Captain Grey was enchanted with the idea of Lexy’s spending a week
with his sister. He was going, too. Indeed, Lexy felt sure that Mrs.
Quelton had wanted him to go there some time ago, and that he had
refused simply on her own account. He didn’t like to leave her alone
at Mrs. Royce’s, and after her nervous breakdown that afternoon
nothing could have induced him to do so. He was anxious about her. He
tried, with what he believed was great tact, to find out her plans for
the future. He was genuinely troubled by the loneliness and
uncertainty of her life.
Lexy appreciated all this, and she liked the young man very
much—perhaps as much as he liked her; but the sympathetic
understanding which had promised to develop on the night when they
talked together in the firelight had never developed.
Something had checked it. They were the best of friends, but Captain
Grey never again referred to what Lexy had told him about Caroline
Enderby, and about her reason for coming to Wyngate; and Lexy said
nothing, either. Evidently he thought that it had been a far-fetched,
romantic notion of hers, and hoped that she had forgotten all about
it.
Lexy did not try to undeceive him. Her story would be too fantastic
for him to believe. Nobody would believe it, except a person with
absolute faith not only in her honesty but in her intelligence and
clearsightedness; and there was no such person. She was not resentful
or grieved over this. She accepted it quietly, and prepared to go
forward alone.
It had occurred to her lately that perhaps Mr. Houseman had been
right, and that Caroline had gone away of her own free will; but she
meant to _know_. She had seen the missing girl in Dr. Quelton’s house.
Whatever the doctor might say about the false evidence of the senses,
Lexy’s confidence in her own clear gray eyes was not in the least
shaken. She had seen Caroline once, and she was going to see her
again. That was why she was going to the Tower.
“It’ll do Muriel no end of good,” said Captain Grey, when they were in
the taxi. “She’s—to tell you the truth, Miss Moran, I don’t feel
altogether easy about her.”
“Why?” asked Lexy, very curious to know what he thought.
“Well,” he said, “it’s hard to put it into words; but that’s not a
wholesome sort of life for a young woman, shut away like that. The
doctor says her health’s not good, but it’s my opinion that if she got
about more—saw more people, you know—”
Lexy felt a great pity for him. Apparently he did not even suspect
what she was now sure of—that the unfortunate Muriel was hopelessly
addicted to some drug, which her husband himself gave to her.
“And I hope he’ll go back to India before he does find out,” she
thought. “It’s too horrible—he worships her so!”
“I’ve tried, you know,” he went on. “I wanted to take her into the
city, to a concert. Seems confoundedly queer, doesn’t it, the way
she’s lost interest in her music? She didn’t want to go. Then about
the emerald—”
“Oh!” said Lexy, who had forgotten about the emerald.
“Chap I know designed a setting for it. It’s unset now, you know, and
I thought I’d like to do that for her while I was here; but she
doesn’t seem interested. I can’t even get her to let me see the thing.
I’ve asked her two or three times, but she always puts me off. Do you
think it bores her?”
“Perhaps it does,” replied Lexy.
“Well,” said the young man, “when a woman’s bored by a jewel like
that, she’s in a bad way. I wish you could see it!”
“I wish I could,” said Lexy, and added to herself: “But I don’t think
I ever shall. Probably her husband’s got it.”
They had now reached the Tower. The parlor maid opened the door for
them, and at once conducted Lexy upstairs to her room.
It was a big room, with four windows, and very comfortably furnished;
but even a fire burning in the grate and two or three shaded electric
lamps could not give it a homelike air. There was a musty smell about
it, and there was an amazing amount of dust. It was neat, but it
wasn’t clean. Dust rose from the carpet when she walked, and from the
chair cushions when she sat down. She saw fluff under the bed and
under the bureau.
“Not much of a housekeeper, poor soul!” thought Lexy. “It’s a pity.
One could do almost anything with a house like this, and all this
beautiful old furniture!”
But this, after all, was a minor matter. She took off her hat, washed
her hands and face, brushed her hair, and left the room, closing the
door quietly behind her.
“The house is strange to me,” she said to herself, with a grin. “I
shouldn’t wonder if I turned the wrong way, and got lost!”
That was what she intended to do. She did not expect to make any
sensational discoveries, for Dr. Quelton did not seem to be the sort
of person who would leave clews lying about for her to pick up; but
she did hope that she might see or hear something—Heaven knows
what—that might bring her nearer to Caroline.
So, instead of walking toward the stairs, she turned in the opposite
direction, along a hall lined with doors, all of them shut. At the end
there was a grimy window, through which the sun shone in upon the
dusty carpet and the faded wall paper. There was a forlorn and
neglected air about the place, a stillness which made it impossible
for her to believe that there was any living creature behind those
closed doors.
“I wish I had cheek enough to open some of them,” she thought; “but
I’m afraid I haven’t. I shouldn’t know what to say if there was some
one in the room. After all, I’m supposed to be a guest. I’ve got to be
a little discreet about my prying.”
She went softly along the hall to the window, to see what was out
there. When she reached it, she was surprised to see that the last
door was a little ajar. She looked through the crack. It wasn’t a room
in there, but another hall, only a few feet long, ending at a narrow
staircase.
“That must be the way to the cupola,” she thought. “I suppose a guest
might go up there, to see the view.”
So she pushed the door open and went on tiptoe to the stairs; and then
she heard a voice which she had no trouble in recognizing. It was Dr.
