CHAPTER XVMORE DISCLOSURES
Tenminutes later I grew conscious of unfamiliar surroundings.
I was no longer in that dark old room at the Cross Keys, but in a bright airy little room enameled in white. I was lying upon a narrow iron bedstead and my nostrils were full of the pungent odor of some disinfectant—I think it was iodoform.
As I looked up I saw four faces peering anxiously down into mine. The first was that of a grey-bearded man in gold-rimmed spectacles, the second was that of an elderly nurse in uniform, the third I recognized as old Feng—and the fourth—I could scarce believe my eyes—was Thelma herself!
“Thelma!” I cried eagerly, raising my hand towards her.
“No! Keep quiet!” ordered the spectacled man who seemed to be a doctor. “Listen! Can you understand me. Do you hear what I say?” he asked in a harsh voice.
“Yes, I—I do,” I faltered.
“Then keep quiet. Sleep, and don’t worry aboutanything—if you want to get well. You’re very ill—and you’ve been very foolish. But if you obey me you will soon be all right again.”
“But—but Thelma—Mrs. Audley,” I asked eagerly.
“She’s here—by your side. Don’t worry, Mr. Yelverton, go to sleep and you’ll be quite right again soon—quite right!”
I looked at his great gold-rimmed spectacles. They seemed to be magnified in my abnormal sight.
“But,” I asked boldly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Denbury—Doctor Denbury,” was the old fellow’s reply.
“But why are you here with me in Cross Keys?”
“You’re not in the Cross Keys now. You are in the Burghley Hospital. The police brought you here, and sent for me.”
“The police!” I gasped, staring at those large round spectacles, whilst next moment I shifted my gaze upon Feng. “Look here Doctor Feng,” I said addressing him. “What does all this mean?”
“Well, Yelverton, it is all a puzzle to us. Why did you come here to Stamford and attempt to commit suicide?”
“What?” I cried in fierce indignation despite my weakness. “What are you saying? Suicide—why, such a thing never entered my mind!”
Feng’s face wore a strange, cynical smile. SuddenlyI felt he was not my friend; for the moment I hated him.
“Well, the facts are all too apparent,” he said dubiously. “Whatever could have possessed you? You’ve had a very near squeak of it, I can tell you.”
“Yes, Mr. Yelverton,” said Thelma, bending over me till I saw her dear face peering eagerly into mine. “Yes. They thought you were dead. Why did you do it? Why? Tell us.”
“Do it?” I gasped astounded. “I did nothing. I—I only slept at the Cross Keys before going out to Duddington to see a client.”
“But why did you come to Stamford,” asked the girl, bending over me till I could feel her breath upon my cheek.
“No! I forbid any further questions,” exclaimed the bearded old doctor in the gold spectacles. “Enough! He must rest, Mrs. Audley.”
Then I thought I caught sight of another man—a policeman in uniform!
A few moments passed when suddenly the doctor pressed a glass to my lips.
“Come. Take this,” he persuaded. “It will put you to sleep again, and you’ll awake a new man.”
That strange cold pressure on my lips recalled the Thing which had gripped me in the darkness, and I shut my mouth resolutely. But he spoke so kindly, declaring that it would do me good, thatinert and almost helpless as I was, I obeyed him. The draught tasted of cloves, but was terribly bitter.
“Water!” I gasped, and immediately he held some to my fevered lips. I took a great gulp with avidity. Then I felt drowsy, and again lapsed into unconsciousness.
When once more I opened my eyes my senses seemed quite normal. I could see clearly, and I could think and reason.
I found Thelma and old Feng again bending over me, gazing very earnestly into my face.
“Where am I,” I asked eagerly. “What has happened?”
“Surely you know what has happened,” replied Thelma, “why did you attempt such a thing?”
“Attempt what?” I demanded.
“To take your life as we have already told you. You took poison, and you’ve only been saved in the very nick of time!”
“It’s a lie,” I declared angrily. “I never took anything. What do you mean?”
“Well,” said Feng. “You were found in the morning with your door locked, and as you didn’t appear at noon they broke it open and you were discovered insensible with the empty bottle beside you and a note.”
“A note!” I cried utterly bewildered.
“Yes. You shall see it later on. It is addressed to the Coroner, apologizing for your act!”
I held my breath.
“But, really,” I declared astounded, “you’re joking! I never wrote a note, and I certainly did not attempt to commit suicide!”
“Well, there are the facts,” said Thelma. “The police brought you here and they found your name on your cards, and in the letter you left. The affair got into the papers, and I saw it. So I telegraphed to Doctor Feng, and we both came here at once.”
“He must not be excited,” said the medical man in glasses.
