His Double Self; or, the Transformation of Keith Winstanley

Front matter

JARROLDS' POPULAR 3I6 NOVELS UNIFORM WITH "His Double Self." The Expedition of Captain Flick. By Fergus Hume. Second Edition. "It is a romance ofthe 'Westward Ho' type and abounds in startling adventures. . . . j\lay be heartily commended." — Newcastle Daily Leader. The Mystery of Landy Court. By Fergus Hume. Second Edition. "We think that this is the best book Mr. Fergus Hume has yet written." — Daily Chronicle. The Lone Inn. A Mystery. By Fergus Hume. Second Edition. " Mr. Hume's clever story fully sustains his reputation for originality and sustained interest. The mystery is most cleverly maintained throughout." — The Idler. The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. By Fergus Hume. Revised Edition. 403th Thousand. By Order of the Brotherhood. A Thrilling Story of Russian Intrigue ! By Le Voleur. Sixth Thousand.

"A very strong story of mystery, adventure, and intrigue. . . . We find ourselves at one moment in a secret stronghold of the Nihilists, and at the next in the palace of the Czar ; but wherever we may be the absorbing interest of the story is not allowed to flag." — The Speaker. Others in Preparation. London: Jarrold and Sons, io and n, Warwick Lane, E.C., and o/all Booksellers. or The Transformation of Keith Winstanley * * By E. CURTIS * * Author of Dr. Malchi Queen or Bondswoman Tamar the Witch * LONDON JARROLD AND SONS WARWICK LANE, E.C. CONTENTS. CHAPTER VAGE I. IN THE FOG - ' - - - - 7 II. WHAT BEFELL ME 19 III. LOVEDAY ... - 31 IV. THE MIRRORED SHADOW 38 V. A DEAD LOVE - - - - - 48 VI. JUDAS - - 59 VII. ON THE LINE - - - - 69 VIII. PAUL MARDYKE - - 75 IX. DELILAH - - - - 88 X. A NEW PATIENT - - - - 98 XI. 77, DUKE STREET - - - IO9 XII.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING- 120 XIII. PAUL MARDYKE'S STORY - - 1 28 XIV. MRS. KENT EXPLAINS - - 137 XV. UNTIL — WHEN? - 147 XTI. WHICH WAS IT? - - - - CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACK XVII. "I AM YOUR MASTER" - - 1 67 XVIII. A TERRIBLE QUESTION - - - 1 76 XIX. MADAME YOUART : TELEPATHIST — AND ADVISER I 87 XX. I APPEAL TO CHANCE - 203 XXI. AN UNANSWERED QUESTION - - - 209 XXII. THE MYSTERY OF STEPHEN KENNEDY - 216 XXIII. BEHIND THE CURTAIN - - - - 2-7 XXIV. FACE TO FACE - - - 240 XXV. IN THE SQUARE GARDENS - - - 246 XXVI. BEFORE THE EXPERIMENT - 257 XXVII. AND AFTER - - - 266 XXVIII. THE STORY TOLD -

Chapter I. In Tiie Fog

ON the first day of November, 1890, I, Keith Winstanley, M.D., F.R.C.S., was a contented and prosperous man. I was blessed with excellent health and digestion. I had a conscience at peace with man kind, and my cares and anxieties were of the lightest nature. On the second day of November, 1890, I was — but let my narrative itself tell what I was on that last mentioned date. Unlike the majority of professional men, I was not dependent on my exertions to win me my livelihood. Through the death of my parents in my boyhood, I, their only child, inherited when I reached my majority a substantial sum of money, and a yearly income sufficient — if I had willed — to have maintained me in luxurious idleness all the rest of my days, but I was of a too ener getic or restless a disposition to rust my life away, and the profession I had adopted was calculated almost beyond any other to inspire me with ambitions which only much study and honest hard work could hope to trans form into accomplished deeds.

