling in every accent.
‘That is my intention, Mrs. Wincher,’ answered Lucius severely. ‘First
and foremost, you are not an experienced nurse; and secondly, I cannot
trust you.’
‘Not experienced, after taking that blessed dear through the
chicken-pox—which she had it worse than ever chicken-pox was knowed
within the memory of the chemist round the corner, in Condick-street,
where I got the gray powders as I gave her—and after walking about with
her in the measles till I was ready to drop! Not to be trusted after
five-and-twenty years’ faithful service! O, Dr. Davory, I couldn’t have
thought it of you!’
‘Five-and-twenty years’ service is a poor certificate if the service
ends in robbery and attempted murder,’ answered Lucius quietly.
‘Attempted murder!’ echoed Mrs. Wincher, aghast.
‘Yes, that’s a terrible word, Mrs. Wincher, isn’t it? And this is
the worst of all murders—domestic murder—the slow and secret work of
the poisoner, whose stealthy hand introduces death into the medicine
that should heal, the food that should nourish. Of all forms of
assassination there can be none so vile as that.’
Mrs. Wincher uttered no syllable of reply. She could only gaze at the
speaker in dumb wonderment. She began to fear that this young man was
going mad.
‘He’s been eggziting and werrying of hisself till he’s on the high road
to a lunacy asylum,’ she said to herself presently, when Lucius had
passed her and gone into Mr. Sivewright’s room.
‘You took away my medicine yesterday morning,’ said the invalid in his
most querulous tone, ‘and sent me none to replace it. However, as I
feel much better without it, your physic was no loss.’
‘Pardon my inattention,’ said Lucius. ‘And you really feel better
without the medicine? Those troublesome symptoms have abated, eh?’
They had abated, Mr. Sivewright said, and he went on to describe his
condition, in which there was positive improvement.
‘I’m glad to find you so much better,’ Lucius said, ‘for you will be
able to hear some rather disagreeable intelligence. You have been
robbed.’
‘Robbed!’ cried the old man, starting up in his bed as if moved by
a galvanic battery. ‘Robbed! Yes, I thought as much when I heard
those footsteps. Robbed! My collection rifled of its gems, I suppose.
The Capo di Monte—the Copenhagen—the old Roman medals in the ebony
cabinet—the Boucher tapestry!’ he exclaimed, running over the catalogue
of his treasures breathlessly.
‘These are safe, for anything I know to the contrary. You had a
monstrance in silver-gilt?’
‘Gold!’ cried the old man; ‘twenty-carat gold! I had it assayed. I gave
thirty pounds for that monstrance to an old scoundrel who was going to
break it up for the sake of the gems, and who believed it was lacquer.
It had been stolen from some foreign church, no doubt. The emeralds
alone are worth two hundred pounds. You don’t mean to tell me I’ve been
robbed of that?’
‘I’m sorry to say that and some pieces of old silver are missing; but I
hope to recover them.’
‘Recover the dead from the bottom of the sea and bring them to life
again!’ cried Mr. Sivewright vehemently. ‘You might do that as easily
as the other. Why, those things were in the muniment chest, and Wincher
had the key. He has kept that key for the last twenty years.’
‘Some one has found his way to the chest in spite of Mr. Wincher’s
care,’ answered Lucius gravely.
He went on to relate the particulars of the robbery. The old man got
out of bed while he was talking, and began to drag on his clothes with
trembling hands.
‘I will not lie here to be plundered,’ he exclaimed, profoundly
agitated.
‘Now, that is what I feared,’ cried Lucius. ‘If you do not obey me
implicitly, I shall repent having told you the truth. You must remain
in this room till you are strong enough to leave it. You can surely
trust me to protect the property in which your generous confidence has
given me the strongest interest.’
‘True, you are as much interested as I am,’ muttered the old man; ‘nay,
more so, for life is before you, and is nearly over with me. _My_
interest in these things is a vanishing one; yet I doubt if there would
be rest for me in the grave if those fruits of my life’s labour were in
jeopardy.’
‘Will you trust me to take care of this house and all it contains?’
asked Lucius anxiously. ‘Will you give me authority to dismiss these
Winchers, whom I cannot but suspect of complicity with the thief,
whoever he may be?’
