The Crime Doctor Read online

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  THE CRIME DOCTOR

  _By_ ERNEST W. HORNUNG

  Author of Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman, The Thousandth Woman, etc.

  _With Illustrations by_ FREDERIC DORR STEELE

  INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS

  COPYRIGHT 1914 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.

  "It was struck with--this"]

  CONTENTS

  I THE PHYSICIAN WHO HEALED HIMSELF 1

  II THE LIFE-PRESERVER 40

  III A HOPELESS CASE 77

  IV THE GOLDEN KEY 118

  V A SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 159

  VI ONE POSSESSED 199

  VII THE DOCTOR'S ASSISTANT 237

  VIII THE SECOND MURDERER 272

  THE CRIME DOCTOR

  I

  THE PHYSICIAN WHO HEALED HIMSELF

  In the course of his meteoric career as Secretary of State for the HomeDepartment, the Right Honorable Topham Vinson instituted many reformsand earned the reformer's whack of praise and blame. His methods werenot those of the permanent staff; and while his notorious courageendeared him to the young, it was not in so strong a nature to leavefriend or foe lukewarm. An assiduous contempt for tradition fanned theflame of either faction, besides leading to several of those personaladventures which were as breath to the Minister's unregenerate nostrils,but which never came out without exposing him to almost universalcensure. It is matter for thanksgiving that the majority of hisindiscretions were unguessed while he and his held office; for he wasnever so unconventional as in pursuance of those enlightened tactics onwhich his reputation rests, or in the company of that kindred spirit whohad so much to do with their inception.

  It was early in an autumn session that this remarkable pair becameacquainted. Mr. Vinson had been tempted by the mildness of the night towalk back from Westminster to Portman Square. He had just reached homewhen he heard his name cried from some little distance behind him. Thevoice tempered hoarse excitement with the restraint due to midnight in aquiet square; and as Mr. Vinson turned on his door-step, a young manrushed across the road with a gold chain swinging from his outstretchedhand.

  "Your watch, sir, your watch!" he gasped, and displayed a bulbous hunterwith a monogram on one side and the crest of all the Vinsons on theother.

  "Heavens!" cried the Home Secretary, feeling in an empty waistcoatpocket before he could believe his eyes. "Where on earth did you findthat? I had it on me when I left the House."

  "It wasn't a case of findings," said the young man, as he fanned himselfwith his opera hat. "I've just taken it from the fellow who took it fromyou."

  "Who? Where?" demanded the Secretary of State, with unstatesmanlikeexcitement.

  "Some poor brute in North Audley Street, I think it was."

  "That's it! That was where he stopped me, just at the corner ofGrosvenor Square!" exclaimed Vinson. "And I went and gave the oldscoundrel half-a-crown!"

  "He probably had your watch while you were looking in your purse."

  And the young man dabbed a very good forehead, that glistened in thelight from the open door, with a white silk handkerchief just extractedfrom his sleeve.

  "But where were you?" asked Topham Vinson, taking in every inch of him.

  "I'd just come into the square myself. You had just gone out of it. Thepickpocket was looking to see what he'd got, even while he hurled hisblessings after you."

  "And where is he now? Did he slip through your fingers?"

  "I'm ashamed to say he did; but your watch didn't!" its owner wasreminded with more spirit. "I could guess whose it was by the crest andmonogram, and I decided to make sure instead of giving chase."

  "You did admirably," declared the Home Secretary, in belatedappreciation. "I'm in the papers quite enough without appearing as a mugout of office hours. Come in, please, and let me thank you with all thehonors possible at this time of night."

  And, taking him by the arm, he ushered the savior of his property into acharming inner hall, where elaborate refreshments stood in readiness ona side-table, and a bright fire looked as acceptable as the saddlebagchairs drawn up beside it. A bottle and a pint of reputable champagnehad been left out with the oysters and the caviar; and Mr. Vinson,explaining that he never allowed anybody to sit up for him, opened thebottle with the precision of a practised hand, and led the attack onfood and drink with schoolboy gusto and high spirits.

  In the meantime there had been some mutual note-taking. The HomeSecretary, whose emphatic personality lent itself to the discreet pencilof the modern caricaturist, was in appearance exactly as represented incontemporary cartoons; there was nothing unexpected about him, since hisboyish vivacity was a quality already over-exploited by the Press. Hisfrankness was something qualified by a gaze of habitual penetration, butstill it was there, and his manner could evidently be grand orcolloquial at will. The surprise was in his surroundings rather than inthe man himself. The perfect union of luxury and taste is none toocommon in the professed Sybarite who is that and nothing more; in men ofaction and pugnacious politicians it is yet another sign of sheercapacity. The bits of rich old furniture, the old glass twinkling atevery facet, the brasses blazing in the firelight, the few but fineprints on the Morris wallpaper, might have won the approval of an artstudent, and the creature comforts that of the youngest epicure.