The house I resided in at Kensington had also been bequeathed to me by my father, and my modest establishment was conducted on much the same lines by my staid and elderly housekeeper when I was a fully-fledged doctor with a daily increasing round of patients as it had been when I was walking Guy's, or warily studying the pitfalls which crowd the path that leads from the student's form to the examiner's desk. But my bachelor existence received its doom almost as soon as my ability — had the necessity arisen to make my profession keep me — had been satisfactorily proved. I fell in love and became engaged to the sweetest and prettiest maiden — Loveday Faulder by name — -that ever smiled upon an unworthy worshipper. As she was the only child of a father who adored her and studied to gratify her every whim (not that Loveday had any whims, the Quaker ancestress from whom she had derived her quaint name had bestowed upon her with it a mantle of girlish wisdom), no obstacle was thrown in my way when I prayed him to give her to me.

He only stipulated that a two years' engagement must elapse before the idea of the marriage, which would rob him of his motherless daughter, could be entertained. It was, nevertheless, an unlucky stipulation, although, to do myself justice, I have refrained from censuring even in my thoughts the affection and anxious solicitude for Loveday's welfare that alone occasioned it. On the evening of the first day of November, I was returning from the bedside of a patient who was suffer ing from the two great ills to which as yet no remedy has been discovered — poverty and hereditary disease. A dense fog had during my visit to my patient suddenly descended upon the narrow, and at all times badly lighted streets of the populous East end neighbourhood, in which this particular patient, whose case had first excited my compassion and interest at the hospital of which I was one of the visiting surgeons, and he, one of its hapless inmates, lived or rather fought hard to exist in the teeth of adverse circumstances.

After I had traversed, as quickly as the fog would permit me, the streets which I imagined would set me in a direct home ward track, I chanced to take a wrong turning, which I followed, until a quarter of an hour later I realized and vainly attempted to undo my mistake. I grew more puzzled each moment concerning my whereabouts, but my eight-and-twenty years of existence sat lightly enough upon my shoulders to enable me to enjoy the practical joke I had all unwittingly played upon myself. The pedestrians were few and far between, and the two or three to whom I applied for information were, or professed to be, as ignorant of the locality into which I had strayed as I was myself. I brought my steps at last to a standstill, and mused like one of the Arabian Night's Caliphs half aloud. " I will trust to chance to get right again," I decided sportively.

"If the next person who jostles against me is a man I will follow the street on my right until it leads me either to Rome or a cabstand. If the person be a woman, I will take the street to my left, and chance that ultimately conducting me to my home." Planting my back against a convenient stone wall, I lit a cigar and awaited with equanimity the result of my idle challenge to that unseen and yet all powerful force, which some men call Chance and others Fate. A long interval of waiting ensued. No person passed me near enough to decide my resolution, and the fog increased rather than lessened in intensity. My cigar was nearly smoked through when a woman, with a shawl flung over her head, brushed rapidly past me and dis appeared in the enveloping darkness. " To the left be it," I said gaily, throwing my cigar end away, and plunging into the Cimmerian gloom of the chance indicated direction.

I had walked little more than half a mile when an instinctive sense of danger near me in some shape or other caused me to pause suddenly and strain my eyes and ears for the token that should give me unmistakable evidence of it. I could not see more than a yard or two ahead of me, but the perplexity of my position was, as far as I could discern, unmenaced by any element of danger excepting the most commonplace and account able. Cautiously stretching out my hand it came, after a little groping, in contact with a low stone wall, which I followed to its length before I paused again in helpless bewilderment. If I was still proceeding in the wrong location of my home (which seemed highly probable) I must be, I knew, somewhere in the vicinity of the river side docks. The knowledge quickened my pulses and made me again strain my eyes in the direction immediately opposite me.