‘Yes, dismiss them. They have robbed me, no doubt. I was a fool to
trust old Wincher with the key of that chest; but he has served me so
long, and I thought there was a dog-like fidelity in his nature, that
he would be content to grub on to the end of his days, asking nothing
more than food and shelter. I thought it was against his interests to
rob me. At his age a man should cling to his home as a mussel sticks to
his rock. The fellow is as sober as an anchorite. One would suppose he
could have no motive for dishonesty. But you had better dismiss him.’
‘I have your permission to do so?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you, sir. It seems a hard thing, but I am convinced it is the
right course. I will get your house taken good care of, depend upon it.’
‘I trust you implicitly,’ answered the old man, with a faint sigh,
half fatigue, half despondency. ‘You are the only friend I have upon
earth—except Lucille. Why has she not been to me this morning?’
‘She is not very well. Anxiety and want of rest have prostrated her for
a little while.’
‘Ill!’ said Mr. Sivewright anxiously; ‘that is bad. Poor little
Lucille!’
‘Pray don’t be uneasy about her; be assured I shall be watchful.’
‘Yes, I am sure of that.’
‘I have brought in a nurse—now, you mustn’t be angry with me, though in
this matter I have disobeyed you—a thoroughly honest, competent woman,
who will attend to you and Lucille too.’
‘I detest strangers,’ said Mr. Sivewright; ‘but I suppose I must submit
to the inevitable.’
‘Now, I want your permission to remain in the house for a night or
two. I would stay altogether, were it not for the possibility of night
patients. I can occupy the little room next this, and shall be at hand
to attend you. Lucille has returned to her own room.’
‘Do as you please,’ answered Mr. Sivewright with wonderful resignation,
‘so long as you protect me from robbery.’
‘With God’s help I will protect you from every peril. By the way, since
you say my medicine has done you no good, you shall take no more. Your
food shall be prepared according to my directions, and brought you by
Mrs. Milderson, the nurse. I told you some time ago that yours was a
case in which I attached more importance to diet than to drugs. And now
I’ll go and settle matters with Mr. and Mrs. Wincher.’
He had not far to go. Mrs. Wincher was still in the corridor, waiting
for him with stony visage and folded arms.
‘I should be glad to see your husband, Mrs. Wincher,’ said Lucius.
‘My good gentleman is down-stairs, sir, and will be happy to wait upon
you direckly minute.’
Lucius went down to the hall with Mrs. Wincher. Her good gentleman was
pottering about among his master’s treasures, with a dusting-brush.
‘Mr. Wincher,’ said Lucius without preamble, ‘I have come to the
determination that, under the very unpleasant circumstances which
have arisen in this house, plain sailing is the wisest course. I have
therefore informed Mr. Sivewright of the robbery.’
‘Indeed, sir! I should have thought you’d hardly have ventured that
while he’s so ill. And how did he take it?’
‘Better than I expected: but he agreed with me as to the necessity of a
step which I proposed to him.’
‘What might that be, sir?’
‘That you and Mrs. Wincher should immediately leave this house.’
The old man, who was feeble and somewhat bowed with age and hard work,
drew himself up with an offended dignity that might have become a
prince of the blood-royal.
‘If that is my master’s decision I am ready to go, sir,’ he said,
without a quaver in his weak old voice. ‘If that is my master’s
decision after five-and-twenty years’ faithful service, I cannot go
too soon. Deborah, get our bits of things together, my dear, as fast as
you conveniently can, while I go out and look about me for a room.’
‘Lemaître, at his best, was not a finer actor than this old man,’
thought Lucius. ‘It is the perfection of art.’
Mrs. Wincher only stared and breathed hard. In her, indignation had
paralysed the power of speech.
‘If it were a mere question of the robbery,’ said Lucius, ‘I should not
have counselled your dismissal. It would have gone hard with me if,
once put upon my guard, I could not have protected the property in this
house. But there is one thing more valuable than a man’s property, and
more difficult to protect, and that is his life. The reason of your
dismissal, Mr. Wincher, is that there has been an attempt made by some
one in this house—and you best know how many it contains—to poison your
old master.’
‘Poison!’ echoed Jacob Wincher helplessly.
‘Yes, I discovered arsenic last night in a half-filled medicine bottle
which I took from your master’s room. Some one had introduced arsenic
into the medicine since it left my hands. Mr. Sivewright’s symptoms of
late have been those of arsenical poisoning. Under such circumstances
you can hardly wonder that I wish to bring about a change of occupants
in this house.’
