Chapter IV
The Second Attempt
The sight which met my eyes had the horror of a dream within a dream,with the certainty of reality added. The room was as I had seen itlast; except that the shadowy look had gone in the glare of the manylights, and every article in it stood stark and solidly real.
By the empty bed sat Nurse Kennedy, as my eyes had last seen her,sitting bolt upright in the arm-chair beside the bed. She had placed apillow behind her, so that her back might be erect; but her neck wasfixed as that of one in a cataleptic trance. She was, to all intentsand purposes, turned into stone. There was no special expression onher face--no fear, no horror; nothing such as might be expected of onein such a condition. Her open eyes showed neither wonder nor interest.She was simply a negative existence, warm, breathing, placid; butabsolutely unconscious of the world around her. The bedclothes weredisarranged, as though the patient had been drawn from under themwithout throwing them back. The corner of the upper sheet hung uponthe floor; close by it lay one of the bandages with which the Doctorhad dressed the wounded wrist. Another and another lay further alongthe floor, as though forming a clue to where the sick man now lay.This was almost exactly where he had been found on the previous night,under the great safe. Again, the left arm lay toward the safe. Butthere had been a new outrage, an attempt had been made to sever the armclose to the bangle which held the tiny key. A heavy "kukri"knife--one of the leaf-shaped knives which the Gurkhas and others ofthe hill tribes of India use with such effect--had been taken from itsplace on the wall, and with it the attempt had been made. It wasmanifest that just at the moment of striking, the blow had beenarrested, for only the point of the knife and not the edge of the bladehad struck the flesh. As it was, the outer side of the arm had beencut to the bone and the blood was pouring out. In addition, the formerwound in front of the arm had been cut or torn about terribly, one ofthe cuts seemed to jet out blood as if with each pulsation of theheart. By the side of her father knelt Miss Trelawny, her whitenightdress stained with the blood in which she knelt. In the middle ofthe room Sergeant Daw, in his shirt and trousers and stocking feet, wasputting fresh cartridges into his revolver in a dazed mechanical kindof way. His eyes were red and heavy, and he seemed only half awake,and less than half conscious of what was going on around him. Severalservants, bearing lights of various kinds, were clustered round thedoorway.
As I rose from my chair and came forward, Miss Trelawny raised her eyestoward me. When she saw me she shrieked and started to her feet,pointing towards me. Never shall I forget the strange picture shemade, with her white drapery all smeared with blood which, as she rosefrom the pool, ran in streaks toward her bare feet. I believe that Ihad only been asleep; that whatever influence had worked on Mr.Trelawny and Nurse Kennedy--and in less degree on Sergeant Daw--had nottouched me. The respirator had been of some service, though it had notkept off the tragedy whose dire evidences were before me. I canunderstand now--I could understand even then--the fright, added to thatwhich had gone before, which my appearance must have evoked. I hadstill on the respirator, which covered mouth and nose; my hair had beentossed in my sleep. Coming suddenly forward, thus enwrapped anddishevelled, in that horrified crowd, I must have had, in the strangemixture of lights, an extraordinary and terrifying appearance. It waswell that I recognised all this in time to avert another catastrophe;for the half-dazed, mechanically-acting Detective put in the cartridgesand had raised his revolver to shoot at me when I succeeded inwrenching off the respirator and shouting to him to hold his hand. Inthis also he acted mechanically; the red, half-awake eyes had not inthem even then the intention of conscious action. The danger, however,was averted. The relief of the situation, strangely enough, came in asimple fashion. Mrs. Grant, seeing that her young mistress had on onlyher nightdress, had gone to fetch a dressing-gown, which she now threwover her. This simple act brought us all back to the region of fact.With a long breath, one and all seemed to devote themselves to the mostpressing matter before us, that of staunching the flow of blood fromthe arm of the wounded man. Even as the thought of action came, Irejoiced; for the bleeding was very proof that Mr. Trelawny still lived.
