“Do they suspect who has been into the house?”
“No, sir, they ain’t got no idea. And about the body and how it got there, they are quite at sea.” Sauntering along Victoria Street, Westminster, half-an-hour later, the thought occurred to me to look in on my doctor, David Agnew, who was also my old personal friend.
For some days I had not been well. A feeling of lassitude had come over me, also loss of appetite. Agnew was generally able to prescribe for my simple ailments.
He was a bright, genial fellow, and merely to meet him seemed to do one good. None would have taken him for the celebrated bacteriologist he was, for I—and I think most people—usually picture a bacteriologist as a cadaverous, ascetic, preternaturally solemn individual, with a bald head, wrinkled brow, and large, gold-rimmed spectacles. It was Thorold who had introduced me to Agnew many years before, and many and many a time had the three of us dined together.
At first I was told that the doctor was “not at home,” but upon sending in my card, I was immediately admitted.
The shock I received upon entering Agnew’s consulting-room, I am not likely to forget. Instead of the hearty greeting I had expected, I was faced by a man whose staring eyes spoke terror. It was Agnew, but I saw at once that something terrible must have happened.
He was pacing the room with his handkerchief to his mouth when I entered. He turned at once, and came over to me.
“Ashton,” he said abruptly, taking my hand in both his own, and gripping it so that I almost cried out, “I have an awful thing to tell you—you are the one man in whom I can confide in this crisis, and I am truly glad you’ve come. I feel I must tell some one. I shall go mad if I don’t.”
His expression appalled me.
“What is it? What?” I exclaimed. “For Heaven’s sake don’t look at me like this!”