standing about one of the tables. Here and there I could see several
who, sketch-book in hand, were busily at work utilizing what they
evidently considered an artistic opportunity. Favell and Richardson,
boylike, pushed their way through the crowd, while Parkyn and I
leisurely brought up the rear. I heard the demonstrator of anatomy say--
“Well, gentlemen, we must begin our dissection. We have already devoted
too much time to sentiment.”
As the professor poised his gleaming scalpel over the body, Favell
exclaimed, “Wait just a moment, sir, please, here comes Parkyn.”
The professor, with whom the cultured and artistic Parkyn was a
favorite, stayed his hand, and with knife upraised, waited. The crowd
made way for my friend, and I stepped aside to allow him to pass ahead
of me.
There are some events which are so replete with action and dramatic
excitement that no one, however observing, can faithfully describe
them. Note upon this point the conflicting testimony of disinterested
eye-witnesses in murder trials. Such was the scene which followed the
introduction of Parkyn to the presence of that body.
There was a yell like that of a maniac, a swift rush, the collision of
two bodies, a heavy fall! As I sprang quickly into the midst of the
swaying, trampling, excited crowd about the table, the demonstrator,
pale and frightened, was just rising from the floor, his scalpel still
in his trembling hand and his face cut and bleeding where his assailant
had struck him in the first mad rush. Parkyn was still lying on the
floor, and on endeavoring with the assistance of several students to
raise him to his feet, I saw that he was insensible. Upon his temple
was a deep, jagged gash where his head had come in contact with the
corner of the table.
Temporary emotional insanity in a man of highly wrought nervous
organization was the universal verdict, and it was with genuine sorrow
and regret that poor Parkyn’s fellow students took him to the hospital,
apparently in a lifeless condition.
But Parkyn did not die--his skull was not fractured. This was very
fortunate, in the light of subsequent events, for he developed symptoms
of meningitis, and hovered between life and death for many weeks. I
remained in the city to care for him and was a proud and happy man when
I was able to pronounce him out of danger.
How poor Parkyn raved as his fever and delirium rose! No one but myself
knew the story of his wild, ecstatic visions and apparently erratic
talk--and I said nothing.
During his illness I had occasion to open Parkyn’s trunk. While
rummaging about in search of his wearing apparel, I found the pictured
dream of his artist days. I knew then how powerful was the shock that
made my poor friend, in intent, at least, a murderer. I care not
what the world may say of the vagaries of foolish old doctors and
the maunderings of aged, would-be philosophers; I care not who may
doubt;--I held in my hands the picture of the beautiful subject of
the dissecting hall. Beautiful beyond the power of pen or tongue to
portray, realistic to a living, breathing, sentient degree, I beheld
the portrait of the original of the lifeless clay which was the central
figure of the romance of the dissecting room.
When Parkyn recovered from his illness his mind was a blank, so far
as his artistic training and the romance of the picture and corpse
were concerned. I concealed the picture, deeming it unwise to revive
dangerous memories in his mind. It remained in my possession for
several years. I kept it hidden because it seemed a sacrilege to permit
it to be gazed upon by the eyes of the commonplace. My office was
finally destroyed by fire, and I confess that I was not sorry when I
discovered that the trunk which contained the painting was not among
the properties saved from the flames.
Parkyn became a plodding practitioner in a little country town in New
York State. I visited him some years later, and found that his ideals
were represented by a short, dumpy, motherly, little red-headed wife
and half a dozen tow-headed, freckle-faced youngsters that looked for
all the world like turkey eggs and jack o’ lanterns.
A MATTER OF PROFESSIONAL SECRECY
The day had been a trying one. Four capital operations, between the
hours of eight and ten in the morning, fifteen minutes for washing up
and changing back from the rubber and white duck of the operating room
to my ordinary habiliments, and with my usual fear that I was still
redolent with the fumes of ether and that sickish odor of the combined
horrors of blood and iodoform, I was off for my clinic at the medical
school as fast as my team of thoroughbreds could take me.
A strenuous hour of teaching and, my nervous force already nearly
exhausted, although my day’s work had just begun, I hurried to my
office, taking barely enough time _en route_ to swallow a hasty lunch.
And then came an afternoon of arduous office work, with, it seemed to
me, more patients and more tough problems and petty annoyances than
usual.
