CHAPTER V
IN WHICH MY LOVE-AFFAIR IS EXPLAINED
W HEN I first started in practice, old friend, I made up my mind to pose as a ladies' man, and I certainly earned that reputation among my patients. As a matter of fact I have only once ever really made a fool of myself over a woman, and then unfortunately for her—as she died much earlier in life than appeared to be probable.
I will tell you about it, although I admit that it is a story of which I am not proud, and which I should have kept to myself if I had not decided to let you, old friend, know everything about my life.
I have told you how my marriage came about, and possibly you may have noticed in your many visits to my house at Okehampton that my wife and I were not what you call an affectionate couple. As a matter of fact my youthful infatuation for her wore off within the first year of our married life, and during the five years which this lasted our relations to each other were cold and frequently strained. She came to look upon me as a hard, calculating man-of-the-world, who had little affection to spare except upon himself, and I think that her very orthodox opinions of right and wrong ultimately made me look upon her as a narrow-minded and distinctly milk-and-water kind of person. Then, at the end of that time, she made a bosom friend of Estelle Martin—a woman slightly older than herself—and with this woman I fell desperately in love.
You will say after reading these papers: "How ridiculous! This man who was selfish to the bone; who stayed his hand at nothing; who killed without scruple, who robbed with joy, this blackguard d'Escombe to fall in love—bosh!"
But it was so. She was a very beautiful woman—stately and calm, with that red-brown hair beloved of the Venetian painters, and the violet eyes and perfect contour of face which you only find in Ireland. So I lost my head completely.
At first she hardly noticed me, although she was constantly in my house, but the time at last came, after I had exerted every effort, and played every card I knew, that she understood and responded.
I remember it so well.
That evening my wife had gone out visiting and was late in returning, and Estelle and I were sitting in the twilight, waiting. I was ablaze with longing for her, controlling myself with difficulty. She was speaking confidentially about her younger days, and then as she talked I put my hand on hers and she did not take it away. It was all done and over in a second; before I could think I was kissing her madly. I laugh at myself now, but I was in deadly earnest then. "You mustn't—oh! you really must not," I remember her saying, but she returned my kisses, and ten minutes after I left her crying bitterly, but she put on her hat and coat, and got away before my wife came back. We had many stolen meetings afterwards, but she was always blaming herself for her treachery to "Babs"—my wife's name with her intimates—and try as I would, and I think I was fairly persuasive, I could never make her really responsive, or even kiss me again.
"I will not be such a treacherous beast to her," she would say, "much as I love you, But—if only we had met before,"
Well, that's enough of my love-story, my friend; but you can see that I was in that frame of mind which stops at nothing. So at the very first opportunity I could get—it was a post-mortem—I made a virulent culture of some staphylococci, the germs which produce blood-poisoning, and a few days after my wife scratched her hand very badly with an unsuspected pin which lurked in one of her garments, with the result that in about ten days' time she was in bed, attended by a brother practitioner, and being nursed most assiduously by Estelle, who insisted, as she had had some training, on taking the place of a regular nurse.
"Poor dear little Babs," she said to me one night, as I sat brooding and wondering how things would turn out. "I think she is turning the corner. I am so glad!"
"Glad!" I muttered. "Glad! Estelle darling, come, let us abandon everything, and get away together—to America, Australia—where you will. I can't go on like this."
Like a silly fool I was quite prepared to give up everything—profession, honour, practice, home—if she would only come with me. But she looked at me with a half frightened air.
"I believe," she said in a low voice. "I really believe you would be glad if Babs didn't get better."
"And why not?" I whispered. "I want you, Estelle darling—only you!"
She shivered and drew away from me as she answered: "You will make me hate you, if you talk like that. How can you?" And she went to the sick-room without another word or look.
Well, I have to tell you now I've begun. My wife had to have three minor operations done for the poisoned arm and then began to improve, but slowly, and at the end of a month's illness she was just a shadow of herself, fragile to a degree, in just that condition which only required the smallest "fillip" to turn things the wrong way, and—well—it had to be done.
I wanted Estelle madly, frantically, and while my wife was alive this was impossible, so that night I added enough arsenic to a dose of her medicine to produce a sickness which I felt the invalid would not be likely to stand, and which is a common symptom in such cases as hers.
I felt a bit uncomfortable as I saw the thin, pallid-faced, golden-haired little woman lying in the bed.
"I think I'm getting better—I'm so sorry I've been such a worry to you, Archie. You'll forgive me, won't you, dear?" she half whispered.
"Yes, yes," I muttered, feeling an awful brute for the moment, but Estelle's face came into my mind—curse her—and I decided to carry the thing through.
"What horrid medicine the doctor has sent me," she continued. "I can still feel it burning."
