The Best Crime Stories Ever Told by Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.)

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.) [Sayers, Dorothy L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781620870495
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE PRAYER

VIOLET HUNT

I

“It is but giving over of a game.

That must be lost.”—PHILASTERanhour—

“Come, Mrs. Arne—come, my dear, you must not give way like this! You can’t stand it—you really can’t! Let Miss Kate take you away—now do!” urged the nurse, with her most motherly of intonations.

“Yes, Alice, Mrs. Joyce is right. Come away—do come away—you are only making yourself ill. It is all over; you can do nothing! Oh, oh, do come away!” implored Mrs. Arne’s sister, shivering with excitement and nervousness.

A few moments ago Dr. Graham had relinquished his hold on the pulse of Edward Arne with the hopeless movement of the eyebrows that meant—the end.

The nurse had made the little gesture of resignation that was possibly a matter of form with her. The young sister-in-law had hidden her face in her hands. The wife had screamed a scream that had turned them all hot and cold—and flung herself on the bed over her dead husband. There she lay; her cries were terrible, her sobs shook her whole body.

The three gazed at her pityingly, not knowing what to do next. The nurse, folding her hands, looked towards the doctor for directions, and the doctor drummed with his fingers on the bed-post. The young girl timidly stroked the shoulder that heaved and writhed under her touch.

“Go away! Go away!” her sister reiterated continually, in a voice hoarse with fatigue and passion.

“Leave her alone, Miss Kate,” whispered the nurse at last; “she will work it off best herself, perhaps.”

She turned down the lamp as if to draw a veil over the scene. Mrs. Arne raised herself on her elbow, showing a face stained with tears and purple with emotion.

“What! Not gone?” she said harshly. “Go away, Kate, go away! It is my house. I don’t want you, I want no one—I want to speak to my husband. Will you go away—all of you. Give me an hour, half-anhour—five minutes!”

She stretched out her arms imploringly to the doctor.

“Well . . .” said he, almost to himself.

He signed to the two women to withdraw, and followed them out into the passage. “Go and get something to eat,” he said peremptorily, “while you can. We shall have trouble with her presently. I’ll wait in the dressing-room.”

He glanced at the twisting figure on the bed, shrugged his shoulders, and passed into the adjoining room, without, however, closing the door of communication. Sitting down in an arm-chair drawn up to the fire, he stretched himself and closed his eyes. The professional aspects of the case of Edward Arne rose up before him in all its interesting forms of complication . . .

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