The Story of Ivy · Chapter 5 (2/2)

He went quickly across from the door to the left corner of the bare, low-ceilinged room, now his surgery, which had once been an outhouse. There he unlocked the cupboard where he kept his dangerous drugs, and lifted down a jar on which was printed on a red label the word “Arsenic.” Placing it on a deal table above which was a hanging bookcase, he exclaimed, “If you would like to see, darling, what⁠—”

And then there came a thunderous knock at the front door of the tiny house.

“Wait one moment! Don’t go yet, dearest,” he said hastily. “I won’t be a minute!”

He rushed away, though even in his haste he did not forget to shut both the doors which separated the surgery from the rest of the house.

Ivy Lexton gave a quick look round the sordid-looking stone-flagged walled space, through which her eager little feet had so often carried her last winter, at a time when she had been in love, really in love, with Roger Gretorex.

She noted that there was no blind to the little square window. But, even in the unlikely event of anyone looking in through that window, no one standing outside could see, while she stood by the table, what she was doing, or was about to do.

Standing very still, she listened. From the consulting-room at the other end of the passage there came the sound of voices, raised in argument.

Hesitatingly she took up the jar Gretorex had placed on the table. Then she looked at it with avid curiosity. How strange and exciting to know that Death was in that jar⁠—prisoned, but ready to escape and become the servant of any quick-witted, determined human being.

When, at last, she put the jar down again, she noticed what she had not seen till now, that a glass spoon lay on the table.

Once more she looked round the bare surgery. Once more she listened intently, only to hear again Gretorex’s voice, far away, raised in argument.

All at once and in feverish haste she began unscrewing the top of the jar. Once this was achieved, she pressed the jewelled top of her bolster bag, and as it sprang open, she took her powder puff out of its pochette. Then, taking the glass spoon off the table, with its help she began shaking into the little white leather-lined pocket a quantity of the powder which she knew to be a deadly poison.

After snapping-to the bag, she replaced its cap on the jar labelled “Arsenic” and screwed it tight. Then she stepped back from the table a little way, and stood quite still, thinking of what she had just done.

Why had she done that⁠—to herself she called it “funny” thing? Deep in her heart she knew quite well the answer to her own wordless question. But she did not admit her purpose, even to herself.

All at once she heard sounds just behind her⁠—the sounds made by slippered, shuffling feet.

Filled with a sudden shock of sick terror, she turned slowly round to see Roger Gretorex’s old charwoman, Mrs. Huntley, standing uncertainly in the middle of the room.

The woman had evidently let herself in from the back alley with a latchkey. But how long had she been here? And how much had she seen?

“Why, Mrs. Huntley,” said Ivy in a shaken voice. “You did startle me!”

“Did I, ma’am? I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I just come in to see if the doctor wanted anything,” the old woman spoke in a pleasant, refined voice.

“He’ll be here in a minute⁠—”

“I won’t disturb him now, ma’am. I’ll come in later.”

Opening the door through which she had entered, she slipped through it into the gathering darkness. Then she shut the door noiselessly behind her.

Ivy moved again close to the deal table. She felt violently disturbed, even terrified. Yet the old woman had looked absolutely placid, though a little taken aback at finding a lady where she had expected to see nobody, excepting maybe her employer, and him only if he were engaged in making up medicines.

Hardly knowing what she was doing, Ivy Lexton glanced up at the row of books in the shabby little bookcase above the table by which she was standing, and she saw that among them was one entitled, “Poisons.”

She was just about to take it down when she heard quick footsteps in the short passage, and Gretorex opened the surgery door.

“I won’t be more than a few moments now! You will stay, my dearest, won’t you, till I’ve done with this chap?”

“Of course I will. Don’t hurry,” she answered, in a soft, kindly tone.

She took down the book and hurriedly she turned to the index.

Yes! Here was the word she sought. There were a number of references⁠—half a dozen at least⁠—and she turned up, “Effects of Arsenic; page 154.”

A famous case of secret poisoning was quoted, with every detail set out, and she read it with intense, absorbed interest. It told her what she had so much wanted to know, and feared to ask Roger Gretorex, how a secret poisoner went to work, and also how long the process took before⁠—before⁠—even to herself she did not end the question.⁠ ⁠…

As she put the volume back on the bookshelf her mind travelled into the future⁠—the now possible, now probable, future.

Standing there, in Gretorex’s barely furnished surgery, she saw herself the cherished wife of Miles Rushworth, and not only rich beyond the dreams of even her desire, but also secure from every conceivable earthly ill.

Had Ivy Lexton belonged to another generation, she would doubtless have called what had just happened to herself “providential.” As it was, she just thought it a piece of astounding, almost incredible, good luck.

She next took down from the shelf a thin little book dealing with infantile paralysis. But she had only just time to open it, and to glance, with a feeling of shrinking distaste, at one of the illustrations, when Gretorex burst into the surgery. “The poor chap’s gone at last! What are you reading, darling?”

“A book about children, dear.”

There came a pathetic look into her eyes, and Gretorex gently took the thin volume from her hand. Then he kissed that lovely, soft little hand.

She had told him, very early in their acquaintance, that her husband hated the idea of children, as if they had a child it would surely interfere with the kind of idle, gay life that he, Jervis, loved. For the hundredth time Gretorex cursed Lexton for a heartless brute.

She allowed him to take her in his arms. For a few moments they clung together, and she kissed him with real passion, responding as she had not responded for what seemed to Gretorex an eternity of frustrate longing.

Ivy had been frightened, very much frightened, just now. It was surprisingly comfortable and reassuring to feel his strong arms round her, to know that he loved her⁠—loved her.

