I.

WELL, said the doctor, you say I’ve been very secretive lately. Perhaps I have. However, I don’t mind telling you—just you fellows—the whole history of the affair that has preoccupied me. I shan’t assert that it’s the most curious case in all my experience. My experience has been pretty varied, and pretty lively, as you know, and cases are curious in such different ways. Still, a poisoning business is always a bit curious, and this one was extremely so. It isn’t often that a person who means to commit murder by poison calls in a physician to assist him and deliberately uses the unconscious medico as his tool. Yet that is exactly what happened. It isn’t often that a poisoner contrives to hit on a poison which is at once original, almost untraceable, and to be obtained from any chemist without a doctor’s prescription. Yet that, too, is exactly what happened. I can assure you that the entire episode was a lesson to me. It opened my eyes to the possibilities which lie ready to the hand of a really intelligent murderer in this twentieth century. People talk about the masterpieces of poisoning in the middle ages. Pooh! Second-rate! They didn’t know enough in the middle ages to achieve anything which a modern poisoner with genius would deem first-rate; they simply didn’t know enough. Another point in the matter which forcibly struck me was the singular usefulness of a big London hotel to a talented criminal. You can do precisely what you please in a big hotel, and nobody takes the least notice. You wander in, you wander out, and who cares? You are only an item in a crowd. And when you have reached the upper corridors you are as lost to pursuit and observation as a needle in a haystack. You may take two rooms, one after the other, in different names, and in different parts of the hotel; the servants and officials will be none the wiser, because the second floor knows not the third, nor the third the fourth; you may oscillate between those two rooms in a manner to puzzle Inspector Anderson himself. And you are just as secure in your apartments as a mediÆval baron in his castle—yes, and more! On that night there were over a thousand guests in the Grand Babylon Hotel (there was a ball in the Gold Rooms, and a couple of banquets); and in the midst of all that diverse humanity, unperceived, unsuspected, a poignant and terrible drama was going on, and things so occurred that I tumbled right into it. Well, I’ll tell you.

II.

I was called in to the Grand Babylon about nine p.m.; suite No. 63, second floor, name of Russell. The outer door of the suite was opened for me by a well-dressed woman of thirty or so, slim, with a face expressive and intelligent rather than handsome. I liked her face—I was attracted by its look of honesty and alert good-nature.

“Good evening, doctor,” she said. She had a charming low voice, as she led me into a highly-luxurious drawing-room. “My name is Russell, and I wish you to see a young friend of mine who is not well.” She hesitated and turned to an old bald-headed man, who stood looking out of the window at the twilight panorama of the Thames. “My friend’s solicitor, Mr. Dancer,” she explained. We bowed, Mr. Dancer and I.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” I remarked.

“No, no!” said Miss Russell.

Nevertheless, she seemed to me to be extremely nervous and anxious, as she preceded me into the bedroom, a chamber quite as magnificent as the drawing-room.

On the bed lay a beautiful young girl. Yes, you may laugh, you fellows, but she was genuinely beautiful. She smiled faintly as we entered. Her features had an ashy tint, and tiny drops of cold perspiration stood on the forehead. However, she certainly wasn’t very ill—I could see that in a moment, and I fixed my conversational tone accordingly.

“Do you feel as if you could breathe freely, but that if you did it would kill you?” I inquired, after I had examined her. And she nodded, smiling again. Miss Russell also smiled, evidently pleased that I had diagnosed the case so quickly.

My patient was suffering from a mild attack of pseudo-angina, nothing worse. Not angina pectoris, you know—that’s usually associated with old age. Pseudo-angina is a different thing. With a weak heart, it may be caused by indigestion. The symptoms are cardiac spasms, acute pain in the chest, a strong disinclination to make even the smallest movement, and a state of mental depression, together with that queer fancy about breathing. The girl had these symptoms, and she also had a headache and a dicrotism of the pulse—two pulsations instead of one, not unusual. I found that she had been eating a too hearty dinner, and that she had suffered from several similar attacks in the immediate past.

“You had a doctor in before?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Miss Russell. “But he was unable to come to-night, and as your house is so near we sent for you.”

