The Wiles of the Wicked

In my helplessness I could do nothing but remain silent, and keep my terrible secret to myself. Unable either to communicate with the police or seek the assistance of my friend, I found that any endeavour to seek a solution of the problem was mere sowing of the wind. My thoughts hour by hour, as I sat alone in my dingy room, my poor blind eyes a black void, were of the ghastly affair, and in all its phases I considered it, trying to find some motive in the subsequent actions of the unscrupulous persons into whose hands I had had the misfortune to fall.

I heard of Dick through the office of his journal. He was down with fever at some outlandish place on the Afghan frontier, and would certainly not be home for a couple of months or so.

At first I was puzzled how to get rid of my soiled and blood-stained clothes so that Parker should not discover them, and at last hit upon the expedient of making them into a bundle and going forth one night when she was over at Kennington with her daughter Lily, the dancing-girl, and casting them into the Thames from the Embankment. It was a risky operation, for that part of London is well guarded by police after dark; nevertheless I accomplished it in safety, and was much amused a few days later by reading in an evening paper that they had been found near London Bridge and handed over to the river police, who, of course, scented a mystery. The blood-stains puzzled them, and the journal hinted that Scotland Yard had instituted inquiries into the ownership of the discarded suit of clothes. The paragraph concluded with that sentence, indispensable in reporting a mystery, “The police are very reticent about the matter.”

Fortunately, having cut out the maker’s name, and taken everything from the pockets which might serve as a clue to ownership, I felt perfectly safe, and eagerly read the issue of the same journal on the following evening, which told how the stains had been analysed, and found to be those of human blood.

A little more than a week had passed since my remarkable midnight adventure, when one morning I received a brief note by post, which Parker read to me. It consisted of only two typewritten lines stating that at mid-day I would receive a visitor, and was signed with the strange word “AVEL.”

It was, I knew, a message from Edna, and I dressed myself with greater care in expectation that she herself would visit me. In this, however, I was disappointed, for after existing some three hours on tiptoe with anxiety I found my visitor to be a well-spoken, middle-aged man, whose slight accent when introducing himself betrayed that he was an American.

When we were alone, with the door closed, he made the following explanation —

“I have called upon you, Mr Heaton, at the request of a lady who is our mutual friend. You have, I presume, received a letter signed ‘Avel’?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering how that I had promised to blindly and obediently render my protectress whatever assistance she desired. “I presume you desire some service of me. What is it?”

“No,” he said. “You are mistaken. It is with regard to the terrible affliction from which I see you are suffering that I have been sent.”

“Are you a medical man?” I inquired, with some astonishment.

“I am an oculist,” was his reply.

“And your name?”

“Slade – James Slade.”

“And you have been sent here by whom?”

“By a lady whose real name I do not know.”

“But you will kindly explain, before we go further, the circumstance in which she sought your aid on my behalf,” I said firmly.

“You are mutual friends,” he answered, somewhat vaguely. “It is no unusual thing for a patient to seek my aid on behalf of a friend. She sent me here to see you, and to examine your eyes, if you will kindly permit me.”

The man’s bearing irritated me, and I was inclined to resent this enforced subjection to an examination by one of whose reputation I knew absolutely nothing. Some of the greatest oculists in the world had looked into my sightless eyes and pronounced my case utterly hopeless. Therefore I had no desire to be tinkered with by this man, who, for aught I knew, might be a quack whose sole desire was to run up a long bill.

“I have no necessity for your aid,” I answered, somewhat bluntly. “Therefore any examination is entirely waste of time.”

“But surely the sight is one of God’s most precious gifts to man,” he answered, in a smooth, pleasant voice; “and if a cure is possible, you yourself would, I think, welcome it.”

“I don’t deny that,” I answered. “I would give half that I possess – nay, more – to have my sight restored, but Sir Leopold Fry, Dr Measom, and Harker Halliday have all three seen me, and agree in their opinion that my sight is totally lost for ever. You probably know them as specialists?”

