# The Death-Doctor/01

THE DEATH-DOCTOR
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH THERE IS OPEN CONFESSION
I AM fully aware, my dear Lanner-Brown, that after my death, when you open these pages, you will be greatly shocked.
The skeleton which for many years has been locked so securely in my cupboard, and which I now at last have courage to reveal, will, I know, stagger you.
I, Archibald More d'Escombe, have enjoyed a lucrative practice in Kensington. I have worked hard, and I believe I have not only earned the esteem of my many patients of both sexes, but also that of my fellow-men.
I have been moderate in my habits, partial perhaps to a really good vintage port, but nevertheless a constant churchgoer; for some years churchwarden of St. Stephen's, and, in addition, a regular subscriber to all local ​charities, as far as my means as a medical man would allow.
Outwardly, I suppose, I have differed in no way to the many thousand other men who, having walked the hospitals, have qualified and now practise the science of medicine up and down the country. But when, my dear Lanner-Brown, you have read this plain, matter-of-fact and yet remarkable narrative of my amazing life, it will be for you yourself to judge whether it be best, in the public interest, to suppress it and destroy the manuscript, or whether you will risk the condemnation, which must be hurled upon you by the public and the whole medical profession, and publish it as a warning to others who may, by their expert scientific knowledge, be led into similar temptation.
This matter I leave entirely in your hands, and at your discretion.
Though in the following pages you will, no doubt, discover much that will astound and even appal you, yet many of the circumstances you will yourself recall. I think you will find that in this record I have been entirely frank and open, and agree that I have all along admitted the motive, and have never sought to shield myself, either by excuse or by hypocrisy.
​During the last eight years of our pleasant and intimate acquaintance, I have ever held you in the highest esteem. You are a real man. True, you as a confirmed bachelor were always something of a lady-killer, while you believed me to be indeed the quiet-mannered, rather short-sighted, and perhaps somewhat old-fashioned, family-practitioner in whom you so often confided.
Ah! I often wondered what you would actually have thought of me had you but known the ugly, wretched truth. And sometimes—forgive me, my dear fellow—I have smiled at your ignorance.
But here, in moments snatched from the constant hustle of a wide and growing practice, I have written down the secret of my changeful life complete—perhaps you will term it terrible.
You, my old chum, will be the first to judge me. And I know, alas, too well! the nature of your judgment—a bitter judgment, which will be confirmed by any who afterwards may be permitted by you to peruse these pages.
But I offer no apology, either to you or to the public. Indeed, I have none to offer. Whether I regret matters not to you. Neither ​does the awful, heart-piercing remorse which has, in these last days, so tortured me.
No! all that concerns you is the truth regarding my disgraceful past. My future, now that I am passing in silence to the great Unknown, lies in my own hands.
If I spoke of atonement, you yourself would accuse me of hypocrisy, and dismiss me as a canting humbug. Therefore, upon that one point I am silent.
I intend only to relate hard, solid facts, and leave you to form your own conclusions.
Before dilating on some of the various incidents which occurred in my career after I became a qualified medical man, however, it would be as well, I think, if I gave you a little information about my earlier days. Not that I wish to make any excuses for myself or my doings, but simply to give you an idea as to my more youthful experiences and doings.
As you know, I qualified comparatively late in life. I was twenty-six before I could write those eight letters, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., after my name, which not only enabled me to practise medicine and surgery, but also, above all other things, gave me the power to sign a death-certificate.
​That is the all-important point. Knowledge is power.
Most students of medicine become qualified at somewhere about twenty-three or four, but when I should have been doing well I had made a rather poor mess of things.
A father who had cut down his own personal expenses to a minimum, and a mother who, late in life, continued to churn her own butter at our Sussex farmhouse-home in order to provide me with a reasonable income, had both been grievously disappointed.
I had been sent up to Oxford, like so many others, with the reputation of a budding scholar; but instead of doing anything of note, I simply obtained a pass-degree which, as you know, means very little indeed; and then, after putting in another couple of years at Guy's, I found myself no further on, having still my intermediate-final to pass, nor, indeed, could I have answered many simple questions in anatomy or physiology, although my knowledge of billiards, bridge, actors and actresses was remarkably good.
Thus, when my father died suddenly, and with him my income, the chances I possessed of becoming a practitioner of medicine had apparently disappeared, for what he did leave ​was only just enough to keep my mother and sisters in genteel poverty.
"What the devil am I fit for?" I asked my friend Aitkin one day. "I might become a billiard-marker, or a racing tout; but I'm not fit for much else. I really am a most useless beggar."
"Poor old chap," said he, "you're badly hipped, and well you may be, but don't chuck up the sponge. Put an advertisement in the Telegraph. Sit down, man, and write it straight away. I'll see to it for you."
Poor old Tom! he was a good chap—peace to his ashes—he was shot in a drinking-bar in California.
Well, I wrote as he suggested:
"Young Gentleman; Oxford degree; some knowledge of medicine; accustomed to good society; musical, speaks French well, desires post as secretary or travelling companion—D'Escombe, Telegraph Office, Fleet Street."
"That's all right," laughed Tom, "but you don't mention your real accomplishments, I notice. You should add, 'Has taken prizes for consumption of beer; an excellent pool-player; irresistible manner with ladies, and wide experience in card playing.'"
"Don't be a fool, Tom," I growled. "Take ​the infernal scribble away—much good will it do."
"Farewell!" said Tom dramatically, and the next I heard about the advertisement, three days later, was a letter forwarded to my lodgings from the Telegraph office, asking me to call at a house in Redcliffe Gardens on the following afternoon.
In the interim I had refused my mother's offer to go home for a while, and had sorted out my goods and chattels, many of which I sold at a great loss, as was but natural.
