MORE DISCLOSURES
Ten minutes later I grew conscious of unfamiliar surroundings.
I was no longer in that dark old room at the Cross Keys, but in a
bright airy little room enameled in white. I was lying upon a narrow
iron bedstead and my nostrils were full of the pungent odor of some
disinfectant--I think it was iodoform.
As I looked up I saw four faces peering anxiously down into mine. The
first was that of a grey-bearded man in gold-rimmed spectacles, the
second was that of an elderly nurse in uniform, the third I recognized
as old Feng--and the fourth--I could scarce believe my eyes--was Thelma
herself!
“Thelma!” I cried eagerly, raising my hand towards her.
“No! Keep quiet!” ordered the spectacled man who seemed to be a doctor.
“Listen! Can you understand me. Do you hear what I say?” he asked in a
harsh voice.
“Yes, I--I do,” I faltered.
“Then keep quiet. Sleep, and don’t worry about anything--if you want
to get well. You’re very ill--and you’ve been very foolish. But if you
obey me you will soon be all right again.”
“But--but Thelma--Mrs. Audley,” I asked eagerly.
“She’s here--by your side. Don’t worry, Mr. Yelverton, go to sleep and
you’ll be quite right again soon--quite right!”
I looked at his great gold-rimmed spectacles. They seemed to be
magnified in my abnormal sight.
“But,” I asked boldly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Denbury--Doctor Denbury,” was the old fellow’s reply.
“But why are you here with me in Cross Keys?”
“You’re not in the Cross Keys now. You are in the Burghley Hospital.
The police brought you here, and sent for me.”
“The police!” I gasped, staring at those large round spectacles, whilst
next moment I shifted my gaze upon Feng. “Look here Doctor Feng,” I
said addressing him. “What does all this mean?”
“Well, Yelverton, it is all a puzzle to us. Why did you come here to
Stamford and attempt to commit suicide?”
“What?” I cried in fierce indignation despite my weakness. “What are
you saying? Suicide--why, such a thing never entered my mind!”
Feng’s face wore a strange, cynical smile. Suddenly I felt he was not
my friend; for the moment I hated him.
“Well, the facts are all too apparent,” he said dubiously. “Whatever
could have possessed you? You’ve had a very near squeak of it, I can
tell you.”
“Yes, Mr. Yelverton,” said Thelma, bending over me till I saw her dear
face peering eagerly into mine. “Yes. They thought you were dead. Why
did you do it? Why? Tell us.”
“Do it?” I gasped astounded. “I did nothing. I--I only slept at the
Cross Keys before going out to Duddington to see a client.”
“But why did you come to Stamford,” asked the girl, bending over me
till I could feel her breath upon my cheek.
“No! I forbid any further questions,” exclaimed the bearded old doctor
in the gold spectacles. “Enough! He must rest, Mrs. Audley.”
Then I thought I caught sight of another man--a policeman in uniform!
A few moments passed when suddenly the doctor pressed a glass to my
lips.
“Come. Take this,” he persuaded. “It will put you to sleep again, and
you’ll awake a new man.”
That strange cold pressure on my lips recalled the Thing which had
gripped me in the darkness, and I shut my mouth resolutely. But he
spoke so kindly, declaring that it would do me good, that inert and
almost helpless as I was, I obeyed him. The draught tasted of cloves,
but was terribly bitter.
“Water!” I gasped, and immediately he held some to my fevered lips. I
took a great gulp with avidity. Then I felt drowsy, and again lapsed
into unconsciousness.
When once more I opened my eyes my senses seemed quite normal. I could
see clearly, and I could think and reason.
I found Thelma and old Feng again bending over me, gazing very
earnestly into my face.
“Where am I,” I asked eagerly. “What has happened?”
“Surely you know what has happened,” replied Thelma, “why did you
attempt such a thing?”
“Attempt what?” I demanded.
“To take your life as we have already told you. You took poison, and
you’ve only been saved in the very nick of time!”
“It’s a lie,” I declared angrily. “I never took anything. What do you
mean?”
“Well,” said Feng. “You were found in the morning with your door
locked, and as you didn’t appear at noon they broke it open and you
were discovered insensible with the empty bottle beside you and a note.”
“A note!” I cried utterly bewildered.
“Yes. You shall see it later on. It is addressed to the Coroner,
apologizing for your act!”
I held my breath.
“But, really,” I declared astounded, “you’re joking! I never wrote a
note, and I certainly did not attempt to commit suicide!”
“Well, there are the facts,” said Thelma. “The police brought you here
and they found your name on your cards, and in the letter you left. The
affair got into the papers, and I saw it. So I telegraphed to Doctor
Feng, and we both came here at once.”
“He must not be excited,” said the medical man in glasses.
“Keep quiet, Yelverton,” urged Feng. “You shall know all that has
happened in due course. You owe your life to Doctor Denbury’s efforts.
