Kitabı oku: «THE DEVIL DOCTOR»

THE NET

We raised the poor victim and turned him over on his back. I dropped

upon my knees, and with unsteady fingers began to strike a match. A

slight breeze was arising and sighing gently through the elms, but,

screened by my hands, the flame of the match took life. It illuminated

wanly the sun-baked face of Nayland Smith, his eyes gleaming with

unnatural brightness. I bent forward, and the dying light of the match

touched that other face.

"Oh, God!" whispered Smith.

A faint puff of wind extinguished the match.

In all my surgical experience I had never met with anything quite so

horrible. Forsyth's livid face was streaked with tiny streams of

blood, which proceeded from a series of irregular wounds. One group of

these clustered upon his left temple, another beneath his right eye,

and others extended from the chin down to the throat. They were

black, almost like tattoo marks, and the entire injured surface was

bloated indescribably. His fists were clenched; he was quite rigid.

Smith's piercing eyes were set upon me eloquently as I knelt on the

path and made my examination--an examination which that first glimpse

when Forsyth came staggering out from the trees had rendered

useless--a mere matter of form.

"He's quite dead, Smith," I said huskily. "It's--unnatural--it--"

Smith began beating his fist into his left palm and taking little,

short, nervous strides up and down beside the dead man. I could hear a

car skirling along the high-road, but I remained there on my knees

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

black straw hat and a thick veil; but it seemed to me that the

dexterous hands at work untying the bundle were slim and white, and I

perceived a pair of hideous cotton gloves lying on the turf beside

her. As she threw open the wrappings and lifted out something that

looked like a small shrimping-net, I stepped around the bush, crossed

silently the intervening patch of grass and stood beside her.

A faint breath of perfume reached me--of a perfume which, like the

secret incense of Ancient Egypt, seemed to assail my soul. The glamour

of the Orient was in that subtle essence, and I only knew one woman

who used it. I bent over the kneeling figure.

"Good morning," I said; "can I assist you in any way?"

She came to her feet like a startled deer, and flung away from me with

the lithe movement of some Eastern dancing-girl.

Now came the sun, and its heralding rays struck sparks from the jewels

upon the white fingers of this woman who wore the garments of a

mendicant. My heart gave a great leap. It was with difficulty that I

controlled my voice.

"There is no cause for alarm," I added.

She stood watching me; even through the coarse veil I could see how

her eyes glittered. I stooped and picked up the net.

"Oh!" The whispered word was scarcely audible; but it was enough. I

doubted no longer.

"This is a net for bird-snaring," I said. "What strange bird are you

seeking, _Kâramanèh_?"

With a passionate gesture Kâramanèh snatched off the veil, and with it

the ugly black hat. The cloud of wonderful intractable hair came

rumpling about her face, and her glorious eyes blazed out upon me. How

beautiful they were, with the dark beauty of an Egyptian night; how

often had they looked into mine in dreams!

To labour against a ceaseless yearning for a woman whom one knows, upon

evidence that none but a fool might reject, to be worthless--evil; is

there any torture to which the soul of man is subject, more pitiless?

Yet this was my lot, for what past sins assigned to me I was unable to

conjecture; and this was the woman, this lovely slave of a monster, this

creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

"I suppose you will declare that you do not know me!" I said harshly.

Her lips trembled, but she made no reply.

"It is very convenient to forget, sometimes," I ran on bitterly, then

checked myself, for I knew that my words were prompted by a feckless

desire to hear her defence, by a fool's hope that it might be an

acceptable one. I looked again at the net contrivance in my hand; it

had a strong spring fitted to it and a line attached. Quite obviously

it was intended for snaring. "What were you about to do?" I demanded

sharply; but in my heart, poor fool that I was, I found admiration for

the exquisite arch of Kâramanèh's lips, and reproach because they were

so tremulous.

She spoke then.

"Dr. Petrie--"

"Well?"

"You seem to be--angry with me, not so much because--of what I do, as

because I do not remember you. Yet--"

"Kindly do not revert to the matter," I interrupted. "You have chosen,

very conveniently, to forget that once we were friends. Please

yourself; but answer my question."

