A WORD WITH MME. BERNSTEIN.
Nothing of importance happened on the way. We passed one or two
stragglers who did not speak to us, and who, in the darkness of the
night, could have seen very little of us; we, on our part, were more
watchful, and though we exchanged but few words nothing escaped our
attention. It behooved us to be thus careful, because there was the
risk of our coming into contact with our common foes, Mr. Nisbet and
Dr. Cooper. In silence we reached the gloomy wall which surrounded the
building, and, marshaled by Mr. Rivers, took up our posts of
observation. Rivers and I were together on the hill in the rear of the
house, Ronald and his uncle were some dozen yards off. They were to
keep their eyes on us, and to observe certain signals which had been
arranged upon. Very nearly at the same moment as on the previous
night, the gate was slowly opened, and Mme. Bernstein appeared,
carrying a dish covered with a white cloth. She paused at the open
gate, and peered this way and that, to make sure that she was not
seen, and then she closed the gate softly, and proceeded in the
direction of the hut. We followed her warily at a safe distance; she
reached the hut and entered it, and gave the man and the child food
and wine, Rivers and I watching them through the uncurtained window at
the back of the hut.
The meal finished, the old woman kissed the child, and issued from the
hut. All her movements were in accordance with our anticipation, and
this being so, a certain plan we had agreed upon was immediately acted
upon. Ronald and his uncle remained behind, the intention being that
they should make an endeavor to get into conversation with either the
sick man or the child, or with both, and to extract from them some
information of Mr. Nisbet's establishment which might assist our
operations. Rivers and I played our part in the plan by following Mme.
Bernstein. Midway between the hut and Mr. Nisbet's house Rivers nudged
me, and we quickened our steps. Hearing the sound the old woman
stopped, and we also stopped. After listening a moment or two she
fancied she was deceived, and she hobbled on again, we following with
rapid steps. Again she paused, and gave a scream as we came close to
her. Putting his hand on her shoulder, Rivers said:
"Do you speak English, Mme. Bernstein?"
"Yes, a little," she replied, trembling in every limb. "Do not hurt
me--I am an old woman; I have no money."
"You speak English very well," said Rivers. "We will not harm you. It
is only that we wish to have a word with you. We do not want money; we
have money to give, if you would like to earn it. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir, I understand that you will not hurt an old woman, and that
you have money to give."
I ought here to explain that the English Mme. Bernstein spoke was by
no means so clear and grammatical as I set it down, but I find myself
unable to reproduce her peculiar method and idioms, and consider it
best, therefore, to put what she said plainly before the reader. We
understood each other, and that was the main point.
"But it must be earned. Do not tremble so; we are not robbers; we are
officers of the law. What have you under that cloth? A basin, empty.
You took it from the house full. You can be punished for that, Mme.
Bernstein. The master did not give you the food, he did not give you
the wine. You stole them, Mme. Bernstein."
Overcome with terror she fell upon her knees, and implored us to spare
her; she had taken the food to save a little child from starvation;
she had never done it before----
Rivers interrupted her. "You do it every night, madame." Which plunged
her into deeper despair.
Still keeping her sensible that she was in our power, and that we
would have her punished if she did not do as we bade her, Rivers
succeeded in pacifying her to some extent.
"There are four of us," he said, when she rose from the ground; "two
are here, two are with your brother and his child, who without our aid
will starve if you are put in prison or can no longer rob your master
of food. It is with you, madame; you can save or ruin them, you can
save or ruin yourself."
"What is it that I shall do?" she quavered. "Tell me, and I will do
it."
"That is as it should be," said Rivers, "and you shall be rewarded. We
must know everything about the master you serve. We are here from
England for that purpose, and he must not be told that you have spoken
with us. You will swear it by the cross which is hanging from your
neck."
She lifted the black wooden cross to her lips, and kissed it. "I swear
it, sir," she said. "He shall not be told; he shall not know. But if
you keep me here now he will discover it without being told. He will
be waiting for supper, and I shall not be there to serve it. He will
come and look for me, and then it will be ruin for me and you. He is a
hard man, a bad man, a wicked man, and I hate him."
"That pleases me," said Rivers blithely. "Why do you remain in his
service?"
"Should I not starve if I went away? I get my food, and I save it and
give it to my dying brother and the little child. That is something.
