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Edgar Wallace was a prolific British writer in the early 20th century, known for his crime and detective fiction.
The Devil Man is one of his lesser-known works, but it is a classic example of his style.
The story follows Inspector Elk of Scotland Yard as he investigates a series of murders that seem to be connected to a mysterious man known as "the Devil Man." The Devil Man is said to have supernatural powers and the ability to control people's minds. Elk is initially skeptical of these claims but soon discovers that there may be some truth to them.
The Devil Man is a thrilling mystery full of twists and turns. Wallace's writing style is fast-paced and engaging, and he keeps the reader guessing until the very end.
Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a British author, journalist, and playwright, best known for his crime and detective novels. He wrote over 170 novels, 957 short stories, and 18 stage plays during his prolific career. Wallace's work was popular in his time, and his novels were often adapted for film and stage.
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Edgar Wallace
The Devil Man
The sky is the limit
Table of contents
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART TWO
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
PART THREE
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
PART FOUR
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
PART ONE
Chapter 1
On the western outskirts of Sheffield—the Sheffield of 1875—there was a dingy red factory that had seen the bankruptcies of at least three concerns which had been housed within its high walls. In this year it was occupied by the staff of a Mr Wertheimer, who produced nothing that was of commercial value, and was rather secretive about what he hoped to produce at all. He called himself and his partner, known and unknown, "The Silver Steel Company", which, as Baldy said subsequently, was a contradiction in terms.
On a certain wintry night a young man dropped a rope ladder from one of the walls and came gingerly to the ground. His name was Kuhl, he was a Swiss from the Canton de Vaud, by profession an engineer, and by disposition an admirer of attractive ladies.
He picked his way across the uneven ground towards the road and was met halfway by two men. A woman, driving into Sheffield, saw the three talking by the side of the road where a closed wagonette, drawn by two horses, was standing. The men were talking loudly and gesticulating at one another. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw what was apparently a free fight in progress, and whipped up her horse.
She did not inform the police because, as she said, it was none of her business, and, besides, fights were pretty frequent in those days and in that part of the world.
Later she informed Sergeant Eltham, but could give no satisfactory account of how the fight finished.
This Sergeant Eltham was a police officer who never ceased to apologize for being seen in public without his uniform. But for this it might almost have been forgotten that he had ever worn a uniform at all, since he was the most astute of the "plain clothes men" that ever went on the roll of the Sheffield Police Force. He was tall, broad-shouldered, bushy-bearded, bald. Wrongdoers, who did not like him and never spoke of him except in the most lurid terms, called him "Baldy" or "Whiskers" as the fancy seized them.
He was a man who was seldom at a loss even in the most baffling situation, but he confessed to being beaten when the Silver Steel Company called upon him, for the second time in three months, to ask him to solve the mystery of a lost employee.
He came into Alan Mainford's surgery one cold night in December to drink hot rum and water and gossip about people and things, as was his practice. The sergeant was a bachelor living with a widowed sister, and his recreations were few. Dr Mainford often wondered what he did to pass the time before the beginning of their friendship—it had its genesis in a violent toothache which Alan ended summarily and in the early hours of the morning with a No. 3 forcep and a muscular forearm.
"I don't know about these Silver Steel people, doctor," he said.
He had a deliberate method of speaking and a weakness for long words, was known as an orator at social functions, held important office in the Order of Oddfellows, and was a Buffalo of the highest grade.
Alan smiled as he filled his pipe.
He was a good-looking young man, who sacrificed a certain amount of confidence amongst elderly patients because he shaved clean, a habit that made him look even younger; so that people often referred to him as a "bit of a boy", and expressed their firm determination of never allowing him so much as to bandage a cut finger. He had hardly lost the tan of India, spent more time out of doors than his brother professionals, kept a couple of hunters in the Melton country and might, had he desired, have found an easier and a more lucrative practice in more pleasant surroundings, for he enjoyed a good income and had expectations which must inevitably be realized.
"What don't you know about the Silver Steel Company?" he asked.
Baldy shook his shiny head. "In the first place, silver is silver and steel's steel," he said. "It's ridiculous and absurd to mix 'em up. In the second place, they're foreigners. I don't like foreigners. Give me the true-born Briton!"
Alan chuckled. "You are what Mr Gladstone calls 'insular'," he began, and Baldy snorted.