She clasped her hands with a sort of wild abandon.

"Why do you treat me so?" she cried. She had the most fascinating

accent imaginable. "Throw me into prison, kill me if you like for what

I have done!" She stamped her foot. "For what I have done! But do not

torture me, try to drive me mad with your reproaches--that I forget

you! I tell you--again I tell you--that until you came one night, last

week, to rescue some one from"--(there was the old trick of hesitating

before the name of Fu-Manchu)--"from _him_, I had never, never seen

you!"

The dark eyes looked into mine, afire with a positive hunger for

belief--or so I was sorely tempted to suppose. But the facts were

against her.

"Such a declaration is worthless," I said, as coldly as I could. "You

are a traitress; you betray those who are mad enough to trust you--"

"I am no traitress!" she blazed at me. Her eyes were magnificent.

"This is mere nonsense. You think that it will pay you better to serve

Fu-Manchu than to remain true to your friends. Your 'slavery'--for I

take it you are posing as a slave again--is evidently not very harsh.

You serve Fu-Manchu, lure men to their destruction, and in return he

loads you with jewels, lavishes gifts--"

"Ah! so!"

She sprang forward, raising flaming eyes to mine; her lips were

slightly parted. With that wild abandon which betrayed the desert

blood in her veins, she wrenched open the neck of her bodice and

slipped a soft shoulder free of the garment. She twisted around, so

that the white skin was but inches removed from me.

"These are some of the gifts that he lavishes upon me!"

I clenched my teeth. Insane thoughts flooded my mind. For that creamy

skin was wealed with the marks of the lash!

She turned, quickly rearranging her dress, and watching me the while.

I could not trust myself to speak for a moment, then--

"If I am a stranger to you, as you claim, why do you give me your

confidence?" I asked.

"I have known you long enough to trust you!" she said simply, and

turned her head aside.

"Then why do you serve this inhuman monster?"

She snapped her fingers oddly, and looked up at me from under her

lashes. "Why do you question me if you think that everything I say is

a lie?"

It was a lesson in logic--from a woman! I changed the subject.

"Tell me what you came here to do," I demanded.

She pointed to the net in my hands.

"To catch birds; you have said so yourself."

"What bird?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

And now a memory was born within my brain: it was that of the cry of

the nighthawk which had harbingered the death of Forsyth! The net was

a large and strong one; could it be that some horrible fowl of the

air--some creature unknown to Western naturalists--had been released

upon the common last night? I thought of the marks upon Forsyth's face

and throat; I thought of the profound knowledge of obscure and

dreadful things possessed by the Chinaman.

The wrapping in which the net had been lay at my feet. I stooped and

took out from it a wicker basket. Kâramanèh stood watching me and

biting her lip, but she made no move to check me. I opened the basket.

It contained a large phial, the contents of which possessed a pungent

and peculiar smell.

I was utterly mystified.

"You will have to accompany me to my house," I said sternly.

Kâramanèh upturned her great eyes to mine. They were wide with fear.

She was on the point of speaking when I extended my hand to grasp her.

At that, the look of fear was gone and one of rebellion held its

place. Ere I had time to realize her purpose, she flung back from me

with that wild grace which I had met with in no other woman,

turned--and ran!

Fatuously, net and basket in hand, I stood looking after her. The idea

of pursuit came to me certainly; but I doubted if I could outrun her.

For Kâramanèh ran, not like a girl used to town or even country life,

but with the lightness and swiftness of a gazelle; ran like the

daughter of the desert that she was.

Some two hundred yards she went, stopped, and looked back. It would

seem that the sheer joy of physical effort had aroused the devil in

her, the devil that must lie latent in every woman with eyes like the

eyes of Kâramanèh.

In the ever-brightening sunlight I could see the lithe figure swaying;

no rags imaginable could mask its beauty. I could see the red lips and

gleaming teeth. Then--and it was music good to hear, despite its

taunt--she laughed defiantly, turned, and ran again!

