SIR BERNARD'S DECISION.
For fully a week I saw nothing of Ambler.
Sir Bernard was unwell, and remained down at Hove; therefore I was
compelled to attend to his practice. There were several serious cases,
the patients being persons of note; thus I was kept very busy.
My friend's silence was puzzling. I wrote to him, but received no
response. A wire to his office in the City elicited the fact that Mr.
Jevons was out of town. Probably he was still pursuing the inquiry he
had so actively taken up. Nevertheless, I was dissatisfied that he
should leave me so entirely in the dark as to his intentions and
discoveries.
Ethelwynn came to town for the day, and I spent several hours shopping
with her. She was strangely nervous, and all the old spontaneous
gaiety seemed to have left her. She had read in the papers of the
curious connection between the death of the man Lane and that of her
unfortunate sister; therefore our conversation was mainly upon the
river mystery. Sometimes she seemed ill at ease with me, as though
fearing some discovery. Perhaps, however, it was merely my fancy.
I loved her. She was all the world to me; and yet in her eyes I seemed
to read some hidden secret which she was endeavouring, with all the
power at her command, to conceal. In such circumstances there was
bound to arise between us a certain reserve that we had not before
known. Her conversation was carried on in a mechanical manner, as
though distracted by her inner thoughts; and when, after having tea
together in Bond Street, we drove to the station, and I saw her off on
her return to Neneford, my mind was full of darkest apprehensions.
Yes. That interview convinced me more than ever that she was, in some
manner, cognisant of the truth. The secret existence of old Mr.
Courtenay, the man whom I myself had pronounced dead, was the crowning
point of the strange affair; and yet I felt by some inward intuition
that this fact was not unknown to her.
All the remarkable events of that moonlit night when I had followed
husband and wife along the river-bank came back to me, and I saw
vividly the old man's face, haggard and drawn, just as it had been in
life. Surely there could be no stranger current of events than those
which formed the Seven Secrets. They were beyond explanation--all of
them. I knew nothing. I had certainly seen results; but I knew not
their cause.
Nitrate of amyl was not a drug which a costermonger would select with
a view to committing suicide. Indeed, I daresay few of my readers,
unless they are doctors or chemists, have ever before heard of it.
Therefore my own conclusion, fully endorsed by the erratic Ambler,
was that the poor fellow had been secretly poisoned.
Nearly a fortnight passed, and I heard nothing of Ambler. He was still
"out of town." Day by day passed, but nothing of note transpired. Sir
Bernard was still suffering from a slight touch of sciatica at home,
and on visiting him one Sunday I found him confined to his bed,
grumbling and peevish. He was eccentric in his miserly habits and his
hatred of society, beyond doubt; and the absurdities which his enemies
attributed to him were not altogether unfounded. But he had, at all
events, the rare quality of entertaining for his profession a respect
nearly akin to enthusiasm. Indeed, according to his views, the faculty
possessed almost infallible qualities. In confidence he had more than
once admitted to me that certain of his colleagues practising in
Harley Street were amazing donkeys; but he would never have allowed
anyone else to say so. From the moment a man acquired that diploma
which gave him the right over life and death, that man became, in his
eyes, an august personage for the world at large. It was a crime, he
thought, for a patient not to submit to his decision, and certainly it
must be admitted that his success in the treatment of nervous
disorders had been most remarkable.
"You were at that lecture by Deboutin, of Paris, the other day!" he
exclaimed to me suddenly, while I was seated at his bedside describing
the work I had been doing for him in London. "Why didn't you tell me
you were going there?"
"I went quite unexpectedly--with a friend."
"With whom?"
"Ambler Jevons."
"Oh, that detective fellow!" laughed the old physician. "Well," he
added, "it was all very interesting, wasn't it?"
"Very--especially your own demonstrations. I had no idea that you were
in correspondence with Deboutin."
He laughed; then, with a knowing look, said:
"Ah, my dear fellow, nowadays it doesn't do to tell anyone of your own
researches. The only way is to spring it upon the profession as a
great triumph: just as Koch did his cure for tuberculosis. One must
create an impression, if only with a quack remedy. The day of the
steady plodder is past; it's all hustle, even in medicine."
"Well, you certainly did make an impression," I said, smiling. "Your
experiments were a revelation to the profession. They were talking of
them at the hospital only yesterday."
"H'm. They thought me an old fogey, eh? But, you see, I've been
keeping pace with the times, Boyd. A man to succeed nowadays must make
a boom with something, it matters not what. For years I've been
experimenting in secret, and some day I will show them further results
of my researches--and they will come upon the profession like a
thunderclap, staggering belief."