Last night's lesson was not thrown away. More than one of thosepresent knew now what to do in such an emergency, and within a fewseconds willing hands were at work on a tourniquet. A man was at oncedespatched for the doctor, and several of the servants disappeared tomake themselves respectable. We lifted Mr. Trelawny on to the sofawhere he had lain yesterday; and, having done what we could for him,turned our attention to the Nurse. In all the turmoil she had notstirred; she sat there as before, erect and rigid, breathing softly andnaturally and with a placid smile. As it was manifestly of no use toattempt anything with her till the doctor had come, we began to thinkof the general situation.
Mrs. Grant had by this time taken her mistress away and changed herclothes; for she was back presently in a dressing-gown and slippers,and with the traces of blood removed from her hands. She was now muchcalmer, though she trembled sadly; and her face was ghastly white.When she had looked at her father's wrist, I holding the tourniquet,she turned her eyes round the room, resting them now and again on eachone of us present in turn, but seeming to find no comfort. It was soapparent to me that she did not know where to begin or whom to trustthat, to reassure her, I said:
"I am all right now; I was only asleep." Her voice had a gulp in it asshe said in a low voice:
"Asleep! You! and my Father in danger! I thought you were on thewatch!" I felt the sting of justice in the reproach; but I reallywanted to help her, so I answered:
"Only asleep. It is bad enough, I know; but there is something morethan an "only" round us here. Had it not been that I took a definiteprecaution I might have been like the Nurse there." She turned hereyes swiftly on the weird figure, sitting grimly upright like a paintedstatue; and then her face softened. With the action of habitualcourtesy she said:
"Forgive me! I did not mean to be rude. But I am in such distress andfear that I hardly know what I am saying. Oh, it is dreadful! I fearfor fresh trouble and horror and mystery every moment." This cut me tothe very heart, and out of the heart's fulness I spoke:
"Don't give me a thought! I don't deserve it. I was on guard, and yetI slept. All that I can say is that I didn't mean to, and I tried toavoid it; but it was over me before I knew it. Anyhow, it is done now;and can't be undone. Probably some day we may understand it all; butnow let us try to get at some idea of what has happened. Tell me whatyou remember!" The effort to recollect seemed to stimulate her; shebecame calmer as she spoke:
"I was asleep, and woke suddenly with the same horrible feeling on methat Father was in great and immediate danger. I jumped up and ran,just as I was, into his room. It was nearly pitch dark, but as Iopened the door there was light enough to see Father's nightdress as helay on the floor under the safe, just as on that first awful night.Then I think I must have gone mad for a moment." She stopped andshuddered. My eyes lit on Sergeant Daw, still fiddling in an aimlessway with the revolver. Mindful of my work with the tourniquet, I saidcalmly:
"Now tell us, Sergeant Daw, what did you fire at?" The policemanseemed to pull himself together with the habit of obedience. Lookingaround at the servants remaining in the room, he said with that air ofimportance which, I take it, is the regulation attitude of an officialof the law before strangers:
"Don't you think, sir, that we can allow the servants to go away? Wecan then better go into the matter." I nodded approval; the servantstook the hint and withdrew, though unwillingly, the last one closingthe door behind him. Then the Detective went on:
"I think I had better tell you my impressions, sir, rather than recountmy actions. That is, so far as I remember them." There was a mortifieddeference now in his manner, which probably arose from hisconsciousness of the awkward position in which he found himself. "Iwent to sleep half-dressed--as I am now, with a revolver under mypillow. It was the last thing I r
emember thinking of. I do not knowhow long I slept. I had turned off the electric light, and it wasquite dark. I thought I heard a scream; but I can't be sure, for Ifelt thick-headed as a man does when he is called too soon after anextra long stretch of work. Not that such was the case this time.Anyhow my thoughts flew to the pistol. I took it out, and ran on tothe landing. Then I heard a sort of scream, or rather a call for help,and ran into this room. The room was dark, for the lamp beside theNurse was out, and the only light was that from the landing, comingthrough the open door. Miss Trelawny was kneeling on the floor besideher father, and was screaming. I thought I saw something move betweenme and the window; so, without thinking, and being half dazed and onlyhalf awake, I shot at it. It moved a little more to the right betweenthe windows, and I shot again. Then you came up out of the big chairwith all that muffling on your face. It seemed to me, being as I sayhalf dazed and half awake--I know, sir, you will take this intoaccount--as if it had been you, being in the same direction as thething I had fired at. And so I was about to fire again when you pulledoff the wrap." Here I asked him--I was cross-examining now and felt athome:
"You say you thought I was the thing you fired at. What thing?" Theman scratched his head, but made no reply.
