Here was an element of mystery; for I alone, of all the villagers, knew
that this eminent surgeon’s presence in Belleville boded ill.
* * * * *
I soon caught sight of the doctor. For a man of his age and physique,
his gait was exceedingly fast--as though propelled by a nervous dynamo.
Stretching my legs, I kept a safe distance between him and myself,
until he swung open the tall wooden gate and quickly vanished through
the wilderness of tall bushes and low trees into the Thornsdale house.
I halted safe from observation and lighted my pipe.
Leaning against a tree there, I ran over in my mind the odd
significance of that remarkable article I had recently read in the
staid and ever-authentic _Surgical Monthly_.
This Dr. Calgroni, it appeared, had stated to the interviewer that he
was here from Austria on a vacation--and to feel out the opinions of
American surgeons anent his new theory. One _Herr_ von Meine, a noted
surgeon of Vienna, he added with some asperity, had scoffed at the
absurdity and unorthodox idea of the unprecedented theory advanced by
him, and had declared that his, Calgroni’s, operation was extremely
impossible, not to say foolish--that it would never be a success.
Dr. Calgroni claimed that he could prolong a human life indefinitely by
the insertion of a live thigh gland from a young quadrumanous mammal,
such as the _Pithecoid_.
Much discussion and argument had been provoked throughout the entire
medical world by the famous doctor’s theory, and consensus was that he
was an impracticable theorist gone mad.
And now here was Dr. Calgroni, living in the quiet little town of
Belleville, where none was aware of his sensational hypothesis, renting
this immense old ramshackle place, and his remarkable intent known to
no one but himself.
I had taken a seat on a tree stump, in front of the gate, which had a
ring stapled to it, used in former days as a hitching-post. Time hung
heavily upon me in Belleville, but this new element of mystery promised
some possible interest and excitement.
Having sat there until my pipe was empty and cold, I was aroused by
the noise of the gate opening behind me, followed by the _tap-tap_ of
a hammer. I turned.
There stood the doctor in his shirt sleeves, tacking a sign to the gate
post. Crudely painted in black on white cardboard I read:
_POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE!_
_Anyone entering here does
so at his own risk._
_T. Calgroni._
Without even casting a glance my way, the doctor closed the gate behind
him and seemed about to depart up the weed-grown gravel walk, when,
glancing down the dusky street, he checked himself.
My gaze followed the direction of his eyes. A wagon was approaching. It
drew up at the stump and halted. Loaded with big boxes, the mules were
sweating after the pull. Their surly-faced driver stopped twenty feet
away and turned to the doctor:
“I know I’m late,” I overheard him grumble, “but I handled the boxes
carefully as you said. Shall I drive in?”
“You’d better,” returned Calgroni in crisp English, still not noticing
me. “And remember, if there’s a thing broken not a cent do you get.”
And he wheeled up the path.
“Dam’ him!” swore the teamster, turning to me. “Did you ever see such
an old crab?”
“Glass inside the boxes?” I suggested.
The fellow looked at me suspiciously then his lips contracted like a
vise and he turned to his mules. I watched him drive through the wagon
gate, and on up through the moss-covered trees to the house.
_II._
The next morning I arose early, with the intention of strolling past
the old Thornsdale place. I found Main Street lifeless, except for two
men busily engaged in posting up the glaring announcement of the coming
of:
“BARBER’S WORLD-FAMOUS
3-RING SHOW”
Pausing, I watched them swab the long multi-hued strips of paper with
their paste brush and sling them upon the billboard. A small crowd of
big-eyed youngsters and loafers gradually congregated about the busy
circus advance men.
The most glaring and conspicuous poster represented two gorillas
peering angrily out from behind the bars of their cage. Beneath it was
lithographed in huge, red letters:
“MIMMIE AND HORACE
ONLY WILD GORILLAS IN
CAPTIVITY!”
I turned to leave--and, momentarily startled, faced what seemed to
be one of the gorillas at large! Only it wore clothes. Gazing at the
poster with a look of blank curiosity, was a man, short in stature,
immense of shoulder and deep of chest, his hair thatching his forehead
almost to his bushy eyebrows. He was hideous to look upon. I recognized
him, though, after an instant, as the village half-wit, known as
“Simple Will.”
I had seen him before, a poor, weak-minded creature, wandering
helplessly about the village, pitied, but spurned except when someone
needed the help of powerful hands and a strong back.
Drooling and muttering, Will followed the circus men as they started
off.
I idly strolled down the first street; then, reaching the outskirts
of town, I found myself in the rear of the Thornsdale place. To my
surprise, I beheld another warning notice similar to the one that Dr.
Calgroni had tacked to his front gate last evening. Not only in one but
many places, on trees and the high fence, I saw the warning signs of
“No Trespassing.” The doctor himself was nowhere to be seen.
A week slipped by and nothing happened further than gossip concerning
the queer doctor. Occasionally Dr. Calgroni, in person, purchased
supplies and called for his mail. Although I contrived to be near
him whenever possible, he seldom uttered more than half a dozen
words--and never to me. Once, though, I thought I caught him peering
surreptitiously at me in a queer manner.
