An Eye for an Eye

by William Le Queux

Both Boyd and myself stood breathless at these startling revelations.

“When I came to myself,” she continued, “I was back in Madame’s house next door. She had forced some liquid between my lips, and was injecting some other fluid into my arms with a hypodermic syringe. I was amazed, too, to notice that she had changed her dress, assumed a grey wig, and wore a cap with bright ribbons, in most marvellous imitation of an old lady. While I thus remained on the couch in the back sitting-room, dazed and only half conscious, there came a loud ring at the door and I overheard a police-officer making inquiries of ‘Mrs Luff’ regarding the people next door. Then I knew that Kerr’s body had been discovered, and that Madame was personating the previous occupier of that house. I was not, however, aware at that time of how Hartmann had called upon Madame and had carried Mrs Kerr through a small breach made in the fencing of the garden at the rear into her own house, or that I had been brought back by the same way into ours. Madame, when all was clear, went that night down to The Hollies, leaving me alone with the servants, who, having apparently been sent out upon errands during the events described, knew nothing. I therefore kept my own counsel, and recollecting having overheard Blain, when taking leave of Madame on his last visit, refer to an appointment he had with Hartmann in St. James’s Park, I resolved also to keep it. I did, but instead of meeting him,” she said, addressing me, “I met you.”

“I recollect the meeting well,” I answered. “Continue.”

“Well, I returned to The Hollies, but it was evident from Madame’s manner that she was in deadly fear. I was not, of course, aware of what had actually occurred, although I entertained the horrible suspicion that both my friends had fallen victims. She took me partly into her confidence later that day, for the police, she said, would discover an ‘awkward accident’ next door, and that she must not be seen and recognised as Mrs Luff. She told me that, in order to avoid any unpleasant inquiries, Hartmann had entered the place before the police, and had carried away every scrap of anything that could lead to their identity, and as I knew from Mr Kerr’s previous conversation that all his letters were addressed to Drummond’s Bank, it seemed improbable that the bodies would be identified. ‘It’s a very serious matter for us,’ Madame said to me earnestly. ‘Therefore say nothing, either to Mrs Blain or Mary.’ By that, and other subsequent circumstances, I knew that both were in ignorance. They had no hand whatever in the ghastly affair, for after the quarrel they never again met Madame.

“Weeks went by,” she continued, after a pause. “I still remained on friendly terms with Mrs Blain and her daughter, knowing them to be innocent. Madame never went out, but once or twice Hartmann visited her. Whenever he did so, high words usually arose, regarding money, it seemed, and once Blain, who by his family was supposed to be still in Paris, came late at night, ill-dressed and dirty. It was then that I first learnt the motive for the ingenious conspiracy. Blain seemed in abject fear that the police had somehow established the identity of the dead man. If so, he said, all had been futile. Hartmann, it appeared, had a daughter whom I had never seen, and it was through her that the activity of the police had been ascertained.” Then, turning her eyes again to me with an undisguised love-look, Eva exclaimed, “The tortures of conscience which I suffered through those summer days when you declared your love are known to God alone. My position was a terrible one, for I saw that by preserving this secret I had been an accessory to a most foul and cowardly crime, and I held back from your embrace, knowing that one day ere long I should be arrested and brought to punishment. I lived on, my heart gripped by that awful sin in which I had been unwittingly implicated. Then one day you called at The Hollies and I gave you some wine from a fresh bottle which I opened myself. It was wine which Madame had specially ordered from the stores on my account because the doctor had prescribed port for me. That wine was poisoned, and you narrowly escaped death. The fatal draught was intended for me! Hartmann and Madame Damant had, indeed, brought poisoning to a fine art.”

“Was poison never in your possession?” inquired Boyd gravely.

“Yes,” she responded without a second’s hesitation. “After the affair at Phillimore Place I discovered Hartmann’s address, and from a paper in Madame’s jewel-cabinet I copied some strange name—Latin, I think—which I knew related to one of the secret poisons. Then, in order to satisfy myself as to Hartmann’s position, I went to him to obtain some. My idea was that the information I could thus obtain would be of use if I were arrested. I found that under the name of Morris Lowry he had for years kept a herbalist’s shop near the Elephant and Castle. Fortunately, by reason of my veil, he did not recognise me, and after some haggling gave me some greyish powder in a small wooden box securely sealed. I discovered afterwards that his daughter was in love with your friend Mr Cleugh, therefore it must have been through the latter that the old man became aware of the movements of the police.”

“Yes,” said Lily simply, “it was.” The revelation held her dumbfounded.

“Then Hartmann and Lowry were actually one and the same?” I observed, bewildered.

“Certainly,” Eva answered, all her soul in her eyes. “But there was yet a further curious incident. A few days after you had taken that fatal draught from my hand, Madame, in sudden anger, discharged all three servants. Then, when they had gone, she had a small square hole about six inches wide cut in the wall of one of the rooms—a bathroom adjoining my bedroom—close down to the floor, and before it was fitted a sliding panel in the wainscoting. Afterwards she had a strong iron bar placed upon the door, and the whole re-painted and grained. Then, having furnished the place roughly as a living-room, there came secretly late one night the wretched poisoner Hartmann, alias Professor Douglas Dawson, flying from the police for some previous offence, as I afterwards discovered. Some German police-agents had got wind of his whereabouts. He entered that room, and when he was inside Madame fetched an apparatus I had never seen before, a kind of punch, and with it placed a leaden seal upon the door. Fresh servants were at once engaged, and these were told that inside that room was a quantity of antique furniture belonging to a friend who had gone abroad. Meanwhile Madame herself supplied the fugitive with food, cooked and uncooked, drink and books, and for a fortnight or so he lived there in secret. I held him in loathing and in hatred, yet I dared not utter a word or even flee from that house of terror, knowing well that in such case I, too, would quickly fall a victim to the machinations of what seemed a widespread conspiracy. I was in possession of their secret, and might turn informer. That was the reason those half-dozen bottles of port wine had been so generously given to me by my ingenious employer. I dared scarcely to eat or drink, and often slipped out secretly and bought cooked meat and bread to satisfy my hunger. One day, when Madame had ventured up to London, I chanced to enter the bedroom I had previously occupied. The panel was cautiously pushed back, and the man within asked for something to drink. I answered that I only had some port, all the rest being locked up. ‘Then give me that,’ he said. I hesitated, then in sudden desperation I went to the cupboard where the wine was and handed him an unopened bottle. He gave a grunt of satisfaction, and the panel closed. That wine, Frank,” she added, a deathlike pallor on her cheeks, “was the same as that of which you partook. Madame had prepared it with her little syringe as she had done the Benedictine.”