‘No, sir,’ answered the old man, ‘I don’t wonder. Poison!—a poisoner
at work in this house where we have watched so faithfully! It is too
horrible. It is a mystery beyond my power to fathom. There have been
only three of us in the house—my wife, and Miss Lucille, and me. And
you think it was I or my wife that put poison into that bottle. Well, I
can’t wonder at that. It couldn’t be Miss Lucille, so it lies between
my wife and me. We’re best out of the house, sir, after that. This
house is no place for us. I hope you’ll contrive to take good care of
my master when we’re gone, and I pray God that it may please Him in His
good time to enlighten your mind about us, and to show, somehow, that
neither I nor my good lady have tried to murder the master we’ve served
faithfully for a quarter of a century.’
‘If you are innocent, Mr. Wincher, I trust that fact may be speedily
demonstrated. In the mean time you can hardly wonder that I think this
house a safer place without your presence in it.’
‘No, sir, that’s natural enough. Deborah, my good soul, will you get
together those things of ours? The sooner the better.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ answered Mrs. Wincher, with a gasp; ‘but I don’t
feel as if I had the proper use of my limbs.’
‘There’s the catalogue, sir,’ suggested Jacob Wincher. ‘Hadn’t we
better go through that before I leave, and see what is right and what
isn’t? It’ll take some time, but it will be for the satisfaction of
both parties. I’ve one catalogue, sir, and Mr. Sivewright another.’
‘You are vastly conscientious, sir,’ said Lucius; ‘but as it would
take at least a day to go through these things, and as my ignorance
unfits me for the task, I think I will take my chance, and not oppose
any hindrance to your prompt departure. I’ll wait hereabouts till Mrs.
Wincher is ready.’
‘As you please, sir. In that case I’ll go off at once and look about me
for a room.’
‘Stay, Mr. Wincher,’ cried Lucius, as the old man shuffled off towards
the door; ‘I should be sorry for you to leave this house penniless.
Here are a couple of sovereigns, which will enable you to live for a
week or so while you look for a new service.’
‘A new service, sir!’ echoed Jacob Wincher bitterly. ‘Do you think that
at my age situations are plentiful? No, sir, thank you; I couldn’t
take money from you, not if it was to save me from starvation. I shall
seek no new service. Mr. Sivewright was never a very liberal paymaster,
and since we came to this house he has given us no wages except a small
allowance for our food. But our wants are few, and we contrived to save
the best part of our wages while we were in Bond-street. No, sir, I am
not afraid to face the world, hard as it is to the old. I shall get
a few odd jobs to do among the poor folks, I daresay, even without a
character, and I shall be able to rub along somehow.’
Thus refusing Lucius’s proffered aid, Jacob Wincher put on his hat and
went out. Lucius went into the room which contained the chief part of
Mr. Sivewright’s collection, and waited there with the door open until
Mr. Wincher’s good lady should make her appearance, ready for departure.
He looked round at the chaotic mass of property wonderingly. How much
had been plundered? The shabby old glass cases of china seemed full
enough, yet who could tell how they had been thinned by the dexterous
hand of one who knew the exact value of each separate object? It seemed
hard that the fruit of Homer Sivewright’s toil should have been thus
lessened; it seemed strange that he, who was a professed cynic, should
have so entirely trusted his old servant, only to be victimised by him
at last.
Mrs. Wincher made her appearance, after an interval of about half an
hour, laden with three bundles of various shapes and sizes, but all
of the limpest description, two bandboxes, an ancient and dilapidated
umbrella, a small collection of hardware in a hamper without a lid,
a faded Paisley shawl across her arm, a bottle-green cloth cloak of
antediluvian shape and style, and sundry small oddments in the way of
pattens, a brown-crockery teapot, a paste-board, and a pepperbox.
‘They’re our few little comforts, sir,’ she said apologetically, as
divers of these minor objects slid from her grasp and rolled upon
the stone floor of the hall. ‘I suppose if we was sent to Newgate as
pisoners we shouldn’t be allowed to have ’em; but as there’s no crime
brought against us _yet_’—with profoundest irony—‘I’ve took the liberty
to bring ’em. Perhaps you’d like to look through my bundles, Dr.
Davory, to make sure as there’s none of the bricklebrack hidden amongst
my good gentleman’s wardrobe.’
‘No, thank you, Mrs. Wincher. I won’t trouble you to open your
bundles,’ answered Lucius, whose keen eye had taken note of the manner
of goods contained in those flabby envelopes.
