Salome and the Head/Chapter 15

by E. Nesbit

 

CHAPTER XV

THE INTRUDER

It is a strange and terrible moment when something knocks at the door, and you, within, alone with your fear, filled with it as a glass is filled with water, know that beyond the door something waits—something that cannot be there, since the house is empty.

Because you must either say “Come in!” to it—or you must go and open the door to you know not what.

Sandra did neither. She cried out again as the hare cries, though she knew as she did it how unwise it was to cry out, and thus to rivet on herself the attention of the thing on the other side of the door—the thing that could not be there, because the house was empty.

I shall not tell you what her tortured imagination figured as standing at the other side of that door. You would not believe or understand. Because you have never stood at dead of night by a table on which a head lay—a head that you had danced with, danced to—the head of a dead man.

The door shook to a hand that tried the latch. I shall not tell you what hand, in her madness, she thought it might be.

[Illustration:^[1] THE INTRUDER]

“No, no, no, no!” she cried. And on that the door burst open with a crack, and a report like a pistol’s—and something stood in the doorway an instant, then came slowly into the room.

Sandra cowered—but she had not dared to hide her eyes. They widened, wavered, gladdened. And then, at last, she laughed.

There are ears in which that laugh still rings.

The next moment she was holding the arms of the newcomer above the elbow and saying over and over again:

“Oh!—thank God—it’s you, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you, it’s you.”

The new chauffeur, at the same time, was repeating with equal iteration:

“It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right——”

When he became aware of the head he did not start or exclaim; he just threw the towels over it, as though it were some unimportant if unsightly object, and closed the door—she holding to him all the time.

Then he said, in a voice that she had not heard—a voice gentle, equal, confident:

“Everything is perfectly all right. Nothing can hurt you while I am here. That can’t hurt you. Come away from it.”

He would have led her into the further room. But she held back.

“I’m not so frightened here. The other rooms are worse. They seem full of it.”

“I see,” he said in a tone of cheerful comprehension. “I see. Shall I put it away? It’s a practical joke, I assure you—not a nice one. We shall have it all explained in the morning.”

“I’m glad you came,” she said reflectively, “It must be horrid to be mad. May I hold your hands?”

She held out hers, as a child frightened in the dark holds out its hands to its nurse, and the chauffeur took them.

“You understand,” he said, “I shan’t leave you. I felt certain that you would want something tonight—I stayed in that little room of Forrester’s, and I was in the vaulted passage and heard you call out. Just think. It’s all nonsense”—his voice was firm and kind—“it’s only a horrible practical joke—some medical student. . .”

“It is the head of my husband,” said Sandra. “Who sent it to me?”

“Your husband?”

“Yes. I tell you—yes.”

“You got it. . . ?”

“It was passed to me through the machine. You know the head seems to come to me from nowhere while I’m dancing. And Denny must have put it on the brougham with the. . . the presents, you know.”

“You were married to. . . to him?”

“Not really—oh! what does all this matter? But who sent it? He died of pneumonia last Wednesday—and I was engaged to be married to someone else. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”

“You will sit down on this sofa,” said the chauffeur, “and drink some wine.”

“I have.”

“Then you will drink some more. Don’t worry—don’t think. Believe me, it is all right. Yes, I will hold both your hands. Is there anyone I can call?—Mr. Mosenthal, you said——”

“No!” cried Sandra with a vehemence that she herself could not have explained; “and besides, he’s gone back to Germany. Don’t leave me, for God’s sake, and don’t call anybody.” She drew a long breath that trembled on a sob. She took her hands away to lay her face in them.

“There was a letter, I think,” she said presently, looking up, “from him—that I was going to marry, you know. . . He couldn’t have sent the head—to show me that I’m really free—could he?”

“He might have,” said the chauffeur bitterly, “but I don’t think he did. Don’t think of it. Haven’t you any friends you can go to?”

She shook her head forlornly.

“There was a letter,” she said again.

“Yes.”

“I put all my letters on my pillow, and the head,” she explained as a child explains the unexplained troubles that have come to it. “Mr. Mosenthal had been making jokes about it—I didn’t want him to see it. When he was gone I went up—oh!—and the head had—it had moved.”

