"And you have actually discovered the meaning of these hieroglyphics?"
He laid a second sheet of paper on the table.
"There is but one cipher that defies interpretation," he said. "If you
and your correspondent privately arrange to consult the same edition of
the same book, and if your cipher, or his, refers to a given page and to
certain lines on that page, no ingenuity can discover you, unaided by a
previous discovery of the book. All other ciphers, so far as I know, are
at the mercy of skill and patience. In this case I began (to save time
and trouble) by trying the rule for interpreting the most simple, and
most elementary, of all ciphers--that is to say, the use of the ordinary
language of correspondence, concealed under arbitrary signs. The right
way to read these signs can be described in two words. On examination of
the cipher, you will find that some signs will be more often repeated
than others. Count the separate signs, and ascertain, by simple addition,
which especial sign occurs oftenest--which follows next in point of
number--and so on. These comparisons established, ask yourself what vowel
occurs oftenest, and what consonant occurs oftenest, in the language in
which you suppose the cipher to be written. The result is merely a
question of time and patience."
"And this is the result?" I said, pointing to the second sheet of paper.
"Read it," he answered; "and judge for yourself."
The opening sentence of the interpreted cipher appeared to be intended by
Doctor Fontaine to serve the purpose of a memorandum; repeating privately
the instructions already attached by labels to the poison called
"Alexander's Wine," and to its antidote.
The paragraphs that followed were of a far more interesting kind. They
alluded to the second poison, called "The Looking-Glass Drops;" and they
related the result of one of the Professor's most remarkable experiments
in the following words:--
VI
"The Looking-Glass Drops. Fatal Dose, as discovered by experiments 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.
"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.
"A month after writing these lines (which I have repeated in plain
characters, on the bottle, for fear of accidents), I tried again--and
failed again. Annoyed by this new disappointment, I did something
unworthy of me as a scientific man.
"After first poisoning an animal with the Looking-Glass Drops, I
administered a dose from the blue bottle, containing the antidote to
Alexander's Wine--knowing perfectly well the different nature of the two
poisons; expecting nothing of any scientific importance to follow; and
yet trusting stupidly to chance to help me.
"The result was startling in the last degree. It was nothing less than
the complete suspension of all the signs of life (as we know them) for a
day, and a night, and part of another day. I only knew that the animal
was not really dead, by observing, on the morning of the second day, that
no signs of decomposition had set in--the season being summer, and the
laboratory badly ventilated.
"An hour after the first symptoms of revival had astonished me, the
creature was as lively again as usual, and ate with a good appetite.
After a lapse of ten days, it is still in perfect health. This
extraordinary example of the action and reaction of the ingredients of
the poison and the ingredients of the antidote on each other, and on the
sources of life, deserves, and shall have, the most careful
investigation. May I live to carry the inquiry through to some good use,
and to record it on another page!"
There was no other page, and no further record. The Professor's last
scientific aspiration had not been fulfilled.
VII
"It was past midnight," said the doctor, "when I made the discovery, with
which you are now acquainted. I went at once to Mr. Keller. He had
fortunately not gone to bed; and he accompanied me to the Deadhouse.
Knowing the overseer's private door, at the side of the building, I was
able to rouse him with very little delay. In the excitement that
possessed me, I spoke of the revival as a possible thing in the hearing
of the servants. The whole household accompanied us to the Deadhouse, at
the opposite extremity of the building. What we saw there, I am utterly
incapable of describing to you. I was in time to take the necessary
measures for keeping Mrs. Wagner composed, and for removing her without
injury to Mr. Keller's house. Having successfully accomplished this, I
presumed that my anxieties were at an end. I was completely mistaken."
"You refer to Madame Fontaine, I suppose?"
"No; I refer to Jack. The poor wretch's ignorant faith had unquestionably
saved his mistress's life. I should never have ventured (even if I had
been acquainted with the result of the Professor's experiment, at an
earlier hour) to run the desperate risk, which Jack confronted without
hesitation. The events of the night (aggravated by the brandy that
Schwartz had given to him) had completely overthrown the balance of his
feeble brain. He was as mad, for the time being, as ever he could have
been in Bedlam. With some difficulty, I prevailed on him to take a
composing mixture. He objected irritably to trust me; and, even when the
mixture had begun to quiet him, he was ungrateful enough to speak
contemptuously of what I had done for him. 'I had a much better remedy
than yours,' he said, 'made by a man who was worth a hundred of you.
Schwartz and I were fools enough to give it to Mrs. Housekeeper, last
night.' I thought nothing of this--it was one of the eccentricities which
were to be expected from him, in his condition. I left him quietly
asleep; and I was about to go home, and get a little rest myself--when
Mr. Keller's son stopped me in the hall. 'Do go and see Madame Fontaine,'
he said; 'Minna is alarmed about her mother.' I went upstairs again
directly."
"Had you noticed anything remarkable in Madame Fontaine," I asked,
"before Fritz spoke to you?"
