Five Fatal Words Read online

  During the first half hour the idea was so horrible that Melicent could entertain no other. Not a single person in the house, not a single person in the world, would realize that she and Miss Cornwall had changed places. She wondered if she would ever be able to sleep in the long year that lay ahead. She thought frantically of getting up and leaving the house, which had suddenly grown ominous. But it would be worse to move through those empty halls in the dark than it would be to wait, terror stricken and weak, until the coming of daylight. Not five thousand, not ten thousand, not any sum of money could repay her for three hundred and sixty-five nights of unrelieved dreadfulness. She lay on her pillow, in the ruffles on the dress and the lace cap, the living substitute for Miss Cornwall in case anyone was bent upon doing ill to that old lady.

  Melicent could feel the perspiration oozing from the palms of her hands. Noises in the trees outside the window or inarticulate noises in the house brought her automatically up on her elbow, waiting for she did not know what. In an hour the house became utterly silent. But in that hour Melicent had regained a little of her normal self-control. She was able to think and reason. She fought back the terrors of the dark and the horror of her strange occupation, and tried to reassure herself. Mr. Reese had said that Miss Cornwall was eccentric. Perhaps Miss Cornwall had no real fear, no real enemy, but only a phobia, a dread of going to sleep that was founded on empty imagination. Perhaps she had no real reason for wanting some one else disguised as herself to sleep in her bed every night.

  Perhaps it was just the working of a warped, tortuous, and unhappy mind. Perhaps she, Melicent, was in less danger here than in her own apartment in New York.

  Melicent was well educated. She knew something about psychology and she knew it was quite possible for a human being to invent some such plan merely to appease its own inner mental disturbances and not because that person had physical enemies. Half of Melicent's mind was alert for the footsteps of an unknown assassin; the other half was groping along the paths of deliberate logic for strength to spend the night--a year of nights--in the great dark room lying in the canopied antique bed.

  Little fragments of thought helped the latter half of her mind. Mr. Reese had said that other women had held the position Melicent now held and had expressed their satisfaction with it at the end of a year. That thought gave Melicent courage. Other women had slept in that great bed, trembling, as she was trembling, for the first few nights, and finally accepted the process as routine. Doubtless she would also grow accustomed to it. Doubtless at the end of a year when she left the bizarre services of Miss Cornwall, she would be glad that she had earned so much money and she would laugh at this first awful night.

  She knew that she was not going to sleep and yet she had been carefully instructed by Miss Cornwall never, under any circumstances, to turn on her light. She could see nothing except the vague gray corners that represented the casement windows.

  Before she had retired she had noticed that those windows were arranged so that they could be opened only a little way, and she had noticed also that the frames were made of metal. The door to the hall was locked. It was like all the other doors in the house, heavy oak, but there was no reassurance in these thoughts, because, while they might merely indicate that Miss Cornwall was afraid to go to sleep without taking abnormal steps to protect herself, they might also indicate that she had reasons to take those steps.

  The airplane which Miss Cornwall never used but ordered always ready for use might be part of the same aberration, and, equally well, it might be a sanely provided means of sudden escape from a real and tangible danger.

  There was the sudden death of Miss Cornwall's brother which had given her a great shock; was there a secret in that death? Melicent's mind went on and on. More than a million a year income for each of the Cornwalls when they were six; so the share of each was even greater now; and it would be greater yet, if another were killed. But how could anyone who had a million a year want more? Melicent could not imagine it; but she knew that greed for money seemed only to grow with gains.

  After an interminable time Melicent realized that she could hear a clock striking somewhere in the house. A deep-voiced clock that chimed every quarter of an hour.

  Thereafter her frozen vigilance was punctuated by those chimes.

  "Doubtless even a tulip hopes!" Meaningless; but Miss Cornwall, who had repeated it over and over, knew it was meaningless, and she wanted a meaning for it.

  Why?

