Storyteller.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 1, 31 March 1893, Page 13

Storyteller.

A MYSTERIOUS CASE

' It was a mystery to me, but not to the other doctors. They took, as Was natural, the worst possible view of the matter, and accepted the only solution which the facts seemed to warrant. But they are men, and I am a woman; besides, I knew the nurse well, and could not believe her capable of wilful deceit, much less of the heinous crime which deceit in this case involved.' So to me the affair was a mystery, and, as such, a matter to be penetrated, though the difficulties in the way seemed .at the moment insurmountable. The facts were these.

My patient, a young type-writer, seemingly without friends or enemies, lay in the small room of a boardinghouse, afflicted with a painful but not dangerous malady. Though she was comparatively helpless, her ■ vital organs were strong, and we never had a moment’s uneasiness concerning tier, till one morning when we found her in an almost dying condition, from having taken, as we. quickly discovered, a dose of poison instead of the soothing mixture width had been left for her with the nurse. ~ Poison! and ho one, not even herself or. the nurse, could .explain how the : same got into the room, much less into her medicine. And when !came to study the situation I found myself as much at a loss as they ; .indeed, more so; for I knew I had'made no mistake in preparing the mixture, and that, even if I had, this especial poison could not have found its Way into it,,6wing to the fact that there neither was nor ever had been a drop of it in my possession.' ; ; The mixture, then, was pure when it left my hand, and according to the nurse, whom, as. I have said, I implicitly.believed it went into the glass pure. ; And yet When two hours later, without her having left the room or anybody coming into it, she. foundoccasion to administer the draught, poison was in, the cup, and the patient was only saved from death hy the fnost immediate and energetic measures, not only on her party but on that .of Dr Holmes, whom in her. haste and perturbation she. had called in from the adjacent house; " The patient, young, innocent, unfortunate',- but of. a strangely courageous disposition; betrayed nothing but the utmost surprise at the peril she had so narrowly escaped. ; • When Dr Holmes intimated that perhaps she had been tired of suffering and had herself found means of putting. the deadly drug into her medicine; she opened her great gray eyes with such a look of child-like surprise , and reproach that he blushed and murmured some,sort-of apology. ■' . . •

“ Poison myself ?” she cried, “when you promise me that I,shall get well ? Yon do not know what a horror, I Lave of dying, in debt, or you would ■never say that.” . ~ This Was some time , after the critical moment had passed, and there were in the room Mrs, Payton, the landlady, Dr. Holmes, the nurse, and myself. At the utterance of - these words we all felt ashamed and- cast looks of increased interest at the poor girl. 'v:;:;.:, - She • was . very lovely. Though without means, and to all appearance without friends, she possessed in great degree the charm of winsomeness, and not even-her many sufferings, nor the indignation under which she was then laboring, could quite rob her countenance of that tender and confiding expression which so often redeems the plainest face and makes beauty doubly attractive.' “Dr Holmes does not know,you,” I hastened to. say. “ I do, and utterly repel for you any such insinuation. In return, will you tell me iD there is any one in the world whom yOu can call your enemy ? Though the chief mystery is how so deadly anduniisual a poison could have, got into a clean glass, without the knowledge of yOUtself or the nurse, still it might

not be amiss to know if there is any one, here or elsewhere, who for any reason might desire your death. The surprise in the child-like eyes increased rather than diminished. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured. “I am so insignificant a person that it seems absurd for me to talk of having an enemy. Besides, I have none. On the contrary, every one seems to love me more than I deserve. Haven’t you noticed it, Mrs Dayton?” The landlady smiled and stroked the sick girl’s hand. “Indeed,” she replied, ‘ I have noticed that people love you', but T have never thofight it was more than you deserved. You are a dear little thing‘Addie.” , . And though she knew and I knew that the “ every one ” mentioned by the poor girl meant ourselves and' possibly her unknown employer, we were none the less touched by her words, or inclined to believe that the facts were as she' had stated, and that accident rather than malice lay at the base of the deplorable occurrence we were endeavouring to fathom. But what accident P Does poison drop from the walls’or evolve itself out of the air' which, we breathe P The more, we studied the mystery, the peeper and less explainable did it become. ' .