"Come, sir," I said, "what thing; what was it like?" The answer camein a low voice:
"I don't know, sir. I thought there was something; but what it was, orwhat it was like, I haven't the faintest notion. I suppose it wasbecause I had been thinking of the pistol before I went to sleep, andbecause when I came in here I was half dazed and only half awake--whichI hope you will in future, sir, always remember." He clung to thatformula of excuse as though it were his sheet-anchor. I did not wantto antagonise the man; on the contrary I wanted to have him with us.Besides, I had on me at that time myself the shadow of my own default;so I said as kindly as I knew how:
"Quite right! Sergeant. Your impulse was correct; though of course inthe half-somnolent condition in which you were, and perhaps partlyaffected by the same influence--whatever it may be--which made me sleepand which has put the Nurse in that cataleptic trance, it could not beexpected that you would paused to weigh matters. But now, whilst thematter is fresh, let me see exactly where you stood and where I sat.We shall be able to trace the course of your bullets." The prospect ofaction and the exercise of his habitual skill seemed to brace him atonce; he seemed a different man as he set about his work. I asked Mrs.Grant to hold the tourniquet, and went and stood where he had stood andlooked where, in the darkness, he had pointed. I could not but noticethe mechanical exactness of his mind, as when he showed me where he hadstood, or drew, as a matter of course, the revolver from his pistolpocket, and pointed with it. The chair from which I had risen stillstood in its place. Then I asked him to point with his hand only, as Iwished to move in the track of his shot.
Just behind my chair, and a little back of it, stood a high buhlcabinet. The glass door was shattered. I asked:
"Was this the direction of your first shot or your second?" The answercame promptly.
"The second; the first was over there!"
He turned a little to the left, more toward the wall where the greatsafe stood, and pointed. I followed the direction of his hand and cameto the low table whereon rested, amongst other curios, the mummy of thecat which had raised Silvio's ire. I got a candle and easily found themark of the bullet. It had broken a little glass vase and a tazza ofblack basalt, exquisitely engraved with hieroglyphics, the graven linesbeing filled with some faint green cement and the whole thing beingpolished to an equal surface. The bullet, flattened against the wall,lay on the table.
I then went to the broken cabinet. It was evidently a receptacle forvaluable curios; for in it were some great scarabs of gold, agate,green jasper, amethyst, lapis lazuli, opal, granite, and blue-greenchina. None of these things happily were touched. The bullet had gonethrough the back of the cabinet; but no other damage, save theshattering of the glass, had been done. I could not but notice thestrange arrangement of the curios on the shelf of the cabinet. All thescarabs, rings, amulets, &c. were arranged in an uneven oval round anexquisitely-carved golden miniature figure of a hawk-headed God crownedwith a disk and plumes. I did not wait to look further at present, formy attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined tomake a more minute examination when I should have time. It was evidentthat some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios;through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum andbitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as comingfrom others in the room.
All this had really taken but a few minutes. I was surprised when myeye met, through the chinks between the dark window blinds and thewindow cases, the brighter light of the coming dawn. When I went backto the sofa and took the tourniquet from Mrs. Grant, she went over andpulled up the blinds.