The old man chuckled to himself as he thought of his scientific
triumph, and how one day he would give forth to the world a truth
hitherto unsuspected.
We chatted for a long time, mostly upon technicalities which cannot
interest the reader, until suddenly he said:
"I'm getting old, Boyd. These constant attacks I have render me unfit
to go to town and sit in judgment on that pack of silly women who rush
to consult me whenever they have a headache or an erring husband. I
think that very soon I ought to retire. I've done sufficient hard work
all the years since I was a 'locum' down in Oxfordshire. I'm worn
out."
"Oh, no," I said. "You mustn't retire yet. If you did, the profession
would lose one of its most brilliant men."
"Enough of compliments," he snapped, turning wearily on his pillow.
"I'm sick to death of it all. Better to retire while I have fame, than
to outlive it. When I give up you will step into my shoes, Boyd, and
it will be a good thing for you."
Such a suggestion was quite unexpected. I had never dreamed that he
contemplated handing over his practice to me. Certainly it would be a
good thing for me if he did. It would give me a chance such as few men
ever had. True, I was well known to his patients and had worked hard
in his interests, but that he intended to hand his practice over to me
I had never contemplated. Hence I thanked him most heartily. Yes, Sir
Bernard had been my benefactor always.
"All the women know you," he went on in his snappish way. "You are the
only man to take my place. They would come to you; but not to a new
man. All I can hope is that they won't bore you with their domestic
troubles--as they have done me," and he smiled.
"Oh," I said. "More than once I, too, have been compelled to listen to
the domestic secrets of certain households. It really is astonishing
what a woman will tell her doctor, even though he may be young."
The old man laughed again.
"Ah!" he sighed. "You don't know women as I know them, Boyd. You've
got your experience to gain. Then you'll hold them in abhorrence--just
as I do. They call me a woman-hater," he grunted. "Perhaps I am--for
I've had cause to hold the feminine mind and the feminine passion
equally in contempt."
"Well," I laughed, "there's not a man in London who is more qualified
to speak from personal experience than yourself. So I anticipate a
pretty rough time when I've had years of it, as you have."
"And yet you want to marry!" he snapped, looking me straight in the
face. "Of course, you love Ethelwynn Mivart. Every man at your age
loves. It is a malady that occurs in the 'teens and declines in the
thirties. I should have thought that your affection of the heart had
been about cured. It is surely time it was."
"It is true that I love Ethelwynn," I declared, rather annoyed, "and I
intend to marry her."
"If you do, then you'll spoil all your chances of success. The class
of women who are my patients would much rather consult a confirmed
bachelor than a man who has a jealous wife hanging to his coat-tails.
The doctor's wife must always be a long-suffering person."
I smiled; and then our conversation turned upon his proposed
retirement, which was to take place in six months' time.
I returned to London by the last train, and on entering my room found
a telegram from Ambler making an appointment to call on the following
evening. The message was dated from Eastbourne, and was the first I
had received from him for some days.
Next morning I sat in Sir Bernard's consulting-room as usual,
receiving patients, and the afternoon I spent on the usual hospital
round. About six o'clock Ambler arrived, drank a brandy and soda with
a reflective air, and then suggested that we might dine together at
the Cavour--a favourite haunt of his.
At table I endeavoured to induce him to explain his movements and what
he had discovered; but he was still disinclined to tell me anything.
He worked always in secret, and until facts were clear said nothing.
It was a peculiarity of his to remain dumb, even to his most intimate
friends concerning any inquiries he was making. He was a man of moods,
with an active mind and a still tongue--two qualities essential to the
successful unravelling of mysteries.
Having finished dinner we lit cigars, and took a cab back to my rooms.
On passing along Harley Street it suddenly occurred to me that in the
morning I had left a case of instruments in Sir Bernard's
consulting-room, and that I might require them for one of my patients
if called that night.
Therefore I stopped the cab, dismissed it, and knocked at Sir
Bernard's door. Ford, on opening it, surprised me by announcing that
his master, whom I had left in bed on the previous night, had returned
to town suddenly, but was engaged.
Ambler waited in the hall, while I passed along to the door of the
consulting-room with the intention of asking permission to enter, as I
always did when Sir Bernard was engaged with a patient.
On approaching the door, however, I was startled by hearing a woman's
voice raised in angry, reproachful words, followed immediately by the
sound of a scuffle, and then a stifled cry. Without further hesitation
I turned the handle.
The door was locked.