Chapter Nineteen
Hoefer’s Strange Methods
Twenty or thirty minutes elapsed before I regained my power of speech. The drugs administered by Hoefer fortunately had the effect desired. His sleepy eyes beamed through his great spectacles as he watched with satisfaction the stimulating consequence of the injection. He dissolved in water a tiny red tabloid, which he took from a small glass tube in a case he carried, and ordered me to drink it. This I did, finding it exceedingly bitter, and wondering what it was.
I asked no questions, however. He was a man who had made many extraordinary discoveries, all of which he had kept a secret. In the medical profession he was acknowledged to be one of the greatest living toxicologists, and his opinions were often sought by the various medical centres. Indeed, as every medical man knows, the name of Hoefer is synonymous with all that is occult in the science of toxicology, and the antidotes he has given to the world, from time to time, are as curious as they are drastic in effect.
“Have you experienced any strange sensation?” was my first question of him.
“No, none,” he answered. “Ach! it is all very curious – very curious indeed! I have never before seen similar cases. There is actual rigor mortis. The symptoms so closely resemble death that one might so easily mistake. We must investigate further. It cannot be that there is any lethal gas in the room, for the window is wide open; and, again, while actually in the room no ill effect is felt. It is only on emerging.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I was struck almost at the instant I came out. It was as sudden as an electric shock. I cannot account for it in the least; can you?”
“No,” he answered; “it is a mystery. But I like mysteries; they always interest me. There is so much to learn that one is constantly making fresh discoveries.”
“Then you will try and solve this?” urged her ladyship, after expressing satisfaction at my recovery.
“Of course, madam, with your permission,” he answered. “It is a complex case. When we have solved it we shall then know how to treat the young lady.”
“And how do you intend to begin?” I inquired, raising myself, not without considerable difficulty.
“By going into the room alone,” he answered briefly.
“You, too, will risk your life?” I exclaimed. “Is it wise?”
“Research is always wisdom,” he responded. Then, finding that I was recovering rapidly from the seizure, he gave me some technical direction how to treat him in case he lost consciousness.
He arranged the tiny syringe, and the various drugs and tabloids, upon the hall table, and then, with a final examination of them, he opened the door of the fatal room and entered, leaving us standing together on the threshold.
Walking to the window he looked out, afterwards making several tours of the room in search of its secret. He, however, found nothing. The air was pure as London air can be on a summer’s night, and, as far as either of us could discern, there was nothing unusual in the department. The door swung to halfway, and we heard him growling and grunting within. He remained in the room for perhaps five minutes, then emerged.
Scarcely, however, had he crossed the threshold when he lifted his left arm suddenly, crying —
“Ach, Gott! I am seized. The injection – quick!”
His fleshy face went pale, and I saw by its contortions that the left side had become paralysed. But with a quick movement I pushed up his coat-sleeve, and ran the needle beneath the skin.
His teeth were closed tightly as he watched me.
“It is almost unaccountable,” he gasped in an awed voice, when I had withdrawn the needle after the injection. “I was cold as ice – just as though my legs were in a refrigerator!”
“Your feet are benumbed?” I said.
“Yes,” he responded. “The sensation is just exactly as you have described it. Like the touch of an icy hand.”
I felt his pulse; it was intermittent and feeble. I told him so.
“Look at your watch, and in three minutes give me the second injection. There’s ether there in the larger bottle.”
I glanced at the time, and, holding my watch in my hand, waited until the three minutes had passed. We were silent, all three of us, until I took up a piece of cotton wool, and, saturating it with ether, nibbed it carefully on the flesh. Then I gave him the second injection.
“Good!” he said approvingly. “It acts marvellously. I shall be better in a few moments. Did you feel your head reeling and your strength failing?”
I responded in the affirmative.
“And so did I,” he answered. “The seizure is sharp and sudden, the brain becoming paralysed. That is the condition of the young lady: paralysis of the brain and heart, coma and collapse.”
“But the cause?” I asked.
He was pale as death, yet he took no notice of his own condition.
“The cause?” he echoed, in his deep guttural German. “It is for us to discover that. I have never met a more interesting case than this.”
“Yes, it’s interesting enough,” I admitted; “but recollect the lady. We must not neglect her.”
“We are not neglecting her,” he responded reprovingly. “Now that we know something of the symptoms, we may be able to save her. Before, we were working entirely in the dark.”
