The Seven Secrets

“But I haven’t forsaken her!” I blurted forth.

She only smiled superciliously, with the same mysterious look – an expression that I cannot define, but by which I knew that she had told me the crushing truth. Ethelwynn, believing that I had cast her aside, had allowed herself to be loved by another!

Who was the man who had usurped my place? I deserved it all, without a doubt. You, reader, have already in your heart condemned me as being hard and indifferent towards the woman I once loved so truly and so well. But, in extenuation, I would ask you to recollect how grave were the suspicions against her – how every fact seemed to prove conclusively that her sister’s husband had died by her hand.

I saw plainly in Mrs. Henniker’s veiled words a statement of the truth; and, after obtaining from her Ethelwynn’s address near Hereford, bade her farewell and blindly left the house.

CHAPTER XX.

MY NEW PATIENT

In the feverish restlessness of the London night, with its rumbling market-wagons and the constant tinkling of cab-bells, so different to the calm, moonlit stillness of the previous night in rural England, I wrote a long explanatory letter to my love.

I admitted that I had wronged her by my apparent coldness and indifference, but sought to excuse myself on the ground of the pressure of work upon me. She knew well that I was not a rich man, and in that slavery to which I was now tied I had an object – the object I had placed before her in the dawning days of our affection – namely, the snug country practice with an old-fashioned comfortable house in one of the quiet villages or smaller towns in the Midlands. In those days she had been just as enthusiastic about it as I had been. She hated town life, I knew; and even if the wife of a country doctor is allowed few diversions, she can always form a select little tea-and-tennis circle of friends.

The fashion nowadays is for girls of middle-class to regard the prospect of becoming a country doctor’s wife with considerable hesitation – “too slow,” they term it; and declare that to live in the country and drive in a governess-cart is synonymous with being buried. Many girls marry just as servants change their places – in order “to better themselves;” and alas! that parents encourage this latter-day craze for artificiality and glitter of town life that so often fascinates and spoils a bride ere the honeymoon is over. The majority of girls to-day are not content to marry the hard-working professional man whose lot is cast in the country, but prefer to marry a man in town, so that they may take part in the pleasures of theatres, variety and otherwise, suppers at restaurants, and the thousand and one attractions provided for the reveller in London. They have obtained their knowledge of “life” from the society papers, and they see no reason why they should not taste of those pleasures enjoyed by their wealthier sisters, whose goings and comings are so carefully chronicled. The majority of girls have a desire to shine beyond their own sphere; and the attempt, alas! is accountable for very many of the unhappy marriages. This may sound prosy, I know, but the reader will forgive when he reflects upon the cases in point which arise to his memory – cases of personal friends, perhaps even of relations, to whom marriage was a failure owing to this uncontrollable desire on the part of the woman to assume a position to which neither birth nor wealth entitled her.

To the general rule, however, my love was an exception. Times without number had she declared her anxiety to settle in the country; for, being country born and bred, she was an excellent horsewoman, and in every essential a thorough English girl of the Grass Country, fond of a run with either fox or otter hounds; therefore, in suburban life at Kew, she had been entirely out of her element.

In that letter I wrote, composing it slowly and carefully – for like most medical men I am a bad hand at literary composition – I sought her forgiveness, and asked for an immediate interview. The wisdom of being so precipitous never occurred to me. I only know that in those night hours over my pipe I resolved to forget once and for all that letter I had discovered among the “dead” man’s effects, and determined that, while I sought reconciliation with Ethelwynn, I would keep an open and watchful eye upon Mary and her fellow conspirator.

The suggestion that Ethelwynn, believing herself forsaken, had accepted the declarations of a man she considered more worthy than myself, lashed me to a frenzy of madness. He should never have her, whoever he might be. She had been mine, and should remain so, come what might. I added a postscript, asking her to wire me permission to travel down to Hereford to see her; then, sealing up the letter, I went out along the Marylebone Road and posted it in the pillar-box, which I knew was cleared at five o’clock in the morning.