  The young man from the street was easily pleased in all such respects;but indoors he no longer looked quite the young man. He had taken off anovercoat while his host was opening the champagne, and evening clothesaccentuated a mature gauntness of body and limb. His hair, which wasdark and wiry, was beginning to bleach at the temples; and up above oneear there was a little disk of downright silver, like a new florin. Theshaven face was pale, eager, and austere. Dark eyes burnt like beaconsunder a noble brow, and did not lose in character or intensity by adistinct though slight strabism. So at least it seemed to Topham Vinson,who was a really wonderful judge of faces, yet had seldom seen oneharder to sum up.

  "I'm sorry you don't smoke," said he, snipping a cigar which he hadextolled in vain. "And that champagne, you know! You haven't touched it,and you really should."

  The other was on his legs that instant. "I never smoke and seldomdrink," he exclaimed; "but I simply can not endure your hospitality,kind as it is, Mr. Vinson, without being a bit more honest with you thanI've been so far. I didn't lose that pickpocket by accident or becausehe was too quick for me. I--I purposely packed him off."

  In the depths of his softest chair Mr. Vinson lolled smiling--but notwith his upturned eyes. They were the steel eyes of all his tribe, buttrebly keen, as became its intellectual head and chief.

  "The fellow pitched a pathetic yarn?" he conjectured. He had never seena more miserable specimen, he was bound to say.

  "It wasn't that, Mr. Vinson. I should have let him go in any case--onceI'd recovered what he'd taken--as a matter of principle."

  "Principle!" cried the Secretary of State. But he did not modify hisfront-bench attitude; it was only the well-known eyebrows that rose.

  "The whole thing is," his guest continued, yet more frankly, "that Ihappen to hold my own views on crime and its punishment If I might bepermitted to explain them, however briefly, they would at least affordthe only excuse I have to offer for my c
onduct. If you consider it noexcuse, and if I have put myself within reach of the law, there, sir, ismy card; and here am I, prepared to take the consequences of my act."

  The Home Secretary leaned forward and took the card from a sensitivehand, vibrant as the voice to which he had just been listening, but nomore tremulous. Again he looked up, into a pale face grown paler still,and dark eyes smoldering with suppressed enthusiasm. It was by no meanshis baptism of that sort of fire; but it seemed to Mr. Vinson that herewas a new type of eccentric zealot; and it was only by an effort that heresumed his House of Commons attitude and his smile.

  "I see, Doctor Dollar, that you are a near neighbor of mine--only justround the corner in Welbeck Street. May I take it that your experienceas a consultant is the basis of the views you mention?"

  "My experience as an alienist," said Doctor Dollar, "so far as I can layclaims to that euphemism."

  "And how far is that, doctor?"

  "In the sense that all crime is a form of madness."

  "Then you would call yourself----"

  The broken sentence ended on a note as tactfully remote from the directinterrogative as practised speech could make it.

  "In default of a recognized term," said Doctor Dollar, "which time willconfer as part of a wider recognition, I can only call myself a crimedoctor."

  "A branch not yet acknowledged by your profession?"

  "Neither by my profession nor by the law, Mr. Vinson; but both have gotto come to it, just as surely as we all accept the other scientificdevelopments of the day."

  "But have you reduced your practise to a science, doctor?"

  "I am doing so," said Doctor Dollar, with the restrained confidencewhich could not but impress one who knew the value of that quality inhimself and in others. "I have made a start; if it were not so late Iwould tell you all about it. You are the Home Secretary of England, theman of all others whom I could wish to convert to my views. But alreadyI have kept you up too long. If you would grant me an appointment----"

  "Not at all," interrupted Mr. Vinson, as he settled himself even morecomfortably in his chair. "The night is still young--so is my cigar.Pray say all you care to say, and say it as confidentially as youplease. You interest me, Doctor Dollar; nor can I forget that I am muchindebted to you."

  "I don't want to trade on that," returned the doctor, hastily. "But itis an old dream of mine to tell you, sir, about my work, and how and whyI came to take it up. I was not intended for medicine, you see; mypeople are army people, were Border outlaws once upon a time, andfighting folk ever since. My father was an ensign in the Crimea--ScotsFusiliers. I joined the Argyll and Sutherlands the year before SouthAfrica--where, by the way, I remember seeing you with your Yeomen."

