Johnny Ludlow, Third Series

I

You might have heard a pin drop in the room. They were listening to the footsteps outside the door, but the footsteps did not make the hush and the nameless horror that pervaded it: the words spoken by Dr. Knox had done that. Old Tamlyn stood, a picture of dismay. For myself, sitting in the window-seat, my feet comfortably stretched out before me, and partially sheltered by the red curtains, I could only gaze at them both.

Janet’s footsteps died away. She appeared to have been crossing the hall to the tea-room. And they began to talk again.

“I do not say that Lady Jenkins is being poisoned; absolutely, deliberately poisoned,” said Dr. Knox, in the hushed tones to which his voice had dropped; “I do not yet go quite so far as that. But I do think that she is in some way being tampered with.”

“In what way?” gasped Tamlyn.

“Drugged.”

The doctor’s countenance wore a puzzled expression as he spoke; his eyes a far-away look, just as though he did not see his own theory clearly. Mr. Tamlyn’s face changed: the astonishment, the alarm, the dismay depicted on it gave place suddenly to relief.

“It cannot be, Arnold. Rely upon it you are mistaken. Who would harm her?”

“No one that I know of; no suspicious person is about her to do it,” replied Dr. Knox. “And there lies the puzzle. I suppose she does not take anything herself? Opium, say?”

“Good Heavens, no,” warmly spoke old Tamlyn. “No woman living is less likely to do that than Lady Jenkins.”

“Less likely than she was. But you know yourself how unaccountably she has changed.”

“She does not take opium or any other drug. I could stake my word upon it, Arnold.”

“Then it is being given to her—at least, I think so. If not, her state is to me inexplicable. Mind you, Mr. Tamlyn, not a breath of this must transpire beyond our two selves,” urged Dr. Knox, his tone and his gaze at his senior partner alike impressively earnest. “If anything is wrong, it is being wilfully and covertly enacted; and our only chance of tracing it home is to conceal our suspicion of it.”

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Knox,” I interrupted at this juncture, the notion, suddenly flashing into my mind, that he was unaware of my presence, sending me hot all over; “did you know I was here?”

They both turned to me, and Dr. Knox’s confused start was a sufficient answer.

“You heard all I said, Johnny Ludlow?” spoke Dr. Knox.

“All. I am very sorry.”

“Well, it cannot be helped now. You will not let it transpire?”

“That I certainly will not.”

“We shall have to take you into our confidence—to include you in the plot,” said Arnold Knox, with a smile. “I believe we might have a less trustworthy adherent.”

“You could not have one more true.”

“Right, Johnny,” added Mr. Tamlyn. “But I do hope Dr. Knox is mistaken. I think you must be, Arnold. What are your grounds for this new theory?”

“I don’t tell you that it is quite new,” replied Dr. Knox. “A faint idea of it has been floating in my mind for some little time. As to grounds, I have no more to go upon than you have had. Lady Jenkins is in a state that we do not understand; neither you nor I can fathom what is amiss with her; and I need not point out that such a condition of things is unsatisfactory to a medical man, and sets him thinking.”

“I am sure I have not been able to tell what it is that ails her,” concurred old Tamlyn, in a helpless kind of tone. “She seems always to be in a lethargy, more or less; to possess no proper self-will; to have parted, so to say, with all her interest in life.”

“Just so. And I cannot discover, and do not believe, that she is in any condition of health to cause this. I believe that the evil is being daily induced,” emphatically continued Dr. Knox. “And if she does not herself induce it, by taking improper things, they are being administered to her by others. You will not admit the first theory, Mr. Tamlyn?”

“No, that I will not. Lady Jenkins no more takes baneful drugs of her own accord than I take them.”

“Then the other theory must come up. It draws the point to a narrow compass, but to a more startling one.”

“Look here, Arnold. If I did admit the first theory you would be no nearer the light. Lady Jenkins could not obtain drugs, and be everlastingly swallowing them, without detection. Madame St. Vincent would have found her out in a day.”

“Yes.”

“And would have stopped it at once herself, or handed it over to me to be dealt with. She is truly anxious for Lady Jenkins, and spares no pains, no time, no trouble for her.”

“I believe that,” said Dr. Knox. “Whatsoever is being done, Madame St. Vincent is kept in the dark—just as much as we are. Who else is about her?”

“No one much but her maid, that I know of,” replied old Tamlyn, after a pause of consideration. “And I should think she was as free from suspicion as madame herself. It seems a strange thing.”

“It is. But I fear I am right. The question now will be, how are we to set about solving the mystery?”

