VI
The dark and infinite path was finally ended by the obliging frame of a downstairs window, and lit by the pulsing flames from the red-stained shirt in my bedroom fireplace, which faded as the burnt fibres disappeared into the coals. The torn stockings absorbed most of the lamp oil from my raw, bare hands before they also joined the hot embers. My trembling fingers searched for a dressing gown in the waning glow, and, hastily covered, I at last fell into my bed, still damp and sticky from the washbasin's insufficient contents.
Then the blackness returned, lifted only briefly by a few unwelcome rays of sunlight across the bed-cover.
The figure of a large woman briefly appeared in the shadows, but upon my mumbled explanation of a sudden illness, withdrew, and gloom again descended.
—————
A flurry of knocking intrudes upon the silent void. Its rhythm is tentative, but its persistence is undeniable. It insists upon wakefulness, and I slowly, reluctantly, comply. Tightly closed eyelids attempt to squeeze away the fog while pieces of unidentifiable music swarm inside my ears, like fragments of a great symphony...
The fog is finally, rudely, swept away by the shifting of impatient feet outside the door. I inhaled with great effort and my throat croaked out a sound.
Waning sunlight struggled through the closed curtains and cast everything in the room in half-shadow. The door gently opened and a tray entered, closely followed by Madame in a muted blue dress with cream-coloured trim, bits of hair spilling around her head. The tray held a cream-coloured bowl with blue trim, bits of steam spilling from its edge.
I shifted to sit up and managed to silence the gasp between my lips as slicing pains shot across my back. The teak tray came to a rest over my cramped, heavy legs; flexing them was like bending two tree trunks. The rolled-up cylinder next to the bowl, which I first mistook for a dirty towel, was actually a newspaper.
Madame straightened up and cleared her throat with a small, ineffectual ahem.
"How are you feeling, dear?" she asked, stiffly.
An unexpected memory flashed before me. A point that my violin tutor had made with repeated emphasis--and with sincere emotion--was that an effective, musical performance had the feeling of spontaneity to it, when the performer seemed to create the music out of the moment. Many times I heard him direct me to stop playing notes and start playing music. At this moment I could hear his voice whisper gruffly: It is too rehearsed.
My response to her words was only a rumble in my throat, and the sound caused me some alarm. I tried again.
"Ah...I am..."
The lingering haze around every object in the room brought a memory of tobacco smoke to my nostrils.
"...I...I would perhaps be improved by a brief smoke. Would you mind, terribly, if..."
Her mouth drew a straight, tight line. "Oh--of course. If it will help."
I twisted just enough to pull open the drawer and remove my pipe, while she twisted a piece of loose hair around her first finger. The unyielding wood of the drawer was unkind to my scraped, swollen knuckles.
"I hope you will take some soup, dear, even if you're not feeling well."
I took up the pouch and clumsily filled the bowl, impatiently packing in the leaves with my thumb.
"You've slept a long time, and you should have some nourishment, you know."
Awkwardly I felt around in the drawer for the matches, closing my eyes for concentration.
"And, I thought that you should hear about the news."
The box materialised under my fingertips. I placed the pipe stem in my teeth, and inhaled the sweet, slightly burnt aroma.
"They found Dr. Smith and his butler this morning."
My hands shook so that I failed to light the pipe with the first match. This affliction appeared to be contagious, for the lady's hand trembled against the twist of her hair-curl.
"Found them?" I mumbled, while striking a second match.
Why, were they lost? chuckled a vile, covert voice within me. I bit into the stem and puffed deeply, so as to envelop and choke the demon.
She twisted the curl to what seemed a breaking point.
"They were each stabbed." She took a step backward to avoid the wandering trails of smoke and added, "To death," as though her previous words had been insufficient.
I released a circle of smoke with a welcome sigh, but with a queasy stomach. My face flushed and a distinct feeling of drunkenness, chilled by dread, shot through every nerve in my body, a feeling I do not recall ever occurring before that moment.
