You might have heard a pin drop in the room. They were listening to the
footsteps outside the door, but the footsteps did not make the hush and
the nameless horror that pervaded it: the words spoken by Dr. Knox had
done that. Old Tamlyn stood, a picture of dismay. For myself, sitting
in the window-seat, my feet comfortably stretched out before me, and
partially sheltered by the red curtains, I could only gaze at them both.
Janet's footsteps died away. She appeared to have been crossing the hall
to the tea-room. And they began to talk again.
"I do not say that Lady Jenkins is being poisoned; absolutely,
deliberately poisoned," said Dr. Knox, in the hushed tones to which his
voice had dropped; "I do not yet go quite so far as that. But I do think
that she is in some way being tampered with."
"In what way?" gasped Tamlyn.
"Drugged."
The doctor's countenance wore a puzzled expression as he spoke; his eyes
a far-away look, just as though he did not see his own theory clearly.
Mr. Tamlyn's face changed: the astonishment, the alarm, the dismay
depicted on it gave place suddenly to relief.
"It cannot be, Arnold. Rely upon it you are mistaken. Who would harm
her?"
"No one that I know of; no suspicious person is about her to do it,"
replied Dr. Knox. "And there lies the puzzle. I suppose she does not
take anything herself? Opium, say?"
"Good Heavens, no," warmly spoke old Tamlyn. "No woman living is less
likely to do that than Lady Jenkins."
"Less likely than she _was_. But you know yourself how unaccountably she
has changed."
"She does not take opium or any other drug. I could stake my word upon
it, Arnold."
"Then it is being given to her--at least, I think so. If not, her state
is to me inexplicable. Mind you, Mr. Tamlyn, not a breath of this must
transpire beyond our two selves," urged Dr. Knox, his tone and his gaze
at his senior partner alike impressively earnest. "If anything is wrong,
it is being wilfully and covertly enacted; and our only chance of
tracing it home is to conceal our suspicion of it."
"I beg your pardon, Dr. Knox," I interrupted at this juncture, the
notion, suddenly flashing into my mind, that he was unaware of my
presence, sending me hot all over; "did you know I was here?"
They both turned to me, and Dr. Knox's confused start was a sufficient
answer.
"You heard all I said, Johnny Ludlow?" spoke Dr. Knox.
"All. I am very sorry."
"Well, it cannot be helped now. You will not let it transpire?"
"That I certainly will not."
"We shall have to take you into our confidence--to include you in the
plot," said Arnold Knox, with a smile. "I believe we might have a less
trustworthy adherent."
"You could not have one more true."
"Right, Johnny," added Mr. Tamlyn. "But I do hope Dr. Knox is mistaken.
I think you must be, Arnold. What are your grounds for this new theory?"
"I don't tell you that it is quite new," replied Dr. Knox. "A faint idea
of it has been floating in my mind for some little time. As to grounds,
I have no more to go upon than you have had. Lady Jenkins is in a state
that we do not understand; neither you nor I can fathom what is amiss
with her; and I need not point out that such a condition of things is
unsatisfactory to a medical man, and sets him thinking."
"I am sure I have not been able to tell what it is that ails her,"
concurred old Tamlyn, in a helpless kind of tone. "She seems always to
be in a lethargy, more or less; to possess no proper self-will; to have
parted, so to say, with all her interest in life."
"Just so. And I cannot discover, and do not believe, that she is in any
condition of health to cause this. _I believe that the evil is being
daily induced_," emphatically continued Dr. Knox. "And if she does
not herself induce it, by taking improper things, they are being
administered to her by others. You will not admit the first theory, Mr.
Tamlyn?"
"No, that I will not. Lady Jenkins no more takes baneful drugs of her
own accord than I take them."
"Then the other theory must come up. It draws the point to a narrow
compass, but to a more startling one."
"Look here, Arnold. If I did admit the first theory you would be
no nearer the light. Lady Jenkins could not obtain drugs, and be
everlastingly swallowing them, without detection. Madame St. Vincent
would have found her out in a day."
"Yes."
"And would have stopped it at once herself, or handed it over to me to
be dealt with. She is truly anxious for Lady Jenkins, and spares no
pains, no time, no trouble for her."
"I believe that," said Dr. Knox. "Whatsoever is being done, Madame St.
Vincent is kept in the dark--just as much as we are. Who else is about
her?"
"No one much but her maid, that I know of," replied old Tamlyn, after
a pause of consideration. "And I should think she was as free from
suspicion as madame herself. It seems a strange thing."
"It is. But I fear I am right. The question now will be, how are we to
set about solving the mystery?"
"She is not quite always in a lethargic state," observed Tamlyn, his
thoughts going off at a tangent.
"She is so more or less," dissented Dr. Knox. "Yesterday morning I was
there at eight o'clock; I went early purposely, and she was in a more
stupidly lethargic state than I had before seen her. Which of course
proves one thing."
"What thing? I fail to catch your meaning, Arnold."
"That she is being drugged in the night as well as the day."
"If she is drugged at all," corrected Mr. Tamlyn, shaking his head. "But
I do not give in to your fancy yet, Arnold. All this must edify you,
Johnny!"
Tamlyn spoke the words in a jesting sense, meaning of course that it had
done nothing of the kind. He was wrong, if to edify means to interest.
Hardly ever during my life had I been more excited.
"It is a frightful shame if any one is playing with Lady Jenkins," I
said to them. "She is as good-hearted an old lady as ever lived. And why
should they do it? Where's the motive?"
"There lies one of the difficulties--the motive," observed Dr. Knox. "I
cannot see any; any end to be obtained by it. No living being that I
know of can have an interest in wishing for Lady Jenkins's death or
illness."
"How is her money left?"
"A pertinent question, Johnny. I do not expect any one could answer it,
excepting herself and Belford, the lawyer. I _suppose_ her relatives,
all the nephews and nieces, will inherit it: and they are not about her,
you see, and cannot be dosing her. No; the motive is to me a complete
mystery. Meanwhile, Johnny, keep your ears and eyes open when you are up
there; there's no telling what chance word or look may be dropped that
might serve to give you a clue: and keep your mouth shut."