It would be hard to imagine anything more ghastly than the appearanceof the room with the faint grey light of early morning coming in uponit. As the windows faced north, any light that came was a fixed greylight without any of the rosy possibility of dawn which comes in theeastern quarter of heaven. The electric lights seemed dull and yetglaring; and every shadow was of a hard intensity. There was nothingof morning freshness; nothing of the softness of night. All was hardand cold and inexpressibly dreary. The face of the senseless man onthe sofa seemed of a ghastly yellow; and the Nurse's face had taken asuggestion of green from the shade of the lamp near her. Only MissTrelawny's face looked white; and it was of a pallor which made myheart ache. It looked as if nothing on God's earth could ever againbring back to it the colour of life and happiness.
It was a relief to us all when Doctor Winchester came in, breathlesswith running. He only asked one question:
"Can anyone tell me anything of how this wound was gotten?" On seeingthe headshake which went round us under his glance, he said no more,but applied himself to his surgical work. For an instant he looked upat the Nurse sitting so still; but then bent himself to his task, agrave frown contracting his brows. It was not till the arteries weretied and the wounds completely dressed that he spoke again, except, ofcourse, when he had asked for anything to be handed to him or to bedone for him. When Mr. Trelawny's wounds had been thoroughly caredfor, he said to Miss Trelawny:
"What about Nurse Kennedy?" She answered at once:
"I really do not know. I found her when I came into the room athalf-past two o'clock, sitting exactly as she does now. We have notmoved her, or changed her position. She has not wakened since. EvenSergeant Daw's pistol-shots did not disturb her."
"Pistol-shots? Have you then discovered any cause for this newoutrage?" The rest were silent, so I answered:
"We have discovered nothing. I was in the room watching with theNurse. Earlier in the evening I fancied that the mummy smells weremaking me drowsy, so I went out and got a respirator. I had it on whenI came on duty; but it did not keep me from going to sleep. I awoke tosee the room full of people; that is, Miss Trelawny and Sergeant Daw,being only half awake and still stupefied by the same scent orinfluence which had affected us, fancied that he saw something movingthrough the shadowy darkness of the room, and fired twice. When I roseout of my chair, with my face swathed in the respirator, he took me forthe cause of the trouble. Naturally enough, he was about to fireagain, when I was fortunately in time to manifest my identity. Mr.Trelawny was lying beside the safe, just as he was found last night;and was bleeding profusely from the new wound in his wrist. We liftedhim on the sofa, and made a tourniquet. That is, literally andabsolutely, all that any of us know as yet. We have not touched theknife, which you see lies close by the pool of blood. Look!" I said,going over and lifting it. "The point is red with the blood which hasdried."
Doctor Winchester stood quite still a few minutes before speaking:
"Then the doings of this night are quite as mysterious as those of lastnight?"
"Quite!" I answered. He said nothing in reply,
but turning to MissTrelawny said:
"We had better take Nurse Kennedy into another room. I suppose thereis nothing to prevent it?"
"Nothing! Please, Mrs. Grant, see that Nurse Kennedy's room is ready;and ask two of the men to come and carry her in." Mrs. Grant went outimmediately; and in a few minutes came back saying:
"The room is quite ready; and the men are here." By her direction twofootmen came into the room and, lifting up the rigid body of NurseKennedy under the supervision of the Doctor, carried her out of theroom. Miss Trelawny remained with me in the sick chamber, and Mrs.Grant went with the Doctor into the Nurse's room.
When we were alone Miss Trelawny came over to me, and taking both myhands in hers, said:
"I hope you won't remember what I said. I did not mean it, and I wasdistraught." I did not make reply; but I held her hands and kissedthem. There are different ways of kissing a lady's hands. This waywas intended as homage and respect; and it was accepted as such in thehigh-bred, dignified way which marked Miss Trelawny's bearing and everymovement. I went over to the sofa and looked down at the senselessman. The dawn had come much nearer in the last few minutes, and therewas something of the clearness of day in the light. As I looked at thestern, cold, set face, now as white as a marble monument in the palegrey light, I could not but feel that there was some deep mysterybeyond all that had happened within the last twenty-six hours. Thosebeetling brows screened some massive purpose; that high, broad foreheadheld some finished train of reasoning, which the broad chin and massivejaw would help to carry into effect. As I looked and wondered, therebegan to steal over me again that phase of wandering thought which hadlast night heralded the approach of sleep. I resisted it, and heldmyself sternly to the present. This was easier to do when MissTrelawny came close to me, and, leaning her forehead against myshoulder, began to cry silently. Then all the manhood in me woke, andto present purpose. It was of little use trying to speak; words wereinadequate to thought. But we understood each other; she did not drawaway when I put arm protectingly over her shoulder as I used to do withmy little sister long ago when in her childish trouble she would cometo her big brother to be comforted. That very act or attitude ofprotection made me more resolute in my purpose, and seemed to clear mybrain of idle, dreamy wandering in thought. With an instinct ofgreater protection, however, I took away my arm as I heard the Doctor'sfootstep outside the door.
