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The Mysterious Malady
The case is certainly a puzzle . . . . . . .
I wonder if my old diaries would throw any light upon it. Often I have thought that if only our intelligence were super-subtle as it should be, we could detect—and check—every disease at the outset. I have always advocated trimensual examinations, even for the healthiest patients. The dentist admits already that it is only common sense to do as much for the teeth. Why then not for those far more delicate organs, the heart, the kidneys, and the brain?
I met Anna in 1904. I'll start there and make extracts for my casebook.
EXTRACTS, 1904
Jan. 13. Two years since I qualified, and the horizon absolutely black. The rent of this house in Devonshire Street eats up my capital; but I have aspired to be a consulting physician, and I'll go through with it. If it weren't for my U.C.H. job, though, a month would see me starving.
It is too one-sided, life. All day I sit idle in my office, and the rich, who need me much, do not come to me. In the evenings I go out to help the poor, who need me less, in many ways, and often hardly thank me. The rich seem to think it divine right that they should live in luxury on what the poor should share; and the poor seem to grasp angrily and blindly. Was not I the son of poor peasants in Ayr? Have not I toiled night after night to earn knowledge? And what can I do but give what blessings I can to my ain fowk? But they resent my rise; had I been born rich, they would bow ad lick my boots. It is because I am one of themselves, that I am not popular with them. O strange, blind race! How pitiful you are! Well, let me spend and be spent for you, as all the helpers of man must be!
Jan. 24. A real patient. A Brightic, too; I can keep him going for three years, with luck. Like finding money!
P.S. One swallow doesn't make a summer.
It is surely monstrous that that we doctors should thrive on human misery. The Son of Æsculpius should have a heart tenderer than all other men. Yet all his training goes to make him callous. He sees—he must see—suffering; it is presented to him at such a pace that he has no time to feel sorrow. He is taught to handle the body without emotion; and he is economically tied to the chariot-wheels of Death.
Oh God, if thou be Love, keep me loving! If thou be Mercy, keep me merciful! Do not let the hardness of life contaminate my spirit!
Feb. 3. No luck with appointments. Jealousy, of course. Amazing that medicine, which of all studies should make men benevolent and broadminded, should breed practitioners full of hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness. Petty! Petty! Petty!
Feb. 8. My Brightic has committed suicide. Was ever such rotten luck? There are thousands of them, that don't know it even; and if they came to me I could prevent the disease from ever taking hold.
Once again the rotten economics of the day piles wretchedness on wretchedness. If medical men of distinction were paid salaries by the state, they would have time for work, and their hearts would be in their work. As it is, they are all driven to do as little as they can for the money they earn, and they are bound to seek palliatives rather than cures. The conquest of tuberculosis, gout and rheumatism would bankrupt every mother's son of us. Can this be why medicine has hardly advanced since Galen?
Feb. 9. I wish I had specialised in Lunacy. The subject attracts me hugely, and with the present appalling increase of insanity, there's plenty of room!
The main cause of insanity is metaphysical, of that I am convinced. It is a disease of the ego, fundamentally; and drink, worry, and all the other so-called causes are but secondary, just as chill is only a secondary cause of phthsis. Those men whose heart is in their work, who are devoted to ideals, to humanity, those in short who love, in the best and biggest sense of the word, never become insane. Objectivity of thought, and hard work, are phrohylactics absolute.
The spring is bitter indeed, this year. All last night I worked in Hoxton with the Mission. Heart-breaking, the poverty of the place. And I myself too poor to pay my 'bus fare home! So I walked back, and saw the grey dawn break in the mist—a very Scottish morning—and my heart filled with wonder and hope. I do not know why. Some angel came upon me as I walked—More sensibly: the fresh air and brisk exercise chased away the cobwebs of a sordid night!
Why 'more sensibly'? I believe there is some truth in the poets' visions—else, how could they dominate the centuries? There is a truth of the heart as well as of the brain; 'I love' is explained by the Song of Solomon quite as well as by medical treatises on the physiology of it. (I wonder why I thought of love? I have never so much as noticed a woman. I have had no thought but to help humanity. God help me to do it.)