Madame's breathing sounded laboured, but then, she had always been adverse to tobacco.
"It's all in the evening newspaper," she offered, with a gesture toward the tray. "Do you want to read about it?"
"Oh, yes," I rasped, blinking heavily. "But I don't think I am in a condition to do much reading. Perhaps you could give me a brief synopsis."
"Well, eh, I don't know anything more, really, except that Dr. Smith and his butler were found this morning by the police. They were stabbed and bled to death, both of them, in the master chamber. The police think it is possible that the two of them argued sometime during the night, fought with a knife, and inflicted lethal wounds upon each other. That is all I know."
She paused, during which I thought I could feel her stare into me, searching for a reaction. When none was found, she continued as though she were a nervous schoolgirl reciting before a master.
"Except for the two dead men, the house was deserted, with traces of last night's meal still on the table. The cook and the stable-hand have gone missing, and it seems that none of Smith's guests from the previous evening can be located. Inspectors are looking to interview anyone who was in the house, but...haven't found..." Her voice trailed away.
I puffed with increasing vigour, squinting at the wall across the room. The opposite wall somehow appeared to be further from the bed than it had before.
"Remarkable," I muttered, almost with a smile; I felt a glimmer of lucidity start to flow through my brain. "The dinner party came to a most tragic end, did it not? I suspect that the police have their work cut out for them."
A long, quiet moment passed. The lady shuffled her feet anxiously.
"So, dear, you are not well enough to come downstairs for the evening?"
"No, not nearly."
"Perhaps tomorrow? Perhaps you could...perhaps we could receive a visitor for tea tomorrow? If you're feeling better?"
I released a billowing cloud of smoke.
"Yes, perhaps."
Madame nodded, and then sharply drew in her breath.
"Did you have a fire in here last night?"
I quickly looked over. She was peering at the fireplace with great concern.
"Em, yes, I--"
"Oh, my poor boy, you've caught chills. You really must have some soup, it will warm you up like nothing else. Now, I won't trouble you any more with the, em...you take some soup, and ring for Lisette if you need anything."
She stepped backwards, made a gracious half-turn and departed. I was most grateful that her good-night wishes were so succinct.
After inestimable minutes the pipe ceased to burn, the soup ceased to steam, and I soon retreated into the welcome darkness.
—————
Through the black fog the dreams came in bright colours, with menacing edges; swirling fragments of madness danced in my head and struggled to make sense. As the first haze of daylight appeared these visions stubbornly clung to life, but they were beaten down by the distant clinking of dishes and muffled barking of dogs, distractions which eventually chased them into the corners of my mind and the shadows of the room.
Waking from this sleep was like breaking free from the power of a potent drug. I smelled the ashes of my pipe before I opened my eyes; the urge to smoke defeated my unwillingness to move. Whilst inspecting the smoke rings surrounding me I was disturbed to see the inflammation of my hands and wrists, and alarmed by the pulling of fabric against the crusted, oozing scabs on my back. These injuries seemed increasingly superficial, however, as I heard gentle footfalls approaching my door; I quickly drew the bedclothes to my chin.
The carefully measured steps sounded like those of Madame, but the sound of rapid, nervously insistent knuckles on my door gave a jolt of incongruity.
"Good morning," I called from one side of my mouth, the stem held by the other.
It was Madame who entered, with a quick, silent opening and closing of the door. She approached the bed with only a slight hesitation at the rings of smoke, with a newspaper tucked carefully under her right arm. The day's new sunlight clarified her silvery hair and deepened the many crevices in her careworn face. Her gaze darted around the room in a bewildered manner, as though she hadn't seen it for years.
"I think you ought to see this, my dear," she said softly, dropping the paper onto my chest.
