The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

CHAPTER I

When Disaster is bigger than its victim its bolt o’erlaps the

innocent.

 

It was some time after Gwen had fallen before Alice had succeeded

in getting her upon the lounge, and then all her efforts to revive

her had failed. She had remained in the same nerveless stupor as

that in which I had found her. I asked Alice if she knew why this

announcement had produced such an effect upon Gwen, and she returned

my question with a look of amazement.

 

“Have you forgotten Gwen’s promise to her father in this matter?”

she replied. “Has she not already told you that she should keep

that promise, whatever the sacrifice cost her? She is, therefore,

entirely at the mercy of this M. Godin, and she is also obliged to

advise him of this fact, if she would carry out her father’s wishes.

Is this nothing for a sensitive nature like hers? If she has any

love for anyone else she must crush it out of her heart, for she is

M. Godin’s now. Surely, Ned, you are not so stupid as your question

would indicate.”

 

“We won’t discuss that,” I rejoined. “Let us go to Gwen and get

her to bed.”

 

This done, and the sufferer made easy for the night, I glanced at

the article which had so upset her, and read its sensational

“scare-head.” In full it ran as follows:

 

THE DARROW MYSTERY SOLVED!

JOHN DARROW WAS MURDERED!

 

The Assassin’s Inability to Pay a Gambling Debt the

Motive for the Crime.

 

EXTRAORDINARY WORK OF A FRENCH DETECTIVE!

 

The Net so Completely Woven About the Alleged

Assassin That it is Thought He Will Confess.

 

The Arrest Entirely Due to the Unassisted Efforts of

M. LOUIS GODIN!

 

I did not stop to read the article, but seized my hat and hastened

at once to Maitland.

 

A copy of the Herald lay upon his table, advising me that he was

already acquainted with the strange turn affairs had taken. He

told me that he had heard the newsboys in the street calling out

“The Darrow Mystery Solved!” and had at once rushed out and bought

a paper.

 

I informed him of Gwen’s condition and he wished to go to her at

once, but I told him he must wait until the morrow, as she had

already retired, and was, I had reason to hope, fast asleep. I

reassured him with the information that a night’s sleep and the

medicine I had given her would probably put Gwen in full possession

of her faculties. Having thus satisfied his fears, I thought it

fitting he should satisfy mine. I asked him what had become of the

young woman in the next room. He did not reply, but quietly led me

into his camera obscura that I might see for myself. She was

sitting at the table in the centre of the room, with her face buried

in her hands. I watched her for a long time, and the only movement

I could discern was that occasioned ever and anon by a convulsive

catching of her breath. The pet monkey was nowhere to be seen.

 

“They took her father away early this morning,” Maitland said, “and,

after the first shock, she sank into this condition. She has not

moved since. When I see the despair her father’s arrest has

occasioned I am almost tempted to rejoice that I had no hand in it,

and yet - well, there’s no great harm without some small good - no

one will say now that John Darrow took his own life, eh? What do

you think our friends, Osborne and Allen, will say now? They were

so sure their theory was the only tenable one. Ah, well! we should

ever hold ourselves in readiness=20

for surprises.”

 

“And for emergencies too,” I continued; “and this strikes me as

being very like one. That young woman needs attention, if I am any

judge of appearances, and I’m going in there.” “No use, Doc,”

Maitland replied, “the door is locked, and she either cannot or

will not open it. I knocked there for an hour, hoping to be able

to comfort her. It’s no use for you to try, she won’t open the

door.” “Won’t, eh! then I’ll go through it!” I exclaimed, in a

tone that so amazed Maitland that he seized me by the shoulders and

gazed fixedly into my face. “It’s all right, George,” I said,

answering his look. “I’m going in there, and I’m not going to be

at all delicate about my entrance either.”

 

He looked at me a little doubtfully, but I could see that, on the

whole, he was pleased with my decision. I went into the hall and

knocked loudly on the door. There was no response. I kicked it

till I must have been heard all over the house, but still there

was no response. It was now clear I should not enter by invitation,

so I went up four or five stairs of the flight opposite the door and

from that position sprang against it. I am not, if you remember, a

heavy man, but momentum is MV and I made up in the ‘V’ what I lacked

in the ‘M.’ The door opened inwardly, and I tore it from its hinges

and precipitated both myself and it into the centre of the apartment.

As I look back upon this incident I regard it as the most precipitous

thing I ever did in the way of a professional visit. If the young

lady started at all, she did so before I had gathered myself together

sufficiently to notice it. I spoke to her, but she gave no evidence

of hearing me. I raised her head. Her eyes were wide open and

stared full at me, yet in such a blank way that I knew she did not

hear me. The contraction of the brows, the knotted appearance of

the forehead, and the rigor of the face told me she was under an

all-but-breaking tension. There were tear-stains from tears which

long since had ceased to flow. The fire of fever had dried them up.

I regarded her case as far more desperate than Gwen’s and determined

to lose no time in taking charge of it. It seemed to me so like

sacrilege to touch her without an explanation that, though I knew

she could not understand me, I said to her, as I took her in my arms.

“You are ill, and I must take you away from here.”

 

She was just blossoming into womanhood and her form had that

exquisite roundness and grace which it is the particular function

of fashion to annihilate. If I held her closely, I think all

bachelors will agree that it was because this very roundness made

her heavy; if I did not put her down immediately I reached Maitland’s

room, it is because, as a doctor of medicine, I have my own ideas as

to how a couch should be fixed before a patient is laid upon it.

Maitland may say what he pleases, but I know how important these

things are in sickness, and you know, quick as he is in most things,

George has moments when his head is so much in the clouds that he

doesn’t know what he is doing, and moves as if he were in a dream

set to dirge music. He kept telling me to “put her on the couch!

- put her on the couch!” To this day, he fondly believes that when

I finally did release her, it was as the result of his advice, rather

than because he had at last made a suitable bed for her.

 

I sent Maitland for some medicine, which I knew would relax the

tension she was under and make it possible for her to sleep. When

I had administered this, Maitland and I talked the matter over and

we decided to take her at once to my house, where, with Gwen, she

could share the watchful care of my sister Alice. This we did,

though I was not without some misgivings as to Gwen’s attitude in

the matter when she should recover sufficiently to know of it. I

expressed my doubts to Maitland and he replied: “Give yourself no

uneasiness on that score; Miss Darrow is too womanly to visit the

sins of a guilty father upon an unoffending daughter, and, besides,

this man, - it seems that his real name is Latour, not Cazenove, -=20

has