Sax Rohmer - THE DEVIL DOCTOR

staring dully at the disfigured bloody face which but a matter of

minutes since had been that of a clean-looking British seaman. I found

myself contrasting his neat, squarely trimmed moustache with the

bloated face above it, and counting the little drops of blood which

trembled upon its edge. There were footsteps approaching. I arose. The

footsteps quickened, and I turned as a constable ran up.

"What's this?" he demanded gruffly, and stood with his fists clenched,

looking from Smith to me and down at that which lay between us. Then

his hand flew to his breast; there was a silvern gleam and--

"Drop that whistle!" snapped Smith, and struck it from the man's hand.

"Where's your lantern? Don't ask questions!"

The constable started back and was evidently debating upon his chances

with the two of us, when my friend pulled a letter from his pocket and

thrust it under the man's nose.

"Read that!" he directed harshly, "and then listen to my orders."

There was something in his voice which changed the officer's opinion

of the situation. He directed the light of his lantern upon the open

letter, and seemed to be stricken with wonder.

"If you have any doubt," continued Smith--"you may not be familiar

with the Commissioner's signature--you have only to ring up Scotland

Yard from Dr. Petrie's house, to which we shall now return to disperse

it." He pointed to Forsyth. "Help us to carry him there. We must not

be seen; this must be hushed up. You understand? It must not get into

the Press--"

The man saluted respectfully, and the three of us addressed ourselves

to the mournful task. By slow stages we bore the dead man to the edge

of the common, carried him across the road and into my house, without

exciting attention even on the part of those vagrants who nightly

slept out in the neighbourhood.

We laid our burden upon the surgery table.

"You will want to make an examination, Petrie," said Smith in his

decisive way, "and the officer here might 'phone for the ambulance. I

have some investigations to make also. I must have the pocket lamp."

He raced upstairs to his room, and an instant later came running down

again. The front door banged.

"The telephone is in the hall," I said to the constable.

"Thank you, sir."

He went out of the surgery as I switched on the lamp over the table

and began to examine the marks upon Forsyth's skin. These, as I have

said, were in groups and nearly all in the form of elongated

punctures; a fairly deep incision with a pear-shaped and superficial

scratch beneath it. One of the tiny wounds had penetrated the right

eye.

The symptoms, or those which I had been enabled to observe as Forsyth

had first staggered into view from among the elms, were most puzzling.

Clearly enough the muscles of articulation and the respiratory

muscles had been affected; and now the livid face, dotted over with

tiny wounds (they were also on the throat), set me mentally groping

for a clue to the manner of his death.

No clue presented itself; and my detailed examination of the body

availed me nothing. The grey herald of dawn was come when the police

arrived with the ambulance and took Forsyth away.

I was just taking my cap from the rack when Nayland Smith returned.

"Smith!" I cried, "have you found anything?"

He stood there in the grey light of the hall-way tugging at the lobe

of his left ear.

The bronzed face looked very gaunt, I thought, and his eyes were

bright with that febrile glitter which once I had disliked, but which

I had learned from experience to be due to tremendous nervous

excitement. At such times he could act with icy coolness, and his

mental faculties seemed temporarily to acquire an abnormal keenness.

He made no direct reply, but--

"Have you any milk?" he jerked abruptly.

So wholly unexpected was the question that for a moment I failed to

grasp it. Then--

"Milk!" I began.

"Exactly, Petrie! If you can find me some milk, I shall be obliged."

I turned to descend to the kitchen, when--

"The remains of the turbot from dinner, Petrie, would also be welcome,

and I think I should like a trowel."

I stopped at the stairhead and faced him.

"I cannot suppose that you are joking, Smith," I said, "but--"

He laughed dryly.

"Forgive me, old man," he replied. "I was so preoccupied with my own

train of thought that it never occurred to me how absurd my request

must have sounded. I will explain my singular tastes later; at the

moment, hustle is the watchword."

Evidently he was in earnest, and I ran downstairs accordingly,

returning with a garden trowel, a plate of cold fish, and a glass of

milk.

"Thanks, Petrie," said Smith. "If you would put the milk in a jug--"

I was past wondering, so I simply went and fetched a jug, into which

he poured the milk. Then, with the trowel in his pocket, the plate of

cold turbot in one hand and the milk-jug in the other, he made for the

door. He had it open, when another idea evidently occurred to him.

"I'll trouble you for the pistol, Petrie."

I handed him the pistol without a word.

"Don't assume that I want to mystify you," he added, "but the presence

of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I don't expect to be long."

The cold light of dawn flooded the hall-way momentarily; then the door

closed again and I went upstairs to my study, watching Nayland Smith

as he strode across the common in the early morning mist. He was

making for the Nine Elms, but I lost sight of him before he reached

them.

I sat there for some time, watching for the first glow of sunrise. A

policeman tramped past the house, and, a while later, a belated

reveller in evening clothes. That sense of unreality assailed me

again. Out there in the grey mist a man who was vested with powers

which rendered him a law unto himself, who had the British Government

behind him in all that he might choose to do, who had been summoned

from Rangoon to London on singular and dangerous business, was

employing himself with a plate of cold turbot, a jug of milk, and a

trowel!

Away to the right, and just barely visible, a tramcar stopped by the

common, then proceeded on its way, coming in a westerly direction. Its

lights twinkled yellowly through the greyness, but I was less

concerned with the approaching car than with the solitary traveller

who had descended from it.

As the car went rocking by below me I strained my eyes in an endeavour

more clearly to discern the figure, which, leaving the high-road, had

struck-out across the common. It was that of a woman, who seemingly

carried a bulky bag or parcel.

One must be a gross materialist to doubt that there are latent powers

in man which man, in modern times, neglects or knows not how to

develop. I became suddenly conscious of a burning curiosity respecting

this lonely traveller who travelled at an hour so strange. With no

definite plan in mind, I went downstairs, took a cap from the rack and

walked briskly out of the house and across the common in a direction

which I thought would enable me to head off the woman.

I had slightly miscalculated the distance, as Fate would have it, and

with a patch of gorse effectually screening my approach, I came upon

her, kneeling on the damp grass and unfastening the bundle which had

attracted my attention. I stopped and watched her.

She was dressed in bedraggled fashion in rusty black, wore a common