“Exactly. They are the first men in my profession,” he answered. “Yet sometimes one treatment succeeds where another fails. Mine is entirely and totally different to theirs, and has, I may remark, been successful in quite a number of cases which were pronounced hopeless.”

Mere quackery, I thought. I am no believer in new treatments and new medicines. The fellow’s style of talk prejudiced me against him. He actually placed himself in direct opposition to the practice of the three greatest oculists in the world.

“Then you believe that you can actually cure me?” I remarked, with an incredulous smile.

“All I ask is to be permitted to try,” he answered blandly, in no way annoyed by my undisguised sneer.

“Plainly speaking,” I answered, “I have neither inclination nor intention to place myself at your disposal for experiments. My case has been pronounced hopeless by the three greatest of living specialists, and I am content to abide by their decision.”

“Oculists are liable to draw wrong conclusions, just as other persons may do,” he remarked. “In a matter of this magnitude you should – permit me to say so – endeavour to regain your sight and embrace any treatment likely to be successful. Blindness is one of man’s most terrible afflictions, and assuredly no living person who is blind would wish to remain so.”

“I have every desire to regain my sight, but I repeat that I have no faith whatever in new treatment.”

“Your view is not at all unnatural, bearing in mind the fact that you have been pronounced incurable by the first men of the profession,” he answered. “But may I not make an examination of your eyes? It is, of course, impossible to speak with any degree of authority without a diagnosis. You appear to think me a charlatan. Well, for the present I am content that you should regard me as such;” and he laughed as though amused.

He seemed so perfectly confident in his own powers that I confess my hastily formed opinion became moderated and my prejudice weakened. He spoke as though he had detected the disease which had deprived me of vision, and knew how to successfully combat it.

“Will you kindly come forward to the window?” he requested, without giving me time to reply to his previous observations. I obeyed his wish.

Then I felt his fingers open my eyelids wide, and knew that he was gazing into my eyes through one of those glasses like other oculists had used. He took a long time over the right eye, which he examined first, then having apparently satisfied himself, he opened the left, felt it carefully, and touched the surface, of the eyeball, causing me a twinge of pain.

“As I thought!” he ejaculated when he had finished. “As I thought! A slight operation only is necessary. The specialists whom you consulted were wrong in their conclusions. They have all three made an error which is very easy to make, yet it might have deprived you of sight for your whole life.”

“What!” I cried, in sudden enthusiasm. “Do you mean to tell me solemnly that you can perform a miracle? – that you can restore my sight to me?”

“I tell you, sir,” he answered quite calmly, “that if you will undergo a small operation, and afterwards subject yourself to a course of treatment, in a fortnight – or, say three weeks – you will again open your eyes and look upon the world.”

His words were certainly startling to me, shut out so long from all the pleasures of life. This stranger promised me a new existence, a world of light and movement, of colour, and of all the interests which combine to make life worth living. At first I was inclined to scorn this statement of his, yet so solemnly had he uttered it, and with such an air of confidence, that I became half convinced that he was more than a mere quack.

“Your words arouse within me a new interest,” I said. “When do you propose this operation?”

“To-morrow, if you will.”

“Will it be painful?”

“Not very – a slight twinge, that’s all.”

I remained again in doubt. He noticed my hesitation, and urged me to submit.

But my natural caution asserted itself, and I felt disinclined to place myself in the hands of one of whose bona fides I knew absolutely nothing.

As politely as I could I told him this, but he merely replied —

“I have been sent by the lady whom we both know as Edna. Have you no confidence in her desire to assist you?”

“Certainly I have.”

“She has already explained to me that you have promised to carry out her wishes. It is at her urgent request that I have come to you with the object of giving you back your sight.”

“She wishes me to submit to the experiment?”

“Pardon me. It is no experiment,” he said. “She desires you to submit yourself to my treatment. If you do, I have entire confidence that in a week or so you will see almost as well as I do.”

I hesitated. This stranger offered me the one great desire of my life – the desire of every person who is afflicted with blindness – in return for a few moment’s pain. Edna had sent him, prefaced by the mysterious letter signed “Avel.” It was her desire that I should regain my sight; it was my desire to discover her and look upon her face.

