Mortmain Part 3

"Please get me a newspaper!" said Sir Richard.

"A newspaper!" cried the nurse. "Nonsense! I'll do no such thing!"

"Then please see if there are some papers in an envelope lying on the writing table in my private study."

The nurse seemed puzzled. Where aristocratic patients were concerned, particularly if they were in a weakened condition, she was accustomed to accommodate them. She hesitated.

"At once!" added Sir Richard.

The nurse tiptoed out of the room, and in the course of a few moments returned.

"The butler says that Mr. Flynt's clerk, a man named f.a.ggs, or Flaggs, or something of the sort, came back for them half an hour ago. He explained that he thought Mr. Flynt might have left some papers by mistake, and the butler supposed it was all right and let him have them.

The name of your solicitors was upon the envelope."

Sir Richard stared at her stupidly. A queer feeling of horror and distrust pervaded him, the very same feeling which his first sight of the clerk had inspired in him. What could Flaggs have known of the notes? The clerk himself could not have committed the ghastly deed, since he had been under arrest at the time--but might he not have been an accomplice? Were the notes part of some terrible plot to enmesh _him_, Sir Richard Mortmain, in the murder? Was it a scheme of blackmail? The blood surged to his head and dimmed his eyesight. But why had Flaggs taken them away? Had he left them on the street hoping that Sir Richard would find them and bring them into the house, so that he could testify to having found them in the study? But, if so, why had he risked the possibility of their having been destroyed before he could regain them? Such a supposition was most unlikely. It must have been merely chance. The fellow had probably sneaked in simply to see what he could find. And what had he found! A s.h.i.+ver of terror quenched for an instant the burning of Mortmain's body. A horrible vision of himself standing outside the window of Lord Gordon Russell took shape before him. What if people should say--! He had been heard by Joyce and the clerk to express his hatred of the old man and his willingness to kill him. In addition there were the notes, overdue and about to be protested, which Flaggs had found in his study within twelve hours of Lord Russell's murder. Motive enough for any crime. Moreover, the policeman had seen him loitering there at almost the exact moment of the homicide!

These momentous facts came cras.h.i.+ng down upon his brain with the weight of stones, numbing for an instant his exquisite torture--then reason rea.s.serted herself. Lord Russell was dead. If circ.u.mstances seemed to point in his direction, he had only to deny that the notes had been in his possession, and certainly his word would be taken as against that of the drunken clerk of a solicitor. Moreover, the notes were obviously not in the possession of the executors. Should, by any chance, no memoranda of them remain he might never be called upon to honor them. At all events, his bankruptcy had, for the time at least, been averted. Even were their existence known, legal procedure would intervene to give him time to evolve some means of escape--perhaps, in default of aught else, a marriage of convenience. Sir Richard, in spite of the burning pain in his right arm, leaned back his head with a sensation of relief.

A soft knock came at the door and he heard the nurse's voice murmuring in low tones; then the curtain was partially raised and he recognized the figures of Sir Penniston Crisp and his young a.s.sistant.

"Ah, my dear Mortmain! When you left me yesterday morning I hardly expected to see you so soon again. And how do you find yourself?" was the baronet's cheery salutation.

Sir Richard smiled faintly.

"Rather a nasty wound," continued the surgeon. "Fickles, hand me those bandage scissors. Well, we must take a look at it." And he seated himself comfortably by the bedside.

Miss Fickles, who had elevated Sir Richard to a sitting posture, now handed Sir Penniston the scissors, and the great physician leisurely cut the bandage from the arm. Mortmain winced with pain and closed his eyes.

For an instant the outer air soothed the burning palm and forearm, then the blood crept into the veins and the pain became veritable agony.

"Hm!" remarked Sir Penniston. "I must open this up. It needs attending to."

He might well say so, for the edges of the wound showed tinges of yellow, and the hand itself was torn pitifully.

"Scalscope, pa.s.s those instruments to Miss Fickles, and open that bottle of somni-chloride. I shall have to give you a whiff of anaesthetic, Mortmain. These little exploring expeditions are apt to be painful, however gentle we try to be. Just enough to make you a mere spectator--you will not lose consciousness. Wonderful, isn't it? I'm afraid I shall have to pick out some slivers of bone and trim off the edges a little. It will only take a moment or two. Then a nice bandage and you will be quite at ease."

While Jermyn was emptying Sir Penniston's bag of its heterogeneous contents, Miss Fickles boiled the surgeon's implements in a tray of water over a tiny electric stove, and then arranged them in order upon a soft bed of padded cotton. Scalscope pulled a table to the bedside, and laid out with military precision rolls of linen, absorbents, antiseptic gauze, scissors, tape, thread, needles, and finally the little bottle of somni-chloride. The nurse lowered Sir Richard back upon the pillow and quickly twisted a fresh towel into a cone.

