Читать книгу: «X Y Z: A Detective Story», страница 4

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"Aren't they, you rogue!" retorted the old gentleman, giving me a jocose poke in the ribs. "Well, well, I suppose you are right. But you have not told me – "

"I will tell you every thing in an hour," I hastily assured him. "I am going to meet my father in the library, and after he has heard the truth, you shall be admitted and all will be explained."

"That is only fair," he replied. "Your father has the first rights, of course. But Joe, my boy, remember I am not over and above patient of disposition, and don't keep me waiting too long." And with an affectionate squeeze of my hand, he stepped out from the recess where we stood and made his way once more into the throng.

No sooner had he left my side than I threw up the window. "Now is the time for the real Joe to appear upon the scene," was my mental decision. "I have done for him what he as a gentleman would probably never do for himself – pumped this old party and got every thing in trim for Hartley's discomfiture. But the courting business is another matter; also the interview with the outraged father in the library. That cannot be done by proxy; so here goes for a change of actors."

And with reckless disregard of consequences, I prepared to jump from the window, when a sudden light flashed over the lawn beneath and I saw I was at least twelve feet from the ground.

"Well," I exclaimed, drawing hastily back; "such a leap as that is too much to expect of any man!" And with the humiliating consciousness of being caught in a trap, I proceeded to close the window.

"Joe!"

'Twas a low whisper, but how thrilling! Turning, I greeted, with the show of fervor I considered necessary to the occasion, the white-veiled lady who had glided into my retreat.

"Did you think I was never coming, Joe? Everybody who could get in my way certainly managed to do so. Then Hartley is so suspicious, and followed me with his eyes so persistently, I did not dare show my designs too plainly. It is only this minute he left my side. If you had been anywhere else I do not know as I should have succeeded even now in getting a word with you – oh!"

This exclamation was called forth by a sudden movement that took place near us. The curtain was drawn back and a tall man dressed in a black domino glanced in, gave us a scrutinizing look, bowed, and dropped the curtain again.

"Hartley," she whisperingly explained.

I took her by the hand; there was no help for it; gesture and a lover-like demeanor must, in this case, supply the place of speech.

"Hush!" she entreated. (Not that I had spoken.) "I dare not stay. When you have seen your father, perhaps I will have courage to join you; but now it would be better for me to go." And her eyes roamed toward the curtain, while the little hand I held in mine grew cold and slightly trembled.

I pressed that little hand, but, as you may well believe, did not urge her to remain. Yet she did not seem in a hurry to depart, and I do not know what complications might have ensued, if another movement in the curtain had not reawakened her fears and caused her, notwithstanding her evident reluctance, to start quickly away.

I did not linger long behind her. Scarcely had the curtain fallen from her hand than I stepped hastily forth. But alas for my hopes of escape! No sooner had I joined the group of merry-makers circling about the open door, than I felt a touch on my arm, and looking up, saw before me the Black Domino. The hour of ten had struck and my guide to the library was at hand. There was no alternative left me but to follow him.

III.
AN UNEXPECTED CALAMITY

Five minutes passed, during which I threaded more laughing groups and sauntered down more mysterious passage-ways than I would care to count. Still the mysterious Black Domino glided on before me, leading me from door to door till my patience was nearly exhausted, and I had well-nigh determined to give him the slip and make my way at once to the garden, and the no-doubt-by-this-time-highly-impatient Joe.

But before I had the opportunity of carrying out this scheme, the ominous Black Domino paused, and carelessly pointing to a door at the termination of a narrow corridor, bowed, and hastily withdrew.

"Now," said I, as soon as I found myself alone, "shall I proceed with this farce, or shall I end it? To go on means to interview Mr. Benson, acquaint him with what has come to my knowledge during the last half hour in which I have so successfully personified his son, and by these means perhaps awake him to the truth concerning this serious matter of Joseph's innocence or Hartley's guilt; while to stop now implies nothing more nor less than a full explanation with his son, a man of whose character, manners, and disposition I know little or nothing."

Either alternative presented infinite difficulties, but of the two the former seemed to me more feasible and less embarrassing. At all events, in talking with Mr. Benson, I should not have the sensibilities of a lover to contend with, and however unfortunate in its results our interview might be, would be at the mercy of old blood instead of young, a point always to be considered in a case where one's presumption has been carried beyond the bounds of decorum.

Unlocking the door, I stepped, as I had been told I should, into a small room adjoining the library. All around me were books. Even the door by which I had entered was laden with them, so that when it was closed, all vestige of the door itself disappeared. Across the opening into the library stood a screen, and it was not until I had pushed this somewhat aside that I was able to look into that room.

My first glance assured me it was empty. Stark and bare of any occupant, the high-backed chairs loomed in the funereal gloom, while on the table, toward which I inadvertently glanced, stood a decanter with a solitary wineglass at its side. Instantly I remembered what had been told me concerning that glass, and stepping forward, I took it up and looked at it.