Do not keep me here too long. Englishmen are rich; you have a watch.
What hour is it?"
"Half past ten," said Rivers.
"At eleven they have supper. If I am not in the house----"
"You shall be there. Let us walk on, Mme. Bernstein. In ten minutes we
shall reach the gate, and he will not know. Does he go to bed late?"
"Sometimes at twelve, sometimes at one; it is not certain."
"At what hour last night?"
"At twelve."
"Keep watch, madame, to-night, and when he goes to his room and the
house is quiet, you will come out to us, and we will talk."
"Yes, I will come."
"By the back gate, madame; we shall be on the hill. Do not forget--you
shall be rewarded, And do not forget that you have sworn upon the
cross. Here, to commence with, are two francs, to prove that we are in
earnest, and are men of our word."
She clutched the coins eagerly, and said in a whisper: "We are near
the house--do not speak loud, or he will hear us. There is something
strange and terrible. You shall be told of it. I will come when they
sleep."
We did not accompany her to the gate. She glided forward, opened it
quietly, and disappeared.
"Now, Mr. Emery," said Rivers, "can you find your way alone to the
hut?"
"Yes, it is a straight road."
"Go, and bring your friends here. There is strength in numbers.
Something strange and terrible, she said. We have not come a moment
too soon. Hurry back quickly."
I wasted no time, and soon reached the hut. Ronald and Bob were
within; I heard them talking to the little girl. When I tapped at the
door and called to them, they joined me immediately, and hearing that
they were to return with me they spoke a few parting words to the
child, and promised to call and see her again. I briefly related what
had passed between ourselves and Mme. Bernstein, and asked if they had
obtained any information.
"None," replied Bob, "that is likely to assist us. Some general
expressions of dislike toward Mme. Bernstein's employer, of whom they
seem to stand in some sort of fear--that is all. Neither the man nor
the child has ever been inside the house. But we made friends with
them, and that might have served us with Mme. Bernstein if you had not
already enlisted her. Everything seems to depend upon what will occur
during the next twenty-four hours."
We found Rivers lying on his back on the hill, with his hands clasped
behind his head.
"I have been watching the windows," he said, "and making a mental map
of the house. All the bedrooms seem to be situated at the back; the
ordinary living rooms are in front. See--there is a light in only one
of the rooms; there was a light in that room last night. It burns
steadily, and without flickering; the room is occupied, but no shadow
has appeared on the blind, nor has the light been shifted. Someone is
sleeping there, and sleeping undisturbed. If we stopped here till
daylight we should probably find that light still burning. Afraid to
sleep in the dark, denoting a nervous organization. Ah, observe. Two
rooms have just been entered; each person, entering, carried in a
candle with him; the lights shift and waver; there are shadows on the
blinds. One is the shadow of Mr. Nisbet, the other the shadow of Dr.
Cooper; their bedrooms adjoin. Rather restless those shadows. We have
the advantage of them; we can see them, they cannot see us lying here
in black darkness. I am in my element, and can work out theories. I
have done the same in country places in England, and the theories I
have worked out there have led to very useful conclusions. Isn't there
a German or French story of a man who sold his shadow to the devil? I
can imagine occasions when our friend Mr. Nisbet would gladly sell
his, for shadows are sometimes criminating witnesses. Those men do not
seem in a hurry to get to bed. One has gone into the other's room; the
flaring of the candle shows that he has left his door open. The
shadows of the two men are now in one room. They walk up and down in
their slippers--of that you may be sure. There is something so secret
and mysterious going on in the house--which might be a prison or a
private lunatic asylum--that the principal conspirators are careful to
make no noise. They have no wish to disturb the sleeper in the third
room, which, by a stretch of the fancy, we might suppose to be
occupied by a dead person. By the way, did Dr. Cooper have time to
bring his slippers with him from London? I should say not; therefore
he is wearing a pair of Mr. Nisbet's or is walking in his stocking
feet. Now they stop, now they walk about again, and now--yes, now they
go into the room which the first man left. Science has been busily at
work of late years, but it has not yet discovered a means of bringing
sound to our ears as this glass which I am holding brings the figures
of those men near to my eyes. There is the telephone, but you cannot
carry a telephone about with you in a little pocket case. I dare say
the discovery will be made one of these days. Mr. Nisbet is a couple
of inches taller than Dr. Cooper, and as they are now standing quite
still I know which is one, and which the other; therefore I shall
presently know which is Mr. Nisbet's bedroom, and which Dr. Cooper's.
