第80章 PART II(26)

CHAPTER XIV

Doctor Dormann was punctual to his appointment.He was accompanied by a stranger,whom he introduced as a surgeon.As before,Jack slipped into the room,and waited in a corner,listening and watching attentively.

Instead of improving under the administration of the remedies,the state of the patient had sensibly deteriorated.On the rare occasions when she attempted to speak,it was almost impossible to understand her.The sense of touch seemed to be completely lost--the poor woman could no longer feel the pressure of a friendly hand.And more ominous still,a new symptom had appeared;it was with evident difficulty that she performed the act of swallowing.Doctor Dormann turned resignedly to the surgeon.

"There is no other alternative,"he said;"you must bleed her."At the sight of the lancet and the bandage,Jack started out of his corner.His teeth were fast set;his eyes glared with rage.Before he could approach the surgeon Mr.Keller took him sternly by the arm and pointed to the door.He shook himself free--he saw the point of the lancet touch the vein.As the blood followed the incision,a cry of horror burst from him:he ran out of the room.

"Wretches!Tigers!How dare they take her blood from her!Oh,why am Ionly a little man?why am I not strong enough to fling the brutes out of the window?Mistress!Mistress!is there nothing I can do to help you?"These wild words poured from his lips in the solitude of his little bedchamber.In the agony that he suffered,as the sense of Mrs.Wagner's danger now forced itself on him,he rolled on the floor,and struck himself with his clenched fists.And,again and again,he cried out to her,"Mistress!Mistress!is there nothing I can do to help you?"The strap that secured his keys became loosened,as his frantic movements beat the leather bag,now on one side,and now on the other,upon the floor.The jingling of the keys rang in his ears.For a moment,he lay quite still.Then,he sat up on the floor.He tried to think calmly.

There was no candle in the room.The nearest light came from a lamp on the landing below.He got up,and went softly down the stairs.Alone on the landing,he held up the bag and looked at it."There's something in my mind,trying to speak to me,"he said to himself."Perhaps,I shall find it in here?"He knelt down under the light,and shook out the keys on the landing.

One by one he ranged them in a row,with a single exception.The key of the desk happened to be the first that he took up.He kissed it--it was _her_key--and put it back in the bag.Placing the others before him,the duplicate key was the last in the line.The inion caught his eye.

He held it to the light and read "Pink-Room Cupboard."The lost recollection now came back to him in intelligible form.The "remedy"that Madame Fontaine had locked up--the precious "remedy"made by the wonderful master who knew everything--was at his disposal.He had only to open the cupboard,and to have it in his own possession.

He threw the other keys back into the bag.They rattled as he ran down the lower flight of stairs.Opposite to the offices,he stopped and buckled them tight with the strap.No noise!Nothing to alarm Mrs.

Housekeeper!He ascended the stairs in the other wing of the house,and paused again when he approached Madame Fontaine's room.By this time,he was in the perilous fever of excitement,which was still well remembered among the authorities of Bedlam.Suppose the widow happened to be in her room?Suppose she refused to let him have the "remedy"?

He looked at the outstretched fingers of his right hand."I am strong enough to throttle a woman,"he said,"and I'll do it."He opened the door without knocking,without stopping to listen outside.

Not a creature was in the room.

In another moment the fatal dose of "Alexander's Wine,"which he innocently believed to be a beneficent remedy,was in his possession.

As he put it into the breast-pocket of his coat,the wooden chest caught his eye.He reached it down and tried the lid.The lid opened in his hand,and disclosed the compartments and the bottles placed in them.One of the bottles rose higher by an inch or two than any of the others.He drew that one out first to look at it,and discovered--the "blue-glass bottle."From that moment all idea of trying the effect on Mrs.Wagner of the treacherous "remedy"in his pocket vanished from his mind.He had secured the inestimable treasure,known to him by his own experience.Here was the heavenly bottle that had poured life down his throat,when he lay dying at Wurzburg!This was the true and only doctor who had saved Mr.

Keller's life,when the poor helpless fools about his bed had given him up for lost!The Mistress,the dear Mistress,was as good as cured already.Not a drop more of her precious blood should be shed by the miscreant,who had opened his knife and wounded her.Oh,of all the colors in the world,there's no color like blue!Of all the friends in the world,there never was such a good friend as this!He kissed and hugged the bottle as if it had been a living thing.He jumped up and danced about the room with it in his arms.Ha!what music there was in the inner gurgling and splashing of the shaken liquid,which told him that there was still some left for the Mistress!The striking of the clock on the mantelpiece sobered him at the height of his ecstasy.It told him that time was passing.Minute by minute,Death might be getting nearer and nearer to her;and there he was,with Life in his possession,wasting the time,far from her bedside.

On his way to the door,he stopped.His eyes turned slowly towards the inner part of the room.They rested on the open cupboard--and then they looked at the wooden chest,left on the floor.

Suppose the housekeeper should return,and see the key in the cupboard,and the chest with one of the bottles missing?