CHAPTER X
IN WHICH I SILENCE AN ENEMY
ABOUT two years after I had started practice in Cromwell Road, I found it necessary to keep an assistant. This need implicated me, a little later on, in a trial of wits which became ultimately a duel to the death between myself and a remarkably clever young man, who possessed that scorn and utter disregard of the modern code of morality, which I flattered myself I had never come across except in my own personality.
You and I, Laurence, have frequently been opponents, and sometimes partners in the only two great games of skill played in England; there are others much more difficult played abroad: I mean whist and chess. Chess, as we have often remarked, is a game of practically mathematical certainty, and you can each see both sides of the game. But whist is different: it does not require that foresight and brain-wearing calculation and appreciation of the ultimate disposition of forces, which, if you are cute enough to see it, must come. On the other hand, however, it requires deduction, the art of discovering the enemy's plans and movements in the future by utilizing the few, and often trivial, signs vouchsafed to you by the play in the early part of the hand.
The man with the exact, mathematical mind will win at chess. Whist wants more than that; it wants an argumentative and reasoning brain with the faculty of putting two and two together, and, at the same time, the cunning necessary to mislead the adversary in his deductive reasoning with regard to you.
I mention this, because in my duel with young Anderson, it was my superior power of reasoning from small things to big, which enabled me to follow his coffin to the grave, instead of vice versa.
This young man—he had only been qualified two years—came to me with the most flattering testimonials from his college and hospital, and he had that keen and alert look about his small, closely set, greenish eyes with their light eyelashes, and almost invisible eyebrows, which showed a brain quick to understand, and act, while the big nose and square jaw indicated pluck and determination.
I made a great mistake in going against one of my axioms, when I closed with him; he had bright red hair—and I always have distrusted, and always shall distrust the red-headed man—and pursue the red-headed woman.
I took him into my house, fixed him up a room which could serve both as a bed and sitting apartment if he wished to be alone; but he had the run of the house also.
I first suspected him of prying when I found a brown boot-button under a chair in my smoking-room, which chair I used to stand on in order to get at a little safe that I had had built into the panelled wall seven feet from the ground. It seemed to me that the button must have been forced off when a step up on to the chair was made, and—Anderson always wore brown button boots.
The inference was he had been examining, or tampering with my safe.
The question occurred at once, was he suspicious of me and consequently trying to find out what he could, or, was he simply a thief?
From that time I watched him closely, but discovered nothing. I therefore treated him even more affably than before, but took the precaution of removing everything of importance from the safe to my bank in a sealed tin box.
I was having a lot of trouble just at this time with a nurse, a keen, handsome woman of the world, bent solely on self-aggrandisement. She had been called in to attend a case of mine which had ended fatally, but, sad to say, the patient before she died confided enough to this nurse to enable her to come and threaten me, unless I made it worth her while to keep quiet. I was talking one evening to Anderson in his room; we had each just lighted a cigar, when the page-boy came to tell me that Nurse James, the blackmailer I mentioned, would like to see me.
"Excuse me, Anderson," I said. "I must just see this woman; I shan't be long."
I had, however, quite a lengthy and very stormy interview, which ended in the transference of two five-pound notes from my pocket to her purse. I was startled when I came to let her out to find the door of my room ajar. I could have sworn I shut it most carefully when I entered; therefore someone, taking advantage of our heated argument, had played the eavesdropper. This was serious.
I went back to Anderson's room, and in a moment knew that it was he who had listened, and that now he knew too much for my safety.
You will remember that when I went away we had just lit cigars. I left him smoking, and when I came back he was still smoking, but only the first half-inch had been consumed; the cigar had not been touched while I was away; mine was nearly finished. The idea struck him about ten seconds later, and he threw the tell-tale roll of tobacco into the fire, saying that he felt queer, as an excuse.
Matters began to look serious; it was quite certain that this red-headed devil was a dangerous enemy, a man to be reckoned with; and I began to turn over schemes in my mind for his defeat.