“But you are still ill,” I said.
“No, no,” he laughed; “it is nothing.” And he passed across the threshold and stood just within the room again.
Apparently he thought that the seat of the mystery lay in the doorway. Then he rejoined us, but felt no further symptoms.
There was evidently some uncanny but unseen influence contained within that apartment, but what it was we could not discover. All that was plain to us was the fact that any person emerging from it must be struck down as by an ice-cold hand.
Together we returned to the boudoir, and, to our satisfaction, saw an unmistakable sign that life was not entirely extinct. My love had moved!
“Good!” exclaimed the old German. “I go again to get something else.” And, without further word, he crammed his shabby soft felt hat upon his head and hurried out.
“The mystery of that room is most extraordinary,” I remarked to her ladyship when we were alone. “Has the influence ever been felt there before?”
“Not to my knowledge,” she responded. “Never before to-night.”
“Never before the entrance of that strange woman?” I suggested.
“Exactly! It is an absolute mystery.”
“And you have no knowledge of whom that person was?”
“None whatever.”
“Not even a surmise?” I inquired rather dubiously.
My thoughts reverted to what I had overheard regarding the unwelcome presence in London of that woman known as “La Gioia.”
“No, not even a surmise,” she answered.
Should I tell her of my own suspicions? No. To keep my knowledge to myself and seek to discover the key to the problem was my best course.
“And your cousin was with her for twenty minutes, you say?”
“Yes, about that time,” she replied. “I did not hurry to finish my dinner as I believed Beryl was talking with the dressmaker regarding some alterations to an evening bodice which she had mentioned to me. They did not interest me, therefore I sat awaiting her return.”
“And by that time this woman, whoever she was, had already slipped out of the house.”
“She must have done so. No one heard her leave.”
“Let us hope that Hoefer will solve the enigma. If any one is able, he is.”
“But first urge him to bring poor Beryl back to consciousness,” she said, turning to gaze upon the still inanimate form of the woman I adored.
At that moment the German returned, puffing and grunting, for he had hurried, and the perspiration was rolling off his brow.
He took several little packets from his pocket, and, seating himself at the table, commenced to carefully prepare another solution, the ingredients of which were unknown to me. Some of the drugs I knew by their appearance, of course, but others were white powders, impossible to recognise.
Again he administered an injection into the arm of my prostrate loved one, and then we all three stood in silence watching for the effect.
Hoefer gave vent to a further grunt of confidence, glanced at his watch, and turned back to the table to rearrange his array of drugs. I saw that the little pocket-case lying on the table contained about twenty tiny tubes about an inch and a half long; each contained very small pilules of tabloids, coloured brightly to render them more easily distinguishable, and not much larger than ordinary shot. Each tube was marked, but by mysterious signs unknown in British pharmacology.
The action of this last prophylactic was slow, but signs were nevertheless not wanting that its effect was to reanimate, for by degrees the deathly pallor of the sweet face I adored became less marked, and the lips showed red instead of that ashen hue which had told us of her nearness to death.
The German returned to her, and, feeling her pulse, counted the seconds upon his watch, while at the same time I listened to the respiration.
“Good?” exclaimed the old fellow, beaming through his glasses. “The diagnosis is correct, and the refocillation is more rapid than I should have expected. She will recover.”
Suddenly the pallid cheeks became flushed. Life was returning. The liquid injected into the blood bad at last neutralised the effect, stimulated the circulation, reanimated the whole system, and revived the flickering spark of life. The hand I held grew warmer, the pulse throbbed more quickly, the breathing became regular, and a few minutes later, without warning, she opened her eyes and looked wonderingly around. A loud cry of joy escaped my lips. My love was saved.
“You know me, I think?” I said, bending down to her. “My name is Colkirk.”
“Yes, I know you quite well,” she responded very faintly. “But what has happened? Where is she?”
“Whom do you mean? Your visitor?”
“Yes,” she responded eagerly.
“We have no idea,” I replied. “You have been taken ill, and my friend here. Doctor Hoefer, has been attending you.”
“How do you feel?” the old German asked in his brusque manner.
“I am very thirsty,” she answered.
He took the decanter, and, mixing a little brandy and water, gave it to her.
Then just at that moment her ladyship re-entered, and, falling on her knees, clasped her cousin around the neck and shed wild tears of joy.
