A MATTER OF PROFESSIONAL SECRECY
The day had been a trying one. Four capital operations, between the hours of eight and ten in the morning, fifteen minutes for washing up and changing back from the rubber and white duck of the operating room to my ordinary habiliments, and with my usual fear that I was still redolent with the fumes of ether and that sickish odor of the combined horrors of blood and iodoform, I was off for my clinic at the medical school as fast as my team of thoroughbreds could take me.
A strenuous hour of teaching and, my nervous force already nearly exhausted, although my day’s work had just begun, I hurried to my office, taking barely enough timeen routeto swallow a hasty lunch. And then came an afternoon of arduous office work, with, it seemed to me, more patients and more tough problems and petty annoyances than usual.
My office hours over, I was privileged to spend a half hour at dinner, before attending to severalconsultations. I wound up the day by calling at the hospital and looking over the cases I had operated in the morning, and was then driven homeward, fairly worn out, by what was, after all, merely an average day in the life of the college professor.
It was long after midnight when I retired, congratulating myself, meanwhile, that I had completed and forwarded to the publisher the last batch of MS. for my new book, and was therefore privileged to rest my weary bones and exhausted brain.
A telephone at one’s bedside is sometimes a great convenience for the physician, but there are occasions when to me it seems an invention of the devil—a something devised especially to defeat the ends of tired nature—a sort of Nemesis, which pursues one into the very midst of dreamland. When I am as tired as I was on this particular night, the ringing of my telephone bell awakens me with a sudden physical and mental shock that sets my every nerve a quiver, and makes my heart beat like a trip hammer for many minutes.
With the bell still ringing with impudent insistency, I found myself sitting bolt upright in bed and, I freely confess, swearing to the limitof my vocabulary of the profane. Having sufficiently identified myself to the party at the other end of the line he said excitedly, “Doctor, you are wanted at once at No. — B— Street. A man is dying. For God’s sake, hurry!”
And I stood not on the order of my going.
A handsome young man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, lay writhing in the most horrible agony, and crying, “Water, for God’s sake give me some water! I am burning up inside! My stomach and bowels are on fire!”
From time to time frightful paroxysms of vomiting came on, with the ejection of a greenish fluid mixed with blood. His sufferings were frightful to witness. He complained of cold shivers, and his teeth chattered like those of a man with an ague chill. His skin was yellow and parchment like, and his face drawn and cadaverous. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by great dark rings. Their dullness was only redeemed by the gleam of fear and horror of death that shone in their depths.
“Has this man ever before been ill, so far as you know?” I asked.
“Yes, doctor,” replied an elderly woman—evidently the landlady, for the ear marks of the cheap boarding house were plain—“this is thethird attack of the kind, only this is the worst one he’s had. Until a month ago he was well and hearty. His sickness always comes on in this way, with that funny lookin’ vomit, and that burning in his stomach. This is the first time there’s been any blood, though. He was all right this morning at breakfast. He didn’t come home to dinner, and I think he must have eaten somethin’ that didn’t agree with him, at one o’ them restaurants downtown.”
I immediately gave the poor fellow a hypodermic of morphine and requested everybody to leave the room. He grew easier in a few minutes, I meanwhile administering antidotes for what seemed clearly a case of arsenical poisoning.
“My friend,” I said, “you have taken arsenic. Why did you do it?”
“No, no,” he moaned, shaking his head. “Julie, Julie!” Further than this I could get nothing intelligible out of him.
Another paroxysm of that awful pain came on, and I was obliged to resort to another hypodermic. This paroxysm left him almost pulseless. His skin grew cold and damp, and his eyes assumed that glazed and set appearancewhich means but one thing to the professional eye. My patient was sinking fast.
I quickly administered stimulants hypodermically and then called the sick man’s friends to his bedside.
“This man is dying,” I said quietly to the landlady. “He has but a few minutes longer to live. See if you can get him to say anything about himself.”
The woman spoke to the dying man and shook him gently, in a vain effort to arouse his attention. He revived a little for a fleeting moment and shook his head feebly, muttering in barely audible tones, “Tired—so tired—sleepy.”
