The Burning Court (32 page)

The firelight flickered on black headlines, for the fire was the only light in the room. It distorted and made unfamiliar common objects. By the rear window a woman stood looking out into the garden. Her face was reflected in the dark glass. It was a plump, pretty face, with ringlets of dark-yellow hair. The reflection, slightly blurred, showed heavy-lidded grey eyes set in an expression which might be called spiritual, and a very faint smile. She was thinking:

Upon the whole, I am sorry she is not to die, after all. She deserved to die, if only for telling tales about me. I was incautious that day when I asked after the old man’s receipt; but then I had not used it for a long time. Also, it is a pity she was not really guilty; she should have been, for she would have made an addition to our number. W must be very numerous now.

Outside, in the dark garden, the October wood smoke drifted lightly. The sky was dark also, except for three bright stars; and, in the fields beyond, a mist was on the wigwams of the corn. One fine hand of the woman’s moved out and touched a small desk between the windows, although she did not turn her head.

It is well that I am beginning to remember. At first I could remember only faintly, as I see my reflection in this glass now. Once, when the smoke lifted in the Mass at Guibourg, I thought I remembered—an eye there, a tip of a nose there, or ribs with a knife through them. I wonder, now, when I shall see Gaudin again. His was a crooked reflection; perhaps the headgear was different, but I knew him at once. At least I knew quite clearly that I must go to him for help. It is true that, this time, I was in no danger from their lawyers. But I did not wish my husband to guess, not yet. I love him, I love him; he will be one of us presently, if I can transform him without pain. Or too much pain.

The hand moved across the writing-desk, and there was a key in the hand. It began to unlock some curious compartments, one beyond the other; although still her head did not turn. The hand seemed to move with a life and volition of its own. Inside the last compartment there was a teakwood box, and a little jar.

Yes, I knew Gaudin. He had been seeking me, too, it seems. Nor have I-denied his cleverness. It was clever of him to pluck a physical explanation, a thing of sizes and dimensions and stone walls, out of all those things which had no explanation I was prepared to give them. I wondered that he could do it so cunningly, for I am not clever. I am sorry, too, he must accuse Mark Despard, for I liked Mark.

If I am not clever, as they say, still I think I had the better of Gaudin, after all. Gaudin asked Gaudin’s price for what he did, and it was unfortunate that he wished to return to me. He would have been impossible as a lover. And Gaudin was flesh and bone, until the ointment was used. He will return to flesh and bone presently, but I have the better of him now.

The white hand, moving fluent and snakelike, touched first the box and then the jar; still the plump face was reflected without motion in the glass, though it smiled curiously. … There was the noise of a key in the outer door of the cottage, the opening of a door, and the sound of footsteps in the hall. Whatever luminousness, or even transparency, seemed to move round wall or window—this was now gone when she ceased to touch the jar. Her face became the face of a pretty wife, and she ran out to meet her husband.

As she passed, her skirt brushed to the floor the newspaper on the divan, turning it over and exposing the continuation of a news item:

… that no trace had yet been found of the “phantom accomplice,” Mark Despard; but said that no effort would be spared to trace him. It is understood that Attorney Shapiro has produced new evidence. High-lights in the trial of the “demon nurse” will be recalled in Attorney Shapiro’s attempt to prove that Author Cross—determined to convict the nurse of a poisoning-charge he could not prove—might himself have dropped cyanide into his own glass.

“If the defence,” said District Attorney Shields, “seriously means that any man will drop four grains of potassium cyanide into his own glass in order to prove a theory, the state is content to rest at this moment.”

“The defence means,” retorted Shapiro, “that Cross may have had a confederate who supplied him with this poison, telling him that it was only a little arsenic which would make him sick, but really intending to kill him. In capsule form——”

At this point there was some commotion, and Judge David R. Anderson said that if any more laughter were heard in a court of justice, he would order the court to be cleared.