March 12. It's a regular conspiracy at the hospital: Hemming, and Flint, it appears, have sworn revenge upon me for some imaginary insult—more likely, plain black envy. How can men (!) of science (!) be so small?
Match 20. The Hospital Ball. The best luck in the world—I wonder—or the worst! It's certainly too good to be true . . . . . and yet it can't be false, or there's no worth in my judgement of human nature. Lady Anna Cleveland! Oh no! I'm dreaming!
I must set my thoughts in order. I went to the ball more lest my absence be remarked than for any other reason. Social functions have always seemed to me so useless that they have bored me. I was introduced to this woman and that woman, and was, I hope, as polite as a Scots peasant lad with nothing in his head but pathology can hope to be. (I know I am awkward.) But I took no notice. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself looking for some time, and I had not realised the fact. I blushed all over. I had never looked into a women's eyes before. She did not appear to notice my confusion; she only went on, (as I thought) with more comprehending kindliness. She made me talk of my work; I did so like a man hypnotised. Then, I do not quite know how, I found myself asking her to dance. And, wonder of wonders, I found that I could dance. I have always been as clumsy with my feet as I am deft with my fingers. By-and-by we sat down and talked again. Her voice is very soft and gentle and far-away. She has brown hair curling over the temples, and her eyes always smile. Otherwise her face is very grave and motherly, although she is quite young. She is nearly as tall as I am, lissome and slender. At least, so says my memory. All that I really remember is the glow of great kindliness that radiated from her. We parted: I was still adream. She put both her hands in mine, and she said "Come to see me!" That was all; but there is more in manner than in matter. If she had said "I love you. I adore you. I am yours in body and soul" it could have meant no more.
March 21. I'm not dreaming—but I think I'm raving mad. I called this afternoon; and not only was she gracious as during that wonderful waltz, but I felt the same subcurrent in her voice. We laugh at the quacks with their 'Magnetism'—but what is it? It is something. And I've never been 'in love'—am I 'in love' now? I'd better see a doctor!!!
During the whole interview I was terribly shy. It is new to me to have to keep back what I want to say. I am sure that she would not have been offended; but some silly idea of etiquette prevented me. Besides, I do not like it. A poor, struggling doctor should not lift his eyes to a duke's daughter! Bah! 'A man's a man for all that.' I've nothing to be ashamed of in my life. It's not her rank; it's not her wealth; it's her goodness and her beauty that make me feel unworthy of her.
Yet I know she loves me, and means to make me win her. I know it subconsciously. From every worldly standpoint, it is my duty as a man to fight against it. But will not Nature be too strong? She does not hesitate. Don't think I'm calling her 'forward'; she is the modest woman in the world. But she is too simple, too sincere, too good (in a word) to pretend to lie to me, or to herself, about the most sacred thing in life.
March 28. What a damnable week! I have suffered intensely. I know—without having been told—why she has gone away. She wanted to look deep in her heart—and to give me time to look in mine—so as to make sure that this our love is no mere impulse.
Such ordeals purify.
And now comes a note: 'I'm back from Brighton. It has been dreadfully dull. Won't you call and cheer me up one afternoon?
March 29. Again the world has conquered Nature. I simply daren't propose on such a short acquaintance. The most beautiful girl in London, and one of its heiresses! And I but a struggling physician, on the brink of bankruptcy. Yet I know inwardly that she wants me as utterly as I want her. Oh God! Oh God! if it be only true.
. . . . . How the devil does one propose?
March 30. One doesn't propose; it happens. I daren't trust myself to write, and it is too sacred. (Oh scientific, critical, cynical spirit, where are you flown?) We sat, looking at each other across the tea-table, incapable of speech; a moment later, we were in each other's arms. Don't ask me how!
June 12. Back from Lugano. London promises a most brilliant season. The new house has been admirably decorated. To think I should be in Cavendish Square, a whole house, within three years! And London has suddenly discovered that I am The Doctor. I can see myself Physician-in-Waiting to His Majesty within five years! A baronetcy, perhaps! The mountain has come to Mohammed!
