Читать книгу Sleeping Dogs - Carolyn Wells - Страница 4

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Eileen Abercrombie was dead.

The very statement of the fact sounds like a contradiction of terms.

For Eileen Abercrombie was the most alive, alert, and vital woman on earth, and to think of her as dead was too impossible.

Eileen was forty-two, but nobody would ever have believed that. She looked more like thirty-two, but aside from looks, she was the sort of woman who could not be measured by years.

As old as She, as young as Peter Pan, there were far more intriguing mysteries about her than the question of her birth date.

There was, to be sure, a tiny lace network of wrinkles around her big dark eyes, but they disappeared or were forgotten when she smiled.

For Eileen’s smile was the kind that bursts suddenly, like a flowering skyrocket, and it filled her eyes with witchery that warmed the cockles of the hearts of all who were near her, and there were always plenty near her.

She was the living embodiment of vitality, vivacity, vim, verve, and vigour—everything, in fact, that begins with a v.

She was vivid, volatile, versatile, and victorious, and she was always ready and eager for anything that promised interest or enjoyment.

She entered a room like an army with banners, but not an aggressive army—rather a joyous, happy army, that one could greet ecstatically, knowing the greeting would be returned in kind.

That was Eileen Abercrombie, and everybody admired, adored, and envied her.

Now, only recently, she had inherited from an aged uncle a goodly sum of money, and though her husband had money aplenty, this new fortune was a godsend to Eileen’s daughter.

For Eileen’s daughter, Maisie, was not the daughter of Eileen’s present husband, but of her former one.

The girl, Maisie, had taken the name of Abercrombie when her mother had, and though far from possessing her mother’s charm and delightful personality, she was an attractive girl, of the smart and up-to-date school. Her lipstick and eyebrow pencil were of the finest and used with frequency and efficiency.

Maisie was nobody’s fool, and though she couldn’t hold a candle to her mother for capability or a sense of relative values, yet she had a lot of common sense and a fine type of worldly wisdom.

Only twenty, she stood, with unreluctant feet and arms outspread, to welcome what she felt sure was to be a long and well-spent life.

Hugh Abercrombie, the husband of Eileen, was, surprisingly, twelve years younger than his wife.

He was one of your reserved, gentle men, who accept all happenings and who would sacrifice personal preferences or even crush down the longings of a tortured heart rather than interfere with the wishes of another.

He had much conscience, more patience, and not an oversupply of humour.

To his wife he was kind and indulgent; to his stepdaughter he was all that a real father could be; and to his friends he was a very prince among men.

His outstanding traits were generosity of thought and unworldliness of mind. Also, though he never obtruded his views or opinions, they were invariably and inevitably right.

But Abercrombie would be the last man in the world to claim this, and so he was not infrequently downed in argument and set aside in a discussion.

Though not at all of the temperament that is called temperamental, he was of a nature so sensitive as to be almost mimosa-like, with the result that his real depths of feeling were quelled and suppressed and his more passionate impulses frozen over with the icy calm he forced himself to present to the world.

And so, when Hugh Abercrombie was told that his wife was dead, he almost gave way to a nervous breakdown.

It was Miss Mercer who brought him the news. Miss Maude Mercer, who was Eileen’s social secretary and trusted confidante.

Early in the morning she came to his door, and tapping lightly, soon told him of the shocking discovery of Mrs. Abercrombie dead in her bed.

Hugh had heard her in silence, and had, a little impolitely, shut the door in her face, and then rang for his valet.

He had never liked Miss Mercer, and so he had to shut the door in her face.

He didn’t much like his valet, Louis, either, but then there were a lot of people Hugh didn’t like. His wife had been one of them.

After Louis had looked after him duly, he sent for Corinne, who was Eileen’s maid.

“Tell me about it,” he said curtly, and Corinne told him.

“You see,” the girl began, “Madame has been out of sorts for a week or more.”

“I did not know it,” Hugh said.

“No, monsieur; Madame desired nobody should know. She had the trouble of the stomach. She was ill—even sick, but she desired no doctor, no medicine. She was even more sick last night, and though I besought her, no help would she allow to be called. And so she dismissed me, about midnight, and when this morning I went to waken her, she was—ah, poor lady, she no longer lived.”

The complete personality of Corinne might be expressed in the one word—trim.

Her uniform was Frenchy and trim; her bobbed black hair was trim; and her every movement and gesture was clean-cut and correct. Slender and graceful, with slim, black silk-stockinged legs, she was the trim ladies’ maid of the theatre and might have just stepped out of an otherwise unimportant second act.

Hugh Abercrombie looked into her eyes, not seeing her trimness.

“What killed her, Corinne?” he said in his gentle voice.

“That I do not know, monsieur. But it was something—not merely an indisposition. There was something particulier, yes, even something strange.”

“Such as what? Speak out.”

