Extremely sad, I remarked. As a medical man I see too vividly the uncertainty of human life.
How is she now? inquired the Major of her father. The same, alas! answered the Tempter with well-assumed sorrow. She will, we fear, not live till midnight.
Poor girl! Poor girl! the new-comer ejaculated with a sigh, while the Tempter, excusing himself for an instant left the room.
I would have risen and followed, but the Major, addressing me confidentially, said
This is a strange whim of my old friends, marrying his daughter in this manner. There seems no motive for it, as far as I can gather.
No, none, I responded. Mr Wynd has struck me as being somewhat eccentric.
Hes a very good fellow an excellent fellow. Entirely loyal to his friends. You are fortunate, my dear fellow, in having him as a father-in-law. Hes amazingly well off, and generosity itself.
I recollected his dastardly suggestion that my wife should not live longer than sundown, and smiled within myself. This friend of his evidently did not know his real character.
Besides, being an observant man by nature, I noticed as I sat there one thing which filled me with curiosity. The tops of the Majors fingers and thumb of his right hand were thick and slightly deformed, while the skin was hardened and the nails worn down to the quick.
While the left hand was of normal appearance, the other had undoubtedly performed hard manual labour. A major holding her Majestys commission does not usually bear such evident traces of toil. The hand was out of keeping with the fine diamond ring that flashed upon it.
The incident of to-day, I said, has been to me most unusual. It hardly seems possible that I am a bridegroom, for, truth to tell, I fancied myself the most confirmed of bachelors. Early marriage always hampers the professional man.
But I dont suppose you will have any cause for regret on that score, he observed. You will have been a bridegroom and a widower in a single day.
I was silent. His words betrayed him. He knew of the plot conceived by his friend to bribe me to kill the woman to whom I had been so strangely wedded!
But successfully concealing my surprise at his incautious words, I answered
Yes, mine will certainly have been a unique experience.
He courteously offered me a cigarette, and lighting one himself, held the match to me. Then we sat chatting, he telling me what a charming girl Beryl had been until stricken down by disease.
What was her ailment? I inquired.
I am not aware of the name by which you doctors know it. It is, I believe, a complication of ailments. Half a dozen specialists have seen her, and all are agreed that her life cannot be saved. Wynd has spared no expense in the matter, for he is perfectly devoted to her.
His words, hardly coincided with the truth, I reflected. So far from being devoted to her, he was anxious, for some mysterious reason, that she should not live after midnight.
To lose her will, I suppose, be a great blow to him? I observed, with feigned sympathy.
Most certainly. She has been his constant friend and companion ever since his wife died, six years ago. Im awfully sorry for both poor Beryl and Wynd.
I was about to reply, but his words froze upon my lips, for at that instant there rang through the house a shrill scream the agonised scream of a woman.
Listen! I cried. Whats that?
But my companions jaw had dropped, and he sat immovable, listening intently.
Again the scream rang out, but seemed stifled and weaker.
The Tempter was with his daughter whom he had determined should die. The thought decided me, and turning, without further word, I dashed from the room, and with quickly-beating heart ran up the wide thickly-carpeted staircase.
Chapter Four
The Note of Interrogation
On reaching the corridor I was confronted by the thin, spare figure of the Tempter standing resolutely before a closed door that of Beryls chamber.
His black eyes seemed to flash upon me defiantly, and his face had reassumed that expression which was sufficient index to the unscrupulousness of his character.
Let me pass! I cried roughly, in my headlong haste. I desire to see my wife.
You shall not enter? he answered, in a voice tremulous with an excitement which he strove in vain to control.
She is in distress. I heard her scream. It is my duty, both as a doctor and as her husband, to be at her side.
Duty? he sneered. My dear sir, what is duty to a man who will sell himself for a handful of banknotes?
I yielded to your accursed temptation, it is true! I cried fiercely. But human feeling is not entirely dead in my heart, as it is in yours. Thank God that my hands are still unsullied!
He laughed the same harsh, discordant laugh that had escaped him when, below in the library, I had refused to accept the vile condition of the compact.
He stood there barring my passage to that room wherein lay the unknown woman who had been so strangely united to me. Whoever she was, I was resolved to rescue her. Mystery surrounded her mystery that I resolved at all hazards to penetrate.
