PURE ETHER
At the house in Connaught Square Mrs. Lamb had to knock and ring
four times without, apparently, attracting the attention of any
one inside. She was meditating gaining admittance through the
area door, when a fifth assault upon the bell and knocker was
productive of a more definite result. After a good deal of what
seemed unnecessary fumbling with the handle, the door was opened
sufficiently wide to admit of Cottrell, the butler, being seen
within. He was attired in the same extremely undignified costume
in which he had greeted his mistress in the morning, which,
however, showed certain signs of what might be called
degeneration. The shirt-front was, if possible, more crumpled
than before; the collar was gone; the waistcoat had, in some
mysterious way, strayed out of the straight, so that while it
was on one side of his body the shirt was on the other; his hair
was rumpled; the whole man looked as if a plentiful application
of cold, clean water might do him a great deal of good.
He held the door just wide enough open to enable him to display
his person and to see who was there, seeming to be not at all
abashed when he perceived that it was his mistress.
"So it's you, is it! So you've come at last; it's about time;
we thought you never were coming. I hope you've brought some
money--everybody hopes so. It's no good your coming into this
house if you haven't--not the least."
Mrs. Lamb was in a bad temper, which, perhaps, on the whole was
not surprising. She had been in a bad temper when she had
started to visit Messrs. McTavish & Brown. The incidents which
had marked the afternoon had not tended to sweeten it. On the
contrary, for quite a time she had been looking for somebody on
whom, to use an expressive euphemism, she might "let herself
go". Had Mr. Cottrell been aware of the lady's state of mind,
even in his then peculiar condition, he might have realised that
there are occasions on which discretion is the better part of
valour. He would certainly hardly have afforded her not only so
excellent an opportunity of giving expression to her feelings,
but also so capital an occasion of making her quarrel just. She
looked at Mr. Cottrell with something in her eyes which should
in itself have been sufficient to serve as a warning; there was
still time for him to perform a strategic retreat. Without a
word she went quickly up the steps, flung the door wide open,
seized him by the shoulders, and sent him spinning into the
street. He sat, for some moments, on the kerb, as if overcome.
Then, exceeding rash, he retraced his way up the steps as best
he could, with the apparent intention of inquiring why he had
been handled in such unceremonious fashion. Before, however, he
had gained the actual summit, he went flying backwards, with the
lady's assistance, in such summary fashion that it was only the
back of his head being brought into contact with the pavement
that stopped him.
When he understood, dimly, what had happened, he began to raise
an agreeable hullabaloo, mingling imprecations on all and
sundry, with curses on the lady in particular, and cries of help
to the public and the police. Mrs. Lamb, for the third time that
day, was brought into contact with a constable. A policeman
appearing round the corner, perceiving Mr. Cottrell
gesticulating on the pavement, came sauntering up to learn what
was wrong. The butler explained.
"I give her into custody, that's what I do!--tried to murder me,
that's what she's done!--broken my brains out!--assault and
battery, that's what it is; and that's what I charge her with,
policeman. You put the handcuffs on her, and take her to the
station, and I'll come round and give all the evidence that's
wanted."
The officer was calmer than Mr. Cottrell. He heard the butler to
an end, then he glanced at his mistress.
"What's wrong?"
She explained.
"That man's my butler, although you would not think it to look
at him. He has taken advantage of my absence to get into that
condition. He kept me waiting for more than twenty minutes on
the doorstep, and then when he opened he was not only drunk but
insolent. I have dismissed him from my service, and put him into
the street, and out in the street he stops. I should be obliged
by your moving him away, and preventing his making a disturbance
in front of the house."
The policeman, who was young, leaped to the conclusion that
right was on the side of the lady. He was disposed to give the
butler but a short shrift.
"Now, then, move on! Away you go! We don't want any of your
nonsense here!"
Mr. Cottrell vehemently objected.
"Don't talk to me like that, policeman! She owes me three
months' wages; there's another nearly due, and another instead
of notice. You let her pay me five months' wages before she
talks of putting me out into the street."
The policeman looked up at the lady.
"Is what he says true?"
"It's an entire falsehood. Any claim he may have to make must be
made in the proper quarter."
She threw the door wide open. By now other members of the
household had, unwisely enough, come up to see what the
discussion was about. Her action revealed them.
"You see, officer, here are some more of my servants. They,
also, have taken advantage of my absence, and are like that
man--drunk. I dismiss them all--now. Perhaps you won't mind
coming in and seeing their boxes packed; I suspect them of
having property of mine in their possession."
