Chapter XVI: The Shears of Atropos

The news of the tragedy in Threeways Spinny reached Stanbrook about nine o'clock in the morning. The body of the murdered man had already been taken home, and it was Mrs. Dinkel's next-door neighbor who was deputed to convey the sad tidings to her.

She was on the point of taking the Squire's breakfast upstairs when the man arrived at the Hall, and asked to see her.

Ten minutes later Mrs. Dinkel entered her patient's room. Like the thoughtful creature she was, even in the midst of her distress she had not forgotten the breakfast tray. Having placed it on the table by the bedside, she turned to the Squire, and, in a voice which not all her efforts could render firm, said:

"Sir, a great misfortune has befallen me--the most terrible that could have happened. My son has been murdered! The tidings have just reached me. His body was found early this morning in Threeways Spinny. He had been shot through the heart--he who had not an enemy in the world! Sir, I must leave here at once. I am wanted at home, as you can well conceive; but if----"

"Dead! your son dead!" shrieked the Squire, almost as shrilly as a woman might have done. Then for a few seconds he remained speechless. His heart stopped beating, and a black veil dropped before his eyes. But the very force of the shock brought its own reaction. He flung up his arms, and then let them drop helplessly on the bed. "In that case, what is to become of me?" he moaned.

"The Lord in heaven only knows, sir, for I'm sure I don't," answered Mrs. Dinkel. It was all she could do to crush down her emotion.

The Squire sank back on his pillow with a groan. The bereaved mother stood looking at him, anxious to go, and yet, so strong was the professional instinct in her, not liking to leave him.

Of a sudden he beckoned her to go closer to him, and when she had done so he clutched her by the sleeve of her gown. In three short minutes his face seemed to have aged a dozen years. His lips had turned of a grayish purple, and a thin froth had gathered at their corners. His eyes were the eyes of a terror-hunted soul brought to bay, and yet ready to turn and curse with its latest breath the inexorable fate which had driven it there.

"Don't think I do not pity you, because that would be a mistake on your part," he said. "I pity you and sympathize with you most sincerely. But--but your son must have left a lot of the drug--you know what I mean--behind him. Don't you think so, hey? And--and as soon as ever you can spare time--in the course of the day, you know--you will have a thorough search made, and ascertain the quantity, and let me know at the earliest possible moment, won't you? Yes, yes; he must have left quite a considerable quantity ready prepared. I feel sure of it; so don't forget to send me word as soon as you can."

There was a terrible eagerness in the way he spoke, and he would not loose his hold of her till she had promised him, that he should hear from her in the course of the forenoon.

When she was gone her place was taken by Miss Baynard.

That morning the Squire's breakfast was sent away untasted, and he made no effort to get up. Anxiety held him as with a vise--an anxiety shot through and through with forebodings the most dire. He lay without speaking, watching with feverish eyes the slow-moving fingers of the clock on the chimney-piece, each of whose solemn ticks seemed to him to mark a stitch in the tapestry of Doom. It was a few minutes past two when a servant brought upstairs a small sealed packet, together with a letter, both of them addressed to "Ambrose Cortelyon, Esq.," and both of them just brought by a special messenger. The sick man had no need to ask who was the sender.

"Open the letter and read it aloud, Nell," he said, as soon as the servant had left the room. It was not merely that he had lost the control of his fingers--he shook from head to foot like one in an ague fit.

Nell did as she was bidden.

"Honored Sir" (she read), "In accordance with your wish and my own promise, I have made diligent and careful search in every corner, cupboard, and drawer of the room in which my poor son mixed his physics and attended to his doctoring business, with the result (and it grieves me much to have to tell it you) that I have not succeeded in finding more than two phials of the stuff ready mixed for taking, the which, under cover, I herewith send you.

"It would appear to have been my son's custom not to prepare any large quantity of the drug beforehand, perhaps--but on this point I speak without certainty--because he found that some portion of its virtue was lost with keeping.

"I remain, honored sir,

"Your obedient, humble servant,

"Martha Dinkel.

"P.S.--Since writing the above I have made another thorough search, high and low, in every nook and corner of the premises, but it has proved a sheer waste of time.

"Mr. Cortelyon, sir, in the midst of my own distress, permit me respectfully to observe that my heart bleeds for you."