  "I had eighteen months of it without a headache or a scratch."

  "I wish I could say the same, Mr. Vinson. I was shot through the head atthe Modder, ten days after I landed."

  "Through the head, did you say?" asked the Home Secretary, lifting hisown some inches.

  The doctor touched the silver patch in his dark strong hair. "That'swhere the bullet came slinking out; any but a Mauser would have carriedall before it! As it was, it left me with a bit of a squint, as you cansee; otherwise, in a very few weeks, I was as fit as ever--physically."

  "Wonderful!"

  "Physically and even mentally--from a medical point of view--but notmorally, Mr. Vinson! Something subtle had happened, some pressuresomewhere, some form of local paralysis. And it left me a prettylow-down type, I can tell you! It was a case of absolute automatism--butI won't go into particulars now, if you don't mind."

  "On no account, my dear doctor!" exclaimed the Secretary of State, withinadvertent cordiality. "This is all of extraordinary interest. Ibelieve I can see what's coming. But I want to hear every word you careto tell me--and not one that you don't."

  "It had destroyed my moral sense on just one curious point; but, thankGod, I came to see the cause as well as to suffer unspeakably from theeffect. After that it was a case of killing or curing oneself by hook orby crook. I decided to try the curing first. And--to cut a long yarnshort--I _was_ cured."

  "Easily?"

  "No. The slander may come home to roost, but I shall never think much ofthe London specialist! I've dropped my two sovereigns and a florin intotoo many of their itching palms, beginning with the baronets and knightsand ending up with the unknown adventures. But not a man-Jack of themwas ashamed to pocket his two guineas (in one case three) for politelytelling me I was as mad as a hatter to think of such a thing as reallywas the matter with me!"

  "And in the end?"

  "In the end I struck a fellow with an open mind--but not in England--andif I said that he literally opened mine it might be an exaggeration, butthat's all. He did go prospecting in my skull--risked his reputation asagainst my life--but we both came out on top."

  "And you've been your own man ever since?"

  Topham Vinson asked the question gravely; it would have taken as keen asuperficial observer as himself to detect much difference in his manner,in his eyes, in anything about him. Doctor Dollar was not that kind ofobserver. To see far one must look high, and to look high is to missthings under one's nose. It is all a matter of mental trajectory. In thesheer height of his enthusiasm, the soaring visionary was losing touchwith the hard-headed groundling in the chair.

  "I was cured," he answered with tense simplicity. "It was a miraculouscure, and yet no miracle. Anybody could perform its like, given thenerve and skill. Yet it seemed to me a new thing; its possibilities werealmost appalling in their fascination. I must not speak of them, for ina large measure they are only possibilities still. But I resolved toqualify, so that at least I might be in a position to do as I had beendone by. I had already left the service; but my fighting days were notover. I was going to fight Crime as it had never been fought before!"

  There was a challenge in the pause made here. But the listener did nottake it up, and the harangue ended on a humbler note:

  "I studied at St. Mary's under men whose names you know as well as theyknow yours. I was at Berlin under Winterschladen, and with Jens Jennsenin Stockholm. Before I was thirty I had put up my plate in WelbeckStreet, and there I am still."

  "And yet," said the Home Secretary, with a faint and wary smile--"andyet the possibilities are still only possibilities!"

  "On the surgical side, yes; there I was misled by my own abnormal case.When another sudden injury makes a monkey of an honest man, I know whereto take him; but the average injury is too gradual, too subtle for theknife. Congenital cases are, of course, quite hopeless in that respect.Yet there are ways of curing even what I regard as the very worst typeof congenital criminal at the present day."

  "I wish I knew of some!" said Mr. Vinson cheerily. "But what, may I ask,do you regard as the very worst type of congenital criminal at thepresent day?"

  "The society type," replied the crime doctor without an instant'shesitation.

  His host permitted himself to open his eyes once more.

  "Your ideas are rather sensational, aren't they, Doctor Dollar?"

  "It's rather a sensational age, isn't it, Mr. Vinson? Yourtwentieth-century criminal, with his telephone and his motor-car--forprofessional purposes--his high explosives and his scientific tools, hasgot to be an educated person, to begin with; and I am afraid there's anincreasing number of educated people who have got to be criminals orelse paupers all their lives. A vicious circle, I think you must agree?"

  "If you can square it with the truth."