"I noticed, at the Deadhouse, that she looked frightened out of her
senses; and I was a little surprised--holding the opinion I did of
her--that such a woman should show so much sensibility. Mr. Keller took
charge of her, on our way back to the house. I was quite unprepared for
what I saw afterwards, when I went to her room at Fritz's request.
"Did you discover the resemblance to Mr. Keller's illness?"
"No--not till afterwards. She sent her daughter out of the room; and I
thought she looked at me strangely, when we were alone. 'I want the paper
that I gave you in the street, last night,' she said. I asked her
why she
wanted it. She seemed not to know how to reply; she became excited and
confused. 'To destroy it, to be sure!' she burst out suddenly. 'Every
bottle my husband left is destroyed--strewed here, there, and everywhere,
from the Gate to the Deadhouse. Oh, I know what you think of me--I defy
you!' She seemed to forget what she had said, the moment she had said
it--she turned away, and opened a drawer, and took out a book closed by
metal clasps. My presence in the room appeared to be a lost perception in
her mind. The clasps of the book, as well as I could make it out, opened
by touching some spring. I noticed that her hands trembled as they tried
to find the spring. I attributed the trembling to the terrors of the
night, and offered to help her. 'Let my secrets alone,' she said--and
pushed the book under the pillow of her bed. It was my professional duty
to assist her, if I could. Though I attached no sort of importance to
what Jack had said, I thought it desirable, before I prescribed for her,
to discover whether she had really taken some medicine of her own or not.
She staggered back from me, on my repeating what I had heard from Jack,
as if I had terrified her. 'What remedy does he mean? I drank nothing but
a glass of wine. Send for him directly--I must, and will speak to him!' I
told her this was impossible; I could not permit his sleep to be
disturbed. 'The watchman!' she cried; 'the drunken brute! send for him.'
By this time I began to conclude that there was really something wrong. I
called in her daughter to look after her while I was away, and then left
the room to consult with Fritz. The only hope of finding Schwartz (the
night-watch at the Deadhouse being over by that time) was to apply to his
sister the nurse. I knew where she lived; and Fritz most kindly offered
to go to her. By the time Schwartz was found, and brought to the house,
Madame Fontaine was just able to understand what he said, and no more. I
began to recognize the symptoms of Mr. Keller's illness. The apathy which
you remember was showing itself already. 'Leave me to die,' she said
quietly; 'I deserve it.' The last effort of the distracted mind, rousing
for a moment the sinking body, was made almost immediately afterwards.
She raised herself on the pillow, and seized my arm. 'Mind!' she said,
'Minna is to be married on the thirteenth!' Her eyes rested steadily on
me, while she spoke. At the last word, she sank back, and relapsed into
the condition in which you have just seen her."
"Can you do nothing for her?"
"Nothing. Our modern science is absolutely ignorant of the poisons which
Professor Fontaine's fatal ingenuity revived. Slow poisoning by
reiterated doses, in small quantities, we understand. But slow poisoning
by one dose is so entirely beyond our experience, that medical men in
general refuse to believe in it."
"Are you sure that she is poisoned?" I asked.
"After what Jack told me this morning when he woke, I have no doubt she
is poisoned by 'Alexander's Wine.' She appears to have treacherously
offered it to him as a remedy--and to have hesitated, at the last moment,
to let him have it. As a remedy, Jack's ignorant faith gave it to her by
the hands of Schwartz. When we have more time before us, you shall hear
the details. In the meanwhile, I can only tell you that the retribution
is complete. Madame Fontaine might even now be saved, if Jack had not
given all that remained of the antidote to Mrs. Wagner.
"Is there any objection to my asking Jack for the particulars?"
"The strongest possible objection. It is of the utmost importance to
discourage him from touching on the subject, in the future. He has
already told Mrs. Wagner that he has saved her life; and, just before you
came in, I found him comforting Minna. 'Your mamma has taken her own good
medicine, Missy; she will soon get well.' I have been obliged--God
forgive me!--to tell your aunt and Minna that he is misled by insane
delusions, and that they are not to believe one word of what he has said
to them."
"No doubt your motive justifies you," I said--not penetrating his motive
at the moment.
"You will understand me directly," he answered. "I trust to your honor
under any circumstances. Why have I taken you into my confidence, under
_these_ circumstances? For a very serious reason, Mr. David. You are
likely to be closely associated, in the time to come, with your aunt and
Minna--and I look to you to help the good work which I have begun. Mrs.
Wagner's future life must not be darkened by a horrible recollection.
That sweet girl must enjoy the happy years that are in store for her,
unembittered by the knowledge of her mother's guilt. Do you understand,
now, why I am compelled to speak unjustly of poor Jack?"
As a proof that I understood him, I promised the secrecy which he had
every right to expect from me.
The entrance of the nurse closed our conference. She reported Madame
Fontaine's malady to be already altering for the worse.
