V.
The old bald-headed lawyer had gone down to the hotel smoking-saloon for a little diversion, and we faced each other in the drawing-room—Miss Russell and I. The glass was still in my hand.
“And the new doctor is so-so, eh?” I remarked.
“What do you mean?” she faltered.
“I think you know what I mean,” I retorted. “I need only tell you that by a sheer chance I stumbled upon your atrocious plot—the plot of that scoundrel upstairs. All you had to do was to exchange the bottles, and administer pure trinitrin instead of my prescribed solution of it, and Miss Spanton would be dead in half an hour. The three millions would go to the Australian cousin, and you would doubtless have your reward—say, a cool hundred thousand, or perhaps marriage. And you were about to give the poison when I stopped you.”
“I was not!” she cried. And she fell into a chair, and hid her face in her hands, and then looked, as it were longingly, towards the bedroom.
“Miss Spanton is in no danger,” I said sneeringly. “She will be quite well to-morrow. So you were not going to give the poison, after all?” I laughed.
“I beg you to listen, doctor,” she said at length, standing up. “I am in a most invidious position. Nevertheless, I think I can convince you that your suspicions against me are unfounded.”
I laughed again. But secretly I admired her for acting the part so well.
“Doubtless!” I interjected sarcastically, in the pause.
“The man upstairs is Samuel Grist, supposed to be in Australia. It is four months ago since I, who am Adelaide Spanton’s sole friend, discovered that he was scheming her death. The skill of his methods appalled me. There was nothing to put before the police, and yet I had a horrible fear of the worst. I felt that he would stop at nothing—absolutely at nothing. I felt that, if we ran away, he would follow us. I had a presentiment that he would infallibly succeed, and I was haunted by it day and night. Then an idea occurred to me—I would pretend to be his accomplice. And I saw suddenly that that was the surest way—the sole way, of defeating him. I approached him and he accepted the bait. I carried out all his instructions, except the fatal instructions. It is by his orders, and for his purposes, that we are staying in this hotel. Heavens! To make certain of saving my darling Adelaide, I have even gone through the farce of promising to marry him!”
“And do you seriously expect me to believe this?” I asked coldly.
“Should I have had the solicitor here?” she demanded, “if I had really meant—meant to——”
She sobbed momentarily, and then regained control of herself.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but it occurs to me that the brain that was capable of deliberately arranging a murder to take place in the presence of the doctor might have some hidden purpose in securing also the presence of the solicitor at the performance.”
“Mr. Grist is unaware that the solicitor is here. He has been informed that Mr. Dancer is my uncle, and favourable to the—to the——” she stopped, apparently overcome.
“Oh, indeed!” I ejaculated, adding: “And after all you did not mean to administer this poison! I suppose you meant to withdraw the glass at the last instant?”
“It is not poison,” she replied.
“Not poison?”
“No. I did not exchange the bottles. I only pretended to.”
“There seems to have been a good deal of pretending,” I observed. “By the way, may I ask why you were giving this stuff, whether it is poison or not, to my patient? I do not recollect that I ordered a second dose.”
“For the same reason that I pretended to change the bottle. For the benefit of the maid whom we saw just now in the bedroom.”
“And why for the benefit of the maid?”
“Because I found out this morning that she is in the pay of Grist. That discovery accounts for my nervousness to-night about Adelaide. By this time the maid has probably told Mr. Grist what has taken place, and, and—I shall rely on your help if anything should happen, doctor. Surely, surely, you believe me?”
“I regret to say, madam,” I answered, “that I find myself unable to believe you at present. But there is a simple way of giving credence to your story. You state that you did not exchange the bottles. This liquid, then, is the medicine prescribed by me, and it is harmless. Oblige me by drinking it.”
And I held the glass towards her.
She took it.
“Fool!” I said to myself, as soon as her fingers had grasped it. “She will drop it on the floor, and an invaluable piece of evidence will be destroyed.”
But she did not drop it on the floor. She drank it at one gulp, and looked me in the eyes, and murmured, “Now do you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said. And I did.
At the same moment her face changed colour, and she sank to the ground. “What have I drunk?” she moaned. The glass rolled on the carpet, unbroken.
Miss Russell had in fact drunk a full dose of pure trinitrin. I recognised all the symptoms at once. I rang for assistance. I got a stomach pump. I got ice, and sent for ergot and for atropine. I injected six minims of the Injectis Ergotini Hypodermica. I despaired of saving her; but I saved her, after four injections. I need not describe to you all the details. Let it suffice that she recovered.
“Then you did exchange the bottles?” I could not help putting this question to her as soon as she was in a fit state to hear it.
“I swear to you that I had not meant to,” she whispered. “In my nervousness I must have confused them. You have saved Adelaide’s life.”
“I have saved yours, anyway,” I said.
“But you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said; and the curious thing is that I did believe her. I was convinced, and I am convinced, that she did not mean to exchange the bottles.
“Listen!” she exclaimed. We could hear Big Ben striking twelve.
“Midnight,” I said.
She clutched my hand with a swift movement. “Go and see that my Adelaide lives,” she cried almost hysterically.
I opened the door between the two rooms and went into the sleeping chamber.
“Miss Spanton is dozing quietly,” I said, on my return.
“Thank God!” Miss Russell murmured. And then old bald-headed Mr. Dancer came into the room, blandly unconscious of all that had passed during his sojourn in the smoking saloon.
When I left the precincts of the Grand Babylon at one o’clock, the guests were beginning to leave the Gold Rooms, and the great courtyard was a scene of flashing lights, and champing horses, and pretty laughing women.
“What a queer place a hotel is!” I thought.
Neither Mr. Grist nor the mysterious maid was seen again in London. Possibly they consoled each other. The beautiful Adelaide Spanton—under my care, ahem!—is completely restored to health.
Yes, I am going to marry her. No, not the beautiful Adelaide, you duffers—besides she is too young for my middle age—but Miss Russell. Her Christian name is Ethel. Do you not like it? As for the beautiful Adelaide, there is now a viscount in the case.