The House of the Whispering Pines (15 page)

"Her will will be read to-morrow. For to-night, Arthur Cumberland's
position here is the position of a master."

"I will respect it, sir, up to all reasonable bounds. I don't think he
meditates giving any trouble. He's not at all impressed by our presence.
All he seems to care about is what his sister may be led to say in her
delirium."

"That's how you look at it?" The coroner's tone was one of gloom. Then,
after a moment of silence: "You may call my carriage, Sweetwater. I can
do nothing further here to-day. The atmosphere of this house stifles me.
Dead flowers, dead hopes, and something worse than death lowering in the
prospect. I remember my old friend—this was his desk. Let us go, I say."

Sweetwater threw open the door, but his wistful look did not escape the
older man's eye.

"You're not ready to go? Wish to search the house, perhaps."

"Naturally."

"It has already been done in a general way."

"I wish to do it thoroughly."

The coroner sighed.

"I should be wrong to stand in your way. Get your warrant and the house
is yours. But remember the sick girl."

"That's why I wish to do the job my self."

"You're a good fellow, Sweetwater." Then as he was passing out, "I'm
going to rely on you to see this thing through, quietly if you can,
openly and in the public eye if you must. The keys tell the tale—the
keys and the hat. If the former had been left in the club-house and the
latter found without the mark set on it by the mechanic's wife,
Ranelagh's chances would look as slim to-day as they did immediately
after the event. But with things as they are, he may well rest easily
to-night; the clouds are lifting for him."

Which shows how little we poor mortals realise what makes for the peace
even of those who are the nearest to us and whose lives and hearts we
think we can read like an open book.

The coroner gone, Sweetwater made his way to the room where he had last
seen Mr. Clifton. He found it empty and was soon told by Hexford that
the lawyer had left. This was welcome news to him; he felt that he had a
fair field before him now; and learning that it would be some fifteen
minutes yet before he could hope to see the carriages back, he followed
Hexford upstairs.

"I wish I had your advantages," he remarked as they reached the
upper floor.

"What would you do?"

"I'd wander down that hall and take a long look at things."

"You would?"

"I'd like to see the girl and I'd like to see the brother when he thought
no one was watching him."

"Why see the girl?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid that's just curiosity. I've heard she was a
wonder for beauty."

"She was, once."

"And not now?"

"You cannot tell; they have bound up her cheeks with cloths. She fell on
the grate and got burned."

"But I say that's dreadful, if she was so beautiful."

"Yes, it's bad, but there are worse things than that. I wonder what she
meant by that wild cry of 'Tear it open! See if her heart is there?' Tear
what open? the coffin?"

"Of course. What else could she have meant?"

"Well! delirium is a queer thing; makes a fellow feel creepy all over. I
don't reckon on my nights here."

"Hexford, help me to a peep. I've got a difficult job before me and I
need all the aid I can get."

"Oh, there's no trouble about that! Walk boldly along; he won't
notice—"

"
He won't notice
?"

"No, he notices nothing but what comes from the sick room."

"I see." Sweetwater's jaw had fallen, but it righted itself at this
last word.

"Listening, eh?"

"Yes—as a fellow never listened before."

"Expectant like?"

"Yes, I should call it expectant."

"Does the nurse know this?"

"The nurse is a puzzler."

"How so?"

"Half nurse and half—but go see for yourself. Here's a package to take
in,—medicine from the drug store. Tell her there was no one else to
bring it up. She'll show no surprise."

Muttering his thanks, Sweetwater seized the proffered package, and
hastened with it down the hall. He had been as far as the turn before,
but now he passed the turn to find, just as he expected, a closed door on
the left and an open alcove on the right. The door led into Miss
Cumberland's room; the alcove, circular in shape and lighted by several
windows, projected from the rear of the extension, and had for its
outlook the stable and the huge sycamore tree growing beside it.