The policeman went in--Mr. Cottrell went in also, with his
assistance; he saw their boxes packed. It was a process in which
the packers fared badly, the butler in particular. Each servant
in the house, almost without exception, was shown to be in
possession of property which was indisputably Mrs. Lamb's. Their
mistress' attitude was one of magnanimity. She declined to
prefer a charge against them, at any rate just then, whatever
she might do later. Though, of course, under the circumstances,
to pay them anything in the shape of wages was altogether out of
the question. All she wanted to do was to see their backs. And
she saw them. A shamefaced, miserable, draggle-tailed crew they
looked, as, one after the other, under the policeman's cold
official glance, they took their boxes out into the street. Then
Mrs. Lamb presented that zealous young officer with a sovereign.
He made short work of clearing the debris away from the front.
So Mrs. Lamb was left alone in that great mansion without a
servant to wait on her of any sort or kind.
She went into the boudoir; that and her bedroom, and indeed the
whole house, was exactly in the same condition in which she had
found it in the morning. It seemed as if no one had moved a
finger to put anything in order. Removing her hat, she sat down
and tried to think. The result was a failure. Her thoughts would
not travel on the lines she wished; they would launch out in
undesirable directions. She had scarcely been there a minute
before she began to become conscious of an unpleasant feeling
that she was not alone, when, all the time, she knew she was. An
odd, morbid obsession began to overpower her, as, directly she
was alone, it had shown an uncomfortable aptitude to do of late.
Putting her hands up to her eyes she rubbed them with her palms,
as if she were endeavouring to rub something away from them.
Then, removing her hands again, she looked about her, queerly.
"Of course it's ridiculous, and I suppose the real explanation
is that I'm not so well as I ought to be; but it's funny how I'm
always seeming to be back in his room, and how plainly I can see
it all; and the bed--the bed." There was a rigid expression on
her face which it was not agreeable to observe, as she herself
seemed to understand. Standing up she gave herself a little
shake, as if she were trying to shake something from off her.
"This won't do--it won't do. It's not healthy. And yet there's
something which I ought to look at--to see; to understand. It's
something in the room. It's not the bed--not only the bed; it's
something else. I wish I could think what it was; I wish I could
understand; then perhaps it might go."
The overturned decanter which had been on the buhl table in the
morning was still there. She picked it up, holding it up to the
light. It was empty. She went to what seemed to be a buhl
liqueur case which stood on the floor in a corner. It was
locked. She went to her bedroom to look for the key. It was not
in its usual place.
"I can't think where I put it; those brutes can't have had it. I
had it myself last night, I know. Where did I put it? I can't
wait to think--I can't wait; besides it doesn't matter. Anything
will do to open it."
She took a polished brass poker. With it she made a hole in the
lid of the case large enough to enable her to insert her
fingers. Then, with her hands, she tore the lid away--a
sufficiently easy task, since the wood proved to be less than an
eighth of an inch in thickness. The case contained six bottles.
She took out one; it was labelled "Pure Ether--Poison".
Withdrawing the stopper, paying no attention to the statement on
the label, she poured out nearly a wineglassful, which she
instantly swallowed, coupling with it, as it were, a somewhat
gruesome sentiment. "Here's to Isaac Luker! I wish he was in
reach; I'd like to kill him."
Scarcely were the words out of her lips than the door opened to
admit her husband. He stared at her.
"Belle, there doesn't seem to be a servant in the place--not a
creature. Where are they all off to? What's it mean?"
She replied to his question with another.
"Gregory, doesn't there seem to you to be something singular
about this bedroom?"
"Bedroom? It's not a bedroom; it's a boudoir. What do you mean?
Belle, what's the matter with the house? What have you got in
your hand? What are you drinking?"
Mrs. Lamb was looking round her in a fashion which induced her
husband to draw back, as if in doubt.
"Have you ever seen it before--anywhere? Isn't there something
strange about it?--especially the bed?"
Mr. Lamb seemed to be of opinion that his wife's manner was
distinctly disagreeable; apparently he did not know what to make
of it.
"Bed?--what bed? There's no bed here. You're--you're not well.
Don't talk like that; you make me go all over creeps. I say,
Belle, I do wish you'd give me some coin--if it's only a tenner.
I'm broke to the wide."
"Gregory!"
"Well?"
"Come here; I want to speak to you."
"Thank you, I'm awfully sorry, but I've got an appointment with
a man; I can't stop. About that money--Belle! now, what's up?"
With a swift, unexpected movement, interposing herself between
him and the door, his wife had slipped her arm through his, and
was looking at him with something in her big black eyes which
made him more uncomfortable than he would have cared to admit.
Considering the bold, ringing, almost blusterous tones in which
she was wont to speak, there was something unpleasantly
significant in the half-whisper in which she addressed him now.
"Gregory, you must stop--you mustn't go. There's something which
I wish to say to you--a great deal which I wish to say to you,
and I must say it to you now--here"--her voice sank still
lower--"in Cuthbert Grahame's bedroom."