The darkness was impenetrable, but a faint (too faint to have been audible to any ears less intently listening than my own) lapping sound of water was making itself heard in the muffled silence. I was a fairly good swimmer, but an unlucky fall over the exposed edge of a shipping dock into the deep water beneath threatened under the circumstances to be attended with considerable danger. Striving to reassure myself of the unlikelihood of my entering any dock gates unchallenged or unprevented by the man whose duty it was to warn off all trespassers, I determined to retrace my steps and my former decision without any loss of time, but just as I was about to do so another sound, that of a soft and stealthy footstep, close to what I judged to be the unprotected water edge, arrested my attention.

I was going to call out to warn the unconscious stranger of his possible peril, but searing lest I might by startling him cause the catastrophe I was attempting to prevent, I crossed the road toward him, hoping, as I did so, that we might mutually assist each other out of the predicament in which we found ourselves. (This crossing proved my surmise of the situation to be a correct one. The dock into the enclosure of which I had strayed, was, I subsequently ascertained, undergoing certain alterations which had temporarily suspended its use and relaxed the regulations stringently enforced by the authorities.) To my surprise, the stranger, instead of welcoming my approach, retreated a step or two nearer the edge of the wharf (beneath which I could see the water darkly gleaming) as if wishful to pass me without exciting my notice.

Supposing him to be ignorant of the danger of his position, I, uttering a hasty ejaculation, caught him quickly by his sleeve, but in the same instant he swung his arm out of my grasp with an unexpected celerity that startled me, and probably was the means of throwing me slightly off my guard. What next followed only took the briefest period of time to enact, although it may take a moment or two to relate. The mysterious stranger, whose face I utterly failed to catch even a glimpse of, suddenly, and with an inarticulate exclamation, sprang upon me, and powerful, athletic young man though I was, bore me to the ground as easily as if I had been an infant. Pinioning me with his long sinewy arms as I lay for one helpless moment at his mercy, he dragged me toward the black chasm which yawned beside us.

I struggled violently to free myself, and might have succeeded in doing so had not a fierce thrust on the part of my unknown antagonist overbalanced me as I was in the act of springing to my feet, and hurled me down into the dark and silent water. I rose to the surface in my desperate struggle for life, and struck blindly out in the direction I supposed the landing steps of the dock would lie, but the cruel fog weighted my eyelids with its invisible shackles as I swam, first carefully but afterwards wildly, around the circle of my watery prison. My heavy clothing impeded my swimming, and again and again my outstretched hand encountered only the slippery stone wall which surrounded me and which, of course, offered me no foothold. I felt my strength ebbing swiftly away from me. I wondered dumbly when the end would come, and even as I wondered the water sucked me beneath its cold depths.

An awful rushing sound in my ears LN THE FOG. 13 shut out the consciousness of the battle I was fighting inch by inch. As I rose gasping to the surface for the last time I felt myself, to my unutterable joy and thanksgiving, gripped suddenly by unknown hands, and supported and guided to what a moment later proved to be the landing steps for which I had so vainly searched. I had sufficient sense left me to restrain the mad longing, which was devouring me, to cling to my rescuer, but I was too exhausted to render any self-help as I was pulled out of the water and laid on the bottom step of the stone flight. A westerly wind had arisen which was slowly dispersing the fog, but I was no longer conscious of my sur roundings. For the first time in my life I had swooned. " This chap's all right, 'tis the other that's got a through ticket to Davy Jones's locker," said a rough voice as I struggled back to life.

I raised myself on my elbow, and looked unccm prehendingly up into the faces bending over me. " Halloa, waking up at last, are you ? " queried the previous speaker, turning a huge plug of tobacco in his mouth, and spitting into the water beneath him. "That's right," as I staggered to my feet, "you're worth a dozen dead uns, like him," jerking his thumb toward a dark inanimate object lying on the step above me. "Talk respectful to the gentleman, can't you, Bill?" admonished a man who was standing on the top of the landing steps. " Maybe he'll let you have the honour of drinking his health presently if you mind your manners." My wits were slowly coming back to me. I was beginning to understand how my adventure had ended. " Help me to get up those steps, my man," I said, addressing the individual who had spoken last.