Immediately I heard, or thought I heard, an exclamation uttered somewhere near me. But upon glancing up and down the room and perceiving no one, I concluded I was mistaken, and deliberately proceeded to examine the wineglass and assure myself that no wine had as yet been poured upon the powder I found in it. Satisfied at last that Mr. Benson had not yet taken his usual evening potion, I put the glass back and withdrew again to my retreat.

I do not think another minute could have elapsed, before I heard a step in the room behind me. A door leading into an adjoining apartment had opened and Mr. Benson had come in. He passed immediately to the table, poured out the wine upon the powder, and drank it off without a moment's hesitation. I heard him sigh as he put the glass down.

With a turn of my hand I slipped off both domino and mask, and prepared to announce my presence by tapping on the lintel of the door beside which I stood. But a sudden change in Mr. Benson's lofty figure startled me. He was swaying, and the arms which had fallen to his side were moving with a convulsive action that greatly alarmed me. But almost instantly he recovered himself, and paced with a steady step toward the hall door, which at that moment resounded with a short loud knock.

"Who is there?" he asked, with every appearance of his usual sternness.

"Hartley," was the reply.

"Are you alone?" the old gentleman again queried, making a move as if to unlock the door.

"Carrie is with me; no one else," came in smothered accents from without.

Mr. Benson at once turned the key, but no sooner had he done so than he staggered back. For an instant or two of horror he stood oscillating from side to side, then his frame succumbed, and the terrified eyes of his children beheld his white head lying low, all movement and appearance of life gone from the form that but a moment before towered so proudly before them.

With a shriek, the daughter flung herself down at his side, and even the cheek of Hartley Benson grew white as he leaned over his father's already inanimate body.

"He is dead!" came in a wild cry from her lips. "See! he does not breathe. Oh! Hartley, what could have happened? Do you think that Joe – "

"Hush!" he exclaimed, with a furtive glance around him. "He may be here; let me look. If Joe has done this– " He did not continue, but rose, and with a rapid tread began to cross the floor in my direction.

In a flash I realized my situation. To be found by him now, without a domino, and in the position of listener, would be any thing but desirable. But I knew of no way of escape, or so for the moment it seemed. But great emergencies call forth sudden resources. In the quick look I inadvertently threw around me, I observed that the portière hanging between me and the library was gathered at one side in very heavy folds. If I could hide behind them perhaps I might elude the casual glance he would probably cast into my place of concealment. At all events it was worth trying, and at the thought I glided behind the curtain. I was not disappointed in my calculations. Arrived at the door, he looked in, perceived the domino lying in a heap on the floor, and immediately drew back with an exclamation of undoubted satisfaction.

"He is gone," said he, crossing back to his sister's side. Then in a tone of mingled irony and bitterness, hard to describe, cried aloud with a glance toward the open door: "He has first killed his father and then fled. Fool that I was to think he could be trusted!"

A horrified "Hartley!" burst from his sister's lips and a suppressed but equally vehement "Villain!" from mine; but neither of us had time for more, for almost at the same instant the room filled with frightened guests, among which I discerned the face and form of the old servant Jonas, and the flowing robes and the white garments of Uncle Joe and the graceful Edith.

To describe the confusion that followed would be beyond my powers, especially as my attention was at the time not so much directed to the effect produced by this catastrophe, as to the man whom, from the moment Mr. Benson fell to the floor, I regarded as my lawful prey. He did not quake and lose his presence of mind in this terrible crisis. He was gifted with too much self-control to betray any unseemly agitation even over such a matter as his father's sudden death. Once only did I detect his lip tremble, and that was when an elderly gentleman (presumably a doctor) exclaimed after a careful examination of the fallen man:

"This is no case of apoplexy, gentlemen!"

Then indeed Mr. Hartley Benson shivered, and betrayed an emotion for which I considered myself as receiving a due explanation when, a few minutes later, I observed the same gentleman lay his hand upon the decanter and glass that stood on the table, and after raising them one after the other to his nose, slowly shake his head, and with a furtive look around him, lock them both in a small cupboard that opened over the mantel-piece.

IV.
IN THE LIBRARY

Mr. Benson was really dead. The fact being announced, most of the guests withdrew. In ten minutes after he fell, the room was comparatively clear. Only the various members of the family, together with the gentleman I have already mentioned, remained behind; and, even of these, the two ladies were absent, they having followed the body into the adjoining room, where it had been reverently carried by the attached Jonas and another servant whose face I did not see.

"A most unlooked-for catastrophe," burst from the lips of Uncle Joe. "Did you ever suspect he was a victim to heart disease?" he now asked, this time with looks directed toward the doctor.

"No," came from that gentleman in a short, sharp way, which made Hartley Benson's pale face flush, though his eye did not waver from its steady solemn look toward the door through which his father's form had just been carried. "Mr. Benson was sound through and through a month ago. I know, because I examined him previous to his making his will. There was no heart disease then; that I am ready to take my oath upon."

