Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Bats, hoping he spoke the truth.

  “Well, my dear Mr. Bats, you are a man of the world, and it is ridiculous to pretend that Anthony is really in love with that dear girl. He doesn’t understand, as far as she is concerned at any rate, the ABC of love. How do I know? “ for Bats had made an interrogative movement. “How do you know? Why, my good young man, we’ve both of us been in love some time or another, I suppose? We know what the real thing is like, don’t we? Come, say what you think, you can trust my discretion.”

  “I should like to say, if I might, with every circumstance of respectful humility, that I can’t believe Anthony’s sentiments to be any of my business.”

  “Quite the right attitude,” said Lady Blair, unmoved; “but you know, seriously, Mr. Bats, you can’t help taking an interest in young lovers; and the only thing that upsets you is talking about them. Of course if you tell me you’ve never thought Anthony’s sentiments — what shall we say? — inadequate, I shall believe you But you won’t tell me that.”

  “I shall, though,” said Bats roundly. “I never have speculated on his feelings. And that’s my last word, ma’am, please.”

  “Bravo! “ said Lady Blair. “I didn’t think you’d got it in you. Well, of course all this is in confidence. And no doubt you’re right and I’m wrong, as you usually are.”

  This familiar and agreeable tag, so unexpected on the lips of Lady Blair, ended the second martyrdom of the sorely tried Bats.

  “I don’t think I gave anything away,” he told himself, as he dressed for dinner that night; “but what a woman! And what a situation! Well, no more têtes-à-tête for me, thank you.”

  And even as he said it, a tap at his door opened a third tête-à-tête, this time with the nervous apologetic Sebastien. Sir Antonio had taken no clothes, no robe of the night. Did Monsieur think that he, Sebastien, ought to take or send what was needed? Yes, a telegram had arrived. Sir Antonio was detained in London. Would Monsieur have the goodness to advise? Monsieur briefly advised inaction. Sir Antonio had gone to his rooms in London. He would have everything there which was needed. Sebastien might rest tranquil. Sebastien withdrew, thanking Monsieur infinitely.

  “Now,” said Anthony at Malacca Wharf — he spoke to Wilton, his hand on the closed lid of the chest—”I’ll explain as well as I can. But first pull the dark blinds down and help me to bring my mattress in here, and well get her out. There’s no hurry, really. But we may as well get everything in order at once.”

  They brought the mattress from the bed in the little room and laid it on the floor. Then the chest was opened, the pillows removed, and the two men, taking the corners of the sheepskin and lifting it, lifted the body as in a hammock.

  “Now,” said Anthony, “there’s another injection due. Just let me,” He stood at the bench a moment, then bent to the body and did something to its arm, his hands moving quickly and certainly under the veil.

  “Now,” he said again, “it’s like this. I’ll give you the technical details later if you like, but just now what I want you to understand is this. This lady is not dead now. But you and Bats are right so far that she has been dead. If you look at me like that, Wilton, I shan’t be able to stand it Just take what I say, will you, for the moment. I’ll give you proofs and details later. For the moment make up your mind that what I say is so.”

  “I’ll try,” said Wilton, sitting down on the prie-Dieu. “Well then, I’ll just say this. The person who put her there knew as much as I do, and probably more. Why he put her there, I don’t know, nor yet when. But her condition corresponds with a condition which is reached at a certain stage of my process, and I know what is the next stage, and I know how to induce it. But there are a few things I don’t know. One is how long she has been like this.”

  “That’s important, I suppose?”

  “It’s most important. Because the longer she has been in this state — I can best express it as a trance-state, just on this side of death — the longer it will take to restore her. And the interval between the injections should be determined by the knowledge which we don’t possess, of the length of time she has been in this condition. I can only go cautiously. Now, if anything goes wrong, if I make any mistake, make my injections too soon or too late, we shan’t save her. And then there may be trouble; and I don’t want you to be mixed up with it. So I’m going to thank you for the way you’ve helped me, and ask you to clear out and get back to Drelincourt as sharp as you can.”

  “Likely,” said Wilton.

