Trent Intervenes

by E. C. Bentley

  Trent, his hands in his pockets, was balancing himself on his heels as he stared out of the window of the bedroom. His eyes were full of animation, and he was whistling almost inaudibly.

  He turned round slowly. ‘I’m only guessing again—that’s my guessing face. Whose are the rooms on each side of this, Edith?’

  ‘This side, the Stones’; that side, Mr Scheffer’s.’

  ‘Then I will go for a walk all alone and guess some more. Good-bye.’

  ‘Yes,’ declared Mrs Lancey, as he went out, ‘it’s plain enough you have picked up some scent or other.’

  ‘It isn’t scent exactly,’ Trent replied, as he descended the stairs. ‘Guess again.’

  Trent was not in the house when, three hours later, a rousing tumult broke out on the upper floor. Those below in the loggia heard first a piercing scream, then a clatter of feet on parquet flooring, then more sounds of feet, excited voices, other screams of harsh, inhuman quality, and a lively scuffling and banging. Mr Scheffer, with a volley of guttural words of which it was easy to gather the general sense, headed the rush of the company upstairs.

  ‘Gisko! Gisko!’ he shouted, at the head of the stairway. There was another ear-splitting screech, and the cockatoo came scuttling and fluttering out of Lady Bosworth’s room, pursued by three vociferating women servants. The bird’s yellow crest was erect and quivering with agitation; it screeched furious defiance again as it leapt upon its master’s outstretched wrist.

  ‘Silence, devil!’ exclaimed Mr Scheffer, seizing it by the head and shaking it violently. ‘I know not how to apologize, Lancey,’ he declared. ‘The accursed bird has somehow slipped from his chain away. I left him in my room secure just before we had tea.’

  ‘Never mind, never mind!’ replied his host, who seemed rather pleased than otherwise with this small diversion. ‘I don’t suppose he’s done any harm beyond frightening the women. Anything wrong, Edith?’ he asked, as they approached the open door of the bedroom, to which the ladies had already hurried. Lady Bosworth’s maid was telling a voluble story.

  ‘When she came in just now to get the room ready for Isabel to dress,’ Mrs Lancey summarized, ‘she suddenly heard a voice say something, and saw the bird perched on top of the mirror, staring at her. It gave her such a shock that she dropped the water-can and fled; then the two other girls came and helped her, trying to drive it out. They hadn’t the sense to send for Mr Scheffer.’

  ‘Apologize, carrion!’ commanded Gisko’s master. The cockatoo uttered a string of Dutch words in a subdued croak. ‘He says he asks one thousand pardons, and he will sin no more,’ Mr Scheffer translated. ‘Miserable brigand! Traitor!’

  Lady Bosworth hurried out of her room.

  ‘I won’t hear the poor thing scolded like that,’ she protested. ‘How was he to know my maid would be frightened? He looks so wretched! Take him away, Mr Scheffer, and cheer him up.’ So Gisko was led away to bondage, and the episode was at an end.

  It was half an hour later that Mrs Lancey came to her husband in his dressing-room.

  ‘I must say Bella was very decent about Scheffer’s horrid bird,’ she began. ‘Do you know what the little fiend had done?’

  ‘No, my dear. I thought he had confined himself to frightening the maid out of her skin.’

  ‘Not at all. He had been having the time of his life. Bella saw at once that he had been up to mischief, but she pretended there was nothing. Now it turns out he has bitten the buttons off two pairs of gloves, chewed up a lot of hairpins, and spoiled her pretty little manicure-set. He’s torn the lining out of the case, the silver handles are covered with beak marks, two or three of the things he seems to have hidden somewhere, and the polishing pad is a ruin. When Hignett saw him perched on the mirror he had the pad in one hand—I mean, foot—and was busy tearing away the last rags of the leather.’

  ‘It’s too bad!’ declared Mr Lancey, bending over a shoe.

  ‘I believe you’re laughing, George,’ said his wife, coldly.

  He began to do so audibly. ‘You must admit it’s funny to think of the bird going solemnly through a programme of mischief like that. I wish I could have seen the little beggar at it. Well, we shall have to get Bella a new nail-outfit. I’m glad she held her tongue about it just now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, my dear, we don’t ask people to the house to make them feel uncomfortable—especially foreigners.’

