Five Fatal Words (12 page)

Melicent demurred. "Look at our drug stores. Look at what we sell in them."

"That's different. The drug stores sell everything on earth, but these silly people sell just three things--wine, oil, and soap. Makes me sick."

When they had finished their marketing, Mrs. Wilbur suggested that they have some refreshment. "I know a perfectly darling café, but we will have to sit inside. I am dying for a glass of beer. Somehow or other I started to drink beer when I came over here. I know it's vulgar and that I've put on a great deal of weight, but I do like it. Of course, you have to be careful which café you go in because it's a manufacturing town and some of the places are very uncouth."

They went into the Café de la Rose and sat down. Along one end was a bar and behind it a glittering array of bottles. The room contained more than a dozen tables and several of them were occupied by Belgian men and women who, apparently, were having a drink before luncheon. Mrs. Wilbur ordered two glasses of beer. "It will do you good, my dear. I know it's fashionable in America now to be slender, but it's not healthy."

Melicent nodded. "I don't like it much, but I will, if you insist. It was terribly nice of you to take me shopping to-day."

"Quite all right. Love to do it. Having you in my house is a great pleasure.

Reminds me of my own girlhood. I suppose, too, it must be dreadfully boring to be my sister's secretary. She's such an old spinster. Always silent, always gloomy. I suppose by comparison I'm a chatterbox."

There was nothing for Melicent to say. The waiter set the glasses on the table and left them.

"Well, I am a chatterbox," Mrs. Wilbur continued. "But I'm not so empty-headed as you might think. And I don't miss much of what goes on around me. Now you are a nice sensible girl and a mighty pretty girl. I have taken quite a liking to you and I wonder if you would do me a favor."

"I'd be glad to do anything I can," Melicent replied.

"It isn't much. I gathered from my sister that you have been with the family for about a month. You were there when my brother Everitt died. I suppose you know the circumstances that surround our family, the will and everything, and you can't fail to notice the cautious way Hannah lives." Her plump face became a little more serious. "I suppose all of us have been a little bit nervous about ourselves. I know I have. I want my children to get Silas' fortune. That's only natural, isn't it? Now, I babble all the time, but I think just the same and I may say that I was quite surprised when Hannah wrote me that she was coming over here. Donald's father died in South America and he left there.

Everitt died over in Connecticut and Hannah left there. I thought that you probably were pretty wide awake and I wanted to ask you if you thought they left for any other reason than just that they decided to travel."

Melicent was dumfounded. She had thought of Mrs. Wilbur as a person who was garrulous and without a moment of real insight. Now, however, the face of the woman who sat across the table was concentrated. In her eyes was a great shrewdness and it became apparent that behind the careless manner was a considerable degree of mentality.

It suddenly occurred to Melicent that Alice Cornwall Wilbur was a woman in whom she might, after all, have considerable confidence.

She did not answer at once. She realized that when Daniel Cornwall had died and when Everitt Cornwall had died, Mrs. Wilbur had been thousands of miles away. The thought followed through her mind that if she could be sure of anything in the world she could be sure that a woman of Mrs. Wilbur's type was profoundly sane and would never for an instant consider interfering in any way with the human rights of her relatives. The burden of Melicent's private knowledge was great. She looked once more at the plump, earnest woman across the table and then she spoke.

"I don't know what Miss Cornwall would say if she knew that I was talking to you about the Cornwall family. I am sure she would be very angry and there is not much I can tell you. You've already hinted that Miss Cornwall is afraid of her life every moment. I gathered from her behavior that the news of Daniel Cornwall's death was a tremendous shock. She had heard it some time before I came to Blackcroft, but the death of her other brother in her own house seemed to be almost more than she could bear. It wasn't so much grief as fright. Anyone could see that. And his death--"

Mrs. Wilbur was leaning forward and looking straight into her eyes. "Yes," she said softly.

"His death was very strange. Electric lights do kill people, but"--Melicent drew a long breath--"I am going to tell you something which I have not told Miss Cornwall.

