A silent witness
“I am afraid I have been staring you out of countenance, Mrs. Samway,”
I said apologetically.
“Hardly that,” she replied with a smile; “but you certainly were
looking at me very attentively.”
“Well,” I said, recovering myself, “after all, a cat may look at a
king, you know.”
She laughed softly--a very pretty, musical laugh--and rose, still
blushing warmly.
“And so,” she retorted, “by the same reasoning, you think a king may
look at a cat. Very well, Dr. Jardine. Good-night.”
She held out her hand; a beautifully-shaped hand, though rather
large--but, as I have said, she was not a small woman; and as it
clasped mine, though the pressure was quite gentle, it conveyed, like
her appearance, an impression of abundant physical strength.
I accompanied her to the door and watched her as she walked up the
dingy street with an easy, erect, undulating gait; even as might have
walked those women who are portrayed for the wonder of all time on the
ivory-toned marble of the Parthenon frieze. I followed with my eyes
the dignified, graceful figure until it vanished round the corner, and
then went back to the consulting-room dimly wondering why a woman of
such manifest beauty and charm should offer so little attraction to
me.
Batson’s practice, among its other drawbacks, suffered from a deadly
lack of professional interest. Whether this was its normal condition,
or whether his patients had got wind of me and called in other and
more experienced practitioners, I know not; but certainly, after the
stirring work of the hospital, the cases that I had to deal with
seemed very small beer. Hence the prospect of a genuine surgical case
came as a grateful surprise and I hailed it with enthusiasm.
It was on the day before Batson’s expected return that I received the
summons; which was delivered to me in a dirty envelope as I sat by the
bedside of the last patient on my list.
“Is the messenger waiting?” I asked, tearing open the envelope.
“No, Doctor. He just handed in the note and went off. He seemed to be
in a hurry.”
I ran my eye over the message, scrawled in a rather illiterate hand on
a sheet of common notepaper, and read:
“Sir,
“Will you please come at once to the Mineral Water Works in Norton
Street. One of our men has injured himself rather badly.
“Yours truly,
“J. Parker.
“P.S.--He is bleeding a good deal, so please come quick.”
The postscript gave a very necessary piece of information. An injury
which bled would require certain dressings and surgical appliances
over and above those contained in my pocket case; and to obtain these
I should have to take Batson’s house on the way. Slipping the note
into my pocket, I wished my patient a hasty adieu and strode off at a
swinging pace in the direction of Jacob Street.
The housemaid, Maggie, helped me to find the dressings and pack the
bag--for she was a handy, intelligent girl though no beauty; and
meanwhile I questioned her as to the whereabouts of Norton Street and
the mineral water factory.
“Oh, I know the place well enough, sir,” said she, “though I didn’t
know the works were open. Norton Street is only a few minutes’ walk
from here. It’s quite close to Gayton Street, in fact these works are
just at the back of the Samways’ house. You go up to the corner by the
market and take the second on the right and then--”
“Look here, Maggie,” I interrupted, “you’d better come and show me the
way, as you know the place. There’s no time to waste on fumbling for
the right turning.”
“Very well, sir,” she replied, and the bag being now packed with all
necessary instruments and dressings, we set forth together.
“Is this a large factory?” I asked, as she trotted by my side, to the
astonished admiration of Jacob Street, and the neighbourhood in
general.
“No, sir,” she replied. “It’s quite a small place. The last people
went bankrupt and the works were empty and to let for a long time. I
thought they were still to let, but I suppose somebody has taken them
and started the business afresh. It’s round here.”
She piloted me round a corner into a narrow by-street, near the end of
which she halted at the gate of a yard or mews. Above the entrance was
a weather-beaten board bearing the inscription, “International Mineral
Water Company” and a half-defaced printed bill offering the premises
to let; and at the side was a large bell-pull. A vigorous tug at the
latter set a bell jangling within, and, as Maggie tripped away up the
street, a small wicket in the gate opened, disclosing the dimly-seen
figure of a man standing in the inner darkness.
“Are you the doctor?” he inquired.
I answered “Yes,” and, being thereupon bidden to enter, stepped
through the opening of the wicket, which the man immediately closed,
shutting out the last gleam of light from the street lamp outside.
“It’s rather dark,” said the unseen custodian, taking me by the arm.
“It is indeed,” I replied, groping with my feet over the rough
cobbles; “hadn’t you better get a light of some kind?”
“I will in a minute,” was the reply. “You see, all the other men have
gone home. We close at six sharp. This is the way. I’ll strike a
match. The man is down in the bottling-room.”
My conductor struck a match by the light of which he guided me through
a doorway, along a passage or corridor and down a flight of stone
steps. At the bottom of the steps was a flagged passage, out of which
opened what looked like a range of cellars. Along the passage I walked
warily, followed by the stranger and lighted, very imperfectly, by the
matches that he struck; the glimmer of which threw a gigantic and
ghostly shadow of myself on the stone floor, but failed utterly to
pierce the darkness ahead. I was exactly opposite the yawning doorway
of one of the cellars when the match went out, and the man behind me
exclaimed:
“Wait a moment, Doctor! Don’t move until I strike another light.”
