Chance

* * * * *

"This is what our Mr. Powell had to tell me," said Marlow, changing his

tone. I was glad to learn that Flora de Barral had been saved from

that sinister shadow at least falling upon her path.

We sat silent then, my mind running on the end of de Barral, on the

irresistible pressure of imaginary griefs, crushing conscience, scruples,

prudence, under their ever-expanding volume; on the sombre and venomous

irony in the obsession which had mastered that old man.

"Well," I said.

"The steward found him," Mr. Powell roused himself. "He went in there

with a cup of tea at five and of course dropped it. I was on watch

again. He reeled up to me on deck pale as death. I had been expecting

it; and yet I could hardly speak. "Go and tell the captain quietly," I

managed to say. He ran off muttering "My God! My God!" and I'm hanged

if he didn't get hysterical while trying to tell the captain, and start

screaming in the saloon, "Fully dressed! Dead! Fully dressed!" Mrs.

Anthony ran out of course but she didn't get hysterical. Franklin, who

was there too, told me that she hid her face on the captain's breast and

then he went out and left them there. It was days before Mrs. Anthony

was seen on deck. The first time I spoke to her she gave me her hand and

said, "My poor father was quite fond of you, Mr. Powell." She started

wiping her eyes and I fled to the other side of the deck. One would like

to forget all this had ever come near her."

But clearly he could not, because after lighting his pipe he began musing

aloud: "Very strong stuff it must have been. I wonder where he got it.

It could hardly be at a common chemist. Well, he had it from somewhere--a

mere pinch it must have been, no more."

"I have my theory," observed Marlow, "which to a certain extent does away

with the added horror of a coldly premeditated crime. Chance had stepped

in there too. It was not Mr. Smith who obtained the poison. It was the

Great de Barral. And it was not meant for the obscure, magnanimous

conqueror of Flora de Barral; it was meant for the notorious financier

whose enterprises had nothing to do with magnanimity. He had his

physician in his days of greatness. I even seem to remember that the man

was called at the trial on some small point or other. I can imagine that

de Barral went to him when he saw, as he could hardly help seeing, the

possibility of a "triumph of envious rivals"--a heavy sentence.