Chapter XXV In the Silent House
At six o’clock that night Jim Mortimer caught a train back to London. He had operated with complete success, and every evening paper in the country had published the reassuring bulletin which Sir Savile drew up after the satisfactory completion of Jim’s task.
Had the operation failed, no mention would have been made of Jim’s participation in the affair. But the young surgeon had come through the trying ordeal with an unshaken nerve and triumphant skill, and Sir Savile was more than satisfied.
It was the concluding sentence of the bulletin, therefore, which caused universal surprise and set the whole medical world by the ears—as well as a multitude of laymen—until the fact of the specialist’s accident became public knowledge.
The operation was performed by Mr James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., late of St Matthew’s Hospital.
Thus did Sir Savile, with a few strokes of his pen, make Jim famous. He need not have said anything of the kind, for the operation was carried out under his close personal supervision, but he was a big man, with a big mind, and he did not hesitate for a moment about crediting Jim with the entire success of the perilous undertaking. A tremor in Jim’s hand, a slip of his knife, and Lord Lingfield’s name would have been added to the roll of illustrious dead. But Jim’s hand did not tremble, nor did his knife slip, and so the happy bulletin went forth, and the world was glad because a good man had been saved to it.
The proud lady who had spoken to Jim from her carriage on that fine September day was a different woman altogether when she thanked him for what he had done. The aristocratic bearing and the air of fine breeding were there, but her words were those of a wife sore stricken by watching and waiting.
And following the mother came the girl Jim had also seen in the carriage on that September day—“the pretty girl.” Jim blushed to the roots of his fair hair when the pretty girl added her gentle thanks to her mother’s.
“Your fee, my boy,” said Sir Savile, encountering Jim a little later in the library. The slip of paper he pushed into Mortimer’s hand was a cheque for a hundred pounds.
“But, sir——” began Jim, who did not want a penny, so highly had he been paid in other ways.
“Not a word. It’s my case, and I’m not down here for love, I can tell you. Take your cheque, boy, and buy your girl a necklace out of it. By the way, how are you getting on with Maybury’s nice daughter?”
“She is to be married to-morrow,” said Jim, turning to look at a picture.
The great surgeon, however, did not miss the change in his voice. Jim went on looking at the picture, and kept his back to Sir Savile, who put his left hand—his right not being available—on his old pupil’s shoulder.
“Have I touched a tender spot, lad? Well, cheer up! It’s a wide world, with a heap of other pretty girls in it!”
And then he discreetly left Jim alone, and Jim studied the picture for some time longer, though he could not have told you afterwards whether it was a landscape or a portrait of a deceased noble earl of Lingfield.
There was no fast train back to town till six, so Jim had perforce to remain on at Carhall. He did not see anything more of his grandfather, who left the house after affixing his signature to the bulletin. He made no inquiry for Jim, and Sir Savile looked perplexed when he saw that his old friend did not intend to budge an inch from the relentless attitude he had adopted towards his grandson.
“And yet,” mused the specialist, “he must feel as proud as Punch of the lad!”
Jim had a smoking-carriage all to himself on his return journey. He was glad of that, for he wanted to think of Dora, and solitude suited his mood. After this night he would have to put her out of his thoughts altogether, but to-night she was still Dora Maybury—still the queen of his heart. To-morrow Jim must in honour cease to be her subject; but to-morrow had not come yet. Soon enough the new day, dawning, would bring desolation to his love.
Strange that the turning-point in Jim’s career should have come on Dora’s wedding eve! Seemingly it was one of those compensatory acts wherewith Dame Fortune makes amends for the hard blows she deals. Jim knew that this day’s success was good enough to make a specialist of him right away. And what joy would have filled his heart, this journey, had he been speeding back to Dora’s side—he could imagine, had she been his, the pride that would have lit up her face when she heard of his achievement!
As the train cleft the darkness, eating up a mile of iron road with each minute that passed, Jim, just for the sake of the melancholy pleasure he extracted from it, let his fancy wander in the world of make-believe. Dora was his, and was awaiting him. He had only dreamed that she was another’s. London to him now was no grimy, smoke-begirt city, but a palace of delight set in a garden fragrant with “the blended odours of a thousand flowers.”
But, alas for such vain imaginings! A rough voice roused Jim from his half-dose, and a rain-spotted hand awaited his ticket.... It was London, and London in its dampest and most dismal garb.
Jim had wired from Threeways asking Koko to meet him at his surgery at eight. He thought they might spend the evening together amid cheery surroundings.
