The House Opposite: A Mystery

“I know you have.”

“But to return to Norman,” continued Fred. “I not only suspect him of haunting her door by day, but of spending a good part of the night there. At any rate, I used to hear him creeping in and out of the house at all sorts of unusual hours. The first night I took him for a burglar, and showed what I consider true courage by starting out after him with an empty pistol and—a crutch!”

“I don’t think that anything you have told me, however, is at all incompatible with his being Miss Derwent’s accepted suitor. His distress is probably due to anxiety about her health.” I said this, hoping he would contradict me.

Whether he would have done so or not I shall never know, for at that point our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of his sister; and as it had been previously arranged that she was to drive me over to the Derwents, we started off at once.

At last I was to see my lady again! It seemed too good to be true.

Having given our names to the butler, we were ushered into a large drawing-room, redolent with flowers. So this was May’s home.

I glanced eagerly about. These chairs had held her slight form; at that desk she had written, and these rugs had felt the impress of her little feet. A book lay near me on a small table. I passed my fingers lovingly over it. This contact with an object she must often have touched gave me an extraordinary pleasure,—a pleasure so great as to make me forget everything else,—and I started guiltily, and tried to lay the book down unobserved, when a tall, grey-haired lady stepped from the veranda into the room.

Mrs. Derwent greeted Miss Cowper affectionately, and welcomed me with quiet grace.

“Fred has told me so much about you, Dr. Fortescue, that I am very glad to meet you at last.”

Then, turning to Alice Cowper, she said: “May wants very much to see you. She is lying in a hammock on the piazza, where it is much cooler than here. Dr. Fortescue and I will join you girls later.”

“You have been told of my daughter’s condition?” she inquired, as soon as we were alone.

“Yes. I hear, however, that there has been a marked improvement since Sunday.”

“There was a great improvement. She seemed much less nervous yesterday, but to-day she has had another of her attacks.”

“I am sorry to hear that. Do you know what brought this one on?”

“Yes. It was reading in the paper of the Frenchman’s assault on you!”

“But I don’t understand why that should have affected her.”

“You will forgive my saying so, Doctor—neither do I, although I am extremely glad that you escaped from that madman unhurt.”

She looked at me for a moment in silence, then said: “When Fred advised me to consult you about my daughter’s health, I knew immediately that I had heard your name before, but could not remember in what connection I had heard it mentioned. In fact, it was not until I read in the Bugle that the man who was supposed to have committed the Rosemere murder had, last night, attempted to kill you that I realized that you were the young doctor whom my daughter had told me about. You were present when she was made to give an account of herself to the coroner, were you not?”

“Yes, but I trust that my slight association with that affair will make no difference.”

She again interrupted me: “It makes the greatest difference, I assure you. As you are aware of the exact nature of the shock she has sustained, I am spared the painful necessity of informing a stranger of her escapade. We are naturally anxious that the fact of her having been in the building at the time of the murder should be known to as few people as possible. I am, therefore, very grateful to you for not mentioning the matter, even to Fred. Although I have been obliged to confide in him myself, I think that your not having done so indicates rare discretion on your part.”

I bowed.

“You may rely on me,” I said. “I have the greatest respect and admiration for Miss Derwent, and would be most unwilling to say anything which might lay her open to misconstruction.”

“Thank you. Now, Doctor, you know exactly what occurred. You are consequently better able than any one else to judge whether what she has been through is in itself enough to account for her present illness.”

“She is still very nervous?”

“Incredibly so. She cannot bear to be left alone a minute.”

“And you know of no reason for this nervousness other than her experience at the Rosemere?”

“None.”

“May I ask how the news of the butler’s attack on me affected her?” How sweet to think that she had cared at all!

“Very strangely,” replied Mrs. Derwent. “After reading the account of it she fainted, and it was quite an hour before she recovered consciousness. Since then she has expressed the greatest desire to go to New York, but will give no reason for this absurd whim. Mr. Norman was also much upset by the thought of the danger you had incurred.”

“Mr. Norman! But I don’t know him!”

“So he told me. To be able to feel so keenly for a stranger shows an extraordinary sensibility, does it not?”

