Afterwards Part 47

"For my part I really must go about my work--I'd no idea it was so late.

By the way, who will take charge of Tochatti to-night? She is asleep now"--he had seen to that--"but later on she will want a little looking after. She has not borne out my theory," he added, turning to the soldier. "I thought that last night's excitement would have vanished entirely to-day; but I'm bound to admit she is in a queer state; and if she is no better to-morrow you will have to let me send someone to look after her."

"The housekeeper and I will be able to do that at present," said Chloe quietly. "You know poor Tochatti's hatred of professional nurses was directly responsible for that last burst of letter-writing, so we had better not try her too far!"

"By the way, where's the dagger she produced with such lightning sleight-of-hand last night?" Anstice put the question casually as he turned towards the door. "It would not be wise to leave it about, in case she felt like using it again!"

"It is hidden, at present, in my dressing-case," said Chloe. "I picked it up last night and flung it in there lest anyone should see it. But I agree it would be safer locked up; and I will give it to you, Leo, when I go upstairs."

"Yes, it will be better in my keeping," said Carstairs briskly. "Though I hope the madness which induced her to try to use it will have pa.s.sed before long."

"We'll see how she is in the morning," said Anstice as he shook hands with Chloe. "I'll come round directly after breakfast, shall I? Quite possibly she will be herself again after a long sleep."

"Dr. Anstice"--Chloe retained his hand for a moment--"are you quite sure you don't regret agreeing with me over the possible hushing up of the affair? I'm afraid, after all, I made it rather hard for you to do anything but acquiesce just now. But if, after thinking it over, you decide that the story should be made public, well, I am quite ready to abide by your decision."

"No, Mrs. Carstairs." Anstice's tone was too sincere for her to doubt his genuineness. "For my own part I am more than ready to stand by my former verdict; and the final decision rests entirely with you.

Only--perhaps I may be permitted to express my thankfulness that the problem has been solved--and my hope that you--and your husband--may find the future sufficiently bright to atone for the darkness of the past."

"Thank you," she said gently, and her eyes looked very soft. "At least my husband and I will never forget that we owe our happiness to you."

And with the words, cordially endorsed by Major Carstairs, ringing in his ears Anstice left Cherry Orchard and fared forth once more into the gloomy November night.

As he drove away he told himself that he was truly glad the mystery was elucidated at last. Yet even as he did so he knew that his own share in the matter gave him little satisfaction. He felt no elation at the turn of events. He told himself impatiently that he ought by rights to be jubilant, since it was owing to his efforts that Tochatti had been unmasked; but in spite of his honest endeavour to spur his flagging emotions his heart felt heavy in his breast, and there was no elation in his soul.

After all, he told himself wearily, the discovery of the truth meant very little to him. With Mrs. Carstairs the case was widely different; and he did rejoice, sincerely, in her happiness; but for himself, having lost Iris Wayne, all lesser events were of very little importance after all.

"I wonder how Mrs. Carstairs will decide," he said to himself as he drove homewards. "Whatever her decision I suppose I must abide by it; but for myself I sincerely hope she will stick to her first view of the matter."

And then he dismissed the subject from his thoughts for the moment, little dreaming of the awful and tragic manner in which the decision was to be taken out of Chloe Carstairs' hands in the course of the next few hours.

He was just thinking of going to bed that night when the telephone bell rang sharply; and with one of those strange premonitions to which all highly-strung people are at times liable, he connected the call instantly with the affair at Cherry Orchard.

"Yes ... I'm Dr. Anstice ... who is it?"

"Carstairs," came the answer over the wire. "I say, Anstice, can you come at once? Something appalling has happened--Tochatti--she--she's----"

"She has killed herself." The words were more of an a.s.sertion than a question.

"Yes ... with that beastly dagger ... found it somehow and stabbed herself ... what? ... yes ... quite dead ... I'm sure of it...."

"I'll come round at once. Does Mrs. Carstairs know?"

"Yes ... what? ... yes, a dreadful shock, but she's quite calm ... you'll come ... the sooner the better ... many thanks...."

Anstice hung up the receiver and turned away, feeling almost stunned by the news he had received. The woman's death, coming on the top of the events of the preceding twenty-four hours, was in itself sufficient to shake even his nerve; but he lost no time in obeying the summons and arrived at Cherry Orchard just as the clock struck twelve.

