A terrible suspicion glanced across my mind. 'Where is Mr Renshawe?' I asked. Nobody knew. He had not been seen since five o'clockabout the time, I soon ascertained, that the child was missed. I had the house cleared, as quickly as possible, of the numerous gossips that crowded it, and then sought a conference with Dr Garland, who was with Mrs Irwin. The distracted mother had, I found, been profusely bled and cupped, and it was hoped that brain-fever, which had been apprehended, would not ensue. The physician's suspicions pointed the same way as mine; but he declined committing himself to any advice, and I was left to act according to my own discretion. I was new to such matters at that timeunfortunately so, as it proved, or the affair might have had a less painful issue.
Tomlins and I remained up, waiting for the return of Mr Renshawe; and as the long, slow hours limped past, the night-silence only broken by the dull moaning, and occasional spasmodic screams of poor Mrs Irwin, I grew very much excited. The prolonged absence of Mr Renshawe confirmed my impressions of his guilt, and I determined to tax him with it, and take him into custody the instant he appeared. It was two in the morning before he did so; and the nervous fumbling, for full ten minutes, with his latch-key, before he could open the door, quite prepared me for the spectral-like aspect he presented on entering. He had met somebody, it afterwards appeared, outside, who had assured him that the mother of the drowned child was either dead or dying. He never drank, I knew, but he staggered as if intoxicated; and after he had with difficulty reached the head of the stairs, in reply to my question as to where he had been, he could only stutter with white trembling lips: 'Ititcannot bebe truethat Lauthat Mrs Irwin isdying?'
'Quite true, Mr Renshawe,' I very imprudently replied, and in much too loud a tone, for we were but a few paces from Mrs Irwin's bedroom door. 'And if, as I suspect, the child has been drowned by you, you will have before long two murders on your head.'
A choking, bubbling noise came from the wretched man's throat, and his shaking fingers vainly strove to loosen his neck-tie. At the same moment, I heard a noise, as of struggling, in the bedroom, and the nurse's voice in eager remonstrance. I instantly made a movement towards Mr Renshawe, with a view to loosen his cravathis features being frightfully convulsed, and to get him out of the way as quickly as possible, for I guessed what was about to happenwhen he, mistaking my intention, started back, turned half round, and found himself confronted by Mrs Irwin, her pale features and white night-dress dabbled with blood, in consequence of a partial disturbance of the bandages in struggling with the nursea terrifying, ghastly sight even to me; to him utterly overwhelming, and scarcely needing her frenzied execrations on the murderer of her child to deprive him utterly of all remaining sense and strength. He suddenly reeled, threw his arms wildly into the air, and before I could stretch forth my hand to save him, fell heavily backwards from the edge of the steep stairs, where he was standing, to the bottom. Tomlins and I hastened to his assistance, lifted him up, and as we did so, a jet of blood gushed from his mouth; he had likewise received a terrible wound near the right temple, from which the life-stream issued copiously.
We got him to bed: Dr Garland and a neighbouring surgeon were soon with us, and prompt remedies were applied. It was a fruitless labour. Day had scarcely dawned before he heard from the physician's lips that life with him was swiftly ebbing to its close. He was perfectly conscious
and collected. Happily there was no stain of murder on his soul: he had merely enticed the child away, and placed him, under an ingenious pretence, with an acquaintance at Camden-Town; and by this time both he and his mother were standing, awe-struck and weeping, by Henry Renshawe's deathbed. He had thrown the child's hat into the river, and his motive in thus acting appeared to have been a double one. In the first place, because he thought the boy's likeness to his father was the chief obstacle to Mrs Irwin's toleration of his addresses; and next, to bribe her into compliance by a promise to restore her son. But he could not be deemed accountable for his actions. 'I think,' he murmured brokenly, 'that the delusion was partly self-cherished, or of the Evil One. I observed the likeness long before, but it was not till thethe husband was dying, that the idea fastened itself upon my aching brain, and grew there. But the world is passing: forgive meEllenLaura'He was dead!
The inquest on the cause of death returned, of course, that it was 'accidental;' but I long regretted that I had not been less precipitate, though perhaps all was for the bestfor the sufferer as well as others. Mr Oxley had died some five weeks previously. This I found from Renshawe's will, where it was recited as a reason that, having no relative alive for whom he cared, his property was bequeathed to Guy's Hospital, charged with L.100 a year to Ellen Irwin, as long as she lived unmarried. The document was perfectly coherent; and although written during the height of his monomania, contained not a word respecting the identity of the youthful widow and the Laura whose sad fate had first unsettled the testator's reason.