She looked at me keenly.

“It does, indeed! It is most inexplicable!”

“I don’t know whether Fred has told you that since my daughter was taken ill on Sunday she cannot bear to have Mr. Norman out of her sight. He has been here all day, and now she insists on his leaving the Cowpers and staying with us altogether. Her behaviour is incomprehensible.”

This was pleasant news for me!

“Surely this desire for his society can mean but one thing?”

“Of course, you think that she must care for him, but I am quite sure that she does not.”

“Really?” I could hardly keep the note of pleasure out of my voice.

“If she were in love with him I should consider her conduct quite normal. But it is the fact of her indifference that makes it so very curious.”

“You are sure this indifference is real and not assumed?”

“Quite sure,” replied Mrs. Derwent. “She tries to hide it, but I can see that his attentions are most unwelcome to her. If he happens, in handing her something, to touch her accidentally, she visibly shrinks from him. Oh, Mr. Norman has noticed this as well as I have, and it hurts him.”

“And yet she cannot bear him out of her sight, you say?”

“Exactly. As long as he is within call she is quiet and contented, and in his absence she fidgets. And yet she does not care to talk to him, and does so with an effort that is perfectly apparent to me. The poor fellow is pathetically in love, and I can see that he suffers keenly from her indifference.”

“I suppose he expects his patient devotion to win the day in the end.”

“I don’t think he does. I felt it my duty in the face of May’s behaviour—which is unusual, to say the least—to tell him that I didn’t believe she cared for him or meant to marry him. ’I quite understand that,’ was all he answered. But why he does not expect her to do so, is what I should like to know. As she evidently can’t live without him, I don’t see why she won’t live with him.

“But now, Dr. Fortescue,” added Mrs. Derwent, rising to leave the room, “let us go to my daughter. She is prepared to see you. But your visit is purely social, remember.”

A curtain of honeysuckle and roses protected one end of the piazza from the rays of an August sun, and it was in this scented nook, amid surroundings whose peace and beauty contrasted strangely with those of our first meeting, that I at last saw May Derwent again. She lay in a hammock, her golden head supported by a pile of be-ruffled cushions, and with one small slipper peeping from under her voluminous skirts. At our approach, however, she sprang to her feet, and came forward to meet us. I had thought and dreamt of her for six long weary days and nights, and yet, now that she stood before me, dressed in a trailing, white gown of some soft material, slightly opened at the neck and revealing her strong, white, young throat, her firm, rounded arms bare to the elbow, and with one superb rose (I devoutly hoped it was one of those I had sent her) as her only ornament, she made a picture of such surpassing loveliness as fairly to take my breath away. I had been doubtful as to how she would receive me, so that when she smilingly held out her hand, I felt a great weight roll off my heart. Her manner was perfectly composed, much more so than mine in fact. A beautiful blush alone betrayed her embarrassment at meeting me.

“Why, Dr. Fortescue,” exclaimed Alice Cowper, “you never told me that you knew May.”

“Our previous acquaintance was so slight that I did not expect Miss Derwent to remember me.” I answered evasively, wondering, as I did so, whether May had confided to her friend where and when it was that we had met.

“I want to congratulate you, Doctor,” said Miss Derwent, changing the conversation abruptly, “on your recent escape.”

“From the madman, you mean? It was a close shave, I assure you. For several minutes I was within nodding distance of St. Peter.”

“How dreadful! But why was the fellow not locked up long before this?”

“I did all I could to have him put under restraint. Several days ago I told a detective that I was sure not only that Argot was insane, but that he had committed the Rosemere murder. But he wouldn’t listen to me, and I came very near having to pay with my life for his pig-headedness. Every one has now come round to my way of thinking except this same detective, who still insists that the butler is innocent.”

Now that the blush had faded from her cheek, I realised that she was indeed looking wretchedly pale and thin, and as she leaned eagerly forward I was shocked to see how her lips twitched and her hands trembled.

“So it was you who first put the police on the Frenchman’s tracks?” she demanded.

