"What is it?" demanded Sir Charles, from behind me, coming to an abrupt halt.
"One moment, Venner, where are you?"
"Here!"
Sir Charles Venner returned towards the house, and the two men met at the very angle of the path, within six feet of my nose. I hugged the tree-trunk, and waited, hardly daring to breathe.
"Could you strain a point, Venner, and operate to-morrow night?" asked Dr. Fulton in a pleading voice.
"No, old chap, I can't. You know my rule. I must give myself three days between each, for the sake of my nerve."
"Just for once!"
"Impossible, Fulton. I wonder that you ask me. I have myself to consider as well as the cause. We may succeed or we may not. But I am hanged if I deliberately risk destroying my own health for anything or anyone. I consider that I do quite enough for the cause as it is."
"You do, Venner, you do; but just for once do oblige Marion. She begged me to ask you. You see, the fact is, Cavanagh is cranky."
"Damn Cavanagh!"
"With all my heart, but then you see, there is Marion. What should we do without her?"
"That is all very well. But what should we do without me!"
"The poor girl is half out of her mind worrying about Cavanagh. He has not even had the grace to come here all day, though he promised."
"He is an infernal young cad!"
"I think so too, but it does not mend matters. The girl is crazily in love with him, and she thinks he will kill himself, if we can't do something for him soon."
"Puppy!" The tone was bitterly contemptuous. Sir Charles seemed to hesitate. "Look here, Fulton," he proceeded, "I am sorry for Marion, of course; nevertheless, I cannot help her. Tell her I am out of sorts, or make any other excuse you like. I shall not operate until Tuesday evening. Good-night to you!"
"One second, Venner, She begged me, if you refused her first request, to ask leave for Cavanagh to be present at the operation. You'll have no objection to that I suppose!"
"Oh! curse the fellow," exclaimed Sir Charles very irritably. "He becomes the bane of my existence. If we admit him to the room, we are bound to have a scene. He will either faint or do something equally idiotic. You know very well that the least interruption may play the devil with my knife."
"She has pledged his good behaviour, Venner. Besides, I'll promise to look after him. Come, come, old chap, don't send me back to her quite empty-handed."
"The consequences must be upon your own head then."
"Thank you, Venner, you are a good fellow! Good-night!"
"I am, on the contrary, a soft-hearted fool. Good-night!"
They parted, and I heaved a sigh of relief.
When the silence had resumed itself, I stole through the plantation to the gate, whence, after carefully fixing the locale of the hospital in my mind, I made a speedy return to civilization, and an hour later I was discussing a hearty meal in a private room at Jack Straw's Castle.
Tuesday arrived before I knew quite what to do. On that particular morning the postman handed me, amongst a sheaf of bills and circulars, a letter sealed with a peculiar signet, addressed like the others to my master. As it wanted an hour to Sir William's waking time, I had plenty of leisure to investigate its contents. It puzzles me how any people can be foolish enough to imagine that a mere dab of wax, however cunningly impressed, can confer security upon their correspondence. In two minutes the seal was lying safe and uninjured upon my pantry table, and the detached envelope rested confidingly across the mouth of a bowl of boiling water. The letter ran as follows: "My dear Dagmar,—Whoever the rascal really is who imposed upon Cavanagh and myself on a recent memorable evening, he lied in declaring himself an emissary of the police. I have just succeeded in establishing this fact, and take the earliest opportunity of reassuring you, while allowing detailed explanations to await until we meet. I have no longer any doubt but that our adversary is a blackmailer, and I feel sure that before long one or other of us will be approached. I sincerely trust that the fellow will turn out, as you suspected, to be your scapegrace nephew. In that case you, of course, must deal with him, but in any other event I am convinced that our best course will be to prosecute. This will notify you that I intend to propose such a resolution at our next conclave.—Yours sincerely,Charles Venner.
"P.S.—If you can, see Cavanagh to-day. I have been weak enough to permit him to witness the operation. It is possible that you may dissuade him.—C.V."
I carefully resealed the letter, and pressed the envelope with a heated flat-iron in order to remove all traces of my manipulations. All the time I was in a whirl of thought. For three days I had been wondering how I might get a footing inside the hospital and witness the operation which Mr. Cavanagh had extorted a privilege to see. After reading Sir Charles Venner's letter I was more anxious than ever to do so, but the more determined I became the less hopeful seemed my prospects. If Mr. Cavanagh had been a bigger man I believe I should have resorted to some desperate expedient to get him out of the way, so that I might take his place. Unhappily for me, however, he lacked full two inches of my stature, and I dared not attempt to impersonate him under the brilliant light which must necessarily pervade a surgeon's operating-room. I solved the problem that was troubling me, while preparing my master's breakfast, and when I proceeded to his room and handed him his letters, I knew exactly what to do. Sir William Dagmar had a scapegrace nephew—well, his scapegraceship should be my scapegoat. It is true that part of Dr. Venner's letter put the idea into my mind. I do not pretend to pose as a superhumanly clever person, but I am not without talent, and my genius is in my power to twist every accident to my own advantage.
