Certainly, such impudence as that of Mr. Levinsky is rare even in east-end London, and it may be worth while to return to the corner of the billiard-room and to study more closely this remarkable man.
He was sitting where the detectives had left him, and although their departure might have been supposed to have depressed him, actually it had had a contrary effect; he was chuckling with amusement, and, between his chuckles, addressing himself to the contents of the pewter with every mark of appreciation. Three gleaming golden teeth on the lower row, and one glittering canine, made a dazzling show every time that he smiled; he was a very greasy and a very mirthful Hebrew.
Finishing his tankard of ale, he shuffled out into the street, the line of his bent shoulders running parallel with that of his hat-brim. His hat appeared to be several sizes too large for his head, and his skull was only prevented from disappearing into the capacious crown by the intervention of his ears, which, acting as brackets, supported the whole weight of the rain-sodden structure. He mounted a tram proceeding in the same direction as that which had borne off the Scotland Yard men. Quitting this at Bow Road, he shuffled into the railway station, and from Bow Road proceeded to Liverpool Street. Emerging from the station at Liverpool Street, he entered a motor-'bus bound westward.
His neighbors, inside, readily afforded him ample elbow room; and, smiling agreeably at every one, including the conductor (who resented his good-humor) and a pretty girl in the corner seat (who found it embarrassing) he proceeded to Charing Cross. Descending from the 'bus, he passed out into Leicester Square and plunged into the network of streets which complicates the map of Soho. It will be of interest to follow him.
In a narrow turning off Greek Street, and within hail of the popular Bohemian restaurants, he paused before a doorway sandwiched between a Continental newsagent's and a tiny French cafe; and, having fumbled in his greasy raiment he presently produced a key, opened the door, carefully closed it behind him, and mounted the dark stair.
On the top floor he entered a studio, boasting a skylight upon which the rain was drumming steadily and drearily. Lighting a gas burner in one corner of the place which bore no evidence of being used for its legitimate purpose—he entered a little adjoining dressing-room. Hot and cold water were laid on there, and a large zinc bath stood upon the floor. With the aid of an enamel bucket, Mr. Abraham Levinsky filled the bath.
Leaving him to his ablutions, let us glance around the dressing-room. Although there was no easel in the studio, and no indication of artistic activity, the dressing-room was well stocked with costumes. Two huge dress-baskets were piled in one corner, and their contents hung upon hooks around the three available walls. A dressing table, with a triplicate mirror and a suitably shaded light, presented a spectacle reminiscent less of a model's dressing-room than of an actor's.
At the expiration of some twenty-five minutes, the door of this dressing-room opened; and although Abraham Levinsky had gone in, Abraham Levinsky did not come out!
Carefully flicking a particle of ash from a fold of his elegant, silk-lined cloak, a most distinguished looking gentleman stepped out onto the bleak and dirty studio. He wore, in addition to a graceful cloak, which was lined with silk of cardinal red, a soft black hat, rather wide brimmed and dented in a highly artistic manner, and irreproachable evening clothes; his linen was immaculate; and no valet in London could have surpassed the perfect knotting of his tie. His pearl studs were elegant and valuable; and a single eyeglass was swung about his neck by a thin, gold chain. The white gloves, which fitted perfectly, were new; and if the glossy boots were rather long in the toe-cap from an English point of view, the gold-headed malacca cane which the newcomer carried was quite de rigeur.
The strong clean-shaven face calls for no description here; it was the face of M. Gaston Max.
M. Max, having locked the study door, and carefully tried it to make certain of its security, descended the stairs. He peeped out cautiously into the street ere setting foot upon the pavement; but no one was in sight at the moment, and he emerged quickly, closing the door behind him, and taking shelter under the newsagent's awning. The rain continued its steady downpour, but M. Max stood there softly humming a little French melody until a taxi-cab crawled into view around the Greek Street corner.
He whistled shrilly through his teeth—the whistle of a gamin; and the cabman, glancing up and perceiving him, pulled around into the turning, and drew up by the awning.
M. Max entered the cab.
“To Frascati's,” he directed.
