The Death-Doctor/11
CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH I ATTEND A STRANGE CASE
SIR RICHARD NANSON, of the firm of Nanson & Nanson, foreign bankers, in Moorgate Street, was a small mine of wealth to me for about four months.
I met him first at Monte Carlo, the place above all others, to my mind, for a short holiday.
He was one of those big, handsome, aristocratic-looking men, with a long, fair beard, tinged with grey, and a voice of the most beautiful quality.
As you know by this time. Brown, I am a being of the most complex nature. I love music, I can sit and listen to it all day if it is good, I am a great admirer of art—indeed, I am not at all a bad artist myself, and yet at the same time, there are few vices I have not indulged in.
Yes, I find pleasure in the very lowest and most diabolically wicked places which are to be found on the Continent—nothing of that kind jars on me.
All this, apropos of Nanson's voice.
A strong desire to know him was soon satisfied by a mutual friend visiting at the Casino, and, curiously enough, he took a great fancy to me, so much so, that, as we were both without travelling companions, he asked me to be his guest at the Hôtel de Paris, in which he was staying, for the last three days of my short visit to the gamblers' paradise.
You may be certain I accepted the invitation very promptly, and hoped that, in the future, something substantial in the way of financial increment might be the outcome of the new friendship struck up in this unexpected manner. We went about together constantly during the next three days, and in that time I made a discovery, or at least felt certain that I had.
Sir Richard Nanson was in the early stage of that grim and fatal disease, G.P.I., as we call it. General Paralysis of the Insane being the full name.
The first stage of this affection, which is much more common than folks imagine, is very often one of exaltation, during which the sufferer imagines himself possessed of wealth untold, or power unlimited. It was while the banker was in this diseased frame of mind that I hoped to feather my nest at his expense. Without going into further detail at this point, I may say that on my return to London, I managed to extract no less than five thousand pounds from him in the course of the next two months. I so contrived that not even his subordinates, or clerks at the bank, had any definite proof that this money had been given to me.
I received it all in notes, and as far as anybody knew, these notes had been used by the head of the firm himself.
Of course, if suspicion arose they could be traced, but suspicion should not be aroused if I could help it. I say nobody knew it, and I went my way, happy in that belief, until the day on which he paid me the last five hundred.
On that particular morning I had cause to go out suddenly into the little ante-room adjoining his office in the bank, in which Fernie, an old servant, waited all day to attend to the personal wants of his master.
There was a solid party-wall between the two rooms, but running along the top of this wall was a narrow strip of glass, evidently put there to give more light to the office.
I was disagreeably surprised when I entered the ante-room to see Fernie standing on a wooden office chair, which in its turn stood on a small table, with his nose glued to the glass which I have mentioned. It was evident that he could see, and in all probability hear, what went on in his master's sanctum.
I took an antipathy to the creature the first time I saw him. He was a little, thin, dried-up atom of a man, with a wizened, wrinkled face, and sharp, beady black eyes, which I felt sure took in all that went on around their owner.
"Hullo, Fernie," I said quietly. "what's the game up there?"
He jumped down with wonderful activity for a man over sixty, and coming close up to me, his restless, twinkling eyes shining quite malignantly, he squeaked out in his high-pitched voice:
"I seen yer—I seen yer every time when 'e give yer all them notes; you ain't playin' fair with 'im—'e don't know wot 'e's a-doin' of—you've got to give 'em back, d'ye 'ear, 'e'll want 'em all for Miss Lucy.'
This was awkward, because it was a certainty that before long all the world must know of the banker's illness, and an inquiry into his finances would inevitably follow. With this little devil as a witness against me, my dealings with a man whose brain was affected would cause me serious trouble if they came out.
I could see that it was necessary to go "canny" with this queer specimen of humanity, and I asked," Why do you say 'he doesn't know what he's doing'?"
"I've knowed 'im thirty years," was the answer, "and I've seen that 'e's not been 'isself for some time."
"You're talking nonsense, Fernie," I laughed, "Sir Richard is all right."
I kept away from the bank for close on a fortnight after this, and then received a message from Sir Richard asking me to visit him at his private house, in Kensington Gardens, which, so far, I had avoided.
