"Yes," she faltered. "I will remain here."
"Very well. We will go in," I laughed, for the idea seemed so absurd that both Hoefer and myself put it down to her excited imagination.
What ill effect could the mere entry into a room have upon the human system, providing there were no foul gases? Therefore we both went forward, sniffing suspiciously, and walking to the window, opened it widely.
The half-dozen lights in the electrolier illuminated the place brightly, revealing a fine, handsome room furnished with taste and comfort. On looking round we certainly saw nothing to account for the extraordinary phenomena as described by the trembling woman who stood upon the mat outside.
While we made a careful examination of the place in which my love had met her strange visitor, the door, creaking horribly, swung slowly to, as doors often will when badly hung. Hoefer examined the floor carefully, seeking to discover whether the unknown woman in black had dropped anything that might give a clue to her ident.i.ty, while I searched the chairs for the same purpose. We, however, found nothing.
What, I wondered, was the nature of the interview that had taken place there a couple of hours before? Who was the woman who had called and represented herself as Beryl"s dressmaker? Could it have been the woman whose vengeance was so feared, the woman whose very name had been uttered by that miscreant with bated breath--La Gioia?
With her ladyship standing in the hall watching us we searched high and low. Neither of us felt any curious sensation, and I began to think that the story was merely concocted in order to add mystery to Beryl"s unique seizure. Yet, from that woman"s face, it was nevertheless evident that she stood there in fear lest any evil should befall us.
"Do you experience any queer feeling?" she inquired of us at last.
"None whatever," I responded.
"It is only on leaving," she replied.
"Very well," I answered with a laugh, scouting the idea, and then boldly pa.s.sing out into the hall.
"Good Heavens?" I gasped a few moments later, almost as soon as I had reached her side. "Hoefer! come here quickly. There"s something devilish, uncanny in this. I"ve never felt like this before."
The old German dashed out of the room and was in an instant beside me.
"How do you feel?" he inquired.
I heard his voice, but it sounded like that of some one speaking in the far distance. The shock was just as though an icy hand had struck me as I had emerged from the hall. I was cold from head to foot, shivering violently, while my lower limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel my feet.
I must have reeled, for Hoefer in alarm caught me in his arms and steadied me...
"Tell me--what are your symptoms?"
"I"m cold," I answered, my voice trembling and my teeth chattering violently.
He seized my wrist, and his great fingers closed upon it.
"Ach!" he cried in genuine alarm, "your pulse is failing. And your eyes!" he added, looking into them. "You are cold--your legs are rigid--you have the same symptoms, exactly the same, as the young lady?"
"And you?" I gasped. "Do you feel nothing?"
"Nothing yet," he responded--"nothing."
"But what is it?" I cried in desperation. "The feeling is truly as though the Angel of Death had pa.s.sed and struck me down. Cannot you give me something, Hoefer? Give me something--before I lose all consciousness!"
The woman near me stood rooted to the spot in absolute terror, while the old German placed me upon an oaken settle in the hall, and ran along to the boudoir, returning with the syringe filled with the same injection which he had administered to my love. This he gave me in the arm, then stood by breathlessly anxious as to the result.
The feelings I experienced during the ten minutes that followed are indescribable. I can only compare them to the excruciating agony of being slowly frozen to death.
Through it all I saw Hoefer"s great fleshy face with the big spectacles peering into mine. I tried to speak, but could not. I tried to raise my hand to make signs, but my muscles had suddenly become paralysed.
Truly the mystery of that room was an uncanny one.
It ran through my mind that, the house being lit by electric light, the wires were perhaps not properly isolated, and any person leaving the place received a paralysing shock. This theory was, however, completely negatived by my symptoms, which were not in any way similar to those consequent on electric shock.
Hoefer looked anxiously at his watch, then, after a lapse of a few minutes, gave me a second injection, which rendered me a trifle easier.
I could detect, by his manner and his grunts, that he was utterly confounded. He, who had sneered at the weird story, like myself was now convinced that some strange, unaccountable mystery was connected with that room.
To enter, apparently produced no ill effect; but to leave brought swiftly and surely upon the fated intruder the icy touch of death. I had laughed the thing to scorn, yet within a few seconds had myself fallen a victim. Some deep, inscrutable mystery was there, but what it was neither of us could tell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
HOEFER"S STRANGE METHODS.
Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed before I regained my power of speech.
The drugs administered by Hoefer fortunately had the effect desired.
His sleepy eyes beamed through his great spectacles as he watched with satisfaction the stimulating consequence of the injection. He dissolved in water a tiny red tabloid, which he took from a small gla.s.s tube in a case he carried, and ordered me to drink it. This I did, finding it exceedingly bitter, and wondering what it was.
I asked no questions, however. He was a man who had made many extraordinary discoveries, all of which he had kept a secret. In the medical profession he was acknowledged to be one of the greatest living toxicologists, and his opinions were often sought by the various medical centres. Indeed, as every medical man knows, the name of Hoefer is synonymous with all that is occult in the science of toxicology, and the antidotes he has given to the world, from time to time, are as curious as they are drastic in effect.
"Have you experienced any strange sensation?" was my first question of him.
"No, none," he answered. "Ach! it is all very curious--very curious indeed! I have never before seen similar cases. There is actual _rigor mortis_. The symptoms so closely resemble death that one might so easily mistake. We must investigate further. It cannot be that there is any lethal gas in the room, for the window is wide open; and, again, while actually in the room no ill effect is felt. It is only on emerging."
"Yes," I answered. "I was struck almost at the instant I came out. It was as sudden as an electric shock. I cannot account for it in the least; can you?"
"No," he answered; "it is a mystery. But I like mysteries; they always interest me. There is so much to learn that one is constantly making fresh discoveries."
"Then you will try and solve this?" urged her ladyship, after expressing satisfaction at my recovery.
"Of course, madam, with your permission," he answered. "It is a complex case. When we have solved it we shall then know how to treat the young lady."
"And how do you intend to begin?" I inquired, raising myself, not without considerable difficulty.
"By going into the room alone," he answered briefly.
"You, too, will risk your life?" I exclaimed. "Is it wise?"
"Research is always wisdom," he responded. Then, finding that I was recovering rapidly from the seizure, he gave me some technical direction how to treat him in case he lost consciousness.
He arranged the tiny syringe, and the various drugs and tabloids, upon the hall table, and then, with a final examination of them, he opened the door of the fatal room and entered, leaving us standing together on the threshold.
Walking to the window he looked out, afterwards making several tours of the room in search of its secret. He, however, found nothing. The air was pure as London air can be on a summer"s night, and, as far as either of us could discern, there was nothing unusual in the department. The door swung to halfway, and we heard him growling and grunting within.
He remained in the room for perhaps five minutes, then emerged.
Scarcely, however, had he crossed the threshold when he lifted his left arm suddenly, crying--
"Ach, Gott! I am seized. The injection--quick!"