, And indeed I doubt if we should 1 have ever got to the bottom of it, 'if there had hot presently occurred in mj 7 " patient a repetition of the same dangerous' symptoms, followed Taj the same discovery of poison in the. glass, -and'.the same failure on the'part of herself' and the nurse to account for it. 1 was’ roused from my.bed at midnight to ' attend her, and as. I entered her room and met her beseeching eyes looking upon me from the very shadow of death, I made a vow Riat 'T would never’ cease niy ' efforts ffill I had. penetrated the secret 'of ’what' certainly looked like' a persistent, atteihpt on'this pOor gild’s .life. I tvent about the matter ‘ deliberately. ' As Roan as' I ho'uld leave her side, I drew’ the nurse'into a'coimer and 'again *'questio'ned i ' 'her: ' The Addid had sliown'distress as soon as ■.. she had allowed her usual quantity of medicine, aiid in a few'. minutes more 'wad in a‘*peril6us condition. “'Did you hand the glass yourself to Addie ?”' “L'did?” p “iWhere did. you take it from ?” “Rrom the place where you left it, —the little stand on the farther side of the bed.” “ And do you mean to say that you had not touched it since I prepared ith” : A A" A A “ I do, ma’am.” . “And no .one else has been in the room,” “ Ido one, ma’am.” I .looked,at her intently. I trusted her, but the best of.. us are but mortal. : “. Can ypq assure me that you have not been asleep during this time. ?” “ Look at this letter I have been vnuting;’- she returned. “It is eight pages.Jpng, anddt.yas not begun ivhen you left us at at, ten.” ’ I shook my ■ head and fell into a deep reverie. How was this matter to be elucidated, . and how was my patient to be,saved,?. Another draught of this deadly poison, and no power on earth could resuscitate her. What should I do, and with what weapons should I. combat a danger at, once s° subtle’ and so 'deadly ? . Reflection brought.’no, decision, and I-left the room, at last, determined, upon-but one pointj‘ and that yyas the, immediate removal’of my patient. But before I.had* left the house I changed my mind .ey.en on this point, Removal of the, patient, meant safety to her, .perhaps,, but not, the explanation of her mysterious poispniiig- ~ I.ffonld change the .position of her bed, and I would even set a watch oyer her and the nurse, but 1 would ,nbt .out of the house, —no! yet. ... And wdiß had produced this change in my plans-F The loot of a woman whom I met on the stairs. ■ I did not know her ; but wßen 1 ; encountered her glance'T fqlt* tbaf. there was some connection between us, and 1 was not

at all surprised to hear her ask, — “ And how is Miss Wilcox to-day P” “ Miss Wilcox is very low,” I returned. “ The least neglect, the least shock to her nerves, would he sufficient to make all my efforts useless. Otherwise •” “ She will get well ?” I nodded. I had exaggerated the condition of the sufferer, but some secret instinct compelled me to do so The look which passed over the woman’s face satisfied me that I had done well; and, though I left the house, it was with the intention of speedily returning and miakng inquiries into the woman’s character and position in the household. I leamed little or nothing. That she occupied a good room and paid for it regularlv seemed to he sufficient to satisfy Mrs Dayton. Her name, which proved to be Leroux, showed her to he French, and her promptlypaid ten dollars a week showed her to he respectable :what more could any hard-working landlady require ? But I was distrustful. Her face, though handsome, possessed an eager, ferocious look which I could not forget, and the slight gesture with which she had passed me at the close of the short conversation I have given above had a suggestion of triumph in it which seemed to contain whole volumes of secret and mysterious hate. I went into Miss Wilcox’s room very thoughtful. “ I am going ” But here the nurse held up her hand. “ Hark,” she whispered ; she had just set the clock, and was listening to it striking. I did hark, but not to the clock. “ Whose step is that ?” I asked, after she had left the clock and sat down.