This was the last flicker of his candle of life. I could no longer find the pulse at the wrist. The heart sounds grew feebler and feebler and finally ceased altogether. The face grew gray and ghastly. The eyes were set and dully staring and the jaw relaxed. There was a last convulsive expansion and contraction of the chest and a gasping, strident, laryngeal sound as the breath finally left the poor fellow’s body forever. My unfortunate patient was dead!
“What was the matter with him, Doctor?” asked in chorus the people about the bedside.
Long years of experience had brought discretionto this particular warhorse, and so I replied,
“Acute gastritis.”
I did not propose to tell all I thought I knew, or to issue premature bulletins. I wanted time to think. I scented mystery here, and perhaps crime, and let him who will condemn my taste as a depraved one, such things have always had an overpowering fascination for me.
I knew that some hours would elapse before I would be called upon for a death certificate, and much could be done in the way of investigation in that time. I resolved to keep my own counsel and allow future developments to determine whether or when I should place the case in the hands of the coroner.
But, was the case one of murder or suicide? This question I proposed to solve myself, if I could. I could at least try to do so, before turning the matter over to the authorities. If it were suicide there might be reasons satisfactory to my conscience why I should keep my counsel. There are times when the physician is justified in closing and forever locking the door of the closet that contains the grinning family skeleton. I may be telling tales out of school, but I am not ashamed to say that this has been done by men whom I revere. All honor to the profession thathas the courage to protect the fair name of itsclientele!
Of course, I had no intention of concealing what I knew, if the case should prove to be at all doubtful, nor was there in this particular case much chance of any circumstances existing which would be likely to impel me to conceal a suicide. Should the case prove to be a murder, I resolved to at once notify the coroner, no matter what the circumstances might be.
I suspected from the history of the case that it was murder, not suicide, with which I had to deal.
* * * * *
One by one the friends and curious neighbors of my late patient filed silently out of the room, till none remained save the landlady and myself. Mrs. Wharton was evidently a simple, kind-hearted creature, who had known sorrow of her own and had had experience. She quietly set about performing the last sad offices for the dead, whilst I proceeded to critically inspect the dead man’s surroundings.
Mrs. Wharton removed the pillow from beneath the head of the corpse. As she did so a letter fell from the pillow upon the floor, unnoticed save by myself.
The interest excited in my mind by that letter may be imagined. Here was a possible answer to the question I had been asking myself. The opportunity must not be lost. Under the pretext of helping Mrs. Wharton, I succeeded in placing my foot squarely over the letter. To drop and regain my handkerchief, restoring it to my pocket with that much to be desired missive concealed in its folds, was sufficiently easy, even for an amateur.
Before departing for home, I made a few ostensibly casual inquiries regarding the dead man. It appeared that he was a comparatively new boarder in the house, and had said that he had been in the city but a short time. He had not obtained any regular employment, but seemed to have plenty of money, Mrs. Wharton stated, adding, “He was an awfully nice young man, Mr. Peyton was, and everybody in the house liked him.”
“Do you know whether or not he was married?” I asked.
“Oh, my, no, he wasn’t married!” exclaimed Mrs. Wharton. “I’m quite sure he wasn’t, because he had a sweetheart—such a pretty girl, too. That’s her picture on the mantel.”
I picked up the photograph and found thatthe landlady had spoken “by the card”—the dead man’s sweetheart was indeed “such a pretty girl,” of the dark Spanish type—with a face full of life and passion.
“Ah,” I exclaimed to myself, “I’ll wager that we have found ‘the woman.’ Those great dark eyes, that massive head of ebon hair and those full, sensuous lips seem to me to fit into this mystery very accurately.”
“Where does the young woman live?” I asked.
“Laws, sir, I don’t know where she lives, but I understand that she works somewhere down town. Mr. Peyton used to call for her, so one of the other boarders who used to be here said, nearly every evening at closing time, at one of them big department stores. I don’t know which one, for sure, but I think it was the Emporium—or, maybe, it was Wurtzinger’s.”
I had no doubt as to my ability to recognize the original of the photograph. After making a mental note of the somewhat faded inscription upon the back, I replaced the picture upon the mantel.
“To Hartley, from Julie.” Julie was the name that the dead man had spoken, almost in his last agony. Most assuredly I must find Julie.