It was my master's custom to dispose of his correspondence while I prepared his bath after awaking him. As I re-entered his bed-chamber to announce his bath ready, I found him standing before the fireplace in his dressing-gown, watching the transmutation of Sir Charles Venner's missive into ashes in the grate.
"Your pardon, sir," I murmured softly. "About a fortnight ago you commanded me to immediately inform you if any stranger should venture to question me concerning your affairs."
He swung round on the instant and faced me, his lids narrowed over his eyes, and his lips compressed in a hard straight line.
"Well!" he grated. "Well!"
"This morning, sir, about two hours ago, a man came here and asked to see you——"
"His name?" he interrupted harshly.
"He would not give his name, sir, and for that reason I took the liberty of refusing to admit him."
"You did well, Brown. What had he to say?"
"He left a message for you, sir. He asked me to tell you that Mr. Sefton Dagmar wished you to meet him alone on the railway station at Newhaven, at nine o'clock to-night precisely." Butts had told me that Sefton Dagmar lived at Newhaven. One of my greatest natural endowments is an almost perfect memory.
My master's eyes glistened and his cheeks flushed. "Oh, indeed!" he muttered. "Anything else, Brown?"
"Y—yes, sir!" I lowered my eyes and tried to look abashed. "I—I—scarcely like to tell you, sir," I stammered; "the messenger was—most—im—most impertinent, sir."
"Never mind, Brown; tell me exactly what he said."
"He declared, sir, that if you did not keep the appointment, you'd have leisure to repent your foolishness in gaol!"
"What!" he thundered, and threatened me with his clenched hands. His face went purple, then pale as death, but his eyes glowed like coals.
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir," I muttered, stepping back quickly and affecting to be terrified. "You—you made me tell you, sir."
With a great and manifest effort my master recovered his composure. He even contrived to smile. "I—I—you must forgive me, Brown," he muttered. "I—I could not for a moment conceive that—that my nephew would dare to send me such a message. Mr. Sefton Dagmar is my nephew, Brown, and I am sorry to say that——"
I raised my hand and quickly interrupted him. "Please, don't say any more, sir," I cried in tones of deep respect. "I am your servant, sir, and I hope I know my place. When you know me better, sir, you will find that I am not one of the prying sort, who is always trying to hear more than he should. It's likely that in your anger now you'd be telling me something that you'd afterwards regret, and if you'll forgive me for speaking plainly, sir, I like you too much, and I'm too happy in your service to want to risk losing your confidence and my place together! Such a thing has happened to me before, sir, and without my seeking either."
Sir William Dagmar was the most surprised looking man in the world at that moment. He seemed to have forgotten everything, but the enigma before him, and he stared at me as if he wished to read into my soul.
"Have you no curiosity?" he demanded at last.
"None that I can't control, sir," I replied respectfully.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered. "You are either a superlatively finished hypocrite or a philosopher of sorts. Which is it, Brown?"
I looked into his eyes and sighed. "It's as you please, sir, and I won't pretend not to understand you," I answered mournfully. "But if I did act the hypocrite a bit in anticipating the occasion to speak as I did just now, where's the harm, sir? You are a rich gentleman, Sir William, and you have no idea of what a cursed thing it is for a poor fellow like me to go about looking for employment, and eating up my little bit of savings, sir. Last time I was out of a place it cost me six pounds for board, not to speak of the agent's fee; and I have been hoping that I was settled here for life, sir."
"You may yet be, if you choose, Brown. I am perfectly satisfied with you; and, upon my soul, I believe you are reliable."
"Just so, sir; but you won't continue to believe that long if you trust me with more than a servant should be trusted. It's not in human nature, sir!"
"You mule!" he cried with a gesture of impatience. "But have your way, have your way! Now return to the subject. What more have you to tell me?"
"Very little, sir, except that the man tried to pump me, but I gave him not a whit of satisfaction. Oh, I beg pardon, sir. The postman came up while he was talking. I'd have shut the door on him before, only I saw the postman coming."
"Yes, yes."
"Well, sir, the man saw that letter, and he offered me five pounds for it—cash down, sir."
"Ah! What reply did you give him?"
"I shut the door in his face, sir."
My master nodded. "What sort of a man did he appear to you, Brown. Not exactly a gentleman, I suppose?"
