“I promised Mr. Huckins I would not start the blaze till after midnight,” said she almost audibly, as she passed again towards the front. “He was so afraid if the fire got started early that the neighbors would put it out before any harm was done. But I haven’t the nerve to do such a thing with the young ladies upstairs. They might not get down safely, or I might not have the power to wake them. No, I will fire it now, while they are in the parlor, and trust to its going like tinder, as it will. Won’t the young gentlemen thank me, and won’t the young ladies do the same, when they get over the shock of being suddenly thrown upon the world.”
Chuckling softly to herself, she looked upstairs and finally ran quietly up. With a woman’s thoughtfulness she remembered certain articles which she felt were precious to the young ladies. To gather these together would be the work of a moment, and it would ease her conscience. Going first to Hermione’s room, she threw such objects as she considered valuable into a sheet, and tied them up. Then she tossed the bundle thus made out of one of the side windows. Running to Emma’s room, she repeated her operations; and letting her own things go, hastened downstairs and went again into the kitchen. When she reissued it was with a lighted candle in her hand.
Meantime from the poplar walk two eyes were gazing with restless eagerness upon the house. They belonged to Huckins, who, unknown to Etheridge, unknown to Doris even, had returned to Marston for the purpose of watching the development of his deadly game. He had stolen into the garden and was surveying the place, not so much from any expectation of fire at this hour, as because his whole interest was centred in the house and he could not keep his eyes from it.
But suddenly, as he looks, he detects something amiss, and starting forward, with many muttered exclamations, he draws nearer and nearer to the house, which he presently enters by means of the key he draws from his pocket. As he does so, a faint smell of smoke comes to his nostrils, causing him to mutter: “She is three hours too soon; what does she mean by it?”
The door by which he had entered was at the end of a side hall. He found the house dark, but he was so accustomed to it by this time, that he felt no hesitancy as to his steps. He went at first to the sitting-room and looked in; there was no one there. Then he proceeded to the parlor, which was also empty. “Good,” thought he, “they are upstairs”; and he slid with his quiet step to the staircase, up which he went like the ghost or spectre which he had perhaps simulated the night before. There was a door at the top of the first landing, and he had some thoughts of simply locking this, and escaping. But, he said to himself, it would be much more satisfactory to first make sure that the two girls were really above, before he locked them in; so he crept up farther, and finally came to Hermione’s room. The door was shut, but from the light which shone through the keyhole (a light which Doris had left there in her haste and trepidation), he judged Hermione to be within, so he softly turned the key that was in the lock, and glided away to Emma’s apartment. This was also closed, but there was a light there, also from the same cause, so there being no key visible he drew a heavy piece of furniture across the doorway, and fled back to the stairs. As he reached them, a blinding gust of smoke swept up through the crevices beneath his feet, but he thought he saw his way clearly, and rushed for the landing. But just as he reached it, the door—the door he had intended to close behind him—shut sharply in his face, and he found himself imprisoned. With a shriek, he dashed against it; but it was locked; and just as he staggered upright again from his violent efforts to batter it down, a red-hot flame shot up through a gap in the staircase and played about his feet. He yelled, and dashed up the stairs. If he were to suffer for his own crime, he would at least have companions in his agony. Calling upon Emma and Hermione, he rushed to the piece of furniture with which he had barred the former’s apartment, and frantically drew it aside. The door remained shut; there was no agonized one within to force it open the moment the pressure against it was relieved. Stupefied, he staggered away and ran up the twisted staircase to Hermione’s room. Perhaps they were here, perhaps they were both here. But all was silent within, and when he had entered and searched the space before him, even beneath and behind the curtains of the bed for its expected occupant, and found no one there, he uttered such a cry as that house had never listened to, not even when it echoed to its master’s final yell of rage and despair.
Doris meanwhile was suffering her own punishment below. When she had lighted the three several piles she had prepared, she fled into the front of the house to spread the alarm and insure the safety of her young mistresses. Passing the staircase she had one quick thought of the likelihood there might be of Hermione or Emma dashing up those stairs in an endeavor to save some of their effects, so she quietly locked the door above in order to prevent them. But when she had done this she heard a shriek, and, startled, she was about to unlock it again when a vivid flame shot up between her and the door making any such attempt impossible. Aghast with terror, fearing that by some error of calculation she had shut her young ladies upstairs after all, she went shrieking their names through the lower rooms and halls, now filling with smoke and lurid with shooting jets of flame. As no response came and she could find no one in any of the rooms, her terror grew to frenzy and she would have dashed upstairs at the risk of her life. But it was too late; the stairs had already fallen, and the place was one volcano of seething flame.
XXXII
THE SPECTRE OF THE LABORATORY.
Had Hermione been allowed time to think, she might have drawn back from such a sudden marriage. But Frank, who recognized this possibility, urged her with gentle speed down the street, and never ceased his persuasions till they stood at the minister’s door. Mrs. Lothrop, who had a heart for romance, opened it, and seeing the blushing face and somewhat dishevelled appearance of Hermione, she cast one comprehending look at Frank, and drew them in joyfully.