"I can't chuck him, that's certain," I thought. "One breath of suspicion and twenty criminal offences might be raked up against me. It's only my position, my extravagant living, and prompt payment of all local debts which keeps me, like Cæar's wife, beyond suspicion. One inkling in the right quarter, and I'm bowled out."
I had at this time two distinct and separate causes of fear, which I could hardly hope to escape from for any length of time, seeing that I was again very short of money.
Two plans of campaign had to be mapped out. I decided that the "nurse" danger was the more important, seeing that a post-mortem on the case she knew of would mean absolute disaster, and only needed a word from her to be brought about.
You have seen, Laurence, in your time, that I got on well with the fair sex; and I proceeded to fall desperately in love with this handsome clever woman who was so dangerous.
My wife had been dead two years, and the chance of catching and marrying the successful, good-looking (I'm not boasting, as you know) doctor, was too great a temptation.
We became engaged, and rarely a day passed that I did not spend an hour or two with her in her quiet room. You will not be surprised to hear that before long the tendency to drink, which she had suffered from for some time, increased to a very marked extent.
Meanwhile, Anderson, all unconscious of my knowledge of his treachery, poked and pryed about to try and get more information as to my affairs; but to no avail.
I was too careful.
"What about a holiday, Anderson?" I asked him about six months after he came to me. "Things are very slack; don't you want to go and see your people?" I was trying to get information, because I wanted to know whom I should have to deal with when he was taken ill.
He looked up at me, a sharp, keen glance, and then, turning away, said, "My people are dead, except one brother. He's an advocate in Edinburgh, and doesn't want me about."
"Then you don't want to go away?"
"Thank you very much, no."
He was a smart young man this; I felt that he suspected some motive in my question, but of course could not tell what.
The opportunity for disposing of the blackmailing lady came before long. For some weeks she had been bothering me to make our engagement known, which was the last thing I wanted; consequently my presents of brandy and champagne had become more frequent, but had made sad inroads into my scanty store of ready money, and it was with great joy that I welcomed a message one evening to go to Notting Hill and see Nurse James, who was very ill.
"Good old chappie, here we are," said the flushed, dishevelled-looking woman, who, with her loose hair hanging round her shoulders, which were covered by a brilliant dressing-jacket, sat up in bed, the wild stare of delirium in her eyes.
"Coming to sit with me and see all the devils?—thousands of them; and they're all got up like tom-tits, see—all over the bed?—I keep on catching them. There's another," and she made a motion of seizing a fluttering bird and wringing its neck.
"That one's done for—now let's have a drink; half and half champagne and brandy, fizz and cognac for two—garçon!"
She was in the grip of alcoholic poisoning.
I called for the landlady.
"She must have someone to sit with her and look after her," I said. "Has she any friends or relatives that you know of? She would never open her mouth on the subject to me."
"I don't know of anyone, sorr," answered the corpulent, and almost blue-faced Irish-woman. "Nobody's ever-r come to see her-r, savin' your worship."
"Can you find anyone who knows anything about nursing?"
"There's Widdy O'Halloran down the street, sorr, she've done a bit av it."
"See if she'll come in and help; I'll pay her," I said.
"The good Lord bless ye for a kind gintleman," said the old soul in a husky whisper as she left the room.
"You love, come over to me," shouted the invalid. "Where are the drinks?"
"Coming, Susie, coming," I said. "Now you must stay quiet in bed," and I mixed her a good tumblerful of the drink she required.
The Widdy O'Halloran was able to stop, and, giving her instructions, I left, followed by the imprecations of the once handsome, clever nurse.
I went straight to the house of Dale, a practitioner close by, and, telling him of the case, asked if he would, as a favour, look in and see her, and give me his opinion.
"She has nursed several cases for me," I told him, "and I am anxious about her; she seems to be quite friendless."
I dare not, as you will understand, put in a trained nurse, as she might in her ravings talk about me; whereas the Widdy, if supplied with a sufficiency of gin, would take no notice.
I went to see her again that night, but took my trusty hypodermic with me, which I was able to use quite comfortably, as the sick woman was lying half comatose from exhaustion. She was pretty certain to recover unless further steps were taken; but that was all in my plan from the very first.