August 10. Anna grows more adorable every day. But I'm overworked with patients, and bored with dinners and dances. We start tonight for the shoot—all day and every day in the heather is what I want!
October 3. Back to the old grind! But with Anna life is all pure happiness. I wonder if my patients never notice how my thoughts stray. But they're all self-hypnotised; I'm the fashionable doctor, and their health doesn't matter.
This is the last entry. I seem to have forgotten all my old habits—life has been such an even flow of success that I have had nothing to write down! Yet things have not been altogether smooth, to say the truth. The infernal jealousy of my brother (!) physicians has been annoying. It was certainly Hughes who prevented my being called in at his Majesty's fatal illness. I believe I could have saved him—and possibly England. The political crises has become serious indeed. Anna wants me to stand for Parliament. No, thank you! If they make me a peer, well and good; but to squabble with those low brutes in the Commons—Not I! Well, this is indeed digression! None of it throws the smallest light on Anna's state of health. Perhaps I am fanciful; but it is worrying me to death. Possibly, if I were to put down the symptoms in black and white, it would clear my mind. Very likely it is some transitory problem; but I have the gravest fears. No case has ever so bewildered me! I will enter up my daily observations from today, June 18, 191.
ANNA'S SYMPTOMS
1. I noticed a certain coldness in her manner about Easter: but it passed quickly, only to return, however, at intervals.
2. She has formed the habit of writing almost daily to her aunt, whom she formerly neglected. But this is surely a trifle!
3. She has grown very irritable in small matters, especially before dinner. Yes: I don't like the irritability: her temper has always been angelic. Query—can she be—Oh, impossible!
There! was ever a slighter indictment? Yet, I 'feel it in my bones,' to use the strange old peasant phrase, that there is something seriously wrong. Enough of this for today!
June 19. I must analyse closely the psychology of Anna's behaviour. I went upstairs at 5 o'clock to tea. She came rather effusively to greet me, commented on my appearing fagged out, made me 'cosy,' and showered a dozen little attentions upon me. She even got out my big black pipe, and lit it for me—this struck me as very singular, for as a rule I am not supposed to smoke in the drawing-room. It sounds ideal—well on the way to Darby and Joan! Yet there was something false in it all. I don't mean exactly that she was deceiving me, but that she was acting under some constraint or impatience. So strongly did I feel this suppressed irritability on her part that, were I not a man of such absurdly equable temper, it would surely have communicated itself to me.
June 20. 2 A.M.. I am so disturbed that I cannot sleep. So I have come down to the study to write these notes. There is a new incident to record, decidedly strange, yes, I may even call it suspicious. It is a slight thing in itself; but to what may it not point? We had dined with Lord Chillingham, en famille, and returned rather late. Anna went to her escritoire, scribbled a note, and gave it to Francis—dear old boy, he has been with her since she was in long clothes—to put in the post. But in his manner of taking the letter and the very peculiar intonation of his formal 'Yes, my lady!' I divined a secret understanding. Whatever may be afoot, Francis knows of it!
July 1. There has been nothing worth notice in the last week, but I observe a growing uneasiness in Anna—a trace of some anxiety. She keeps on wishing the season were over—and at the same time she is keen to have Aunt Sybil in the house. Which, as Euclid says, is absurd! I'm damned if I'll put up with Aunt Sybil, especially since Anna may be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There! I wrote it by accident! BUT!! Can that be it? There's nothing in the world to cause it. If it were myself, now! That old fool the Grand Duke Fedor walked out of my consulting room this afternoon, just because I told him he drank too hard—and he does, and worse! After all, I have a secure fortune, and can afford to be honest now and then, even with Grand Dukes!
July 3. Anna burst into tears this afternoon, and though I coaxed her with all my skill she would not tell me the cause. She sobbed herself to peace upon my breast, though; whatever may be wrong, I never doubt her love. Thank God for that!
