“You fellows outside the medical profession have absolutely no conception
of the terrors confronting a prominent physician and of the traps and
snares and pitfalls laid for him at every turn.”
The great surgeon lolled back in his chair, and, raising a glass of
champagne in those delicately formed, yet steel-strong fingers that had
resolved the intricacies of life and death for many a sufferer, he gazed
thoughtfully at the whirling torrent of tiny bubbles and then touched it
lightly to his lips. It was one of those rare times when the wheel of
Fate had brought together a group of men united by the strongest bond
that friendship can tie, the bond of the college life and love of auld
lang syne. It was heart to heart here, even as it had been with us a
quarter century before, ere we had parted to go our several ways in the
broad fields of life.
Of us all, Harrington had become the one pre-eminently famous, and his
remark came in reply to a bit of the congratulatory flattery that only
the intimacy of the college chum dare venture with impunity.
“What do you mean, Harrington?” asked Dalbey, the banker. “Perplexities
of diagnosis, the nervous strain of responsibility, and the like?”
“I think I can say without conceit,” replied the surgeon, “that diagnosis
has become with me almost an intuition. In that field I have absolute
confidence in myself. As for nerves, I haven’t any. I can cut within
the fiftieth of an inch of certain death as coolly as you pare your nail.
No; I mean deliberate wickedness, malice, blackmail. We are never free
from this danger. Let me give you an instance, if it won’t bore you.”
There was a chorus of calls, “Go on, go on,” and Jenkins cried, “Never
heard it!” for which he was promptly squelched.
It was just two years ago (Harrington began), and my five gray hairs date
from that night. I was sitting in my office just after my evening office
hour had ended, and I was pretty well tired out. The bell rang
furiously, and I heard the attendant saying that my hour was over and
that I could see no one. There was some very vigorous insistence, and I
caught the words “urgent,” “imperative,” and a few more equally
significant, so I called to the man that I would see the belated visitor.
He entered quickly. He was evidently a man of wealth and breeding, and
as evidently laboring under great excitement.
“Is this Dr. Harrington?” he asked as he seated himself close by my desk.
“It is,” I answered.
“Dr. James Y. Harrington?”
“Yes.”
In the next second I found myself looking into the muzzle of a revolver.
They say that when a man is in imminent danger, the mental strain is
relieved automatically by trivialities of thought; and, do you know, the
first thing that flamed through my head was, “How many turns does the
rifling take in a barrel of that length?”
“I have come to kill you,” said my visitor in a tone as cold as camphor
ice, yet with a dignified courtesy I could not but admire. Was I face to
face with a crank? This question I decided in the negative, and the
situation became so much the more—piquant, shall I say? Well, I can say
it now, at least. Perspective adds piquancy, very often.
“Sir,” I said as quietly-as most men could when a very earnest gentleman
has the drop on them, “sir, there is certainly some mistake here.”
It may have been an inane remark; but at least he didn’t pull the
trigger, and that gained time.
“There is none, I am equally certain,” he replied.
“You have me at a decided disadvantage,” I continued, “and as any
movement of attack or alarm on my part would precipitate fatalities, may
I request that before you kill me, you at least tell me why you propose
to do so. I make this request because, as a physician, I can see that
you are perfectly sane and not the crank I at first thought you.”
I was regaining my nerve, you see; if there is one thing in this world to
give a man nerve and coolness, it’s to put it right up to him to avoid
the next one. At any rate, the fairness of my request must have appealed
to my visitor, for he said, “Certainly I will tell you, doctor. That is
only just. I kill you because you performed a critical operation on my
wife, and she is dying.”
“This is all a fearful error,” I exclaimed eagerly. “I do not even know
you, have never seen you nor your wife, much less operated upon her.
Surgeons of my standing in the profession—I say this advisedly,
sir—usually know whom they treat.”
“Usually they do, I grant you,” he assented, but he emphasized the wrong
word quite unpleasantly. “This has been an exception,” he added.
“Why do you believe it was I who operated?” I urged.
“My wife said so; that is sufficient for me.”
“She must surely have made the charge in delirium,” I said.
“She is not delirious, nor has she been.”
“Where was the operation performed?”
“She refuses to tell me.”
I thought very bard for a minute. What kind of a predicament was this?
I then said to him, “This is a serious and vital matter, sir, for both of
us. Any mistake could not fail to have momentous consequences. Suppose
you take me to confront your wife. It is probably a case of mistaken
identity, and when she sees me, she will most certainly be able readily
to rectify this awful blunder. And so sure am I of the result that I
pledge you my word to accompany you without violence or outcry.”
