The Old Stone House and Other Stories Part 12

The landlady smiled and stroked the sick girl's hand.

"Indeed," she replied, "I have noticed that people love you, but I have never thought that it was more than you deserved. You are a dear little thing, Addie."

And though she knew and I knew that the "every one" mentioned by the poor girl meant ourselves, and possibly her unknown employer, we were none the less touched by her words. The more we studied the mystery, the deeper and less explainable did it become.

And indeed I doubt if we should have ever got to the bottom of it, if there had not presently occurred in my patient a repet.i.tion of the same dangerous symptoms, followed by the same discovery, of poison in the gla.s.s, and the same failure on the part of herself and nurse to account for it. I was aroused from my bed at midnight to attend her, and as I entered her room and met her beseeching eyes looking upon me from the very shadow of death, I made a vow that I would never cease my efforts till I had penetrated the secret of what certainly looked like a persistent attempt upon this poor girl's life.

I went about the matter deliberately. As soon as I could leave her side, I drew the nurse into a corner and again questioned her. The answers were the same as before. Addie had shown distress as soon as she had swallowed her usual quant.i.ty of medicine, and in a few minutes more was in a perilous condition.

"Did you hand the gla.s.s yourself to Addie?"

"I did."

"Where did you take it from?"

"From the place where you left it--the little stand on the farther side of the bed."

"And do you mean to say that you had not touched it since I prepared it?"

"I do, ma'am."

"And that no one else has been in the room?"

"No one, ma'am."

I looked at her intently. I trusted her, but the best of us are but mortal.

"Can you a.s.sure me that you have not been asleep during this time?"

"Look at this letter I have been writing," she returned. "It is eight pages long, and it was not begun when you left us at 10 o'clock."

I shook my head and fell into a deep revery. How was that matter to be elucidated, and how was my patient to be saved? Another draught of this deadly poison, and no power on earth could resuscitate her. What should I do, and with what weapons should I combat a danger at once so subtle and so deadly? Reflection brought no decision, and I left the room at last, determined upon but one point, and that was the immediate removal of my patient. But before I had left the house I changed my mind even on this point. Removal of the patient meant safety to her, perhaps, but not the explanation of her mysterious poisoning. I would change the position of her bed, and I would even set a watch over her and the nurse, but I would not take her out of the house--not yet.

And what had produced this change in my plans? The look of a woman whom I met on the stairs. I did not know her, but when I encountered her glance I felt that there was some connection between us, and I was not at all surprised to hear her ask:

"And how is Miss Wilc.o.x to-day?"

"Miss Wilc.o.x is very low," I returned. "The least neglect, the least shock to her nerves, would be sufficient to make all my efforts useless. Otherwise--"

"She will get well?"

I nodded. I had exaggerated the condition of the sufferer, but some secret instinct compelled me to do so. The look which pa.s.sed over the woman's face satisfied me that I had done well; and, though I left the house, it was with the intention of speedily returning and making inquiries into the woman's character and position in the household.

I learned little or nothing. That she occupied a good room and paid for it regularly seemed to be sufficient to satisfy Mrs. Dayton. Her name, which proved to be Leroux, showed her to be French, and her promptly paid $10 a week showed her to be respectable--what more could any hard-working landlady require? But I was distrustful. Her face, though handsome, possessed an eager, ferocious look which I could not forget, and the slight gesture with which she had pa.s.sed me at the close of the short conversation I have given above had a suggestion of triumph in it which seemed to contain whole volumes of secret and mysterious hate. I went into Miss Wilc.o.x's room very thoughtful.

"I am going--"

But here the nurse held up her hand. "Hark," she whispered; she had just set the clock, and was listening to its striking.

I did hark, but not to the clock.

"Whose step is that?" I asked, after she had left the clock, and sat down.

"Oh, some one in the next room. The walls here are very thin--only boards in places."

I did not complete what I had begun to say. If I could hear steps through the part.i.tion, then could our neighbors hear us talk, and what I had determined upon must be kept secret from all outsiders. I drew a sheet of paper toward me and wrote:

"I shall stay here to-night. Something tells me that in doing this I shall solve this mystery. But I must appear to go. Take my instructions as usual, and bid me good-night. Lock the door after me, but with a turn of the key instantly unlock it again. I shall go down stairs, see that my carriage drives away, and quietly return. On my re-entrance I shall expect to find Miss Wilc.o.x on the couch with the screen drawn up around it, you in your big chair, and the light lowered. What I do thereafter need not concern you. Pretend to go to sleep."