“You are to be married, are you not?” she asked, welcoming the whole four with the gayest of bows. “I congratulate you, dear, and will take you right away to my best room, where you will find your box and everything else you may need. I am so glad you decided to come here instead of having us go to you. It is so pleasant and so friendly and the Doctor does so dread to go out evenings now.”
Small chatter is ofttimes our salvation. Under this little lady’s fire of bright talk Hermione lost the tragic feelings of months and seemed to awake to the genialities of life. Turning her grand head towards the smiling little woman she let her own happiness shine from the corners of her mouth, and then following the other’s lead, allowed herself to be taken to a cosy chintz-furnished room whose home-like aspect struck warm upon her heart and completed the work of her rejuvenation.
Emma, who was close behind her, laughed merrily.
“Such a chrysalis of a bride,” cried she. “Where are the wings with which to turn her into a butterfly?”
Mrs. Lothrop showed them a great box, and then left them. Emma, lifting the lid, glanced shyly at Hermione, who blushed scarlet. Such a lovely array of satin, lace, and flowers! To these girls, who had denied themselves everything and been denied everything, it was a glimpse of Paradise. As one beautiful garment after another was taken out, Hermione’s head drooped lower in her delight and the love it inspired, till at last the tears came and she wept for a few minutes unconstrainedly. When this mood had passed, she gave herself up to Emma’s eager fingers, and was dressed in her bridal garments.
The clock was striking ten when Frank’s impatience was rewarded by the first glimpse of his bride. She came into the room with Emma and Mrs. Lothrop, and her beauty, heightened by her feelings to the utmost, was such as to fill him with triumph and delight.
To Edgar it was a revelation, for always before, he had seen the scar before he did her; but now he was compelled to see her first, for the scar was hidden under fold upon fold of lace.
“No wonder Frank is daft over her,” thought he, “if she always looks like this to him.”
As for Frank, he
bowed with all his soul to the radiant vision, and then, leading her up to Mr. Lothrop, awaited the sacred words which were to make them one. As they were being uttered, strange noises broke out in the street, and the cry of “Fire! fire!” rang out; but if the bride and bridegroom heard the ominous word they did not betray the fact, and the ceremony proceeded. It was soon over, and Frank turned to kiss his wife; but just as Emma advanced with her congratulations, the front door burst open and a neighbor’s voice was heard to cry in great excitement:
“The Cavanagh house is burning, and we are all afraid that the girls have perished in the flames.”
It was Emma who gave the one shriek that responded to these words. Hermione seemed like one frozen. Edgar, dashing to the door, looked out, and came slowly back.
“Yes, it is burning,” said he. “Emma will have to go with you to New York.”
“It is a judgment,” moaned Hermione, clinging to Frank, who perhaps felt a touch of superstitious awe himself. “It is a judgment upon me for forgetting; for being happy; for accepting a deliverance I should not have desired.”
But at these words Frank regained his composure.
“No,” corrected he, “it is your deliverance made complete. Without it you might have had compunctions and ideas of returning to a place to which you felt yourself condemned. Now you never can. It is a merciful Providence.”
“Let us go and see the old house burn,” she whispered. “If it is a funeral pyre of the past, let us watch the dying embers. Perhaps my fears will vanish with them.”
He did not refuse her; so Emma relieved her of her veil and threw about her a long cloak, and together they stepped into the street. The glare that struck their faces made them shrink, but they soon overcame the first shock and hastened on.
The town was in a tumult, but they saw nothing save the flaming skeleton of their home, with the gaunt outlines of the poplars shining vividly in the scarlet glow.
As they drew near to it the front of the house fell in, and Hermione, with a shriek, pointed to the corner where the laboratory had been.
“My father! my father! See! see! he is there! He is denouncing me! Look at his lifted arms! It is a judgment, it is—”
Her words trailed off in choking horror. They all looked, and they all saw the figure of an old man writhing against a background of flame. Was it a spectre? Was it the restless ghost of the old professor showing itself for the last time in the place of his greatest sin and suffering? Even Edgar was silent, and Frank refused to say, while the girls, sinking upon their knees with inarticulate moans and prayers, seemed to beg for mercy and cry against this retribution, when suddenly Hermione felt herself clasped in two vigorous arms, and a voice exclaimed in the husky accents of great joy:
“You are here! You are here! You are not burned! O my dear young mistresses, my dear, dear young mistresses!”
Hermione, pushing the weeping Doris back, pointed again towards the toppling structure, and cried:
“Do you see who is there? My father, Doris, my father! See how he beckons and waves, see—”
Doris, startled, gave a cry in her turn:
“It is Mr. Huckins! O save—”
But the words were lost in the sudden crash of falling walls. The scene of woe was gone, and the dayspring of hope had risen for the two girls.
A DIFFICULT PROBLEM
I.
“A lady to see you, sir.”
I looked up and was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of the person thus introduced to me.
“Is there anything I can do to serve you?” I asked, rising.
She cast me a child-like look full of trust and candor as she seated herself in the chair I pointed out to her.