“Did you buy an evening paper?” she asked at last, disengaging herself from his close embrace.

“No, but the chap who came to see me had one in his hand, and I believe he left it behind. Would you like me to give it you to read in the omnibus?”

“It would hurt my eyes to do that. I was only wondering what had happened about that Branksome Case?”

“I can tell you that without looking at the paper, darling. In fact I did tell you⁠—but you’ve forgotten, my pet.”

“What was it that you told me?”

“That they’ll hang the man, and let the woman off!”

He spoke quite confidently. “There’s not a doubt but that she really planned the whole thing out. But he, poor wretch, bought the fly papers. Most of the secret poisoning that goes on is done by women.”

“How dreadful!”

“A great many dreadful things go on in this strange world, my darling love.”

“You mean things that are not found out?”

He nodded, almost gaily. He was glad, so glad, to find a subject that interested her, and that might make her stay a few moments longer.

So, “I’m afraid that only one secret poisoner is found out for six that go scot free,” he went on. “Even now it’s difficult to tell the difference between the effect produced by, say, arsenic, and a very ordinary ailment. A postmortem only takes place if there’s already reason to suspect foul play.”

“Postmortem?”

The word meant nothing to Ivy Lexton.

“In the vast majority of cases the danger is negligible,” he continued. “The secret poisoner, especially if a woman, is never even suspected, and if she is⁠—”

“If she is?” echoed Ivy uncertainly.

“The doctor, nine times out of ten, gives her the benefit of the doubt!”

He ended his careless sentence with a laugh. It was of her, of her dear nearness, of her kind, soft, loving manner, that he was thinking, and not at all of what he was saying.

“Would you let her off, Roger?”

He grew suddenly grave. “Well, no, I don’t think I would. You see it wouldn’t be right. For one thing, she might try the same game over again.”

She looked at him coldly. Few men were as set on doing right as was apparently this man.

Then she smiled, a curiously subtle, sweet little smile. She knew, if no one else did, the weak place in his defences. It was pleasant to know that no other woman would ever have that knowledge. Ivy believed, rightly or wrongly, that a man does not love twice as this man, Gretorex, loved her.

“Well, I must go now,” she said at last. And then, for she saw the sudden darkening of his face, “You may as well come with me as far as the corner of Great Smith Street, Roger. It’s quite dark now.”

Once more she allowed him to kiss her. Once more there came from her the response which had now for so long been lacking, and of which the lack made him feel so desolate.

As they walked along the now shrouded, deserted little back streets of old Westminster, Ivy Lexton was very gentle in her manner to the man who loved her with so wholehearted and selfless a devotion.

She had quite decided that soon they must part, never to meet again. And yet, though Gretorex would never know it, it was to him, albeit indirectly, that she would owe her splendid freedom, and all that freedom was to bring to her. It was that knowledge, maybe, that made her manner so gentle and so kind.

When at last Jervis Lexton came in, he found his wife playing patience in the pretty sitting-room where she spent so little of her time.

He felt a little surprised, for unless she happened to be out, as was the case six nights out of seven, Ivy always went to bed early.

“Thank God, I’m safe home again!” he exclaimed. “It was the most awful show. The grub wasn’t bad, but the champagne was like syrup. I’ve ‘some thirst,’ I can tell you!”

“Wait a minute, and”⁠—she smiled a gay little smile⁠—“I’ll mix you a highball, old boy. Would you like a Bizzy Izzy, just as a treat?”

“The answer, ma’am, is ‘yes’!”

She went off into the dining-room, and took from the fine old mahogany brassbound wine-cooler a bottle of rye whisky and a bottle of sherry. Then, carefully, she poured a small wineglass of each into a tall glass.

With the glass in her hand she hurried down the passage, and so into the bright, clean, empty kitchen. There she soon found some ice, and, after having chipped off a number of small pieces, she waited a moment and listened intently, for she did not want to be surprised in what she was about to do.

But the old cook was lying sound asleep in the bedroom which lay beyond the kitchen. Ivy could even hear her long, drawn-out snores.

Opening a cupboard door very, very quietly, she found a syphon, and filled up the glass almost to the top with soda-water. Then, quickly, she mixed in with a clean wooden spoon a good pinch of the powder she had secreted in the pochette of her bag.

“A perfect Bizzy Izzy!” Ivy called out gaily as she swiftly went down the corridor, holding in her steady hand the tall glass, now full almost to the brim.

Through the hall and back into the sitting-room she hurried, and then she watched, with an odd sensation of excitement, her husband toss off the delicious iced drink.

“This soda fizz has got a bitter tang to it,” he exclaimed, “but it’s none the worse for that!”

Ivy stayed awake for a long time that night. She had suddenly begun to feel afraid, she hardly knew of what. But at last she dropped off to sleep.

At nine o’clock the next morning she awoke. What was it that had happened last night? Then she remembered.

Leaping out of bed she rushed across the dressing-table, on which there lay the mother-of-pearl bolster bag she had had out with her last night. Opening it she took out her handkerchief, her powder puff, and her purse. Then she put the bag, now quite empty save for the white powder the tiny white leather-lined inner recess contained, into an old despatch-box which had belonged to her father.

It was the only “lock up” Ivy Lexton possessed; at no time of her life had she been so foolish as to keep dangerous love-letters more than a very short time. She put the despatch-box in what was the empty half of a huge Victorian inlaid wardrobe. Then she got into bed again, and rang the bell.

A moment later the day-maid opened the bedroom door.

“Mr. Lexton was ill in the night, ma’am. He thinks he ate something last evening that didn’t agree with him. He asked me to tell you that he’s not going to the office this morning.”