When Nell had read to the last word, the Squire made no comment aloud, only to himself he murmured: "_Mors ultima linea rerum est_." He had not opened his Horace for years, but the line came back to him quite freshly to-day. He knew that he was a doomed man, and that no earthly power could save him. Well, according to all human calculations he ought to have been dead and buried a number of weeks ago, but another brief spell of life had been granted him, and if, through a tragic misfortune which no one could have foreseen, it had come prematurely to a close, why, there was no help for it. All that was now left him to do was to wrap his toga about him and await the end with silent stoicism.

Although he took the two remaining doses of the drug in due course, he made no attempt to rise from his bed after hearing of Dinkel's death. From that hour life, with its manifold interests, became to him as a dead letter. He had done with it, and it had done with him. They were quits.

So, day after day and night after night, he lay in the big four poster, silent for the most part, and often without opening his eyes for hours together; feeling his strength ebbing imperceptibly away, and, between his fitful snatches of sleep, thinking, ever thinking, for his mind remained as vigorous and lucid as ever it had been. What strange and awesome thoughts must oftentimes have been his as he lay there in grim resolute silence, waiting for his "order of release"!

His niece and Andry Luce took it in turns to watch by him. It was an easy task, there was so little that he wanted or that could be done for him. Miss Baynard had taken it on herself to send for Drs Banks and Mills, who responded to the summons in all haste.

The Squire opened his eyes and favored them with one of his sardonic smiles as they entered the room.

"Eh-eh! come to see the last of your handiwork?" he said, and already his voice had sunk to a half-whisper. "Very kind and attentive of you, I'm sure. And besides, my case is such an interesting and uncommon one. It will be something for you to wrangle over as long as you live, and at the end you will know no more about it than you do now. Yes, yes, very kind and attentive of you; but as for your physic, I'll have no more on't--that's flat. Throw it to the dogs, as Shakespeare says. And now, 'I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.'"

Of course they could do nothing, and to Miss Baynard they were candid enough to admit as much. It was a sad state of things.

And so the muffled hours stole after each other one by one till a week had gone by, by which time it became evident that the end was not far off.

No arrest had yet been made in connection with the murder of Cornelius Dinkel, and it may here be added that none ever was made. The murderer had left no traces behind him, and, search as diligently as they might, not a tittle of evidence was forthcoming to back up any of the theories propounded by the authorities in relation to the crime.

On a certain afternoon, somewhat to Miss Baynard's surprise, Mrs. Bullivant made her appearance at the Hall. It was a step which she had not taken till after mature consideration. The first few days after Dinkel's death had been passed by her in a fever of apprehension. Precisely what it was that she feared she did not whisper even to herself, but she could not bear a ring or a knock at the door without experiencing a spasm of silent terror. Yet all this time her brother remained as darkly quiet, as listless, and apparently as indifferent to everything, save his own little comforts, as she ever remembered him to have been. Wet or fine, he went out every day for a long walk, and it was he who brought back the rumors he lighted on in his rambles anent the Squire of Stanbrook.

One day he brought back something which was more than a rumor. It was something he had been told at second-hand as having emanated from no less an authority than Dr. Banks. Mr. Cortelyon was at death's door, and this time there was no possible chance of his recovery! Then it was that Mrs. Bullivant debated with her brother whether she ought not to pay one more visit to Stanbrook while the Squire was able to recognize her. Captain Ferris was strongly of opinion that she ought on no account to omit doing so. There was no knowing what influences might be at work. What more easy than to persuade a dying man to execute a codicil to his will, or even to have a fresh will drawn up, cancelling wholly or in part the provisions of the one already in existence? Most certainly she ought to see for herself how the land lay, not merely in her own interest, but in that of her son, and, if necessary, remain on the spot till all was over.

Little persuasion was needed to induce Mrs. Bullivant to fall in with her brother's views. By this time her vague, unspoken apprehensions had in a great measure subsided. Dinkel had been dead more than a week, and nothing had happened. Nothing would happen now, she told herself. She would go to Stanbrook.

More than once--indeed quite a number of times--when talking over her last interview with Mr. Cortelyon, her brother had made her repeat one sentence in particular which the Squire had addressed to her in allusion to the contents of his will: "There is perhaps such a surprise in store for you as you little wot of." To both her and the Captain it was a sentence which seemed pregnant with golden possibilities; and it is hardly to be wondered at that, on her way to Stanbrook, her imagination built up more than one gorgeous aerial fabric, although, as a rule, she kept that arrant jerry-builder in the most complete subjection.