The cabman backed out into Greek Street and drove off. This was the hour when the theaters were beginning to eject their throngs, and outside one of them, where a popular comedy had celebrated its three-hundred-and-fiftieth performance, the press of cabs and private cars was so great that M. Max found himself delayed within sight of the theater foyer.
Those patrons of the comedy who had omitted to order vehicles or who did not possess private conveyances, found themselves in a quandary tonight, and amongst those thus unfortunately situated, M. Max, watching the scene with interest, detected a lady whom he knew—none other than the delightful American whose conversation had enlivened his recent journey from Paris—Miss Denise Ryland. She was accompanied by a charming companion, who, although she was wrapped up in a warm theater cloak, seemed to be shivering disconsolately as she and her friend watched the interminable stream of vehicles filing up before the theater, and cutting them off from any chance of obtaining a cab for themselves.
M. Max acted promptly.
“Drive into that side turning!” he directed the cabman, leaning out of the window. The cabman followed his directions, and M. Max, heedless of the inclement weather, descended from the cab, dodged actively between the head lamps of a big Mercedes and the tail-light of a taxi, and stood bowing before the two ladies, his hat pressed to his bosom with one gloved hand, the other, ungloved, resting upon the gold knob of the malacca.
“Why!” cried Miss Ryland, “if it isn't... M. Gaston! My dear ... M. Gaston! Come under the awning, or”—her head was wagging furiously—“you will be... simply drowned.”
M. Max smilingly complied.
“This is M. Gaston,” said Denise Ryland, turning to her companion, “the French gentleman... whom I met... in the train from... Paris. This is Miss Helen Cumberly, and I know you two will get on... famously.”
M. Max acknowledged the presentation with a few simple words which served to place the oddly met trio upon a mutually easy footing. He was, par excellence, the polished cosmopolitan man of the world.
“Fortunately I saw your dilemma,” he explained. “I have a cab on the corner yonder, and it is entirely at your service.”
“Now that... is real good of you,” declared Denise Ryland. “I think you're... a brick.”...
“But, my dear Miss Ryland!” cried Helen, “we cannot possibly deprive M. Gaston of his cab on a night like this!”
“I had hoped,” said the Frenchman, bowing gallantly, “that this most happy reunion might not be allowed to pass uncelebrated. Tell me if I intrude upon other plans, because I am speaking selfishly; but I was on my way to a lonely supper, and apart from the great pleasure which your company would afford me, you would be such very good Samaritans if you would join me.”
Helen Cumberly, although she was succumbing rapidly to the singular fascination of M. Max, exhibited a certain hesitancy. She was no stranger to Bohemian customs, and if the distinguished Frenchman had been an old friend of her companion's, she should have accepted without demur; but she knew that the acquaintance had commenced in a Continental railway train, and her natural prudence instinctively took up a brief for the prosecution. But Denise Ryland had other views.
“My dear girl,” she said, “you are not going to be so... crack-brained... as to stand here... arguing and contracting... rheumatism, lumbago... and other absurd complaints... when you know PERFECTLY well that we had already arranged to go... to supper!” She turned to the smiling Max. “This girl needs... DRAGGING out of... her morbid self... M. Gaston! We'll accept... your cab, on the distinct... understanding that YOU are to accept OUR invitation... to supper.”
M. Max bowed agreeably.
“By all means let MY cab take us to YOUR supper,” he said, laughing.
At a few minutes before midnight, Helen Cumberly and Denise Ryland, escorted by the attentive Frenchman, arrived at Palace Mansions. Any distrust which Helen had experienced at first was replaced now by the esteem which every one of discrimination (criminals excluded) formed of M. Max. She perceived in him a very exquisite gentleman, and although the acquaintance was but one hour old, counted him a friend. Denise Ryland was already quite at home in the Cumberly household, and she insisted that Dr. Cumberly would be deeply mortified should M. Gaston take his departure without making his acquaintance. Thus it came about that M. Gaston Max was presented (as “M. Gaston”) to Dr. Cumberly.
Cumberly, who had learned to accept men and women upon his daughter's estimate, welcomed the resplendent Parisian hospitably; the warm, shaded lights made convivial play in the amber deeps of the decanters, and the cigars had a fire-side fragrance which M. Max found wholly irresistible.
