There he is still, eagerly pointing, and no one minds him.
But a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the rooms.
And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not expressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up at his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that person shrieks and flies.
The others, looking in as the first one looked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street.
What does it mean?
No light is admitted into the darkened chamber, and people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily, carry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down.
There is whispering and wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing of steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of furniture.
All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur,
"If he could only tell what he saw!"
He is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a glass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after being lighted.
He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon the ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand.
These objects lie directly within his range.
An excited imagination might suppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the rest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but the clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and soul of Allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad.
It happens surely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at these things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all eyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness.
So it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly stories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be covered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the ceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him, with far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's time, and with a deadly meaning.
For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over for evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted against his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to morning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart.
CHAPTER XLIX
Dutiful Friendship
A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr. Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present bassoon-player.
An occasion of feasting and festival.
The celebration of a birthday in the family.
It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday.
Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is thinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this life twenty years.
Some men rarely revert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their remembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name.
Mr. Bagnet is one of these.
Perhaps his exalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually to make the noun-substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender.
It is not the birthday of one of the three children.
Those occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding.
On young Woolwich's last birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two,
"What is your name?" and
"Who gave you that name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number three the question
"And how do you like that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox air.
This, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity.
It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar.
The auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since.
Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe.
Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner.
Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and rejoicing.
He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself and the young people.
As he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness.
On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual preliminaries.
He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff, to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of ceremony, an honoured guest.
Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving, as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving.
To these young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes.
"At half after one." Says Mr. Bagnet.
"To the minute.
They'll be done."
Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before the fire and beginning to burn.
"You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet.
"Fit for a queen."