Kitobni o'qish: «In White Raiment»

Prologue

Yes; it was utterly inexplicable.

So strange, indeed, were all the circumstances, and so startling the adventures that befell me in my search after truth, that until to-day I have hesitated to relate the narrative, which is as extraordinary as it is unique in the history of any living man.

If it were not for the fact that a certain person actively associated with this curious drama of our latter day civilisation, has recently passed to the land that lies beyond the human ken, my lips would have perforce still remained sealed.

Hitherto, my literary efforts have been confined to the writing of half-illegible prescriptions or an occasioned contribution to one or other of the medical journals; but at the suggestion of the one who is dearest to me on earth, I have now resolved to narrate the whole of the astonishing facts in their due sequence, without seeking to disguise anything, but to lay bare my secret, and to place the whole matter unreservedly before the reader.

Every doctor has a skeleton in his cupboard. I am no exception.

Any dark or mysterious incident, however trivial, in the life of a medical man, is regarded as detrimental by his patients. It is solely because of that I am compelled to conceal one single fact – my true name.

For the rest, reader, I shall be quite straightforward and open in my confession, without the affectation of academic phrases, even though I may be a physician whose consulting-room in Harley Street is invariably full, whose fees are heavy, and whose name figures in the public prints as the medical adviser of certain leaders of society. As Richard Colkirk, M.D., M.R.C.S., M.R.C.P., F.R.S., specialist on nervous disorders, I am compelled to keep up appearances and impress, with a sense of superior attainments, the fashionable world who seek my advice; but as Dick Colkirk, the narrator of this remarkable romance, I can at all times be frank and sometimes confidential.

In the wild whirl of social London there occur daily incidents which, when written down in black and white, appear absolutely incredible. Amid the fevered rush of daily life in this, our giant city of violent contrasts, the city where one is oftentimes so lonely among millions, and where people starve and die in the very midst of reckless extravagance and waste, one sometimes meets with adventures quite as astounding as those related by the pioneers of civilisation – adventures which, if recounted by the professional novelist, must of necessity be accepted with considerable reserve.

Reader, I am about to take you into my confidence. Think for a moment. Have you not read, in your daily paper, true statements of fact far stranger than any ever conceived by the writer of fiction? Have you not sat in a dull, dispiriting London police-court and witnessed that phantasmagoria of comedy, tragedy, and mystery as presented to that long-suffering public servant, the Metropolitan Stipendiary?

If you have, then you will agree that romance is equally distributed over Greater London. Love is as honest and hearts beat as true in Peckham, Paddington, or Plaistow as in that fashionable half-mile area around Hyde-park Corner; life is as full of bitterness and broken idols in Kensington as it is in Kentish Town, Kennington, or the Old Kent Road. The two worlds rub shoulders. All that is most high and noble mingles with all that is basest and most criminal; therefore it is not surprising that the unwary frequently fall into the cunningly-devised traps prepared for them, and even then most prosaic persons meet with queer and exciting adventures.

Chapter One
Mainly about People

My worst enemy – and, alas! I have many – would not accuse me of being of a romantic disposition.

In the profession of medicine any romance, acquired in one’s youth or college days, is quickly knocked out of one by the first term at the hospital. The medical student quickly becomes, in a manner, callous to human suffering, and by the time he obtains his degree he is generally a shrewd and sympathetic observer, but with every spark of romance crushed dead within his heart. Thus, there is no bachelor more confirmed than the celibate doctor.

I had left Guy’s a year. It is not so very long ago, for I am still under forty – young, they say, to have made my mark. True, success has come to me suddenly, and very unworthily, I think, for I confess that my advancement has been more by good luck than by actual worth.

At Guy’s I had been under Lister and other great men whose names will ever remain as medical landmarks, and when I left with my degree I quickly discovered that the doctor’s calling was anything but lucrative.

My first engagement was as assistant to a country practitioner at Woodbridge, in Suffolk; a man who had a large but very poor practice, most of his patients being club ones. Upon the latter I was allowed to exercise my maiden efforts in pills and mixtures, while my principal indulged freely in whisky in his own room over the surgery. He was a hard drinker, who treated his wife as badly as he did his patients, and whose habit it was to enter the cottages of poor people who could not pay him, and seize whatever piece of family china, bric-à-brac, or old oak which he fancied, and forcibly carry it away as payment of the debt owing. By this means he had, in the course of ten years, made quite a presentable collection of curios, although he had more than once very narrowly escaped getting into serious trouble over it.