"No, indeed, sir. A low creature and poorly dressed. I was ashamed for the postman to catch us talking, sir."
"Would you recognize him again?"
"Among a thousand; he had a scar across his left cheek and half his left ear gone, sir."
My master nodded, and, turning, walked thoughtfully into the adjoining bath-room. We did not converse upon the matter again, but all that day the poison I had instilled into his mind was working, working. I perceived its effects when he returned to the house somewhat late in the afternoon, doubtless after having paid a visit to Mr. Cavanagh, for he did not go abroad during the forenoon. He looked worried and distrait as I admitted him, and passing me without a word, he went straight up to his bedroom. Ten minutes later his bell rang. I hurried up to find him standing in the hall, clad for the street, a heavy fur-lined overcoat across his arm and a bag in one hand.
"I'll not be home until to-morrow morning," he said curtly, "so you need not wait up for me, Brown; but, please, on no account leave the house."
"Very good, sir."
"Above all, admit no caller. You understand?"
"Yes, sir. Shall I call a cab for you, sir?"
"No." He pointed to the door, I opened it, and he went out. A cab was waiting for him beside the pavement. The clock struck five as I shut the door. At six o'clock I entered my little stronghold in Bruton Street. At eight I descended the stairs, in all things my master's double. In all things I declare advisedly, for warned by experience I wore upon the thumb of my left hand just such a little finger-stall of violet velvet as Sir William Dagmar used in order to conceal his deformity whenever he went abroad. This was secured around my wrist with an elastic band, and I took the precaution to stiffen its interior with a thin ferrule, so that no involuntary working of the thumb joint might betray me. For precaution's sake I carried a revolver, mastering by an effort of will my natural repugnance for such gruesome implements. I proceeded to the Heath by three different hansoms, and a fourth conveyed me to my point of destination, a secluded little tree sheltered spot at an angle of a lane about a hundred yards from the gate of the Kingsmere Hospital for Consumptives. There I alighted, and bidding the driver to await me, I hurried towards the hospital. The gate upon the occasion of my first visit stood open; now it was shut, but latched, not locked. I passed through and sought the house. It was my opinion, from what I had observed, that all welcome visitors to that building possessed master keys to the front door, and were accustomed to enter unceremoniously. Unwilling to attract unnecessary attention to myself, since I had no latch-key, I decided upon a rear attack. I therefore passed down the side of the house and, flanking the sheds, approached the kitchen door. It was shut, the window blinds were closely drawn, but a light gleamed through the crevices. I rapped gently on the panels once, twice, thrice, at short intervals. Upon the third summons I heard the sound of cautiously drawn bolts, and the door opened about four inches on a chain. A wrinkled grey-bearded face peered out at me. "Qui va là?Who is dare?" demanded a cracked voice, its foreign accent in the English fairly rasping the evidently unfamiliar words.
"It is I, my friend, Sir William Dagmar," I replied very softly in French.
The old man immediately released the chain and threw the door wide.
"Enter, Monsieur," he said politely.
I did not require a second invitation, but before attending to me the old man refastened the door. He then turned and looked at me inquiringly. His expression was a curious combination of cunning and intelligence. I saw at once that he was astonished at the manner of my coming, and that he considered that he was entitled to an explanation. "I wish to see Mademoiselle Le Mar, privately and quickly," I muttered in his ear.
"But, Monsieur," he began.
I took a sovereign from my pocket and allowed him to perceive it. He stopped dead in his speech and a greedy look came into his eyes.
"Contrive to let her know that I am here," I said quietly.
He nodded and hobbled out of the kitchen, making so little noise, however, in his exit that I guessed he wore rubber-soled boots. Mine were shod with felt. My object in sending for Marion Le Mar was to obtain a guide over the house, a very important desideratum, since I had never been inside its walls until that moment. I was kept waiting about ten minutes, when the old fellow suddenly reappeared.
"Monsieur! She comes," he muttered, and stretched out a skinny paw for the money.
I let it drop into his hand, and turned at a sound to behold standing in the open doorway the woman I had seen in my master's company last Sunday on the Heath. I had thought her beautiful on that occasion, although her head and all the upper portion of her face were hidden with a veil. Now I caught my breath, and for an instant dreamed I looked upon a spirit from some other world. Her forehead was broad and low; her head, exquisitely shaped, was covered with a glory of gleaming gold which admirably contrasted with the dark and level pencilling of her brows, and the russet flashing of her wonderful red-brown eyes. The one weak spot in my composition is that I am the slave of female beauty wherever found, and yet until that moment I had been wise enough to worship the sex collectively. But standing in the doorway I recognized my fate, and I bowed my head before her.
