The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker (books to read in your 20s TXT) 📕

but I am bound to

follow my own conclusions. I know well that just as unlikely persons

have been proved guilty, when a whole court—all except the prosecution

who knew the facts, and the judge who had taught his mind to wait—would

have sworn to innocence. I wouldn’t, for all the world, wrong such a

young lady; more especial when she has such a cruel weight to bear. And

you will be sure that I won’t say a word that’ll prompt anyone else to

make such a charge. That’s why I speak to you in confidence, man to

man. You are skilled in proofs; that is your profession. Mine only

gets so far as suspicions, and what we call our own proofs—which are

nothing but ex parte evidence after all. You know Miss Trelawny better

than I do; and though I watch round the sick-room, and go where I like

about the house and in and out of it, I haven’t the same opportunities

as you have of knowing the lady and what her life is, or her means are;

or of anything else which might give me a clue to her actions. If I

were to try to find out from her, it would at once arouse her

suspicions. Then, if she were guilty, all possibility of ultimate proof

would go; for she would easily find a way to baffle discovery. But if

she be innocent, as I hope she is, it would be doing a cruel wrong to

accuse her. I have thought the matter over according to my lights

before I spoke to you; and if I have taken a liberty, sir, I am truly

sorry.”

 

“No liberty in the world, Daw,” I said warmly, for the man’s courage and

honesty and consideration compelled respect. “I am glad you have spoken

to me so frankly. We both want to find out the truth; and there is so

much about this case that is strange—so strange as to go beyond all

experiences—that to aim at truth is our only chance of making anything

clear in the long-run—no matter what our views are, or what object we

wish to achieve ultimately!” The Sergeant looked pleased as he went on:

 

“I thought, therefore, that if you had it once in your mind that

somebody else held to such a possibility, you would by degrees get

proof; or at any rate such ideas as would convince yourself, either for

or against it. Then we would come to some conclusion; or at any rate we

should so exhaust all other possibilities that the most likely one would

remain as the nearest thing to proof, or strong suspicion, that we could

get. After that we should have to—”

 

Just at this moment the door opened and Miss Trelawny entered the room.

The moment she saw us she drew back quickly, saying:

 

“Oh, I beg pardon! I did not know you were here, and engaged.” By the

time I had stood up, she was about to go back.

 

“Do come in,” I said; “Sergeant Daw and I were only talking matters

over.”

 

Whilst she was hesitating, Mrs. Grant appeared, saying as she entered

the room: “Doctor Winchester is come, miss, and is asking for you.”

 

I obeyed Miss Trelawny’s look; together we left the room.

 

When the Doctor had made his examination, he told us that there was

seemingly no change. He added that nevertheless he would like to stay

in the house that night is he might. Miss Trelawny looked glad, and

sent word to Mrs. Grant to get a room ready for him. Later in the day,

when he and I happened to be alone together, he said suddenly:

 

“I have arranged to stay here tonight because I want to have a talk

with you. And as I wish it to be quite private, I thought the least

suspicious way would be to have a cigar together late in the evening

when Miss Trelawny is watching her father.” We still kept to our

arrangement that either the sick man’s daughter or I should be on watch

all night. We were to share the duty at the early hours of the morning.

I was anxious about this, for I knew from our conversation that the

Detective would watch in secret himself, and would be particularly alert

about that time.

 

The day passed uneventfully. Miss Trelawny slept in the afternoon; and

after dinner went to relieve the Nurse. Mrs. Grant remained with her,

Sergeant Daw being on duty in the corridor. Doctor Winchester and I

took our coffee in the library. When we had lit our cigars he said

quietly:

 

“Now that we are alone I want to have a confidential talk. We are

‘tiled,’ of course; for the present at all events?”

 

“Quite so!” I said, my heart sinking as I thought of my conversation

with Sergeant Daw in the morning, and of the disturbing and harrowing

fears which it had left in my mind. He went on:

 

“This case is enough to try the sanity of all of us concerned in it.

The more I think of it, the madder I seem to get; and the two lines,

each continually strengthened, seem to pull harder in opposite

directions.”

 

“What two lines?” He looked at me keenly for a moment before replying.

Doctor Winchester’s look at such moments was apt to be disconcerting.

