CHAPTER V.

SHADOWS

Called by telephone, Dr. Tarrant hurried along to his young colleague Otway, whom he found stretched upon the carpet, a cushion having been placed beneath his head by the faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Mobbs. The portly old woman, in her neat black, was naturally greatly agitated. The practitioner fell upon his knees and unloosened the stricken man’s collar.

“I heard him cry out, and rushed in to find him suddenly attacked. He could hardly speak,” the woman explained. “He managed to tell me to ring you up, and then he fell on the floor.”

The doctor was busy unbuttoning the young man’s clothes and feeling his pulse and the region of the heart. He could discover no pulsation, and, as far as he could judge, Brinsley Otway appeared to be already dead. There was no sign of any flicker of life. The heart, indeed, had ceased to beat!

He straightened himself and held his breath. Even to him, a medical man of long practice, the affair came as a complete shock.

“But what can have happened?” he asked breathlessly. “Tell me exactly what happened--every detail,” he urged.

“I don’t know, doctor,” replied the bewildered woman. “He’s been away all day down at Hampton Court, as you know. He gets back just before half-past seven, when I had his dinner ready. He says to me, ‘I won’t have it for ten minutes,’ and comes in here. I saw him untying that parcel of books on the sideboard just as I passed to go to the kitchen, and then I suddenly heard him cry out. I dashed in just in time to see him collapse.”

“Did he drink anything?” asked the doctor, rising and going to the sideboard, where the package of old books lay open.

The broken glass on the floor aroused his suspicions.

“Did he go into the dispensary?” asked Tarrant, suddenly recollecting that he might have gone there on his return, fagged and tired, and mixed himself a cocktail from the many bottles there, for he dispensed his own mixtures.

“No, doctor. He didn’t go along the passage at all,” declared the woman. “I know he never passed the kitchen door.”

“Nor did he go upstairs, eh? He simply came straight into this room.”

“Yes, doctor. He came straight in here after he hung his hat in the hall.”

Dr. Tarrant crossed to the telephone and rang up Dr. Randall, another of his colleagues, an old practitioner who lived close by in a new street off the Finchley Road.

Then again he fell upon his knees beside the inert form of Brinsley Otway. The patient lay there with half-closed eyes, his face white as marble and his hands cold and stiffening.

Again and again the doctor sought for signs of life, but failed to discover any. Respiration had ceased, and with it the pulsations of the heart. The attack was most mystifying, for he had never before come across such inexplicable symptoms.

Randall was an old-fashioned, white-headed doctor of the highly pedantic type, who, rather rusty and out of date in his medical methods, concealed his ignorance, like so many others, by constantly referring to his Cambridge days and making the most of his knowledge of the classics. Patients of unimportance he did not take the trouble to impress, simply doling out innocuous pills and draughts, and trusting that the poor people would not worry him further. But his better-class patients he always took great pains to impress by his ’Varsity speech and manner.

As a matter of fact, he was utterly unable to diagnose such a case, leaving Tarrant, who was nearly twenty years younger and much more up to date, to solve the mystery.

Dr. Randall’s car, as it happened, was standing at his door; therefore, on receiving the call, he at once sprang in, and in five minutes was round at Otway’s.

When he saw the prostrate man he became instantly grave, and, after hearing briefly from Tarrant what had occurred, his clean-shaven, white-fringed face assumed a very grave expression. In contrast to Tarrant--who was an alert, dark-haired man of forty, and enjoyed a very wide and lucrative practice in the district--old Randall went about with an assumed air of superiority which caused him to be very much disliked, hence his practice had greatly fallen off.

“Heart disease,” Tarrant exclaimed after a long examination. “Angina--without a doubt!”

“That’s exactly my opinion,” said Randall, though he really held no opinion, being ready to agree with anything his friend might suggest.

