Chapter Forty Six.
“His wife!”
The words kept repeating themselves in Pierce Leigh’s brain like the beating of some artery charged to bursting, and the agony seemed greater than he could bear; while the revelation which had been so briefly made told of misery and a terrible despair which had driven the woman he loved to this desperate act. But for one thought he would have rushed madly away to try and forget everything by a similar act, for the means were at home, ready to his hand, his suffering being more than he could bear.
But there was that thought; she was in peril of her life, and the husband had flown unconsciously to him for help. He might be able to save her—make her owe that life to him—and this thought fought against his weakness, and for the time being made him strong enough to follow Garstang to the library door, just as poor Becky darted away and disappeared through the doorway leading to the basement.
As Leigh entered and saw Kate lying motionless upon the sofa, with the housekeeper kneeling by her side, a pang shot through him which seemed to cleave his heart; then as it passed away he was the calm stern physician once more.
“You had better go, sir,” he said sharply, “and leave me with the nurse.”
“No: do your work,” said Garstang harshly; “I stay here.”
Leigh made no answer, but took the housekeeper’s place, to examine the sufferer’s dilated pupils and test the pulsation, and then he turned quickly to Garstang.
“Where are the bottle and glass?” he said sharply.
“What bottle—what glass?” replied Garstang, taken by surprise.
“The symptoms seem to accord with what you say, but I want to make perfectly sure. Where is the drug she took?”
“Oh, it was in the tea, sir, there,” cried the housekeeper.
Garstang turned upon her with a savage gesture, and Leigh saw it. His suspicions were raised.
“Here, sir,” said the woman, pointing to the pot.
“Oh yes,” said Garstang hurriedly: “she took it in her tea.”
“She did not, sir!” cried the woman desperately.
“Hold your tongue!” roared Garstang.
“I won’t, doctor, if I die for it,” cried the woman. “He drugged her, poor dear. I was obliged to do as he said.”
“The woman’s mad,” cried Garstang. “Go on with your work.”
A savage instinct seemed to drive Leigh, on hearing this, to bound at Garstang, seize him by the throat and strangle him; but a glance at Kate checked it, and the physician regained the ascendancy.
He poured a little of the tea into a clean cup, smelt, tasted, and spat it out.
“Quite right,” he said firmly. “Don’t let that tea-pot be touched again.”
Garstang winced, for the words were to him charged with death, a trial for murder, and the silent evidence of the crime.
“Here, you help me,” said Leigh, quickly; and he rinsed out the cup with water from the urn, poured a couple of teaspoonfuls from a bottle into the cup, and kneeling by the couch while the housekeeper held the insensible girl’s head, tried to insert the spoon between the closely set teeth.
The effort was vain, and he was forced to trickle the antidote he tried to administer through the teeth, but there was no effort made to swallow; the insensibility was too deep.
“Better?” said Garstang, after watching the doctor’s efforts to revive his patient for quite half an hour.
“Better?” he said, fiercely. “Can you not see, man, that she is steadily passing away?”
“No, no, she seems calmer, and more like one asleep. Oh, persevere, doctor!”
“I want help here—the counsel and advice of the best man you can get. Send instantly for Sir Edward Lacey, Harley Street.”
“No,” said Garstang, frowning darkly. “You seem an able practitioner. It is a matter of time for the effects of the potent drug to die out, is it not?”
“Yes, of course; but I fear the worst.”
“Go on with what you are doing, doctor; I have faith in you.”
At that moment Leigh felt that nothing more could be done—that nature was the great physician; and he once more knelt down by the side of the couch for a time, while a terrible silence seemed to have fallen on the place, even the housekeeper looking now as if she were turned to stone, and dared not move her lips as she intently watched the calm white face upon the pillow.
“I can do no more,” said Leigh at last, in a hoarse whisper. “God help me! How weak and helpless one feels at a time like this!”
The words came involuntarily from his lips, for at that moment he seemed to be alone with the sufferer, his patient once again, whose life he would have given his own to save.
“Oh, come, come, doctor!” said Garstang, breaking in harshly upon the terrible stillness, and there was a forced gaiety in his tone. “It was a little sleeping draught; surely the effects will soon pass off. You are taking too serious a view of the case.”
“I take the view of it, sir,” said Leigh, gravely, as he bent lower over the marble face before him, fighting hard to control the wild desire to press his lips to the temple where an artery throbbed, “I take the view given to us by experience. You had better send for further help at once.”
“No, no. It is only making an expose, where none is necessary. I will not believe that she is so bad. You medical men are so prone to magnify symptoms.”
“Indeed?” said Leigh, who dared not look at the speaker, but bent once more over his patient. “You came and told me that your wife was dying.”
