




                             The Last Test

                         By ADOLPHE de CASTRO

         EDITOR'S NOTE--Dr. de Castro was author with Ambrose
           Bierce of _The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter_. (At that time he used his full name, Gustaf Adolf de
         Castro Danziger, which he has since shortened to his
        ancestral Spanish form, Adolphe de Castro.) We commend
            _The Last Test_ to those who appreciate a truly
          artistic story, with its suggestions of unthinkable
           horrors from the elder world, which sweep through
              the story like a cold breeze from the tomb. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Weird Tales November 1928. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Few persons know the inside of the Clarendon story, or even that there
is an inside not reached by the newspapers. It was a San Francisco
sensation in the days before the fire, both because of the panic and
menace that kept it company, and because of its close linkage with
the governor of the state. Governor Dalton, it will be recalled, was
Clarendon's best friend, and later married his sister. Neither Dalton
nor Mrs. Dalton would ever discuss the painful affair, but somehow the
facts have leaked out to a limited circle. But for that, and for the
years which have given a sort of vagueness and impersonality to the
actors, one would still pause before probing into secrets so strictly
guarded at the time. The appointment of Dr. Alfred Clarendon as medical director of San
Quentin Penitentiary in 189- was greeted with the keenest enthusiasm
throughout California. San Francisco had at last the honor of harboring
one of the greatest biologists and physicians of the period, and solid
pathological leaders from all over the world might be expected to flock
thither to study his methods, profit by his advice and researches, and
learn how to cope with their own local problems. California, almost
over night, would become a center of medical scholarship with earthwide
influence and reputation. Governor Dalton, anxious to spread the news in its fullest
significance, saw to it that the press carried ample and dignified
accounts of his new appointee. Pictures of Dr. Clarendon and his new
home near old Goat Hill, sketches of his career and manifold honors,
and popular accounts of his salient scientific discoveries were all
presented in the principal California dailies, till the public soon
felt a sort of reflected pride in the man whose studies of pyemia in
India, of the pest in China, and of every sort of kindred disorder
elsewhere would soon enrich the world of medicine with an antitoxin of
revolutionary importance--a basic antitoxin combating the whole febrile
principle at its very source, and ensuring the ultimate conquest and
extirpation of fever in all its diverse forms. Back of the appointment stretched an extended and not wholly unromantic
history of early friendship, long separation, and dramatically renewed
acquaintance. James Dalton and the Clarendon family had been friends
in New York ten years before--friends and more than friends, since the
doctor's only sister, Georgina, was the sweetheart of Dalton's youth,
while the doctor himself had been his closest associate and almost his
protegé in the days of school and college. The father of Alfred and
Georgina, a Wall Street pirate of the ruthless elder breed, had known
Dalton's father well; so well, indeed, that he had finally stripped
him of all he possessed in a memorable afternoon's fight on the stock
exchange. Dalton Senior, hopeless of recuperation and wishing to give
his one adored child the benefit of his insurance, had promptly blown
out his brains; but James had not sought to retaliate. It was, as he
viewed it, all in the game; and he wished no harm to the father of the
girl he meant to marry and of the budding young scientist whose admirer
and protector he had been throughout their years of fellowship and
study. Instead, he turned to the law, established himself in a small
way, and in due course of time asked "Old Clarendon" for Georgina's
hand. Old Clarendon had refused very firmly and loudly, vowing that no
pauper and upstart lawyer was fit to be his son-in-law; and a scene
of considerable violence had occurred. James, telling the wrinkled
freebooter at last what he ought to have been told long before,
had left the house and the city in a high temper; and was embarked
within a month upon the California life which was to lead him to
the governorship through many a fight with ring and politician. His
farewells to Alfred and Georgina had been brief, and he had never
known the aftermath of that scene in the Clarendon library. Only by a
day did he miss the news of Old Clarendon's death from apoplexy, and
by so missing it, changed the course of his whole career. He had not
written Georgina in the decade that followed; knowing her loyalty to
her father, and waiting till his own fortune and position might remove
all obstacles to the match. Nor had he sent any word to Alfred, whose
calm indifference in the face of affection and hero-worship had always
savored of conscious destiny and the self-sufficiency of genius. Secure
in the ties of a constancy rare even then, he had worked and risen
with thoughts only of the future; still a bachelor, and with a perfect
intuitive faith that Georgina also was waiting. In this faith Dalton was not deceived. Wondering perhaps why no
message ever came, Georgina found no romance save in her dreams and
expectations; and in the course of time became busy with the new
responsibilities brought by her brother's rise to greatness. Alfred's
growth had not belied the promise of his youth, and the slim boy had
darted quietly up the steps of science with a speed and permanence
almost dizzying to contemplate. Lean and ascetic, with steel-rimmed
pince-nez and pointed brown beard, Dr. Alfred Clarendon was an
authority at twenty-five and an international figure at thirty. Careless of worldly affairs with the negligence of genius, he depended
vastly on the care and management of his sister, and was secretly
thankful that her memories of James had kept her from other and more
tangible alliances. *       *       *       *       *

Georgina conducted the business and household of the great
bacteriologist, and was proud of his strides toward the conquest
of fever. She bore patiently with his eccentricities, calmed his
occasional bursts of fanaticism, and healed those breaches with his
friends which now and then resulted from his unconcealed scorn of
anything less than a single-minded devotion to pure truth and its
progress.