The Web of Life Part 40

Mrs. Ducharme returned to the temple at an early hour the next morning.

Sommers saw her mumbling to herself as she came across the park. Before she knocked, he opened the door; she started back in fear of the sombre, bearded face with the blood-shot eyes that seemed lying in wait for her.

"Is the missus at home?" she murmured, drawing back from the door.

"Come in," the doctor ordered.

As soon as she entered, Sommers locked the door.

"Now," he said quietly, pointing to a chair, "the whole story and no lies."

The woman looked at the doctor and trembled; then she edged toward the inner door. Sommers locked this, flung the key on the table, and pointed again to the chair.

"What did you tell her yesterday?" he demanded.

Mrs. Ducharme began an incoherent tale about her head hurting her, about the sin which the "healer" commanded her to rid her conscience of. Sommers interrupted her.

"Answer my questions. Did you threaten _her_?"

The woman nodded her head.

"Did you accuse her of drugging her husband?"

She nodded her head again reluctantly; then cried out,--"Let me go! I'll have the police on you two."

Sommers stood over the woman as if he were about to lay hands on her.

"You know the facts. Tell them. What happened to Preston that day?"

"He'd been drinking."

"You got him the liquor?"

She nodded.

"Then you gave him a powder from that box in Mrs. Preston's room?"

The woman looked terrified, and did not answer.

"If you don't tell me every word of truth," Sommers said, slowly drawing a little syringe from his pocket, "you will never see anything again."

"Yes, I gave him a powder."

"One?"

She nodded, her hands shaking.

"Two?"

"Yes," she gasped. "I was afraid Mrs. Preston would find out what I had done, and one powder wasn't enough, didn't keep him quiet. So I put two more in--thought it wouldn't do no harm. Then I guess Mrs. Preston gave him some, when she came in. But you can't touch me," she added impudently. "The healer said you had done a criminal act in signing that certificate. You and she better look out."

Sommers stepped across the room and opened the inner door. Mrs. Ducharme gave one glance at the silent figure and shrieked:

"You killed her! You killed her! Let me out!"

Sommers closed the door softly and returned to the shrieking creature.

"Keep quiet," Sommers ordered sternly, "while I think what to do with you."

She held her tongue and sat as still as her quaking nerves permitted.

Sommers reviewed rapidly the story as he had made it out. At first it occurred to him, as it had to Alves, that the woman had been drinking. But his practised eyes saw more surely than Alves, and he judged that her conduct had been the result of mental derangement. Probably the blow over the eye, from which she was suffering when she came to Lindsay's office, had hurt the brain. Otherwise, she would not have been silly enough to go to Alves with her foolish story. It was possible, also, that the night of Preston's death she had not known what she was doing. His resentment gave place to disgust. The sole question was what to do with her. She would talk, probably, and in some way he must avoid that danger for a few days, at least. Then it would not matter to Alves or to him what she said.

Finally he turned to the miserable, shaking figure, and said sternly:

"You have committed one murder, and, perhaps, two. But I will not kill you _now_, or put out your eyes, unless you get troublesome. Have you any money? I thought not. You are going with me to the railroad station, where I shall buy you a ticket."

He unlocked the door and motioned to the woman. She followed him to the station without protest, fascinated by his strong will. Sommers bought a ticket to St. Louis and handed it to her with a dollar.

"Remember, if I see or hear of you again,"--he put his finger in his waistcoat pocket, significantly. "And there are other powders," he added grimly.

"Ducharme has gone back to Peory. I s'pose I can stop off there?" she asked timidly, as the express arrived.

"You can stop off anywhere on your way to h.e.l.l," the doctor replied indifferently. "But keep away from Chicago. There is no quicker way of making that journey to h.e.l.l than to come back here."

Mrs. Ducharme trembled afresh and bundled herself on board the train.

Sommers returned to the temple, feeling a.s.sured that the next few hours would not be disturbed by the ill-omened creature. This vulgar, brutal act had to be performed; he had been preparing himself for it since daylight, when his mind had resumed the round of cause and effect that answers for life. It was over now, and he could return to Alves. There were other petty things to be done, but not yet. As he came across the park he noticed that the door of the temple was open. Some one had entered while he was away. At his step on the portico a figure rose from the inner room and came to meet him. It was Louise Hitchc.o.c.k. The traces of tears lay on her face.

"I knew this morning," she said gently. "I thought you might be alone--and so I came."

"Sit down," Sommers replied wearily. In a few moments he added, "I suppose you saw it in the papers--the guard must have told. Strange! that even in death the world must meddle with her, the world that cared nothing for her."

"I am sorry." Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k blushed as she spoke. "I will go away--I didn't mean to intrude--I thought--"

"No, don't go! I didn't mean you. I wanted to be alone, all alone for a little while, but I am glad now that you came, that you cared to come. You didn't know Alves."

"She wouldn't let me know her," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k protested gently.

"Yes, I remember. You see, our life was peculiar. I think Alves was afraid of you, of all the world."

"I knew how you loved her," Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k exclaimed irrelevantly.

Sommers tried to answer. He felt like talking to this warm-hearted woman; he wanted to talk, but he could not phrase the complex feeling in his heart. Everything about Alves had something in it he could not make another, even the most sympathetic soul in the world, understand. It was like trying to explain an impression of a whole life.

"There is so much I can't tell any one," he said at last, with a wan smile.

"Don't misunderstand--you'd have to know the whole, and I couldn't begin to make you know it."