Gerard thought the poor woman was getting delirious. He laid his fingers gently on her skinny wrist, and held them there while he looked at his watch.
Yes, the pulse was a good deal quicker than it had been when he last felt it.
“Is Jemima there?” asked Mrs. Evitt, twitching aside the bed-curtain, and looking nervously round.
Yes, Jemima was there, sitting before the fire, darning a coarse grey stocking, and feeling very happy in being allowed to bask in the warmth of a fire, in a room where nobody threw saucepan lids at her.
George Gerard had rigged up what he called a jury curtain, to shelter the truckle bed from those piercing currents of air which find their way alike through old and new window frames.
Mrs. Evitt’s thin fingers suddenly fastened like claws upon the surgeon’s wrist.
“I want to speak to you,” she whispered, “by-and-by, when Jemima’s gone down to her supper. I can’t keep it any longer. It’s preying on my vitals.”
The delirium was evidently increasing, thought Gerard. There was generally this exacerbation of the fever at nightfall.
“What is it you can’t keep?” he asked, soothingly. “Is there anything that worries you?”
“Wait till Jemima has gone down,” whispered the invalid.
“I’ll come up and have a look at you between ten and eleven,” said Gerard, aloud, rising to go. “I’ve a lot of reading to get through this evening.”
He went down to his books and his tranquil solitude, pondering upon Mrs. Evitt’s speech and manner. No, it was not delirium. The woman’s words were too consecutive for delirium; her manner was excited, but not wild. There was evidently something on her mind—something connected with La Chicot’s murder.
Great Heaven, could this feeble old woman be the assassin? Could those withered old hands have inflicted that mortal gash? No, the idea was not to be entertained for a moment. Yet, stranger things have been since the world began. Crime, like madness, might give a factitious strength to feeble hands. La Chicot might have had money—jewels—hidden wealth of some kind, of which the secret was known to her landlady, and, tempted by direst poverty, this wretched woman might—! The thought was too horrible. It took possession of George Gerard’s brain like a nightmare. Vainly did he endeavour to beguile his mind by the study of an interesting treatise on dry-rot in the metatarsal bone. His thoughts were with that feeble old woman upstairs, whose skinny hand, just now, had set him thinking of the witches in Macbeth.
He listened for Jemima’s clumping footfall going downstairs. It came at last, and he knew that the girl was gone to her meagre supper, and the coast was clear for Mrs. Evitt’s revelation. He shut his book, and went quietly upstairs. Never until now had George Gerard known the meaning of fear; but it was with actual fear that he entered Mrs. Evitt’s room, dreading the discovery he was going to make.
He was startled at finding the invalid risen, and with her dingy black stuff gown drawn on over her night-gear.
“Why in heaven’s name did you get up?” he asked. “If you were to take cold you would be ever so much worse than you have been yet.”
“I know it,” answered Mrs. Evitt, with her teeth chattering, “but I can’t help that. I’ve got to go upstairs to the second floor back, and you must go with me.”
“What for?”
“I’ll tell you that presently. I want you to tell me something first.”
Gerard took a blanket off the bed, and wrapped it round the old woman’s shoulders. She was sitting in front of the fire, just where Jemima had sat darning her stocking.
“I’ll tell you anything you like,” answered Gerard, “but I shall be very savage if you catch cold.”
“If an innocent person was suspected of a murder, and the evidence was strong against him, and another person knew he hadn’t done it, and said nothing, and let the law take its course, would the other person be guilty?”
“Of murder!” cried Gerard; “of nothing less than murder. Having the power to save an innocent life, and not saving it! What could that be but murder!”
“Are you sure Jemima isn’t outside, on the listen?” asked Mrs. Evitt, suspiciously. “Just go to the door and look.”
Gerard obeyed.
“There’s not a mortal within earshot,” he said. “Now, my good soul, don’t waste any more time. It’s evident you know all about this murder.”
“I believe I know who did it,” said the old woman.
“Who?”
“I can remember that awful night as well as if it was yesterday,” began Mrs. Evitt, making strange swallowing noises, as if to keep down her agitation. “There we all stood on the landing outside this door—Mrs. Rawber, Mr. Desrolles, me, and Mr. Chicot. Mrs. Rawber and me was all of a twitter. Mr. Chicot looked as white as a ghost; Mr. Desrolles was the coolest among us. He took it all quiet enough, and I felt it was a comfort to have somebody there that had his wits about him. It was him that proposed sending for a policeman.”
“Sensible enough,” said Gerard.
“Nothing was further from my thoughts than to suspect him,” pursued Mrs. Evitt. “He had been with me, off and on, for five years, and he’d been a quiet lodger, coming in at his own time with his own key, and giving very little trouble. He had only one fault, and that was his liking for the bottle. He and Madame Chicot had been very friendly. He seemed to take quite a fatherly care of her, and had brought her home from the theatre many a night, when her husband was at his club.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Gerard, impatiently. “You’ve told me that often before tonight. Go on, for heaven’s sake. Do you mean to say