  ‘Bella wasn’t thinking of your ideal of hospitality. She held her tongue because she’s taken a fancy to Scheffer. But, George, how do you suppose the little pest got in? The window was shut, and Hignett declares the door was too, when she went to the room.’

  ‘Then I expect Hignett deceives herself. Anyway, what does it matter? What I am anxious about is your sister’s little peculiarity. As I’ve told you, I don’t at all like the look of her having been quite normal yesterday evening, the one evening when she was away from the house by accident. I wish I wasn’t so fond of her, Edith. If it was another woman, she could do what she liked to herself for all I cared.’

  Mrs Lancey sighed. ‘If she had married you she would have been a very different woman.’

  ‘I know. It’s awful to think of what we’ve all missed. If you had married Scheffer, Gisko would have been a very different cockatoo. For of all sad words of tongue or pen—I really am feeling miserably depressed, Edith. What I’m dreading now is a repetition of the usual ghastly performance tonight.’

  But neither that night, nor any night after, was that performance repeated. Lady Bosworth, free now of all apprehension, renewed and redoubled the life of the little company. And the lips of Trent were obstinately sealed.

  Three weeks later Trent was shown into the consulting-room of Sir Peregrine Bosworth. The famous physician was a tall, stooping man of exaggerated gauntness, narrow-jawed and high-nosed. His still black hair was brushed backward, his eyes were deep-set and glowing, his mouth at once sensitive and strong. He was courteous of manner and smiled readily, but his face was set in unhappy lines.

  ‘Will you sit down, Mr Trent?’ said Sir Peregrine. ‘You wrote that you wished to see me upon a private matter concerning myself. I am at a loss to imagine what it can be, but, knowing your name, I had no hesitation in making an appointment.’

  Trent inclined his head. ‘I am obliged to you, Sir Peregrine. The matter is really important, and also quite private—so private that no person whatever knows the material facts besides myself. I won’t waste words. I have lately been staying with the Lanceys, whom you know, in Italy. Lady Bosworth was also a guest there. For some days before my arrival she had suffered each evening from a curious attack of lassitude and vacancy of mind. I don’t know what it was. Perhaps you do.’

  Sir Peregrine, immovably listening, smiled grimly. ‘The description of symptoms is a little vague. I have heard nothing of this, I may say, from my wife.’

  ‘It always came on at a certain time of the day, and only then. That time was a few minutes after eight, at the beginning of dinner. The attack passed off gradually after two hours or so.’

  The physician laid his clenched hand on the table between them. ‘You are not a medical man, Mr Trent, I believe. What concern have you with all this?’ His voice was coldly hostile now.

  ‘Lots,’ answered Trent, briefly. Then he added, as Sir Peregrine got to his feet with a burning eye, ‘I know nothing of medicine, but I cured Lady Bosworth.’

  The other sat down again suddenly. His open hands fell upon the table and his dark face became very pale. ‘You—’ he began with difficulty.

  ‘I and no other, Sir Peregrine. And in a curiously simple way. I found out what was causing the trouble, and without her knowledge I removed it. It was—oh, the devil!’ Trent exclaimed in a lower tone. For Sir Peregrine Bosworth, with a brow gone suddenly white and clammy, had first attempted to rise and then sunk forward with his head on the table.

  Trent, who had seen such things before, hurried to him, pulled his chair from
the table, and pressed his head down to his knees. Within a minute the stricken man was leaning back in his chair. He inspired deeply from a small bottle he had taken from his pocket.

  ‘You have been overworking, perhaps,’ Trent said. ‘Something is wrong. I think I had better not—’

  Sir Peregrine had pulled himself together. ‘I know very well what is wrong with me, sir,’ he interrupted, brusquely. ‘It is my business to know. That will not happen again. I wish to hear what you have to say before you leave this house.’

  ‘Very well.’ Trent took a tone of colourless precision. ‘I was asked by Lady Bosworth’s sister, Mrs Lancey, to help in trying to trace the source of the disorder which attacked her every evening. I need not describe the signs of it, and I will not trouble you with an account of how I reasoned on the matter. But I found out that Lady Bosworth was, on these occasions, under the influence of a drug, which had the effect of lowering her vitality and clogging her brain, without producing stupefaction or sleep; and I was led to the conclusion that she was administering this drug to herself without knowing it.’