I was very disgusted when I saw Fernie, dressed in irreproachable black, open the door for me, and I did not fail to notice the look, both suspicious and impertinent, which he gave me. Nanson was sitting in an arm-chair in his gorgeously furnished bedroom, and I was surprised to see the change which two weeks had made in him.
"Where the devil have you been all this long time, d'Escombe?" he inquired. "I'm very seedy. My brain's queer, I don't seem to be able to think logically, and my money matters are all in a muddle. I don't know if I've got any left. Didn't I give you some once?"
"Oh, no, Sir Richard," I answered, and as I spoke I looked round the room, half expecting to see that horrid little hound Fernie somewhere about.
"As you know, d'Escombe, I've only got my daughter to think of, but I don't know how I stand, or how she would be situated if I died now. I can't get to the bank; I shouldn't comprehend things if I could. What's coming to me, doctor, am I going mad?" he asked, and the once strong-minded, able, and plucky financier burst into a flood of tears.
"Cheer up, man," I said, "I'll just keep you in bed for a week or so, and give you a chance to pick up; you've been overdoing it."
"All right, d'Escombe," was the answer. "But I refuse to see any visitors, or do any business. Only you, and Lucy, and Fernie shall be allowed in."
I had a talk with his daughter before I left, and told her that the outlook was bad, but suggested that we should wait another fortnight before letting anyone into the secret, if things worked out according to my prognosis.
"Once brand a man with brain trouble and he is condemned for the rest of his life," I told her.
Fernie opened the door to show me out that afternoon, and as he did so, said to me, "That money's Miss Lucy's; you give it to her, doctor; I've seen 'im and you over them notes."
The affair was now at such a pass as to cause me "furiously to think," but it was two days later that the idea came to me.
Sir Richard's mental faculties were rapidly getting worse. It was now necessary either for his daughter, Fernie or me to be always in attendance on him, and it was a look that he gave Fernie, and which I caught, that first put the project into my head.
The banker's brain, as I have told you, was very unbalanced; he was irritable, suspicious, and difficult to manage, and it was quite easy for me to do what I wished, namely, to inflame his mind against his old servant.
"I don't like telling tales, Sir Richard," I said to him; "but there is a leakage of information about your health. I was asked only yesterday if your brain was queer. Of course I said no, but where did the idea come from? Only your daughter, myself or Fernie could possibly have said anything."
"Then it must be that rascal," he shouted. "Send for him now, I'll show him that he can't play fast and loose with me."
"Gently, Sir Richard, gently," I said. "You must keep calm, sleep on it, and we'll see to-morrow; in the meantime I'll make a few inquiries for you."
He calmed down, and I went home to make preparations for carrying out my scheme.
I proposed, after sowing the seeds of suspicion in the sick man's mind against Fernie, once more to utilize a certain alkaloid and a drug in combination, the effect of which, injected hypodermically, would be to cause in the banker's tottering brain an intense excitement, which would be very likely to take a homicidal form. If, when the effect was at its climax, he should be alone with Fernie, then—well, he was big and still muscular, and the servant would not have a chance, if trouble did come. It was a lovely plan, and I felt quite pleased with myself, as I overhauled my syringe, pregnant with so great a potential power of evil.
I intended to use muscarin, a little known extractive from poisonous fungi, and curare, and I felt pretty certain that they would have the desired effect. And then, with Fernie removed, and Nanson looked upon as a lunatic, the finger of suspicion could not be pointed at me.
I had had made to my design, about two years before, a pocket-case which would hold in safety a fully charged hypodermic syringe, and this was a necessity to me, because, as a rule, when I used my favourite weapon, it had to be manipulated in a hurry. If it were necessary to charge it on the scene of action, a considerable amount of time was required, and very often I had not more than thirty or forty seconds, free from observation, in which to work.
