DYING LILIES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10858, 29 December 1906, Page 8 (Supplement)

DYING LILIES.

(By Owen Oliver.)

We were sitting m the mess room when Steel, of the Jt. A. M. C, came m from making the post mortem examination The air was hot, and the punkah seem ed blowing it hotter, but no one had called for a drink. The silence was hard to break.

The colonel did not look down fron. the ceiling, and the second m command did not look up from the floor, when Steel entered, and the adjutant and 1 did not say anything. "What did he die of!" the adjutant asked at length ; and the colonel look cd down quickly, and the second m com mand looked up. Warren, of the artillery, had been late for his wedding with ''Miss Craven that morning, and when they went to look for him they found him dead m his bungalow, staring hard at nothing, as if he saw death come. It was the second m command who went m first. They had always been friends. You could count Warren's friends on the fingers of one hand. "What did Warren die of?" Steel drew with his finger on the table, as if he were making a temperature chart. "That is what I want you fellows to tell me.' . Thejjolonel leaned forward. '"A doc-toE-"fTever knows, of course," he said, /'with some undercurrent of meaning that I could not follow; "but it's his business to pretend that he does.' His eyes and Steel's met. The. colonel has strong eyes, but Steel's are stronger. "If the doctor won't pretend," he retorted, "there's an inquest.' "Good heavens, man!" the second m command jerked out, "you're not going to have any foolery of that sort?" Steel drew another temperature chart —fever, with the line running up high and coming to a sudden stop. We knew it.

"You needn't call it an inquest unless you like," he offered ; "but I'm going to settle this by myself. Shall we do it here and now ? '

The colonel glanced at him under his thick eyebrows and nodded, and the second m command 1 nodded, and I nodded and the adjutant nodded. "But I don't know what's it all about," he protested. "Neither," I said, "do I." "I think," said Steel, "the colonel and the second could guess. Perhaps you'll put the case, colonel." "It's no use putting guesses," the colonel objected, "and I've no wish to put any case at all. You've asked for it. Go on.'

"Very well." Steel lit a cigarette, took a lew slow draws and threw it impatiently away. "I dqn't want to put the case either, but — it's this : Warren was to have married Miss Craven this morning. If she didn't mind, there was no reason why he should." Steel shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly, ana the second m command drew himself up rigidly. "He was my friend," he remarked, with the ring of combat m his voice. He knew that we didn't like Warren.

"I was merely disposing of the theory of suicide," Steel explained. "I know he was your friend and — I'm sorry. A quarter of an hour after he was due at the church, he is found dead, apparently of heart failure. He did die of heart failure. Most people do; but we only call it that when we can't find any reason why the heart failed. The symptoms allow me to put it down to that. They also allow me to pjut it to another cause — only one. That cause is the inhaling of a certain drug. It isn't known to European medical science, and I'm not going to make it known. They know it well enough m India — Warren came from India; so did Miss Craven."

"I object to that remark," I interposed. "Miss Craven is a friend of mine, and very nearly the nicest girl at the station ; and she was engaged to him. There's no need to drag her m." "That," said the colonel, "is the question, I take it?" He looked at Steel; and Steel nodded.

"The whole question,' 1 he said, shutting his mouth with a snap. "Surely " the second m command began, "is there any need to go on with this? H&— he was my friend; and he was engaged to her, and- Suppose she broke it off, or anything, and that upset him. He'd rather us leave things alone What's the good of going into it, Steel?" Steel set his lips and contracted his forehead once or twice, and tapped slowly with his fingers on the table. "If it were just a case of breaking it off — and she didn't care for him — I'd leave it alone, right enough. Look here ! I found "Warren's little dog curled up behind the curtains, stone dead, Heart failure, too. Funny little beast he was Remember how she used to howl when Warren fussed over her? There was just a faint scent about the room when I noticed carefully, like the odor of lilies when they're going off a bit. That's the way the stuff smells — afterwards. No one has ever told how it smells at the time."

The colonel lit a cheroot. • His gray hand shook a trifle. The second*shiftea his head again. The adjutant and 1 B tared at one another.

"You've nothing to connect her with" it," he said hotly. "I don't believe it." "No," said Steel slowly, "I've nothing to connect her with it, except that I don't think she wanted to marry him. Anyhow, she didu't care for him, and — very likely there isn't anything m it, but— l noticed a curious look on the colonel's face when he told her ; and a curious look on her face when she looked at him. Can you tell us, sir?" The colonel turned the cheroot round m his fingers and inspected it as if it were a doubtful recruit on parade.

