Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Yes,” said Bats, “that’s it. Like to see the face?”

  “Not by candle light,” said Anthony. “If some one’s trying to frighten us, a lay figure or a wax model could do the trick by candle light. I’ll light the lamp.”

  A powerful sixty-two candle-power lamp stood on the bench. He lighted it with careful, steady fingers, and his friend stood in the doorway watching him.

  “Now then,” he said, “bring in that stool to stand it on.”

  Bats brought in the stool. Anthony set the lamp on the stool and looked around.

  The room was vaulted like the laboratory, but it seemed to Bats that it must have been used as a chapel, for an altar of white marble, encircled with a metal chain, stood at one end. Carved on it, and gilded, was a sign that Bats did not recognize. It was a curious figure; two triangles, it looked like, with something else interlaced, and there were characters traced round it something like Hebrew, yet they were not all Hebrew. There were four long concave mirrors fitted into the old arches. There were tripods and copper dishes, a whole litter of strange objects. Bats had noticed these before, and Anthony did not seem to notice them now. The lamplight flooded the room and in the middle lay the still shape.

  “Uncover it,” said Anthony; “no, I will.” But already Bats’ hand was on the covering.

  “It feels like powder,” he said in a whisper, though he meant to speak aloud.

  “I expect we shook some dust down when we opened the door,” said his friend; “gently there!”

  And very gently Bats turned back the covering. A faint cloud of dust arose that made the candles look like stars in a fog, and the lamp showed like a moon in a night of mist. Slowly he folded the covering back till it lay across the knees of the figure. A sort of carpet of lambskin spread round it. Anthony fell on his knees on the soft skin and bent over the body.

  “Bring the lamp here,” he said. Bats brought it, set it on the ground by the head of what lay there, and stood looking down at that on which the yellow light glowed.

  A woman! A young woman. Very pale, with closed eyes, dark fringed; arched, dark brows and a cloud of dark unbound hair that spread over the rug of white lambskin on which she lay. Her hands were folded lightly across her breast, as dead hands are folded. Her lips, pale and beautifully cut, were closed. She was not wrapped in grave clothes. Her dress was of pale red, with a V-shaped opening. Round her neck was a black velvet ribbon, and, attached to it, a gold pendant lay on the breast where no life stirred. The dress was unusual and complicated. She might have been one of the fancy-dress party that now already in this new happening seemed very long ago. Bats decided that the poor girl must have been rather good-looking when she was alive.

  Anthony bent over her, laid his hand to the left side of her pale red bodice.

  “It doesn’t beat,” said Bats; “I tried that.”

  Anthony laid his hand on the marble-white forehead where the black hair divided.

  “She isn’t dead!” he said. “She can’t be dead! My God, how wonderful she is!”

  “Wonderful?”

  “Beautiful,” said Anthony; “isn’t she beautiful?”

  “Yes — no — I don’t know,” said Bats testily. “Well, come along. Now you’ve seen it, you know I’m not humbugging you. Come back to your room and let’s decide what we’d better do.”

  “We can’t leave her here, you know,” said Anthony; “she might wake and be frightened.”

  “She won’t wake,” said Bats a little sadly and very impatiently. “I wish she would. I don’t think you quite realize what an infernal hole this puts us in, with inquests and all sorts of questions, and your experiments coming out, and all the old Brown Dog nonsense brought up. This dead girl—”

  “I don’t think she is dead,” Anthony interrupted, sitting back on his heels. “Look here. Go and wake the doctor. I’ll stay with her till you come back.”

  “Really? You want me to?” Bats spoke incredulously.

  “Of course! Don’t be idiotic. And, I say, you’d belter lock the door of the room above and take the key with you. We don’t want any of the servants or Lady Blair wandering down here. Fetch Wilton. See? Tell him there’s something up and get him here quietly.”

  “You don’t mind being left?”

  “Good Lord, no, man! Why should I? He bent forward once more, and Bats very unwillingly took up his candle and went. He was not a nervous man, but he did not enjoy the traversing of the dark, high-ceilinged library, the sombre silent galleries, the stairs that creaked a very little and were full of shadows that danced to the movement of the candle he carried.

