The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5743]
The apartment was now flooded with light, and I looked for the assassin. He was not to be found! The room contained only Gwen, Darrow, and his four invited guests! The doors were closed; the windows had not been touched. No one could possibly have entered or left the room, and yet the assassin was not there. But one solution remained; Darrow was labouring under a delusion, and Gwen's voice would restore him. As she was about to speak I stepped back to note the effect of her words upon him. "Do not fear, father," she said in a low voice as she laid her face against his cheek, "there is nothing here to hurt you. You are ill,--I will get you a glass of cordial and you will be yourself again in a moment." She was about to rise when her father seized her frantically by the arm, exclaiming in a hoarse whisper: "Don't leave me! Can't you see? Don't leave me!" and for the first time he removed his hand from his throat, and taking her head between his palms, gazed wistfully into her face. He tried to speak again, but could not, and glanced up at us with a helpless expression which I shall never forget. Maitland, his eyes riveted upon the old gentleman, whose thoughts he seemed to divine, hurriedly produced a pencil and note-book and held them toward him, but he did not see them, for he had drawn Gwen's face down to him and was kissing her passionately. The next instant he was on his feet and from the swollen veins that stood out like cords upon his neck and forehead, we could see the terrible effort he was making to speak. At last the words came,--came as if they were torn hissing from his throat, for he took a full breath between each one of them. "Gwen--I--knew--it! Good-bye! Remember--your--promise!" --and he fell a limp mass into his chair, overcome, I felt sure, by the fearful struggle he had made. Maitland seized a glass of water and threw it in his face. I loosened the clothing about his neck and, in doing so, his head fell backward and his face was turned upward toward me. The features were drawn,--the eyes were glazed and set. I felt of his heart; he was dead!
CHAPTER II
Silence is the only tender Death can make to Mystery.
The look of pain and astonishment upon my face said plainly enough to Gwen:
"Your father is dead." I could not speak. In the presence of her great affliction we all stood silent, and with bowed heads. I had thought Darrow's attack the result of an overwrought mental condition which would speedily readjust itself, and had so counted upon his daughter's influence as all but certain to immediately result in a temporary cure. When, therefore, I found him dead without any apparent cause, I was, for the time being, too dazed to think, much less to act, and I think the other gentlemen were quite as much incapacitated as I. My first thought, when I recovered so that I could think, was of Gwen. I felt sure her reason must give way under the strain, and I thought of going nearer to her in case she should fall, but refrained when I noticed that Maitland had noiselessly glided within easy reach of her. To move seemed impossible to me. Such a sudden transition from warm, vigorous life to cold, impassive death seems to chill the dynamic rivers of being into a horrible winter, static and eternal. Though death puts all things in the past tense, even we physicians cannot but be strangely moved when the soul thus hastily deserts the body without the usual farewell of an illness.
Contrary to my expectations Gwen did not faint. For a long time, --it may not have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed, under the peculiar circumstances, at least an hour,--she remained perfectly impassive. She neither changed colour nor exhibited any other sign of emotion. She stood gazing quietly, tenderly, at her father's body as if he were asleep and she were watching for some indication