The Queen of Hearts

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER V.

  THE first amazement and alarm produced by this discovery deprived me ofmy presence of mind. Without stopping to think what I ought to dofirst, I ran back to the servants' hall, calling out that something hadhappened to my master.

  All the household hurried directly into the Red Room, Josephine amongthe rest. I was first brought to my senses, as it were, by observing thestrange expression of her countenance when she saw the bed-gown and theempty room. All the other servants were bewildered and frightened. Shealone, after giving a little start, recovered herself directly. A lookof devilish satisfaction broke out on her face, and she left the roomquickly and quietly, without exchanging a word with any of us. I sawthis, and it aroused my suspicions. There is no need to mention whatthey were, for, as events soon showed, they were entirely wide of themark.

  Having come to myself a little, I sent them all out of the room exceptthe coachman. We two then examined the place.

  The Red Room was usually occupied by visitors. It was on the groundfloor, and looked out into the garden. We found the window-shutters,which I had barred overnight, open, but the window itself was down. Thefire had been out long enough for the grate to be quite cold. Half thebottle of brandy had been drunk. The carpet-bag was gone. There were nomarks of violence or struggling anywhere about the bed or the room.We examined every corner carefully, but made no other discoveries thanthese.

  When I returned to the servants' hall, bad news of my mistress wasawaiting me there. The unusual noise and confusion in the house hadreached her ears, and she had been told what had happened withoutsufficient caution being exercised in preparing her to hear it. In herweak, nervous state, the shock of the intelligence had quite prostratedher. She had fallen into a swoon, and had been brought back to hersenses with the greatest difficulty. As to giving me or anybody elsedirections what to do under the embarrassing circumstances which hadnow occurred, she was totally incapable of the effort.

  I waited till the middle of the day, in the hope that she might getstrong enough to give her orders; but no message came from her. At lastI resolved to send and ask her what she thought it best to do. Josephinewas the proper person to go on this errand; but when I asked forJosephine, she was nowhere to be found. The housemaid, who had searchedfor her ineffectually, brought word that her bonnet and shawl werenot hanging in their usual places. The parlor-maid, who had been inattendance in my mistress's room, came down while we were all aghast atthis new disappearance. She could only tell us that Josephine had beggedher to do lady's-maid's duty that morning, as she was not well. Notwell! And the first result of her illness appeared to be that she hadleft the house!

  I cautioned the servants on no account to mention this circumstanceto my mistress, and then went upstairs myself to knock at her door. Myobject was to ask if I might count on her approval if I wrote inher name to the lawyer in London, and if I afterward went and gaveinformation of what had occurred to the nearest justice of the peace. Imight have sent to make this inquiry through one of the female servants;but by this time, though not naturally suspicious, I had got to distrusteverybody in the house, whether they deserved it or not.

  So I asked the question myself, standing outside the door. My mistressthanked me in a faint voice, and begged me to do what I had proposedimmediately.

  I went into my own bedroom and wrote to the lawyer, merely telling himthat Mr. James Smith had appeared unexpectedly at the Hall, andthat events had occurred in consequence which required his immediatepresence. I made the letter up like a parcel, and sent the coachman withit to catch the mail on its way through to London.

  The next thing was to go to the justice of the peace. The nearest livedabout five miles off, and was well acquainted with my mistress. He wasan old bachelor, and he kept house with his brother, who was a widower.The two were much respected and beloved in the county, being kind,unaffected gentlemen, who did a great deal of good among the poor. Thejustice was Mr. Robert Nicholson, and his brother, the widower, was Mr.Philip.

  I had got my hat on, and was asking the groom which horse I had bettertake, when an open carriage drove up to the house. It contained Mr.Philip Nicholson and two persons in plain clothes, not exactly servantsand not exactly gentlemen, as far as I could judge. Mr. Philip lookedat me, when I touched my hat to him, in a very grave, downcast way, andasked for my mistress. I told him she was ill in bed. He shook his headat hearing that, and said he wished to speak to me in private. I showedhim into the library. One of the men in plain clothes followed us, andsat in the hall. The other waited with the carriage.

  "I was just going out, sir," I said, as I set a chair for him, "to speakto Mr. Robert Nicholson about a very extraordinary circumstance--"

  "I know what you refer to," said Mr. Philip, cutting me short ratherabruptly; "and I must beg, for reasons which will presently appear, thatyou will make no statement of any sort to me until you have first heardwhat I have to say. I am here on a very serious and a very shockingerrand, which deeply concerns your mistress and you."

  His face suggested something worse than his words expressed. My heartbegan to beat fast, and I felt that I was turning pale.