Hartley Benson's rigid look unfastened itself from the door and turned slowly toward the sombre face of the speaker, while Uncle Joe, with an increased expression of distress, looked slowly around as if he half hoped, half feared to behold his favorite nephew advance upon them from some shadowy corner.

"My father consulted you, then?" said the former, in his slow, reserved way. "Did not that evince some suspicion of disease on his part?"

"Possibly; a man in a despondent frame of mind will often imagine he has some deadly complaint or other. But he was quite sound; too sound, he seemed to think. Your father was not a happy man, Mr. Benson."

There was meaning in the tone, and I was not surprised to observe Hartley draw back. "Why," said he, "do you think – "

"I think nothing," broke in the doctor; "only" – and here he brought down his hand vigorously upon the table – "there has been prussic acid in the glass from which Mr. Benson drank this evening. The smell of bitter almonds is not to be mistaken."

An interval of silent horror followed this announcement, then a vehement "Great Heaven!" broke from the lips of Uncle Joe, while Hartley Benson, growing more and more rigid in his bearing, fixed his eyes on the doctor's face and barely ejaculated:

"Poison?"

"I say this," continued the doctor, too intent upon his own theory to notice either the growth of a terrible fear on the face of Uncle Joe, or the equally remarkable expression of subdued expectation on that of the son, "because long experience has taught me the uselessness of trying to hide such a fact as suicide, and also because, being the coroner of the county, it is my duty to warn you that an investigation will have to take place which will require certain precautions on my part, such as the sealing up of his papers, etc."

"That is true," came from the lips of both brother and son, over whom a visible change had passed at the word "suicide."

"But I cannot think – " the former began in an agitated voice.

"That my father would do such a deed," interposed the latter. "It does not seem probable, and yet he was a very wretched man, and grief will often drive the best of us to despair."

Uncle Joe gave his nephew a strange look, but said no more. The doctor went quietly on:

"I do not know what your father's troubles were, but that he committed suicide I greatly fear, unless it can be proved the acid was taken by mistake, a conclusion which does not seem probable, for from the smell of the decanter it is evident the acid was mixed with the wine, in which I now remember advising him to take the nightly powder I prescribed to him for quite a trivial disorder a few days ago. The only thing that puzzles me is, why, if he meditated death, he should have troubled himself to take this powder. And yet it is certain he did take it, for there is still some of the sediment of it remaining in the bottom of the glass."

"He took the powder because it was already in the glass," broke in Hartley, in a heavy tone of voice. "My sister put it there before she went up stairs to dress. I think she was afraid he would forget it. My father was very careless about small matters."

"He was careful enough not to poison any one else in the family," quoth the doctor. "There was scarcely a drop left in the decanter; he took the whole dose."

"I beg your pardon, sirs, but is it suicide you are talking about?" cried a voice suddenly over their shoulders, making them all start. Jonas, the servant, had entered from the inner room, and unseen by all but myself, had been listening to the last few words as if his life depended upon what they had to say. "If it is, why I have a bit of an observation of my own to make that may help you to settle the matter."

"You! What have you to say?" quoth the doctor, turning in surprise at the confident tone of voice in which the man spoke.

"Not much, I am sure," cried Hartley, to whom the appearance at that moment of his father's old servant was evidently most unwelcome.

"That is for you to judge, gentlemen. I can only tell you what I've seen, and that not ten minutes ago. Mr. Hartley, do you mind the man in the yellow dress that was flitting about the parlors all the evening?"

"Good heavens!" burst in uncontrollable agitation from Uncle Joe; and he caught his nephew by the arm with a look that called back the old rigid expression to the latter's face.

"Yes," was the quiet reply; "I remember seeing such a person."

"Well, sirs, I don't know as you will think any thing of it, but a little while ago I was walking up and down the balcony outside there, when I happened to look into this room, and I saw that man in the yellow dress leaning over this very table, looking into the wineglass Miss Carrie had put there for master. He had it in his hand, and his head was down very close to it, but what he did to it or to the decanter either, I am sure, sirs, I don't know, for I was that frightened at seeing this spectre in the room master had kept locked all day, that I just slipped off the balcony and ran round the house to find Mr. Hartley. But you wasn't in the parlors, sir, nor Miss Carrie neither, and when I got to this room, there was master lying dead on the floor, and everybody crowding around him horror-struck."

"Humph!" ejaculated the doctor, looking at Uncle Joe, who had sunk in a heap into the arm-chair his nephew abstractedly pushed toward him.

"You see, sirs," Jonas resumed, with great earnestness, "Mr. Benson, for some reason or other, had been very particular about keeping his own room to-day. The library door was locked as early as six this morning, and he would let no one in without first asking who was there. That's why I felt so dumbfoundered at seeing this yellow man in the room; besides – "

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