After a moment’s reflection he said, “I accept your proposition.”
His carriage was waiting at the door. Evidently he had been desperate
when he came, and fully prepared to face the consequences of his
desperation. We drove together to his home.
In my complete certainty of my position I feasted my eyes on the
luxurious furnishings, the costly rugs—I’m a lover of rugs, you know, and
a bit of a connoisseur—and the exquisite bric-a-brac and paintings.
Moreover, I now knew with whom I was dealing, though that fact I
concealed.
We went up to the sickroom. A beautiful woman, desperately ill and pale
as death itself, lay motionless upon the pillows. As we softly entered
the room, she turned her eyes toward us, too weak to move her head.
The eyes were dull and listless, but when their glance fell on me, they
literally flashed fire and a hard, determined look came into them.
“Dear,” said her husband, bending tenderly down to her, “who did you say
performed that operation?”
“Dr. Harrington,” she whispered.
“I have brought him here. Is that the person who operated?”
“Yes.”
My heart just at that moment went as cold as a snowball. I saw myself
ruined, broken on the wheel of Fate. The death phase of the situation
didn’t matter. Worst of all, I now saw the motive. She was shielding
some bungler, near, or more probably dear, to her—I was the victim
selected by mere horrible chance.
I crossed softly to the bed. “Madam,” I said to her as gently as my
tumult of feeling would permit, “I implore you to tell the truth. Did I
perform this operation?”
With absolute self-possession she whispered, “Doctor, you did.”
I was helpless; it was a fine illustration of the terrible power of the
lie as a weapon against right and honor.
“I assure you, before God,” I declared, turning to the husband, “that I
was not the operating surgeon in this case. You know, possibly, my
reputation for professional skill. Will you then permit me to take your
wife’s temperature and to make a very brief examination with a view to
determining the probable effect of her condition upon her rational
faculties?”
To my delight, he consented. With careful formality I prepared a
thermometer, taking and noting the temperature both at mouth and armpit.
The woman exhibited none of the repulsion she ought to have shown, by all
principles of psychology, to being examined by the author of her
misfortune.
I then seated myself by the bed and felt the pulse. Taking my watch and
detaching it from the chain, I placed it on the white cover of the bed
beside her, where she could not fail to hear the ticking. I lifted her
hands and applied my finger tips lightly to the arterial beat at the
wrist. I looked her steadily in the eyes, and apparently gave the most
minute attention to the really faint beating of her pulse.
“Madam,” I said after a long wait, “it is my solemn and painful duty to
inform you that you have but fifteen minutes to live. My whole
professional life is at stake here. Ruin, disgrace, and even death stare
me in the face as a result of what you may say. But I do not urge this
upon you. I urge you merely for God’s sake to tell the truth.”
“Doctor, you know you did it,” she whispered wearily.
I had expected that. My bit of work in experimental psychology was just
beginning. I kept perfectly silent, my fingers still resting upon the
patient’s wrist. The tomb itself is not more still nor more solemn than
was that room. I let full five minutes pass without word or movement.
Do you know how long five minutes can be? Did you ever try a silent wait
of five little minutes, even though life and death were not in the
balance? Try to guess at five minutes; and if you are not skilled in
counting seconds, you will call time in two. Five minutes can be an
eternity. They were so then.
“Madam,” I said again, “you have but ten minutes to live. I implore you
to right the great wrong you have done.”
Why that man did not throw me out of the room I will never know. He
seemed fascinated by the fearful experiment.
Again she calmly murmured, “Doctor, it was you.”
I acknowledge that then the room turned black; but I was myself in an
instant. I resumed my solemn death watch. This time I deliberately
allowed eight minutes to add themselves to the eternal past. Then I knew
I was playing my last card.
“Madam,” I said as solemnly and impressively as I could speak the words,
“in two minutes you will be before your God. Are you willing that your
soul should face its Maker with the black stain upon it of the dreadful
lie you have told? For your own immortal soul’s sake, I implore you to
tell the truth.”
A feeble gesture called her husband to her side. I rose and retired
across the room. He bent over her, shaken by great sobs. She drew him
down to her, kissed him and whispered, “It was not he.”
I almost fell. The revulsion of feeling was too great. Mastering myself
by a supreme effort, I stood to hear the colloquy to the end.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She told him.
“You swear to this?”
“With my dying breath.”
He turned to me with a face of ashen paleness. “Doctor,” he gasped,
“pardon.”
I snapped shut the case of my watch. “Madam,” I said, “you will
recover,” and left the room and house unmolested.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Carvill ejaculated under his breath, “My
God!”
_B. W. Mitchell_.