To my immense surprise, Dr. Marten rose from his seat, and standing up before me in a perfect agony of what seemed like terror, half mixed with affection, exclaimed in a very earnest and resolute voice:
“Oh, Una, my child, whatever you do—I beg of you—I implore you—don’t try to recall the past at all! Don’t attempt it! Don’t dream of it!”
“Why not?” I cried, astonished. “Surely it’s my duty to try and find out my father’s murderer!”
Instead of answering me, he looked about him for half a minute in suspense, as if doubtful what next to do or to say. Then he walked across with great deliberation to the door of the room, and locked and double-locked it with furtive alarm, as I interpreted his action.
So terrified did he seem, indeed, that for a moment the idea occurred to me in a very vague way—Was I talking with the murderer? Had the man who himself committed the crime conducted the post mortem, and put Justice off the scent? And was I now practically at the mercy of the criminal I was trying to track down? The thought for a second or two made me feel terribly uncomfortable. But I glanced at his back and at his hands, and reassured myself. That broad, short man was not the slim figure of my Picture and of the photograph. Those large red hands were not the originals of the small and delicate white palm just displayed at the back in both those strange documents of the mysterious murder.
The doctor came over again, and drew his chair close to mine.
“Una, my child,” he said slowly, “I love you very much, as if you were my own daughter. I always loved you and admired you, and was sorry—oh, so sorry!—for you. You’ve quite forgotten who I am; but I’ve not forgotten you. Take what I say as coming from an old friend, from one who loves you and has your interest at heart. For heaven’s sake, I implore you, my child, make no more inquiries. Try to forget—not to remember. If you do recollect, you’ll be sorry in the end for it.”
“Why so?” I asked, amazed, yet somehow feeling in my heart I could trust him implicitly. “Why should the knowledge of the true circumstances of the case make me more unhappy than I am at present?”
He gazed harder at me than ever.
“Because,” he replied in slow tones, weighing each word as he spoke, “you may find that the murder was committed by some person or persons you love or once loved very much indeed. You may find it will rend your very heart-strings to see that person or those persons punished. You may find the circumstances were wholly otherwise than you imagine them to be.... Let sleeping dogs lie, my dear. Without your aid, nothing more can be done. Don’t trouble yourself to put the blood-hounds on the track of some unhappy creature who might otherwise escape. Don’t rake it all up afresh. Bury it—bury it—bury it!”