"Oh, that will soon pass off," I answered with a laugh. "Don't get faddy about the physic, and now," I added, as I turned to leave her, "I'll get Miss Martin to come up." And another moment saw me out of that room, which had certainly somewhat jarred on my nerves.
I saw Estelle about two hours later, when she came to tell me that my wife was worse, and was in considerable pain.
"She complains of the medicine which you gave her," she said, looking at me with an expression on her face which made my heart sink, and then suddenly, her eyes flashing, she blurted forth: "You brute, I believe you've poisoned her!"
Perhaps, Brown, for the one time in my life I was frightened. My words came spasmodically and I knew my lips trembled as I answered her.
"What—do—you mean, Estelle dear!—poisoned!—now don't talk such nonsense, there's a good little girl!" I replied, but I fear my tone was not convincing.
"As sure as I stand here," continued the girl, "you shall answer for it if you've done anything wrong to that poor dear upstairs. Oh, I hate you—I hate you, you brute!"
Woman, my dear old friend, passeth all the understanding of man. Here was a girl who, a few hours before, was willing enough to admit that I was the only man she had ever loved, ready now to see me in the hands of the law—aye, and to put me there!
"I am going back to her," she continued, her face still flushed with emotion, "and I've sent for your friend the doctor."
My feelings were far from pleasant, for I knew that if a post-mortem were to be held in the house I should be in a very tight corner.
"Fool I was not to stick to my hypodermic," I thought to myself. "As it is, I'm afraid that my efforts have been in vain. And, in addition, Estelle becomes a stumbling-block."
The imminence of danger acted like a cold-water douche upon my infatuation, to say nothing of the girl's altered attitude.
The position was a most serious one, and had to be faced promptly. My wife grew rapidly worse during the day; nothing would stop the sickness, and my good old medical friend shook his head. "This is the last straw, as it were, d'Escombe," he said to me when he came downstairs. "I'm afraid she can't rally." And as he said it I caught a look on Estelle's face which made me finally decide on carrying out an idea which I had had in my mind for the last hour.
It was quite certain, Laurence, that if my wife died Estelle was dangerous, and her tongue must be silenced. She had slept in my house for several nights and I had noticed that she wore soft felt slippers while on duty upstairs. This fact enabled me to carry out my scheme. I carefully treated two or three flat-headed tacks with a nicotin alkaloid which I had carefully preserved for over twelve months in view of a crisis such as the present, and these tacks I laid carefully between the door of her room and her bed, feeling fairly certain that she would tread upon one of them. The action of this poison is to produce immediate motor paralysis, that is loss of all power of movement or speech—and if given in a sufficient dose, almost immediate death. I did not want this latter possibility to happen, but I hoped to find her in a state of collapse, apparently from overwork, and thus be able to "take her over" as a patient, and keep that troublesome tongue quiet.
It was a somewhat elaborate plan, but fortunately it succeeded.
My wife got rapidly worse that evening, and Estelle would not even look at or speak to me, and I felt sure that the morning would bring serious trouble, if matters did not arrange themselves as I wished. However, they did. I was called hurriedly from my room by a maid about midnight, who told me that Miss Estelle had fainted in her bedroom, and I rushed up at once and found her lying on the bed, comatose.
"Run for the doctor, Janet," I said to the maid, and as soon as she had gone I removed the tell-tale nail, which, sure enough, was in the sole of the slipper worn by the girl with whom a few hours before I thought I was madly in love. She was unconscious—the drug had done its work well, and I was enabled to pick up the other poisoned tacks which were on the floor, before assistance arrived.
"Dear, dear!" said my colleague; "what an unfortunate affair. She has evidently over-worked herself. What shall we do, d'Escombe?"
"Send for a couple of nurses, doctor," I answered, "and I will take this patient off your hands. She looks very ill, I think."
"Yes, I'm afraid she is, and with your poor wife so desperately bad too, I'm sorry for you," he replied.
"We must do the best we can," I said. "But it is unfortunate."
My wife died that night, and Estelle knew nothing of it. I kept her under the influence of nicotin and hyoscin, given hypodermically in carefully graduated doses for several days, and then allowed her to recover movement and semi-consciousness. But I kept her brain clouded and dazed for a long enough period to prevent her thinking clearly of previous happenings.
I then arranged with her widowed mother to get her away to the Continent for a long rest and change, feeling certain that when she did return anything she said would be looked upon as the fancy of a mind affected by illness.
I was quite cured of my infatuation, as you may imagine.
I didn't see Estelle again for six months, and by then the action of the drugs and the course of time caused us to meet simply as old acquaintances, and this only very seldom. But, by Jove! it was very much "touch and go."
The shock and consequent illness was, I fear, the real cause of Estelle's death some twelve months later.