An article lay in the centre of the precisely folded sheet. It read in part:
Close inspection of the scene of the crime reveals that both of the dead men were attended by several visitors soon after the assault, for their collars were loosened, a glass and snifter of brandy remained in the room, and many different bloody shoe-prints could be detected on the floor. It appears that some of the horrified guests tried to revive the injured men, to no avail, and fled in panic. None of the guests have reported the incident or revealed themselves to the police...
Another cause of concern is the disappearance of Mrs. Smith, who has not been seen since before the death of her husband, although her clothing and personal effects appear to be undisturbed...
The drowning of the boys now appears to have been part of a plot of horrific physical perversion...The groundskeeper's telegram to the police claims that both he and the cook remained servants bound to secrecy because of Dr. Smith's threat of blackmail against them; police are currently searching for both men, who are considered to be suspect...
With the truth of the boys' murders now revealed, it is no wonder that Dr. Smith's acquaintances are desperate to conceal their identities...
The article rambled on regarding the determined efforts of the police force and their confidence that the details of the crime would soon be explained. I was relieved by their incompetence. Their imagination was limited, their useful physical evidence was obscured by well-meaning footprints, and their only witnesses were deceased or disappeared. The one important element that consumed my mind was--to my great relief--nowhere to be found in the article. I laid the newspaper on the table, exchanging it for the pipe.
The lady's darting eyes were suddenly arrested and latched onto my languishing form. Her figure was still, with hands firmly clasped at her waist, but her searching eyes betrayed some powerful, questioning desire. It was not worth attempting to hide the state of my hands, for her eyesight was no longer as keen as it once was, and her vanity prevented spectacles.
Her lips were pulled tight with tension. I expected the dam to burst before long, but not quite as forthright and suddenly as it did.
"Is there anything you would like to tell me?" She spoke grimly, as if expecting a death sentence from a stern-faced physician.
I was forced to cut short a series of long, slow puffs on the generously smoking pipe.
"Quite honestly, there is nothing to say."
Her face was frozen. "Nothing?"
I nodded, and drew a satisfying cloud of smoke.
"Are you telling me that nothing happened there?" she cried, her voice rising in pitch as it moved toward the brink of despair.
"Now then--calm yourself, your imagination is carrying you away. I said that there was nothing to say. If there was anything I could tell you, rest assured, I would tell you everything."
"You can't tell me? Are you involved with that horrible secret society?"
"Surely, you must be joking. I knew next to nothing about those people before I went there Saturday evening, and I am not part of any secret association, much less a sadistic one. You know me better than that."
"So, you don't know anything?" She spoke with a stammer, her throat shaking with panic. "You weren't there when the...you don't know anything about those awful people, or what happened there?"
"I went to play the violin, and that is what I did--I played the violin. I could tell you exactly which pieces I performed, if you would like to know."
Her eyes were still squinting with fear and doubt. "You played, and then you left?"
"That is correct."
"And nothing else?" she asked tensely.
I clasped the pipe and shook my head with an impatient grunt. "Are you going to persist in asking me the same questions repeatedly? I have told you--there is nothing else to say."
I resolutely returned the pipe to my mouth. Her fragile façade finally broke down; her eyes watered and her hands wrung helplessly.
"You don't understand, dear--my nerves are at their breaking point! It would ease my mind just for you to tell me that you...you don't know what happened."
"Then I will tell you so," I said, coldly. "I certainly can't say what happened there last night, and I don't think anyone will ever be able to tell."
She stood breathing, as if teetering on a cliff's edge with utter safety behind her and the most horrible chasm one step in front of her; her fears pushed her forward toward disaster, and her hope desperately wished to take my words at their face. Soon another thought came to her and, hesitantly, she cleared her mind of it.
"So, dear, your fever afflicted you at the party? Or..."
I puffed unconcernedly. "Apparently it came upon me on the way home. I was not feeling well after the dinner, left alone, and I walked a longer distance than I should have. And because I didn't wish to disturb the household, I came in through a back window."