He found the entire household up, the tragic news having circulated with the rapidity peculiar to such catastrophic tidings; and preceded by Major Carstairs, who met him in the hall, he hurried upstairs to the room where Tochatti lay in her last sleep.

It was quite true, as Major Carstairs had said, that she was dead. She had only too evidently been aware of the dagger's hiding-place, probably through familiarity with Chloe's movements in normal times; and had seized a moment when the housekeeper, thinking her asleep, had left her to procure a fresh stock of candles for the night's vigil, to slip into Chloe's room in search of the weapon.

Once in possession of the dagger the rest was easy; and whatever might be the nature of the emotions which drove her to the deed, whether remorse, dread of punishment, or some half-crazed fear of what the future might hold, the result was certain--and fatal.

She had made no mistake this time. The dagger had been plunged squarely in her breast; and when the housekeeper stole in again, expecting to find her charge still asleep, her horrified eyes were met by the sight of Tochatti's life-blood ebbing over the white sheets, her ears a.s.sailed by the choking gurgle with which the misguided woman yielded up her life....

"Yes, she is quite dead, poor thing." Anstice replaced the bedclothes and stood looking down on the dead woman with a steady gaze. "Perhaps, knowing her former brain weakness, I ought to have expected this. But in any case, Mrs. Carstairs"--he turned to Chloe, who stood, white and rigid, by his side--"the decision has been taken out of your--of our hands now. The matter is bound to come to light, after all."

"You mean there must be an inquest--an inquiry into this affair?" It was Major Carstairs who spoke.

"I'm afraid so--you see a thing like this can't very well be hushed up,"

said Anstice rather reluctantly. "And though I can't help feeling thankful that Mrs. Carstairs will have justice done to her at last, I'm sure we all feel we would have borne a good deal sooner than let this dreadful thing happen."

"Dr. Anstice"--Chloe turned to him almost appealingly--"are we really to blame? If we hadn't plotted, set a trap to catch my poor Tochatti, this would not have come to pa.s.s; and I shall always feel that by leaving the dagger in my dressing-case I was the means of bringing this dreadful tragedy about."

"Come, Mrs. Carstairs, you mustn't talk nonsense of that kind!" His tone was bracing. "You were not in the least to blame. If anyone was, I should be the person, seeing I did not warn you of this possibility. But you know the poor soul was a very determined woman; and if she had set her mind on self-destruction she would have carried out her intention somehow."

"Well, at least there will be no object in keeping the authorship of those confounded letters a secret now," said Major Carstairs, putting his hand kindly on his wife's arm. "After all poor Tochatti has done us a service by her death which will go far towards wiping out the injury of her life. And now it is one o'clock, and we none of us had much sleep last night----"

"You're right," said Anstice quickly, "and Mrs. Carstairs looks worn out. Can't you persuade her to go to bed, Major Carstairs? There is really no need for her to stay here harrowing her feelings another moment."

"I'll go," she said at once. "Good-night again, Dr. Anstice. It will comfort me to know that you don't think me entirely to blame--for this."

"I think you are as innocent in this matter as in that other one we discussed to-night," he said quietly. "And this poor woman here, if, as we may surely believe, she has regained by now the sanity she may have temporarily lost, would be the last to think any but kindly thoughts of you in the light of her fuller humanity."

"Thank you," she said again, as she had said it earlier in the evening; and once more they exchanged the firm and cordial handshake by which those who are truly friends seal their parting.

When he had closed the door behind her he came back to the bedside where Major Carstairs still stood, looking down on the dead woman with an unfathomable expression in his eyes.

"Anstice, from the bottom of my heart I regret the manner of this poor soul's pa.s.sing," he said, and his voice was genuinely moved. "But even so I can't altogether regret that she took this way of cutting the knot.

For now my wife and I may at least hope for the ordinary happiness which other human beings know. We have been in the shadow a long time, Chloe and I"--he spoke half to himself--"but now we may surely pray for sunshine for the rest of our earthly pilgrimage together."

"Amen to that," said Anstice solemnly; and as the two men shook hands silently each rejoiced, in his individual fashion, that Chloe Carstairs had come into her own at last.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

Anstice stood on the deck of the P. and O. boat _Moldavia_, looking out over the blue seas to where Port Said lay white and shining in the rays of the March sun.

He had seen the port before, on his way to and from India, but he had never landed there, and looked forward with some keenness of antic.i.p.ation to setting foot in the place which enjoys, rightly or wrongly, one of the most unsavoury reputations in the world.