You were in want of money, and I offered it to you, the Tempter answered coldly. You have refused, and the matter is ended.
I think not, I said warmly. You will hear something more of this nights work.
He laughed again, displaying an uneven row of discoloured teeth. To argue with him further was useless.
Come, stand aside? I cried, making a movement forward.
He receded a couple of paces, until he stood with his back against the door, and as I faced him I looked down the shining barrel of a revolver.
I do not know what possessed me at that instant. I did not fully realise my danger, that is certain. My mind was too full of the mystery surrounding the unknown woman who was lying within, and whose hand had showed me that she was no invalid. Physically I am a muscular man, and without a seconds hesitation I sprang upon my adversary and closed with him. His strength was marvellous. I had under-calculated it, for he was wiry, with muscles like iron.
For a few moments we swayed to and fro in deadly embrace, until I felt that he had turned the weapon until the barrel touched my neck. Next instant there was a loud report. The flash burned my face, but fortunately the bullet only grazed my cheek.
I was unharmed, but his deliberate attempt to take my life urged me to desperation, and with an almost superhuman effort I tripped him by a trick, and kneeling upon him, wrenched the weapon from his grasp. Then, leaving him, I dashed towards the door and turned the handle, but in vain. It was locked. Without more ado I stepped back, and taking a run, flung myself against the door, bursting the lock from its socket and falling headlong into the chamber.
The light was insufficient in that great chamber; therefore I drew up one of the blinds partially and crossed to the bed, full of curiosity.
My wife was lying there, silent and still. Her wealth of dishevelled hair strayed across the lace-edged pillow, and the hand with the wedding-ring I had placed upon it was raised above her head and tightly clenched in that attitude often assumed by children in their sleep.
She had screamed. That sound I had heard, so shrill and plain, was undoubtedly the voice of a young woman, and it had come from this room, which was directly above the library. Yet, as far as I could see, there was nothing to indicate the cause of her alarm.
Utterly bewildered, I stood there gazing at the form hidden beneath the silken coverlet of pale blue. The face was turned away towards the wall, so that I could not see it.
Utterly bewildered, I stood there gazing at the form hidden beneath the silken coverlet of pale blue. The face was turned away towards the wall, so that I could not see it.
Why, I wondered, had the Tempter barred my entrance there with such determination, endeavouring to take my life rather than allow me to enter there?
The small ormolu clock chimed the hour upon its silver bell. It was one oclock.
Attentively I bent and listened. Her breathing seemed very low. I touched her hand and found it chilly.
For a moment I hesitated to disturb her, for she was lying in such a position that I could not see her face without turning her over. Suddenly, however, it occurred to me that I might draw out the bed from the wall and get behind it.
This I did, but the bed, being very heavy, required all my effort to move it.
Strangely enough at that moment I felt a curious sensation in my mouth and throat, and an unaccountable dizziness seized me. It seemed as though my mouth and lips were swelling, and the thought occurred to me that I might have ruptured a blood-vessel in my exertions in moving the bed.
Eager, however, to look upon the face of the woman who was my wife, I slipped between the wall and the bed, and, bending down, drew back the embroidered sheet which half concealed the features.
I stood dumb-stricken. The face was the most beautiful, the most perfect in contour and in natural sweetness of expression, that I had ever gazed upon. It was the face of a healthful and vigorous girl of twenty, rather than of an invalid a face about the beauty of which there could be no two opinions. The great blue eyes were wide open, looking curiously into mine, while about the mouth was a half-smile which rendered the features additionally attractive.
You are ill, I whispered in a low, intense voice, bending to her. Cannot you tell me what is the matter? I am a doctor, and will do all in my power to make you better.
There was no response. The great blue eyes stared at me fixedly, the smile did not relax, the features seemed strangely rigid. Next second a terrible suspicion flashed across my mind, and I bent closer down. The eyes did not waver in the light as eyes must do when a light shines straight into them. I touched her cheek with my hand, and its thrilling contact told me the truth only too plainly.
My wife was dead. She had died before sunset, as the Tempter had intended.
The discovery held me immovable. Hers was a face such as I had never seen before. She was a woman before whom, had I met her in life, I should have fallen down and worshipped. Indeed, strange as it may seem, I confess that, as I stood there, I fell in love with her even though she was a corpse.
