still showed itself with a fiery brightness in the widow's eyes. "Do you
know what I am thinking?" Minna asked, a little timidly.
"What is it, my dear?"
"I think you are almost too fond of me, mamma. I shouldn't like to be the
person who stood between me and my marriage--if _you_ knew of it."
Madame Fontaine smiled. "You foolish child, do you take me for a
tigress?" she said playfully. "I must have another kiss to reconcile me
to my new character."
She bent her head to meet the caress--looked by chance at a cupboard
fixed in a recess in the opposite wall of the room--and suddenly checked
herself. "This is too selfish of me," she said, rising abruptly. "All
this time I am forgetting the bridegroom. His father will leave him to
hear the good news from you. Do you think I don't know what you are
longing to do?" She led Minna hurriedly to the door. "Go, my dear one--go
and tell Fritz!"
The instant her daughter disappeared, she rushed across the room to the
cupboard. Her eyes had not deceived her. The key _was_ left in the lock.
CHAPTER II
Madame Fontaine dropped into a chair, overwhelmed by the discovery.
She looked at the key left in the cupboard. It was of an old-fashioned
pattern--but evidently also of the best workmanship of the time. On its
flat handle it bore engraved the words, "Pink-Room Cupboard"--so called
from the color of the curtains and hangings in the bedchamber.
"Is my brain softening?" she said to herself. "What a horrible mistake!
What a frightful risk to have run!"
She got on her feet again, and opened the cupboard.
The two lower shelves were occupied by her linen, neatly folded and laid
out. On the higher shelf, nearly on a level with her eyes, stood a plain
wooden box about two feet in height by one foot in breadth. She examined
the position of this box with breathless interest and care--then gently
lifted it in both hands and placed it on the floor. On a table near the
window lay a half-finished watercolor drawing, with a magnifying glass by
the side of it. Providing herself with the glass, she returned to the
cupboard, and closely investigated the place on which the box had stood.
The slight layer of dust--so slight as to be imperceptible to the
unassisted eye--which had surrounded the four sides of the box, presented
its four delicate edges in perfectly undisturbed straightness of line.
This mute evidence conclusively proved that the box had not been moved
during her quarter of an hour's absence in Mr. Keller's room. She put it
back again, and heaved a deep breath of relief.
But it was a bad sign (she thought) that her sense of caution had been
completely suspended, in the eagerness of her curiosity to know if Mr.
Keller's message of invitation referred to the wedding day. "I lose my
best treasure," she said to herself sadly, "if I am beginning to lose my
steadiness of mind. If this should happen again----"
She left the expression of the idea uncompleted; locked the door of the
room; and returned to the place on which she had left the box.
Seating herself, she rested the box on her knee and opened it.
Certain tell-tale indentations, visible where the cover fitted into the
lock, showed that it had once been forced open. The lock had been
hampered on some former occasion; and the key remained so fast fixed in
it that it could neither be turned nor drawn out. In her newly-aroused
distrust of her own prudence, she was now considering the serious
question of emptying the box, and sending it to be fitted with a lock and
key.
"Have I anything by me," she thought to herself, "in which I can keep the
bottles?"
She emptied the box, and placed round her on the floor those terrible six
bottles which had been the special subjects of her husband's
precautionary instructions on his death-bed. Some of them were smaller
than others, and were manufactured in glass of different colors--the six
compartments in the medicine-chest being carefully graduated in size, so
as to hold them all steadily. The labels on three of the bottles were
unintelligible to Madame Fontaine; the inscriptions were written in
barbarously abridged Latin characters.
The bottle which was the fourth in order, as she took them out one by
one, was wrapped in a sheet of thick cartridge-paper, covered on its
inner side with characters written in mysterious cipher. But the label
pasted on the bottle contained an inscription in good readable German,
thus translated:
"The Looking-Glass Drops. Fatal dose, as discovered by experiment on
animals, the same as in the case of 'Alexander's Wine.' But the effect,
in producing death, more rapid, and more indistinguishable, in respect of
presenting traces on post-mortem examination."
The lines thus written were partially erased by strokes of the pen--drawn
through them at a later date, judging by the color of the ink. In the
last blank space left at the foot of the label, these words were
added--also in ink of a fresher color:
"After many patient trials, I can discover no trustworthy antidote to
this infernal poison. Under these circumstances, I dare not attempt to
modify it for medical use. I would throw it away--but I don't like to be
beaten. If I live a little longer I will try once more, with my mind
refreshed by other studies."
Madame Fontaine paused before she wrapped the bottle up again in its
covering, and looked with longing eyes at the ciphers which filled the
inner side of the sheet of paper. There, perhaps, was the announcement of
the discovery of the antidote; or possibly, the record of some more
recent experiment which placed the terrible power of the poison in a new
light! And there also was the cipher defying her to discover its secret!
