Part 61

“We’ll do _something_!” she said. “There’s no reason to be in despair. That young country doctor was probably entirely under the influence of Dr. Quelton. We’ll get some one else. We’ll telephone to one of the big hospitals in New York and find out who’s the very best man, and well get him out here. Mr. Houseman will ring up--”

But Mr. Houseman had disappeared. Worse still, Mrs. Royce’s telephone was out of order.

“Never mind!” said Lexy. “We’ll have a nice hot cup of tea, and then well go to the grocery store. There’s a telephone there.”

She made the captain drink his tea and eat a little. Then she ran upstairs for her hat; and she was very angry at Charles Houseman for running away.

XXII

They set off together down the village street. There was no one about at that hour. All Wyngate was partaking of its Sunday night supper within doors, and one or two of the little wooden houses showed lights in the front windows; but for the most part life was concentrated in the kitchen.

The drug store was locked, but a dim light was burning inside, and a vigorous ringing of the night bell brought Mr. Binz, the owner, to open the door. He was deeply interested in their errand. He suggested St. Luke’s Hospital, for the reason that he had once been there himself, and therefore held it almost sacred.

“But,” he said, in his slow and impressive way, “if I was you, I’d ring up Doc Quelton first, and find out how things are going up there; because you may find out--”

Lexy interrupted him hastily, for she didn’t want him to say what he evidently wished to say.

“There won’t be any change in Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It would only be a waste of time.”

It was not so much for that poor woman, who she feared was beyond hope, that she wanted the New York specialist, as for Captain Grey. It would help him so much to feel that something was being done, that some one was hurrying out here!

“Might be more of a waste of time,” said Mr. Binz, “if some one was to come all the way out here after she--”

“Oh, all right!” cried Lexy impatiently. Then suddenly she remembered. “They haven’t any telephone at the doctor’s house,” she said.

“Suppose I go out there first, and see?” suggested Captain Grey.

“No!” said Lexy. “Don’t!”

But the idea impressed him as a good one, and go he would.

“I’d rather see how she is, first,” he repeated. “If there’s no change, I’ll come back.”

Lexy looked at Mr. Binz with an angry and reproachful frown, which the poor man did not understand. He had only wanted to give helpful advice.

“Come on, then!” she said to Captain Grey.

“I’ll leave you at Mrs. Royce’s,” he told her.

“No, you won’t!” she contradicted with a trace of severity. “If you _will_ go, I’m going with you!”

He protested against this, but she would not listen, and so they went to the garage for Joe’s taxi; but Joe and his taxi had gone out. An interested bystander said that they could get a “rig” from the livery stable with no trouble at all. They had only to find the proprietor, and he, in turn, would find the driver, who would harness up the horse.

“No, thanks,” said Captain Grey. He turned to Lexy. “I can’t wait,” he told her. “I’m going to walk. Thank you for--”

“I can walk, too,” said Lexy. “It’s only three miles.”

“I don’t want you to, Miss Moran.”

“I’m coming anyhow,” she replied.

For that instinct in her, the thing which was beyond reason, drove her forward. She could not let him go alone. She had walked that three miles once before to-day, and she had walked farther than that with Houseman in the afternoon. She was tired, terribly tired, and filled with a queer, sick reluctance to approach that sinister house again; but she had to go. She had said to herself that morning that she was coming back, and now she was going to do so.

They did not try to talk much on the way. What had they to say? They were both filled with a dread foreboding. They hurried, yet they wished never to come to the end of the journey.

They turned down the lane, leaving the lights of the highway behind, and went forward in thick darkness, under the shadow of the trees. The sound of the sea came to them--the loneliest sound in all the world.

“There’s a light in the house, anyhow!” said Lexy suddenly.

Her own voice sounded so small, so pert, so futile, in the dark, that she felt no surprise when Captain Grey showed a faint trace of impatience in answering.

“Naturally!” he said.

