Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1112 page)

Joseph led the way upstairs — not on my aunt’s side of the house, to my infinite relief. On the first landing, he made a mysterious communication. “Mr. David, I have given notice to leave,” he said. “There are some things that no servant can put up with. While a person lives, I expect a person to live. When a person dies, I expect a person to die. There must be no confusion on such a serious subject as life and death. I blame nobody — I understand nothing — I merely go. Follow me, if you please, sir.”

Had he been drinking? He led the way up the next flight of stairs, steadily and quietly. He knocked discreetly at Madame Fontaine’s door. “Mr. David Glenney,” he announced, “to see Doctor Dormann.”

Mr. Keller came out first, closing the door behind him. He embraced me, with a demonstrative affection far from characteristic of him at other times. His face was disturbed; his voice faltered, as he spoke his first words to me.

“Welcome back, David — more welcome than ever!”

“My aunt is well, I hope?”

He clasped his hands fervently. “God is merciful,” he said. “Thank God!”

“Is Madame Fontaine ill?”

Before he could answer, the door was opened again. Doctor Dormann came out.

“The very man I want!” he exclaimed. “You could not possibly have arrived at a better time.” He turned to Mr. Keller. “Where can I find writing-materials? In the drawing-room? Come down, Mr. Glenney. Come down, Mr. Keller.”

In the drawing-room, he wrote a few lines rapidly. “See us sign our names,” he said. He handed the pen to Mr. Keller after he had signed himself — and then gave me the paper to read.

To my unspeakable amazement, the writing certified that, “the suspended vital forces in Mrs. Wagner had recovered their action, in the Deadhouse of Frankfort, at half-past one o’clock on the morning of the fourth of January; that he had professionally superintended the restoration to life; and that he thereby relieved the magistrates from any further necessity for pursuing a private inquiry, the motive for which no longer existed.” To this statement there was a line added, declaring that Mr. Keller withdrew his application to the magistrates; authenticated by Mr. Keller’s signature.

I stood with the paper in my hand, looking from one to the other of them, as completely bewildered as Joseph himself.

“I can’t leave Madame Fontaine,” said the doctor; “I am professionally interested in watching the case. Otherwise, I would have made my statement in person. Mr. Keller has been terribly shaken, and stands in urgent need of rest and quiet. You will do us both a service if you will take that paper to the town-hall, and declare before the magistrates that you know us personally, and have seen us sign our names. On your return, you shall have every explanation that I can give; and you shall see for yourself that you need feel no uneasiness on the subject of your aunt.”

Having arrived at the town-hall, I made the personal statement to which the doctor had referred. Among the questions put to me, I was asked if I had any direct interest in the matter — either as regarded Mrs. Wagner or any other person. Having answered that I was Mrs. Wagner’s nephew, I was instructed to declare in writing, that I approved (as Mrs. Wagner’s representative) of the doctor’s statement and of Mr. Keller’s withdrawal of his application.

With this, the formal proceedings terminated, and I was free to return to the house.

III

Joseph had his orders, this time. He spoke like a reasonable being — he said the doctor was waiting for me, in Madame Fontaine’s room. The place of the appointment rather surprised me.

The doctor opened the door — but paused before he admitted me.

“I think you were the first person,” he said, “who saw Mr. Keller, on the morning when he was taken ill?”

“After the late Mr. Engelman,” I answered, “I was the first person.

“Come in, then. I want you to look at Madame Fontaine.”

He led me to the bedside. The instant I looked at her, I saw Mr. Keller’s illness reproduced, in every symptom. There she lay, in the same apathy; with the same wan look on her face, and the same intermittent trembling of her hands. When I recovered the first shock of the discovery, I was able to notice poor Minna, kneeling at the opposite side of the bed, weeping bitterly. “Oh, my dear one!” she cried, in a passion of grief, “look at me! speak to me!”

The mother opened her eyes for a moment — looked at Minna — and closed them again wearily. “Leave me quiet,” she said, in tones of fretful entreaty. Minna rose and bent over the pillow tenderly. “Your poor lips look so parched,” she said; “let me give you some lemonade?” Madame Fontaine only repeated the words, “Leave me quiet.” The same reluctance to raise her heavy eyelids, the same entreaty to be left undisturbed, which had alarmed me on the memorable morning when I had entered Mr. Keller’s room!

Doctor Dormann signed to me to follow him out. As he opened the door, the nurse inquired if he had any further instructions for her. “Send for me, the moment you see a change,” he answered; “I shall be in the drawing-room, with Mr. Glenney.” I silently pressed poor Minna’s hand, before I left her. Who could have presumed, at that moment, to express sympathy in words?

The doctor and I descended the stairs together. “Does her illness remind you of anything?” he asked.

“Of Mr. Keller’s illness,” I answered, “exactly as I remember it.”

He made no further remark. We entered the drawing-room. I inquired if I could see my aunt.

“You must wait a little,” he said. “Mrs. Wagner is asleep. The longer she sleeps the more complete her recovery will be. My main anxiety is about Jack. He is quiet enough now, keeping watch outside her door; but he has given me some trouble. I wish I knew more of his early history. From all I can learn, he was only what is called “half-witted,” when they received him at the asylum in London. The cruel repressive treatment in that place aggravated his imbecility into violent madness — and such madness has a tendency to recur. Mrs. Wagner’s influence, which has already done so much, is my main hope for the future. Sit down, and let me explain the strange position in which you find us here, as well as I can.”