He gave you an antidote just in time!”
“But I did not write a letter, and I did not take any poison,” I
protested impatiently.
“Keep quiet,” old Feng urged. “It will all be explained in due course.”
“It is so utterly mysterious!” I cried, half raising myself.
“Yes, I agree,” said Feng. “The doctor has found that you are also
suffering from the after-effects of some drug.”
“Does your head pain you very much now?” inquired the doctor.
“Not so much,” was my reply. “But my throat is very bad.”
“I expect so,” he said, and he crossed the room, returning with a
draught which, on being swallowed, proved soothing. “Yes,” he went on,
“you’ve had a very narrow escape. I caught you just in time. I presume
that you must have swallowed the stuff about three o’clock on the
morning before last. When I first saw you I gave you up as hopeless.
But by sheer luck I was able to diagnose what you were suffering from.
Funnily enough it was the drug you took first that saved you. But,” he
added coaxingly, “go to sleep again, and when you wake up tell us all
about it. Your mind will then be quite clear.”
“Yes,” said Thelma, whose beautiful face peered anxiously into my own.
“Go to sleep now, Mr. Yelverton. You must not exert yourself too much.”
And her soft cool hand smoothed my brow.
I remained silent and a few minutes later I had again fallen asleep.
It was night when I found myself listening to an astounding story.
What Thelma told me was to the effect that, on the door of my room
being forced, it was found that I had swallowed something from a bottle
which was lying on the floor, while on the dressing-table lay a note
addressed to the Coroner and signed, “Rex Yelverton.”
Feng showed me the note. It was upon half a sheet of the hotel
note-paper, but written in an unfamiliar and rather uneducated hand.
“I never wrote that!” I protested, feeling now quite better, after
I had swallowed a glass of milk. “And I certainly did not take any
poison.”
“I knew it was not in your handwriting!” Feng said, quietly. “As soon
as Mrs. Audley telegraphed to me I at once met her and we came on here
together. But, tell me, how did it come about that you swallowed that
stuff? It hasn’t been analyzed yet, so Doctor Denbury is not quite
certain what it is. He, however, has made a guess, because of its
smell. But apparently you were drugged also. Tell me exactly what you
recollect about it. I want to know everything, Yelverton.”
I tried to compose myself and reflect.
Presently, while he and Thelma sat side by side, I told them pretty
much as I have written here, exactly what had happened since my arrival
at the Cross Keys.
Feng listened very attentively without uttering a word. Now and then
he grunted, but whether owing to uncertainty or satisfaction I could
gain no idea. His attitude puzzled me sorely. I could not reconcile his
secret friendship with Thelma, with his pretended hostility. Even now,
in spite of the care he was taking of me, I wondered whether he was my
friend, and in summing up all the past circumstances I came to the
conclusion that he was not to be trusted.
The effort of thinking out all this proved too much for me, weakened as
I was by the poison--whatever it was--and, again feeling drowsy, I once
more closed my eyes, and slept.
I was conscious of a prick in my arm, and I know now that Doctor
Denbury gave me an injection.
Not until noon on the following day was I able to get up and dress, and
then, accompanied by Feng and Thelma, I managed to walk round to the
Cross Keys which was only a short distance from the hospital.
The brisk, bald-headed manager invited me into his private room and
with many inquiries about my health and expression of amazement, asked
me to relate what had actually happened. But what could I tell him? I
did not myself know.
Up till that morning I had--I now discovered--been practically under
arrest as having attempted suicide, but now that it was clear that I
had been a victim of a plot, the red-faced constable whom I had noticed
idling about the room, had been withdrawn. The papers had got hold of
the story, and had made a “mystery” out of it, to Hensman’s intense
disgust. On seeing the newspaper reports he had hurried from North
Wales to see me.
“You’ve been an infernal fool, Rex!” he said. “I’ve telephoned to old
Pearson at Duddington. He is quite well. His son never rang you up,
and he doesn’t want to add a codicil to his will. You’ve been had--my
dear fellow! You ought to have heeded those warnings concerning that
little married lady!”
That was all the sympathy I got from him!
I told the bald-headed hotel-manager of my chat with the rugged-faced
commercial traveler from Bradford, who was a constant guest at the
hotel and who had worn that curious onyx tie-pin like a little human
eye--that pin that I had seen in my strange nightmare.
“Describe him again,” he said looking into my face rather puzzled.
I did so, whereupon he replied:--
“I recollect seeing him at dinner. He was in Number Thirty-Four, the
room immediately above yours. But he was a complete stranger. I’ve
never seen him here before. I don’t think he was a commercial. At least
he had no samples. The only commercial travelers we had were Mr. Sharp
from London, Mr. Watson from Manchester and Mr. Evans from Thomas’s,
the flannel manufacturers of Welshpool. I had a long chat with Mr.