My office hours over, I was privileged to spend a half hour at dinner,
before attending to several consultations. I wound up the day by
calling at the hospital and looking over the cases I had operated in
the morning, and was then driven homeward, fairly worn out, by what
was, after all, merely an average day in the life of the college
professor.
It was long after midnight when I retired, congratulating myself,
meanwhile, that I had completed and forwarded to the publisher the last
batch of MS. for my new book, and was therefore privileged to rest my
weary bones and exhausted brain.
A telephone at one’s bedside is sometimes a great convenience for the
physician, but there are occasions when to me it seems an invention of
the devil--a something devised especially to defeat the ends of tired
nature--a sort of Nemesis, which pursues one into the very midst of
dreamland. When I am as tired as I was on this particular night, the
ringing of my telephone bell awakens me with a sudden physical and
mental shock that sets my every nerve a quiver, and makes my heart beat
like a trip hammer for many minutes.
With the bell still ringing with impudent insistency, I found myself
sitting bolt upright in bed and, I freely confess, swearing to the
limit of my vocabulary of the profane. Having sufficiently identified
myself to the party at the other end of the line he said excitedly,
“Doctor, you are wanted at once at No. -- B-- Street. A man is dying.
For God’s sake, hurry!”
And I stood not on the order of my going.
A handsome young man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, lay
writhing in the most horrible agony, and crying, “Water, for God’s sake
give me some water! I am burning up inside! My stomach and bowels are
on fire!”
From time to time frightful paroxysms of vomiting came on, with the
ejection of a greenish fluid mixed with blood. His sufferings were
frightful to witness. He complained of cold shivers, and his teeth
chattered like those of a man with an ague chill. His skin was yellow
and parchment like, and his face drawn and cadaverous. His eyes were
sunken and surrounded by great dark rings. Their dullness was only
redeemed by the gleam of fear and horror of death that shone in their
depths.
“Has this man ever before been ill, so far as you know?” I asked.
“Yes, doctor,” replied an elderly woman--evidently the landlady, for
the ear marks of the cheap boarding house were plain--“this is the
third attack of the kind, only this is the worst one he’s had. Until a
month ago he was well and hearty. His sickness always comes on in this
way, with that funny lookin’ vomit, and that burning in his stomach.
This is the first time there’s been any blood, though. He was all right
this morning at breakfast. He didn’t come home to dinner, and I think
he must have eaten somethin’ that didn’t agree with him, at one o’ them
restaurants downtown.”
I immediately gave the poor fellow a hypodermic of morphine and
requested everybody to leave the room. He grew easier in a few minutes,
I meanwhile administering antidotes for what seemed clearly a case of
arsenical poisoning.
“My friend,” I said, “you have taken arsenic. Why did you do it?”
“No, no,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Julie, Julie!” Further than
this I could get nothing intelligible out of him.
Another paroxysm of that awful pain came on, and I was obliged to
resort to another hypodermic. This paroxysm left him almost pulseless.
His skin grew cold and damp, and his eyes assumed that glazed and set
appearance which means but one thing to the professional eye. My
patient was sinking fast.
I quickly administered stimulants hypodermically and then called the
sick man’s friends to his bedside.
“This man is dying,” I said quietly to the landlady. “He has but a few
minutes longer to live. See if you can get him to say anything about
himself.”
The woman spoke to the dying man and shook him gently, in a vain effort
to arouse his attention. He revived a little for a fleeting moment and
shook his head feebly, muttering in barely audible tones, “Tired--so
tired--sleepy.”
This was the last flicker of his candle of life. I could no longer
find the pulse at the wrist. The heart sounds grew feebler and feebler
and finally ceased altogether. The face grew gray and ghastly. The
eyes were set and dully staring and the jaw relaxed. There was a last
convulsive expansion and contraction of the chest and a gasping,
strident, laryngeal sound as the breath finally left the poor fellow’s
body forever. My unfortunate patient was dead!
“What was the matter with him, Doctor?” asked in chorus the people
about the bedside.
Long years of experience had brought discretion to this particular
warhorse, and so I replied,
“Acute gastritis.”