  Melicent heard the clock strike twelve and one and two. Then lightly and fitfully she fell into slumber. At an indefinite time afterward she opened her eyes with a start of terror and perceived that the gray light of day was seeping through the casement windows. She woke up enough to remember her situation, but the return of light reassured her and presently she managed to sink into a real, restful sleep, which lasted for a few hours. She was awakened again by the turning of the key in the door that led to her own room, which Miss Cornwall occupied.

  It startled her out of her sleep, but she opened her eyes only the slightest bit. Miss Cornwall pulled back the door and peered through it. She seemed satisfied presently that Melicent was still asleep and she shut the door again without locking it. The clock downstairs struck seven and Melicent thought that probably seven was Miss Cornwall's rising time, since her time of retiring was so early.

  Melicent was not entirely rested, but she had slept enough so she felt she could go through the day that lay ahead. She arose. In one of the long mirrors in the room she saw her reflection. In the white nightdress and the lace cap she was fantastic and her face was very pale. She stretched, and in her bare feet walked toward the door. Afterward she realized she had not knocked, partly because of the fact that the years spent living with Helen had made her forget the convention of knocking, and partly because her relief at having ended her first night's duties overcame her manners. She pushed open the door that led to her own room.

  Miss Cornwall, fully dressed, was sitting in front of a little writing desk, reading a letter. As she heard the door open she looked up. Her face became tense with anger. At the same time Melicent realized she had intruded and pretended that she had not at first seen Miss Cornwall. It was a quick automatic dissembling.

  "I am sorry," Melicent said breathlessly. "I didn't mean to intrude. I thought you had gone downstairs."

  Miss Cornwall spoke severely. "One thing you will learn immediately in this house is never to open any door or enter any room without knocking. In my day it was merely good manners, but in this age, I find that manners don't include it, so I make it a rule."

  "I am really terribly sorry," Melicent answered. She backed out of the room and shut the door. Again standing in the big room, chilly because it had grown cold during the night, and unwilling to go back to bed, Melicent paused momentarily, both physically and in her train of thought. Miss Cornwall's anger had been all out of proportion to the interruption. Uppermost in Melicent's mind was the idea that at the earliest possible moment she must find out if Miss Cornwall, and hence she, herself, was in real danger, or if the ominous charade she was to play every night was merely a gratification of an old lady's whims.

  For a second time something of the feeling Helen had had when she read the advertisement stole over Melicent. It was not the fear she had felt during the night, but something subtler. A presentiment. A dim warning. A reflection of conditions in other people's brains. Melicent did a thing which she felt her extraordinary position excused.

  She bent over and looked through the keyhole of the door. She was in time to see Miss Cornwall hide the letter. A moment later Miss Cornwall opened the door. Her face was still severe.

  "You may come in and dress now, but you must never forget any of my instructions. You will find me downstairs in the breakfast room."

  Miss Cornwall then walked into her own bedroom, closed the door, and presently Melicent heard the door in the hall slam. She realized that the act would be complete when she came from her own room.
The servants would see each of the two women going into their own rooms at night, coming out in the morning, and the idea that they had exchanged places in the dark would occur to no one.

  Melicent did not dress immediately. She was not a curious girl, but every nerve in her body had been alarmed. She felt justified in taking any available steps to learn the exact elements which controlled the doings at Blackcroft.

  As soon as she was sure Miss Cornwall had descended the front stairs she secured the letter and read it. Any reassurance she may have derived from her thoughts on the previous dark night were dispelled forever by that letter.

  It was sent from an address in Dutch Guiana, where, Melicent remembered, Daniel Cornwall had died, and from the first word to the last a subtle horror stalked through it.

  My dear Aunt Hannah: You will be surprised to receive this letter and still more surprised by its contents. Possibly you will think I am not in my right senses, and doubtless you will choose to ignore rather than to heed the disturbing thoughts I would like to present to you.

