Tales of Terror and Mystery
confidences, and so you may know all since you know so much. The story
may go where you will when I have passed away, but until then I rely
upon your sense of honour that no human soul shall hear it from your
lips. I am proud still--God help me!--or, at least, I am proud enough
to resent that pity which this story would draw upon me. I have smiled
at envy, and disregarded hatred, but pity is more than I can tolerate.
"You have heard the source from which the voice comes--that voice which
has, as I understand, excited so much curiosity in my household. I am
aware of the rumours to which it has given rise. These speculations,
whether scandalous or superstitious, are such as I can disregard and
forgive. What I should never forgive would be a disloyal spying and
eavesdropping in order to satisfy an illicit curiosity. But of that,
Mr. Colmore, I acquit you.
"When I was a young man, sir, many years younger than you are now, I
was launched upon town without a friend or adviser, and with a purse
which brought only too many false friends and false advisers to my
side. I drank deeply of the wine of life--if there is a man living who
has drunk more deeply he is not a man whom I envy. My purse suffered,
my character suffered, my constitution suffered, stimulants became a
necessity to me, I was a creature from whom my memory recoils. And it
was at that time, the time of my blackest degradation, that God sent
into my life the gentlest, sweetest spirit that ever descended as a
ministering angel from above. She loved me, broken as I was, loved me,
and spent her life in making a man once more of that which had degraded
itself to the level of the beasts.
"But a fell disease struck her, and she withered away before my eyes.
In the hour of her agony it was never of herself, of her own sufferings
and her own death that she thought. It was all of me. The one pang
which her fate brought to her was the fear that when her influence was
removed I should revert to that which I had been. It was in vain that
I made oath to her that no drop of wine would ever cross my lips. She
knew only too well the hold that the devil had upon me--she who had
striven so to loosen it--and it haunted her night and day the thought
that my soul might again be within his grip.
"It was from some friend's gossip of the sick room that she heard of
this invention--this phonograph--and with the quick insight of a loving
woman she saw how she might use it for her ends. She sent me to London
to procure the best which money could buy. With her dying breath she
gasped into it the words which have held me straight ever since.
Lonely and broken, what else have I in all the world to uphold me? But
it is enough. Please God, I shall face her without shame when He is
pleased to reunite us! That is my secret, Mr. Colmore, and whilst I
live I leave it in your keeping."
The Black Doctor
Bishop's Crossing is a small village lying ten miles in a
south-westerly direction from Liverpool. Here in the early seventies
there settled a doctor named Aloysius Lana. Nothing was known locally
either of his antecedents or of the reasons which had prompted him to
come to this Lancashire hamlet. Two facts only were certain about him;
the one that he had gained his medical qualification with some
distinction at Glasgow; the other that he came undoubtedly of a
tropical race, and was so dark that he might almost have had a strain
of the Indian in his composition. His predominant features were,
however, European, and he possessed a stately courtesy and carriage
which suggested a Spanish extraction. A swarthy skin, raven-black
hair, and dark, sparkling eyes under a pair of heavily-tufted brows
made a strange contrast to the flaxen or chestnut rustics of England,
and the newcomer was soon known as "The Black Doctor of Bishop's
Crossing." At first it was a term of ridicule and reproach; as the
years went on it became a title of honour which was familiar to the
whole countryside, and extended far beyond the narrow confines of the
village.
For the newcomer proved himself to be a capable surgeon and an
accomplished physician. The practice of that district had been in the
hands of Edward Rowe, the son of Sir William Rowe, the Liverpool
consultant, but he had not inherited the talents of his father, and Dr.
Lana, with his advantages of presence and of manner, soon beat him out
of the field. Dr. Lana's social success was as rapid as his
professional. A remarkable surgical cure in the case of the Hon. James
Lowry, the second son of Lord Belton, was the means of introducing him
to county society, where he became a favourite through the charm of his
conversation and the elegance of his manners. An absence of
antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an
impediment to social advancement, and the distinguished individuality
of the handsome doctor was its own recommendation.
His patients had one fault--and one fault only--to find with him. He
appeared to be a confirmed bachelor. This was the more remarkable
since the house which he occupied was a large one, and it was known
that his success in practice had enabled him to save considerable sums.
At first the local matchmakers were continually coupling his name with
one or other of the eligible ladies, but as years passed and Dr. Lana
remained unmarried, it came to be generally understood that for some
reason he must remain a bachelor. Some even went so far as to assert
that he was already married, and that it was in order to escape the
consequence of an early misalliance that he had buried himself at
Bishop's Crossing. And, then, just as the matchmakers had finally given
him up in despair, his engagement was suddenly announced to Miss
Frances Morton, of Leigh Hall.