“Keep quiet, Yelverton,” urged Feng. “You shall know all that has happened in due course. You owe your life to Doctor Denbury’s efforts. He gave you an antidote just in time!”
“But I did not write a letter, and I did not take any poison,” I protested impatiently.
“Keep quiet,” old Feng urged. “It will all be explained in due course.”
“It is so utterly mysterious!” I cried, half raising myself.
“Yes, I agree,” said Feng. “The doctor has found that you are also suffering from the after-effects of some drug.”
“Does your head pain you very much now?” inquired the doctor.
“Not so much,” was my reply. “But my throat is very bad.”
“I expect so,” he said, and he crossed the room, returning with a draught which, on being swallowed, proved soothing. “Yes,” he went on, “you’ve had a very narrow escape. I caught you just in time. I presume that you must have swallowed the stuff about three o’clock on the morning before last. When I first saw you I gave you up as hopeless. But by sheer luck I was able to diagnose what you were suffering from. Funnily enough it was the drug you took first that saved you. But,” he added coaxingly, “go to sleep again, and when you wake up tell us all about it. Your mind will then be quite clear.”
“Yes,” said Thelma, whose beautiful face peered anxiously into my own. “Go to sleep now, Mr. Yelverton. You must not exert yourself too much.” And her soft cool hand smoothed my brow.
I remained silent and a few minutes later I had again fallen asleep.
It was night when I found myself listening to an astounding story. What Thelma told me was to the effect that, on the door of my room being forced, it was found that I had swallowed something from a bottle which was lying on the floor, while on the dressing-table lay a note addressed to the Coroner and signed, “Rex Yelverton.”
Feng showed me the note. It was upon half asheet of the hotel note-paper, but written in an unfamiliar and rather uneducated hand.
“I never wrote that!” I protested, feeling now quite better, after I had swallowed a glass of milk. “And I certainly did not take any poison.”
“I knew it was not in your handwriting!” Feng said, quietly. “As soon as Mrs. Audley telegraphed to me I at once met her and we came on here together. But, tell me, how did it come about that you swallowed that stuff? It hasn’t been analyzed yet, so Doctor Denbury is not quite certain what it is. He, however, has made a guess, because of its smell. But apparently you were drugged also. Tell me exactly what you recollect about it. I want to know everything, Yelverton.”
I tried to compose myself and reflect.
Presently, while he and Thelma sat side by side, I told them pretty much as I have written here, exactly what had happened since my arrival at the Cross Keys.
Feng listened very attentively without uttering a word. Now and then he grunted, but whether owing to uncertainty or satisfaction I could gain no idea. His attitude puzzled me sorely. I could not reconcile his secret friendship with Thelma, with his pretended hostility. Even now, in spite of the care he was taking of me, I wondered whether he was my friend, and in summing up all the past circumstancesI came to the conclusion that he was not to be trusted.
The effort of thinking out all this proved too much for me, weakened as I was by the poison—whatever it was—and, again feeling drowsy, I once more closed my eyes, and slept.
I was conscious of a prick in my arm, and I know now that Doctor Denbury gave me an injection.
Not until noon on the following day was I able to get up and dress, and then, accompanied by Feng and Thelma, I managed to walk round to the Cross Keys which was only a short distance from the hospital.
The brisk, bald-headed manager invited me into his private room and with many inquiries about my health and expression of amazement, asked me to relate what had actually happened. But what could I tell him? I did not myself know.
Up till that morning I had—I now discovered—been practically under arrest as having attempted suicide, but now that it was clear that I had been a victim of a plot, the red-faced constable whom I had noticed idling about the room, had been withdrawn. The papers had got hold of the story, and had made a “mystery” out of it, to Hensman’s intense disgust. On seeing the newspaper reports he had hurried from North Wales to see me.
“You’ve been an infernal fool, Rex!” he said. “I’ve telephoned to old Pearson at Duddington.He is quite well. His son never rang you up, and he doesn’t want to add a codicil to his will. You’ve been had—my dear fellow! You ought to have heeded those warnings concerning that little married lady!”
That was all the sympathy I got from him!
I told the bald-headed hotel-manager of my chat with the rugged-faced commercial traveler from Bradford, who was a constant guest at the hotel and who had worn that curious onyx tie-pin like a little human eye—that pin that I had seen in my strange nightmare.
“Describe him again,” he said looking into my face rather puzzled.
I did so, whereupon he replied:—
“I recollect seeing him at dinner. He was in Number Thirty-Four, the room immediately above yours. But he was a complete stranger. I’ve never seen him here before. I don’t think he was a commercial. At least he had no samples. The only commercial travelers we had were Mr. Sharp from London, Mr. Watson from Manchester and Mr. Evans from Thomas’s, the flannel manufacturers of Welshpool. I had a long chat with Mr. Evans in the commercial room before we went to bed. He remarked that there were only three travelers that night—for it was unusual. We generally have eightor nine here, all of them known to us—except at the week-end.”