“It couldn’t: there must be someone in the house—someone who is playing you this” —he choked on an adjective— “this silly trick. There must be someone.” He moved towards the door. But she held him.

“No, no, no,” she said; “it didn’t really move—I put it on the pillow, and it had rolled down—that’s all; and where it’s been cut off they’ve tarred it—and it. . . it was all over the letters. And if there’s one from him, I want it.”

“I will go and get it,” said the new chauffeur.

“And leave me here with it? I—I could go up with you.”

They went up like lovers, the chauffeur’s arm round her, and both her hands in one of his. He got the letters, she standing holding on to the wooden rail of the bed.

“It’s all right,” he said. “You see there’s nothing here—it’s all right.”

“How horrible roses smell,” she said. And he got her down again.

“When you have read your letter,” he said, “you will let me send for the police. The person who played this trick on you must be caught and punished.”

He would not use the ugly words crime or murderer—but she used them.

“It’s not murder,” she said: “he died of pneumonia. Oh! I didn’t think there was anyone in the world who hated me enough to do this to me—it is cruel, isn’t it?—except him, and he’s dead. He couldn’t have sent me his head himself, could he?”

She laughed again. “No—I don’t mean that; that’s silly, of course. I mean, could he have left it in his will, or got someone to promise to send it? I shouldn’t be so frightened if I thought that was it. It would be just like him.”

“Of course that’s it,” said the chauffeur heartily. While she spoke he had wiped the letters with his handkerchief, so that the stains on them were, at any rate, dry.

“See if the letter you want is here,” he said, and pushed her gently into the corner of the sofa, under the electric light.

“No—none of them,” she said, turning them quickly. “Ah, yes! this packet. Open it—my hands feel so funny.”

He cut the string and laid the open packet on her knee. There were letters in it—letters torn at the edges, obviously not of any late writing. A fresh sheet lay at the top. She caught it up and read.

“But I don’t understand,” she said, looking up at him, “I don’t understand.”

If you had been the new chauffeur you would have done as he did. He took the letter from her hand with a “May I?” as though it were some unimportant note on business.

And he read; and all the time he was reading she was plucking at his arm and saying over and over again very quickly: “What does it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean?”

This was the letter:

I found out your lie about the pneumonia death. I found your husband. I am going abroad. I wonder what you will do with the head. I think I am mad, but I can do nothing more. God knows what I ought to have done. I did what I could not keep from doing, and I did it for you. I enclose your letters to him. You may wish to destroy them. You did not know how I loved you; but perhaps this will show you. Good-bye—if it were not a mockery from me to you I would say God bless you. ⁠ E. T.

It was her second love-letter.

“What does it mean?” she was still saying as he let the letter hang in his dropped hand and looked at her, meeting her eyes.

“I am afraid it means—you poor little thing, be brave! You will have to think what you will do. Was he jealous, the man you were engaged to?”

“Yes.”

“Of the—of the man you married?”

“Yes—but it’s not possible. . . .”

“Never mind about it now,” the chauffeur urged. “The thing for me to do is to fetch the police.”

“Not till you’ve told me what it means,” she said steadily. “I am not afraid now. Look, my hands are quite steady.” She held them out for him to see. He took them and held them, looking masterfully into her eyes.

“You’ll be brave if I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Courage is the only respectable thing in the world.”

“I know.”

“Well, then, it means that your husband wasn’t really dead when you thought he was—and that your lover found him and killed him. There was a fight, very likely. I’m certain your lover didn’t mean to do it. He couldn’t have been such a fool.”

“And the head?” she asked with a brisk confidence that led him on.

“I’m afraid when he saw what he’d done he must have gone mad—it’s horrible, but you’ve got to face it sometime—and—and cut off the head and—and——”

“And passed it off somehow on Denny as the false one that I have for the Salome dance. Yes, it might be that. But I don’t believe it. You don’t know him. He simply couldn’t do a thing like that.” His heart vibrated to the note of love and sorrow—the brave, unreasoning, pitiful faith of a woman in love.

“You don’t know what men can do when they’re jealous—and in love,” he said. “There’s a murderer inside everyone of us—only we keep him down.”

