The Truants Part 30

"Oh yes. I went into Mr. Chase's room an hour afterwards. He was sitting in his armchair before the grate----"

"Holding the apple in his hand. I think. Mrs. Wither, you said?"

continued Stiles.

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Wither. "He had his arm out resting on the arm of the chair, and the apple was in his hand."

"Well, well!" exclaimed Warrisden.

"I told him that I would not call him in the morning until he rang, as he wanted a good rest."

"What did he say?" asked Warrisden.

"Nothing, sir. As often as not he does not answer when he is spoken to."

A sudden fear seized upon Warrisden. He ran out of the room and up the stairs to Chase's sitting-room. He knocked on the door; there was no answer. He turned the handle and entered. Chase had not gone to bed last night. He was still sitting in his armchair before the grate. One arm was extended along the arm of the chair, with the palm turned upwards, and in the palm lay an apple. Chase was sitting huddled up, with his head fallen forward upon his breast like a man asleep.

Warrisden crossed the room and touched the hand which held the apple.

It was quite cold. The apple rolled on to the floor. Warrisden turned to the housekeeper. She was standing in the doorway, and staring over her shoulder were the two undergraduates.

"He was dead," said Warrisden, "when you looked into the room an hour afterwards!"

The three people in the doorway stood stupidly aghast. Warrisden pushed them out, locked the door on the outside, and removed the key.

"Mr. Princkley, will you run for a doctor?" he asked.

Princkley nodded his head, and went off upon his errand.

Warrisden and Stiles descended the stairs into the dining-room.

"I think you had better take the news to the mission," said Warrisden; and Stiles in his turn went off without a word. Mrs. Wither for her part had run out of the house as quickly as she could. She hardly knew what she was doing. She had served as housekeeper to Mr. Chase ever since he had come to Stepney, and she was dazed by the sudden calamity. She was aware of a need to talk, to find the neighbours and talk.

Warrisden was thus left alone in the house. It had come about without any premeditation upon his part. He was the oldest man of the three who had been present, and the only one who had kept his wits clear.

Both Princkley and Stiles had looked to him to decide what must be done. They regarded him as Chase's friend, whereas they were mere acquaintances. It did not even occur to Warrisden at first that he was alone in the house, that he held in his hand the key to Chase's room.

He was thinking of the strange perplexing life which had now so strangely ended. He thought of his first meeting with Chase in the mission, and of the distaste which he had felt; he remembered the array of liqueur bottles on the table, and the half-hour during which Chase had talked. A man of morbid pleasures, that had been Warrisden's impression. Yet there were the years of work, here, amongst these squalid streets. Even August had seen him clinging to--nay, dying at--his work. As Warrisden looked out of the window he saw a group of men and women and children gather outside the house. There was not a face but wore a look of consternation. If they spoke, they spoke in whispers, like people overawed. A very strange life! Warrisden knew many--as who does not?--who saw the high-road distinctly, and could not for the life of them but walk upon the low one. But to use both deliberately, as it seemed Chase had done; to dip from the high-road on to the low, and then painfully to scramble up again, and again willingly to drop, as though the air of those stern heights were too rigorous for continuous walking; to live the double life because he could not entirely live the one, and would not entirely live the other. Thus Warrisden solved the problem of the _dilettante_ curate and his devotion to his work, and his solution was correct.

But he held the key of Chase's room in his hand; and there was no one but himself in the house. His thoughts came back to Pamela and the object of his journey up to town. He was sorely tempted to use the key, since now the means by which he had hoped to discover in what quarter of the world Stretton wandered and was hid were tragically closed to him. Chase could no longer speak, even if he would. Very likely there were letters upstairs lying on the table. There might be one from Tony Stretton. Warrisden did not want to read it--a mere glance at the postmark, and at the foreign stamp upon the envelope.

