Circumstantial Evidence and Other Stories

Colonel Chartres Dane lingered irresolutely in the broad and pleasant
lobby. Other patients had lingered awhile in that agreeable vestibule.
In wintry days it was a cozy place; its polished panelled walls
reflecting the gleam of logs that burnt in the open fireplace. There was
a shining oak settle that invited gossip, and old prints, and blue china
bowls frothing over with the flowers of a belated autumn or advanced
spring-tide, to charm the eye.

In summer it was cool and dark and restful. The mellow tick of the
ancient clock, the fragrance of roses, the soft breeze that came through
an open casement stirring the lilac curtains uneasily, these corollaries
of peace and order had soothed many an unquiet mind.

Colonel Chartres Dane fingered a button of his light dust-coat and his
thin patrician face was set in thought. He was a spare man of
fifty-five; a man of tired eyes and nervous gesture.

Dr. Merriget peered at him through his powerful spectacles and wondered.

It was an awkward moment, for the doctor had murmured his sincere, if
conventional, regrets and encouragements, and there was nothing left
but to close the door on his patient.

"You have had a bad wound there, Mr. Jackson," he said, by way of
changing a very gloomy subject and filling in the interval of silence.
This intervention might call to mind in a soldier some deed of his, some
far field of battle where men met death with courage and fortitude. Such
memories might be helpful to a man under sentence.

Colonel Dane fingered the long scar on his cheek.

"Yes," he said absently, "a child did that--my niece. Quite my own
fault."

"A child?" Dr. Merriget appeared to be shocked. He was in reality very
curious.

"Yes ... she was eleven ... my own fault. I spoke disrespectfully of her
father. It was unpardonable, for he was only recently dead. He was my
brother-in-law. We were at breakfast and she threw the knife ...
yes...."

He ruminated on the incident and a smile quivered at the corner of his
thin lips.

"She hated me. She hates me still ... yes...."

He waited.

The doctor was embarrassed and came back to the object of the visit.

"I should be ever so much more comfortable in my mind if you saw a
specialist, Mr.--er--Jackson. You see how difficult it is for me to give
an opinion? I may be wrong. I know nothing of your history, your medical
history I mean. There are so many men in town who could give you a
better and more valuable opinion than I. A country practitioner like
myself is rather in a backwater. One has the usual cases that come to
one in a small country town, maternity cases, commonplace ailments ...
it is difficult to keep abreast of the extraordinary developments in
medical science...."

"Do you know anything about Machonicies College?" asked the colonel
unexpectedly.

"Yes, of course." The doctor was surprised. "It is one of the best of
the technical schools. Many of our best doctors and chemists take a
preparatory course there. Why?"

"I merely asked. As to your specialists ... I hardly think I shall
bother them."

Dr. Merriget watched the tall figure striding down the red-tiled path
between the banked flowers, and was still standing on the doorstep when
the whine of his visitor's machine had gone beyond the limits of his
hearing.

"H'm," said Dr. Merriget as he returned to his study. He sat awhile
thinking.

"Mr. Jackson?" he said aloud. "I wonder why the colonel calls himself
'Mr. Jackson'?"

He had seen the colonel two years before at a garden party, and had an
excellent memory for faces.

He gave the matter no further thought, having certain packing to
superintend--he was on the eve of his departure for Constantinople, a
holiday trip he had promised himself for years.

On the following afternoon at Machonicies Technical School, a lecture
was in progress.

" ... by this combustion you have secured true K.c.y.... which we
will now test and compare with the laboratory quantities ... a
deliquescent and colorless crystal extremely soluble...."

The master, whose monotonous voice droned like the hum of a distant,
big, stationary blue-bottle, was a middle-aged man, to whom life was no
more than a chemical reaction, and love not properly a matter for his
observation or knowledge. He had an idea that it was dealt with
effectively in another department of the college ... metaphysics ... or
was it philosophy? Or maybe it came into the realms of the biological
master?

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