CHAPTER XX.
MY NEW PATIENT.
In the feverish restlessness of the London night, with its rumblingmarket-wagons and the constant tinkling of cab-bells, so different tothe calm, moonlit stillness of the previous night in rural England, Iwrote a long explanatory letter to my love.
I admitted that I had wronged her by my apparent coldness andindifference, but sought to excuse myself on the ground of thepressure of work upon me. She knew well that I was not a rich man, andin that slavery to which I was now tied I had an object--the object Ihad placed before her in the dawning days of our affection--namely,the snug country practice with an old-fashioned comfortable house inone of the quiet villages or smaller towns in the Midlands. In thosedays she had been just as enthusiastic about it as I had been. Shehated town life, I knew; and even if the wife of a country doctor isallowed few diversions, she can always form a select littletea-and-tennis circle of friends.
The fashion nowadays is for girls of middle-class to regard theprospect of becoming a country doctor's wife with considerablehesitation--"too slow," they term it; and declare that to live in thecountry and drive in a governess-cart is synonymous with being buried.Many girls marry just as servants change their places--in order "tobetter themselves;" and alas! that parents encourage this latter-daycraze for artificiality and glitter of town life that so oftenfascinates and spoils a bride ere the honeymoon is over. The majorityof girls to-day are not content to marry the hard-working professionalman whose lot is cast in the country, but prefer to marry a man intown, so that they may take part in the pleasures of theatres, varietyand otherwise, suppers at restaurants, and the thousand and oneattractions provided for the reveller in London. They have obtainedtheir knowledge of "life" from the society papers, and they see noreason why they should not taste of those pleasures enjoyed by theirwealthier sisters, whose goings and comings are so carefullychronicled. The majority of girls have a desire to shine beyond theirown sphere; and the attempt, alas! is accountable for very many of theunhappy marriages. This may sound prosy, I know, but the reader willforgive when he reflects upon the cases in point which arise to hismemory--cases of personal friends, perhaps even of relations, to whommarriage was a failure owing to this uncontrollable desire on the partof the woman to assume a position to which neither birth nor wealthentitled her.
To the general rule, however, my love was an exception. Times withoutnumber had she declared her anxiety to settle in the country; for,being country born and bred, she was an excellent horsewoman, and inevery essential a thorough English girl of the Grass Country, fond ofa run with either fox or otter hounds; therefore, in suburban life atKew, she had been entirely out of her element.
In that letter I wrote, composing it slowly and carefully--for likemost medical men I am a bad hand at literary composition--I sought herforgiveness, and asked for an immediate interview. The wisdom of beingso precipitous never occurred to me. I only know that in those nighthours over my pipe I resolved to forget once and for all that letter Ihad discovered among the "dead" man's effects, and determined that,while I sought reconciliation with Ethelwynn, I would keep an open andwatchful eye upon Mary and her fellow conspirator.
The suggestion that Ethelwynn, believing herself forsaken, hadaccepted the declarations of a man she considered more worthy thanmyself, lashed me to a frenzy of madness. He should never have her,whoever he might be. She had been mine, and should remain so, comewhat might. I added a postscript, asking her to wire me permission totravel down to Hereford to see her; then, sealing up the letter, Iwent out along the Marylebone Road and posted it in the pillar-box,which I knew was cleared at five o'clock in the morning.
It was then about three o'clock, calm, but rather overcast. TheMarylebone Road had at last become hushed in silence. Wagons and cabshad both ceased, and save for a solitary policeman here and there thelong thoroughfare, so full of traffic by day, was utterly deserted. Iretraced my steps slowly towards the corner of Harley Street, and wasabout to open the door of the house wherein I had "diggings" when Iheard a light, hurried footstep behind me, and turning, confronted thefigure of a slim woman of middle height wearing a golf cape, the hoodof which had been thrown over her head in lieu of a hat.
"Excuse me, sir," she cried, in a breathless voice, "but are youDoctor Boyd?"
I replied that such was my name.
"Oh, I'm in such distress," she said, in the tone of one whose heartis full of anguish. "My poor father!"
"Is your father ill?" I inquired, turning from the door and lookingfull at her. I was standing on the step, and she was on the pavement,having evidently approached from the opposite direction. She stoodwith her back to the street lamp, so I could discern nothing of herfeatures. Only her voice told me that she was young.
"Oh, he's very ill," she replied anxiously. "He was taken queer ateleven o'clock, but he wouldn't hear of me coming to you. He's one ofthose men who don't like doctors."
"Ah!" I remarked; "there are many of his sort about. But they arecompelled to seek our aid now and then. Well, what can I do for you? Isuppose you want me to see him--eh?"
"Yes, sir, if you'd be so kind. I know its awfully late; but, asyou've been out, perhaps you wouldn't mind running round to our house.It's quite close, and I'll take you there." She spoke with thepeculiar drawl and dropped her "h's" in the manner of the trueLondon-bred girl.
"I'll come if you'll wait a minute," I said, and then, leaving heroutside, I entered the house and obtained my thermometer andstethoscope.