"Gladstone! Don't talk about that man! He'll ruin the country one of these days, mark my words! Now, Dizzy—"
"Don't let's talk politics. Go on with your foreigners."
Baldy sipped his rum and made a little face.
"Sheffield's full of 'em lately. There's this Silver Steel lot and there's Madame What's-her-name over in—" He snapped his fingers in an effort to recall the location. Baldy could never remember names, that was the most colossal of all his weaknesses.
"Anyway, there's her, and that German lot that are experimenting at what-do-you-call-the-place? Taking the bread out of our mouths."
"We're probably taking the bread out of their mouth, too," said Alan good humouredly. "Don't forget, Baldy—"
"Say Eltham, or say sergeant," pleaded the other. "Baldy is low."
"Well, don't forget that Sheffield is the centre of the steel world and people come here from all over Europe to pick up wrinkles. What are the Silver Steel people doing?"
"The Lord knows," said Baldy piously. "Turnin' silver into steel or vice versa—a Latin expression. Only a little factory, and all the workmen sleep in cottages inside the walls—the cottages were built by a feller in Eccleshall who got sixty pounds apiece for 'em. Foreigners all of 'em. Can't speak a word of English. Works guarded by men with guns. I've seen it with my own eyes! I've warned 'em about that."
Alan picked up a small log and put it carefully on the top of the glowing coals in the grate.
"It's a secret process, I expect," he said. "Sheffield is packed tight with mysterious factories trying some new-fangled scheme."
Baldy nodded. "With electricity, according to what I hear. It doesn't seem possible. Electricity is lights and cures rheumatism. I had a penn'orth at the winter fair. You hold two brass handles and a feller pulls out a piston and you have pins and needles all up your arm. I don't know how it's done, there's a trick in it somewhere. But what's electricity got to do with steel? It's absurd, ridiculous and confusing. It's against the laws of nature, too." There had been, he explained, some rum things happening at the Silver Steel works. One of the workmen went for a walk on a Sunday night and had not been seen since. Then a month later another workman, who had learnt enough English to correspond with a Sheffield young lady, had climbed over the wall and gone to see her "clandestinely". He had not been seen since, except by a woman who saw him in the company of two men.
"Fightin', accordin' to this witness, a woman named...bless my life, I'll forget my own name next! Anyway, he's gone. And why not? According to Mr What's-his-name, who owns the works, this man lives in Switzerland among the Alps. Who would live in Sheffield if he had an Alp to go to?"
"I know Wertheimer," nodded Alan. "One of his men had a hand crushed and I attended him. What do you suspect about the missing men—foul play?"
"Foul grandmothers!" snorted Baldy. "Gone home—that's all. Run away with gels. This feller was writing to a girl—a Miss—dear me! I've got it on the tip of my tongue! She went away the same night. Nobody knows where. It's the old story—marry in haste and repent at leisure."
"Who is Mr Dyson?" asked Alan.
Baldy frowned. "Dyson? Don't know him. Who is he?"
"He's an engineer, I think. I met him at the works. An enormously tall man. He's been in America and seemed to know Wertheimer."
"Dyson—I know him. A long un! He's all right—a gentleman. He's with the railway. Got a pretty sharp tongue, too." Baldy mixed another glass of grog, using his own bottle—he insisted upon this act of partnership. "Too many foreigners—not enough good Yorkshiremen in Sheffield. What's the use of foreigners to us? Nothing."
Alan was interested in the missing men and asked questions.
"I don't know any more than that. I've got too much work to do to bother about 'em. There's a regular outbreak of burglary in this neighbourhood and I pretty well know the man that's doing it. When I say 'man', I ask pardon of my Maker, for this chap is no man. He's a monstrosity. He oughtn't to be on the face of the earth."
"In fact, he's no gentleman," laughed Alan. "I am going to turn you out, Baldy. Don't scowl—It's a term of affection. I'm off to bed. And perhaps tonight a few expected babies will postpone their arrival until I've had a spell of sleep."
No maternity case brought Alan out of his warm bed. The hammerings on his door that woke him were the hammer blows of fate. He went out into the raw night to face new and tremendous factors which were to change and reshape his life.