“She is not quite always in a lethargic state,” observed Tamlyn, his thoughts going off at a tangent.

“She is so more or less,” dissented Dr. Knox. “Yesterday morning I was there at eight o’clock; I went early purposely, and she was in a more stupidly lethargic state than I had before seen her. Which of course proves one thing.”

“What thing? I fail to catch your meaning, Arnold.”

“That she is being drugged in the night as well as the day.”

“If she is drugged at all,” corrected Mr. Tamlyn, shaking his head. “But I do not give in to your fancy yet, Arnold. All this must edify you, Johnny!”

Tamlyn spoke the words in a jesting sense, meaning of course that it had done nothing of the kind. He was wrong, if to edify means to interest. Hardly ever during my life had I been more excited.

“It is a frightful shame if any one is playing with Lady Jenkins,” I said to them. “She is as good-hearted an old lady as ever lived. And why should they do it? Where’s the motive?”

“There lies one of the difficulties—the motive,” observed Dr. Knox. “I cannot see any; any end to be obtained by it. No living being that I know of can have an interest in wishing for Lady Jenkins’s death or illness.”

“How is her money left?”

“A pertinent question, Johnny. I do not expect any one could answer it, excepting herself and Belford, the lawyer. I suppose her relatives, all the nephews and nieces, will inherit it: and they are not about her, you see, and cannot be dosing her. No; the motive is to me a complete mystery. Meanwhile, Johnny, keep your ears and eyes open when you are up there; there’s no telling what chance word or look may be dropped that might serve to give you a clue: and keep your mouth shut.”

I laughed.

“If I could put aside my patients for a week, and invent some excuse for taking up my abode at Jenkins House, I know I should soon find out all the mystery,” went on Dr. Knox.

“Arnold, why not take Madame St. Vincent into your confidence?”

Dr. Knox turned quickly round at the words to face his senior partner. He held up his finger warningly.

“Things are not ripe for it,” he said. “Let me get, or try to get, a little more inkling into matters than I have at present, as touching the domestic economy at Jenkins House. I may have to do as you say, later: but women are only chattering magpies; marplots, often with the best intentions; and Madame St. Vincent may be no exception.”

“Will you please come to tea?” interrupted Janet, opening the door.

Miss Cattledon, in a sea-green silk gown that I’m sure I had seen many times before, and the velvet on her thin throat, and a bow of lace on her head, shook hands with Mr. Tamlyn and Dr. Knox, and we sat down to tea. Little Arnold, standing by his mother in his plaid frock and white drawers (for the time to dress little children as men had not come in then by many a year), had a piece of bread-and-butter given to him. While he was eating it, the nurse appeared.

“Are you ready, Master Arnold? It is quite bedtime.”

“Yes, he is ready, Harriet; and he has been very good,” spoke Janet. And the little fellow went contentedly off without a word.

Miss Cattledon, stirring her tea at the moment, put the spoon down to look at the nurse, staring at her as if she had never seen a nurse before.

“That’s not Lettice Lane,” she observed sententiously, as the door closed on Harriet. “Where is Lettice Lane?”

“She has left, Aunt Jemima.”

If a look could have withered Janet, Cattledon’s was severe enough to do it. But the displeasure was meant for Lettice, not for Janet.

“What business had she to leave? Did she misbehave herself?”

“She stayed with me only two months,” said Janet. “And she left because she still continued poorly, and the two children were rather too much for her. The baby was cutting her teeth, which disturbed Lettice at night; and I and Arnold both thought we ought to have some one stronger.”

“Did you give her warning?” asked Cattledon, who was looking her very grimmest at thought of the absent Lettice; “or did she give it you?”

Janet laughed presently. “I think it was a sort of mutual warning, Aunt Jemima. Lettice acknowledged to me that she was hardly equal to the care of the children; and I told her I thought she was not. We found her another place.”

“A rolling-stone gathers no moss,” commented Cattledon. “Lettice Lane changes her places too often.”

“She stayed some time with Miss Deveen, Aunt Jemima. And she likes her present place. She gets very good wages, better than she had with me, and helps to keep her mother.”

“What may her duties be? Is she housemaid again?”

“She is lady’s-maid to Lady Jenkins, an old lady who lives up the London Road. Lettice has grown much stronger since she went there. Why, what do you think, Aunt Jemima?” added Janet, laughing, “Lettice has actually been to Paris. Lady Jenkins went there just after engaging Lettice, and took her.”