I injected a mixture of atropine and aconite, which, without altering the symptoms in any way, would cause intense depression of the heart, and prevent that tendency to rally which is common to the first attack of delirium tremens.
When I left the house, thinking that very probably I had seen the last of Susie, I was startled and surprised for the moment to see the figure of a man run round to the back of the little semi-detached villa I had just left.
The sick-room was on the ground floor, and, turning back, I went to the window, and found out what I suspected; namely, that it was possible, on account of an ill-fitting blind, to see half the room from the outside, and, unfortunately, that half in which the bed was situated.
"A spy," I said. "Could it be anyone but Anderson?"
I decided to make inquiries when I got home; and instead of going to the club as was my wont in the evening, I hailed the first taxi I could find, and hurried back to my house. I took the precaution to examine the soil in the little garden before I left, and even brought a small piece away with me.
"Now if Anderson's out, and has any mud on his boots like this, I have him," I muttered. "And, vice versa, he has me to a certain extent; he must have seen me use the hypodermic."
If once he had any definite evidence against me, my life would not be worth living, and once he knew that I knew that he knew, my chances of beating him would become very much less. To-night should decide.
I reached home; he was out, but as no one had seen me go in, I left again secretly, and when I once more got back about midnight, there was Anderson sitting by the fire in felt slippers, smoking and drinking.
"What a beast of a night," he volunteered; it certainly was cold and damp. "I'm jolly glad I've been able to sit nice and quiet all the evening."
"Quite a pretty liar," I thought, but said, "Well, I'm awfullv sorry, but I'm very tired; would you mind just running up to the Major and giving him his evening dose?"
This was a patient in Nevern Square whom I always saw myself, but I felt I must get Anderson out of the way for awhile, in order to have a look round his room.
"Yes, I'll go at once," he answered, and when he came back ready to go out he was wearing a clean pair of boots.
The moment he had gone, and I had fastened the outer door, I went to his apartment, and sure enough, as I thought, I found a pair of boots with plenty of the clayey soil which I expected to find clinging to them.
I at once wrote a note to the medical man whom I had asked to see Susie, saying that I should be away for a day or two, would he be so kind as to look after her, order what he wanted, and charge to me. He had a very poor practice, and would, I knew, be glad to do anything.
"I'm going to have a few days in the country, Anderson," I said to that gentleman a few days later, as we sat and smoked, "and you must come with me; I like to have some one sensible to talk to, instead of being constantly bored by the drivel of the ordinary chance acquaintance of the country."
He looked at me, a sharp, half inquiring glance from those keen eyes of his, and I imagined him saying to himself. "Does he suspect me, is this a trap?"
"Where do you propose to go?" he inquired.
"I am going to a little place called Hythe in the Southampton Water, a most delightful spot; a friend of mine has offered me the use of his bungalow for a while. And I'm going to accept the offer," was my reply.
He didn't quite like it; I could fathom the doubt in his mind as to whether he was safe. You see, he was beginning to know me, but there was no way out for him, and so, accepting the inevitable, he smiled blandly and asked:
"When do we go?"
"The day after to-morrow, thank goodness," I answered. "And I think we ought to have a thundering good time. No work, and plenty to do."
I don't think he ever dreamt that there was the remotest chance of his leaving that bungalow feet foremost, although he had vague suspicions, I knew, that my arrangements were made. At the same time I felt that I had a clever and resourceful antagonist, and that it behoved me to look after myself.
Breakfast next morning brought me a short note from Dale, my colleague in attendance on Nurse James, saying that she had died during the night—should he sign the certificate?
I wrote back thanking him very profusely, and asked him to see to everything for me, both certificate and funeral, and I enclosed with much pleasure (really with profound regret) notes for twenty pounds, the balance from which I hoped he would accept for his trouble. Danger number one was crossed off—scratched!
Now for number two, but this one was difficult and required great care.
We were soon settled in our bungalow, with an old woman to look after us by day, but who left us solus by night.
I knew it was imperative that Anderson should not leave this little domicile alive, although he was at this time the picture of health and strength.
