The apartment was now flooded with light, and I looked for the assassin.He was not to be found! The room contained only Gwen, Darrow, and his four invited guests! The doors were closed; the windows had not been touched.No one could possibly have entered or left the room, and yet the assassin was not there.But one solution remained; Darrow was labouring under a delusion, and Gwen's voice would restore him.As she was about to speak Istepped back to note the effect of her words upon him."Do not fear, father," she said in a low voice as she laid her face against his cheek, "there is nothing here to hurt you.You are ill, - Iwill get you a glass of cordial and you will be yourself again in a moment." She was about to rise when her father seized her frantically by the arm, exclaiming in a hoarse whisper: "Don't leave me! Can't you see? Don't leave me!" and for the first time he removed his hand from his throat, and taking her head between his palms, gazed wistfully into her face.He tried to speak again, but could not, and glanced up at us with=20a helpless expression which I shall never forget.Maitland, his eyes riveted upon the old gentleman, whose thoughts he seemed to divine, hurriedly produced a pencil and note-book and held them toward him, but he did not see them, for he had drawn Gwen's face down to him and was kissing her passionately.The next instant he was on his feet and from the swollen veins that stood out like cords upon his neck and forehead, we could see the terrible effort he was making to speak.At last the words came, - came as if they were torn hissing from his throat, for he took a full breath between each one of them.
"Gwen - I - knew - it! Good-bye! Remember - your - promise!"- and he fell a limp mass into his chair, overcome, I felt sure, by the fearful struggle he had made.Maitland seized a glass of water and threw it in his face.I loosened the clothing about his neck and, in doing so, his head fell backward and his face was turned upward toward me.The features were drawn, - the eyes were glazed and set.I felt of his heart; he was dead!
CHAPTER II
Silence is the only tender Death can make to Mystery.
The look of pain and astonishment upon my face said plainly enough to Gwen:
"Your father is dead." I could not speak.In the presence of her great affliction we all stood silent, and with bowed heads.I had thought Darrow's attack the result of an overwrought mental condition which would speedily readjust itself, and had so counted upon his daughter's influence as all but certain to immediately result in a temporary cure.When, therefore, I found him dead without any apparent cause, I was, for the time being, too dazed to think, much less to act, and I think the other gentlemen were quite as much incapacitated as I.My first thought, when I recovered so that Icould think, was of Gwen.I felt sure her reason must give way under the strain, and I thought of going nearer to her in case she should fall, but refrained when I noticed that Maitland had noiselessly glided within easy reach of her.To move seemed impossible to me.
Such a sudden transition from warm, vigorous life to cold, impassive death seems to chill the dynamic rivers of being into a horrible winter, static and eternal.Though death puts all things in the past tense, even we physicians cannot but be strangely moved when the soul thus hastily deserts the body without the usual farewell of an illness.
Contrary to my expectations Gwen did not faint.For a long time, - it may not have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed, under the peculiar circumstances, at least an hour, - she remained perfectly impassive.She neither changed colour nor exhibited any other sign of emotion.She stood gazing quietly, tenderly, at her father's body as if he were asleep and she were watching for some indication of his awakening.Then a puzzled expression came over her countenance.There was no trace of sorrow in it, only the look of perplexity.I decided to break the gruesome silence, but the thought of how my own voice would sound in that awe-inspired stillness frightened me.Gwen herself was the first to speak.She looked up with the same impassive countenance, from which now the perplexed look had fled, and said simply:
"Gentlemen, what is to be done?" Her voice was firm and sane, - that it was pitched lower than usual and had a suggestion of intensity in it, was perfectly natural.I thought she did not realise her loss and said: "He has gone past recall." "Yes," she replied, "I know that, but should we not send for an officer?" "An officer!" Iexclaimed."Is it possible you entertain a doubt that your father's death resulted from natural causes?" She looked at me a moment fixedly, and then said deliberately: "My father was murdered!" Iwas so surprised and pained that, for a moment, I could not reply, and no one else sought to break the silence.
Maitland, as if Gwen's last remark had given rise to a sudden determination, glided to the body.He examined the throat, raised the right hand and looked at the fingers: then he stepped back a little and wrote something in his note-book.This done, he tried the folding doors and found them locked on the inside; then the two windows on the south side of the room, which he also found fastened.
He opened the hall door slightly and the hinges creaked noisily, of all of which he made a note.Then taking a rule from his pocket he went to the east window, and measured the opening, and then the distance between this window and the chair in which the old gentleman had sat, recording his results as before.His next act astonished me not a little and had the effect of recalling me to my senses.
With his penknife he cut a circle in the carpet around each leg of the chair on which the body rested.He continued his examinations with quiet thoroughness, but I ceased now to follow him closely, since I had begun to feel the necessity of convincing Gwen of her error, and was casting about for the best way to do so.