It was then about three o’clock, calm, but rather overcast. The Marylebone Road had at last become hushed in silence. Wagons and cabs had both ceased, and save for a solitary policeman here and there the long thoroughfare, so full of traffic by day, was utterly deserted. I retraced my steps slowly towards the corner of Harley Street, and was about to open the door of the house wherein I had “diggings” when I heard a light, hurried footstep behind me, and turning, confronted the figure of a slim woman of middle height wearing a golf cape, the hood of which had been thrown over her head in lieu of a hat.

“Excuse me, sir,” she cried, in a breathless voice, “but are you Doctor Boyd?”

I replied that such was my name.

“Oh, I’m in such distress,” she said, in the tone of one whose heart is full of anguish. “My poor father!”

“Is your father ill?” I inquired, turning from the door and looking full at her. I was standing on the step, and she was on the pavement, having evidently approached from the opposite direction. She stood with her back to the street lamp, so I could discern nothing of her features. Only her voice told me that she was young.

“Oh, he’s very ill,” she replied anxiously. “He was taken queer at eleven o’clock, but he wouldn’t hear of me coming to you. He’s one of those men who don’t like doctors.”

“Ah!” I remarked; “there are many of his sort about. But they are compelled to seek our aid now and then. Well, what can I do for you? I suppose you want me to see him – eh?”

“Yes, sir, if you’d be so kind. I know its awfully late; but, as you’ve been out, perhaps you wouldn’t mind running round to our house. It’s quite close, and I’ll take you there.” She spoke with the peculiar drawl and dropped her “h’s” in the manner of the true London-bred girl.

“I’ll come if you’ll wait a minute,” I said, and then, leaving her outside, I entered the house and obtained my thermometer and stethoscope.

When I rejoined her and closed the door I made some inquiries about the sufferer’s symptoms, but the description she gave me was so utterly vague and contradictory that I could make nothing out of it. Her muddled idea of his illness I put down to her fear and anxiety for his welfare.

She had no mother, she told me; and her father had, of late, given way just a little to drink. He “used” the Haycock, in Edgware Road; and she feared that he had fallen among a hard-drinking set. He was a pianoforte-maker, and had been employed at Brinsmead’s for eighteen years. Since her mother died, six years ago, however, he had never been the same.

“It was then that he took to drink?” I hazarded.

“Yes,” she responded. “He was devoted to her. They never had a wry word.”

“What has he been complaining of? Pains in the head – or what?”

“Oh, he’s seemed thoroughly out of sorts,” she answered after some slight hesitation, which struck me as peculiar. She was greatly agitated regarding his illness, yet she could not describe one single symptom clearly. The only direct statement she made was that her father had certainly not been drinking on the previous night, for he had remained indoors ever since he came home from the works, as usual, at seven o’clock.

As she led me along the Marylebone Road, in the same direction as that I had just traversed – which somewhat astonished me – I glanced surreptitiously at her, just at the moment when we were approaching a street lamp, and saw to my surprise that she was a sad-faced girl whose features were familiar. I recognised her in a moment as the girl who had been my fellow passenger from Brighton on that Sunday night. Her hair, however, was dishevelled, as though she had turned out from her bed in too great alarm to think of tidying it. I was rather surprised, but did not claim acquaintance with her. She led me past Madame Tussaud’s, around Baker Street Station, and then into the maze of those small cross-streets that lie between Upper Baker Street and Lisson Grove until she stopped before a small, rather respectable-looking house, half-way along a short side-street, entering with a latch-key.

In the narrow hall it was quite dark, but she struck a match and lit a cheap paraffin lamp which stood there in readiness, then led me upstairs to a small sitting-room on the first floor, a dingy, stuffy little place of a character which showed me that she and her father lived in lodgings. Having set the lamp on the table, and saying that she would go and acquaint the invalid with my arrival, she went out, closing the door quietly after her. The room was evidently the home of a studious, if poor, man, for in a small deal bookcase I noticed, well-kept and well-arranged, a number of standard works on science and theology, as well as various volumes which told me mutely that their owner was a student, while upon the table lay a couple of critical reviews, the “Saturday” and “Spectator.”