  “But I’d honestly rather you did,” said Anthony. And the other said —

  “No doubt. But if you think I’m going to have you spend the night watching a dead woman, with your brain and nerves in the state they are in, you must think me a rum sort of doctor.”

  “All the same,” said Anthony uneasily, “I’d rather you went. She isn’t dead, you know. And if she were, I’m not a child or a fool.”

  “If she weren’t dead,” said Wilton slowly; “if she came to life, I mean, don’t you think she’d rather come to life with a medical man at hand than alone in a strange place with just you?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Anthony owned; “ but the fact is — Well, Wilton, you think I’m mad now. And you’ll think I’m madder before I’ve done. But the fact is, it’s not all chemistry and physiology. It’s — well, I don’t know what you’d call it — psychic influence, magic, willpower, life-force — they’re all nice words. There are things I must do if I’m to save her. And to you they’d look like the most childish hanky-panky. Another thing. I’m not sure how it would be to have any one here who wasn’t in accord. Will you, like a good chap, go?”

  “No further than your bedroom,” said Wilton. “I don’t mind waiting there if you want to be alone. I was a fool to help you in this, but I mean to go through with it. When will you begin?”

  “Not before to-night. I must choose the time when the vital forces are weakest and easiest to control. Nothing can happen now, for hours. Let’s go up to the Three Nuns and get something to eat. No, don’t uncover the face. You wouldn’t see any change. It will be hours before anything happens. Come, let’s lock up and go. We must pass the time somehow. An early dinner and some music, if there’s any to be got at the Queen’s Hall. I want not to think for a bit. And then if you still insist on seeing the whole thing through, well—”

  When they got back to Malacca Wharf at half-past eleven they found Sebastien sitting on the doorstep with a suit-case by his side and a kit-bag at his feet.

  “I thought you would want your night-robe, Sare,” he said; “so I bring it.”

  “Good Lord! “ said Anthony under his breath, “this is the last straw!”

  “Thank you, Sebastien,” he said aloud; “it was very thoughtful of you. But for the future please remember that I wish you to stay at Drelincourt unless you have orders to the contrary. I have no bed here for you.”

  “I can sleep anywhere,” said Sebastien eagerly; “on the floor, outside Monsieur’s room. I need no covertures, Sare!”

  “You will sleep,” said Anthony deliberately, “at the Bridge House Hotel, London Bridge, and you will stay there till you hear from me. Good night! No, I will carry the things up myself, thank you. Good night, Sebastien.”

  Wilfred Wilton can never be induced to talk much of that night. He retreated, as he had undertaken to do, to the little bedroom, and lying on the naked spring mattress with a rug over him, he listened to the hollow sound of Anthony’s footsteps on the echoing wood of stairs and floor. The stairs spoke loudest and longest. For Anthony went up and down them more than once, and as he came up there was something in his step that told of weight carried with caution. Then there were movements in the laboratory, and the light that showed under the door increased. Then Anthony came into the bedroom and took off his boots and got into slippers, talked a little about ordinary things, and ended with the suggestion of a drink.

  “No, you’d better not come out,” he said;
“I’ll bring it in.” Then through the half-open door there was the splash of spirit and the spurt of soda, and Anthony came back, glass in hand. Wilton, for reasons of his own, did not drink that whisky. When Drelincourt was gone, he emptied the glass outside the window-sill, and it trickled silently down the house wall. Then he lay down again with eyes closed and breathing regular. Presently Anthony came in again softly, seemed to hold his breath and listen to Wilton’s breathing. Then he went out and closed the door. And for a very long time, as it seemed to Wilton, there was silence. And then a low voice spoke, Anthony’s voice, disguised in the cadence of a language Wilton did not know. Faint scented vapours invaded the room, sweet, pungent, unrecognizable. And the light that shone through the ground glass above the door varied in colour and in intensity. Wilton listened and looked, consciously hostile. He hated the whole business. This is all that Wilton will tell you. But I believe he knows more. He says he did not sleep.

  And when it was daylight and he got up and dressed and went out, the body lay on the floor, very still; and Anthony, asleep in the armchair, started up at his entrance, and came towards him, looking like a ghost.

  “No change,” he said; “did you sleep well?”