  "Isn't it almost a truism, Mr. Vinson? When society women making aliving out of bridge, traffic in tickets for Royal enclosures, charge afat fee for a presentation at Court, and a small fortune for launchingan unlikely family in their own set, there must be some reason for itapart from their own depravity. They are no more naturally depraved thanI am, but their purse is perhaps even smaller, and their wants arecertainly ten times as great. Cupidity is not the motive power; it'ssimple shortage of the needful--from their poin
t of view. Societyincreases and multiplies in everything but money, and transmits itsexpensive tastes without the means to indulge them. So we get our goodladies with their tariff of introductions, and our members of the bestclubs always ready for a deal over a horse or a car or anything elsethat's going to bring them in a fiver. It's a short step from that sortof thing to a shady trick, and from a shady trick to downright crime.But it's a step often taken by the type I mean--though not necessarilywith their eyes open. And that's just where the crime doctor should comein."

  "In opening their eyes?"

  "In saving 'em from themselves while they're still worth saving; in thatprevention which is not only better than cure, but the vital principleof modern therapeutics in every other direction. In keeping goodmaterial out of prison at all costs, Mr. Vinson, and even though youturn your prisons into country houses with feather beds and moralentertainments every night in life!"

  The Secretary of State smiled again, but this time with some sympathyand much less restraint. He was beginning to see some method in what hadseemed at first unmitigated mania, and to take some interest in a pointof view at least novel and entertaining. But the prison system was notto be attacked, even in terms of fantastic levity, without protest fromits official champion.

  "Prisons, my dear Doctor Dollar, exist for the benefit of those who keepout of them rather than those who will insist on getting in. Of course,the ideal thing would be to benefit both sides; and that's what we'reaiming at all the time. It isn't our fault if a man who gets into quodis a marked man ever after; he shouldn't get into quod."

  "You've put your finger on your own vulnerable point!" cried the eagerdoctor. "Why should he be a marked man? Why force a professional statuson the mere dabbler in crime, who might never have dabbled again? Itisn't as if it undid anything he's done; even hanging your murdererdoesn't bring your victim back to life, and the chances are that hewould never want to murder anybody else. On the other hand, how manyserious crimes might be hushed up without anybody being a bit worse offthan they were the very moment after their commission!"

  Mr. Vinson had been framing an ironical rebuke in the name of moralityand the Mosaic law; but he was not sorry to drop the irony and pin hisopponent down.

  "I hope, Doctor Dollar, it is not to be a function of the new faculty tocollaborate in the concealment of crime and criminals?"

  "It is impossible," replied the enthusiast, duly drawn, "to define thescope of an embryonic science. When the crime doctor has come tostay--as he will--I can see him playing a Protean part with the fullsanction of his profession and of the law. He will be preventiveofficer, private detective, and father confessor in one, if not evenprivileged accessory after some awful fact. The humbler pioneer can hopefor no such powers; his only chance is to work in the dark on his ownlines, to use his own judgment and to take his own risks as I've doneto-night. If he really can save a man by screening him, let him do itand blow the odds! If he can stop a thing without giving it away, allthe better for everybody, and if he fails to stop it all the worse forhim! Let him be a law unto his patient and himself, but let him standthe racket if his law won't work."

  "In other words, you would tackle character as ordinary doctors andpersons devote themselves to the body and the soul?"

  "It would come to that, Mr. Vinson. It's a large order, I know, and Idon't expect to see the goods delivered in my time. It will take bettermen than I am, and many of 'em, even to start delivery on the scale Idream about. But that's the idea all right. Punishment has neversignified prevention; what we want is to get under the criminal's skin_before_ we make it smart, if not before there's an actual criminal inthe case at all!"

  "A very plausible confession of faith, Doctor Dollar."

  The Minister's tone was dry after the other, but that was all. His fixedeyes seemed to be looking through the doctor's into the scheme itself,probing it on its merits in the very spirit in which it had beenpropounded. It is only the small men who laugh in the face of genuineenthusiasm, however wild and flighty it may seem. Topham Vinson was nota small man; but he, too, had been guilty of some wild flights in hisday, and office had not altogether clipped his wings. The sportsman andthe charlatan within him were only too ready to see themselves inanother, to hear their own voices on other lips. But the appeal totemperament does not necessarily compromise the mind. And that citadelstill flew a neutral flag.

  "What about the practise?" asked Topham Vinson, forcing himself back tofacts.

  "Rome took less building than a London practise, by an unknown manstriking out a new line for himself."

  "I really don't wonder. Who would come to consult you about a homicidaltendency, or a trick of tampering with special offertories?"