It would have been so to me had I had a personal part, other than my

interest in Miss Trelawny, in the matter. As it was, however, I stood

it unruffled. I was now an attorney in the case; an amicus curiae in

one sense, in another retained for the defence. The mere thought that

in this clever man’s mind were two lines, equally strong and opposite,

was in itself so consoling as to neutralise my anxiety as to a new

attack. As he began to speak, the Doctor’s face wore an inscrutable

smile; this, however, gave place to a stern gravity as he proceeded:

 

“Two lines: Fact and—Fancy! In the first there is this whole thing;

attacks, attempts at robbery and murder; stupefyings; organised

catalepsy which points to either criminal hypnotism and thought

suggestion, or some simple form of poisoning unclassified yet in our

toxicology. In the other there is some influence at work which is not

classified in any book that I know—outside the pages of romance. I

never felt in my life so strongly the truth of Hamlet’s words:

 

‘There are more things in Heaven and earth… Than are dreamt of in

your philosophy.’

 

“Let us take the ‘Fact’ side first. Here we have a man in his home;

amidst his own household; plenty of servants of different classes in the

house, which forbids the possibility of an organised attempt made from

the servants” hall. He is wealthy, learned, clever. From his

physiognomy there is no doubting that he is a man of iron will and

determined purpose. His daughter—his only child, I take it, a young

girl bright and clever—is sleeping in the very next room to his. There

is seemingly no possible reason for expecting any attack or disturbance

of any kind; and no reasonable opportunity for any outsider to effect

it. And yet we have an attack made; a brutal and remorseless attack,

made in the middle of the night. Discovery is made quickly; made with

that rapidity which in criminal cases generally is found to be not

accidental, but of premeditated intent. The attacker, or attackers, are

manifestly disturbed before the completion of their work, whatever their

ultimate intent may have been. And yet there is no possible sign of

their escape; no clue, no disturbance of anything; no open door or

window; no sound. Nothing whatever to show who had done the deed, or

even that a deed has been done; except the victim, and his surroundings

incidental to the deed!

 

“The next night a similar attempt is made, though the house is full of

wakeful people; and though there are on watch in the room and around it

a detective officer, a trained nurse, an earnest friend, and the man’s

own daughter. The nurse is thrown into a catalepsy, and the watching

friend—though protected by a respirator—into a deep sleep. Even the

detective is so far overcome with some phase of stupor that he fires off

his pistol in the sick-room, and can’t even tell what he thought he was

firing at. That respirator of yours is the only thing that seems to

have a bearing on the ‘fact’ side of the affair. That you did not lose

your head as the others did—the effect in such case being in proportion

to the amount of time each remained in the room—points to the

probability that the stupefying medium was not hypnotic, whatever else

it may have been. But again, there is a fact which is contradictory.

Miss Trelawny, who was in the room more than any of you—for she was in

and out all the time and did her share of permanent watching also—did

not seem to be affected at all. This would show that the influence,

whatever it is, does not affect generally—unless, of course, it was that

she was in some way inured to it. If it should turn out that it be some

strange exhalation from some of those Egyptian curios, that might

account for it; only, we are then face to face with the fact that Mr.

Trelawny, who was most of all in the room—who, in fact, lived more than

half his life in it—was affected worst of all. What kind of influence

could it be which would account for all these different and

contradictory effects? No! the more I think of this form of the

dilemma, the more I am bewildered! Why, even if it were that the

attack, the physical attack, on Mr. Trelawny had been made by some one

residing in the house and not within the sphere of suspicion, the

oddness of the stupefyings would still remain a mystery. It is not easy

to put anyone into a catalepsy. Indeed, so far as is known yet in

science, there is no way to achieve such an object at will. The crux of

the whole matter is Miss Trelawny, who seems to be subject to none of

the influences, or possibly of the variants of the same influence at

work. Through all she goes unscathed, except for that one slight

semi-faint. It is most strange!”

 

I listened with a sinking heart; for, though his manner was not

illuminative of distrust, his argument was disturbing. Although it was

not so direct as the suspicion of the Detective, it seemed to single out

Miss Trelawny as different from all others concerned; and in a mystery

to be alone is to be suspected, ultimately if not immediately. I

thought it better not to say anything. In such a case silence is indeed

golden; and if I said nothing now I might have less to defend, or

explain, or take back later. I was, therefore, secretly glad that his

form of putting his argument did not require any answer from me—for the

present, at all events. Doctor Winchester did not seem to expect any

answer—a fact which, when I recognised it, gave my pleasure, I hardly

knew why. He paused for a while, sitting with his chin in his hand, his

eyes staring at vacancy, whilst his brows were fixed. His cigar was

held limp between his fingers; he had apparently forgotten it. In an

even voice, as though commencing exactly where he had left off, he

resumed his argument:

 

“The other horn of the dilemma is a different affair altogether; and if

we once enter on it we must leave everything in the shape of science and

experience behind us. I confess that it has its