The String of Pearls; Or, The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance.
Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it
reached the bottom of the stairs.
Lupin followed with the lantern.
And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to
Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone
communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the
ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the
private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to
reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed,
as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well
as into each other.
Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees.
"God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make an attempt to
leave this frightful place. There will surely be time while Lupin is in
the vaults. Oh, yes, there will surely be time."
She tottered along with as little strength as though she had been lying
for weeks upon a bed of sickness, so completely had she been unnerved by
what she had seen.
She touched the handle of the door. Even that was support. And then, she
turned it. The door did not open. It was locked!
Mrs. Oakley felt as if at that moment all her chance of escape was gone.
She felt as though she were given over by providence to Lupin to be
murdered. Why had he locked the door, but that if by any rare chance she
should awaken from the lethargic sleep into which he supposed her to be
plunged, she should have no outlet but through the room in which he
would be? But he was not there now, and the door of communication
between her room and that in which the murder had been done might not be
fast.
To try it was the work now of a moment; Mrs. Oakley felt a little more
self-possessed with the knowledge that Lupin was not close at hand, and
she opened the door. It yielded readily enough to her touch.
She was in the room of murder--in the very atmosphere of blood. She
glanced around her, and, although she had seen all through the opening
in the canvas partition, yet she was horrified to find herself closer to
the spot upon which the fearful deed had been done. Lupin, when he had
lit his lantern with which to go to the vaults, had not extinguished the
ordinary light that burnt in his room. That had a long spectral-looking
wick; but it gave sufficient light to enable Mrs. Oakley to see the
blood upon the floor.
She sickened at the sight.
But if she were to escape, it must be done at once. Lupin would not be
likely to linger longer by one brief moment in the vaults than was
absolutely necessary; and he might return before she had effected her
purpose yet.
She flew to the door of his room, which opened on to the landing. She
made an effort to open it. Alas! it was in vain; it, too, was locked,
and the key was gone!
"I am a prisoner!" said Mrs. Oakley, as she clasped her hands; "I am a
prisoner to this dreadful man!"
For some few moments now she felt completely overwhelmed by this
misfortune. The only outlet from the room that was not fast, was that
which Lupin himself had taken, and which led to the chapel. Should she
venture that way or not?--that was the question. Could she resolve upon
staying where she was, and trusting to an escape in the morning? No, no;
she told herself that would be too horrible. She would have, then, to
look at Lupin in the face, and to talk to him.
"No--no--no! I cannot do that," she said. "I will go down the staircase
that he has gone down--I will pass through the chapel--I will try to
open the chapel door, and then I will rush out with the cry of murder
upon my lips."
It was a trembling anxious thing to follow the murderer and his victim
down that staircase; but having found all other mode of egress denied to
her, Mrs. Oakley attempted it.
Slowly she went, step by step; and ever and anon she paused to listen
for any sound that should be indicative of Lupin's whereabouts--but she
heard nothing.
"He must be deep beneath the chapel," she said, "among the vaults--that
is where he must be. I shall be safe if I hasten now. Oh, so safe--quite
safe!"
She did hasten, and another moment brought her to the foot of the
stairs. A door in the chapel-wall terminated them. That was the door
against which Mrs. Oakley had heard the dead body strike with such a
frightful crash when Lupin had cast it down the stairs. It was swinging
open now.
Another moment and she was in the chapel.
From out of the aperture, occasioned by the lifting up of a large square
trap-door in the centre of the chapel floor, there came a faint stream
of light. Mrs. Oakley knew that that trap-door led to the vaults. She
knew that a flight of steps was immediately beneath it which lead to the
loathsome receptacles of the dead, where the pious members of Mr.
Lupin's flock were laid when they and this world had bidden each other
adieu. She knew that he derived no despicable revenue from letting such
lodgings to the dead.
And he was down there with his victim--the first person that he ever
permitted to lie there without a fee!
Mrs. Oakley, to reach the chapel door, must needs pass quite close to
the open trap-door; and as she neared it, a terrible curiosity took
possession of her--it was to see what Lupin was doing below--it was to
ascertain in what way he disposed of his victim's body. She thought that
she ought to see that. She thought, then, that she could tell all, and
bring the hounds of justice to the very spot where the murdered woman
lay.
She paused for a moment upon the brink of the trap, and then, by an
impulse that at the moment seemed, and was, irresistible, she began the
descent among the vaults.
These vaults were quite dignified by being so called. They were nothing
but cellars--nothing in the world but damp gloomy cellars--and Lupin
made as much of them as he did of the chapel overhead. The corpses lay
there thick and three-fold. A ghostly company! and yet Lupin had many
underground lodgings to let.
