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Read Ebook: John L. Stoddard's Lectures Vol. 03 (of 10) Japan I Japan II China by Stoddard John L John Lawson
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Ebook has 449 lines and 44122 words, and 9 pages
"Give me half-a-crown," said John Whyley.
"Did they? Wish I'd stood out for a sovereign."
As he spoke he started his horse slowly, and the cab went by the constable, whose lamp showed the interior very indistinctly, the cab window being drawn up, and then the sight and sound of the vehicle died out in the fog, and all was once more still.
"Ill wind as blows no one any good!" said the constable, slowly continuing his beat. "Rather have my half-crown than their sick headaches in the morning. Rather rum that no one came out with all that talking."
John Whyley hummed a tune and tried two or three front-doors and area gates, and then he took off his helmet and scratched his head as if puzzled.
"Now, have I done right?" he said suddenly. "Seemed to be square. Smelt of drink horrid. Other two 'peared to be on all but once or twice. I say! Was it acting?"
He gave his helmet a sharp blow with his doubled fist, stuck it on tightly, and took a few quick steps in the direction in which the cab had moved off.
"Tchah!" he ejaculated, stopping short; "that's the worst o' my trade; makes a man suspicious of everything and everybody. Why, I nearly accused the missus of picking my pockets of that sixpence I forgot I spent with a mate. It's all right. They were as tight as tight. Ugh! What a night."
John Whyley's beat took him in another direction, but something--a feeling of dissatisfaction with his late act, or the suspicion engendered by his calling made him turn back and go slowly to the doctor's door.
All was perfectly still; the red lamp burned over the principal door, while over the surgery door the three last letters were more indistinct than ever, and "Surg" somehow looked like a portion of "Resurgam" on a memorial stone.
John Whyley went close up to the latter door, and listened. All was still.
He hesitated a few moments, and then tapped and listened again, when there seemed to be a slight rustling sound within, but he could not be sure.
Turning on his light, there, beside him, was a bell-pull with the hole half-filled with snow.
"Shall I?" he said, hesitating. "People don't like being called up for a cock-and-bull story, and what have I got to say? These gents came away tight."
He paused and removed his helmet for another refreshing scratch.
"Was it acting? I've heerd a chap on the stage drawl just like that one with the thick voice. Now, stop a moment. Let's argufy. Couldn't be burglary. Yes, it could--body burglary!"
John Whyley grew excited as a strange train of thought ran through his head in connection with what he had heard tell about surgeons and their investigations, and purchases delivered in the dead of night.
"I don't care," he said; "wrong or right, I wish I hadn't let that cab go, and I'll get to the bottom of it before I've done."
It might have been connected with visions of another possible half-crown, or it might have been in an honest desire to do his duty as a guardian of the public safety. At any rate, John Whyley gave a vigorous tug at Dr Chartley's night-bell and waited.
"No answer; that's a suspicious fact," he said to himself; and he rang again, listened, waited, and rang again.
Hardly had the wire ceased to grate, when a curious whispering voice, close to his ear, said "What is it?" so strangely that John, who had only been a year in London, bounded back into the snow, and half drew his truncheon.
"What is it? Who's there?" came then.
"What a fool I am! Speaking trumpet!" muttered the man, and directing his light toward the doorpost he saw a raised patch of snow, which upon being removed displayed a hole.
To this, full of confidence now, John Whyley applied his lips.
"Police!" he said. "Anything wrong?" There was a pause, and then the same strange voice came again.
"Wait. I'll come down."
Waiting was cold work, and John Whyley took at trot up, and was returning when he saw a dim light shine through the long glazed slits at the sides of the principal door, and directly after he heard a click a if a candlestick were set down on a marble slab, and one of the narrow windows showed a human shape in a misty way.
The bull's-eye was turned on, and, after the momentary glimpse of a face, the rattling of a chain was heard and the front-door was opened a few inches to reveal a pale, haggard, but very handsome face, with large lustrous eyes, which looked dilated and strange.
"I did not understand you, policeman. Is anything the matter?"
"Well, Miss, that's for you to say;" and he related what he had seen.
"It is very strange. My father's door is locked, and there is no light."
"Yes, Miss--one over the door."
"Yes, but that only shines into the surgery. My brother has not come back."
"But the doctor had company, Miss: that gentleman who had taken too much."
"Oh, no; impossible."
"I don't understand you."
"Well, Miss, I'm afraid there's something wrong. But the doctor?"
"He is not in his room."
"But how about the speaking trumpet?"
"I heard the night-bell. He is not in his chamber, and the passage door is locked. Perhaps--" a few moments' pause; then in a firm decided tone, "Yes, you had better come in."
The door was closed, so that the chain could be unfastened; and as the door was being reopened, John Whyley pulled himself together, and cleared his throat.
"Don't be alarmed, Miss," he said, as he stood in the large blank hall, and rubbed his shoes upon a very old mat. "I don't like scaring you but its better to make sure than to let anything go wrong. That's partly, you see, Miss, what we're for."
"Yes, yes, but come at once to the surgery."
"One minute, Miss," said the constable, examining carefully the handsome frightened face, and noting that its owner was tall, graceful, rather dark, and about three or four and twenty, while though her hair was in disorder as if from lying down, the lady was fully dressed.
"What do you want?" she said, with the wild look in her eyes intensifying.
"To do everything in order, Miss. First, who lives here?"
"My father, Dr Chartley."
"Who else on the premises?"
"The servant-girl. Our boy. My brother, a medical student, lives here, but he has not yet returned. He is at a friend's house--a little party."
"And you've had a party here, Miss?"
"Oh, no; we never have company."
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