“I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, “but that your forbears came from Salem.”
A look of interest stirred sleepily in the coals.
“Why so, sir?”
“Because there’s a look of witch-burning in your eyes.”
Mrs. Siddons gestured a slow negation.
“I would never abrogate the rights of God.”
“But you would approve, Mrs. Siddons.”
“I would rejoice, sir, in the crushing out of any evil or”—her tone became implacably stern—“of any evil thing.”
“Or even of a human being?”
Her look did not waver.
“Yes, Lieutenant—or even of a human being.” She went on steadily and unemotionally. Her words were fragments of stone chipped from some elemental quarry of granitelike conviction and harsh purpose. “That is why you find me dry-eyed, sir, in spite of the tragedy which has been visited upon this house.”
Lieutenant Valcour felt that there was a catch in it somewhere. If she held Endicott’s condition in the light of a tragedy then she scarcely regarded his death as an act of vengeance on the part of her unquestionably inflexible god.
“Tragedy?” he repeated softly.
“A tragedy, sir, for blinded eyes.”
He hoped that she wasn’t going to be allegorical. He endeavoured to interpret. “It is hard on Mrs. Endicott,” he said.
For a moment he thought she was going to melt. “That poor young thing,” she said, and her voice fringed on unaccustomed softnesses. “That sweet young child of beauty—what a bitter ending for the journey of her tormented heart.”
He stepped delicately out upon the fragile ice. “But she’s really better off, don’t you think?”
“She will never know to the full the fortune of her release.” Mrs. Siddons’s incredibly thin body was suddenly shaken with passion as she added, “From that hateful—that filthy beast.”
“Oh, come, Mrs. Siddons—no man is quite as bad as all that.”
Her eyes blazed with the heat of a strange malevolence. “You didn’t know him, Lieutenant, as we did.”
“ ‘We,’ Mrs. Siddons?”
“Myself, sir, and the servants under my charge.”
“You found him disagreeable—overbearing?”
Mrs. Siddons stared fixedly at the coals, as if finding in their vibrant reds some adequate illustration of her angered thoughts. “I found him such a man, Lieutenant, that I am glad to know that he is dead.”
“But you see, Mrs. Siddons, he isn’t dead.”
He thought for a minute that she was going to faint and instinctively leaned forward to support her. She stood up unsteadily but refused the offer of his hands.
“If you will pardon me, sir, I believe I will lie down. There has naturally been a certain strain—a—”
She bowed and found her way to a door that led into an inner room. Lieutenant Valcour listened for a moment at its panels after she had closed it.
He could not determine whether the muffled sound he heard was of peculiar laughter or a sob.
VIII
11:28 p.m.—Mrs. Endicott Screams
The tangents and the bypaths were beginning to increase. Lieutenant Valcour tabulated them as he went thoughtfully down the stairs and along the corridor toward Endicott’s room: Mrs. Endicott herself, and the Spartan Mrs. Siddons—both had been partially explored; Roberts, with her astonishing glance that had hinted so definitely at revelations. Then what of Marge Myles? And what of the unknown man with whom Mrs. Endicott, that afternoon, had taken tea? He opened the door to Endicott’s room and went in.
Preparations for the operation were practically complete. Dr. Worth and the medical examiner were beside the bed, and hovering near them were two trained nurses in uniform—middle-aged, competent women, starched and abstract looking, moving a bit aloofly in their private world which was so concisely separated from the sphere of laymen.
Cassidy, who seemed bleaker than ever, still stiffly occupied the chair near the doorway. He continued to inspect with an almost feverish interest an unsullied expanse of white ceiling above his head.
Lieutenant Valcour seated himself on the corner of a long mahogany chest that was placed before the window farthest from the bed and gravely watched Dr. Worth. He began to feel a little sickish and hoped that he wasn’t going to make an ass of himself and faint. He had witnessed any number of accidents and stabbings, but had never been present at an operation, and it worked on his nerves. Even if Endicott weren’t dead, he certainly looked it. Suspended animation and catalepsy were all right as figures of speech, but the human illustration was rather ghastly. Lieutenant Valcour felt justified in believing that he knew his corpses. He wondered why Dr. Worth was delaying—hesitating—no, bending over now, and in his hand, ready to give the injection of adrenaline into the cardiac muscles, was …
The response was immediate.
With the aid of the stethoscope Dr. Worth heard Endicott’s heart throbbing again, growing steadily stronger. Quite noticeably beneath the bright white lights a faint flush started to run through Endicott’s skin. Lieutenant Valcour saw it, and he moistened with his tongue the dry pressed surface of his lips.
Dr. Worth straightened up and handed the stethoscope to the medical examiner. “Endicott lives,” he said.
No one had noticed Mrs. Endicott standing in the doorway. No one had even noticed that the door was open. It was her terrific scream, her dropping to the floor, that shocked everyone into instant awareness of her presence. Dr. Worth nodded to one of the nurses. With her aid he lifted Mrs. Endicott and carried her from the room. Everyone else remained quite literally spellbound, still chained within the influence of that extraordinary scream. It didn’t seem more than a second or two before Dr. Worth returned. He went directly to Lieutenant Valcour.
“I have given Mrs. Endicott a narcotic that will keep her quiet for the night,” he said. “It was outrageous—her being here. That guard at the door should have seen to it that it was kept closed.”
“Most outrageous, Dr. Worth. I believe all of us were hypnotized by watching you.”
“And I don’t care what the law is, she can’t be questioned or disturbed in any way at all until I say