Thus absolved from the necessity of exhibiting these treasures, Mrs.
Wincher built them up in a neat pyramid by the side of the hall-door,
with infinite pains, as if the monument were intended to be permanent,
and then seated herself meekly on the lowest step of the staircase.
‘I suppose as there’s no objections to my resting my pore feet a bit,
Dr. Davory,’ she said plaintively, ‘though me and my good gentleman is
dismissed.’
‘You are quite at liberty to rest yourself, Mrs. Wincher,’ replied
Lucius. ‘But I don’t mean to take my eye off you till you’re out of
this house,’ he added mentally.
He paced the hall and the room adjoining till the bell at the outer
gate announced Jacob Wincher’s return. Mrs. Wincher went to admit
her lord and master, who presently appeared with a small truck or
hand-barrow, in which, aided by his wife, he deposited the pyramid of
goods and chattels, which process involved a good deal more careful
fitting-in of curiously-shaped objects into odd corners. Everything,
however, having been finally adjusted to the satisfaction of both
parties, Mr. Wincher reëntered the house for the last time, while Mrs.
Wincher waited on the steps, and delivered the keys to Lucius. Every
key was neatly labelled with a slip of parchment, whereon was inscribed
its number in Homer Sivewright’s crabbed penmanship.
‘Those are all the keys, sir, just as my master gave them to me when
we first came here,’ said Jacob Wincher. ‘I’ve got a bit of a lodging.
Perhaps you’d be kind enough to take down the address, as I should be
glad to learn if ever you find out the real party that took the silver
out of the chest, and likewise tampered with the medicine.’
‘If ever I find any evidence of your innocence you shall hear of it,
Mr. Wincher,’ answered Lucius gravely. ‘What is the address?’
‘Mrs. Hickett’s, Crown-and-Anchor-alley, Bridge-street, sir; not a
quarter of an hour’s walk from here.’
Lucius wrote the address in his pocket-book without another word.
This last duty performed the Winchers departed, and Lucius felt that he
had taken the one step most likely to insure the safety of his patient.
‘If not they, who else?’ he said to himself, thinking of the arsenic in
the medicine bottle.
He went once more to Lucille’s room, but hardly crossed the threshold.
The sick girl was sleeping, and the nurse gave a very fair account of
her. He told Mrs. Milderson her duties—how she was to attend to Mr.
Sivewright as well as to his granddaughter, and told her furthermore
how he had just dismissed the old servants.
‘I am going in search of some one to take their place,’ he said, having
made up his mind upon that point some time ago.
He went round the lower part of the house, tried all the keys, saw
that all the doors were secured—those opening on the garden bolted and
barred as firmly as if they had belonged to a besieged citadel. He
looked through all the labels, but found no key to the staircase door
up-stairs; a circumstance that annoyed him, as he had a particular
desire to examine those rooms on the top story. Then, having made all
safe, he went out, locking the hall-door and the iron gate after him,
and proceeded straightway to Mr. Otranto’s office.
Here he told that functionary exactly what he had done. Mr. Otranto
chewed the end of his pen, and smiled upon his client with the calm
smile of intellectual superiority.
‘Now, I daresay you think you’ve been and gone and done a very clever
thing,’ he said, when Lucius had unbosomed himself; ‘but I can just
tell you you’re on the wrong tack—a good hundred knots out of your
course. That old party isn’t in the robbery; and as to the pison,
it’s not for me to argue with a professional gent like you; no sorter
should alter his crepidam, as we say in the Classics; but I wouldn’t
mind laying even money that the pison is only your fancy. You’ve been
worriting yourself about this blessed business till you’ve got nervous,
so you goes and sniffs at the physic, and jumps at the conclusion that
it’s poisoned.’
‘I have not jumped at any conclusion,’ replied Lucius. ‘My opinion is
supported by an infallible test.’
He told Mr. Otranto that he wanted to find a thoroughly honest man and
woman, who would take the place of the Winchers at Cedar House—a man
who would act as night watchman, and a woman who would perform such
trifling domestic duties as were needed. Mr. Otranto, who had minions
of all kinds at his beck and call, did know of just such a couple—an
ex-policeman, who had left the force on account of an accident that had
lamed him, and a tidy body, the ex-policeman’s wife. If Mr. Davoren
wished, they should be at Cedar House in two hours’ time.
