The evidence of the night-nurse bears with terrible weight upon this point. Her orders are strict, on no account to close her eyes. Her hours of watch are short, and the repose of the entire day leaves her without the slightest cause for unusual drowsiness. The testimonials of twenty years bear unvarying witness to her care and trustworthiness. Yet every alternate Saturday for eight or ten, or it may even have been nearly twelve weeks, at one regular hour she falls asleep. It is in vain that she watches and fights against it—in vain even that, suspecting "some trick" she on one occasion abstains entirely from food, and drinks nothing but that peculiarly wakeful decoction, strong green tea. On every other night she keeps awake with ease, but surely as the fatal Saturday comes round she again succumbs, and surely as sleep steals over her is it followed by a fresh attack of the symptoms we so plainly recognise. She cannot in any way account for such an extraordinary fatality. She is positive that such a thing never happened to her before. We also are at an equal loss. We can but pause upon the reflection that twice before the periodic drowsiness began, a similarly irresistible sleep had been induced by the so-called mesmeric powers of the Baron himself. And then we pass naturally to her who had been for years habituated to such control, and we cannot but call to mind the statement of Mr. Hands—"I have often willed her (S. Parsons) to go into a dark room and pick up a pin, or some article equally minute."
And then we again remember the watching shadow on the wall.
And yet, after all, at what have we arrived? Grant that the Baron knew the nature of his wife's errand in the laboratory; that the singular power—call it what we will—by which he had before in jest compelled the nurse to sleep, was really employed in enabling the somnambulist to elude her watch. Grant even that the pretensions of the mesmerist are true, and that it was in obedience to his direct will that Madame R** acted as she did, we are no nearer a solution than before.
It was not the Baron's interest that his wife should die.
We must then seek further afield for any explanation of this terrible enigma. Let us see how it fared with Mrs. Anderton while these events were passing at her sister's house.
And here we seem to have another instance of the manner in which the wisest precautions so often turn against those by whom they are taken III. and V.. Admitting that the illness of Madame R** was really caused by criminal means, nothing could be wiser than the precaution which selected for their first essay a night on which they could be tried without fear of observation. Yet this very circumstance enables us to fix a date of the last importance, which without it must have remained uncertain. Madame R**, then, was taken ill on Saturday, the 5th April. On that very night—at, as nearly as can be ascertained, the very same hour, Mrs. Anderton was unaccountably seized with an illness in all respects resembling hers. Like hers, too, the attacks returned at fortnightly intervals: For a few days, on the Baron's advice, a particular medicine is given, and at first with apparently good effect. At the same date the diary of Dr. Marsden shows a similar amelioration of symptoms in the case of Madame R**. In both cases the amendment is but short, and the disease again pursues its course. The result in both is utter exhaustion. In the case of Madame R** reducing the sufferer to death's door; in the weaker constitution of her sister terminating in death. Examination is made. The appearances of the body, no less than the symptoms exhibited in life, are all those of antimonial poisoning. No antimony is, however, found; and from this and other circumstances, results a verdict of "Natural Death." On the 12th October, then, Mrs. Anderton's story ends.
From that time dates the recovery of Madame R**.
The first life is now removed from between Baron R** and the full sum of 50,000l VI.. Let us examine briefly the circumstances attending the lapse of the second. Here again events each in itself quite simple and natural, combine to form a story fraught with terrible suspicion. I have alluded to the inquest which followed on the death of Mrs. Anderton. That inquiry originated in circumstances which cast upon her husband the entire suspicion of her murder. To whose agency, whether direct or indirect, voluntary or involuntary, is an after question, may every one of these circumstances be traced? Mr. Anderton insists on being the only one from whom the patient shall receive either medicine or food. It is the Baron who applauds and encourages a line of conduct diametrically opposed to his own, and tending more than any other circumstance to fix suspicion on his friend. A remedy is suggested, the recommending of which points strongly to the idea of poison, and it is from the Baron that the suggestion comes. Two papers are found, the one bearing in part the other in full, the name of the poison suspected to have been used. The first of these is brought to light by the Baron himself,— the second is found in a place where he has just been, and by a person whom he has himself despatched to search there for something else. He draws continual attention to that point of exclusive attendance from which suspicion chiefly springs. His replies to Dr. Dodsworth respecting the recommendation of the antimonial antidote are so given as to confirm the worst interpretation to which it had given rise, and even when, on the discovery of the second paper, he advises the nurse that it should be destroyed, he does so in a manner that ensures not only its preservation but its immediate employment in the manner most dangerous to his friend.
The evidence fails. What is the Baron's connection with the catastrophe that follows? He knows well the accused man's nervous anxiety for his own good name. He procures, on the ground of his friendly anxiety, the earliest intelligence of his friend's probable acquittal. He enters that friend's room to acquaint him with the good news. Returning he takes measures to secure the prisoner throughout the night from interruption or interference. In the morning Mr. Anderton is a corpse, and on his pillow is found the phial in which the poison had been contained, and a written statement that the desperate step had been taken in despair of an acquittal. By what marvellous accident was the hopeful news of the chemical investigation thus misinterpreted? By what negligence or connivance was the fatal drug placed within his reach? One thing only we know—
It was the Baron who conveyed the news. It was from his pocket medicine case, left by him within the sick man's reach, that the poison came.