  He paused, and felt in his waistcoat pocket. ‘When Mrs Lancey and I were making a search for something of the kind in her room, my attention was caught by the fine workmanship of a manicure-set on the dressing-table. I took up the little round box meant to contain nail-polishing paste, admiring its shape and decoration, and on looking inside it found it half-full of paste. But I have often watched the process of beautifying fingernails, and it seemed to me that the stuff was of a deeper red than the usual pink confection; and I saw next that the polishing-pad of the set, though well worn, had never been used with paste, which leaves a sort of dark encrustation on the pad. Yet it was evident that the paste in the little box had been used. It is useful sometimes, you see, to have a mind that notices trifles. So I jumped to the conclusion that the paste that was not employed as nail-polish was employed for some other purpose; and when I reached that point I simply put the box in my pocket and went away with it. I may say that Mrs Lancey knew nothing of this, or of what I did afterwards.’

  ‘And what was that?’ Sir Peregrine appeared now to be following the story with an ironic interest.

  ‘Naturally, knowing nothing of such matters, I took it to a place that called itself “English Pharmacy” in the town, and asked the proprietor what the stuff was. He looked at it, took a little on his finger, smelt it, and said it was undoubtedly lipsalve.

  ‘It was then I remembered how, when I saw Lady Bosworth during one of her attacks, her lips were brilliantly red, though all the colour had departed from her face. That had struck me as very odd, because I am a painter, and naturally I could not miss an abnormality like that. Then I remembered another thing. One evening, when Lady Bosworth, her sister, and myself were prevented from returning to the house for dinner, and dined at a country inn, there had been no signs of her trouble; but I had noticed that she moistened her lips again and again with her tongue.’

  ‘You are observant,’ remarked Sir Peregrine, dispassionately, and again had recourse to his smelling-bottle.

  ‘You are good enough to say so,’ Trent replied, with a wooden face. ‘On thinking these things over, it seemed to me probable that Lady Bosworth was in the habit of putting on a little lipsalve when she dressed for dinner in the evening; perhaps finding that her lips at that time of day tended to become dry, or perhaps not caring to use it in daylight, when its presence would be much more easily detected. For I had learned that she made some considerable parade of not using any kind of cosmetics or artificial aids to beauty; and that, of course, accounted for her carrying it in a box meant for manicure-paste, which might be represented as merely a matter of cleanliness, and at any rate was not to be classed with paint and powder. It was not pleasant to me to have surprised this innocent little deception; but it was as well that I did so, for I soon ascertained beyond doubt that the stuff had been tampered with and drugged.

  ‘When I left the chemist’s I went and sat in a quiet corner of the Museum grounds. There I put the least touch of the salve on my tongue, and waited results. In five minutes I had lost all power of connected thought or will; I no longer felt any interest in my own experiment. I was conscious. I felt no discomfort, and no loss of the power of movement. Only my intelligence seemed to be paralyzed; and that did not trouble me in the least. For upwards of an hour I was looking out upon the world with the soul of an ox, utterly placid and blank.’

  Trent now opened his fingers and showed a little round box of hammered silver, with a delicate ornamentation running round the lid. It was of about the bigness of a pillbox.

  ‘It seemed best to me that this box should simply disappear, and in some quite natural, unsuspicious way; merely to remove the salve would have drawn Lady Bosworth’s attention to it and set her guessing. She did not suspect the stuff as yet, I was fully convinced, and I thought it well that the affair of her seizures should remain a mystery. Your eyes ask why. Just because I did not want a painful scandal in Mrs Lancey’s family—we are old friends, you see. So the problem was to make the box and its contents disappear in a manner which would appear completely accidental, and suggest no ideas of any sort to Lady Bosworth or anyone else. That I managed to do; and now here I am with the box, and neither Lady Bosworth nor any other person has the smallest inkling of its crazy secret but you and I.’

  He stopped again and looked in Sir Peregrine’s eyes. They remained fixed upon him with the gaze of a statue.

