The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (64 page)

It was ten o'clock before we reached Baker Street again. A brougham was waiting at our door.

‘Hum! A doctor's – general practitioner, I perceive,' said Holmes. ‘Not been long in practice, but has had a good deal to do. Come to consult us, I fancy! Lucky we came back!'

I was sufficiently conversant with Holmes's methods to be able to follow his reasoning, and to see that the nature and state of the various medical instruments in the wicker basket which hung in the lamp-light inside the brougham had given him the data for his swift deduction. The light in our window above showed that this late visit was indeed intended for us. With some curiosity as to what could have sent a brother medico to us at such an hour, I followed Holmes into our sanctum.

A pale, taper-faced man with sandy whiskers rose up from a chair by the fire as we entered. His age may not have been more than three-or four-and-thirty, but his haggard expression and unhealthy hue told of a life which had sapped his strength and robbed him of his youth. His manner was nervous and shy, like that of a sensitive gentleman,
and the thin white hand which he laid on the mantelpiece as he rose was that of an artist rather than of a surgeon. His dress was quiet and sombre, a black frock-coat, dark trousers, and a touch of colour about his necktie.

‘Good evening, doctor,' said Holmes cheerily; ‘I am glad to see that you have only been waiting a very few minutes.'

‘You spoke to my coachman, then?'

‘No, it was the candle on the side table that told me. Pray resume your seat and let me know how I can serve you.'

‘My name is Doctor Percy Trevelyan,' said our visitor, ‘and I live at 403 Brook Street.'
⁹

‘Are you not the author of a monograph upon obscure nervous lesions?' I asked.

His pale cheeks flushed with pleasure at hearing that his work was known to me.

‘I so seldom hear of the work that I thought it was quite dead,' said he. ‘My publishers give me a most discouraging account of its sale. You are yourself, I presume, a medical man?'

‘A retired Army surgeon.'

‘My own hobby has always been nervous disease. I should wish to make it an absolute speciality, but, of course, a man must take what he can get first. This, however, is beside the question, Mr Sherlock Holmes, and I quite appreciate how valuable your time is. The fact is that a very singular train of events has occurred recently at my house in Brook Street, and tonight they came to such a head that I felt it was quite impossible for me to wait another hour before asking for your advice and assistance.'

Sherlock Holmes sat down and lit his pipe. ‘You are very welcome to both,' said he. ‘Pray let me have a detailed account of what the circumstances are which have disturbed you.'

‘One or two of them are so trivial,' said Dr Trevelyan, ‘that really I am almost ashamed to mention them. But the matter is so inexplicable, and the recent turn which it has taken is so elaborate, that I shall lay it all before you, and you shall judge what is essential and what is not.

‘I am compelled, to begin with, to say something of my own college
career. I am a London University man,
¹⁰
you know, and I am sure you will not think that I am unduly singing my own praises if I say that my student career was considered by my professors to be a very promising one. After I had graduated I continued to devote myself to research, occupying a minor position in King's College Hospital,
¹¹
and I was fortunate enough to excite considerable interest by my research into the pathology of catalepsy, and finally to win the Bruce Pinkerton prize and medal by the monograph on nervous lesions to which your friend has just alluded. I should not go too far if I were to say that there was a general impression at that time that a distinguished career lay before me.

‘But the one great stumbling-block lay in my want of capital. As you will readily understand, a specialist who aims high is compelled to start in one of a dozen streets in the Cavendish Square quarter,
¹²
all of which entail enormous rents and furnishing expenses. Besides this preliminary outlay, he must be prepared to keep himself for some years, and to hire a presentable carriage and horse. To do this was quite beyond my power, and I could only hope that by economy I might in ten years' time save enough to enable me to put up my plate. Suddenly, however, an unexpected incident opened up quite a new prospect to me.

‘This was a visit from a gentleman of the name of Blessington, who was a complete stranger to me. He came up into my room one morning, and plunged into business in an instant.

