There were some days when the absence of patients seemed to Dr. Spencer
Whiles a thing almost insupportable. Too late he began to realize that
he had set up in the wrong neighborhood. In years to come, he reflected
gloomily, when the great building estate which was to have been
developed more than a year ago was really opened up, there might be an
opportunity where he was, a very excellent opportunity, too, for a young
doctor of ability. Just now, however, the outlook was almost hopeless.
He found himself even looking eagerly forward every day for another
visit from Mr. Inspector Jacks. Another trip to town would mean a peep
into the world of luxury, whose doors were so closely barred against
him, and, what was more important still, it would mean a fee which would
keep the wolf from the door for another week. It had come to that with
Dr. Whiles. His little stock of savings was exhausted. Unless something
turned up within the course of the next few weeks, he knew very well
that there was nothing left for him to do but to slip away quietly
into the embrace of the more shady parts of the great city, to find
a situation somewhere, somehow, beyond the ken of the disappointed
creditors whom he would leave behind.
Mr. Inspector Jacks, however, had apparently no further use, for the
present at any rate, for his medical friend. On the other hand, Dr.
Spencer Whiles was not left wholly to himself. On the fourth day after
his visit to London a motor car drew up outside his modest surgery door,
and with an excitement which he found it almost impossible to conceal,
he saw a plainly dressed young man, evidently a foreigner and, he
believed, a Japanese, descend and ring the patients’ bell. The doctor
had dismissed his boy a week ago, from sheer inability to pay his modest
wages, and he did not hesitate for a moment about opening the door
himself. The man outside raised his hat and made him a sweeping bow.
“It is Dr. Spencer Whiles?” he asked.
The doctor admitted the fact and invited his visitor to enter.
“It is here, perhaps,” the latter continued, “that a gentleman who was
riding a bicycle and was run into by a motor car, was brought after the
accident and treated so skilfully?”
“That is so,” Dr. Whiles admitted. “There was nothing much the matter
with him. He had rather a narrow escape.”
“I am that gentleman’s servant,” the visitor continued with a bland
smile. “He has sent me down here to see you. The leg which was injured
is perfectly well, but there was a pain in the side of which he spoke
to you, which has not disappeared. This morning, in fact, it is
worse,--much worse. My master, therefore, has sent me to you. He begs
that if it is not inconvenient you will return with me at once and
examine him.”
The doctor drew a little breath. This might mean another week or so of
respite!
“Where does your master live?” he asked the man.
“In the West end of London, sir,” was the reply. “The Square of St.
James it is called.”
Dr. Whiles glanced at his watch.
“It will take me some time to go there with you,” he said, “and I shall
have to arrange with a friend to treat any other patients. Do you think
your master will understand that I shall need an increased fee?”
“My master desired me to say,” the other answered, “that he would be
prepared to pay any fee you cared to mention. Money is not of account
with him. He has not had occasion to seek medical advice in London,
and as he is leaving very soon, he did not wish to send for a strange
physician. He remembered with gratitude your care of him, and he sends
for you.”
“That’s all right,” Dr. Whiles declared, “so long as it’s understood.
You’ll excuse me for a moment while I write a note, and I’ll come
along.”
Dr. Whiles had no note to write, but he made a few changes in his toilet
which somewhat improved his appearance. In due course he reappeared and
was rapidly whirled up to London, the sole passenger in the magnificent
car. The man who had brought him the message from his quondam patient
was sitting in front, next the chauffeur, so Dr. Whiles had no
opportunity of asking him for any information concerning his master. Nor
did the car itself slacken speed until it drew up before the door of the
large corner house in St. James’ Square. A footman in dark livery came
running out; a butler bowed upon the steps. Dr. Spencer Whiles was
immensely impressed. The servants were all Japanese, but their livery
and manners were faultless. He made his way into the hall and followed
the butler up the broad stairs.
“My master,” the latter explained, “will receive you very shortly. He is
but partly dressed at present.”
Dr. Spencer Whiles came of a family of successful tradespeople, and he
was not used to such quiet magnificence as was everywhere displayed.
Yet, with it all, there seemed to him to be an air of gloom about the
place, something almost mysterious in the silence of the thick carpets,
the subdued voices, and the absence of maidservants. The house itself
was apparently an old one. He noticed that the doors were very heavy and
thick, the corridors roomy, the absence of light almost remarkable. The
apartment into which he was shown, however, came as a pleasant surprise.
