Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (21 page)

He fell back in such a
convulsion of pain that Bevis Holroyd forgot everything in administering to
him. The rest of that day and all that night the young doctor was shut up with
his patient, assisted by the secretary and the housekeeper.

And when, in the pallid
light of Christmas Eve morning, he went downstairs to find Lady Strangeways, he
knew that the sick man was suffering from arsenic poison, that the packet taken
from Mollie’s work box was arsenic, and it was only an added horror when he was
called to the telephone to learn that a stiff dose of the poison had been found
in the specimen of cambric tea.

He believed that he could
save the husband and thereby the wife also, but he did not think he could close
the sick man’s mouth; the deadly hatred of Sir Harry was leading up to an
accusation of attempted murder; of that he was sure, and there was the man
Deane to back him up.

He sent for Mollie, who
had not been near her husband all night, and when she came, pale, distracted,
huddled in her white fur, he said grimly:

“Look here, Mollie, I
promised that I’d help you and I mean to, though it isn’t going to be as easy
as I thought, but you have got to be frank with me.”

“But I have nothing to
conceal—”

“The name of the other
man—”

“The other man?”

“The man who wrote those
letters your husband has under his pillow.”

“Oh, Harry has them!” she
cried in pain. “That man Deane stole them then! Bevis, they are your letters of
the olden days that I have always cherished.”

“My letters!”

“Yes, do you think that
there has ever been anyone else?”

“But he says—Mollie,
there is a trap or trick here, some one is lying furiously. Your husband is
being poisoned.”

“Poisoned?”

“By arsenic given in that
cambric tea. And he knows it. And he accuses you.”

She stared at him in
blank incredulity, then she slipped forward in her chair and clutched the big
arm.

“Oh, God,” she muttered
in panic terror. “He always swore that he’d be revenged on me—because he knew
that I never cared for him—”

But Bevis Holroyd
recoiled; he did not dare listen, he did not dare believe.

“I’ve warned you,” he
said, “for the sake of the old days, Mollie—”

A light step behind them
and they were aware of the secretary creeping out of the embrowning shadows.

“A cold Christmas,” he
said, rubbing his hands together. “A really cold, seasonable Christmas. We are
almost snowed in—and Sir Harry would like to see you, Dr. Holroyd.”

“I have only just left
him—”

Bevis Holroyd looked at
the despairing figure of the woman, crouching in her chair; he was distracted,
overwrought, near to losing his nerve.

“He wants particularly to
see you,” cringed the secretary.

Mollie looked back at
Bevis Holroyd, her lips moved twice in vain before she could say: “Go to him.”

The doctor went slowly
upstairs and the secretary followed.

Sir Harry was now flat on
his back, staring at the dark tapestry curtains of his bed.

“I’m dying,” he announced
as the doctor bent over him.

“Nonsense. I am not going
to allow you to die.”

“You won’t be able to
help yourself. I’ve brought you here to see me die.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve a surprise for you
too, a Christmas present. These letters now, these love letters of my wife’s—what
name do you think is on them?”

“Your mind is giving way,
Sir Harry.”

“Not at all—come nearer,
Deane—the name is Bevis Holroyd.”

“Then they are letters
ten years old. Letters written before your wife met you.”

The sick man grinned with
infinite malice.

“Maybe. But there are no
dates on them and the envelopes are all destroyed. And I, as a dying man, shall
swear to their recent date—I, as a foully murdered man.”

“You are wandering in
your mind,” said Bevis Holroyd quietly. “I refuse to listen to you any further.”

“You shall listen to me.
I brought you here to listen to me. I’ve got you. Here’s my will, Deane’s got
that, in which I denounced you both, there are your letters, every one thinks
that
she
put you in charge of the
case, every one knows that you know all about arsenic in cambric tea through
the Pluntre case, and every one will know that I died of arsenic poisoning.”

The doctor allowed him to
talk himself out; indeed it would have been difficult to check the ferocity of
his malicious energy.

The plot was ingenious,
the invention of a slightly insane, jealous recluse who hated his wife and
hated the man she had never ceased to love; Bevis Holroyd could see the nets
very skilfully drawn round him; but the main issue of the mystery remained
untouched; who
was
administering the arsenic?

The young man glanced
across the sombre bed to the dark figure of the secretary.

“What is your place in
all this farrago, Mr. Deane?” he asked sternly.

“I’m Sir Harry’s friend,”
answered the other stubbornly, “and I’ll bring witness any time against Lady
Strangeways. I’ve tried to circumvent her—”

“Stop,” cried the doctor.
“You think that Lady Strangeways is poisoning her husband and that I am her
accomplice?”

The sick man, who had
been looking with bitter malice from one to another, whispered hoarsely:

“That is what you think,
isn’t it, Deane?”

“I’ll say what I think at
the proper time,” said the secretary obstinately.

“No doubt you are being
well paid for your share in this.”