Chapter 2
Dr Alan Mainford was at the age when even a night call from an unknown patient had in it the stuff of adventure. Dixon brought round the pony trap and offered a few bitter comments on the weather, the hour, the difficulty of harnessing the cob by the light of a lantern which the wind blew out every few minutes, and, above all, and most insistently, the futility of obeying every summons that comes out of the night.
"The old doctor used to say. 'If they can't last till mornin' I can't save 'em tonight'—that's what the old doctor used to say," he said darkly.
Dixon was stocky and bow-legged, as became a groom. On the finest summer morning he would have been disgruntled, for it was his habit to complain.
"The old doctor—" he began again.
"Blow the old doctor!" said Alan.
"He's dead," said Dixon, hurt and reproachful.
"Of course he's dead—your grousing killed him."
Dixon never liked the word "grousing"; it was an army word and outlandish. He resented Alan's three years of service as an army doctor, did his best to hide from the world that his employer had ever had that experience. It was a tradition of the medical profession in the year 1875 that army doctors were without quality, and Dixon had been brought up in the traditions of the profession.
Alan took the reins in his hand and looked up and down the dreary street. Snow and sleet were driving down from the north-west; the gas- lamps were dim nebulae of foggy light.
"Thank Gawd I rough-shod him yesterday." said Dixon, his mind, as ever, on the impatient and rather annoyed animal between the shafts. "Mind that hill near the Cross—he's fresh tonight, poor little feller." He held the horse's head as Alan stepped up into the trap, wrapped a leather covered rug waist-high about him and sat on the driver's seat.
"All right—let go his head." The cob slipped, recovered, found his feet and his gait and went swiftly down the white-covered road. Wet snow beat into Alan's face, blinding him. Clear of Banner Cross the street lights vanished, and he drove into a black void which the faint light of his trap lamps did little to illuminate.
Happily, the cob knew the road, knew, in his peculiar way, every hedge, every isolated house. Where the road turned sharply he checked of his own will; he fell into a walk at every sharp rise and picked his way cautiously down every declivity.
Alan dreamed his waking dreams, which were in the main as fantastical and unreal as the shadows about him. He dreamed of a day when the railroad would run to the least village; perhaps there would some day be road locomotives on the lines of traction engines and steam rollers, but less cumbersome and cheaper. Perhaps a time would come when every man would have his own little engine which ran at incredible speeds—twenty miles an hour possibly—along every highway.
He hoped Mrs Stahm's servants would be able to give him tea or coffee—the latter for choice. The Germans made good coffee, or was she Swedish? He had seen her often, riding in the foreign-looking victoria with her coachman and her footman on the box, a dark-eyed, inscrutable woman of uncertain age. Nobody knew her; his small circle of friends used to speculate upon her identity and wonder what brought her to the outskirts of Sheffield and the loneliness of Brinley Hall, until they learnt that she was the widow of a Swiss engineer who had invented a new steel which was yet in its experimental stage. Apparently she lived near to the scene of the experiments, not because her interest in her husband's invention was academic or sentimental, but because she herself had had something of a scientific training. Young Dibden, whose father was senior partner of the firm that were trying out the invention, spoke of her with respect.
"By gad, she's clever! A woman, too...! You wouldn't expect a woman to know anything about the chemistry of steel, but she does. Got the process from A to Z...told Furley that he was old-fashioned...what was the word? Archaic! But she's odd—deuced odd. None of the women likes her—they loathe her. She doesn't ask 'em to tea and they don't ask her. She makes 'em shiver, and by heavens she makes me shiver too!" Alan grinned into the dark night. Would Madame Stahm make him shiver? He saw humanity from his own peculiar angle. Men and women could be majestic and terrifying and all the things that impress, but usually they were never really interesting until he was called in to see them: rather pitiful creatures who had shed their majesty and were neither impressive nor awe- inspiring.
The cob went at a steady gait, clop-clopping through the snow covering of the road. Once he shied at something Alan could not immediately see. Snatching up the pony, he brought him to the centre of the road and, as he did so, he saw the figure which had startled the animal: the shape of a man trudging through the street. He shouted abusively in a harsh voice. Alan heard the word "lift", but he was giving no lifts that night. There were some queer people in this neighbourhood—burglaries had been numerous; it was not a night to invite any unknown pedestrian to share the trap.
His gloved hands were stiff and numbed with cold when he turned the cob's head towards the two stone pillars that flanked the drive. It wound up through an avenue of anaemic-looking trees to the big house. No lights showed in any of the windows.