“There is no danger whatever—no real cause for anxiety,” I summed up. “I will have some medicine made up instantly.”

“Trinitrin?” demanded Miss Russell.

“Yes,” I answered, a little astonished at this readiness. “Your regular physician prescribed it?”

(I should explain to you that trinitrin is nothing but nitro-glycerine in a non-explosive form.)

“I think it was trinitrin,” Miss Russell replied, with an appearance of doubtfulness. “Perhaps you will write the prescription and I will despatch a messenger at once. I should be obliged, doctor, if you would remain with us until—if you would remain with us.”

“Decidedly!” I said. “I will remain with pleasure. But do accept my assurance,” I added, gazing at her face, so anxious and apprehensive, “that there is no cause for alarm.”

She smiled and concurred. But I could see that I had not convinced her. And I began to suspect that she was not after all so intelligent as I had imagined. My patient, who was not now in any pain, lay calmly, with closed eyes.

III.

Do not forget the old bald-headed lawyer in the drawing-room.

“I suppose you are often summoned to the Grand Babylon, sir, living, as you do, just round the corner,” he remarked to me somewhat pompously. He had a big nose and a habit of staring at you over his eye-glasses with his mouth wide-open, after having spoken. We were alone together in the drawing-room. I was waiting for the arrival of the medicine, and he was waiting for—I didn’t know what he was waiting for.

“Occasionally. Not often,” I responded. “I am called more frequently to the Majestic, over the way.”

“Ah, just so, just so,” he murmured.

I could see that he meant to be polite in his high and dry antique legal style; and I could see also that he was very bored in that hotel drawing-room. So I proceeded to explain the case to him, and to question him discreetly about my patient and Miss Russell.

“You are, of course, aware, sir, that the young lady is Miss Spanton, Miss Adelaide Spanton?” he said.

“What? Not ‘the’ Spanton?”

“Precisely, sir. The daughter of Edgar Spanton, my late client, the great newspaper proprietor.”

“And this Miss Russell?”

“Miss Russell was formerly Miss Adelaide’s governess. She is now her friend, and profoundly attached to the young lady; a disinterested attachment, so far as I can judge, though naturally many people will think otherwise. Miss Adelaide is of a very shy and retiring disposition; she has no other friends, and she has no near relatives. Save for Miss Russell she is, sir, if I may so phrase it, alone in the world.”

“But Miss Spanton is surely very wealthy?”

“You come to the point, sir. If my young client reaches her twenty-first birthday she will be the absolute mistress of the whole of her father’s fortune. You may have noticed in the public press that I swore his estate at more than three millions.”

“And how far is Miss Spanton from her twenty-first birthday?” I demanded.

The old lawyer glanced at his watch.

“Something less than three hours. At midnight she will have legally entered on her 22nd year.”

“I see,” I said. “Now I can understand Miss Russell’s anxiety, which refuses to be relieved even by my positive assurance. No doubt Miss Russell has worked herself up into a highly nervous condition. And may I inquire what will happen—I mean, what would have happened, if Miss Spanton had not reached her majority?”

“The entire estate would have passed to a cousin, a Mr. Samuel Grist, of Melbourne. I daresay you know the name. Mr. Grist is understood to be the leading theatrical manager in Australia. Speaking as one professional man to another, sir, I may venture to remark that Mr. Grist’s reputation is more than a little doubtful—you may have heard—many transactions and adventures. Ha, ha! Still, he is my late client’s sole surviving relative, except Miss Adelaide. I have never had the pleasure of meeting him; he confines himself exclusively to Australia.”

“This night then,” I laughed, “will see the end of any hopes which Mr. Grist may have entertained.”