I took up the latter and glanced it over in order to pass the time, for my conductress seemed to be in consultation with her father. My eye caught an article that interested me, and I read it through, forgetting for a moment all about my call there. Fully ten minutes elapsed, when of a sudden I heard the voice of a man speaking somewhat indistinctly in a room above that in which I was sitting. He seemed to be talking low and gruffly, so that I was unable to distinguish what was said. At last, however, the girl returned, and, asking me to follow her, conducted me to a bedroom on the next floor.

The only illumination was a single night-light burning in a saucer, casting a faint, uncertain glimmer over everything, and shaded with an open book so that the occupant of the bed lay in deepest shadow. Unlike what one would have expected to find in such a house, an iron bedstead with brass rail, the bed was a great old-fashioned one with heavy wool damask hangings; and advancing towards it, while the girl retired and closed the door after her, I bent down to see the invalid.

In the shadow I could just distinguish on the pillow a dark-bearded face whose appearance was certainly not prepossessing.

“You are not well?” I said, inquiringly, as our eyes met in the dim half-light. “Your daughter is distressed about you.”

“Yes, I’m a bit queer,” he growled. “But she needn’t have bothered you.”

“Let me remove the shade from the light, so that I can see your face,” I suggested. “It’s too dark to see anything.”

“No,” he snapped; “I can’t bear the light. You can see quite enough of me here.”

“Very well,” I said, reluctantly, and taking his wrist in one hand I held my watch in the other.

“I fancy you’ll find me a bit feverish,” he said in a curious tone, almost as though he were joking, and by his manner I at once put him down as one of those eccentric persons who are sceptical of any achievements of medical science.

I was holding his wrist and bending towards the light, in order to distinguish the hands of my watch, when a strange thing happened.

There was a deafening explosion close behind me, which caused me to jump back startled. I dropped the man’s hand and turned quickly in the direction of the sound; but, as I did so, a second shot from a revolver held by an unknown person was discharged full in my face.

The truth was instantly plain. I had been entrapped for my watch and jewellery – like many another medical man in London has been before me; doctors being always an easy prey for thieves. The ruffian shamming illness sprang from his bed fully dressed, and at the same moment two other blackguards, who had been hidden in the room, flung themselves upon me ere I could realize my deadly peril.

The whole thing had been carefully planned, and it was apparent that the gang were quite fearless of neighbours overhearing the shots. The place bore a bad reputation, I knew; but I had never suspected that a man might be fired at from behind in that cowardly way.

So sudden and startling were the circumstances that I stood for a moment motionless, unable to fully comprehend their intention. There was but one explanation. These men intended to kill me!

Without a second’s hesitation they rushed upon me, and I realized with heart-sinking that to attempt to resist would be utterly futile. I was entirely helpless in their hands!

CHAPTER XXI.

WOMAN’S WILES

“Look sharp!” cried the black-bearded ruffian who had feigned illness. “Give him a settler, ’Arry. He wants his nerves calmin’ a bit!”

The fellow had seized my wrists, and I saw that one of the men who had sprung from his place of concealment was pouring some liquid from a bottle upon a sponge. I caught a whiff of its odour – an odour too familiar to me – the sickly smell of chloroform.

Fortunately I am pretty athletic, and with a sudden wrench I freed my wrists from the fellow’s grip, and, hitting him one from the shoulder right between the eyes, sent him spinning back against the chest of drawers. To act swiftly was my only chance. If once they succeeded in pressing that sponge to my nostrils and holding it there, then all would be over; for by their appearance I saw they were dangerous criminals, and not men to stick at trifles. They would murder me.

As I sent down the man who had shammed illness, his two companions dashed towards me with imprecations upon their lips; but with lightning speed I sprang towards the door and placed my back against it. So long as I could face them I intended to fight for life. Their desire was, I knew, to attack me from behind, as they had already done. I had surely had a narrow escape from their bullets, for they had fired at close range.

At Guy’s many stories have been told of similar cases where doctors, known to wear valuable watches, diamond rings or scarf pins, have been called at night by daring thieves and robbed; therefore I always, as precaution, placed my revolver in my pocket when I received a night call to a case with which I was not acquainted.

