XXXIV
"IT WAS THE SHOCK!"
Later, Hewson made a fuller confession. In it, he explained how hefirst came to meditate the crime which he afterwards carried out withsuch diabolic persistence.
He had never indulged himself in dishonest longings, never allowedhimself to dream of any other life than that of daily work in thehousehold of which he had for so many years been a member, until theday he was called into his master's study on some errand or otherwhich led him to the desk. A memorandum was lying there, and as he hadhis glasses on, he could not help seeing his own name among a list ofothers, with the figures $1000 against it. Now, it was no secret inthe house that his master was at this very time engaged in drawing uphis will. Indeed, the lawyer had been there that very morning.Consequently, Hewson immediately drew the inference that these figuresrepresented the amount he was to receive upon his master's death, andthough at the moment he experienced nothing but gratitude for thegood-will thus shown, the knowledge of what he might expect undercertain circumstances slowly roused in him strange ambitions and newdesires, which afterwards resolved themselves into longings whichgave him no rest day or night.
The relief from daily routine,--a little home in a country place wherehe could raise vegetables and flowers,--a quiet smoke in the twilighton a porch all his own,--all this would be paradise to the tired oldman, and as he dwelt upon its charms he became impatient at hismaster's robust health, and began to note the difference in theiryears--which, alas! were entirely in his master's favour; and tothink--yes, to think--that though it would cause him regret--naturallyso--to see that master's health give way, it would not be so hard asthis endless counting of years nothing but disease could annul; that,in short, a lifetime of service devoted to Mr. Gillespie and his sonshad become as nothing in the light of his new desires, and when theusually healthy broker was finally seized with some complaint whichlaid him on his back, these desires grew into hopes which it wasuseless for him to smother, for he was now determined to have hislittle fortune whether or no, and have it before he was himself tooold to miss its full enjoyment.
Meanwhile, he was much in the confidence of the family. He heard hismaster's symptoms discussed, and learned while waiting on table thatMr. Gillespie was being given small doses of a certain poison asmedicine; doses which it would be dangerous to increase. He could gothrough all his duties with the utmost precision without ceasing totake in such a conversation; and when in the course of time he heardthat Mr. Gillespie was improving and would soon be quite well, heallowed himself to dwell upon the tempter's whispered suggestion thatthree more little drops from a bottle constantly in use by hismaster's bedside would remedy all this, and in a safe and seeminglynatural way end the one existence which stood between him and themoney he now regarded as his own.
The carrying out of this thought was easy. He knew that his master wasnow well enough to be left alone at night, likewise to help himself tohis own medicine after it was once prepared for him. One had only tosteal into the room in the early hours of the night, and, with carefulmanipulation of bottle and glass, increase that dose before the timecame for the sick man to want it. Hewson was accustomed to noiselessactions; he could even handle glass without a sound, having beentrained in quiet ways by the very man who, in such an unexpectedmanner, was now destined to fall a victim to these very precautions.He therefore did not fear waking Mr. Gillespie; he only feared findinghim already awake.
But even this possibility lost its terrors when he considered that tomake himself quite safe he had but to utter the low-whispered_Father!_ with which the young gentlemen were accustomed to approachthe sick-bed at night. If Mr. Gillespie heard and answered, he wouldknow the moment badly chosen and steal away. While, if no answer came,he had but to proceed as the devil and his own dark instinctsprompted.
Night came, and he went through his part, as he supposed,successfully; but in the morning he missed the alarm he had a right toexpect, and soon learned that Mr. Gillespie had accidentallyoverthrown the glass of medicine which had been so carefully preparedfor him. Worse than this, he saw the bottle of poison emptied cleanout, and heard that Mr. Gillespie's medicine was to be changed to onequite harmless.
What did this mean, and how could he now hope to carry out the schemehe was more than ever resolved upon? For a while he felt quitediscouraged, and drooped a little over his work, which was becominghourly more irksome. He began to hate the man who had upset the glasswhich, if drank, would have insured him an immediate enjoyment of hislittle fortune; and even to cherish the same feeling towards Mr.Gillespie's three sons, to whose wants he catered and who were allyoung enough to wait for their fortunes, while he, now nearlyfour-score, could not. That is, he hated the two eldest; butAlfred--well, he didn't quite hate Alfred; indeed, he almost lovedhim, loved him well enough to be glad that he, as well as himself,would profit by the old man's death, if only some new way could befound of bringing it safely about.
