Part 30 (2/2)
”No, not a ghost of one. She corresponded with him for a time, however-wrote him after the first child was born-and christened 'Philip' in honour of him. In those days it used to take six months to get a letter to Australia, and another six to get word back, so the baby was more than a year old when Uncle Phil wrote that if he didn't marry in the meantime and have a son of his own-which was very unlikely-he would make young Phil his heir and come out after him, too, one of these fine days.”
”One moment. Was the person you allude to as 'Young Phil' one of the sons that was murdered?”
”Yes. He was the first victim, poor, chap!”
”Oh, I see!” said Cleek. ”I see! So there is money in the background, eh? Well go on. What next? Hear any more from Uncle Phil after that?”
”Oh, yes-for a long time. Miriam and Flora were born, and word of their arrival in the world was sent out to him before the final letter for years and years reached them. In that letter he wrote that he was doing better and better every year, and getting so rich that he didn't have time to do anything but just stop where he was and 'gather in the shekels.' There'd be enough for all when he did come, however, and he was altering his will so that in case anything should happen to young Phil-'which G.o.d forbid,' he wrote-the girls would come next, and so on to all the heirs of his niece. After that letter years went by, and never another one. They, thinking that he had married after all-for in his last letter he had spoken of a young widow who had lately been engaged to fill the post of housekeeper at his ranch-gave up all hope when after three times writing no reply came, and finally desisted entirely. He says, however, that it was just the other way about. That he did write-wrote six or seven times-but could get no reply; and as he afterwards found the housekeeper in question a designing and deceitful person, and s.h.i.+pped her off about her business, he makes no doubt that she received and destroyed Mrs. Comstock's letter to him and burnt his to her, hoping, no doubt, to inveigle him into marrying her.”
”Quite likely, if she were a designing woman,” commented Cleek. ”But go on, please. What next?”
”Oh, years of hards.h.i.+p, during which Mr. Comstock died and his widow had to earn their own living unaided. Young Phil got a post as bookkeeper, Flora taught music and painting, Mrs. Comstock did needlework, and Miriam became a governess in the family of a distant connection of my grandfather, Sir Gilbert Morford. That's where and how I met her, Mr. Cleek, and-Well, that's another story!” his cheeks reddening and a flash of fire coming into his eyes. ”My grandfather says he will 'chuck me out neck and crop' if I marry her; but it does not matter-I will!”
”Yes, you will-if the cut of that chin stands for anything,” commented Cleek. ”Well, to get on: the Comstocks were down in the deeps, and no hope of hearing any more from Australia and Uncle Phil, eh? What next?”
”Why, all of a sudden he dropped in on them, bless his bully old heart!-and then good-bye to hard times and any more struggling for them. He'd been in England searching for them for seven months before he found them; but when he did find them there was a time! Inside of ten hours, the whole world was changed for them. Made the boys and the girls give up their positions and come home to live with him and their mother, poured money out by the handful, bought Lilac Lodge and fitted it up like a little palace, dressed his niece and her daughters like queens, and settled down with them to what seemed about to be a life of glorious and luxurious ease, and in the midst of all this peace and plenty, brightness and hope, the first blow fell. Mrs. Comstock, going to bed at night in perfect health, was found in the morning stone-dead! Of course, as no doctor could give a death certificate when none had been in attendance upon her, the Law stepped in, the coroner held an inquest, an autopsy was decided upon, and the result of it was a deeper and more amazing mystery than ever. She had died-but from what? Every organ was found to be in a thoroughly healthy condition. The heart was sound, the lungs betrayed no sign of an anesthetic, the blood and kidneys not the faintest trace of poison-everything about her was perfectly normal. She had not died through drugs, she had not died through strangulation, suffocation, electrical shock, or failure of the heart. She had not been stabbed, she had not been shot, she had not succ.u.mbed to any mortal disease-yet there she was, stone-dead, slain by something which no one could trace and for which Science could find no name.”
Narkom opened his lips to speak, but Cleek signalled him to silence, and stood studying the Captain from under down-drawn brows, looking and listening and thoughtfully rubbing his thumb and forefinger up and down his chin.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
”Of course the family was horribly shocked and upset by this sudden and mysterious interruption to the dream of peace,” went on the Captain; ”but nothing was left but to accept the verdict of 'Death from unknown causes,' and to believe it the will of G.o.d. The body was buried a few days later, and, comforting each other as best they could, the sorrowing uncle and heart-broken nieces and nephews settled down to living their lives without the one who had been the suns.h.i.+ne of the home, and whose loss seemed the greatest blow that could have been dealt them. A month pa.s.sed and they were just beginning to forget details of the tragedy when a second and equally mysterious and horrifying one occurred, and the eldest son of the dead woman-Philip-was stricken down precisely as his mother had been, and, as his horrified brother, sisters, and uncle now recalled, like her, on the tenth day of the month!”
