Chapter IV. The Second Attempt

by Bram Stoker

　　The sight which met my eyes had the horror of a dream within adream, with the certainty of reality added. The room was as I had seenit last; except that the shadowy look had gone in the glare of the manylights, and every article in it stood stark and solidly real.By the empty bed sat Nurse Kennedy, as my eyes had last seen her,sitting bolt upright in the armchair beside the bed. She had placed apillow behind her, so that her back might be erect: but her neck wasfixed as that of one in a cataleptic trance. She was, to all intentsand purposes, turned into stone. There was no special expression on herface--no fear, no horror; nothing such as might be expected of one insuch a condition. Her open eyes showed neither wonder nor interest. Shewas simply a negative existence, warm, breathing, placid; butabsolutely unconscious of the world around her. The bedclothes weredisarranged, as though the patient had been drawn from under themwithout throwing them back. The corner of the upper sheet hung upon thefloor; close by it lay one of the bandages with which the Doctor haddressed the wounded wrist. Another and another lay further along thefloor, as though forming a clue to where the sick man now lay. This wasalmost exactly where he had been found on the previous night, under thegreat safe. Again, the left arm lay toward the safe. But there had beena new outrage, an attempt had been made to sever the arm close to thebangle which held the tiny key. A heavy Kukri knife--one of theleaf-shaped knives which the Gurkhas and others of the hill tribes ofIndia use with such effect--had been made. It was manifest that just atthe moment of striking, the blow had been arrested, for only the pointof the knife and not the edge of the blade had struck the flesh. As itwas, the outer side of the arm had been cut to the bone and the bloodwas pouring out. In addition, the former wound in front of the arm hadbeen cut or torn about terribly, one of the cuts seemed to jet outblood as if with each pulsation of the heart. By the side of her fatherknelt Miss Trelawny, her white nightdress stained with the blood inwhich she knelt. In the middle of the room Sergeant Daw, in his shirtand trousers and stocking feet, was putting fresh cartridges into hisrevolver in a dazed mechanical kind of way. His eyes were red andheavy, and he seemed only half awake, and less than half-conscious ofwhat was going on around him. Several servants, bearing lights ofvarious kinds, were clustered round the doorway.As I rose from my chair and came forward, Miss Trelawny raised hereyes toward me. When she saw me she shrieked and started to her feet,pointing towards me. Never shall I forget the strange picture she made,with her white drapery all smeared with blood which, as she rose fromthe pool, ran in streaks toward her bare feet. I believe that I hadonly been asleep; that whatever influence had worked on Mr. Trelawnyand Nurse Kennedy--and in less degree on Sergeant Daw--had not touchedme. The respirator had been of some service, though it had not kept offthe tragedy whose dire evidence were before me. I can understand now--Icould understand even then--the fright, added to that which had gonebefore, which my appearance must have evoked. I had still on therespirator, which covered mouth and nose; my hair had been tossed in mysleep. Coming suddenly forward, thus enwrapped and dishevelled, in thathorrified crowd, I must have had, in the strange mixture of lights, anextraordinary and terrifying appearance. It was well that I recognizedall this in time to avert another catastrophe; for the half-dazed,mechanically acting Detective put in the cartridges and had raised hisrevolver to shoot at me when I succeeded in wrenching off therespirator and shouting to him to hold his hand. In this also he actedmechanically; the red, half-awake eyes had not in them even then theintention of conscious action. The danger, however, was averted. Therelief of the situation, strangely enough, came in a simple fashion.Mrs. Grant, seeing that her young mistress had on only her nightdress,had gone to fetch a dressing-gown, which she now threw over her. Thissimple act brought us all back to the region of fact. With a longbreath, one and all seemed to devote themselves to the most pressingmatter before us, that of staunching the flow of blood from the arm ofthe wounded man. Even as the thought of action came, I rejoiced; forthe bleeding was very proof that Mr. Trelawny still lived.Last night's lesson was not thrown away. More than one of thosepresent knew now what to do in such an emergency, and within a fewseconds willing hands were at work on