  It has often occurred to me that Grandfather Silas' will held a possibility which he did not consider. To divide the income of his estate equally between you six children was logical. But to leave the estate itself to the last of you to survive might suggest to an unscrupulous person various enterprises. When I wrote you last Easter about my father's and your brother's death I described it as heart failure. Such the doctor believed it to be.

  And yet at the time there was nothing wrong with father's heart. He was a man in perfect health. The blow of his death was so great to me--for I was very fond of father--that I did not start to think about the oddness of it at once. When I did, however, I went to a doctor here who had been a friend of father's for many years and talked to him about it. The doctor agreed with me that it was virtually impossible for my father to have died from heart failure.

  I do not wish to distress you with the details, but I would like to impress you with them. Briefly, I had an autopsy made and there were distinct traces of poison in the vital organs. The poison was a rather rare one, and one that sometimes occurs in small quantities in normal human beings, so that we could not be absolutely sure that it was the cause of his death.

  To revert to the original subject, however, if some person who had a strong influence over one of you six heirs should deliberately wish to do away with the others, that person could eventually come into the possession of the entire Cornwall fortune.

  Father had no enemy in Dutch Guiana. Every one loved him. I think he was poisoned.

  The only reason I can see for it would be the one described above.

  Perhaps I am a fantastic alarmist in writing such a letter as this and it is just possible that father was not poisoned at all, but I am writing to Uncle Theodore and to Aunt Alice and Aunt Lydia as well as to yourself. I do not know the address of Uncle Everitt, but I presume you are still corresponding with him and I hope, if you feel it worth while, you will forward this opinion to him.

  Of course, this may all be a neurosis of mine and nothing else, but since the one who inherits Grandfather Silas' fortune is the one who lives the longest, it is easy to become neurotic contemplating the possibilities it offers to designing and reckless persons. Sometimes I get the feeling of a trap about the family which is about to be sprung.

  I may be coming to the States this fall and, if so, I shall call on you and it will be a pleasure to see you after all these years. I couldn't have been more than twelve when father took me abroad. If you feel this to be foolish speculation on my part, please ignore it and forgive me.

  Your affectionate nephew,

  DONALD CORNWALL.

  P. S. Shortly before my father died he received through the mail a meaningless five word message, which I quote herewith: "Doubtless Even A Tulip Hopes." You may think that for me to connect this with the death of my father is very foolish; but can you see in the message what I now see?

  D.C.

  There was no longer any doubt in Melicent's mind about the household to which she now belonged. The old lady's alarming arrangement to exchange beds every night was not an empty and senseless quirk of her mind. It had point and purpose.

  The five words which Hannah Cornwall whispered ceaselessly last evening no longer were babble; they, beyond doubt, also had purpose and point. Then, in a flash Melicent saw what it was which Miss Cornwall had been trying to discover with her whispered repetition: The words themselves might be meaningless, but the first letters of the five words spelled DEATH.

  It must have been this which Donald Cornwall had come to see and which had become so plain that he was sure his aunt too would see it. But had she--yet?

  Melicent carefully restored the letter to its hiding place. Automatically but rapidly she began to dress, her thoughts far away from her actions. She realized that Hannah Cornwall's household was one of six. Six households where an elderly man or woman had spent the days and the years with a grim determination to outlive five brothers and sisters so as to become the sole survivor who, at last, could possess and dispose of the entire huge fortune. A hundred million at least it must be, if it paid each of six heirs more than a million a year; perhaps two hundred million. She could perceive vaguely why Miss Cornwall changed her servants every year. It would never do to let any servant learn the truth about the family, to grow into the family, and to brood over the strange possibilities inspired by the will. She could see why Miss Cornwall wanted a substitute in her bed. At any time some one who had gained the confidence of one of the six brothers and sisters, or even one of the brothers and sisters, might suddenly decide to tamper with fate and make himself or herself the last living Cornwall heir.