  "In the first instance, most likely, the patient's people; then theymight send him to see me on some other pretext."

  "And what form would the treatment take?"

  "It would depend, of course, upon the case. They don't all know thatthey're being treated for incipient criminality. The majority think theyare in an ordinary nursing home."

  "A home!" cried the Secretary of State. The word had brought him to hisfeet at last, in a frame of mind no longer to be concealed by nods andsmiles. "You don't mean to tell me, Doctor Dollar, that you actuallyrun a nursing home for unconvicted criminals?"

  "Potential criminals, Mr. Vinson. I have at present no patient who isactually wanted by the police."

  "And where is this extraordinary establishment?"

  "Under my own roof here in Welbeck Street."

  "A few hundred yards from where we stand, yet this is the first I hearof it!"

  "I can see that. It's not my fault, sir. I have done my best to bring itbefore your notice."

  "How?"

  "By writing many times to tell you all about myself and the home, Mr.Vinson."

  "Then I never saw the letters. A Home Secretary stands to be shot at byevery crank who can hold a pen. I employ more than one young gentlemanexpressly to divert that sort of fire. You should have got anintroduction to me, Doctor Dollar."

  The doctor had smiled at an expression that he could not but take tohimself. His smile sweetened under the kindlier tone which succeededthat one unmeasured word.

  "I am not sorry I waited for the introduction which time has given me,Mr. Vinson."

  "You wanted me to assist the good work, I take it?"

  "By your countenance and influence--if you could."

  "I must see something of it first. I must inspect this home of yours,Doctor Dollar."

  The steel eyes of the Vinsons could seldom have cut deeper at a glance,or been met by a pair more candid and unafraid. And yet there was justthat cruel suspicion of a cast, to prejudice both the candor and thecourage of the finer face.

  "It is open to your inspection day or night," said Doctor Dollar.

  "Even at this hour? Even to-night?"

  The Home Secretary sounded as keen as he looked; but on the other sidethere was now just enough hesitation to correspond with that one slightflaw in the finer eyes.

  "This minute, by all means," said the doctor, with resolute cordiality."There's always somebody up, and the patients can be seen without beingdisturbed."

  "Then," said the Home Secretary, "it's a chance at a time when everymoment of the day is full. Let us strike, doctor, while the iron is ashot as I can assure you that you have made it."

  II

  That deplorable passion for adventure, which had turned the hope of thelast Opposition into a guerrilla warrior in South Africa, but which theHome Secretary of England might have subdued before accepting hisportfolio, was by no means a dead volcano as Topham Vinson sallied forthwith his extraordinary companion. It was to be noticed that he took withhim a thick stick instead of an umbrella, though the deserted streetshad become moist with a midnight drizzle. What he expected can only besurmised. But the odds are that it did not include the shriek of apolice-whistle in the sedate region of Wigmore Street, and theinstantaneous bolting of Doctor Dollar round the first corn
er to theleft!

  Now, the Secretary of State was one of those men who keep up their gamesout of a cold-blooded regard for the figure; he considered himself asfit at forty as any man in England, and he gave chase with his usualconfidence. But the long-legged doctor would have left him behind withthe lamp-posts, but for the fact that he was really tearing toward thesound, not flying from it as his pursuer was so ready to suppose. In amatter of seconds they had both fetched up at a brilliantly lightedhouse, where a more than usually obese policeman was alternatelypounding on the door and splitting the sober welkin with his whistle.

  "Stop that infernal row!" cried Doctor Dollar, with incensed authority."Out of the way with you--this is my house!"

  And the Home Secretary arrived on the scene of an imminent assault onhis police, just in time to divert the outraged officer's attention byasking what had happened, while the doctor found his key.

  "Lord only knows!" said the policeman, kicking some broken glass on oneside. "Murder, it sounds like; there's somebody been loosing off----"

  And even as he spoke somebody loosed off again! The terrific report wasfollowed by screams within and a fresh shower of glass from thefanlight. But by this time Doctor Dollar had his latch-key in the lock.If the door had opened outward, a tangled trio would have fallen intothe street; as it was, it hardly would open for the man in white who wasstruggling with a woman (in red flannel) and a boy (in next to nothing)on the mat.

  Dollar exclaimed "Barton!" in blank amazement. But it was not theunlucky Barton who had run amuck. "They won't let me at him! They'll getthe lot of us shot dead!" he spluttered, with ungrateful objurgations;and then the newcomers grasped the situation. On the stairs, at the endof the narrow passage, they beheld an enormous revolver, against abackground of pink sleeping-suit, with a ferocious eye looking down thebarrel.