  "Your master, Mr. James Smith," he went on, "came here unexpectedlyyesterday evening, and slept in this house last night. Before he retiredto rest he and your mistress had high words together, which ended, I amsorry to hear, in a threat of a serious nature addressed by Mrs. JamesSmith to her husband. They slept in separate rooms. This morning youwent into your master's room and saw no sign of him there. You onlyfound his nightgown on the bed, spotted with blood."

  "Yes, sir," I said, in as steady a voice as I could command. "Quitetrue."

  "I am not examining you," said Mr. Philip. "I am only making a certainstatement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother."

  "Before your brother, sir!" I repeated. "Am I suspected of anythingwrong?"

  "There is a suspicion that Mr. James Smith has been murdered," was theanswer I received to that question.

  My flesh began to creep all over from head to foot.

  "I am shocked--I am horrified to say," Mr. Philip went on, "that thesuspicion affects your mistress in the first place, and you in thesecond."

  I shall not attempt to describe what I felt when he said that. No wordsof mine, no words of anybody's, could give an idea of it. What other menwould have done in my situation I don't know. I stood before Mr. Philip,staring straight at him, without speaking, without moving, almostwithout breathing. If he or any other man had struck me at that moment,I do not believe I should have felt the blow.

  "Both my brother and myself," said Mr. Philip, "have such unfeignedrespect for your mistress, such sympathy for her under these frightfulcircumstances, and such an implicit belief in her capability of provingher innocence, that we are desirous of sparing her in this dreadfulemergency as much as possible. For those reasons, I have undertaken tocome here with the persons appointed to execute my brother's warrant--"

  "Warrant, sir!" I said, getting command of my voice as he pronouncedthat word--"a warrant against my mistress!"

  "Against her and against you," said Mr. Philip. "The suspiciouscircumstances have been sworn to by a competent witness, who hasdeclared on oath that your mistress is guilty, and that you are anaccomplice."

  "What witness, sir?"

  "Your mistress's quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning, andwho has made her deposition in due form."

  "And who is as false as hell," I cried out passionately, "in every wordshe says against my mistress and against me."

  "I hope--no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false,"said Mr. Philip. "But her perjury must be proved, and the necessaryexamination must take place. My carriage is going back to my brother's,and you will go in it, in charge of one of my men, who has the warrantto take you in custody. I shall remain here with the man who is waitingin the hall; and before any steps are taken to execute the otherwarrant, I shall send for the doctor to ascertain when your mistress canbe remo
ved."

  "Oh, my poor mistress!" I said, "this will be the death of her, sir."

  "I will take care that the shock shall strike her as tenderly aspossible," said Mr. Philip. "I am here for that express purpose. Shehas my deepest sympathy and respect, and shall have every help andalleviation that I can afford her."

  The hearing him say that, and the seeing how sincerely he meant what hesaid, was the first gleam of comfort in the dreadful affliction that hadbefallen us. I felt this; I felt a burning anger against the wretch whohad done her best to ruin my mistress's fair name and mine, but in everyother respect I was like a man who had been stunned, and whose facultieshad not perfectly recovered from the shock. Mr. Philip was obliged toremind me that time was of importance, and that I had better give myselfup immediately, on the merciful terms which his kindness offered to me.I acknowledged that, and wished him good morning. But a mist seemed tocome over my eyes as I turned round to go away--a mist that prevented mefrom finding my way to the door. Mr. Philip opened it for me, and said afriendly word or two which I could hardly hear. The man waiting outsidetook me to his companion in the carriage at the door, and I was drivenaway, a prisoner for the first time in my life.

  On our way to the justice's, what little thinking faculty I had leftin me was all occupied in the attempt to trace a motive for theinconceivable treachery and falsehood of which Josephine had beenguilty.

  Her words, her looks, and her manner, on that unfortunate day when mymistress so far forget herself as to strike, her, came back dimly to mymemory, and led to the inference that part of the motive, at least, ofwhich I was in search, might be referred to what had happened on thatoccasion. But was this the only reason for her devilish vengeanceagainst my mistress? And, even if it were so, what fancied injuries hadI done her? Why should I be included in the false accusation? In thedazed state of my faculties at that time, I was quite incapable ofseeking the answer to these questions. My mind was clouded all over, andI gave up the attempt to clear it in despair.

  I was brought before Mr. Robert Nicholson that day, and the fiend of aquadroon was examined in my presence. The first sight of her face, withits wicked self-possession, with its smooth leering triumph, so sickenedme that I turned my head away and never looked at her a second timethroughout the proceedings. The answers she gave amounted to a mererepetition of the deposition to which she had already sworn. I listenedto her with the most breathless attention, and was thunderstruck at theinconceivable artfulness with which she had mixed up truth and falsehoodin her charge against my mistress and me.