She advanced and offered me her hand. Only then I perceived that she wore a uniform, a nurse's uniform; but that stiff apparel which makes most women appear unlovely could not deny the expression of her charms.
"Monsieur," she whispered, "you sent for me."
"Yes, my child," I answered in still lower tones. I pressed her hand, then let it fall, though I grieved to release it. "Where is Cavanagh?"
"Upstairs in the operating room with Dr. Fulton. I must be quick, for they are almost ready to begin. Sir Charles has just arrived."
"Ah! so Cavanagh still persists. I had hoped to find it otherwise."
"Alas! Monsieur. I have begged him to go, but he had determined to see all."
"In that case, for your sake, my child, I shall bear him company."
"What—you!"
"Yes, Marion! You have work to do, and he may need my care!"
She gazed at me a moment with a look of passionate gratitude, then of a sudden, stooping low, she caught and kissed my hand. It tingled for days afterwards.
"Heaven bless you, Monsieur!" she cried, her whole face radiant. "Come, then, and we shall go to them. Sir Charles will be enchanted, for he hates that George should be present, since we have no one to spare who might attend him if the poor boy should feel ill or swoon. If that should happen, Monsieur, you will take him away at once; is it not so?"
"Immediately, my child."
It seemed that there no longer existed any reason why we should converse in whispers, and we did not. Indeed, my beautiful conductress filled the journey with gay chatter and musical ripples of laughter. Evidently, thought I, she must love Cavanagh already to distraction, when the small courtesy I have proposed can inspire her with such happy spirits. Absurd as it may appear, I began to feel jealous of Cavanagh already, although Marion had never seen me in my proper person, and was no doubt unaware of my existence. She led me down a spacious hall carpeted with oil cloth, and up a staircase that was not carpeted at all, to the floor above. We passed down a corridor and stopped at the third closed door, from beneath which exuded a long narrow bar of brilliant white light. Her manner while ascending the stairs had gradually calmed, but she was still excited, and she opened the door with a burst of informing words pouring from her lips. Never shall I forget that moment. I glanced in with a face that I flatter myself was expressionless to the perfection of indifference, and I took care to make my lip curl in Sir William Dagmar's characteristic aspect of querulous cynicism. But in truth my every sense was awake and poignantly acquisitive. The apartment was large, full thirty feet square. It contained two operating benches placed within easy distance. The upper slab of one was absent; upon the other lay a squat, bulky figure, strapped into position and covered with a sheet. Above each table depended from the ceiling a perfect swarm of incandescent lamps, each furnished with a powerful reflector which caught and cast the rays of light upon the bench beneath. Tables stood about the walls of the room, at regular intervals, covered with all manner of basins, batteries, knives, forceps, scissors, and other surgical instruments. There was no other furniture except a solitary chair perched near the door, upon which Mr. Cavanagh was seated. Sir Charles Venner and Dr. Fulton, clad in clean white aprons and overalls, with their sleeves rolled up and secured with bands above their bare elbows, stood beside one of the tables steeping some ugly looking knives in a basin of steaming fluid. At the end of the occupied operating bench stood two full blood African negroes. Their appearance was not remarkable, and in the glance I flashed upon them I could discover no point in which they differed from any other negroes I had seen, except that like the surgeons they were both attired in white. Mr. Cavanagh got to his feet as we entered. His countenance was pale and tense. I perceived that he was nervous, but he had evidently wound himself up to the highest pitch of determination of which his nature was capable, and I thought it probable, whatever the others expected, that he would comport himself like a man. Marion addressed her announcement to the surgeons, but her eyes were bent upon her lover, and to him in truth she spoke. She lauded what she called my devotion to the skies, and to my surprise the others appeared to accept me at her valuation.
Sir Charles Venner nodded commendingly. Dr. Fulton said, "It is confoundedly good of you, Dagmar," and Mr. Cavanagh gave me a look of earnest gratitude.
I dismissed the subject with a shoulder shrug, and asked Dr. Fulton to assign me a position. He directed me to stand near Cavanagh until all was ready. I obeyed, and for a space of some minutes I watched Marion, who flitted about the place arranging certain instruments upon the several tables, and wringing dripping sponges dry with antiseptic towels.
When Sir Charles had completed his preparations, he turned to the nearest negro. "Beudant," he said, "you may light the asbestos." He spoke in French.
The fellow bowed and hurried to the fireplace. I saw a great flame rise, which flushed the negro's glistening forehead with a crimson glow.
"Jussieu," said Sir Charles, "it is time!"
The second negro bowed and glided from the room, followed by Dr. Fulton. Sir Charles dipped his hands into a basin of fluid offered him by Marion, and wiped his fingers with a towel. Two minutes later a bell tinkled, "Beudant," said the surgeon.
