Saved from herself or, On the edge of doom
against one, who saw himself caught red-handed, and fought, not for his
own life, but to kill.
Then lights in the haunted room, quiet only broken by the hard
breathing of panting men; Marcus Wray, with handcuffs on his wrists,
held fast by two policemen in plain clothes, a small and dirty boy
yelling with excitement:
“That’s him! That’s the man. I told you I’d know him!”
Thomas, haggard with frightened amazement, peering in at the door;
behind him Cristiane, crying desperately; Mrs. Trelane in a sumptuous
tea-gown, half-on, that was incongruous with her face, so wan without
its rouge and powder.
Davids, his hard face full of triumph, since the unraveling of the
Onslow Square mystery was a glory even to him, stepped forward and
touched Marcus Wray’s shoulder.
“For the murder of the Earl of Abbotsford,” he said, and Wray laughed
in his face.
“You’ve no proofs!” he sneered.
Davids drew out a broken cuff-link, a scarab from which a thin chain
dangled.
“I found this in your rooms,” he said, “and the other half of it one of
my men found in Lord Abbotsford’s bedroom. And this boy saw you go in
and go out on the day of Lord Abbotsford’s murder; saw the blue thing
on your cuff as you threw the bottle that had held the poison into the
middle of the traffic at the corner, to be ground to powder.”
Once more Wray laughed.
He had seen a laden omnibus go over the very spot where he had flung
the bottle.
“Powder, exactly!” he said. “And neither your boy nor your scarabs are
any use without that bottle.” Yet the scarabs had staggered even him.
He had forgotten to take them out; they had gone to the wash in his
shirt, and his washerwoman had returned them with tears, believing she
had broken off one of them in her ironing.
And Wray, thinking so, too, had never given the missing scarab another
thought. The whole link and the broken one had been lying openly on his
dressing-table last night when the inspector had broken into his rooms.
He had never thought of Abbotsford even when he fought so madly on
the threshold. It was that these men had seen his attempted murder of
Cristiane le Marchant that had made his case so desperate.
Davids glanced at him, and at the look his lips grew dry.
“I have the bottle,” the inspector said simply. “The boy kept it to
play with.”
Wray looked from one to the other, like a devil incarnate that is
beaten.
“May I ask you how you found out this rot?” He could not speak with the
old voice, but he tried.
“I found it out because a girl was too shrewd and brave for you. Miss
Trelane, by a coincidence, obtained that broken cuff-link; she knew
the hold the stolen diamonds had given you on her mother; she came to
London by chance, came on the only night since the murder when she
could lay her hands on the evidence that was wanted; she found the boy,
and brought him straight to me, with the broken bit of jewelry that I
found the other half of in your room.”
“She? Ismay!” His oath sounded loud in the quiet room. “She was a spy!
Well, it’s a comfort to me to know that I’ve killed her!”
He stretched out his manacled hands and pointed where the girl lay on
the floor, face down.
No one had noticed her at first. She had tripped and lay still, worn
out--that was all.
But they looked now on a huddled heap of white satin, on slow blood
that oozed scarlet from her hidden forehead.
Cristiane screamed from the depths of a penitent soul:
“She’s dead! He’s killed her. And it was she who saved me just now. He
was trying to push me through the banisters, and I looked up and saw
her. She motioned with her hand for me to drop down flat, and I did.
It saved me, for the upper part of the banisters went, as I would have
gone if I’d been standing. I thought it was the ghost, but I saw her
eyes, and I knew her. I dropped as she meant me to, and then he stooped
to throw me over, and she sprang at him from behind. Oh! Ismay!” she
threw herself on the floor by the slight figure that was so awful in
its stillness. “Ismay, look up! Forgive me! Don’t lie like that!”
But Ismay did not stir.
Davids put out a hand that shook in his dread, to draw Cristiane away.
But some one was quicker than he; some one who hurled himself through
the doorway, brushing past Thomas and Mrs. Trelane as if he did not see
them.
Cylmer, by merest chance, had been hunting twenty miles off, doing
his best to forget the girl he loved, had stayed to dine with a noisy
party, and came back by train.
As he stood on the station platform, waiting for his dog-cart, a man
had touched him on the shoulder.
“Kivers!” he cried. “What brings you here?”
“Good news for you, Mr. Cylmer!” the man said softly, though there was
no one in hearing. “The inspector has discovered Lord Abbotsford’s
murderer. He and three of the force are at Marchant’s Hold now. I’m
waiting here, in case there’s any accidents, and they make a run for
the station.”
“They! Marchant’s Hold!” Cylmer was sick. Then the blow had fallen!
“I’m going there,” he said, through set lips. Was he too late? Could he
carry off Ismay, or would he find her with handcuffs on her wrists?
“Wait; they won’t let you in; our men won’t know you.” Kivers thrust
a hastily scrawled card in Cylmer’s hand, wondering not at all at his
excitement, when at last the murderer of his friend was in his hands.
But the groom on the back of the two-wheeled cart prayed to the saints,
and clung for his life; the galloping horse, the swaying dog-cart, and
a master who had suddenly gone crazy, were too much for him. The wind
whistled past Cylmer’s ears with the speed of his going, but it seemed
years before he stopped his reeking, blown horse at Marchant’s Hold. He
was forced to wait while a policeman on guard read Kivers’ note and let
him into the house.
