  It was a defeated Nadia Mdevani who emerged from what proved to be a prolonged interview with Lieutenant Berry. If, before it, she looked worn and troubled, her will had at least remained indomitable. If her voice had flagged, her eyes lost their challenge, yet she had always managed to convey an impression of impregnable right shall be might. Now she had yielded everything, to all appearances, and came carrying her weapon by the blade and laid across her forearm for the victor to accept the hilt. Her face was haggard; her unquenchable color quenched; her feet scarcely lifted; she twisted her clasped hands together as though they were manacled. When she spoke it was in a voice not her own, a voice in which despair had even surpassed weariness. “Very well, Mr. Berry,” she said. “I understand Belknap and Berry exchanged glances, and there was a faint nod of acquiescence on Berry’s part. It didn’t escape Nadia. She smiled dimly. “Thank you, Mr. Berry. I will not transgress your orders, on my honor.” With a little characteristic shrug of a shoulder she motioned Belknap to follow her. She led him into the library, and, closing the door, leaned against it as though she had reached the farthermost limit of endurance. Her drooping figure, her shattered face, so pierced Belknap with their utter resignation that before he could trust himself to speech she had spoken. “The Chamber of Horrors,” she murmured with a dim twitch at the corners of her sad mouth. “Do “Don’t apologize,” he said roughly. “What did he do to you? I’ll kill the bastard.” “Oh, my dear, what didn’t he do! But never mind that. I don’t have to tell you about it, you can see for yourself what I have come to. I am ashamed. I had so fully intended to go down, if I had to go down, with flags up—denying, denying, denying—and here I am, not only confessed to murders, but confessed to murders I never committed. What irony, what bitter irony!” “You confessed?” he cried softly, and taking her two arms in his two hands he drew her unresistingly forward into the room. He drew her to the light where he could see her face. “Nadia, tell me that is not true.” “It is true. There comes a time in these affairs when it is easier to admit than to deny, or rather, “Hush, dear! Don’t let him worry you. He has lost his head too dreadfully. And you mustn’t confess, you mustn’t, do you hear? Even if you killed the lot, don’t admit it—ever.” “What else can I do? You have me on so many counts. There’s no use standing up against circumstantial evidence forever—even if it’s planted evidence, as this happens to be. I could never prove it. And the way I feel now the sooner things are over the better. I’m tired, tired out. I’m rapidly joining that Mrs. Crawford in her state of detachment and disenchantment. How beautifully she’s behaving now, not a trace of agony or hysteria; not because she’s thought it out, it isn’t philosophy with her, but because she’s died and remained alive. It leaves one with a jolly nonchalance. Well, short of one barb that persists in hurting me like Hell, I promise you I can “I’m sorry.” He relaxed his hold but did not release her. “Tell me, what is the pain?” He knew, but he wanted to hear. They both trembled. “I can’t say it.” “Yes, you can. There should be nothing left, as you say, that you and I cannot say to each other. We have been through too much, we have seen too much, ever to let pride interfere between us again. And you can depend upon me to the end of creation. I’ll never let them distress you—never, never, never.” “As if I hadn’t been distressed!” “I know. And I have been one of the worst. I’m sorry, so terribly sorry.” “Don’t.” “Don’t what?” “You know.” She lifted her eyes, steadily at last, to meet his, and he saw their depths below depths of suffering. “Tell me,” he insisted. “I love you.” “Say it again.” “I love you.” Suddenly they clung together. And all the time his mind whirled against itself. How in God’s name, at his time of life, could any woman be doing this to him! Perhaps even now she was tricking him for a way out for herself. But he felt her shivering against him, felt her lips, and knew that was not true. For, together with her love for him, he felt an overwhelming despair in her that frightened him—as though she fully intended to go through with her mad confession. It was mad to have admitted anything! It was going to make his efforts to save her almost hopeless. “We mustn’t,” he said huskily, trying to hold her off and only holding her closer. “We have other things to think of. It’s desperate. They’re waiting for us. In the first place you must retract whatever you have said, and we’ll try to clear you in the courts. Failing that, we’ll make a get-away—Timbuctu or the Gold Coast, it makes no difference to me. I’m as tired of the game as you are.” “No—no—no,” she protested. “I won’t let you do that, ever. Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean to tell you how much I cared. Truly I didn’t. I only meant to say good-bye to you. I couldn’t deny myself that. I don’t understand how this other happened. I suppose because we both cared. I hadn’t an idea you did. You have been considerate in some ways, yes, but not really kind. But now I see what it’s been for you. You have been fighting it too, as I have. How cruel to know at the very moment of separation. For it is good-bye. It can’t be anything else, for either of us. Please, no—don’t, don’t, don’t kiss me. I can’t bear it.” “Be still. We are going to get you off, dear heart. You must be brave, that’s all; and help me.” “No. I am not going to let you try to get me off. We have you to think of now. Not me any longer. I am beyond being worried about. I never expected to escape the fruits of my sins as long as I have. That I happen to die innocent is a queer twist of fate, nothing more. I would have died really guilty of something within a month—a year. Who knows? And I’ve put up a good battle, as battles go in this world. I have just got “Stop it!” He shook her fiercely. “Pull yourself together, Nadia. For God’s sake, don’t stand here talking sentimental nonsense. What we have to do is plan. The enemy is outside that door; can’t you realize that? We’ll have to have every ounce of our wits about us to fend them off. What did you admit? Tell me that.” “Everything. Every murder. What was the point of haggling over an extra one or two. And, what’s more, I’m sticking to it, darling.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s the only solution. Believe me, it is. Nothing in the wide world, including death twenty times over, could make me let you undertake your wild scheme for us. My dear, you are a great man, a strong one, an esteemed one. I am a wretched little criminal—clever, yes, but wretched all the same. Do you think loving you, worshiping you as I do, I could dream of letting you face downright ruin for my sake? It isn’t to be thought of.” Nadia stood back and lifted her face to his. Her eyes were wide open, lucid, adoring, and, to “I love you, don’t you understand that? Don’t you understand what love means? I couldn’t let you hurt yourself for me. The very fact of my love for you makes it absolutely imperative I never retract a word I have said to them. For my confession puts me out of harm’s way and so puts temptation out of yours.” Her little smile came, tender now. Belknap walked away from her and back, restlessly. “Nadia,” he said slowly, “I have things to say to you I never intended saying. But I see I must be honest with you to bring you to your senses. You have got to be shocked into fighting if we are going to save ourselves for each other. Which is all that’s left that matters—our having each other—isn’t it?” “It is,” she whispered breathlessly, a hand at her throat. “Then you will understand and forgive, for that reason, and for another, almost as important, that “What do you mean?” “I mean we are equally criminals, Nadia. In this case I happen to be the worse one of the two. I’ve killed five people (that is, if Joel Lacey is dead yet) since four o’clock this morning. Rather a record, isn’t it? Do you know, there have been times when I was sure you guessed, more than guessed. And on top of it I have made you confess to the whole show, which was also plotted. I planted that circumstantial evidence upon you, dear. Couldn’t you see? I was intent on beating you at your own game. God, what a beautiful job I made of it! One of my best. And now to have it busted up by a slip of a woman. Not that it isn’t worth it,— Nadia, don’t look at me like that. You’re not looking at me. What are you—” The dining-room door behind Belknap had stood ajar by the shadow of an inch. It was now thrown open and Stebbins and Berry advanced on Belknap. “Hands up!” Stebbins thundered. “It’s hands up, Belknap,” Berry said. “Thank Berry should have saved his congratulations. As Belknap raised his hands he drew his pistol from his shoulder holster, and, though he would never have had the extra second to swing on his captors, he did have the split fraction of a second to fire straight before him. The shot of his 38 calibre police revolver was deafening. Nadia, shot directly through the breast, put her two hands where the bullet had entered, and without a sound fell in an uneven heap at Belknap’s feet. |
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