Dorothea took the bottles and put them in the bed. She was muttering to herself all the time and sniffing most irritatingly, but all her movements were strong and cobby, which made her seem the embodiment of capability itself.
"Poor thing," she was saying in a monotonous undertone. "Poor thing. Tch, tch, tch! Poor thing. Poor silly thing."
Phillida lay with her lids parted, the narrow slits showing far too much of the whites of the eyeballs. She might have been an old woman, her face shrunken, with the nose pinched and the lips Grey. Every now and again she spoke in a drunken whisper. It was for the most part indistinguishable, but single words came out with startling clarity.
"Daydream," said Dorothea. "She keeps saying "day-dream." No warmth. No warmth yet. It's not right. Her hand's like a stone."
The doctor took Phillida's pulse again. He made no comment but replaced the limp arm very carefully and tucked the covers well over it.
"What's she done?" Frances put the question abruptly. "That can't be just fright, can it?"
"Shock?" he said, smiling faintly at her. "Oh, can't it! She's had the equivalent of a kick over the heart. If you think of it like that it makes it much more comprehensible. There's nothing like emotion to upset the circulatory system. She was in a bad nervous condition to begin with, and this last shock seems to have toppled her over the edge."
"Will she be all right?"
He did not answer immediately but turned back to the bed.
‘I think so," he said at last. "The only real danger at the moment is from infection. In a state like this resistance is practically nil, so there’s always a danger from pneumonia or any other bug there may be about. She'll need constant watching."
Frances did not understand the dubious note in the last few words.
"You mean she can't be moved to a nursing home? Of course not. But can't we have a couple of good nurses here? It's a big house and there are plenty of bedrooms."
He hesitated, looking very uncomfortable.
'That would be ideal, of course, if it could be arranged."
"Well, can't it? Can't you telephone and get someone?"
"I could try," he agreed slowly, and she suddenly saw his difficulty and turned a little white.
"You mean they might not care to come to us?" The dismay on the small heart-shaped face turned up to him was so frank that he patted her shoulder.
"Well, it's an awkward time, isn't it?" he said gently. "It's no good having anyone second rate, either. Still, I'll try. I know the Pelham Street people pretty well, well enough to put it all to them. I'll see what I can do. I don't think I'll use this phone."
"No, no, of course not." Frances felt unsteady on her feet. Nothing else had brought this situation home to her quite so clearly. 'There's an extension in my room next door. Will you come?"
She led him to it and was going out again when he stopped her.
"I wonder if you'd mind?" he said. "Just a minute. I'd like a few words with you if I may. Perhaps we'd better have the door closed. Mrs. Madrigal's collapse occurred immediately after she heard the news of Mr. Lucar's death, did it? Who told her? You?"
"I'm afraid I did. I helped Dorothea to bring my grandmother over from the gallery and then I went in to see Phillida. She was just going to bed. She had felt groggy all day, and I ought to have had more sense than to blurt the whole thing out. But I'm afraid I've grown so used to Phillida being ill. We all have."
He nodded gravely. "Naturally," he said. "There's so little to show in these nervous conditions. You simply told her flatly, did you?"
"I said Lucar had been killed."
"And then she collapsed?"
"Yes. I thought she'd merely fainted. I called Dorothea and we got her on the bed. Then I saw that her forehead was wet and we realized how cold she was. That was when I got on to you."
"I see," he said but he still hesitated, and she struggled on with her explanations. It seemed desperately important that everything should be made very clear, yet every word seemed to make things a little worse.
"We'd been having a sort of family conference," she volunteered. "Mr. Lucar called it himself in my father's office in the gallery next door. When it was over most of us stayed there for a bit, in the building, I mean, but Phillida felt rotten, so Mr. Godolphin brought her back here at once."
"Oh, did he?" The doctor brightened "I hadn't realized that. Did he stay with her until you came?"
