“Why, Mr. Piper!” was Oliver's first and wholly inane remark.
It was not what he had intended to say at all--something rather more
dramatic and on the lines of “Shoot if you must this old grey head,
but if you will only listen to a reasonable explanation--” had been
uppermost in his mind. But the sight of Peter's father crouched over
what must be Mrs. Severance's body, his weak hands fumbling for her
wrist and heart, his voice thin with a senile sorrow as if he had
been stricken at once and in an instant with a palsy of incurable age,
brought the whole world of Southampton and house-parties and reality
that Oliver thought he had lost touch with forever, back to him so
vividly that all he could do was gape at the tableau on the floor.
Mr. Piper looked up and for a second of relief Oliver thought that the
staring eyes had not recognized him at all. Then he realized from the
look in them that who or what he was made singularly little difference
now to Mr. Piper. “Water!” croaked Mr. Piper. “Water! I've shot her.
Oh, poor Rose, poor Rose!” and he was plucking at her dress again with
absorbed, incapable fingers.
Oliver looked around him. The gun. There must have been a gun. Where? Oh
_there_--and as he picked it up from under a chair he did so with much
inward reverence in spite of the haste he took to it, for he felt as if
it were all the next forty years of his life made little into something
cold and small and of metal that he was lifting like a doll from the
floor.
“Water,” said Mr. Piper again and quite horribly. “Water for Rose.”
It was only when he had gone back to the kitchen and started looking
for glasses that he realized that Mrs. Severance might very possibly be
dying out there in the other room. Till then the mere fact that he was
not dying himself had been too large in his vision to give him time
to develop proper sympathy for others. When he did, though, he hurried
bunglingly, in spite of a nervous flash in which after accidentally
touching the revolver in his pocket he almost threw it through the pane
of the nearest window before he considered. A moment, though, and he was
back with a spilling tumbler.
“Water,” said Mr. Piper with querulous satisfaction. “Give her water.”
Oliver hesitated. “Where's she shot?” he said sharply.
“I don't know. Oh, I don't know. But I shot her. I shot her. Poor Rose.”
It was certainly odd, there being no blood about, thought Oliver
detachedly. Internal wounds? Possibly, but even so. He dipped his
fingers in the glass of water, bent over Mrs. Severance and sprinkled
the drops as near her closed eyelids as possible. No sound came from her
and not a muscle of her body moved, but the delicate skin of the eyelids
shivered momentarily. Oliver drew a long breath and stepped back.
“She's dead,” said Mr. Piper. “She's dead.” And he began to weep, very
quietly with a mouselike sound and the slow horrible tears of age. “No
use trying water on her,” said Oliver loudly, and again he thought
he saw the skin of the eyelids twitch a little. “Is there any brandy
here--anything like that, Mr. Piper?”
“K-kitchen,” said Mr. Piper with a sniff and one of his hands came away
from Mrs. Severance to fumble for a key.
“I'll go get it,” said Oliver, still rather loudly, and took one step
away. Then he bent down again swiftly and poured the whole contents of
the tumbler he was holding into the little hollow of Mrs. Severance's
throat just above the collar-bone. _“Oh!”_ said the dead Mrs. Severance
in the tone of one who has turned on the cold in a shower unexpectedly,
and she opened her eyes.
“Rose!” said Mr. Piper snifflingly. “You aren't dead? You aren't dead,
dear? Rose! Rose!”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Severance again, but this time tinily and with a flavor
of third acts about her, and she started to relax rather beautifully
into a Dying Gladiator pose.
“I'll get some more water, Mr. Piper,” said Oliver briskly, and Mrs.
Severance began to sit up again.
“I--fainted--silly of me,” she said with a consummate dazedness.
“Somebody was firing revolvers--”
“I tried--I tried--I--t-tried to s-shoot you, Rose,” came from the damp
little heap on the floor that was Mr. Piper.
“Really, Sargent--” said Mrs. Severance comfortably. Then she turned
her head and made what Oliver was always to consider her most perfect
remark. “You must think us very queer people indeed, Mr. Crowe?” she
said smiling questioningly up at him.
Oliver's smile in answer held relief beyond words. It wasn't the
ordinary cosmos again--quite yet--but at least from now on he felt
perfectly sure that no matter how irregular anyone's actions might
become, in speech at least, every last least one of the social
conventions would be scrupulously observed.
“I think--if you could help me, Sargent--” said Mrs. Severance
delicately.
“Oh yes, yes, yes,” from Mr. Piper very eagerly and with Oliver's and
his assistance Mrs. Severance's invalid form was aided into a deep
chair.
“And I think, now,” she went on, “that if I could have just a little--”
She let the implication float in the air like a pretty bubble.
“Perhaps--it might help us all--”
“Oh _certainly,_ dear,” from Mr. Piper. “I--”
“In the kitchen, you said, Mr. Piper. And you must let _me,”_ from
Oliver with complete decision. He hadn't bargained for that. Mr. Piper
might not notice Ted on the fire-escape--but then again he might--and
if he did he would certainly investigate--mute bound bodies were not
ordinary or normal adjuncts of even the most illegal of Riverside Drive
apartments. And then. Oliver's hand went down over the revolver in his
pocket--if necessary he stood perfectly ready to hold up Mr. Piper
at the point of his own pistol to preserve the inviolability of that
kitchen.
But Mrs. Severance saved him the bother.
“If you would be so kind?” she said simply. “It's in the small
cupboard---the brown one--Sargent, you have the key?”
“Oh, yes, Rose.” Mr. Piper was looking, Oliver thought, rather more
embarrassed than it was fair for any man to have to look and live.
His eyes kept going pitifully and always to Mrs. Severance and then
creeping, away. He produced the key, however, and gave it to Oliver
silently and Oliver took the first opportunity when he was through the
curtains of giving whatever fates had presided over the insanities of
the evening a long cheer with nine Mrs. Severances on the end.
He carefully stayed in the kitchen fifteen minutes--devoting most of
the time to a cautious examination of Ted, who seemed to be gradually
recovering consciousness. At least he stirred a little when poked by
Oliver's foot.
“Sleeps just like a baby--oh, the sweet little fellow--the dear little
fellow--” hummed Oliver wildly as he made a few last additions to the
curious network of string and towels with which he had wound Ted
into the fire-escape as if he had been making him a cocoon.
“Well--well--_well_--what a night we're having! What a night we're
having and what _will_ we have next?” Then he remembered the reason for
his journey and removed a bottle of brandy from the brown cup-board,
found appropriate glasses and, in the ice-chest, club-soda and ginger
ale. He poured himself a drink reminiscent of Paris--not that he felt
he needed it for the reaction from bracing himself to die like a Pythias
had left him elvishly grotesque in mind--gathered the bottles tenderly
in his arms like small glass babies and went back to the living-room.