The Crevice Part 29

"I recognize it, indeed, Doctor. That is the man for whom I am searching. How did it come into your possession?"

"I took it myself, last night." The spare figure of the elderly physician straightened proudly in his chair. "When your communication arrived, I did not attach much importance to it because it did not occur to me for a moment that I should have been selected, from among all the physicians and surgeons of this city, for such a case. When the summons came, however, I remembered your warning--but I antic.i.p.ate. Since my patient of last night is your subject, I may as well tell you my experiences from the beginning. My name is Alwyn--Doctor Horatius Alwyn--and I live at Number Twenty-six Maple Avenue. Until my retirement seven years ago I was a regular practising physician and surgeon, but since my break-down--I suffered a slight stroke--I have devoted myself to my books and my camera--always a hobby with me.

"Well--late last night, the front door-bell rang. It was a little after eleven, and my wife and the maid had retired, but I was developing some plates in the dark-room, and opened the door myself.

Three men stood there, but I could see scarcely anything of their faces, for the collars of their s.h.a.ggy motor coats were turned up, their caps pulled low over their eyes, and all three wore goggles.

"'Doctor Alwyn?' asked one of the men, the burliest of the three, advancing into the hall. 'I want you to come out into the country with me on a hurry call. It's a matter of life and death, and there's five thousand dollars in it for you, but the conditions attached to it are somewhat unusual. May we come into your office, and talk it over?'

"I led the way, and listened to their proposition. Briefly, it was this: a young man had fallen and injured his head, and was lying unconscious in a sanitarium in the suburbs. There were reasons which could not be explained to me, why the utmost secrecy must be maintained, not only concerning the young man's ident.i.ty, but the location of the retreat where he was in seclusion. They feared that he had suffered a concussion of the brain, possibly a fractured skull, and my diagnosis was required. Also, should I deem an operation necessary, I must be prepared to perform it at once. They would take me to the patient in the car, but when we reached our destination, I was to be blindfolded, and led to the sickroom, where the bandage would be removed from my eyes. I was to return in the same manner. For this service, and of course my secrecy, they offered me five thousand dollars.

"Although that would not have been an exorbitant sum for me to obtain for such an operation in the days of my activities, it looked very large to me now, especially since some South American securities in which I invested had declined, but I did not feel that it would be compatible with my dignity and standing to accept the conditions which were imposed. I was, therefore, upon the point of indignantly declining, when I suddenly remembered your letter, and resolved to see the affair through.

"It occurred to me, while I was selecting the instruments to take with me, that it would not be a bad idea to take also my latest camera, and if possible obtain a photograph of the patient to show you. I managed to slip it into my vest pocket, un.o.bserved by my visitors. Here it is."

Dr. Alwyn took the instrument case upon his knee and opening it, produced what looked like a large old-fashioned nickel-plated watch of the turnip variety. The doctor extended it almost apologetically.

"You see," he observed, "it is really more a toy than a real camera, although it served admirably last night. I have had a great deal of amus.e.m.e.nt with it, pretending to feel people's pulses, but in reality snapping their photographs. It takes very small, imperfect pictures, of course, as you can see from the print there on your desk, and only one to each loading, but it can be carried in the palm of one's hand, and it uses a peculiarly sensitive plate that will register a snap-shot even by electric light. It had fortunately just been reloaded before the advent of my mysterious visitors, and I resolved to make use of it if an opportunity offered.

"The curtains were tightly drawn in the car, and as the interior lights had been extinguished, we sat in total darkness. I could not, of course, tell in what direction we were going, although the car had been pointed south when we left my door. We appeared to be travelling at a terrific rate of speed and swung around a confusing number of curves.

"I tried at first to remember the turns, and their direction, but there were so many that I very soon lost count. I think they took me in a round-about way purposely, to confuse me. I have no idea how long we drove, but it must have been well over two hours. At last we struck a long up-grade, and one of my companions announced that we were almost there.

"They bound my eyes with a dark silk handkerchief, and a moment later the car swerved and turned abruptly in, evidently at a gateway, for we curved about up a graveled driveway--I could hear it crunching beneath the wheels--and came to a grinding stop before the door. They helped me out of the car, up some shallow stone steps and across the threshold.

"I was led down a thickly carpeted hall and up a single long flight of stairs, to a door just at its head. We entered; the door closed softly behind us; and the bandage was whipped from my eyes. There was only a low night-light burning in the room, but I made out the outlines of the furniture. There was a great bed over in the corner, with a motionless figure lying upon it.

"'There's your patient, Doc; go ahead,' my burly friend said, and accordingly I approached the bed, asking at the same time for more light. The young man was unconscious, and in answer to a question of mine the attendant who had sat at the head of the bed as we entered informed me that he had been in a complete state of coma since he had been brought there, several days before.

"I remembered the description in your letter of the subject for whom you were searching, and I fancied, in spite of the bandages which swathed his head, that I recognized him in the young man before me.

The lights flashed on full in answer to my request, and on a sudden decision I drew the watch camera from my pocket, took the patient's wrist between my thumb and finger as if to ascertain his pulse, and snapped his picture. The result was a fortunate chance, for I did not dare focus deliberately, with the eyes of the attendant and the three men who had accompanied me, all directed at my movements.

"Then I gave the patient a thorough examination. I found a fracture at the base of the brain--not necessarily fatal, unless cerebral meningitis sets in, but quite serious enough. He was still bleeding a little from the nose and ears. I washed them out, and packed the ears with sterile gauze, leaving instructions that a specially prepared ice cap be placed at once upon his head and kept there. That was all which could be done at that time, but the patient should have constant, watchful attention. He must either have suffered a severe backward fall, or received a violent blow at the base of the skull, to have sustained such an injury.

"When I had finished, they blindfolded me again, led me from the room, and conveyed me home in the same manner in which I had come, with the possible exception that the car in returning seemed to take a different and more direct route; the journey appeared to be a much shorter one, with fewer twists and turns. The same three men came back to the house with me, and entered my office, where the burly one turned over to me ten five-hundred-dollar bills. They left almost immediately, and although it was close on to dawn, I went into my dark room, and developed the negative of the thumbnail photograph I had taken.

"The events of the night had been so extraordinary that when I did retire, it was long before I could sleep. In the morning, I made a couple of prints from the negative, then took the five thousand dollars down and deposited it to my account in the bank."

"When I decided to come here, I ran over in my mind every moment of the previous night's adventure, to catalogue my impressions. The habit of years has made me methodical in all things, and I jotted them down in the order in which they occurred to me, that I might not forget to relate them to you. Memory plays one sad tricks, sometimes, when one reaches my age. These notes may be of no a.s.sistance to you, sir, but they are entirely at your service."

"I am eager to hear them, Doctor. I only wish all witnesses were like you--my tasks would be lightened by half," Blaine said, heartily.

The elderly physician drew from his pocket a paper, at which he peered, painstakingly.

"I have numbered them. Let me see--oh, yes. First, the burly man walks with a slight limp in the right leg. Second, of the two men with him, all I could note was that one spoke with a decided French accent and had a hollow cough, tuberculous, I think; the other, who scarcely uttered a word, was short and stocky, and of enormous strength. He fairly lifted me into and out of the car when I was blindfolded at the entrance of the place they called a sanitarium. Third, the car had a peculiar horn; I have never heard one like it before. Its blast was sharp and wailing, not like a siren, but more like the howl of a wounded animal. I would know it again, anywhere. Fourth, there is a railroad bridge very near the house to which I was taken--I distinctly heard two trains thunder over the trestles while I was attending my patient. Fifth, I should judge the place to be more of a retreat for alcoholics or the insane, than for those suffering from accident, or any form of physical injury. A patient in some remote part of the house was undoubtedly a maniac or in the throes of an attack of delirium tremens. I heard his cries at intervals as I worked, until he quieted down finally.

"Sixth, the bedroom where my patient is lying is on the second floor, the windows facing south and east; there was a moon last night, and one of the curtains was partly raised. His door is just at the head of the stairs on your right as you go up, and the stairs are on a straight line with the front door--therefore the house faces south.

Seventh, when we returned to my home, and were in my office, the burly man had to pull the glove off his right hand to get the wallet from his pocket in order to pay me my fee, and I saw that two fingers were missing--they had both been amputated at the middle joint. Also, when they were leaving, I heard the man who spoke with an accent address him as 'Mac.'"

"Mac! It's three-fingered Mac Alarney, by the Lord!" Blaine started from his chair. "Why did I not think of him before! Doctor, you have rendered to me and to my client an invaluable service, which shall not be forgotten. Mac Alarney is a retired prize-fighter, in close touch with all the political crooks and grafters in the city. He runs a sort of retreat for alcoholics up near Green Valley, and bears a generally shady reputation. Are you game to go back with me to-night for another call on your patient? You will be well guarded and in no possible danger, now or for the future. I give you my word for that. I may need you to verify some facts."

The doctor hesitated visibly.

"I am not afraid," he replied, at last, "but I scarcely feel that it is conformable with the ethics of my calling. I was called in, in my professional capacity--"

"My dear Doctor," the detective interrupted him with a trace of impatience in his tones, "your patient is one of the most widely known young men of this city. He was kidnaped, and the police have been searching for him for days. The press of the entire country has rung with the story of his mysterious disappearance. He is Ramon Hamilton."

"Good heavens! Can it be possible!" the physician exclaimed. "I a.s.sure you, sir, I had no idea of his ident.i.ty. He was to have married Pennington Lawton's daughter, was he not? I have read of his disappearance, of course; the newspapers have been full of it. And he was kidnaped, you say? No wonder those ruffians maintained such secrecy in regard to their destination last night! Mr. Blaine, I will accompany you, sir, and give you any aid in my power, in rescuing Mr.

Hamilton!"

"Good! I'll make all the necessary arrangements and call for you to-night at eight o'clock. Meanwhile, keep a strict guard upon your tongue, and say nothing to anyone of what has occurred. Have you told your wife of your adventure?"

"No, Mr. Blaine; I merely told her I was out on a sudden night call. I decided to wait until I had seen you before mentioning the extraordinary features of the case."

"You are a man of discretion, Doctor! Until eight o'clock, then. You may expect me, without fail."

Doctor Alwyn left, and Blaine spent a busy half-hour making his arrangements for the night's raid. Scarcely had he completed them when the telephone shrilled. The detective did not at first recognize the voice which came to him over the wire, so changed was it, so fraught with horror and a menace of tragedy.

"It is you, Miss Lawton?" he asked, half unbelievingly. "What is the matter? What has happened?"

"I must see you at once, _at once_, Mr. Blaine! I have made a discovery so unexpected, so terrible, that I am afraid to be alone; I am afraid of my own thoughts. Please, please come immediately!"

"I will be with you as soon as my car can reach your door," he replied.

What could the young girl have discovered, shut up there in that great lonely house? What new developments could have arisen, in the case which until this moment had seemed plain to him to the end?

He found her awaiting him in the hall, with ashen face and trembling limbs. She clutched his hand with her small icy one, and whispered:

"Come into the library, Mr. Blaine. I have something to tell you--to show you!"

He followed her into the huge, somber, silent room where only a few short weeks ago her father had met with his death. Coming from the brilliant sunshine without, it was a moment or two before his eyes could penetrate the gloom. When they did so, he saw the great leather chair by the hearth, which had played so important a part in the tragedy, had been overturned.

"Mr. Blaine,"--the girl faced him, her voice steadied and deepened portentously,--"my father died of heart-disease, did he not?"

The detective felt a sudden thrill, almost of premonition, at her unexpected question, but he controlled himself, and replied quietly:

"That was the diagnosis of the physician, and the coroner's findings corroborated him."

"Did it ever occur to you that there might be another and more terrible explanation of his sudden death?"

"A detective must consider and a.n.a.lyze a case from every standpoint, you know, Miss Lawton," he answered. "It did occur to me that perhaps your father met with foul play, but I put the theory from me for lack of evidence."

"Mr. Blaine, my father was murdered!"

"Murdered! How do you know? What have you discovered?"

"He was given poison! I have found the bottle which contained it, hidden deep in the folds of his chair there. It was no morbid fancy of mine after all; my instinct was right! No wonder that chair has exerted such a horrible fascination for me ever since my poor father died in it. See!"

With indescribable loathing, she extended her left hand, which until now she had held clenched behind her. Upon the palm lay a tiny flat vial, with a pale, amber-colored substance dried in the bottom of it.

Blaine took it and drew the cork. Before he had time to place it at his nostrils, a faint but unmistakable odor of bitter almonds floated out upon the air and pervaded the room.