Sweetwater's fingers passed thoughtfully across his chin as he remarked
this and took in the expressive outline of its one occupant. He could
not see his face; that was turned towards the table before which he sat.
But his drooping head, rigid with desperate thinking; his relaxed hand
closed around the neck of a decanter which, nevertheless, he did not
lift, made upon Sweetwater an impression which nothing he saw afterwards
ever quite effaced.

"When I come back, that whiskey will be half gone," thought he, and
lingered to see the tumbler filled and the first draught taken.

But no. The hand slowly unclasped and fell away from the decanter; his
head sank forward until his chin rested on his breast; and a sigh,
startling to Sweetwater, fell from his lips. Hexford was right; only one
thing could arouse him.

Sweetwater now tried that thing. He knocked softly on the sick-room door.

This reached the ear oblivious to all else. Young Cumberland started to
his feet; and for a moment Sweetwater saw again the heavy features
which, an hour before, had produced such a repulsive effect upon him in
the rooms below. Then the nerveless figure sank again into place, with
the same constraint in its lines, and the same dejection.

Sweetwater's hand, lifted in repetition of his knock, hung suspended. He
had not expected quite such indifference as this. It upset his
calculations just a trifle. As his hand fell, he reminded himself of the
coroner's advice to go easy. "Easy it is," was his internal reply. "I'll
walk as lightly as if eggshells were under my feet."

The door was opened to him, this time. As it swung back, he saw, first, a
burst of rosy color as a room panelled in exquisite pink burst upon his
sight; then the great picture of his life—the bloodless features of
Carmel, calmed for the moment into sleep.

Perfect beauty is so rare, its effect so magical! Not even the bandage
which swathed one cheek could hide the exquisite symmetry of the
features, or take from the whole face its sweet and natural distinction.
Frenzy, which had distorted the muscles and lit the eyes with a baleful
glare, was lacking at this moment. Repose had quieted the soul and left
the body free to express its natural harmonies.

Sweetwater gazed at the winsome, brown head over the nurse's shoulder,
and felt that for him a new and important factor had entered into this
case, with his recognition of this woman's great beauty. How deep a
factor, he was far from suspecting, or he would not have met the nurse's
eye with quite so cheery and self-confident a smile.

"Excuse the intrusion," he said. "We thought you might need these
things. Hexford signed for them."

"I'm obliged to you. Are you—one of them?" she sharply asked.

"Would it disturb you if I were? I hope not. I've no wish to seem
intrusive."

"What do you want? Something, I know. Give it a name before there's a
change there."

She nodded towards the bed, and Sweetwater took advantage of the moment
to scrutinise more closely the nurse herself. She was a robust,
fine-looking woman, producing an impression of capability united to
kindness. Strength of mind and rigid attendance to duty dominated the
kindness, however. If crossed in what she considered best for her
patient, possibly for herself, she could be severe, if not biting, in her
speech and manner. So much Sweetwater read in the cold, clear eye and
firm, self-satisfied mouth of the woman awaiting his response to the curt
demand she had made.

"I want another good look at your patient, and I want your confidence
since you and I may have to see much of each other before this matter is
ended. You asked me to speak plainly and I have done so."

"You are from headquarters?"

"Coroner Perry sent me." Throwing back his coat, he showed his badge.
"The coroner has returned to his office. He was quite upset by the outcry
which came from this room at an unhappy moment during the funeral."

"I know. It was my fault; I opened the door just for an instant, and in
that instant my patient broke through her torpor and spoke."

She had drawn him in, by this time, and, after another glance at her
patient, softly closed the door behind him.

"I have nothing to report," said she, "but the one sentence
everybody heard."

Sweetwater took in the little memorandum book and pencil which hung at
her side, and understood her position and extraordinary amenability to
his wishes. Unconsciously, a low exclamation escaped him. He was young
and had not yet sunk the man entirely in the detective.