“Oh! he might have killed him,” she said almost indifferently, “but he’d never have sent that thing to frighten me. And he never did,” she said—“never. I’ll stake my life on it he never did that.”

“But he has done it,” said the chauffeur. Only he said it to himself.

She re-read the letter.

“What,” she said slowly, “does he mean by wondering what I shall do with the head?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the chauffeur.

“And why did he send it?” she asked.

“What you said—to show you the man was dead. And then he couldn’t bear the thought of what he’d done. He must be mad. I don’t know.”

“But I do,” she said. “I know.” And it seemed to him that she shuddered in the grip of that new knowledge. “Oh, it’s all gaps and blanks, and all muddled and mazy, and nothing fits, but I see through it to that. I know.”

He did not ask her what she knew. And she would not have told him.

“Will you be advised?” he said. “Let me go for the police. It’s the only safe thing you can do.”

But something in the muddle and maze, among the gaps and blanks, said NO to that. It was not a doubt of Templar—she told herself that it was not that. What she said was: “I can’t be left alone, not here—with that. . .”

And at the word, the horror that had lifted a little fell on her suddenly like a heavy pall thrown over her from behind, so that she cowered and her hands fluttered in his like captive moths.

“No, no,” she said: “in the morning, when it is light—I can do anything when it is light. Oh! it is moving inside the cabinet—I heard it move. It did move on my bed—I only pretended to myself that it didn’t move. It’s moving now. . . .”

Only the clasp of his hands controlled her.

“Be quiet,” he said, “be quiet. Yes—there was something—I heard it. I heard something, too—but it wasn’t that. Listen—listen!” She held her breath and pressed her hand over his mouth, so that he, too, to calm her, listened. And there was a sound, a sound in the empty house—the creaking of a board—and then, quite plainly, and not to be mistaken, a low moaning sigh.

“There,” she said, tense; “I knew, it was! It is.”

“Nonsense,” he said, moving briskly towards the door. “There’s someone in the house.”

“Take my revolver. Here,” she said, and opened an inlaid box. “Oh—no, it isn’t here. I don’t know where it is.”

“I don’t want your revolver,” he said.

“But it doesn’t matter. You won’t find anything——”

“Oh, yes, I shall!” he cried, furiously glad of a chance of action to relieve the tension of pity and other things. “Yes—come if you like—but keep behind me—I shall find someone right enough.” And to himself he said, “I shall find her lover.”

He opened the door, and stood listening to the silence.

Then again, from the silence of the empty house, the sigh.

“Ah!—be wise—stay here,” the chauffeur said. “I’ll see what it is. It’s burglars, probably, Il ne manquait que cela.”

But “No,” she said, and “No” again. And she held his arm tightly. The touch of something that was alive and friendly seemed to be the best thing in the world—the only thing.

“I must go, you know,” he said with gentle reasonableness.

“Me too,” said she, childishly.

“Very well—I will go first. You can come after me if you like.”

“No,” she said again. “Something might come behind me. Let me go first. Everything’s easier if you face it.”

“Be good, and stay here,” he tried again. But it was useless.

“Then let us go together—as we did when we fetched the letters,” he said.

“I shall go first,” she insisted. “And you will see that nothing comes creeping up behind me, won’t you?” That something might so creep was possible. He yielded.

Thus for the second time they went up the stairs, for it was from above that the sound had seemed to come.

The electric lights still glowed steadily. They looked into every room on the first landing. It was near the top of the second flight that she stopped suddenly, as an electric light stops when you turn off the switch. She was three steps ahead of him, so that she could see the landing, and he could not. “I am not at all afraid now,” she said in a cool, new voice. “Turn round. Look downstairs. I want to say something to you.”

He turned, in obedience.

“Now,” she said, “will you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

“Well—don’t look round. I’ve just seen something that changes everything—something that makes me quite brave—something I don’t want you to see. Will you go back and wait for me at the bottom of the stairs?”

“You’re asking a very hard thing,” he said. “No—nonsense, I can’t let you go alone.”

“You must,” she said. “You think because I’ve been so frightened to-night that I’m not brave—but I am. When there’s anything to be done I never break down—never. It’s only when one can’t do anything.”