After a moment a touch of relief glimmered in her eyes, though the chasm still yawned.
"I take it that you're feeling better?"
"Nearly back to my normal self. I just need some time alone, thank you."
She wavered slightly, with a pensive brow. Then another terrible thought took hold of her tongue.
"But surely the police will be coming to speak to you at any moment?"
"No-one at Smith's home knew me and I did not give my name. There is no reason to stand shaking at the front door. Put your mind at ease about that."
Her face cleared for a moment, surrendering to the comfort of my voice more than my words. "You're not going to speak to the police?"
"There is no need."
"And what am I to..."
"What would you tell them?"
She reached a trembling hand to brush the wisp away from her tight eyelids. "I suppose that I would tell them that there is nothing to say."
"There is nothing to say."
Her knitted brow eased, but her narrowed eyes struggled desperately around the room, as if to put the last puzzle piece in place. Then she set her mouth resolutely, and took a long, deep breath to speak.
"If you're feeling better tomorrow, my dear, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving the piano a good going-over, because I'm having it tuned in the afternoon and I know you'll be able to tell if it's perfectly voiced."
I hate to admit surprise more than anyone, but I was taken aback by her sudden shift to an ordinary concern. I assumed that it was simply a test of my return to health, or possibly an excuse to invite a certain auburn-haired maiden to tea.
"I don't feel that I will be well enough to receive any visitors tomorrow."
She did not hesitate. "Oh no, dear; I just want to ensure that the piano is tuned properly. You have a much better ear than I."
My swollen hands concerned me for a moment, but I decided that the temporary irritation was likely to disappear by tomorrow and that her appeasement was worth the discomfort of running over the piano keys.
"Of course--assuming that my recovery continues unabated."
She struggled to control her shifting eyes. "And, it would be lovely if you would like to go over the concerto once again, for I believe I could give a better performance the second time around, and it would sound especially nice with a good tuning."
I reached a hand up to take away the pipe, and stared down as the tiny smoke-curls created a thin fog on my chest.
"The violin concerto? I don't expect that I should be able to play it tomorrow."
"Oh, well, perhaps you would rather just touch upon a simple air or a sonata. Just to keep me in practice."
"No, I believe I will have to wait several days to pick up the violin again."
"Of course. Well, I will have Lisette up with your breakfast right away, so that you can get your strength back. You will certainly need it over the next few days."
I knew that my mind was still a bit weak from the strain but I was almost certain that I detected a note of sarcasm in her voice. The lady's face was lowered as she turned away, her expression reflecting nothing.
The door closed. I held the pipe to my chest, and watched it slowly burn itself out.
—————
I had little trouble devouring and clearing the generous breakfast tray which Lisette provided, and I put the pitcher of hot water to very good use. After dressing I sat down on the bed with a favourite book, but soon gave up the attempt to read and dropped it to the floor with a frustrated thump. Half-heartedly, my foggy mind ran over the events of the last week in turn, looking for dangerous loopholes. I found none of great concern, save one: that a French violin, with case and bow, had been found on the premises, left behind by some unidentified musician.
I set my mind on the task of recovering my mislaid instrument. There were three probable situations: that it lay in the hands of the police department, who were clever enough to hold the card until they best determined how to play it; more likely, that the instrument case still lay underneath the piano, unnoticed by an intellectually deficient police inspector; or, that which I suspected was less likely, that the handsome Walker was kind--and fearful--enough to collect it before he departed. I considered a plan of action to visit the house or possibly renew my contact with Walker without arousing any suspicion, official or otherwise.
These thoughts were so engrossing that they were scarcely interrupted by the distant sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, and my attention avoided the approaching steps until they coalesced into the sound of a man walking steadily down the passageway.
My thoughts dissipated in an instant as the door burst open, and the Master stood in my doorway.
I succumbed to the briefest moment of panic. Then I set my elbows firmly on my legs and touched my fingertips together, meeting his intense stare with a nonchalant gaze of my own.