Stiffly he descended, gathered up the reins...
"I'll take the horse." Alan almost jumped. The voice came from the darkness of the porch. Now he was dimly aware, not only of the figure in the dark porch, but that the door of the house was open. The hall was in darkness.
The man spoke again in a language which Alan did not understand. It sounded like one of the Scandinavian tongues. A second man came shambling into the open and went to the cob's head.
"He will stable the horse and look after him, doctor. Will you come this way?" Suddenly the lantern he was carrying threw out a strong yellow beam. Electricity was in the days of its infancy, and this was the first hand-lamp that Alan had ever seen—the famous Stahm lamp that was an object of curiosity for many years afterwards.
They passed into the hall, and the heavy door closed behind them.
"One moment—I will strike a lucifer and light the gas," said the guide.
Mainford waited. A match spluttered, and in a second the hall was illuminated.
The guide was a man of forty. He was well, even foppishly dressed. The long, yellow face was framed in side whiskers; there hung about him the nidor of stale cigar smoke.
"Before you go up, doctor,"—he stood squarely between Alan and the broad staircase which led to the upper part of the house—"let me tell you that Madame is not ill—not ill as you would say that a person is ill, eh?" English was not his native tongue, Alan realized. Though his accent was pure, the construction of his sentences, no less than his choice of words, betrayed him.
"She has storms in her brain; fears of death groundless. She is too clever. In a woman that is terrible. For a long while she will go on, but sometimes there comes to her a sense of...bafflement. There is no such word, eh? But you understood. Good! A wall confronts her. She screams, she tries to climb up, she tries to burrow beneath, she tears at the stones with her pretty fingers. Absurd! Wait, I say, and the wall she will vanish. Mind"—he tapped his narrow forehead—"always mind will triumph! In such times the nasty little man can soothe her. You know him? I am sure you know him. Ach! Such a man! But the good Lord makes them in all shapes and sizes." He went on, hardly stopping to find his breath, and all the time his long, white hands gesticulated every emphasis.
"What is the matter with her now?" asked Alan, a little bewildered to discover that "Madame" was not ill. It was a cool greeting after a six- mile drive on a stormy night. He did not trouble to wonder who this man was, or in what relationship he stood to his patient. Such matters did not greatly interest him. The name of his companion and his profession he was to learn immediately.
"Hysteria—no more. It is alarming, but I would not have sent for you. Madame thinks she will die. A doctor and a priest and the nasty little man. The priest, no! She shall not die, but she shall be ill if I do not bring her relief. I am Baumgarten—engineer. Dr Stahm was my master—I his disciple. Eckhardt was also his disciple. He is dead. All thieves die sometime. He died in America of consumption. There is a God!" Abruptly he turned and walked up the stairs, Alan, carrying the bag he had taken from underneath the seat of the trap, following. Who was Eckhardt? Why the malignant satisfaction that he had died so painfully? Eckhardt was a thief; what had he stolen?
At the head of the stairs was a wide landing. The walls were hung with tapestries; there was a suggestion of luxury, of immense wealth, and with it went an air of neglect and decay. There was a certain mustiness about the house which betokened a total disregard for fresh air or ventilation. Two of the tapestries hung crookedly; Alan saw that they were supported en loops of string from tenpenny nails driven into the panels.
"This way, my dear sir." Baumgarten opened a recessed door and they passed, not into a bedroom, as Alan had expected, but into a great drawing- room. Though from the centre of the black ceiling hung a gas chandelier, where three yellow flames were burning within glass globes, it was almost as if he had walked into the outer dark. The walls, the carpets, the curtains were papered or draped in black. The furniture, when he could pick it out, was upholstered and lacquered in the same gloomy hue. The only relief to this manufactured gloom was the woman in pale green velvet who sat on the raised dais at one end of the long room, and the white-clad nurse who stood by her side, watching Alan with a relief in her eyes which she did not attempt to disguise.
It was not on the patient, but on the nurse, that Dr Mainford's attention was riveted. In her simple uniform she looked like some exquisite creature of the Renaissance with her dull gold hair which the nurse's bonnet could not hide, and her slim, perfectly poised figure. The exquisite moulding of her face, the red rose lips, the firm little chin, the ivory whiteness of her skin, left him breathless.
He knew most of the nurses in Sheffield, but this was a stranger to him.