Miss Cattledon tossed her head. “Much good that would do Lettice Lane! Only fill her up with worse conceits than ever. I wonder she is not yet off to Australia! She used always to be talking of it.”

“You don’t appear to like Lettice Lane, ma’am,” smiled old Tamlyn.

“No, I do not, sir. Lettice Lane first became known to me under unfavourable circumstances, and I have not liked her since.”

“Indeed! What were they?”

“Some of Miss Deveen’s jewels disappeared—were stolen; and Lettice Lane was suspected. It turned out later that she was not guilty; but I could not get over my dislike to her. We cannot help our likes and dislikes, which often come to us without rhyme or reason,” acknowledged Miss Cattledon, “and I admit that I am perhaps too persistent in mine.”

Not a soul present, myself excepted, had ever heard about the loss of the emeralds: and somehow I felt sorry that Cattledon had spoken of it. Not that she did it in ill-nature—I give her that due. Questions were immediately poured out, and she had to give the full history.

The story interested them all, Dr. Knox especially.

“And who did take the jewels?” he asked.

But Cattledon could not enlighten him, for Miss Deveen had not betrayed Sophie Chalk, even to her.

“I don’t know who it was,” tartly confessed Cattledon, the point being a sore one with her. “Miss Deveen promised, I believe, to screen the thief; and did so.”

“Perhaps it was really Lettice Lane?”

“I believe not. I am sure not. It was a lady, Miss Deveen told me that much. No; of that disgraceful act Lettice Lane was innocent: but I should never be surprised to hear of her falling into trouble. She is capable of it.”

“Of poisoning somebody, perhaps?” spoke Dr. Knox.

“Yes,” acquiesced Cattledon, grimly.

How prejudiced she was against Lettice Lane! But she had given this last answer only in the same jesting spirit in which it appeared to have been put, not really meaning it.

“To be wrongly suspected, as poor Lettice Lane was, ought to make people all the more considerate to her,” remarked Janet, her thoughts no doubt reverting to the time when she herself was falsely suspected—and accused.

“True, my dear,” answered old Tamlyn. “Poor Lettice must have had her troubles.”

“And she has had her faults,” retorted Cattledon.

But this story had made an impression on Dr. Knox that Cattledon never suspected, never intended. He took up the idea that Lettice Lane was guilty. Going into Mr. Tamlyn’s sitting-room for “Martin Chuzzlewit,” when tea was over, I found his hand on my shoulder. He had silently followed me.

“Johnny Ludlow,” he said, looking down into my eyes in the dim room, which was only lighted by the dim fire, “I don’t like this that I have heard of Lettice Lane.”

And the next to come in was Tamlyn. Closing the door, he walked up to the hearthrug where we stood, and stirred the fire into a blaze.

“I am telling Johnny Ludlow that this story of Miss Deveen’s emeralds has made an unfavourable impression on me,” quoth Dr. Knox to him. “It does not appear to me to be at all clear that Lettice Lane did not take them; and that Miss Deveen, in her benevolence, screened her from the consequences.”

“But, indeed–” I was beginning, when Dr. Knox stopped me.

“A moment, Johnny. I was about to add that a woman who is capable of one crime can sometimes be capable of another; and I should not be surprised if it is Lettice Lane who is tampering with Lady Jenkins.”

“But,” I repeated, “Lettice Lane did not take the jewels. She knew nothing about it. She was perfectly innocent.”

“You cannot answer for it, Johnny.”

“Yes, I can; and do. I know who did take them.”

“You know, Johnny Ludlow?” cried old Tamlyn, while Dr. Knox looked at me in silence.

“I helped Miss Deveen to find it out. At least, she had me with her during the progress of the discovery. It was a lady who took the jewels—as Miss Cattledon told you. She fainted away when it was brought home to her, and fell on my shoulder.”

I believe they hardly knew whether to give me credit or not. Of course it did sound strange that I, young Johnny Ludlow, should have been entrusted by Miss Deveen with a secret she would not disclose even to her many years’ companion and friend, Jemima Cattledon.

“Who was it, then, Johnny?” began Mr. Tamlyn.

“I should not like to tell, sir. I do not think it would be right to tell. For the young lady’s own sake, Miss Deveen hushed the matter up, hoping it would be a warning to her in future. And I dare say it has been.”

“Young, was she?”

“Yes. She has married since then. I could not, in honour, tell you her name.”

“Well, I suppose we must believe you, Johnny,” said Dr. Knox, making the admission unwillingly. “Lettice Lane did get fingering the jewels, it appears; you admit that.”

