The visit of this mysterious woman in the white lace veil--at that time
a fashionable feminine adornment--was, I felt assured, more than a
coincidence. That it had some connexion with the strange events of the
past night seemed certain, yet, try how I would, I could form no
definite idea of either the motive of the visit or the object of her
search. As far as Parker could discover, nothing whatever had been
taken. A writing-table, the drawers of which contained some family
papers, had apparently been hastily examined, but no object of value,
nor any paper, had been extracted. Therefore I concluded that I had
returned before the intruder had had time to make the complete
examination of my effects which she had intended.
A curious thought occurred to me. Was the intruder in the white veil
none other than the mysterious Edna herself?
As the day wore on I became more and more impressed by the belief that
my surmise was the actual truth. Yet the cabman West had declared that
she was young and pretty, while Parker expressed herself positive that
she was middle-aged. But of the two statements I accepted that of the
cabman as the more reliable. He had seen her in the broad daylight
without the veil.
The fact of her concealing her features in a species of fine
window-curtain proved an attempt at disguise, therefore what more likely
than that she should contrive to render her features older, and thus
impose upon Parker, whose sight was not over good? In any case,
however, if it were really Edna, she had certainly lost no time in
carrying out her design, and further, she must have been fully aware of
my intended return.
Days passed, hot blazing days and stifling nights, when the dust of
throbbing, ever-roaring London seemed over my heart. Each morning, with
Parker's assistance, I searched the newspapers, but nothing appeared to
show that that strange midnight crime had been discovered. Were there
two victims, or only one? How strange it was that although I had been
present I could not tell I only knew that the male victim was young and
well-dressed, probably a gentleman, and that he had been stabbed by a
cowardly blow which had proved almost instantly fatal. That woman's
scream that had sounded so shrill and agonised in the dead stillness of
the night I remembered plainly as though it were but an hour ago--
indeed, I remember it now as distinctly as ever. Was it the cry of Edna
herself?
In my helplessness I could do nothing but remain silent, and keep my
terrible secret to myself. Unable either to communicate with the police
or seek the assistance of my friend, I found that any endeavour to seek
a solution of the problem was mere sowing of the wind. My thoughts hour
by hour, as I sat alone in my dingy room, my poor blind eyes a black
void, were of the ghastly affair, and in all its phases I considered it,
trying to find some motive in the subsequent actions of the unscrupulous
persons into whose hands I had had the misfortune to fall.
I heard of Dick through the office of his journal. He was down with
fever at some outlandish place on the Afghan frontier, and would
certainly not be home for a couple of months or so.
At first I was puzzled how to get rid of my soiled and blood-stained
clothes so that Parker should not discover them, and at last hit upon
the expedient of making them into a bundle and going forth one night
when she was over at Kennington with her daughter Lily, the
dancing-girl, and casting them into the Thames from the Embankment. It
was a risky operation, for that part of London is well guarded by police
after dark; nevertheless I accomplished it in safety, and was much
amused a few days later by reading in an evening paper that they had
been found near London Bridge and handed over to the river police, who,
of course, scented a mystery. The blood-stains puzzled them, and the
journal hinted that Scotland Yard had instituted inquiries into the
ownership of the discarded suit of clothes. The paragraph concluded
with that sentence, indispensable in reporting a mystery, "The police
are very reticent about the matter."
Fortunately, having cut out the maker's name, and taken everything from
the pockets which might serve as a clue to ownership, I felt perfectly
safe, and eagerly read the issue of the same journal on the following
evening, which told how the stains had been analysed, and found to be
those of human blood.
A little more than a week had passed since my remarkable midnight
adventure, when one morning I received a brief note by post, which
Parker read to me. It consisted of only two typewritten lines stating
that at mid-day I would receive a visitor, and was signed with the
strange word "AVEL."
It was, I knew, a message from Edna, and I dressed myself with greater
care in expectation that she herself would visit me. In this, however,
I was disappointed, for after existing some three hours on tiptoe with
anxiety I found my visitor to be a well-spoken, middle-aged man, whose
slight accent when introducing himself betrayed that he was an American.
When we were alone, with the door closed, he made the following
explanation--
"I have called upon you, Mr Heaton, at the request of a lady who is our
mutual friend. You have, I presume, received a letter signed `Avel'?"
"Yes," I said, remembering how that I had promised to blindly and
obediently render my protectress whatever assistance she desired. "I
presume you desire some service of me. What is it?"
"No," he said. "You are mistaken. It is with regard to the terrible
affliction from which I see you are suffering that I have been sent."
"Are you a medical man?" I inquired, with some astonishment.
"I am an oculist," was his reply.
"And your name?"
"Slade--James Slade."
"And you have been sent here by whom?"