As may be imagined, after my arrival home I wasted none of the remaining precious moments of the night in sleeping. I fairly dashed into my study, turned on the lights, closed and locked the door instinctively, without rhyme or reason, and proceeded to read that portentous letter:
“Hartley:—
“Why did you follow me to N—? Why can you not understand? Why do you persist in harrowing my very soul in the attempt to bring back by force and arms what no longer exists? I have told you, over and over again, that I no longer love you, and that I love another with all the strength of my being. Of what good could it be to compel me, as you are trying to do, to continue aliaisonwhich I have come to detest, and which, had I been more worldly wise would never have been formed? And you threaten to expose me—you, who have nothing to lose, while I—oh, man, man! Why can you not see? And you say you love me, and you reproach me because I have said in the past—that past over which I fain would draw a veil of oblivion—that I loved you. Yes, I did love you—to my shame be it said, the more shame that I nowknow that the burning sentiment, the ardent affection you have expressed for me is not love, but the passion of the brute whose life revolves around his own selfish gratification. You will say this is not true, that you do love me, that your love is of the exalted type. For God’s sake then, do what you can to show me that I am wrong! By that love, I implore you to do nothing until I see you. Do not bring the girl you have so often called your Julie, to open shame! Oh, Hartley, be not harsh to me! I am the most miserable wretch, the unhappiest being on the face of the earth. Do not drive me to desperation and death. Do not ruin my future. Be merciful, I implore you. In your last letter you threaten to denounce me to my father, that you will send him my letters. Oh, why did I ever write them? Hartley, if my poor old father should ever read those letters, inspired though they were by the truest love, he would put me away from him. He would hate me, now that I am engaged to marry a man of whom he is very fond. I wrote to you in all the ardor of my first love; it was as pure and as true as it was deep, but the world could not, would not understand. I believed you when you said you loved me,and it was for the love that you expressed that I adored you. I put on paper what I should not. Had my love been one of head and not of heart—had I not believed you the noblest of men, I should not now be pleading for mercy. If my father or Mr. X—— should see those fond letters to you, what could I expect but a revulsion of feeling? If any other eyes should see them, what would not be said of me? Oh, on my bended knees I implore you to spare me,—to spare those who love me and whom I love with my whole soul. As you hope for mercy on the Judgment Day, do not inform on me—do not make my name a scandal and a reproach! Oh, will you not keep my secret from the world? For the sake of my mother, for the love you bear your own, spare me! Oh, Hartley, in God’s name hear my prayer! I have prayed God to forgive your cruel threats—to inspire you to spare me from shame. For the love of Heaven, hear me! I grow mad! I have been ill, very ill, ever since I received your last awful, threatening letter. I have had to resort to drugs—something I should not have taken, and my brain is on fire. I feel as if death itself would be sweet. Hartley, oh, Hartley; abuse me, villifyme, kill me if you will, but do not denounce me! For my life I am pleading—oh, listen, listen, for—must I say it?—for your own safety hear me. I cannot stand everything. Do not drive me to madness and death—or worse! Have pity on her whom you once called—your Julie.”
As I read this heart rending missive my late patient’s case did not seem so mysterious. I do not hesitate to say, moreover, that the memory of his last horrible agonies was pleasanter to contemplate than it had been.
“The man who inspired that letter,” I exclaimed aloud, “never committed suicide. He was not man enough. That fellow died like a poisoned rat in a hole,—if the evidence counts for anything.”
Having thus become more reconciled to the death of the late Mr. Peyton, I was less inclined than ever to be in haste in promoting any legal intermeddling with what had begun to appear a just dispensation of Providence. But I was nevertheless determined to see the matter to its conclusion. I was bound to find the hand that had “poisoned the rat.” I could decide what course to pursue afterward. I wasconfident that I knew for whom I must look, but where? Where was “Julie?”
After a hurried breakfast I began my quest. As luck would have it I decided to visit the Emporium first. I confess that when I entered the colossal establishment and saw its large number of female employes I began to fear that, with only the given name of the person I was seeking and a mental reproduction of her photograph to guide me, my task was liable to be something like the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack.
