  Sydney had been wandering the house like one possessed. From her room where she stood inanimate motionless beside Neil’s bed, to the East Room where she mechanically extended her hands to the fire Nadia had herself built on the enormous hearth, to the kitchens where she blindly prepared things for Neil’s comfort, she made the rounds with frozen face and rigid body. The spirit was stricken—only the form of Sydney went on living and doing. Meeting far too many emotional crises within far too short a space of time had destroyed her receptivities; whether temporarily or permanently remained to be seen. Nadia was in the East Room, smoking furiously, picking up and laying down bric-a-brac, books, pictures, a glass of water, with indiscriminate and hasty distraction. Seeing the ghost of Sydney pass “For Christ’s sake, what’s the matter, Mrs. Crawford? One would think you were the only one in trouble around here. Is it as bad as all that with your husband? Can’t he buck up?” Sydney halted in her tracks and stood gazing straight through Nadia, through the walls, through the outer fog, for several seconds. “He’s worse,” she said in a dragging voice. “I don’t understand it.” “I’ll come up with you.” Nadia’s bomb of angry impatience burst in air and came softly down. “There may be something I can do.” Again there was an appreciable interval before Sydney answered, her eyes distantly intent, as though, a creature of another world, she listened for echoes of this. “You may come,” she murmured. They went up together to the Crawfords’ room, passing in the lower hall a policeman sitting bolt upright in a straight-backed chair against the wall near the door. A high-low light was turned low above the mirror-table beside him. It was all the light for the hall and stairway. At the head of the “It feels like a hotel after 2 A.M., or a funeral parlor at midday,” Nadia cried at Sydney. “Let’s turn up the lights and dance on the graves—throw a celebration with horns and cymbals.” But Sydney was deaf to her. And even Nadia’s bitter laughter died away when she had taken one look at Crawford, felt his pulse, and listened to his breathing. There was a horrid whitish edge of something, like dried foam at a tide-mark, along his upper lip. The lids of his eyes were neither up nor down, but remained fixed half across the pupils. His Adam’s apple shifted a little, spasmodically. Nadia swung on Sydney. “You little damn fool,” she hissed. “What do you think you’re doing—playing with death? As if we hadn’t had enough of it about. Did that frightful idiot of a Dr. Giles go off duty?” “What’s the matter?” Sydney asked stonily. “Did you give him the sedative I gave you?” “What?” “I said, did you give him the sedative I gave you?” “I did.” “What else?” “I don’t know. Some tea, I think. And bicarbonate. And—and water of course.” “Is that all?” “I don’t know. I tell you I don’t know. What are you driving at? Answer me! What do you mean?” “Keep quiet.” “Are you trying to make out I’ve—?” “Shut up, or I’ll make you.” Sydney Crawford’s eyes seemed to return at last from the cosmic universe. They contracted and shivered to points of horror. Everything about her, from her clinched hands to her vivid chalk-white face, put itself headlong into one word: “Murderer!” And Nadia Mdevani was looking all too ready to be one when Julian, standing in the door, interrupted them. “Don’t tell me anything’s wrong,” he said with a thin sarcasm. Poised against each other as the two women were, it took them both several breaths to withhold “We need a doctor, Mr. Prentice,” she said quietly. “And we need him soon.” She threw a glance in Crawford’s direction and, in a low voice, risked more: “I’ve seen a few poisons in my day, and this is a poison! Arsenic. You know how rapid that is.” Sydney sprang toward Julian. “Don’t go, Mr. Prentice! I tell you if you go—” But Julian had fled; down the corridor, down the dim stairs, and out into the fog. They heard the door close loudly behind him. Sydney dropped her hands loosely, resignedly, at her sides. “That’s that,” she said quietly. “Not that it really matters. I am completely at your mercy, Miss Mdevani. You may think it makes a difference. It doesn’t. There are others now who care as little as Bertrand Whittaker cared.” Nadia looked her up and down with cold contempt and a colder pity. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Crawford. Your time is not yet. Not quite yet.” She pushed back her shining ebony hair with her two hands. “It appears Crawford shifted a little, and moaned. “I am in pain,” he said. “Sydney.” “Yes?” Sydney neither stirred, nor looked toward him. “I am in pain.” “I’m sorry.” “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Yes, something is wrong.” Neil seemed to be considering that. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and on the backs of his hands lying weakly on the coverlid. His dry lips thinned perceptibly. Then, on a breath, he only said again: “Sydney.” “Yes?” “Sydney.” “I said, what is it?” “It’s up to you, Mrs. Crawford,” Nadia cried softly. “What do you mean?” “Sydney.” Crawford’s monotonous, sad repetition “Be quick about it,” Nadia screamed in a whisper. “I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Sydney.” “You know as well as I do what I mean.” “Sydney.” His voice was weaker. The effort by which Sydney moved her limbs and went to Neil’s side was painful to watch, like the first steps of a Frankenstein conception. She bent over him a little and laid her hand across his eyes. “It’s all right, Neil. There is nothing wrong. I didn’t mean there was. It has been so hard for you. So bad I can’t remember how bad. If I remembered I’d die. Perhaps you are remembering. Don’t let it kill you, dear. For you and I have so much to do. We are going to go on from where we laid our story down—was it a year ago? I’m sure we can find the very page, paragraph and sentence where we left off.” Neil smiled. It was the smile of a blind person, sweet and helpless. He moved a little nearer Sydney, |
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