The house was one of no mean order, and a glance at the rows of books
showed them to be well chosen--evidently the valued treasures of a
studious man. Upon the writing-table was an electric reading-lamp with
green shade, and a fine, pale photograph of a handsome woman in a heavy
silver frame. In the stationery rack upon the table the note-paper bore
an embossed cipher surmounted by a coronet.
After a few moments the door re-opened, and there entered a very thin,
pale-faced, slightly-built man of perhaps sixty, carefully dressed in
clothes of rather antique cut. He threw out his chest in walking, and
carried himself with stiff, unbending hauteur. His dark eyes were small
and sharp, and his clean-shaven face rendered his aquiline features the
more pronounced.
"Good morning," he said, greeting me in a thin, squeaky voice. "I am
very glad my servant found you at home."
"And I, too, am glad to be of service, if possible," I responded.
He motioned me to be seated, at the same time taking a chair behind his
writing-table. Was it, I wondered, by design or by accident that in the
position he had assumed his face remained in the deep shadow, while my
countenance was within the broad ray of sunlight that came in between
the blind and the window-sash? There was something curious in his
attitude, but what it was I could not determine.
"I called you in to-day, doctor," he explained, resting his thin, almost
waxen hands upon the table, "not so much for medical advice as to have a
chat with you."
"But the patient?" I observed. "Had I not better see her first, and
chat afterwards?"
"No," he responded. "It is necessary that we should first understand
one another perfectly."
I glanced at him, but his face was only a grey blotch in the deep
shadow. Of its expression I could observe nothing. Who, I wondered,
was this man?
"Then the patient is better, I presume?"
"Better, but still in a precarious condition," he replied, in a snapping
voice. Then, after a moment's pause, he added, in a more conciliatory
tone, "I don't know, doctor, whether you will agree with me, but I have
a theory that, just as every medical man and lawyer has his fee, so has
every man his price!"
"I scarcely follow you," I said, somewhat puzzled. "I mean that every
man, no matter what his station in life, is ready to perform services
for another, providing the sum is sufficient in payment."
I smiled at his philosophy. "There is a good deal of truth in that," I
remarked; "but of course there are exceptions."
"Are you one?" he inquired sharply, in a strange voice.
I hesitated. His question was curious. I could not see his object in
such observations.
"I ask you a plain question," he repeated. "Are you so rich as to be
beyond the necessity of money?"
"No," I answered frankly. "I'm not rich."
"Then you admit that, for a certain price, you would be willing to
perform a service?" he said bluntly.
"I don't admit anything of the kind," I laughed, not, however, without a
feeling of indignation.
"Well," he said after a few moments hesitation, during which time his
pair of small black eyes were, I knew, fixed upon me, "I'll speak more
plainly. Would you object, for instance, to taking a fee of five
figures today?"
"A fee of five figures?" I repeated, puzzled. "I don't quite follow
you."
"Five figures equal to ten thousand pounds," he said slowly, in a
strange voice.
"A fee of five figures," I repeated, puzzled. "For what?"
In an instant it flashed across my mind that the thin, grey-faced man
before me was trying to suborn me to commit murder--that crime so easily
committed by a doctor. The thought staggered me.
"The service I require of you is not a very difficult one," he answered,
bending across the table in his earnestness. "You are young--a
bachelor, I presume--and enthusiastic in your honourable calling. Would
not ten thousand pounds be of great use to you at this moment?"