A Queen's Error Part 4

"Ten to one," I said to myself, "that I find the old lady asleep over the fire."

The room I found in darkness except for the firelight. I could see little within it. I paused on the threshold and made a polite inquiry.

"May I come in?" I asked in a tone intended to be loud enough to wake the old lady.

No answer.

I advanced into the room with my candle and set it on the table, then I struck a match and lit two more of the candles in the sconces.

The room was empty!

This placed me rather in a dilemma. I had no further means of announcing my presence; I could only wait.

I sat down by the fire and began to look around.

Comfortable, even luxurious as the room was with its abundance of valuable knick-knacks and pictures, it had an eerie look about it. The eyes of the figures in the pictures seemed following me about.

I got up and lit two more of the candles in the sconces on the walls.

Then I returned to my seat, made up the fire, and waited the course of events.

I waited thus quite a quarter of an hour, during which nothing occurred, and then I heard sounds which almost made me jump from my chair.

The first was a long, gasping breath, followed after an interval by a groan, a long wailing groan as of one in the deepest suffering.

I immediately rose from my chair, and caught a glimpse of my white face as I did so in the looking-gla.s.s over the mantelpiece.

I stood for some seconds on the hearthrug, and then the groan was repeated; it came from the direction of a heavy curtain which hung in one corner of the room, and which I had taken, on the previous day, to be the covering of a cabinet or a recess in the wall perhaps for some of the old lady's out-door clothing.

I tore it on one side now and found that it concealed a door. The k.n.o.b turned in my hand and I entered the room beyond; it was in total darkness, and I at once returned to the sitting-room for candles.

I took two in my hands and advanced once again, with an effort, into the dark room.

The sight that met my gaze there almost caused me to drop them. It was a handsomely furnished bedroom, and in the farther corner was the bed.

On it lay the old lady wrapped in a white quilted silk dressing-robe.

The whole of the breast of this garment was saturated with blood!

With the candles trembling in my hands I advanced to the side of the bed, and the poor soul's eyes looked up at me while she acknowledged my coming with a groan.

Looking down at her there could not be a doubt but that her throat had been cut!

I drew back from her horrified, and then I saw her lips moving; she was trying to speak.

I put my ear down close to her mouth and then I heard faintly but very distinctly two words--

"Safe--open."

I answered her at once.

"I will go for a doctor first, then I will return and open the safe."

At once she moved her head, causing a fresh flow of blood from a great gaping wound at the right side of her neck. She was eager to speak again, and I bent my ear over her mouth.

Two words came again very faintly--"Open--first."

I nodded to show her that I understood what she meant, then giving one glance at her I prepared to do what she asked. There was a look of satisfaction in her eyes as I turned away. I went quickly back into the sitting-room and turned the carved rose on the left side of the frame of the looking-gla.s.s in the over-mantel. Then when the gla.s.s had slid up I felt for the spring in the wall, touched it, and the door flew open. Without any hesitation I fixed the key in the lock of the steel safe, and, with a slight effort, turned it and pulled the door open.

The first thing I saw was a slip of white paper with some writing on it lying on two packets. This I took up and read at once; the words scribbled on it were in a lady's hand.

"If anything has happened to me take these two packets, hide them in your pockets, and close the safe, cupboard, and looking-gla.s.s, and leave it all as it was at first."

I did not delay a moment. I took the two packets, which were wrapped in white paper like chemists' parcels, and sealed with red wax. I saw this before I crammed them into my trousers pockets.

I hastily closed the safe, locked it, fastened the panel, and, by turning the rose on the right-hand side of the over-mantel, caused the gla.s.s to resume its place.

Then I turned to leave the room, and--found myself standing face to face with Saumarez, the man with the gla.s.s eye, who held a revolver levelled at me.

He did not stay to speak, but fired immediately; I dodged my head to one side just in time and heard the bullet go cras.h.i.+ng into the looking-gla.s.s behind me.

Before he could fire again I hit him with all my might under the ear, and he fell in the corner of the room like a log. Stopping only to possess myself of his revolver, which had dropped by his side, I rushed up the stairs and out into the street; there I inquired of the first person I met, a working man going home, for the nearest doctor, and he directed me to a Dr. Redfern only about ten doors away.

Within a few seconds I was pausing at this door, and endeavouring to make an astonished parlour-maid understand that I wanted to see her master on a matter of life and death.

A placid-looking gentleman made his appearance from a room at the end of the entrance hall while I was speaking to her, with an evening paper in his hand.

"What's the matter?" he asked casually.

"Murder is the matter," I answered between gasps of excitement, "murder at Number 190, and I want you to come at once."

I gave him a brief account of the old lady with her throat cut. He stood looking at me a moment or two, as if in doubt whether I was sane or not, then made up his mind.

"All right," he said, "just wait a moment and I'll come with you."

He reappeared in about a couple of minutes, wearing an overcoat and a tall hat.

"Now," he said, "just lead the way."

We went together straight back to Number 190, and I think he had some misgivings about entering the house with me alone, but I rea.s.sured him by reminding him that an old lady was dying within; as it was he made me go first.

"I had no idea any one lived here at all," he remarked, as I lighted him along the pa.s.sage to the stairs by means of wax vestas, of which I fortunately had a supply, for there was no candle in the hall. "I always thought this house was shut up. But still I have only been here just over twelve months."

"I think you will find," I said, as we got firmly on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, and saw the reflection of my candle which I had left on the table in the sitting-room, "that there are a good many surprises in this house."

"Now," I continued as we entered the room, "the old lady is lying in there. I will take this candle and show you the way." I led the way into the room, and held the candle aloft, with a shudder at what I expected to see there.

_The bed was empty._

I rubbed my eyes and looked again.