Much Darker Days | Page 7

derive from the society of an insane Philippa?
Supposing, on the other hand, she was sane, then was I not an
'accessory after the fact,' and liable to all the pains and penalties of such
a crime?
Here the final question arose and shook its ghostly finger at me: 'Can a
sane man be an accessory after the fact in a murder committed by an
insane woman?'
So far as I know, there is no monograph on this subject, or certainly I
would have consulted it for the purpose of this Christmas Annual.
All these questions swept like lightning through my brain, as I knelt by
Philippa's bedside, and awaited her first word.
'Bon jour, Philippine,' I said.
'Basil,' she replied, 'where am I?'
'Under my roof--your brother's roof,' I said.

'Brother! oh, stow that bosh!' she said, turning languidly away.
There could not be a doubt of it, Philippa was herself again!
I rose pensively, and wandered out towards the stables.
Covered with white snow over a white macintosh, I met by the
coach-house door William, the Sphynx.
The White Groom!
Twiddling a small object, a door-key of peculiar make, in his hand, he
grinned stolidly at me.
'She's a rum un, squire, your sister, she be,' chuckled the Sphynx.
'William,' I said, 'go to Roding, and bring back two nurses, even if they
have to hire twenty drags to draw them here. And, William, bring some
drugs in the drags.'
By setting him on this expedition I got rid of the Sphynx. Was he a
witness? He was certainly acquainted with the nature of an oath!
CHAPTER VI.
--Hard As Nails.
OF course when I woke next morning my first thought was of Philippa;
my second was of the weather. Always interesting, meteorological
observation becomes peculiarly absorbing when it entirely depends on
the thermometer whether you shall, or shall not, be arrested as an
accessory after the fact, or (as lawyers say) post-mortem. My heart sank
into my boots, or rather (for I had not yet dressed) into my slippers,
when I found that, for the first time during sixteen days, the snow had
ceased falling. I threw up the sash, the cold air cut me like a knife.
Mechanically I threw up the sponge; it struck hard against the ceiling,
and fell back a mass of brittle, jingling icicles, so severe was the iron
frost that had bound it.

I gathered up a handful of snow from the window-sill. It crumbled in
my fingers like patent camphorated tooth-powder, for which purpose I
instantly proceeded to use it. Necessity is the mother of invention. Then
I turned, as a final test, to my bath. Oh, joy! it was frozen ten inches
thick! No tub for me today! I ran downstairs gleefully, and glanced at
the thermometer outside my study window. Hooray, it registered
twenty degrees below zero! It registered! That reminded me of my oath!
I registered it once more, regardless of legal expenses.
My spirits rose as rapidly as the glass had fallen. The wind was due
east, not generally a matter for indecent exultation.
But while the wind was due east, so long the frost would last, and that
white mass on the roadside would remain in statu quo.
So long, Philippa was safe.
After that her fate, and mine too, depended on the eccentricities of a
jury, the chartered libertinism of an ermined judge, the humour of the
law, on a series of points without precedent concerning which no
monograph had as yet been written; and, as a last desperate resource,
on the letters of a sympathetic British public in the penny papers. The
penny papers, the criminal's latest broadsheet anchor! Under the
exasperating circumstances, Philippa remained as well as could be
expected. She spoke little, but ate and drank a good deal. Day after day
the brave black frost lasted, and the snowy grave hid all that it would
have been highly inconvenient for me to have discovered. The heavens
themselves seemed to be shielding us and working for us. Do the
heavens generally shield accessories after the fact, and ladies who have
shortened the careers of their lords? These questions I leave to the
casuist, the meteorologist, the compilers of weather forecasts, and other
constituted authorities on matters connected with theology and the state
of the barometer.
I have not given the year in which these unobtrusive events occurred.
Many who can remember that mighty fall of snow, exceeding aught in
the recollection of the oldest inhabitant, and the time during which the

frost kept it on the earth, will be able and willing to fix the date.
I do not object to their thus occupying their leisure with chronological
research.
If they feel at all baffled by the difficulties of the problem, I will give