“Yes. But you must remember that the success my first attempt at detective work has met with is largely due to the exceptional opportunities I have had for investigating this case. You may have noticed that no hat was found with the corpse and the police have therefore been searching everywhere for one that could reasonably be supposed to have belonged to the murdered man. Now, I may tell you, although I must ask you not to mention it, as the police do not yet wish that the fact become known, that it was I who found this missing hat in Argot’s possession. But I can’t boast much of my discovery, because the man brought it into my office himself. All I really did was to keep my eyes open, you see.” I tried to speak modestly, for I was conscious of a secret pride in my achievement.

“I really cannot see why you should have taken upon yourself to play the detective!”

I was so startled by May’s sudden attack on me that for a moment I remained speechless. Luckily, Mrs. Derwent saved me from the necessity of replying, by rising from her chair. Slipping her arm through Miss Cowper’s, she said—casting a significant glance at me: “We will leave these people to quarrel over the pros and cons of amateur work, and you and I will go and see what Mr. Norman is doing over there in that arbour all by himself.”

Fred had mentioned that at times May seemed alarmingly oblivious to what was going on around her, and I now noticed with profound anxiety that she appeared entirely unconscious of the departure of her mother and friend.

“Just suppose for a moment that this man Argot,” she went on, as if our conversation had not been interrupted, “is innocent, and yet owing to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, is unable to prove himself so. Who should be held responsible for his death but you, Dr. Fortescue! Had you not meddled with what did not concern you, no one would have thought of suspecting this wretched Frenchman! You acknowledge that yourself?”

“But, my dear Miss Derwent, why do you take for granted that the fellow is innocent?—although, in his present state of health, it really does not make much difference whether he is or not. In this country we do not punish maniacs, even homicidal ones. We only shut them up till they are well again. I think, however, that you take a morbid view of the whole question. Of course, justice sometimes miscarries, but not often, and to one person who is unjustly convicted, there are hundreds of criminals who escape punishment. As with everything else—medicine, for instance; you do your best, take every precaution, and then, if you make a mistake, the only thing to do is not to blame yourself too severely for the consequences.”

“I quite agree with you,” she said, “when to take a risk is part of your business. But is it not foolhardy to do so when there is no call for it?—when your inexperience renders you much more likely to commit some fatal error? What would you say if I tried to perform an operation, for instance?”

She was working herself into such a state of excitement that I became alarmed; so, abruptly changing the subject, I inquired after her health. She professed to feel perfectly well (which I doubted). Still I did not take as serious a view of her case as Fred had done; for I knew—what both he and Mrs. Derwent ignored—that while in town the poor girl had been through various trying experiences. During that time she had not only been forced to break with Greywood, to whom I was sure she had been engaged, but an entanglement, the nature of which I did not know, had induced her to give shelter secretly, and at night, to two people of undoubtedly questionable character. The shock of the murder was but a climax to all this. No wonder that my poor darling—her heart bleeding from the uprooting of an affection which, however unworthy the object of it had proved, must still have been difficult to eradicate; her mind harassed by the fear of impending disgrace to some person whom I must believe her to be very intimately concerned with; her nerves shaken by the horror of a murder under her very roof—should return to the haven of her home in a state bordering on brain fever. That she had not succumbed argued well for her constitution, I thought.

“Fred is quite worried about you, and asked me to beg you to take great care of yourself,” I ventured to say.

“What nonsense! What I need is a little change. I should be all right if I could get away from here.”

“This part of the world is pretty hot, I acknowledge. A trip to Maine or Canada would, no doubt, do you a lot of good.”

“But I don’t want to go to Maine or Canada—I want to go to New York.”

“To New York?”

“Yes, why not? I find the country dull, and am longing for a glimpse of the city.”

“But the heat in town is insufferable, and there is nothing going on there,” I reminded her.

“Roof gardens are always amusing, and when the heat gets to a certain point, it is equally unbearable everywhere.”

I begged to differ.

“At all events, I want to go there, and my wishing to do so should be enough for you. O Doctor, make Fred persuade Mamma to take me. As they both insist that I am ill, I don’t see why they won’t let me indulge this whim.”

