"No. She has not yet sent for me." Miss Philps drew out her watch and consulted it. "Dear me!" with slight surprise, "it is much later than I thought. Perhaps I had better go up."

Esther looked worried. "I believe you had--if she hurries at the last she will be terribly excited. Aunt Amy told me she wished particularly not to be disturbed this morning, but surely she has forgotten how late it is getting."

"I'll go up," said Miss Philps. "It's time for her tonic anyway, and we must persuade her to eat something. When you are ready for me to hook your dress, call. I can easily manage you both."

This is all that Mrs. Sykes heard, for just then Jane flew by again like a returning comet and had to be captured and properly tied up. Mrs.

Sykes, as she admitted herself, was no hand at fancy fixings but she was painstaking and conscientious and the bow-tying absorbed all her energies. She was getting on very well and had almost succeeded in adjusting the last bow when a cry from the room above startled her into the tying of a double knot.

"What was that?"

It was not a loud cry--but there was something in it which brought Mrs.

Sykes' heart leaping into her throat, which sent Esther reeling against the stair bal.u.s.ter, which brought the doctor, white-faced from the veranda--it was the kind of cry which carries in its note the psychic essence of terror and disaster.

Mrs. Sykes for all her iron nerve felt suddenly faint. Jane began to cry. The doctor and Esther had raced up the stairs. But there was no repet.i.tion of the cry. Instead there was silence. Then a murmur of voices and sounds of ordered activity overhead.

Clearly something had happened. But what? Mrs. Sykes wanted very much to go and see. But the glimpse she had caught of Callandar's eyes as he sprang to the stair, the look of white horror in Esther's face as she followed him, and above all, that strange terrifying Something in the cry she had heard seemed to discourage enquiry. The good lady turned her attention to the comforting of Jane. After all, if she waited long enough she could hardly help hearing all about it. At first hand, too.

It seemed a long time that she waited. Miss Philps came up and down the stairs several times but she did not appear to see Mrs. Sykes. Jane stopped crying and wandered out into the garden. Still Mrs. Sykes waited and presently Aunt Amy came in, looking quite excited and asked eagerly what time it was. Mrs. Sykes told her, adding with asperity that these were fine goings-on, and that they'd all be late for the wedding if they didn't hurry up.

"Yes, I think they will. I'm almost sure they will," said Aunt Amy, and she laughed as a child laughs when it is greatly pleased.

"Dear me, she is much madder than I thought," murmured Mrs. Sykes.

"Whatever is the matter? What are they doing?" she asked in a louder tone.

Aunt Amy raised a finger, "Hush! she's asleep. Let us tidy up the room.

I don't think she is going to wake up for a long time yet. And then she'll have to wait till the world goes round again."

"Well of all the--" began Mrs. Sykes, but she was interrupted by the entrance of Professor Willits. With the virtuous air of one who strictly minds her own business she began to tie her bonnet strings.

"Don't go, Mrs. Sykes," said the professor gravely. "I think--I'm afraid you may be needed."

"I hope nothing serious has happened?" faltered Mrs. Sykes, now thoroughly disturbed, but he did not seem to hear her. He was listening intently to the sounds overhead. They were very slight sounds now and presently they ceased altogether. Willits looked more anxious. Then, in the midst of a new, heavier silence, Dr. Callandar himself came down the stairs.

At first sight he appeared almost as usual. He did not notice Mrs. Sykes but went straight across the room to Willits.

"Nothing--any use--" he began haltingly. Then suddenly the words ceased to come. His lips moved but there was no sound. With an expression of intense surprise he lifted his hand to his head, and swayed awkwardly into the nearest chair.

"Land sakes, look out! he's going to fall," cried Mrs. Sykes in terror.

"Breakdown," said the professor briefly. "I expected something of the kind. Help me to get him to the car."

"Oh, Land, Land," moaned; Mrs. Sykes, "whatever"--but realising that the time for questioning was not yet, she did what she was told without more words.