"Well, well, well." It was Baumgarten's impatient voice. "There is madame to be seen, is it not?" And then, almost with a wrench, Alan turned his attention to the woman in green. It was difficult to believe that she was human. Her face was an enamelled white, the dark eyes stared ahead of her; she seemed oblivious of her surroundings, of his presence, of anything that was earthly.
From her face, plastered thick with powder, he could not judge her age. It was only when he saw the hands, tightly clenched on the arms of her velvet chair, that he judged her to be over fifty. She sat, stiff, motionless, bolt upright, her chin raised, her face expressionless. About her neck was a great circle of green stones. From their size he was satisfied they could not be emeralds; but here he was mistaken. A big emerald ring glittered on one finger. About each arm was bracelet upon bracelet, until she glittered from wrist to elbow.
Alan experienced a queer sense of embarrassment as he went to her and tried to take her hand. The clutching fingers could not be pried loose from their grip. He pushed up the jewelled circles, found her pulse and took out his watch. The pulse was faint but regular.
"Are you feeling ill?" he asked.
Madame Stahm made no answer, and he looked at the nurse inquiringly.
"She has been like this for nearly an hour," said the girl in a low voice. "I have tried everything. It looks like a cataleptic seizure, but Mr Baumgarten says it is not unusual and that she will recover in time. She was taken ill last night at about seven," she went on. "It was dreadful!"
"Screaming?" She nodded. He heard her quick sigh.
"Yes...dreadful. Mr Baumgarten was alarmed. But the attack passed off, and he thought it was over. At eleven o'clock it came on again, worse." She did not take her eyes from his when she spoke, and he saw in them the shadow of fear, which is very rarely met with in the eyes of a woman of her profession.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Jane Garden. I am from St Mary's Hospital in London. I've been here a month." She glanced past him towards Baumgarten, who stood motionless, his head bent, a frank and unabashed listener.
Alan stooped and looked at the woman's eyes. They were set; the pupils were pin-pointed, and he made a little grimace.
"It is either hysteria or drugs—" he began.
"Neither—fool!" It was the green woman who almost snarled the words, and he was so startled that he dropped the stethoscope he was fitting.
She did not move, did not even turn her eyes in his direction. Only the thin lips moved.
"You have no sense, no brains! You see only material things! You do not examine the soul! I project myself into the infinite, and you say 'hysteria'! I walk with Stahm and his shadow, Eckhardt, and you say 'drugs'! I live in the shades, I go out of the world, and you feel my pulse and listen to my heart and say; 'Ah, well, she is mad.'"
And then the dead figure came to life. He saw the bosom rise as she inhaled a deep breath; the eyes moved slowly in his direction. The figure became suddenly alive.
"Who sent for this man? Who sent for him?" She almost screamed the words.
"I sent for him," said Baumgarten calmly. "You said you were dying, you asked for a doctor, a priest and the ugly man. Here is your doctor. The ugly man is coming—the priest, no." She began speaking rapidly to him in a language which was neither Scandinavian nor German. One word gave him the clue. They were talking in Russian. Both Baumgarten and Madame Stahm were Russian by birth, he discovered later.
The first part of her speech was obviously a flood of abuse; but gradually her voice and manner grew calmer, and the thin lips curled in a smile. When she turned to the doctor and spoke her manner was entirely changed.
"Most stupid of me, doctor," she said, so graciously that he was staggered. "I have these—what is the word?—fits! Hysteria? It is possible. But drugs—I do not think I have taken drugs—no, Baumgarten?" He shook his head slowly, his eyes upon her.
"That is the truth," she said. "Now you shall feel my pulse." She held out her hand almost gaily, and Alan's fingers closed upon a wrist that pulsated so strongly that it might not have been the same woman he had examined a few seconds before.
"It is hysteria possibly. I am a great trial to all my friends. But then, what woman is not? You are psychic, doctor?" It was a word not very commonly used, and he frowned.
"Psychic? Do you mean seeing spooks and things?"
"Spooks and things," she repeated with an ironic little smile. "Eh? That is your idea of the psychic? Well, perhaps you are right, doctor. My nerves are bad." She turned abruptly to Baumgarten. "The ugly man, is he coming?"
Baumgarten looked at his watch. "He should be here," he said, and went out of the room.
