However, there was no help for it; and the Doctor, philosophically resigning himself, and taking care to be sure that his latch-key was in his pocket, spoke a word to Mrs. Jessop, as a precaution against that worthy woman"s putting up the chain of the hall door before she went to bed, and let himself out. It was a fine night, hot as it was, with a large bright moon hardly beginning to wane, and myriads of stars.
Doctor Brudenell, as good and quick a walker now as he had been twenty years before, thought lightly of the distance between his own house and that of his patient, and soon reached his destination. It was little that he could do--in fact, he had been sent for without real need--and it was not much after twelve o"clock when he reached the railway-arch which spans the Holloway Road. He stopped for a moment, and looked up, thinking what a black bar it seemed in the yellow moonlight, and how oddly quiet the streets were, which all day long were teeming with noisy life. Most of the shops were closed, and only a few straggling foot-pa.s.sengers were to be seen. Only for a moment did he thus glance about him, taking his hat off to push the damp hair from his forehead, for his quick walk had made him warm. Then he walked on under the arch, to stop before it was half traversed, for a hand suddenly placed upon his shoulders brought him to a halt.
"Your pardon, sir," said a voice in his ear. "You are a doctor, I believe?"
"I am!" The Doctor tried in the gloom of the arch to make out the face of the inquirer, but in vain. He could only tell that it was a young man by his voice and gestures, and he saw that he was considerably taller than himself.
"Doctor Brudenell, I think?"
"I am Doctor Brudenell. What is wanted?"
"Yourself, sir, if you please. A person--my--brother--is ill--almost dying, it is feared. Will you accompany me to him? There is no time to be lost."
"What is the matter with him?" asked the Doctor.
"Sir, you will know when you see him. I"--with a deprecatory shrug of the shoulders--"can I tell?"
"But is it a fit, a fever, an accident? What is it?" asked Doctor Brudenell impatiently. "You must know that."
"Sir, it cannot be a fever, since an hour ago he was well. Pray, sir, will you come? He is very ill. Delay is dangerous."
The man moved on as he spoke, and the Doctor moved with him, for his arm was still clasped by the stranger"s strong supple fingers. But outside the archway he stopped.
"Stay! Why do you come to me? Have you no regular medical attendant?"
"We have not, sir. As to why I come to you--I have heard of you, that is all. I reached your house almost as you left it, and have followed you, and waited. Pray come, sir, I entreat you. There is a carriage waiting here."
A carriage was standing just outside the arch--an ordinary-looking close carriage, drawn by a light-colored horse, and driven by a coachman who was singularly m.u.f.fled up, considering the heat of the night. The Doctor mechanically noticed that there were no lamps to the carriage, as, in obedience to the eager pressure of his companion"s hand, he got in. The other followed, shutting the door smartly behind him, and the vehicle started instantly.
Doctor Brudenell, leaning back in his corner, looked curiously--as well as the dimness of the carriage would let him--with the keen eyes of a man accustomed to weigh and observe, at his companion, who, with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his brows, appeared to be half asleep. He was a very handsome man, that was certain--face dark and clear cut, complexion swarthy, figure at once lithe and muscular, and some years under thirty. There was a turn of the throat, a trick of movement, when he presently changed his position restlessly, that perplexed the watcher. The Doctor fancied that he must have seen this man before, but he could not remember where.
"Is it far?" he asked suddenly. It must be, he thought. They had been in the carriage at least a quarter of an hour; the horse had been going at a swift trot, and now there was no sign of slackening speed.
The young man started, and opened his eyes.
"It is not now, sir. We shall soon be there--in time, I hope."
He stamped twice upon the floor of the carriage impatiently, as though in anxiety; but the sound seemed to act as a signal, for the driver instantly whipped up the horse, and the speed was increased--almost doubled. The curtains of the windows were down, and the Doctor drew one of them aside and peered out. They were in a street he did not know, badly paved, badly lighted, squalid, flanked by rows of high mean houses, half of which seemed empty, for hardly a light shone from their windows. He looked round.
"Where are we?"
"We are close there, sir."
"But what street is this? I don"t know it in the least."
"Sir, I do not know it; but I know that in a moment we shall be there."
The Doctor sank back into his corner again resignedly. He was fatigued, sleepy, put out. Just then he most heartily wished that this young man had found some one else to attend to the wants of his brother. He must be crazy--to have gone all that distance after a doctor, and then to follow and accost one in the street! It was as queer a thing in its way as his twenty years in the profession had brought to his knowledge.
Thinking over this his eyelids drooped; he no longer saw the dim figure of his companion and was startled when presently the carriage stopped with a jerk. In a moment the young man had opened the door, sprung out, and was saying:
"We are here. Alight, sir, if you please."
Doctor Brudenell, confused and sleepy still, did so, looking about him.