“I’ve remembered his
services in my will,” smiled Sir Harry grimly. “You can adjust your differences
then, Dr. Holroyd, when I’m dead,
poisoned, murdered.
It
will be a pretty story, a nice scandal, you and she in the house together, the
letters, the cambric tea!”

An expression of ferocity
dominated him, then he made an effort to dominate this and to speak in his
usual suave stilted manner.

“You must admit that we
shall all have a very Happy Christmas, doctor.”

Bevis Holroyd was looking
at the secretary, who stood at the other side of the bed, cringing, yet somehow
in the attitude of a man ready to pounce; Dr. Holroyd wondered if this was the
murderer.

“Why,” he asked quietly
to gain time, “did you hatch this plan to ruin a man you had never seen before?”

“I always hated you,” replied
the sick man faintly. “Mollie never forgot you, you see, and she never allowed
me
to forget that she never forgot you. And then I found those letters she had
cherished.”

“You are a very wicked
man,” said the doctor dryly, “but it will all come to nothing, for I am not
going to allow you to die.”

“You won’t be able to
help yourself,” replied the patient. “I’m dying, I tell you. I shall die on
Christmas Day.”

He turned his head
towards the secretary and added:

“Send my wife up to me.”

“No,” interrupted Dr.
Holroyd strongly. “She shall not come near you again.”

Sir Harry Strangeways
ignored this.

“Send her up,” he
repeated.

“I will bring her, sir.”

The secretary left, with
a movement suggestive of flight, and Bevis Holroyd stood rigid, waiting,
thinking, looking at the ugly man who now had closed his eyes and lay as if
insensible. He was certainly very ill, dying perhaps, and he certainly had been
poisoned by arsenic given in cambric tea, and, as certainly, a terrible scandal
and a terrible danger would threaten with his death; the letters were
not
dated, the marriage was notoriously unhappy, and he,
Bevis Holroyd. was associated in every one’s mind with a murder case in which
this form of poison, given in this manner, had been used.

Drops of moisture stood
out on the doctor’s forehead; sure that if he could clear himself it would be
very difficult for Mollie to do so; how could even he himself in his soul swear
to her innocence!

Of course he must get the
woman out of the house at once, he must have another doctor from town,
nurses—but could this be done in time; if the patient died on his hands would
he not be only bringing witnesses to his own discomfiture? And the right
people, his own friends, were difficult to get hold of now, at Christmas time.

He longed to go in search
of Mollie—she must at least be got away, but how, without a scandal, without a
suspicion?

He longed to have the
matter out with this odious secretary, but he dared not leave his patient.

Lady Strangeways returned
with Garth Deane and seated herself, mute, shadowy, with eyes full of panic, on
the other side of the sombre bed.

“Is he going to live?”
she presently whispered as she watched Bevis Holroyd ministering to her
unconscious husband.

“We must see that he does,”
he answered grimly.

All through that
Christmas Eve and the bitter night to the stark dawn when the church bells
broke ghastly on their wan senses did they tend the sick man who only came to
his senses to grin at them in malice.

Once Bevis Holroyd asked
the pallid woman:

“What was that white
packet you had in your work box?”

And she replied:

“
I never had such a packet.”

And he:

“
I must believe you.”

But he did not send for
the other doctors and nurses, he did not dare.

The Christmas bells
seemed to rouse the sick man from his deadly swoon.

“You can’t save me,” he
said with indescribable malice. “I shall die and put you both in the dock—”

Mollie Strangeways sank
down beside the bed and began to cry, and Garth Deane, who by his master’s
express desire had been in and out of the room all night, stopped and looked at
her with a peculiar expression. Sir Harry looked at her also.

“Don’t cry,” he gasped, “this
is Christmas Day. We ought all to be happy—bring me my cambric tea—do you hear?”

She rose mechanically and
left the room to take in the tray with the fresh milk and water that the
housekeeper had placed softly on the table outside the door; for all through
the nightmare vigil, the sick man’s cry had been for “cambric tea.”

As he sat up in bed
feebly sipping the vapid and odious drink the tortured woman’s nerves slipped
her control.

“I can’t endure those
bells, I wish they would stop those bells!” she cried and ran out of the room.

Bevis Holroyd instantly
followed her; and now as suddenly as it had sprung on him, the fell little
drama disappeared, fled like a poison cloud out of the compass of his life.

Mollie was leaning
against the closed window, her sick head resting against the mullions; through
the casement showed, surprisingly, sunlight on the pure snow and blue sky
behind the withered trees.

“Listen, Mollie,” said
the young man resolutely. “I’m sure he’ll live if you are careful—you mustn’t
lose heart—”

The sick room door opened
and the secretary slipped out.

He nervously approached the
two in the window place.

“I can’t stand this any
longer,” he said through dry lips. “I didn’t know he meant to go so far, he is
doing it himself, you know; he’s got the stuff hidden in his bed, he puts it
into the cambric tea, he’s willing to die to spite you two, but I can’t stand
it any longer.”

“You’ve been abetting
this!” cried the doctor.