“His wife, sir?” cried the housekeeper, indignantly. “It’s a wicked lie!”
Garstang turned savagely upon the woman, but he had to face Leigh, who sprang to his feet with a wild exaltation making every pulse throb and thrill.
“Not his wife!” he cried fiercely.
“No, sir, and never would be.”
“Curse you!” roared Garstang, making at her; but Leigh thrust him back.
“Then there has been foul play here.”
“How dare you?” cried Garstang. “I called you in to—But go on with your work, sir. Can you not see that the woman drinks?—she is mad drunk now. Hysterical, and does not know what she is saying. The lady is my wife, and I insist upon your attending to your professional duties or leaving the house. Is this the conduct of a physician?”
“It is the conduct of a man, sir, who finds himself face to face with a scoundrel.”
“You insolent hound!”
“John Garstang—”
“John Garstang!”
“Yes, John Garstang; you see I know you! It is true then that you have abducted this lady, or lured her into this place, where you have kept her secluded from her friends. There is no need to ask the reason. I can guess that.”
“You—you—” cried Garstang, ghastly now in his surprise. “Who are you that you dare to speak to me like this?”
“I, sir, am the physician you called in to see his old patient, dying, I fear, from the effects of the drug you have administered,” said Leigh, with unnatural calmness; “the man whose instinct tempts him to try and crush out your wretched life as he would that of some noxious beast. But we have laws, and whatever the result is here, my duty is to hand you over to the police.”
“Oh, doctor! doctor!” cried the woman wildly, from behind the couch. “Quick, quick! Look! Oh, my poor, poor child!”
Leigh sprang back to the couch and fell upon his knees, for a violent twitching had convulsed the girl’s motionless form.
Garstang, his face wild with fear, stood gazing down over the doctor’s shoulder, and then strode quickly to the back of the library, bent over a table, and took something from a drawer, before striding back, to stand looking on, trembling violently now, as he witnessed the strange convulsions, which gradually died out, and a low gasping sound escaped the sufferer’s lips.
Garstang drew a long, deep breath, turned quickly, and made for the door; but as he reached it Leigh’s hand was upon his collar, and he was swung violently round and back into the room.
He nearly fell, but recovered himself, and stood with his hand in his breast.
“Stand away from that door,” he cried.
“To let you escape?” said Leigh, firmly. “No; whether that convulsion means death or life to your victim, sir, you are my prisoner till the police are here. You—woman, go to the door, and send for or fetch the police.”
The housekeeper started forward, but with one heavy swing of the arm Garstang sent her staggering back, and then approached Leigh slowly, with a half-crouching movement, like some beast about to spring.
“Stand away from that door, and let me pass,” he said, huskily.
“Go back and sit down in that chair,” said Leigh sternly; and he now stepped slowly and watchfully toward him.
“Stand away from that door,” said Garstang again.
“Hah!” ejaculated Leigh, as he caught a glimpse of something in the man’s hand; and he sprang at him to dash it aside, when there was a flash, a loud report, and as a puff of smoke was driven in his face, Leigh spun round suddenly, and fell half across the farther table with a heavy thud.
At the same moment, Garstang thrust a pistol into his breast, darted to and flung open the door, to run right into the hall, where he was seized by a man, and a tremendous struggle ensued, Garstang striving fiercely to escape, his adversary to force him back toward the staircase; chairs were driven here and there, one of the marble statues fell with a crash, and twice over Garstang nearly shook his opponent off.
But he was wrestling with a younger man, who was tough, wiry, and in good training, while, in spite of the desperate strength given for the moment by fear, Garstang was portly, and his breath came and went in gasps.
“Here, you girl, open the door; call help—can’t hold him!” came in gasps.
A low wailing sound was the only response, and poor Becky, who was by the front door, with her face tied up, covered it entirely with her hands, and seemed ready to faint.
The struggle went on here and there, and once more there was the gleam of a pistol and a voice rang out:
“Ah! coward, fight fair.”
As utterance was given to these words the speaker made a desperate spring to try and catch the pistol, his weight driving Garstang back, whose heels caught against a heavy fragment of the broken piece of statuary, and its owner went down with the back of his head striking violently against another piece of the marble.
The next moment, fainting and exhausted, his adversary was seated on the fallen man’s chest, wresting the pistol from his grasp.
“Thought he’d done me. Here, you’re a pretty sort of a one, you are! Why didn’t you call the police?”
“Oh, I dursen’t! I dursen’t!” sobbed Becky.
“You dursen’t, you dursen’t!” grumbled the speaker. “Hi! help, somebody! Hi, Kate! are you in there? What, Doctor! Then you’ve got here, after all. I did go to your house.”
For Pierce Leigh suddenly appeared at the library door, where he stood, supporting himself by the side.