It was small, but delightfully furnished in the most modern fashion. Its
only drawback was that it looked out upon a blank wall.
“My master will come to you in a few minutes,” the butler announced.
“What refreshments may I have the honor of serving?”
Dr. Whiles waved aside the invitation,--he would at any rate remain
professional. The man withdrew, and almost immediately afterwards Prince
Maiyo entered the room. The doctor rose to his feet with a little thrill
of excitement. The Prince held out his hand.
“I am very pleased to see you again, doctor,” he said. “You looked
after me so well last time that I was afraid I should have no excuse for
sending for you.”
“I am glad to find that you are not suffering,” the doctor answered. “I
understood from your servant that you were feeling a good deal of pain
in the side.”
“It troubles me at times,” the Prince admitted, drawing a chair up
towards his visitor,--“just sufficiently, perhaps, to give me the excuse
of seeking a little conversation with you. You must let me offer you
something after your ride.”
“You are very good,” the doctor answered. “Perhaps I had better examine
you first.”
The Prince rang the bell and waved aside the suggestion.
“That,” he said, “can wait. In my country, you know, we do not consider
that a guest is properly treated unless he partakes of our hospitality
the moment he crosses the threshold. The whiskey and soda water,” he
ordered of the butler who appeared at the door. “We will talk of my
ailments,” the Prince continued, “in a moment or two. Tell me what
you thought of that marvellous restaurant where I saw you the other
morning?”
The doctor drew a little breath.
“It was you, then!” he exclaimed.
“But naturally,” the Prince murmured. “I took it for granted that you
would recognize me.”
The doctor found some difficulty in proceeding. He was trying to
imagine the cousin of an Emperor riding a bicycle along a country
road, staggering into his surgery at midnight, covered with dust,
inarticulate, pointing only to the wounds beneath his cheap clothes!
“Nothing,” the Prince continued easily, “has impressed me more in your
country than the splendor of your restaurants. You see, that side of
your life represents something we are altogether ignorant of in Japan.”
“It is a very wonderful place,” the doctor admitted. “We had luncheon,
my friend and I, in the grillroom, but we came for a few minutes into
the foyer to watch the people from the restaurant.”
The Prince nodded genially.
“By the bye,” he remarked, “it is strange that my very good friend--Mr.
Inspector Jacks--should also be a friend of yours.”
“He is scarcely that,” the doctor objected. “I have known him for a very
short time.”
The Prince raised his eyebrows. The whiskey and soda were brought, and
the doctor helped himself. How curiously deficient these Westerners
were, the Prince thought, in every instinct of duplicity! As clearly
as possible the doctor had revealed the fact that his acquaintance
with Inspector Jacks was of precisely that nature which might have been
expected.
The Prince sighed. There was but one course open to him.
“Now, Dr. Whiles,” he said, “I will tell you something. You must listen
to me very carefully, please. I sent for you not so much on account of
any immediate pain but because my general health has been giving me a
little trouble lately. I have come to the conclusion that I require the
services of a medical attendant always at hand.”
The doctor looked at his prospective patient skeptically.
“You have not the appearance,” he remarked, “of being in ill health.”
“Perhaps not,” the Prince answered. “Perhaps even, there is not for the
moment very much the matter with me. One has humors, you know, my dear
doctor. I have a somewhat large suite here with me in England, but I do
not number amongst them a physician. I wanted to ask you to accept that
position in my household for two months.”
“Do you mean come and live here?” the doctor asked.
“That is exactly what I do mean,” the Prince answered. “I am thankful to
observe that your apprehensions are so acute. I warn you that I am going
to make some very curious conditions. I do not know whether money is an
object to you. If not, I am powerless. If it is, I propose to make it
worth your while.”
The doctor did not hesitate.
“Money,” he said, “is the greatest object in life to me. I have none,
and I want some very badly.”
The Prince smiled.
“I find your candor delightful,” he declared. “Now tell me, Dr. Whiles,
how many patients have you in your neighborhood absolutely dependent
upon your services?”
The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.
“Not one!” he declared.
Once more the Prince’s lips parted. His smile this time was definite,
transfiguring.
“I find you, Dr. Whiles,” he announced, “a most charmingly reasonable
person. I make you my offer, then, with every confidence, although I
warn you that there will be some strange conditions attached to it. I
ask you to accept the post of private physician to this household for
the space of one--it may be two months, and I offer you also, as an
honorarium, the fee of one thousand guineas.”
