CHAPTER V

GRADY TAKES A HAND

I have no very clear remembrance of what happened after that.  The shock was so great that I had just strength enough to totter to a chair and drop into it, and sit there staring vaguely at that dark splotch on the carpet.  I told myself that I was the victim of a dreadful nightmare; that all this was the result of over-wrought nerves and that I should wake presently.  No doubt I had been working too hard.  I needed a vacation—­well, I would take it....

And all the time I knew that it was not a nightmare, but grim reality; that Philip Vantine was dead—­killed by a woman.  Who had told me that?  And then I remembered the sobbing voice....

Two or three persons came into the room—­Parks and the other servants, I suppose; I heard Godfrey’s voice giving orders; and finally someone held a glass to my lips and commanded me to drink.  I did so mechanically; coughed, spluttered, was conscious of a grateful warmth, and drank eagerly again.  And then I saw Godfrey standing over me.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I don’t wonder it knocked you out,” he went on.  “I’m feeling shaky myself.  I had them call Vantine’s physician—­but he can’t do anything.”

“He’s dead, then?” I murmured, my eyes on that dark and crumpled object which had been Philip Vantine.

“Yes—­just like the other.”

Then I remembered, and I caught his arm and drew him down to me.

“Godfrey,” I whispered, “whose voice was it—­or did I dream it —­something about a woman?”

“You didn’t dream it—­it was Rogers—­he’s almost hysterical.  We’ll get the story, as soon as he quiets down.”

Someone called him from the door, and he turned away, leaving me staring blankly at nothing.  So there had been a woman in Vantine’s life!  Perhaps that was why he had never married.  What ugly skeleton was to be dragged from its closet?

But if a woman killed Vantine, the same woman also killed d’Aurelle.  Where was her hiding-place?  From what ambush did she strike?

I glanced about the room, as a tremor of horror seized me.  I arose, shaking, from the chair and groped my way toward the door.  Godfrey heard me coming, swung around, and, with one glance at my face, came to me and caught me by the arms.

“What is it, Lester?” he asked.

“I can’t stand it here,” I gasped.  “It’s too horrible!”

“Don’t think about it.  Come out here and have another drink.”

He led me into the hall, and a second glass of brandy gave me back something of my self-control.  I was ashamed of my weakness, but when I glanced at Godfrey, I saw how white his face was.

“Better take a drink yourself,” I said.

I heard the decanter rattle on the glass.

“I don’t know when I have been so shaken,” he said, setting the glass down empty.  “It was so gruesome—­so unexpected—­and then Rogers carrying on like a madman.  Ah, here’s the doctor,” he added, as the front door opened and Parks showed a man in.