In the event of the advertisement being a failure I had decided to try my luck in America. However, here was a possibility. I looked at the letter a second and third time—expensive paper, with a faint perfume about it; faint, but very distinctive. It is a curious fact, but one never forgets a smell in the way one loses a name, or a face. The nose is the most reliable of organs. It cannot forget, but always recognizes any odour out of the common which has once been smelt; and this perfume, even to the present day, brings back to me the memory of my bare, untidy lodgings off Tottenham Court Road on that last day of my freedom from serious and worldly affairs.
​The letter was written in a feminine hand, neat but unformed, and concluded with a bold masculine signature: "Horatio Augustus Featherson."
I clothed myself that afternoon in a blue serge suit—luckily my wardrobe was well stocked and in good condition—and looking in the glass to view the tout ensemble saw, not the professional-looking individual whom you have known as More d'Escombe, but a slight, dark young man, with a—I may as well say it—clean-cut, rather handsome face, a small waxed dark moustache, and a clear, almost olive, complexion.
I do not wish to eulogize my appearance as it then was, for after all, good looks are only worth what they will bring to the pocket, and depend upon the country and surroundings in which one lives; a man or woman passing as handsome in one continent may be looked upon as positively ugly in another. It all depends on the standard of beauty in the immediate market.
A smartly-dressed housemaid showed me to the presence of Mr. Featherson, who, immaculately dressed, was sitting reading in a cosily furnished smoking-room.
As I entered, he rose, and I saw that he ​had greatly the advantage of me in height, and was thin and aristocratic in appearance. He could not have been less than six feet two.
"Good afternoon, Mr. d'Escombe," he said in a pleasant voice as he shook hands, "it's very good of you to come at such short notice, I'm sure. Will you smoke?" And as he motioned me to a chair he handed me a box of "Sultans," such as I had smoked myself in palmier days. "Would you be so kind, Mr. d'Escombe," he continued rather stiffly, "as to give me some idea why you are seeking such a post as you mention? What references you propose to offer, and what experience, if any, of clerical work you have had?"
My answer to this was, as I had pre-determined, to tell the whole story of my crass stupidity in the past, and thus show my condition in the present.
"You appear to have a rather pleasing capacity for enjoying yourself, Mr. d'Escombe," said he, with a grim smile on his thin face, which showed two gold-stopped teeth through his drooping grey moustache, and which caused at the same time innumerable tiny wrinkles to appear at the corners of his deep-set, calm grey eyes. "But other things being equal, I think you will do for me excellently. You see, I ​want a man who, while possessing some common sense, is willing to be instructed by me to do things in my way—fallow ground to work on, as it were—and I gather that by now you have sown and reaped the majority of your wild oats."
"I think I have," I laughed. "And I will certainly do my very best to meet your requirements—if you are so good as to give me a chance." And yet, Laurence, as I said it the curious glitter in the man's eyes, an undefinable something in his manner, gave me the idea that he was not exactly "straight." Still, I could do nothing; it would have been sheer madness to refuse.
"I'm going abroad in a couple of days," he said; "I and my daughter. Could you join me here to-morrow? Oh! and as to salary. I can offer you a hundred a year, and pay all your expenses—reasonable expenses, that is," and as he smiled his eyes contracted and the thousand tiny wrinkles got deeper, and many others quite unsuspected suddenly appeared.
"I can be here at any time you wish, Mr. Featherson," was my answer. "I have only to pack a couple of bags."
"Very well, then; to-morrow for lunch at ​one-thirty." He pressed the electric bell, saying, "The maid will show you the way out. Au revoir."
I opened the door expecting to see the maid, but as she did not appear I closed it after me, intending to find my own way out. It was all very curious, I thought. No further word as to references—nothing as to notice. He seemed to have, as it were, jumped at me.
I was on the point of letting myself out of the front door when a girl came into the hall—a girl, I say, but I cannot describe her adequately. She was beyond the limits of my poor powers, but sweet, delicate, wonderfully pretty, were the impressions on my mind at the moment. She appeared to be quite young, and dressed in white. Her great, dark eyes were open widely as she came, her finger suggestively raised, rapidly towards me.
"You are Mr. d'Escombe?" she said in a low, half-frightened whisper, and as she said it the perfume on the writing-paper was no secret, for I now smelt it a second time—a sweet, subtle scent.
"Have you seen my father?" she asked, as I nodded assent to her first question, too taken aback by her attitude and sudden appearance to speak.
​"Yes, thank you," I answered in a low voice, recovering my self-possession; "but what——"
She held up her hand. "S-shh! Please don't talk, Mr. d'Escombe. I want to warn you. Don't come back here, on any account."
She glanced apprehensively at the staircase and continued, "I don't want my father to know that I've seen you, but please, please don't come back. You'll regret it very, very deeply."
And then, as a noise came from somewhere above, she turned, saying, "For your own sake go away, and do not return," and disappeared quickly through a door near; while I, my brain awhirl, let myself quietly out of the hall door.
Once again I found myself in the street, away from the mysterious house and its strange occupants. I walked on utterly dumbfounded. "Don't come back—regret it—" what could she mean, and who was she? Featherson's daughter? He had mentioned a daughter.
Certainly it was a most amazing and curious state of affairs, but one thing I was determined upon. I would go back, and all the more readily if that sweet-faced girl were to be one of the party to go abroad; and besides what ​could happen? It was certain that I should keep my eyes very wide open after receiving that mysterious warning.
As a matter of fact, I felt bucked up and buoyant in the face of that afternoon's happenings. "Hurrah," I thought with glee, "I'm in for a real good thing—with a spice of adventure in it!"
I spent a busy evening writing letters and packing, and next day, at half-past one, ascended the steps of the house of Featherson, a man staggering behind me with two large kit bags and a suit case.
Featherson himself came into the hall as I entered and invited me into his den.
"Come in, Mr. d'Escombe. Come in. Let me introduce you to my daughter, Ella. She has not long left school, and is going to travel with us—little minx——" and he chucked her under the chin, in—to my mind—a rather vulgar manner.
The girl reddened, and then shaking hands with me, asked if I had travelled much.