“He probably walked home from the station too quickly,” Tarrant said. “He complained to me about a month ago of sharp pain in the chest, which he put down to acute indigestion. On feeling ill he apparently took some brandy,” he added, smelling the broken glass.

Together they lifted the inanimate form of their young colleague upon the old leather-covered couch, and placed his head upon a pillow.

At that moment Dr. Tarrant noticed a half-eaten peach lying upon the floor beneath the little table in the window.

“Why, he’s been eating!” he exclaimed, picking it up and examining it curiously. “I wonder if this has anything to do with the attack?”

“Oh, doctor, he’s eaten one of them there peaches!” exclaimed the old housekeeper. “I meant to tell him about them when he came in, but it went right out of my head. They were brought by a young woman who said she came from a firm in the West End, and, as they were addressed to my master and marked ‘perishable,’ I opened them and put them on a plate. There was no name of who sent them. Perhaps he ordered them. He orders things himself sometimes, and they are delivered.”

The two doctors exchanged puzzled glances.

“We had better have this analysed,” Tarrant said, holding in his hand the half-consumed fruit, which still retained the stone, and regarding it with a puzzled expression.

He placed it upon one of the clean plates upon the dining-table and put it aside, together with the other four ripe peaches.

“He may be poisoned!” suggested Randall. “But if so, it acted uncommonly quick.”

“When I saw him, only a minute before, he had just untied the string of the parcel, so he must have been taken ill almost instantly after biting the fruit.”

“Exactly. He did not have time to eat it all,” remarked Tarrant. “That is, perhaps, as well, for it may furnish us with the truth concerning the mystery.”

Turning again, he glanced at the white-faced figure lying so prostrate and still, and drew a deep sigh. He liked Brinsley Otway. Indeed, everyone liked the smart, up-to-date young fellow who was such a good friend to his charity patients, and so often attended the poor without taking a fee. There were times, too, when in a poverty-stricken home his hand went into his pocket and pulled out half a crown as “a present for the children.” And the starving mother knew not that that coin he gave often deprived him of his box of his favorite brand of Egyptian cigarettes.

“Don’t you think, doctor, that we ought to let Miss Dare know?” suggested the stout old woman, who had been gazing upon her young master’s marble face. “Poor girl, I’m afraid the shock will kill her! She’s such a sweet little thing, and they’re so devoted to each other. It’s a sin that the awful truth should be told her. But it must be.”

“Yes, my good woman,” said Dr. Randall in his best ’Varsity manner. “But it must be. Alas! that our love idylls never last. It is the same everywhere--the broken column of happiness and the realization that all earthly bliss is only a pipe-dream.”

“Well, call Miss Dare,” Tarrant said. “I know her quite well. She helped us at the piano in a concert for the blind held at Hampstead a few months ago.”

Mrs. Mobbs gave him the telephone number, and he at once telephoned to Cookham. Briefly he explained who he was, and told her that Otway had been taken rather queer, and suggested that she should come up to London at once to see him.

He heard her voice in reply, asking in anxiety what was the matter with him. But Dr. Tarrant answered in a calm, even voice:

“He’s had a rather nasty heart-attack through hurrying from the station, and he is asking for you.”

“I’ll come at once,” she replied breathlessly, and, after some further inquiries, rang off.

It was past ten o’clock when Sibell, hurrying, her big blue eyes anxious, alighted from a taxi in the Finchley Road. Entering her lover’s room, she found him lying upon the frayed old couch, the two doctors kneeling by his side, while standing near, watching the prostrate man, was the faithful old housekeeper.

As she entered, Dr. Tarrant, recognising her, rose to his feet and greeted her in a whisper.

“I’m awfully sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Dare,” he said, “but I thought it my duty to do so.”

“Is he alive?” gasped the white-faced girl, bending to the rigid face of the man she loved. His collar and tie had been removed, and he lay there fully dressed, his eyes closed as one dead.

“He is still breathing,” replied the elder of the two doctors. “His seizure is most unaccountable. He was in the act of eating a peach, it seems, when he suddenly collapsed.”