  The crime doctor slipped in front of the Hogarthian group, and stoodbetween everybody and the armed man--shaking his head with an expressionthat nobody else could see.

  "Ozzie, I'm surprised at you!" they heard him say with severity. "Ithought you were a better sportsman than to go playing the fool the onenight I'm out. If you want to frighten people, do it where you don'tdamage their property; if you mean murder, I'm your mark, my lad! Aimat my waistcoat buttons and perhaps you'll get me in the mouth; that'sbetter; now blaze away!"

  But the pink-striped miscreant was not lowering his barrel to improvehis aim. He lowered it altogether. And his other wild eye was open now,and both were blinking with unlovely woe.

  "I--I didn't mean any harm," he faltered. "It was only a rag--and I'llpay for the door."

  "It'll be a great rag, won't it, if you fire bang into your own foot?Better give me that thing before you do." Dollar held out the steadiestof hands. "No, t'other way round if you don't mind; 'tisn't manners topass knives and forks business-end first. Ta! Now make yourself scarcebefore Barton goes for you by kind permission of his family."

  The young man in pink stood wildly staring, then fled up-stairs with asmothered sob.

  "After him, Barton, before he does something silly," said the doctorunder his breath. "My dear Mrs. Barton, you shall tell me the wholething from A to Z in the morning; go down to bed like a good soul, andbe satisfied that you prevented bloodshed. Bobby, take one of thedecanters from the tantalus and give your mother a good nightcap." Heturned round as the unpresentable pair made off. The street-door wasshut; the Home Secretary had sole possession of the mat. "Why, Mr.Vinson, what's happened to the myrmidon?"

  "I thought you would like me to get rid of him," said TophamVinson dryly. "He's waiting outside to explain matters to thereinforcements--as a joke."

  "Rather an unconvincing joke!" said the doctor, wiping his forehead withthe back of his hand.

  "I'm glad you admit it, Doctor Dollar. Am I to understand that the wholething was a practical joke, carefully rehearsed for my benefit?"

  The doctor opened his shining eyes.

  "Does it look like one? Hark back a little, Mr. Vinson!"

  "There's no need. I didn't think of it till you put the word into mymouth. But it's well, rather a coincidence, doctor, coming on top of theone about my watch--and you of all men catching the thief!"

  "Yet this is the sort of thing that's always liable to happen when one'sback is turned, and always will be until----"

  "Yes?" said the Home Secretary, as Dollar paused and looked at him.

  "Until you make it at least as difficult to buy revolvers andammunition, Mr. Vinson, as a dose of prussic acid! Here's a young man,unsteady, and an epileptic, who has just been placed under my care. Idon't run a private asylum, nor is he ripe for one. I must give him hishead a little, and this happens in a minute! If it should lead to freshrevolver regulations--but I mustn't forget myself in my excitement. Ifyou would come in here and smoke a cigarette, I shall have to make around directly to see how things are quieting down, and should be onlytoo glad to take you with me."

  The round was made after further conversation in a dining-room asSpartan as the rest of the crime doctor's characteristic abode. Aninstructed taste in aged but uncomfortable oak gave it the chillseverity of a refectory; and the suggestion was strengthened by a glanceinto the minute consulting-room next door, which struck the visitor,perhaps in the light of one of Dollar's own similitudes, as a sort ofmonkish cell and confessional in one. The carven table, rugged yetelaborate, pale with age, might once have been an altar; the chairbehind it was certainly an ecclesiastical chair. The cumbrous pieceswere yet the fruit of a fastidious eye, and apparently its only fruit.Everything else throughout the house was ultra-sanitary, refreshinglyutilitarian, twentieth century. No shred nor thread made for dust on thelinoleum, no picture harbored it on the glazed paper. Walls and floorswere of the same uncompromising type up-stairs and down. Yet, when apeep was taken through one of the numbered doors above, hothouse flowersbloomed in glass bowls on glass tables, and the bedroom ware was glassagain. The very books were bound in glassy vellum; there was a pile ofthem beside the bed, in which a very young man, swathed in bandages, layreading under the green glass shade of an electric lamp.

  The doctor expressed his sorrow for the occurrence down-stairs; thepatient, scarcely looking up, said that since he could not have moved tosave his life, he had gone on reading all the time; and they left him atit, obviously glad to be rid of them.

