A mysterious case by Anna Catherine Greene. It was a mystery to me,
but not to the other doctors. They took, as was natural, the
worst possible view of the matter, and accepted the only solution which the facts
seemed to warrant. But they are men, and I am a woman.
Besides, I knew the nurse well, and I could not believe her capable
of wilful deceit, much less of the heinous crime which deceit in this case
involved. So to me the affair was a mystery. The facts were these.
My patient, a young typewriter, seemingly without friends or enemies, lay
in a small room of a boarding house, afflicted with a painful but not
dangerous malady. Though she was comparatively helpless, her vital organs were strong,
and we never had a moment's uneasiness concerning her till one morning when we found
her in an almost dying condition from having taken as we quickly discovered a dose
of poison instead of the soothing mixture which had been left for her with the
nurse poison, and no one, not even herself or the nurse, could
explain how the same got into her room, much less into her medicine,
And when I came to study the situation, I found myself as much at
a loss as they, owing to the fact that there neither was, nor
ever had been a drop of it in my possession. The mixture then was
pure when it left my hand, and according to the nurse whom, as
I have said, I implicitly believe it went into the glass pure. And
yet when two hours later, without her having left the room or anybody coming
into it, she found occasion to administer the draft, poison was in the
cup, and the patient was only saved from death by the most immediate and
energetic measures, not only on her part, but on that of doctor Holmes,
who, in her haste and perturbation she had called in from the adjacent
house. The patient, young, innocent, unform fortunate, but of a
strangely courageous disposition, betrayed nothing but the utmost surprise at the perils she had
so narrowly escaped. When doctor Holmes intimated that perhaps she had been tired of
suffering and had herself found means of putting the deadly drug into her medicine,
she opened her great gray eyes with such a look of childlike surprise and reproach
that he blushed and murmured some sort of apology poison myself, she cried,
when you promise me that I shall get well. You do not know what
a horror I have of dying in debt, or you would never say that.
This was some time after the critical moment had passed, and there were
in the room Missus Dayton, the landlady, Doctor Holmes, the nurse,
and myself. At the utterance of these words, we all felt ashamed and
cast looks of increased interest at the poor girl. She was very lovely,
though without means, and to all appearance without friends, she possessed in great
degree the charm of winsomeness, and not even her many sufferings nor the indignation
under which she was then laboring, could quite rob her countenance of that tender
and confiding expression which so often redeems the plainest face and makes beauty doubly attractive.
Doctor Holmes does not know you. I hasten to say I do,
and utterly repel for you any such insinuation. In return, will you tell
me if there is any one in the world whom you can call your enemy.
Though the chief mystery is how so deadly and unusual a poison could have
gotten into a clean glass without the knowledge of yourself or the nurse. Still,
it might not be amiss to know if there is any one here or
elsewhere, who, for any reason might desire your death. The surprise and
the childlike eyes increased, rather than diminished. I don't know what to say,
she murmured. I am so insignificant and feeble a per person that it
seems absurd for me to talk of having an enemy. Besides, I have
none. On the contrary, everyone seems to love me more than I deserve.
Haven't you noticed it, missus Dayton. The landlady smiled and stroked the
sick girl's hand. Indeed, she replied, I have noticed that people love
you, but I have never thought it was more than you deserved. You
are a dear little thing, addie. And thus she knew, and I
knew that the every one mentioned by the poor girl meant ourselves and possibly her
unknown employer. We were none the less touched by her words. The more
we study the mystery, the deeper and less explainable did it become. And
indeed, I doubt if we should ever have got to the bottom of it,
if there had not presently occurred in my patient, a repetition of the
same dangerous symptoms, followed by the same discovery of poison in the glass,
and the same failure on the part of herself and nurse to account for it.
I was aroused from my bed at midnight to attend her, And as
I entered her room and met her beseeching eyes looking upon me from the very
shadow of death, I made a vow that I would never cease my efforts
until I had penetrated the secret of what certainly looked like a persistent attempt upon
this poor girl's life. I went about the matter deliberately. As soon as
I could leave her side, I drew the nurse into a corner and again
questioned her. The answers were the same as before. Addie had shown distress
as soon as she had swallowed her usual quantity of medicine, and in a
few minutes more was in a perilous condition. Did you hand the glass yourself
to Addie? I did. Where did you take it from from the place
where you left it the little stand on the farther side of the bed.
And do you mean to say that you had not touched it since I prepared
it. I do, ma'am, And that no one else has been in
the room, No one, ma'am. I look did her intently. I
trusted her. But the best of us are but mortal. Can you assure
me that you have not been asleep during this time? Look at this letter
I have been writing, she returned. It is eight pages long, and
it was not begun when you left us at ten o'clock. I shook my
head and fell into a deep reverie. How was that matter to be elucidated?
And how was my patient to be saved? Another draft of this deadly
poison, and no power on earth could resuscitate her? What should I do?
And with what weapons should I combat? A danger at once so subtle
and so deadly. Reflection brought no decision, and I left the room at
last determined upon but one point, and that was the immediate removal of my
patient. But before I had left the house, I changed my mind even
on this point. Removal of the patient meant safety to her, perhaps,
but not the explanation of her mysterious poisoning. I would change the position of
her bed, and I would even set a watch over her and the nurse,
but I would not take her out of the house, not yet.
And what had produced this change in my plans the look of a woman whom
I met on the stairs. I did not know her, but when I
encountered her glance, I felt that there was some connection between us, and
I was not at all surprised to hear her ask, and how is miss
Wilcox to day? Miss Wilcox is very low? I returned. The least
neglect, the least shocked to her nerves, would be sufficient to make all
my efforts useless. Otherwise she will it well. I nodded. I had
exaggerated the condition of the sufferer, but some secret instinct compelled me to do
so. The look which passed over the woman's face satisfied me that I had
done well. And though I left the house, it was with the intention
of speedily returning and making inquiries into the woman's character and position in the household.