Only, to her, it did not seem natural, that one little light shining out through the glass of the front door. It would be more natural, she thought, if there were only the darkness and the sound of the sea.

They turned into the drive. Their footsteps sounded strangely and terribly loud on the gravel, and became as sharp as pistol shots when they mounted the veranda. The captain rang the bell, and the sound of it ran through the house like a shudder; but no one came. He rang again and again, but nothing stirred inside the house. He knocked on the glass, and they waited, looking into the bright and empty hall; but no one came.

Captain Grey turned the knob, the door opened, and they went in. The door of the library was open, showing only darkness. The stairs ran up into darkness. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Then, suddenly, a little breeze rose, and the front door slammed with a crash behind them. Lexy cried out, and caught the young man’s arm.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said; but his face was ashen. For a moment they stood where they were. “Miss Moran,” he went on, “would you rather wait here while I go upstairs?”

“No,” said Lexy. “I’ll come with you.”

He started up the stairs, and she followed him closely. At almost every step she looked behind her, and she did not know which was the more horrible to her, the brightly lit hall or the darkness before them. Suppose she saw some one in the hall behind them!

Captain Grey did not once glance behind. He went on steadily. When he reached the top of the flight, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the gas. There was the long corridor, with the row of closed doors. He turned down in the direction of Mrs. Quelton’s room, but Lexy touched him on the shoulder.

“I think you had better let me go first,” she suggested. “Perhaps she won’t be ready to see you.”

Their eyes met.

“Thank you, Lexy!” he said simply, and went on again.

He had never used her name before. He was trying to tell her that he understood what she had wished to do for him. She had offered to go first, alone, into the silent room, to see whatever might be there--to spare him something, if she could.

But he would not have it so. He stopped outside the door, and knocked twice. Then he went in.

It was dark and still in there, with the night wind blowing in through the open windows. He struck a match and lit the gas. The room was empty.

He went across to the long windows and out on the balcony. There was no gas connection there. He struck one match after another, and went from one end of the balcony to the other. There was nothing.

“Not here!” he said, in a dazed, flat voice.

Lexy could not speak at all. She had come out on the balcony, and stood beside him. The sound of the sea was loud in her ears--or was it the beating of her own heart? She held her breath and strained her eyes in the darkness.

“There’s--something--here!” she whispered tensely.

“No!” he said aloud. “I looked. Come! We’ll go through the house.”

She followed close at his heels. He went into every room, lit the gas, looked about, and found nothing. Lexy grew confused with the opening and closing of doors, the sudden flare of light in the darkness, the succession of empty rooms.

He went up into the cupola. Nothing there, nor in the servants’ rooms. Then downstairs, through the long library, the dining room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the pantry. He proceeded with a sort of merciless deliberation, opened every door, looked into every cupboard.

Finding a stable lantern in the kitchen, he lighted it and carried it with him. The door to the cellar stood open. He went through it, down the steep wooden stairs, and Lexy followed him.

To her exhausted and frightened gaze the cellar seemed enormous--as vast and august as some great ancient tomb. The lantern made a little pool of light, and outside it the shadows closed in on them thickly. She came near to him and caught him by the sleeve.

“Oh, let’s go away!” she cried. “Let’s go away! We’ve looked--”

“This is the last place,” he said gently. “After this, we’ll give it up.”

Fighting down the sick terror that had come over her, she walked beside him in the little circle of light, and tried not to look at the shadows.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed.

“Oh, what?” she cried.

He went back a few paces and set down the lantern. Then he advanced again and bent over, staring at the floor.

“Do you see?” he asked.

She did see. A narrow strip of light lay along the floor.

“It comes up from below,” he said. “There must be a subcellar. Let’s see!”

He brought back the lantern and examined the floor by its light, going down on his hands and knees.

“Stand back!” he said suddenly. “It’s a trapdoor. See--here’s a ring to lift it.”

Captain Grey pulled at the ring, but nothing happened.