"Better send for Dr. Parker," said Willits crisply to Miss Philps who had come in quietly. "Better tell the minister, too. Keep the little girl down stairs. I'll be back as soon as I can. Mrs. Sykes, I shall want you to come with me."

"Oh, Land--" but she got no further, the car was off like the wind.

Later when the doctor had been put to bed like a child and telegrams dispatched which would bring a specialist and a nurse on the afternoon train, the good lady drew a long breath and decided that she couldn't "last out" a moment longer.

Drawing Willits from the room her questions burst forth in their unstemmed torrent.

The tall man listened at first in bewilderment. Then, as the true inwardness of the case dawned on him, a look which was almost admiration came over his angular countenance.

"Why, Mrs. Sykes," he said, "is it possible that you do not know? I would have told you before but I took your knowledge for granted. The poor lady whom my friend was to marry was found dead in her bed. She died during the night. An overdose of sleeping powder."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

Autumn that year was short and golden. Winter came early. In November it stormed, thawed, stormed again and began to freeze in earnest. The frost bit deeply but one night when its grip was sure, the temperature rose a little and snow began to fall. For days and nights it snowed, softly, steadily, without wind, and then the clouds parted and the sun shone out--a far off sun in a sky as blue as summer and cold as polar seas.

The air tingled and snapped with frost. In the azure cup of the sunlit sky it sparkled like golden wine, and, like wine, it thrilled and strengthened. People stamped their feet and beat their hands to keep warm but smiled the while and murmured: "Glorious!"

So much for the weather--since it was the weather which became the main factor in helping Coombe forget the tragedy at the Elms. Wonder is no nine-day affair in Coombe. One sensation is carefully conserved until the next one comes along, but in this case the early winter with its complete change of interests, its sleighing, skating and snow-shoeing, its reawakening of business and social bustle proved a distraction almost as effective as battle, murder or sudden death. The talk died down, the interest slackened, and the princ.i.p.al actors were once more permitted to become normal persons living in a normal world.

For a time it had seemed that this desired condition would never be obtained. Coombe had felt the breath of a mystery. It was supposed to know everything and suspected that it knew nothing--a state of things aggravating to any well regulated community.

There had been an inquest, of course, and at the inquest the whole sad affair was supposed to have been made plain. It was simplicity itself.

Simplicity, in fact, was its most annoying characteristic. Mrs. Coombe, it appeared, had been for a long time somewhat of a sufferer from an obscure trouble, referred to generally as "nerves." For the relief of this trouble, one of whose symptoms was insomnia, she had, from time to time, had recourse to narcotics which, as everyone knows, are dangerous, if not, as many thought, positively immoral. Undoubtedly the poor lady had died from an overdose. It was easy, the coroner said, for a sympathetic mind to reconstruct the details of the terrible occurrence.

It was the night before the wedding and the deceased had retired early.

Miss Milligan, who had run in for a last look at the wedding gown, and who had been the very last person to see and speak with her, deposed that she had appeared more than ordinarily tired and seemed anxious to be alone. Asked if she detected any other signs of disordered nerves the witness had said, no. The deceased had not appeared worried about anything? No. The wedding gown had been quite satisfactory? Quite.

No more questions were asked and Miss Milligan had not thought it necessary to go into the matter of the getting of the nerve tonic. The dead woman's harmless little deception was safe in her hands. It hadn't anything to do with the case anyway. Although in her own heart Miss Milligan blamed Dr. Callandar severely for not allowing the poor woman to use her tonic constantly. Had he done so the final tragedy might never have happened. Needless to say this good lady never knew what she had done. The fact that Mary Coombe had been a drug victim under treatment did not come out at the inquest. The coroner knew, but he was a sensible man and a very kind one. It hardly needed the logical arguments of Miss Philps or the heart-broken entreaties of Esther to convince him that knowledge of this fact was not for the general public.

