The Keeper of the Door Part 37

It was then that to her intense relief the door slid open and Nick's head was poked enquiringly in.

"Hullo!" he said softly. "Anything wrong?"

She motioned him to enter, being on the verge of tears herself.

"Nick, she's hysterical! What am I to do?"

"Better fetch Max," he said.

But the words were hardly out of his mouth before Max himself pushed the door wide open and entered!

He bore a small lamp in his hand which threw his somewhat grim features into strong relief. He made a weird figure in his night-attire, and his red hair looked as if it had been brushed straight on end.

He looked at neither Olga nor Nick, merely for a single instant at the s.h.i.+vering, sobbing girl on the floor, ere he set down his lamp with decision and turned to the was.h.i.+ng-stand.

Olga stood and watched him as one fascinated. He was quite deliberate in all he did. With the utmost calmness he took up a tumbler and poured out some cold water.

Then very quietly he went to Violet, bent over her, gathered the dark hair back upon her shoulders.

She started at his touch, started and cried out in wild alarm, raising her head. And Max, with a set intention which seemed to Olga scarcely short of brutal, dashed a spray of water full into her deathly face.

She flinched away from him with another cry, gasping for breath and staring up at him as one in nightmare terror.

"You!" she uttered voicelessly. "You!"

He held what was left of the water to her lips. "Drink!" he said with insistence.

She tried feebly to resist. Her teeth chattered against the gla.s.s.

"Drink!" Max said again relentlessly.

Olga stooped swiftly forward and slipped a supporting arm around her.

Violet drank a little, and turned to her, weakly sobbing.

"Allegro, send him away! Send him away!"

"Yes, dear, yes; he's going now," murmured Olga soothingly.

Max gave the gla.s.s to Nick with the absolute detachment of the professional man, and proceeded to take Violet's pulse. He watched her closely as he did so, with s.h.a.ggy brows drawn down.

Violet gazed at him wide-eyed. She was no longer sobbing, but she s.h.i.+vered from head to foot.

"Yes," said Max at last, in the tone of one continuing an interrupted conversation. "Well, now you are going back to bed."

Violet shrank against Olga. "Let me stay with you, Allegro!" she murmured piteously.

"Of course you shall, dear," Olga made quick reply.

But in the same instant she saw Max elevate one eyebrow and knew that this suggestion did not meet with his approval.

"You will sleep better in your own room," he said. "Come along! Let me help you."

He put his arm about her and lifted her to her feet; but she clung fast to Olga still.

"I won't go without you, Allegro," she cried hysterically.

"My dear, of course not!" Olga answered. She caught up her dressing-gown and wrapped it round her friend. "You're as cold as ice," she said.

They helped her back to her own room between them, almost carrying her, for she seemed to have no strength left.

Max said nothing further of any sort till she was safely in bed, then somewhat brusquely he turned to Olga.

"Put on your dressing-gown and go down to the surgery! I want a bottle out of the cupboard there. It's a poison bottle, labelled P.K.R.; you can't mistake it. Third shelf, left-hand corner. The keys are in your father's desk. You know where. Put on your slippers too, and take a candle! Mind you don't tumble downstairs!" His eyes travelled to the doorway where Nick hovered. "Go with her, will you?" he said. "Bring back a medicine-gla.s.s too! There's one on the surgery mantelpiece."

He turned back to Violet again, stooping low over her, his hand upon her wrist.

Olga fled upon her errand with the speed of a hare, leaving Nick to follow with a candle. Even as she went she heard a cry behind her, but she sped on with a feeling that Max was compelling her.

When Nick joined her a few seconds later she had already found the keys and was fumbling in the dark for the cupboard-lock.

They found the medicine-bottle exactly where Max had said, and Olga s.n.a.t.c.hed it out, seized the gla.s.s, and was gone. She was back again in Violet's bedroom barely two minutes after she had left it, but the instant she entered she was conscious of a change. Violet was lying quite straight and stiff with gla.s.sy eyes upturned. Max was bending over her, tight-lipped, motionless, intent. He spoke without turning his head.

"Just a teaspoonful--not a drop more. The rest water."

Olga poured out the dose, controlling her hands with difficulty.

"Not a drop more," he reiterated. "There's sudden death in that.

Finished? Then give it to me!"

He raised Violet up in bed and took the gla.s.s from Olga. A curious perfume filled the room--a scent familiar but elusive. Olga stood breathing it, wondering what it brought to mind.

Max held the gla.s.s against the pale lips, and suddenly she remembered.

It was the magic draught he had given to her two days before.

Violet seemed to be unconscious, but she drank nevertheless very slowly, with long pauses in between. Gradually the gla.s.sy look pa.s.sed from her eyes, the long lashes drooped.

Max held out the empty gla.s.s to Olga. "You go back to bed now," he said.

"She will sleep for some time."

"I can't leave her," Olga whispered.

He was lowering the senseless girl upon the pillow and made no reply.

Having done so, he stooped and set his ear to her heart for a s.p.a.ce of several seconds. Then he stood up and turned quietly round.

"You can't do anything more. Thanks for fetching that stuff! Why didn't you put on your slippers as I told you?"

His manner was perfectly normal. He left the bedside and took up the medicine-bottle, holding it against the lamp.

"Are you sure she will be all right?" whispered Olga.