  “I haven’t slept at all,” he said. Anthony, looking closely at him, saw that he spoke the truth.

  “So that was it,” he said slowly. “I must try again to-night. Wilton, don’t! You don’t know how everything hangs on a thread. If you won’t go away and won’t go to sleep. What did you do with the whisky?”

  “So that was it,” said Wilton, in his turn.

  “It wouldn’t have hurt you,” said Anthony. “If you won’t go away and won’t go to sleep, at least don’t oppose me. Wish me well. Wish I may succeed.”

  “I can’t,” said Wilton. “It’s all rubbish. I ought never to have allowed myself to be drawn into this. I shall wire to Bats and see if you can’t be got to hear reason. Even now it’s not too late to tell the police. I’ll explain the delay by saying you’ve got sunstroke or something. Drelincourt, don’t be an idiot.”

  “All right, I won’t,” said Anthony; “let’s go and get some breakfast.”

  As they breakfasted, Drelincourt wrote a few words on an envelope. “Have that telegram sent, will you?” he said to the waiter.

  They spent the morning in the laboratory. Anthony was at his bench. Wilton went out, for a breath of fresh air, he said, but he was back in half-an-hour trying to read. And between them lay the quiet prone figure, its outline further shrouded by a white sheet laid over all. It might have been a mere heap of loose linen that lay there.

  At noon a little quiet tap took Anthony to the door.

  “It’s Sebastien,” he said over his shoulder, and spoke to the man quickly and softly in French. Wilton could not hear or could not understand what was said; only he thinks he heard Sebastien say something about being at the orders of Monsieur, and then Anthony said, “Come out a minute, Wilton,” and Wilton went out, and there was Sebastien at the top of the stairs. And he and Anthony suddenly came towards Wilton together. Sebastien had a coil of rope over his arm; he came straight on, never looking to right or left. Wilton stared at him, and the next moment Anthony had caught his hands, and Sebastien was binding his wrists together with that cord.

  “I’m most frightfully sorry,” Anthony was saying; “but you leave me no alternative. I can’t and won’t submit to have my whole life’s work ruined because you think you know everything.”

  They tied his arms and ankles with close knots.

  “Now, Wilton,” said Anthony, “I don’t want to gag you, because I believe gagging hurts; but by God I will if you don’t give me your word not to call out.”

  “I suppose you know,” Wilton, pale with rage, addressed himself to Sebastien, “that this is an assault. You can be sent to prison for it. And you shall be.”

  “Yes, Sare,” said Sebastien respectfully.

  “I am awfully sorry,” said Anthony again.

  “You’ll be more sorry still before you’ve done,” Wilton told him.

  “Go downstairs a minute, Sebastien,” Anthony said. Then to Wilton: “I trusted you and then you impede everything, actually stop it, and threaten me with the police. I can’t act otherwise. Will you promise to hold your tongue? Don’t refuse out of pride or temper. I must gag you if you don’t. And I hate to do that.”

  The interested doctor in Wilton struggled with the angry and outraged man in him. He looked at Anthony.

  “All right! I promise,” he said, with an effort. “But for how long?”

  “I don’t know. Thank God, you’re seeing reason. Wilton, there’s not one man in a thousand would have had the pluck to promise that, for fear I should think he was a coward. I’ll never forget that. Now, old chap, you see what it means to me. I’ll stick at nothing. Let me untie the cords. Just promise you’ll go away for the afternoon. Let’s call it a joke. I’ll tell Sebastien it is.”

  “No,” said Wilton. “Oh, this is absurd, Drelincourt. Don’t behave like a penny dreadful. Untie my hands.”

  “I wish Bats was here,” said Anthony.

  “So do I,” said Wilton.

  And, as if he had come from the depths of Sussex suddenly by the magic of the speaking of his name, Bats appeared at the foot of the stairs in the noisy act of overwhelming the opposition of Sebastien.

  “What’s all this tosh?” he said, throwing from him the faithful but ineffectual Helvetian, and coming up. “Guarded stairs and, Good God, Tony! it’s about time I did come. What’s it all about?”