The only legally necessary information was the cause of death and that was simple enough. Easily understood, too, for given a tendency to sleeplessness and the excitement incident to a wedding, what more natural than that the excited bride should have sought relief in her customary sleeping draught.

The mistake, the taking of a lethal dose, was, as all such mistakes are, inexplicable. Did her hand shake? Had she miscounted the number of tablets? Had she, in her nervous state, deliberately risked a larger dose whose danger she did not realise? These questions would never be answered. She had been alone in her room, nor was there a thread of evidence upon which to hang a theory. Esther, the nurse, Jane, Dr.

Callandar (poor man!) had noticed nothing out of the ordinary when they had parted from her that last time. Aunt Amy's evidence was not taken.

No one thought to question her and she volunteered no information. Of all the household at the Elms she was least disturbed by the tragedy, but, naturally, one does not expect the mentally weak to realise sorrow like ordinary people. This exemption was, as many did not fail to remark, one of their compensations. So in this, as in other things, Aunt Amy did not matter. She went her quiet way undisturbed, the one contented and peaceful person in that house of shock and horror.

Why, then, since all was so plain, did Coombe scent a mystery? It would be hard to say. Perhaps the curious behaviour of Dr. Callandar was partly responsible. When the news of his sudden breakdown became known the first natural comment was, "So, you see, he did love her after all."

But, upon longer consideration this did not seem to meet the case. A man may be genuinely in love with a woman and yet not be stricken, as had the doctor, by her sudden death. Dimly, Coombe felt that there must be a cause behind the cause. Miss Sinclair, the eldest, even went so far as to quote Shakespeare to the effect that "men have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love." True, the doctor was not dead but his illness was proving a very long and stubborn one. In its early stages he had been taken away to Toronto for special treatment and had been quite unable to see any one, even the minister, before he left.

Mrs. Sykes alone, with the exception of the trained nurses, had laid eyes on him since his sudden collapse on the day of the wedding. And Mrs. Sykes, miraculously, had nothing to say.

It was rumoured, however, that his brain was affected, that he was paralysed, that he was deaf and blind, that he was dying of slow decline. Somehow the town felt that Mary Coombe, living or dead, did not loom large enough as a cause of such disintegration.

Esther's actions, too, were part of the puzzle. It had been confidently supposed that she would go away at once for a rest and change. Every one knew that the Hollises had offered to take her with them on a long trip to the Pacific Coast. But Esther had declined to go. She declined to go anywhere. Worn out as she was with strain and grief, she persisted in disregarding the advice of everybody. ("So headstrong in a young girl!

But Doctor Coombe, her father, was always like that.") Apparently she intended to go on exactly as if nothing had happened and to all arguments said nothing save, "I think it will be best," or, "I am not fit for strange scenes just now," or something equally futile. Coombe was quite annoyed with Esther--so stubborn!

Only to Miss Annabel did the girl attempt to justify her att.i.tude when that kind soul had exhausted persuasion and was inclined to feel both worried and hurt.

"Don't you see," she explained haltingly, "I can't go away. I don't want to. I can't make the effort. Here every one understands and will make allowances. I want to be quiet, to rest, to think. I want to get back to where I was before--if I can."

"Before what, my dear?"

"Before--everything! I can't explain. But I know it is the only way I shall ever be content. I want to take my school again and to go on working and looking after Jane and Aunt Amy. Although," with a little smile, "it is really Auntie who looks after Jane and me. Won't you help me, dear Miss Annabel? I am quite sure that this is the only thing to do."

"You are a strange girl, Esther. One would think you would be crazy to get away. Look at Angus! He's going. He has suddenly found out that a trip to the Holy Land is necessary if one is to speak intelligently upon many portions of the Bible. Absurd! But I never let him dream that I know that isn't his reason. And I hope you won't. It is all over now and the sooner he forgets the better. But I think even you are convinced, now, that I was right about--you know to what I refer!"