“If I find your name in the Medical Register I will undergo the operation,” I said at last.

“To search will be in vain,” he responded, in the same even tone.

“Then your name is assumed?”

“My practice is not a large one, and I have no need to be registered,” he said evasively.

His words again convinced me that he was a mere quack. I had cornered him, for he was palpably confused.

“As I have already told you,” I said, with some warmth, “your attempts at persuasion are utterly useless. I refuse to allow my eyes to be tampered with by one who is not a medical man.”

He laughed, rather superciliously I thought.

“You prefer your present affliction?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

“Then, now that you force me to the last extremity,” he said firmly, “I have this to present to you.”

And next moment I felt within my hand a paper neither the nature of which, nor the writing thereon, could I distinguish; yet from his voice I knew instinctively that this stranger, whoever he was, held triumph over me.

Chapter Nine

From the Unknown

“I have no knowledge of what this is,” I said, puzzled, holding the paper he had given me.

“Then I will read it to you,” he responded; and taking it from my hand, he repeated the words written there. Even then I doubted him, therefore I took the paper into the kitchen and bade Parker read it. Then I knew that he had not deceived me, for Parker repeated the very same words that he had read, namely —

“The first request made to you, Wilford Heaton, is that you shall repose every confidence in Doctor Slade, and allow him to restore your sight. Obey.

“Avel.”

The note was very brief and pointed, written, I learnt, like the first note, with a typewriter, so that no clue might be afforded by the calligraphy. It was an order from the unknown person whom I had promised to blindly and faithfully obey. At the time I had given the mysterious Edna that promise I was in deadly peril of my life. Indeed, the promise had been extracted from me under threat of death, and now, in the security of my own home, I felt very disinclined to conform with the wishes of some person or persons whom I knew not. I saw in what a very serious position I had placed myself by this rash promise, for I might even be ordered to commit a crime, or, perhaps, for aught I knew, have unwittingly allied myself with some secret society.

The one desire which ever possessed me, that of being able to look upon the unseen woman with the musical voice, who had at one time been my protectress and my captor, urged me, however, in this instance, to accede. There was evidently some object in making this attempt to give me back my sight, and if it really succeeded I alone would be the gainer.

Understand that I had no faith whatever in the stranger who had thus come to me with a promise of a miraculous cure; on the other hand, I felt that he was a mere charlatan and impostor. Nevertheless, I could not be rendered more blind than I was, and having nothing to lose in the experiment, any gain would be to my distinct advantage.

Therefore, after further argument, I very reluctantly promised to allow him to operate upon me on the morrow.

“Good,” he answered. “I felt sure that your natural desire for the restoration of your sight would not allow your minor prejudices to stand in the way. Shall we say at noon to-morrow.”

“Any hour will suit me,” I answered briefly, with a rather bad grace.

“Then let it be at noon. I and my assistant will be here by eleven-thirty.”

“I should prefer to come to your surgery,” I said, with the idea of obtaining some knowledge of the stranger’s address. If I knew where he lived I could easily find out his real name.

“That is, unfortunately, impossible,” he answered blandly. “I am staying at an hotel. I do not practise in London.”

He seemed to have an ingenious answer always upon the tip of his tongue.

So, after some further conversation, in which he continually foiled any attempt I made to gain further knowledge of Edna or of himself, he rose and bade me adieu, promising to return on the morrow with the necessary instruments.

With a rather unnecessary show of punctuality he arrived next day, accompanied by a younger, sad-voiced man, and after some elaborate preparations, the nature of which I guessed from my own medical knowledge, I sat in my big armchair, and placed myself entirely at his disposal. From the first moment that he approached me and examined me prior to producing anaesthesia of the part to be operated upon I knew that my prejudice had been hastily formed. He was no quack, but careful, confident, and skilled, with a firm hand evidently used to such cases.