“I’m on the wrong side,” he said.

Moving over, he pulled again, and a square of stone lifted. A clear light came from below, showing a short ladder clamped to the floor.

“Stay there, please,” he told Lexy. “You have the lantern. I shan’t be a minute.”

But as soon as he had reached the foot of the ladder, Lexy climbed down after him; and just at the same moment, they saw--

They were standing in a tiny room with roughly mortared walls. A powerful electric torch stood on end in one corner, and at their feet lay the body of a man, face downward across a wooden chest. It was Dr. Quelton.

With a violent effort Captain Grey lifted the doctor’s heavy shoulder, while Lexy covered her eyes. She knew that he was dead. No living thing could lie so.

Her head swam, her knees gave way, and she tottered back against the wall, half fainting, when the captain’s voice rang out, with a note of agony and despair that she never forgot.

“My God! My God!” he wailed. “Oh, Muriel!”

She opened her eyes. For a moment she was too giddy to see. Then, as her vision cleared, she saw him on his knees beside the chest.

Not a chest--it was a coffin; and on it was a strange little plate glittering like gold, with an inscription:

MURIEL QUELTON

BELOVED WIFE OF PAUL QUELTON

XXIII

When she looked back upon the experiences of that dreadful night, it seemed to Lexy that both she and her companion displayed almost incredible endurance. Since morning they had lived through a very lifetime of emotion, to end now in this tragedy more horrible than anything they could have feared.

Yet, not five minutes after his cry of agony, Captain Grey had recovered his self-control. He was able to speak quietly to Lexy, and she was able to answer him no less quietly.

“We’d better go,” he said. “We can do nothing here. It’s a case for the police now.”

“I’ve got to go back to the balcony,” Lexy told him. “There was something there.”

“Very well!” he agreed, and, without another word or a backward glance, he went up the ladder.

They returned through the house. He had left the lights burning and the doors open, so that there was a monstrous air of festivity in the emptiness. They went into Mrs. Quelton’s room again, and crossed through it to the balcony. He carried the lantern with him, and by its steady yellow flame they could see into every corner. There was the couch upon which she had lain--disarranged, as if she had just risen from it. There was a little table with medicine bottles on it. All the usual things were in the usual places.

“Nothing here,” said Captain Grey.

Lexy was sure, however, that there was. She stepped to the balcony railing, to look down into the garden below, and there, on the white paint of the railing, she found something.

“Look!” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “What’s this?”

He came to her side.

“It’s the print of a hand,” he said. “In blood, I should imagine.”

For a moment they stared at the ghastly mark, a strange evidence of pain and violence in this quiet place.

“We’d better look in the garden,” he suggested.

They went down. The grass beneath the balcony was beaten down in one place, but there was nothing else. Some one had come and gone. They could not even guess who it had been. They knew nothing.

“Come, Lexy!” the captain said.

They both turned for one last look at the accursed house, blazing with spectral lights. Then they set off, away from it, over that weary road again.

“There’s no police station in the village, is there?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard Mrs. Royce talk about the constable. Anyhow, she can tell us.”

“Yes,” he said, and was silent for a moment. “Rather a pity, isn’t it,” he went on, “that there has to be--all that? Because it doesn’t matter now. It’s finished. Better if the house burned down to-night!”

In her heart Lexy agreed with him. She had no curiosity left, and scarcely any interest. As he had said, it was finished. She wanted to rest, not to speak, not to think, not to remember; but it couldn’t be so. They would both have to tell what they had seen, to answer questions. It wasn’t enough that two people lay dead in that house of horror. All the world, which knew and cared nothing about them, must have a full explanation.

“I suppose we couldn’t wait till morning?” she suggested.

He took her hand and drew it through his arm.

“You’re worn out,” he told her. “It’s altogether wrong. There’s no reason why you should be troubled any more, Lexy. Slip into the house quietly, and get to bed and to sleep. Nobody need know that you went there.”

