AT THE DENTIST'S
The dentist himself was left--the last time he was referred to in this
chronicle--facing Sawyer and two policemen.
The sight of the policemen caused him to clutch at the door frame for
support. He thought the moment of his arrest had come, and his knees
seemed to take on a desire to figure as castanets.
The two men touched their caps and did not attempt to enter.
That surprised the dentist. It dawned on him that a salute was not the
usual preliminary to an arrest.
One of the men had a note-book in his hand. He spoke:
"Sorry to intrude, sir, but there's a fete on at the Crystal Palace for
the police orphanage. Your name's down on the books as subscribing
something last year, and we thought we'd just ask if you'd be so kind as
to remember the poor orphans again."
What a feeling, what an intense feeling of relief came over him!
Relief! He almost laughed, the tension for a minute had been so great.
"What did I give last year?" he inquired, in as natural a voice as he
could assume.
"Five shillings, sir."
"Then here's the same again. That's all right."
The men thanked him and withdrew. The dentist closed the door and almost
sobbed.
Then he changed his mind about the registered letter. Opening the door,
he entered the outer room, and took it from Sawyer.
"I'll see to this," he said.
That police visit seemed to have roused some courage in him--it was an
element in his nature that needed a lot of rousing.
Why should he be afraid of every shadow? Where was the need for it?
Unless he betrayed himself--and then he remembered the visit of the man
yesterday, the man who had made an appointment for eleven o'clock that
day.
What could that mean? His inquiries, his reference to the American, all
this seemed suspicious.
He would wait another half hour and see. Perhaps after all there was no
need for fright.
During that half hour Sawyer tapped at and opened the door.
"The gent that came yesterday, sir."
"His name?"
"Mr. Brown, sir."
"Show him in."
The dentist braced himself for the interview. He put the envelope
containing the notes in his table drawer, and looked up as his visitor
entered.
"Mr. Brown?"
"That's it."
"You were recommended here, I think, by some one whose teeth I attended
to."
"Well, I don't think you attended to his teeth only."
"No."
"He was rather cut up by your treatment."
Gerald had his eyes fixed on the dentist, and when he had uttered that
double meaning remark, he saw the man's face grow pale as death.
He knew then that his bolt had gone home; knew that he was on the right
track at last.
He adopted bold measures. The dentist's appearance warranted them.
"Sit down, Mr. Lennox. You don't mind my turning the key in the door, so
we shan't be disturbed, do you? That's it."
He seated himself opposite the dentist, and pulled out his
hired-for-a-shilling handcuffs.
The effect of their production was electric. He was more than ever
convinced that he was right.
"Of course," he said quietly, "you guess the game's up. That little game
you and your brother played with Mr. George Depew when he came to have a
tooth out?"
The dentist was incapable of an answer. He sat there as if turned to
stone.
Gerald went on:
"I'm of the American detective force--you have perhaps heard of me,
Detective Grabbem. I gave the name of Brown to your boy because I didn't
want to give the show away."
Still no answer. Then Gerald said suddenly:
"Where are the nineteen thousand pound notes?"
For answer the tongue-tied dentist with trembling hand opened his
drawer, and handed Gerald the envelope he had recently given to and
taken from Sawyer.
"You intended them for the London police? I'm from New York."
Gerald opened the envelope and his eyes sparkled as he handled the
notes.
As a measure of precaution he collated the numbers with the entries in
his pocketbook--all were correct.
"I'll take charge of these," he said, as he put the notes in his pocket.
"Thanks for saving me trouble."
Then Gerald's anxiety was to get away. He said:
"Out of gratitude for saving me bother, is there anything you would like
me to do for you? Want to write to your friends or anything?"
He had got all he wanted, and he decided to leave with it as promptly as
possible. The dentist found his tongue, and said:
"I would be grateful for half an hour for--for the purpose of writing to
my friends."
"It's yours. There is no back way out of this house, I see. I'll just
smoke a pipe outside. No tricks, mind. I'll be back in half an hour."
Gerald went out slowly, lighted a pipe within sight of the dentist's
window, sauntered with his hands behind him, after the manner of one
waiting, and then when he reached the corner, turned it, and bolted in
the direction of Moorgate Street.
There he hailed a hansom and was rapidly driven to his lodgings. He was
one of the happiest fares in a London cab that day.
And the dentist? He completed the unfinished work of the morning.
No need now for the subtleties of the sharpening stone--all was known.
He might as well use the knife in the quickest possible way, and end it
all speedily.
His old cowardice came over him. He loathed himself for it, stamped his
foot and strove to attain the courage needed to draw that sharp
surgeon's knife under his chin.
He knew its edge was razor-like, that one strong, firm draw and all
would be over. But he lacked the nerve.
He almost laughed when he remembered that he had heard it said that a
suicide is a coward--he imagined that it required more courage to take
one's own life than another's.
He looked at the clock; he had fooled away five minutes. That braced him
up--he must avoid the hangman's attention at any cost.
It was not the loss of his life which had deterred him so much as the
method of losing it.
Then an idea occurred to him. He had the gas apparatus, why not--no
sooner thought than he started to put the idea into execution.
He had a little bench whereat he worked in and about the repairing and
making of false teeth.
At each end were small vises. He fastened the surgeon's long knife into
it after the manner of a man who would sharpen a saw.
It was firm and rigid.
The gas apparatus he put on the bench itself, and leaned over to it, his
neck almost touching the knife.
As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would
happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen
edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over.
Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas.
* * * * *
When Gerald's copy of the _Star_ was brought up to him, a triple
head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned:
STRANGE DEATH
OF A WELL KNOWN
CITY DENTIST
and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the
dentist's room.
It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the
sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body
was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of
suicide.
Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew
naught of the happenings in this--would never know that the insurance
office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead
man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden
salve in their time of grief.
And yet--who knows?