"No." Frances paused uncertainly. It was very difficult. Even to see his inference would be dangerous. "No," she repeated presently, "he didn't, as a matter of fact. He had to go out in a car."
"In a car?"
"Yes. I'm so sorry I'm being vague. It's quite simple really. You see, as they came back they saw the new car which Godolphin is thinking of buying had been sent along by the showroom people. The salesman had been waiting for some time, so Godolphin merely planted Phillida in her room and went off down again to try the car."
"Then she was alone in the house for... say... a half to three quarters of an hour before you came?"
"About a half an hour. Lucar was found twenty minutes after we'd all left him, and we came over here almost immediately we heard what had happened. Because of Granny, you see. The servants were here all the time, of course.
"But weren't they in the basement?" "They may have been. In fact, yes, they probably were most of the time."
"I see," he said again and stood looking at her, his tired face flushed with embarrassment. She was not looking very happy herself, and the shadows under her eyes were alarming. He smiled at her wryly. "You'll have to take it carefully yourself," he said. "It's an appalling ordeal. Look here, this isn't quite ordinary inquisitiveness. but there is one point I would like to know. Is there any connecting door between this house and the gallery?"
Frances flushed. The bright color flowed over her lace and neck, making her look younger than ever.
"Yes," she said reluctantly. "It's Meyrick's own door. That's my father, of course. No one else ever dreams of using it. That's why it never occurred to any of us to go that way this afternoon, although it would have been much more sensible for Gabrielle. It may sound queer to you, but I've never been through that door in my life. Meyrick made a fetish of it."
"Where is it?"
She took a deep breath. After all, what did it matter? The police knew now and tomorrow everyone else would know.
"It opens from the back of the cupboard in Meyrick's bedroom," she said slowly, "and it leads into his office."
"His office? isn't that where Mr. Lucar died?"
She nodded miserably and he wits acutely sorry for her, but he was also curious.
"If it wasn't used by anyone except your father I suppose it was kept locked?"
Frances shrugged her shoulders. She had expected this from the police, but if it had to come from the doctor what, after all, did it matter?
"It was bolted from this side," she said. "Meyrick kept it like that except when he was actually in the gallery, and when he went away it was left bolted. My grandmother has that bedroom now, and the connecting door was still bolted when we came back this afternoon. She's hardly ever out of the room, you see."
"Yet she was when Mr. Lucar was killed?"
"Yes. She was over in the gallery."
He glanced at the telephone. "It's all extremely awkward," he said. "You realist that in all fairness I should have to explain the situation to any nurse who came?"
"For God's sake get someone discreet." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
He glanced up sharply, and for a moment they eyed one another.
"Yes," he said, "that's important too. Well. I’ll see. I can't promise but I'll see."
She left him dialing the number and was about to return to the sickroom when she saw Mrs. Sanderson as she came out on the landing. Godolphin had disappeared from his sentry post, and she thought she heard him whispering to Dorothea round the corner by the sickroom door. Mrs. Sanderson was evident
ly lying in wait for her. She was halfway up the staircase and now stood beckoning, conveying both haste and caution by a great deal of elaborate dumb show.
As Frances came forward so she retreated, leading her across the hall to the breakfast room with such ostentatious nonchalance that the plainclothes man regarded them both hopefully. However, once in safety, with the door shut firmly behind them, her manner underwent a startling change.
"You must sit down, miss," she said, leering at her with cow-eyed pity at least three parts genuine. "Sit down and get out your handkerchief. I've just heard something that I think you ought to know before anyone else. Be brave, my dear. They've got him."
It worked. Frances was never quite able to forgive Mrs. Sanderson or herself for that. A sinking void seemed to heave and swallow her and the brightly lit familiar room grew dark. She was aware first of her own hands gripping the table ledge so tightly that the wood hurt her fingers. The other woman watched her, compassion mixed with open satisfaction. She was a ghoul by temperament but not an unkindly one.