I did not propose to tell all I thought I knew, or to issue premature
bulletins. I wanted time to think. I scented mystery here, and perhaps
crime, and let him who will condemn my taste as a depraved one, such
things have always had an overpowering fascination for me.
I knew that some hours would elapse before I would be called upon for a
death certificate, and much could be done in the way of investigation
in that time. I resolved to keep my own counsel and allow future
developments to determine whether or when I should place the case in
the hands of the coroner.
But, was the case one of murder or suicide? This question I proposed
to solve myself, if I could. I could at least try to do so, before
turning the matter over to the authorities. If it were suicide there
might be reasons satisfactory to my conscience why I should keep my
counsel. There are times when the physician is justified in closing
and forever locking the door of the closet that contains the grinning
family skeleton. I may be telling tales out of school, but I am not
ashamed to say that this has been done by men whom I revere. All honor
to the profession that has the courage to protect the fair name of its
_clientele_!
Of course, I had no intention of concealing what I knew, if the case
should prove to be at all doubtful, nor was there in this particular
case much chance of any circumstances existing which would be likely
to impel me to conceal a suicide. Should the case prove to be a
murder, I resolved to at once notify the coroner, no matter what the
circumstances might be.
I suspected from the history of the case that it was murder, not
suicide, with which I had to deal.
* * * * *
One by one the friends and curious neighbors of my late patient filed
silently out of the room, till none remained save the landlady and
myself. Mrs. Wharton was evidently a simple, kind-hearted creature, who
had known sorrow of her own and had had experience. She quietly set
about performing the last sad offices for the dead, whilst I proceeded
to critically inspect the dead man’s surroundings.
Mrs. Wharton removed the pillow from beneath the head of the corpse. As
she did so a letter fell from the pillow upon the floor, unnoticed save
by myself.
The interest excited in my mind by that letter may be imagined. Here
was a possible answer to the question I had been asking myself. The
opportunity must not be lost. Under the pretext of helping Mrs.
Wharton, I succeeded in placing my foot squarely over the letter. To
drop and regain my handkerchief, restoring it to my pocket with that
much to be desired missive concealed in its folds, was sufficiently
easy, even for an amateur.
Before departing for home, I made a few ostensibly casual inquiries
regarding the dead man. It appeared that he was a comparatively new
boarder in the house, and had said that he had been in the city but a
short time. He had not obtained any regular employment, but seemed to
have plenty of money, Mrs. Wharton stated, adding, “He was an awfully
nice young man, Mr. Peyton was, and everybody in the house liked him.”
“Do you know whether or not he was married?” I asked.
“Oh, my, no, he wasn’t married!” exclaimed Mrs. Wharton. “I’m quite
sure he wasn’t, because he had a sweetheart--such a pretty girl, too.
That’s her picture on the mantel.”
I picked up the photograph and found that the landlady had spoken “by
the card”--the dead man’s sweetheart was indeed “such a pretty girl,”
of the dark Spanish type--with a face full of life and passion.
“Ah,” I exclaimed to myself, “I’ll wager that we have found ‘the
woman.’ Those great dark eyes, that massive head of ebon hair and
those full, sensuous lips seem to me to fit into this mystery very
accurately.”
“Where does the young woman live?” I asked.
“Laws, sir, I don’t know where she lives, but I understand that she
works somewhere down town. Mr. Peyton used to call for her, so one of
the other boarders who used to be here said, nearly every evening at
closing time, at one of them big department stores. I don’t know which
one, for sure, but I think it was the Emporium--or, maybe, it was
Wurtzinger’s.”
I had no doubt as to my ability to recognize the original of the
photograph. After making a mental note of the somewhat faded
inscription upon the back, I replaced the picture upon the mantel.
“To Hartley, from Julie.” Julie was the name that the dead man had
spoken, almost in his last agony. Most assuredly I must find Julie.
As may be imagined, after my arrival home I wasted none of the
remaining precious moments of the night in sleeping. I fairly dashed
into my study, turned on the lights, closed and locked the door
instinctively, without rhyme or reason, and proceeded to read that
portentous letter:
“Hartley:--
“Why did you follow me to N--? Why can you not understand? Why do you
persist in harrowing my very soul in the attempt to bring back by
force and arms what no longer exists? I have told you, over and over
again, that I no longer love you, and that I love another with all the
strength of my being. Of what good could it be to compel me, as you
are trying to do, to continue a _liaison_ which I have come to detest,
and which, had I been more worldly wise would never have been formed?