I did not take much baggage with me, but I took a dispatch box which I locked and sealed, and generally took an inordinate amount of care over; it had nothing of importance in it, but it was taken with a purpose.
I wished to make absolutely certain; the evidence against my assistant, so far, was purely circumstantial. This box was the bait! Deductive reasoning told me that if the young man wished to make a search, he could only do it at night, and in order to do that I must be kept asleep.
Morphia of course would be the drug chosen, easy to give, only shghtly bitter; it can be mixed in beer or tea with the greatest ease; although the books tell you that it must be dissolved in acid. I must tell you, Brown, at this point that I have taken large doses of morphia every day for some years, and have found it the most delightful stimulant and help in times of stress that one could imagine or wish for. Anderson was ignorant of this, and I was not surprised on our second lonely evening in the bungalow to detect morphia in my whisky and soda.
I went off placidly on the sofa in what appeared to him to be a deep sleep; as a matter of fact, the dose he gave me was just enough to slightly stimulate my faculties, and when he went to my bedroom in his search for documents or whatever he could find, I took the opportunity to put into his half empty glass a vegetable drug the name of which I will not give away even to you, Laurence; my experience that night made me decide never to use it again, or tell its name. This occasion was the first and last time I used it in a poisonous dose.
He came back, flushed and angry-looking, and while I watched him with eyes nearly closed he drank off the doctored whisky and cursed aloud at his failure; he even shook his fist at me as I lay apparently helpless.
Then came the gradual onset of the symptoms of my drug.
This evil thing paralyses the muscular system, but leaves the nervous system untouched, and given in the right dose it affects the voluntary muscles first, leaving the involuntary, that is those of the heart and principal organs which this system governs, unaffected for the time being.
Imagine, then, Anderson, his red head damp, and clammy with the sweat of fear, his eyes moving quickly and with a terrified expression, his breath coming in short, sobbing gasps, lying on the thick skin rug in front of the little fire-place. Imagine him, I say, when he saw me, whom he thought to have put to sleep for hours, move slowly off the sofa, and walk towards him with the smile of the victor.
"What have you done to me, you fiend?" he jerked out in a husky, horrid voice. "Tell me, am I dying? you devil! you devil!"
"Yes, Master Anderson," I answered. "You thought to beat me, to blackmail me, to drug me, while all the time you pretended to be my friend. Well, you've lost, and before long your other muscles will fail just as your arms and legs, and motor muscles generally, have already failed. You thought to play me false, you cursed hound; and you're taking the consequences."
"Oh, God, d'Escombe," he begged, "give me a chance. I'll be your slave. I'll do anything for you, but don't let me die like this." He made a desperate effort to move, but to no purpose, only the rolling of his eyes and his deep groans told of his struggle.
"Too late now, too late," I said. "You will keep your senses for a day or two perhaps, but I must stop your talking, because I am sending for the village doctor to attend you."
The irony of the thing seemed too much for him, and he sank back in a temporary stupor, during which I attended with a second hypodermic injection to his vocal chords, thereby making sure that he would tell no tales.
The round, jolly little country practitioner came next day. "Embolism or thrombosis, don't you think?" he suggested, turning to me, and I smiled a grim smile at the eyes of the sick man, who could hear, but could neither move nor speak. It certainly must be a very horrible position to be in, especially when you feel you are dying.
"Quite right, doctor," I answered. "Not much chance." I didn't look at him many more times; in fact, those eyes of his haunt me yet, but self-defence is the first law of nature, and I had recently been hard pressed.
I saw to his funeral and sent him quite a nice wreath. Then, after a few weeks' sailing and fishing in Norfolk, I went back to work, feeling at any rate safe for the time being. But it had been a strenuous fight, and if I had not been a morphia-taker, probably Anderson would have come out on top.
I could afford to take a risk in a tiny out-of-the-way village which in London would have been extremely dangerous. Do you see now what I meant by deduction as against apparent logical certainties?
I finish this just before leaving to play a rubber at your house, Brown, and I hope by some means or other, crooked most likely, to get a fiver or two out of you, and the old duffers with you.
Au revoir for this evening.