Koko had not arrived at the surgery when he got there. The fire was out—Mrs Brown, taking advantage of her master’s absence, was probably carousing with other ladies of her own station. Mount Street appeared exceptionally sordid and forlorn. Everything seemed to have conspired to add to Jim’s weight of sadness.
He lit the gas, and as it flared up he was slightly startled to observe the figure of a man huddled up on the sofa. On the floor, by the head of the sofa, stood an empty glass jar.
Jim walked across the room and inspected the sleeper. It was the old provision dealer.
“Wake up, Mr Harris!” he cried; “wake up! What are you doing here?”
The provision dealer slowly opened his eyes.
“Ain’t I—ain’t I dead, then?” he demanded.
“Dead? No! You’re as alive as I am!”
“I thought I’d svallowed enough of the stuff to do the job.”
“What stuff?”
“Vy, the prussic acid. That’s deadly p’ison, ain’t it?”
“Rather!”
“Well, I svallowed all there vos in the bottle... and I ain’t dead, it seems.”
Jim surveyed the empty jar, and found it to be the mislabelled vessel in which he kept his whisky safe from Mrs Brown’s thirsty raids.
“You’re a foolish old man!” said Jim. “Never you try on any trick of that sort again—d’you hear?”
“Vy didn’t it kill me?” inquired the dealer in an aggrieved voice.
“Because what you drank wasn’t poison—luckily for you.”
“Vould it have been enough if it had been p’ison?”
“Yes, enough to kill an elephant.”
Old Harris shuddered.
“Vould it have hurt?” he asked.
“It would have burnt your inside up and curled you into a knot. Yes, it would have hurt a bit.”
Mr Harris shook his head.
“It vos Isaac drove me to it. I felt I couldn’t stand that velp no longer—’e drove me to it.”
Mr Harris looked very bleared. He had swallowed half a pint of neat spirit, and the room seemed to be going round him.
“Well,” said Jim, “you may thank your stars that wasn’t prussic acid. When you feel better, get along home and turn into bed.”
“I vill, doctor, I vill,” whined the old Jew; “and I’ll pull up—so ’elp me, I vill.”
“That’s right,” said Jim; “now take another nap—it’ll do you good.”
As Jim turned towards the counter, his eye lighted on a folded piece of paper. Picking it up, he found it to be a note that had been left for him.
It ran:—
mrs murphy’s respects and Will the doctor come round to number 8 pine Court to See her baby.
top floor.
Jim often received such rough missives. This, in fact, was rather a literary performance than otherwise for Pine Court.
He tossed the note back on to the counter, buttoned up his overcoat, and sallied forth promptly. He left the light burning, and scribbled “Back soon” on a sheet of paper for Koko’s information.
His destination was only seven minutes’ walk distant. Not a soul was to be seen as Jim made his way down the narrow alley by which one reached the court from the street. If it were possible, this place appeared even more forlorn than the outer world.
It seemed to Jim, as he passed into No. 8, that the building was curiously silent. As he ascended to the first floor not a sound fell on his ears. The house smelt damp, and had an unoccupied air about it. Could it be that this was the tenement which had been recently condemned as unfit for habitation, owing to its rottenness? If so, why was Mrs Murphy installed on the top floor?
Jim knew, however, that it was hard to make some of these wretched beings go, even out of a house such as this. Mrs Murphy would probably be evicted in due course. Meanwhile, her baby was ill, and Jim had got to doctor the little thing.
So dark was it that he had to light matches in order to see his way up the creaking staircase. And as he ascended to the second floor he was entirely unconscious of the fact that he was being followed. For behind him, with cunning stealth, crept a man with a bandaged head.
As Jim went higher the silence struck him yet more forcibly, and he began to wonder whether he could have made a mistake about the number. Still, there was no harm in seeing whether Mrs Murphy was located on the top floor. So he continued his ascent, the figure behind pursuing him with noiseless steps.
At last! Here was the top floor, and here was a crazy-looking door. And still there was absolutely no sign or sound of a living presence in the place.
He knocked at the door.
“Does Mrs Murphy live here?” he called.
“Yes; come in,” replied a woman’s voice.
So he turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Instantly he stopped; the room was innocent of any furniture, but confronting him stood half a dozen roughs, and dimly, in the background, he could distinguish a woman’s form.
It was a trap—and safety lay only in immediate flight. He turned towards the stairs, but, as he did so, the man with the bandaged head tripped him up, so that Jim fell backwards into the room. One wild glance he cast upon his assailant, and then the bandaged man, with a savage snarl, swung his belt. The buckle hit Jim full on the forehead; there came a great roaring in his ears, and while he was feebly grasping the air the buckle descended again and finished its work.