"There may be nothing m it," he said; "and she's a woman, and entitled to the benefit of every <loubt that we can give her. I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm like Steel. I don't care to settle this by myself. I was, on the staff at Simla, as you know, a year ago, before I got the battalion. Warren was there then. So was she. So was a fellow named Mordaunt — Indian civil. Uncommonly nice chap. Young and good-look-ing; and best pig-sticker I ever met. She was engaged to him. Most awful spoons I ever saw. "Warren \fras sweet on her, too, but he hadn't a chance. He took it awfully well, and was very friendly with them ; but every one knew he was hard hit. The morning of the wedding Mordaunt died, like Warren. Heart failure, too. The sort of fellow you might have backed to live to a hundred. They found him sitting m his chair with her portrait just m front of him. Her,portrait ! She took it awfully hard, and nearly died. Begged every little thing out of his rootn to keep. 'They shall slop with mo all my life,' she told 1110 when I tspokc to her about it—aho wub jufit the ago of my daughter— and remind mo. May God forgive me if ever I forget !' She kept them m her room after she was engaged to Warren eveu ; and Steel is right. She didn't care for him. She'll never care for anybody but Mordaunt, God forgivo us if we misjudge her!" "I don't misjudge her," I stated hotly. "The idea is preposterous. Why should she kill a man because he was going to marry her?" The colonel relit the cheroot and looked hard at the second — so hard that our eyes had to follow his. The second shifted his head again ami gave a soft little groan. "I didn't look at it like that at the time," he said huskily, "when I — l went m. I thought perhaps she's given him up at the last moment, and— that — he wouldn't like it talked about, and she wouldn't. But 1 didn't care about her. It was— well, we'd always been'fiiends, he and I. Perhaps I understood him better than some of you ; and — anyhow, I put it m my pocket, and— It's cursed hot."

He pulled n stunt brown cardboard box out of his jacket pocket — a box of the size that might have held a locket, or a trinket or two; and atom wrapper of white paper that had gone round it. H* pierced the edges of the paper together on the table. His hands were too unsteady to lay them quite straight, and Steel smoothed the jagged edges out, and fitted the letters neatly together; and this was what the writing said m Miss Craven's pretty, pointed hand : "In memory of my wedding." — Sylvia Craven.

"Poor little woman !" said the adjutant. "Poor little woman!" His voice shook. He was youngor than tho rest of us.

Steel took the lid off the box gingerly, ■Kid fell it with his fni^rs. "If you will notice," In- said, as if he were delivering a lecture, "the edges of thr box have little frills of wadding to make it air tight. It would keep the vapor m till it was opened under any one's face, and then — heart failure ! Smell the dying lilies. There's nothing left to hurt now. Yoji needn't be afraid of it."

"Lilies?" I questioned, but my voice sounded doubtful, even to myself. "And suppose she did send him nome flowers?"

"She didn't send him flowers," said Steel. "She sent him— this !" He held up a miniature, with his fingers covering the face. "I don't know who it is, or why she sent it; but I think I could guess."

He removed his fingers suddenly, and the colonel put up his hands, as' if ho wanted to escape the sight. "She's mad," he said. "Mad ! We must hush it up somehow. It will do no good — no good!" I took the miniature from Steel and looked at it. It was the picture of a good-looking young fellow of about 25; a pleasant face, smiling as if he saw beautiful Sylvia Craven, and death and the scent of dying lilies were not m the world.

"It is Mordaunt," the colonel said. "She was very much m love with him, and — I suppose it preyed upon her ; and when the time came to many Warren she couldn't do it. Or else she sent it to show that she was breaking with the; past. Or else — o/ else — You smelt it, Steel, you said?" "I smelt it," Steel said quietly. "And there was the dog. He would go sniffing about his master to see what was the matter, and .... Funny little dog he was. I liked him .... And what's to be done?" There was a long silence, and no one moved except Steel, who fidgeted with the lid of the box, scraping gently with his slender white fingernail, and wetting the paper which had been pasted over it, where it wouldn't come off. "She's a murderess," said the second m command at last, "and he was my friend. By heaven, she shall hang for it !" He struck his big hand on the table.

"No !" cried the adjutant sharply. Look here ! Steel — colonel, tell him that — What's the good of hanging her? She — she's such a pitiful, soft little thing."

"She must have lost .her reason," I said. "I understand how you feel about it, Sinclair; but she'd never have done it if she'd been m her senses. And she's a woman, and Let it drop, old man."

"She's not too 'soft and pitiful' to kill a man." The second .raised his voice furiously. "Two men. I've no doubt Mordaunt was killed m the same way." "I've no doubt Mordaunt was killed m the same way," said Steel slowly ; "but I don't think it was Sylvia Craven who killed him."

He wetted the lid of the box again, and drew off another scrap of paper. "Look," he said, and we looked; and we saw this m Warren's writing on the cardboard that Steel had laid "bare: "From R. Warren

To Frank Mordaunt On his wedding morning."

"This," said Steel, "is one of the relics that she took from the dead lover's room ; and she understood ; and she waited; and she wasn't mad. And its murder — &nd bhe's rid the world of a cursed scoundrel !"

"Thank God he didn't belong to the regiment," said the colonel. The second swayed a little m his chair. "He — was — my — friend, he groaned ; and then he swayed a little more; and the colonel caught him by the arm. "Poor old chap!" he said gently. Steel dyew a temperature chart upon the table — an incomprehensible chart, with lines running wiggly-waggly, up and down. "I need not trouble you any more, gentlemen," he said m a professional voice. "I find myself able to certify to death from heart failure." He wrote the same certificate for Sylvia Craven; but when he. spoke to us he called it a broken heart, and he put a heap of white flowers on her grave. It was his solitary outbreak of sentiment, he apologised.