Obviously, the doctor was his own servant, housekeeper and cook. No one
took the risk of entering his place--not even the daring Jason Murdock.
Several days before the circus arrived, I noticed what I considered
a peculiarly significant happening--Dr. Calgroni walking toward his
abode, with Simple Will tagging, doglike, a few paces behind.
At discreet distance, I followed them. Arriving at the Thornsdale
place, I was surprised to see the doctor close the gate behind him,
leaving Will standing outside. The half-wit stood there until Dr.
Calgroni disappeared.
The day before the show came, I saw the doctor clapping Will on the
shoulder and talking to him.
That night such a terrible conclusion shaped itself in my mind as to
the meaning of the singular boxes, the hostile notices, Will’s attitude
toward the doctor, and the latter’s interest in him, that it kept me
wide awake.
In ill humor at myself, I rose at the first appearance of the sun.
Remembering the circus, I strolled over to the tracks to watch it
unload.
Some villagers had gathered about the few wretched travel-scarred cars
that made up the second-rate circus train, and particularly in front of
the car containing the cage of Mimmie and Horace.
Doctor Calgroni was there, and, at his heels, Simple Will. The doctor
was talking very earnestly to the trainer.
“You say Mr. Barber has offered to sell either of these animals,” the
doctor was saying, as I drew up on the outer fringe of the curious
crowd.
“Yes sir. He will sell one because they fight continually. They have
to be carefully watched, or they might kill each other. You don’t know
what ferocious beasts gorillas are--”
The doctor smiled.
“I would like to talk to Mr. Barber,” he interposed.
The gorilla trainer hesitated, then, pulling shut the sliding doors of
the animal car:
“Sure; just follow me,” he said.
The doctor, at the man’s side, walked to a coach ahead, the combination
ticket-and-executive office of the Barber Shows. For an instant, Simple
Will seemed to hesitate, but he didn’t trail Dr. Calgroni--the unseen
things inside of the gigantic cage nearby seemed to hold his hypnotic
attention. Several big drops of rain splashed upon the cinder-strewn
ground. The heavens hung black and dismal; the sun had completely
vanished.
I watched Simple Will. He was ill-at-ease, hovering uneasily about
the gorillas’ car. The other people nearby paid no attention to the
half-wit. Presently the trainer and Dr. Calgroni returned, accompanied
by another man, who was counting a roll of bills.
“You say,” the latter remarked as they passed me, “that you want
‘Horace’ delivered at once?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor concisely.
“All right. Hank, call the gang, unload the cage and put Horace in that
red single cage. Dr. Calgroni has relieved us of him!”
At this, Simple Will approached the surgeon and touched his sleeve.
“You buy hairy animal-man?” he mumbled.
The doctor laid his blue-veined and thin old hand upon Will’s broad
shoulder.
“Yes, Will, and I’m going to give you a job--a job as his valet!” The
show men exchanged winks, and from the car rolled an empty, iron-barred
cage. Will’s expressionless features twisted into what on his idiot
countenance registered pleasure.
Dr. Calgroni beckoned to the man whom I had seen deliver the
strange-appearing boxes that first afternoon.
“Got your team?”
The fellow nodded.
A scene of bustle had sprung up about me. An excited and larger crowd
of villagers had assembled.
The big cage containing Mimmie and Horace was lowered to the track
side. They were two of the finest animals of their type I have ever
looked upon.
Horace was transferred to the single cage and its strong door doubly
padlocked upon him. The mule team drew up with the wagon.
“Here, Will,” said the doctor to the half-wit, “climb into the wagon.
We’re going before we get wet.” The doctor appeared highly elated.
Simple Will, who had stood by as if in a stupor, swung his heavy body
up behind the gorilla’s cage.
No sooner had the wagon drawn out of sight than the heavens seemed to
loosen in wrath. Rain fell in torrents, driving the spectators in a
wild rush for shelter. As I reached the hotel, the water dripping from
my drenched garments, the storm increased its fury. All that day it
rained--and the next.
As I lay on my bed that night and listened to the roar of wind and
rain beating upon the roof and window panes, my mind kept drifting to
the inmates of Thornsdale place--the queer doctor, Simple Will and his
ward, Horace, the gigantic gorilla.
_III._
It was three days later that I learned Dr. Calgroni had wired to New
York, and on the next morning an exceptionally well-dressed stranger,
whose goatee, bearing and satchel smacked of a medical man, stepped off
the train.
Espying me, he asked:
“Will you kindly direct me to the Thornsdale place?”
I told him the best way to reach Dr. Calgroni’s without wading in mud,
and he departed, with a brief “Thank You.”
The next night I saw the stranger, ashen of face and decidedly inwardly
shaken, hurriedly purchase a ticket and leave on the 9:45 train for New
York.
Immediately I sought the telegraph dispatcher.
“You are aware of the queer actions of Dr. Calgroni--”
“I should say! He’s a nut.”
“I can’t say as to that, but to whom did he send the message the other
night?”
“You won’t let it out I tipped you off?”