"Molly got it out of the man on the back door," she said. 'They found his address and sent and took him down to the station. There's been no end of goings on at the gallery," she added, not without a touch of wistfulness. "Poor Mr. David! You won't believe it, will you?"
The last question was an entreaty, not to say a threat, and in spite of everything it struck Frances as funny. At the same time it occurred to her that it would strike David as being even funnier, and the picture of his personality which the thought conjured up brought her to her senses.
"No," she said with a brisk conviction which almost spoiled Mrs. Sanderson's moment, it sounded so authoritative. "No, of course not."
"He's at the station," persisted the housekeeper, making it clear that she hoped for gallantry rather than optimism. "Of course everybody knows now what happened. Mr. Lucar told his suspicions, and the murderer had to strike again. It's very terrible. He was such a nice man. I never should ‘ave believed e would 'ave done it. Still, you never can tell. Every human head is a mystery bag, that's what I say. Now you'll want to go away and have a good cry, won't you? There's no one in the servants' hall. You'd never be disturbed there. I'll make you a hot malted milk."
"No, I must go back to Phillida," said Frances, feeling more and more like the boy on the burning deck, yet assailed by an idiotic inclination to accept the offer.
"My brave girl!" There were real tears in Mrs. Sanderson's eyes. Frances fled.
The plainclothes man was not at his post, and it did not occur to her until afterward that he had gone into the drawing room to listen through the inner door to the housekeeper's revelations. Just at that moment very few things were clear to her. It was not a time for intelligent thinking. David arrested? David proved guilty? David proved to have killed Robert, and afterward Lucar? It was absurd, ridiculous, impossible, not likely to be true, out of character, insane.
Insane? The word burst in her mind like a flare, lighting up odd comers of her memory with a vivid and unnatural light. To most people insanity is a dreadful mystery, a werewolf of a thing. More fantastic beliefs are held by the layman about insanity that about anything else in the civilized world. Frances was no alienist. She too had been brought up to believe in the shibboleths, and the smiling, mild-mannered homicidal maniac of superhuman strength and agility was a reality to her.
Insanity, The word opened up a dozen possibilities. Closed doors were thrown wide, showing dark, ugly vistas within. If someone near and close should prove to be insane then anything was possible.
She had reached the foot of the stairs and had paused there, trying to get a hold on herself, when some way behind her, round the angle of the passage, out of sight yet near, the door of the garden room closed softly.
She stood listening. It was dark down that corridor, yet whoever was walking there did not trouble to turn on the light. She heard the footsteps on the stones, confident and yet careful. She had only a few seconds to wait. Nearer came the patter on the marble, nearer and nearer.
And then, as at last a figure emerged, she swung round, astonishment ousting all other emotions.
It was Gabrielle. She was quite alone and she looked unexpectedly commanding in a fitted quilted dressing gown made like a theater coat. It was Grey and hooded and lent her an odd fancy-dress appearance. She paused when she saw Frances and her black eyes wavered guiltily.
"The house is nice and warm," she remarked.
"Oh, darling, you shouldn't." The girl swept aside this flagrant attempt to divert the issue. "You ought not to come downstairs alone."
"My dear child." Old Mrs. Ivory flushed with anger. "I may be old but I'm not yet in my grave, I hope." She came forward confidently, remarkably sun-of herself, her small body held up by sheer nervous strength. The ascent daunted her a little, however, and she accepted her granddaughter's arm. Frances found that she was trembling.
"Granny, you'll kill yourself," she said helplessly. "What did you want down there? Couldn't I have fetched it?"
Mrs. Ivory paused on the stairs. She was breathless and shaky, but her eyes were honestly furious.
"No, you could not," she said. "You're a nice girl. You have my youth and my strength and my intelligence but you can t see for me. No one can see for me with my eyes. No one can think for me. Oh, my God, Frances, if I could steal your body how I would!"
There was nothing whimsical about the final observation. Gabrielle was evidently speaking the literal truth.
"Madam!"
Dorothea stood on the top of the stairs, her eyes popping out of her head.