"I lived in Paris with my uncle for a while as a lad," I answered, "therefore, I speak the language fairly well."
"Excuse me one moment, d'Escombe," said the master of the house, leaving the room, at ​which action I felt somewhat awkward, hardly knowing what to say. But the girl spoke at once:
"So you have come back! You refused to take my advice," she said in a low, reproachful voice.
"Miss Featherson," I answered, "I know nothing of your reasons for giving me such advice; but work, occupation, I must have. I daren't say no to anything decent."
"I'm so very sorry," was her answer; "I know you will bitterly regret your action. But there—it's done now," and throwing off her mysterious tone and manner she began to chatter about our coming travels, and I could not help thinking that she was pleased, rather than angry, at my refusal to accept her advice. This was to be her first long journey with her father. She had stayed with him for short periods during her school life at Brighton, but now the dear old days were over.
"Won't you explain your remarks of yesterday?" I inquired after a while. "I cannot understand things at all—why——"
"Not another syllable please, Mr. d'Escombe," she interrupted. "I beg you to forget every word I said, and ask you particularly to say nothing to my father." As she spoke I thought ​I caught a gleam of fear, even of terror, in her dark eyes as she glanced towards the door.
"Very well, not another word," I laughed. "But why do you talk of 'the dear old days'?"
"Ah! I was very happy in the convent school, everybody was very kind to me, and I was never left alone with nothing to do. Now father often has to leave me for whole days, and I am not even allowed out without him," was her answer, made with a most adorable pout. Certainly she was charmingly pretty, and apparently innocence and freshness itself.
And yet, what did she know? Why the warning? I racked my brains to try and discover the mystery.
In four days' time we were comfortably settled in an hotel at Sorrento. You know that little Italian town, I believe. You went there one winter. It is hard to find a more charming spot in the whole of that land of colour and picturesque beauty.
The hotel, built upon the edge of the high cliff which forms the "seaward" wall of the town, was full, at that season, of tourists and visitors—English, American, German and French—as also were all the other hotels in the place.
​Ella and I soon became the greatest of friends and allies, and one afternoon, as we walked together at sundown, she gave me the reason of her warning in London.
"I hate to tell you, Mr. d'Escombe," she said, "but I am certain, from what I have seen in the few short visits and holidays that I've had with my father, that he does not make his living in a nice way. I'm sure that he plays cards a lot, and I simply hate the men he often plays with; and yet——" and she hesitated.
"Yet—what?" I inquired anxiously. Her admissions made me feel most anxious, and, at the same time, curious.
"And yet sometimes he plays with quite young men—almost boys—and I'm afraid—well, Mr. d'Escombe—you know."
"Yes; I know what you mean, Miss Ella. You think that he persuades them to play, and wins their money, eh?"
"Yes, yes—but not unfairly. I can't believe that father would ever do anything so really horrid."
"Of course not. Miss Ella," I replied, feeling at the same time that my eyes were opened, and that I had cast in my lot with one of those genteel social vampires so common in the big ​cities of Europe. Yet, so far, I had nothing but Ella's suspicions to go upon. I had been given nothing to do personally, except to make travelling and hotel arrangements—and even the names of the hotels were given to me; and I had been told, at all times, to assume a grand air, and give the idea that we were folk of great importance.
"If you do this," explained Featherson, "we shall get well looked after, and obtain the best of rooms and attendance. Money talks, you know."
In Sorrento I saw very little of my employer. He obtained a footing very rapidly in the great card-playing set of the town, and he told me that he was making quite "a pot of money."
In the meantime I was told off to look after his daughter, and Ella and I spent much time wandering about the beautiful country-side, and making little excursions to Naples, Capri, Amalfi, and the various other adjacent places of interest.
Of course, the inevitable happened, and I fell quite seriously in love with my charming little companion. I managed to keep my secret to myself; how I hardly know. But I did; yet, of course, she knew. As the days ​passed I found myself, when not with Ella, very frequently in the company of an American visitor in the hotel—a small man with very piercing blue eyes and a marked American accent. Ella took an instinctive dislike to him, although he was always extremely attentive and polite to her, and I think I got more of her society than I should otherwise have done on this account, as she seemed to hate to see me with the American, and even went so far as to interrupt us on several occasions.
On the whole, however, life moved both pleasantly and quietly, although I could not help feeling that I was living on the edge of a quiescent volcano which might, at any moment, become active.
I was right. The activity was very strange, and very serious.
One evening, after we had been living at the hotel for about three weeks, shortly after dinner had commenced, an English lady who was staying there with her husband came in late—a very unusual thing for her to do; and it was evident to all in the room that she was very agitated about something.
Her husband was sitting at their table-à-deux waiting for her, but on listening to the statement which she made to him in an undertone, ​he got up hastily and left the dining-room, everybody, of course, wondering what could be wrong.
Our curiosity was very soon gratified, for the manager of the hotel, a tall, red-bearded Pole, who spoke seven languages fluently, came into the salle-à-manger, and announced in a loud voice:
"Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, a visitor has had her jewellery stolen from her room. I have summoned the police. I must, therefore, most reluctantly, and, with many regrets, ask everybody present to keep their seats until the officers arrive. The jewellery was seen by its owner half an hour ago, consequently I am compelled to think that someone in the hotel must be responsible for the loss."
He repeated this statement in French and Italian, and at the conclusion of his remarks every guest was looking round covertly at the occupiers of the other tables, wondering the while who among that gay, well-dressed party was the thief.
Ella and I were dining tête-à-tête, as Mr. Featherson had been away since lunch. I noticed that she went deadly pale as the manager talked, and I feared that she was ​going to faint. But she quickly pulled herself together.
"How dreadful it is to be mixed up in an affair like this!" she said across to me. "It makes me feel quite ill. What will they do?"
"Can't say," I answered. "Unless they search us all, and our baggage too."