"How science leaps onward," continued Sir Penniston, meditatively taking the cone in his left hand. "Anodyne, ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide, ethyl-chloride, and at last the greatest of all boons, somni-chloride! And all within my lifetime--that is really the most extraordinary part of it. Ah, what are the miracles of art to the miracles of science? Think of being able at last, as you heard me announce, to feel sure of never permanently losing a limb!"

He allowed a single drop from the bottle to fall into the cone. Even as it descended it resolved itself into a lilac-colored volatile filling the cone like a horn of plenty. Sir Penniston held it with a smile just over Mortmain's head and suffered it to escape gently downward. At the first faint odor the baronet felt a perfect calm steal over his tired brain, at the second he seemed translated from his body and hovering above it, retaining the while an almost supernatural acuteness of eye and ear. Of bodily pain he felt nothing. Then Crisp inverted the cone and poured out the lilac smoke in a faint iridescent cloud, which eddied round the baronet's head and filled his nostrils with the sweet fragrance of an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden. Its perfume almost smothered him, and for a moment his eyes were blurred as if he had inhaled a breath of strong ammonia. Then his sight cleared and he no longer smelled the flowers. The surgeon laid down the cone and took up a small, thin knife.

"Fickles, hold the wrist; you, Scalscope, the fingers. Thank you, that will do nicely."

Mortmain watched with fascinated interest as Sir Penniston applied the point to his palm. Then the surgeon suddenly raised his head and looked pityingly at Sir Richard. At the same moment the effect of the somni-chloride began to wear off and the baronet felt a throbbing in his hand. Jermyn also cast a glance of compa.s.sion at the patient, while Miss Fickles turned away her head as if unable to bear the sight of his suffering.

"My poor Mortmain," said the surgeon. "I fear you can never use this hand again."

Mortmain caught his breath and choked.

"What do you mean?" he gasped, and the effort sent a sharp pain through his lungs. "Not use my hand again?" His words sounded like the roar of a waterfall.

"I fear you cannot. It is an ugly-looking wound. I am sorry to say you will have to lose your hand. We shall be lucky if we can save the arm."

Mortmain felt an extraordinary pity for himself. He sobbed aloud. He had been vaguely aware that certain unfortunate persons in lowly circ.u.mstances occasionally lost their limbs. He was accustomed to contribute handsomely toward the homes for cripples and the blind, but he had never a.s.sociated such an affliction with himself. He could not appreciate the proximity of it. There must be a mistake--or an alternative.

"No, no, no!" he exclaimed heavily. "Surely, you can restore my hand by treatment. I do not care how painful or tedious it may be. Why, I _must_ have my hand. I have it now. Leave it as it is. I shall recover in time."

Sir Penniston smiled cheerfully.

"I am sorry," he repeated, and Mortmain fancied that he detected a gleam of exultation in his eye. "Nothing can save it. Gangrene has already set in. The verdigris of the vase has poisoned the flesh. Do you think I would trifle with you? That is not my business. Be a man. It is hard; true enough. But it might be much worse."

"But my music!" cried Mortmain in agony. "I shall be a miserable cripple! A fellow with an empty sleeve or a stuffed hand in a glove!

Horrible!" He groaned.

"You have still another," remarked the surgeon calmly. "Bind up this arm," he ordered, turning sharply to Jermyn. "Mortmain, I shall have to amputate your hand at the wrist within twelve hours. Do you desire a consultation? I a.s.sure you any physician would unhesitatingly give the same opinion. Still, if you desire----"

The room swam about the baronet, and for an instant the two surgeons seemed like two ogres hovering aloft with bloodthirsty faces glowering down at his helpless body.

Scalscope finished the bandage and tied the ends. Then he looked across at Crisp and remarked:

"How fortunate, Sir Penniston, that your experiments have been concluded in time to save Sir Richard. He will be the very first to benefit by your great discovery!"

Crisp smiled responsively.

"What is that?" cried Mortmain. "Save me? What do you mean?"

"Merely this, Mortmain. That if you are willing I may still give you a hand in place of this ruined one. It is possible, as I announced yesterday, to graft another in its place."

Mortmain stared stupidly at Sir Penniston. A great weight seemed stifling him.

"Did you really _mean_ it?" he gasped.

"Precisely," returned the surgeon. "It will be difficult, but not particularly dangerous."

"Another's hand!" groaned the baronet.

"And why not?" eagerly continued the surgeon. "Surely some one will be found who can be induced for a proper consideration to a.s.sist in an operation that will restore to usefulness so distinguished a member of society."

"But is it _right_?" gasped Mortmain. "Is it lawful to maim a fellow-creature merely to serve oneself?" The idea disgusted him.

"As you please," remarked Crisp dryly. "If you are to avail yourself of this opportunity, which has never been offered to another, you must say so at once. If you are indifferent to the loss of your hand or distrust my skill, there is nothing left but to amputate and be done with it."

"It cannot be right!" moaned Mortmain. "I know it is a wicked thing."

"Right?" sneered Crisp. "Why, I almost believe that it would be a sin if I let this opportunity go by."

"What is that?" cried Miss Fickles sharply.