The ladies being momentarily out of ear-shot, M. Gaston glancing rapidly about him, said: “May I beg a favor, Dr. Cumberly?”
“Certainly, M. Gaston,” replied the physician—he was officiating at the syphon. “Say when.”
“When!” said Max. “I should like to see you in Harley Street to-morrow morning.”
Cumberly glanced up oddly. “Nothing wrong, I hope?”
“Oh, not professionally,” smiled Max; “or perhaps I should say only semi-professionally. Can you spare me ten minutes?”
“My book is rather full in the morning, I believe,” said Cumberly, frowning thoughtfully, “and without consulting it—which, since it is in Harley Street, is impossible—I scarcely know when I shall be at liberty. Could we not lunch together?”
Max blew a ring of smoke from his lips and watched it slowly dispersing.
“For certain reasons,” he replied, and his odd American accent became momentarily more perceptible, “I should prefer that my visit had the appearance of being a professional one.”
Cumberly was unable to conceal his surprise, but assuming that his visitor had good reason for the request, he replied after a moment's reflection:
“I should propose, then, that you come to Harley Street at, shall we say, 9.30? My earliest professional appointment is at 10. Will that inconvenience you?”
“Not at all,” Max assured him; “it will suit me admirably.”
With that the matter dropped for the time, since Helen and her new friend now reentered; and although Helen's manner was markedly depressed, Miss Ryland energetically turned the conversation upon the subject of the play which they had witnessed that evening.
M. Max, when he took his departure, found that the rain had ceased, and accordingly he walked up Whitehall, interesting himself in those details of midnight London life so absorbing to the visitor, though usually overlooked by the resident.
Punctually at half-past nine, a claret-colored figure appeared in sedate Harley Street. M. Gaston Max pressed the bell above which appeared:
DR. BRUCE CUMBERLY.
He was admitted by Garnham, who attended there daily during the hours when Dr. Cumberly was visible to patients, and presently found himself in the consulting room of the physician.
“Good morning, M. Gaston!” said Cumberly, rising and shaking his visitor by the hand. “Pray sit down, and let us get to business. I can give you a clear half-hour.”
Max, by way of reply, selected a card from one of the several divisions of his card-case, and placed it on the table. Cumberly glanced at it and started slightly, turning and surveying his visitor with a new interest.
“You are M. Gaston Max!” he said, fixing his gray eyes upon the face of the man before him. “I understood my daughter to say”...
Max waved his hands, deprecatingly.
“It is in the first place to apologize,” he explained, “that I am here. I was presented to your daughter in the name of Gaston—which is at least part of my own name—and because other interests were involved I found myself in the painful position of being presented to you under the same false colors”...
“Oh, dear, dear!” began Cumberly. “But—”
“Ah! I protest, it is true,” continued Max with an inimitable movement of the shoulder; “and I regret it; but in my profession”...
“Which you adorn, monsieur,” injected Cumberly.
“Many thanks—but in my profession these little annoyances sometimes occur. At the earliest suitable occasion, I shall reveal myself to Miss Cumberly and Miss Ryland, but at present,”—he spread his palms eloquently, and raised his eyebrows—“morbleu! it is impossible.”
“Certainly; I quite understand that. Your visit to London is a professional one? I am more than delighted to have met you, M. Max; your work on criminal anthroposcopy has an honored place on my shelves.”
Again M. Max delivered himself of the deprecatory wave.
“You cover me with confusion,” he protested; “for I fear in that book I have intruded upon sciences of which I know nothing, and of which you know much.”
“On the contrary, you have contributed to those sciences, M. Max,” declared the physician; “and now, do I understand that the object of your call this morning?”...
“In the first place it was to excuse myself—but in the second place, I come to ask your help.”
He seated himself in a deep armchair—bending forward, and fixing his dark, penetrating eyes upon the physician. Cumberly, turning his own chair slightly, evinced the greatest interest in M. Max's disclosures.
“If you have been in Paris lately,” continued the detective, “you will possibly have availed yourself of the opportunity—since another may not occur—of visiting the house of the famous magician, Cagliostro, on the corner of Rue St. Claude, and Boulevard Beaumarchais”...