Madame Stahm regarded her professional caller with a quizzical smile. "You do not know my nasty little man, I suppose? Or does everybody know him? He is a seer. People do not believe so, but he has divinity!"
Alan for the moment was not interested in psychic things, or even ugly men who had divine qualities. He was intensely practical. "Don't you think you should undress and go to bed?" he said. "I can give you a bromide draught which can be made up at the chemists—there is one at the village two miles away."
She laughed a low, amused laugh.
"You say I take drugs, so you give me more, eh. That is funny!"
"Rest will be very good for you," he said.
The nurse started from her contemplation of Alan. "It will be very good for you," she urged. "You remember, I suggested a sleeping draught—"
"A sleeping draught, ach!" Madame Stahm snapped her jewelled fingers. "No, will have my ugly man and he will rest me. Jane doesn't like my ugly man."
There was no need for the girl to confirm this—her face told the story. The squeak of the door handle made Alan Mainford turn, and then he saw Madame's seer.
Chapter 3
He was a queer, incongruous figure of a man. His height could not have been more than five feet; the big, dark, deep-set eyes were the one pleasant feature in a face which was utterly repulsive. They were the eyes of an intelligent animal. The forehead was grotesquely high, running in furrows almost to where, at the crown of the head, a mop of grey hair rolled back. The unshaven cheeks were cadaverous, deeply lined and hollow. There was a ferocity in the overthrust jaw as the little man moved it from side to side. His thick, rough coat was soddened with sleet, his boots left little pools of water on the black carpet. He wore home-knitted mittens, and in one hand clutched an ancient violin case.
"Delighted!" murmured madame. "You are a good man to come. I am in need of your inspiration. Play, play, play!"
The little man was glaring malignantly at Alan. "You couldn't stop and gimme a lift, mister?" he demanded resentfully. "I must trudge through the muck and the mire. I called to tha', but no, he goes on—him ridin'—me walkin'!" Alan's eyes had wandered to the nurse. She stood rigid, and in her face was a look of horror that helped to tell a story he intended knowing before he left the house that night.
"Play!" The order was imperious. The little man squatted down on a chair and opened the case on his knees. He took out an old violin and a bow and cuddled the fiddle under his chin.
Then he began to play, and all the time those animal eyes of his were fixed on Jane Garden's face. He played a queer obbligato and he was extemporizing every note. There were moments when he defied every law of harmony, when he became so musically illiterate that Alan, who was no music-lover, winced. There were times when he achieved a breath-taking peak of beauty, when the very soul of humanity trembled on the taut strings of the instrument.
And always he looked at Jane, and it came to Alan Mainford that this man was playing her as though she were a piece of music, translating thought, discordant fear, jarring uncertainty, wild despair, into the terms of melody.
"Play me, ugly man! Leaf her! You hear, play me!" Madame's voice was an angry wail. It was true then—that was what this ugly little devil was doing—playing souls.
He saw the violinist turn his eyes to the older woman and the pace of the music quickened, became distorted, wild, dreamy and strident. Then, suddenly, in a discord that set Alan's teeth on edge, the music ceased.
"Out of me head!" The ugly man pronounced his boast loudly. He was pleased with himself, triumphant was the better word. His deep chest swelled, he wiped his streaming forehead with a brightly coloured handkerchief, and the thick lips were unlatched in a grin.
"Out of me head! You're an educated man. I'm self-learnt—but I got more cleverness in me than you! Next time I say give me a lift, you give it!" He had become suddenly a bully, overbearing. Alan, who had reason for being annoyed, was amused; for all this bluster was for the benefit of Jane Garden. The little ugly man was showing off.
"I can sing, recite, do a dance," he went on. "I bin before public in real theatres. I can whistle like a bird—" He pursed his lips and of a sudden there was a blackbird in the room, singing with the joy of life and the unborn spring in its little heart. Alan listened, fascinated.
"No more, you have done well, my dear little friend." Madame arrested a further demonstration. "Here is the money." She thrust her hand into a bag that hung from her wrist. They heard the jingle of gold and then she held out two sovereigns to the whistler. He accepted the gift with an odd air of condescension: it was as though he was the donor and she the recipient.
"You are a truly great man,"—her tone was almost caressing. "Some day you shall be the greatest man in the world. I love you, because you are so ugly and dirty. Tomorrow—or on Sunday—I will send for you. Goodbye."