“No!” she said. “We’ll see it through together.”

The thought of Charles Houseman came to her, but she disowned it with a listless sort of resentment. She felt, somehow, that he had failed her. He had not been there when she needed him. He had not taken his part in this ghastly and unforgetable sight.

There was a light in Mrs. Royce’s front parlor. Perhaps he was in there, waiting for her, cheerful and cool, a thousand miles away from the nightmare world in which she had been moving. She did not want to see him or speak to him just now. He hadn’t seen. He wouldn’t understand.

Captain Grey opened the gate, and they went up the flagged walk. Before they had mounted the veranda steps, the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Royce appeared.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “I thought you’d never come!”

Her tone and her manner were so strange that they both stopped and stared at her.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried again. “Oh, _do_ come in! I don’t know what to do with her, I’m sure!”

“Who?” asked Lexy.

“Poor Mis’ Quelton. There she is, lyin’ upstairs--”

“Mrs. _Quelton_?”

“Joe, he brought her in his taxi, jest a little while after you’d gone.”

“Brought Mrs. Quelton here?”

“Brought her here and carried her up them very stairs,” declared Mrs. Royce impressively; “right up into the east bedroom, and there she lies!”

She stood aside, and Lexy and Captain Grey entered the house. The young man turned aside into the parlor, sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Lexy stood beside him, looking down at his bent head, her face haggard and white.

“Why did Joe do that?” she asked.

“Don’t ask _me_, Miss Moran!” replied Mrs. Royce. “It beats me!”

There was a silence.

“But ain’t you going upstairs to see what she wants?” inquired Mrs. Royce anxiously.

Captain Grey sprang to his feet.

“Good God!” he shouted. “What are you talking about?”

Mrs. Royce backed into a corner, regarding him with alarm.

“I jest thought you’d like to talk to her,” she faltered.

“Do you mean she’s _not dead_?”

“Dead? Oh, my goodness gracious me!” cried Mrs. Royce. “I never--”

“Wait here,” Lexy told the captain.

“No!” he replied. “I must--”

But, disregarding him, Lexy turned to Mrs. Royce.

“Let me see her,” she said.

Mrs. Royce led the way upstairs. She went at an unusual rate of speed, so that she was panting when she reached the top.

“Kind of vi’lent!” she whispered, pointing downstairs, where Captain Grey was.

“This room?” asked Lexy. “Shall I go in?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Royce, “seems to me I’d knock, if I was you.”

Knock on the door of the room where Mrs. Quelton lay? Knock, and expect an answer from that voice? It seemed to Lexy, for a moment, that she could not raise her hand.

But she did. She knocked, and she was answered. She turned the handle and went in. An oil lamp stood on the bureau, and outside the circle of its mellow light, in the shadow, Mrs. Quelton was sitting on the edge of the bed; and it seemed to Lexy that she had never seen such a forlorn and pitiful figure.

“Oh, my dear!” she cried impulsively, and held out her arms.

Mrs. Quelton rose. She came toward Lexy, her hands outstretched--when a sudden cry from Mrs. Royce arrested her.

“But that ain’t Mrs. Quelton!” cried the landlady.

XXIV

If Lexy had not caught the unhappy woman, she would have fallen; but those sturdy young arms held her, and, with Mrs. Royce’s help, they got her on the bed. White as a ghost, incredibly frail in her black dress, she lay there, scarcely seeming to breathe.

“It _ain’t_ Mrs. Quelton!” repeated Mrs. Royce, in a whisper.

“I know!” said Lexy softly. “Will you get me water and a towel, please?”

Mrs. Royce went out of the room, and Lexy knelt down beside the bed. She did know now--the woman whom they had all called Muriel Quelton was really Caroline Enderby.

