XXIII

That night, about one o'clock, as Chesney lay heavily asleep under the

influence of two grains of morphia (he only dared to take these large

doses when night was coming on), the little nurse, Brownie-like and

cat-foot in her grey flannel wrapper and felt shoes, stole into the

room. Gaynor slept in his master's dressing-room on a cot. Anne had been

given a room just opposite. The night-light burned behind a screen as in

London, and over the ceiling spread huge, grotesque shadows from chairs

and tables--shadows that were a horror to Chesney, in the gruesome

intervals between dose and dose. They seemed solid then, those

shadows--informed with a weird life. They hung bat-like from his

ceiling, waiting to drop down on him. Morphia gives the sick,

unreasoning fear that comes only in dreams--the kind of fear that will

seize one in such dreams--at the sight of a grey, spotted leaf shaken by

a wind--or the slow opening of a door upon a void.

The little figure stood motionless a moment, listening towards the bed.

Then it stole over, bending close to the sleeping man. With skilful

light fingers Anne lifted one of the sleeper's heavy hands, then let it

drop again upon the bedclothes. Chesney did not stir--his breathing did

not change.

With a brisk movement of satisfaction, the nurse now drew a black,

oblong object from the pocket of her dressing-gown, and going swiftly

over to the fireplace, put the fender noiselessly aside, and knelt down

on the hearth. She was sure, quite sure now, as sure as one could be of

anything theoretically divined, that the hypodermic syringe and morphia

were concealed somewhere in that chimney-place. She had looked there

before, but not in the exhaustive way that she meant to look now. She

had even felt along the shelf of the chimney-throat with her hands, but

there had been nothing. Now, inch by inch, like a little Miss Sherlock

Holmes, she meant to examine that cold, sooty cavity. The black tube in

her hand was a small electric pocket-light, such as had just come in

about that time. When she had looked before, she had used her bedroom

candle. Now she meant to turn that bright, electric gleam on every inch

of the brickwork and metal. Slowly she drew the pencil of light from

side to side, lying flat, and beginning her search under the bars of the

grate; then, crouching, she directed the ray higher, towards the bend of

the chimney-throat, feeling, tapping, with her free hand as she did so.

A fire had evidently been made there recently, probably on the day of

Chesney's arrival; for, though the grate had been freshly polished only

that morning and the housemaid's broom had swept the back of the

chimney, yet a slight fluff of soot clung to it higher up. Anne touched

this soot, pressing down her fingers firmly, delicately, feeling for

some crevice, some loose bit of brick or iron. All was firm and cold.

She sat back on her heels, disappointed. She looked--crouching there in

her grey wrapper, with the short, black curls framing her thin, baffled

little face--like some determined child who had decided to watch and

surprise Santa Claus in his descent from the roof--and who had watched

in vain. Then suddenly she knelt up again. Something had caught her

clever eyes. She noticed--and at this, the well-regulated little

timepiece of her heart began to tick hurriedly--yes, she had noticed

that in one corner of the chimney-throat there was a broad, smooth place

where the soot was quite worn away. The dark-red fire-brick showed

plainly through. Anne passed the bright glow of light across this smooth

patch very slowly. No; the bricks were not loose here. She held the

light closer, gazing with eyes narrowed to the utmost intensity of

vision. There was a little spot, or excrescence, on the brick near the

seam of the corner. She had felt it with her finger-tips as she drew

them lightly back and forth. She had thought this roughness merely a

defect in one of the bricks. Now she touched it again--scraped it with

her nail. Her nail made no sound against it. Then she pressed upon it.

The nail sank in. It was perhaps a bit of putty left by the work-men.

But then putty isn't used for building fireplaces; besides, the fire

would have melted it long ago----

She began to feel all around it. Suddenly something in the angle, in the

seam where the chimney-throat squared, caught her eye. It looked like a

bit of black wire. She picked at it with her nail, and it yielded--like

the string of a tightly strung guitar. All at once it flashed over the

little detective. That rough lump was wax; it fixed the end of this

black string in place. The string was taut, because it was held

so--held by a weight at the other end probably. Anne did not know

anything about the construction of chimney-throats--had she done so, the

solution would have come to her sooner. But she guessed now that there

must be a hollow behind the brickwork that faced her. She slid her hand

up and forward. Yes, there was an empty space behind--the usual

air-chamber in all well-built chimneys of which she had not known. Ah,

now she had it! Carefully, very daintily, little by little, she began to

pull up the fine black silk cord which, as she had guessed, passed from

where its end was fixed in place by that lump of wax or putty down the

back of the chimney-throat. It answered readily. She felt the weight on

its other end scraping against the wall as she drew it up. In another

moment she had it in her hand--a little parcel, wrapped in oiled paper.

As she broke open the paper and looked down at the object in her hand,

her face was a study of elfish triumph and unwilling admiration.

"What couldn't they do to the world, if they were as hideously clever at

everything else as they are at hiding this stuff!" thought Anne Harding,

referring to the tribe of morphinomaniacs as known to her experience.