Later. There is certainly some deviltry afoot. The whole evening—Anna went out to the Fitzbras to dinner—the telephone has been ringing. When I go to the instrument, the exchange girl denies that she has called me. I shall write a strong letter to the P.M.G.—or is it that the girl has orders to deny the call on hearing a man's voice at the 'phone? Hum!
Later. Have asked Francis about the 'phone. He answers that he never heard it ring. But I notice such trepidation and change of voice that I am sure he is lying.
Later yet. I have solved the mystery—and it grows deeper. At the next call I sprang to the instrument, and saw with my own eyes that the bell was not being struck. Yet all the while I could hear it! Only one explanation seems possible. An instrument has been installed secretly in some other part of the house. Why? In God's name, why?—
I shall certainly tell no one about these things. Whatever may be wrong, no scandal! My wife's good name is dearer to me than the world.
July 4. Two infernal annoyances today, though they have nothing to do with Anna.
1. Sir George Bloggs at lunch tells me that the Crédit Lyonnais is involved in some political scandal in France, and may have to close its doors at any moment—something about the Russian loans. Not a soul knows; but I had quietly packed away over two million sterling there! A serious blow indeed should I lose that, for I am more than doubtful as to the safety of the bulk of my fortune.
2. A point-blank refusal, conveyed very politely at tea-time by that young fool Radley, to make me a peer. This after the tens of thousands I have poured into their dirty party funds!
Anna is more disturbed and irritable than ever. This may be partly due to sympathy with my own annoyance—I hope so. Yet I thought I had successfully concealed my worries from her.
July 6. Aunt Sybil has arrived without a word of warning. Damn! However, I'll pretend to like it; I'm sure, if it does Anna good, all right. I don't mind suffering in a good cause!
Later. Hooray! She's only staying two nights!
June 7. The telephone nuisance recommenced this afternoon—Anna was out. Rather curious that it never plays this game when she's in. Ergo, it depends on her to connect and disconnect it. I spoke to Henry about it. Result, amazing. The young ass burst into tears, or nearly, and promised it shouldn't occur again. Then he blamed the exchange! Rather funny logic, eh? There's something damned deep behind all this! Henry must be in it too, anyhow, whatever it is. Really, I am beginning to be worried.
July 14. The Royal Society have refused to allow me to read my paper on Lesions of the Corpora Quadrigemina in relation to Diabetes. There I trace the influence of that scoundrel Bryant. I shall send it—with just one biting comment—to The Lancet for publication; Bryant! who hardly knows the colon from the cranium! I could buy him body and soul ten times over with what I make in a day. And he works against me in the dark!
P.S. Anna is certainly worse today. Her fits of temper are really becoming intolerable. I am convinced it is only illness, or I could find it in me to be angry. Poor girl! I wish to God I knew what's wrong. I'd call in Sir Simon Pan, but—well, they talk, they talk!
July 15. The secret is out—it is disgrace. I feared it. I came upstairs rather quietly, to hear Anna at the telephone saying 'He's downstairs. It's quite safe. Trust me. Nine o'clock, then: my black dress. Yes, I'll tell him.' Tell whom? I opened the door quickly and quietly; Anna was reading on the ottoman, at the other end of the room from the 'phone! I began to believe the Eastern stories of women's cunning! However, I'll make sure. I said to her that I was called away to Edinburgh on an important consultation, and must catch the dining-car train. James packed my bag; Anna drove with me to Easton in the Rolls-Royce. She was intensely affectionate, pretended to be terribly upset at parting from me—she-devil! She made sure I was safely in the train. She forgot it stops in Willesden! I slipped out, taxied back to town, got a detective, and set him to work. I spent the next two nights at the Ritz—and a grand old harking-back to bachelor days it was! I ran into Jimmy Sinclair that very evening at the Empire; and we made the old town think the Germans had carried out their silly threat to bombard us with Zeppelins!
