The Blue Wall Part 18

I had meant to be gentle: if I clapped my hand over the source of the little cries and protests, when I had found it, with something more than decision, you must blame the circ.u.mstances. I had expected to surprise old Margaret from behind and give her such a whiff of cataleptol that she would have suffered no inconvenience. Unfortunately I had not at first known that it was she whom I had encountered, and now there were obvious difficulties in the way of my applying my saturated gauze to her nose.

"Be still!" I commanded, trying to uncork my vial, with a single hand.

"Be still. No harm will come to you."

Her reply was a well-placed thrust of her two old knees which nearly sent me through the gla.s.s. It placed me in a position, however, where I could, with a push of my foot, close the door and shut us into the vestibule, so that her clamor, which had broken forth again, might be m.u.f.fled.

Furthermore, I now had my chance to unloose my anaesthetic. I can hear the squeak of that fat cork now; I can recall the pleasure of smelling those dizzy fumes as I thrust the gauze into her face. Time after time she succeeded in thrusting it aside with her clawing hands; time after time I succeeded in jamming it back again against her nose. The scene is not one I recall with pride, but my brief excuse must be that I do not like to have my undertakings fail. The delicacies of the best of us, moreover, depart at critical junctures.

However that may be, the important point is that finally I felt her struggles subside. Her hands no longer acted with intelligence; they moved about wildly in front of her face, as if to push away a tangle of cobwebs. Her head rolled to and fro; the gurglings, sputters, half-uttered cries of rage, ceased.

"Breathe again!" said I, with the habitual phrase of the surgeon administering an anaesthetic. "Breathe away--breathe away--Ah, now!--breathe--breathe--breathe!"

And at last she was still. I threw the gauze into the corner. I got up panting, for I am not built for exercise, and, panting still, I peeped out through the silk curtains to be sure that in our little adventure we had attracted no attention.

The wind-driven rain still swept down the streets under the iridescent glows of the arc lights, my car still stood like a forlorn, forgotten thing in the gutter. In one direction the wet perspective of the avenue appeared as empty as a street scene on a drop curtain. But when I turned my eyes the other way my heart gave quick response. Just beyond the iron fence stood a patrolman.

He had stopped and seemed to be looking directly at the door behind which I stood. I could see his two bare hands on the iron railing. They were very conspicuous against the rubber coat--wet, black, and shiny--which covered his burly figure, and he used them to sway himself softly backward and forward. It seemed to me that he was debating how to act, and I believe that I learned then, peeping through the gla.s.s, to what extent guilt and the desire for secrecy will sharpen the imagination.

I say this, because, almost at the moment that I felt sure he had taken a step forward toward me, I saw that not his face but his back was turned toward me, that his hands were behind him and that he had leaned for a moment on the rail, perhaps to look at the physician's green cross on my lights. A second later he ducked his helmet into the driving rain and, walking on, turned into the shadows of the cross-street.

I knew then I had no time to lose. I had been delayed; Margaret Murchie might regain her senses. And yet, when I had signaled to Estabrook, when he, without a word, had come, and when I felt the excitement most keenly, I found myself impressed not with the necessities of the moment, but rather with the extraordinary grotesqueness of the situation.

"Take her about the knees," said I, and then touched his elbow.

"Estabrook," I added, "this--mind you--happens in a twentieth-century metropolis."

He did not answer, because the old servant, dashed in her upturned face by a stream of water running from the coping, moved her arms feebly and uttered a groan.

"Quick!" said I. "Drop her and crank up the car. I'll do the rest."

He obeyed.

I dragged the burdensome weight of my victim, if you will so call her, and thrust it into the interior of the vehicle. Estabrook was already on the chauffeur's seat; as quickly as I tell it, the car had begun to pick up speed over the wet and slippery street. We flashed by a light or two and I saw that Margaret Murchie's eyes had lost their stare of unconsciousness.

"Margaret," said I, "you are all right. Be sensible. There is Mr.

Estabrook in front."

She shook herself convulsively as if to throw off the remnants of the anaesthetic. Then she caught my sleeve.

"Oh, it's terrible," she cried. "Ye have taken me away from Julie! Bring me back to her, do you hear? You and Mr. Estabrook--What do ye want of me?"

"Quiet!" I said. "We want you to tell all you know."

"You want me to tell it? After all these years? And it's no fault of mine or hers!"

Suddenly she became excited again.

"Take me back!" she screamed. "You don't know what you do! Take me back to my Julie! She may need me sore enough!"

"Have sense," I said close to her ear. "We are going to the bottom of this. You must tell everything--everything from beginning to end."

She was silent for several seconds while we sped out toward the North Side.

"It's awful," she said finally. "And it has gone far enough. It's been more than I can bear. It's time for me to tell! If you, whoever you are, and Mr. Estabrook will hear, you shall have it all--the living truth of it--the bottom of what I know."

"Good!" said I. "And now we'll go to my house."

"No, no," she exclaimed. "There is no need for that. I would not be from the girl while these awful minutes is going by. Who can say what would happen? Oh, no, sir. Take your cab back to our door, and then--sitting on this seat--with my eye on that terrible house--and less need of any of us to worry--I can tell ye all from the first to the last."

In her voice was that sincerity of emotion which invites confidence.

"Very well," I said. "That is agreed."

And then, picking up the speaking-tube, I told the wretched man at the wheel. He swung us around; we turned back, and in five minutes more drew up again, according to my direction, not by the Estabrooks' door, but under the spreading limbs of the oak across from the Marburys'

ornate residence.

"Take some of this, my boy," I said as he crawled, wet and trembling, into the interior. "It will be good for you, and for you, Margaret, too!"

"Oh, Mr. Estabrook!" she exclaimed when she had swallowed the stimulant, "I lied to you. I once lied to you very sore, as you shall see."

"Enough--enough!" he cried. "What of her--my wife? She is still alive?"

"Have no fear," replied the old woman. "It's not death that's with us, I'm believing."

The poor fellow wrung his hands.

"But, by the Saints, what I'll tell you now is true," she said, putting her hands first on his knees and then on mine. "Look! The light is shining on my face and you can read it if you like. Sure, I'm praying that you may use the knowledge to save us all."

"Go on," said the young man hoa.r.s.ely.

And thereupon, in an awkward, jerking manner, which I can only hope to suggest in the repet.i.tion, she told a tale of strange mingling of good and evil. This was her story....

BOOK IV

A PUPIL OF THE GREAT WELSTOKE

CHAPTER I

LES TROIS FOLIES

I was born on the Isle of Wight. My father was a seafaring man. He owned his own vessel--a brigantine as sailed from the Thames to British South Africa and sometimes around the Hope to Madagascar.