I had not disregarded my usual habit when I had placed my thermometer and stethoscope in my pocket previous to accompanying the girl; therefore it reposed there fully loaded, a fact of which my assailants were unaware.

In much quicker time than it takes to narrate the incident I was again pounced upon by all three, the man with the sponge in readiness to dash it to my mouth and nostrils.

But as they sprang forward to seize me, I raised my hand swiftly, took aim, and fired straight at the holder of the sponge, the bullet passing through his shoulder and causing him to drop the anæsthetic as though it were a live coal, and to spring several feet from the ground.

“God! I’m shot!” he cried.

But ere the words had left his mouth I fired a second chamber, inflicting a nasty wound in the neck of the fellow with the black beard.

“Shoot! shoot!” he cried to the third man, but it was evident that in the first struggle, when I had been seized, the man’s revolver had dropped on the carpet, and in the semi-darkness he could not recover it.

Recognising this, I fired a pot shot in the man’s direction; then, opening the door, sprang down the stairs into the hall. One of them followed, but the other two, wounded as they were, did not care to face my weapon again. They saw that I knew how to shoot, and probably feared that I might inflict a fatal hurt.

As I approached the front door, and was fumbling with the lock, the third man flung himself upon me, determined that I should not escape. With great good fortune, however, I managed to unbolt the door, and after a desperate struggle, in which he endeavoured to wrest the weapon from my hand, I succeeded at last in gripping him by the throat, and after nearly strangling him flung him to the ground and escaped into the street, just as his associates, hearing his cries of distress, dashed downstairs to his assistance.

Without doubt it was the narrowest escape of my life that I have ever had, and so excited was I that I dashed down the street hatless until I emerged into Lisson Grove. Then, and only then, it occurred to me that, having taken no note of the house, I should be unable to recognise it and denounce it to the police. But when one is in peril of one’s life all other thoughts or instincts are submerged in the one frantic effort of self-preservation. Still, it was annoying to think that such scoundrels should be allowed to go scot free.

Breathless, excited, and with nerves unstrung, I opened my door with my latch-key and returned to my room, where the reading-lamp had burned low, for it had been alight all through the night. I mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda, tossed it off, and then turned to look at myself in the glass.

The picture I presented was disreputable and unkempt. My hair was ruffled, my collar torn open from its stud, and one sleeve of my coat had been torn out, so that the lining showed through. I had a nasty scratch across the neck, too, inflicted by the fingernails of one of the blackguards, and from the abrasion blood had flowed and made a mess of my collar.

Altogether I presented a very brilliant and entertaining spectacle. But my watch, ring and scarf-pin were in their places. If robbery had been their motive, as no doubt it had been, then they had profited nothing, and two of them had been winged into the bargain. The only mode by which their identity could by chance be discovered was in the event of those wounds being troublesome. In that case they would consult a medical man; but as they would, in all probability, go to some doctor in a distant quarter of London, the hope of tracing them by such means was but a slender one.

Feeling a trifle faint I sat in my chair, resting for a quarter of an hour or so; then, becoming more composed, I put out the study lights, and after a refreshing wash went to bed.

The morning’s reflections were somewhat disconcerting. A deliberate and dastardly attempt had been made upon my life; but with what motive? The young woman, whose face was familiar, had, I recollected, asked most distinctly whether I was Doctor Boyd – a fact which showed that the trap had been prepared. I now saw the reason why she was unable to describe the man’s sham illness, and during the morning, while at work in the hospital wards, my suspicions became aroused that there had been some deeper motive in it all than the robbery of my watch or scarf-pin. Human life had been taken for far less value than that of my jewellery, I knew; nevertheless, the deliberate shooting at me while I felt the patient’s pulse showed a determination to assassinate. By good fortune, however, I had escaped, and resolved to exercise more care in future when answering night calls to unknown houses.

Sir Bernard did not come to town that day; therefore I was compelled to spend the afternoon in the severe consulting-room at Harley Street, busy the whole time. Shortly before six o’clock, utterly worn out, I strolled round to my rooms to change my coat before going down to the Savage Club to dine with my friends – for it was Saturday night, and I seldom missed the genial house-dinner of that most Bohemian of institutions.