I learned little or nothing. That she occupied a good room and paid
for it regularly seemed to be sufficient to satisfy missus Dayton. Her name,
which proved to be Lauroue, showed her to be French, and her promptly
paid ten dollars a week, showed her to be respectable. What more could
any hard working landlady require? But I was distrustful. Her face, though
handsome, possessed an eager, ferocious look which I could not forget. And
the slight gesture with which she had passed me at the close of the short
conversation I had given before, had a suggestion of triumph in it, which
seemed to contain whole volumes of secret and mysterious hate. I went into missus
Wilcox's room, very thoughtful, I am going. But here the nurse held
up her hand. Hark, she whispered. She had just set the clock
and was listening to it, striking. I did, hark, but not
to the clock. Whose step is that? I asked, after she had
left the clock and sat down. Oh, someone in the next room.
The walls here are very thin, only boards in places. I did not
complete what I had begun to say. If I could hear steps through the
partition, then could our neighbors hear us talk? And what I had determined
upon must be kept secret from all outsiders. I drew a sheet of paper
toward me and wrote, I shall stay here to night. Something tells me
that in doing this, I shall solve this mystery. But I must appear
to go, take my instructions as usual, and bid me good night.
Lock the door after me, but with a turn of the key, instantly
unlock it again. I shall go downstairs, see that my carriage drives away,
and quietly return. On my re entrance, I shall expect to find
Miss Wilcox on the couch with the screen drawn up around it, you in
the big chair, and the light lowered. What I do thereafter need not
concern you. Pretend to go to sleep. The nurse nodded and immediately entered
upon the program I had planned. I prepared the medicine as usual, placed
it in its usual glass, and made that glass where it had always been,
set on a little table at the farther side of the bed. Then
I said good night and passed hurriedly out. I was fortunate enough to meet
no one going or coming. I regained the room, pushed open the door,
and, finding everything in order, proceeded at once to the bed,
upon which, after taking off my hat and cloak and carefully concealing them,
I lay down and deftly covered myself up. My idea was this that,
by some mesmeric influence of which she was ignorant, the nurse had been forced
to either poison the glass herself or open the door for another to do it.
If this were so, she or the other person would be obliged to
pass around the foot of the bed in order to reach the glass, and
I should be sure to see it, for I did not pretend to sleep.
By the low light enough could be discerned for safe movement about the room,
and not enough to make apparent the change which had been made in the
occupant of the bed. I waited with indescribable anxiety, and more than once
fancied I heard steps, if not a feverish breathing, close to my bed
head, But no one appeared, and the nurse in her big chair did
not move. At last, I grew weary, and fearful of losing control
over my eyelids. I fixed my gaze upon the glass, as if in
so doing I could find a talisman to keep me awake. When, Great
God, what was it? I saw a hand, a creeping hand,
coming from nowhere and joined to nothing, closing about that glass and drawing it
slowly away till it disappeared. Entirely from before my eyes. I gasped.
I could not help it, but I did not stir. For now I
knew I was asleep and dreaming, But no, I pinched myself under the
clothes, and find that I am very wide awake, indeed. And then
look, look, the glass is returning. The hand, a woman's hand
is slowly setting it back in its place, And with a bound I had
that hand in my grasp. It is a living hand, and it is
very warm and strong and fierce. And the glasses fallen and lies shattered between
us. And a double cry is heard, one from behind the partition,
through an opening in which this hand had been thrust, and one from the
nurse, who has jumped to her feet, and is even now assisting me
in holding the struggling member, upon which I have managed to scratch a tell
tale mark with a piece of the fallen glass. At sight of the iron
like grip which this latter lays upon the intruding member, I at once released
my own grasp hold on I cried, and leaping from the bed, I
hastened first to my patient, whom I carefully reassured, and then into the
hall, where I found the landlady, running to see what was the matter.
I have found the wretch, I cried, and drawing her after me,
hurried about to the other side of the partition, where I found a
closet, and in it the woman I had met on the stairs, but
glaring now like a tiger in her rage, menace, and fear. That
woman was my humble, little patience, bitter unknown enemy, enamored of a
man who, unwisely perhaps had expressed in her hearing his admiration for the pretty
typewriter. She had conceived the idea that he intended to marry the latter,
and, vowing vengeance, had taken up her abode in the same house with
the innocent girl. Where had it not been for the fortunate circumstance of my
meeting her on the stairs, she would certainly have carried out her scheme,
a vile and secret murder. The poison she had bought in another city,
and the hole in the partition she had herself cut. This had been done
at first for the purpose of observation, she having detected, in passing by
Miss Wilcox's open door, that a banner of painted silk hung over that portion
of the wall in such a way as to hide any aperture which might have
been made there. Afterward, when Miss Wilcox fell sick, and she discovered,
by short glimpses through her loophole that the glass of medicine was placed on
a table just under this banner, could not resist the temptation to enlarge the
hall, to assize sufficient to admit the pushing aside of the banner, and
the reaching through of her murderous hand. Why she did not put poison enough
in the glass to kill Miss Wilcox at once I have never discovered. Probably
she feared detection, that, by doing as she did, she brought about
the very event she had endeavored to avert. Is the most pleasing part of
the tale. When the gentleman of whom I have spoken learned of the wicked
attempt which had been made upon Miss Wilcox's life, his heart took pity upon
her, and a marriage ensued, which I have every reason to believe is
a happy one. This concludes the reading of a Mysterious Case by Anna Catherine Greene.