“There was nothing wrong with the fruit, I hope,” cried the distressed girl. “I bought them in Regent Street this afternoon, and sent them to him.”

“Ah! I’m glad we know that!” remarked Dr. Randall. “We were told by Mrs. Mobbs that a strange woman had left them.”

“I forgot to put in my card,” Sibell said. “But will he recover?” she asked breathlessly.

“We are doing our best for him,” answered Tarrant, whom she had met once before. “His heart is unfortunately very weak.”

“But what can be the cause?”

“The symptoms are those of sudden failure of the heart,” was the reply.

“Then his illness has nothing to do with the fruit?” she asked eagerly.

“Probably not. I will send the rest of the peach he was in the act of eating, with the others in the basket and the broken glass, to Sir George Orelebar to be analysed as soon as I can. Then we shall know the truth. Of course he may be poisoned, but I do not anticipate it.”

Sibell breathed more freely, and for a long time stood staring at the unconscious man, whose countenance was white as marble. The doctors, with their stethoscopes, knelt and listened constantly to his breathing. She watched their faces. Once that of Dr. Randall assumed a graver expression.

“No! Don’t!” she shrieked, laying her trembling fingers upon his arm. “No. For God’s sake--don’t tell me he’s dying!”

The white-haired old doctor shook his head gravely, and replied:

“A flicker of the fire of life is still discernible, but whether he will pull through we cannot yet tell. It is a serious attack--very serious indeed.”

At that moment Dr. Tarrant’s big-built Irish chauffeur burst into the room and handed his master a tiny phial with a glass stopper for measuring drops. Instantly Randall poured out some water into a small glass, to which he very carefully added ten drops of the drug. Afterwards he held it to the light, examining it critically, and, while Tarrant held up Otway’s head, the other forced the draught between his teeth; and, the helpless girl stood watching.

The whole tragic affair was most puzzling. The girl had flung off her coat and hat, and, in a sleeveless gown of black georgette trimmed with silver, which made her neck and arms look like alabaster, she again sank upon her knees, and, as they laid his head back upon the pillow, she bent forward and kissed his cold, hard face in front of them all.

The room was warm even to stuffiness, so the window was opened, and through it came the chimes of the church in the Finchley Road as the clock struck the hour.

Would he live? The scene was pathetic. Of all the crowd of medical students at Guy’s, Brinsley Otway had been one of the most popular. He was certainly the leading light of the Medical School, and in preparation of charity “rags” he was always full of new ideas for “stunts.”

“I fear it is a case of mitral incompetence of the heart,” remarked Dr. Tarrant in a low voice to his companion. “The symptoms are very evident; there is the feeble pulse, œdema of the lower extremities, and anasarca.”

“Where there is mitral incompetence there is usually some pulmonary congestion,” remarked the other. “That condition appears to be absent.”

Sibell heard, but did not understand their argument.

“Is it very critical?” she asked.

“Very,” replied Tarrant. “We had better place him on his bed.”

Quickly the bed upstairs was arranged by Sibell, and the two men, assisted by Mrs. Mobbs, carried him in, when Sibell left while they undressed him.

The poor girl was beside herself with grief. With blanched face and clenched hands, she paced the narrow passage feverishly. She blamed herself for sending him that fatal peach. Would he be spared to her? If he died, then her future life would be a blank, for she could never love again. Brinsley was her ideal; she worshipped him as a god.

She remained there during the night, but there was no improvement in her stricken lover’s condition. The two doctors remained with him till two o’clock, when Tarrant left, carrying with him the remainder of the peach, and the fruit which had not been eaten.

Hour after hour, with her lover’s coat wrapped about her bare shoulders, the girl sat near the patient’s bed, while Mrs. Mobbs made tea for Randall and herself. Time after time the girl tenderly smoothed the unconscious man’s pillow, and ever and anon kissed his cold, white brow.

