Chapter 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!"

Madame seemed quite taken aback at the implication. Her voice had a sound of tears in it.

"Do you suppose I could be capable of such a thing, sir? I did think you had a better opinion of me. Such a child as Mina! We were both on our knees, looking for the song, when Captain Collinson came in; and he must needs go down on his great stupid knees too. He but called to inquire after Lady Jenkins."

"Very thoughtful of him, of course. He is often up here, I fancy; at the next house, if not at this."

"Certainly not often at this. He calls on Lady Jenkins occasionally, and she likes it. _I_ don't encourage him. He may be a brave soldier, and a man of wealth and family, and everything else that's desirable; but he is no especial favourite of mine."

"Well, Sam Jenkins has an idea that he would like to get making love to Mina. Sam was laughing about it in the surgery last night with Johnny Ludlow, and I happened to overhear him. Sam thinks they meet here, as well as next door: and you heard Mina say just now that she was singing to him here yesterday afternoon. Stay, my dear lady, don't be put out. I am sure _you_ have thought it no harm, have been innocent of all suspicion of it. Mistaken, you tell me? Well, it may be I am. Mina is but a child, as you observe, and--and perhaps Sam was only jesting. How is our patient to-day?"

"Pretty well. Just a little drowsy."

"In bed, or up?"

"Oh, up."

"Will you tell her I am here?"

Madame St. Vincent, her plumage somewhat ruffled, betook herself to the floor above, Mr. Tamlyn following. Lady Jenkins, in a loose gown of blue quilted silk and a cap with yellow roses in it, sat at the window, nodding.

"Well," said he, sitting down by her and taking her hand, "and how do you feel to-day?"

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. Better, she thought: oh yes, certainly better.

"You are sleepy."

"Rather so. Getting up tired me."

"Are you not going for a drive to-day? It would do you good."

"I don't know. Ask Patty. Patty, are we going out to-day?"

The utter helplessness of mind and body which appeared to be upon her as she thus appealed to another, Mr. Tamlyn had rarely seen equalled. Even while listening to Madame St. Vincent's answer--that they would go if she felt strong enough--her heavy eyelids closed again. In a minute or two she was in a sound sleep. Tamlyn threw caution and Dr. Knox's injunction to the winds, and spoke on the moment's impulse to Madame St. Vincent.

"You see," he observed, pointing to the sleeping face.

"She is only dozing off again."

"_Only!_ My dear, good lady, this perpetual, stupid, lethargic sleepiness is not natural. You are young, perhaps inexperienced, or you would know it to be not so."

"I scarcely think it altogether unnatural," softly dissented madame, with deprecation. "She has really been very poorly."

"But not sufficiently so to induce this helplessness. It has been upon her for months, and is gaining ground."

"She is seventy years of age, remember."

"I know that. But people far older than that are not as she is without some cause: either of natural illness, or--or--something else. Step here a minute, my dear."

Old Tamlyn walked rapidly to the other window, and stood there talking in low tones, his eyes fixed on Madame St. Vincent, his hand, in his eagerness, touching her shoulder.

"Knox thinks, and has imparted his opinion to me--ay, and his doubts also--that something is being given to her."

"That something is being given to her!" echoed Madame St. Vincent, her face flushing with surprise. "Given to her in what way?"

"Or else that she is herself taking it. But I, who have known her longer than Knox has, feel certain that she is not one to do anything of the sort. Besides, you would have found it out long ago."

"I protest I do not understand you," spoke madame, earnestly. "What is it that she _could_ take? She has taken the medicine that comes from your surgery. She has taken nothing else."

"Knox thinks she is being drugged."

"Drugged! Lady Jenkins drugged? How, drugged? What with? What for? Who would drug her?"

"There it is; who would do it?" said the old doctor, interrupting the torrent of words poured forth in surprise. "I confess I think the symptoms point to it. But I don't see how it could be accomplished and you not detect it, considering that you are so much with her."

"Why, I hardly ever leave her, day or night," cried madame. "My bedroom, as you know, is next to hers, and I sleep with the intervening door open. There is no more chance, sir, that she could be drugged than that I could be."

"When Knox first spoke of it to me I was pretty nearly startled out of my senses," went on Tamlyn. "For I caught up a worse notion than he meant to convey--that she was being systematically poisoned."

A dark, vivid, resentful crimson dyed madame's face. The suggestion seemed to be a reproof on her vigilance.

"Poisoned!" she repeated in angry indignation. "How dare Dr. Knox suggest such a thing?"

"My dear, he did not suggest it against _you_. He and I both look upon you as her best safeguard. It is your being with her, that gives us some sort of security: and it is your watchfulness we shall have to look to for detection."

"Poisoned!" reiterated madame, unable to get over the ugly word. "I think Dr. Knox ought to be made to answer for so wicked a suspicion."

"Knox did not mean to go so far as that: it was my misapprehension. But he feels perfectly convinced that she is being tampered with. In short, drugged."

