Disappeared From Her Home: A NovelPirkis, Catherine Louisa
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Disappeared From Her Home: A Novel
Pirkis, Catherine Louisa
Detective and mystery stories; Missing persons -- Fiction
At length, after what seemed to Frank an hour’s waiting, but which in
reality was but half the time, footsteps stopped outside in the silent
street. In a few moments two figures entered the room and a brisk sharp
voice exclaimed, “A light, Miss Kempe, and quickly; do you suppose I
can attend a patient in the dark?” Then Miss Kempe groped in the depths
of a corner cupboard, and presently produced a small end of a small
candle ensconced in a large flat candlestick; this Frank quickly
lighted with one of his cigar matches, and exchanging greetings with
the doctor, turned with him towards the bed.
The doctor held the candle low, throwing the light on the girl’s face,
then he shook his head. “Are you afraid of infection?” he said, turning
to Frank, “if so you had better go home at once.”
“Afraid!” repeated Varley, “No, I am not afraid of anything under
heaven when I have an object in view. But what is it? What is she
suffering from?”
“Suppressed small-pox. A very bad case; something on her mind, too, I
should say,” this with a keen glance at Frank, “Twenty-four hours will
see the end of it.” Then he turned to Miss Kempe and proceeded to give
her some necessary directions.
And twenty-four hours did see the end of it. About an hour before
midnight, Frank was joined in his watch by Detective Hill, who at once
offered to take sole charge of the case. “No,” said Frank decisively,
“as long as there is the shadow of a chance of the shadow of a clue
being given I shall remain. Your ears are sharpened by your practice
and profession, but mine, Mr. Hill, by something with which your
profession has nothing to do.”
“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, as the grey dawn began to struggle
through the narrow panes, and light up the poorly furnished room. “It
is perfectly useless for either of you to remain. The delirium has
ceased, and the girl has fallen into a state of stupor from which she
will never waken. She will never speak again.”
Still they stayed on. The Detective, as the day wore away, went in and
out for his meals or a breath of fresh air, for the small room had
become stifling. But Frank never stirred. “She may die at any moment,”
he thought, “and it’s just possible that at the very last her energies
may re-kindle, and she may make some sign that will need
interpretation.”
So he waited and waited. The doctor came in and out, attending
neighbouring patients and returning at intervals. The old clock went
tick, tick, in the corner, and Miss Kempe, on her knees at the bedside,
prayed audibly for the poor dying one. “Will you not join me, sir,” she
had said to Frank, “in wrestling for this poor sinner’s soul?”
“I won’t say I won’t join you, Miss Kempe,” Frank had replied, “but you
must let me stay here by the window.”
And thus towards evening the girl passed away in her sleep; she made no
sign, she did not even lift her hand, and Frank, with a sigh and a
pitiful look at the once bright-faced Lucy Williams, thankfully made
his escape into the fresh air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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