The doctor sat quite still for a moment. He was in a condition when
speech was difficult. Then his eyes fell upon his tumbler of whiskey and
soda still half filled. He emptied it at a draught.
“A thousand guineas!” he repeated hoarsely.
“I trust that you will find the sum attractive,” the Prince said
smoothly, “because, as I have warned you before, there are one or two
curious conditions coupled with the post.”
“I don’t care what the conditions are,” the doctor said slowly. “I
accept!”
The Prince nodded.
“You are the man I thought you were, doctor,” he said. “The first
condition, then, is this. You see the sitting room we are now in--a
pleasant little apartment, I think,--books, you see, papers, a smoking
cabinet in which I can assure you that you will find the finest Havana
cigars and the best cigarettes to be procured in London. Through
here”--the Prince threw open an inner door--“is a small sleeping
apartment. It has, as you see, the same outlook. It is comfortable if
not luxurious.”
The doctor sighed.
“I am not used to luxury,” he said.
“These two rooms will be yours,” the Prince announced, “and the first
condition of our arrangement is that until two months are up, or our
engagement is finished, you do not leave them.”
The doctor stared at him blankly.
“Are you in earnest, sir?” he asked.
“In absolute earnest,” the Prince assured him. “Not only that, but I
require you to keep your whereabouts, until after the period of time I
have mentioned, an entire secret from every one. I gather that you are
not married, and that there is no one living in your house to whom it
would seem necessary to disclose your movements. In any case, this
is another of my conditions. You are neither to write nor receive any
letters whilst here. You are to figure in the neighborhood from which
you came as a man who has disappeared,--as a man, in short, who has
found it impossible to pay his way and has preferred simply to slip out
of his place. At the end of two months you can reappear or not, as you
choose. That rests with yourself.”
The doctor smiled faintly. To make some sort of disappearance had been
his precise intention, but to disappear in this fashion and make his
return to the world with a thousand guineas in his pocket, had not
exactly come within the scope of his imagination. It was a situation
full of allurements. Nevertheless he was bewildered.
“I am to live in these two rooms?” he demanded. “I am to let no one know
where I am, to write no letters, to receive none? My duties are to be
simply to treat you?”
“When required,” the Prince remarked dryly.
“I suppose,” the doctor asked, “my friend Mr. Jacks was speaking the
truth when he told me your name?”
“My name is Prince Maiyo,” the Prince said.
Mechanically the doctor helped himself to another whiskey and soda.
“You are to be my only patient,” he said thoughtfully. “May I take the
liberty of feeling your pulse, Prince?”
The Prince extended his hand. The doctor felt it and resumed his seat.
“There is, of course, nothing whatever the matter with you,” he
declared. “You are, I should say, in absolutely perfect health. You have
no need of a physician.”
“On the contrary,” the Prince protested, smiling, “I need you, Dr.
Whiles, so much that I am paying you a thousand guineas--”
“To remain in these two rooms,” the doctor remarked quietly.
“It is not your business to think that or to know that,” the Prince
said. “Do you accept my offer?”
“If I should refuse?” the doctor asked.
The Prince hesitated.
“Do not let us suppose that,” he said. “It is not a pleasant suggestion.
I do not think that you mean to refuse.”
“Frankly, I do not,” the doctor answered. “And yet treat it as a whim of
mine and answer my question. Supposing I should?”
“The matter would arrange itself in precisely the same way,” the Prince
answered. “You would not leave these rooms for two months.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed shortly.
“This is rather hard luck on Inspector Jacks,” he said. “He paid me ten
guineas the other day to lunch with him.”
“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” the Prince remarked, “is scarcely in a position
to bid you an adequate sum for your services.”
“It appears to me,” the doctor continued, “that I am kidnapped.”
“An admirable word,” the Prince declared. “At what time do you usually
lunch?”
The doctor smiled.
“I am not used to motoring,” he said, “or interviews of this exciting
character. I lunch, as a rule, when I can get anything to eat. The
present seems to me to be a most suitable hour.”
The Prince nodded, and rose to his feet.
“I will send my servant,” he said, “to take your orders. My cook is very
highly esteemed here, and I can assure you that you will not be starved.
Please also make out a list of the newspapers, magazines, and books with
which you would like to be supplied. I fear that, for obvious reasons,
my people would hardly be able to anticipate your wants.”
“And about that examination?” the doctor remarked.
“I shall do myself the pleasure of seeing you every day,” the Prince
answered. “There will be time enough for that.”
With an amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw
himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but
forcible.