I spent a miserable year driving, by day and by night, in sunshine and rain, far afield over the Suffolk plains, for owing to my principal’s penchant for drink, the greater part of the work devolved upon myself. The crisis occurred, however, when I had been with him some eighteen months. While in a state of intoxication he was called out to treat a man who had met with a serious accident in a neighbouring village. On his return he gave me certain instructions, and sent me back to visit the patient. The instructions – technical ones, with which it is useless to puzzle the reader – I carried out to the letter, with the result that the poor fellow’s life was lost. Then followed an inquest, exposure, censure from the coroner, a rider from the jury, and my employer, with perfect sang froid, succeeded in fastening the blame upon myself in order to save the scanty reputation he still enjoyed over the countryside.

The jury were, of course, unaware that he was intoxicated when he attended the man and committed the fatal blunder, while I, in perfect innocence, had obeyed his injunctions. It is useless, however, to protest before a coroner; therefore I at once resigned my position, and that same night returned to London, full of indignation at the treatment I had received.

My next practice was as an assistant to a man at Hull, who proved an impossible person, and through the five years that followed I did my best to alleviate human ills in Carlisle, Derby, Cheltenham, and Leeds respectively.

The knowledge I obtained by such general and varied practice, being always compelled to dispense my own prescriptions, was of course invaluable. But it was terribly uphill work, and a doctor’s drudge, as I was, can save no money. Appearances have always to be kept up, and one cannot put by very much on eighty or one hundred pounds a year. Indeed, one night, seven years after leaving Guy’s, I found myself again in London, wandering idly along the Strand, without prospects, and with only a single sovereign between myself and starvation.

I have often reflected upon that memorable night. How different the world seemed then! In those days I was content to pocket a single shilling as a fee; now they are guineas, ten or more, for as many minutes of consultation. It was an unusually hot June, and the night was quite stifling for so early in summer. Although eight o’clock, it was not yet dark; but, as I strolled westward past the Adelphi, there was in the sky that dull purple haze with which Londoners are familiar, the harbinger of a storm. I had sought several old friends of hospital days, but all were out of town. June was running out, and the season was at an end.

London may be declared empty, and half a million persons may have left to disport themselves in the country or by the sea, yet the ebb and flow in that most wonderful thoroughfare in the world – the Strand – is ever the same, the tide in the dog-days being the same as in December. It is the one highway in London that never changes.

I had strolled along to the corner of Bedford Street, down-hearted and low-spirited, I must confess. Ah! to know how absolutely lonely a man can be amid those hurrying millions, one must be penniless. In the seven years that had passed, most of my friends had dispersed, and those who still remained cared little for a ne’er-do-well such as myself. In that walk I calmly reviewed the situation. Away in quiet old Shrewsbury my white-haired, widowed mother lived frugally, full of fond thoughts of her only boy. She had brought herself to the verge of poverty that I might complete my studies and become a doctor. Poor mother! She believed, like so many believe, that every doctor makes a comfortable income. And I had worked – nay, slaved – night and day, through seven whole years, for less wage than an average artisan.

I had not dined, for, truth to tell, I had hesitated to change my last sovereign; but the pangs of hunger reminded me that nothing had passed my lips since the breakfast in my dingy lodgings, and knowing of a cheap eating-house in Covent Garden, I had paused for a moment at the corner.

Next instant I felt a hearty slap on the back, and a cheery voice cried —

“Why, Colkirk, old fellow, what’s up? You look as though you’re going to a funeral?”

I turned quickly and saw a round, fresh-coloured, familiar face before me.

“By Jove!” I exclaimed in pleasant surprise. “Raymond! is it really you?” And we grasped hands heartily.

“I fancy so,” he laughed. “At least, it’s what there is left of me. I went out to Accra, you know, got a sharp touch of fever, and they only sent back my skeleton and skin.”