The negro bowed again like a slave to a lamp, and noiselessly departed. Very soon I heard the dull tramp of slippered feet on the corridor without. The door opened, and the negroes re-entered the room bearing between them a long slab, on which rested the inert figure of a young man. He seemed about twenty-two years of age. His face was extremely pale. His eyes were closed and his mouth was propped wide open with a curious spring wedge. He was nude to the waist, but thence downwards wrapped in an eiderdown shawl. His chest was narrow and his body hideously emaciated. As his chest moved up and down under his deep laboured breathing the ribs projected horribly, leaving dark hollows between. He was strapped securely to the slab and in such a thorough fashion that he could scarcely have moved a muscle howsoever much he had been minded. But he was evidently unconscious, doubtless in an anaesthetised sleep. This curious procession was followed by Dr. Fulton and a tall elderly gentleman similarly apparelled to the surgeons. I had never set eyes on him before. He had an eager, enthusiastic face. His nose was very long; he had high cheek-bones and prominent grey eyes full of a strange fanatical light. I put him down at one glance as a devotee of science. Afterwards I discovered that his name was Vernet, that he was a Frenchman, and resident house-surgeon to the hospital, which in fact he owned.
He was the last to enter, and he closed and locked the door behind him. The negroes advanced to the bench, and having deposited the slab with its senseless burden, they moved over to the other operating table. Already the room had become oppressively hot, and I noticed beads of perspiration stand out on Sir Charles Venner's forehead as he bent to examine his patient with a stethoscope. Dr. Fulton beckoned Cavanagh and myself to approach, and by signs he directed us to stand at the feet of the young man upon whom Sir Charles was about to operate. We were thus quite out of the way of those who had work to do, but we could see everything, and I desired no better vantage post. Dr. Fulton stood behind the patient's head at the other end of the slab, holding in one hand a large rubber face mask, in the other a large stoppered phial, connected by a tube with the mask. Sir Charles Venner stood beside the patient between the two operating benches; and beside him was Dr. Vernet. Marion faced them from across the patient's body. She held in one hand a sponge, in the other a basin.
Sir Charles Venner lost no time in proceeding to business, nor did he give us the least warning of his intention. Casting his stethoscope aside, he seized a small thin-bladed knife and applied its edge with a free sweeping stroke, as an accomplished artist might draw a freehand with a pencil, diagonally across the patient's third and fourth ribs, within an inch of the breast bone. A thin streak of blood followed the cut as quickly as thunder follows lightning. Marion instantly applied her sponge to the wound, and the red line disappeared. The surgeon, without pausing, made another swift incision at right angles to the first along the third rib, and followed this with a third, parallel to the first, some six inches apart. Marion pursued his cuts with her sponge, dipping it each time into her basin, which doubtless contained some powerful astringent drug, for the wounds once touched ceased to bleed. Sir Charles Venner made some further rapid cuts, and with inimitable dexterity he presently raised the flap of flesh and muscle so detached by his knife from the patient's ribs, back across the chest, and secured it there with a dart attached by a string to a bandage passed about the subject's loins. With the speed of magic he applied half a dozen tiny silver spring clips to the dripping flesh, in order to secure the ruptured blood vessels. Dr. Vernet then handed him a tiny razor bladed saw, with which, to my horror, he immediately attacked the bared heaving ribs. The ghastly sight sickened me so much that I closed my eyes, and for some minutes I fought like a tiger with the weakness that threatened to undo me. The world was rocking, rocking, ay, and beginning to swing. I should in the end probably have fainted, but that my companion, Mr. Cavanagh, observing my condition of a sudden pressed his handkerchief to my nostrils. I inhaled an intoxicating, subtle, but most powerful reviving essence. Afterwards I learned that Marion had supplied him with several capsules of nitrate of amyl, of which he had himself already consumed more than one. I felt the blood rush to my head and swell out my cheeks and scalp and skin. The effect was magical. My weakness passed like a black dream, and with restored courage I opened my eyes. There was now a gaping cavity in the patient's breast, through which I could see at work the mysterious machinery of life. The inner flap of the exposed lung had been uplifted and secured aside with a ligature. Below panted and pulsed a crimson and purple-coloured shapeless thing. It fascinated and at the same time terrified me. With a frightful effort I tore my eyes away and looked at Sir Charles. He was screwing a sharp-edged, curved hollow tube to the end of a long and curiously fashioned syringe. This syringe was furnished here and there with golden taps and tubes and tiny force pumps. One tube stretched beyond the operator and ran to the other operating table. I followed it with my eyes and saw that it terminated in a long, thick, hollow needle which reposed in the hands of the negro Beudant. The other negro, Jussieu, knife in hand, bent over an object lying on the slab before him—the squat, bulky figure which had excited my curiosity upon my entering the chamber, and which then had been covered with a sheet. But the sheet had now vanished, and before and exposed to my view lay an enormous ape, a chimpanzee I fancy, which was strapped to the bench exactly in the same fashion and attitude as Sir Charles Venner's patient. The ape's huge hairy breast was disfigured with a square, bloody opening, but I saw that he was alive, for he breathed. The negro Jussieu had evidently performed an operation on all fours with that executed by Sir Charles Venner! The idea almost stunned me. Jussieu was then a great surgeon, although a negro. Next instant I considered the ape, and a panic horror almost overwhelmed me. George Cavanagh was again my saviour. There came a sound of rushing waters to my ears, and the room began to whirl and sway. On the very threshold of oblivion once again the thin and penetrating flavour of the nitrate of amyl restored to me my faculties. I buried my teeth in my lower lip and cursed myself for a pitiful poltroon. I looked up to meet Marion's eyes. She smiled at me so tender an encouragement that I turned cold with shame; that she, a delicate woman, could bear unmoved a sight that stole my manhood, fired my heart with more of rage than wonder, though I wondered too. I fiercely resolved not to be weak again.