At this moment my employer, with a fine diamond stud in his dress-shirt, strolled into the room and walked to our table, all the eyes in the room being fixed on his tall figure.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed, "everybody seems very quiet—it's more like a funeral than a dinner," and he glanced in an unconcerned way around the big dining-room. "Sorry to be late, little girlie," he said, smiling at his pale-faced daughter, "but I've only just got away from the 'Grand.' Been playing bridge, and had jolly good luck—grand slam on no trumps. But what the deuce is the matter?" he continued, with another quick glance around the room, where all the other diners sat almost silent, and, with but few exceptions, looking at him.
"Mrs. Cass has just had her jewels stolen, father," answered the girl in a low, frightened voice; "and the manager says we're all to sit here until the police come."
​"Oh, ho!" he laughed, "and they suspect some of us, do they? Well, we can only offer to be searched—eh?" Glancing at me: "You don't mind, do you, d'Escombe? You haven't been a naughty boy—have you?"
"Not I," I said, "I don't steal jewels." And I smiled grimly.
"Very well, then;—here, garçon!"
A sleek, obsequious waiter appeared.
"Ask the manager if he will speak to me," said my employer.
He was always obeyed, this tall, slight, quietly spoken man, and the waiter appeared in a few moments with the Pole.
"Look here," exclaimed my employer; "we want to be off. Can't we be searched and go? I'm quite willing to set the example, although I haven't been in the hotel all the evening. And this lady and gentleman," nodding at us, "are also anxious to clear their characters."
"The police have just arrived, Signore," replied the manager, who looked most uncomfortable and unhappy. He beckoned to a quietly dressed little man who had just entered the room. "This gentleman, M'sieur Featherson, and his party, wish to be searched, and thus set an example for all the guests," he explained.
​"Benissimo," answered the little man, looking intently at Featherson and myself. "Please come with me."
We went into the inner office of the hotel, and were certainly most thoroughly gone through. We could not have successfully hidden a pin. Ella had been taken to another room by a woman, and came out looking even whiter than before. We all three then went for a stroll in the beautiful hotel grounds, for the weather was fine, and the moon delightfully bright and clear.
"A very unpleasant business," declared Featherson. "Ella, you're looking quite queer and ill."
"I feel faint, father," was her answer. "I think I'll go to my room."
We two men walked on a short distance, and were then joined by my American friend—Mr. James B. Rowe.
"I guess those jewels are gone for 'keeps'," he volunteered to us. "I reckon the crook who took them was too cute for most folk," he added.
"What makes you think that?" asked my companion.
"Wal," drawled the New Yorker, "by the time they've gone through all the baggage and ​all the folks in the dining-sal-oon, there will not be a guest in the hotel unaccounted for except yourself, Mr. Featherson."
"What do you mean?" asked my employer hotly.
"What I say, sir," replied the American. "All the guests came down from their bedrooms dressed for dinner, so there has not been any opportunity for hiding six fairly bulky cases, has there? But where's the little missie?"
"She's gone in. This wretched business has upset her," said I, breaking in upon the conversation, not relishing the tone which it had taken between the other two.
The American glanced quickly at Mr. Featherson, who had pushed a little ahead of us, when suddenly he stumbled and fell heavily to the ground.
I rushed forward to pick him up.
"Curse it, I've strained my ankle again," he said. "How deuced unfortunate. I've done it about four times already, and it means no walking for me for three or four days at the least. I say, Mr. Rowe, would you be kind enough to run into the hotel, and ask two strong waiters to bring along a chair to carry me inside? I daren't put my foot to the ground."
​Rowe, evidently not too pleased, started off to do as he was asked.
The moment he was out of sight, Featherson's face changed its expression. "Here, d'Escombe, quick!" he said, speaking in a half whisper. "If you love Ella—and I believe you do—help me now. That man's a detective, one of the shrewdest. The jewels are in a wooden ventilator, in the corridor by my bedroom. Now listen."
I was so thunderstruck by his words, that I could not speak.
"When Rowe comes back I shall ask him to help me in, and I shall send you for some brandy. Go quickly to our rooms, and, if they have been searched, then take the stuff out of the ventilator, give them to Ella, and tell her to hide them in her room for a short time."
I gasped. By Jove, I was new to crime in those days, and the calm way in which this immaculate gentleman owned up to being a common thief was too much for me.
"Hurry man," he added, "or it's all up. This infernal accident prevents me doing anything for myself—or are you going to denounce me?"
A moment only was allowed me to decide ​on the matter—a serious enough one, Heaven knows!—whether or not to become the confederate of a rat d'hôtel. But the thought of poor little Ella, and also of the probable profit which would accrue, decided me. Besides, if I did tell what I knew I was stranded, almost penniless, in a foreign country.
"All right—I'll do what I can," I answered, just as Rowe returned with the waiters. He hadn't wasted any time, and, evidently suspecting Featherson, did not intend to lose sight of him. I ran to meet him. "I am just going to get a little brandy, Mr. Featherson is feeling queer," I exclaimed as I passed the trio.
But I noticed that Rowe turned and looked at me with evident suspicion.
I reached Ella's door panting and short of breath, and when she answered my knock I noticed that her eyes were red and tearful.
"What is it?" she whispered hoarsely. "Have they found out?"
"Found out what?"
"That he—that my father stole the jewels?" she gasped.
"No, no," I said. "But what do you know——?"
"I saw him coming from the woman's room," she interrupted, her face ghastly white.
​"Have the police searched your rooms yet?" I inquired. "There's no time to lose."
"Yes, yes, all the three."
"Then I'm going to give them to you to hide, according to your father's instructions," I said in an undertone. "I'm just going to my room to get something to cover the cases with, and shall be back in a minute or two if the corridor is clear—luckily it's not much used."
I slipped on my big motor-coat and strolled along to the place Featherson had indicated, trying to look unconcerned, but my heart was thumping nervously away. I could feel it very distinctly, and that's a bad sign. The coast, however, was clear. Evidently the entries and exits of the big hotel were well guarded. In a few moments, however, I had transferred the cases, which I found in the ventilator, into my commodious pockets. Just as I finished a waiter turned the corner of the corridor, but luckily there was a bath-room close by, so I sauntered into it just in the nick of time, although I admit I listened intently to see if any alarm were sounded.
