The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin Read Online Free PDF Page B

you?”
    â€œNo. But I trust the word of Higgins, and of his wife.”
    â€œSo I understand.”
    â€œYou understand?”
    â€œI have been on these researches for some time now, as you see. My belief is that Higgins is alive. I come for your help, Shaw. I am here to help Goody Higgins. That is my charge from Mr. Cole. I wonder if we might not do better, even for her sake, to quit this play of wit and be direct.”
    â€œI know nothing of Higgins’ disappearance. You think I would not have told his wife if I did?”
    â€œMight you at the least tell me of these torments as you understand them, Shaw?”
    â€œThey belong to Goody Higgins. I’ll not tamper with them.”
    â€œI seek only to learn more about the nature of your laying their source to Coffin. A woman is murdered. The man most recently associated with her, and then his wife, experience ill fate and visions. Does that lead us to the victim’s husband? Does that demonstrate his necromancy? It is a possibility, of course. But might not murder, suit, investigations all distract minds? Might not nature kill and blast?”
    Shaw’s body seemed to rise up out of his fatigue. “Here is a dream, then,” he said. “Tell me it comes from nature, or God. It is Higgins’, not his wife’s. Those she can tell you herself.”
    Shaw leaned back on his bench against the wall. He looked directly at Browne. “In his sleep Higgins dreams he is planting an orchard. He takes care in the cultivation of seven trees that they might bear autumn fruit. Still, one tree dies, and it is not clear why. This tree bleeds a little, real heart’s blood. The other trees flourish.
    â€œAnother night the dream returns, yet only after one of the children, little Mehitabel, is taken away by violent illness. This time Higgins returns to the dream orchard and another of the six remaining trees dies off. It is exactly as before—sudden, the bleeding, without clear cause.”
    â€œThen a second child?” Browne interrupted.
    Shaw ignored his question. “Higgins wakes up crying. He tells his wife. They are confused. Helpless and filled with sorrow. They examine the children. Each of the six seems well in his sleep. But each night Higgins cannot sleep. He fears the dream, another dead child. He sleeps briefly each night and wakes up sweating, exhausted. Just when he and his wife begin to believe death will not follow, the second child falls ill, Anne, his youngest daughter, and dies of the same fever and bloody flux within a week.
    â€œIt was then that Higgins fled. It was as if he were killing his own children by his dreams. He wasn’t going to wait for another dream, and death.”
    â€œThese two alone died, finally?” Browne asked, although he knew the answer.
    â€œTwo of their seven. That he fled seems to have worked it. He felt as if some poison were in him. Might not his far and sudden removal put a stop to this power from wherever it came? What other way lies before a desperate and helpless father?”
    â€œHis dreams have stopped?” Browne asked.
    â€œI know not where he is, alive or dead.”
    â€œCome, Shaw. If you can’t tell me where, at least tell me whether the dreams have stopped. The children are alive now. We may need to watch and protect them. Surely he would wish us to!”
    â€œThey have stopped,” Shaw said. He looked down at the table board.
    â€œAh,” Browne answered. He remained silent. After some moments he asked: “He has not returned?”
    â€œHe
can
not!”
    â€œCan we help him?”
    â€œHe has decided to help himself.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œThat I am pledged by my life not to say. And will not. I have broken my promise. Tell
no one
he is alive. The lives of his wife and children depend on our silence. Speak nothing of this to a soul.”
    Shaw looked up grimly. His face told what agony he was in to regain his