“They think that it would be very bad for you.”

“Oh, it never does one any harm to do what one likes.”

“What a delightful theory!”

“You will try and persuade Mamma and Fred to allow me to go to New York, won’t you? You are a doctor; they would listen to you.”

I glanced down into her beseeching blue eyes, then looked hastily away.

The temptation to allow her to do as she wished was very great. If I were able to see her every day, what opportunities I should have for pressing my suit! But I am glad to say that the thought of her welfare was dearer to me than my hopes even. So I conscientiously used every argument I could think of to induce her to remain where she was. But, as she listened, I saw her great eyes fill slowly with tears.

“Oh, I must go; I must go,” she cried; and, burying her head in a cushion, she burst into a flood of hysterical weeping.

Her mother, hearing the commotion, flew to my assistance, but it was some time before we succeeded in quieting her. At length, she recovered sufficiently to be left to the care of her maid.

I was glad to be able to assure Mrs. Derwent that, notwithstanding the severity of the attack I had witnessed, I had detected in her daughter no symptom of insanity.

As there was no further excuse for remaining, I allowed Miss Alice to drive me away. Young Norman, who was returning to the Cowper’s to fetch his bag, went with us; and his company did not add to my pleasure, I confess. I kept glancing at him, surreptitiously, anxious to discover what it was that May saw in him. He appeared to me to be a very ordinary young man. I had never, to my knowledge, met him before; yet, the longer I looked at him the more I became convinced that this was not the first time I had seen him, and, not only that, but I felt that I had some strange association with him. But what? My memory refused to give up its secret. All that night I puzzled over it, but the following morning found me with that riddle still unsolved.

CHAPTER XIII

MR. AND MRS. ATKINS AT HOME

AN urgent case necessitated my leaving Beverley at such an early hour that the city was still half asleep when I reached it. After driving from florist to florist in search of an early riser amongst them, I at last found one. I selected the choicest of his flowers, and ordered them to be sent to Miss Derwent by special messenger, hoping they would arrive in time to greet her on her awakening, and cheerfully paid the price demanded for them.

On reaching my office I was surprised to find a note from the irrepressible Atkins. You may remember, patient reader, that I had promised to dine with him on the previous evening. When I found that it would be impossible for me to do so, I sent word that I regretted that I could not keep my engagement with him. I naturally thought that that ended the matter. Not at all! Here was an invitation even more urgent than the last—an invitation for that very day, too. Unless I wished to be positively rude and to hurt the feelings of these good people, I must accept. There was no way out of it. So I scribbled a few lines to that effect.

I confess that when I rang the Atkins’s bell that evening I did so with considerable trepidation, for I was not at all sure how the lady would receive me. You see I had not forgotten the way she flounced out of the room the last and only time I had seen her. And yet I had been quite blameless on that occasion. It was the Coroner’s questions which had annoyed her, not mine. However, I was considerably reassured as to my reception by receiving a smiling welcome from the same pretty maid I had seen the week before. It is a queer fact that we unconsciously measure the amount of regard people have for us by the manners of their servants. That this theory is quite fallacious, I know; but I found it very useful on this occasion, for it gave me the necessary courage to enter the drawing-room with smiling composure.

The room was almost dark, and, coming from the brilliantly-lighted hall, it was some seconds before I could distinguish from its surroundings the small figure of my hostess, silhouetted against the crimson sky. Her shimmering black gown and fluffy hair caught and reflected her red background in such a way that for a moment I fancied I saw her surrounded and bespattered with blood. The effect was so uncanny that it quite startled me, but as she moved forward the illusion vanished, and I was soon shaking a soft, warm hand, which was quite reassuring.

“I just hope you don’t mind the dark,” she exclaimed, leading me to a chair and sinking into one herself, “but somehow the light has hurt my eyes lately, and so I don’t turn it on till it is so dark that I tumble all over the furniture. Mr. Atkins says I’m crazy and ought to buy a pair of blue goggles, and so I would, only they’re so unbecoming.”

