Mrs. Evitt’s thin fingers suddenly fastened like claws upon the surgeon’s wrist.
‘I want to speak to you,’ she whispered, ‘by-and-by, when Jemima’s gone down to her supper. I can’t keep it any longer. It’s preying on my vitals.’
The delirium was evidently increasing, thought Gerard. There was generally this exacerbation of the fever at nightfall.
‘What is it you can’t keep?’ he asked soothingly. ‘Is there anything that worries you?’
‘Wait till Jemima has gone down,’ whispered the invalid.
‘I’ll come up and have a look at you between ten and eleven,’ said Gerard, aloud, rising to go. ‘I’ve a lot of reading to get through this evening.’
He went down to his books and his tranquil solitude, pondering upon Mrs. Evitt’s speech and manner. No, it was not delirium. The woman’s words were too consecutive for delirium; her manner was excited, but not wild. There was evidently something on her mind—something connected with La Chicot’s murder.
Great Heaven, could this feeble old woman be the assassin? Could those withered old hands have inflicted that mortal gash? No, the idea was not to be entertained for a moment. Yet, stranger things have been since the world began. Crime, like madness, might give a factitious strength to feeble hands. La Chicot might have had money—jewels—hidden wealth of some kind, of which the secret was known to her landlady, and, tempted by direst poverty, this wretched woman might——! The thought was too horrible. It took possession of George Gerard’s brain like a nightmare. Vainly did he endeavour to beguile his mind by the study of an interesting treatise on dry-rot in the metatarsal bone. His thoughts were with that feeble old woman upstairs, whose skinny hand, just now, had set him thinking of the witches in Macbeth.
He listened for Jemima’s clumping footfall going downstairs. It came at last, and he knew that the girl was gone to her meagre supper, and the coast was clear for Mrs. Evitt’s revelation. He shut his book, and went quietly upstairs. Never until now had George Gerard known the meaning of fear; but it was with actual fear that he entered Mrs. Evitt’s room, dreading the discovery he was going to make.
He was startled at finding the invalid risen, and with her dingy black stuff gown drawn on over her night-gear.