‘ “You are the same Percy Trevelyan who has had so distinguished a career and won a great prize lately?” said he.

‘I bowed.

‘ “Answer me frankly,” he continued, “for you will find it to your interest to do so. You have all the cleverness which makes a successful man. Have you the tact?”

‘I could not help but smile at the abruptness of the question.

‘ “I trust that I have my share,” I said.

‘ “Any bad habits? Not drawn towards drink, eh?”

‘ “Really, sir!” I cried.

‘ “Quite right! That's all right! But I was bound to ask. With all these qualities why are you not in practice?”

‘I shrugged my shoulders.

‘ “Come, come!” said he, in his bustling way. “It's the old story. More in your brains than in your pocket, eh? What would you say if I were to start you in Brook Street?”

‘I stared at him in astonishment.

‘ “Oh, it's for my sake, not for yours,” he cried. “I'll be perfectly frank with you, and if it suits youit will suit me very well. I havea few thousands to invest, d'ye see, and I think I'll sink them in you.”

‘ “But why?” I gasped.

‘ “Well, it's just like any other speculation, and safer than most.”

‘ “What am I to do, then?”

‘ “I'll tell you. I'll take the house, furnish it, pay the maids, and run the whole place. All you have to do is to wear out your chair in the consulting-room. I'll let you have pocket money and everything. Then you hand over to me three-quarters of what you earn, and you keep the other quarter for yourself.”

‘This was the strange proposal, Mr Holmes, with which the man Blessington approached me. I won't weary you with the account of how we bargained and negotiated. It ended in my moving into the house next Lady Day,
¹³
and starting in practice on very much the same conditions as he had suggested. He came himself to live with me in the character of a resident patient. His heart was weak, it appears, and he needed constant medical supervision. He turned the two best rooms on the first floor into a sitting-room and bedroom for himself. He was a man of singular habits, shunning company and very seldom going out. His life was irregular, but in one respect he was regularity itself. Every evening at the same hour he walked into the consulting-room, examined the books, put down five and three-pence for every guinea
¹⁴
that I had earned, and carried the rest off to the strong-box in his own room.

‘I may say with confidence that he never had occasion to regret his speculation. From the first it was a success. A few good cases and the reputation which I had won in the hospital brought me rapidly to the front, and during the last year or two I have made him a rich man.

‘So much, Mr Holmes, for my past history and my relations with
Mr Blessington. It only remains for me now to tell you what has occurred to bring me here tonight.

‘Some weeks ago Mr Blessington came down to me in, as it seemed to me, a state of considerable agitation. He spoke of some burglary which, he said, had been committed in the West End,
¹⁵
and he appeared, I remember, to be quite unnecessarily excited about it, declaring that a day should not pass before we should add stronger bolts to our windows and doors. For a week he continued to be in a peculiar state of restlessness, peering continually out of the windows, and ceasing to take the short walk which had usually been the prelude to his dinner. From his manner it struck me that he was in mortal dread of something or somebody, but when I questioned him upon the point he became so offensive that I was compelled to drop the subject. Gradually as time passed his fears appeared to die away, and he had renewed his former habits, when a fresh event reduced him to the pitiable state of prostration in which he now lies.

‘What happened was this. Two days ago I received the letter which I now read to you. Neither address nor date is attached to it.

‘ “A Russian nobleman who is now resident in England,” it runs, “would be glad to avail himself of the professional assistance of Dr Percy Trevelyan. He has been for some years a victim to cataleptic attacks, on which, as is well known, Dr Trevelyan is an authority. He proposes to call at about a quarter past six tomorrow evening, if Dr Trevelyan will make it convenient to be at home.”

‘This letter interested me deeply, because the chief difficulty in the study of catalepsy is the rareness of the disease. You may believe, then, that I was in my consulting-room when, at the appointed hour, the page showed in the patient.