Liquid beef and other restoratives having been administered, the woman whose appearance had been identical in every respect with that of the dead was, ere long, able to sit up and talk with us. Her recovery had been almost as rapid as her attack.
We questioned her regarding her symptoms, and found them exactly similar to those we had ourselves experienced.
“I felt as though my whole body were frozen stiff and rigid,” she explained. “At first I heard a strange voice about me – the voice of Doctor Colkirk, I suppose it must have been – speaking with Nora; but I was unable to make any sign. It was just as though I were in a kind of trance, yet half-conscious of things about me. My muscles were paralysed, and I knew that you believed me to be dead. The one horrible thought that possessed me was that I might, perhaps, be buried alive.”
“But you were not conscious the whole time?” Hoefer asked.
“No; I think I slept during the latter part of the seizure. How long have I been lying here?”
“About two hours and a half,” answered her cousin. “Do you feel able to talk any more now?” I inquired.
“I feel much better,” she responded. “The draught that your friend has given me has had a wonderful effect. I’m quite restored.” And she rose to her feet and stood before us, little the worse for her experience, save, perhaps, that the dark rings about her beautiful eyes showed that her system had received a terrible shock.
“We want you to relate to us in detail what occurred when you entered the morning-room to see the woman who called upon you.”
She glanced inquiringly at her cousin, as though to obtain her permission to speak.
“Nothing occurred,” she answered; “she was sitting there awaiting me.”
“She had sent in a message, and you thought it – as your dressmaker, did you not?”
“Yes. And I was very much surprised to find that it was not.”
“Was it some other person whom you knew?”
“I had never seen her before,” answered the woman who was my wedded wife. “She was tall, thin and dressed in black which seemed much the worse for wear.”
“Dark or fair?”
“Dark. But I could not see her features well because of her thick black veil.”
“She was young, I suppose?”
“Not very, I think. Her voice was low and rather refined.”
“And how did she explain her reason for sending in a message that she was your dressmaker? She must have been aware that you expected the woman to call on you.”
“She explained that the ruse was necessary, as she did not wish her visit to be known, either to my cousin or to the servants.”
“Why?”
“Because she had brought me a message.”
“A message?” I exclaimed. “From whom?”
“A verbal message from – from a friend.”
“And may we not know the name of that friend?” I asked. “There is a most remarkable mystery connected with that room into which she was shown, and, in order to solve the problem, we must be in possession of the whole truth.”
“What mystery?” Beryl inquired quickly, opening her eyes widely.
“Any person who enters is, on leaving, attacked just as you were. Your cousin here, Doctor Hoefer, and myself, had all three experienced exactly similar symptoms.”
“That’s most extraordinary!” she declared, in an incredulous tone. “When I was seized it was not until I had left the room. I went out with the object of obtaining a sheet of note-paper from the library in order to write a reply to the message, but on emerging into the hall I was suddenly seized, and returned to the morning-room at once. I stood holding on to the table; but my limbs failed me, and I fell to the ground.”
“And then the woman who had called upon you slipped along the hall and out into the street.”
“I suppose she must have done, for I did not see her again. I tried to call out, but could not. The electric light was suddenly switched off. She must have done that on her way out.”
“Cannot you tell us either of the nature of the message or from whom it came?” I asked earnestly.
She was silent for a moment, glancing at her cousin. “No,” she answered; “I am unable to do that.”
Chapter Twenty
The Chill Hand
Was the message from her lover or from that villain Tattersett?
Her refusal piqued me, and I was half inclined to suggest that it was from the one or the other. Still, in this marvellous maze of mystery, I saw that it was not at all a judicious proceeding to show my hand. What I already knew was of value to me in my efforts to piece together this bewildering puzzle.
The more I reflected the more convinced I became that the visitor in black was none other than the dreaded woman whose threatened vengeance was known to be imminent – La Gioia the mysterious.
“The visitor did not touch you?” I asked. “Neither did she give you any note?”
“No; the message was verbal. I went once to the library and obtained a sheet of note-paper, but on returning found it to be soiled. Therefore I went out again to get a second, sheet, and it was then that I felt a sudden grip, just as though an icy breath had touched me. In an instant I went cold all over, and my limbs became so benumbed that I could not feel them.”
“You did not suspect this woman of producing this effect upon you?” Hoefer asked, grunting dubiously.
“Certainly not. How could she?”
“But her actions afterwards, in switching off the light and stealing out, were suspicious.”