“But she did not take them. It was—another.” And, cautiously choosing my words, so as not to say anything that could direct suspicion to Sophie Chalk—whose name most likely they had never heard in their lives—I gave them an outline of the way in which Miss Deveen had traced the matter out. The blaze lighted up Mr. Tamlyn’s grey face as I told it.

“You perceive that it could not have been Lettice Lane, Dr. Knox,” I said, in conclusion. “I am sorry Miss Cattledon should have spoken against her.”

“Yes, I perceive Lettice could not have been guilty of stealing the jewels,” answered Dr. Knox. “Nevertheless, a somewhat unfavourable impression of the girl has been made upon me, and I shall look a little after her. Why does she want to emigrate to Australia?”

“Only because two of her brothers are there. I dare say it is all idle talk—that she will never go.”

They said no more to me. I took up my book and quitted the room, leaving them to talk it out between themselves.

II

Mr. Tamlyn might be clever in medicine; he certainly was not in diplomacy. Dr. Knox had particularly impressed upon him the desirability of keeping their suspicion a secret for the present, even from Madame St. Vincent; yet the first use old Tamlyn made of his liberty was to disclose it to her.

Tossed about in the conflict of doubts and suspicions that kept arising in his mind, Mr. Tamlyn, from the night I have just told you of, was more uneasy than a fish out of water, his opinion constantly vacillating. “You must be mistaken, Arnold; I feel sure there’s nothing wrong going on,” he would say to his junior partner one minute; and, the next minute, decide that it was going on, and that its perpetrator must be Lettice Lane.

The uneasiness took him abroad earlier than he would otherwise have gone. A slight access of fever attacked him the day after the subject had been broached—which fever he had no doubt worried himself into. In the ordinary course of things he would have stayed at home for a week after that: but he now went out on the third day.

“I will walk,” he decided, looking up at the sunshine. “It will do me good. What lovely weather we are having.”

Betaking himself through the streets to the London Road, he reached Jenkins House. The door stood open; and the doctor, almost as much at home in the house as Lady Jenkins herself, walked in without knocking.

The dining-room, where they mostly sat in the morning, was empty; the drawing-room was empty; and Mr. Tamlyn went on to a third room, that opened to the garden at the back with glass-doors.

“Any one here? or is the house gone a-maying?” cried the surgeon as he entered and came suddenly upon a group of three people, all upon their knees before a pile of old music—Madame St. Vincent, Mina Knox, and Captain Collinson. Two of them got up, laughing. Mina remained where she was.

“We are searching for a manuscript song that is missing,” explained madame, as she gave her hand to the doctor. “Mina feels sure she left it here; but I do not remember to have seen it.”

“It was not mine,” added Mina, looking round at the doctor in her pretty, gentle way. “Caroline Parker lent it to me, and she has sent for it twice.”

“I hope you’ll find it, my dear.”

“I must have left it here,” continued Mina, as she rapidly turned over the sheets. “I was singing it yesterday afternoon, you remember,” she added, glancing up at the captain. “It was while you were upstairs with Lady Jenkins, Madame St. Vincent.”

She came to the end of the pile of music, but could not find the song. Putting it all on a side-table, Mina said a general good-bye, escaped by the glass-doors, and ran home by the little gate that divided the two gardens.

Captain Collinson left next. Perhaps he and Mina had both a sense of being de trop when the doctor was there. Waiting to exchange a few words with Mr. Tamlyn, and bidding Madame St. Vincent an adieu that had more of formality in it than friendship, the captain bowed himself out, taking his tasselled cane with him, madame ringing for one of the men-servants to attend him to the hall-door. Tasselled canes were the fashion then.

“They do not make a practice of meeting here, do they?” began old Tamlyn, when the captain was beyond hearing.

“Who? What?” asked Madame St. Vincent.

“The captain and little Mina Knox.”

For a minute or two it appeared that madame could not catch his meaning. She looked at him in perplexity.

“I fail to understand you, dear Mr. Tamlyn.”

“The captain is a very attractive man, no doubt; a good match, I dare say, and all that: but still we should not like poor little Mina to be whirled off to India by him. I asked if they often met here.”

“Whirled off to India?” repeated madame, in astonishment. “Little Mina? By him? In what capacity?”

“As his wife.”

“But—dear me!—what can have put such an idea into your head, my good sir? Mina is a mere child.”

“Old enough to take up foolish notions,” quoth the doctor, quaintly; “especially if they are put into it by a be-whiskered grenadier, such as he. I hope he is not doing it! I hope you do not give them opportunities of meeting here!”