Bob Raymond was always merry and amusing. He had been the humourist of Guy’s, in my time: the foremost in practical joking, and the most backward in learning. The despair of more than one eminent lecturer, he had, nevertheless, been one of the most popular fellows in our set, and had occupied diggings in the next house to where I lodged in a mean street off Newington Butts.

“Well,” I laughed, “if you left your flesh behind you on the West Coast, you’ve filled out since. Why, you’re fatter than ever. What’s your beverage? Cod-liver oil?”

“No; just now it’s whisky-and-seltzer with a big chunk of ice. Come into Romano’s and have one. You look as though you want cheering up.”

I accepted his invitation, and we strolled back to the bar he had mentioned.

He was a short, fair-haired, sturdily-built fellow with a round face which gave him the appearance of an overgrown boy, a pair of blue eyes that twinkled with good fellowship, cheeks that struck me as just a trifle too ruddy to be altogether healthy, a small mouth, and a tiny, drooping, yellow moustache. He wore a silk hat of brilliant gloss, a frock-coat, as became one of “the profession,” and carried in his hand a smart ebony cane with a silver crook. I noticed, as we stood at the bar, that his hat bulged slightly on either side, and knew that in it was concealed his stethoscope. He was therefore in practice.

Over our drinks we briefly related our experiences, for we had both left the hospital at the same term, and had never met or heard of each other since. I told him of my drudgery, disappointment, and despair, to which he listened with sympathetic ear. Then he told me of himself. He had gone out to Accra, had a narrow squeak with a bad attack of fever, returned to London to recover, and became assistant to a well-known man at Plymouth.

“And what are you doing now?” I inquired.

“I’ve started a little practice over in Hammersmith,” he answered. “I’ve been there a year; but Hammersmith seems such a confoundedly healthy spot.”

“You haven’t got many patients – eh?” I said, smiling.

“Unfortunately, no. The red lamp doesn’t seem to attract them any more than the blue lamp before the police-station. If there was only a bit of zymotic disease, I might make a pound or two; but as it is, gout, indigestion, and drink seem to be the principal ailments at present.” Then he added, “But if you’re not doing anything, why don’t you come down and stay a day or two with me? I’m alone, and we’d be mutual company. In the meantime you might hear of something from the Lancet. Where’s your diggings?”

I told him.

“Then let’s go over there now and get your traps. Afterwards we can go home together. I’ve got cold mutton for supper. Hope you don’t object.”

“Very digestible,” I remarked. And, after some persuasion, he at length prevailed upon me to accept his hospitality.

He had established himself, I found, in the Rowan Road – a turning off the Hammersmith Road – in an ordinary-looking, ten-roomed house: one of those stereotyped ones with four hearth-stoned steps leading to the front door, and a couple of yards of unhealthy-looking, ill-kept grass between the bay window and the iron railings.

The interior was comfortably furnished, for Bob was not wholly dependent upon his practice. His people were brewers at Bristol, and his allowance was ample. The dining-room was in front, while the room behind it was converted into a surgery with the regulation invalid’s couch, a case of secondhand books to lend the place an imposing air, and a small writing-table whereat my hospital chum wrote his rather erratic ordinances.

Bob was a good fellow, and I spent a pleasant time with him. Old Mrs Bishop, his housekeeper, made me comfortable, and the whole day long my host would keep me laughing at his droll witticisms.

Patients, however, were very few and far between.

“You see, I’m like the men in Harley Street, my dear old chap,” he observed one day, “I’m only consulted as a last resource.”

I did not feel quite comfortable in accepting his hospitality for more than a week; but when I announced my intention of departing he would not hear of it, and therefore I remained, each week eager for the publication of the Lancet with its lists of assistants wanted.

I had been with him three weeks, and assisted him in his extremely small practice, for he sometimes sought my advice as to treatment. Poor old Bob! he was never a very brilliant one in his diagnoses. He always made it a rule to sound everybody, feel their pulses, press down their tongues and make them say, “Ah?”

“Must do something for your money,” he would say when the patient had gone. “They like to be looked at in the mouth.”

One afternoon, while we were sitting together smoking in his little den above the surgery, he made a sudden suggestion.

“Do you know, Dick – I scarcely like to ask you – but I wonder whether you’d do me a favour?”

“Most certainly, old chap,” I responded.

“Even though you incur a great responsibility?”

“What is the responsibility?”