“On the contrary,” I assured her, as I let myself cautiously down into one of those uncomfortable gilt abominations known to the trade as a Louis XVI. armchair, “I think this dim light just the thing for a chat; I always become quite confidential if I am caught between daylight and dark. The day reveals too much; it offers no veil for one’s blushes. The darkness, on the other hand, having no visible limits, robs one of that sense of seclusion which alone provokes confidences. But the twilight, the tactful twilight, is so discreet that it lures one on to open one’s heart. Luckily, no designing person has yet found out how weak I am at this hour, or else I should have no secrets left.”

“Oh, go along,” she giggled; “I guess you’re not the kind to say more than you mean to.”

“I assure you I am—” but here I was interrupted by my host, who called out from the threshold:

“Hello, sitting in the dark? This is really too absurd, Lulu.”

A flood of light followed these words and revealed young Atkins’s stalwart figure, irreproachably clad in evening dress.

“Well, I am glad to see you, Doctor,” he cried, as he wrung my hand vigorously. “Dinner’s ready, too, and I hope you’re ready for it.”

The folding doors leading into the next room slid back and disclosed a prettily appointed table, profusely decorated with flowers and silver. Soon after we had settled into our chairs, I seized a moment when I was unobserved to steal a look at Mrs. Atkins. She was certainly paler and thinner than when I had seen her last, but the change instead of detracting from her looks only added to her charm. Dark violet lines encircled her blue eyes and lent them a wistful, pathetic expression that greatly enhanced their beauty. Otherwise, I thought her less changed than her husband had led me to suspect and I could detect none of that extreme nervousness of which he had spoken; only when she turned towards him did her manner appear at all strained, and even this was so slight as to be hardly noticeable. In fact, of the two, it was he who seemed ill at ease, and I noticed that he kept watching her anxiously. I saw that she was conscious of his constant scrutiny and that at times she became quite restless under his prolonged gaze; then, tossing her head defiantly, as if determined to cast off the spell of his eyes, she would talk and laugh with renewed animation.

The dinner was delicious and well served; my hostess extremely pretty; my host almost overpoweringly cordial, and the conversation agreeable, if not highly intellectual. We had reached the fruit stage, and I was leaning contentedly back in my chair, congratulating myself on my good luck in having happened on such a pleasant evening, when Mrs. Atkins exclaimed:

“I say, Doctor, you haven’t told us a thing about your thrilling adventure. What a blessing the madman didn’t succeed in killing you. Do tell us all about it.”

After her husband’s warning me that the bare mention of the tragedy excited her I had naturally taken great pains to avoid all reference to the subject. I was, consequently, a good deal surprised to hear her broach it with such apparent calmness.

I glanced inquiringly at Atkins.

“Yes, do,” he urged, still looking at his wife.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much more to tell,” I hesitatingly replied; “I gave the newspapers a pretty straight account of the whole affair.”

“Oh, but you were much too modest,” she cried; “a little bird has told us that you are a great detective, and suspected Argot from the first. Say, how did you manage to hit on him? We want all the details, you know.”

It was her flattery, I am afraid, which loosened my tongue and made me forget my former caution.

“Well, it was mostly luck,” I assured her, and then proceeded to give a long account of the whole affair.

“And now,” I said, warming to my topic under their evident interest, “I wonder if either of you, when you read over the description of the murdered man, or when you saw him, for the matter of that, noticed anything peculiar about him? I confess that it escaped me and my attention had to be called to it by Mr. Merritt.”

“Something peculiar,” she repeated. “What kind of a peculiarity do you mean?”

“Well, the lack of an important article of apparel,” I replied.

“No; I didn’t notice anything out of the way,” she answered, after considering the question for some minutes.

I turned towards her husband. He was leaning forward, so deeply absorbed in watching his wife as to be entirely unconscious of my presence, and on his ingenious countenance I was shocked to observe suspicion and love struggling for mastery. Struck by his silence, she, too, looked at him, and as her eyes encountered his I saw a look of fear creep into them, and the faint color fade from her cheeks. When he saw how his behaviour had affected her, he tried to pull himself together, and passed his hand swiftly over his face as if anxious to obliterate whatever might be written there.