Dr. Perry looked up, astonished. He was prepared for the most frantic ebullitions of wrath, for violence even; or for dull, stupid, blank silence. But this calm, quiet questioning of fact took him by surprise. He dropped his anxious look, and replied:
“It has been seen on the shelves by more than one of your servants. Your sister kept it with her medicines, and the druggist with whom you deal remembers selling it some time ago to a member of your family.”
“Which member? I don’t believe this story; I don’t believe any of your—” He was fast verging on violence now.
“You will have to, Arthur. Facts are facts, and we cannot go against them. The person who bought it was yourself. Perhaps you can recall the circumstance now.”
“I cannot.” He did not seem to be quite master of himself. “I don’t know half the things I do; at least, I didn’t use to. But what are you coming to? What’s in your mind, and what are your intentions? Something to shame us further, I’ve no doubt. You’re soft on Ranelagh and don’t care how I feel, or how Carmel will feel when she comes to herself—poor girl. Are you going to call it suicide? You can’t, with those marks on her throat.”
“We’re going to carry out our investigations to the full. We’re going to hold the autopsy, which we didn’t think necessary before. That’s why I am here, Arthur. I thought it your due to know our intentions in regard to this matter. If you wish to be present, you have only to say so; if you do not, you may trust me to remember that she was your father’s daughter, as well as my own highly esteemed friend.”
Shaken to the core, the young man sat down amid innumerable tokens of the two near, if not dear, ones just mentioned; and for a moment had nothing to say. Gone was his violence, gone his self-assertion, and his insolent, captious attitude towards his visitor. The net had been drawn too tightly, or the blow fallen too heavily. He was no longer a man struggling with his misery, but a boy on whom had fallen a man’s responsibilities, sufferings, and cares.
“My duty is here,” he said at last. “I cannot leave Carmel.”
“The autopsy will take place to-morrow. How is Carmel to-day?”
“No better.” The words came with a shudder. “Doctor, I’ve been a brute to you. I am a brute! I have misused my life and have no strength with which to meet trouble. What you propose to do with—with Adelaide is horrible to me. I didn’t love her much while she was living; I broke her heart and shamed her, from morning till night, every day of her life; but good-for-nothing as I am and good-for-nothing as I’ve always been, if I could save her body this last humiliation, I would willingly die right here and now, and be done with it. Must this autopsy take place?”