Meanwhile, he found as many errands to his master's rooms as possible,especially when the doctor was there; and, being regarded as a pieceof household furniture rather than a living, breathing, and determinedman, these two rarely made an end to their talk or changed their topicon account of his presence. And so it was he heard them often discusspoisons, and was able to gather up one or two items in regard to thesedangerous drugs which otherwise he might have missed. Among otherthings he learned that an acid smelling like bitter almonds killedquickly and without much pain; but he failed to take in that this verysmell was calculated to give away its presence. Brooding over thishappy discovery, he cast about in his mind how he could prepare adrink likely to please his master without awakening his distrust. Forweeks he thought it over, testing and trying various concoctions.Finally he hit on one which he prepared under Mr. Gillespie's eye andpartially under his directions, and which was so strongly spiced thathis master did not detect, or at least made no objection, to theflavouring of bitter almonds which he was careful to put into it.Indeed, Mr. Gillespie grew to like it, and, for a reason now readilyto be understood, seemed to prefer anything brought him by his oldservant to the finest of wines poured out for him by his sons.
Having thus provided a means for disguising the poison when theopportunity came for administering it, he cast about how he couldprocure the necessary drug without risk to himself. Ignorant as he wasin most matters, he knew that he could not walk into a drug-store andbuy so deadly a poison without rousing suspicion. So, as I have saidbefore, he waited. But not long. Will begets way, or, truer yet, thedevil prepares the way for him who is willing to walk in it.
One morning he came upon a phial in Mr. Leighton's room whose veryappearance strangely affected him. It was small; it held a darkliquid; and it had a wicked look strangely attractive to him. He tookthe phial up; he smelt it. Bitter almonds! Greatly excited andsomewhat shaken, he set it down again. How had Mr. Leighton come bythis? What did he want of it, and why was it left standing in thisopen way on his bureau? Was it for medicinal purposes like the other?Probably; but it seemed stronger, very strong indeed; it seemed strongenough to kill a man. Catching it up, he carried it away.
"If any inquiries are made, I'll say I knocked it over and broke it."But Hewson didn't think any inquiries would be made. Mr. Gillespie'ssudden death would make all such little matters forgotten.
Having in this unexpected way secured the very poison he most desired,Hewson poured into the sink all but the few drops he had heardconstituted a fatal dose. Then he put the phial away in a tea-cup andwaited his opportunity. It was not long in coming. That evening heprepared the drink as usual for Mr. Gillespie, and, while waiting forthat gentleman to call for it, saw Mr. George come into thedining-room and take away the bottle of sherry, and afterwards Mr.Alfred, who hunted about for his pencil. Later, he heard Mr. Leightoncome downstairs, but he did not wait to see what that gentlemanwanted, for his own work in the butler's pantry was now done, and hethought it better to show himself in the kitchen. But he was suddenlycalled up by the dining-room
bell. Mr. Leighton wished a glass ofsherry for his father. This was an unexpected order, and for themoment set him quite aback. For if Mr. Gillespie drank sherry now, hewould not want his spiced drink later. However, he put a good face onthe matter and got out the wine, which he handed to Mr. Leighton, whopoured out a glassful and carried it in to his father. A moment laterhe heard the front door close. Leighton had gone out to one of hisnumerous meetings, and Mr. Gillespie was left alone.
Somehow the old servant had an irresistible desire to see how hismaster looked at this moment. There had been loud words between thatmaster and Mr. Leighton before the latter had left, and he wanted tosee how his master had borne it--wanted to see--well, he hardly knewwhat; but he went to the dining-room door and, finding the oppositeone open, peered in.
Mr. Gillespie was standing just where his son had doubtless left him,gazing intently into the wine-glass which he held, untasted, in hishand. His face was wan and troubled. Suddenly he moved and, glancingbehind him, like a man bound on some guilty errand, but not lookingfar enough into the distance to see Hewson watching him from thedepths of the dimly lighted room on the other side of the hall, hehurried to the window, and, raising, first the shade and then thesash, flung out the contents of the glass into the back-yard. Thisdone, he uttered a sigh, which spoke of some great inward trouble,and, reclosing the window, carried back the empty glass to thedining-room, from which Hewson had, by this time, slipped in guiltyconfusion.
Not understanding Mr. Gillespie's sudden distaste for the wine he hadordered, but determined to profit by what struck him as a very happychance, Hewson put his own concoction on a tray, and, creeping to thebuffet, took the phial out of the tea-cup in which he had concealedit, and emptied its contents into the glass he carried. Then notliking to put the phial back, he thrust it into his vest-pocket, mouthup (the cork having slipped from his hand and rolled away in thedarkness). He was willing to be heard now, and was stepping brisklyaround the room, when Mr. Gillespie called out:
"Who's that? Is it Hewson?"
