A Mysterious Disappearance

“Very well. Knock again, and then try the door. We will go with you.”

Something in the barrister’s manner rather than his words sent a cold shiver down the old butler’s spine.

“I do hope there’s nothing wrong, sir,” he commenced; but Bruce was already half-way up the stairs. Both he and White guessed what had happened. They knew that poor Thompson’s repeated summons at the bedroom door would remain forever unanswered – that the unfortunate baronet had quitted the dread certainties of this world for the uncertainties of the next.

They were not mistaken. A few minutes later they found him listlessly drooping over the side of the chair in which he was seated, partly undressed, and seemingly overcome at the moment when he was about to take off his boots.

On a table near him were two bottles, both half-emptied, and an empty wineglass. Each of the bottles bore the label of a well-known chemist. One was endorsed “Sleeping-draught,” the other “Poison,” and “Chloral.”

The three men were pale as the limp, inanimate form in the chair while they silently noted these details. Bruce raised the head of his friend in the hope that life might not yet be extinct. But Sir Charles Dyke had taken his measures effectually. Though the rigor mortis had not set in, he had evidently been dead some time.

Thompson, quite beside himself with grief, dropped to his knees by his master’s side.

“Sir Charles!” he wailed. “Sir Charles! For the love of Heaven, speak to us. You can’t be dead. Oh, you can’t. It ain’t fair. You’re too young to die. What curse has come upon the house that both should go?”

Bruce leaned over and shook the old butler firmly by the shoulder.

“Thompson,” he said impressively, for now that the crisis he feared had come and gone, he exercised full control over himself. “Thompson, if you ever wished to serve Sir Charles you must do so now by remaining calm. For his sake, help us, and do not create an unnecessary scene.”

Governed by the more powerful nature, the affrighted man struggled to his feet.

“What shall I do?” he whimpered. “Shall I send for a doctor?”

“Yes; say Sir Charles is very ill. Not a word to a soul about what has happened until we have carefully examined the room.”

At that instant Mr. White caught sight of a large and bulky envelope, which had fallen to the floor near the chair on which Sir Charles was seated.

Picking it up, he found it was addressed, “Claude Bruce, Esq. To be delivered to him at once.”

“This will explain matters, I expect,” said the detective.

“Whatever could have come to my master to do such a thing?” groaned Thompson, turning to reach the door.

“Come back,” cried Bruce sharply. “Now, look here, Thompson,” he went on, placing both his hands on the butler’s shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes, “it is imperative that you should pull yourself together. That sort of remark will never do. Sir Charles has simply taken an over-dose of chloral accidentally. He has slept badly ever since Lady Dyke’s death, you understand, and has been in the habit of taking sleeping-draughts. Now, before you leave the room tell me exactly what has happened, in your own language.”

“I can’t put it together now, sir, but I won’t say anything to anybody. You can trust me for that. Why, I loved him as my own son, I did.”

“Yes, I know that well. But remember. An over-dose. An accident. Nothing else. Do you follow me?”

“Quite, sir. Heaven help us all.”

“Very well. Now send for the doctor, without needlessly alarming the other servants.”

Bruce placed the envelope in the pocket of his overcoat, saying to the detective:

“We will examine this later, White. Just now we must do what we can to avoid a scandal. The case between Lady Dyke and her husband will be settled by a higher tribunal than we had counted upon.”

“It certainly looks like an accident, Mr. Bruce,” was the answer, “but it all depends upon the view the doctor takes. And you know, of course, that I shall have to report the actual facts to my superiors.”

“That is obvious. Yet no harm is done at this early stage in taking such steps as may finally render undue publicity needless. It may be impossible; but on the other hand, until we have heard Sir Charles’s version, contained, I suppose, in this letter to me, it is advisable to sustain the theory of an accidental death.”

“Anything I can do to help you will be done,” replied the detective. With that they dropped the subject, and more carefully scrutinized the room.

To all intents and purposes Sir Charles Dyke might, indeed, have brought about the catastrophe inadvertently. The sleeping-draught bore the ledger number of its prescription, and there is nothing unusual in a patient striving to help the cautious dose ordered by a physician by the addition of a more powerful nostrum.

His partly dressed state, too, argued that he had taken the fatal mixture at a time when he contemplated retiring to rest forthwith. A fire still burned in the grate. On the mantelpiece – in a position where the baronet must see it until the moment when all things faded from his vision – was a beautiful miniature of his wife.

The detective, with professional nonchalance, soon sat down. There was nothing to do but await the arrival of the doctor, and, having heard his report, go home.

In the quietude of the room, with the strain relaxed, Bruce was profoundly moved by the spectacle of his dead friend. Whatever his logical faculties might argue, he could not regard this man as a murderer. If Lady Dyke met her death at his hand then it must have been the result of some terrible mistake – of some momentary outburst of passion which never contemplated such a sequel.

Poisons which kill by stupefaction do not distort their victims as in cases where violent irritants are used. Sir Charles Dyke seemed to live in a deep sleep, exhausted by toil or pain – sleep the counterfeit of death – while the bright colors and speaking eyes of the miniature counterfeited life. Standing between these two – both the mere images of the man and the woman he had known so well – the barrister insensibly felt that at last they had peace.

It was his first experience of the tremendous change in the relationship established by death. It utterly overpowered him. No mere words could express his emotions. Between him and those that had been was imposed the impenetrable wall of eternity.

A bustle in the hall beneath aroused him from his grief-stricken stupor, and Mr. White’s commonplace tones sounded strange to his ears.

“Here’s the doctor.”

A well-known physician hastened to the room. Thompson had carefully followed instructions. The doctor was not prepared for the condition of affairs that a glance revealed to his practised eye.

“Surely he is not dead?” he cried, looking from the form in the chair to the two men.

Bruce answered him:

“Yes, for some hours, I fear, but we wanted to avoid spreading unnecessary rumors until – ”

“I understand. My poor friend! How came this to happen?”

The skilled practitioner merely lifted one of the dead man’s eyelids, and then turned to examine the bottles on the table.

“My own prescription,” he said, after tasting the contents of one phial. “Ah, this was bad; why did he not consult me?” and he sadly shook his head as he tasted the remaining liquid in the second.

“What do you make of it?” said Bruce.

He looked the other steadily in the face and the doctor interpreted the cause of his anxiety.

“A clear case of accidental poisoning,” he replied. “Sir Charles has consulted me several times during the past week on account of his extreme insomnia. I specifically warned him against overdoing my treatment. Change of air, exercise, and diet are the true specifics for sleeplessness, especially when induced, as his was, by a morbid state of mind.”

“You mean – ”

“That Sir Charles has never recovered from the shock of his wife’s death. I did not know of it myself until it was announced recently, and I gathered from him that the manner of her demise was partly unaccounted for. Altogether, it is a sad business that such a couple should be taken in such a manner.”

Mr. White was industriously taking notes the while, and the doctor regarded him with a questioning look.

“This gentleman is in the police,” explained Bruce.

“Indeed!”