“ Oh, some one in the next room. The walls here are very thin, —only boards in places. I did not complete what I had begun to say. If I could hear steps through the partition, then could our neighbours hear us talk, and what I had determined upon must be kept secret from all outsiders. I drew a sheet of paper towards me and wrote, —•

“ I shall stay here to-night. Something tells me that in doing this I shall solve this mystery. But I must appear to go. Take my instructions as usual and bid mo good-night. Lock the door after me, but with a turn of the key instantly unlock it again. I shall go downstairs, see that my carriage drives away, and quietly return. On my re-entrance I shall expect to find Miss Wilcox on the couch with the screen drawn up around it, you in your big chair, and the light lowered, What Ido thereafter need not concern you. Pretend to go to sleep.” The nurse nodded, and immediately entered upon the programme I had planned. I prepared the medicine as usual, placed it in its usual glass, and laid that glass where it had always been set, on a small table at the farther side of the bed. Then I said, “ Good-night,” and passed hurriedly but. I was fortunate enough to meet no one, going or coming. ' I re-gained the room, pushed open the door, and, finding everything in order, proceeded at once to the bed, upon which, after taking off my hat and cloak and ■carefully concealing them, I lay down and deftly covered myself up. My idea was this: that, by some mesmeric influence of which she was ignorant, the nurse had been forced to either poison the glass herself or open the door for another to do it. If this were so, she or the other person would be obliged to pass around the foot of the bed in order- to reach the glass, and I should be sure to see it, for I did not pretend to sleep. By the low light enough could ho disco!-: iod for safe movement about the robin and not enough to make apparent the change which had been iimdo in the occupant of the hod. I ■waited .with ’ indescribable anxiety, ami. more than once fancied I heard step.-!, if not a feverish breathing close to my bod-head : ,but.no one - appeared, and .the nurse in her big chair did not stir.

At last I grew weary, and; fearful of losing control over my eyelids, I fixed my gaze upon the glass, as if in so doing ! should find a talisman to keep me awake, when, great God ! what was it that I saw ! A hand, a creeping hand coming from nowhere and joined to nothing, closing about glass and drawing it slowly away till it disappeared entirely from before my eyes ! I gasped, I could not help it, —but I did not stir. For now I knew I was asleep and dreaming. But no, I pinch myself under the clothes and I find that I am very wide awake indeed ; and then, —look ! look ! the glass is returning ; the hand a woman’s hand —is slowly getting it back to its place, and With a bound I have that hand in my grasp. It is a living hand, and is is very warm and strong and fierce, and the glass has fallen and lies shattered between us, and a double cry is heard, one from behind the partition, through an opening in which this hand has been thrust, and one from the nurse, who has jumped to her feet and is even now assisting me in holding the struggling member, upon which I have managed to scratch a tell-tale mark with a piece of fallen glass. At sight of the iron-like gnp which this latter lays on the intruding member, I at once released my own grasp. “Hold on,” I cried; and, leaping from the bed, I hastened first to my patient, whom I carefully reassured, and then into the hall, where I found the landlady running to see what was the matter. “ I have found the wretch,” I cried, and, drawing her drawing hep after me, hurried about to the other side of the partition, where I found a closet, and in it the woman I had met on the stairs, but glaring now like a tiger in her rage, menace and fear. The woman was my humble little patient’s bitter but unknown enemy. Enamoured of a man who—unwisely, perhaps—had expressed in her hearing his admiration for the pretty type-writer, she had conceived the idea that he intended to mairy the latter, and, vowing vengeance, had taken up her abode in the same house with the innocent girl, where, had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of my meeting her on the stairs, she would certainly have

carried out hex' schema of vile and secret - murder. The poison she had bought in another city, and the hole in the partition she had herself cut. This had been done at first for the purpose of observation, she having detected in passing by Miss Wilcox’s open door that a banner of painted silk hung over that portion of the wall in such a way as to hide any aperture which might bo made there. After-wards when Miss Wilcox fell sick and she discovei*ed by short glimpses thiough hex* loop-hole that the glass of medicine was placed on a table just under this banner, she coxxld not resist the temptation to enlarge the hole to a size sufficient to admit the pushing aside of the banner and the reaching through of her murderous hand. Why she did not put poison enough in the glass to kill

Miss Wilcox at once, I hare never heard. Probably she feared detection. That by doing as she did she brought about the very event she had endeavoured to avei’t is the most pleasing part of the tale. When the gentleman of whom I have spoken learned of the wicked attempt which had been made upon Miss Wilcox’s life, his heart took pity upon her, and a marriage ensued, which I have every reason to believe is a happy one. —Anna Katharine Green in Lippincott’s Magazine.