"Now, madam, you will tell me, please, how this occurred."
"I do not know. Doctor Colkirk has told you all I know about it."
"But, just as Doctor Hoefer entered, you were telling me about something
mysterious that had happened here. What was that?"
She pursed her lips for a moment, and glanced quickly at the old German.
"It is a most serious thing. I cannot make it out. There is some
mystery in the morning-room."
"Ach!" exclaimed Hoefer, with a grunt--"a mystery! The symptoms of the
lady are in themselves mysterious. Please explain the mystery of the
room."
"Well," she answered, "when I entered, after the departure of the
visitor, and discovered my cousin lying on the floor unconscious, I was
quite well; but when I left I experienced a most curious sensation, just
as though all my limbs were benumbed. I, too, almost lost consciousness
while in the cab in search of Doctor Colkirk. But the most curious part
of the affair is that my maid and the housemaid, who rushed in when I
raised the alarm, experienced the very same sensation. It was as though
we were struck by an icy hand--the Hand of Death."
"There is something very uncanny about that," I observed, puzzled.
"To me it seems as though poor Beryl were struck down in the same way as
myself."
"But you say that you felt nothing on entering--only on leaving?"
inquired Hoefer, his eyes seeming to grow larger behind his great
glasses.
"Only on leaving," she assured him.
"Strange!" he ejaculated. "Let us see the room. We may, perhaps,
obtain a clue to this mysterious ailment from which your cousin is
suffering."
"But she is not dead?" I asked in doubt.
"No," he responded. "The last injection must be given time to take
effect. We can only hope for the best."
"But the electric battery?" I suggested. "Could we not try that?"
"Useless, my dear friend," he responded; "it would kill her. Let us see
the room of mystery."
The baronet's wife conducted us along the hall to the further end, where
she opened the door, herself drawing back.
"What!" I inquired. "You fear to enter?"
"Yes," she faltered. "I will remain here."
"Very well. We will go in," I laughed, for the idea seemed so absurd
that both Hoefer and myself put it down to her excited imagination.
What ill effect could the mere entry into a room have upon the human
system, providing there were no foul gases? Therefore we both went
forward, sniffing suspiciously, and walking to the window, opened it
widely.
The half-dozen lights in the electrolier illuminated the place brightly,
revealing a fine, handsome room furnished with taste and comfort. On
looking round we certainly saw nothing to account for the extraordinary
phenomena as described by the trembling woman who stood upon the mat
outside.
While we made a careful examination of the place in which my love had
met her strange visitor, the door, creaking horribly, swung slowly to,
as doors often will when badly hung. Hoefer examined the floor
carefully, seeking to discover whether the unknown woman in black had
dropped anything that might give a clue to her identity, while I
searched the chairs for the same purpose. We, however, found nothing.
What, I wondered, was the nature of the interview that had taken place
there a couple of hours before? Who was the woman who had called and
represented herself as Beryl's dressmaker? Could it have been the woman
whose vengeance was so feared, the woman whose very name had been
uttered by that miscreant with bated breath--La Gioia?
With her ladyship standing in the hall watching us we searched high and
low. Neither of us felt any curious sensation, and I began to think
that the story was merely concocted in order to add mystery to Beryl's
unique seizure. Yet, from that woman's face, it was nevertheless
evident that she stood there in fear lest any evil should befall us.
"Do you experience any queer feeling?" she inquired of us at last.
"None whatever," I responded.
"It is only on leaving," she replied.
"Very well," I answered with a laugh, scouting the idea, and then boldly
passing out into the hall.
"Good Heavens?" I gasped a few moments later, almost as soon as I had
reached her side. "Hoefer! come here quickly. There's something
devilish, uncanny in this. I've never felt like this before."
The old German dashed out of the room and was in an instant beside me.
"How do you feel?" he inquired.
I heard his voice, but it sounded like that of some one speaking in the
far distance. The shock was just as though an icy hand had struck me as
I had emerged from the hall. I was cold from head to foot, shivering
violently, while my lower limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel
my feet.
I must have reeled, for Hoefer in alarm caught me in his arms and
steadied me...
"Tell me--what are your symptoms?"
"I'm cold," I answered, my voice trembling and my teeth chattering
violently.
He seized my wrist, and his great fingers closed upon it.
"Ach!" he cried in genuine alarm, "your pulse is failing. And your
eyes!" he added, looking into them. "You are cold--your legs are
rigid--you have the same symptoms, exactly the same, as the young lady?"
"And you?" I gasped. "Do you feel nothing?"
"Nothing yet," he responded--"nothing."
"But what is it?" I cried in desperation. "The feeling is truly as
though the Angel of Death had passed and struck me down. Cannot you
give me something, Hoefer? Give me something--before I lose all
consciousness!"
The woman near me stood rooted to the spot in absolute terror, while the
old German placed me upon an oaken settle in the hall, and ran along to
the boudoir, returning with the syringe filled with the same injection
which he had administered to my love. This he gave me in the arm, then
stood by breathlessly anxious as to the result.
The feelings I experienced during the ten minutes that followed are
indescribable. I can only compare them to the excruciating agony of
being slowly frozen to death.
Through it all I saw Hoefer's great fleshy face with the big spectacles
peering into mine. I tried to speak, but could not. I tried to raise
my hand to make signs, but my muscles had suddenly become paralysed.
Truly the mystery of that room was an uncanny one.
It ran through my mind that, the house being lit by electric light, the
wires were perhaps not properly isolated, and any person leaving the
place received a paralysing shock. This theory was, however, completely
negatived by my symptoms, which were not in any way similar to those
consequent on electric shock.
Hoefer looked anxiously at his watch, then, after a lapse of a few
minutes, gave me a second injection, which rendered me a trifle easier.
I could detect, by his manner and his grunts, that he was utterly
confounded. He, who had sneered at the weird story, like myself was now
convinced that some strange, unaccountable mystery was connected with
that room.
To enter, apparently produced no ill effect; but to leave brought
swiftly and surely upon the fated intruder the icy touch of death. I
had laughed the thing to scorn, yet within a few seconds had myself
fallen a victim. Some deep, inscrutable mystery was there, but what it
was neither of us could tell.