No, all was quiet, so I again emerged and went post-haste to Ella's room, where I handed her the cases. There was no time for talking, ​so I rushed downstairs for the brandy. I had been delayed too long, however, for as I reached the hall the chair containing the injured man was carried up the front stairs by the waiters, the man Rowe still being in attendance, most kind and sympathetic.
"Too late, d'Escombe," said Featherson with a sickly smile, and then turning to his carriers, "Right up to my room—Number 81—and thank you so much for your kindness, sir," he continued, turning to the American. "I shall be quite all right now."
"I guess I'll come up with you, and see you put all O.K.," answered the other. "I reckon I know some about sprains—and bullet wounds," he added with a side wink at me.
"I really could not trouble you. My daughter can do all that is necessary. She knows exactly how to fix me up," said Featherson, with an air which said very distinctly "Stand off."
"Very well. If you won't have me, you won't. I'll look in and see you in the forenoon," the American said, and as he walked away I felt that he knew he was temporarily repulsed.
"Come on, boy," said the injured man to me, and in a few moments we three—he, Ella ​and I—were in his bedroom with the door locked.
"Where's the stuff," he inquired, as, much to my astonishment, he got off the chair and walked silently yet firmly to the door, and examined the keyhole. Ella and I stared at each other, neither able to repress a smile at his able tactics and excellent acting.
There was certainly nothing wrong with his ankle.
He glanced at us, caught the expression upon our faces, and said, "You're both of you in it now—you understand? And you've got to help, you've no alternative."
His pale-faced daughter, shaking with excitement and emotion, half-sobbed out the words, "Oh, father, is it really true? Are you a thief? And yet it must be, because I saw you leave Mrs. Cass's room with the jewel-cases, and I know you got out of your bedroom window afterwards. I was looking out of mine, and saw you."
She broke down altogether, and then turning to me said hoarsely, "Mr. d'Escombe, you must leave us. You must not be mixed up in this affair."
"Be quiet, Ella," interrupted her father severely. "And mind your own business. ​Mr. d'Escombe can quite well manage his own affairs." Then, turning to me, he said, "You see how you stand, and I promise you your fair share of the profits. Everything is safe enough now, and, if I am any judge of character, you are not going to refuse five hundred pounds on account of moral scruples. Here's fifty to go on with."
The fellow knew me better than I knew myself, for I did not refuse. The lure of the money, and the attraction of Ella combined, were too much for me. So, in spite of the tearful protestations of his daughter, I arranged to convey the jewel-cases to his room in about half an hour.
"We'll come to a definite agreement later on," said the tall, polite adventurer. "At present, we must be careful; that infernal American is suspicious. I expect another visit from him—although he knows nothing about me."
According to the arrangement, I smuggled the well-worn leather cases to his room, and watched him, tall and big as he was, crawl out of the window, and so hand-over-hand up an iron ventilating shaft, and deposit the cases on the roof of the hotel. The window having been re-closed and fastened, my agile friend reclined on a couch in the room, while I rang ​for a waiter, who brought the two whiskies and sodas which he ordered.
"Now, d'Escombe—to business," said my employer when we were again alone. "It was impossible to talk while Ella was here. Poor little girl, she's had a bit of a shock, I'm afraid. But you see how things are, and how I make a precarious, but not unhandsome, livelihood. My only reason for obtaining your valuable services was to get help and, if possible, bring you up in the way I would wish you to go. Now will you go on helping, or not? Do as you like; there's risk, of course, but there's excitement—there's life and there's money—if you choose."
"I've already decided," I answered. "I will help you until I have enough to comfortably qualify on, and after that I shall go my own way. At the same time, I may as well tell you that I am very fond of Ella."
Her father laughed. "Any reason, so long as you stay, dear boy. Your innocent face is quite valuable to me," he said. "But now listen. Later on, to-night, I shall remove the jewels from those cases, and they must be got away from here, sewn up in Ella's dress; the cases themselves I shall leave on the roof."
​"You're surely not going to implicate her as deeply as that Featherson?" I queried, dropping the prefix for the first time.
"Mr. Featherson, if you please," he interrupted sharply. "It is necessary that you keep on the same old terms with me; you might forget at the wrong moment. Yes; Ella must help on this occasion. I fear that detective might make another excuse to get me examined again, and I hardly think he will worry a lady a second time."
"All right," I said, giving in to him, and then I told Ella what was expected of her later on. I had a good deal of trouble. There were many tears to be kissed away, and many "nothings" to be spoken, before I could get her to see things from our point of view.
About ten o'clock—ah! how long the evening seemed—I strolled into the lounge.
"I guess you'll find your hands full up, sonny," said a voice which I now heard with aversion and some fear. "How's that darned ankle, anyway?"
It was Rowe.
"It's going on very well, thank you; and, as you say, I have a great deal to do just now," I answered coldly, as I walked away. I was not desirous of being questioned by the ​objectionable American who, it was very evident, suspected my employer.
In the small hours of the morning, the jewels were taken from their hiding-place and put into Ella's care. After that we two men had a long talk in undertones, the outcome of which was that I wrote to the Hotel International in Algiers, requesting that rooms should be reserved for Count Binetti and daughter.
A great fuss was made over the loss of Mrs. Cass's valuables, but nothing was discovered; and, after a couple of days of constant anxiety, I was very glad to leave the hotel with Featherson and Ella.
We had booked rooms at Bertolini's in Naples—a delightful hotel—and it was certainly a great pleasure to be away from the constant espionage of James Rowe, whom, however, we met afterwards in the town; which fact proved Featherson's wisdom in preserving his limp and bandaged ankle for the time being.
Two days later, however, I left, as I obtained a passage on a small Italian steamer to Algiers, my two companions promising to follow later by a regular boat due to sail in a week's time.