"My legs do not feel yet as if they belonged to me." The man stretched out his hand in ready response, and I, avoiding with a shudder the burden the second step bore, clambered to his side. The fog had magically cleared away, and an adjacent gas lamp revealed the faces and forms of the men, three in number, who, I presumed, had interested themselves either in my rescue from drowning or my recovery from my swoon. They were hulking, ill-featured fellows, but I gladly hailed their arrival on the scene which had, I felt, so nearly been the last of my life's drama. " What is that ? " I asked rather shakily, and pointing at the silent object beneath me. " Why, that's the cove as saved your life, and, as a reward, lost his own," replied one of the men. " He sprang in after you " " But I was thrown into the water," I interrupted.

" Was my assailant and my rescuer one? " The fellow shook his head emphatically. " I don't know how you got into the water," he asserted, a little surlily, " me and my mates only saw you pulled out." " Look here, sir," eagerly rejoined one of his com panions, "this is the tale I for one am prepared to prove and swear to before any beak in London. Me and my mates was coming along this wharfside a matter of nearly an hour ago " " It was more than an hour ago," growled the third man, who had not before spoken. " The clock at the pub had struck ten before we turned dockwards, and 'tis now past eleven o'clock." " Well, anyhow, we was coming along here an hour and more ago," hastily continued the former speaker, " and a gentleman — a regular toff by his clothes — was walking on the same side of the road, and going in the same direction as we was.

He was pretty near us, too, as you may imagine, sir, since we was able to see him in the thickest fog as I've beheld for many a year. All at once he stopped, as we did likewise " " We heard what sounded like a plunge into the water hard by," interrupted one of the speaker's mates, "and, says the gentleman, ' Somebody's fallen into the dock,' and, says we, "Tain't any accident — it be a suicide,' but the gentleman flung off his coat " " Which here it be," said the least loquacious man, indicating a garment lying at his feet. "And in lie jumps into the water," resumed my original informant, glad to get back the telling of the narrative again. "We didn't do nothing 'cos there was nothing to do. We just stood on these here steps, and waited to see if the gentleman was going to get drowned like the person he was trying to save, for, lor, the fog was thicker than any pea soup that ever I saw " Cut your story short, Jim," observed the disappointed HIS DOUBLE SELF. narrator.

" Don't you see the gentleman is in a hurry to get home and change his wet things ? " " No. I want to hear all you can tell me," I said, motioning the man to go on with his tale. " Well, sir, in a couple of minutes, or it may have been five," continued my enlightener, " the gentleman swims to the steps, towing beside him what looked to us uncommonly like a man at his last gasp. He gets up the first step, pulls up his companion, and manages somehow or other in the same moment to miss his footing or stumble on the slippery step — me nor my mates couldn't see how it happened — but down he fell just where you see him now, and as he didn't seem in a hurry to get up again we climbed down to him and found him dead." "Dead!" I exclaimed in incredulous horror and surprise. " Dead as a doornail, sir," affirmed the man, almost as if he was relishing my amazement.

" He must in his fall have struck his head against the edge of the stone steps above him, but, anyhow, the life seemed to have gone in a mighty hurry out of him. Me and my mates thought you was a dead un, too, sir, for you took a longish stretch to come round. Just as we was deliber ating what to do with the pair of you a man came along, who we hailed, and who by a rum stroke of luck chanced to be a doctor — a dispensary doctor he said he was — and it was he who told us that the stone steps had knocked the wits out of the cove who had saved you — but he said you'd come round if he could get some brandy down your throat. Off he went to the nearest pub to get some, but he ain't come back yet, and you've picked yourself up without waiting for the brandy." " He'll be back in a minute," said the phlegmatic man.