He hesitated, his dark eyes again sought Jane Garden. "I don't walk back, missus. You ain't going to let a poor old man walk back?"
"I'll give you a lift as far as the city," said Alan, still amused. "I didn't know you were coming to this house or I would have picked you up."
The little man's lips curled in a sneer. "I daresay you would," he said.
And then Alan caught the girl's eyes, saw the urgency of the summons in them, and went across to her. To his amazement she was breathless, hardly able to speak.
"I want you to get me away from here," she said in a low tone. "Can you—will you"?"
"But how—?"
"I don't care how you do it. I know you can't take me away tonight, but can't you send for me tomorrow and give me some instructions about Mrs Stahm's treatment? They won't let me go near Sheffield—please!"
Mainford thought quickly. Both Madame Stahm and Baumgarten were watching him closely. It almost seemed as though they had expected her to approach him.
"I'll send the trap over for you tomorrow, Nurse Garden," he said in a loud voice. "The test won't take very long, and I think that it should—"
"Send the trap over?" repeated Madame sharply. "Why?"
He looked at her steadily. "Because Nurse Garden is not particularly well, and I would like to make a blood test," he said.
"It can be made here," said Baumgarten quickly.
"It will be made just where I want it to be made!" Here was the imperious army doctor speaking, authority in his tone.
There was a brief and embarrassing silence.
"I'm afraid I can't spare the nurse," said Madame Stahm acidly, and quailed under Alan Mainford's cold gaze. He had that effect upon some people; this woman might not be a coward, but she was incapable of resisting authority.
"Is there any reason why she should not go into Sheffield?" he asked.
"None at all," snapped Madame. "But I think a sick patient is entitled to be consulted before a nurse is taken away from her."
Alan smiled. "You are consulted, Madame Stahm. I will send the trap for this young lady at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Either my groom will drive over or my friend Sergeant Eltham, who is an expert driver, will call for her." It was a threat; nobody in that room mistook the significance of Alan's alternative suggestion. He heard a low grumble behind him, like the growl of an animal, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the little man's face pucker in anger.
"Very good," said Madame Stahm hastily. "There is no reason why the nurse should not go, though it will be very inconvenient. Mr Baumgarten will pay you your fee, doctor. I shall not require you again."
Alan bowed. "That is for you to decide, Madame Stahm. But I would advise you, if you have another such attack as you had today, not to let your prejudice against me stand in the way of calling me in. You have a very bad heart, but I suppose you know that?"
She glared down at him malignantly from her raised seat. "It's a lie!" She spoke with difficulty. "I have goot health—goot health! You shall not say that I am sick because I have visions...you said this to anger me? Tell me, doctor, you said this to anger me, and I will forgive you."
"You have a bad heart," repeated Alan quietly. "Your pulse is not at all as it should be, and you have certain facial symptoms which are rather alarming. I repeat, don't let the fact that I have annoyed you stop you from calling me in if you cannot get another doctor." He nodded to the girl, made another little bow to Madame Stahm and walked out of the room, followed by Baumgarten. At the door he turned to look back at Jane. She had already disappeared, but the ugly little man had made his way to Madame Stahm's side and was talking to her eagerly in a low voice. She nodded, nodded again, shook her head and smiled.
"Have no fear, little friend," she said. "You shall have all you desire." As the man came towards them, Baumgarten, with some ostentation, opened a purse which he took from his trousers pocket and put a golden sovereign and a shilling in Alan's palm.
"That, I think, is a generous fee," he said, a little pompously. And then his voice changed. "Do you think she's ill—yes? Really, with her heart?" He tapped his own anxiously.
"I think so," replied Alan.
He was not anxious to discuss the symptoms of his patient with the mysterious Mr Baumgarten and made his way down the stairs into the dimly lit hall.
"One question, doctor—Do you know a dull, stupid man—a Swiss—who has a factory; the Silver Steel Company, eh?"
"No," said Alan shortly.
The cob and the trap were standing at the door and Alan mounted to his seat. He had just taken up the reins when there came a sound that made his blood run cold. It was a long, muffled shriek, that ended in an agonized wail, and it came from somewhere in the house.
"What was that?" he asked quickly.
"It is the railway whistle, my friend," said Baumgarten's voice. He could hardly see him in the darkness. "You are nervous!"