And you threaten to expose me--you, who have nothing to lose, while
I--oh, man, man! Why can you not see? And you say you love me, and you
reproach me because I have said in the past--that past over which I
fain would draw a veil of oblivion--that I loved you. Yes, I did love
you--to my shame be it said, the more shame that I now know that the
burning sentiment, the ardent affection you have expressed for me is
not love, but the passion of the brute whose life revolves around his
own selfish gratification. You will say this is not true, that you do
love me, that your love is of the exalted type. For God’s sake then,
do what you can to show me that I am wrong! By that love, I implore
you to do nothing until I see you. Do not bring the girl you have so
often called your Julie, to open shame! Oh, Hartley, be not harsh to
me! I am the most miserable wretch, the unhappiest being on the face
of the earth. Do not drive me to desperation and death. Do not ruin my
future. Be merciful, I implore you. In your last letter you threaten
to denounce me to my father, that you will send him my letters. Oh,
why did I ever write them? Hartley, if my poor old father should ever
read those letters, inspired though they were by the truest love, he
would put me away from him. He would hate me, now that I am engaged to
marry a man of whom he is very fond. I wrote to you in all the ardor
of my first love; it was as pure and as true as it was deep, but the
world could not, would not understand. I believed you when you said you
loved me, and it was for the love that you expressed that I adored
you. I put on paper what I should not. Had my love been one of head and
not of heart--had I not believed you the noblest of men, I should not
now be pleading for mercy. If my father or Mr. X---- should see those
fond letters to you, what could I expect but a revulsion of feeling?
If any other eyes should see them, what would not be said of me? Oh,
on my bended knees I implore you to spare me,--to spare those who
love me and whom I love with my whole soul. As you hope for mercy on
the Judgment Day, do not inform on me--do not make my name a scandal
and a reproach! Oh, will you not keep my secret from the world? For
the sake of my mother, for the love you bear your own, spare me! Oh,
Hartley, in God’s name hear my prayer! I have prayed God to forgive
your cruel threats--to inspire you to spare me from shame. For the love
of Heaven, hear me! I grow mad! I have been ill, very ill, ever since I
received your last awful, threatening letter. I have had to resort to
drugs--something I should not have taken, and my brain is on fire. I
feel as if death itself would be sweet. Hartley, oh, Hartley; abuse me,
villify me, kill me if you will, but do not denounce me! For my life
I am pleading--oh, listen, listen, for--must I say it?--for your own
safety hear me. I cannot stand everything. Do not drive me to madness
and death--or worse! Have pity on her whom you once called--your Julie.”
As I read this heart rending missive my late patient’s case did not
seem so mysterious. I do not hesitate to say, moreover, that the memory
of his last horrible agonies was pleasanter to contemplate than it had
been.
“The man who inspired that letter,” I exclaimed aloud, “never committed
suicide. He was not man enough. That fellow died like a poisoned rat in
a hole,--if the evidence counts for anything.”
Having thus become more reconciled to the death of the late Mr. Peyton,
I was less inclined than ever to be in haste in promoting any legal
intermeddling with what had begun to appear a just dispensation of
Providence. But I was nevertheless determined to see the matter to its
conclusion. I was bound to find the hand that had “poisoned the rat.” I
could decide what course to pursue afterward. I was confident that I
knew for whom I must look, but where? Where was “Julie?”
After a hurried breakfast I began my quest. As luck would have it I
decided to visit the Emporium first. I confess that when I entered the
colossal establishment and saw its large number of female employes
I began to fear that, with only the given name of the person I was
seeking and a mental reproduction of her photograph to guide me, my
task was liable to be something like the proverbial search for the
needle in the haystack.
For more than two hours I strolled about the Emporium, covertly
studying the faces of the women clerks and affecting an indifference
which I did not feel, without seeing any one who could by any
possibility have been taken for the original of the picture. Black hair
and dark eyes--the possessors of which were not seldom beautiful--were
there in plenty, but none that could be compared with those I sought.
I was about to go to the office of the establishment to inquire there,
under the pretext of seeking a witness of an accident case, when I
caught sight of one of the floor walkers, a Mr. Courtney, who chanced
to be an old patient of mine.