“That’s so; but how do you account for your own seizure nearly two hours after her departure?”
“Ach!” he cried; “it is extraordinary – that is all we can say.”
“The room is nothing less than a death-trap,” I remarked. “And yet the baneful influence is a mysterious one. I wish you could tell us the name of the sender of the message, Miss Wynd. It would materially assist us in our researches.”
“I tell you that it was a friend who could have no object whatever in making any attack upon my life,” she answered, ambiguously.
“But this woman,” I continued. “Are you certain that you do not know her – that you have never met her before?”
“Quite certain,” she responded without hesitation. “She was an utter stranger.”
I exchanged glances with Hoefer. The mystery was still inscrutable.
Again we all four went to the door of the room of mystery, and Hoefer, still grunting in dissatisfaction, declared his intention to re-enter the place. Seen from the hall there was certainly nothing about the apartment to excite suspicion. It was bright and comfortable, with handsome substantial furniture, sage-green hangings, and a thick Turkey carpet into which one’s feet sank noiselessly.
“It is a risk!” exclaimed her ladyship, when Hoefer made the announcement. “Death lurks in that place. Let us close and lock it.”
“Ach! no, madame,” he responded. “It is no risk now that we have the prophylactic.” And, turning to me, he handed me a little of the last injection which he had given to Beryl, together with the phial of ether and the syringe.
“Use this, if necessary,” he said, briefly, and then leaving us, he crossed the threshold and examined every nook of the room.
The window was still open, but he closed and fastened it. Upon a little writing-table in the corner lay the soiled sheet of note-paper that Beryl had obtained on her first visit to the library, thus proving the truth of her story. The door swung to, as before, and after about five minutes he again emerged.
Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when he gave vent to a loud cry.
“Gott!” he gasped. “The injection – quick!”
He had again been seized. The unseen hand of Death was upon him. Truly, it was an uncanny mystery.
Without a second’s delay I filled the syringe, rubbed the flesh with ether, and then ran the needle beneath the skin. The effect was almost instantaneous. The sudden paralysis was arrested, and the muscles reanimated in a manner most marvellous. One fact was, therefore, plain: Hoefer had discovered the proper treatment, even if the cause of the extraordinary seizure remained unknown.
He stood for a few moments motionless, but at length declaring himself better, said —
“The thing is an absolute enigma; I can discern no cause whatever for it. There would seem to be some hidden influence at work, but of its nature we can discover absolutely nothing. The attack does not occur until one emerges here into the hall.”
“Can it be out here?” I suggested, whereat both my companions turned pale with fright.
Certainly the situation was as weird and uncanny as any in which I have ever found myself. An unseen influence is always mysterious, and this chill touch of the hand of death that we had all experienced was actually appalling.
We held council, and decided that the room should be closed and locked to prevent any of the servants entering there. Our conversation had undoubtedly been overheard by them, and Hoefer was anxious that the place should remain undisturbed so that he might make further investigations, which he promised to do on the following day.
Then we entered the dining-room together, partook of some wine which her ladyship offered us, and left the house in company – not, however, before I had promised to call again on the morrow and visit my patient.
“Now, Hoefer, what is your candid opinion?” I asked my companion as we stood on the kerb, opposite the Marble Arch, awaiting the belated omnibus to take him back to Bloomsbury.
“I don’t like it, my dear frient,” he answered dubiously; “I don’t like it.” And, shaking my hand, he entered the last Holborn ’bus without further word.
On foot I returned to Bayswater utterly confounded by the curious events of the evening. By Hoefer’s serious expression and preoccupied manner, I saw that the influence within or without that room of mystery was to him utterly bewildering. He had spent his life in the study of micro-organisms, and knew more of staphylococci, streptococci, and pneumococci than any other living man, while as a toxicologist he was acknowledged, even by his clever compatriots in Germany, as the greatest of them all. He had searched out many of the secrets of Nature, and I had myself at times witnessed certain, of his experiments, which were little short of marvellous. It was, therefore, gratifying that I had enlisted his aid in solving this most difficult problem.
Yet, as I lay awake that night, reflecting deeply upon the curious situation, I could not arrest my thoughts from turning back to the tragedy at Whitton and the omission of those two names from the list of visitors furnished to the police. That her ladyship was a bosom friend of Mrs Chetwode’s was quite plain, and that she was present, together with Beryl, earlier in the day, I had myself seen. Somehow, I could not get rid of the conviction that Sir Henry’s wife, the woman who had taken this secret journey from Atworth to London to have a clandestine interview with some person whom she declined to name, knew the truth regarding the Colonel’s death.