"That was no railway whistle," said Alan, and waited, listening, but the scream was not repeated.
He had forgotten all about the little man until he began clambering up on the opposite side and fell into the more comfortable seat.
"Give me some of that apron, will you?" he growled. "Haven't you got any heart for an old man?...Ought to be ashamed of yourself." Alan unwrapped the driving apron which he had drawn around himself; slipping one of the leather loops round the iron batten at his side, he passed the rest of the cover to his unwelcome passenger. A touch of the reins and the cob was heading down the drive.
He was half annoyed, half amused with himself. Why on earth had he taken this line with Madame Stahm? He had deliberately tried to frighten her, and he had most certainly antagonized her beyond forgiveness, though this was a matter of no account.
He was amused to find himself acting in the role of champion to distressed nurses, but there was something behind that girl's terror, something peculiarly sinister in the atmosphere of the house. He had not hesitated; the only uneasiness he had in his mind was whether he should leave her there for another night. All the time he had been in that queer habitation he had a sense that it was overtenanted.
He was conscious of the presence of men whom he did not see, and had a feeling that strange and unfriendly eyes had watched him all the time he had been there...
That shriek—it was a shriek; it could not have been anything else. Was Mrs Stahm passing through another hysterical crisis? The little man at his side fidgeted uneasily, grumbling under his breath.
"You've got too much of the apron." He tugged at it savagely. "Do you want to make me ill so as you can cure me? I wouldn't have you for a doctor! I hate the sight of doctors. They go round telling people they're sick when there's nowt wrong with 'em."
"Why did you come out at this hour of the night?" asked Alan, ignoring the abuse. "Is it a practice of yours?"
"Mind your own business," snarled the other. "I go out any hour of the night I like—do you see?"
"If you're not civil I'll stop the trap and throw you out," said Alan angrily.
"It'd take a better man than you—" began the other, when the young doctor pulled his horse to a standstill.
"Get out and walk," he said curtly.
"See this?" The little man stretched out his arm. In the reflected light of the lamp Alan saw, dangling from his wrist, a snub-nosed revolver, evidently fastened by a strap to his wrist.
"That's a shooter, young man. You know what a shooter is—hold hard, don't hit!" He had seen Alan's hand go back, and the bullying tone became suddenly a supplicating whine. "You wouldn't hit an old man, would you? Mind you, I could throw you out of this trap as easy as cutting butter! But I don't want to get into any trouble with you or with anybody else. I'm an old man, and all I want is peace and quietness."
"Then sit quiet," said Alan savagely. He flung the apron back over the man's knees and tchk-ed to the cob. "And shut your mouth," he added.
The latter injunction was instantly disobeyed.
"I don't wonder you're surprised seeing me here," said the little man. "But I go out when I'm sent for. And they send for me all hours of the day and night—women! They take a liking to me—they go off their heads about me. There was a girl in Sheffield—" He told a story to which Alan found it difficult to listen with patience.
"Madame is a lady bred and born," he went on. "That woman knows me better than I know myself. I heard what you said, mister—I play her! I can play anybody! I see inside 'em and put it into the fiddle. There ain't another man in England could do that. There ain't another man in England who can recite like I can recite. I've been on the stage." He went on in this strain for ten minutes, and then abruptly broke off and asked: "What do you think of my girl?"
"Your girl?"
"That's what I said," said the other; "the young nurse lady; the one you're going to operate on tomorrow."
"I'm not operating on anybody tomorrow, but if you mean the nurse, will you explain what you mean by 'your girl'?" asked Alan in a cold fury.
The little man chuckled continuously, beating his knees in the ecstasy of his humour.
"She'll be mine," he said at last. "I don't say she is at the minute. Notice her looking at me as if I was a snake? I've seen dozens of 'em do that, and how have they ended up?"
"I don't particularly want to know," said Alan.
But his passenger could not be snubbed.
"There's a lady bred and born coming to live near me. Her husband's a gentleman, but she's coming to live next door to me, and for why? Because she's off her head about me—and a lady! You ought to see her, mister—young—" He smacked his lips and became physically descriptive.
Alan was not easily revolted. He was not revolted even now. He listened with a sort of resentful amazement to the boasting of this little blackguard, and if once or twice he had the temptation to hit him on the head with the butt of his whip he restrained himself.
"Where do you work?" he asked, more to turn the conversation than to elicit the information.