I resigned myself to defeat; I blush to add, gladly! Some evidences of

a world awakening were perceptible about me now. Feathered choirs

hailed the new day joyously. Carrying the mysterious contrivance which

I had captured from the enemy, I set out in the direction of my house,

my mind very busy with conjectures respecting the link between this

bird-snare and the cry like that of a nighthawk which we had heard at

the moment of Forsyth's death.

The path that I had chosen led me around the border of the Mound

Pond--a small pool having an islet in the centre. Lying at the margin

of the pond I was amazed to see the plate and jug which Nayland Smith

had borrowed recently.

Dropping my burden, I walked down to the edge of the water. I was

filled with a sudden apprehension. Then, as I bent to pick up the now

empty jug, came a hail:

"All right, Petrie! Shall join you in a moment!"

I started up, looked to right and left; but, although the voice had

been that of Nayland Smith, no sign could I discern of his presence!

"Smith!" I cried. "Smith!"

"Coming!"

Seriously doubting my senses, I looked in the direction from which the

voice had seemed to proceed--and there was Nayland Smith.

He stood on the islet in the centre of the pond, and, as I perceived

him, he walked down into the shallow water and waded across to me!

"Good heavens!" I began.

One of his rare laughs interrupted me.

"You must think me mad this morning, Petrie!" he said. "But I have

made several discoveries. Do you know what that islet in the pond

really is?"

"Merely an islet, I suppose."

"Nothing of the kind; it is a burial mound, Petrie! It marks the site

of one of the Plague Pits where victims were buried during the Great

Plague of London. You will observe that although you have seen it

every morning for some years, it remains for a British Commissioner

lately resident in Burma to acquaint you with its history!

Hullo!"--the laughter was gone from his eyes, and they were steely

hard again--"what the blazes have we here?"

He picked up the net. "What! A bird-trap!"

"Exactly!" I said.

Smith turned his searching gaze upon me. "Where did you find it,

Petrie?"

"I did not exactly find it," I replied; and I related to him the

circumstances of my meeting with Kâramanèh.

He directed that cold stare upon me throughout the narrative, and

when, with some embarrassment, I had told him of the girl's escape--

"Petrie," he said succinctly, "you are an imbecile!"

I flushed with anger, for not even from Nayland Smith, whom I esteemed

above all other men, could I accept such words uttered as he had

uttered them. We glared at one another.

"Kâramanèh," he continued coldly, "is a beautiful toy, I grant you;

but so is a cobra. Neither is suitable for playful purposes."

"Smith!" I cried hotly, "drop that! Adopt another tone or I cannot

listen to you!"

"You _must_ listen," he said, squaring his lean jaw truculently. "You

are playing, not only with a pretty girl who is the favourite of a

Chinese Nero, but with _my life_! And I object, Petrie, on purely

personal grounds!"

I felt my anger oozing from me; for this was strictly just. I had

nothing to say and Smith continued:

"You _know_ that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those

dark eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me

once, but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you

are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so!

But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie, for that might mean a

yellow emperor of the world, and you know it!"

"Your words are unnecessarily brutal, Smith," I said, feeling very

crestfallen, "but there--perhaps I fully deserve them all."

"You _do_!" he assured me, but he relaxed immediately. "A murderous

attempt is made upon my life, resulting in the death of a perfectly

innocent man in no way concerned. Along you come and let an

accomplice, perhaps a participant, escape, merely because she has a

red mouth, or black lashes, or whatever it is that fascinates you so

hopelessly!"

He opened the wicker basket, sniffing at the contents.

"Ah!" he snapped, "do you recognize this odour?"

"Certainly."

"Then you have some idea respecting Kâramanèh's quarry?"

"Nothing of the kind!"

Smith shrugged his shoulders.

"Come along, Petrie," he said, linking his arm in mine.

We proceeded. Many questions there were that I wanted to put to him,

but one above all.

"Smith," I said, "what, in Heaven's name, were you doing on the mound?

Digging something up?"

"No," he replied, smiling dryly, "burying something!"