​I registered at the Hôtel International as Monsieur Boileau, representing myself to be a French tourist, and here my knowledge of the language stood me in good stead.
This was the initial move in a new plot of Featherson's to make further money; and when, in due course, Count Binetti and his daughter arrived, I was passed by with a haughty stare from that tall, supercilious-looking aristocrat. Counts, of course, are numerous in Continental hotels, but few of them have the superb manner and presence of that able swindler with whom I was now in partnership.
By careful arrangement, the Count's table was next to mine in the dining-room, and in a day or two he condescended to smoke a cigarette with me, while his daughter—bless her little heart—became quite friendly. Poor girl! She was most unhappy, but could not desert her father, although she knew he was contemplating another risky coup.
The young Prince de Montelupo arrived at the hotel shortly after Featherson, and with him were his mother and two or three other grand ladies and gentlemen with long names and titles—and much jewellery.
Everything was now ready for our adventure, and early one morning, about half-past one, ​having warned Ella, Featherson and myself went to either end of the long building and set fire to two fuses which would burn long enough to enable us to return to our rooms.
This business was very carefully timed, and almost as soon as we got back first one loud report and then another resounded and thundered through the corridors and halls of the big hotel. Immediately pandemonium reigned around us, which my partner and I added to by shouting: "Fire! Fire!"
Truly our carefully prepared little explosive smoke-balls were sufficient to stir anyone up!
Out of their bedrooms, panic-stricken and shrieking, rushed the guests. A few stayed to throw on a dressing-gown or some light garment, but all hurried helter-skelter to get down the escape stairs and outside the building as rapidly as possible. Meanwhile, two figures in capacious dressing-gowns with large inside pockets and with a bag slung round their waists hurried from room to room collecting jewellery of all kinds, watches, money, pocket-books—in fact anything portable or valuable.
These two, my dear Lanner-Brown, were, of course, Featherson and myself, Ella having rushed out with the frightened crowd.
We knew the scare would be over very ​quickly, but the smoke from our fire-balls was dense and acrid, and we had time to fill our pockets and bags, and then, by a back staircase which we had previously reconnoitred, we joined the other agitated guests who were standing in the hotel grounds watching the smoking building. Some were hysterical, others half fainting, and, being mostly foreigners, all were in a state of panic. But I saw that already servants and waiters were returning within the building, and it was certain that an alarm of robbery would be raised very soon.
Our plans, however, were deeply laid. We had settled upon a temporary hiding-place for our plunder, and very soon the miscellaneous collection we had annexed was deposited in a large marble cup, which was raised about nine feet high by the hand of a life-sized statue which stood in a dark pathway. My friend's shoulder made an excellent step for me to reach this hiding-place. This done, we hurried out of the garden and separately joined the throng now re-entering the hotel. Here we found that the police were already in charge, and that there were rumours of an audacious robbery.
Soon note-books were produced by the police-agents, and the general excitement and ​indignation of the inmates of the hotel became intense as they made out the list of their losses. By Jove! Laurence! if half the curses showered upon our heads had come to pass we should have had a very hot time. Of course, we had, each of us, lost articles of value, and joined most heartily in execrating the thieves. Indeed, we also put in a claim for what had been taken!
Of course, nothing was discovered, and in two days' time I returned to Naples, Featherson and Ella following me very shortly. She, poor child, seemed to have lost her good looks; her brightness and vivacity had disappeared, and she was ready to cry at the slightest thing.
Featherson, cute customer, knocked the stones from their settings and brought them away in his pockets, first having cast the settings into the sea.
Once more reunited in Naples, we held another council of war. Featherson suggested that he should take his daughter back to France, where it was to be hoped she would throw off the depression and melancholy which had recently obsessed her, and afterwards betake himself to Antwerp, at which centre of stolen goods he could get rid of the spoils of the two adventures in which I had taken part.
​"But how about me?" I inquired. "What am I to do? Where am I to go in the meantime? I feel a little too close to Algiers for real comfort, just at present!"
"Discretion, dear boy," laughed the old rascal. "Why don't you take a run to Monte Carlo? Have a little flutter. I know—go to the 'Hermitage,' and I'll join you there as soon as I can fix things up. You'll find it excellent, though expensive. And you can keep your eyes well open there."
"Right ho!" I answered. "But what about cash? I haven't very much left. You must give me some more. I've only had fifty."
"Yes, yes; you must have some, I suppose," he replied grudgingly. And taking out his bulky pocket-book: "Here's another fifty for you—five tenners. They must last till I do the business," and he gave a most villainous wink.
I was not exactly happy over this arrangement. What if he made off, and never came near me again!
"How do I know that you'll come back, Featherson?" I queried, thinking it best to speak out straight.
"You don't," he laughed. "You've got to trust me. But I'll be back in a week or ten ​days, don't worry, boy." And I had to be content with this meagre assurance.
However, Laurence, he did come back—to find me at the "Hermitage" and stone-broke. I'd lost every sou at the tables, and my hotel-bill was owing—a big one!
"Thank Heaven you've turned up," I said as he swaggered in, immaculately dressed. "Have you managed all right?"
"So so," said he. "Let's have a whisky and soda. I'll be your guest to-day. I'm staying at the 'Regina.'" That wasn't the hotel he named—for it would hardly do to indicate it here.
His manner was supercilious, and I somehow scented trouble.
"How much have you got for me?" I asked in an undertone as we sat at a little table in the winter garden.
"I'm afraid I can't make it more than—let's see, you've had a hundred?—another four hundred."
"What?" I interrupted angrily. "Only four hundred, and what have you netted? Five thousand, or more!"
"Steady, boy—steady!" The old rascal smiled grimly at me. "You must leave things to me. In fact," and he involuntarily ​stiffened himself, "you are in my hands entirely, and you will have to take what I can afford. I told you so before."
"Why you told me perhaps I'd get two thousand—and now——" I said.