‘He was an elderly man, thin, demure, and commonplace – by no means the conception one form sofa Russian nobleman.I was much more struck by the appearance of his companion. This was a tall young man, surprisingly handsome, with a dark, fierce face, and the limbs and chest of a Hercules. He had his hand under the other's arm as they entered, and helped him to a chair with a tenderness which one would hardly have expected from his appearance.

‘ “You will excuse my coming in, Doctor,” said he to me, speaking
English with a slight lisp. “This is my father, and his health is a matter of the most overwhelming importance to me.”

‘I was touched by his filial anxiety. “You would, perhaps, care to remain during the consultation?” said I.

‘ “Not for the world,” he cried, with a gesture of horror. “It is more painful to me that I can express. If I were to see my father in one of those dreadful seizures, I am convinced that I should never survive it. My own nervous system is an exceptionally sensitive one. With your permission I will remain in the waiting-room while you go into my father's case.”

‘To this, of course, I assented, and the young man withdrew. The patient and I then plunged into a discussion of his case, of which I took exhaustive notes. He was not remarkable for intelligence, and his answers were frequently obscure, which I attributed to his limited acquaintance with our language. Suddenly, however, as I sat writing he ceased to give any answer at all to my inquiries, and on my turning towards him I was shocked to see that he was sitting bolt upright in his chair, staring at me with a perfectly blank and rigid face. He was again in the grip of his mysterious malady.

‘My first feeling, as I have just said, was one of pity and horror. My second, I fear, was rather one of professional satisfaction. I made notes of my patient's pulse and temperature, tested the rigidity of his muscles, and examined his reflexes. There was nothing markedly abnormal in any of these conditions, which harmonized with my former experiences. I had obtained good results in such cases by the inhalation of nitrate of amyl, and the present seemed an admirable opportunity of testing its virtues. The bottle was downstairs in my laboratory, so, leaving my patient seated in his chair, I ran down to get it. There was some little delay in finding it – five minutes, let us say – and then I returned. Imagine my amazement to find the room empty and the patient gone!

‘Of course, my first act was to run into the waiting-room. The son had gone also. The hall door had been closed, but not shut. My page who admits patients is a new boy, and by no means quick. He waits downstairs, and runs up to show patients out when I ring the consulting-room bell. He had heard nothing, and the affair remained
a complete mystery. Mr Blessington came in from his walk shortly afterwards, but I did not say anything to him upon the subject, for to tell the truth, I have got in the way of late of holding as little communication with him as possible.

‘Well, I never thought that I should see anything more of the Russian and his son, so you can imagine my amazement when at the very same hour this evening they both came marching into my consulting-room, just as they had done before.

‘ “I feel that I owe you a great many apologies for my abrupt departure yesterday, Doctor,” said my patient.

‘ “I confess that I was very much surprised at it,” said I.

‘ “Well, the fact is,” he remarked, “that when I recover from these attacks my mind is always very clouded as to all that has gone before. I woke up in a strange room, as it seemed to me, and made my way out into the street in a sort of dazed way when you were absent.”

‘ “And I,” said the son, “seeing my father pass the door of the waiting-room, naturally thought that the consultation had come to an end. It was not until we had reached home that I began to realize the true state of affairs.”

‘ “Well,” said I, laughing, “there is no harm done, except that you puzzled me terribly; so if you, sir, would kindly step into the waiting-room, I shall be happy to continue our consultation, which was brought to so abrupt an ending.”

‘For half an hour or so I discussed the old gentleman's symptoms with him, and then, having prescribed for him, I saw him go off on the arm of his son.

‘I have told you that Mr Blessington generally chose this hour of the day for his exercise. He came in shortly afterwards and passed upstairs. An instant later I heard him running down, and he burst into my consulting-room like a man who is mad with panic.

‘ “Who has been in my room?” he cried.

‘ “No one,” said I.

‘ “It's a lie!” he yelled. “Come up and look.”

‘I passed over the grossness of his language, as he seemed half out of his mind with fear. When I went upstairs with him he pointed to several footprints upon the light carpet.