“I’ll do for you anyhow before I leave.”

I am not a very strong man, and I realized that I was helpless if once
at close quarters. Twice I cut at him with my stick, but he rushed in at
me with a murderous growl, and seized me by the throat with both his
muscular hands. I fell backwards and he on the top of me, with a grip
which was squeezing the life from me. I was conscious of his malignant
yellow-tinged eyes within a few inches of my own, and then with a
beating of pulses in my head and a singing in my ears, my senses slipped
away from me. But even in that supreme moment I was aware that the
door-bell was still violently ringing. When I came to myself, I was lying upon the sofa in Dr. McCarthy’s
study, and the Doctor himself was seated beside me. He appeared to be
watching me intently and anxiously, for as I opened my eyes and looked
about me he gave a great cry of relief. “Thank God!” he cried. “Thank
God!”

“Where is he?” I asked, looking round the room. As I did so, I became
aware that the furniture was scattered in every direction, and that
there were traces of an even more violent struggle than that in which I
had been engaged. The Doctor sank his face between his hands. “They have him,” he groaned. “After these years of trial they have him
again. But how thankful I am that he has not for a second time stained
his hands in blood.”

As the Doctor spoke I became aware that a man in the braided jacket of
an inspector of police was standing in the doorway. “Yes, sir,” he remarked, “you have had a pretty narrow escape. If we had
not got in when we did, you would not be here to tell the tale. I don’t
know that I ever saw any one much nearer to the undertaker.”

I sat up with my hands to my throbbing head. “Dr. McCarthy,” said I, “this is all a mystery to me. I should be glad
if you could explain to me who this man is, and why you have tolerated
him so long in your house.”

“I owe you an explanation, Mr. Weld—and the more so since you have, in
so chivalrous a fashion, almost sacrificed your life in my defence. There is no reason now for secrecy. In a word, Mr. Weld, this unhappy
man’s real name is James McCarthy, and he is my only son.”

“Your son?”

“Alas, yes. What sin have I ever committed that I should have such a
punishment? He has made my whole life a misery from the first years of
his boyhood. Violent, headstrong, selfish, unprincipled, he has always
been the same. At eighteen he was a criminal. At twenty, in a paroxysm
of passion, he took the life of a boon companion and was tried for
murder. He only just escaped the gallows, and he was condemned to penal
servitude. Three years ago he succeeded in escaping, and managed, in
face of a thousand obstacles, to reach my house in London. My wife’s
heart had been broken by his condemnation, and as he had succeeded in
getting a suit of ordinary clothes, there was no one here to recognize
him. For months he lay concealed in the attics until the first search of
the police should be over. Then I gave him employment here, as you have
seen, though by his rough and overbearing manners he made my own life
miserable, and that of his fellow-masters unbearable. You have been with
us for four months, Mr. Weld, but no other master endured him so long. I
apologize now for all you have had to submit to, but I ask you what else
could I do? For his dead mother’s sake I could not let harm come to him
as long as it was in my power to fend it off. Only under my roof could
he find a refuge—the only spot in all the world—and how could I keep him
here without its exciting remark unless I gave him some occupation? I
made him English master therefore, and in that capacity I have protected
him here for three years. You have no doubt observed that he never
during the daytime went beyond the college grounds. You now understand
the reason. But when to-night you came to me with your report of a man
who was looking through his window, I understood that his retreat was at
last discovered. I besought him to fly at once, but he had been
drinking, the unhappy fellow, and my words fell upon deaf ears. When at
last he made up his mind to go he wished to take from me in his flight
every shilling which I possessed. It was your entrance which saved me
from him, while the police in turn arrived only just in time to rescue
you. I have made myself amenable to the law by harbouring an escaped
prisoner, and remain here in the custody of the inspector, but a prison
has no terrors for me after what I have endured in this house during the
last three years.”

“It seems to me, Doctor,” said the inspector, “that, if you have broken
the law, you have had quite enough punishment already.”

“God knows I have!” cried Dr. McCarthy, and sank his haggard face upon
his hands. THE BROWN HAND


Every one knows that Sir Dominick Holden, the famous Indian surgeon,
made me his heir, and that his death changed me in an hour from a
hard-working and impecunious medical man to a well-to-do landed
proprietor. Many know also that there were at least five people between
the inheritance and me, and that Sir Dominick’s selection appeared to be
altogether arbitrary and whimsical. I can assure them, however, that
they are quite mistaken, and that, although I only knew Sir Dominick in
the closing years of his life, there were none the less very real
reasons why he should show his goodwill towards me. As a matter of fact,
though I say it myself, no man ever did more for another than I did for
my Indian uncle. I cannot expect the story to be believed, but it is so
singular that I should feel that it was a breach of duty if I did not
put it upon record—so here it is, and your belief or incredulity is your
own affair. Sir Dominick Holden, C.B., K.C.S.I., and I don’t know what besides, was
the most distinguished Indian surgeon of his day. In the Army
originally, he afterwards settled down into civil practice in Bombay,
and visited as a consultant every part of India. His name is best
remembered in connection with the Oriental Hospital, which he founded
and supported. The time came, however, when his iron constitution began
to show signs of the long strain to which he had subjected it, and his
brother practitioners (who were not, perhaps, entirely disinterested
upon the point) were unanimous in recommending him to return to England. He held on so long as he could, but at last he developed nervous
symptoms of a very pronounced character, and so came back, a broken man,
to his native county of Wiltshire. He bought a considerable estate with
an ancient manor-house upon the edge of Salisbury Plain, and devoted his
old age to the study of Comparative Pathology, which had been his
learned hobby all his life, and in which he was a foremost authority. We of the family were, as may be imagined, much excited by the news of
the return of this rich and childless uncle to England.