It was evidently time for his work-day break for lunch, which he often spent at home, but his appearance in my room was as shocking and as welcome as a fire in a theatre. His thinning, grizzled hair was dishevelled from a windy coach ride and swept over to the right. His audible breathing was due to his ascension of the stairs, and his narrow grey eyes, normally downcast and buried in a paper or racing gazette, were burning with agitation. They looked left and right, up and down, and then glared directly at me.
"So," he said, with the greatest deliberation, "are you nearly well now?"
I nodded in the affirmative.
"But not well enough to play the violin, I suppose?"
It seemed a rhetorical question, and my reply was a slight laugh, closed tightly in my throat.
"Will you answer me?" he rumbled.
"One cannot answer an unanswerable question."
"Perhaps you could answer this one. Why did you go to the Smith house Saturday evening?"
Instead of surprise, I felt an inevitable pulling and swirling around me, like the rushing river's flow into the sea, and felt that I could do no more than search for a handhold to slow my journey. I lowered my eyes to inspect my fingertips and pressed my fingers together with enough force to bend them backward.
"So, she has confessed, eh? I regret that I placed her in such a position. I meant no harm by it."
"You meant no harm?" he burst out, his voice rising. "Why the devil did you go in the first place? What were you doing there?"
I looked up. His eyes smouldered like burning charcoal; my face hardened into a mask of stolidity.
"I will spare you the inconsequential details of the evening in question; there is nothing of concern to trouble you. Again, I regret that I have upset the lady and yourself. I apologise for my deceit, and assure you that it will not happen again. I hope that you will find it possible to clear it from your mind."
"Certainly not--your behaviour is inexcusable, and I won't have any more of your nonsense. I won't leave this room until you tell me everything that happened there."
My eyes were drawn to the comic slant of his thin, frazzled hair.
"Is there some reason why you feel that I should give you this greatly detailed explanation?"
"Simply this: if you do not, I will tell you that you are no longer welcome in this house."
His hard, reddening face resembled an iron range holding a raging fire. I tightly folded my fingers together, pressing them into my knuckles.
"Perhaps," I offered flatly, "since you are so insistent upon having answers, you wouldn't mind providing the questions."
"I want to know what happened!" he snapped.
"I believe that you read the papers. They had a fairly explicit description, which is certainly more than I could tell you."
"What did you do there? What did you see?"
"I saw a parlour, a dining room, and the scroll of my violin. These elements do not make an interesting story."
"You saw people there? Whomever you saw, you must tell the police."
"And why is that?"
"My God, boy, there are two men dead! You can describe who was there!"
"The police are reasonably certain that the two men killed each other, correct? I would not like to take the chance of misidentifying some innocent gentlemen who happened to be in the wrong place on the wrong night."
"That's for the police to decide, not you," he growled.
"Well, I don't agree on that point. If a man has a guilty conscience then perhaps it is for a higher authority to decide, and not anyone else."
The burning spread across his scowling face. "You have always seemed to think that you know what's best in every situation, and your decision is always final. I can tell you this: you are a nineteen-year-old boy, and you don't know everything."
"I would agree with you."
He ignored my statement. "You have something to hide, and you think you're going to hide it from me--that's where you're mistaken. You're never going to hide anything from me again. I've suffered enough of your lying and deceit. Why would you keep anything a secret unless you were in the wrong?"
"Ah, now there's where you make an excellent point. You think that I am wrong, but that is a subjective view."
"There you go again! You think--"
"In this particular case, I am not wrong," I said resolutely, my words resounding in the heavy air. "I will not tell you where I went, why I went, who was there, or everything that happened. I will not discuss it, because that is the right thing to do."
"You must be mad to speak to me this way! You intentionally deceived me, you gained her agreement, and now that you have been found out you refuse to co-operate! It is obvious that you saw something terrible there that night, or you would take out your violin on the spot and play the Londonderry Air' for me."