She set the fender back, and getting stiffly to her feet, cramped by

nearly an hour's crouching, returned to her own room and locked the

just-found hypodermic case safely away in the bottom of her

travelling-box.

* * * * *

By five o'clock next morning Anne was fully dressed, capped, and

aproned. She made herself a cup of strong black tea over her little

spirit lamp, nibbled two biscuits, and, glancing at her bracelet-watch,

went out with her light, quick step. She passed Chesney's door and

entered the dressing-room. Gaynor, who slept as lightly as a cat,

started wide awake when the nurse entered. He drew the bedclothes to his

chin, feeling with his other hand for his dressing-gown which lay on a

chair near by. He could never get used to the unceremonious entrances of

this little stranger woman into his bedroom. She came to him, her finger

against her lips, bent down, and whispered:

"I've found the morphia and the syringe Mr. Chesney has been hiding,

Gaynor. I'm going to tell him of it myself. He'll be rousing about now.

No matter what you hear, don't get frightened. I'm going to lock his

door inside and put the key in my pocket. Don't try to interfere--will

you? Don't come to the door or answer, even if he calls you?"

Gaynor had flushed deeply on hearing of his master's detected falsehood.

Now he turned pale. "Ain't you afraid, Miss?" he asked. He was always

punctiliously civil to the nurse. He felt that it would not be

respectful for one in his position to call her "Nurse"--the little woman

who was trying to save his master. He had a sense of gratitude and of

fitness rare, not only in a servant.

"No!" Anne whispered vigorously. "No; I'm not a bit afraid. I've had

much worse cases than this. I'll manage him."

"He's a gentleman with a very high spirit, Miss."

"I'm not afraid of his high spirit. Maybe it won't be so high when I'm

through with him. I'm an Australian, you know, Gaynor. I don't think

Australians are as afraid of their menfolk as Englishwomen. You must

keep quiet till I'm through. That's all."

She turned and went out, passing through the connecting door into

Chesney's bedroom. She locked the door as she had said, pocketing the

key. Shrewdly she glanced at the still sleeping man. He had been asleep

for ten hours now. She knew that at the stage of morphinomania that he

had reached the effect of a dose lasted only about four hours when the

victim of the habit was awake, though the heavy, drugged sleep resulting

from it might drag on for some hours after. The least sound or touch was

sufficient to rouse him now. After lighting the coffee machine, she

decided to open the shutters. The cold, raw daylight would have a

wholesomely chilling effect, should he show a tendency to become

violent. Braver than many soldiers, the little nurse went from one

window to the other of the large bedroom, throwing wide the shutters and

fastening them back. A gale was whipping the great boughs of the trees,

the rain blew in upon her, spotting the bosom of her dress and her fresh

apron-bib and cap. It was like a bleak September day, and it seemed

strange to see green leaves instead of yellow ones flying through the

air.

"And this is June. What a beastly climate!" thought the little

Australian.

Then she turned, drying her face and hands with her handkerchief. As she

expected, Chesney was watching her from his pillow. His face, grey with

morphia and glistening like wet clay with the odious sweat that follows

on an exhausted dose, looked more deathly than a corpse's clear, waxen

mask.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked, speaking thickly with his pasty tongue

and dried lips.

"Ten after five," said Anne Harding briskly. "You'll be wanting a cup of

coffee, I fancy, sir."

"Isn't it time for ... for the ... er ... usual ... thing, yet?" He

could never bring himself, in these moments of weakness and horrible,

faint desire, to name the drug plainly.

"Your allowance of morphia?"

Anne did not mean to spare him. She glanced down at her bracelet. How

Chesney hated that tyrannical watch on the nurse's thin wrist! It seemed

like some horrible wen, or tumour, to him. Until she had fussed over him

and gone he could not get the stuff out of the chimney-place--the stuff

which was now simply and literally life to him.

"Not due for twenty minutes yet, sir," she said cheerfully, glancing up

again. "But I'll just bathe your face and hands and bring you the

coffee. It'll be ready by then. I'll tidy you a bit, sir, then fetch

it."

There was nothing for it but submission. Sometimes, on these occasions,

Chesney ran over in his mind horrid ways in which he would "pay back"

this little woman for the misery she made him endure in such moments,

should he ever get her wholly in his power.

She "tidied" him deftly, plumped up his pillows as he liked them, and

fetched the coffee. When he had drunk it (black and strong Anne made it,

and let him have it without insisting on cream or sugar--she had her

compassions for these poor, mad-willed beings), she lifted the tray from

the bed, and, glancing at her watch again, drew up a chair and sat down

facing him.

"Ten minutes yet, sir, to wait," she said. "And I've something I want to

say to you."

"Well, say it, then," said Chesney drily. He was too weak just then to

feel fury, but what he felt resembled it as furious action in a

nightmare sometimes resembles real action--as when, for instance, one

tries to swim after an enemy and finds that one is cleaving one's way

through thick, clogging waves of treacle.