July 18. Back from—Edinburgh! The cat was nearly out of the bag last night. It cost me a fiver to prove to a worthy guardian of the peace that I was not 'd. and d.' Anna overjoyed to see me, and I to see Anna. Thank God, thank God! I have wronged her altogether. The detective said there was no shadow of ground for suspecting her actions, though he hinted that if I kept him on the job indefinitely—Thank you, I know that story!
Well, thank God she's true. I must have heard her words wrongly. Yet—mortal error I could have forgiven; perhaps that were better than the physical or (worse!) mental trouble which I must now conclude to be the cause of her strange actions.
July 31. I am happy again. Anna seems perfectly herself once more. Please God it may last!
August 24. Scotland—the very word's a tonic. The grouse are plentiful and strong on the wing. I think I'm shooting better than ever. But the ghillies are a surly lot. Old Hamish's temper is quite spoilt. They have an infernal trick of whispering to each other—quite new—puts me off my birds. But I don't believe I'm missing half they say I am. Dogs are not what they used to be; or else some fool's putting up a joke on me.
Sept. 1. There is certainly something entirely wrong with Anna. She is constantly in tears, and no efforts of mine can drag a word from her. Her irritability too, is more pronounced than ever. This is particularly curious, for there is something I might almost call abominably self-satisfied in her secret relations with the servants. It seems to me that there is a hidden meaning in every word and glance—but of what nature I am entirely at a loss to divine. It is at least evident that I am the only one left out of the secret.
Sept. 2. I am sick of the mystery that surrounds me. I shall go straight back to London.
Sept. 5. Bills! Well, I suppose we have been living extravagantly, but we can afford it, damn it! If these fools knew the vast sums I have laid by in banks and bonds all over the world these last ten years, they'd never ask for payment this century. Now what shall I do? Shall I pay the fools, or shall I keep my secret? The latter, a thousand times!
Later. Anna has given me a cheque. One day soon I will surprise her with the list of my holdings—how happy she will be when she knows that I could fight Westminster or Bedford to a finish, and win out!
Sept. 6. Anna's behaviour grows more and more extraordinary. I very much distrust Fanchette, who is nowadays constantly in the room, even when I am there, on some trivial pretext. I am convinced that something is going on behind my back, and that all the servants are in the plot.
Later. I took an opportunity to examine Anna's eyes very closely. The pupils are equal. I found the accommodation slow to act, but not very specially abnormal. However, secretiveness and loss of appetite, combined with the really very intense irritability, can only mean one thing. God help me!
Sept. 8. The more I think it over, the more certain I am that Anna has become—that I should have to say it!—a slave to morphia. Almost I accuse myself. I searched my conduct anxiously—have I done anything to make her unhappy, anything that might drive her to such a dreadful solace? My conscience, humbly yet firmly, answers: No.
Sept. 12. There is no longer any doubt in my mind. Everything is explained. No doubt the servants are all in league with her. I shall discharge them en bloc, shut up the house, and take Anna abroad. There is an excellent specialist in Lausanne.
Later, As I suspected, Anna is furious at my decision. She urges a thousand reasons against it—my practise, and so on. On the surface, she talked very good sense; but I can trace the real feeling beneath the words. In the midst of the storm. she calmed quite suddenly, and yielded gladly—quite her own sweet self. But there again I traced the action of the drug; she evidently feared to arouse suspicion, or thought that she could continue to deceive me.
Sept. 13. Last night she made desperate love to me—an obvious trick. About one o'clock this morning, finding that she could not sleep, (another symptom, perhaps) she asked me for a hypnotic. (Perhaps this too was a blind.) I laid her out with a big dose of veronal, and while she slept, went over her body with a magnifying glass for marks of the syringe. There were none; she evidently takes it by the mouth, or in some other way.
Sept. 20. Lausanne. Dr. Galmier is an imbecile; tells me he does not believe she has any such tendency. The devilish cunning of the drug-fiend! It baffles even the experts. He told me I was looking tired and worried. So I ought to be, with this appalling tragedy to face! He could at least see how thin and pale poor Anna looked. We may very like winter at St Moritz.
