CHAPTER XX.
The arrival of Geoffery at this critical moment was accidental. He had scarcely time to gather from the appearance of Willoughby, and the incoherent expressions of Alfred, who seemed at one moment half wild, the next stupified by his grief, a somewhat confused notion of what had occurred, when his entrance was followed by that of Doctor Harman.
The patient, however, being already quite dead, there remained nothing for the Doctor to do, but pronounce his opinion as to the probable cause of death, founded on the appearance of the body, and the symptoms of the attack, as described by those who had been present. This he did by expressing a suspicion that Sir Willoughby had swallowed poison, although he granted that similar symptoms might have been occasioned by a fit of apoplexy, and that such a fit might have had a fatal termination. To all Alfred's anxious inquiries if there was nothing that could be done, he replied decidedly that all was over. Alfred now stood for a considerable time with his arms folded, looking on his brother with a sort of mute despair, when a strange unbidden vision of the appearance which the water in Willoughby's goblet had presented, occurred to his memory. He turned towards the table on which the glasses still remained, and in a species of day-dream, lifted and examined that from which Willoughby had drunk. He perceived in the bottom a considerable quantity of whitish powder. Unfit for cool calculation, as were the powers of his mind at the moment, this, with all the circumstances, seemed to place it beyond a doubt, that Willoughby had taken the poison at the very time he had commented on the want of clearness of the water into which he was pouring his wine. With this conviction came again vague thoughts, as before, of expediency of concealing the fact of the suicide. Too wretched, however, to remember how strange his conduct, if not explained, must appear to those present, he poured some water into the glass, and was about to empty the same into a basin on the table.
"Should not the contents of that glass be preserved?" said Geoffery, aside to the Doctor.
"Undoubtedly!" replied the tatler, darting forward, and seizing the visibly trembling hand of Alfred.
"This may be of consequence, my dear sir," he said, mildly.
Alfred, as though he had been a detected culprit, who had not a word to plead in his own excuse, yielded without a comment, not only his whole attention, but his whole heart and soul, being at the instant recalled to the sofa, whence some of the servants were about to remove the remains of Willoughby, for the purpose of conveying them to a bedchamber. But for this circumstance, he would, in all probability, have explained his motives to the Doctor. Alfred now assisted the servants with as much tender solicitude, as though the unconscious object of his care were still capable of distinguishing affection's gentle hand, from all the aid that may be bought or sold. The Doctor and Geoffery had also approached the sofa, on the impulse of the moment, ready to give their assistance had it been required; it was not required, however, and they stood to let the melancholy procession pass. While doing so, their eyes naturally rested on the interesting figure of Alfred, bending over his poor brother, and consequently it so happened that while he was in the act of stooping, accompanied with some share of exertion, in the performance of his pious task, they both distinctly saw the piece of paper he had so lately placed within the breast of his waistcoat, glide out from thence, and fall to the ground. Geoffery perceived the Doctor's eye follow it; he kept his own upon it, for there was sufficient visible of the conspicuous letters with which it was marked, to draw attention. When all but the Doctor and himself had quitted the apartment, he pointed at it. The large characters, as we have already particularly remarked, being, though strongly done with a pen, those of print, were so distinct, that they were legible, even at the distance where the paper lay on the floor. After both gentlemen had stood looking down upon it for a considerable time, Geoffery said, at length,
"Will you have the goodness, Doctor, to pick up that paper?" The Doctor did so, though not without hesitation.
"I would not have touched it myself for the world!" continued Geoffery, as soon as it was in the Doctor's hand. "You saw whence it fell?" he proceeded. The Doctor was gazing in horror, one after another, at the letters which spell the word poison, and carefully collecting together a minute particle or two of powder, which still remained in some yet unfolded crevices of the crumpled paper: