Christopher Quarles Part 7

Dr. Tresman was a man in the prime of life, and evidently believed himself capable of dealing with any thieves who visited him. I told him that the man we expected was no ordinary thief.

"A gang at work, eh? I have been out of town for a little while holiday-making, and part of my holiday consists in not reading the papers. Of course you may keep watch, and I shall be within call should you want help."

"You had better leave it to us, doctor," said Quarles, who, for the purpose of this interview, posed as my a.s.sistant.

"Come, now, if it means a rough-and-tumble, I should back myself against you," laughed Tresman, drawing himself up to his full inches.

"No lack of muscle, I can see, doctor, but then there is my experience."

"For all that, you may be glad of my muscle when it comes to the point," was the answer.

At nine o'clock that night Quarles and I were concealed in the doctor's room, Quarles behind a chesterfield sofa in a corner, while I crouched close to the wall behind one of the window curtains.

We had decided that the most likely means of entry was by a window at the end of the hall, and we expected our prey to enter the room by the door. We had got the doctor to put a spirit tantalus on the sideboard, also some biscuits and a box of cigarettes. We were anxious to reproduce the circ.u.mstances of the burglary at Sir Joseph Maynard's as nearly as possible, for Quarles declared it was impossible to say what significance there might be in the man's every action.

So we waited--waited all night, in fact. Nothing happened.

"Something alarmed him," was all Quarles said when we left the house in the morning.

He showed no disappointment, nor any sign that his theory had received a shock.

The next night we were on the watch again, concealed as before.

By arrangement, the house retired to rest early. So slowly did time go that half the night seemed to have pa.s.sed when I heard a neighboring church clock strike one, and almost directly afterward the door of the room was opened stealthily and was shut again.

Until that moment I had not heard a sound in the house, and I was not certain that anyone had entered the room even now, until I saw a tiny disk, the end of a ray of light, on the wall. The disk moved, so the man holding the lantern was moving. The next moment he almost trod upon me. His first care was to see that the curtains covered the windows securely, and it evidently never occurred to him that there might be watchers in the room. It was discovery from without that he was afraid of. The ray from his lantern swung about the room for a moment, then he switched on the electric light.

As he had drawn the curtain closer across the window, I had arranged the folds so that no sc.r.a.p of my clothing should show beneath them.

Now I made a slit in the fabric with my penknife so that I could watch him through it. He was middle-aged, well groomed, decently dressed.

Having glanced round the room, he placed a bag and the lantern on the floor and went to the sideboard. He put a little spirit into one of the tumblers and added a little water--a very modest dose, indeed--and, having just sipped it, he poured some of the contents into two other gla.s.ses, and placed the three gla.s.ses on a small table near the door, so that no one could fail to see them on entering. Then he broke off a piece of biscuit, crumbled it in his hands, and scattered the crumbs beside the gla.s.ses. The cigarette box he did not touch, but he took some cigarette-ends from his pocket and threw them on the floor. These preliminaries seemed stereotyped ones, and he appeared glad to be done with them.

There was a curious eagerness in his face as he bent down and opened his bag, taking a thin chisel from it, and from his hip pocket he took a revolver. His method was systematic. He began at one corner of the room, and opened every drawer and box he could find. If a drawer were locked, he pried it open. He laid the revolver ready to his hand upon the piece of furniture he was examining. Every drawer he emptied on to the floor. Some of the contents he hardly looked at. Indeed, most of the contents did not interest him. But now and then his attention was closer, and at intervals he seemed puzzled, standing quite still, his hands raised, a finger touching his head, almost as a low comedian does when he wishes the audience to realize that he is in deep thought.

For some time I could not make out what kind of article it was to which he gave special attention, but presently noticed that anything in ivory or bone interested him, especially if it were circular. I remembered the counters in Sir Joseph's room, and wished we had thought to place some in here to see what he would have done with them.

Watching him closely, I was aware that he became more irritable as he proceeded. One small cabinet, which might possess a secret hiding-place, he broke with the chisel, and I noticed that whenever a drawer was locked his scrutiny of the contents was more careful. He evidently expected that the man he was robbing would value the thing he was looking for, and would be likely to hide it securely.

He had worked round half the room when he suddenly stopped, and, with a quick movement, took up the revolver. I had not heard a sound in the house, but he had. There was no sign of doubt in his att.i.tude, which was of a most uncompromising character. He did not make any movement to switch off the light, he did not attempt to conceal himself. He just raised his arm and pointed the revolver toward the door, on a level at which the bullet would strike the head of a man of average height.

The handle was turned, and the door began to open. The next five seconds were full of happenings. For just a fraction of time I realized that the burglar meant to shoot the intruder without a word of warning, and for a moment I seemed unable to utter a sound. Then I shouted:

"Back for your life!"

Immediately there was a sharp report. Quarles had fired from behind the Chesterfield, and the burglar's arm dropped like a dead thing to his side, his revolver falling to the floor.

"Quickly, Wigan!" Quarles cried.

I had dashed aside the curtain, and I threw myself upon the burglar just in time to prevent his picking up his weapon with his left hand.

He struggled fiercely, and I was glad of Tresman's help in securing him, although the doctor had come perilously near to losing his life by his unexpected intrusion. But for Christopher Quarles he would have been a dead man.

We called in the police, and, when our prisoner had been conveyed to the station, the professor and I went back to Chelsea.

"Do you know what he was looking for, Wigan?" Quarles asked.

"Something in bone or ivory."

"Bone," answered Quarles. "Thank heaven that fool Tresman didn't come sooner! We might have missed much that was interesting. You noted how keen he was with every piece of bone he could find, how irritable he was growing. The counters, Wigan, they were the clew. But I did not understand their significance at first."

"I do not understand the case now," I confessed, "except that we have caught a mad burglar."

"Yes, it's an asylum case, not a prison one," said Quarles. "What was the man looking for? That was my first question, as I told you. If he had not found it at Sir Joseph's he would look again. He did, and visited two other doctors. Round counters--doctors. There was the link. I daresay you know, Wigan, there is an annual published giving particulars of all the hospitals, with the names of the medical staff, consulting surgeons and physicians, and so forth. In the paragraph concerning St. James's Hospital you will find that the first three names mentioned are Sir Joseph Maynard, Dr. Wheatley, and Dr. Wood.

The fourth is Dr. Tresman. It could not be chance that the burglar had visited these men in exact order, so I argued that he would next go to Dr. Tresman. The man had had something to do with St. James's Hospital, and, since he was acting like a madman, yet with method, I judged he had been a patient who had undergone an operation, outwardly successful, really a failure. He was looking for something of which a doctor at this hospital had robbed him, as he imagined, and, not knowing which doctor, looked at this annual and began at the first name. I have no doubt he was conscious of the loss of some sense or faculty, and believed that if he could get back the something that was missing he would recover this sense. Moreover, he was exceedingly anxious that no one should guess what he was looking for, so he attempted to suggest that a gang was at work--the gla.s.ses, the crumbs, the cigarette-ends, all placed where they would be certain to attract notice. Did you see how he touched his head several times to-night?"

"Yes."

"That gives the explanation, I think," said Quarles. "To relieve some injury to his head, he was trepanned at St. James's Hospital, and he was looking for the bone which the little circular trephine had cut from his head. I have no doubt he examined Sir Joseph's round counters very carefully to make sure that what he wanted was not among them, and he would naturally damage Dr. Wood's specimens. Probably the original pressure was relieved by the operation, but in some other way the brain was injured. We have seen the result."

Subsequent inquiry at St. James's Hospital proved that Quarles was right. The man was a gentleman of small independent means, a bachelor, and practically alone in the world. There was no one to watch his goings and comings, no one to take note of his growing peculiarities.

His madness was intermittent, but the doctors said he would probably become worse, as, indeed, he did, poor fellow!

"Ah, it is wonderful what surgery can do," said Quarles afterward.

"But there are limitations, Wigan, great limitations. And when we come to the brain, great heavens! We are mere babies playing with a mechanism of which we know practically nothing. No wonder we so often make a mess of it."

CHAPTER IV

THE STRANGE CASE OF MICHAEL HALL

Quarles was professedly a theorist, and I admit that he often outraged my practical mind. I believe the practical people govern the affairs of the world, but occasionally one is brought face to face with such strange occurrences that it is impossible not to speculate what would happen had not the world its theorists and dreamers too.

Early one morning about a week after the mad burglar's case, I received a wire from Zena Quarles, asking me to go to Chelsea as soon as possible. A request from her was a command to me, and, dispensing with breakfast, except for a hasty cup of coffee, I started at once.

She came to the door herself.

"Come in here for a minute," she said, leading the way into the dining-room and closing the door. "Grandfather does not know I have sent for you. I am troubled about him. For the last three days he has not left his room. He will not let me go to him. His door is not locked, but he commanded me, quite irritably, not to come until he called for me. For three days he has not wanted my companionship, and never before do I remember so long an isolation."

"What is he doing?" I asked.

She did not answer at once, and when she did the words came with some hesitation.

"Of course, he is an extraordinary man, with powers which one cannot exactly define, powers which--don't think me foolish--powers which might prove dangerous. In a way, you and I understand him, but I think there is a region beyond into which we are not able to follow him. I admit there have been times when I have been tempted to think that some of his philosophical reasonings and fantastic statements were merely the eccentricities of a clever man--intentional mystifications, a kind of deceptive paraphernalia."

"I have thought so too," I said.

"We are wrong," she said decisively. "He wanders into regions into which we cannot follow--where he touches something which is outside ordinary understanding, and when he is only dimly conscious of the actualities about him. Don't you remember his saying once that we ought to strive toward the heights, and see the truth which lies behind what we call truth? He does climb there, I believe, and, in order that he may do so, his empty room and isolation are necessary. I wonder whether there is any peril in such a journey?"

I did not venture to answer. Being a practical man, a discussion on these lines was beyond me.