  “Drelincourt insists on my leaving him, and I contend that he’s not fit to be left. That’s why I wired to you,” said Wilton. “Untie this rope, Bats. I’ll leave him all right now you’re here.”

  But Anthony had caught Bats by the arm.

  “Look here,” he said, “you can understand. Wilton — I know he’s acting for the best, and all that rot. Take him away, take him for a walk. Let me have the place to myself. Good God in Heaven! it is my place, after all, isn’t it? Take Sebastien away.”

  Sebastien had discreetly remained below.

  “Very well,” said Bats; “but we shall come back. Or look here, I have the key of Rose’s house to see after her letters. We’ll wait here. Telephone if you want us.” ~

  “Right!” said Anthony. “Now go, like good chaps. I’ll apologise later, Wilton.”

  He went into the laboratory and shut the door. They heard the key turn.

  “He’s quite mad,” said Wilton, as Bats took his knife and cut the cords, and he rubbed his wrists fretfully.

  “If he is,” said Bats, “I’m for humouring him. He’ll certainly go off his head if we don’t.”

  “It’s not fair to the girl,” said Wilton.

  “What girl? “ said Bats.

  “The dead girl,” said the doctor. “I don’t bear any malice about the rope. If he’s mad, he can’t help it, poor chap. But the dead girl.”

  “But if she’s dead—”

  “But suppose she isn’t dead?”

  “Oh! “ said Bats, “his madness is infectious, is it? You believe the girl isn’t dead now, do you?”

  “Of course she’s dead,” said Wilton; “but — oh, well, come along.”

  They went to Rose’s house, a dusty little house it was, and lacking her presence, a dreary little house. They sent Sebastien out to buy food, and when he timidly explained that he could “make the kitchen,” they let him cook it for them. They smoked and they read. Wilton fidgeted and moved about restlessly, and more than once he said —

  “We ought to go back to him, we ought to go back.”

  And always Bats said: “No. I’ve seen him like this before. It always ends all right. Wait till he rings us up.”

  And the day wore on. And Still their ears waited in vain for the tingle of the telephone bell. It was evening when the two men, reading in the parlour, and Sebastien patiently doing nothing in the tiny kitchen, heard a step on the flagstones outside, and
a key rattling in the lock of the front door. They were all in the little passage when the door opened. Rose stood on the doorstep — Rose, pale and dominant.

  The three men retreated a step or two. She came in.

  “What is it?” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t mind,” said Bats. “You know you gave me the key when I was staying at Tony’s, and you said then I might use the house to cook in when you were out. And we had to wait somewhere.”

  “But you said you had to go and see your aunt who is ill,” said Rose.

  “One must say something,” Bats urged. “In point of fact Wilton wired for me, but I didn’t want to go into explications with Lady Blair.”

  “But why?” Rose asked “Why, why, why? Why is Sebastien here?”

  “Sir Antonio telegraphed to me at the hotel,” said Sebastien.

  “But why have you come up?” Bats asked.

  “Oh!” said Rose, “Sebastien telegraphed for me!”

  CHAPTER XVI. ACHIEVEMENT

  NO later cross-questioning of Sebastien ever elicited any explanation of his action, first in following Anthony with undesired suit-cases, and, secondly, in sending to Rose a telegram which took the curious form, “Sir Antonio is at Malacca very strange Sebastien.”

  But questioning Sebastien was, in the first awkwardness of the meeting of those four in the narrow passage, the last thing to interest Wilton and Bats, just as the arrival of Rose had been the last thing they could have anticipated. Neither of them could find any words that seemed likely to help the situation. Rose took hold of it.

  “Come in,” she said. “Sebastien, wait in the kitchen. Now,” she said, shutting the door and standing with her hand on its handle, “what is it? What’s the matter? Where’s Anthony?”

  “Anthony’s in his laboratory, conducting an experiment,” said Bats patiently.

  “But why are you here? Why did Wilfred come to London with Tony? Why did he wire for you? Why all this silly mystery?”

  “Why did you come up?”

  “Don’t I tell you?” said Rose. “Sebastien wired. I thought Anthony was ill. Poisoned or blown up or something. Is he all right?”