“She’s dead!” shriekod Mrs. Gould. “She is lying dead and stark upon her bed.”
“Who is dead?” repeated Mr. Carlton.
“Our lodger. The lady you came to see this evening—Mrs. Crane. The blessed breath have just gone out of her.”
Almost with the first word of explanation Mr. Carlton shook her arm away and darted off towards the house, she following in his wake. He disappeared within it; and just at the moment the Reverend William Lycett passed, the curate of St. Mark’s church. Mrs. Gould seized upon his arm as she had previously seized on Mr. Carlton’s, sobbed forth some confused words, and took him up the stairs.
The nurse was standing at the foot of the bed, her eyes round with alarm; and Mr. Carlton had thrown down the bed-clothes and placed his ear close to the heart that lay there. He felt the damp forehead, he touched one of the hands.
“This is awful!” he exclaimed, turning round his pale face. “I left her well little more than an hour ago.”
“Is she dead?” asked Mr. Lycett.
“She is dead,” replied the surgeon. “What had you been giving her?” he demanded of Mrs. Pepperfly, his tone becoming stern and sharp.
It was the first indication of the consequences to them, and Mrs. Pepperfly replied meekly, her apron held to her lips.
“Sir, I give her her gruel, and after that I give her her draught. It’s of no good denying of it.”
“That draught!” repeated Mr. Carlton to himself in a low tone of reproach. Not so low, however, but Mr. Lycctt caught the words. “I was wrong not to take it away with me.”
“Has she died from poison?” whispered Mr. Lycett.
“From poison—as I believe. What else can she have died from?”
Mr. Carlton, as he spoke, had his head bent over the mouth of the dead, inhaling the breath; or, rather, the odour where the breath had once been.
“You are not acquainted with the properties of drugs as may be gathered from their smell, I presume, Mr. Lycett, or else”
“Pardon me,” was the interruption, “I am quite well acquainted with them. My father is a surgeon, and half my boyhood was spent in his surgery.”
“Then just put your nose here and tell me what you find.”
The clergyman did as desired; but he drew back his face instantly.
“Prussic acid,” he said in a whisper; and Mr. Carlton gave a grave nod of assent. He turned to Mrs. Pepperfly.
“What do you say she had been taking? Gruel? and the draught? The gruel first, of course?”
“In course, sir. She took that soon after you left. There’s the basin, by token, never took down again.”
Mr. Carlton laid hold of the basin pointed out to him. A little gruel remained in it still, which he smelt and tasted.
“There’s nothing wrong here,” he observed.
“And her draught, sir, we gave her some time after, three-q1mrters of an hour, maybe. Not a minute had she took it when—I shan’t overget the fright for a year to come—she was gone.”
“A year!” echoed Mrs. Gould from the door, where she had stood trembling and sobbing, her head just pushed into the chamber. “I shan’t overget it for my whole life.”
“Where is the bottle?” inquired Mr. Carlton.
“The bottle!” repeated the nurse. “Where now did I put it? Oh, it’s behind you, sir. There, on the little table by the bed’s head.”
The bottle which ha contained the draught lay there, the cork in. Mr. Carlton took out the cork, smelt it, recorked it, and laid it on the table, an angry scowl on his face.
“Do you smell anything wrong?” asked Mr. Lycett.
For answer the surgeon handed him the phial, and Mr. Lycett removed the cork for one moment, and put it in again. It was quite sufficient.
“Where did the draught come from?” inquired the curate. But the next moment his eyes full on the label, and he saw it had come from the surgery of the Messrs. Grey.
Mr. Carlton replaced the phial from whence he had taken it, and looked at the landlady. “Mrs. Gould, I think you had better go up and ask Mr. Stephen Grey to step here.”
Glad to be away from the death chamber, yet afraid to stay by herself alone, the woman was not sorry to be sent upon the errand. The streets under the bright moon were as light as day, and she discerned Mr. John Grey standing at his own door long before she reached him. The sight seemed to give an impetus to her speed and her excitement, and she broke into sobs again as she made a dash at him.
“Oh, sir! this will kill some of us”
Mr. Grey, a man of strong mind, decisive in speech—sometimes, if put out, a little stern in manner,—looked calmly at the widow. Like Judith Ford, he had no patience with nervous nonsense. He was a tall man, with aquiline features and keen dark eyes.