“I believe so, I hope so,” she earnestly assured me. “I—I am in great trouble. I have just lost my husband—but it is not that. It is the slip of paper I found on my dresser, and which—which—”
She was trembling violently and her words were fast becoming incoherent. I calmed her and asked her to relate her story just as it had happened; and after a few minutes of silent struggle she succeeded in collecting herself sufficiently to respond with some degree of connection and self-possession.
“I have been married six months. My name is Lucy Holmes. For the last few weeks my husband and myself have been living in an apartment house on Fifty-ninth Street, and as we had not a care in the world, we were very happy till Mr. Holmes was called away on business to Philadelphia. This was two weeks ago. Five days later I received an affectionate letter from him, in which he promised to come back the next day; and the news so delighted me that I accepted an invitation to the theater from some intimate friends of ours. The next morning I naturally felt fatigued and rose late; but I was very cheerful, for I expected my husband at noon. And now comes the perplexing mystery. In the course of dressing myself I stepped to my bureau, and seeing a small newspaper-slip attached to the cushion by a pin, I drew it off and read it. It was a death notice, and my hair rose and my limbs failed me as I took in its fatal and incredible words.
“‘Died this day at the Colonnade, James Forsythe De Witt Holmes. New York papers please copy.’
“James Forsythe De Witt Holmes was my husband, and his last letter, which was at that very moment lying beside the cushion, had been dated from the Colonnade. Was I dreaming or under the spell of some frightful hallucination which led me to misread the name on the slip of paper before me? I could not determine. My head, throat and chest seemed bound about with iron, so that I could neither speak nor breathe with freedom, and, suffering thus, I stood staring at this demoniacal bit of paper which in an instant had brought the shadow of death upon my happy life. Nor was I at all relieved when a little later I flew with the notice into a neighbor’s apartment, and praying her to read it for me, found that my eyes had not deceived me and that the name was indeed my husband’s and the notice one of death.
“Not from my own mind but from hers came the first suggestion of comfort.
“‘It cannot be your husband who is meant,’ said she; ‘but someone of the same name. Your husband wrote to you yesterday, and this person must have been dead at least two days for the printed notice of his decease to have reached New York. Some one has remarked the striking similarity of names, and wishing to startle you, cut the slip out and pinned it on your cushion.’
“I certainly knew of no one inconsiderate enough to do this, but the explanation was so plausible, I at once embraced it and sobbed aloud in my relief. But in the midst of my rejoicing I heard the bell ring in my apartment, and running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding in his outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often bespeaks death or disaster. The sight took my breath away. Summoning my maid, whom I saw hastening towards me from an inner room, I begged her to open the telegram for me. Sir, I saw in her face, before she had read the first line, a confirmation of my very worst fears. My husband was—”
The young widow, choked with her emotions, paused, recovered herself for the second time, and then went on.
“I had better show you the telegram.” Taking it from her pocket-book, she held it towards me. I read it at a glance. It was short, simple and direct.
“Come at once. Your husband found dead in his room this morning. Doctors say heart disease. Please telegraph.”
“You see it says this morning,” she explained, placing her delicate finger on the word she so eagerly quoted. “That means a week ago Wednesday, the same day on which the printed slip recording his death was found on my cushion. Do you not see something very strange in this?”
I did; but, before I ventured to express myself on this subject, I desired her to tell me what she had learned in her visit to Philadelphia.
Her answer was simple and straightforward.
“But little more than you find in this telegram. He died in his room. He was found lying on the floor near the bell button, which he had evidently risen to touch. One hand was clenched on his chest, but his face wore a peaceful look as
if death had come too suddenly to cause him much suffering. His bed was undisturbed; he had died before retiring, possibly in the act of packing his trunk, for it was found nearly ready for the expressman. Indeed, there was every evidence of his intention to leave on an early morning train. He had even desired to be awakened at six o’clock; and it was his failure to respond to the summons of the bell-boy, which led to so early a discovery of his death. He had never complained of any distress in breathing, and we had always considered him a perfectly healthy man; but there was no reason for assigning any other cause than heart-failure to his sudden death, and so the burial certificate was made out to that effect, and I was allowed to bring him home and bury him in our vault at Wood-lawn. But—” and here her earnestness dried up the tears which had been flowing freely during this recital of her husband’s lonely death and sad burial—“do you not think an investigation should be made into a death preceded by a false obituary notice? For I found when I was in Philadelphia that no paragraph such as I had found pinned to my cushion had been inserted in any paper there, nor had any other man of the same name ever registered at the Colonnade, much less died there.”
“Have you this notice with you?” I asked.
She immediately produced it, and while I was glancing it over remarked:
“Some persons would give a superstitious explanation to the whole matter; think I had received a supernatural warning and been satisfied with what they would call a spiritual manifestation. But I have not a bit of such folly in my composition. Living hands set up the type and printed the words which gave me so deathly a shock; and hands, with a real purpose in them, cut it from the paper and pinned it to my cushion for me to see when I woke on that fatal morning. But whose hands? That is what I want you to discover.”
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 184