“A very grave one. To take charge of this extensive practice while I go down to Bristol and see my people. I haven’t been homesick a week.”

“Why, of course,” I responded. “I’ll look after things with pleasure.”

“Thanks. You’re a brick. I won’t be away for more than a week. You won’t find it very laborious. There’s a couple of kids with the croup round in Angel Road, a bedridden old girl in Bridge Road, and a man in Beadon Road who seems to have a perpetual stomach-ache. That’s about all.”

I smiled. He had not attempted to diagnose the stomach-ache, I supposed. He was, indeed, a careless fellow.

“Of course you’ll pocket all the fees,” he added, with a touch of grim humour. “They’re not very heavy – bobs and half-crowns – but they may keep you in tobacco till I come back.”

And thus I became the locum tenens of the not too extensive practice of Robert Raymond, surgeon, for he departed for Paddington on the following evening, and I entered upon my somewhat lonely duties.

The first couple of days passed without incident. I visited the two children with the croup, looked in upon the bedridden relict of a bibulous furniture-dealer, and examined the stomach with the perpetual pain. The latter proved a much more serious case than I had supposed, and from the first I saw that the poor fellow was suffering from an incurable disease. My visits only took an hour, and the rest of the day I spent in the little den upstairs, smoking furiously and reading.

On the third morning, shortly before midday, just as I was thinking of going out to make my round of visits, an unusual incident occurred.

I heard a cab stop outside, and a moment later the surgery bell was violently rung. I started, for that sound was synonymous with half a crown.

A middle-aged woman, in black, evidently a domestic servant, stood in the surgery, and, as I confronted her, asked breathlessly —

“Are you the doctor, sir?”

I replied in the affirmative, and asked her to be seated.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, sir,” she said, “but would you come round with me? My mistress has been taken worse.”

“What’s the matter with her?” I inquired.

“I don’t know, sir,” answered the woman, in deep distress, “But I do beg of you to come at once.”

“Certainly I will,” I said. And leaving her, ascended, put on my boots, and placing my case of instruments in my pocket, quickly rejoined her, and entered the cab in waiting.

On our drive along Hammersmith Road, and through several thoroughfares lying on the right, I endeavoured to obtain from her some idea of the nature of the lady’s ailment; but she was either stupidly ignorant, or else had received instructions to remain silent.

The cab at last pulled up before a fine grey house with a wide portico, supported by four immense columns, before which we alighted. The place, standing close to the entrance to a large square, was a handsome one, with bright flowers in boxes before the windows, and a striped sun-blind over the balcony formed by the roof of the portico. The quilted blinds were down because of the strong sun, but our ring was instantly answered by a grave-looking footman, who showed me into a cosy library at the end of the hall.

“I’ll tell my master at once that you are here, sir,” the man said. And he closed the door, leaving me alone.

Chapter Two
The Third Finger

The house was one of no mean order, and a glance at the rows of books showed them to be well chosen – evidently the valued treasures of a studious man. Upon the writing-table was an electric reading-lamp with green shade, and a fine, pale photograph of a handsome woman in a heavy silver frame. In the stationery rack upon the table the note-paper bore an embossed cipher surmounted by a coronet.

After a few moments the door re-opened, and there entered a very thin, pale-faced, slightly-built man of perhaps sixty, carefully dressed in clothes of rather antique cut. He threw out his chest in walking, and carried himself with stiff, unbending hauteur. His dark eyes were small and sharp, and his clean-shaven face rendered his aquiline features the more pronounced.

“Good morning,” he said, greeting me in a thin, squeaky voice. “I am very glad my servant found you at home.”

“And I, too, am glad to be of service, if possible,” I responded.

He motioned me to be seated, at the same time taking a chair behind his writing-table. Was it, I wondered, by design or by accident that in the position he had assumed his face remained in the deep shadow, while my countenance was within the broad ray of sunlight that came in between the blind and the window-sash? There was something curious in his attitude, but what it was I could not determine.

“I called you in to-day, doctor,” he explained, resting his thin, almost waxen hands upon the table, “not so much for medical advice as to have a chat with you.”

“But the patient?” I observed. “Had I not better see her first, and chat afterwards?”

“No,” he responded. “It is necessary that we should first understand one another perfectly.”