His bitter words lingered in the air. I stared at him for a moment, convinced that his mind was gone. Then the rushing water flowed and pulled at me again.
"My violin?"
"That damned violin is not here. She realised that it wasn't on the piano, so she started combing the house for it. She said if it's not in this room--and there's no place to hide a cat in here--that it is not in the house. The poor woman is hysterical. She keeps saying: That violin is like his right arm! Why did he leave it? And why won't he tell me?'"
I was consumed with amazement. My mouth opened and then curled into a slight smile, even as my breath became shallow and strained.
"Yes...very clever, indeed. I commend her ingenuity."
He took two steps forward, and his chest loomed over me; his ruddy face and cold grey eyes bore down with incredible fury.
"And since you have no apology or explanation for it, it seems only right! Perhaps you have received your just punishment, after all. Since Fate has deemed for you to lose your precious instrument--which I paid for, make no mistake--it seems befitting that you should never play the bloody violin again. And as far as I am concerned, you never will!"
I gazed up at him, my tight lips slightly parted, my rapid, weak breath passing through silently. There could be no response, no thought, no feeling. There was nothing to say.
"Furthermore, you will stay right here in this room until the new term begins. I won't have you running around behind my back in this town any longer, nosing around in other people's affairs. You will go back to that university and make something of yourself, like your brother did: and not just some meddling, know-it-all musician."
He turned and thumped through the doorway, slamming it shut. I fancied that I heard a rushing sound in my ears and felt the water swirling around my neck as the footsteps lumbered noisily down the passage, and faded away on the carpeted stairs.
In the long silence, the rushing water slowly dissipated, and the beating in my ears subsided. My breathing deepened, and my heartbeat slowed to normal. I unclasped my hands and stood very slowly, twisting to lessen the effect of needles and pins jabbing into my back. Every biting barb of pain was obligated to make its point repeatedly and insistently, long after I told my brain that I had received the message the first time round.
I focused outward. The window curtains were partly closed, and allowed only a sliver of light to pierce the hazy air. I glanced around the room at the empty breakfast tray, the book lying on the floor, the tobacco pouch, the ashes in the fireplace grate. My open trunk lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, a stack of books lay on the mahogany dresser, and a few pieces of clothing hung inside the half-closed armoire.
I took easy, cautious steps in an effort to tame the line of ants marching up my back, and rubbed my throbbing wrists as I tidied the room. While collecting my pipe, tobacco pouch and matches, I noted that the pouch required refilling. As I carefully put on a waist-coat and jacket I made a mental list, then studied the window as I performed a quick visual calculation. I came to two conclusions: first, that the trunk was too large for the window. Second, that before the day was over I would never see the trunk, the university, or the window again, for as long as I would live.
—————
You are fully aware of my subsequent history, or, if memory fails, I remind you that the last statement was not entirely true. We met, in fact, in the university chemical laboratory about five years later, so my conviction fell through on that one point. One cannot develop one's skills without the right resources! I practised many important skills in that chemistry lab; some were not without their hazards, as you know.
You will also recall the passing of my dear brother about fifteen years ago, and the arrival at your home of a few of his possessions, at my request. I remember your positive remarks about the cuff-links, which you greatly appreciated, but I believe that you were less enthusiastic with regard to the piano, for which you had little use. In addition to my sincere thanks for your care of this piano over these many years, you now have a more tangible reason for its existence in your parlour. I can still hear its strings resounding with the perfectly flowing arpeggios of the sonata in C-sharp minor, played with the broken hands and heart of a girl with gold-green eyes. It is enough for my fractured soul to know that it stands--even in silence--in a safe and comfortable place, left untortured by my eyes.
It is true, by the way, that I never did play that Ricard violin again, but then again, the Stradivarius that I found in Tottenham Court Road for fifty-five shillings was a highly satisfactory substitute.
[Epilogue to follow]