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VII
The next morning Mary was dead. A little before eight I was wakened
by disturbing noises: Andrea calling me, asking for help. I switched on
the lamp, rapidly leapt from bed, with a steady pressure deposited the
ten drops of arsenic onto a card and transferred them to my tongue,
wrapped myself in my purple dressing robe, opened the door. Andrea's
eyes were red; she seemed ready to throw herself into my eyes. I
resolutely kept my hands in my pockets.
 Soon I knew what had
transpired. While I followed her along the halls of the hotel, my cousin
told me that Emilia had just found her sister dead. I had to extract the
information from a weft of sobs and moans.
Then I
had a melancholic presentiment. I recalled the vacation I had promised
myself: my literary labors. I bid Petronius farewell and entered the
dwelling place of the tragedy.
My first impression was of a sweet
scene. The lamp lit Emilia's head against a row of books. She was
weeping silently, and it seemed to me that, in the beauty of her
countenance, she revealed a calm I had not noticed before. A heap of
manuscripts and publishers' galleys lay on the table. A sympathetic
impulse beat in my breast. The dead girl was in her bed and, at first
glance, seemed peacefully asleep. I considered her more carefully: she
displayed the signs of strychnine poisoning.
With a
voice in which hope itself seemed to weep, Emilia asked, "Couldn't it be
an epileptic fit?"
I wished I could answer in the affirmative. I
let my silence respond.
"A fainting spell?" Andrea inquired.
Atuel
entered the room. The others--from my cousin Esteban to the typist, even
Manning and Cornejo--were clustered at the door.
I
determined that the death had occurred within the past two hours. In
response to Andrea's question, I said, "She was poisoned."
Offended, Andrea replied, "I myself attend to the meals
served here. If it were food poisoning, we would all. . ."
"I did
not say she had ingested tainted food. She ingested poison."
Dr.
Cornejo came into the room, opened his arms and said impetuously, "But,
good doctor, what are you suggesting? How dare you, in front of Miss
Emilia. . ."
I adjusted my glasses and looked at Dr. Cornejo with
impassive disdain. His affected courtesy, simply a pretext to interpose
himself, was beginning to try my patience. Besides, with his theatrical
gestures, he was panting like a gymnast. The room was airless.
Drily
I replied. "The choice is clear: suicide or murder." My words produced a
profound impression. "But I am definitely not the doctor who will draw
up the death certificate. They will have to persuade someone else that
we are dealing with suicide."
I suspect I could have convinced
myself rather quickly. But my words were born of emotion: I enjoyed
irritating Cornejo. Besides, with that plural--"They will have to
convince"--I put everyone present under the suspicion of murder. That
too pleased me.
"I'm afraid Dr. Huberman is right," Atuel
agreed. I remembered his and Mary's shadows. Then he went on, "Here is
the bottle of drops she took every morning; the stopper is on the floor.
. . . If poison was hidden there, we find ourselves facing a crime."
It was the last stroke. Now we could not avoid involving
the police. I thought that, in the future, I ought to control my
impulses.
Dr. Cornejo declared, "Don't forget that we are among
gentlemen. I refuse to accept these conclusions."
An
elemental, shameless cry interrupted my meditation. Then I heard
headlong steps drawing away.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Miguel."
I felt that the boy's intemperate
reaction was a reproach to all of us for having descended into petty
grievances and wretchedness in the presence of the definitive miracle
which is death.
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