“I have not been in Paris for over two years,” said Cumberly, “nor was I aware that a house of that celebrated charlatan remained extant.”
“Ah! Dr. Cumberly, your judgment of Cagliostro is a harsh one. We have no time for such discussion now, but I should like to debate with you this question: was Cagliostro a charlatan? However, the point is this: Owing to alterations taking place in the Boulevard Beaumarchais, some of the end houses in Rue St. Claude are being pulled down, among them Number 1, formerly occupied by the Comte de Cagliostro. At the time that the work commenced, I availed myself of a little leisure to visit that house, once so famous. I was very much interested, and found it fascinating to walk up the Grande Staircase where so many historical personages once walked to consult the seer. But great as was my interest in the apartments of Cagliostro, I was even more interested in one of the apartments in a neighboring house, into which—quite accidentally, you understand—I found myself looking.”
“I perceived,” said M. Gaston Max, “that owing to the progress of the work of demolition, and owing to the carelessness of the people in charge—nom d'un nom! they were careless, those!—I was able, from a certain point, to look into a small room fitted up in a way very curious. There was a sort of bunk somewhat similar to that in a steamer berth, and the walls were covered with paper of a Chinese pattern most bizarre. No one was in the room when I first perceived it, but I had not been looking in for many moments before a Chinaman entered and closed the shutters. He was hasty, this one.
“Eh bien! I had seen enough. I perceived that my visit to the house of Cagliostro had been dictated by a good little angel. It happened that for many months I had been in quest of the headquarters of a certain group which I knew, beyond any tiny doubt, to have its claws deep in Parisian society. I refer to an opium syndicate”...
Dr. Cumberly started and seemed about to speak; but he restrained himself, bending forward and awaiting the detective's next words with even keener interest than hitherto.
“I had been trying—all vainly—to trace the source from which the opium was obtained, and the place where it was used. I have devoted much attention to the subject, and have spent some twelve months in the opium provinces of China, you understand. I know how insidious a thing it is, this opium, and how dreadful a curse it may become when it gets a hold upon a community. I was formerly engaged upon a most sensational case in San Francisco; and the horrors of the discoveries which we made there—the American police and myself—have remained with me ever since. Pardieu! I cannot forget them! Therefore when I learnt that an organized attempt was being made to establish elaborate opium dens upon a most up-to-date plan, in Paris, I exerted myself to the utmost to break up this scheme in its infancy”...
Dr. Cumberly was hanging upon every word.
“Apart from the physical and moral ruin attendant upon the vice,” continued Max, “the methods of this particular organization have brought financial ruin to many.” He shook his finger at Dr. Cumberly as if to emphasize his certainty upon this point. “I will not go into particulars now, but there is a system of wholesale robbery—sapristi! of most ingenious brigandage—being practised by this group. Therefore I congratulated myself upon the inspiration which had led me to mount Cagliostro's staircase. The way in which these people had conducted their sinister trade from so public a spot as this was really wonderful, but I had already learned to respect the ingenuity of the group, or of the man at the head of it. I wasted no time; not I! We raided the house that evening”...
“And what did you find?” asked Dr. Cumberly, eagerly.
“We found this establishment elaborately fitted, and the whole of the fittings were American. Eh bien! This confirmed me in my belief that the establishment was a branch of the wealthy concern I have mentioned in San Francisco. There was also a branch in New York, apparently. We found six or eight people in the place in various stages of coma; and I cannot tell you their names because—among them, were some well-known in the best society”...
“Good Heavens, M. Max, you surprise and shock me!”
“What I tell you is but the truth. We apprehended two low fellows who acted as servants sometimes in the place. We had records of both of them at the Bureau. And there was also a woman belonging to the same class. None of these seemed to me very important, but we were fortunate enough to capture, in addition, a Chinaman—Sen—and a certain Madame Jean—the latter the principal of the establishment!”
“What! a woman?”
