Sunrise Part 92

He turned the leaf suddenly, and glanced at the remainder of the letter.

"Good G.o.d! what does the man mean? What has he done?" he exclaimed.

His face was quite pale. The letter dropped from his hands. Then he jumped to his feet.

"Come, Brand--quick--quick!" he said, hurriedly. "You must come with me--"

"But what is the matter?" Brand said, following him in amazement.

"I don't know," said Edwards, almost incoherently. "He may be raving--it may only be drunkenness--but he says he is about to kill himself in place of Lind: the young lady shall not be troubled--she was kind to him, and he is grateful. I am to send her a message."

By this time the two friends were hurrying to the dingy little thoroughfare in which Kirski had his lodgings.

"Don't alarm yourself, Edwards," said Brand; "he has broken out again, that is all."

"I am not so sure. He was at his work yesterday, and sober enough."

"His brain may have given way, then; it was never very strong. But these continual ravings about murder or suicide are dangerous; they will develop into homicidal mania, most likely; and if he cannot get at his enemy Michaieloff he may do a mischief to somebody else."

"I hope he has not done a mischief to himself already," said Edwards, who had had more opportunities than his companion of studying the workings of Kirski's disordered brain.

They reached the house and knocked at the door. The landlady made her appearance.

"Is Kirski in the house?" Edwards asked, eagerly.

"No, he ain't," she said, with but scant courtesy.

"Thank G.o.d!" he exclaimed, in great relief. "You are sure? He went out to his work as usual?"

"How should I know?" said the woman, who was evidently not on good terms with her lodger.

"He had his breakfast as usual?"

"His breakfast!" she said scornfully. "No, he hadn't. He may pick up his breakfast about the streets, like a cat; but he don't have any 'ere. And a cat he is, sneaking up and down the stairs: how do I know whether he is in the house or whether he ain't?"

At this Edwards turned pale again with a sudden fear. Brand interposed.

"You don't know? Then show us his room; we will see for ourselves."

He pa.s.sed the woman, leaving her to shut the door, and went into the small dark pa.s.sage, waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. Grumbling to herself, she came along to show them the way. It did not pay her to waste her time like this, she said, for a lodger who took no food in the house, and spent his earnings in the gin-shop. She should not be surprised if they were to find him asleep at that time of the day. He had ways like a cat.

The landing they reached was as dark as the staircase; so that when she turned a handle and flung a door open there was a sudden glare of light.

At the same moment she uttered a shrill scream, and retreated backward.

She had caught a glimpse of some horrible thing--she hardly knew what.

It was the body of the man Kirski lying p.r.o.ne upon the uncarpeted floor, his hands clinched. There was a dark pool of blood beside him.

Edwards sunk shuddering into a chair, sick and faint. He could neither move nor speak; he dared hardly look at the object lying there in the wan light. But Brand went quickly forward, and took hold of one of these clinched hands. It was quite cold. He tried to turn over the body, but relinquished that effort. The cause of death was obvious enough. Kirski had stabbed himself with one of the tools used in his trade; either he had deliberately lain down on the floor to make sure of driving the weapon home, or he had accidentally fallen so after dealing himself the fatal blow. Apparently he had been dead for some hours.

Brand rose. The landlady at the door was alternately screaming and sobbing; declaring that she was ruined; that not another lodger would come to her house.

"Be quiet, woman, and send to the police-station at once," Brand said.

"Wait a moment: when did you last see this man?"

"This morning, sir--early this morning, sir," said she, in a profusion of tears over her prospective loss. "He came down-stairs with a letter in his hand, and there was twopence for my little boy to take it when he came home from school. How should I know he had gone back, sir, to make away with himself like that, and ruin a poor widow woman, sir?"

"Have you a servant in the house?"

"No sir; no one but myself--and me dependent--"

"Then go at once to the police-station, and tell the inspector on duty what has happened. You can do that, can't you? You will do no good by standing crying there, or getting the neighbors in. I will stop here till you come back."

She went away, leaving Brand and his paralyzed companion with this ghastly object lying p.r.o.ne on the floor.

"Poor devil!" Brand said; "his troubles are at an end now. I wonder whether I should lift him on to the bed, or wait until they come."

Then another thought struck him: and he turned quickly to his companion, who sat there horrified and helpless.

"Edwards," said he, "you must pull yourself together. The police will ask you what you know about this affair. Then you will have to give evidence before the coroner's inquest. There is nothing material for you to conceal; but still, no mention must be made of Lisle Street, do you understand?"

Edwards nodded. His face was of a ghastly white. Then he rose and said,

"Let us go somewhere else, Brand."

His companion took him down-stairs into the landlady's parlor, and got him a gla.s.s of water. Apparently there was not a human being in the house but themselves.

"Do you understand, Edwards? Give your private address--not Lisle Street. Then you can tell the story simply enough: that unfortunate fellow came all the way from Russia--virtually a maniac--you can tell them his story if you like; or shall I?"

"Yes, yes. It has been too much for me, Brand. You see, I had no business to tell him about Lind--"

"The poor wretch would have ended his days miserably anyhow, no doubt in a mad-house, and probably after killing some quite innocent person.

By-the-way, they will ask you how you came to suspect. Where is that letter?"

Edwards took it from his pocket.

"Tear it up."

He did so; but Brand took the fragments and put them in his own pocket.

"You can tell them he wrote to you, and from the madness of the letter you thought something was wrong. You destroyed the letter. But where is Natalie's portrait?--that must not fall into their hands."

He instantly went up-stairs again, leaving his companion alone. There was something strange in his entering this room where the corpse lay; it seemed necessary for him to walk on tiptoe: he uncovered his head. A glance round the almost empty room speedily showed him what he wanted; there was a small wooden casket in a dusky corner by the window, and that, he made no doubt, was the box the unhappy Kirski had made to contain Natalie's portrait, and that he had quite recently dug out from its place of concealment. Brand was surprised, however, to find the casket empty. Then he glanced at the fireplace; there was a little dust there, as of burnt card-board. Then he made sure that Kirski himself had taken steps to prevent the portrait falling into alien hands.

Beside the box, however, lay a piece of paper, written over in pencil.

He took it up and made out it was chiefly ill-spelled Italian: "_Whatever punishment may be decreed against any Officer, Companion, or Friend of the Society, may be vicariously borne by any other Officer, Companion, or Friend, who, of his own full and free consent, acts as subst.i.tute--the original offender becoming thereby redeemed, acquitted, and released._" Then followed some words which he could not make out at all.

He carried the paper down-stairs.

"He appears to have burnt the photograph, Edwards; but he has left this--see."