Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1848 page)

‘You need read no farther,’ said the Countess. ‘Be careful to remember what you have read.’

She put back the page of vellum in her writing-desk, locked it, and led the way to the door.

‘Come!’ she said; ‘and see what the mocking Frenchman called “The beginning of the end.” ‘

Agnes was barely able to rise from her chair; she trembled from head to foot. Henry gave her his arm to support her. ‘Fear nothing,’ he whispered; ‘I shall be with you.’

The Countess proceeded along the westward corridor, and stopped at the door numbered Thirty-eight. This was the room which had been inhabited by Baron Rivar in the old days of the palace: it was situated immediately over the bedchamber in which Agnes had passed the night. For the last two days the room had been empty. The absence of luggage in it, when they opened the door, showed that it had not yet been let.

‘You see?’ said the Countess, pointing to the carved figure at the fire-place; ‘and you know what to do. Have I deserved that you should temper justice with mercy?’ she went on in lower tones. ‘Give me a few hours more to myself. The Baron wants money — I must get on with my play.’

She smiled vacantly, and imitated the action of writing with her right hand as she pronounced the last words. The effort of concentrating her weakened mind on other and less familiar topics than the constant want of money in the Baron’s lifetime, and the vague prospect of gain from the still unfinished play, had evidently exhausted her poor reserves of strength. When her request had been granted, she addressed no expressions of gratitude to Agnes; she only said, ‘Feel no fear, miss, of my attempting to escape you. Where you are, there I must be till the end comes.’

Her eyes wandered round the room with a last weary and stupefied look. She returned to her writing with slow and feeble steps, like the steps of an old woman.

CHAPTER XXIV

Henry and Agnes were left alone in the Room of the Caryatides.

The person who had written the description of the palace — probably a poor author or artist — had correctly pointed out the defects of the mantel-piece. Bad taste, exhibiting itself on the most costly and splendid scale, was visible in every part of the work. It was nevertheless greatly admired by ignorant travellers of all classes; partly on account of its imposing size, and partly on account of the number of variously-coloured marbles which the sculptor had contrived to introduce into his design. Photographs of the mantel-piece were exhibited in the public rooms, and found a ready sale among English and American visitors to the hotel.

Henry led Agnes to the figure on the left, as they stood facing the empty fire-place. ‘Shall I try the experiment,’ he asked, ‘or will you?’ She abruptly drew her arm away from him, and turned back to the door. ‘I can’t even look at it,’ she said. ‘That merciless marble face frightens me!’

Henry put his hand on the forehead of the figure. ‘What is there to alarm you, my dear, in this conventionally classical face?’ he asked jestingly. Before he could press the head inwards, Agnes hurriedly opened the door. ‘Wait till I am out of the room!’ she cried. ‘The bare idea of what you may find there horrifies me!’ She looked back into the room as she crossed the threshold. ‘I won’t leave you altogether,’ she said, ‘I will wait outside.’

She closed the door. Left by himself, Henry lifted his hand once more to the marble forehead of the figure.

For the second time, he was checked on the point of setting the machinery of the hiding-place in motion. On this occasion, the interruption came from an outbreak of friendly voices in the corridor. A woman’s voice exclaimed, ‘Dearest Agnes, how glad I am to see you again!’ A man’s voice followed, offering to introduce some friend to ‘Miss Lockwood.’ A third voice (which Henry recognised as the voice of the manager of the hotel) became audible next, directing the housekeeper to show the ladies and gentlemen the vacant apartments at the other end of the corridor. ‘If more accommodation is wanted,’ the manager went on, ‘I have a charming room to let here.’ He opened the door as he spoke, and found himself face to face with Henry Westwick.

‘This is indeed an agreeable surprise, sir!’ said the manager cheerfully. ‘You are admiring our famous chimney-piece, I see. May I ask, Mr. Westwick, how you find yourself in the hotel, this time? Have the supernatural influences affected your appetite again?’

‘The supernatural influences have spared me, this time,’ Henry answered. ‘Perhaps you may yet find that they have affected some other member of the family.’ He spoke gravely, resenting the familiar tone in which the manager had referred to his previous visit to the hotel. ‘Have you just returned?’ he asked, by way of changing the topic.

‘Just this minute, sir. I had the honour of travelling in the same train with friends of yours who have arrived at the hotel — Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Barville, and their travelling companions. Miss Lockwood is with them, looking at the rooms. They will be here before long, if they find it convenient to have an extra room at their disposal.’

This announcement decided Henry on exploring the hiding-place, before the interruption occurred. It had crossed his mind, when Agnes left him, that he ought perhaps to have a witness, in the not very probable event of some alarming discovery taking place. The too-familiar manager, suspecting nothing, was there at his disposal. He turned again to the Caryan figure, maliciously resolving to make the manager his witness.

‘I am delighted to hear that our friends have arrived at last,’ he said. ‘Before I shake hands with them, let me ask you a question about this queer work of art here. I see photographs of it downstairs. Are they for sale?’

‘Certainly, Mr. Westwick!’

‘Do you think the chimney-piece is as solid as it looks?’ Henry proceeded. ‘When you came in, I was just wondering whether this figure here had not accidentally got loosened from the wall behind it.’ He laid his hand on the marble forehead, for the third time. ‘To my eye, it looks a little out of the perpendicular. I almost fancied I could jog the head just now, when I touched it.’ He pressed the head inwards as he said those words.