" A dispensary doctor ain't going to neglect a patient who looks as much like paying for attentions shown him as this here gentleman does." " I am a doctor myself," I said, fighting hard to get the better of the curious weakness, which since my rescue was impeding my speech and actions. " I will go to yonder man, and see if he really is beyond all aid." "Better not, sir," advised one of my companions, catching at my arm, as I stumblingly attempted to descend the steps. " You ain't pulled yourself together yet, you can't do him any good, you had much better look after yourself for a while." " But a few minutes' immersion in the water ought not to have affected me like this," I said, annoyed at my own powerlessness to aid the man who had aided me so bravely. " Don't wait for the dispensary doctor," I directed, " but one of you men fetch a surgeon as quickly as you possibly can, and a policeman, if you chance to meet one, but get a surgeon for Heaven's sake.

The man may not be mortally injured." " All right, sir," gruffly replied one of the men. " I'll fetch a doctor if fetching one is any satisfaction to you ; it won't be any use to him for certain," with a second jerk of his thumb at my unfortunate rescuer. " Go quickly," I entreated. " Stay — two of you go in contrary directions, and bring back with you any doctor that will come. I will divide all the money I have with E me between you," and my hand stole instinctively to my pocket, which, in the same instant, I discovered to be rifled of its contents. Each of my pockets had shared a similar fate, and my watch and chain had likewise vanished. " The water must have washed out of your pockets any money you are thinking you've lost," significantly observed one of the men, who, instead of hastening to obey my bidding, was closely watching my actions.

"Your pockets was regularly turned inside out when the t'other man pulled you out of the dock. My mates and me particularly noticed that they was." " S'help me if I knows anything of anybody's pockets," growled the silent man, spitting contemp tuously into the water. " Never mind about my pockets," I hastily said, not liking the expression on my companions' faces. " Go for a doctor, and I will find a way of paying you handsomely for your trouble." " All right, guv'nor, the doctor's patient ain't in half such a hurry as you are," said one of the two men as they both walked away, but without making even the shallowest pretence of haste. The rascal who was left to bear me company carefully filled and lighted a short clay pipe. After a moment of perplexed thought I appealed to him. " Will you help me lift the injured man to the wharf side? I may be able to judge if he is beyond medical assistance if we can get him under the gas lamp."

Chapter II. What Befell Me

IDO not know what answer the fellow was about to make me. He had taken the pipe out of his mouth to reply, when an apprehensive expression stole into his crafty eyes, and he stepped swiftly backward. "The dispensary doctor is coming, sir," he said hurriedly, "I'll just meet him and hurry him along;" and before I could prevent him, if I had attempted to do so, he had disappeared into the darkness, carrying, I ascertained a moment later, my rescuer's coat off with him. The tread of the approaching person who had affrighted the last of the thievish trio sounded to me remarkably like that of a policeman, and my surmise proved to be correct, as a stout blue-coated myrmidon of the law emerged into the feeble rays of the gas lamp. " Halloa ! what are you doing here ? " he suspiciously exclaimed before I had time to call to him.

As briefly as I could I explained my adventure and its disastrous termination to him, and besought him either to remain beside my rescuer whilst I fetched a doctor, or himself to undertake the errand. " Remain where you are, if you please, sir," he said with stern deference. " This adventure of yours requires a little more explanation before I, in my official capacity, can afford to lose sight of you." " For Heaven's sake, aid me to do what I can for the man, who, for all I know, may each moment be passing further beyond my — or any other doctor's — help," I cried impatiently. " Assist me to lift him into the light." Without condescending to make me any verbal reply, my companion blew his whistle — a call to which a comrade quickly responded — and the three of us listed the inert figure and laid it beneath the rays of the gas lamp.

The upturned face was distinctly visible. I saw it only for one moment, but that moment indelibly stamped it upon my memory. It was the face of a man past his first youth, but it bore the unmistakable brand of natural refinement and educated culture. His features were statuesque in their repose, and a heavy moustache shaded his upper lip. He was a very tall man, and of powerful, but, at the same time, graceful growth and appearance. I had opportunity to note these details as I knelt beside him and took his hand in mine. As I pressed my fingers against his wrist, the singular weakness which I had struggled so hard to master over powered me, and a great darkness seemed to swallow me up, both body and soul. When I, for the second time that evening, recovered consciousness, I was lying on my own bed, and my housekeeper and a stranger were regarding me with compassionate eyes.