Sept. 24. Things are going well financially at any rate: I have banked half a million sterling with the Crèdit Génévois, and invested as much more in the French Rente. But what is money, when the only person on earth one loves is attacked by the most terrible of diseases? I am the most miserable man living.
Sept. 28. (Venice.) By heaven, an idea! I will keep her from the drug, and I see now how to do it.
Sept. 29. All is in order. I have engaged a steam yacht: Anna and I are to go out to Campo Santo in a gondola; the yacht is to spill us with her wash, rescue us, and take us out to sea for a month. In whatever manner she has managed to conceal the morphine, the salt water will spoil it! At least I shall be able to observe the effects of privation. But I shall wait a week, and lull her suspicions first.
Oct. 8. (At sea.) The plan succeeded admirably. I wonder though, whether the drug was morphine or some other. She shows none of the symptoms of privation, but her nerves are evidently shattered. She seems dominated by some dreadful fear.
Oct. 9. I believe she is getting morphia after all. I caught her just before lunch in earnest conversation with the captain. They changed their manner quite noticeably on perceiving my approach. Anna is magnetic enough, God knows; like that strange Countess Tarnovska, she has the power of forcing everyone to do her will.
Later. Undoubtedly the story has got around the ship. I see the men whispering together; they cast pitying glances at her.
Oct. 10. She knows I know. She is doing all in her power to hide that symptomatic irritability; but it is useless. Daily she grows thin, pale and haggard; the drug is doing its horrible work too well. What have I done, oh my God, to deserve this chastisement? I never took much stock in religion, but I have been a pretty straight sort of chap. Yet I could not be worse punished had I committed the 'unpardonable Sin'—whatever that may be!
Oct. 11. The captain is certainly an accomplice. Likely enough he is a drug-fiend himself; all these Italians have some beastly vice or another.
It is a strange thing; this illness of Anna's has set me to thinking about my 'soul.' (What is a soul?) I am undoubtedly hearing—that is, of course, recollecting—the words 'The soul that sinneth it shall die.' I don't recall them consciously; I can only suppose I heard them as a boy at kirk, or possibly from that old blackguard Rayner of Edinburgh. Yet they literally haunt me; I could almost swear I hear the sailors saying them at me. It shows how Anna's condition has set my own nerves on edge.
Oct. 14. Pretending I was trying a mere experiment, I tested Anna by psychoanalysis. She reacted normally to the words 'drug,' 'needle,' 'morphine,' and some others cognate which I slipped into the list, but violently to 'enemy.' 'black,' 'murder,' 'poison,' 'knife,' and 'danger.' Freud would assume that she was in fear of danger of being stabbed or poisoned by some enemy, possibly a coloured man of some kind. If so, this is an insane fear; I hope to God—I must have offended God beyond pardon if it be so—that this is not the case. There is no insanity in her family so far as I know, though I believe her grandfather drank himself to death. But then so did most of those intemperate Early Victorians.
Oct. 15. Experiment continued. She reacts in the most emphatically violent manner to the words 'insanity,' 'delusion' and the like. The worst of all calamities has fallen upon me—it is no more than I deserve, but oh my God, have mercy upon me—a miserable sinner!—my wife is mad. She knows it herself and dreads that I may have discovered it. Poor, poor Anna!
Oct. 16. I have told the captain to go about and put in at Marseilles. Anna must have the vest advice that Science can give her. Besides, this is a small vessel, and I feel at the mercy of the storm, with all this bullion aboard. I shall not be happy till it is safely in the vaults of my bank in Paris. Thank God, the danger of a European war is over for awhile.
Oct. 20. (Marseilles.) A magnificent dinner chez Basso to celebrate our safe arrival! Anna seems much better; it is quite the happy hours of honeymoon again. Yet the shadow of this awful disaster hangs over me all the time—poor Baby! I hope she does not know. Let her slide easily into dementia, if it must be, rather than endure the horrors of aggravated and unbalanced consciousness which accompany other forms of madness!
Later. It is difficult to concentrate my thoughts. Some infernal idiot keeps on ringing up the man in the next room, who is evidently out. Damn!