Evans in the commercial room before we went to bed. He remarked that
there were only three travelers that night--for it was unusual. We
generally have eight or nine here, all of them known to us--except at
the week-end.”
“Then the man who told me about old Mr. Brimelow was evidently not a
commercial!” I remarked.
“Old Mr. Brimelow. Who is he?”
“The man from Bradford told me that he was once proprietor here a few
years ago.”
“Never,” laughed the manager. “This house has belonged to the Yates
family for the past seventy years. The man evidently told you some fine
fairy stories.”
“Evidently he did,” interposed old Feng. “You say that the man had a
room over Mr. Yelverton’s. That is interesting. May we see it?”
“Certainly,” was the reply, and all of us ascended to a small, stuffy
little single room on the second floor--the window of which was exactly
over that of the room I had occupied.
I told them of that cold thing that I had felt pressed to my lips, but
I could see that they were all incredulous--the hotel-manager most of
all. Everybody who runs a hotel has a horror of any untoward happenings
there, for, of course, they are apt seriously to prejudice business. In
this case I was supposed to have attempted suicide, leaving a letter of
apology to the Coroner. And I felt sure that the hotel-manager believed
that I had attempted my life, even though he seemed to humor me and
pretend to credit my story.
We had no police-officer with us. Feng had seen to it that we had gone
to the hotel unaccompanied.
The Doctor showed an inquisitive eagerness quite unusual with him. He
leaned out of the window in order to ascertain whether he could see
inside the room below. Then from his pocket he took a piece of string
and lowered it to the upper sash of the window of my room and made a
knot in it. Afterwards he examined the window-sill very minutely.
“Has this window been cleaned since?” he asked the manager. “But
there,” he added. “I see it hasn’t by its condition. Not for a
fortnight--I should think--eh?”
“They were all cleaned about three weeks ago,” replied the bald-headed
man.
“Now we will go down to the room in which Mr. Yelverton was found,” he
said.
A few moments later we stood in the room wherein I had been attacked.
The manager pointed out the table upon which the letter incriminating
me had been found, and I gazed wonderingly around.
“The bottle was found on the floor beside the bed,” he said. “When I
first saw you I believed you were dead. Your mouth was discolored and
your face was as white as paper. Ada, the head chambermaid, went into
hysterics.”
“Yes. That’s all very well,” I answered. “But what could have really
happened? I only remember that funny sensation of breathlessness and
the cold thing pressed to my lips--a bottle I suppose it must have
been.”
“Well, to me, it is plain that your entertaining friend from Bradford
was not exactly what he represented himself to be,” said Feng, busying
himself, and examining the room with the closest attention to every
detail. Suddenly he seemed to bristle with excitement, and turning to
the manager he asked:--
“Did the man--what is his name--arrive here before Mr. Yelverton?”
“No,” was his reply. “He arrived just after. He gave his name as
Harwood and particularly asked for the room he occupied. He seemed to
know his way about the hotel quite well. He had no luggage, except a
small handbag, therefore he paid for his room on arrival.”
“And when did he leave?”
“I cannot find out. The night-porter says that he did not see him. He
must have left very early, but there is no train leaving here in the
morning before the 7.49.”
“So he got away by car, no doubt--a car that was waiting for him
somewhere,” Feng remarked quickly with his gray brows knit. “Is his bag
still here?”
“No. He took it.”
“And none of the servants have ever seen him before?”
“No. I asked the three commercial gentlemen who were here that night,
and they all declared him to be a stranger. Commercial travelers always
know each other on the road.”
“Well,” I remarked. “It seems to me that my entertaining friend must
have known which room I occupied, got down from his window to mine and
entered this room while I was asleep.”
“I think so, Yelverton,” said the old Doctor. “It seems to me that
entering by the window that you left open, he first ascertained that
the cigarettes he gave you--which obviously were drugged--had sent
you to sleep. Then he pressed the little bottle to your lips, forcing
you to drink part of its contents--you recollect the cold thing you
felt upon your lips--and then, not knowing how much you had swallowed,
because in the darkness he could not distinguish, he threw down the
bottle and leaving everything to make it appear that you had committed
suicide, he clambered back to his own room and afterwards escaped.”
“Do you think so?” asked Thelma.
“I do,” old Feng replied briskly. “Let us go upstairs again and see
what we can find.”
We did so. And on examining the outside woodwork of the window which
the affable man from Bradford had occupied, we found a large freshly
bored hole into which, no doubt, a stout hook had been screwed. To this
he must have attached a rope, which enabled him easily to reach my
window-sill.
Truly the plot of my enemies had been a well thought out and ingenious
one. The threat that if I continued my search for Stanley Audley I
should pay for my disobedience with my life, had not been made without
the full intention to carry it out!