  It is not an easy thing to wake a man from his first sleep and to explain briefly and convincingly that his presence is needed because a dead woman has been unexpectedly discovered in a secret room. But Bats did it, and he and the doctor went down through the still house, through the door that Bats had locked, and so, when he had locked it again, to the laboratory and that inner room where the marble altar was and the strange mirrors and the pale girl on the pale fur.

  They found Anthony still leaning over her, only now his hands were laid on the dead hands.

  “Get up, Drelincourt,” the doctor said, with brisk matter-of-factness. “I can’t make a proper examination with you there. Out of the way, man.”

  And he, in his turn, bent over the body. He touched her hands, her brow, her lips, her breast. Then he stood up. “No good,” he said, “the poor girl’s dead. How did she get here?”

  “She’s not dead,” said Anthony quietly, “or if she is — I say! how long do you think she’s been dead?”

  “Less than half-an-hour I should say.”

  “But I saw her dead three hours ago,” said Bats.

  “That’s impossible,” said the doctor strongly. “Come on, you fellows, you can’t do any good here. Drelincourt, come and see if you can find a tot of whisky. I feel to need it. And so do you,” he added to himself.

  “You’re certain she’s dead? “ Anthony asked, turning on the doctor a face as white as his own.

  “Certain. Come along, do. It’s all as rum as rum. Let’s get out of this.”

  “Look here,” said Anthony, almost stammering in a curious inexplicable eager anxiety; “I can’t believe she’s dead. I — you know I’ve studied physiology a bit. I should like to try—”

  “You’ll try nothing but a stiff glass of whisky,” said the doctor, taking him by the arm.

  “Let me cover her face,” he said. “Go on, you chaps; I’ll be up in a minute. I tell you to go. Am I the master of this house or you?”

  “Oh, come on,” said Bats; and as they went up the stairs the doctor said: “If he’s not up in two minutes I go back. There’s something here that I don’t understand, and I tell you straight, Billy, I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t think—”said Bats, “because I’m positive he didn’t know. He wouldn’t believe she was there when I told him. He doesn’t know anything about how she got there.”

  “He thinks he doesn’t,” said the doctor. “I agree there. But then he’s off his chump, or near it. Did you see his eyes? Look here, I’m going back.”

  He turned, but Anthony was already at the stairhead behind them.

  “Give me the key,” he said to Bats; “ oh, it’s in the door. Right. Go through. I’ll lock it.” He did, and the three went back to his great bed-chamber.

  On the way they found and brought up the tray with whisky and siphons. The doctor mixed for all three, but only two drank.

  “Now don’t worry,” he said soothingly; “you go to bed and try to sleep, Drelincourt, and I’ll sit beside you in case you wake up and want anything.”

  Anthony stared at him; then he laughed.

  “You old ass,” he said, “I believe you think I’ve committed a murder and forgotten the details. Look here, this is something different, something wonderful, something you’ll find it very hard to believe. I wish I’d told you all about it before. You’d have found it easier.
”

  “I wish you had,” said the doctor.

  “Now look here,” said Drelincourt; “I’m not mad. Feel my pulse, look at my tongue. Apply any of your absurd tests. I’m as sane as you are. And you never knew me lie. I don’t know how that girl got there.”

  “Do you mean to say you don’t know who she is?”

  “I have no idea who she is.”

  “You mean to tell us you’ve never seen her before?”

  “I — I—”he hesitated, confused a little it seemed; “it sounds silly, but I may have seen her before. But if I have it must have been — I mean I don’t know where. But all that’s beside the point.”

  “Good God! “ said the doctor, “you’ll find out whether it’s beside the point at the Coroner’s inquest. Old chap,” he went on more gently, “try to tell us all about it, and we’ll try to pull you through. I believe in you, old man. I’m certain it wasn’t your fault.”

  “You always were a good old duffer,” Drelincourt told him. “Look here. Sit down, both of you, and try to understand. That girl isn’t dead; or if she is, I can bring her to life.”