To fully describe what followed can be of no interest to any save medical men, therefore suffice it to relate that the operation lasted about an hour, after which my eyes were carefully bandaged, and my attendant and his assistant left. Slade called each day at noon, and carefully dressed my eyes, on each occasion expressing satisfaction at my progress, but always impressing upon me the absolute necessity for remaining with the blinds closely drawn, so that no ray of light should reach me. Darkness did not trouble me, yet Parker found it rather difficult to serve my meals in the gloom, and was very incredulous regarding the mysterious doctor’s talents. She viewed the whole affair just as I had once done, and, without mincing words, denounced him as a quack, who was merely running up a long bill for nothing.

For nearly three weeks I lived with the Venetian blinds of my sitting-room always down, and with a thick curtain drawn across them, shutting out all light, as well as a good deal of air, until the summer heat became stifling. Hour after hour I sat alone, my hands idly in my lap, ever wondering what the success of this experiment would be. Should I ever again see, after those grave and distinct pronouncements of Fry and the rest, who had plainly told me that my sight was for ever destroyed? I dared not to hope, and only remained inert and thoughtful, congratulating myself that I had at least obeyed the dictum of my mysterious and unknown correspondent, under whose influence I had so foolishly placed myself.

At last, however – it was on a Sunday – Slade came, and as usual raised the bandages and bathed my eyes in a solution of atropine. Then, having made a careful examination, he went to the window, drew aside the curtains, and slightly opened the Venetian blinds.

In an instant I cried aloud for joy.

My sight had been restored. The desire of my life was an accomplished fact. I could actually see!

Dimly I could distinguish his short, burly form between myself and the faint light of the half-opened blinds, but even though all was as yet misty and indistinct, I knew that what had been averred was the actual truth – the specialists had been mistaken. With care and continued treatment my sight would strengthen until I became like other men.

“I can see!” I cried excitedly. “I can see you, doctor – and the light – and the blinds!”

“Then you acknowledge that what I told you was the truth – that I did not lie to you when I told you that your case was not beyond recovery?”

“Certainly. You told me the truth,” I said hastily. “At the time it seemed too improbable, but now that you have shown me proof, I must ask your pardon if any words of mine have given you offence.”

“You’ve not offended me in the slightest, my dear sir,” he answered pleasantly. “Persevere with the treatment, and continue for another few days in darkness, and then I feel confident that a perfectly satisfactory cure will have been effected. Of course, we must not expect a clear vision at once, but by degrees your sight will slowly become stronger.”

And with those words he closed the blinds and drew the curtain close, so that the room was again darkened.

Imagine the thankfulness that filled my heart! It was no illusion. I had actually seen the narrow rays of sunlight between the half-opened blind and the dark silhouette of the short, stout, full-bearded man who was effecting such a marvellous cure.

I gripped his hand in the darkness, and thanked him.

“How can I sufficiently repay you?” I said. “This service you have rendered me has opened up to me an absolutely new life.”

“I desire no repayment, Mr Heaton,” he answered in his deep, hearty voice. “That my treatment of malignant sclerotitis is successful, and that I have been the means of restoring sight to one of my fellow-men, is sufficient in itself.”

“But I have one question I wish to ask you,” I said. “The mode in which you were introduced to me is extremely puzzling. Do you know nothing of the lady named Edna?”

“I know her – that is all.”

“Where does she live?”

“I regret that I am not able to answer your question.”

“You are bound to secrecy regarding her?”

“I may as well admit the truth – I am.”

“It’s extraordinary,” I ejaculated. “Very extraordinary!”

“Not so extraordinary as the recovery of your vision,” he observed. “Remain perfectly quiet, and don’t take upon yourself any mental problems. A great deal now depends upon your own calmness.”

The fact that my sight was gradually returning to me seemed too astonishing to believe. This man Slade, whoever he was, had performed a feat in surgery which seemed to me miraculous.

Again and again I thanked him, but when he had gone and I told Parker she only gave vent to a grunt of incredulity. Yet had I not actually seen the silhouette of Slade, and the streaks of sunlight beyond? Had I not already had ocular proof that a cure was being effected?

What would Dick, dear old Dick, say on his return when he found me cured? I laughed as I pictured to myself his amazement at finding me at the railway-station on his arrival – looking for him.