a tourniquet. A man was at oncedispatched for the doctor, and several of the servants disappeared tomake themselves respectable. We lifted Mr. Trelawny on to the sofawhere he had lain yesterday; and, having done what we could for him,turned our attention to the Nurse. In all the turmoil she had notstirred; she sat there as before, erect and rigid, breathing softly andnaturally and with a placid smile. As it was manifestly of no use toattempt anything with her till the doctor had come, we began to thinkof the general situation.Mrs. Grant had by this time taken her mistress away and changed herclothes; for she was back presently in a dressing-gown and slippers,and with the traces of blood removed from her hands. She was now muchcalmer, though she trembled sadly, and her face was ghastly white. Whenshe had looked at her father's wrist, I holding the tourniquet, sheturned her eyes round the room, resting them now and again on each oneof us present in turn, but seeming to find no comfort. It was soapparent to me that she did not know where to begin or whom to trustthat, to reassure her, I said:'I am all right now; I was only asleep.' Her voice had a gulp in itas she said in a low voice:'Asleep! You! And my Father in danger! I thought you were on thewatch!' I felt the sting of justice in the reproach; but I reallywanted to help her, so I answered:'Only asleep. It is bad enough, I know; but there is something morethan an "only" round us here. Had it not been that I took a definiteprecaution I might have been like the Nurse there.' She turned her eyesswiftly on the weird figure, sitting grimly upright like a paintedstatue; and then her face softened. With the action of habitualcourtesy she said:'Forgive me! I did not mean to be rude. But I am in such distressand fear that I hardly know what I am saying. Oh, it is dreadful! Ifear for fresh trouble and horror and mystery every moment.' This cutme to the very heart, and out of the heart's fulness I spoke:'Don't give me a thought! I don't deserve it. I was on guard, andyet I slept. All that I can say is that I didn't mean to, and I triedto avoid it; but it was over me before I knew it. Anyhow, it is donenow; and can't be undone. Probably some day we may understand it all;but now let us try to get at some idea of what has happened. Tell mewhat you remember!' The effort to recollect seemed to stimulate her;she became calmer as she spoke:'I was asleep, and woke suddenly with the same horrible feeling onme that Father was in great and immediate danger. I jumped up and ran,just as I was, into his room. It was nearly pitch dark, but as I openedthe door there was light enough to see Father's nightdressas he lay on the floor under the safe, just as on that first awfulnight. Then I think I must have gone mad for a moment.' She stopped andshuddered. My eyes lit on Sergeant Daw, still fiddling in an aimlessway with the revolver. Mindful of my Work with the tourniquet, I saidcalmly:'Now tell us, Sergeant Daw, what did you fire at?' The Policemanseemed to pull himself together with the habit of obedience. Lookingaround at the servants remaining in the room, he said with that air ofimportance which, I take it, is the regulation attitude of anofficial of the law before strangers:'Don't you think, sir, that we can allow the servants to go away? Wecan then better go into the matter." I nodded approval; the servantstook the hint and withdrew though unwillingly, the last one closing thedoor behind him. Then the Detective went on:'I think I had better tell you my impressions, sir, rather thanrecount my actions. That is, so far as I remember them.' There was amortified deference now in his manner, which probably arose from hisconsciousness of the awkward position in which he found himself. 'Iwent to sleep half-dressed--as I am now, with a revolver under mypillow. It was the last thing I remember thinking of. I do not know howlong I slept. I had turned off the electric light, and it was quitedark. I thought I heard a scream; but I can't be sure, for I feltthickheaded as a man does when he is called too soon after an extralong stretch of work. Not that such was the case this time. Anyhow mythoughts flew to the pistol. I took it out, and ran on to the landing.Then I heard a sort of scream, or rather a call for help, and ran intothis room. The room was dark, for the lamp beside the Nurse was out,and the only light was that from the landing, coming through the opendoor. Miss Trelawny was kneeling on the floor beside her father, andwas screaming. I thought I saw something move between me and thewindow; so, without thinking, and being half-dazed and only half-awake,I shot at it. It moved a