‘Let them meet me at the gate at three o’clock,’ said Lucius. ‘I must
go round among my patients in the mean while.’
His day’s work still waited to be done, and it was long past
twelve—dinner-time in the Shadrack district. He had to endure
reproachful looks from some of his patients, but bore all with perfect
good-temper, and did his very best for all. Happily the people believed
in him, and were grateful for all the good he had done among them.
At three o’clock he was at the iron gate, where he found Mr. Magsby,
the ex-policeman, and his wife—a comfortable-looking young woman with
a bundle and a baby, for which latter encumbrance Lucius had not
bargained, and for which Mrs. Magsby duly apologised.
‘Which Mr. Otranter may not have told you, sir, as I couldn’t leave the
baby behind, but she’s as good a little dear as ever drew breath, and
never cries, and in a large house will be no ill-convenience.’
‘Perhaps not, if she never cries,’ said Lucius, ‘but if she does cry,
you must smother her, rather than let her voice be heard up-stairs.’
And then he touched the small cheek kindly with his finger, and smiled
upon the little one, after a fashion which at once won Mrs. Magsby’s
heart.
Mr. Magsby’s lameness was little more than a halt in his walk,
and, although sufficient to disable him as a public servant, was no
hindrance to him as a night-watchman. Altogether Lucius decided that
the Magsbys would do. He inducted them in the gloomy old kitchen
and the room with the presses, where Mr. and Mrs. Wincher’s turn-up
bedstead yawned disconsolate and empty, and where there were such bits
of humble furniture as would suffice for the absolute needs of life.
Mrs. Magsby pronounced the apartments roomy and commodious, but
somewhat wanting in cheerfulness. ‘But me and Magsby have took care of
all manner of houses,’ she added with resignation, ‘and we can make
ourselves comfortable amost anywheres, purvided we’ve a bit o’ firing
to bile the kettle for our cup o’ tea and a mouthful of victuals.’
Lucius showed Mr. Magsby the premises—the door opening upon the hidden
staircase, all the ins and outs of the place—and told him what was
expected of him.
After this induction of the Magsbys, he went up-stairs and saw Lucille.
She was awake, but her mind still wandered. She looked at him with a
far-off unrecognising gaze that went to his heart, and murmured some
broken sentence, in which the name of ‘father’ was the only word he
could distinctly hear.
‘Pray to our Father in heaven, dearest,’ said Lucius, tenderly
supporting the weary head, which moved so restlessly upon the pillow.
‘He is the only Father who never wrongs His children; in whose love and
wisdom we can believe, come weal, come woe.’
He stayed by the bedside a little while, gave his instructions to Mrs.
Milderson, and then went to the other sick room.
Here he found Mr. Sivewright, fretful and impatient, but decidedly
improved since the suspension of the medicine; a fact which that
gentleman dwelt upon in a somewhat cynical spirit.
‘You may remember that at the beginning of our acquaintance I
professed myself a sceptic with regard to medical science,’ he said
with his harsh laugh, ‘and I cannot say that my experience even of
your skill has been calculated to conquer my prejudices. You are a
very good fellow, Lucius, but the only effect of your medicines for
the last month or so has been to make me feel nearer death than ever
I felt before. I seem to be twice the man I was since I left off that
confounded tonic of yours.’
‘I am very glad to hear it—not glad that the tonic has failed, but that
you are better. Try to believe in me a little, however, in spite of
this.’
‘Have you sent away those thieves?’
‘Mr. and Mrs. Wincher? Yes, they are gone.’
‘So ends five-and-twenty years’ service! And I thought them faithful!’
said Mr. Sivewright with a sigh. ‘And by what models of honesty have
you replaced these traitors?’
Lucius explained his arrangements, to which Mr. Sivewright gave but
doubtful approval.
He inquired anxiously about Lucille, and seemed grieved to find that
she was too ill to come to him as usual.
‘Though for these many years past I have doubted the existence of any
relationship between us, she has made herself dear to me somehow,
in spite of myself. God knows I have tried to shut my heart against
her. When my son abandoned me, I swore never to care for any living
creature—never again to subject myself to the anguish that an ingrate
can inflict.’
END OF VOL. II.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 8 Changed: You loved this mam!
to: You loved this man!
pg 152 Changed: conger eel and mackarel were unpopular
to: conger eel and mackerel were unpopular
pg 263 Changed: having no farther business there
to: having no further business there