“About a month later- on January 26th, to be exact, I was sitting at home reading a book, preparatory to retiring to bed. I should say that I occupy a flat, or rather maisonette, in a small house which has been divided to make two establishments. The people on the ground floor were away at that time, so that I was quite alone in the house. My housekeeper only comes in by the day. The telephone rang- I noticed the time. It was a quarter to eleven. I answered it, and a woman’s voice spoke, begging me to come instantly to a certain house on Hampstead Heath, to make a will for someone who was at the point of death.
“Did you recognise the voice?”
“No. It sounded like a servant’s voice. At any rate, it had a strong cockney accent. I asked whether to-morrow would not be time enough, but the voice urged me to hurry or it might be too late. Rather annoyed, I put my things on and went out. It was a most unpleasant night, cold and foggy. I was lucky enough to find a taxi on the nearest rank. We drove to the address, which we had great difficulty in finding, as everything was pitch-black. It turned out to be a small house in a very isolated position on the Heath- in fact, there was no proper approach to it. I left the taxi on the road, about a couple of hundred yards off, and asked the man to wait for me, as I was very doubtful of ever finding another taxi in that spot at that time of night. He grumbled a good deal, but consented to wait if I promised not to be very long.
“I made my way to the house. At first I thought it was quite dark, but presently I saw a faint glimmer in a ground-floor room. I rang the bell. No answer, though I could hear it trilling loudly. I rang again and knocked. Still no answer. It was bitterly cold. I struck a match to be sure I had come to the right house, and then I noticed that the front door was ajar.
“I thought that perhaps the servant who had called me was so much occupied with her sick mistress as to be unable to leave her to come to the door. Thinking that in that case I might be of assistance to her, I pushed the door open and went in. The hall was perfectly dark, and I bumped against an umbrella-stand in entering. I thought I heard a faint voice calling or moaning, and when my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, I stumbled forward and saw a dim light coming from a door on the left.”
“Was that the room which you had seen to be illumined from outside?”
“I think so. I called out, ‘May I come in?’ and a very low, weak voice replied, ‘Yes, please.’ I pushed the door open and entered a room furnished as a sitting room. In one corner there was a couch, on which some bed-clothes appeared to have been hurriedly thrown to enable it to be used as a bed. On the couch lay a woman, all alone.
“I could only dimly make her out. There was no light in the room except a small oil-lamp, with a green shade so tilted as to keep the light from the sick woman’s eyes. There was a fire in the grate, but it had burnt low. I could see, however, that the woman’s head and face were swarthed in white bandages. I put out my hand and felt for the electric switch, but she called out:
“ ‘No light, please- it hurts me.’”
“How did she see you put your hand to the switch?”
“Well,” said Mr. Trigg, “that was an odd thing. She didn’t speak, as a matter of fact, till I had actually clicked the switch down. But nothing happened. The light didn’t come on.”
“Really?”
“No. I supposed that the bulb had been taken away or had gone phut. However, I said nothing, and came up to the bed. She said in a sort of half-whisper, ‘Is that the lawyer?’
“I said. ‘Yes,’ and asked what I could do for her.
“She said, ‘I have had a terrible accident. I can’t live. I want to make my will quickly.’ I asked whether there was nobody with her. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said in a hurried way, ‘my servant will be back in a moment. She has gone to look for a doctor.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘couldn’t she have rung up? You are not fit to be left alone.’ ‘We couldn’t get through to one,’ she replied, ‘It’s all right. She will be here soon. Don’t waste time. I must make my will.’ She spoke in a dreadful, gasping way, and I felt that the best thing would be to do what she wanted, for fear of agitating her. I drew a chair to the table where the lamp was, got out my fountain pen and a printed will-form with which I had provided myself, and expressed myself ready to receive her instructions.
“Before beginning, she asked me to give her a little brandy and water from a dcanter which stood on the table. I did so, and she took a small sip, which seemed to revive her. I placed the glass near her hand, and at her suggestion mixed another glass for myself. I was very glad of it, for, as I said, it was a beast of a night, and the room was cold. I looked round for some extra coals to put on the fire, but could see none.”
“That,” said Parker, ”is extremely interesting and suggestive.”
“I thought it queer at the time. But the whole thing was queer. Anyway, I then said I was ready to begin. She said ‘you may think I am a little mad, because my head has been so hurt. But I am quite sane. But he shan’t have a penny of the money.’ I asked her if someone had attacked her. She replied, ‘My husband. He thinks he has killed me. But I am going to live long enough to will the money away.’ She then said that her name was Mrs. Marion Mead, and proceeded to make a will, leaving her estate, which amounted to about £10,000, among various legatees, including a daughter and three or four sisters. It was rather a complicated will, as it included various devices for tying up the daughter’s money in a trust, so as to prevent her from ever handing over any of it to the father.”
“Did you make a note of the names and addresses of the people involved?”
“I did, but, as you will see later on, I could make no use of them. The testatrix was certainly clear-headed enough about the provisions of the will, though she seemed terribly weak, and her voice never rose above a whisper after that one time when she had called to me not to turn on the light.
“At length I finished my notes of the will, and started to draft it out on to the proper form. There were no signs of the servant’s return, and I began to be really anxious. Also the extreme cold- or something else- added to the fact that it was now long past my bed-time, was making me appallingly sleepy. I poured out another stiff little dose of the brandy to warm me up, and went on writing out the will.
When I had finished I said:
“‘How about signing this? We need another witness to make it legal.’
“She said, ‘My servant must be here in a minute or two. I can’t think what has happened to her.’
“‘I expect she has missed her way in the fog,’ I said. ‘However, I will wait a little longer. I can’t go and leave you like this.’
“She thanked me feebly, and we sat for some time in silence. As time went on, I began to feel the situation to be increasingly uncanny. The sick woman breathed heavily, and moaned from time to time. The desire for sleep overpowered me more and more. I couldn’t understand it.
“Presently it occurred to me, stupified though I felt, that the most sensible thing would be to get the taxi-man- if he was still there- to come in and witness the will with me, and then to go myself to find a doctor. I sat, sleepily revolving this in my mind, and trying to summon energy to speak. I felt as though a great weight of inertia was pressing down upon me. Exertion of any kind seemed almost beyond my powers.”
“Suddenly something happened which brought me back to myself. Mrs. Mead turned a little over upon the couch and peered at me intently, as it seemed, in the lamplight. To support herself, she put both her hands on the edge of the table. I noticed, with a vague sense of something unexpected, that the left hand bore no wedding-ring. And then I noticed something else.
“Across the back of the fingers of the right hand went a curious scar-as though a chisel or some such thing had slipped and cut them.”