London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
Dr. Samson sat late with Lilian in her bedroom the next night. It was
the middle of the night. He was taller than Felix, and not so old; his
face was more flat and milder, but there was something in his expression
and about the wrinkles round his eyes that reminded her of Felix, and he
had attached himself to her to serve her; his mournful gaze appealed to
her. It was he who had made her understand that death in a hotel
devoted to gaiety was an indiscretion, a lapse from good taste that must
be carefully hidden. He stood faithfully between her and the world, the
captive of her beauty, wanting no reward but the satisfaction of having
helped her.
Not that much help was needed. The routine of such episodes was
apparently fixed. Things moved of themselves. All requirements seemed
to be met automatically. There was even an English cemetery in the
region. Early on the morning after the death a young woman in black had
called to present the card of a great Paris shop with a branch in the
town, and by the evening Lilian was dressed in black. The layer-out had
arrived earlier yet than the dressmaker. Dr. Samson had interviewed the
manager of the hotel. An important part of the routine was that the
whole of the furniture of Felix’s room should be removed, and the room
refurnished at the cost of the representative of the dead. Dr. Samson
settled the price. Lilian decided to give the old furniture to the
Alexandra Hospital. The doctor had volunteered to finance Lilian till
she should be back in London; but afterwards the equivalent of nearly
four hundred pounds in French and English money was discovered in
Felix’s dispatch-case, the inside of which Lilian had never seen. The
doctor had also sent off the telegram to the mute Miss Grig: "Felix died
in the night; am returning London immediately," and got the railway
ticket, and accomplished the legal formalities preliminary to the
burial, and warned the English chaplain, and ordered a gravestone in a
suitable design and taken Lilian’s wishes as to the inscription thereon.
Nothing remained to be done but wait. Lilian was quietly packing; the
doctor sat watchful to assist. They both heard a noise in the next room;
and at the noise Lilian was at last startled from her calm. The moment,
then, had come. Dr. Samson went first. The room, which ought to have
been in darkness, was lighted, and not by electricity but by two
candles, one on either side of the bed.
"Who has done this?" Lilian murmured, and gave a sob.
The door into the corridor was locked; to keep it locked had been part
of the unalterable routine. Therefore the candles could only have been
brought by somebody on the staff of the hotel. The next instant
Jacqueline entered, through the bathroom. She was weeping.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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