I glanced at him, but his face was only a grey blotch in the deep shadow. Of its expression I could observe nothing. Who, I wondered, was this man?

“Then the patient is better, I presume?”

“Better, but still in a precarious condition,” he replied, in a snapping voice. Then, after a moment’s pause, he added, in a more conciliatory tone, “I don’t know, doctor, whether you will agree with me, but I have a theory that, just as every medical man and lawyer has his fee, so has every man his price!”

“I scarcely follow you,” I said, somewhat puzzled. “I mean that every man, no matter what his station in life, is ready to perform services for another, providing the sum is sufficient in payment.”

I smiled at his philosophy. “There is a good deal of truth in that,” I remarked; “but of course there are exceptions.”

“Are you one?” he inquired sharply, in a strange voice.

I hesitated. His question was curious. I could not see his object in such observations.

“I ask you a plain question,” he repeated. “Are you so rich as to be beyond the necessity of money?”

“No,” I answered frankly. “I’m not rich.”

“Then you admit that, for a certain price, you would be willing to perform a service?” he said bluntly.

“I don’t admit anything of the kind,” I laughed, not, however, without a feeling of indignation.

“Well,” he said after a few moments hesitation, during which time his pair of small black eyes were, I knew, fixed upon me, “I’ll speak more plainly. Would you object, for instance, to taking a fee of five figures to-day?”

“A fee of five figures?” I repeated, puzzled. “I don’t quite follow you.”

“Five figures equal to ten thousand pounds,” he said slowly, in a strange voice.

“A fee of five figures,” I repeated, puzzled. “For what?”

In an instant it flashed across my mind that the thin, grey-faced man before me was trying to suborn me to commit murder – that crime so easily committed by a doctor. The thought staggered me.

“The service I require of you is not a very difficult one,” he answered, bending across the table in his earnestness. “You are young – a bachelor, I presume – and enthusiastic in your honourable calling. Would not ten thousand pounds be of great use to you at this moment?”

I admitted that it would. What could I not do with such a sum?

Again I asked him the nature of the service he demanded, but he cleverly evaded my inquiries.

“My suggestion will, I fear, strike you as curious,” he added. “But in this matter there must be no hesitation on our part; it must be accomplished to-day.”

“Then it is, I take it, a matter of life or death?”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the low ticking of the marble clock upon the mantelshelf.

“Of death,” he answered in a low, strained tone. “Of death, rather than of life.”

I held my breath. My countenance must have undergone a change, and this did not escape his observant eyes, for he added —

“Before we go further, I would ask you, doctor, to regard this interview as strictly confidential.”

“It shall be entirely as you wish,” I stammered.

The atmosphere of the room seemed suddenly oppressive, my head was in a whirl, and I wanted to get away from the presence of my tempter.

“Good,” he said, apparently reassured. “Then we can advance a step further. I observed just now that you were a bachelor, and you did not contradict me.”

“I am a bachelor, and have no intention of marrying.”

“Not for ten thousand pounds?” he inquired.

“I’ve never yet met a woman whom I could love sufficiently,” I told him quite plainly.

“But is your name so very valuable to you that you would hesitate to bestow it upon a woman for a single hour – even though you were a widower before sunset?”

“A widower before sunset?” I echoed. “You speak in enigmas. If you were plainer in your words I might comprehend your meaning.”

“Briefly, my meaning is this,” he said, in a firmer voice, after pausing, as though to gauge my strength of character. “Upstairs in this house my daughter is ill – she is not confined to her bed, but she is nevertheless dying. Two doctors have attended her for several weeks, and to-day in consultation have pronounced her beyond hope of recovery. Before being struck down by disease, she was hopelessly in love with a man whom I believed to be worthless – a man whose name they told me was synonymous with all that is evil in human nature. She was passionately fond of him, and her love very nearly resulted in a terrible tragedy. Through the weeks of her delirium she has constantly called his name. Her every thought has been of him; and now, in these her last moments, I am filled with remorse that I did not endeavour to reclaim him and allow them to marry. He is no longer in England, otherwise I would unite them. The suggestion I have to make to you is that you should assume that man’s place and marry my daughter.”

“Marry her!” I gasped.