For more than two hours I strolled about the Emporium, covertly studying the faces of the women clerks and affecting an indifference which I did not feel, without seeing any one who could by any possibility have been taken for the original of the picture. Black hair and dark eyes—the possessors of which were not seldom beautiful—were there in plenty, but none that could be compared with those I sought.
I was about to go to the office of the establishment to inquire there, under the pretext of seeking a witness of an accident case, when I caught sight of one of the floor walkers, a Mr. Courtney, who chanced to be an old patient of mine.
“Ah,” I thought, “here is some one who may help me.”
Mr. Courtney greeted me warmly, and replied courteously, when I asked for a private interview,
“Certainly, doctor, step this way.”
Having seated ourselves on a sofa in an out of the way corner of the store, I said,
“Mr. Courtney, for important reasons, which I am sure it will not be necessary to give you, I am seeking a certain young lady, who may or may not be employed in this establishment. I have been compelled to ask your assistance because I have only her description to rely upon, and know merely her given name—‘Julie.’”
I then proceeded to describe the young woman of the photograph.
My friend smiled and said,
“Your task is an easy one, doctor. There’s only one of her kind, in this establishment, at least. Do you wish to speak to the young woman?”
I was somewhat taken aback by the suddenness with which success promised to reward my search.
“W—why, yes, if it would not be too much trouble,” I replied.
Mr. Courtney rapped sharply for a messenger, and one promptly appeared.
“Tell Miss Morales, in the lace department, that I wish to see her here at once.”
The messenger departed on his mission, leaving me wondering how I had missed seeing the object of my quest. I recalled having lingered for quite a while at the lace department.
The messenger did his errand quickly and returned.
“Please, sir, Miss Morales is at home sick. The lace department manager says she hain’t been down to the store for three or four days.”
“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Courtney, “come to think of it, I haven’t seen her for several days. I had made no especial note of her absence, however, as there are so many women employes in the store, and the lace department isn’t on my floor. If you wish, doctor, I will ascertain where she lives. We keep a record of the residences of all our employes, you know.”
Mr. Courtney went to the office and returned with a card upon which was written, “Miss Julie Morales, No. — M— Street.”
After thanking my friend and asking him to consider my inquiry as of a confidential nature, I wended my way to the address given me.
No. — M— Street proved to be located some distance from the business part of the city. The house presented the semi-respectable appearance of a boarding house of the cheaper grade. A smirking, frowsy, freckle-faced Irish maid opened the door in answer to my ring, and informed me that “Miss Morales was to home” and she “guessed,” in her room.
The maid ushered me into the stuffy, cookery smelling parlor, dusted a rickety, shabby genteel, hair-cloth covered chair with her apron, and asked me to be seated.
“Who shall I be after tellin’ Miss Morales as wants to see her?”
“Never mind my name. Just tell her I am from the Emporium.”
The maid soon returned and informed me that Miss Morales would be “down in a little while.”
I had begun to grow somewhat restless, and was wondering whether the fair Miss Morales had not become suspicious and eluded me, when there was a soft rustle of skirts in the hall, the door opened, and there stood the original of the photograph—hollow eyed, wan and haggard, with deep care lines about themouth, but still undoubtedly “Julie,” and still surpassingly lovely.
“You wished to see me, sir,” she said, in a voice which was somewhat tremulous, and unquestionably that of one who had suffered much.
“Miss Morales, I believe.”
“That is my name, sir.”
“I owe you an apology for the little deception,” I said, handing her my professional card. “As you see, I am not from the Emporium, although I obtained the address from my friend Mr. Courtney, at that establishment.”
Her hand trembled as she took the card, and she gazed at it fearfully, as though apprehensive of danger.
“Shall we not be seated?” I asked, motioning to a settee. The young woman acquiesced, almost mechanically. Seating myself beside her, I said:
“Miss Morales, while I am a total stranger to you, I wish you would not construe my visit and what I am about to say to you as either impertinent or menacing to yourself. I am here with the best of intentions, but I must discuss with you a matter which, you may be assured, is of vital importance to you.Anything you may say will be treated by me as strictly confidential—as, in short, a professional secret.”
She gazed at me helplessly, with the dumb, haunting dread of impending disaster in her beautiful eyes.