"Look here, d'Escombe," he interrupted quickly, "you're entirely in my hands. You can't hurt me without hurting yourself. And I tell you I can only give you four hundred. We must bring off another coup very soon."
"I'm hanged if I do," I answered angrily. "I've done with you," and I rose.
"Don't be in a hurry," came the answer, suave and quiet. "Come over to me later on, and let's talk it over in peace."
"Very well, I will," and I think I shut up my mouth with a vicious snap. I was exceedingly cross and disappointed, and with a casual au revoir, left my guest to himself.
Now I had fortunately made one friend during my fortnight's stay at Monte Carlo—a young French doctor named Jules Fabris, who was studying medicine, and particularly bacteriology, in various capitals of Europe. On several occasions I had joined him at the big laboratory attached to the hospital, down in Monaco, and watched him at work with cultures, bacteria and germs of all sorts and ​varieties, from complete innocence to savage malignancy.
I strolled round to see him after Featherson had left me.
"Hullo, my dear friend," he greeted me with joy, shaking my hand. "Come and see the lance-shaped diplococcus; it's almost new to me." He knew that as a student I was interested, for I had studied several text-books on the subject, notably Muir and Ritchie's. A few minutes later I applied my eye to the microscope, and watched the little pairs of cocci under the cover-glass.
"What are these," I inquired with curiosity.
"Very deadly! Oh, very, very deadly," was the reply. "The pneumococcus, the germ of pneumonia, and incidentally of many other causes of rapid death."
The short lecture he then gave me imbued me with a great respect for the tiny little objects I could see so distinctly.
Later that night I had a stormy interview with Featherson, and though I left him with a gay bon soir my heart was full of thoughts of revenge. He was simply using me as a cat's-paw and taking all the prizes himself.
I could not, as I had dreamt of doing, go back to London, get qualified, and commence ​in honest practice. I wanted, at the very least, a thousand pounds. But nothing would move him. Entreaties and threats were alike useless. Next morning when I saw him walking on the terrace of the Casino he was wearing one of those ugly black respirators which are so often used by invalids—or pseudo-invalids—on the Riviera. It suited him apparently, just at that time, to pose as one. I passed him by with a cold casual nod.
Two minutes later, there suddenly came into my mind the idea which was to free me from his slavery and give me a fair start in life.
Why not utilize some of my friend's cultures, and use the respirator as a vehicle?
I knew a good deal of medicine of course, and I felt certain that if Horatio Augustus Featherson got pneumonia his chances of life were small, seeing that he was not a young man and had led a hard, dissipated life. But, conversely, my chances of money-making were big. I should certainly pose as his friend if he were laid up, and I should have very bad luck if I did not obtain a good picking. I knew that he always kept his money upon him, generally in notes.
This, then, was to be the real parting of the ways for me. I had either to cave in, and ​simply continue to act as an assistant to a selfish and unscrupulous blackguard who evidently did not intend that I should get out of his clutches, or I had—the word must be faced, Laurence—to murder him!
My transient infatuation for Ella had long ago disappeared, and the death of her father would be no great loss to her.
Yes, I decided to do it. It was the only way!
So I took a stroll in the sunshine and thought out my method of procedure. I should have no difficulty in getting a cultivation of the diplococcus. There were several in my friend's laboratory, and I had the free run of that. But I must make an opportunity to inoculate the respirator.
I started next day by calling on Featherson at his hotel.
"I am sorry," I said, with an appearance of contrition, "that I so foolishly lost my temper yesterday. I hope you'll shake hands over it all, and we can then be friends once more."
"Jolly glad to do so, my boy," said the old reprobate with the hearty laugh which he could produce at will; "I feel certain that we thieves cannot afford to fall out. Now ​we'll set to work on a new coup and then perhaps you'll be able to get a bigger percentage. You must see that, so far, I've worked everything, and therefore I ought to take the lion's share of the profits—eh?"
He did not mention that if we'd been caught the balance on the other side would have been fairly equally distributed.
He was in his bedroom in a brocaded dressing-gown when I saw him, and, keeping my eyes open, I soon noticed the ugly black respirator lying on his dressing-table.
When could I get at it, I wondered. It was not an easy matter. Neither was the transmission of the deadly bacteria; and when I left him, having promised to dine with him that evening, I was still turning over in my mind how best to get to work.
He was wearing the object of my thoughts late that afternoon while we strolled along the terrace of the Casino by the sea, and I, carefully watching, saw him put it in a little case, which he placed in his coat-pocket as, later on, he entered the atrium of the Casino.
The brilliant surroundings, the red-coated Roumanian band across at the Café de Paris, the host of smart, well-dressed folk by whom I was surrounded, had no interest for me that ​evening. My mind had but one objective—that respirator.
How was I to get hold of it without his knowledge? Only a few moments were needed to introduce the deadly germs of pneumonia into it, and then, once he had inhaled a breath, the affair was finished.
I decided to try next day. I dare not delay.
He might leave at any day, at any hour, and certainly I could not carry such savage and death-dealing organisms about with me indefinitely. No, I had to manage it somehow immediately, and so determined was I that I paid a visit to the laboratory next afternoon, knowing that my friend Fabris was otherwise engaged. I took away one of the eight small culture-tubes labelled "diplococcus lanceolatus," and I assure you that when I placed it, carefully wrapped in a roll of lint which I had brought with me, within my waistcoat pocket, I longed most heartily to have an early opportunity of dispensing with it.
What if someone jostled me heavily, or I fell—or any one of the many small possible accidents occurred? Then I myself stood a great chance of inhaling, or becoming inoculated on my clothes or hands with this particularly virulent germ.
​However, the risk had to be taken. Moreover, I had to dispose of the parcel in one of the small pockets of my dress-clothes. This was worse still, but I was desperate, and took my chance.
I reached his hotel early with the idea of seeing my quarry in his bedroom again. My only chance was during his change of clothes, and I timed it just right. He was carefully tying his black bow over his pique dress shirt as I was shown into his room. I had prepared my story.
