"What an astonishing thing!" I exclaimed. "Really, one may cease being surprised at anything. I wonder how `the county" will receive them. I prophecy that the majority of Rutland society will cut them dead, after what has happened."
"Why should they?" Faulkner asked, in surprise. "There"s no reason why they should," I answered "I only say they will. You don"t know Rutland county people--or you wouldn"t ask."
Vera"s lunch-party had proved a great success. The four of us had been in the best of spirits. And yet, once, at least, during the meal, Paulton"s face, dark, threatening, floated into my imagination, and again I heard that ominous threat he had uttered in Paris that night, the last words I had heard him speak--
"I shall be even with you soon, in a way you don"t expect."
Where was he at this moment? What plot was he hatching? Had he left Paris? Was he in London? Would he and the Baronne try to get Violet away from Faulkner by force?
Though now we were all so light-hearted, I could not help thinking of Paulton and the Baronne, and wondering what their next clever move would be. It was not to be supposed they would remain dormant. They were probably lying "doggo," in order to spring with greater force.
During the same week I looked in again at Rodney Street on my policeman, who expressed himself delighted to see me. Some days had now pa.s.sed since I had forced my way into the house in Belgrave Street during the night. I was wondering what had happened there since; whether lights had been seen again; whether anybody else had been into the place; or if the body and the gold had been removed.
When he had pushed forward his most comfortable chair, and I had seated myself in it, the constable said: "I have some news for you to-day, sir."
"News?" I exclaimed. "What kind of news?"
"Well, simply this, sir. All them sacks of money has been removed, but the mummy has been left just where it was. The police have possession of it now."
"When did they take possession of it?" I asked quickly, starting up.
"Yesterday. Mr. Spink, in whose hands the house is during Sir Charles Thorold"s absence, went there. I see him when he comes out, and I never in my life see a man look so white and scared. He found the body lying there, of course, also all the furniture pushed about, and the great hole cut in the ceiling. When he came out he was as terrible pale, and shivering with excitement. It was about three in the afternoon. He called me at once, and I went in with the man on point-duty. Everything was much as when you and me saw it, sir, only there wasn"t no money."
"Then of course Whichelo and Sir Charles have taken it away. I wonder at their leaving the body, though. Such a give-away, isn"t it? Did the police find out how the men entered and left the house?"
"I found that out, sir--quite by charnce. There"s a way into a cellar we didn"t know of, and that cellar leads into the cellar of the house adjoining, which is empty. That"s the way they went in and out. It was easy to see as how somebody had been to and fro that way."
"Do the police know anything of the money?" I asked. "Didn"t they see any sign of it at all?"
"No, sir. Nor Mr. Spink didn"t neither."
"Do they suspect who has been into the house?"
"No, sir, they ain"t got no idea. And about the body and how it got there, they are quite at sea." Sauntering along Victoria Street, Westminster, half-an-hour later, the thought occurred to me to look in on my doctor, David Agnew, who was also my old personal friend.
For some days I had not been well. A feeling of la.s.situde had come over me, also loss of appet.i.te. Agnew was generally able to prescribe for my simple ailments.
He was a bright, genial fellow, and merely to meet him seemed to do one good. None would have taken him for the celebrated bacteriologist he was, for I--and I think most people--usually picture a bacteriologist as a cadaverous, ascetic, preternaturally solemn individual, with a bald head, wrinkled brow, and large, gold-rimmed spectacles. It was Thorold who had introduced me to Agnew many years before, and many and many a time had the three of us dined together.
At first I was told that the doctor was "not at home," but upon sending in my card, I was immediately admitted.
The shock I received upon entering Agnew"s consulting-room, I am not likely to forget. Instead of the hearty greeting I had expected, I was faced by a man whose staring eyes spoke terror. It was Agnew, but I saw at once that something terrible must have happened.
He was pacing the room with his handkerchief to his mouth when I entered. He turned at once, and came over to me.
"Ashton," he said abruptly, taking my hand in both his own, and gripping it so that I almost cried out, "I have an awful thing to tell you--you are the one man in whom I can confide in this crisis, and I am truly glad you"ve come. I feel I must tell some one. I shall go mad if I don"t."
His expression appalled me.
"What is it? What?" I exclaimed. "For Heaven"s sake don"t look at me like this!"
"I must tell you, I must," he gasped. "Our mutual, our dear friend, Charles Thorold, was in here an hour ago. I had been called out for five minutes, but he said he would wait. As I had a patient in here, Gregory, my man, showed Thorold into the room upstairs--my laboratory.
In an open box on the table were several little gla.s.s tubes containing bacilli--different sorts of bacilli that I"ve been cultivating. It seems that Charles, with fatal curiosity, picked up one of these tubes to examine it. The gla.s.s of the tube is very thin. One of them broke in his hand--ah! What catastrophe could be more complete? It"s terrible... horrible!" He stopped abruptly, unable to go on.
"Well? Why so terrible! Tell me!" I exclaimed.
He pulled himself together with an effort.
"That tube contained a cultivation of pneumonic plague," he exclaimed huskily, "one of the deadliest microbes known. The blood-serum in which I had grown the germs fell upon his hands. Not suspecting the danger, he actually wiped it off with his handkerchief! I did not return until a quarter of an hour afterwards. The evil was then beyond remedy. He became infected!"
"Phew! What will happen now?"
"Happen? In a few days at most he will be dead! There are no recoveries from pneumonic plague--that most terrible contagious disease so well-known in Eastern Siberia and j.a.pan. There is no hope for him.
None. You hear--none!"
"By Gad!" I gasped, horrified. "You can"t mean it. Where is Thorold now?"
"In isolation at St. George"s hospital. I sent him there at once. Oh!
Heaven, it is too terrible to think of--and my fault, all my fault for leaving the tube there!"
I tried to calm him, but he was quite beside himself.
I halted, astounded at the gravity of the situation.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
TOWARDS THE TRUTH.
Though I hated to cause pain to Vera, I realised that I must immediately tell her. The thought of breaking the terrible news to her upset me, yet the thing had to be faced.
Never shall I forget those awful moments. I had tried to break the news gently, but how can such tragic news be broken "gently"? That conventional word is surely a mockery when used in such a connexion.
She was devoted to her parents. What seemed to trouble her now more than anything else, was the fact that we did not know her mother"s whereabouts, and so could not inform her of the frightful _contretemps_.
"Try not to worry, dearest," I said, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, and kissing her upon the lips in an endeavour to soothe her.
"We are bound very soon to find out where she is."
"Yes," she retorted bitterly, "and by that time--by that time poor father may be dead!"
She was silent for a few moments, then she said--
"The only thought that comforts me, dear, a little, is that, if he should die, the living lie will die with him. He is so good, so kind, so self-sacrificing, that I think he would be quite ready to die if he thought his death would relieve us of the fearful tension of these last horrible years. My dear, dear father! Ah, how stormy has his life been! Does he know what you have just told me--I mean, that he cannot live?"
"No," I replied.
She began to weep bitterly again, and I did my best to calm her, and kissed her again. I told her he did not know the danger, which was the truth. Agnew had only told him the germs would probably make him very ill for awhile.
The house-physician at the hospital had not broken the actual truth to him--the truth that, infected with such deadly germs he was doomed to death. Perhaps I ought not to have told Vera the whole ghastly truth.
Yet, upon carefully considering the matter, I had decided that frankness would be better.