“You are, or have been, I believe,” I continued, “a very close friend of Mr. Hartley Peyton’s.”
The poor girl’s face became ghastly pale, and I feared she was going to faint, as she stammered,weakly,—
“Ye—yes, sir. We are, or at least we were, friends—we were very good friends.”
“Well,” I continued, “it may interest you to know that I was called to see him professionally last night, and found him very ill.”
“Then he is much better now; he is quite recovered, is he not, doctor?” she exclaimed eagerly, springing to her feet.
“I regret to say that he is not better. In fact,” I replied, “Mr. Peyton is—”
“My God, doctor!” she cried, “he is not dead?”
“Miss Morales, Hartley Peyton died at two o’clock this morning.” The young womanburied her face in her hands, and fell back upon the settee in a state of almost total collapse.
“Miss Morales,” I continued, “the point which mutually interests us is that the circumstances surrounding Mr. Peyton’s death were very peculiar and unusual, in fact, suspicious in the extreme. I will go further and state that I have formed a very definite opinion of the cause of his death.”
Thrown completely off her guard by fright, the poor girl moaned, “Oh, doctor, you surely do not suspect that I—you surely do not believe that I could ever have—”
“I am not at present expressing any views as to the peculiar agencies which acted directly or indirectly in causing the unfortunate man’s demise. I have merely stated to you the fact of his death, and that I have arrived at a certain conclusion as to the cause of it.
“Miss Morales, you may place the most implicit confidence in me in anything you may say to me. Any communications you may make shall be held sacred. I have not as yet discussed the unfortunate affair with any one but yourself. It may rest entirely with you as to whether or not I do so hereafter.”
“What do you wish me to do—what am I to say?” she asked, faintly.
“Nothing here,” I replied. “Your present surroundings are by no means favorable to discussion of topics of vital importance, least of all to confidential communications. I shall therefore take the liberty of asking you to come to my office”—I looked at my watch, and saw that my office hours were long past due—“at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
The girl suddenly dropped her hands from her face, straightened up in her seat, and, with the gleam of battle in her wonderful eyes, said, tensely,
“Why should I feel called upon to make an appointment with you, an entire stranger, for the purpose of discussing a matter which, after all, does not in the least concern me. Mr. Peyton’s death, and your opinion of its cause are to me of no consequence whatever. Furthermore, your presence here is in the highest degree impertinent and uncalled for.”
“Miss Morales,” I said, quietly. “There are several reasons why you should make and keep the appointment I have requested. In the first place, it is optional with me as to whether or not the sudden death of your friend, Mr. Peyton,shall be turned over to the coroner for investigation. It may prove to be my duty to do so.”
“What do I care, whether the case is turned over to the coroner or not?” she replied, her jaws setting combatively.
“Simply because there is no telling in what direction the investigation may lead, nor to whom suspicion may be directed,” I retorted.
“Let it lead where it may, for aught I care,” she said, defiantly.
“Miss Morales, I will be more to the point. A letter was found beneath Mr. Peyton’s pillow, which, should it fall into the coronor’s hands, might suggest all sorts of foolish ideas to the minds of the ignoramuses who compose the average coronor’s jury—minds to which sentiment is an unknown quantity. The letter was signed, ‘Julie,’ a signature that corresponds very accurately with one which is inscribed on the back of a photograph of a certain young lady that was found on the mantel in the dead man’s room.”
The poor girl sank limply back upon the settee, the picture of helpless misery. I laid my hand gently upon her beautiful head, resting it there for a brief moment, and then passed quietly out.
Being somewhat versed in matters psycho-logic, I had not the slightest doubt that the fair Julie would keep the rather one sided appointment made the afternoon before. I confess, however, that her promptness surprised me a little.
The clock upon my office mantel was just striking the hour of ten, when Miss Morales was announced. I directed my attendant to usher her in, at the same time giving instructions that I was not to be disturbed until further orders.
As my beautiful visitor took the seat I proffered her, I was struck by her calm, composed demeanor. Her poise was perfect, and she showed not the slightest trace of excitement, but responded to my polite “Good morning,” as if her business were of the most matter of fact nature.