IV

“Do you remember how Mr. Keller’s illness was cured?” the doctor began.

Those words instantly reminded me, not only of Doctor Dormann’s mysterious suspicions at the time of the illness, but of Jack’s extraordinary question to me, on the morning when I left Frankfort. The doctor saw that I answered him with some little embarrassment.

“Let us open our minds to each other, without reserve,” he said. “I have set you thinking of something. What is it?”

I replied, concealing nothing. Doctor Dormann was equally candid on his side. He spoke to me, exactly as he is reported to have spoken to Mr. Keller, in the Second Part of this narrative.

“You now know,” he proceeded, “what I thought of Mr. Keller’s extraordinary recovery, and what I feared when I found Mrs. Wagner (as I then firmly believed) dead. My suspicions of poisoning pointed to the poisoner. Madame Fontaine’s wonderful cure of Mr. Keller, by means of her own mysterious remedy, made me suspect Madame Fontaine. My motive, in refusing to give the burial certificate, was to provoke the legal inquiry, which I knew that Mr. Keller would institute, on the mere expression of a doubt, on my part, whether your aunt had died a natural death. At that time, I had not the slightest anticipation of the event that has actually occurred. Before, however, we had removed the remains to the Deadhouse, I must own I was a little startled — prepare yourself for a surprise — by a private communication, addressed to me by Jack.”

He repeated Jack’s narrative of the opening of the Pink-Room cupboard, and the administration of the antidote to Mrs. Wagner.

“You will understand,” he went on, “that I was too well aware of the marked difference between Mr. Keller’s illness and Mrs. Wagner’s illness to suppose for a moment that the same poison had been given to both of them. I was, therefore, far from sharing Jack’s blind confidence in the efficacy of the blue-glass bottle, in the case of his mistress. But I tell you, honestly, my mind was disturbed about it. Towards night, my thoughts were again directed to the subject, under mysterious circumstances. Mr. Keller and I accompanied the hearse to the Deadhouse. On our way through the streets, I was followed and stopped by Madame Fontaine. She had something to give me. Here it is.”

He laid on the table a sheet of thick paper, closely covered with writing in cipher.

V

“Whose writing is this?” I asked.

“The writing of Madame Fontaine’s late husband.”

“And she put it into your hands!”

“Yes — and asked me to interpret the cipher for her.”

“It’s simply incomprehensible.”

“Not in the least. She knew the use to which Jack had put her antidote, and (in her ignorance of chemistry) she was eager to be prepared for any consequences which might follow. Can you guess on what chance I calculated, when I consented to interpret the cipher?”

“On the chance that it might tell you what poison she had given to Mrs. Wagner?”

“Well guessed, Mr. Glenney!”

“And you have actually discovered the meaning of these hieroglyphics?”

He laid a second sheet of paper on the table.

“There is but one cipher that defies interpretation,” he said. “If you and your correspondent privately arrange to consult the same edition of the same book, and if your cipher, or his, refers to a given page and to certain lines on that page, no ingenuity can discover you, unaided by a previous discovery of the book. All other ciphers, so far as I know, are at the mercy of skill and patience. In this case I began (to save time and trouble) by trying the rule for interpreting the most simple, and most elementary, of all ciphers — that is to say, the use of the ordinary language of correspondence, concealed under arbitrary signs. The right way to read these signs can be described in two words. On examination of the cipher, you will find that some signs will be more often repeated than others. Count the separate signs, and ascertain, by simple addition, which especial sign occurs oftenest — which follows next in point of number — and so on. These comparisons established, ask yourself what vowel occurs oftenest, and what consonant occurs oftenest, in the language in which you suppose the cipher to be written. The result is merely a question of time and patience.”

“And this is the result?” I said, pointing to the second sheet of paper.

“Read it,” he answered; “and judge for yourself.”

The opening sentence of the interpreted cipher appeared to be intended by Doctor Fontaine to serve the purpose of a memorandum; repeating privately the instructions already attached by labels to the poison called “Alexander’s Wine,” and to its antidote.

The paragraphs that followed were of a far more interesting kind. They alluded to the second poison, called “The Looking-Glass Drops;” and they related the result of one of the Professor’s most remarkable experiments in the following words: —

VI

“The Looking-Glass Drops. Fatal Dose, as discovered by experiments on animals, the same as in the case of Alexander’s Wine. But the effect, in producing death, more rapid, and more indistinguishable, in respect of presenting traces on post-mortem examination.

“After many patient trials, I can discover no trustworthy antidote to this infernal poison. Under these circumstances, I dare not attempt to modify it for medical use. I would throw it away — but I don’t like to be beaten. If I live a little longer, I will try once more, with my mind refreshed by other studies.

“A month after writing these lines (which I have repeated in plain characters, on the bottle, for fear of accidents), I tried again — and failed again. Annoyed by this new disappointment, I did something unworthy of me as a scientific man.

“After first poisoning an animal with the Looking-Glass Drops, I administered a dose from the blue bottle, containing the antidote to Alexander’s Wine — knowing perfectly well the different nature of the two poisons; expecting nothing of any scientific importance to follow; and yet trusting stupidly to chance to help me.