  This was, in substance, what she now stated in my presence:

  After describing the manner of Mr. James Smith's arrival at the Hall,the witness, Josephine Durand, confessed that she had been led to listenat the music-room door by hearing angry voices inside, and she thendescribed, truly enough, the latter part of the altercation betweenhusband and wife. Fearing, after this, that something serious mighthappen, she had kept watch in her room, which was on the same floor asher mistress's. She had heard her mistress's door open softly betweenone and two in the morning--had followed her mistress, who carried asmall lamp, along the passage and down the stairs into the hall--hadhidden herself in the porter's chair--had seen her mistress take adagger in a green sheath from a collection of Eastern curiosities keptin the hall--had followed her again, and seen her softly enter the RedRoom--had heard the heavy breathing of Mr. James Smith, which gave tokenthat he was asleep--had slipped into an empty room, next door to the RedRoam, and had waited there about a quarter of an hour, when her mistresscame out again with the dagger in her hand--had followed her mistressagain into the hall, where she had put the dagger back into itsplace--had seen her mistress turn into a side passage that led to myroom--had heard her knock at my door, and heard me answer and openit--had hidden again in the porter's chair--had, after a while, seenme and my mistress pass together into the passage that led to the RedRoom--had watched us both into the Red Room--and had then, through fearof being discovered and murdered herself, if she risked detection anylonger, stolen back to her own room for the rest of the night.

  After deposing on oath to the truth of these atrocious falsehoods, anddeclaring, in conclusion, that Mr. James Smith had been murdered bymy mistress, and that I was an accomplice, the quadroon had furtherasserted, in order to show a motive for the crime, that Mr. Meeke was mymistress's lover; that he had been forbidden the house by her husband,and that he was found in the house, and alone with her, on the eveningof Mr. James Smith's return. Here again there were some grains of truthcunningly mixed up with a revolting lie, and they had their effect ingiving to the falsehood a look of probability.

  I was cautioned in the usual manner and asked if I had anything to say.

  I replied that I was innocent, but that I would wait for legalassistance before I defended myself. The justice remanded me and theexamination was over. Three days later my unhappy mistress was subjectedto the same trial. I was not allowed to communicate with her. All Iknew was that the lawyer had arrived from London to help her. Toward theevening he was admitted to see me. He shook his head sorrowfully when Iasked after my mistress.

  "I am afraid," he said, "that she has sunk under the horror of thesituation in which that vile woman has placed her. Weakened by herprevious agitation, she seems to have given way under this last shock,tenderly and carefully as Mr. Philip Nicholson broke the bad newsto her. All her feelings appeared to be strangely blunted at theexamination to-day. She answered the questions put to her quitecorrectly, but at the same time quite mechanically, with no changein her complexion, or in her tone of voice, or in her manner, frombeginning to end. It is a sad thing, William, when women cannot gettheir natural vent of weeping, and your mistress has not shed a tearsince she left Darrock Hall."

  "But surely, sir," I said, "if my examination has not proved Josephine'sperjury, my mistress's examination must have exposed it?"

  "Nothing will expose it," answered the lawyer, "but producing Mr. JamesSmith, or, at least, legally proving that he is alive. Morally speaking,I have no doubt that the justice before whom you have been examined isas firmly convinced as we can be that the quadroon has perjured herself.Morally speaking, he believes that those threats which your mistressunfortunately used referred (as she said they did to-day) to herintention of leaving the Hall early in the morning, with you for herattendant, and coming to me, if she had been well enough to travel, toseek effectual legal protection from her husband for the future. Mr.Nicholson believes that; and I, who know more of the circumstances thanhe does, believe also that Mr. James Smith stole away from Darrock Hallin the night under fear of being indicted for bigamy. But if I can'tfind him--if I can't prove him to be alive--if I can't account for thosespots of blood on the night-gown, the accidental circumstances of thecase remain unexplained--your mistress's rash language, the bad termson which she has lived with her husband, and her unlucky disregard ofappearances in keeping up her intercourse with Mr. Meeke, all tell deadagainst us--and the justice has no alternative, in a legal point ofview, but to remand you both, as he has now done, for the production offurther evidence."

  "But how, then, in Heaven's name, is our innocence to be proved, sir?" Iasked.

  "In the first place," said the lawyer, "by finding Mr. James Smith;and, in the second place, by persuading him, when he is found, to comeforward and declare himself."

  "Do you really believe, sir," said I, "that he would hesitate to dothat, when he knows the horrible charge to which his disappearance hasexposed his wife? He is a heartless villain, I know; but surely--"

  "I don't suppose," said the lawyer, cutting me short, "that he is quitescoundrel enough to decline coming forward, supposing he ran no risk bydoing so. But remember that he has placed himself in a position to betried for bigamy, and that he believes your mistress will put the law inforce against him."

  I had forgotten that circumstance. My heart sank within me when it wasrecalled to my memory, and I could say nothing more.

