The House Opposite: A Mystery

“Yes. But you must remember that the success my first attempt at detective work has met with is largely due to the exceptional opportunities I have had for investigating this case. You may have noticed that no hat was found with the corpse and the police have therefore been searching everywhere for one that could reasonably be supposed to have belonged to the murdered man. Now, I may tell you, although I must ask you not to mention it, as the police do not yet wish that the fact become known, that it was I who found this missing hat in Argot’s possession. But I can’t boast much of my discovery, because the man brought it into my office himself. All I really did was to keep my eyes open, you see.” I tried to speak modestly, for I was conscious of a secret pride in my achievement.

“I really cannot see why you should have taken upon yourself to play the detective!”

I was so startled by May’s sudden attack on me that for a moment I remained speechless. Luckily, Mrs. Derwent saved me from the necessity of replying, by rising from her chair. Slipping her arm through Miss Cowper’s, she said—casting a significant glance at me: “We will leave these people to quarrel over the pros and cons of amateur work, and you and I will go and see what Mr. Norman is doing over there in that arbour all by himself.”

Fred had mentioned that at times May seemed alarmingly oblivious to what was going on around her, and I now noticed with profound anxiety that she appeared entirely unconscious of the departure of her mother and friend.

“Just suppose for a moment that this man Argot,” she went on, as if our conversation had not been interrupted, “is innocent, and yet owing to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, is unable to prove himself so. Who should be held responsible for his death but you, Dr. Fortescue! Had you not meddled with what did not concern you, no one would have thought of suspecting this wretched Frenchman! You acknowledge that yourself?”

“But, my dear Miss Derwent, why do you take for granted that the fellow is innocent?—although, in his present state of health, it really does not make much difference whether he is or not. In this country we do not punish maniacs, even homicidal ones. We only shut them up till they are well again. I think, however, that you take a morbid view of the whole question. Of course, justice sometimes miscarries, but not often, and to one person who is unjustly convicted, there are hundreds of criminals who escape punishment. As with everything else—medicine, for instance; you do your best, take every precaution, and then, if you make a mistake, the only thing to do is not to blame yourself too severely for the consequences.”

“I quite agree with you,” she said, “when to take a risk is part of your business. But is it not foolhardy to do so when there is no call for it?—when your inexperience renders you much more likely to commit some fatal error? What would you say if I tried to perform an operation, for instance?”

She was working herself into such a state of excitement that I became alarmed; so, abruptly changing the subject, I inquired after her health. She professed to feel perfectly well (which I doubted). Still I did not take as serious a view of her case as Fred had done; for I knew—what both he and Mrs. Derwent ignored—that while in town the poor girl had been through various trying experiences. During that time she had not only been forced to break with Greywood, to whom I was sure she had been engaged, but an entanglement, the nature of which I did not know, had induced her to give shelter secretly, and at night, to two people of undoubtedly questionable character. The shock of the murder was but a climax to all this. No wonder that my poor darling—her heart bleeding from the uprooting of an affection which, however unworthy the object of it had proved, must still have been difficult to eradicate; her mind harassed by the fear of impending disgrace to some person whom I must believe her to be very intimately concerned with; her nerves shaken by the horror of a murder under her very roof—should return to the haven of her home in a state bordering on brain fever. That she had not succumbed argued well for her constitution, I thought.

“Fred is quite worried about you, and asked me to beg you to take great care of yourself,” I ventured to say.

“What nonsense! What I need is a little change. I should be all right if I could get away from here.”

“This part of the world is pretty hot, I acknowledge. A trip to Maine or Canada would, no doubt, do you a lot of good.”

“But I don’t want to go to Maine or Canada—I want to go to New York.”

“To New York?”

“Yes, why not? I find the country dull, and am longing for a glimpse of the city.”

“But the heat in town is insufferable, and there is nothing going on there,” I reminded her.

“Roof gardens are always amusing, and when the heat gets to a certain point, it is equally unbearable everywhere.”

I begged to differ.

“At all events, I want to go there, and my wishing to do so should be enough for you. O Doctor, make Fred persuade Mamma to take me. As they both insist that I am ill, I don’t see why they won’t let me indulge this whim.”

“They think that it would be very bad for you.”

“Oh, it never does one any harm to do what one likes.”

“What a delightful theory!”

“You will try and persuade Mamma and Fred to allow me to go to New York, won’t you? You are a doctor; they would listen to you.”

I glanced down into her beseeching blue eyes, then looked hastily away.

The temptation to allow her to do as she wished was very great. If I were able to see her every day, what opportunities I should have for pressing my suit! But I am glad to say that the thought of her welfare was dearer to me than my hopes even. So I conscientiously used every argument I could think of to induce her to remain where she was. But, as she listened, I saw her great eyes fill slowly with tears.

“Oh, I must go; I must go,” she cried; and, burying her head in a cushion, she burst into a flood of hysterical weeping.

Her mother, hearing the commotion, flew to my assistance, but it was some time before we succeeded in quieting her. At length, she recovered sufficiently to be left to the care of her maid.

I was glad to be able to assure Mrs. Derwent that, notwithstanding the severity of the attack I had witnessed, I had detected in her daughter no symptom of insanity.

As there was no further excuse for remaining, I allowed Miss Alice to drive me away. Young Norman, who was returning to the Cowper’s to fetch his bag, went with us; and his company did not add to my pleasure, I confess. I kept glancing at him, surreptitiously, anxious to discover what it was that May saw in him. He appeared to me to be a very ordinary young man. I had never, to my knowledge, met him before; yet, the longer I looked at him the more I became convinced that this was not the first time I had seen him, and, not only that, but I felt that I had some strange association with him. But what? My memory refused to give up its secret. All that night I puzzled over it, but the following morning found me with that riddle still unsolved.

