IT!
By E. M. SAMSON
IT BEGAN in France.
I was, at the time, leaning over the operating table upon which lay an unconscious officer, not seriously wounded, but needing immediate attention: And the guard standing stiffly by the door indicated he was a prisoner of much more than ordinary importance. Indeed, it was no secret to those of us in the room that the brain hidden within that closely cropped skull was responsible for more allied reverses than the combined brains of the entire General Staff, and, if given the smallest of opportunities, he would slip through our fingers and vanish.
Behind me stood Major Selwyn Morris, of the Intelligence Department, and it was he who leaned forward and whispered:
"All is fair in love and war, Horace! Now is your chance to test your theory and rid us of a dangerous foe!"
For an instant I stared incredulously at the speaker, then turned with, a shudder of repugnance to complete the work before me. An expression of disgust clouded the major's face, and regret flickered in his gray eyes as he followed the patient from the room.
"A wonderful chance!" he murmured. "And you lost your nerve, Horace!"
At that instant was sown the first seed of discord in a friendship of years' standing, intimacy as seldom ever exists even between brothers!
I, Horace Tremaine, and Selwyn Morris had gone through college together, inseparable companions, sharing reverses as well as joys, and when I took up the study of medicine, he began law. Nor did graduation separate us or bring about any change in our relations; for we took an apartment in the city and shared quarters as before.
As an attorney-at-law Selwyn was mediocre, but I at once leaped to the front in my chosen profession. Endowed by nature with the keen brain, uncanny judgment, and long, supple fingers—the surgeon's hand, a very few years sufficed to establish me as one of the country's leading operators. With an insatiable passion for research and plenty of money, I set up a laboratory in our apartment, far removed from any possibility of disturbance, and there performed the work which soon made me the leading authority on brain surgery.
As for Selwyn, he could not have been more delighted and enthusiastic had the success been his own; and, sharing as he did my entire confidence, knowing my hopes and my dreams, he was aware of my wonderful discovery—the exact location in the brain of a center which I named temporarily the "Memory center." It was a complex ganglion, and I confidently believed that, with the living human brain to work upon, I could isolate the component centers, thus making possible by operation the complete extirpation of all criminal tendencies!
That was my hope, the ambition which spurred me on!
Upon one occasion only did I have the opportunity to try the experiment, and though it did not result exactly as I anticipated, it proved my theory to be correct without a shadow of a doubt. One night, while tramping the lower city as had been our habit, we caught a murderer red-handed. Like a flash, the same idea came to both of us, and we saved him from the law by smuggling him into our apartment where, believing the end justified the means, we compelled the frightened wretch to submit to the operation.
Without a trace of egotism I say that operation was a beautiful and delicate piece of work; but instead of removing the criminal tendency, it served to locate what I called the "center of personal recollection." That-man, though he retained all the intelligence he ever possessed, lost every shred of personal remembrance! Every thought, every incident which would serve to identify him was gone! And what was most remarkable, he did not know he had forgotten anything! To continue the experiment, I placed him in a state of partial anesthesia, then related a fictitious personal history, complete in details—all of which he later repeated as fact and believed it himself!
IT WAS shortly after this the war came, and both Selwyn and I went over—he, in the Intelligence Department, and I, in the medical.
In charge of my own hospital I gave proof of my aptitude by taking up reconstructive surgery and producing results so miraculous that surgeons of all nations came to study my methods. Today, many men with "Tremaine faces" are passed on the streets without attracting a second glance because of disfigurement.
Then came the suggestion that I debase both myself and my profession by robbing a fellow being of more than his life—his family, position, home, his entity! It mattered not that he was an enemy who would not hesitate to take my life should we meet in the open—that he might escape and do incalculable harm to our cause—such an action was unthinkable! And Selwyn Morris not only counseled it, but attempted to justify it with the old—"All is fair in love and war"! It revealed a moral depravity, a perversion of soul hitherto concealed from me, which nauseated and made me wonder at our long friendship.
Fortunately my work kept me so busy I saw little of him, for with each day my aversion increased, and though I tried to conceal it because of our years of intimacy, it was growing beyond my control.
It was also in France that I met Margaret Thomas.
Having baffled the plans of many ambitious and designing mothers, I had come to consider myself immune, and fully expected to end my days a bachelor; but such was the lure of her beauty and attractiveness, I surrendered without a struggle. Though I had not declared myself, I felt that she understood and returned my love; and I dreamed of the day when, the war ended, I could take her back home as my wife. Then without warning, my dream was shattered! I encountered her with Selwyn Morris, and was informed of the ceremony that had just been performed! The world suddenly went black, I staggered, and out of the darkness I heard him murmur:
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