The doctor watched the case. At intervals, I too saw her again.
Although it happened long ago, I cannot prevail upon myself to dwell on
the deliberate progress of the hellish Borgia poison, in undermining the
forces of life. The nervous shudderings reached their climax, and then
declined as gradually as they had arisen. For hours afterwards, she lay
in a state of complete prostration. Not a last word, not a last look,
rewarded the devoted girl, watching faithfully at the bedside. No more of
it--no more! Late in the afternoon of the next day, Doctor Dormann,
gently, most gently, removed Minna from the room. Mr. Keller and I looked
at each other in silence. We knew that Madame Fontaine was dead.
VIII
I had not forgotten the clasped book that she had tried vainly to open,
in Doctor Dormann's presence. Taking it myself from under the pillow, I
left Mr. Keller and the doctor to say if I should give it, unopened, to
Minna.
"Certainly not!" said the doctor.
"Why not?"
"Because it will tell her what she must never know. I believe that book
to be a Diary. Open it, and see."
I found the spring and opened the clasps. It _was_ a Diary.
"You judged, I suppose, from the appearance of the book?" I said.
"Not at all. I judged from my own experience, at the time when I was
Medical Officer at the prison here. An educated criminal is almost
ourselves--but the more vile we are, the more intensely we are absorbed
in ourselves. The very people who have, logically speaking, the most
indisputable interest in concealing their crimes, are also the very
people who, almost without exception, yield to the temptation of looking
at themselves in the pages of a Diary."
"I don't doubt your experience, doctor. But your results puzzle me."
"Think a little, Mr. David, and you will not find the riddle so very hard
to read. The better we are, the more unselfishly we are interested in
others. The worse we are, the more inveterately our interest is
concentrated on ourselves. Look at your aunt as an example of what I say.
This morning there were some letters waiting for her, on the subject of
those reforms in the treatment of mad people, which she is as resolute as
ever to promote--in this country as well as in England. It was with the
greatest difficulty that I prevailed on her not to answer those letters
just yet: in other words, not to excite her brain and nervous system,
after such an ordeal as she has just passed through. Do you think a
wicked woman--with letters relating merely to the interests of other
people waiting for her--would have stood in any need of my interference?
Not she! The wicked woman would have thought only of herself, and would
have been far too much interested in her own recovery to run the risk of
a relapse. Open that book of Madame Fontaine's at any of the later
entries. You will find the miserable woman self-betrayed in every page.
It was true! Every record of Madame Fontaine's most secret moments,
presented in this narrative, was first found in her Diary.
As an example:-- Her Diary records, in the fullest detail, the infernal
ingenuity of the stratagem by which she usurped her title to Mr. Keller's
confidence, as the preserver of his life. "I have only to give him the
Alexander's Wine," she writes, "to make sure, by means of the antidote,
of curing the illness which I have myself produced. After that, Minna's
mother becomes Mr. Keller's guardian angel, and Minna's marriage is a
certainty."
On a later page, she is similarly self described--in Mrs. Wagner's
case--as acting from an exactly opposite motive, in choosing the
Looking-Glass Drops. "They not only kill soonest, and most surely defy
detection," she proceeds, "but I have it on the authority of the label,
that my husband has tried to find the antidote to these Drops, and has
tried in vain. If my heart fails me, when the deed is done, there can be
no reprieve for the woman whose tongue I must silence for ever--or, after
all I have sacrificed, my child's future is ruined."
There is little doubt that she intended to destroy these compromising
pages, on her return to Mr. Keller's house--and that she would have
carried out her intention, but for those first symptoms of the poison,
which showed themselves in the wandering of her mind, and the helpless
trembling of her hands.
The final entry in the Diary has an interest of its own, which I think
justifies the presentation of it in this place. It shows the purifying
influence of the maternal instinct in a wicked nature, surviving to the
last. Even Madame Fontaine's nature preserved, in this way, a softer
side. On the memorable occasion of her meeting with Mr. Keller in the
hall, she had acted as imprudently as if she had been the most foolish
woman living, in her eagerness to plead Minna's cause with the man on
whom Minna's marriage depended. She had shrunk from poisoning harmless
Jack, even for her own protection. She would not even seduce Minna into
telling a lie, when a lie would have served them both at the most
critical moment of their lives.
Are such redeeming features unnatural in an otherwise wicked woman? Think
of your own "inconsistencies." Read these last words of a sinner--and
thank God that you were not tempted as she was:
". . . Sent Minna out of my room, and hurt my sensitive girl cruelly. I
am afraid of her! This last crime seems to separate me from that pure
creature--all the more, because it has been committed in her dearest
interests, and for her sweet sake. Every time she looks at me, I am
afraid she may see what I have done for her, in my face. Oh, how I long
to take her in my arms, and devour her with kisses! I daren't do it--I
daren't do it."
Lord, have mercy on her--miserable sinner!