“Morbleu! a woman—exactly! You are surprised? Yes; and I was surprised, but full inquiry convinced me that Madame Jean was the chief of staff. We had conducted the raid at night, of course, and because of the big names, we hushed it up. We can do these things in Paris so much more easily than is possible here in London.” He illustrated, delivering a kick upon the person of an imaginary malefactor. “Cochon! Va!” he shrugged. “It is finished!
“The place was arranged with Oriental magnificence. The reception-room—if I can so term that apartment—was like the scene of Rimsky Korsakov's Sheherezade; I could see that very heavy charges were made at this establishment. I will not bore you with further particulars, but I will tell you of my disappointment.”
“Your disappointment?”
“Yes, I was disappointed. True, I had brought about the closing of that house, but of the huge sums of money fraudulently obtained from victims, I could find no trace in the accounts of Madame Jean. She defied me with silence, simply declining to give any account of herself beyond admitting that she conducted an hotel at which opium might be smoked if desired. Blagueur! Sen, the Chinaman, who professed to speak nothing but Chinese—ah! cochon!—was equally a difficult case, Nom d'un nom! I was in despair, for apart from frauds connected with the concern, I had more than small suspicions that at least one death—that of a wealthy banker—could be laid at the doors of the establishment in Rue St. Claude.”...
Dr. Cumberly bent yet lower, watching the speaker's face.
“A murder!” he whispered.
“I do not say so,” replied Max, “but it certainly might have been. The case then must, indeed, have ended miserably, as far as I was concerned, if I had not chanced upon a letter which the otherwise prudent Madame Jean had forgotten to destroy. Triomphe! It was a letter of instruction, and definitely it proved that she was no more than a kind of glorified concierge, and that the chief of the opium group was in London.”
“Undoubtedly in London. There was no address on the letter, and no date, and it was curiously signed: Mr. King.”
“Mr. King!”
Dr. Cumberly rose slowly from his chair, and took a step toward M. Max.
“You are interested?” said the detective, and shrugged his shoulders, whilst his mobile mouth shaped itself in a grim smile. “Pardieu! I knew you would be! Acting upon another clue which the letter—priceless letter—contained, I visited the Credit Lyonnais. I discovered that an account had been opened there by Mr. Henry Leroux of London on behalf of his wife, Mira Leroux, to the amount of a thousand pounds.”
“A thousand pounds—really!” cried Dr. Cumberly, drawing his heavy brows together—“as much as that?”
“Certainly. It was for a thousand pounds,” repeated Max, “and the whole of that amount had been drawn out.”
“The whole thousand?”
“The whole thousand; nom d'un p'tit bonhomme! The whole thousand! Acting, as I have said, upon the information in this always priceless letter, I confronted Madame Jean and the manager of the bank with each other. Morbleu! 'This,' he said, 'is Mira Leroux of London!'”...
“What!” cried Cumberly, seemingly quite stupefied by this last revelation.
Max spread wide his palms, and the flexible lips expressed sympathy with the doctor's stupefaction.
“It is as I tell you,” he continued. “This Madame Jean had been posing as Mrs. Leroux, and in some way, which I was unable to understand, her signature had been accepted by the Credit Lyonnais. I examined the specimen signature which had been forwarded to them by the London County and Suburban Bank, and I perceived, at once, that it was not a case of common forgery. The signatures were identical”...
“Therefore,” said Cumberly, and he was thinking of Henry Leroux, whom Fate delighted in buffeting—“therefore, the Credit Lyonnais is not responsible?”
“Most decidedly not responsible,” agreed Max. “So you see I now have two reasons for coming to London: one, to visit the London County and Suburban Bank, and the other to find... Mr. King. The first part of my mission I have performed successfully; but the second”... again he shrugged, and the lines of his mouth were humorous.
Dr. Cumberly began to walk up and down the carpet.
“Poor Leroux!” he muttered—“poor Leroux.”
“Ah! poor Leroux, indeed,” said Max. “He is so typical a victim of this most infernal group!”
“What!” Dr. Cumberly turned in his promenade and stared at the detective—“he's not the only one?”
“My dear sir,” said Max, gently, “the victims of Mr. King are truly as the sands of Arabia.”
“Good heavens!” muttered Dr. Cumberly; “good heavens!”