On hearing that Mrs. Bullivant had arrived, Miss Baynard went downstairs to receive her. When they met the former made as if she would have kissed Nell, but the girl drew back a little haughtily. She was not in the habit of being kissed, even by those of her own sex, and in her visitor's case it would have seemed to her a veritable _baiser de Judas_. But she could not, with any show of courtesy, refuse her hand.

"How is he, dear Miss Baynard?" were Mrs. Bullivant's first words. She spoke in hushed tones, although as yet she had got no farther than the entrance-hall.

"He is sinking fast, and is almost speechless."

"You shock me more than I can say." And, to do her justice, for the moment she looked shocked. To herself she said, "If he is speechless, or nearly so, it is too late for him to think of altering his will, and, if he has done so already, I have come too late to help it." Aloud she went on: "I had not the faintest idea that his illness had assumed the gravity you tell me it has--news percolates to us so slowly at Uplands--otherwise I should have been here before now. But now that I am here, dear Miss Baynard, you must let me stay with you till the end. Mr. Cortelyon, as you are probably aware, regarded me with a very special affection. Had circumstances turned out differently, I should have been his daughter-in-law. But my life has been one long disappointment."

Knowing what she did of the purport of her uncle's will, Nell felt that, little as she liked the woman, she was not in a position to object to her presence in the house. In a very little while Mrs. Bullivant would be mistress of Stanbrook and of everything in it, while she, Nell, would be little better than an outcast. But however bitter and humiliating it might be to know this, she had other things to think of just now.

When Mrs. Bullivant and Nell entered the sick room together some minutes later, Mrs. Budd, who had been keeping watch in the interim, rose, curtsied to the newcomer, and went.

Mr. Cortelyon lay with closed eyes and with both arms extended on the coverlet; one shut hand held the coveted stater of Epaticcus, the other grasped his silver snuff-box. An involuntary exclamation escaped Mrs. Bullivant as her eyes fell on his face. Once before she had believed him to be at the point of death, and only by what might almost be termed a miracle had his life been prolonged. This time no miracle would intervene. His hours, nay, his very minutes, were numbered; Death's awful shadow was already closing round him; would he live through the night?

About half an hour later he opened his eyes, turned his head slightly and stared about him. Mrs. Bullivant rose, crossed on tiptoe to the bed and bent over him. "Dear Mr. Cortelyon, don't you know me?" she murmured. "Yes, I am sure you do."

For a second or two he peered up into her face with contracted lids, as if not quite sure about her identity. Then, with an inarticulate noise, which seemed more indicative of anger and repulsion than of anything else, he raised both his hands and pushed her rather roughly away. Mrs. Bullivant went back to her chair with a somewhat heightened color in her cheeks. "Poor dear!" she said in an undertone; "it is quite evident that he no longer knows what he is about."

And so daylight slid slowly into dark, and the two women still kept watch on either side of the bed. Dr. Banks, with a cheerful fire and a magnum of port to keep him company, sat below in the library--merely for form's sake, and because it would be an injustice to his wife, and family not to make his bill as long a one as possible while the chance was his of doing so.

For some hours the dying man's skin had been gradually changing color, till now it had become of one uniform leaden blue tint. Dr. Banks, who stepped upstairs for a couple of minutes every half-hour or so, said to himself that it must be one of the effects of "that damned drug."

Midnight was drawing on. For upwards of an hour Mr. Cortelyon had been lying to all appearance in a comatose state, when of a sudden he opened his eyes and raised himself in bed without help--a thing he had not done for days past. "The will! the will!--get it and destroy it before it's too late!" he cried in harsh, insistent tones, punctuated by gasps. "I've done wrong--wrong. I know it now--I feel it. To my grandson all--all! To that woman"--pointing to the shocked Mrs. Bullivant--"nothing. Send at once--not a minute's delay. Piljoy has it. Or else it will be too late--too late!"

Alas! it was already too late. He sank back, gasping for breath, with eyes that were already beginning to glaze. Five minutes later all was over.

Mrs. Bullivant dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "Poor dear! I am so thankful he did not suffer much," she said. "That he should wander a little in his mind at the last is not to be wondered at. Nearly all aged people do that when they are dying."