“Exactly, sir,” the lawyer agreed. “It will also see the end of Miss Russell’s immediate anxieties. Upon my word, since Mr. Spanton’s regrettable death, she has been both father and mother to my lonely young client. A practical woman, sir, Miss Russell! And the excessiveness of her apprehensions, if I may so phrase it, must be excused. She has begged me to remain here till midnight, in order that I may witness to Miss Spanton’s—er—vitality, and also in order to obtain Miss Spanton’s signature to certain necessary documents. I should not be surprised, sir, if she requested you also to remain. She is not a woman to omit precautions.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stop till twelve,” I said. The conversation ceased, and I fell into meditation.I do not mind admitting that I was deeply impressed by what I will call the romantic quality of the situation. I thought of old Spanton, who had begun with something less than nothing and died virtually the owner of three daily papers and twenty-five weeklies and monthlies. I thought of Spantons, Ltd., and their colossal offices spreading half round Salisbury Square. Why, I even had a copy of the extra special edition of the Evening Gazette in my pocket! Do any of you fellows remember Spanton starting the Evening Gazette? He sold three hundred thousand the first day. And now old Spanton was dead—you know he died of drink, and there was nothing left of the Spanton blood except this girl lying there on the bed, and the man in Australia. And all the Spanton editors, and the Spanton sub-editors, and the Spanton artists, and the Spanton reporters and compositors, and the Spanton rotary presses, and the Spanton paper mills, and the Spanton cyclists, were slaving and toiling to put eighty thousand a year into this girl’s purse. And there she was, feeble and depressed, and solitary, except for Miss Russell, and the man in Australia perhaps hoping she would die; and there was Miss Russell, worrying and fussing and apprehending and fearing. And the entire hotel oblivious of the romantic, I could almost say the pathetic, situation. And then I thought of Miss Spanton’s future, burdened with those three millions, and I wondered if those three millions would buy her happiness.

“Here is the medicine, doctor,” said Miss Russell, entering the drawing-room hurriedly, and handing me the bottle with the chemist’s label on it. I went with her into the bedroom. The beautiful Adelaide Spanton was already better, and she admitted as much when I administered the medicine—two minims of a one per cent. solution of trinitrin, otherwise nitro-glycerine, the usual remedy for pseudo-angina.

Miss Russell took the bottle from my hand, corked it and placed it on the dressing-table. Shortly afterwards I left the hotel. The lawyer had been right in supposing that Miss Russell would ask me to stay, but I was unable to do so. I promised, however, to return in an hour, all the while insisting that there was not the slightest danger for the patient.

IV.

It was 10.30 when I came back.

“Second floor!” I said carelessly to the lift boy, and he whirled me upwards; the Grand Babylon lifts travel very fast.

“Here you are, sir,” he murmured respectfully, and I stepped out.

“Is this the second floor?” I asked suddenly.“Beg pardon! I thought you said seventh, sir.”

“It’s time you were in bed, my lad!” was my retort, and I was just re-entering the lift when I caught sight of Miss Russell in the corridor. I called to her, thinking she would perhaps descend with me, but she did not hear, and so I followed her down the corridor, wondering what was her business on the seventh floor. She opened a door and disappeared into a room.

“Well?” I heard a sinister voice exclaim within the room, and then the door was pushed to; it was not latched.

“I did say the seventh!” I called to the lift-boy, and he vanished with his machine.

The voice within the room startled me. It gave me furiously to think, as the French say. With a sort of instinctive unpremeditated action I pressed gently against the door till it stood ajar about an inch. And I listened.

“It’s a confounded mysterious case to me!” the voice was saying, “that that dose the other day didn’t finish her. We’re running it a dashed sight too close! Here, take this—it’s all ready, label and everything. Substitute the bottles. I’ll run no risks this time. One dose will do the trick inside half an hour, and on that I’ll bet my boots!”

“Very well,” said Miss Russell, quite calmly. “It’s pure trinitrin, is it?”“You’re the coolest customer that I ever struck!” the voice exclaimed, in an admiring tone. “Yes, it’s pure trinitrin—beautiful, convenient stuff! Looks like water, no taste, very little smell, and so volatile that all the doctors on the Medical Council couldn’t trace it at a post-mortem. Besides the doctor prescribed a solution of trinitrin, and you got it from the chemist, and in case there’s a rumpus we can shove the mistake on to the chemist’s dispenser, and a fine old row he’ll get into. By the way, what’s the new doctor like?”

“Oh! So-so!” said Miss Russell, in her even tones.