"By a lady whose real name I do not know."
"But you will kindly explain, before we go further, the circumstance in
which she sought your aid on my behalf," I said firmly.
"You are mutual friends," he answered, somewhat vaguely. "It is no
unusual thing for a patient to seek my aid on behalf of a friend. She
sent me here to see you, and to examine your eyes, if you will kindly
permit me."
The man's bearing irritated me, and I was inclined to resent this
enforced subjection to an examination by one of whose reputation I knew
absolutely nothing. Some of the greatest oculists in the world had
looked into my sightless eyes and pronounced my case utterly hopeless.
Therefore I had no desire to be tinkered with by this man, who, for
aught I knew, might be a quack whose sole desire was to run up a long
bill.
"I have no necessity for your aid," I answered, somewhat bluntly.
"Therefore any examination is entirely waste of time."
"But surely the sight is one of God's most precious gifts to man," he
answered, in a smooth, pleasant voice; "and if a cure is possible, you
yourself would, I think, welcome it."
"I don't deny that," I answered. "I would give half that I possess--
nay, more--to have my sight restored, but Sir Leopold Fry, Dr Measom,
and Harker Halliday have all three seen me, and agree in their opinion
that my sight is totally lost for ever. You probably know them as
specialists?"
"Exactly. They are the first men in my profession," he answered. "Yet
sometimes one treatment succeeds where another fails. Mine is entirely
and totally different to theirs, and has, I may remark, been successful
in quite a number of cases which were pronounced hopeless."
Mere quackery, I thought. I am no believer in new treatments and new
medicines. The fellow's style of talk prejudiced me against him. He
actually placed himself in direct opposition to the practice of the
three greatest oculists in the world.
"Then you believe that you can actually cure me?" I remarked, with an
incredulous smile.
"All I ask is to be permitted to try," he answered blandly, in no way
annoyed by my undisguised sneer.
"Plainly speaking," I answered, "I have neither inclination nor
intention to place myself at your disposal for experiments. My case has
been pronounced hopeless by the three greatest of living specialists,
and I am content to abide by their decision."
"Oculists are liable to draw wrong conclusions, just as other persons
may do," he remarked. "In a matter of this magnitude you should--permit
me to say so--endeavour to regain your sight and embrace any treatment
likely to be successful. Blindness is one of man's most terrible
afflictions, and assuredly no living person who is blind would wish to
remain so."
"I have every desire to regain my sight, but I repeat that I have no
faith whatever in new treatment."
"Your view is not at all unnatural, bearing in mind the fact that you
have been pronounced incurable by the first men of the profession," he
answered. "But may I not make an examination of your eyes? It is, of
course, impossible to speak with any degree of authority without a
diagnosis. You appear to think me a charlatan. Well, for the present I
am content that you should regard me as such;" and he laughed as though
amused.
He seemed so perfectly confident in his own powers that I confess my
hastily formed opinion became moderated and my prejudice weakened. He
spoke as though he had detected the disease which had deprived me of
vision, and knew how to successfully combat it.
"Will you kindly come forward to the window?" he requested, without
giving me time to reply to his previous observations. I obeyed his
wish.
Then I felt his fingers open my eyelids wide, and knew that he was
gazing into my eyes through one of those glasses like other oculists had
used. He took a long time over the right eye, which he examined first,
then having apparently satisfied himself, he opened the left, felt it
carefully, and touched the surface, of the eyeball, causing me a twinge
of pain.
"As I thought!" he ejaculated when he had finished. "As I thought! A
slight operation only is necessary. The specialists whom you consulted
were wrong in their conclusions. They have all three made an error
which is very easy to make, yet it might have deprived you of sight for
your whole life."
"What!" I cried, in sudden enthusiasm. "Do you mean to tell me
solemnly that you can perform a miracle?--that you can restore my sight
to me?"
"I tell you, sir," he answered quite calmly, "that if you will undergo a
small operation, and afterwards subject yourself to a course of
treatment, in a fortnight--or, say three weeks--you will again open your
eyes and look upon the world."
His words were certainly startling to me, shut out so long from all the
pleasures of life. This stranger promised me a new existence, a world
of light and movement, of colour, and of all the interests which combine
to make life worth living. At first I was inclined to scorn this
statement of his, yet so solemnly had he uttered it, and with such an
air of confidence, that I became half convinced that he was more than a
mere quack.
"Your words arouse within me a new interest," I said. "When do you
propose this operation?"
"To-morrow, if you will."
"Will it be painful?"
"Not very--a slight twinge, that's all."
I remained again in doubt. He noticed my hesitation, and urged me to
submit.
But my natural caution asserted itself, and I felt disinclined to place
myself in the hands of one of whose _bona fides_ I knew absolutely
nothing.