The fifth bottle that she took from the chest contained "Alexander's
Wine." The sixth, and last, was of the well-remembered blue glass, which
had played such an important part in the event of Mr. Keller's recovery.
David Glenney had rightly conjectured that the label had been removed
from the blue-glass bottle. Madame Fontaine shook it out of the empty
compartment. The inscription (also in the German language) ran as
follows:--
"Antidote to Alexander's Wine. The fatal dose, in case of accident, is
indicated by the notched slip of paper attached to the bottle. Two fluid
drachms of the poison (more than enough to produce death) were
accidentally taken in my experience. So gradual is the deadly effect
that, after a delay of thirty-six hours before my attention was called to
the case, the administration of the antidote proved successful. The doses
are to be repeated every three or four hours. Any person watching the
patient may know that the recovery is certain, and that the doses are
therefore to be discontinued, by these signs: the cessation of the
trembling in the hands; the appearance of natural perspiration; and the
transition from the stillness of apathy to the repose of sleep. For at
least a week or ten days afterwards a vegetable diet, with cream, is
necessary
as a means of completing the cure."
She laid the label aside, and looked at the two bottles--the poison and
the antidote--ranged together at her feet.
"Power!" she thought, with a superb smile of triumph. "The power that I
have dreamed of all my life is mine at last! Alone among mortal
creatures, I have Life and Death for my servants. You were deaf, Mr.
Keller, to my reasons, and deaf to my entreaties. What wonderful
influence brought you to my feet, and made you the eager benefactor of my
child? My servant Death, who threatened you in the night; and my servant
Life, who raised you up in the morning. What a position! I stand here, a
dweller in a populous city--and every creature in it, from highest to
lowest, is a creature in my power!"
She looked through the window of her room over the houses of Frankfort.
At last her sleepy eyes opened wide; an infernal beauty irradiated her
face. For one moment, she stood--a demon in human form. The next, she
suddenly changed into a timid woman, shaken in every limb by the cold
grasp of fear.
What influence had wrought the transformation?
Nothing but a knock at the door.
"Who's there?" she cried.
The voice that answered her was the voice of Jack Straw.
"Hullo, there, Mrs. Fontaine! Let me in."
She placed a strong constraint on herself; she spoke in friendly tones.
"What do you want, Jack?"
"I want to show you my keys."
"What do I care about the crazy wretch's keys?"--was the thought that
passed through Madame Fontaine's mind, when Jack answered her from the
outer side of the door. But she was still careful, when she spoke to him,
to disguise her voice in its friendliest tones.
"Excuse me for keeping you waiting, Jack. I can't let you in yet."
"Because I am dressing. Come back in half an hour; and I shall be glad to
see you."
There was no reply to this. Jack's step was so light that it was
impossible to hear, through the door, whether he had gone away or not.
After waiting a minute, the widow ventured on peeping out. Jack had taken
himself off. Not a sign of him was to be seen, when she bent over the
railing of the corridor, and looked down on the stairs.
She locked herself in again. "I hope I haven't offended him!" she
thought, as she returned to the empty medicine-chest.
The fear that Jack might talk of what had happened to him in the
laboratory at Wurzburg, and that he might allude to his illness in terms
which could not fail to recall the symptoms of Mr. Keller's illness, was
constantly present to her mind. She decided on agreeably surprising him
by a little present, which might help her to win his confidence and to
acquire some influence over him. As a madman lately released from Bedlam,
it might perhaps not greatly matter what he said. But suspicion was
easily excited. Though David Glenney had been sent out of the way, his
aunt remained at Frankfort; and an insolent readiness in distrusting
German ladies seemed to run in the family.
Having arrived at these conclusions, she gave her mind again to the still
unsettled question of the new lock to the medicine-chest.
Measuring the longest of the bottles (the bottle containing the
antidote), she found that her dressing case was not high enough to hold
it, while the chest was in the locksmith's workshop. Her trunks, on the
other hand, were only protected by very ordinary locks, and were too
large to be removed to the safe keeping of the cupboard. She must either
leave the six bottles loose on the shelf or abandon the extra security of
the new lock.
The one risk of taking the first of these two courses, was the risk of
leaving the key again in the cupboard. Was this likely to occur, after
the fright she had already suffered? The question was not really worth
answering. She had already placed two of the bottles on the shelf--when a
fatal objection to trusting the empty box out of her own possession
suddenly crossed her mind.
Her husband's colleagues at Wurzburg and some of the elder students, were
all acquainted (externally, at least) with the appearance of the
Professor's ugly old medicine-chest. It could be easily identified by the
initials of his name, inscribed in deeply-burnt letters on the lid.
Suppose one of these men happened to be in Frankfort? and suppose he saw
the stolen chest in the locksmith's shop? Two such coincidences were in
the last degree improbable--but it was enough that they were possible.