”Hum-m-m!” said Cleek, reflectively. ”Rather significant, that. It was, I a.s.sume, that circ.u.mstance which first suggested the idea of something more than mere chance being at the back of these sudden and mysterious deaths?”
”That and one other circ.u.mstance. The condition of the bedclothing, Mr. Cleek, showed that in Philip's case there had been something in the nature of a struggle before he had succ.u.mbed to the Power which had a.s.sailed him. In other words, he had not been, as doubtless the poor mother had, so infinitely inferior in point of strength to the murderer as to be absolutely powerless in the wretch's grip from the very first instant of the attack. He had fought for his life, poor fellow, but it must have been a brief fight and death itself almost instantaneous; for although the bedclothing was tangled round his feet in a manner which could only have occurred in a struggle, he did not live long enough to get off the bed itself or slide so much as one foot to the floor. He died as his mother had died, and the verdict of the doctors and of the coroner's jury was the same: 'Death from unknown causes'!”
”Hm-m-m!” said Cleek again. ”And were all the symptoms-or, rather, the absence of symptoms-the same?”
”Precisely. All the organs were discovered to be in a normal condition, the blood was untainted by any suggestion of either mineral or animal poison, the heart was sound, the lungs healthy-there was neither an internal disturbance nor an external wound, unless one could call a 'wound' a slight, a very slight, swelling upon the left side of the neck; a small thing, not so big as a sixpence.”
”And appearing very much like the inflammation resulting from the bite of a gnat or a spider, Captain?”
”Exactly like it, Mr. Cleek. In fact, the doctors fancied at first that it was the result of his having been bitten by some poisonous insect, and were for accounting for his death that way. But, of course, the entire absence of poison in the blood soon put an end to that idea, so it was certain that whatever he died from, it was not from a bite or a sting of any sort.”
”Clever chaps, those doctors,” commented Cleek with a curious one-sided smile. ”However, they were quite correct in that, I imagine, poison, either animal, vegetable, or mineral, was not the means of destruction. Still, I should have thought that at this second post-mortem the likeness of the son's case to that of the mother's would have impelled them to extra vigilance, and resulted in a much more careful searching, and minute examination of the viscera. If my theory is correct, I do not suppose they would have found anything in the contents of the thorax or the abdomen, but it is just possible that a.n.a.lysis of the matter removed from the cranial cavity might have revealed a small blood-clot in the brain.”
The Captain twitched up his eyebrows and stared at him in open-mouthed amazement.
”Of all the-By Jove! you know, this beats me! To think of your guessing that!” he said. ”As a matter of fact, that's precisely what they did do, Mr. Cleek. But as they couldn't arrive at any conclusion nor trace a probable cause of its origin they were more in the dark than ever. Selwin, the local pract.i.tioner, was for putting it down as a case of apoplexy on the strength of that small blood-clot, but as there was an entire absence of every other symptom of apoplectic conditions the other doctors scouted the suggestion as preposterous-pointed out the generally healthy state of the brain and of the heart, lungs, arterial walls, et cetera, as utterly refuting such a theory-and in the end the verdict on the son was the verdict given on the mother: 'Death from unknown causes'; and he was buried as she had been buried, with the secret of the murder undiscovered.”
”And then what, Captain?”
”What I have already told you, Mr. Cleek. Nothing under G.o.d's heaven would or could persuade Mr. Harmstead to let his nieces and their two surviving brothers remain another hour in that house of disaster. He removed them from it instantly-fled the very neighbourhood, hired a house down here-at Dalehampton; a dozen miles or so on the other side of the Tor, yonder-and carried them there to live. The family now consisted of Miriam and Flora, the two girls, Paul, a boy of thirteen-old Mr. Harmstead's special pride and pet-and Ronald, a little chap of eleven. In this new home they hoped and prayed to be free from the horrible visitant who had made the memory of the old one a nightmare to them, but-they couldn't forget, Mr. Cleek, what the Tenth of each month had taken from them, and grew sick with dread at the steady approach of the Tenth of this one.”
”And as this is the Twelfth,” said Cleek, ”the day before yesterday was the Tenth. Did anything happen?”
”Yes,” replied the Captain, his voice dropping until it was little more than a whisper. ”I tried to cheer them; Miss Lorne tried to cheer them. We sat with them, tried to make them think that our presence there would act as a s.h.i.+eld and a guard-and tried to think so ourselves. But old Mr. Harmstead took even stronger measures. 'Nothing shall touch Paul-nothing that lives and breathes,' he said, desperately. 'I'll take him into my room; I'll sit up with him in my arms all night!'”
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