  ‘It was plain, of course,’ Trent continued, ‘that someone had got at the stuff immediately before she went out to Italy, or immediately on her arrival. The chemical operation of combining the drug with the salve would hardly have been performed during the journey. But the attacks began on the first evening there, two hours after her reaching the house. Therefore any tampering with the salve after her arrival was practically impossible. When I asked myself who should have tampered with it before Lady Bosworth left this house to go out to Italy, I was led to form a very unpleasant conjecture.’

  Sir Peregrine stirred in his chair. ‘You had been told the truth—or a part of the truth—about our married life, I suppose?’

  Trent inclined his head. ‘Three days ago I arrived in London, and showed a little of this paste to a friend of mine who is an expert analyst. He has sent me a report, which I have here.’ He handed an envelope across the table. ‘He was deeply interested in what he found, but I have not satisfied his curiosity. He found the salve to be evenly impregnated with a very slight quantity of a rare alkaloid body called purvisine. Infinitesimal doses of it produce effects on the human organism which he describes, as I can testify, with considerable accuracy. It was discovered, he notes, by Henry Purvis twenty-five years ago; and you will remember, Sir Peregrine, what I only found out by inquiry—that you were assistant to Purvis about that time ago in Edinburgh. Where he had the Chair of medical jurisprudence and toxicology.’

  He ceased to speak, and there was a short silence. Sir Peregrine gazed at the table before him. Once or twice he drew breath deeply, and at length began to speak with composure.

  ‘I shall not waste words,’ he said, ‘in trying to explain fully my state of mind or my action in this matter. But I will tell you enough for your imagination to do the rest. My feeling for my wife was an infatuation from the beginning and is still. I was too old for her. I don’t think now that she ever cared for me greatly; but she was too strong-minded ever to marry a wealthy fool, and I had won a high position and a fortune. By the time we had been married a year I could no longer hide from myself that she had an incurable weakness for philandering. She has surrendered herself to it with less and less restraint, and without any attempt to deceive me on the subject. If I tried to tell you what torture it has been to me, you wouldn’t understand. The worst was when she was away from me, staying with her friends, and I could not know what was happening. At length I took the step you know. It was undeniably an act of baseness, and we will leave it at that, if you pleas
e. If you should ever suffer as I do, you will modify your judgment upon me. I knew of my wife’s habit, discovered by you, of using lip-salve at her evening toilette. On the night before her departure I took what was in that box and combined it with a preparation of the drug purvisine. The infinitesimal amount which would pass into the mouth after the application of the salve was calculated to produce for an hour or two the effects you have described, without otherwise doing any harm. But I knew the impression that would be produced upon normal men and women by the sight of anyone in such a state. I wanted to turn her attractiveness into repulsiveness, and I seem to have succeeded. I was mad when I did it. I have been aghast at my own action ever since. I am glad it has been frustrated. And now I should like to know what you intend to do.’

  Trent took up the box. ‘If you agree, Sir Peregrine, I shall drop this from Westminster Bridge tonight. And so long as nothing of the sort is practised again, the whole affair shall be buried. Yours is a wretched story, and I don’t suppose any of us would find our moral fibre improved by such a situation. I have no more to say.’

  He rose and moved to the door. Sir Peregrine rose also and stood with lowered eyes, apparently deep in thought. Suddenly he looked up.

  ‘I am obliged to you Mr Trent,’ he said formally. ‘I may say, too, that your account of your proceedings interested me deeply. I should like to ask a question. How did you contrive that the box should disappear without its owner seeing anything remarkable in its absence?’

  ‘Oh, easily,’ Trent replied, his hand on the doorknob. ‘After experimenting on myself, I went back to the house before tea-time, when no one happened to be in. I went upstairs to a room where a cockatoo was kept—mischievous brute—took him off his chain, and carried him into Lady Bosworth’s room. There I put him on the dressing-table, and teased him a little with the manicure-things to interest him in them. Then I took away one of the pairs of scissors, so that the box shouldn’t be the one thing missing, and left him shut in there to do his worst, while I went out of the house again. When I went he was ripping out the silk lining of the case, and had chewed up the silver handles of the things pretty well. After I had gone he went on to destroy various other things. In the riot that took place when he was found the disappearance of the little box and scissors became a mere detail. Certainly Lady Bosworth suspected nothing.