I halted abruptly; and the next moment I received a violent thrust
that sent me staggering through the open doorway into the cellar.
Instantly, the massive door slammed and a pair of heavy bolts were
shot in succession on the outside.
“What the devil is the meaning of this?” I roared, battering and
kicking furiously at the door. Of course, there was no answer, and I
quickly stopped my demonstrations, for it dawned on me in a moment
that the factory was untenanted save by the ruffian who had admitted
me; that I had been decoyed here of a set purpose, though what that
purpose was I could not imagine.
But it was not long before I received a pretty broad hint as to the
immediate intentions of my host. A gentle thumping at the door of my
cellar attracted my attention and caused me to lay my ear against the
wood. The sound that I heard was quite unmistakable. The crevices of
the door were being filled, apparently with pieces of rag, which my
friend was ramming home, presumably with a chisel. In fact the door
was being “caulked” to make the joints airtight.
The object of this proceeding was clear enough. I was shut up in an
air-tight cavity in which I was to be slowly suffocated. That was
quite obvious. Why was I to be suffocated, I could form no sort of
guess excepting that I had fallen into the hands of a homicidal
lunatic. But I was not greatly alarmed. The air in a good-sized cellar
will last a considerable time, and I could easily poke out anything
that my friend might stuff into the keyhole. Then, when the men
arrived in the morning, I could kick on the cellar door, and they
would come and let me out. There was nothing to be particularly
frightened about.
But stay! Were there any men? The injured man was evidently a myth.
Supposing the other men were a myth too! I recalled Maggie’s remark,
that she “had thought the place was to let still.” Perhaps it was.
That would be rather more serious.
At this point my cogitations were broken in upon by sounds from the
adjoining cellar; the sound of someone moving about and dragging some
heavy body. And it struck me at once as strange that I should hear
these sounds so distinctly, seeing the massive door of my own cellar
was closely sealed and the walls were of solid brick, as I ascertained
by rapping at them with my knuckles. But I had no time to consider
this circumstance, for there suddenly arose a new sound, whereat, I
must confess my heart fairly came into my mouth; a loud, penetrating
hiss like the shriek of escaping steam. It seemed to come from some
part of the cellar in which I was immured; from a spot nearly
overhead; and it was immediately echoed by a similar sound in the
adjoining cellar and then by a third. Even as the last sound broke
forth, the door of the adjoining cellar slammed, the bolts were shot
and then faintly mingled with the discordant hissing, I could hear the
dull thumping that told me that the cracks of that door, too, were
being caulked.
It was a frightful situation. The hissing sound was obviously caused
by the escape of gas under high pressure, and that gas must be
entering my cellar through some opening. I felt for my match-box, and,
groping along the wall towards the point whence the loudest
sound--and, indeed, all the sounds--proceeded, I struck a match. The
glimmer of the wax vesta made everything clear. Close to the ceiling,
about seven feet from the ground, was an opening in the wall about six
inches square; and pouring through this in a continuous stream was a
cloud of white particles that glistened like snowflakes. As I stood
under the opening, some of them settled on my face; and the more than
icy coldness of the contact, told the whole, horrible tale in a
moment.
This white powder _was_ snow--carbonic acid snow. The hissing sound
came from three of those great iron bottles, charged under pressure
with liquefied carbonic acid, which are used by mineral water
manufacturers for aërating the water. The miscreant (or lunatic) who
had imprisoned me had turned on the taps, and the liquid was escaping
and congealing into snow with the cold produced by its own rapid
evaporation and expansion. Of course the snow would quickly absorb
heat, and, without again liquefying, evaporate into the gaseous form.
In a very short time both cellars would be full of the poisonous gas,
and I--well, in a word, I was shut up in a lethal chamber.
It has taken me some time to write this explanation, which, however,
flashed through my brain in the twinkling of an eye as the light of
the match fell on that sinister cloud of snowflakes. In a moment I had
my coat off, and was stuffing it for dear life into the opening. It
was but a poor protection against the gas, which would easily enough
find its way through the interstices of the fabric; but it would stop
the direct stream of snow and give me time to think.
On what incalculable chances do the great issues of our lives depend!
If I had been a short man I must have been dead in half an hour; for
the opening through which the cloud of snow was pouring was well over
seven feet above the floor and would have been quite out of my reach.
Even as it was, with my six feet of stature and corresponding length
of arm, it was impossible to ram my coat into the opening with the
necessary force, for I had to stand close to the wall with my arm
upraised at a great mechanical disadvantage. Still, as I have said,
imperfect as the obstruction was, it served to stop the inrushing
cloud of snow. It would take some time for the heavy gas in the
adjoining cellar to rise to the level of the opening, and, meanwhile,
I could be devising other measures.
I lit another match and looked about me. The cellar was much smaller
than I had thought and was absolutely empty. The floor was of