Who but a fool, in her critical position, would run the risk of even one
chance in a hundred turning against her? Instead of trusting the chest in
a stranger's hands, the wiser course would be to burn it at the first
safe opportunity, and be content with the security of the cupboard, while
she remained in Mr. Keller's house. Arriving at this conclusion, she put
the chest and its contents back again on the shelf--with the one
exception of the label detached from the blue-glass bottle.
In the preternatural distrust that now possessed her, this label assumed
the character of a dangerous witness, if, through some unlucky accident,
it happened to fall into the hands of any person in the house. She picked
it up--advanced to the fireplace to destroy it--paused--and looked at it
again.
Nearly two doses of the antidote were still left. Who could say, looking
at the future of such a life as hers, that she might not have some need
of it yet--after it had already served her so well? Could she be sure, if
she destroyed it, of remembering the instructions which specified the
intervals at which the doses were to be given, the signs which signified
recovery, and the length of time during which the vegetable diet was to
be administered?
She read the first sentences again carefully.
"Antidote to Alexander's Wine. The fatal dose, in case of accident, is
indicated by the notched slip of paper attached to the bottle. Two fluid
drachms of the poison (more than enough to produce death) were
accidentally taken in my experience. So gradual is the deadly effect
that, after a delay of thirty-six hours before my attention was called to
the case, the administration of the antidote proved successful. The doses
are to be repeated----"
of a nature to excite suspicion. Taken by themselves, they might refer to
nothing more remarkable than a remedy in certain cases of illness. First
she thought of cutting off the upper part of the label: but the lines of
the writing were so close together, that they would infallibly betray the
act of mutilation. She opened her dressing-case and took from it a
common-looking little paper-box, purchased at the chemist's, bearing the
ambitious printed title of "Macula Exstinctor, or Destroyer of
Stains"--being an ordinary preparation, in powder, for removing stains
from dresses, ink-stains included. The printed directions stated that the
powder, partially dissolved in water, might also be used to erase written
characters without in any way injuring the paper, otherwise than by
leaving a slight shine on the surface. By these means, Madame Fontaine
removed the first four sentences on the label, and left the writing on it
to begin harmlessly with the instructions for repeating the doses.
"Now I can trust you to refresh my memory without telling tales," she
said to herself, when she put the label back in the chest. As for the
recorded dose of the poison, she was not likely to forget that. It was
her medicine-measuring glass, filled up to the mark of two drachms.
Having locked the cupboard, and secured the key in her pocket, she was
ready for the reception of Jack. Her watch told her that the half-hour's
interval had more than expired. She opened the door of her room. There
was no sign of him outside. She looked over the stairs, and called to him
softly. There was no reply; the little man's sensitive dignity had
evidently taken offense.
The one thing to be done (remembering all that she had to dread from the
wanton exercise of Jack's tongue) was to soothe his ruffled vanity
without further delay. There would be no difficulty in discovering him,
if he had not gone out. Wherever his Mistress might be at the moment,
there he was sure to be found.
Trying Mrs. Wagner's room first, without success, the widow descended to
the ground floor and made her way to the offices. In the private room,
formerly occupied by Mr. Engelman, David Glenney's aunt was working at
her desk; and Jack Straw was perched on the old-fashioned window-seat,
putting the finishing touches to Minna's new straw hat.
CHAPTER III
In the gloom thrown over the household by Mr. Engelman's death, Mrs.
Wagner, with characteristic energy and good sense, had kept her mind
closely occupied. During the office hours, she studied those details of
the business at Frankfort which differed from the details of the business
in London; and soon mastered them sufficiently to be able to fill the
vacancy which Mr. Engelman had left. The position that he had held
became, with all its privileges and responsibilities, Mrs. Wagner's
position--claimed, not in virtue of her rank as directress of the London
house, but in recognition of the knowledge that she had specially
acquired to fit her for the post.
Out of office-hours, she corresponded with the English writer on the
treatment of insane persons, whose work she had discovered in her late
husband's library, and assisted him in attracting public attention to the
humane system which he advocated. Even the plan for the employment of
respectable girls, in suitable departments of the office, was not left
neglected by this indefatigable woman. The same friendly consideration
which had induced her to spare Mr. Keller any allusion to the subject,
while his health was not yet completely restored, still kept her silent
until time had reconciled him to the calamity of his partner's death.
Privately, however, she had caused inquiries to be made in Frankfort,
which would assist her in choosing worthy candidates for employment, when
the favorable time came--probably after the celebration of Fritz's
marriage--for acting in the interests of the proposed reform.
"Pray send me away, if I interrupt you," said Madame Fontaine, pausing
modestly on the threshold before she entered the room. She spoke English
admirably, and made a point of ignoring Mrs. Wagner's equally perfect
knowledge of German, by addressing her always in the English language.
"Come in by all means," Mrs. Wagner answered. "I am only writing to David
Glenney, to tell him (at Minna's request) that the wedding-day is fixed."
"Give your nephew my kind regards, Mrs. Wagner. He will be one of the
party at the wedding, of course?"