“Ah,” I thought, “here is some one who may help me.”
Mr. Courtney greeted me warmly, and replied courteously, when I asked
for a private interview,
“Certainly, doctor, step this way.”
Having seated ourselves on a sofa in an out of the way corner of the
store, I said,
“Mr. Courtney, for important reasons, which I am sure it will not be
necessary to give you, I am seeking a certain young lady, who may or
may not be employed in this establishment. I have been compelled to ask
your assistance because I have only her description to rely upon, and
know merely her given name--‘Julie.’”
I then proceeded to describe the young woman of the photograph.
My friend smiled and said,
“Your task is an easy one, doctor. There’s only one of her kind, in
this establishment, at least. Do you wish to speak to the young woman?”
I was somewhat taken aback by the suddenness with which success
promised to reward my search.
“W--why, yes, if it would not be too much trouble,” I replied.
Mr. Courtney rapped sharply for a messenger, and one promptly appeared.
“Tell Miss Morales, in the lace department, that I wish to see her here
at once.”
The messenger departed on his mission, leaving me wondering how I had
missed seeing the object of my quest. I recalled having lingered for
quite a while at the lace department.
The messenger did his errand quickly and returned.
“Please, sir, Miss Morales is at home sick. The lace department manager
says she hain’t been down to the store for three or four days.”
“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Courtney, “come to think of it, I haven’t seen
her for several days. I had made no especial note of her absence,
however, as there are so many women employes in the store, and the lace
department isn’t on my floor. If you wish, doctor, I will ascertain
where she lives. We keep a record of the residences of all our
employes, you know.”
Mr. Courtney went to the office and returned with a card upon which was
written, “Miss Julie Morales, No. -- M-- Street.”
After thanking my friend and asking him to consider my inquiry as of a
confidential nature, I wended my way to the address given me.
No. -- M-- Street proved to be located some distance from the business
part of the city. The house presented the semi-respectable appearance
of a boarding house of the cheaper grade. A smirking, frowsy,
freckle-faced Irish maid opened the door in answer to my ring, and
informed me that “Miss Morales was to home” and she “guessed,” in her
room.
The maid ushered me into the stuffy, cookery smelling parlor, dusted a
rickety, shabby genteel, hair-cloth covered chair with her apron, and
asked me to be seated.
“Who shall I be after tellin’ Miss Morales as wants to see her?”
“Never mind my name. Just tell her I am from the Emporium.”
The maid soon returned and informed me that Miss Morales would be “down
in a little while.”
I had begun to grow somewhat restless, and was wondering whether the
fair Miss Morales had not become suspicious and eluded me, when there
was a soft rustle of skirts in the hall, the door opened, and there
stood the original of the photograph--hollow eyed, wan and haggard,
with deep care lines about the mouth, but still undoubtedly “Julie,”
and still surpassingly lovely.
“You wished to see me, sir,” she said, in a voice which was somewhat
tremulous, and unquestionably that of one who had suffered much.
“Miss Morales, I believe.”
“That is my name, sir.”
“I owe you an apology for the little deception,” I said, handing
her my professional card. “As you see, I am not from the Emporium,
although I obtained the address from my friend Mr. Courtney, at that
establishment.”
Her hand trembled as she took the card, and she gazed at it fearfully,
as though apprehensive of danger.
“Shall we not be seated?” I asked, motioning to a settee. The young
woman acquiesced, almost mechanically. Seating myself beside her, I
said:
“Miss Morales, while I am a total stranger to you, I wish you would
not construe my visit and what I am about to say to you as either
impertinent or menacing to yourself. I am here with the best of
intentions, but I must discuss with you a matter which, you may be
assured, is of vital importance to you. Anything you may say will be
treated by me as strictly confidential--as, in short, a professional
secret.”
She gazed at me helplessly, with the dumb, haunting dread of impending
disaster in her beautiful eyes.
“You are, or have been, I believe,” I continued, “a very close friend
of Mr. Hartley Peyton’s.”
The poor girl’s face became ghastly pale, and I feared she was going to
faint, as she stammered, weakly,--
“Ye--yes, sir. We are, or at least we were, friends--we were very good
friends.”