The Professor's Mystery Part 9

"There should be a light on the top floor," she said, "yes, there it is.

Ask Thomas to make sure of the number."

He was back in a moment to say that the number was right: "And all asleep, Miss, by the look of it. Shall I knock somebody up? There's no bell."

"No, not yet. What time is it, Mr. Crosby?"

"Twenty minutes of three," I told her.

"She must have got the message before now," she said, half to herself.

Then, after a little thought, "Stay here with the car, Thomas. Mr.

Crosby and I are going in."

"You're not going into such a place at this hour!" I protested. "Tell me what it is and let me go."

"No, I'm coming too. Don't stop to talk about it, please."

The door yielded and let us into a stained and choking hallway, faintly lighted by a blue flicker of gas at the far end. The stairs were worn into creaking hollows, and the noise of our pa.s.sing, though instinctively we crept upward like thieves, awakened a mult.i.tude of squeaks and scufflings behind the plaster. The banisters were everywhere loose and shaky, and in places they were entirely broken away, so that we went close along the filthy wall rather than trust to them. Each hallway was like the one below; narrow, dusty and airless, with its blue spurt of gas giving us just light enough to find our way without groping. At last we reached the top, and Lady knocked softly on the door at the end of the hall.

There was no answer. She knocked again. I turned up the gas, and as I did so a fat beetle ran from under my feet. I stepped on it, and wished that I had not done so.

"Are you sure this is the place?" I whispered.

"Yes; I've been here before. But I don't understand. Sheila knew that we were coming."

"Look," said I, "the door is unlatched. Shall I go in?"

For an instant the oppression of the place was too much for her, and she clung to my arm whispering, "I'm afraid--I'm afraid!" Then before I could speak, she had caught up her courage.

"Yes," she said. "Open it if you can."

The door swung a few inches, then resisted. Something soft and heavy, like a mattress, seemed to be braced against the bottom of it. I felt for the revolver in my pocket, then put my weight against the panel. The thing inside moved a little, then rolled over with a thud, and the door swung wide. What had lain against it, and now lay across the opening clearly visible in the light from behind us was the body of a woman with blood soaking into her hair.

CHAPTER IX

HOW WE ESCAPED FROM WHAT WE FOUND THERE

We stood looking down upon her without speech. She was a tall, rather thin woman of about fifty; Irish by the look of her, and still with some share of earlier good looks. The hair that fell away loosely from her broad forehead was black and straight, showing only here and there a thread of silver. The large hands lay limply open, and the face was deathly white. She had fallen away from the door with her knees pressed closely against it, as though she had been trying to open it when the blow came.

"Do you think she is dead?" Lady breathed at last.

"Of course not," I answered, but I was very much afraid. I knelt down beside her and listened to her heart. I was not sure, but it seemed to me that it beat faintly; so faintly that it might have been only the drumming of my own pulses in my ears.

"Can you find a mirror?" I asked from the floor.

Lady glanced vaguely about the room, then came back to me with uncomprehending eyes. "No, I can't see any. What for?" she said dully.

I sprang quickly to my feet. A chair lay overturned on the bare white boards of the floor, and I picked it up, setting it near the window.

"Sit there," I said, "while I rummage," and I drew her to it, half forcing her down into it. She sat very still, mechanically obedient, while I looked around me.

It was a strange little room to find in this decaying tenement. On the sill of the single window that gave upon the street blossomed an uneven row of geraniums. One pot had fallen to the floor and lay shattered, the fresh green of its broken plant piteous in a sprawl of scattered earth.

The whole place bore evidence of an insistent struggle for the cheerfulness of a home. White, starchy curtains were at the windows; the walls were fairly covered with pictures, colored prints for the most part, and supplements of Sunday papers. A bird-cage had hung in one corner, and now lay, cage and bottom fallen apart, upon a muddle of seed and water; and a frightened canary perched upon the leg of a fallen table, blinking in the unsteady flare of the gas. The floor was spotlessly clean, its worn boards white with scrubbing, save where the flower-pot and bird-cage had been overturned, and the dark stain spread from beneath the woman's hair. The whole scene was unnaturally and strangely vivid, all its little details leaping to the eye with the stark brilliance of a flashlight.

To the right of the door by which the woman lay was another door, and I crossed over to it. It opened with a squeak, and for a moment I stood looking in. This was evidently the sleeping-room. It held only a washstand, a chest and an iron bedstead; and here, too, an unextinguished gas-jet flared. I stepped in and closed the door behind me, for upon the bed lay another huddled figure. It was a man lying face downward, breathing heavily and evidently very drunk; for the whole place reeked sourly of alcohol. I pulled at his shoulder, turning him half over. For half a minute I held him so, then let him fall back as I had found him. I glanced behind me to be sure that the door was shut.

The man on the bed muttered thickly, s.h.i.+fting his position; and something thudded upon the floor, and rolled to my feet. It was a short bit of iron, rather more thick at one end than at the other; and as I turned it over in my hands, it left a stain. Somewhere I had seen such an instrument before, but I could not at the moment recall where; and I dropped the thing into my pocket not without some feeling of disgust. A small mirror hung over the washstand. This I hurriedly took down, and as hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind me. Lady was still sitting where I had left her, but as I came across the room she got up.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "I'm sure I can help in some way.

You were gone a long time, but I waited."

"I'll show you in a moment," I said. We talked in whispers as if in the presence of death; and yet I was almost sure that the woman was alive.

Nevertheless, it was with a great deal of relief that I saw the mirror softly cloud before her lips.

"It's all right," I cried. "She's alive."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" Lady breathed

"Amen," said I. "What are we to do now?"

"What do you think we had better do? Is there any water in there?"

"There's nothing in there that's of any use," I said quickly. "I should say the first thing would be to send for an ambulance, and the next for the police."

"No, no!" Lady cried. "Whatever is to be done we must do ourselves. I came here to take her away. Can't we take her as she is?"

"She could be carried down-stairs easily enough," said I, surprised, "but somebody ought to be arrested for this thing. Have you any notion who did it?"

"Her husband, I suppose," answered Lady bitterly. "He is like that when he has been drinking. Sheila was afraid something would happen when he came back."

"Sheila?"

Lady glanced at the figure before us. "That is Sheila," she said. "She used to be my nurse."

I picked the woman up in my arms. She was heavier than I had thought; not beyond my strength, but more than I could walk with safely down those crazy stairs.

"I'll call the chauffeur," I said. "He can help carry her down."

"Yes; but I'd rather he didn't see this."

"He'd see her anyhow, when we brought her down; and we can't do anything for her here. Where shall I put her?"