IV
"HE DRANK IT _ALONE_"
In making this statement it is not my wish to create any specialprejudice against Alfred. Indeed, I have no right to do so, for when afew minutes later his brother Leighton came running up the stairs atsound of his child's voice, I noticed the same recoil on her part,followed by the same impassibility. Nor did she show a differentfeeling when in the hall below George came forward with the inquiriesher surprising absence had naturally provoked. From one and all sheinvoluntarily shrank, but not without suffering to herself and anobvious attempt to hide this natural impulse under a demeanour more inaccordance with her near relationship to these three men. In Alfredthis chilling conduct awakened emotions only too easy to read; inLeighton, surprise, and in George, a distrust bordering upon a passionso fierce that he turned from white to red and from red to white in aninstant. Evanescent expressions all of them, but important as showingthe feelings entertained towards her by these men among whom she hadbeen living for more or less time as a sister.
But of my personal sensations you have already heard too much,especially at this period of my story. Happily, I was able to hidethem from other eyes, and simply showed a natural curiosity when Dr.Bennett, with a sly look in her direction, whispered in my ear:
"How came she to know of her uncle's death so soon after itsoccurrence? You say you heard her rush upstairs while you were inAlfred's room. That was very soon after you laid the old gentleman outof your arms. Is it possible that you had already met Miss Meredith?Did she share that first alarm with you?"
"Not to my knowledge," I returned. "My first view of her was in theattic with you. Yet she may have been somewhere in this great hall, orin some of the many rooms I see about us."
Meanwhile I was taking in her beauty, or what I must call beauty fromthe lack of any other adequate word. I believe she was not what peoplecall beautiful. She did not need to be; her charm was incontestablewithout it; too incontestable, I fear, for the peace of mind of moremen than Alfred and George Gillespie.
She was standing by the newel-post, in a position startlingly likethat she had maintained above; and while I shrank from the doubts thuscalled up, I could not but perceive in the straightforward look of hereyes, and the fierce clutch of her hands behind her, that somedetermination was absorbing all her energies; a determination littlein accord, I fear, with the attitude of simple grief she made such aneffort to maintain. Leighton appeared to see this also, for he setdown the child he had been straining to his breast, and approachinghis cousin, plied her with a few hurried questions.
But the coroner, who had shown some embarrassment at the appearance onthe scene of so young and charming a lady, advanced at this junctureand prevented the answer which was slowly forming on her lips.
"If you are Miss Meredith, Mr. Gillespie's niece and assistant, youare justified in your grief. Mr. Gillespie has passed away under veryextraordinary circumstances."
Her hands which had been behind her, came suddenly together in front,but she did not shift her eyes from the point where she had fixedthem. Perhaps she dreaded to encounter the gaze of the three young mengrouped behind the man addressing her.
"Have those circumstances been related to you?" resumed Dr. Frisbiewith the encouragement in his tone which her loveliness and sorrownaturally called forth.
"No."
The answer came quickly, and with a sharp accentuation which showedher to be a woman of force, notwithstanding the condition in which wehad first found her.
"Then this little one had said nothing," he continued with a glance atClaire who had nestled again at her cousin's feet.
"Claire?" she exclaimed in evident surprise. "Claire?" and her eyesfollowed his till they fell inquiringly upon the child whose presenceup to this moment she had probably not noticed. "No, she has saidnothing; at least nothing that I have heard." And her hand went out asif she would urge the child away. But she did not complete thegesture, and I doubt if anyone understood her movement unless it wasmyself.
The coroner seemed anxious to spare her feelings. "Dr. Bennett willcommunicate to you our conclusions in this matter," said he. "I simplywant to ask you when you last saw Mr. Gillespie."
"Alive?" she asked, her eyes stealing towards the door of the littleden.
"Yes, miss; you surely have not seen him dead."
"I was with him at supper," she returned. "We were all there"; and forthe first time she let her gaze fall on each one of her cousins insuccession. "My uncle seemed as well then as at any time since hisillness. He ate a good meal and drank----"
"And drank," repeated the coroner with a stern look behind him at theyoung men who had all moved at this.
"His usual glass of wine at dessert. He drank it _alone_!" shesuddenly emphasised, her tone rising in sudden excitement. "I cannever forget that he drank it alone."
A sigh or a suspicion of a sigh answered her. It came from one of hercousins, but I never knew from which. At its sound she shrank as ifheart-pierced, and put up her hands--those tell-tale hands--andcovered her ears; then she as quickly dropped them, and regarded theyoung men before her slowly, separately, and with a heartrendingsignificance.
"I would so gladly have joined him in this attempt at old-timesociability had I but known it would have been his last," she said,and dropped her head again with a sob.
At this look and simple action a burden rolled from my heart. But uponthe coroner and the physician lingering near my side, both look andwords fell with a weight which made this investigation, ifinvestigation it could be called, halt a moment.
"I do not understand you," observed the former after a momentaryinterval surcharged with deep emotion. "Was Mr. Gillespie in the habitof sharing his wine with those who sat at his board, that you feel thepathos of that lonely glass so keenly?"
"Yes. I never knew the dinner to close before without some sort oftoast from one of his sons. It is the coincidence that affects me. ButI should not have mentioned it. No one could have known that this wasdestined to be our last meal together."
She was looking straight before her now. Though it seems more or lessincredible, she was evidently unconscious of having raised the blackbanner of suspicion over the heads of her three cousins. But the blanksilence which followed her words appeared to give her some idea ofwhat she had done, for with a sudden start and a change in herappearance which startled us all, she threw out her arms with the cry:
"You are keeping something from me. How did my uncle die? Tell me!tell me at once!"
Leighton sprang for his child, caught her up and fled with her into afarther room. George tottered, then drew himself proudly erect.Alfred, who had been gnawing his finger-ends in restrained passion,alone stepped forward to her aid, though in a deprecatory way whichrobbed him of a large part of his natural grace. But she appearedinsensible to them all. Her attention was fixed upon the doctor, whomshe followed with an agonising gaze, which warned him to be brief ifshe was to hear his words at all.
"Your uncle is the victim of _poison_," said he. "But we have reasonto think he took it some time later than at the evening meal. Prussicacid makes quick work."
The latter explanation fell unheeded. She had fallen at the word_poison_.