I was plunged into a veritable sea of perplexity.
If I could but discover the identity of La Gioia! That name rang in my ears, sleeping or waking. La Gioia! La Gioia! Ever La Gioia!
Beryl held her in abject dread. Of that I knew from those words of here I had overheard at Whitton. She had declared that she would commit suicide rather than face her vengeance. What had rendered my adored one so desperate?
As I sat over my lonely breakfast on the following morning, there being already a couple of patients in the waiting-room – clerks who had come for “doctors’ certificates” to enable them to enjoy a day’s repose – the servant brought in the letters, among them being one for me which had been forwarded from Shrewsbury by my mother.
The superscription was in a formal hand, and, on reading it, I was surprised to find that it was from a firm of solicitors in Bedford Row, stating that my uncle George, a cotton-spinner in Bury, had died, leaving a will by which I was to receive the sum of one thousand pounds as a legacy. I read the letter, time after time, scarcely able to believe the good news.
But an hour later, when I sat in the dingy office in Bedford Row, and my uncle’s solicitor read a copy of the will to me, I saw that it was a reality – a fact which was indeed, proved by the cheque for fifty pounds which he handed me for my immediate use. I drove to the Joint Stock Bank in Chancery Lane, cashed the draft, and returned to Bayswater with five ten-pound notes in my pocket. From a state of penury I had, within that single hour, become possessed of funds. True, I had always had expectations from that quarter; but I had, like millions of other men, never before been possessor of a thousand pounds. In a week or two the money would be placed to my credit. To a man with only half a crown in his pocket a thousand pounds appears a fortune.
I counted the crisp new notes in the privacy of the doctor’s sitting-room, then, locking three of them in my portmanteau, took a cab down to Rowan Road to receive Bob’s congratulations. He was delighted. He sent Mrs Bishop out for a bottle of the best champagne procurable in the neighbourhood, and we drank merrily to my future success. Then, while smoking a cigarette over what remained of the wine, I related to him my strange adventure of the previous night.
He sat listening to my story open-mouthed. Until I had concluded, he uttered no word. Then gravely he exclaimed —
“The affair grows more and more amazing. But now, look here, Dick! Why don’t you take my advice, and drop the affair altogether?”
“Drop it? What do you mean? Remember Beryl!”
“I know,” he answered. “But I can’t help feeling that association with those people is dangerous. They’re a queer lot – a devilishly queer lot!”
“Of course they’re a queer lot,” I said; “but I can’t leave her to their mercy. She’s in deadly peril of her life; they intend to kill her.”
A grave expression was on his face. “Do you think that last night’s curious phenomenon was actually an attempt to kill her?” he inquired.
“Without a doubt.”
“Then, if so, how was it that you all experienced similar symptoms? What’s old Hoefer’s theory?”
“He has none.”
“He never has – or, at least, he pretends that he hasn’t; he keeps all his discoveries to himself. That’s why he has always refused to write any books. When he lectures he’s always careful to keep his secrets to himself.”
“Yes; he’s a queer old boy,” I remarked, for his eccentricities were many, and had often caused us much amusement at Guy’s.
“I only wish, Dick, that you’d try to forget all about this tangled affair,” Bob said earnestly. “You’re worrying yourself to death all to no purpose.”
“Why ‘all to no purpose’?” I echoed. “I am patient, and I shall discover something one day.”
“No,” he said confidently. “You’ll never discover anything – mark my words.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you are watched far too closely.”
“Watched!” I cried in surprise. “Who watches me?”
“Several persons. Among them your wife herself.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw her in this street, on the evening before last, evidently in search of you. She passed several times, and glanced across here. Yet she tells you – or, rather, her cousin tells you – that they were not in London at that time.”
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely.”
“But how did you recognise her?” I demanded eagerly. “Why, you’ve never seen her!”
He started quickly. By the expression on his face I recognised in an instant, that he had inadvertently betrayed to me the fact that they were not strangers.
He knew her! And he had tried to dissuade me from following up the slight clue I had obtained. With what motive? This man, whom I had believed was my friend, had played me false.
The discovery was as a blow that staggered me.