“Then the man who told me about old Mr. Brimelow was evidently not a commercial!” I remarked.
“Old Mr. Brimelow. Who is he?”
“The man from Bradford told me that he was once proprietor here a few years ago.”
“Never,” laughed the manager. “This house has belonged to the Yates family for the past seventy years. The man evidently told you some fine fairy stories.”
“Evidently he did,” interposed old Feng. “You say that the man had a room over Mr. Yelverton’s. That is interesting. May we see it?”
“Certainly,” was the reply, and all of us ascended to a small, stuffy little single room on the second floor—the window of which was exactly over that of the room I had occupied.
I told them of that cold thing that I had felt pressed to my lips, but I could see that they were all incredulous—the hotel-manager most of all. Everybody who runs a hotel has a horror of any untoward happenings there, for, of course, they are apt seriously to prejudice business. In this case I was supposed to have attempted suicide, leaving a letter of apology to the Coroner. And I felt sure that the hotel-manager believed that I had attemptedmy life, even though he seemed to humor me and pretend to credit my story.
We had no police-officer with us. Feng had seen to it that we had gone to the hotel unaccompanied.
The Doctor showed an inquisitive eagerness quite unusual with him. He leaned out of the window in order to ascertain whether he could see inside the room below. Then from his pocket he took a piece of string and lowered it to the upper sash of the window of my room and made a knot in it. Afterwards he examined the window-sill very minutely.
“Has this window been cleaned since?” he asked the manager. “But there,” he added. “I see it hasn’t by its condition. Not for a fortnight—I should think—eh?”
“They were all cleaned about three weeks ago,” replied the bald-headed man.
“Now we will go down to the room in which Mr. Yelverton was found,” he said.
A few moments later we stood in the room wherein I had been attacked. The manager pointed out the table upon which the letter incriminating me had been found, and I gazed wonderingly around.
“The bottle was found on the floor beside the bed,” he said. “When I first saw you I believed you were dead. Your mouth was discolored and your face was as white as paper. Ada, the head chambermaid, went into hysterics.”
“Yes. That’s all very well,” I answered. “But what could have really happened? I only remember that funny sensation of breathlessness and the cold thing pressed to my lips—a bottle I suppose it must have been.”
“Well, to me, it is plain that your entertaining friend from Bradford was not exactly what he represented himself to be,” said Feng, busying himself, and examining the room with the closest attention to every detail. Suddenly he seemed to bristle with excitement, and turning to the manager he asked:—
“Did the man—what is his name—arrive here before Mr. Yelverton?”
“No,” was his reply. “He arrived just after. He gave his name as Harwood and particularly asked for the room he occupied. He seemed to know his way about the hotel quite well. He had no luggage, except a small handbag, therefore he paid for his room on arrival.”
“And when did he leave?”
“I cannot find out. The night-porter says that he did not see him. He must have left very early, but there is no train leaving here in the morning before the 7.49.”
“So he got away by car, no doubt—a car that was waiting for him somewhere,” Feng remarked quickly with his gray brows knit. “Is his bag still here?”
“No. He took it.”
“And none of the servants have ever seen him before?”
“No. I asked the three commercial gentlemen who were here that night, and they all declared him to be a stranger. Commercial travelers always know each other on the road.”
“Well,” I remarked. “It seems to me that my entertaining friend must have known which room I occupied, got down from his window to mine and entered this room while I was asleep.”
“I think so, Yelverton,” said the old Doctor. “It seems to me that entering by the window that you left open, he first ascertained that the cigarettes he gave you—which obviously were drugged—had sent you to sleep. Then he pressed the little bottle to your lips, forcing you to drink part of its contents—you recollect the cold thing you felt upon your lips—and then, not knowing how much you had swallowed, because in the darkness he could not distinguish, he threw down the bottle and leaving everything to make it appear that you had committed suicide, he clambered back to his own room and afterwards escaped.”
“Do you think so?” asked Thelma.
“I do,” old Feng replied briskly. “Let us go upstairs again and see what we can find.”
We did so. And on examining the outside woodwork of the window which the affable man fromBradford had occupied, we found a large freshly bored hole into which, no doubt, a stout hook had been screwed. To this he must have attached a rope, which enabled him easily to reach my window-sill.
Truly the plot of my enemies had been a well thought out and ingenious one. The threat that if I continued my search for Stanley Audley I should pay for my disobedience with my life, had not been made without the full intention to carry it out!