“I cannot say, but I suggest, if I may, that you have the doctor come.”

“Hasn’t she had the doctor?”

“No, she would not. Her own doctor, as you know, is away, and she refused any other.”

“Yes, she would. Now, tell me just what you are insinuating.”

Abercrombie was getting the better of his nervous breakdown. He usually got the better of things that bothered him, unless, indeed, so doing would bother somebody else. He awaited Corinne’s reply.

“Well, monsieur, I will then do so.” Corinne looked at him keenly. She was a trim-mannered French girl, but she had a shrewd eye in her head. “I cannot help the feeling that Madame is the victim of a poison.”

“Poison! Good Lord, what do you mean?”

“Only that. It may not be, I may make the mistake, but I fear—I fear it is the truth.”

“But how—who—” Abercrombie gazed at her. His gray-blue eyes were misty and his brow was furrowed with anxiety.

“Ah, that we do not know,” Corinne nodded with understanding. “Yet the symptoms, the effects—I am not a nurse, but I fear—I fear—”

Corinne’s eyes dropped and she put on a mysterious air that maddened Abercrombie.

“Get out!” he cried. “Send me back that Mercer woman.”

As a matter of fact, Hugh Abercrombie rarely allowed himself to become annoyed, but there was something about the French maid that drove him to desperation.

Her shoulders raised in trim huffiness, Corinne departed and soon Miss Mercer returned.

But she could give no real information. She knew Mrs. Abercrombie was dead, she knew no more.

Now Hugh Abercrombie, for all his gentleness, was by no means a weakling.

He knew he had to take the head of the affair, and he promptly took it.

First, Maisie must be told. Even before a doctor was called, Maisie must be told of her mother’s death.

He went to the girl’s room and tapped at the door.

“Come in,” she called, and Hugh went in.

“Good gosh, Daddy, it’s you!”

“Yes, Maisie—there’s bad news.”

“Mother?” she said as he drew a chair to the bedside and sat down.

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Just guessed. What is it? The worst?”

“Yes. But I don’t understand. Why do you think so?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m psychic or something. What, exactly, has happened?”

Hugh told her what had been told him, and the two sat silently staring at each other.

An exquisite bit of humanity, Maisie was.

Had she been on earth at the right time, she might have posed for a Tanagra figurine, so unconsciously lovely were her postures. Her golden-brown hair was of a natural curl and clustered damply round her forehead in babyish ringlets.

Her eyes, amber-coloured, were inscrutable, and she looked at her stepfather with a blank air that annoyed him afresh. Was he to get no sympathy from anyone?

Maisie’s pajamas were of all-over lace, cream-coloured, with bands of light blue silk for trimming. Eileen had favoured Oriental types, and Hugh was subconsciously aware that this dainty effect was the prettier.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’d better get up and dress. You’ve a hard day ahead of you.”

“You, too, Dad.”

“Yes, of course.” He rose. “That’s a pretty rig-out you’ve got on, child,” he said absently, and she nodded, even more absently.

His subconscious mind was dully wondering what sort of rig-out Lorna Garth wore.

He always meant to curb and train properly his subconsciousness, but somehow he never got definitely at it.

He paused at the door, his hand already on the knob.

“Maisie,” he said, turning to face her, “your mother couldn’t have been—er—poisoned—could she?”

“No,” said the girl judicially. “No, I should say not! She’s too smart to let anybody put it over her like that.”

“I didn’t mean—what you mean. I mean—you know—would she take it herself?”

“Hell, no! And she wasn’t poisoned, anyway. Acute indigestion, more likely, or something of that sort. I’ll be down in a few moments, Dad; don’t make a fool of yourself till I get there.”

Then Hugh Abercrombie turned his steps toward his wife’s bedroom.

Corinne seemed to be in charge, with Miss Mercer in the boudoir adjoining.

“Have you called the doctor?” he asked, and Miss Mercer replied.

“Yes, I called. And Dr. Garth is home again. He arrived last night. He will be right over.”

Abercrombie turned to the still figure on the bed.

Heedful of cautions from Miss Mercer, Corinne had touched nothing, though her fingers fairly itched to straighten the pillows and tidy up the coverlets.

But the bed showed no real disorder.

Eileen lay as if asleep, with no visible sign of pain or suffering.

Her hair, shingled at the back, was in soft, thick masses round her face. One heavy obstreperous lock, ever falling into her eyes, was thrust back as if impatiently pushed off her brow. The morning sunshine sent gold lights through the dark bronze tresses, and the long curving lashes hid the eyes that would never smile again.

The pitiless sunshine betrayed the few timid ravages that Time had dared to make, but the clear fine skin and the exquisitely carved features braved triumphantly the light of day.

Moving slowly, Hugh approached the bed and sat down on the edge of it.

“Don’t touch her,” Miss Mercer said impulsively, but received in response such a gaze of mingled reproach and reproof that no further suggestions were made.