When Doctor Winchester came in he looked intently at the patient beforespeaking. His brows were set, and his mouth was a thin, hard line.Presently he said:
"There is much in common between the sleep of your Father and NurseKennedy. Whatever influence has brought it about has probably workedthe same way in both cases. In Kennedy's case the coma is less marked.I cannot but feel, however, that with her we may be able to do more andmore quickly than with this patient, as our hands are not tied. I haveplaced her in a draught; and already she shows some signs, though veryfaint ones, of ordinary unconsciousness. The rigidity of her limbs isless, and her skin seems more sensitive--or perhaps I should say lessinsensitive--to pain."
"How is it, then," I asked, "that Mr. Trelawny is still in this stateof insensibility; and yet, so far as we know, his body has not had suchrigidity at all?"
"That I cannot answer. The problem is one which we may solve in a fewhours; or it may need a few days. But it will be a useful lesson indiagnosis to us all; and perhaps to many and many others after us, whoknows!" he added, with the genuine fire of an enthusiast.
As the morning wore on, he flitted perpetually between the two rooms,watching anxiously over both patients. He made Mrs. Grant remain withthe Nurse, but either Miss Trelawny or I, generally both of us,remained with the wounded man. We each managed, however, to get bathedand dressed; the Doctor and Mrs. Grant remained with Mr. Trelawnywhilst we had breakfast.
Sergeant Daw went off to report at Scotland Yard the progress of thenight; and then to the local station to arrange for the coming of hiscomrade, Wright, as fixed with Superintendent Dolan. When he returnedI could not but think that he had been hauled over the coals forshooting in a sick-room; or perhaps for shooting at all without certainand proper cause. His remark to me enlightened me in the matter:
"A good character is worth something, sir, in spite of what some ofthem say. See! I've still got leave to carry my revolver."
That day was a long and anxious one. Toward nightfall Nurse Kennedy sofar improved that the rigidity of her limbs entirely disappeared. Shestill breathed quietly and regularly; but the fixed expression of herface, though it was a calm enough expression, gave place to falleneyelids and the negative look of sleep. Doctor Winchester had, towardsevening, brought two more nurses, one of whom was to remain with NurseKennedy and the other to share in the watching with Miss Trelawny, whohad insisted on remaining up herself. She had, in order to prepare forthe duty, slept for several hours in the afternoon. We had all takencounsel together, and had arranged thus for the watching in Mr.Trelawny's room. Mrs. Grant was to remain beside the patient tilltwelve, when Miss Trelawny would relieve her. The new nurse was to sitin Miss Trelawny's room, and to visit the sick chamber each quarter ofan hour. The Doctor would remain till twelve; when I was to relievehim. One or other of the detectives was to remain within hail of theroom all night; and to pay periodical visits to see that all was well.Thus, the watchers would be watched; and the possibility of such eventsas last night, when the watchers were both overcome, would be avoided.
When the sun set, a strange and grave anxiety fell on all of us; and inour separate ways we prepared for the vigil. Doctor Winchester hadevidently been thinking of my respirator, for he told me he would goout and get one. Indeed, he took to the idea so kindly that Ipersuaded Miss Trelawny also to have one which she could put on whenher time for watching came.
And so the night drew on.