The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [2013]
"I was just going out, sir," I said, as I set a chair for him, "to speak to Mr. Robert Nicholson about a very extraordinary circumstance--"
"I know what you refer to," said Mr. Philip, cutting me short rather abruptly; "and I must beg, for reasons which will presently appear, that you will make no statement of any sort to me until you have first heard what I have to say. I am here on a very serious and a very shocking errand, which deeply concerns your mistress and you."
His face suggested something worse than his words expressed. My heart began to beat fast, and I felt that I was turning pale.
"Your master, Mr. James Smith," he went on, "came here unexpectedly yesterday evening, and slept in this house last night. Before he retired to rest he and your mistress had high words together, which ended, I am sorry to hear, in a threat of a serious nature addressed by Mrs. James Smith to her husband. They slept in separate rooms. This morning you went into your master's room and saw no sign of him there. You only found his nightgown on the bed, spotted with blood."
"Yes, sir," I said, in as steady a voice as I could command. "Quite true."
"I am not examining you," said Mr. Philip. "I am only making a certain statement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother."
"Before your brother, sir!" I repeated. "Am I suspected of anything wrong?"
"There is a suspicion that Mr. James Smith has been murdered," was the answer I received to that question.
My flesh began to creep all over from head to foot.
"I am shocked--I am horrified to say," Mr. Philip went on, "that the suspicion affects your mistress in the first place, and you in the second."
I shall not attempt to describe what I felt when he said that. No words of mine, no words of anybody's, could give an idea of it. What other men would have done in my situation I don't know. I stood before Mr. Philip, staring straight at him, without speaking, without moving, almost without breathing. If he or any other man had struck me at that moment, I do not believe I should have felt the blow.
"Both my brother and myself," said Mr. Philip, "have such unfeigned respect for your mistress, such sympathy for her under these frightful circumstances, and such an implicit belief in her capability of proving her innocence, that we are desirous of sparing her in this dreadful emergency as much as possible. For those reasons, I have undertaken to come here with the persons appointed to execute my brother's warrant--"
"Warrant, sir!" I said, getting command of my voice as he pronounced that word--"a warrant against my mistress!"
"Against her and against you," said Mr. Philip. "The suspicious circumstances have been sworn to by a competent witness, who has declared on oath that your mistress is guilty, and that you are an accomplice."
"What witness, sir?"
"Your mistress's quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning, and who has made her deposition in due form."
"And who is as false as hell," I cried out passionately, "in every word she says against my mistress and against me."
"I hope--no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false," said Mr. Philip. "But her perjury must he proved, and the necessary examination must take place. My carriage is going back to my brother's, and you will go in it, in charge of one of my men, who has the warrant to take you in custody. I shall remain here with the man who is waiting in the hall; and before any steps are taken to execute the other warrant, I shall send for the doctor