If we could only hear what they are saying to each other! Speaking in
whispers, of course--again for the reason that they do not wish to
disturb the sleeper in the third room. Mme. Bernstein will inform us
who it is who sleeps there. What do you say--a man or a woman?"
The question was addressed to us, and we expressed our inability to
answer it.
"I say a woman," continued Rivers, who was certainly in his element,
as he had declared, "and until Mme. Bernstein favors us with her
company we remain in ignorance as to who the woman is. Our little
Barbara's sister? Perhaps. But Barbara describes her sister as being a
lively young person, and no lively young person lies sleeping there.
How do I arrive at that conclusion? Impossible to say. Mental
cerebration, if you like. We work out plots as novelists do, or
rather, they work out themselves. Concentration is the agent. The same
process leads me to the conclusion that the conspirators yonder are
walking and talking noiselessly because of their fear of being
overheard. The same process leads me to the conclusion that they are
quietly discussing an important and dangerous matter. How did Mr.
Nisbet's stepdaughter meet her death? Asphyxiation caused by an escape
of gas while sleeping in a bedroom almost hermetically sealed. But
there is no gas in these parts, and their light is supplied by oil and
candle. Therefore they are deprived of that means of causing death.
What are they doing now? The shorter of the two, Dr. Cooper, holds
something up to the light. The object is too small to be discerned at
this distance, but I take it to be a vial. Not a wine bottle, nor a
bottle containing brandy or whisky. A small vial. And now Mr. Nisbet
hands his co-conspirator a wineglass; he holds that up also; the
shadow is reflected on the blind, and you can see by the shape that it
is not a tumbler. The vial in one hand, the wineglass--it may be a
medicine glass--in the other, Dr. Cooper is pouring a few drops from
the vial into the glass. He counts the drops; I can't see his lips
move, but unless I am dreaming he is counting the drops. He puts down
the vial, and Mr. Nisbet takes the glass from him. To drink? No. He
dips his finger into the liquid, and puts that finger to his lips. He
stands still a while; he is deliberating. Is it satisfactory, Mr.
Nisbet? If it is, and you need a sleeping draught, drink it off, and
wish your companion good-night. You do nothing of the kind. You come
to the window; you draw aside the blind; you open the window."
"We shall be seen," whispered Bob, in great alarm.
"We are as safe," said Rivers calmly, "as if we wore caps that
rendered us invisible, as in the fairy tale. As they stand side by
side at the window, the position of the light enables me to see them
clearly. They _are_ Mr. Nisbet and Dr. Cooper. Provoking! What is it
that Mr. Nisbet has just done? Why did you move, you fool of a doctor?
But I guess what he did. He emptied the glass out of the window. Of
course, of course; that was it. They have been making a chemical
experiment, testing a liquid--to what end? Mr. Nisbet peers into the
dark grounds, he stares straight at the hill upon which we are lying.
Don't stir a finger. It is curious that criminals almost invariably
overlook some slight circumstance which supplies the clew to their
conviction. It has been so in thousands of cases. The window is
closed, the blind is pulled down. See the shadows of the men as they
approach and retreat, growing to monstrous proportions, dwindling to
nearly natural size. The shadows of Fate. I suppose by this time the
conference is at an end. It is. They separate. Each is in his own
room. Ah, I see which room is occupied by Mr. Nisbet, and which by Dr.
Cooper. The doctor gets into bed first. Out goes his light. Sleep the
sleep of the just, doctor, if you can. Mr. Nisbet lingers; his is the
greater stake. He is the principal, his companion is the tool. Take
care, the pair of you; the dogs are on your track. Mr. Nisbet puts out
his light; all the windows are masked except the window of the third
room. Good-night, good-night."
These ingenious theories filled me with wonder, and I accepted them as
if they were proved testimony; and I am positive, from the remarks
made by Bob and Ronald, that they also accepted them as I did. Rivers
chuckled, and said:
"It is a fine art, and we become masters only by long study. Now for
Mme. Bernstein. She will not keep us waiting long."
She did not. In a few minutes the gate was opened, and the old woman
appeared.