"As you have already said, we left Atworth in order to keep an appointment here. I was entertaining a house-party, but made an excuse that one of my aunts in Cheltenham was dangerously ill. I left, and, unknown to my husband or any other person, travelled with Beryl to London."
I noted that she inadvertently used my love"s proper name instead of Feo, the name by which she had introduced us.
"The appointment was with Mrs Chetwode?" I suggested.
"Yes," she answered. "I had arranged to meet her to-day at two o"clock."
"I have read in the newspapers, reports of the terrible tragedy at Whitton. It was her husband who was murdered, was it not?"
"Yes," she answered in a tone rather unusual. Then she pursed her lips and held her breath for a single instant. "She has been staying with her sister in Taunton since the awful affair occurred, and came to town purposely to meet me."
"I think, if I mistake not, both you and your cousin were at Whitton at the time of the tragedy," I observed with affected carelessness.
"Oh no; fortunately we were not," she answered quickly. "We left the day previously."
That certainly was not the truth--at least, Beryl had been there at four o"clock in the afternoon. But I made no remark. It would not be policy to tell this woman of my visit to Whitton and of all I had overheard and seen.
"Well, and to-day? Did your friend Mrs Chetwode call?"
Again she hesitated, and that aroused within me a further suspicion.
"Yes," she replied. "She remained an hour, then left."
"Alone?"
"No; we went with her?"
"Where?"
"To visit a friend in Cadogan Place."
"And how long did you remain?"
"About half an hour."
"Cannot you tell me the name of this friend?"
"No," she answered; "it is of no account."
"Did you or your cousin eat or drink anything today, except here in your own house?"
"Nothing. The person whom we visited offered us port wine, but neither of us accepted."
"No tea?"
"None," she answered. "We afterwards returned home, arriving about five o"clock, took tea here, and dined at half-past six. An hour later, just as we had finished dinner, the servant handed Beryl a card; and she rose, excusing herself on the plea that her dressmaker had called, and, saying that she would return in a moment, left me alone to finish my dessert. I waited for her return for fully twenty minutes, then went across to the morning-room. The light had been switched off, and, when I turned it on, I saw to my horror that she was lying full length on the floor, apparently dead. We carried her here, and then I at once went in search of you."
"And is that all you know?" I inquired rather incredulously.
"Everything," she a.s.sured me. "I found Beryl lying helpless and insensible, just as she is now."
"And that was an hour and a half ago?" I remarked.
"Yes."
"But who was this caller? Surely you are able to ascertain that? The servant asked the person in."
"It was a woman, and she asked for my cousin."
"Then you don"t actually know that it was the dressmaker?"
"The servant can give no accurate description, except that she was middle-aged, dressed in deep mourning, and wore a veil. She said she was the dressmaker."
"Then the woman escaped from the house without being seen?"
"Yes," her ladyship replied. "No one heard a sound after poor Beryl entered the room. What occurred there no one knows."
"We only know what occurred by the effects," I said. "A desperate attempt was made upon her life. This is no mere fainting-fit."
"But who could this mysterious woman have been?" her ladyship exclaimed.
"It is absolutely astounding!" A thought flashed across my mind at that moment. Could the visitor in black actually have been that dreaded person of whom even Tattersett had spoken with bated breath--La Gioia?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
THE MYSTERY OF THE MORNING-ROOM.
My eyes wandered from the face of the trembling woman before me to the blanched countenance of my love. In an instant I detected a change there. While I had been speaking the muscles had relaxed until that face I adored had become blank and quite expressionless. No deep medical knowledge was necessary to detect the awful truth. It was the exact counterpart of the photograph which had been in the Colonel"s possession.
With a cry of despair I sank upon my knees, touching her cheeks and chafing her hands. I held the mirror against her mouth. But the jaw had dropped, and when I looked eagerly for signs of respiration, there were none. Beryl, my mysterious, unknown wife, was dead.
I pressed her hand, I called her by name, and, aided by her cousin Nora, frantically tried the various modes of artificial respiration. But all in vain. Her frail life had flickered out even while we had been fencing with each other. All was useless. She had, as the Major had predicted during that memorable interview at Whitton, been struck down swiftly and secretly in some manner that was impossible to determine.
"She"s dead!" I cried, still holding her thin, cold hand, and turning to the woman who had brought me to her side. "Dead--dead!"
"Impossible!" she gasped. "No, don"t tell me that. Do your best to save her, Doctor. You must save her--you must!"
"But she is beyond human aid!" I declared. "Respiration has ceased.
She has been murdered!"
"By that woman in black!" she shrieked. "But how?"
"That I do not know," I responded very gravely. "There is no wound; nothing whatever to account for death."
"Oh!" she cried in desperation, "I ought to have told you everything at once, but I feared you would not believe it if I told you. A strange thing has occurred in this house, something very uncanny. It is as though the place is overshadowed by some evil influence."
"I don"t understand you," I answered quickly interested; but ere the words had left my mouth there was a tap at the door, and the servant, ushered in my old friend and lecturer, Carl Hoefer.
"Ah, my dear Doctor!" I cried eagerly, rushing forward to welcome him--"You will excuse me calling you so unexpectedly, and at this hour, but something very unusual has transpired--a matter in which I require your a.s.sistance."