Through a whole month Slade came regularly each day at noon, and surely, by slow degrees, my vision became strengthened, until at length I found that, even though I wore smoke-darkened glasses, I could see almost as well as I had done in the days of my youth. The glasses destroyed all colour, it was true, yet I could now go forth into the busy Strand, mingle with the bustling crowds, and revel in their life and movement. Indeed, in those first days of the recovery of my vision I went about London in taxis and omnibuses, hither and thither, with all the enthusiasm of a country cousin or a child on his first visit to the Metropolis. All was novel and interesting on my return to a knowledge of life.

Slade, I found, was a gentlemanly fellow with the air of a clever physician, but all my efforts to discover his abode proved unavailing, and, moreover, just as the cure was complete he one day failed to call as usual. Without word he relinquished me just as suddenly as he had come; but he had restored to me that precious sense which is one of God’s chief gifts.

In those September days, when all the world seemed gay and bright, I went forth into the world with a new zest for life. I took short trips to Richmond and Hampton Court, so that I might again gaze upon the green trees, the winding river, and the fields that I loved so well; and I spent a day at Brighton, and stood for a full couple of hours watching the rolling sea beating upon the beach. Six weeks before I was a hopeless misanthrope, whose life had been utterly sapped by the blighting affliction upon me. Now I was strong and healthy in mind and in body; prepared to do anything or to go anywhere.

It was a fancy of mine to go down to the home of my youth, Heaton Manor, a place well known to those acquainted with the district around Tewkesbury. The great old mansion, standing in the centre of a wide, well-wooded park that slopes down to the Severn close to the Haw Bridge, had long been closed, and in the hands of the old servant Baxter and his wife. Indeed, I had never lived there since, on my father’s death, it had passed into my possession. The rooms were opened for my inspection, and as I wandered through them and down the long oak-panelled gallery, from the walls of which rows of my time-dimmed ancestors, in their ruffles, velvets, and laces looked down solemnly, a flood of recollections of my sunny days of childhood crowded upon me.

Seven years had passed since my last visit there. The old ivy covered manor was, indeed, dilapidated, and sadly out of repair. The furniture and hangings in many of the rooms seemed rotting with damp and neglect, and as I entered the nursery, and was shown my own toys, it seemed as though, like Rip Van Winkle, I had returned again to life after a long absence.

Alone, I wandered in the park down the avenue of grand old elms. The wide view across the brimming river, with Hasfield Church, and the old Tithe Barn at Chaceley standing prominent in the landscape, had, I saw, in no way changed. I looked back upon the house – a grand old home it was, one that any man might have been proud of, yet of what use was it to me? Should I sell it? Or should I allow it to still rot and decay until my will became proved, and it passed into the hands of my heirs and assigns?

I felt loth to part with it, for the old place had been built soon after the fierce and historic battle had been fought at Tewkesbury, and ever since Richard Heaton had commanded one of the frigates which went forth to meet the Armada, it had been the ancestral home of the Heatons.

How strange it all was! At every turn I peered upon the world through my grey glass spectacles, and took as keen an interest in it as does a child. All seemed new to me; my brain, like a child’s, became filled with new impressions and fresh ideas. After my dull, colourless existence of sound and touch, this bright life of movement filled me with a delight that pen cannot describe. Imagine, however, what joy it is to one who has been pronounced incurably blind to look upon the world again and taste of its pleasures. It was that joy which gave lightness to my heart.

Yet over all was one grim shadow – the remembrance of that fateful night with its grim tragedy. Who was Edna? Where was she? What was she?

Through her instrumentality I had regained my sight, but her identity and her whereabouts still remained hidden, as she had plainly told me they would be before we had parted.

Hither and thither I went, fêted and feasted by my friends at the Savage, the Devonshire, and other clubs, yet my mind was ever troubled by the mystery of the woman who had, from motives that were entirely hidden, exerted herself on my behalf, first in saving my life from unscrupulous assassins, and, secondly, in restoring my vision.