“I came immediately to London,” continued Max, “and presented myself at New Scotland Yard. There I discovered that my inquiry was complicated by a ghastly crime which had been committed in the flat of Mr. Leroux; but I learned, also, that Mr. King was concerned in this crime—his name had been found upon a scrap of paper clenched in the murdered woman's hand!”
“I was present when it was found,” said Dr. Cumberly.
“I know you were,” replied Max. “In short, I discovered that the Palace Mansions murder case was my case, and that my case was the Palace Mansions case. Eh bien! the mystery of the Paris draft did not detain me long. A call upon the manager of the London County and Suburban Bank at Charing Cross revealed to me the whole plot. The real Mrs. Leroux had never visited that bank; it was Madame Jean, posing as Mrs. Leroux, who went there and wrote the specimen signature, accompanied by a certain Soames, a butler”...
“I know him!” said Dr. Cumberly, grimly, “the blackguard!”
“Truly a blackguard, truly a big, dirty blackguard! But it is such canaille as this that Mr. King discovers and uses for his own ends. Paris society, I know for a fact; has many such a cankerworm in its heart. Oh! it is a big case, a very big case. Poor Mr. Leroux being confined to his bed—ah! I pity him—I took the opportunity to visit his flat in Palace Mansions with Inspector Dunbar, and I obtained further evidence showing how the conspiracy had been conducted; yes. For instance, Dunbar's notebook showed me that Mr. Leroux was accustomed to receive letters from Mrs. Leroux whilst she was supposed to be in Paris. I actually discovered some of those letters, and they bore no dates. This, if they came from a woman, was not remarkable, but, upon one of them I found something that WAS remarkable. It was still in its envelope, you must understand, this letter, its envelope bearing the Paris post-mark. But impressed upon the paper I discovered a second post-mark, which, by means of a simple process, and the use of a magnifying glass, I made out to be Bow, East!”
“What!”
“Do you understand? This letter, and others doubtless, had been enclosed in an envelope and despatched to Paris from Bow, East? In short, Mrs. Leroux wrote those letters before she left London; Soames never posted them, but handed them over to some representative of Mr. King; this other, in turn, posted them to Madame Jean in Paris! Morbleu! these are clever rogues! This which I was fortunate enough to discover had been on top, you understand, this billet, and the outer envelope being very heavily stamped, that below retained the impress of the post-mark.”
“Poor Leroux!” said Cumberly again, with suppressed emotion. “That unsuspecting, kindly soul has been drawn into the meshes of this conspiracy. How they have been wound around him, until...”
“He knows the truth about his wife?” asked Max, suddenly glancing up at the physician, “that she is not in Paris?”
“I, myself, broke the painful news to him,” replied Cumberly—“after a consultation with Miss Ryland and my daughter. I considered it my duty to tell him, but I cannot disguise from myself that it hastened, if it did not directly occasion, his breakdown.”
“Yes, yes,” said Max; “we have been very fortunate however in diverting the attention of the press from the absence of Mrs. Leroux throughout this time. Nom d'un nom! Had they got to know about the scrap of paper found in the dead woman's hand, I fear that this would have been impossible.”
“I do not doubt that it would have been impossible, knowing the London press,” replied Dr. Cumberly, “but I, too, am glad that it has been achieved; for in the light of your Paris discoveries, I begin at last to understand.”
“You were not Mrs. Leroux's medical adviser?”
“I was not,” replied Cumberly, glancing sharply at Max. “Good heavens, to think that I had never realized the truth!”
“It is not so wonderful at all. Of course, as I have seen from the evidence which you gave to the police, you knew that Mrs. Vernon was addicted to the use of opium?”
“It was perfectly evident,” replied Cumberly; “painfully evident. I will not go into particulars, but her entire constitution was undermined by the habit. I may add, however, that I did not associate the vice with her violent end, except”...
“Ah!” interrupted Max, shaking his finger at the physician, “you are coming to the point upon which you disagreed with the divisional surgeon! Now, it is an important point. You are of opinion that the injection in Mrs. Vernon's shoulder—which could not have been self-administered”...
“She was not addicted to the use of the needle,” interrupted Cumberly; “she was an opium SMOKER.”