little more to the right between the windows,and I shot again. Then you came up out of the big chair with all thatmuffling on your face. It seemed to me, being as I say half-dazed andonly half-awake--I know, sir, you will take this into account-- as ifit had been you, being in the same direction as the thing I had firedat. And so I was about to fire again when you pulled off the wrap.'Here I asked him--I was cross-examining now and felt at home:You say you thought I was the thing you fired at. What thing?' Theman scratched his head, but made no reply.'Come, sir,' I said, 'what thing; what was it like?' The answer camein a low voice:'I don't know, sir. I thought there was something; but what it was,or what it was like, I haven't the faintest notion. I suppose it wasbecause I had been thinking of the pistol before I went to sleep, andbecause when I came in here I was half-dazed and only half-awake--whichI hope you will in future, sir, always remember.' He clung to thatformula of excuse as though it were his sheet-anchor. I did not want toantagonize the man; on the contrary I wanted to have him with us.Besides, I had on me at that time myself the shadow of my own default;so I said as kindly as I knew how:'Quite right! Sergeant. Your impulse was correct; though of coursein the half-somnolent condition in which you were, and perhaps partlyaffected by the same influence-- whatever it may be--which made mesleep and which has put the Nurse in that cataleptic trance, it couldnot be expected that you would pause to weigh matters. But now, whilstthe matter is fresh, let me see exactly where you stood and where Isat. We shall be able to trace the course of your bullets.' Theprospect of action and the exercise of his habitual skill seemed tobrace him at once; he seemed a different man as he set about his work.I asked Mrs. Grant to hold the tourniquet, and went and stood where hehad stood and looked where, in the darkness, he had pointed. I couldnot but notice the mechanical exactness of his mind, as when he showedme where he had stood, or drew, as a matter of course, the revolverfrom his pistol pocket, and pointed with it. The chair from which I hadrisen still stood in its place. Then I asked him to point with his handonly, as I wished to move in the track of his shot .Just behind my chair, and a little back of it, stood a high buhlcabinet. The glass door was shattered. I asked:'Was this the direction of your first shot or your second?' Theanswer came promptly:'The second; the first was over there!'He turned a little to the left, more toward the wall where the greatsafe stood, and pointed. I followed the direction of his hand and cameto the low table whereon rested, amongst other curios, the mummy of thecat which had raised Silvio's ire. I got a candle and easily found themark of the bullet. It had broken a little glass vase and a tazza ofblack basalt, exquisitely engraved with hieroglyphics, the graven linesbeing filled with some faint green cement and the whole thing beingpolished to an equal surface. The bullet, flattened against the wall,lay on the table.I then went to the broken cabinet. It was evidently a receptacle forvaluable curios; for in it were some great scarabs of gold, agate,green jasper, amethyst, lapis lazuli, opal, granite, and blue-greenchina. None of these things happily were touched. The bullet had gonethrough the back of the cabinet; but no other damage, save theshattering of the glass, had been done. I could not but notice thestrange arrangement of the curios on the shelf of the cabinet. All thescarabs, rings, amulets, etc., were arranged in an uneven oval round anexquisitely-carved golden miniature figure of a hawk-headed God crownedwith a disk and plumes. I did not wait to look further at present, formy attention was demanded by more pressing things; but I determined tomake a more minute examination when I should have time. It was evidentthat some of the strange Egyptian smell clung to these old curios;through the broken glass came an added whiff of spice and gum andbitumen, almost stronger than those I had already noticed as comingfrom others in the room.All this had really taken but a few minutes. I was surprised when myeye met, through the chinks between the dark window blinds and thewindow cases, the brighter light of the coming dawn. When I went backto the sofa and took the tourniquet from Mrs. Grant, she went over andpulled up the blinds.It would be hard to imagine anything more ghastly than theappearance of the room with the faint grey light of early morningcoming in upon it. As the windows faced north, any light that came wasa fixed grey light without any of the rosy possibility of