Motionless the husband sat, staring at his wife as at some inexplicable mystery, and then the doctor arrived.

Garth, the family physician for many years, was a handsome man, with gray hair and a gray Vandyke beard. He had an air of competent authority, and dismissed Hugh from the room by the simple method of taking him by the arm and leading him to the door.

He looked carefully at the dead woman, and then ordered Miss Mercer and Corinne to leave the room also.

Expeditiously and with great care the doctor made his examination and investigation.

The latter included a thorough search in the bathroom which opened off the bedroom.

In the usual medicine cabinet Dr. Garth found a fairly large collection of creams, lotions, and tablets, as well as many bottles whose labels bore the marks of his own prescriptions.

Scanning the lot quickly but systematically, he picked out a small box of prepared powders, a little bottle of dark liquid, and another small vial whose label was so old as to be almost illegible.

These things he put in his pocket and then opened the door to the hall.

“Where is Mr. Abercrombie?” he said to Corinne, who was hovering there.

“He went downstairs, Doctor,” she informed him. “Perhaps in the dining room, at his breakfast, you will find him. Me, shall I now straighten the room?”

“No, touch nothing. Nothing, do you hear?”

Corinne heard perfectly, but it was the stern expression on the doctor’s face that made her decide in favour of strict obedience.

She had no desire to do anything wrong, not she.

Garth went on downstairs and found Abercrombie in the breakfast room, where Maisie had persuaded him to go by saying that otherwise she would take no breakfast herself.

The beautiful little room, an octagon extension from the main dining room, overlooked the water across a stretch of lawn and a few flower beds.

The house, Graysands, was on one of the small bays on the north shore of Long Island. Planned by a master architect, it was an echo of Old France, but so well adapted to its environs that it seemed neither anomalous nor incongruous.

A great tower and a somewhat church-like structure composed the main part, while from either side rambled a walled and turreted pile that was as picturesque as it was available for comfort.

Abercrombie loved it and hastened through his work, on the days he spent in New York, to get back as soon as possible to Graysands and its delights.

On an eminence, it overlooked the Sound, and its harmonious though irregular outline could be seen from the far distance.

Near-by lawns surrounded the house and faded off to wilder bits of wood and copse, and thence down to the water.

The breakfast room, Eileen had ordained, should be in orange and pale green, and with its painted furniture and harmonious appointments it was an attractive place to begin the day.

Dr. Garth entered, and in silence took one of the empty chairs at the table. He accepted a cup of coffee and tasted it before speaking.

Then, looking round at the others, he began to talk.

“I think there is no occasion for secrecy,” he said. “Mrs. Abercrombie came to her death by poison. As you all know, I have been her physician for several years, and so am familiar with her constitution and physical condition. She died, I am convinced beyond all doubt, from the effects of the irritant poison bichloride of mercury.”

There were four at the table besides the speaker: Abercrombie, Maisie, Miss Mercer, and a guest named Murgatroyd Loring.

All four looked at him without a word.

Hugh Abercrombie’s face showed no translatable expression of any sort.

Maisie, her spoonful of melon arrested halfway to her mouth, sat as if paralyzed, her eyes big with horror and her delicately rouged lips parted, as if benumbed by stark amazement.

Miss Mercer, as befitted her position, made no outward sign of concern, but her blue eyes travelled slowly from one face to another, and her delicate, fair skin seemed to glow a little pinker, as if from the will power she exerted to keep silent.

“Who gave her bichloride of mercury?” asked Hugh, his usually soft voice harsh with accusation.

“We do not know that anyone gave it to her,” Garth returned. “It may be that she took it herself, by accident, let us say—”

“Let us say nothing, except what we know or believe to be the truth.” Hugh looked stern. “Eileen was not the sort to take poison by accident.”

“Nobody is the sort to take poison by accident,” was the doctor’s curt rejoinder. “There is no such sort or class of people. Yet the accident happens.”

“But how could it?” pursued Hugh. “Where would the—stuff come from? How could she get it?”

“Those things are not questions for us, but for the—the authorities.”

“The police!” said Maisie in a low, horrified whisper. “Ooooh!”

She swayed in her chair, and Loring, who sat next her, put an arm round her for support.

“Don’t be silly!” cried the girl. “I’m not going to faint. But to think of Mother poisoning herself! Wow! Can you breathe in the same room with it? I say, Dr. Garth, do something—get busy! What do you say, Dad?”

“I say, dear, that I’d like you to go to your room for a while. Let Corinne look after you. We others will settle on what’s to be done, and I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“No, Dad, I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“Then you’ll keep quiet, Miss,” Dr. Garth said, turning his severe gaze on her. “Mind, now, either be still or leave the room.”

Maisie had been up against the doctor’s commands before, and she knew his way of carrying out his threats, so she subsided and waited the next move from the others.