On the next morning, I still further inflamed my patient's temper against Fernie, and when he became excited I gave him two tabloids of morphia, ostensibly to calm him, really to keep him quiet until the other drugs were active, and then, after waiting half an hour, I put my syringe into the back of his neck, and injected the prepared mixture. The usual place in which to give a hypodermic is, of course, the arm, but it shows, and, except for legitimate work, I always use the neck. In order to make things safe, I told Miss Nanson that I thought she wanted more fresh air, and said that at two o'clock I should call for her and take her for a short run in my motor. She demurred for a while, but I got my own way ultimately, and as I handed her into the car later on I remarked to Fernie, who had run downstairs for a moment, "We leave him in your most capable hands, Fernie, I'm sure he will be safe."
Did some strange presentiment come over him just then? He certainly went suddenly white, indeed almost ghastly. I confess I felt a little excited as we drew up at the Nanson establishment about a quarter-past three, but no, everything was quite peaceful.
"Good God," I thought. "am I going to fail?"
"Everything quite quiet, Sarah?" asked the young mistress, as the neat housemaid brought in afternoon tea.
"Yes, miss, quite quiet," answered the girl.
Little did the two women dream that I was on tenter-hooks from second to second, as I waited for something to happen, I hardly knew what, myself.
"Should we hear his death scream?" I wondered.
I really think that was the longest forty-seven minutes of my life.
The maid returned to remove the cups, and I imagined that Miss Nanson would be curious about my unusually long stay, and then, just as the girl got to the door with the tray it happened.
It was a scream.
It came suddenly, out of the silence of the big house, a horrid, dreadful sound of mortal, hopeless fear, so horrid as to give even me that feeling that one's blood is freezing in one's body. Then it died away for a moment only, and recurred with a change of note—a deeper, more despairing and terrifying screech than before, which only a man facing immediate death could utter; a long-drawn-out last hopeless call, ending in a choking, gurgling bubble—and then—silence.
"What is it? What has happened? Oh, doctor, what is it?" whispered Miss Nanson, as she half tottered towards me. "Is it in the house? W-w-was it father?"
The maid still remained motionless by the door, and as I said "Come, Miss Nanson, let us see what it is," I put my hand on the girl's shoulder, and told her to find the coachman and send him upstairs to me.
All was quiet as we started to go to the invalid's room, but when we got nearer to it, a low, fiendish, blood-curdling chuckle made us stand for a moment and listen.
The girl clutched tight hold of my arm. "I'm frightened, doctor. Oh, I'm so frightened," she said in a low, trembling voice; "something awful has happened."
I had an idea of what I should see, but, good God! I never in all my life saw anything quite so repulsive and loathsome.
One glance, and I stepped back, closing the door as I did so.
"Go downstairs, Miss Lucy," I said; "I will look after things, and see to your father, but this is no sight for you."
She went, and on the stairs passed the square-jawed, strongly-built coachman for whom I had sent.
He did not look any too happy as I told him to follow me, and when he entered his master's bedroom behind me I thought he would have collapsed.
Lying on his back with his head towards the foot of the bed was the wretched Fernie, his face blue-black, and puffed out almost beyond recognition; froth issued from his swollen lips, while the thin but sinewy hands of his master still convulsively gripped the bruised and discoloured neck of his victim.
Sir Richard Nanson, with hair dishevelled, and clothed only in a long, white night shirt, was kneeling on the bed, one knee on each side of the dead man, and as I looked he stared at me with an expression I can only describe as being like that of a maddened, half-famished cat, who has just caught a bird, and fears that it is going to be taken from him.
There was no sign of recognition in his wild, bloodshot eyes, and he made no movement, only that he looked about him quickly, savagely, and furtively, as if watching to see that no one came to take his prey from him.
It was quite evident that Fernie was dead, and that his destroyer was suffering from acute and dangerous mania.
"No doubt about the action of muscarin and curare," I told myself; "but I must certainly have more experience before I use them again; evidently the mixture was wrong, or I gave too big a dose."
The police were sent for, and ultimately Sir Richard became an inmate of an asylum, in which he has remained ever since.
The banker's affairs when examined were in a terrible state, and I went to a good deal of trouble in order to find Lucy Nanson, who is a very independent young person, a post as lady-companion to some society aristocrat.
And I kept, and have spent, the five thousand.