In the room next to the bathroom where her brother--your brother--died, there was a hole in the wall opposite the tub. After that hole was used-after your brother was killed-the fire was started, I believe, to hide what happened there."

Mrs. Wilbur's eyes did not waver.

"You said my brother was killed--he was murdered, you mean. That is no surprise to me. It was plain from the attitude taken by my sister and my nephew--though they have not acquainted me with the detail you have told me. Proceed, please."

"Did they tell you of the message your brother received just before his death?"

"What message?"

"The five word message similar to the message received by your brother Daniel just before he died."

"I heard of the strange message that came to Daniel. Donald wrote me at the time." Suddenly she had gone very pale. "But I did not know my brother Everitt had received a similar message, too. Tell me, please, Miss Waring. Proceed."

"The message which Donald says his father received was five meaningless words-

-'Doubtless even a tulip hopes,'' repeated Melicent, whispering. "About two hours before your brother Everitt died, or was killed, he received five other meaningless words with the same initial letters: 'Don't ever alter these horoscopes.'"

"What? Miss Waring, you know of that? You're sure of that?"

"I know it. Why? Why?" whispered Melicent, aghast at the effect upon Alice Cornwall Wilbur. "Why--have you received such a message, too?"

"I? Of course not. Of course not! It is close in here and what you have told me has shaken me, naturally. I didn't expect to learn so much from you, my dear."

The two glasses of beer stood on the table untouched. Mrs. Wilbur paid for them and rose. "But you were infinitely right to tell me." She had regained her composure. "We had better get back to the house."

She went out to the automobile and climbed in with an alacrity unusual in a person of her age. Her conversation on the return was as vacuous as it had always been.

That evening Melicent was in her room dressing, in--the light garments of Miss Cornwall. The door to Miss Cornwall's bedroom opened and the old lady came in.

Usually the exchange of rooms was made almost without discussion. Now, however, Miss Cornwall spoke.

"Are you content here?"

"It's very nice."

"Yes, it's nice for me. I am glad to see my sister again, although we may be leaving shortly."

Melicent looked up quickly. It seemed to her that Miss Cornwall's angular face was contracted; that she felt some internal agitation. She gave Melicent no opportunity to reply to her statement that they might depart soon.

"I want to change our habit a little just for to-night. I have drawn the blinds in my room, but I wish you would go in there and stay in the room with the lights on and write letters for awhile. You know--move around a bit. Take time going to bed. You see"--and the words that followed did not ring quite true--"we are getting so matter-of-fact about this system that it doesn't seem natural. I want you to behave in my room just as I would behave if I were there myself. That's logical, isn't it?"

Melicent felt herself gripped by a sense of foreboding, but she answered calmly, "Perfectly logical."

She did as Miss Cornwall had suggested. There was note paper on the desk in the bedroom and a fire burned in the grate. For an hour she sat at the desk and wrote a long letter to Helen, her former roommate in New York City. She knew that the letter would not, could not, be mailed, because it was part of her agreement with Miss Cornwall that she would communicate with no one during her year's service. However, into the letter she put all the interesting things she had seen during her stay in Europe and she sealed the letter precisely as if it were going to be mailed. From time to time she walked around the room so that anyone listening could hear her footsteps and she noticed that the lights threw her shadow on the curtains--a shadow which was identical to the one Miss Cornwall would have cast.

When she had finished the letter she threw it on the fire, turned out the lights and went to bed. She did not go to sleep, however. Any undue nervousness on the part of any member of the Cornwall family, any change of any domestic routine, was a cause for grave worry and frantic speculation. Moreover, there ran through her mind continually the memory of the incident with Mrs. Wilbur. Alice, she was A in the series of Cornwall names of whom D and E already were killed. Had Alice Cornwall now received the five meaningless words spelling death which had heralded the fate of the other two?

She had denied it with her lips, but--had she?