  “They’ll never hold you responsible,” said the doctor soothingly, “Look here,” said Anthony again, “if I don’t go mad it won’t be your fault. I don’t know how the girl got there! I don’t know who she is. But I know that I can bring her to life. It’s the worst possible moment to tell you. But that’s my infernal luck. I meant to tell Billy to-morrow. He’d have understood and believed all right then. You see, this is really my secret. This is my discovery. This is the thing I’ve been working at ever since I was a boy of sixteen. I’ve done it with rabbits; I’ve done it with a monkey; I’ve done it with a dead child I got from the hospital. He’s alive and well at a cottage in Esher at this moment. And I’ll do it for this girl. So long as she’s not been dead twenty-four hours, and you say she hasn’t. The thing’s safe, safe, safe. Try to take it in. I can bring dead people to life. I can bring dead people to life! That’s what I’ve discovered. And now you know.”

  “But look here,” said Bats, humouring him, a if she died, she died from some cause, and that cause will be there and kill her again as soon as you’ve brought her to life.”

  “Do you think I don’t know my business? “ Anthony asked. “Do you think I’ve worked and sweated all these years only to be pantaloon to your harlequin?

  II — know what I’m talking about. It’s no use explaining to you any more. You wouldn’t understand. It isn’t all physiology. And I’ll tell you something else. The person who put her there knew she wasn’t dead. Or at any rate he knew more than you do. Look here.

  Think of Fakirs, who seem dead and have their noses and mouths stopped with clay and are buried and dug up again after months and come to life again. Try to realize that you don’t know everything. And now get out. I want to go to sleep.”

  The other two looked at each other, and their looks said, “Ought we to leave him?”

  He answered the look.

  “Oh, very well,” he said, “then Bats shall sleep on the sofa there. Will that satisfy you? Now look here. I’ll tell you another thing. When you left me alone with her I injected something into her arm. I shan’t tell you what it was. But if I’m right and you’re wrong — and I’m almost certain you are — then to-morrow, even a doctor, even you, Wilton, will be able to see that she’s not dead. If she is — well, you can do what you like.”

  And on that the doctor went. Bats closed the door and came back to Anthony.

  “Now,” he said, “you’ll sleep, won’t you?”

  “I wish,” said Drelincourt, “that I hadn’t injected that stuff. Because now Wilton will just think he was mistaken. I ought to have let a dozen doctors see her and declare that she was dead. Then I should have proved my discovery. Only I was afraid to risk the waiting — for her. Though really I know it would have been safe enough. Only for her, everything ought to be safer than safe. Good night. I shall sleep like a tired dog.”

  He did. Bats lay awake. He was not so sure as the doctor was that the sudden finding of the dead girl had turned Drelincourt’s brain. He was not so sure as the doctor was, for he had read more, thought more, seen more, heard more, and imagined far far more. He was not so sure as the doctor about anything. At the same time it seemed to him good that Anthony should sleep and that he should watch. So he watched. And his thoughts, even so, were not all of Anthony, nor of Anthony’s discovery, nor even of the pale quiet form that lay on the yellow-white lambskin in that strange tawdry chapel-chamber.

  CHAPTER XIV. MOVING THE CHEST

  ANTHONY sat up in bed with the feeling that he was late for something. And when he sat up, Bats, on the sofa at the foot of the bed, sat up too and said, “Hullo! — sleep well?” Then Anthony remembered, and he lay back on his pillow and said: “We shall want a good deal of skilled diplomacy to-day, William. I wish the house wasn’t full of all these people.”

  “If you take my advice,” said Bats; “I’ve been thinking it over pretty thoroughly — if you take my advice you’ll ring for Sebastien to bring your writing things and just sit up in bed and write a little note to the Inspector of Police, and send a man on a horse to Lewes with it before breakfast.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “Why, don’t you see? That body’s been put there to get you into trouble.”

  “There’s no one who would do it,” said Anthony; “I don’t believe I have an enemy in the world. Nobody’s enemy but his own, you know.”