“You see,” the doctor went on, addressing himself to Abercrombie, “I cannot give a certificate as the matter stands. It has to be reported and the coroner will advise us if an inquest is necessary.”

“Aren’t you forging ahead rather fast, Doctor?” asked Loring.

Murgatroyd Loring, or, as he was always called, Troy Loring, was a cousin of Mrs. Abercrombie’s first husband, and had, for some years, been her lawyer. He spent much of his time at Graysands, and though no favourite of Hugh’s was always made welcome and given the run of the place.

He was an able business man, and kept Eileen’s financial affairs in good shape. His principal claim to obnoxiousness lay in the fact that he wanted to manage everything, and had an overweening sense of his own capability for doing so.

It must be admitted that he was capable, but that didn’t offset his annoying insistence. His unasked advice and unwanted help so irritated Hugh Abercrombie that time and again he had begged Eileen to forbid the man the house.

To this she gave a laughing reply which however gently it was worded carried no hope of consent to his request, and Loring continued to make his home at Graysands whenever he felt it convenient for himself.

And now he was querying Dr. Garth’s dictum regarding the case of poor dead Eileen.

Abercrombie’s face darkened, as was its habit when he was annoyed, and he was about to tell Loring flatly that he was beyond his rights when he censured the doctor. But a sudden thought came to him that now that Eileen was gone he could himself forbid Troy Loring to come to his house. So poignantly did this idea strike him that he realized it was a base thought, and he knew that nothing would induce him to turn the circumstance of Eileen’s death to his own petty and personal advantage.

“Speak up, Hugh,” Troy said, looking at him closely.

“I saw you start to say something and then subside. Go ahead. Tell Dr. Garth that we, the family, will decide if and when to call the police.”

“I cannot agree, Troy, that you are one of the family,” Hugh said, his tones icy. “Nor can I do otherwise than to accept Dr. Garth’s suggestion or, rather, his implied suggestion, that the coroner be notified of the matter. Will you see to it, Doctor?”

“Yes,” and the medical man looked grave. “Don’t be foolish, Mr. Loring, this is the only possible procedure. I will call Garrett now.”

He left the table, and going out to the hall sought a telephone.

Loring, looking injured, said petulantly:

“I do wish, my dear Hugh, that you had a little more backbone.”

“Sorry I can’t accommodate you, Troy. But the situation is too serious to talk lightly. I wish I knew a little more about Mrs. Abercrombie’s illness. Miss Mercer, can you tell me just how long she had been feeling indisposed?”

“No, sir,” and Miss Mercer patted her smooth and sleek red hair, brushing back its already immaculate sheen.

It was plain to be seen that left to itself her hair would curl, but apparently she did not desire it to, for she was eternally smoothing it back. A good-looking face was Miss Mercer’s—regular, well-cut features and a little air of disdain that sat well on her. The bluest of blue eyes and a rather large but finely shaped mouth above a chin that bespoke determination and indomitable perseverance.

“I know only what I chanced to observe,” Miss Mercer resumed, seeming to feel that she had been unnecessarily curt. “Mrs. Abercrombie had planned some work for me to do last Friday morning. But when the time came, she said she was not feeling well and the work must be postponed. It has never been taken up, for each day, after the mail was attended to, Mrs. Abercrombie felt too ill to do more.”

“But why wasn’t I told? Why didn’t I know of this?” said Abercrombie, looking surprised.

“Are you sure you didn’t?” put in Troy Loring with a quizzical smile.

“Just what do you mean by that?” returned Hugh quietly, but with a steady gaze at the speaker.

“Nothing much. Only if your wife was so ill that she had to put off her social secretary for two or three days, it would seem she was ill enough to attract your attention.”

“Yes, it would seem so,” and Hugh continued to look at him.

“Unless, that is, your attention was centred elsewhere,” Loring went on.

Miss Mercer caught her breath at this, and Maisie, rising, went round and took a seat at her father’s side.

But Hugh Abercrombie only said, with a calm face and in even tones, “Yes, unless my attention was centred elsewhere.”

But he continued to look at Loring, and at last Troy’s eyes fell and he turned to Miss Mercer, saying, “Do ring for some hot coffee. Maisie has deserted her post at the head of the table.”

And then Dr. Garth came back.

“The coroner will arrive soon,” he said in a strained sort of voice. “And headquarters is sending men. I think I need not tell you that the line of least resistance will be best for all concerned. Nothing must be touched in any of the rooms used by Mrs. Abercrombie. For the rest, merely answer their questions and follow their directions. I trust it can be adjudged an accident, and that a half hour will see it all finished.”

“You’ll stay here, Garth?” asked Abercrombie.

“I can’t very well, as I have a serious consultation on. But they know where to find me and probably they won’t need me at present. I’ll look in here as soon as I am at leisure.”