Without ceremony I threw open the door of my sitting-room and entered, but next instant stood still, for, seated in my chair patiently awaiting me was the slim, well-dressed figure of Mary Courtenay. Her widow’s weeds became her well; and as she rose with a rustle of silk, a bright laugh rippled from her lips, and she said:

“I know I’m an unexpected visitor, Doctor, but you’ll forgive my calling in this manner, won’t you?”

“Forgive you? Of course,” I answered; and with politeness which I confess was feigned, I invited her to be seated. True to the promise made to her husband, she had lost no time in coming to see me, but I was fortunately well aware of the purport of her errand.

“I had no idea you were in London,” I said, by way of allowing her to explain the object of her visit, for, in the light of the knowledge I had gained on the Nene bank two nights previously, her call was of considerable interest.

“I’m only up for a couple of days,” she answered. “London has not the charm for me that it used to have,” and she sighed heavily, as though her mind were crowded by bitter memories. Then raising her veil, and revealing her pale, handsome face, she said bluntly, “The reason of my call is to talk to you about Ethelwynn.”

“Well, what of her?” I asked, looking straight into her face and noticing for the first time a curious shifty look in her eyes, such as I had never before noticed in her. She tried to remain calm, but, by the nervous twitching of her fingers and lower lip, I knew that within her was concealed a tempest of conflicting emotions.

“To speak quite frankly, Ralph,” she said in a calm, serious voice, “I don’t think you are treating her honourably, poor girl. You seem to have forsaken her altogether, and the neglect has broken her heart.”

“No, Mrs. Courtenay; you misunderstand the situation,” I protested. “That I have neglected her slightly I admit; nevertheless the neglect was not wilful, but owing to my constant occupation in my practice.”

“She’s desperate. Besides, it’s common talk that you’ve broken off the engagement.”

“Gossip does not affect me; therefore why should she take any heed of it?”

“Well, she loves you. That you know quite well. You surely could not have been deceived in those days at Kew, for her devotion to you was absolute and complete.” She was pleading her sister’s cause just as Courtenay had directed her. I felt annoyed that she should thus endeavour to impose upon me, yet saw the folly of betraying the fact that I knew her secret. My intention was to wait and watch.

“I called at the Hennikers’ a couple of days ago, but Ethelwynn is no longer there. She’s gone into the country, it seems,” I remarked.

“Where to?” she asked quickly.

“She’s visiting someone near Hereford.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as though a sudden light dawned upon her. “I know, then. Why, I wonder, did she not tell me. I intended to call on her this evening, but it is useless. I’m glad to know, for I don’t care much for Mrs. Henniker. She’s such a very shallow woman.”

“Ethelwynn seems to have wandered about a good deal since the sad affair at Kew,” I observed.

“Yes, and so have I,” she responded. “As you are well aware, the blow was such a terrible one to me that – that somehow I feel I shall never get over it – never!” I saw tears, genuine tears, welling in her eyes. If she could betray emotion in that manner she was surely a wonderful actress.

“Time will efface your sorrow,” I said, in a voice meant to be sympathetic. “In a year or two your grief will not be so poignant, and the past will gradually fade from your memory. It is always so.”

She shook her head mournfully.

“No,” she said, “for in addition to my grief there is the mystery of it all – a mystery that grows each day more and more inscrutable.”

I glanced sharply at her in surprise. Was she trying to mislead me, or were her words spoken in real earnest? I could not determine.

“Yes,” I acquiesced. “The mystery is as complete as ever.”

“Has no single clue been found, either by the police or by your friend – Jevons is, I think, his name?” she asked, with keen anxiety.

“One or two points have, I believe, been elucidated,” I answered; “but the mystery still remains unsolved.”

“As it ever will be,” she added, with a sigh which appeared to me to be one of satisfaction, rather than of regret. “The details were so cleverly arranged that the police have been baffled in every endeavour. Is not that so?”

I nodded in the affirmative.

“And your friend Jevons? Has he given up all hope of any satisfactory discovery?”