  "That," whispered the doctor on the landing, "is a young fellow who willone day be--well, never mind! Until he came to me he had never of hisown free will read anything but a bad novel or a newspaper; he is nowdeep in the immortal work of another weak young man who was swayed bystrength, and is himself for the time being under Doctor Johnson'ssalutary thumb."

  "What was his weakness?"

  "Pyromania."

  "_What?_"

  "A passion for setting places on fire. He started it as quite a smallboy; they licked it out of him then. All his boyhood he went in fear ofthe rod, and it kept him straight. Only the other day he goes up toOxford, and promptly sets fire to his rooms."

  "Some form of atavism, I presume?"

  "A very subtle case, if I were free to give you its whole history."

  "I should be even more interested in your treatment."

  "Well, I needn't tell you that he's bandaged up for burns; but you mightnot guess that he has come by this lot since I've had him, if not almostat my hands."

  "Nonsense, man!"

  "At any rate I'm responsible for what happened, and it's going to curehim. It was a case of undisciplined imagination acting on a bonnet withjust one bee in it. He had never realized what a hell let loose a firereally was; now he _knows_ through his own skin."

  The statesman's eyebrows were like the backs of two mutually displeasedcats.

  "But surely that's an old wives' trick pushed beyond all bounds?"

  "Pushed further than I intended, Mr. Vinson, I must confess. I onlymeant him to see a serious fire. So I arranged with the brigade to ringme up when there was a really bad one, and with my man to take the
boyout at night for all his walks. There was another good reason for that;and altogether nothing can have seemed more natural than the way theyboth appeared on the scene of this ghastly riding-school affair."

  "I know what's coming!" cried the Home Secretary. "This is the fellowwho dashed in to help save the horses, and got away afterward withoutgiving his name!"

  "That's it. He says he'll hear those horses till his dying hour! He wasin the thick of it before Barton or anybody else could stop him--theyonly succeeded in stopping poor Barton from following. Well, I can takeno credit for the very last thing I should have dreamt of allowing; butI fancy the odds are fairly long that the tempting element will never,never again tempt our young friend up-stairs!"

  They had drifted down again during this recital; and he who had led theway stood staring at the crime doctor, in his monkish cell, with thatintent inscrutability which was one of Topham Vinson's most effectivemasks; but now it was a mask imperfectly adjusted, with the warm lightof admiration breaking through, and the shadow of something elseinterfering with that light. When Doctor Dollar had marched upon theloaded revolver, talking down the barrel as to an infant pointing apopgun--daring another daredevil to shoot him dead--the same admiringlook had come over the face behind him, qualified in precisely the samefashion. But then the doctor had not seen it, and now it made him wincea little, as though he dreaded something that was bound to come.

  This was what came:

  "Doctor Dollar, I should prefer not to ask you to show me or tell me anymore. I know a good man when I see one, and I know good work when Icatch him at it. Perhaps that was necessary in the case of suchextraordinary work as yours; yet you say it was a sheer coincidence thatI caught you at it to-night--or rather that such tough work was waitingfor you when we got here?"

  "Do you still doubt it? Why, you yourself insisted on coming round tosee the place in the middle of this blessed night!"

  "Exactly. That establishes your second coincidence; but with allrespect, doctor, I don't believe in two of the same sort on the samenight to the same two people!"

  "What was the other coincidence?" demanded the doctor, huskily.

  "Your catching _any_ old pickpocket with my watch--and letting him off!Come, doctor, do one more thing for me, and I'll do all in my power foryou and your great work. That is, of course, if you still want me totake the interest I certainly should have taken if I had seen yourletters."

  "If!" cried the young man from the fulness of his heart. "Your interestis the one thing I do want of you, and you are the one person I want tointerest!"

  His eyes shone like big brown lamps, straight enough now in theirintensity, and dim with the glory of their vision. He could tremble,too, it seemed, where the stake was not dear life, but a life's dearerwork. And Topham Vinson was almost moved himself; he really was absorbedand thrilled; but not to the detriment of his penetrative astuteness,his political instinct for a bargain.

  "Come, then," said he: "show me the fellow who sneaked my watch."

  "Show him to you? What do you mean?"

  The doctor had not started. But the injured eye showed its injury oncemore.

  "It was one of your patients who picked my pocket," said the HomeSecretary, with as much confidence as though he had known it all thetime. "Would you have been in such a hurry to wash your hands of anybodyelse, and to undo what he'd done?"

  Dollar made no answer, no denial; but he glanced at a venerableone-handed clock, whose unprotected pendulum shaved the wall with noisysweeps. It was two o'clock in the morning, but already night must havebeen turned into dreadful and disturbing day for all the inmates. Thedoctor abandoned that excuse unmade, and faced his visitor indesperation.

