For a moment I stood gazing at her, utterly confounded. But I saw that to save her life no time must be lost, therefore, rousing myself, I obtained her ladyship"s a.s.sistance to unloose my loved one"s corset, and then made a further examination.
"This is a serious matter," I said at last. "I shall be glad if you will send a servant in a cab to Bloomsbury with a message."
"To Bloomsbury? Why?" she asked. "Cannot you treat her yourself?"
"Not without consultation," I responded; and taking a card from my pocket, I wrote upon it an urgent message to accompany the bearer at once.
She gave me an envelope, and, enclosing the card, I wrote the superscription, "Doctor Carl Hoefer, 63, Museum Mansions, Bloomsbury."
Her ladyship at once sent the servant on the message, and then without delay returned to my side.
"Well, Doctor," she asked in a low, strained voice, "what is your opinion? Will she recover?"
"I cannot say," I responded mechanically, my eyes still fixed upon my patient"s face, watching for any change that might occur there.
At my request her ladyship brought the brandy decanter from the dining-room, and I managed, after some difficulty, to force a few drops between her cousin"s lips.
"Now tell me," I said firmly, turning to the agitated woman at my side, "how did this occur?"
"I don"t know."
"But if her life is to be saved we must know the truth," I said, my eyes fixed upon her. "In this manner to prevaricate is useless. Tell me how it is that I find her in this condition of fatal collapse."
"I cannot tell you things of which I myself am ignorant," she answered, with a well-feigned air of innocence.
"You wish to save your cousin"s life?" I inquired.
"Certainly. She must not die," she cried anxiously.
"Then answer my questions plainly, and leave the rest entirely in my hands," I replied. "From your manner I know that you have some secret which you are striving to conceal. Knowledge of this secret will, no doubt, place me in a position to combat this extraordinary attack. If because you maintain silence she dies, then an inquest will be held, and the truth must come out--and a scandalous truth it will be."
"Scandalous!" she exclaimed with some hauteur. "I don"t understand."
"An attempt has been made upon her life," I said as calmly as I could.
"Those who are responsible for this must, if she dies, be discovered."
"An attempt upon her life? How do you know?" she gasped.
I smiled, but made no direct answer to her question.
"I am aware of it by the same means that I know that Feo Ashwicke and Beryl Wynd are one and the same person."
She started quickly.
"Who told you that?" she asked, with a strange flash in her eyes.
I smiled again, answering, "I think it would be best if you confided in me in this matter, instead of leaving me to obtain the truth for myself.
Remember, you have called me here to save your cousin, and yet, by her side, while her young life is slowly ebbing, we are engaged in a battle of words. Now tell me," I urged, "how did this occur?"
She shook her head.
"Shall I begin?" I suggested. "Shall I say that you came up with Miss Beryl from Atworth yesterday, quite unexpectedly, in order to keep an appointment? That you--"
"How did you know?" she gasped again. "How did you know our movements?"
"I merely ask whether this is not the truth," I responded calmly. I had noticed that the furniture in the room was undusted, and therefore knew that they had returned to town unexpectedly. "Shall we advance a step further? I think, if I am not mistaken, that there was a strong reason for your return to town, and also for keeping your presence in London a secret. That is the reason that you communicated with your friend."
"With whom?"
"With Mrs Chetwode."
The light died from her face. She swayed slightly, and I saw that she gripped the edge of the little gla.s.s-topped table to steady herself.
Then her features relaxed into a sickly smile, and she managed to stammer--
"You are awfully clever, Doctor, to be aware of all these things. Is it clairvoyance--thought-reading, or what?"
"Those who have secrets should be careful not to betray them," I responded ambiguously.
"Then if I have betrayed myself, perhaps you will tell me something more of equal interest."
"No," I answered. "I have no desire to make any experiments. In this matter your cousin"s life is at stake. It will be, at least, humane of you if you place me in possession of all the facts you know regarding the dastardly attempt upon her."
"I tell you that I know nothing."
"Nothing beyond what?" I said very gravely.
Again she was silent. I watched the inanimate body of the woman I loved, but saw no change. In what manner that state of coma had been produced I knew not, and I was in deadly fear that the last breath would leave the body before the arrival of Hoefer, the great German doctor whose lectures at Guy"s had first aroused within me a desire to become a medico-legist. There was, I knew, but one man in all the world who could diagnose those symptoms, and it was Hoefer. I only prayed that he might not be out of town.
"Well," I went on, "it seems that you hesitate to tell me the truth, because you fear that I might divulge your secret. Is that so?"
"I believed that I might trust you to attend my cousin, and preserve silence regarding her illness and her presence in London," was the haughty reply. "But it seems that you are endeavouring to ascertain facts which are purely family affairs."
"The doctor is always the confidant of the family," I answered.
"But the other--the doctor who is coming?"
"He is an old friend and will promise to keep your secret," I said.
"Come, tell me."
She stood hesitating, erect, statuesque, her eyes fixed immovably upon me.
"I know you are in trouble," I added in a tone of sympathy. "I am ready to a.s.sist you, if you are open and straight forward with me. I have already given you my pledge of secrecy. Now tell me what has occurred."
She wavered in her resolution to tell me nothing. My sympathetic tones decided her, and she said in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice--
"It is a mystery."
"In what way?"