What cared he if the fumes from the dead came up, and made havoc upon
hot Sundays among the living? What cared he what mischief the
charnel-house beneath the planks did to the old and to the young? His
own constitution, he had a strong impression, could be fortified by
copious libations of brandy. Probably he was wrong in his practice, but
he had faith in his remedy, and that was a great thing--a very great
thing, indeed.
Mrs. Oakley slowly crept down the steps leading to the vaults. She was
guided by the faint light of Lupin's lantern, which was she knew not
where. Twice she paused to listen if he were coming, as in such a case
she would have flown back upon the wings of terror, but she heard
nothing, and she passed onward.
Twelve steps led to the lowest depth upon which the vaults were
situated. Then there was a kind of passage, upon which were flag stones
very roughly and clumsily laid down. Right and left of this passage the
vaults were. It wound completely round the chapel, but she had not to go
very far to ascertain where Lupin was at work. The light of the lantern
guided her to the half-open door of the vault, within which he was at
work.
CHAPTER CVI.
MR. LUPIN FINDS HIMSELF IN AN AWKWARD PREDICAMENT.
Mrs. Oakley peeped into the vault, but she held herself in readiness to
fly at a moment's notice, and then she thought she could easily hide
among the pews in the chapel. Nothing, she thought, could be very well
easier than such a course. Could she not hide in the very pew that she
had for a long time called her own? And then by watching Lupin, she
should have the advantage of seeing in a moment when he had done his
work, and there would then be little trouble in eluding him.
On tip-toe, Mrs. Oakley advanced to the half-opened door of the vault,
and peeped in upon the man, who thought himself so very safe. The eye of
heaven, he must have thought, saw him; but he would have staked his life
forthwith upon the fact, that no human observation was bent upon his
actions; and yet there was some one for whom he entertained the greatest
contempt--one whom he would have defied to injure him, gathering up
evidence to hang him.
Go on, Lupin. Bury your victim. But don't think yourself so very safe
just yet. It is an old saying, that "Murder will out." Do you think that
yours will prove the exception?
From a recess in the wall Lupin had dragged a coffin. It was an old one
and rather rotten, so that by the aid of a small crowbar that he had
there--what use did Lupin find for a crowbar in the vaults beneath his
chapel? Was it to rip open the coffins and rob even the dead? Well,
well--by the aid of this crowbar, he soon forced open the lid of the
coffin.
He stood in it then, and stamped down the remains with his feet to make
room for the murdered body.
Mrs. Oakley sickened at this; she had not quite expected to see such a
horror as that. It appeared to her at the moment, to be worse than the
murder above stairs. She really felt quite faint as she saw him.
When he had flattened the nearly decayed body in the coffin as much as
he could, he lifted the corpse of his victim from the floor of the
vault. It was still closely enveloped in the large sheet, although at
one part the blood had begun to make its way through all the folds upon
folds of that wrapper, and he threw it into the coffin. It more than
filled it.
Poor Mrs. Oakley shut her eyes; she knew what he was going to do. She
knew it from what he had done, and she saw it in his eyes. He was of
course going to tread down the dead body of her he had murdered, in the
same way that he had already trodden down the half-decomposed one in the
coffin.
Strange companionship! How little the very respectable defunct, who had
been expensively placed in one of the vaults, could have imagined that
she--it was a female--that she should be trodden down as flat as any
pancake, to make room for the Reverend Josiah Lupin's murdered wife!
"To what base uses may we come as last."
Mrs. Oakley heard him treading and stamping, and then she opened her
eyes, and she saw him fitting on the lid of the coffin again. He had
made it hold its double burthen.
And now she had surely seen all that she came to see, and yet with a
frightful fascination she lingered as though spell-bound to the spot.
She thought that she had plenty of time. Of course Lupin would put the
coffin into its recess again, and that would take him some time. It
would, with its additional weight, certainly be no easy task, but he set
about it, and it is astonishing what herculean labours people will
perform, when their necks are to answer for any delay or dereliction of
the duty. Lupin dragged the coffin to its receptacle on a low shelf, and
fairly hitched one end of it in the aperture made for its reception.
By the assistance of the lever he pushed it fairly in, and then he
paused and wiped his brow.
"It is done," he said.
He leaned heavily against the damp wall.
"It is done--it is done. This will be one of the undiscovered murders
that are done in London. I am safe now. Nobody will miss her--nobody
will look for her--nobody will dream that this vault can possibly
conceal such a crime; and now that the terror of it, and the horror of
doing it, is all over, I feel like a new man, and am much rejoiced."
"Rejoiced," thought Mrs. Oakley with a shudder.
"She was the torment of my life," added Lupin. "I knew no peace while
she lived. Success had no charm for me. Go where I would, think of what
I would, do what I would, I always had the dread of that woman before my
eyes; but now--now I am rid of her."
He took up his lantern from the floor of the vault.