The Doctor of Pimlico | Page 7

such a position that it could be used to
examine anyone seated in the big arm-chair. Pervading the dingy
apartment was a faint smell of carbolic, for it was a consulting-room,
and the man so intent upon the letter was Dr. Weirmarsh, the
hard-working practitioner so well known among the lower classes in
Pimlico.
Those who pass along the Vauxhall Bridge Road know well that house
with its curtains yellow with smoke--the one which stands back behind
a small strip of smoke-begrimed garden. Over the gate is a red lamp,
and upon the railings a brass plate with the name: "Mr. Weirmarsh,
Surgeon."
About three years previously he had bought the practice from old Dr.
Bland, but he lived alone, a silent and unsociable man, with a deaf old
housekeeper, although he had achieved a considerable reputation
among his patients in the neighbouring by-streets. But his practice was
not wholly confined to the poorer classes, for he was often consulted by
well-dressed members of the foreign colony--on account, probably, of
his linguistic attainments. A foreigner with an imperfect knowledge of
English naturally prefers a doctor to whom he can speak in his own
tongue. Therefore, as Weirmarsh spoke French, Italian and Spanish
with equal fluency, it was not surprising that he had formed quite a
large practice among foreign residents.
His appearance, however, was the reverse of prepossessing, and his
movements were often most erratic. About his aquiline face was a
shrewd and distrustful expression, while his keen, dark eyes, too
narrowly set, were curiously shifty and searching. When absent, as he
often was, a young fellow named Shipley acted as locum tenens, but so

eccentric was he that even Shipley knew nothing of the engagements
which took him from home so frequently.
George Weirmarsh was a man of few friends and fewer words. He lived
for himself alone, devoting himself assiduously to his practice, and
doing much painstaking writing at the table whereat he now sat, or else,
when absent, travelling swiftly with aims that were ever mysterious.
He had had a dozen or so patients that evening, but the last had gone,
and he had settled himself to read the letter which had arrived when his
little waiting-room had been full of people.
As he read he made scribbled notes on a piece of paper upon his
blotting-pad, his thin, white hand, delicate as a woman's, bearing that
splendid ruby ring, his one possession in which he took a pride.
"Ah!" he remarked to himself in a hard tone of sarcasm, "what fools the
shrewdest of men are sometimes over a woman! So at last he's
fallen--like the others--and the secret will be mine. Most excellent!
After all, every man has one weak point in his armour, and I was not
mistaken."
Then he paused, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, looked straight
before him, deep in reflection.
"I have few fears--very few," he remarked to himself, "but the greatest
is of Walter Fetherston. What does he know?--that's the chief question.
If he has discovered the truth--if he knows my real name and who I
am--then the game's up, and my best course is to leave England. And
yet there is another way," he went on, speaking slowly to himself--"to
close his lips. Dead men tell no tales."
He sat for a long time, his narrow-set eyes staring into space,
contemplating a crime. As a medical man, he knew a dozen ingenious
ways by which Walter Fetherston might be sent to his grave in
circumstances that would appear perfectly natural. His gaze at last
wandered to the book-case opposite, and became centred upon a thick,
brown-covered, dirty volume by a writer named Taylor. That book

contained much that might be of interest to him in the near future.
Of a sudden the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Kelsey, the old
housekeeper, in rusty black, admitted Enid Orlebar without the
ceremony of asking permission to enter.
The girl was dressed in a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large
black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a
white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the veil
she wore.
"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Weirmarsh, rising quickly and
greeting her, while next moment he turned to his table and hastily
concealed the foreign letter and notes, "I had quite forgotten that you
were to consult me. Pray forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive," the beautiful girl replied in a low,
colourless voice, when the housekeeper had disappeared, and she had
seated herself in the big leather arm-chair in which so many patients
daily sat. "You ordered me to come here to you, and I have come."
"Against your will, eh?" he asked slowly, with a strange look