Anne looked straight at him.

"It's this," she said: "I want to tell you myself that I've found your

extra hypodermic and supply of morphia."

She rose as she said this and stood on her guard. Chesney stared blankly

for a second; then he gave a sort of animal outcry, and half sprang from

the bed.

"Steady, Mr. Chesney!" called the nurse, sharp and clear. "_I'm not

afraid of you!_"

Chesney sat, with half-suffocated, soblike sounds breaking from his

great, naked, hairy chest. His hands clenched and unclenched. The

bedclothes half torn from the bed by his sliding bound were tangled

about his feet.

He gasped out the words--spat them at her:

"You little civet-cat. You damned little skunk! You----"

He could not articulate. His teeth ground together. He half rose, as

though to leap on her.

"Keep _still_!" said she, in a fierce, low little voice. "You're not

ready for murder--yet--I hope. Nor you've not sunk low enough to strike

a woman----"

"Strike you! You little b----h, I could break you in bits with my bare

hands!"

They stayed glaring at each other. It was the glare that a huge dog and

a dauntless little cat exchange when death is in the air. Then Anne

spoke:

"Be a man ... for Gawd's sake ... _pretend_ to be a man!" she said.

Chesney blinked and gasped with fury and weakness, as though she had

spat in his face.

Anne followed it up.

"Look here," said she; "I'm trying with all my might to save you from

hell ... yes, _hell_, sir!" She pounded her little brown fist against

her other palm. "And you want to kill me for it. But I'm stronger than

you are. Yes, I am! For why? For why my nerves ain't rotten with that

filthy poison you love like mother's milk. And I'm going to save you

whether you will or no! God or the devil helping me--I don't much care

which--I'm going to save you! You hear that?"

She went closer to him--a little, furious figure, quivering with

righteous rage.

"D'you think I'm afraid of you? Not much I ain't! Just look at me and

tell me what you think about it."

Chesney sat hypnotised. Here was the Mongoose to his Serpent with a

vengeance. Something began to rise slowly up in him--something clear and

clean rising from the dregs of his stupefied better nature. It was that

unwilling meed of admiration that the conquered pay to a courageous foe.

Suddenly he laughed. It was a shocking sight and sound, this hoarse,

weak laughter issuing from that grey, sweating face.

"By God! You little Bush-Ranger, you've got guts!" he gasped.

Anne was changed, as St. Paul says the redeemed will be changed, in the

twinkling of an eye. It was the psychological moment. It came

differently to different patients, and she arrived at it by varying

methods, but it always came when Nurse Harding was on a case.

Her rigid figure relaxed, her little face softened with her childlike

smile.

"See here. I'm your _friend_," she said. "Your _friend_, man; not your

enemy. Now you just 'fess up, as the children say. Tell me _really_ how

much of the stuff you're in the habit of taking, and I'll make you comfy

with a dose in proportion, right away--this very minute. I won't wait

for doctor's orders or anything. Will you tell me? Eh?"

Her voice was too pretty for words, thus wheedling and coaxing the huge

man. So might Jenny Wren chuck and chirp to some big Cuckoo-bastard, to

venture from the nest that her kind step-motherhood had provided.

Chesney was at that point in the fight when even a great lad will sob

sometimes from sheer rage and exhaustion. He sank back, pulling up the

sheet about his face so as to hide it from her.

Anne slipped the hypodermic case from her pocket, opened it, and went

over beside him.

"Now, then ... now, then," she coaxed, like some one gentling a

fractious horse. "See--here's the blessed, devilish old stuff. _I_ know

how you're craving it--damn it for a nasty half-breed of saint and

fiend! It's here--right here in my hand. Only tell me--_the

truth_--about how much you've been giving yourself, and I swear to you

as I'm an honest human, I'll give you enough to ease you."

There was a silence. Then from under the lifted sheet came the words:

"Twelve grains a day."

"In the twenty-four hours?"

"Yes."

"That's really all?... I'm asking for your own sake, mind you. The dose

will be in proportion, you know."

"As near as I can tell--it's all. Maybe now and then it's more----"

Suddenly he started up, flinging off the sheet.

"Damn you! You little hell-cat! Damn you!" he cried. "You're worming it

out of me for your own ends. You're lying!"

"_You're_ lying, and you know it!" said Anne Harding sternly.

"Here--keep still while I prepare this. You'll soon know whether I'm

lying or not when I've given it to you. _It_ doesn't lie."

He closed his eyes, feeling that he lay in the very bilge-water of

existence. A woman--a scrawny little hireling--had him, Cecil Chesney,

in her power. Had made him confess. Was about to deal mercy out to him

with a drug. He could have howled with the Chaldean: "Cursed be the day

that I was born and the hour wherein I was conceived!"

Then into his loathed flesh slipped suddenly the little sting of

steel--sweeter than the kiss of first love to the innocent.