Quelton’s.
“My dear young man,” he was saying. “I am not a psychologist. It has
always seemed to me the greatest folly to devote serious study to the
workings of so erratic and incalculable a machine as the human brain.
It is a study in which there are, practically speaking, no general
rules, no trustworthy data. It is, in my opinion, not a science at
all, but a philosophy; and philosophy makes no appeal to me. I frankly
admit that I am entirely materialistic. I care little for causes, but
much for effects. Consequently, I have devoted myself to medicine, in
which I can produce certain effects according to established rules.”
“But I meant more particularly the effect of—of things on the mind—the
brain, you know,” said Captain Grey’s voice.
Again Lexy felt a great pity for him. He sounded very, very young in
contrast to the doctor—so young and earnest, and so helpless!
“Exactly!” said the doctor. “You were, I believe, trying to lead to a
suggestion that psychology might be of help to Muriel. Am I right?”
There was a moment’s pause, during which Lexy very cautiously went
halfway up the stairs.
“I did think of that,” said the young man valiantly. “It seems to me
she’s a bit—well, morbid, you know; and I’ve heard about those
chaps—those psychoanalysts, you know. Simply occurred to me that one
of them—merely a suggestion, you know. I’m not trying to be
officious.”
“A psychoanalyst,” said Dr. Quelton, “is a man who analyzes the
psyche, who solemnly and expensively analyzes something of whose
existence he has no proof whatever.”
There was another silence.
By this time Lexy had reached the head of the stairs. Beside her was
an open door, through which she could look, while she herself was
hidden from view. Beyond it was, as she had thought, the cupola—a
small octagonal room with windows on every side, through which the sun
poured in a dazzling flood. There was nothing in the room except a
white enamel table, a stool, a porcelain sink, and an open cabinet,
upon the shelves of which stood rows and rows of bottles, each one
labeled. Facing this cabinet, and with their backs toward the door,
stood the two men—the doctor with his shoulders hunched and his hands
clasped behind him, and Captain Grey, tall, slender, straight as a
wand.
“Materia medica—that is my art,” said the doctor. “I have devoted my
life to it, and I have learned—a little. I have made experiments. A
psychologist will offer to tell you why a man has murdered his
grandmother. I can’t pretend to do that, but I can give that man a
tablet which will make it practically certain that he _will_ kill his
grandmother if they are left alone together for ten minutes.”
“But, I say!” protested Captain Grey.
“I can assure you that I have never made the experiment,” said Dr.
Quelton, with a laugh; “but I could do it. I have learned that certain
states of mind can be produced by certain drugs.”
Captain Grey turned his head, so that Lexy could see his handsome,
sensitive face in profile.
“That seems to me a pretty risky thing to do,” he said, with a trace
of sternness. “I hope, sir, that you don’t—”
“Don’t give Muriel drugs that make her disposed to murder her
grandmother?” interrupted the doctor, with another laugh; but he must
have noticed that his companion was unresponsive, for he at once
changed his tone. “No,” he said gravely. “I have made a particular
study of Muriel’s case. She seriously overtaxed herself in her musical
studies. Don’t be alarmed, my dear fellow—there is no permanent
injury. It is simply a profound mental and nervous lassitude—obviously
a case where artificial stimulation is required, until the tone of the
lethargic brain is restored. I am able to do for her what, I feel
certain, no one else now living could do. In this bottle”—he tapped
one of them with his forefinger—“I have a preparation which would make
my fortune, if I had the least ambition in that direction. Five drops
of that, in a glass of water, and her depression and apathy are
immediately dispelled. There is an instantaneous improvement in—”
Lexy waited to hear no more. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as
she had come up, hurried along the hall, and went into her own room
again. Her knees gave way and she collapsed into a chair, staring
ahead of her with the most singular expression on her face.
She was, in fact, looking at a new idea, and it was not a welcome one.
“No!” she said to herself. “It’s out of the question. It’s too
dangerous. I can’t do it!”
But the idea remained solidly before her; and the more she
contemplated it, the more was her honest heart obliged to admit the
possibilities in it.
“It can’t do any real harm,” she said; “and it might do good—so much
good! All right, I’m going to do it!”
Half an hour before dinner she went down into the library, a polite
and quiet young guest, even a little subdued. Dr. Quelton took Captain
Grey out for a stroll on the beach. He asked Lexy to go with them, but
she said she would prefer to stay with Mrs. Quelton.
It was very peaceful and pleasant there in the library. The late
afternoon sun shone in through the long window, touching with a benign
light the shabby and graceful old furniture, picking out a glitter of
gold on the binding of a book, a dull gleam of silver or copper in a
corner. A mild breeze blew in, fluttering the curtains and bringing a
wholesome breath of the salt air.
Mrs. Quelton was at her best. To be sure, she was not very
interesting. She talked about rather banal things—about the weather,
about a kitten that had run away, about the flowers in the
conservatory; but Lexy, as she watched her and listened to her, could
understand better than ever before what it was in Captain Grey’s
sister that had so seized upon his heart. Languid and aloof as she
was, there was nevertheless an undeniable charm about her, something
sweet and kindly and lovable. She said, more than once, how very glad
she was to have Lexy with her, and Lexy believed she meant it.
The two men had strolled out of sight.
“I must have left my handkerchief upstairs,” said Lexy. “Excuse me
just a minute, please!”
But she was gone more than a minute, and when she returned her face
was curiously white.