CHAPTER XIII

MR. AND MRS. ATKINS AT HOME

AN urgent case necessitated my leaving Beverley at such an early hour that the city was still half asleep when I reached it. After driving from florist to florist in search of an early riser amongst them, I at last found one. I selected the choicest of his flowers, and ordered them to be sent to Miss Derwent by special messenger, hoping they would arrive in time to greet her on her awakening, and cheerfully paid the price demanded for them.

On reaching my office I was surprised to find a note from the irrepressible Atkins. You may remember, patient reader, that I had promised to dine with him on the previous evening. When I found that it would be impossible for me to do so, I sent word that I regretted that I could not keep my engagement with him. I naturally thought that that ended the matter. Not at all! Here was an invitation even more urgent than the last—an invitation for that very day, too. Unless I wished to be positively rude and to hurt the feelings of these good people, I must accept. There was no way out of it. So I scribbled a few lines to that effect.

I confess that when I rang the Atkins’s bell that evening I did so with considerable trepidation, for I was not at all sure how the lady would receive me. You see I had not forgotten the way she flounced out of the room the last and only time I had seen her. And yet I had been quite blameless on that occasion. It was the Coroner’s questions which had annoyed her, not mine. However, I was considerably reassured as to my reception by receiving a smiling welcome from the same pretty maid I had seen the week before. It is a queer fact that we unconsciously measure the amount of regard people have for us by the manners of their servants. That this theory is quite fallacious, I know; but I found it very useful on this occasion, for it gave me the necessary courage to enter the drawing-room with smiling composure.

The room was almost dark, and, coming from the brilliantly-lighted hall, it was some seconds before I could distinguish from its surroundings the small figure of my hostess, silhouetted against the crimson sky. Her shimmering black gown and fluffy hair caught and reflected her red background in such a way that for a moment I fancied I saw her surrounded and bespattered with blood. The effect was so uncanny that it quite startled me, but as she moved forward the illusion vanished, and I was soon shaking a soft, warm hand, which was quite reassuring.

“I just hope you don’t mind the dark,” she exclaimed, leading me to a chair and sinking into one herself, “but somehow the light has hurt my eyes lately, and so I don’t turn it on till it is so dark that I tumble all over the furniture. Mr. Atkins says I’m crazy and ought to buy a pair of blue goggles, and so I would, only they’re so unbecoming.”

“On the contrary,” I assured her, as I let myself cautiously down into one of those uncomfortable gilt abominations known to the trade as a Louis XVI. armchair, “I think this dim light just the thing for a chat; I always become quite confidential if I am caught between daylight and dark. The day reveals too much; it offers no veil for one’s blushes. The darkness, on the other hand, having no visible limits, robs one of that sense of seclusion which alone provokes confidences. But the twilight, the tactful twilight, is so discreet that it lures one on to open one’s heart. Luckily, no designing person has yet found out how weak I am at this hour, or else I should have no secrets left.”

“Oh, go along,” she giggled; “I guess you’re not the kind to say more than you mean to.”

“I assure you I am—” but here I was interrupted by my host, who called out from the threshold:

“Hello, sitting in the dark? This is really too absurd, Lulu.”

A flood of light followed these words and revealed young Atkins’s stalwart figure, irreproachably clad in evening dress.

“Well, I am glad to see you, Doctor,” he cried, as he wrung my hand vigorously. “Dinner’s ready, too, and I hope you’re ready for it.”

The folding doors leading into the next room slid back and disclosed a prettily appointed table, profusely decorated with flowers and silver. Soon after we had settled into our chairs, I seized a moment when I was unobserved to steal a look at Mrs. Atkins. She was certainly paler and thinner than when I had seen her last, but the change instead of detracting from her looks only added to her charm. Dark violet lines encircled her blue eyes and lent them a wistful, pathetic expression that greatly enhanced their beauty. Otherwise, I thought her less changed than her husband had led me to suspect and I could detect none of that extreme nervousness of which he had spoken; only when she turned towards him did her manner appear at all strained, and even this was so slight as to be hardly noticeable. In fact, of the two, it was he who seemed ill at ease, and I noticed that he kept watching her anxiously. I saw that she was conscious of his constant scrutiny and that at times she became quite restless under his prolonged gaze; then, tossing her head defiantly, as if determined to cast off the spell of his eyes, she would talk and laugh with renewed animation.

The dinner was delicious and well served; my hostess extremely pretty; my host almost overpoweringly cordial, and the conversation agreeable, if not highly intellectual. We had reached the fruit stage, and I was leaning contentedly back in my chair, congratulating myself on my good luck in having happened on such a pleasant evening, when Mrs. Atkins exclaimed:

“I say, Doctor, you haven’t told us a thing about your thrilling adventure. What a blessing the madman didn’t succeed in killing you. Do tell us all about it.”

After her husband’s warning me that the bare mention of the tragedy excited her I had naturally taken great pains to avoid all reference to the subject. I was, consequently, a good deal surprised to hear her broach it with such apparent calmness.

I glanced inquiringly at Atkins.

“Yes, do,” he urged, still looking at his wife.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much more to tell,” I hesitatingly replied; “I gave the newspapers a pretty straight account of the whole affair.”

“Oh, but you were much too modest,” she cried; “a little bird has told us that you are a great detective, and suspected Argot from the first. Say, how did you manage to hit on him? We want all the details, you know.”

It was her flattery, I am afraid, which loosened my tongue and made me forget my former caution.