in her hand. She had been sent up after the chloral, and was taking it down to him."
George gave his brother a suspicious look.
"Did she say so?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Poor child! She will miss her grandfather. I wonder if she knows?"
I felt that I had no right to listen. But I was standing where the doctor had left me, and hardly knew how to withdraw till I had received my dismissal from someone in authority. Yet I was thinking of going farther front when the doctor came out again and, approaching me, remarked:
"This delay is probably causing you great inconvenience. But I must ask you to remain a short time longer. I presume you can find a seat in the drawing-room."
With a glance at the young gentlemen, I expressed my obligations for his courtesy, but did not make a move towards the room he had indicated.
Instantly, and with an understanding of my feelings which surprised me, George took the hint I had given him, and stepping forward, raised a heavy plush curtain at the left and begged me to be seated in the richly appointed room within. But I had hardly taken a step towards it when a diversion was created by the entrance into the house of a gentleman whom I at once took to be the third brother for whose presence all waited with more or less suspense.
He was sufficiently prepossessing in appearance to awaken admiration, but he bore no resemblance to his brothers. He seemed to have more character and less – well, I find it difficult to say just what impression he made upon me at this moment. Enough that with my first glimpse of him I felt confident that no ordinary person had entered upon the scene, though just what special characteristic of his personality or disposition would prove the emphatic one it was not easy to judge, at a moment's notice.
He had a downcast air, and to my eyes looked weary to the point of collapse, but he roused at the sight of a stranger, and cast an inquiring look at the doctor and then at the servants crowding in the passage beyond.
He evidently took me for one of his brothers' boon companions.
"What's amiss?" he demanded in some irritation – an irritation I was fain to construe into a total lack of preparation for the fatal news awaiting him. "What's the matter, George? What's the matter, Alph?"
"The worst!" came in simultaneous reply.
"Father is dead!" cried George.
"Took too much chloral," added Alfred.
Leighton Gillespie stood stock-still for a moment, then threw off his hat and rushed down the hall. But at the door of what now might be called the chamber of death, he found the doctor standing in an attitude which compelled him to come to a sudden stop.
"Wait a moment," said that gentleman. "I have to correct an impression. Your father has not died from an overdose of chloral as I had at first supposed, but from a deadly dose of prussic acid. You have only to smell his lips to be certain of this fact. Now, Leighton, you may enter."
III
WHAT A DOOR HID
It was a startling declaration, and the horror it called up was visible on every face. But the surprise which should have accompanied it was lacking, and however quickly the three nearest the deceased man's heart strove to cover up their first instinctive acceptance of a fact so suggestive of hidden troubles, I could not but see that the prosperous stockbroker had had griefs, anxieties, or hopes to which this sudden end seemed to those who knew him best, a natural sequence.
I began to regret the chance which had brought me into such close relations with this family, and felt the closed envelope in my pocket weighing on my breast like lead.
Meanwhile, he whom they called Leighton was saying in a highly strained tone, which he vainly endeavoured to make natural:
"May not Dr. Bennett be mistaken? There is the chloral bottle on the shelf over the fireplace. We are not in the habit of seeing it here. Does not its presence in this room argue that father felt the need of it. Prussic acid can only be obtained through a doctor, and I am confident you never prescribed him such a dangerous drug, Dr. Bennett."
"No, for it is totally inapplicable to his case. But you will find that he died from taking it, Leighton; all his symptoms show it, and we have only to determine now whether he took it in the chloral, in the glass of wine he drank, or by means of some other agency not yet discovered. I regret to speak so unequivocally, but I never mince matters where my profession is concerned. And, besides, the coroner would not show you this consideration even if I did. The fact is too patent."
They were now inside the study and I did not hear Leighton's reply, but when they all came out again, I saw that the latter had not only accepted the situation, but that he had been informed of the part I had been called upon to play in this matter. This was apparent from the way he greeted me, and the questions he put concerning his child's conduct during the last terrible moments of her grandfather's life.
As he did this I had a fuller opportunity for studying his face. It was the most melancholy one I had ever seen, and what struck me as being worthy of remark was that this melancholy seemed a settled one and quite apart from the present grief and disturbance. Yet he had been heavily shaken by his father's sudden if not inexplicable death, or appeared to be, which possibly is not quite the same thing.
"I do not understand why my father should have called anyone in from the street to witness his sufferings while he had sons in the house," he courteously remarked; "but having felt this necessity and having succeeded in obtaining such help, I am glad that chance favoured him and us with a person of such apparent good feeling as yourself."
I scarcely heeded him. I was pondering over the letter and whether I should pass it over to this man. But instinct withheld me, or rather my lawyer-like habits which happily acted as a restraint upon my natural impulse. I had received no intimation as yet that it was intended for any of Mr. Gillespie's sons.
"You will oblige us by waiting for the coroner?" he now went on. "He has telephoned that he will be here immediately."
"I shall wait," I said. And it was by his invitation I now stepped into the parlour.
A quarter of an hour, a half-hour, passed before the front door bell rang again. From the hubbub which ensued, I knew that the man we wished for had arrived, but it was a long while before he entered the room in which I sat, during which tedious interim I had to possess my soul in patience. But at last I heard his step on the threshold, and looking up, I beheld a spare, earnest man who approached me with great seriousness, and sat down near enough to indulge in confidential talk without running the risk of being heard by anyone.
"You are Mr. Outhwaite," he began. "I have heard of your firm and have more than once seen Mr. Robinson. Had you any acquaintance with Mr. Gillespie or his family before to-night?"
"No, sir; Mr. Gillespie was known to me only by reputation."
"Then it was pure chance which led you to be a witness of his final moments?"
"Pure chance, if we do not believe in Providence," I returned.
He surveyed me quite intently.
"Relate what passed."
Now here was a dilemma. Did my duty exact a revelation of the facts which I had hitherto felt obliged to keep even from the deceased man's sons? It was a question not to be decided in a moment, so I made up my mind to be guided by developments, and confined my narration to a recapitulation of my former plain account of Mr. Gillespie's last moments. This narrative I made as simple as I could. When I had finished he asked if Mr. Gillespie's grandchild had been present at the moment her grandfather expired.
I answered that she had been clinging to him all the time he remained erect, but shrank back and ran out of the room the moment he gave signs of falling to the floor.
"Did he speak to her?"
"Not that I heard."
"Did he say anything?"
"A few inarticulate words, no names."
"He did not ask for his sons?"
"No."
"For