The Forger

THE BIG consulting-room at 903, Harley Street differed as much from its
kind as Mr. Cheyne Wells differed from the average consultant.

It was something between a drawing-room and the kind of a library which a
lover of good books gathers together piecemeal as opportunity presents.
There was comfort in the worn, but not too worn, furniture, in the deep,
leather-covered settee drawn up before the red fire. Two walls were
filled with shelves wedged with oddly bound, oddly sized volumes; there
were books on the table, a newspaper dropped by a careless hand on the
floor, but nothing of the apparatus of medicine--not so much as a
microscope or test tube.

In one corner of the room, near the window where yellow sunlight was
pouring in, was a polished door; beyond that a white-tiled bathroom
without a bath but with many glass shelves and glass-topped table. You
could have your fill of queer mechanisms there, and your nostrils
offended by pungent antiseptics. There were cupboards, carefully locked,
with rows and rows of bottles, and steel and glass cabinets full of
little culture dishes. But though Peter Clifton had been a constant
visitor for years, he had never seen that door opened.

He was sitting now on an arm of one of the big chairs, his fine head
screwed round so that he could see the street, though he had no interest
in the big car which stood at the kerb, or the upper floors of the houses
on the opposite side of the road which filled his vision. But he was a
sensitive man, with a horror of emotional display, and just then he did
not wish any man--even Cheyne Wells--to see his face.

Presently he jerked back his head and met the dark eyes of the man who
straddled before the fireplace, a cigarette drooping from his lips.

Mr. Wells was rather thin, and this gave the illusion of height which his
inches did not justify. The dark, saturnine face with its neat black
moustache was almost sinister in repose: when he smiled, the whole
character of his face changed, and he was smiling now.

Peter heaved a deep sigh and stretched his six feet of bone and muscle.

"It was a good day for me when I mistook you for a dentist!" he said.

There was a nervous tension in his laugh which Mr. Donald Cheyne Wells did
not fail to note.

"My good chap"--he shook his head--"it was a double-sided benefit, for
you have been the most foolishly generous patient I have ever had. And I
bless the telephone authorities that they made 903, Harley Street the
habitation of a gentleman who left the week before I moved in."

Again the other laughed.

"You even cured the old molar!" he said.

The smile left the surgeon's face.

"I have cured nothing else--except your misgivings. The real assurance on
which your faith must rest is Sir William Clewers's. I would not have
dared to be so definite as he; even now I tell you that although the big
danger is wiped out you are liable to the attacks I spoke about. I did
not think it was worth while discussing that possibility with Sir
William, but you may have another consultation if you wish?"