Was that so great a crime? Warrisden was sorely tempted. If only he could be sure that Chase would a second time have revealed what he was bidden to keep hid, why, then, would it not be just the same thing as if Chase were actually speaking with his lips? Warrisden played with the key. He went to the door and listened. There was not a sound in the house except the ticking of a clock. The front door still stood open. He must be quick if he meant to act. Warrisden turned to the stairs. The thought of the dead man huddled in the chair, a silent guardian of the secret, weighted his steps. Slowly he mounted. Such serious issues hung upon his gaining this one piece of knowledge. The fortunes of four people--Pamela and himself, Tony Stretton and his wife--might all be straightened out if he only did this one thing, which he had no right to do. He would not pry amongst Chase's papers; he would merely glance at the table, that was all. He heard voices in the hall while he was still upon the stairs. He turned back with a feeling of relief.

At the foot of the stairs stood Mr. Princkley and the doctor.

Warrisden handed the key of the room to the latter, and the three men went up. The doctor opened the door and crossed to the armchair. Then he looked about the room.

"Nothing has been touched, of course?"

"Nothing," replied Warrisden.

The doctor looked again at the dead man. Then he turned to Warrisden, mistaking him, as the others had done, for some relation or near friend.

"I can give no certificate," said he.

"There must be an inquest?"

"Yes."

Then the doctor moved suddenly to the table, which stood a few feet from the armchair. There was a decanter upon it half filled with a liquid like brown sherry, only a little darker. The doctor removed the stopper and raised the decanter to his nose.

"Ah!" said he, in a voice of comprehension. He turned again to Warrisden.

"Did you know?" he asked.

"No."

The doctor held the decanter towards Warrisden. Warrisden took it, moistened the tip of a finger with the liquid, and tasted it. It had a bitter flavour.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Laudanum," said the doctor. "An overdose of it."

"Where is the gla.s.s, then, in which it was taken?"

A tumbler stood upon the table close to the decanter-stopper. The doctor took it up.

"Yes, I noticed that," said Warrisden; "I noticed that it is clean."

The doctor took the gla.s.s to the window, turned it upside down, and held it to the light. It was quite dry, quite clean.

"Surely it's evident what happened," said Warrisden. "Chase came into the room, opened that cupboard door in the corner there. His keys are still dangling in the lock, he took the decanter and the tumbler out, placed them on the table at his side, sat down in his chair with the apple in his hand, leaned back and quietly died."

"Yes, no doubt," said the doctor. "But I think here will be found the reason why he leaned back and quietly died," and he touched the decanter. "Opium poisoning. It may not have been an overdose, but a regular practice." He went to the door and called for Mrs. Wither.

Mrs. Wither had now returned to the house. When she came upstairs into the room, he pointed to the decanter.

"Did you ever see this before?"

"No, sir," she answered.

"Or that cupboard open?"

"No, it was always locked."

"Quite so," said the doctor. "You had better get some women to help you here," he went on; and, with Warrisden's a.s.sistance, he lifted Chase from the chair and carried him into his bedroom.

"I must give notice to the police," he went on, and again he appealed to Warrisden. "Do you mind staying in the house till I come back?"

"Not at all."

The doctor locked the door of the room and took the key away with him.

Warrisden waited with Princkley in the dining-room. The doctor had taken away the key. It seemed that his chance of discovering the secret which was of so much importance to Pamela and Millie Stretton and himself had vanished. If only he had come yesterday, or the day before! He sat down by the window and gazed out upon the street. A group of men and women were gathered in the roadway, looking up at the windows and talking quietly together. Then Princkley from behind said--

"Some letters came for Chase this morning. They were not taken up to his room. You had better look at them."

Every one took him for a close friend. Princkley brought him the letters, and he glanced at the superscriptions lest any one should wear a look of immediate importance. He held the letters in his hand and turned them over one by one, and half-way through the file he stopped. He had come to a letter written upon thin paper, in a man's handwriting, with a foreign stamp upon the envelope. The stamp was a French one, and there was printed upon it: "Poste d'Algerie."