“It’s a good thing on the whole, perhaps, that I arranged that carriage accident for the first one!” the hard, sinister voice remarked. “One never knows. Get along now at once, and don’t look so anxious. Your face belies your voice. Give us a kiss!”

“To-morrow!” said Miss Russell.

I hurried away, as it were drunk, overwhelmed with horror and amazement, and turning a corner so as to avoid discovery, reached the second floor by the staircase. I did not wish to meet Miss Russell in the lift.

My first thought was not one of alarm for Adelaide Spanton—of course, I knew I could prevent the murder—but of profound sorrow that Miss Russell should have proved to be a woman so unspeakably wicked. I swore never to trust a woman’s face again. I had liked her face. Then I dwelt on the chance, the mere chance, my careless pronunciation, a lift-boy’s error, which had saved the life of the poor millionaire girl. And lastly I marvelled at the combined simplicity and ingenuity of the plot. The scoundrel upstairs—possibly Samuel Grist himself—had taken the cleverest advantage of Miss Spanton’s tendency to pseudo-angina. What could be more clever than to poison with the physician’s own medicine? Very probably the girl’s present attack had been induced by an artful appeal to her appetite; young women afflicted as she was are frequently just a little greedy. And I perceived that the villain was correct in assuming that nitro-glycerine would never be traced at a post-mortem save in the smallest possible quantity—just such a quantity as I had myself prescribed. He was also right in his assumption that the pure drug would infallibly kill in half an hour.

I pulled myself together, and having surreptitiously watched Miss Russell into Suite No. 63, I followed her. When I arrived at the bedroom she was pouring medicine from a bottle; a maid stood at the foot of the bed.

“I am just giving the second dose,” said Miss Russell easily to me.“What a nerve!” I said to myself, and aloud: “By all means.”

She measured the dose, and approached the bed without a tremor. Adelaide Spanton opened her mouth.

“Stop!” I cried firmly. “We’ll delay that dose for half an hour. Kindly give me the glass!” I took the glass from Miss Russell’s passive fingers. “And I would like to have a word with you now, Miss Russell!” I added.

The maid went swiftly from the room.

V.

The old bald-headed lawyer had gone down to the hotel smoking-saloon for a little diversion, and we faced each other in the drawing-room—Miss Russell and I. The glass was still in my hand.

“And the new doctor is so-so, eh?” I remarked.

“What do you mean?” she faltered.

“I think you know what I mean,” I retorted. “I need only tell you that by a sheer chance I stumbled upon your atrocious plot—the plot of that scoundrel upstairs. All you had to do was to exchange the bottles, and administer pure trinitrin instead of my prescribed solution of it, and Miss Spanton would be dead in half an hour. The three millions would go to the Australian cousin, and you would doubtless have your reward—say, a cool hundred thousand, or perhaps marriage. And you were about to give the poison when I stopped you.”

“I was not!” she cried. And she fell into a chair, and hid her face in her hands, and then looked, as it were longingly, towards the bedroom.

“Miss Spanton is in no danger,” I said sneeringly. “She will be quite well to-morrow. So you were not going to give the poison, after all?” I laughed.

“I beg you to listen, doctor,” she said at length, standing up. “I am in a most invidious position. Nevertheless, I think I can convince you that your suspicions against me are unfounded.”

I laughed again. But secretly I admired her for acting the part so well.

“Doubtless!” I interjected sarcastically, in the pause.

“The man upstairs is Samuel Grist, supposed to be in Australia. It is four months ago since I, who am Adelaide Spanton’s sole friend, discovered that he was scheming her death. The skill of his methods appalled me. There was nothing to put before the police, and yet I had a horrible fear of the worst. I felt that he would stop at nothing—absolutely at nothing. I felt that, if we ran away, he would follow us. I had a presentiment that he would infallibly succeed, and I was haunted by it day and night. Then an idea occurred to me—I would pretend to be his accomplice. And I saw suddenly that that was the surest way—the sole way, of defeating him. I approached him and he accepted the bait. I carried out all his instructions, except the fatal instructions. It is by his orders, and for his purposes, that we are staying in this hotel. Heavens! To make certain of saving my darling Adelaide, I have even gone through the farce of promising to marry him!”