Until that moment the silence had been absolute, but of a sudden Sir Charles spoke. "Wait for the systole, Vernet!"
I glanced down and saw Dr. Vernet insert his right hand into the hole in the patient's breast. He was armed with a large, cup-shaped clasp. He fumbled for a moment, and then, nodding his head, he withdrew his hand.
Sir Charles threw Cavanagh a quick scornful glance. "Attend, if you wish to understand," he commanded. "I'll try to be explicit!"
I looked for the first time at Cavanagh. He held a kerchief tightly to his face, but his eyes, which I alone could see, were simply lurid.
"Go on!" he muttered in a muffled voice.
Sir Charles inserted the edged tube attached to the syringe with both hands into the patient's breast.
"This is the right ventricle," he began, speaking in quick, disjointed sentences. "Its function is to force the venous blood through the pulmonary veins to the right auricle; thence to be distributed over the body. I am now—about to—insert—a needle into the right ventricle through the pericardium and walls. How is the pulse, Fulton?"
"Right, sir."
"Are you ready, Beudant, Jussieu?"
"At the word, sir," replied the negroes.
"Good!" exclaimed Sir Charles. "I am too!" He withdrew one hand from the ghastly cavity and seized the syringe pump, which he began to compress. "I am now forcing into our subject's right ventricle the solution of my invention, which is destined to slay the tubercle bacilli. In two seconds the lungs will be suffused with the fluid, and in two minutes we shall have worked the miracle of absolutely destroying every bacillus contained therein. But we shall also have killed the patient's blood. See, it is already decomposing. Mark how white the lung grows. To work, Jussieu!" he cried. "To work!"
"Ready, sir!" cried back the negro. I could not see what he did, but I saw the tube connecting Sir Charles Venner's patient with the opposite table suddenly rigidify as though a rod had been slipped down its hollow interior.
"We are now correcting the solution's destructive action on our subject's blood by forcing into his heart a fresh supply of living arterial blood taken from the left auricle of the ape lying yonder," explained Sir Charles. "Vernet is meanwhile extracting our subject's own decomposed and now useless blood, which is really blood no longer, from the greater artery in his right leg. You see, Cavanagh, we have established a perfect system of drainage. We are supplying good blood and removing bad."
"My God!" cried Cavanagh. "It is white!"
His exclamation referred to Dr. Vernet's work. The French surgeon had made a deep incision in the patient's right thigh, from which gushed a steady fountain of yellow fluid.
"Shout when it colours, Vernet!" commanded Sir Charles.
I looked on, speechless with amazement, I had no longer the least inclination to faint. Indeed, my whole soul was so steeped in wonder, that I forgot I lived. I was merely a rapt acquisitive spirit being initiated into the fundamental mysteries of nature by a great, indeed, a giant intellect. Sir Charles Venner appeared to me then something like a god. His left hand was plunged into the patient's breast, perhaps grasping the heart, that seat of life. His right compressed and controlled the movements of the syringe. His face gleamed like marble in the brilliant white light of the reflectors. It was pale, composed, expressionless, yet full of watchful intelligence and power. He stood upon his feet as steady as a rock. Every moment he uttered some sharp, pregnant direction to one or other of his assistants, which was at once implicitly obeyed. "No greater man has ever lived!" thought I then, and I have not altered my opinion since.
In about three minutes, though the period seemed longer to my electrified imagination, I saw a red light flash into the milky fountain that flowed under Dr. Vernet's guidance.
"Enough!" he cried.