Miss Morton was a young lady who was well known upon the country-side,
her father, James Haldane Morton, having been the Squire of Bishop's
Crossing. Both her parents were, however, dead, and she lived with her
only brother, Arthur Morton, who had inherited the family estate. In
person Miss Morton was tall and stately, and she was famous for her
quick, impetuous nature and for her strength of character. She met Dr.
Lana at a garden-party, and a friendship, which quickly ripened into
love, sprang up between them. Nothing could exceed their devotion to
each other. There was some discrepancy in age, he being thirty-seven,
and she twenty-four; but, save in that one respect, there was no
possible objection to be found with the match. The engagement was in
February, and it was arranged that the marriage should take place in
August.
Upon the 3rd of June Dr. Lana received a letter from abroad. In a small
village the postmaster is also in a position to be the gossip-master,
and Mr. Bankley, of Bishop's Crossing, had many of the secrets of his
neighbours in his possession. Of this particular letter he remarked
only that it was in a curious envelope, that it was in a man's
handwriting, that the postscript was Buenos Ayres, and the stamp of the
Argentine Republic. It was the first letter which he had ever known
Dr. Lana to have from abroad and this was the reason why his attention
was particularly called to it before he handed it to the local postman.
It was delivered by the evening delivery of that date.
Next morning--that is, upon the 4th of June--Dr. Lana called upon Miss
Morton, and a long interview followed, from which he was observed to
return in a state of great agitation. Miss Morton remained in her room
all that day, and her maid found her several times in tears. In the
course of a week it was an open secret to the whole village that the
engagement was at an end, that Dr. Lana had behaved shamefully to the
young lady, and that Arthur Morton, her brother, was talking of
horse-whipping him. In what particular respect the doctor had behaved
badly was unknown--some surmised one thing and some another; but it was
observed, and taken as the obvious sign of a guilty conscience, that he
would go for miles round rather than pass the windows of Leigh Hall,
and that he gave up attending morning service upon Sundays where he
might have met the young lady. There was an advertisement also in the
Lancet as to the sale of a practice which mentioned no names, but which
was thought by some to refer to Bishop's Crossing, and to mean that Dr.
Lana was thinking of abandoning the scene of his success. Such was the
position of affairs when, upon the evening of Monday, June 21st, there
came a fresh development which changed what had been a mere village
scandal into a tragedy which arrested the attention of the whole
nation. Some detail is necessary to cause the facts of that evening to
present their full significance.
The sole occupants of the doctor's house were his housekeeper, an
elderly and most respectable woman, named Martha Woods, and a young
servant--Mary Pilling. The coachman and the surgery-boy slept out. It
was the custom of the doctor to sit at night in his study, which was
next the surgery in the wing of the house which was farthest from the
servants' quarters. This side of the house had a door of its own for
the convenience of patients, so that it was possible for the doctor to
admit and receive a visitor there without the knowledge of anyone. As
a matter of fact, when patients came late it was quite usual for him to
let them in and out by the surgery entrance, for the maid and the
housekeeper were in the habit of retiring early.
On this particular night Martha Woods went into the doctor's study at
half-past nine, and found him writing at his desk. She bade him good
night, sent the maid to bed, and then occupied herself until a quarter
to eleven in household matters. It was striking eleven upon the hall
clock when she went to her own room. She had been there about a quarter
of an hour or twenty minutes when she heard a cry or call, which
appeared to come from within the house. She waited some time, but it
was not repeated. Much alarmed, for the sound was loud and urgent, she
put on a dressing-gown, and ran at the top of her speed to the doctor's
study.
"Who's there?" cried a voice, as she tapped at the door.
"I am here, sir--Mrs. Woods."
"I beg that you will leave me in peace. Go back to your room this
instant!" cried the voice, which was, to the best of her belief, that
of her master. The tone was so harsh and so unlike her master's usual
manner, that she was surprised and hurt.
"I thought I heard you calling, sir," she explained, but no answer was
given to her. Mrs. Woods looked at the clock as she returned to her
room, and it was then half-past eleven.
At some period between eleven and twelve (she could not be positive as
to the exact hour) a patient called upon the doctor and was unable to
get any reply from him. This late visitor was Mrs. Madding, the wife
of the village grocer, who was dangerously ill of typhoid fever. Dr.
Lana had asked her to look in the last thing and let him know how her
husband was progressing. She observed that the light was burning in
the study, but having knocked several times at the surgery door without
response, she concluded that the doctor had been called out, and so
returned home.
There is a short, winding drive with a lamp at the end of it leading
down from the house to the road. As Mrs. Madding emerged from the gate
a man was coming along the footpath. Thinking that it might be Dr.
Lana returning from some professional visit, she waited for him, and
was surprised to see that it was Mr. Arthur Morton, the young squire.
In the light of the lamp she observed that his manner was excited, and
that he carried in his hand a heavy hunting-crop. He was turning in at
the gate when she addressed him.
"The doctor is not in, sir," said she.