"It is, sir," was the demure reply. "I came up to make you that drinkyou like so well; but Mr. Leighton said you preferred sherry."
"Yes, yes; but I like your drink, too. Brew it and bring it in to me.I seem to be unusually thirsty to-night."
Without a quiver, without a conscious sense of doing anything greatlyout of the common, this tried old servant brought him the glass whichhe knew would end all earthly relations between them. He even waiteduntil he saw it emptied, then he took it out again and immediatelywashed it.
Why he felt this precaution necessary he hardly knew, unless it was topass away the moment of suspense. He never dreamed for a minute thatthere was anything special for him to fear. Were not men dropping deadevery day in counting-houses or in the streets? And why not this man?That the police would be called in or that so quiet a death would betreated as a crime, had never occurred to him. He had never readmurder cases much; indeed, had never read anything much; he only knewhe wanted his master to die, and that the quickest way to bring thisabout was to give him a dose of very strong poison. Yet after he haddone this, he felt some nervousness, not over what he had done, butits seemingly slow results. He had expected Mr. Gillespie to fall atonce, perhaps before he was, himself, well out of the room, and Mr.Gillespie did not fall. Hewson had had time to wash the glass, put itaway, go down into the kitchen again, and come back, without hearingthe heavy thud for which his ears were strained. Was his affair tofail again? Had the dark and pungent liquor been harmless, and was itdecreed that he was to go back to the old life with no hopes of achange or relief? He was so worked up by this thought that he creptinto the dining-room again and was making for the hall door to takeanother peep into the study, when his foot encountered a small objecton the floor. Yielding to his usual methodical habits, he stooped andpicked up what proved to be Alfred's pencil. This he mechanicallydropped into his pocket, then he went on.
He found his master reeling over the study floor in the firstconsciousness, perhaps, of his alarming condition. He seemed to betrying to find the door, but as Hewson drew nearer (fascinated,perhaps, by the sight of suffering of which he himself had been thecause), Mr. Gillespie suddenly paused in this effort, and, meetingHewson's eyes, threw up his arms and made for his desk, upon which hefell in a way which assured his anxious watcher that the last minutesof his quondam master were at hand.[A]
[Footnote A: It was at this moment probably, and not till this moment,that Mr. Gillespie recognized his real murderer. Of the tumult thusawakened in heart and brain, who can judge!]
As he had no wish to watch his sufferings, he made another journeydownstairs and showed himself in the servants' hall just as littleClaire broke away from her nurse and rushed, laughing loudly, up toher grandfather.
This convinced him that his own comings and goings had been so naturalthat they had not even been noticed by his fellow-servants. He sawthat they had been playing a merry game with the child, and that notone of them had had an eye for him or his unaccustomed nervousness.This gave him courage, and soon, very soon now, they all had reasonfor nervousness. The long-delayed alarm was heard at last; strangerscame into the house; the police followed, and this old reprobate, whohad remained serene amidst all the turmoil, realised that there wasmore to fear in the matter than had ever struck his mind. With thisfear came not only a desire to hide his own guilt, but the requisitecunning for doing so. He realised that he must get rid of the phialbefore he was searched, and, being left a minute to himself in thedining-room, he took it out of his side vest-pocket, and, shaking outthe pencil which had slipped into it, he thrust it under the clock asbeing the one article not likely to be moved. It was a heavy lift forhis old arms, and his elbows shook as he guided it back into place.The consequence was that he knocked over the glass which Mr. Gillespiehad set down on the mantel-shelf a few minutes before; but though theclatter which it made attracted attention and the broken pieces ofthis glass were carefully examined, nothing was discovered from them,the glass having held nothing but sherry. Not so with poor Alfred'spencil, the end of which had rested in the last drop of poisonremaining in the phial. The odour of prussic acid thus communicated toit came near bringing his favourite young master into jeopardy. Butsomething, Hewson hardly knew what, intervened to save him, and allwas going on well, or as well as could be expected after thesuspicions expressed by Mr. Gillespie against his sons, when thisyoung demon in the shape of a detective flung himself at the oldbutler's throat and, without telling him why or by what means he hadlearned it, accused him of being his master's poisoner.
"It was the shock! the shock!" the miserable wretch wailed out. "Had Ihad more time to think, I would have known that he had no proofagainst me; that it was all guess-work, and that I would be a fool tofear that. But it is too late now. I have said it, and I stand by it.Only I wish I could have seen the thousand dollars for which I killedmy master lying for one instant in my hand. I would willingly gowithout the cottage, go without the evening pipe in the sight of hillsand meadows, just to realise the sensation of holding all that moneyand knowing that it was _mine_."