  Melicent knew that she could never look upon Blackcroft again as a beautiful place or a romantic place, or even as a somewhat bleak place inhabited by a somewhat eccentric old lady. From now on the house would be full of threat and danger. It would be sinister and frightening. And even if the letter from Donald Cornwall came to nothing, even if the year that lay ahead was uneventful, it would, nevertheless, be a year of continuous fear for Melicent.

  She wondered if it would not be best to leave at once. The five thousand dollars was a small inducement in the face of the facts. Nothing could repay her for the nightly vigils that lay ahead. She thought that it might be best for her to give up the idea of staying, to go back to the city, and to look again for a humble, commonplace and safe job at fifteen dollars a week. She might have done so if she had had more time in which to consider. But though it frightened her, it fascinated her and then events shaped themselves so rapidly that she was involved in them and carried away by them before she could come to a decision.

  Her mind was numb with doubt and half paralyzed with the shadowy vision of possible disaster which the letter had revealed when she left her room.

  Miss Cornwall was sitting in the breakfast room. In front of her was a cup of coffee, which was untouched. Sunlight streamed upon the elderly lady and broad lawns were visible through the windows. Under any other circumstances the setting and the day would have enchanted Melicent. Miss Cornwall's searching eyes studied the girl.

  "Did you sleep well?"

  Melicent found herself replying in a commonplace tone. "Quite well, thank you."

  "Sit down. I should imagine you slept very little." The older woman's smile was dry. "Various employees of mine who have previously undergone the same experience have found it something of an ordeal at first. You must forgive me for it. You may think that I seem to exercise an undue caution in what we will call all my habits of living. You must learn to accept it as an old woman's fears. Suppose we do not mention it any more. I have other similar attributes, such as overseeing all my own cooking. You will learn to ignore them because they are quite harmless."

  Melicent did not reply. She took her place at the opposite side of the breakfast table and began to eat an orange. It would not do to tell Miss Cornwall that she had read the letter from her nephew and that she knew exactly
why Miss Cornwall took such precautions for the security of her life. Even if she decided to quit her bizarre job, it would be better never to give her complete reasons for doing so.

  Miss Cornwall spoke again. "I have a guest coming to-day--my brother Everitt. I sent for him to discuss some family business."

  Melicent knew what business Miss Cornwall intended to discuss with her brother Everitt, but her face was noncommittal. "I see," she said.

  "He will arrive about eleven o'clock, I believe. You will find him a rather interesting person."

  "I will be very glad to meet him."

  There was an interval of silence, during which the dishes were cleared away and the substantial part of the meal was served. Melicent had an opportunity to reflect how much she would have enjoyed life at Blackcroft without this somber background. She could never enjoy it. The lawns, the woods, the sunshine, the beautiful things in the house, the perfect service were now merely incidents of routine.

  Miss Cornwall drank a little of her coffee. "A few other friends are rather constant visitors here. I am interested in ancient cultures, particularly Greek culture, and I hope some day to be able to found a university which would perpetually propagate my views and ideals. A Professor Coleman, who is an old and very dear friend of mine, shares my loyalty to the grandeur which was Greece, and in the event that I am able some day to endow such a university, I shall put him at the head of it. You will meet him here."

  "I see," Melicent replied. "He must also be a very interesting person."

  That ended the breakfast conversation. Soon afterward Miss Cornwall left the table and Melicent, after finishing her coffee, followed her from the room.

  Miss Cornwall, however, had vanished and Melicent could not find her downstairs. All the rooms were large and empty and silent. After a half hour had passed and she had not been summoned, Melicent felt the effect of this stillness. It wore on her nerves, which had not entirely recovered from the shock of her experience on the previous night. Finally she could not stand it any longer. She opened the great door and went out on the terrace. The sun was quite warm and she walked slowly through the fading garden at the side of the house and on upon a path through the trees which took her to the Japanese garden.