Speaker 1: 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.