Oct. 21. I went to a priest this morning. Something kept me from telling him the real trouble which weighs upon me like Olympus on the Titans. He, on the other hand, was a shallow, stupid fool. He could do no more than rate me for a 'heretic.' Asses.
Later. The mail has come from England. They have filled my post at the Hospital. It was only to be expected; in my absence there was no way to check the conspiracy of Bryant and Flint and the rest of the accursed gang. I showed Anna the letter, told her she must use her family influence. She merely burst into tears—at dinner, too, before fifty people. Alas! it is only one more evidence of the great calamity.
Oct. 22. Have been out all night seeking distraction—and finding it, in a way—wandering about in the lowest quarters of the town. It has done me good; I can face Fate for the moment.
Later. A most extraordinary thing has occurred. Walking down the Cannebière, a Frenchman (I will swear to it, no make-believe) called in my ear as he passed: 'We'll get you yet! We'll get you yet! We'll get you yet!' and the accent was perfectly English, and the tone that of my own father, dead these twenty years! It sounds a foolish fancy, and I should have dismissed it as such, but that it happens to fit in very curiously with certain extremely serious matters that I have been most particularly careful not to mention in these notes. But now I see—I never did till now—how this whole business is linked up with Anna's terrible illness.
I must think further of this—perhaps I have the key at last.
Later. Good God! Can such things be possible? I have the answer to the whole damned riddle in the one word—Flint!
Very good: to England; I know what to do. With my wealth it will be easy to—well, I won't write what, even here.
Nov. 2. The banquet is for tomorrow night. Oh! I'll unmask the villainy! Flint Anna's lover all these years! Half London in a plot to drive me mad! Anna's own madness simulated, part of their scheme to drive me further into the toils! And why, in God's name, why? Ah—I dare not—oh God, thou knowest I dare not—write the reason. Thou alone knowest my secret guilt! Thou knowest me, that I am of all men the most damned. Thou knowest also that I must admit myself most worthy of damnation. The devil himself must have prompted me to the one means which assures my salvation in this frightful emergency: I am known at nearly every bank in the whole world as their heaviest depositor. Besides, there is nearly a ton of gold in the big Panhard—and Earl is faithful, even if all the rest have betrayed me. He will know how to throw the hounds off the scent. Since I picked him up in Unter den Linden, in fact, I think he is the devil himself! I owe much to his promptings.
Oh God! eternal fire of hell! I do not blame Earl even, or Satan, or whoever he may be. Mea culpa! mea maxima culpa! I have committed the Unpardonable Sin!
* * *
CRAZED POISONS WIFE AND FRIENDS AT FEAST
London, Nov. 3. Fashionable London was thrown into horrified amazement this evening by a series of tragic events. It appears that Dr. Simpson, of 308B Cavendish Square, on his return from a trip to the continent, had invited a number of friends, social and professional, to dine with him and his beautiful and fascinating wife, née Lady Anna Cleveland. After the dinner was ended, the doctor rose, ostensibly to propose a toast in the English fashion. Instead of doing so, he denounced the entire company as being in a conspiracy to ruin him, his wife and Sir Hugh Flint the eminent surgeon being described as guilty soul-mates. He accused them of having founded the confederacy to ruin him. He further announced to the astounded guests—who took the speech as a joke—that they were all poisoned, and rushed from the room, intending to do a clean get-away. The chauffeur, however, Earl Baumann, a level-headed German lad, drove the madman to the nearest police- station where, after a violent struggle, he was overpowered. He announced that he was the richest man in the world, and offered the sergeant in charge millions of pounds sterling to release him. The station doctor pronounced him to be suffering from acute religious mania, with delusions of grandeur and of persecution. At the house the frightened servants hastily summoned aid, but it unfortunately proved too late. The maniac, having understood his work too well, had administered enormous doses of aconitin, the deadliest known alkaloid, in the coffee. Not only Sir Hugh Flint and Lady Anna Simpson, but the entire party are dead. Many of the corpses still await identification.
New York Evening Telegram
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