"A VERY UGLY SECRET."
The consulting-room in Harley Street, where Sir Bernard Eyton saw his
patients and gathered in his guineas for his ill-scribbled
prescriptions, differed little from a hundred others in the same
severe and depressing thoroughfare.
It was a very sombre apartment. The walls were painted dark green and
hung with two or three old portraits in oils; the furniture was of a
style long past, heavy and covered in brown morocco, and the big
writing-table, behind which the great doctor would sit blinking at his
patient through the circular gold-rimmed glasses, that gave him a
somewhat Teutonic appearance, was noted for its prim neatness and
orderly array. On the one side was an adjustable couch; on the other a
bookcase with glass doors containing a number of instruments which
were, however, not visible because of curtains of green silk behind
the glass.
Into that room, on three days a week, Ford, the severely respectable
footman, ushered in patients one after the other, many of them Society
women suffering from what is known in these degenerate days as
"nerves." Indeed, Eyton was _par excellence_ a ladies' doctor, for so
many of the gentler sex get burnt up in the mad rush of a London
season.
I had made up my mind to consult my chief, and with that object
entered his room on the following afternoon at a quarter before four.
"Well, Boyd, anything fresh?" he asked, putting off his severely
professional air and lolling back in his padded writing-chair as I
entered.
"No, nothing," I responded, throwing myself in the patient's chair
opposite him and tossing my gloves on the table. "A hard day down at
the hospital, that's all. You've been busy as usual, I suppose."
"Busy!" the old man echoed, "why, these confounded women never let me
alone for a single instant! Always the same story--excitement, late
hours, little worries over erring husbands, and all that sort of
thing. I always know what's coming as soon as they get seated and
settled. I really don't know what Society's coming to, Boyd," and he
blinked over at me through his heavy-framed spectacles.
About sixty, of middle height, he was slightly inclined to rotundity,
with hair almost white, a stubbly grey beard, and a pair of keen eyes
rather prominently set in a bony but not unpleasant countenance. He
had a peculiar habit of stroking his left ear when puzzled, and was
not without those little eccentricities which run hand in hand with
genius. One of them was his fondness for amateur theatricals, for he
was a leading member of the Dramatic Club at Hove and nearly always
took part in the performances. But he was a pronounced miser. Each day
when he arrived at Victoria Station from Hove, he purchased three ham
sandwiches at the refreshment bar and carried them in his black bag to
Harley Street. He there concealed them in a drawer in the
writing-table and stealthily ate them instead of taking half-an-hour
for luncheon. Sometimes he sent Ford out to the nearest greengrocer's
in the Marylebone Road for a penny apple, which he surreptitiously ate
as dessert.
Indeed, he was finishing his last sandwich when I entered, and his
mouth was full.
It may have been that small fact which caused me to hesitate. At any
rate, sitting there with those big round eyes peering forth upon me, I
felt the absurdity of the situation.
Presently, when he had finished his sandwich, carefully brushed the
crumbs from his blotting-pad and cast the bag into the waste-paper
basket, he raised his head and with his big eyes again blinking
through his spectacles, said:
"You've had no call to poor old Courtenay, I suppose?"
"No," I responded. "Why?"
"Because he's in a bad way."
"Worse?"
"Yes," he replied. "I'm rather anxious about him. He'll have to keep
to his bed, I fear."
I did not in the least doubt this. Old Mr. Henry Courtenay, one of the
Devonshire Courtenays, a very wealthy if somewhat eccentric old
gentleman, lived in one of those prim, pleasant, detached houses in
Richmond Road, facing Kew Gardens, and was one of Sir Bernard's best
patients. He had been under him for a number of years until they had
become personal friends. One of his eccentricities was to insist on
paying heavy fees to his medical adviser, believing, perhaps, that by
so doing he would secure greater and more careful attention.
But, strangely enough, mention of the name suddenly gave me the clue
so long wanting. It aroused within me a sense of impending evil
regarding the very man of whom we were speaking. The sound of the name
seemed to strike the sympathetic chord within my brain, and I at once
became cognisant that the unaccountable presage of impending
misfortune was connected with that rather incongruous household down
at Kew.
Therefore, when Sir Bernard imparted to me his misgivings, I was
quickly on the alert, and questioned him regarding the progress of old
Mr. Courtenay's disease.
"The poor fellow is sinking, I'm afraid, Boyd," exclaimed my chief,
confidentially. "He doesn't believe himself half so ill as he is. When
did you see him last?"
"Only a few days ago. I thought he seemed much improved," I said.
"Ah! of course," the old doctor snapped; his manner towards me in an
instant changed. "You're a frequent visitor there, I forgot. Feminine
attraction and all that sort of thing. Dangerous, Boyd! Dangerous to
run after a woman of her sort. I'm an older man than you. Why haven't
you taken the hint I gave you long ago?"
"Because I could see no reason why I should not continue my friendship
with Ethelwynn Mivart."
"My dear Boyd," he responded, in a sympathetic fatherly manner, which
he sometimes assumed, "I'm an old bachelor, and I see quite sufficient
of women in this room--too much of them, in fact. The majority are
utterly worthless. Recollect that I have never taken away a woman's
character yet, and I refuse to do so now--especially to her lover. I
merely warn you, Boyd, to drop her. That's all. If you don't, depend
upon it you'll regret it."
"Then there's some secret or other of her past which she conceals, I
suppose?" I said hoarsely, feeling confident that being so intimate
with his patient, old Mr. Courtenay, he had discovered it.
"Yes," he replied, blinking again at me through his glasses. "There
is--a very ugly secret."