"Madam!" she said again, a world of fright and reproach in her voice. "Oh. madam!"
She came down a step or two and Gabrielle relinquished Frances' arm and clutched the other woman.
"All right." she said and laughed."All right. Dorothea. No talk. No recriminations. Take me to my room."
Dorothea did so quire literally. She bent her broad back, lowered her head and picked up her mistress, who appeared to be quite prepared for the treatment. Gabrielle was tiny. She rode like a child, one arm round the other woman's neck, and her own head nodding slightly in its little quilted hood.
"You go to the doctor, miss, while I get Madam settled." Dorothea spoke over her shoulder. 'There's no one with him. Poor man, he must think it's a madhouse."
"Poor man," mimicked Gabrielle and gave one of her chuckles, which were still feminine and still spiteful.
Dorothea bore her away and Frances hurried down the hall to Phillida's room. She found the doctor outside the door, talking to Godolphin, They ceased abruptly as she came up and Godolphin nodded vigorously.
"I quite understand," he said. "I'll go across now and find somebody. Oh, my dear fellow, don't apologies. I agree with you. It's necessary, or at least it's wise. All right then, leave it to me."
He limped off, glad to be of some service.
"Did you get a nurse?" Frances put the question anxiously.
"Yes, I did." He smiled at her. "Two good women are coming along at once. I rather thought I'd go and fetch them myself, as a matter of fact."
"That's extremely nice of you."
"Not at all." He looked a little uncomfortable. "I shall have to have a word with them in private and I thought I'd get it over in the car. Oh, and by the way, I...er...I thought that just to placate everybody and to put myself absolutely in the right with the Nursing Agency that I might get one of these plainclothes men who are swarming about the place to go on duty outside this door. Then the nurses can't feel that they're in any dan... well, that there's anything to be excited about, can they?"
He was watching her anxiously, and it came to her how extraordinarily good he was being.
"It's only a super-precaution," he insisted. "Just a courtesy to the agency."
"You mean no one could attack them from outside" she murmured.
"I mean then no one could attack them at all, my dear," he said briskly. "Mr. Godolphin offered to fix it. He's b
een very helpful. He's the Godolphin, isn't he? What's his position here?"
A wild inclination to say, "He's Phillida's real husband" and see what happened assailed Frances, but she controlled it and answered cautiously.
"He's not a relative but he's a very old friend. When he came back and found us in this mess and heard that Daddy was held up in quarantine he offered to stay and do what he could."
"Oh, I see." The doctor was satisfied. "Good of him," he commented, but she fancied his glance was thoughtful as he looked over his shoulder into the bedroom, and she wondered what Phillida might have let slip in that strange blurred muttering of hers.
With the departure of the doctor and the return of Mrs. Sanderson to keep vigil in the sickroom a temporary peace descended on the house. The plainclothes man was back at his post in the hall, and Godolphin had not yet returned from his mission to Bridie over at the gallery.
Frances went into her own room and sat down on the bed. For the first time she realized how weary she was. She was so tired that it was a relief to sit and listen to it. The old phrase brought her own mother back into her mind. Once in this house Meyrick's second wife used to sit and listen to the intolerable pain of her last illness."You can get above it if you do," she had said to the bewildered child climbing onto her bed. "Listen to it and it's not yours. It's a thing by itself. When you're in pain, my darling, listen to it."
Frances listened to her weariness and to the dull tightness round her heart which was as real and physical a manifestation as if the organ was actually injured.
She was still sitting there when Dorothea found her. The old woman came in with a mumble of mingled relief and reproach and plumped herself down in the bedside chair.
"I'm sorry, miss," she said with that slight truculence which is born of fear, "I can't help it. I think my legs will give way any minute."
"Oh. Dorothea!" Frances scrambled off the bed, alarmed and contrite. "Dorothea, I'm so sorry. What can I get you? I forget that you're not younger than any of us. We all do."
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