“Is mitral incompetence of the heart very serious?” she asked Tarrant when he returned to relieve his colleague.

“Very serious indeed, Miss Dare,” replied the collapsed man’s friend. “Few people recover, but we hope that Brinsley, being in such good health, will get through it.”

“What is the use of being pessimistic, sir?” remarked Mrs. Mobbs. “We can’t afford to lose the young master, and, moreover, we’re not going to do so,” she added vehemently.

“The crisis is from twelve to fifteen hours after the attack. That will be before mid-day,” he said.

The girl, with weary, deep-set eyes, waited till five o’clock, but, as there was no sign of returning consciousness, though Tarrant declared that he was still living, she went into an adjoining room and cast herself upon the bed, where she dropped off to sleep, thoroughly exhausted.

At three o’clock that afternoon Dr. Tarrant, having driven to Kensington, stood in the laboratory of Professor Orelebar, the well-known Government analyst, whose evidence was so often taken in criminal cases.

“The peaches you brought this morning show no sign whatever of contamination,” declared the shrunken little man in a black coat which seemed several sizes too large for him. “I have submitted them to every known test, but I have failed to establish any evidence which could lead to the supposition of poisoning. We have worked all day upon it, and Professor Grant entirely agrees with me. The glass contained pure brandy.”

Dr. Tarrant thanked the famous adviser to the Home Office, and, as he walked back to the High Street, Kensington station, he became fully convinced that the young man’s condition was due to heart trouble.

Sibell lived through an interminable week of dread and uncertainty.

She went to stay with her aunt, Lady Wyndcliffe, in West Halkin Street, but each day she went to Finchley Road, yet her lover still lay unconscious, watched by a nurse and Mrs. Mobbs, Dr. Tarrant visiting him thrice each day. The report, alas! was always the same. The patient showed no sign either of improvement or returning consciousness. He lay motionless and white in that small, darkened room, hovering hour by hour between life and death.

Dr. Orlando Snow, a bald-headed Harley Street specialist, was brought by Dr. Tarrant one afternoon, and, standing by the inanimate form lying there so blanched and still, he heard from him exactly how he had been discovered, while the housekeeper described the distress which Sibell was suffering.

“She comes here every day and sits in tears. Poor girl, she’s inconsolable! It must be a terrible blow for her,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Mobbs.

“It must be,” replied the specialist. “I wonder what caused the attack?”

“Heart--mitral incompetence; that’s my diagnosis,” said Tarrant.

Snow was silent for a few moments, his eyes fixed upon the immobile countenance of the patient. Then he made his own examination, and agreed entirely with the general practitioner.

“Serious?” asked Tarrant.

“Very. I don’t like his condition at all,” the grey-bearded specialist answered gravely. “But he may just pull through”; and he gave several directions to doctor and nurse.

“Poor Brinsley,” exclaimed Tarrant. “I do hope he’ll pull through.

“The whole affair is a complete mystery,” Tarrant remarked. Then, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, he added: “Œdema of the lower extremities, anasarca, and all that.”

“Yes; were it not for Orelebar’s declaration that there was nothing wrong with the peaches, I should suspect poisoning,” declared the great specialist.

“But Mrs. Mobbs now admits that when the peaches were left she ate one of them from the basket. She suffered no ill-effects. Therefore why was Otway taken suddenly ill when eating one of them some hours later?”

“He only ate half,” the specialist pointed out. “The other half and the stone have been analysed by Orelebar and Grant, both great experts in poisons, and have been declared to be quite sound and good, without traces of any toxic substance. Yet I repeat that, if it were not for the symptoms of heart-trouble, I should certainly suspect poison.”

None, not even Sibell herself, had any knowledge of the strange experience which had befallen the auctioneer, Mr. Herbert Gray, while inspecting the Guest House, or the serious illness that had followed. Some evil influence was at work at the House on the Green. But what was it?