The fire in the grate flickered lower and died to glowing coals. The room became dark. Time passed slowly. She heard faint rustlings in the adjoining room where Miss Cornwall slept, and once she thought she heard the sound of the door creaking on its hinges, but afterwards there was silence--a silence that lasted for many minutes. Then somewhere in the distance a motor car started and its sound traveled off into the night.

The sound of the starting of the car was so far away that Melicent made no connection between it and the creakings in the house until some time afterward. She was ultimately convinced that the house had settled for the night and that everything was all right.

It was perhaps one o'clock when she fell asleep. The night outside was very dark and not a breath of wind was stirring. A heavy mist had risen on the river and the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the formation of myriad water drops on the outside panes of the window glass, where the mist was congealing. The drops of water illuminated by the ruddy glow of the embers in the grate were cherry red, as if blood had been lightly sprinkled upon the windows.

She woke up choking. The room was pitch dark. Her chest was heavily oppressed and her ears rang. Consciousness came to her instantly and she sat up in bed. She choked again. At first she thought there was something in her throat--a speck of lint from the pillow, perhaps, but she was unable to clear her throat. The feeling of strangulation increased and then, horrible in the gloomy darkness, came the thought that the air in her room had been poisoned. She could smell nothing, but a deep inhalation increased her discomfort.

She threw aside her covers and turned on the light. Dimly discernible in the room was a murkiness, a mist. She ran to the window and leaned out. The whole world was enveloped in a heavy blanket of fog. She could see nothing, not even the shadowy ground beneath her window. Outside air gave her no relief. She was seized with another paroxysm of coughing. It passed momentarily. She drew her head into the room and listened. Somewhere else in the house another person was also choking. She ran to the hall door and turned the knob, but it was locked. Then she went to the door that led to her room, where Miss Cornwall was sleeping. She knew that it would be locked, too, but nevertheless she tried the knob with one hand while she knocked loudly with the other.

The door swung open. It was dark in the other room and she could see nothing.

For a fraction of a second she hesitated, her mind reeling with a sudden fear of what she would find in that room. Then, instinctively crouching, she made a dash for the light switch. It clicked. The dim bulbs illuminated the chamber.

No one was in the bed. Hannah Cornwall had left the room, or had been taken away from it. Melicent had time to appreciate the shocking significance of that fact before she was seized by another paroxysm of choking.

Her eyes ran around the room. A nightdress and a nightcap layover the chair, but there was no sign of Miss Cornwall's clothes. Evidently she had dressed--or had been dressed--before she had been taken away. The heavy river mist poured over the window sill. She was standing with her back to the door that led to the hall, when somebody outside began to shout.

"WAKE up in there. Wake up, I say!"

At first Melicent realized only that it was a man, then she identified the voice as Lester's.

"I'm awake. I'll be out in a minute," she called in reply.

She whirled around and looked back into Miss Cornwall's room where she had been asleep. Apparently the whole household was awakened. She wondered what to do about Miss Cornwall. Should she tell everyone that Miss Cornwall was missing or should she say nothing about it? A fresh paroxysm of coughing made her decide to leave the rooms at once.

She changed into the clothes that were lying across a chair in Miss Cornwall's room--her own clothes--and, half dressed, she stumbled into the hall from her own bedroom. The mist had seeped into the entire house. It dimmed the already feeble electric lights. In long serpentine wraiths it moved through the hall. For a moment she saw no one and then Lester ran down the stairs from the third floor.

"Oh! Hello. Is my aunt awake ?"

Melicent solved her dilemma at once. She was compelled to tell him that Miss Cornwall was not there, for if she said the old lady was still asleep he would certainly go in to awaken her. She choked again before she could answer. "She's gone. I woke up just before you called and looked in her room. She's not there."

He hesitated. All their actions were accomplished quickly and the usual pauses for consideration or emphasis were shortened; nevertheless, they took place. He had one hand on his throat and the other on his chest. "Where's she gone? Never mind, we've got to get out of this."

"What is it?"

Lester shook his head. "I don't know. It's the fog." He was slowly becoming inarticulate. "It's so heavy it chokes you."