In White Raiment

“And how did it all happen?” he inquired presently, after a long, thoughtful silence.

I exchanged glances with her ladyship, and then related him the story just as she had told it to me.

“Her ladyship wishes that it should be kept a profound secret,” I added.

“Secret!” he snorted. “How are you going to hoodwink the coroner?”

“Then you think poor Beryl is really dead?” her cousin gasped.

“She is dead,” the old fellow answered gruffly.

“But can you do nothing?” I urged in desperation.

“If she’s dead, that’s impossible,” he declared.

“No,” I said. “I refuse to believe that she is actually beyond your aid. To us she may appear dead, but her state may be only a cataleptic one.”

He shook his great shaggy head dubiously, but made no response. This man, one of the greatest chemists of the age, who had been recognised as private docent of pathological anatomy and bacteriology at the University of Naples, and was renowned throughout the world for his excursions into the queer byways of medicine, was a man of few words.

His grunts were full of expression, and his fleshy face with the dull eyes was absolutely sphinx-like. The story he had heard regarding Beryl’s sudden seizure did not convince him. His expressive grunt told me so. He had ripped up the tight sleeves of her dress, and was examining the inside of the arms at the elbows, but what he saw did not satisfy him.

I told him of the mirror-test, of the artificial respiration which I had tried, and he listened to me in silence. With his finger he opened the left eye and looked long and earnestly into the pupil. Then after a long suspense he suddenly spoke.

“Ach! we have been meestake; she is not dead.”

“Not dead?” I cried joyfully. “Thank God for that! Do your best to restore her to us. Doctor – for my sake! How can I assist you?”

“By remaining quiet,” he growled reprovingly.

And again he recommenced the examination of the inside of the elbows after having ordered other lights to be brought. Then, without saying where he was going, he left us, promising to return in a few minutes. He was a queer old fellow, very eccentric, and with a method that was as curious as the particular branch of the profession in which he was a specialist.

Not more than ten minutes passed before he returned grunting, puffing, and carrying a small packet in his hand. He had evidently been to the nearest chemist’s.

“Some water!” he commanded – “warm water.”

This was at once brought, and, arranging several little packets on the glass-topped table, he seated himself leisurely, and commenced to open and examine the contents of each very slowly.

“You have a hypodermic syringe?” he inquired. I took it from my pocket-case and handed it to him. He grunted and made a disparaging remark about the make – German needles were so much better, he declared. Then, having cleaned the syringe, he mixed a solution with the utmost care, and then administered a subcutaneous injection in Beryl’s arm.

He took a chair and sat beside the cold, inanimate form, eagerly watching the effects of the drug he had administered.

Her ladyship stood near, her dark eyes, framed by the white agitated countenance, fixed immovably upon us.

Hoefer glanced at his cheap metal watch, and, grunting, crossed to the table and mixed a second injection, grumbling all the time at the inferior quality of my hypodermic syringe. So rough, unpolished in manner, and unsparing in criticism was he, that her ladyship drew back from him in fear.

The second injection proved of as little avail as the first, and from the great man’s grave expression I began to fear the worst. No sign of life asserted itself. To all appearance my adored had passed away.

Suddenly he rose, and, turning to her ladyship, said in broken English —

“Now, madam, you will tell me, please, how this occurred.”

“I do not know. Doctor Colkirk has told you all I know about it.”

“But, just as Doctor Hoefer entered, you were telling me about something mysterious that had happened here. What was that?”

She pursed her lips for a moment, and glanced quickly at the old German.

“It is a most serious thing. I cannot make it out. There is some mystery in the morning-room.”

“Ach!” exclaimed Hoefer, with a grunt – “a mystery! The symptoms of the lady are in themselves mysterious. Please explain the mystery of the room.”

“Well,” she answered, “when I entered, after the departure of the visitor, and discovered my cousin lying on the floor unconscious, I was quite well; but when I left I experienced a most curious sensation, just as though all my limbs were benumbed. I, too, almost lost consciousness while in the cab in search of Doctor Colkirk. But the most curious part of the affair is that my maid and the housemaid, who rushed in when I raised the alarm, experienced the very same sensation. It was as though we were struck by an icy hand – the Hand of Death.”

“There is something very uncanny about that,” I observed, puzzled.

“To me it seems as though poor Beryl were struck down in the same way as myself.”

“But you say that you felt nothing on entering – only on leaving?” inquired Hoefer, his eyes seeming to grow larger behind his great glasses.

“Only on leaving,” she assured him.

“Strange!” he ejaculated. “Let us see the room. We may, perhaps, obtain a clue to this mysterious ailment from which your cousin is suffering.”

“But she is not dead?” I asked in doubt.

“No,” he responded. “The last injection must be given time to take effect. We can only hope for the best.”

“But the electric battery?” I suggested. “Could we not try that?”

“Useless, my dear friend,” he responded; “it would kill her. Let us see the room of mystery.”

The baronet’s wife conducted us along the hall to the further end, where she opened the door, herself drawing back.

“What!” I inquired. “You fear to enter?”

“Yes,” she faltered. “I will remain here.”

“Very well. We will go in,” I laughed, for the idea seemed so absurd that both Hoefer and myself put it down to her excited imagination.

What ill effect could the mere entry into a room have upon the human system, providing there were no foul gases? Therefore we both went forward, sniffing suspiciously, and walking to the window, opened it widely.

The half-dozen lights in the electrolier illuminated the place brightly, revealing a fine, handsome room furnished with taste and comfort. On looking round we certainly saw nothing to account for the extraordinary phenomena as described by the trembling woman who stood upon the mat outside.

While we made a careful examination of the place in which my love had met her strange visitor, the door, creaking horribly, swung slowly to, as doors often will when badly hung. Hoefer examined the floor carefully, seeking to discover whether the unknown woman in black had dropped anything that might give a clue to her identity, while I searched the chairs for the same purpose. We, however, found nothing.

What, I wondered, was the nature of the interview that had taken place there a couple of hours before? Who was the woman who had called and represented herself as Beryl’s dressmaker? Could it have been the woman whose vengeance was so feared, the woman whose very name had been uttered by that miscreant with bated breath – La Gioia?

With her ladyship standing in the hall watching us we searched high and low. Neither of us felt any curious sensation, and I began to think that the story was merely concocted in order to add mystery to Beryl’s unique seizure. Yet, from that woman’s face, it was nevertheless evident that she stood there in fear lest any evil should befall us.