“And do you seriously expect me to believe this?” I asked coldly.

“Should I have had the solicitor here?” she demanded, “if I had really meant—meant to——”

She sobbed momentarily, and then regained control of herself.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but it occurs to me that the brain that was capable of deliberately arranging a murder to take place in the presence of the doctor might have some hidden purpose in securing also the presence of the solicitor at the performance.”

“Mr. Grist is unaware that the solicitor is here. He has been informed that Mr. Dancer is my uncle, and favourable to the—to the——” she stopped, apparently overcome.“Oh, indeed!” I ejaculated, adding: “And after all you did not mean to administer this poison! I suppose you meant to withdraw the glass at the last instant?”

“It is not poison,” she replied.

“Not poison?”

“No. I did not exchange the bottles. I only pretended to.”

“There seems to have been a good deal of pretending,” I observed. “By the way, may I ask why you were giving this stuff, whether it is poison or not, to my patient? I do not recollect that I ordered a second dose.”

“For the same reason that I pretended to change the bottle. For the benefit of the maid whom we saw just now in the bedroom.”

“And why for the benefit of the maid?”

“Because I found out this morning that she is in the pay of Grist. That discovery accounts for my nervousness to-night about Adelaide. By this time the maid has probably told Mr. Grist what has taken place, and, and—I shall rely on your help if anything should happen, doctor. Surely, surely, you believe me?”

“I regret to say, madam,” I answered, “that I find myself unable to believe you at present. But there is a simple way of giving credence to your story. You state that you did not exchange the bottles. This liquid, then, is the medicine prescribed by me, and it is harmless. Oblige me by drinking it.”

And I held the glass towards her.

She took it.

“Fool!” I said to myself, as soon as her fingers had grasped it. “She will drop it on the floor, and an invaluable piece of evidence will be destroyed.”

But she did not drop it on the floor. She drank it at one gulp, and looked me in the eyes, and murmured, “Now do you believe me?”

“Yes,” I said. And I did.

At the same moment her face changed colour, and she sank to the ground. “What have I drunk?” she moaned. The glass rolled on the carpet, unbroken.

Miss Russell had in fact drunk a full dose of pure trinitrin. I recognised all the symptoms at once. I rang for assistance. I got a stomach pump. I got ice, and sent for ergot and for atropine. I injected six minims of the Injectis Ergotini Hypodermica. I despaired of saving her; but I saved her, after four injections. I need not describe to you all the details. Let it suffice that she recovered.

“Then you did exchange the bottles?” I could not help putting this question to her as soon as she was in a fit state to hear it.

“I swear to you that I had not meant to,” she whispered. “In my nervousness I must have confused them. You have saved Adelaide’s life.”

“I have saved yours, anyway,” I said.

“But you believe me?”

“Yes,” I said; and the curious thing is that I did believe her. I was convinced, and I am convinced, that she did not mean to exchange the bottles.

“Listen!” she exclaimed. We could hear Big Ben striking twelve.

“Midnight,” I said.

She clutched my hand with a swift movement. “Go and see that my Adelaide lives,” she cried almost hysterically.

I opened the door between the two rooms and went into the sleeping chamber.

“Miss Spanton is dozing quietly,” I said, on my return.

“Thank God!” Miss Russell murmured. And then old bald-headed Mr. Dancer came into the room, blandly unconscious of all that had passed during his sojourn in the smoking saloon.

When I left the precincts of the Grand Babylon at one o’clock, the guests were beginning to leave the Gold Rooms, and the great courtyard was a scene of flashing lights, and champing horses, and pretty laughing women.

“What a queer place a hotel is!” I thought.Neither Mr. Grist nor the mysterious maid was seen again in London. Possibly they consoled each other. The beautiful Adelaide Spanton—under my care, ahem!—is completely restored to health.

Yes, I am going to marry her. No, not the beautiful Adelaide, you duffers—besides she is too young for my middle age—but Miss Russell. Her Christian name is Ethel. Do you not like it? As for the beautiful Adelaide, there is now a viscount in the case.