The Master Spy

Chapter II.—Diseases of the Skin-1

Chapter II.—Diseases of the SkinDr. Smith had a suite of professional Chambers in the huge block of buildings known as Moon Buildings, upon Finsbury Pavement, and according to a notice, among some many scores of others, upon the wall of the vestibule, his speciality was ‘Diseases of the Skin.’

If you had looked in the Medical Directory you would have seen that his Christian names were Raymond Colin, that he was a Doctor of Medicine of Edinburgh University, and that he had taken his degree in 1884. So you would naturally have assumed that he must be an old man, well over seventy, and therefore of considerable experience in his profession.

But it happens you would have been quite mistaken, for this particular specialist in diseases of the skin had, indeed, never seen the inside of a hospital, except once, when, as a small boy he had had his leg broken in a street accident in Leeds; and again, too, seventy years previously, his mother had not as yet been born.

He was, however, practising with the diploma of a Dr. Raymond Colin Smith who had died some seven years before, in what had at one time been known as German East Africa, and as the defunct doctor had had no relatives to mourn his loss, and no one interested in his private affairs, and as, moreover, his handwriting had been easy to imitate, news of his decease had not reached the Registrar of the General Medical Council in London.

Still, if he had had no proper medical training and no qualified experience in his adopted profession, this pseudo Dr. Smith must, nevertheless, have been something of a clever fellow, for with the knowledge acquired from the study of half-a-dozen or so of old and musty-looking volumes upon a shelf in his consulting-room, he had undoubtedly relieved the troubles of not a few bad skin sufferers.

One of the lift-men in the building, for instance, thought the world of him, for had he not cured this lift-man's wife of a form of weeping eczema, when two other practitioners had been able to do nothing for her?

In consequence, this grateful husband had recommended several patients, and would have recommended many more had not the doctor been so high in his charges. Indeed, it almost seemed as if Dr. Smith were desirous of choking off patients by charging them so much, and, further still, the very irregular nature of his attendances at his consulting-room drove a lot of people away, for upon very many mornings would-be patients, after waiting an hour and longer for him to put in an appearance and there being no sign of him, had gone off grumblingly to obtain the services of someone else.

The doctor employed no nurse or female attendant, but upon those days when he did consult at his chambers, he was always preceded by a man by name of Jasper, who used to open the windows and air the rooms, and later in the day this same man would return to do the tidying up when Dr. Smith had gone.

Even by sight Dr. Smith was known to very few of the other tenants, for his rooms being upon the first floor he seldom used the lift and, as there was a second entrance into the building from Fore street, the chances of anyone encountering him were diminished by half. His comings and goings, therefore, would at all times have been difficult to follow, especially as the fourth room of his suite of chambers had a second door opening into a different passage round the corner, thus enabling him to leave unseen, even when, it might be, a would-be patient was actually knocking upon his waiting room door.

His consulting-room was very plainly furnished with a shabby, faded carpet covering the floor. It contained a desk, three chairs, an old surgical couch, a microscope upon a small table, some dirty test-tubes in a stand, the few books we have mentioned, and a dusty pile of out-of-date medical journals in a corner.

The doctor himself certainly did appear to be an old man, well up in years, for he stooped a lot and was most slow and deliberate in all his movements. He had long, grey hair and a grey beard that hid from view any collar he might be wearing. He had big bushy eyebrows and wore large, broad-rimmed, dark glasses.

When a patient was consulting him he spoke in tones hardly above a whisper. Then he looked very grave and solemn, nodded many times, and always had recourse to a huge magnifying glass when he was examining any spots or rashes. He hummed and hawed a lot in his diagnosis, and was never inclined to give a very decided opinion. He asked everyone if there was any consumption in their family, and indeed seemed always to suggest that the ancestors of all who came to him must have been suffering from unpleasant and unpopular diseases. His one unvarying prescription was for a paste of vaseline and oxide of zinc, and he always advised every patient that fine oatmeal should be used for washing with, instead of soap. He whispered, too, the injunction to drink plenty of water and avoid greasy foods. He never encouraged anyone to come again.

In addition to the consulting room, three other rooms comprised the suite; a waiting room that contained a table and half a dozen chairs; a small room with a sofa, a cupboard and a large safe let into the wall; and finally, there was a much smaller room, with a gas stove, a few cooking utensils, and some plates and cups and saucers. It was this last room that had the second door opening into the other passage.

His man, Jasper, was about forty years of age, and was always dressed quietly like a gentleman's servant. He was cold and reserved in manner, but for all that, upon occasions was not averse to stopping for a little chat with the lift-man.

“The only thing regular about your governor,” said the latter one day, “is the time he goes out for his lunch. One o'clock to the tick and he's always ready for his feed. Where does he live? Is it far from here?”

“He's got a flat in Fitzroy Square,” replied the servant, “and I look after him. He's no trouble, for all he does is to read and write.”