dawn whichcomes in the eastern quarter of the heavens. The electric lights seemeddull and yet glaring; and every shadow was of a hard intensity. Therewas nothing of morning freshness; nothing of the softness of night. Allwas hard and cold, and inexpressibly dreary. The face of the senselessman on the sofa seemed of a ghastly yellow; and the Nurse's face hadtaken a suggestion of green from the shade of the lamp near her. OnlyMiss Trelawny's face looked white; and it was of a pallor which made myheart ache. It looked as if nothing on God's earth could ever againbring back to it the colour of life and happiness.It was a relief to us all when Doctor Winchester came in, breathlesswith running. He only asked one question:'Can anyone tell me anything of how this wound was gotten?' Onseeing the headshake which went round us under his glance, he said nomore, but applied himself to his surgical work. For an instant helooked up at the Nurse sitting so still; but then bent himself to histask, a grave frown contracting his brows. It was not till the arterieswere tied and the wounds completely dressed that he spoke again,except, of course, when he had asked for anything to be handed to himor to be done for him. When Mr. Trelawny's wounds had been thoroughlycared for, he said to Miss Trelawny:'What about Nurse Kennedy?' She answered at once:'I really do not know. I found her when I came into the room athalf-past two o'clock, sitting exactly as she does now. We have notmoved her, or changed her position. She has not wakened since. EvenSergeant Daw's pistol shots did not disturb her.''Pistol shots? Have you then discovered any cause for this newoutrage?' The rest were silent, so I answered:'We have discovered nothing. I was in the room watching with theNurse. Earlier in the evening I fancied that the mummy smells weremaking me drowsy, so I went out and got a respirator. I had it on whenI came on duty; but it did not keep me from going to sleep. I awoke tosee the room full of people; that is, Miss Trelawny and Sergeant Dawand the servants. The Nurse was sitting in her chair just as I had seenher. Sergeant Daw, being only half-awake and still stupefied by thesame scent or influence which had affected us, fancied that he sawsomething moving through the shadowy darkness of the room, and firedtwice. When I rose out of my chair, with my face swathed in therespirator, he took me for the cause of the trouble. Naturally enough,was about to fire again when I was fortunately in time to manifest myidentity. Mr. Trelawny was lying beside the safe, just as he was foundlast night; and was bleeding profusely from the new wound in his wrist.We lifted him on the sofa, and made a tourniquet. That is, literallyand absolutely, all that any of us know as yet. We have not touched theknife, which you see lies close by the pool of blood. Look!' I said,going over and lifting it, 'the point is red with the blood which hasdried.'Doctor Winchester stood quite still a few minutes before speaking:"Then the doings of this night are quite as mysterious as those oflast night?''Quite!' I answered. He said nothing in reply, but turning to MissTrelawny said:'We had better take Nurse Kennedy into another room. I suppose thereis nothing to prevent it?''Nothing! Please, Mrs. Grant, see' that Nurse Kennedy's room isready; and ask two of the men to come and carry her in.' Mrs. Grantwent out immediately; and in a few minutes came back saying:'The room is quite ready; and the men are here.' By her directiontwo footmen came into the room and, lifting up the rigid body of NurseKennedy under the supervision of the Doctor, carried her out of theroom. Miss Trelawny remained with me in the sick chamber, and Mrs.Grant went with the Doctor into the Nurse's room.When we were alone Miss Trelawny-came over to me, and taking both myhands in hers, said: 'I hope you won't remember what I said. I did notmean it, and I was distraught.' I did not make reply; but I held herhands and kissed them. There are different ways of kissing a lady'shands. This way was intended as homage and respect; and it was acceptedas such in the high-bred, dignified way which marked Miss Trelawny'sbearing and every movement. I went over to the sofa and looked down atthe senseless man. The dawn had come much nearer in the last fewminutes, and there was something of the clearness of day in the light.As I looked at the stern, cold, set face, now as white as a marblemonument in the pale grey light, I could not but feel that there wassome deep mystery beyond all that had happened within the lasttwenty-six hours. Those beetling brows screened some massive purpose;that high, broad forehead held some finished