  "So you want to see him--now?"

  "I do. I have my reasons. But it shall end at that--if I do see him._That_ won't nip my goodwill in the bud!" It was obvious what would.

  "You shall see him," said the doctor, as though racking his mind oncemore. "But there are difficulties you perhaps can't quite appreciate. Itmeans giving away a patient--don't you see?"

  "Perfectly. It seems to me a very proper punishment, since it's allhe'll get. Yet you don't want to lose your hold. Couldn't you send himdown here on some pretext, instead of taking me up to him?"

  The crime doctor's face lit up as if by electricity.

  "I can and I will!" he cried. "Wait here, Mr. Vinson. He's anotherreader; he shall come down for a book!"

  The great man waited with the satisfaction of a slightly overbearingpersonality for once very nearly overborne. He was now intenselyinterested in the crime doctor and his unique establishment. It was aninterest that he had no intention of sharing with his closest colleague,until he had gone deeper into a theory and practise that were already arevelation to him. They might both prove unworkable on any large scale,and yet they might light the way to sensational legislation of the verytype that Topham Vinson was the very man to introduce. Boundlessambition was one of the forces of a nature that responded to the call ofany sufficiently dazzling crusade; but the passion for adventure ranambition hard; and a crusade calculated to gratify both appetites wasdazzling even to eyes of triple steel!

  Only, he must show this new ally his power before they struck up theiralliance; that was the great reason for insisting on seeing thepickpocket. But there was a little reason besides. An excellent memoryhad supplied Mr. Vinson with a kind of post-impression of thepickpocket. And within one minute of the doctor's departure, and onesecond of the patient's prompt appearance, a certain small suspicionhad been confirmed.

  "I think we've met before, my man?" he had begun. His man startedstagily--was altogether of the stage--a bearded scarecrow in rags tooragged to be true. Vinson found the switches and made more light. "Nothalf a bad disguise," he continued, "whoever you may be! I supposethey're supplied on the premises for distinguished patients?"

  "How do you know it's a disguise?" croaked the hairy man, with downcasteyes.

  "Well, you don't look a distinguished patient, do you?" said the HomeSecretary airily. "On the other hand, your kit doesn't convince me atall; looks to me as if it would fall to pieces but for what the ladiescall a foundation--eh?"

  And he swooped down on the ragged tails as their owner turned ahumiliated back. And the "foundation" was a perfectly good overcoatturned inside out; moreover, it was a coat that Topham Vinson seemed toknow; it was a coat that he suddenly remembered, as he shot up to hisfull height and then stood deadly still.

  The pickpocket had not turned round. But his wig and beard lay at hiselbow on the mantelpiece; his diminished head had sunk into his hands;and the electric light blazed upon a medallion of silver hair, up aboveone burning ear.

  "Doctor--Dollar!" exclaimed Topham Vinson. And the ingenuous ring of hisown startled voice only added to his sense of outrage.

  "Yes! I was the man.... It was only to get at you--you know that!"

  It was a hoarse voice muttering to the wall, in a dire discomfiture thathad its effect on the insulted Minister.

  "So that was your weakness!" The plain comment was icier than any sneer."Picking and stealing--and your hand still keeps its cunning!"

  "Yes. That was how my wound had taken me." There was less shame in thehoarse voice, thanks to the bracing coldness of the other. "It startedin the field hospital--orderlies laughed and encouraged me--nurses atNetley just as bad! Everybody treated it as a joke; the doctor used toask for his watch or his handkerchief after every visit; and the greatscore was when he thought I had one, and it was really the other--orboth--or the keys out of his trousers pocket! It amused the ward andmade me popular--made me almost suicidal--because I alone knew that Icouldn't help doing it to save my life.... And the rest _you_ know."

  "I do, indeed!"

  "This beastly kit, I had it made on purpose so that I could run afteryou one minute with what I'd taken from you the minute before! It was alast attempt to gain your ear--to get you interested. And now----"

  "And now," said Topham Vinson, with a kind hand on the
bent shoulders,yet a keen eye on the bent head--"and now I suppose you think you've putthe lid on it? So you have, my dear doctor--on any sneaking doubts I hadabout you! You've struck a job after my own heart, and you've led meinto it as I never was led into anything in my life before. Well, you'vejust got to keep me in it now; and I'm conceited enough to believe Ishall be worth my place. Don't you think you might turn round, DoctorDollar, and let us shake hands on that?"