When I rejoined her and closed the door I made some inquiries aboutthe sufferer's symptoms, but the description she gave me was soutterly vague and contradictory that I could make nothing out of it.Her muddled idea of his illness I put down to her fear and anxiety forhis welfare.
She had no mother, she told me; and her father had, of late, given wayjust a little to drink. He "used" the Haycock, in Edgware Road; andshe feared that he had fallen among a hard-drinking set. He was apianoforte-maker, and had been employed at Brinsmead's for eighteenyears. Since her mother died, six years ago, however, he had neverbeen the same.
"It was then that he took to drink?" I hazarded.
"Yes," she responded. "He was devoted to her. They never had a wryword."
"What has he been complaining of? Pains in the head--or what?"
"Oh, he's seemed thoroughly out of sorts," she answered after someslight hesitation, which struck me as peculiar. She was greatlyagitated regarding his illness, yet she could not describe one singlesymptom clearly. The only direct statement she made was that herfather had certainly not been drinking on the previous night, for hehad remained indoors ever since he came home from the works, asusual, at seven o'clock.
As she led me along the Marylebone Road, in the same direction asthat I had just traversed--which somewhat astonished me--I glancedsurreptitiously at her, just at the moment when we were approachinga street lamp, and saw to my surprise that she was a sad-faced girlwhose features were familiar. I recognised her in a moment as the girlwho had been my fellow passenger from Brighton on that Sunday night.Her hair, however, was dishevelled, as though she had turned out fromher bed in too great alarm to think of tidying it. I was rathersurprised, but did not claim acquaintance with her. She led mepast Madame Tussaud's, around Baker Street Station, and then intothe maze of those small cross-streets that lie between Upper BakerStreet and Lisson Grove until she stopped before a small, ratherrespectable-looking house, half-way along a short side-street,entering with a latch-key.
In the narrow hall it was quite dark, but she struck a match and lita cheap paraffin lamp which stood there in readiness, then led meupstairs to a small sitting-room on the first floor, a dingy, stuffylittle place of a character which showed me that she and her fatherlived in lodgings. Having set the lamp on the table, and saying thatshe would go and acquaint the invalid with my arrival, she went out,closing the door quietly after her. The room was evidently the home ofa studious, if poor, man, for in a small deal bookcase I noticed,well-kep
t and well-arranged, a number of standard works on scienceand theology, as well as various volumes which told me mutely thattheir owner was a student, while upon the table lay a couple ofcritical reviews, the "Saturday" and "Spectator."
I took up the latter and glanced it over in order to pass the time,for my conductress seemed to be in consultation with her father. Myeye caught an article that interested me, and I read it through,forgetting for a moment all about my call there. Fully ten minuteselapsed, when of a sudden I heard the voice of a man speaking somewhatindistinctly in a room above that in which I was sitting. He seemed tobe talking low and gruffly, so that I was unable to distinguish whatwas said. At last, however, the girl returned, and, asking me tofollow her, conducted me to a bedroom on the next floor.
The only illumination was a single night-light burning in a saucer,casting a faint, uncertain glimmer over everything, and shaded with anopen book so that the occupant of the bed lay in deepest shadow.Unlike what one would have expected to find in such a house, an ironbedstead with brass rail, the bed was a great old-fashioned one withheavy wool damask hangings; and advancing towards it, while the girlretired and closed the door after her, I bent down to see the invalid.
In the shadow I could just distinguish on the pillow a dark-beardedface whose appearance was certainly not prepossessing.
"You are not well?" I said, inquiringly, as our eyes met in the dimhalf-light. "Your daughter is distressed about you."
"Yes, I'm a bit queer," he growled. "But she needn't have botheredyou."
"Let me remove the shade from the light, so that I can see your face,"I suggested. "It's too dark to see anything."
"No," he snapped; "I can't bear the light. You can see quite enough ofme here."
"Very well," I said, reluctantly, and taking his wrist in one hand Iheld my watch in the other.
"I fancy you'll find me a bit feverish," he said in a curious tone,almost as though he were joking, and by his manner I at once put himdown as one of those eccentric persons who are sceptical of anyachievements of medical science.
I was holding his wrist and bending towards the light, in order todistinguish the hands of my watch, when a strange thing happened.
There was a deafening explosion close behind me, which caused me tojump back startled. I dropped the man's hand and turned quickly in thedirection of the sound; but, as I did so, a second shot from arevolver held by an unknown person was discharged full in my face.
The truth was instantly plain. I had been entrapped for my watch andjewellery--like many another medical man in London has been before me;doctors being always an easy prey for thieves. The ruffian shammingillness sprang from his bed fully dressed, and at the same moment twoother blackguards, who had been hidden in the room, flung themselvesupon me ere I could realize my deadly peril.
The whole thing had been carefully planned, and it was apparent thatthe gang were quite fearless of neighbours overhearing the shots. Theplace bore a bad reputation, I knew; but I had never suspected that aman might be fired at from behind in that cowardly way.
So sudden and startling were the circumstances that I stood for amoment motionless, unable to fully comprehend their intention. Therewas but one explanation. These men intended to kill me!
Without a second's hesitation they rushed upon me, and I realized withheart-sinking that to attempt to resist would be utterly futile. I wasentirely helpless in their hands!