“You know who is up there?”

“Yes. Let me go.”

“No,” he said, “I can’t let you go alone. It’s not safe!”

“Ah,” she said, “that’s only because you don’t understand. Go down. You’re thinking of madmen and murderers—it’s not that. If I call out you can be up there with me in half a moment. Oh! for pity’s sake—for God’s sake, do as I tell you.”

Then he went down.

“God forgive me if I’m a fool,” he said as he went. He stood at the stair-foot, his hand on the broad balustrade, his foot on the third step, ready to spring up to her if she should call.

He heard movements overhead, heard a door open, heard her voice in low passionate tones of pain and pity—heard another voice. . . . And he stood still. It will be counted to him when the time comes for counting things that he stood still, and waited, loyally—curiosity, excitement, and something deeper and stronger, warring sickeningly in him.

Then she came down the stairs, leaned down towards him, and said: “It’s all right. Come down.”

Arrived in the parlour, she spoke.

“I am not afraid at all now. I have trusted you, and I am going to trust you more. I trust you as I trust myself. What I found up there. . . it’s someone I love very much, and he’s. . . Oh! it’s no use pretending about it. He is. . . he has. . . oh! how odd it is when words go away and hide like this. He killed my husband. . . . I don’t know why, yet, nor how. . . and he’s shot himself. He was mad; —you were quite right; but he’s not mad now. I think he’s dying. You must go for the doctor. And get a nurse—a Catholic sister. They don’t blab.”

“The police,” said the chauffeur for the twentieth time that night; and yet he was not at all a stupid man.

“Ah!” cried Sandra in a note of indescribable anguish, “don’t you desert me—don’t you try to do ‘the proper thing.’ You can have as many police as you like presently. Oh! I know he won’t live long—my dear, my poor! He did it for me. . . Oh, it’s not fair—it’s not fair. Will you go for the doctor or must I go?” She stamped her foot.

“Can you trust the doctor?”

“He’s Uncle Mosenthal’s slave. Uncle Mosenthal saved him in some trouble or other. He’s always attended all of us. Oh, go—go!”

“I don’t like to leave you.”

She came closer to him.

“Why do you keep on saying the same things over and over again?” she said. “Don’t you understand? I thought you weren’t stupid. But one never knows. Don’t you see? This real thing—that he’s done it—it wipes out all that silly horror. What’s a dead man’s head in a cupboard compared with him, dying in that awful pain because he loved me? Don’t you see it’s my fault—my doing? Don’t you see that nothing in the world counts except what I can do for him—now he’s done this terrible thing for me? And you think I’m afraid to be left!”

She turned with a rush almost winged to the cabinet, unlocked it, took out the head, and set it on the table.

“There!” she said, “it’s nothing to me. Less than nothing. I’d sit and hold it in my lap all night, if it would do him any good.”

“How you love him!” said the chauffeur in a low voice. “Let me put that thing away. Yes—I’ll go.”

He replaced the horror in the cabinet, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.

“You’ll not stay here?”

“No—I shall be with him. Give me the brandy—that little goldy decanter. Now go. Oh, thank God I’ve a man to help me tonight. Go—go—go! Thirty-seven Harley Street. Don’t leave a message. If he’s not in, find out where he is and bring him home. Yes—take the brougham, of course. He knows all about it.”

When he had gone she flew up the stairs and into an attic room. On the bed lay a man, in shirt and trousers. The white of the shirt was brownly stained, and through the sash that she had tied round it five minutes before, fresh red was already oozing.

She threw herself on her knees beside the bed, kissing the pale cheek and closed eyes—laying her own cheek, warm now and red, against the cold lips tightly closed.

“Oh! my dear—my poor!” she said again and again; “my poor love!—my darling.”

The heavy lids lifted an instant and the pale lips moved.

“I oughtn’t to have come here. It was for you—I think—but everything’s so odd. If you could get the doctor and put me together a little—I should like. . . to. . . tell you how it happened. It does hurt. . . I thought it didn’t hurt. . . I thought it just ended. . . Sandra. . . darling! darling!”

1. Unclear plate omitted