But there was not a soul to be seen, not a sound anywhere. As he
listened in the dark, not knowing which way to turn, he heard a woman
sob, up-stairs, far above him. He was up three steps at a time, lost in
wonder as he ran. What in Heaven’s name were they doing in the garret?
An open door; a lighted room; Mrs. Trelane and Thomas barring the way.
Mrs. Trelane, free, scathless!
Then it must be Ismay--Ismay! And he was too late.
He could not move nor speak for the cruel pain that brought the cold
sweat on his forehead.
“Ismay.” He listened, silent, breathless; he dared not go in lest he
should see her, now that he was too late.
Davids’ voice, cold, incisive, startled him; then Wray’s. Yet it was
not till Cristiane was kneeling by Ismay that he saw her. And then he
saw nothing else. He was down by her side, lifting her, her blood on
his hands, his heart craving her. The girl his self-righteousness had
rejected, who, because he would not hear her and help her, had fought
her battle alone--to die from it.
He would not, would not have it! She was stunned; it must be that she
was stunned. But the heart under his hand did not even flicker.
“Are you going to let her die here?” he cried. “Move, Cristiane; let
me carry her to her bed. You are her mother”--turning fiercely on Mrs.
Trelane--“send some one for a doctor!”
Tenderly, jealously, he lifted her, whom no other hands should touch.
And as he carried her her lovely head fell backward on his arm, her
hands hung at his side, swaying like a dead woman’s.
Masterfully, as one who has a right, he sponged the blood from her
face, when she lay on her bed in her fantastic dress. There was but a
simple cut on her forehead--not enough to make her unconscious.
“Why is she dressed like this?” he said sternly to Mrs. Trelane, who
stood, dazed and helpless, not even wondering why he was there.
“The house was said to be haunted. She played the ghost to overhear
Marcus at night talking to me. She played it to-night to save
Cristiane, and to get Marcus up to the room where the police waited for
him,” for the inspector had spoken brutal truths to her, and at last
she knew what the girl had done for her sake.
She drew the bloody scarf from Ismay’s head, and Cylmer could see.
Under her left ear was a bruise--only a little bruise; yet he groaned
as he saw it. Wray, as she tripped, had struck her there, as a
prize-fighter strikes, with the deadly accuracy of knowledge. No one
should have her if he could not.
It was a man hopeless and helpless whom the doctor sent from the room,
for it was he who had done it. If he had heard her out that day she
would even now be warm with life.
Mechanically, he found his way to the empty drawing-room, where one
lamp burned, forgotten.
In the house were noises of many feet, as Davids and his men took
away Marcus Wray with handcuffs on his wrists; a going to and fro of
frightened servants on the staircases; then the hush of a house where a
soul is passing. But Miles Cylmer knew none of these things.
He was down upon his face in very hell.
If it were he, not she, who must die! How should he rise and look upon
the day when they came to tell him his love was dead?
How should he live, when in a few days they would commit her sweet body
to the dust?
As though tears of blood were rising from his heart to his eyes the
man looked into a red mist as some one came into the room, and he sat
up.
It was the doctor.
“Well?” It was all Cylmer could say.
“I don’t know.” His voice changed suddenly to deepest pity at the
haggard face before him, livid as if with years. “My dear Cylmer, I
don’t know. She is alive; but the blow must have been a cruel one. She
may live for days in a stupor, as she lies now.”
“And then?”
“She is young and strong. She may have vitality enough----” But he
could not finish. He knew that in all human probability the candle of
her life would burn lower and lower, till scarcely even he would know
when it was burned away.
“Can I go to her? I was going to marry her.”
Cylmer’s voice was perfectly steady as he rose, a strange figure in
his overcoat, that he had never taken off, a scarlet stain on its
fawn-colored sleeve.
The doctor nodded.
“She won’t know you, Cylmer--she has never opened her eyes; but she
breathes still. I’ll be here till morning.”
“Breathes still.” The gentle words rang in Cylmer’s ears as he went
up-stairs. But yesterday she had been all his own; to-day all that pity
could find to say was that.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
“AND WHO IS THIS?”
For a day and a night he watched her as she lay. Sometimes he leaned
over her in sudden fright that she had ceased to breathe; sometimes he
fancied she stirred, that her eyelids quivered. But neither the good
nor the bad was true. The slow hours came and passed and died, and
there was no change on that quiet face.
Cylmer turned away as the nurse approached the bed, bearing wine and
a spoon. He hated that useless cruelty of trying to feed her. It
sickened him to see the things they gave her ooze from the corners of
her lips.
He stood leaning by the window and watched with listless inattention a
carriage driving to the door. Curious visitors came by the score, to
be turned away. Cristiane had no heart to see them; Mrs. Trelane, with
the prospect of going into court to account for those stolen diamonds
before her, would face no one.
A quick, cautious cry from the nurse made Cylmer turn. With two strides
he was at the bedside. Had Ismay gone--passed from him without a word,
while he looked out on the sky whose glory was gone forever?
“She’s not----”
“Quick! Go tell the doctor to come here! He’s down-stairs with the
specialist from London. She swallowed that champagne.”
Before the woman could lay down the spoon Cylmer was back, with the two
men at his heels.
Ismay turned on her side, moaned. Slowly, very slowly, her eyes opened,
then shut again, seeing nothing.