"I intended to wait for you below. Featherson," I explained. "But, do you know, I am afraid that fellow Rowe is downstairs. I am almost certain it was he I saw, sitting in the corner of the lounge under a big palm, disguised with a beard. I thought it would be wise if you were to reconnoitre before we went down, eh?"
"By Jove!" ejaculated the old sinner, "I sincerely hope it isn't, but I'll go and see. I can have a good look from the top of the stairs."
And he hurriedly put on his coat.
"Wait here a minute for me; I can spot him, however he's faked up."
He hurried off, and the next moment saw me draw from the side pocket of his recently ​discarded coat the small case containing the respirator.
Two seconds more, and I was sprinkling the inside of it with the culture-fluid, my heart meanwhile thumping away and my hands shaking.
It was done. I replaced the inoculated death-trap in its case, and then back to the coat pocket, when suddenly a knock came at the door, and in walked a waiter. My heart leaped into my throat, and a curious feeling came into the pit of my stomach.
"Monsieur Featherson?" he queried, looking at me, as I thought, rather strangely.
"He's just gone out," I answered in a shaky voice, and as I spoke the culture-tube in my left hand fell to the ground and broke.
I started back. The waiter jumped forward to see what had happened, and then—a lucky stroke of genius, Laurence—a glass of vermouth and soda which my host had been drinking stood on the table at my elbow, and as the waiter stepped up, I upset this also on the same spot as the broken tube. The man looked at me reproachfully, yet with wonder in his eyes.
"M'sieur has broken something?"
​"Nothing important," I replied in French. "But you might just clear up the mess, will you, waiter? I have broken a little bottle of mine and the glass of vermouth too. I'm sorry to trouble you. Mr. Featherson will be back in a minute if you wish to see him," and I gave him half a louis.
The man left and returned very quickly, but he was still sweeping up the débris as the tenant of the room came back.
"Hullo, what's happened?" he queried.
"Oh, nothing, except I've spilled your drink, but that can soon be remedied. Bring another—no; bring two vermouth and sodas," I ordered the waiter as he, poor devil, took out his dustpan with its deadly contents.
All this time I felt very nervous. Would the young Frenchman say anything? What would happen to others who came into contact with the tens of thousands of pneumonia germs now set free in the house?
These were ugly questions.
"I couldn't see any sign of the chap, d'Escombe. I expect you were mistaken. You're young at the game yet," laughed my companion. "Anyway we'll risk it, and have some dinner. Over at the 'Paris' is best, perhaps—or Ciro's. How the dickens did you manage ​to make this infernal mess?" he continued, looking at the carpet.
"A mere accident. I'm sorry," I said.
"Let's have our drinks over at the café; we can keep our eyes open for awhile if he really is about."
"All right," said he, and meeting the waiter he instructed him accordingly.
Featherson was very agreeable that night, and we both of us made a little money at roulette. As we parted, after the Casino closed, he said, "We shall get on very well together, boy. I'll play the game by you. You see."
I wish he hadn't said that.
Next day I went over to the laboratory to see Dr. Fabris. He was attending to his cultures and had not missed the tube I had taken. Later I went over to Nice with him and we were persuaded to stay the night with his acquaintances who lived up at Cimiez, and also the following day, so I did not see Featherson until the third day after I had used the diplococcus.
When I did call in the afternoon I detected a change in him. He was flushed, which was very rare with him, and his eyes shone bright and restless.
I knew the signs—the pneumococcus had ​not failed, and sure enough late that evening I was telephoned for to go to the hotel.
"M'sieur's friend is far from well, I fear," the hotel manager informed me as I entered. "He wishes to see you."
I went up, and found a doctor there. The patient was tossing about in bed with a nasty little hacking cough and was short of breath.
"I'm bad, boy," he said. "Devilish queer. God knows what's the matter. You'll keep an eye on me, won't you? I'm very much alone, old chap, if anything's wrong," and his voice broke. It was the first time he had ever shown me any emotion. I think he knew he was very ill.
"Serious case, m'sieur," the French doctor told me afterwards downstairs, "and curiously enough I have got another patient here—a waiter—just the same thing, an acute form of pneumonia, I fear. I hope not of an infectious nature. If it is, mon Dieu! everybody in the hotel may be affected. Be very careful yourself when you're in his room," he urged.
It had not struck me before that I might start a series of infectious cases, and the thought gave me a queer turn. It was more than I had bargained for. I was young then. But that feeling very soon wore off.
​Well, to cut a long story short, I went back next day and found the invalid delirious, and as a nurse had been obtained, I had to send her out of the room on a fictitious errand, telling her that I was a medical man. Then I proceeded to make a hurried search for Featherson's note-case, which I ultimately found beneath his pillow. I knew I ran an awful risk of infection, but had again to take that.
I was disappointed to discover only two thousand pounds in paper, out of which I pocketed sixteen hundred, and replaced the rest. It would not have done to leave him without a fair supply—otherwise suspicion might have arisen.
Well, he died, and the waiter died, and afterwards two more of the hotel-servants. It was a sad affair for the proprietor, as all the guests left hurriedly. I frankly admit that, once having obtained the money, I did not run much risk of infection myself, but as Featherson never recovered actual consciousness it was no hardship to him.
I somehow, nevertheless, felt that I should have liked to have soothed his last days. The old blackguard had his good points.
I sent all he had left, in the way of money ​and effects, to Ella, and wrote her a long letter saying how very sorry I was—and how I wished I could have done more for him.
That affair completed, I returned to England, having actually avoided the temptation to increase my capital at the tables. I very soon started my medical curriculum—with what result I will, later on, confess to you.
The pneumococcus is a very efficient and valuable weapon; but it is extremely hard to control its actions or its ravages, exhibiting, as it does, so many and varied forms of attack.
I have had cause to use it on one other occasion, which, perhaps, my dear fellow, I will in due course relate to you.
Poor old Featherson! I'm sorry, in a way—even now.