He was in a narrow paved court, entirely unlighted, closed in at the lower end by what seemed to be a huge deserted stack of warehouses and fenced upon the farther side by the blank walls and regular rows of narrow windows of what had evidently been a manufactory; but the windows were broken; a door hung swinging upon its hinges; it was evident that this place was unused and deserted too. Upon the side where he stood were a couple of old houses, bare and desolate, with broken windows, broken railings--dark, silent--the most dismal houses the Doctor had ever seen.
At the door of the first of these, where a faint light was visible in one of the lower windows as the carriage stopped, the young man tapped cautiously with his hand three times. In another moment the door was softly opened, the figure of the opener being lost in the gloom within.
On the broken door-step the Doctor hesitated; he was not a timid man, but this all seemed very strange. However, he obeyed the pressure of the hand laid upon his arm, and entered; glancing behind him as he did so, he saw that the carriage had disappeared.
The door was gently closed; and he stood in absolute darkness, hesitating, wondering. He fancied he heard cautious feet stealing across the bare floor of the hall; but not another sound broke the oppressive brooding silence of the close, musty-smelling old house. In another moment he would have spoken, have demanded the meaning of all this, when a faint gleam of light appeared at the end of the hall, and from the lower stairs a man"s hand and arm became visible, holding a lamp. A hand was laid upon his arm at the same moment, and the voice of his summoner spoke quietly in his ear:
"Your patient is ready, sir. Come, if you please."
The speaker went toward the stairs, and the light was withdrawn. The Doctor followed him for a few paces, then stopped abruptly.
"Down-stairs!" he said incredulously.
"Sir, he was too bad to be moved."
"I see. Go before, if you please."
The light glimmered faintly at the foot of the staircase again, and the Doctor followed his conductor down, noting that the steps were dirty and bare, that the stone pa.s.sage-way at the bottom was also dirty and bare, that, for all the indications that there were to the contrary, this was an absolutely unfurnished house. As he reached the last stair he looked keenly at the man who held the lamp--a middle-aged man, loose-jointed and loosely dressed, with iron-gray hair and a scar upon his cheek. He spoke with a slightly foreign accent, and, with a bow, moved aside from the doorway in which he stood.
"You are welcome, sir; I thank you. Enter, if you please."
Doctor Brudenell did so, then started and stopped involuntarily. A sick man, a man on the point of dying--were they mad enough to keep him in a room such as this? A room? A sty, rather! The door was stone, with a few sacks spread upon it; the windows were secured by crazy shutters, the only table was formed by boards laid upon two old barrels, and the two or three chairs were broken. The only other piece of furniture or semblance of furniture was an old couch, the horse-hair covering tattered, straggling pieces of the stuffing hanging down. Lying upon it was the figure of a man, with some roughly-applied bandages about his head and face.
Strange as it all was, the sight of this man, the cause of his being there, restored to the Doctor his professional coolness and self-possession. He was a medical man--this was his patient. He advanced, and with rapid deft fingers removed the bandages, laying bare a face so horribly disfigured that, practiced as he was, he felt his own turn pale. He spoke quickly and aloud, knowing that the sick man was insensible, and looking at the other two.
"What"s this? What has happened to this man? He is burnt!"
"As you say, sir." The gray-haired man, still holding the lamp, bowed.
"Most horribly burnt--and with chemicals. Is it not so?"
"It is, sir."
"There has been an explosion. He was trying to do something with them--probably combine them--he made a mistake in his method or calculations, and they exploded," said the Doctor rapidly.
"Again you are right, sir." The two men exchanged swift glances of mingled admiration and contempt--admiration of the Doctor"s quickness and lucidity, contempt of him for being there. He did not see them; he was continuing his examination of the insensible man. The injuries to the head and face were the worst, but the throat, chest, and arms were also burned severely. Doctor Brudenell rose from the knee upon which he had sunk down to pursue his examination.
"You should have told me what the case was," he said sternly, looking at the young man. "You bring me here in ignorance, and I am absolutely helpless. I have no materials for treating injuries such as these. I require lint, oil, bandages."
"They are here," said the gray-haired man quietly; and as his companion, in obedience to a motion of his hand, left the room, he looked at the Doctor, and asked anxiously, "Sir, can you save his life?"
"I don"t know--it depends upon his const.i.tution--of which I know nothing--and the care that is bestowed upon him. But"--with a glance round the wretched apartment--"he will not live if he stays here."
"He will not stay here."
The Doctor said no more, for the young man came back with bandages, lint, and oil. All three had evidently been purchased in antic.i.p.ation of their being wanted. The Doctor applied them as well as he could, by the dim light of the lamp. The patient moved and moaned, but he did not open his eyes or show any signs of consciousness; the other two did not speak once. His task concluded, the Doctor turned to them abruptly.