"A cruel necessity to watch so interesting a patient, for anything but
her own good," he remarked. Yet, because he was a detective as well as a
man, his eye went wandering all over the room as he spoke until it fell
upon a peculiar-looking cabinet or closet, let into the wall directly
opposite the bed. "What's that?" he asked.

"I don't know; I can't make it out, and I don't like to ask."

Sweetwater examined it for a moment from where he stood; then crossed
over, and scrutinised it more particularly. It was a unique specimen.
What it lacked in height—it could not have measured more than a foot
from the bottom to the top—it made up in length, which must have
exceeded five feet. The doors, of which it had two, were both tightly
locked; but as they were made of transparent glass, the objects behind
them were quite visible. It was the nature of these objects which made
the mystery. The longer Sweetwater examined them, the less he understood
the reason for their collection, much less for their preservation in a
room which in all other respects, expressed the quintessence of taste.

At one end he saw a stuffed canary, not perched on a twig, but lying
prone on its side. Near it was a doll, with scorched face and limbs
half-consumed. Next this, the broken pieces of a china bowl and what
looked like the torn remnants of some very fine lace. Further along, his
eye lighted on a young girl's bonnet, exquisite in colour and nicety of
material, but crushed out of all shape and only betraying its identity by
its dangling strings. The next article, in this long array of totally
unhomogeneous objects, was a metronome, with its pendulum wrenched half
off and one of its sides lacking. He could not determine the character of
what came next, and only gave a casual examination to the rest. The whole
affair was a puzzle to him, and he had no time for puzzles disconnected
with the very serious affair he was engaged in investigating.

"Some childish nonsense," he remarked, and moved towards the door. "The
servants will be coming back, and I had rather not be found here. You'll
see me again—I cannot tell just when. Perhaps you may want to send for
me. If so, my name is Sweetwater."

His hand was on the knob, and he was almost out of the room when he
started and looked back. A violent change in the patient had occurred.
Disturbed by his voice or by some inner pulsation of the fever which
devoured her, Carmel had risen from the pillow and now sat, staring
straight before her with every feature working and lips opened as if to
speak. Sweetwater held his breath, and the nurse leaped towards her and
gently encircled her with protecting arms.

"Lie down," she prayed; "lie down. Everything is all right: I am looking
after things. Lie down, little one, and rest."

The young girl drooped, and, yielding to the nurse's touch, sank slowly
back on the pillow; but in an instant she was up again, and flinging out
her hand, she cried out loudly just as she had cried an hour before:

"Break it open! Break the glass and look in. Her heart should be
there—her heart—her heart!"

"Go, or I cannot quiet her!" ordered the nurse, and Sweetwater
turned to obey.

But a new obstacle offered. The brother had heard this cry, and now stood
in the doorway.

"Who are you?" he impatiently demanded, surveying Sweetwater in
sudden anger.

"I brought up the drugs," was the quiet explanation of the ever-ready
detective. "I didn't mean to alarm the young lady, and I don't think I
did. It's the fever, sir, which makes her talk so wildly."

"We want no strangers here," was young Cumberland's response. "Remember,
nurse, no strangers." His tone was actually peremptory.

Sweetwater observed him in real astonishment as he slid by and made his
quiet escape. He was still more astonished when, on glancing towards the
alcove, he perceived that, contrary to his own prognostication, the
whiskey stood as high in the decanter as before.

"I've got a puzzler this time," was his comment, as he made his way
downstairs. "Even Mr. Gryce would say that. I wonder how I'll come out.
Uppermost!" he finished in secret emphasis to himself. "
Uppermost
! It
would never do for me to fail in the first big affair I've undertaken on
my own account."

Lurk, lurk.

King Lear
.

The returning servants drove up just as Sweetwater reached the lower
floor. He was at the side door when they came in, and a single glance
convinced him that all had gone off decorously at the grave, and that
nothing further had occurred during their absence to disturb them.

He followed them as they filed away into the kitchen, and, waiting till
the men had gone about their work, turned his attention to the girls who
stood about very much as if they did not know just what to do with
themselves.