train of reasoning, whichthe broad chin and massive jaw would help to carry into effect. As Ilooked and wondered, there began to steal over me again that phase ofwandering thought which had last night heralded the approach of sleep.I resisted it, and held myself sternly to the present. This was easierto do when Miss Trelawny came close to me, and, leaning her foreheadagainst my shoulder, began to cry silently. Then all the manhood in mewoke, and to present purpose. It was of little use trying to speak;words were inadequate to thought. But we understood each other: she didnot draw away when I put my arm protectingly over her shoulder as Iused to do with my little sister long ago when in her childish troubleshe would come to her big brother to be comforted. That very act orattitude of protection made me more resolute in my purpose, and seemedto clear my brain of idle, dreamy wandering in thought. With aninstinct of greater protection, however, I took away my arm as I heardthe Doctor's footstep outside the door.When Doctor Winchester came in he looked intently at the patientbefore speaking. His brows were set, and his mouth was a thin, hardline. Presently he said:'There is much in common between the sleep of your Father and NurseKennedy. Whatever influence has brought it about has probably workedthe same way in both cases. In Kennedy's case the coma is less marked.I cannot but feel, however, that with her we may be able to do more andmore quickly than with this patient, as our hands are not tied. I haveplaced her in a draught; and already she shows some signs, though veryfaint ones, of ordinary unconsciousness. The rigidity of her limbs isless, and her skin seems more sensitive--or perhaps I should 'say lessinsensitive--to pain.''How is it, then,' I asked, 'that Mr. Trelawny is still in thisstate of insensibility; and yet, so far as we know, his body has nothad such rigidity at all?'"That I cannot answer. The problem is one which we may solve in afew hours; or it may need a few days. But it will be a useful lesson indiagnosis to us all; and perhaps to many and many others after us, whoknows!' he added, with the genuine fire of an enthusiast.As the morning wore on, he flitted perpetually between the tworooms, watching anxiously over both patients. He made Mrs. Grant remainwith the Nurse, but either Miss Trelawny or I, generally both of us,remained with the wounded man. We each managed, however, to get bathedand dressed; the Doctor and Mrs. Grant remained with Mr. Trelawnywhilst we had breakfast.Sergeant Daw went off to report at Scotland Yard the progress of thenight; and then to the local station to arrange for the coming of hiscomrade, Wright, as fixed with Superintendent Dolan. When he returned Icould not but think that he had been hauled over the coals for shootingin a sick-room; or perhaps for shooting at all without certain andproper cause. His remark to me enlightened me in the matter:'A good character is worth something, sir, in spite of what some ofthem say. See! I've still got leave to carry my revolver.'That day was a long and anxious one. Towards nightfall Nurse Kennedyso far improved that the rigidity of her limbs entirely disappeared.She still breathed quietly and regularly; but the fixed expression ofher face, though it was a calm enough expression, gave place to falleneyelids and the negative look of sleep. Doctor Winchester had, towardsevening, brought two more nurses, one of whom was to remain with NurseKennedy and the other to share in the watching with Miss Trelawny, whohad insisted on remaining up herself. She had, in order to prepare forthe duty, slept for several hours in the afternoon. We had all takencounsel together, and had arranged thus for the watching in Mr.Trelawny's room. Mrs. Grant was to remain beside the patient tilltwelve, when Miss Trelawny would relieve her. The new nurse was to sitin Miss Trelawny's room, and to visit the sick chamber each quarter ofan hour. The Doctor would remain till twelve; when I was to relievehim. One or other of the detectives was to remain within hail of theroom all night: and to pay periodical visits to see that all was well.Thus, the watchers would be watched; and the possibility of such eventsas last night, when the watchers were both overcome, would be avoided.When the sun set, a strange and grave anxiety fell on all of us; andin our separate ways we prepared for the vigil. Doctor Winchester hadevidently been thinking of my respirator, for he told me he would goout and get one. Indeed, he took to the idea so kindly that I persuadedMiss Trelawny also to have one which she could put on when her time forwatching came.And so the night drew on.