LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 646, 14 July 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AgO,N0 5 .

A DOCTOR'S STORY.

( Concluded.)

There was a little space between the press and the bed. In that I crouched down, having arranged the bolster, and my coat under the clothes to resemble, a 3 far as I could manage it, a sleeping man. Then I took out my syringe, and tried it very gently in the bottle of acid, and, with a beating heart, and pulses which seemed to souud aU over the room, waited the event. My preparations had taken some time, and I was not long in suspense. Very shortly I heard a stealthy footfall on the stairs, which step by step, approached my door, and then stopped. I forced myself (I don't know how, now) to breathe heavily and regularly, as if in sleep, and, after a few moments' hesitation, I felt, rather than heard, the door open. A slight jar against the press told me it was wide open, and that the spring was to come.

I had no idea, you see, of the na'u*e of the attack. Would Sturm fire on me ? Would he spring upon the bed and smother me ? Would he stab me, or beat out my brains ? The catalogue, you will admit, has a certain interest for you now; judge how it affected me then. I heard, or fancied I heard, a heavier and more decided step than any which had been taken before, and I knew that the moment had come.

Up have seen performed most of the greatest operations of the day, here and on the Continent, and I have more than once witnessed a certain tremor and hesitation on the part of the surgeon just before the operation bey an. The moment the knife touched the flesh his nerves were steel, and the work was done as if by machinery. 1 do not talk boastingly when I say that, whereas when I listened to the footsteps and felt the door open, it was only by a superhuman effort I preserved myself from a dead faint, yet, when I knew a second or two would end the affair one way or the other, my hand was as firm as a rock, and I held the syringe charged as cooly as I now hold this cigar, or as I should hold the knife at an operation. Sturm was breathing heavily ; but for a moment I heard him catch his breath in, and then, with a low growl, like a wild beast rushing at its food, he sprang forward and, with a short crowbar, dealt a fearful blow at the place where, but for God's mercy, my head would have been. Again and again he repeated his blows, not seeing, in the blind fury of murder, that they were falling harmless ; and then, seemingly exhausted, he drew back, and, with wide open, bloodshot eyes, gazed upon his handiwork. Then was my chance. The murderer crouched over the bed with the moonlight full on his face, hardly a foot from me. In another minute he would have discovered his mistake and seen me; but steadily I raided the syringe, and exactly at the time when his gaze turned to me, I gave him a full ounce of the acid straight in his eyes. I have no words to describe the fearful yell of astonishment, of fright, and of pain which he emitted. He would have faced either a blow, a stab, or a shot boldly enough, I dare say, though in any case he must have been terriby etartled ; but I had used a weapon unknown in his armoury, and the effect was like that of of a thunderbolt.

He gave a spasmodic leap into the air, the crowbar fell from his hands, and then he fell prone. Then, with a repetition of his awful yell, accompanied by a perfect hurricane of oaths and.imprec tions, he staggered to his feet with "the evident intention of finding hia assailant.

But it was in vain. The strong irritant had done its work, and he could not open his blighted eyes for a second. He was, indeed,

blind J and after a frantic rush against the press, in which he cut his forehead severely, he felt the door, and staggering out, fell headlong downstairs. I heard the crash, and then all was still. Simultaneously with his fall I must have fainted; and had Sturm had any accomplices, I must have fallen an easy victim to them. At last I roused myself, and still hearing no sound, ventured downstairs, the way through the front room being the only means of egress. I imagined my antagonist had gone out, but, at any rate, I knew he must be blinded still; but before I got downstairs I could see him lying flat on his face, his head buried in his arms. A bottle was thrown down beside him, and he was breathing stertorously: he had evidently taken refuge from his agony in the stupor of drunkenness. I was passing lightly out, when it suddenly struck me that, except when I saw it in the moonlight, I had never obtained a good view of my antagonist's face. He had shaded it, as I said, coming in—it was terribly distorted when I saw it for that single moment—and I could not be certain of recognising it; while it was hidden on his arms now. I had blinded him, you will say, but T could not judge of the effect of the acid, nor how long it would last. At all events I determined to mark my friend, who was quite insensible, so that for ten days or so I should be able to identify him. I took my little bottle of strong eolution of nitrate of silver, and just under his handkerchief, at the back of his neck, I traced, with a camel'a-hair pencil accompanying the solution, the figure of a cross. You know the action of the sun upon salts of silver ; if his eyes recovered quickly, I should still have something to identify my man by ; for I did not know then whether it was Sturm or some lodger who had made the attempt on my life. I was, however, to meet my assailant again sooner than I expected. * # * * * *

Immediately on reaching home, before I could see any one, I was called off to another case, which kept me till the morning of the next day. Arriving home then, I was told that Dr Greenfield had gone to an inquest of a man who had met with his death at Gabriel Sturm's inn. At Gabriel Sturms!' As you may imagine, I hurried off, and was just in time to hear my late adversary tell the following ingenious story, which revealed to me, and to me alone, the fearful extent of his crimes.

The body of a man had been found in the inn with his skull broken by by a crowbar. That Gabriel Sturm admitted to have done, but said it was in self-defence, and that his assailant had thrown vitriol, or some such substance, into his eyes. In proof of which there he was, nearly blind, with his eyes in a terrible state of inflammation.

That plausible story, which he had evidently concocted in desperation, trusting to the chapter of accidents not to bring his real antagonist forward, would have probably bronght about hia discharge; but I stepped forward, and requested to be examined, saying I could throw some light on the subject. There was a general murmur of astonishment, and even the doctor turned to me (remember I had seen no one) and asked what I could know about the affair.

However, it was impossible to overlook the offer of such evidence, and I was sworn. I then told, carefully and circumstantially, the story you have just heard, when, to my astonishment and disgust, I could see that it was looked upon with a good deal of suspicion. You see, I was quite a stranger in the place; and, if you look at the balance of probabilities, Sturm's story' was in some ways better than mine. His solicitor ridiculed my whole narrative, but said he could believe the strange use of the syringe, &c, if I had. any evidence that I was ever in the place. I had come back, too, and gone off again, and he asked was I not wandering on the moor all the time. In fact, I saw he was making an impression; and it seemed also that the jury were unwilling to eondemn a neighbour on such extraordinary evidence given by a stranger. If I could prove I was in the cottage—and Sturm, who could hardly see, swore I had not been there—the story would have a very different complexion. Suddenly the mark I had made upon the murderer flashed across me, and I brought it forward as proof. With considerable diffi • culty the eoroner allowed Sturm's neck to be bared; but amid loud murmurs, and to my horror, no mark was to be found. Had it been removed ? I felt certain it had not. It had only been covered up, and exposure to the sunlight would bring it out. I demanded that Sturm's neck should be turned to the winter sun, then shining through the windows, explaining as well as I could how it was the mark had not appeared. After much objection, this was done, and then, amid a scene of indescribable excitement, the sun gradually acted upon the ■alt of silver, and by degrees the place blackened, till slowly and surely the mark came out; and there was the accusing cross, a silent witness to the truth of my story, and a sure condemnation of him who would fain have been a double murderer.

'lt is a conjuror's trick,' cried the solicitor angrily, while Sturm stood stunned and puzzled, and the people leant eagerly forward to "catch a glimpse of the mysterious mark.

'No,' said the coroner, 'it is no trick. That cross is the handwriting of ProviJ dence.'

Open that box on your right, and you will see my relics—the syringe, the bottle of acid, and that little phial labelled AgO,NOs—the chemical expression for nitrate of silver; while I may finish my story by telling you that before the cross faded from Mr Gabriel Sturm's neek he was punctually hanged. H. Savile Clarke.