  "It is a
very serious thing," the lawyer went on--"it is a downrightoffense against the law of the land to make any private offer of acompromise to this man. Knowing what we know, our duty as good citizensis to give such information as may bring him to trial. I tell youplainly that, if I did not stand toward your mistress in the positionof a relation as well as a legal adviser, I should think twice aboutrunning the risk--the very serious risk--on which I am now about toventure for her sake. As it is, I have taken the right measures toassure Mr. James Smith that he will not be treated according to hisdeserts. When he knows what the circumstances are, he will trustus--supposing always that we can find him. The search about thisneighborhood has been quite useless. I have sent private instructionsby to-day's post to Mr. Dark in London, and with them a carefully-wordedform of advertisement for the public newspapers. You may rest assuredthat every human means of tracing him will be tried forthwith. In themeantime, I have an important question to put to you about Josephine.She may know more than we think she does; she may have surprised thesecret of the second marriage, and may be keeping it in reserve to useagainst us. If this should turn out to be the case, I shall wantsome other chance against her besides the chance of indicting her forperjury. As to her motive now for making this horrible accusation, whatcan you tell me about that, William?"

  "Her motive against me, sir?"

  "No, no, not against you. I can see plainly enough that she accuses youbecause it is necessary to do so to add to the probability of her story,which, of course, assumes that you helped your mistress to dispose ofthe dead body. You are coolly sacrificed to some devilish vengeanceagainst her mistress. Let us get at that first. Has there ever beena quarrel between them?"

  I told him of the quarrel, and of how Josephine had looked and talkedwhen she showed me her cheek.

  "Yes," he said, "that is a strong motive for revenge with a naturallypitiless, vindictive woman. But is that all? Had your mistress any holdover her? Is there any self-interest mixed up along with this motive ofvengeance? Think a little, William. Has anything ever happened inthe house to compromise this woman, or to make her fancy herselfcompromised?"

  The remembrance of my mistress's lost trinkets and handkerchiefs, whichlater and greater troubles had put out of my mind, flashed back into mymemory while he spoke. I told him immediately of the alarm in the housewhen the loss was discovered.

  "Did your mistress suspect Josephine and question her?" he asked,eagerly.

  "No, sir," I replied. "Before she could say a word, Josephine impudentlyasked who she suspected, and boldly offered her own boxes to besearched."

  The lawyer's face turned red as scarlet. He jumped out of his chair, andhit me such a smack on the shoulder that I thought he had gone mad.

  "By Jupiter!" he cried out, "we have got the whip-hand of that she-devilat last."

  I looked at him in astonishment.

  "Why, man alive," he said, "don't you see how it is? Josephine's thethief! I am as sure of it as that you and I are talking together. Thisvile accusation against your mistress answers another purpose besidesthe vindictive one--it is the very best screen that the wretch couldpossibly set up to hide herself from detection. It has stopped yourmistress and you from moving in the matter; it exhibits her in the falsecharacter of an honest witness against a couple of criminals; it givesher time to dispose of the goods, or to hide them, or to do anything shelikes with them. Stop! let me be quite sure that I know what thelost things are. A pair of bracelets, three rings, and a lot of lacepocket-handkerchiefs--is that what you said?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Your mistress will describe them particularly, and I will take theright steps the first thing to-morrow morning. Good-evening, William,and keep up your spirits. It shan't be my fault if you don't soon seethe quadroon in the right place for her--at the prisoner's bar."

  With that farewell he went out.

  The days passed, and I did not see him again until the period of myremand had expired. On this occasion, when I once more appeared beforethe justice, my mistress appeared with me. The first sight of herabsolutely startled me, she was so sadly altered. Her face looked sopinched and thin that it was like the face of an old woman. The dull,vacant resignation of her expression was something shocking to see. Itchanged a little when her eyes first turned heavily toward me, and shewhispered, with a faint smile, "I am sorry for you, William--I am very,very sorry for you." But as soon as she had said those words the blanklook returned, and she sat with her head drooping forward, quiet, andinattentive, and hopeless--so changed a being that her oldest friendswould hardly have known her.

  Our examination was a mere formality. There was no additional evidenceeither for or against us, and we were remanded again for another week.

  I asked the lawyer, privately, if any chance had offered itself oftracing Mr. James Smith. He looked mysterious, and only said in answer,"Hope for the best." I inquired next if any progress had been madetoward fixing the guilt of the robbery on Josephine.

  "I never boast," he replied. "But, cunning as she is, I should not besurprised if Mr. Dark and I, together, turned out to be more than amatch for her."

  Mr. Dark! There was something in the mere mention of his name that gaveme confidence in the future. If I could only have got my poor mistress'ssad, dazed face out of my mind, I should not have had much depression ofspirits to complain of during the interval of time that elapsed betweenthe second examination and the third.