WHAT BEFELL ME. 21 " He will do now," said the stranger, taking his hat from a neighbouring chair. "A night's rest will com plete his recovery, and, although I will look round and see him in the morning, my visit will be only the merest matter of form." " Do not go yet," I cried, as my memory, like a giant refreshed, awoke again. " What of the man who rescued me ? Is he living ? " " I believe not," replied my professional confrere (who had been hurriedly summoned to my aid by my housekeeper, and with whom I chanced to be personally unacquainted). " The policeman, who fortunately discovered one of your cards in your otherwise empty pockets, and who conveyed you home, told me that the man who had rescued you from drowning had forfeited his own life. His body was, I likewise believe, taken to a mortuary, where of course it awaits an inquest."

" Who was he ? Has his name transpired ? " I asked, breathlessly interested. The doctor shook his head. " I do not think so," he rejoined, " but his identity will doubtless be proved at the inquiry, which will be held the day after to-morrow. You must now rest as calmly as you can under the sad circumstances. You can do your rescuer no good by worrying over the unfortunate result of his apparent gallantry. Sleep well, and you will awake yourself in the morning." I did not awake myself as the doctor phrased it, but And so ended the first day of November, 1890. I passed a restless night, and greatly to the doctor's HLS DOUBLE SELF. 22 surprise when he paid me his promised visit, I was in the first stage of a high fever. " He must have contracted a chill whilst waiting about in his wet garments," was the last remark I was con scious of hearing — or rather understanding — him make to the nurse, who, in some mysterious fashion, had quickly established herself at my bedside.

Day succeeded day, and night succeeded night, but I remained oblivious, or nearly so, of time and my sur roundings. I had one or two temporary intervals of consciousness, and during these my kindly nurse would, unsolicited, read me the loving, anxious little notes, which my sweetheart, Loveday, wrote me daily. On one of these occasions my nurse placed beside my pillow a fragrant bunch of blue violets, on which she told me Loveday had showered tears and kisses ere she had given it into her care for me. The soft scent of the violets, and their tender and innocent beauty, seemed to bring Loveday visibly before me ; but, strangely enough, I shrank shudderingly away from their sweet contact, and prayed the nurse to put the flowers out of my sight. " Red poppies are fairer than blue violets," I muttered incoherently — but knowing what I was saying — although my only listener understood me not.

After the lapse of a fortnight my illness took what my housekeeper, who untiringly interested herself in my welfare, was pleased to call a " turn." The doctor's visits grew less frequent as my strength and appetite began to show daily signs of returning. On the first morning of my semi-convalescence I WHA T BEFELL ME. 23 asked the doctor (who was the same individual who had been summoned to attend me the night I was taken senseless to my home) to tell me all he knew concerning the sequel of my singular adventure. " I am afraid I can tell you very little indeed," he said, shaking his head at my eagerness to break the arbitrary rule of silence on any exciting topic he had imposed upon me. " I simply attended the inquest to testify to your inability to be present." " Inquest ! He was dead, then ?

" I interrupted with a strange emotion. " Who ? Oh, the man who pulled you out of the water," carelessly rejoined the doctor ; " why there was no doubt of that fact, was there ? A verdict of death from drowning was returned." " But he did not die from drowning, he struck his head against the landing steps — at least so I was in formed," I interrupted again. " Ah ! well, perhaps the verdict was accidental death ; indeed, now I come to remember, I am almost sure it was," he replied, carefully buttoning his gloves. " The coroner took my evidence early as I had a dozen patients waiting to see me, and of course I was not greatly interested in the case. I left long before it was over, and it was only by chance that I noticed the verdict in the evening paper." " But don't you perceive," I urged excitedly, forgetting for the moment my weakness, " the man forfeited his life for my sake ?