“Quite so, quite so,” said Max: “it makes the point all the more clear. You are of opinion that this injection was made at least eight hours before the woman's death?”
“At least eight hours—yes.”
“Eh bien!” said Max; “and have you had extensive experience of such injections?”
Dr. Cumberly stared at him in some surprise.
“In a general way,” he said, “a fair number of such cases have come under my notice; but it chances that one of my patients, a regular patient—is addicted to the vice.”
“Injections?”
“Only as a makeshift. He has periodical bouts of opium smoking—what I may term deliberate debauches.”
“Ah!” Max was keenly interested. “This patient is a member of good society?”
“He's a member of Parliament,” replied Cumberly, a faint, humorous glint creeping into his gray eyes; “but, of course, that is not an answer to your question! Yes, he is of an old family, and is engaged to the daughter of a peer.”
“Dr. Cumberly,” said Max, “in a case like the present—apart from the fact that the happiness—pardieu! the life—of one of your own friends is involved... should you count it a breach of professional etiquette to divulge the name of that patient?”
It was a disturbing question; a momentous question for a fashionable physician to be called upon to answer thus suddenly. Dr. Cumberly, who had resumed his promenade of the carpet, stopped with his back to M. Max, and stared out of the window into Harley Street.
M. Max, a man of refined susceptibilities, came to his aid, diplomatically.
“It is perhaps overmuch to ask you,” he said. “I can settle the problem in a more simple manner. Inspector Dunbar will ask you for this gentleman's name, and you, as witness in the case, cannot refuse to give it.”
“I can refuse until I stand in the witness-box!” replied Cumberly, turning, a wry smile upon his face.
“With the result,” interposed Max, “that the ends of justice might be defeated, and the wrong man hanged!”
“True,” said Cumberly; “I am splitting hairs. It is distinctly a breach of professional etiquette, nevertheless, and I cannot disguise the fact from myself. However, since the knowledge will never go any further, and since tremendous issues are at stake, I will give you the name of my opium patient. It is Sir Brian Malpas!”
“I am much indebted to you, Dr. Cumberly,” said Max; “a thousand thanks;” but in his eyes there was a far-away look. “Malpas—Malpas! Where in this case have I met with the name of Malpas?”
“Inspector Dunbar may possibly have mentioned it to you in reference to the evidence of Mr. John Exel, M. P. Mr. Exel, you may remember”...
“I have it!” cried Max; “Nom d'un nom! I have it! It was from Sir Brian Malpas that he had parted at the corner of Victoria Street on the night of the murder, is it not so?”
“Your memory is very good, M. Max!”
“Then Mr. Exel is a personal friend of Sir Brian Malpas?
“Excellent! Kismet aids me still! I come to you hoping that you may be acquainted with the constitution of Mrs. Leroux, but no! behold me disappointed in this. Then—morbleu! among your patients I find a possible client of the opium syndicate!”
“What! Malpas? Good God! I had not thought of that! Of course, he must retire somewhere from the ken of society to indulge in these opium orgies”...
“Quite so. I have hopes. Since it would never do for Sir Brian Malpas to know who I am and what I seek, a roundabout introduction is provided by kindly Providence—Ah! that good little angel of mine!—in the person of Mr. John Exel, M. P.”
“I will introduce you to Mr. Exel with pleasure.”
“Eh bien! Let it be arranged as soon as possible,” said M. Max. “To Mr. John Exel I will be, as to Miss Ryland (morbleu! I hate me!) and Miss Cumberly (pardieu! I loathe myself!), M. Gaston! It is ten o'clock, and already I hear your first patient ringing at the front-door bell. Good morning, Dr. Cumberly.”
Dr. Cumberly grasped his hand cordially.
“Good morning, M. Max!”
The famous detective was indeed retiring, when:
“M. Max!”
He turned—and looked into the troubled gray eyes of Dr. Cumberly.
“You would ask me where is she—Mrs. Leroux?” he said. “My friend—I may call you my friend, may I not?—I cannot say if she is living or is dead. Some little I know of the Chinese, quite a little; nom de dieu!... I hope she is dead!”...
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