“Well, he certainly doesn't bother much about the practice here,” remarked the lift-man, and then he added curiously, “but he gets a lot of letters. Do you know who they're from?”

“Mostly from other doctors,” replied the servant. “They write to him for advice from all parts of the world. He's got a great reputation.”

One morning when Dr. Smith was consulting with an elderly woman who had come to him about a rash upon her legs, he heard the bell of the waiting-room buzz, and, as per invitation inscribed upon the door, the footsteps of someone who had opened it and let himself in. The doctor's eyes glinted as if he had recognised the footsteps, or as if a caller whom he had been expecting had arrived, and with the hurried writing of the prescription for the usual zinc oxide and vaseline, and the stereotyped injunctions to use oatmeal instead of soap, and drink plenty of water, he cut short the consultation and dismissed the woman.

Then, taking a small automatic pistol from one of the drawers in his desk, and fitting a silencer on to it, he thrust it in the right hand pocket of his coat. Then, after a careful but hurried scrutiny of his face and hair in a small mirror, which he produced from another drawer, he composed his features to their usual calm, and opening the communicating door between the consulting and waiting rooms, invited the new arrival to step in.

“Good morning, Mr. Leaver,” he said in the low whispering tones he always used. “I've been hoping you would come, for several days,” and closing the door behind him, he beckoned to his visitor to take a seat.

The man he had ushered in was quite young, and could not have been more than six or seven and twenty. He was smartly dressed, and held himself confidently. He had a good-looking and intelligent face, marred somewhat, however, by a hard and bitter expression. His eyes and chin spoke of courage and determination. Of quite a superior type, he was an old Charterhouse boy who had once followed the profession of a chartered accountant. Three years previously, however, he had been sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment for embezzlement. He had known Dr. Smith for about a year. He looked at him now with a lazy smile, as if for some reason he were rather amused.

“Well, any news?” asked the doctor eagerly.

The young man nodded. “Yes. I've had some luck this time. I've located one of the men who's working there. His home's in Manor Park.”

“Splendid,” ejaculated the doctor, looking very pleased. “Then you picked him up in the way I suggested?”

“Yes, and I was fortunate, for he came from the third firm I tapped,” was the reply. “He was head blower in Wilkinson's Glass Works in Spitalfield, and he took himself off at a moment's notice last March. I palled up to one of their men as he was leaving work one night, and pretended I wanted to know where a chap called Irons lived, who had once been one of the foremen there. Of course the man swore I was mistaken, and over a couple of pints, ran over all the men in good positions who had left the firm this year. There were three of them who had suddenly given notice, and no one knew what for.”

Dr. Smith clicked his tongue triumphantly. “Exactly what I thought had happened. The Government would, of course, engage the very best!”

Leaver continued. “This man only remembered where one of them lived, however, and he was deuced hazy about that, only thinking it was somewhere in Manor Park. This chap, he said, was a Tom Skelton and he used to come to work on a motor bike. That helped me a lot, for I began a round of all the garages in Manor Park and soon found one that used to supply this Tom with petrol. That's how I came to get the exact address.”

“But how did you find out he is now working on Foulness Island?” asked the doctor sharply.

“I suspected it at once,” replied Leaver, “and now, after three days' enquiry in his neighborhood, am quite sure. He's got a wife and two children, but only comes home to them once a month and then, each time, for five days. No letters come to the house through the post when he's away, but his wife writes plenty, for she's always borrowing stamps from the neighbors.” He nodded. “In passing, my idea is she goes and calls for letters somewhere. Well, she tells everyone her husband is working in Birmingham, but when asked where, she always says she can't remember the name of the firm.”

“Go on,” said the doctor, because Leaver had stopped speaking to take out and light a cigarette.

“Then according to all reports,” went on Leaver, “this Skelton's altered a lot in his ways and, when he meets his friends now, won't talk about his job. He avoids them as much as he can, too, and never goes to the local pub. Again, he's taken to living in a much better style of late, as if he were getting a considerably higher wage. He's bought an expensive sidecar outfit and both he and his wife have got leather motoring coats. He looks bronzed and sunburnt, too, when he comes home, as if he'd been getting plenty of fresh air. Also——”

“But all this is no evidence,” interrupted the doctor testily, “to link him up with working on Foulness Island.”

“Yesterday afternoon I saw his wife go out with the two children,” went on Leaver, as if he had not heard the interruption, “and, knowing the house to be empty, waited an opportunity until no one was passing in the street, and then slipped round into the backyard. I got into the house through the scullery window. I found it very nicely furnished, but all with new stuff, and there was an expensive wireless in the parlor. Then making a hurried search everywhere, I came upon a letter in the tea-caddy from this Tom Skelton to his wife, dated only two days ago, and I made an exact copy.” He nodded triumphantly as he took out his pocket-book, “Now you just listen.”

He searched for a few moments and then extracting a small piece of paper, proceeded to read out:—