The nurse nodded, and immediately entered upon the programme I had planned. I prepared the medicine as usual, placed it in its usual gla.s.s, and laid that gla.s.s where it had always been set, on a small table at the farther side of the bed. Then I said "Good-night," and pa.s.sed hurriedly out.

I was fortunate enough to meet no one, going or coming. I regained the room, pushed open the door, and finding everything in order, proceeded at once to the bed, upon which, after taking off my hat and cloak and carefully concealing them, I lay down and deftly covered myself up.

My idea was this--that by some mesmeric influence of which she was ignorant, the nurse had been forced to either poison the gla.s.s herself or open the door for another to do it. If this were so, she or the other person would be obliged to pa.s.s around the foot of the bed in order to reach the gla.s.s, and I should be sure to see it, for I did not pretend to sleep. By the low light enough could be discerned for safe movement about the room, and not enough to make apparent the change which had been made in the occupant of the bed. I waited with indescribable anxiety, and more than once fancied I heard steps, if not a feverish breathing close to my bed-head; but no one appeared, and the nurse in her big chair did not move.

At last I grew weary, and fearful of losing control over my eyelids, I fixed my gaze upon the gla.s.s, as if in so doing I should find a talisman to keep me awake, when, great G.o.d! what was it I saw! A hand, a creeping hand coming from nowhere and joined to nothing, closing about that gla.s.s and drawing it slowly away till it disappeared entirely from before my eyes!

I gasped--I could not help it--but I did not stir. For now I knew I was asleep and dreaming. But no, I pinch myself under the clothes, and find that I am very wide awake indeed; and then--look! look! the gla.s.s is returning; the hand--a woman's hand--is slowly setting it back in its place, and--

With a bound I have that hand in my grasp. It is a living hand, and it is very warm and strong and fierce, and the gla.s.s has fallen and lies shattered between us, and a double cry is heard, one from behind the part.i.tion, through an opening in which this hand had been thrust, and one from the nurse, who has jumped to her feet and is even now a.s.sisting me in holding the struggling member, upon which I have managed to scratch a tell-tale mark with a piece of the fallen gla.s.s.

At sight of the iron-like grip which this latter lays upon the intruding member, I at once release my own grasp.

"Hold on," I cried, and leaping from the bed, I hastened first to my patient, whom I carefully rea.s.sured, and then into the hall, where I found the landlady running to see what was the matter. "I have found the wretch," I cried, and drawing her after me, hurried about to the other side of the part.i.tion, where I found a closet, and in it the woman I had met on the stairs, but glaring now like a tiger in her rage, menace, and fear.

That woman was my humble little patient's bitter but unknown enemy.

Enamoured of a man who--unwisely, perhaps--had expressed in her hearing his admiration for the pretty typewriter, she had conceived the idea that he intended to marry the latter, and, vowing vengeance, had taken up her abode in the same house with the innocent girl, where, had it not been for the fortunate circ.u.mstance of my meeting her on the stairs, she would certainly have carried out her scheme of vile and secret murder. The poison she had bought in another city, and the hole in the part.i.tion she had herself cut. This had been done at first for the purpose of observation, she having detected in pa.s.sing by Miss Wilc.o.x's open door that a banner of painted silk hung over that portion of the wall in such a way as to hide any aperture which might be made there.

Afterward, when Miss Wilc.o.x fell sick, and she discovered by short glimpses through her loop-hole that the gla.s.s of medicine was placed on a table just under this banner, she could not resist the temptation to enlarge the hole to a size sufficient to admit the pus.h.i.+ng aside of the banner and the reaching through of her murderous hand. Why she did not put poison enough in the gla.s.s to kill Miss Wilc.o.x at once I have never discovered. Probably she feared detection. That by doing as she did she brought about the very event she had endeavored to avert, is the most pleasing part of the tale. When the gentleman of whom I have spoken learned of the wicked attempt which had been made upon Miss Wilc.o.x's life, his heart took pity upon her, and a marriage ensued, which I have every reason to believe is a happy one.

SHALL HE WED HER?

When I met Taylor at the Club the other night, he looked so cheerful I scarcely knew him.

"What is it?" cried I, advancing with outstretched hand.

"I am going to be married," was his gay reply. "This is my last night at the Club."

I was glad, and showed it. Taylor is a man for whom domestic life is a necessity. He has never been at home with us, though we all liked him, and he in his way liked us.

"And who is the fortunate lady?" I inquired; for I had been out of town for some time, and had not as yet been made acquainted with the latest society news.

"My intended bride is Mrs. Walworth, the young widow--"

He must have seen a change take place in my expression, for he stopped.