I leaned back in my chair, saying, “I am very glad you concluded to call upon me, Miss Morales, and assure you that your confidence has not been misplaced. There is hardly any need for preliminaries. Our business together this morning is unpleasant at best, and the sooner it is over the more agreeable it will be for us both, I am sure. You doubtless havesomething to say to me apropos of our conversation of yesterday. You will find me a good listener—and a sympathetic one.”
She sat for a moment gazing out of the open window, through which the glorious sun and balmy air of an ideal Spring morning were pouring, then, turning and looking me squarely in the eyes, said, as calmly as though entering upon a discussion of things common place:
“Since you left me, yesterday afternoon, doctor, I have passed through mental and physical agonies which, were I the worst of criminals, should have been sufficient expiation for anything I have ever done. I now feel that nothing which could possibly happen would have any terrors for me—that the worst must surely be over.”
I listened in the greatest astonishment. This was hardly the piteous supplicant I had expected.
“Pray do not think that my sufferings have resulted from the operations of a guilty conscience. I have not reproached myself for having taken advantage of humanity’s inalienable right of self-defense. But I was only a poor, weak woman after all, and the dread of punishment at human hands, even though whatI had done was justifiable before God, terrified me.
“However, I lived through the ordeal of last night, and prospective punishment has now no longer any terrors for me. Face it I will, if face it I must.
“I have not come to offer any arguments in defense of any act I may have committed, nor do I intend to beg for mercy at the hands of the only person who, thus far, is in a position to accuse me of a crime. Still less have I come here for the purpose of telling you my story, for there is really nothing to add to what you already know or have surmised, and it would not be fair to ask me to review the events the culmination of which you witnessed night before last. My soul has been harrowed enough. It has received its baptism of fire. I have come merely to say to you that I do not wish you to compound any felonies with your own conscience, or risk your reputation—or perhaps even your liberty—by protecting one who is an absolute stranger to you, and not entitled to the slightest consideration on your part.
“If, knowing the circumstances—and you must know them, after attending Mr. Peyton professionally and having read a certain letter—youbelieve it to be your duty to turn my case over to the proper authorities, I am willing to have you do so, and shall abide by the consequences. I do not say this as one who has no longer anything to live for, but as one who has become reconciled to whatever fate has in store for her.
“It may be incomprehensible to you, doctor, but life and liberty are especially sweet to me—much sweeter to-day, than they were prior—well, just prior to the events of the day before yesterday. I am capable of forgetting the past and enjoying such happiness as the future may have in store for me. For this much, and for the circumstances which led to our acquaintance, I am indebted to the hot Latin blood with which my father endowed me. Last night, the colder elements of my heredity held full sway and I was afraid. To-day, sir, I am a Morales. Had you known my father you would understand what that means.
“Doctor, it is for you to do as your conscience dictates. If you decide that it is your duty to relegate a certain matter to the authorities for investigation I shall not blame you. Furthermore, I shall not attempt to escape, as was my first impulse when you left me yesterdayafternoon. To merely escape punishment would not be enough; I must remain free from suspicion, or life means nothing to me, absolutely nothing!”
The young woman rose from her chair and stood in calm expectancy. Her attitude was so entirely different from what I had anticipated from the character of the letter which I had in my possession, and from what was evidently an exceedingly emotional temperament, that I sat silently gazing at her for some time. I finally rose to my feet and was about to reply, when there came a sharp rap upon the door of my consultation room. I opened the door and found my attendant standing there with a yellow paper in his extended hand.
“Well, what do you want?” I asked, rather impatiently.
“Pardon me for disturbing you, sir, but there’s a man here from the undertaker’s, with a certificate for you to sign, and he says it is important, because the funeral is this afternoon, sir?”
I took the ominous yellow form from the man, closed the door and returned to my desk. With the paper still in my hand I turned to my fair visitor. She paled perceptibly, and Ifancied, trembled a little, but returned my gaze unflinchingly, although I was sure she knew.
“Game to the core!” I thought.
I turned slowly to my desk, picked up a pen and wrote—“Ptomaine poisoning—Acute Gastritis,” then, without a twinge of conscience, deliberately signed my name to the “yellow peril” and rang for my attendant.