  “To get you into trouble,” pursued Bats, unmoved. “If you don’t let the police know, you bet the man who put the thing there will. That’s what he put it there for, the brute. Send off the man on the horse and spike the enemy’s guns.”

  “Your advice is admirable,” said Anthony, “and I shan’t take it.”

  “But why?” said Bats, rearing himself up on the blue sofa so that he could rest his elbows on the foot of the bed and contemplate the recumbent Anthony, who answered —

  “Too much fuss.”

  “There’ll be fuss anyhow,” said Bats; “better be the author of the fuss than it’s subject. Good Lord, Tony, you must see that the thing’s serious. And you say you think you’ve seen that poor girl before.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Anthony reminded him, “and I do see that the thing’s serious. But in quite a different way from what you mean. You are an observant person in your own line, Billy. Did you notice the dust last night, when you lifted that veil thing?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Look here, I am not going to tell you any more now; but I know more about this than you think. To begin with, — I did tell you that though, — I don’t believe she’s dead. What I’m thinking about now is that if she’s to come to life, this isn’t the best place for her to come to life in.”

  “It wasn’t your selection,” said Bats brutally.

  “I think — I’m not sure, but I think I had better get her to Malacca Wharf.”

  “That strikes you as a suitable place for resurrections?”

  “I’ve effected some there, however,” said Anthony. “Suppose we get the others to go for a picnic, say we’ll join them later; then we get the carpenter to knock up a packing case, put her in it, the doctor and I take her to Malacca Wharf, and you join the picnic party and say I’ve had a telegram.”

  “There’s only one objection to that. Whoever put the thing there will be on the watch, see you go off with a narrow six-foot box, the police will meet you at the station. Avez vous rien a déclarer? Won’t that be nice?”

  “You don’t seem to see,” Anthony lay placid among his pillows, “ that whoever put her there would have to account for her. Supposing that the person who put her there is alive. Yes. I know what I’m talking about. If I’m right, there’s no chance of the police butting in. If you’re right, the person who put her there will get the shock of his life when he accompanies your police to the fatal spot.”

  “But why?”

 
“Because she’s not dead,” said Anthony. “Now clear out, do you mind, before Sebastien turns up. We don’t want unnecessary chatter.”

  There was a good deal of chatter at breakfast; the kind of chatter that sounds amusing when one is amused. The day was fine, the company pleased with itself. Lord Alfriston and Rose had been first to appear. Rose had said how jolly it would be to have breakfast on the terrace. Lord Alfriston had said why not? and turning to the man busy among the silver paraphernalia of the sideboard, he asked whether breakfast was ever served on the terrace.

  “Not in my time, my lord,” the man answered. “I could ask Mr. Wilkes.”

  Mr. Wilkes, having an eye to the side on which the bread of the future should be buttered, had appeared in a stately morning dress to superintend the swift changes that ended in a white and silver table glittering in soft sunshine. Lord Alfriston had thrown gravel at Anthony’s window, and, addressing himself to the resultant apparition, inquired, “What about breakfast out of doors? “ Anthony had answered that breakfast out of doors was the dream of his youth and the fallacious aspiration of his riper years, and now here they all were, still vibrating to the last night’s pleasant innocent intimacies and full of schemes for the completest enjoyment of the new and pretty day. Miss Raven seemed to be unfolding like a marigold that, closed in the shade, opens frankly to the sunshine. Linda Smith had managed still to be in white and pink. If the dress was Rose’s and had taken two ante-breakfast hours to alter and adjust, she and Rose alone knew it. Lord Alfriston and Mr. St. Maur were pleased explorers in a new social world; Mullinger, always happy with the Septet, was here radiant. Anthony and Bats were brilliant beyond their wont. Only the doctor seemed a little silent, a little abstracted. But in the froth of gaiety, real or simulated, a little silence and abstraction were easily hidden. It was a pretty sparkling picture, such as might have been painted by a Conder of clean instincts and a high spirit. Lady Blair had not broken through her rule.