Yet, as my eyes fixed themselves lovingly upon her features, as sweet, tender, and innocent in expression as a childs, I could not imagine the cause of death. There was no sign of disease or unhealthiness there.
Why had she uttered those screams? Why, indeed, had the door of the death-chamber been afterwards locked? Had she, after all, fallen a victim to foul play?
I drew down the bed-clothes and exposed her neck in order to make an examination. She wore, suspended by a thin gold chain, a small amulet shaped like a note of interrogation and encrusted with diamonds. My observations told me that she had not worn it very long, for the edges of the stones were sharp, yet the delicate skin remained unscratched. A desire possessed me to have some souvenir of her, and without further ado, I unclasped the chain from her neck, and placed it and the little charm in my pocket.
Then, in continuation of my examination, I placed my hand upon her heart, but could detect no cause of death.
Upon her breast, however, I found a curious tattoo-mark a strange device representing three hearts entwined. Now in my medical experience, I have found that very few women are tattooed. A woman usually shrinks from the operation which is not unaccompanied by pain and, on careful examination of this mark, I came to the conclusion that it had been pricked some years ago by a practised hand; further, that it had some distinct and mysterious signification.
It was in the exact centre of the breast, and just sufficiently low to remain concealed when she had worn a décolleté dress. The light was dim and unsatisfactory, but all my efforts to trace the hand of an assassin were futile.
Suddenly, however, as I examined her eyes, the left one, nearest the pillow, bore an expression which struck me as unusual. Both organs of sight seemed to have lost their clearness in the moments I had been standing there, and were glazing as rigor mortis set in, but the left eye was becoming more blurred than its fellow an unusual circumstance which attracted me. The bright blue which I had seen in its unfathomable depths had contracted in a manner altogether unaccountable until it was now only the size of a pins head. I bent again closely and peered into it. Next instant the awful truth was revealed.
She had been foully murdered.
With quick heart-beating I examined the eye carefully, finding symptoms of death from some deliriant a neurotic acting on the brain and producing delirium, presbyopia, and coma. Certain it was that if this were actually the Tempters work, he was a veritable artist in crime, for the manner in which death had been caused was extremely difficult to determine.
Finding myself undisturbed there, I made further and more searching examination, until I held the opinion that death must have been almost, if not quite, instantaneous.
But such theory did not coincide with the screams that had escaped her. On reviewing the whole of the circumstances, I felt confident that she must have been fully conscious at the time, and that those shrieks were shrieks of terror. She had divined the intention of her enemies.
About the vicinity of the bed I searched for any bottle of medicine that might be there, but in vain. If she had really been ill previously, as the Tempter had alleged, the medicine prescribed might give me some clue to the nature of her disease.
Upon a chair close by, her bridal veil of Brussels lace was lying crumpled in a heap, while her gown of white satin was hanging upon the door-knob of the handsome wardrobe. The orange-blossoms diffused their perfume over the room, but to me it was a sickly odour emblematic of the grave.
My wife, the most beautiful woman upon whom my eyes had ever fallen, was lifeless struck down by the hand of a murderer.
As I bent, looking full into the contracted pupil, I suddenly detected something half concealed in the lace edging of the pillow. I drew it forth, and found it to be a crumpled letter, which I spread out and read. It had evidently been treasured there, just as invalids treasure beneath the bolster all the correspondence they receive.
In an angular hand, evidently masculine, was written the simple words, without address or signature, I have seen La Gioia!
Who, I wondered, was La Gioia? Was it a happy meeting or a disconcerting one? The announcement was bare enough, without comment and without detail. Significant, no doubt, it had been received by her and kept secret beneath her pillow.
I started across the room to investigate my dead wifes surroundings and to learn, if possible, by observation, something concerning her life. A room is often indicative of a womans character, and always of her habits. The apartment was, I found, artistic and luxurious, while the few books lying about showed her to be a woman of education, culture, and refinement. Upon a little side-table, concealed behind a pile of books, I found a small blue bottle which, taking up, I held to the light, and afterwards uncorked and smelt, wondering whether its odour would give me any clue to its composition. The bottle contained pure chloroform.