“Yes. Not being in possession of all her faculties, she will, therefore, not distinguish between her true lover and yourself. She will believe herself married to him, and her last moments will be rendered happy.”

I did not reply. The suggestion held me dumbfounded.

“I know that the proposal is a very extraordinary one,” he went on, his voice trembling in deep earnestness, “but I make it to you in desperation. By my own ill-advised action and interference, Beryl, my only child, is dying, and I am determined, if possible, to bring peace to her poor unbalanced mind in these the last hours of her existence. My remorse is bitter, God knows! It is little that I can do in the way of atonement, save to convince her of my forgiveness.”

His face, as he bent forward to me at that moment, came, for the first time, within the broad bar of sunlight that fell between us, and I saw how white and haggard it was. The countenance was no longer that of a haughty man, but of one rendered desperate.

“I fear that in this matter it is beyond my power to assist you,” I said, stirring myself at last. Truth to tell, his proposal was so staggering that I inclined to the belief that he himself was not quite right in his mind. The curious light in his eyes strengthened this suspicion.

“You will not help me?” he cried starting up.

“You will not assist in bringing happiness to my poor girl in her dying hour?”

“I will be no party to such a flagrant fraud as you propose,” I responded quietly.

“The sum insufficient – eh! Well, I’ll double it. Let us say twenty thousand.”

“And the marriage you suggest is, I presume, to be a mock one?”

“A mock one? No, a real and binding one – entirely legal,” he responded. “A marriage in church.”

“Would not a mock one be just as effective in the mind of the unfortunate young lady?” I suggested.

“No, there are reasons why a legal marriage should take place,” he answered distinctly.

“And they are?”

“Ah! upon that point I regret that I cannot satisfy you,” he answered. “Is not twenty thousand pounds sufficient to satisfy you, without asking questions?”

“But I cannot see how a legal marriage can take place,” I queried. “There are surely formalities to be observed.”

“Leave them all to me,” he answered quickly. “Rest assured that I have overlooked no detail in this affair. A mock marriage would, of course, have been easy enough; but I intend that Beryl shall be legally wedded, and for the service rendered me by becoming her husband I am prepared to pay you twenty thousand pounds the instant the ceremony is concluded.”

Then, unlocking a drawer in his writing-table, he drew forth a large bundle of notes secured by an elastic band, which he held towards me, saying —

“These are yours if you care to accept my offer.”

I glanced at the thick square packet of crisp notes, and saw that each was for one hundred pounds. My eyes wandered to the Tempter’s face. The look I saw there startled me. Was he actually the devil in human guise?

He noticed the quick start I gave, and instantly his features relaxed into a smile.

“I cannot see what possible ground you can have for scruples,” he said. “To deceive a dying girl in order to render her last moments happy is surely admissible. Come, render me this trifling service.”

And thus he persuaded and cajoled me, tempting me with the money in his hand to sell my name. Reader, place yourself in my position for a moment. I might, I reflected, slave through all my life, and never become possessed of such a sum. I was not avaricious, far from it; yet with twenty thousand pounds I could gain the zenith of my ambition, and lead the quiet, even life that had so long been my ideal. I strove to shut my ears to the persuasive words of the Tempter, but could not. The service was not a very great one, after all. The woman who was to be my wife was dying. In a few hours, at most, I should be free again, and our contract would remain for ever a secret.

The sight of that money – money with a curse upon it, money that, had I known the truth, I would have flung into the grate and burned rather than suffer its contact with my hand – decided me. Reader, can you wonder at it? I was desperately in want of money, and, throwing my natural caution and discretion to the winds, I yielded. Yes, I yielded.

The Tempter drew a distinct sigh of relief. His sinister face, so thin that I could trace the bones beneath the white, tightly-stretched skin, grinned in satisfaction, for he was now confident of his power over me. He had me irretrievably in his toils. He tossed the notes carelessly back into the drawer and locked it with the key upon his chain, then, glancing at the clock and rising, said —

“We must lose no time. All is prepared. Come with me.”

My heart at that instant beat so loudly that its pulsations were audible. I was to sacrifice myself and wed an unknown bride in order to gain that packet of banknotes. Mine was indeed a strange position, but, held beneath the spell of this man’s presence, I obeyed him and followed him, curious to see the face of the woman to whom I was to give my name.