"Good!" exclaimed Sir Charles.
The fountain stopped flowing on instant, for Dr. Vernet had squeezed the artery between a pair of forceps, and with deft fingers he began to bind it with a ligature of golden wire. I glanced from him to Sir Charles. He was now bending closely above the cavity in the subject's breast; the syringe had disappeared. He seemed to be sewing something in the hollow, but I could distinguish nothing for blood. Marion's sponge plied backwards and forwards with the regularity of a machine.
"What are you doing now?" cried a voice beside me, so harsh and strained that I hardly recognized it.
"Sewing up the punctured ventricle," replied Sir Charles with a sort of chuckle. "Some of your friends would be a bit surprised, eh, Cavanagh, if you told them that you saw a doctor patch a man's heart with thread and needle, as a sempstress might a rent gown!"
Cavanagh uttered a hollow groan, and I turned just in time to catch him. He had swooned! I carried him to the other end of the room, where I laid him down upon the floor and hurriedly unfastened his collar and cravat. I was hot with rage, for I wished to witness the end of the operation; but I dared not leave him because of Marion. Even as I knelt to chafe his wrists, I heard Sir Charles address her sharply: "Now then, Marion, attend to me. The young fool is all right. Dagmar will look after him."
I managed to awaken Cavanagh at last with a capsule I found clutched in his hand, but several precious minutes had been wasted, and we returned to the table only in time to see Sir Charles sewing up with golden wire the flap of muscle which had been the door of his more important work.
The operation was over. The negroes were already starting to remove the carcase of the dead ape, whose life blood had been stolen to try and prolong the existence of its fellow creature, man! The other surgeons were grouped about the still living subject, but Sir Charles Venner was no longer in command. Dr. Fulton now held supreme authority. He occupied Venner's former post, and with one hand he fingered the subject's now unfastened wrists, while in the other he grasped a small hypodermic syringe. For some moments a deathly hush obtained, that was but intensified by the slow and stertorous breathing of the patient on the slab.
Dr. Fulton's expression was strained and passionately anxious. It formed a curious contrast to Sir Charles Venner's stolid immobility. The others watched him, not the patient. That is to say, all but Marion. She had slipped an arm about George Cavanagh, and she was tenderly supporting him, oblivious of everything else.
"Well?" asked Sir Charles at last.
I gasped with relief to hear his voice.
"Weaker; curse it!" replied Dr. Fulton.
"Inject?"
"No; last of all. The battery, quick, the glass stool!"
Sir Charles and Dr. Vernet darted off. Sir Charles returned with a glass bench, which he placed upon the floor at Fulton's feet, and upon which Fulton immediately stepped. Dr. Vernet stopped beside a distant table and began to pull out something that looked like a cylinder from the side of a huge wooden box. We heard the rapidly intermittent clicking sound of the working battery at once.
"Stop!" shouted Fulton.
I saw the patient's legs twitch and draw up half way to his stomach, and his arms spasmodically jerk.
This was repeated a dozen times in as many seconds, but gradually the motions ceased.
"Awaken him!" commanded Dr. Fulton.
Sir Charles applied a small phial to the patient's nostrils. After a while the poor fellow turned his head aside as though unconsciously trying to escape a torture. But the phial followed him remorselessly, and presently he moaned. Sir Charles at once removed the spring wedge from his mouth. His teeth clicked, shut, and he uttered a heartrending gurgling groan.
"More battery!" shouted Fulton. "Softly, softly!"
The patient's muscles jerked again, but less violently than before. He tossed and turned his head, trying vainly to escape the phial; thus for a moment, then of a sudden his eyes opened and he gazed about him.
"Stop battery!" cried Dr. Fulton. "Marion, come here!"
The girl left her lover and hurried forward. She stooped over the patient and looked into his eyes. "Ah, my poor fellow!" she murmured soothingly in English, "you are awake at last, I see. It is all over now—all over—nothing more to fear now. Soon you will be well and strong. Stronger than you have ever been in your life before—for you are cured."
He looked up at her with a dull, vacant stare, then uttered a little gasp of pain, for Dr. Fulton had plunged the hypodermic needle in his arm.
The injection's effect was miraculous. Within three minutes his face flushed crimson, his dull eyes brightened, and he actually attempted to sit up. Marion, however, gently pressed him back, but she allowed his head to rest upon her arm.
"I—I—feel fine!" he gasped.
"Hush!" said Marion; "you must not talk. You must be very good and keep still, for that is the only way you can get better."
Sir Charles Venner pressed a glass into her hand.
"Try and drink this," she proceeded. "It is not medicine, only a little brandy and water. Ah! that's right. You'll do splendidly now. There, my boy, shut your eyes, and try to sleep. You'll soon sleep, and you'll wake well and strong."