A sound of jarring iron was instantly audible behind the wall. The solid hearthstone in front of the fire-place turned slowly at the feet of the two men, and disclosed a dark cavity below. At the same moment, the strange and sickening combination of odours, hitherto associated with the vaults of the old palace and with the bed-chamber beneath, now floated up from the open recess, and filled the room.

The manager started back. ‘Good God, Mr. Westwick!’ he exclaimed, ‘what does this mean?’

Remembering, not only what his brother Francis had felt in the room beneath, but what the experience of Agnes had been on the previous night, Henry was determined to be on his guard. ‘I am as much surprised as you are,’ was his only reply.

‘Wait for me one moment, sir,’ said the manager. ‘I must stop the ladies and gentlemen outside from coming in.’

He hurried away — not forgetting to close the door after him. Henry opened the window, and waited there breathing the purer air. Vague apprehensions of the next discovery to come, filled his mind for the first time. He was doubly resolved, now, not to stir a step in the investigation without a witness.

The manager returned with a wax taper in his hand, which he lighted as soon as he entered the room.

‘We need fear no interruption now,’ he said. ‘Be so kind, Mr. Westwick, as to hold the light. It is my business to find out what this extraordinary discovery means.’

Henry held the taper. Looking into the cavity, by the dim and flickering light, they both detected a dark object at the bottom of it. ‘I think I can reach the thing,’ the manager remarked, ‘if I lie down, and put my hand into the hole.’

He knelt on the floor — and hesitated. ‘Might I ask you, sir, to give me my gloves?’ he said. ‘They are in my hat, on the chair behind you.’

Henry gave him the gloves. ‘I don’t know what I may be going to take hold of,’ the manager explained, smiling rather uneasily as he put on his right glove.

He stretched himself at full length on the floor, and passed his right arm into the cavity. ‘I can’t say exactly what I have got hold of,’ he said. ‘But I have got it.’

Half raising himself, he drew his hand out.

The next instant, he started to his feet with a shriek of terror. A human head dropped from his nerveless grasp on the floor, and rolled to Henry’s feet. It was the hideous head that Agnes had seen hovering above her, in the vision of the night!

The two men looked at each other, both struck speechless by the same emotion of horror. The manager was the first to control himself. ‘See to the door, for God’s sake!’ he said. ‘Some of the people outside may have heard me.’

Henry moved mechanically to the door.

Even when he had his hand on the key, ready to turn it in the lock in case of necessity, he still looked back at the appalling object on the floor. There was no possibility of identifying those decayed and distorted features with any living creature whom he had seen — and, yet, he was conscious of feeling a vague and awful doubt which shook him to the soul. The questions which had tortured the mind of Agnes, were now his questions too. He asked himself, ‘In whose likeness might I have recognised it before the decay set in? The likeness of Ferrari? or the likeness of — ?’ He paused trembling, as Agnes had paused trembling before him. Agnes! The name, of all women’s names the dearest to him, was a terror to him now! What was he to say to her? What might be the consequence if he trusted her with the terrible truth?

No footsteps approached the door; no voices were audible outside. The travellers were still occupied in the rooms at the eastern end of the corridor.

In the brief interval that had passed, the manager had sufficiently recovered himself to be able to think once more of the first and foremost interests of his life — the interests of the hotel. He approached Henry anxiously.

‘If this frightful discovery becomes known,’ he said, ‘the closing of the hotel and the ruin of the Company will be the inevitable results. I feel sure that I can trust your discretion, sir, so far?’

‘You can certainly trust me,’ Henry answered. ‘But surely discretion has its limits,’ he added, ‘after such a discovery as we have made?’

The manager understood that the duty which they owed to the community, as honest and law-abiding men, was the duty to which Henry now referred. ‘I will at once find the means,’ he said, ‘of conveying the remains privately out of the house, and I will myself place them in the care of the police authorities. Will you leave the room with me? or do you not object to keep watch here, and help me when I return?’

While he was speaking, the voices of the travellers made themselves heard again at the end of the corridor. Henry instantly consented to wait in the room. He shrank from facing the inevitable meeting with Agnes if he showed himself in the corridor at that moment.

The manager hastened his departure, in the hope of escaping notice. He was discovered by his guests before he could reach the head of the stairs. Henry heard the voices plainly as he turned the key. While the terrible drama of discovery was in progress on one side of the door, trivial questions about the amusements of Venice, and facetious discussions on the relative merits of French and Italian cookery, were proceeding on the other. Little by little, the sound of the talking grew fainter. The visitors, having arranged their plans of amusement for the day, were on their way out of the hotel. In a minute or two, there was silence once more.

Henry turned to the window, thinking to relieve his mind by looking at the bright view over the canal. He soon grew wearied of the familiar scene. The morbid fascination which seems to be exercised by all horrible sights, drew him back again to the ghastly object on the floor.

Dream or reality, how had Agnes survived the sight of it? As the question passed through his mind, he noticed for the first time something lying on the floor near the head. Looking closer, he perceived a thin little plate of gold, with three false teeth attached to it, which had apparently dropped out (loosened by the shock) when the manager let the head fall on the floor.

The importance of this discovery, and the necessity of not too readily communicating it to others, instantly struck Henry. Here surely was a chance — if any chance remained — of identifying the shocking relic of humanity which lay before him, the dumb witness of a crime! Acting on this idea, he took possession of the teeth, purposing to use them as a last means of inquiry when other attempts at investigation had been tried and had failed.