LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."
CHAPTER VII.THE COBWEBBED JAR.
What was now to be done? How were they to set about fathoming—as Mr. Stephen Grey suggested—this dreadful business? It was so shrouded in mystery! The poor form, calm and still now, lay upon the bed, and the wondering gentlemen stood around it. Medical men come in contact with strange phases of human life, as exhibited in man’s passage from the cradle to the grave, but this little knot of the brethren could only acknowledge to themselves, that of all strange occurrences which had ever passed under their notice, this one appeared to be about the strangest.
Mr. Carlton suddenly left his place from the far side of the bed, held the door open, and motioned the two women from the room. He then in like manner motioned young Frederick Grey. But the boy, who was standing against the wall, close to it, did not stir in answer.
“I’d rather stay in, Mr. Carlton,” he fearlessly said. “Is there any reason why I may not?”
Mr. Carlton hesitated. The words of the boy, spoken out so boldly, had caused the three gentlemen near the bed to look round. Mr. Carlton evidently did wish him to be outside the room, but he as evidently did not see his way quite clear to get him there.
“Is he discreet?” he asked, looking to the two brothers for an answer.
“Perfectly so,” replied Mr. John Grey, who did not himself see any reason why his nephew should be expelled.
Mr. Carlton closed the door and returned to the group. “Mr. Stephen Grey has suggested a doubt of foul play,” he began; “but is it possible that there can be any feasible grounds for it? I ask, gentlemen, because you are all better acquainted with these two women than I am. If either, or both of them———"
“Goodness, man!” interrupted Mr. Stephen Grey, in his impulsive fashion, “you can’t suppose I suspect Mother Pepperfly or the old widow! Pepperfly has her besetting sin, drink; and the widow is a foolish, timorous body; but they’d no more commit murder than you or I would commit it. What could you be thinking of, Mr. Carlton?”
“Pardon me,” rejoined Mr. Carlton; “I merely drew the conclusion from your own remark. I’m sure I have no cause to cast a doubt on them, but there has been no one else about the lady.”
“If I understand Mr. Stephen Grey aright, he did not intend to cast suspicion upon any one,” interposed Mr. Lycett. “His remark arose simply from the want of being able to account for the mystery.”
“Precisely so,” assented Stephen Grey. “If my thoughts had a bent one way more than another, it was whether the medicine could have been exchanged or tampered with between my house and this.”
“It is not likely,” said Mr. Grey. “Dick carries out his medicines in a covered basket. But another idea has suggested itself to me. Stephen, you have seen more of this unfortunate young lady than any one present; I never set eyes on her until now, and I daresay you, Lycett, can say the same. Mr. Carlton here has seen her once only———"
“Twice,” interrupted Mr. Carlton. “Last night and this. I should not have come down to-night had I known the hour fixed for my meeting Mr. Stephen Grey here had so long passed. But I was with patients on the Rise, and the time slipped by unheeded.”
“At any rate you have not seen much of her,” rejoined Mr. John Grey. “My brother Stephen has, comparatively speaking; and what I was about to ask him was this: whether it is at all probable that she herself added the poison to the draught. Was she in low spirits, Stephen?”
“Not in the least,” returned Stephen Grey. “She has been as gay and cheerful as a person can be. Besides, she could not have added anything to the draught without being seen by the nurse; and we have her testimony that it was in her possession in the other room until the moment when she administered it.”
“Another thing,” observed Mr. Carlton; “if the poison was added to the draught after it came here, how could it have smelt of it on its arrival?”
“There lies the greatest enigma of all—why the draught should smell of poison when it got here,” cried Stephen Grey.
“Nay,” dissented his brother; there’s no wonder at its smelling of poison if the poison was in it; the mystery is, how and where it got into it. In my opinion, setting aside her tragical end, there is a great deal of mystery in the affair altogether. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why did she come here, a stranger to the place and to everybody in it? And what a young thing she appears to be!”
