The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

LII

During the days which now passed I talked to no one, but I read with avidity what was said in the various journals of the discovery of the will under the bizarre circumstances I have already related, and consequently was quite aware that public opinion was as much divided over what bearing this latest phase had upon the main issue as it had been over the main issue itself and the various mystifying events attending it.

Gaining advocates in one quarter, I lost them in another and my heart frequently stood still with dismay as I realized the strength of the prejudice which shut me away from the sympathy and understanding of my fellow creatures.

I was waiting with all the courage possible for some strong and decisive move to be made by Edgar or his lawyers, when the news came that he was ill. Greatly distressed by this, I begged Mr. Jackson to procure for me such particulars as he could gather of the exact condition of things at Quenton Court. He did so and by evening I had learned that Edgar’s illness dated from the night of our finding the will. That an attempt had been made to keep this fact from the public, but it had gradually leaked out and with it the rumor that nobody but those in attendance on him had been allowed to enter his part of the house, though no mention of contagion had been made nor any signs perceived of its being apprehended. That Orpha was in great distress because she was included amongst those debarred from the sick room—so distressed that she braved the displeasure of doctor and nurse and crept up to his door only to hear him shouting in delirium. That some of the servants wanted to leave, not so much because the house seemed fated but because they had come to fear the woman Wealthy, who had changed very markedly during these days of anxious nursing. She could not be got to speak, hardly to eat. When she came down into the kitchen as she was obliged to do at times, it was not as in the old days when she brought with her cheer and pleasant fellowship to them all. She brought nothing now but silence and a face contorted from its usual kindly expression into one to frighten any but the most callous or the most ignorant.

For the last twenty-four hours Edgar had given signs of improvement, but Wealthy had looked worse. She seemed to dread the time when he would be out of her hands.

All this had come to Mr. Jackson from private sources, but he assured me that he had no reason to doubt its truth.

Troubled, and fearing I scarcely knew what, I had another of my sleepless nights. Nor was I quite myself all the next day till at nightfall I was called to the telephone and heard Orpha’s voice in anxious appeal begging me to come to her.

“Wealthy is so strange that we none of us know what to do with her. Edgar is better, but she won’t allow any of us in his room, though I think some one of us ought to see him. She says the doctor is on her side; that she is only fulfilling his orders, and I’m afraid this is so, for when I telephoned him an hour ago he told me not to worry, that in a few days we could see him, but that just now it was better for him to see nobody whose presence would remind him of his troubles. The doctor was very kind, but not quite natural—not quite like his old self, and—and I’m frightened. There is certainly something very wrong going on in this house; even the servants feel it, and say that the master ought to be here if only to get the truth out of Wealthy.”

The master! Dear heart, how little she knew! how little any of us knew how much we should have to go through before either Edgar or myself could assume that rôle. But I could assume that of her friend and protector, and so with a good conscience I promised to go to her at once.

But I would not do this without notifying the Inspector. A premonition that we were at a turn in the twisted path we were all treading which might offer me a problem which it would be beyond my powers to handle under present auspices, deterred me. So I telephoned to Headquarters that I was going to make a call at Quenton Court; after which, I proceeded through the well-known streets to the home of my heart and of Orpha.