Lexy did not blame herself for not having known before. Looking at that face now, in its terrible stillness, she could trace the familiar features easily enough, but how changed! How worn and lined, how _old_! The brows, the lashes, the soft, disordered hair, were black now instead of brown; but that merely physical alteration was of no significance, compared with that other awful change. It was Caroline Enderby, the gentle and pitifully inexperienced girl of nineteen, but it was Mrs. Quelton, too, that tragic and somber figure.

Mrs. Royce came back with a basin of water, clean towels, and a precious bottle of eau de Cologne.

“Poor lamb!” she whispered. “Ain’t she pretty?”

Lexy wet a towel and passed it over that unconscious face again and again. Mrs. Royce watched, spellbound; for the dark and haggard stranger was passing away before her very eyes, and some one else was coming into life--some one quite young and--

The closed lids fluttered, and then opened.

“Lexy!” murmured the metamorphosed one.

“I’m here, Caroline!” said Lexy, with a stifled sob. “Everything’s all right, dear! Don’t worry--just rest!”

“I can’t, Lexy! I can’t!” she answered, and from her eyes, now closed again, tears came running slowly down her cheeks.

“Yes, you can!” said Lexy. “We’ll--”

“Supposing I get her some nice hot soup?” whispered Mrs. Royce, and, at a nod from Lexy, she was off again.

Caroline reached out and caught Lexy’s hand.

“Oh, Lexy, Lexy!” she said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“No!” her friend replied cheerfully. “Never! But don’t bother now. You can tell me later, when you feel better.”

“I’ll never, never feel better till I’ve told you! Oh, Lexy, I knew yesterday, and I didn’t tell you! Oh, Lexy, Lexy, I don’t understand! I want to tell you! I want you to help me!”

A flush had come into her cheeks. She was growing painfully excited. She tried to sit up, but Lexy firmly prevented that.

“Lie down, darling!” she said. “We’ll get a doctor.”

“No! No! I’m not ill--not ill, Lexy, only tired. Oh, you don’t know! You won’t let _him_ come here, Lexy?”

“I promise you he’ll never trouble you again,” replied Lexy quietly.

She saw Captain Grey standing in the doorway, behind the head of the bed. She glanced at him, and then at Caroline again. Let him stay! Whatever had happened, he ought to know.

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline, clinging fast to Lexy’s hand. “I want to tell you--all of it. You know, Lexy, I did a horrible, wretched thing. I said I’d marry a man. I promised to meet him here in Wyngate, because it was near to dear Miss Craigie’s. I didn’t tell you, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Lexy--truly it wasn’t! It was only because I knew mother would be so angry with you. I told him I’d take the train that got here at eleven o’clock that night; but after I’d left the house, I got frightened. I’d never gone out alone before. I couldn’t bear it. If I hadn’t promised him, I’d have gone home again. I _wanted_ to go home. I was sorry I’d promised.”

“Don’t try to go on now, dear!”

“I must! So I took a taxi. I thought I’d get here as soon as the train, but when it was eleven o’clock we were still miles away. I thought perhaps Charles wouldn’t wait, and there’d be nobody in Wyngate, and I didn’t dare go home again; so I kept begging the driver to go faster. Oh, Lexy, it was all my fault! He did go--terribly fast. It was wonderful to be alone, and rushing along like that; and then I think he ran into a telegraph pole, turning a corner. There was a crash, and I didn’t know anything more for--I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“Soup!” whispered Mrs. Royce, but Caroline was too intent upon her confession to stop.

Lexy took the broth and set it on the table.

“I don’t know how long it was,” Caroline went on. “It must have been days, or perhaps weeks. Sometimes I seemed to know, in a sort of dream. Oh, it was horrible! Oh, Lexy, I can’t explain! I didn’t really know anything, only that sometimes my mind seemed to be struggling--”

“Take some of this soup,” said Lexy. “You’ve _got_ to, Caroline, or I won’t listen.”

Obediently Caroline allowed herself to be fed. She took fully half of that excellent soup, and it did her good.