The poor lad obeyed her, and he seemed to sleep immediately, but Marion's prophecy was not fulfilled. He never opened his eyes again.
For a long hour we watched him, the hearts of us all racked with anxiety. Every few minutes Dr. Fulton injected some drug into his arm, and by degrees the full force of the battery was applied. But all in vain.
"He is dead!" said Dr. Fulton at last, stepping dejectedly from the glass stool. "Turn off the battery, Vernet, please."
"Our nineteenth failure!" observed Sir Charles Venner, folding his arms and looking down at the corpse with a face of stone. "And they have all died of shock. Nothing else."
Mr. Cavanagh started forward. "How can you be sure of that?" he demanded. "How do you know that your accursed solution did not poison him?" The young man's face was the hue of ivory, but his big eyes were ablaze with passion.
Sir Charles Venner gave a wintry smile. "We have proved it beyond doubt," he replied. "We have tested the blood a hundred times."
"Bah!" retorted Cavanagh with a savage sneer. "A fig for your tests. But even if they are reliable, how do you know that he did not bleed to death from the wound you made in his heart?"
"Test again, autopsy. Would you care to see? Look here!" He caught up a knife and approached the corpse. "I'm willing, Cavanagh, to bet you a thousand pounds that not one drop of blood has passed my puncture in the ventricle!"
"Done!"
"Venner," cried Dr. Fulton, "Venner, you are betting on a certainty."
"Then I'll pay the stake I win to any charity you like to name." Sir Charles Venner bent over the body, but even as he poised the knife to cut, Mr. Cavanagh cried out in strangled tones: "Stop! I—I withdraw."
Venner looked up with a cold sneering laugh. "Then pay!" said he.
"No—no! I—I—can't afford it." Mr. Cavanagh put his right hand into his breast pocket. His countenance was perfectly livid. He stepped back a pace and looked at Marion.
"George!" she cried, "what ails you, dear?" She was trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"Life!" he answered, and uttered a laugh that still echoes in my ears.
Next instant he produced a revolver and before our eyes put the muzzle to his mouth. There followed a click, a sharp report, and he fell at our feet a corpse.
There are periods of crisis in human happenings when a cycle of years may be compressed into a few minutes of ordinary time, and such a period was that which succeeded the tragedy I have described. I felt my soul grow cold and hard and more old than all my previous life had made it. I stood like a frozen image gazing at the artist's clay, waiting in an agony of expectation for Marion to scream. But she made no cry, and after a long, most dreadful pause, something impelled me to look at her. She was swaying to a fall and already insensible. I took her in my arms and bore her senseless body from the awful room. At the door, however, I was obliged to halt, for the threshold was occupied with the two negroes and the wrinkled old woman I had seen in the kitchen the first night I had visited the hospital. They were transfixed with horror, and I had to force a passage for my burden. In doing so, involuntarily I turned. Dr. Fulton was kneeling beside Mr. Cavanagh examining his wound. Sir Charles Venner stood at a little distance puffing calmly at a cigarette. I shuddered and passed on. Where I would have gone, Providence alone knows. But the old woman followed me, crying out in a cracked voice in French: "But, M'sieur, why not come this way, to Mademoiselle's own room."
She led me to a prettily furnished little chamber at the very end of the corridor. I laid Marion very gently down upon the bed, and turned to the old woman, who was already fussing at my side with salts and sal volatile.
"Don't touch her!" I commanded sternly. "Let her sleep as long as God wills. She will awake too soon in any case to the misery this night has brought her."
"As Monsieur pleases!" replied the beldame, and with a look of ghoulish delight she hurried off, doubtless to gloat over the corpses in the operating room.
Left alone, I leaned over the unconscious girl, and softly pressed my lips upon her beautiful, but clay cold brow. An angel could not have been the worse for that caress, for in my heart there was no thought save of pitiful and tender reverence.
A moment later I was traversing the passage, on my way to the staircase. Someone called to me as I passed the chamber of death, but I paid no heed, and I descended the steps as quickly as I could. The hall door stood before me. The latch yielded to my touch. Issuing forth I banged it shut, and ran out into the night as though I were pursued with furies. On alighting from my cab at the Marble Arch I glanced at my watch. To my astonishment it pointed barely to midnight. I thought it must have stopped, but the public-houses were still open.
A second cab took me to Bruton Street, whence having changed my attire, I drove to my master's house. As I entered I noted upon the floor at my feet a paste-board visiting card, which had evidently been slipped beneath the door by a disappointed caller. I picked it up and held it to the light, uttering, as I read, a long, low whistle of surprise. It was inscribed with three printed words: "Mr. Sefton Dagmar."