"It is not possible," reasoned madame. "It could not be done without my knowledge. Indeed, sir, you may dismiss all idea of the kind from your mind; you and Dr. Knox also. I assure you that such a thing would be simply impracticable."

Mr. Tamlyn shook his head. "Any one who sets to work to commit a crime by degrees, usually possesses a large share of innate cunning--more than enough to deceive lookers-on," he remarked. "I can understand how thoroughly repulsive this idea is to you, my good lady; that your mind shrinks from admitting it; but I wish you would, just for argument's sake, allow its possibility."

But madame was harder than adamant. Old Tamlyn saw what it was--that she took this accusation, and would take it, as a reflection on her care.

"Who is there, amidst us all, that would attempt to injure Lady Jenkins?" she asked. "The household consists only of myself and the servants. _They_ would not seek to harm their mistress."

"Not so sure; not so sure. It is amidst those servants that we must look for the culprit. Dr. Knox thinks so, and so do I."

Madame's face of astonishment was too genuine to be doubted. She feebly lifted her hands in disbelief. To suspect the servants seemed, to her, as ridiculous as the suspicion itself.

"Her maid, Lettice, and the housemaid, Sarah, are the only two servants who approach her when she is ill, sir: Sarah but very little. Both of them are kind-hearted young women."

Mr. Tamlyn coughed. Whether he would have gone on to impart his doubt of Lettice cannot be known. During the slight silence Lettice herself entered the room with her mistress's medicine. A quick, dark-eyed young woman, in a light print gown.

The stir aroused Lady Jenkins. Madame St. Vincent measured out the physic, and was handing it to the patient, when Mr. Tamlyn seized the wine-glass.

"It's all right," he observed, after smelling and tasting, speaking apparently to himself: and Lady Jenkins took it.

"That is the young woman you must especially watch," whispered Mr. Tamlyn, as Lettice retired with her waiter.

"What! Lettice?" exclaimed madame, opening her eyes.

"Yes; I should advise you to do so. She is the only one who is much about her mistress," he added, as if he would account for the advice. "_Watch her._"

Leaving madame at the window to digest the mandate and to get over her astonishment, he sat down by Lady Jenkins again, and began talking of this and that: the fineness of the weather, the gossip passing in the town.

"What do you take?" he asked abruptly.

"Take?" she repeated. "What is it that I take, Patty?" appealing to her companion.

"Nay, but I want you to tell me yourself," hastily interposed the doctor. "Don't trouble madame."

"But I don't know that I can recollect."

"Oh yes, you can. The effort to do so will do you good--wake you out of this stupid sleepiness. Take yesterday: what did you have for breakfast?"

"Yesterday? Well, I think they brought me a poached egg."

"And a very good thing, too. What did you drink with it?"

"Tea. I always take tea."

"Who makes it?"

"I do," said madame, turning her head to Mr. Tamlyn with a meaning smile. "I take my own tea from the same tea-pot."

"Good. What did you take after that, Lady Jenkins?"

"I dare say I had some beef-tea at eleven. Did I, Patty? I generally do have it."

"Yes, dear Lady Jenkins; and delicious beef-tea it is, and it does you good. I should like Mr. Tamlyn to take a cup of it."

"I don't mind if I do."

Perhaps the answer was unexpected: but Madame St. Vincent rang the bell and ordered up a cup of the beef-tea. The beef-tea proved to be "all right," as he had observed of the medicine. Meanwhile he had continued his questions to his patient.

She had eaten some chicken for dinner, and a little sweetbread for supper. There had been interludes of refreshment: an egg beaten up with milk, a cup of tea and bread-and-butter, and so on.

"You don't starve her," laughed Mr. Tamlyn.

"No, indeed," warmly replied madame. "I do what I can to nourish her."

"What do you take to drink?" continued the doctor.

"Nothing to speak of," interposed madame. "A drop of cold brandy-and-water with her dinner."

"Patty thinks it is better for me than wine," put in Lady Jenkins.

"I don't know but it is. You don't take too much of it?"

Lady Jenkins paused. "Patty knows. Do I take too much, Patty?"

Patty was smiling, amused at the very idea. "I measure one table-spoonful of brandy into a tumbler and put three or four table-spoonfuls of water to it. If you think that is too much brandy, Mr. Tamlyn, I will put less."

"Oh, nonsense," said old Tamlyn. "It's hardly enough."

"She has the same with her supper," concluded madame.

Well, old Tamlyn could make nothing of his suspicions. And he came home from Jenkins House and told Knox he thought they must be both mistaken.

"Why did you speak of it to madame?" asked Dr. Knox. "We agreed to be silent for a short time."

"I don't see why she should not be told, Arnold. She is straightforward as the day--and Lettice Lane seems so, too. I tasted the beef-tea they gave her--took a cup of it, in fact--and I tasted the physic. Madame says it is impossible that anything in the shape of drugs is being given to her; and upon my word I think so too."

"All the same, I wish you had not spoken."

And a little time went on.