Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life Story 4 - The Third Generation

Arthur Conan Doyle (0:00)

Section 4 of Round the Red Lamp. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Lynne Thompson. Round the Red Lamp by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Section 4 The Third Generation.

Scudamore Lane, sloping down river-wards from just behind the monument, lies at night in the shadow of two black and monstrous walls which loom high above the glimmer of the scattered gas lamps. The footpaths are narrow, and the causeway is paved with rounded cobblestones, so that the endless strays roar along it like breaking waves.

A few old-fashioned houses lie scattered among the business premises, and in one of these halfway down on the left-hand side, Dr. Horace Selby conducts his large practice. It is a singular street for so big a man, but a specialist who has a European reputation can afford to live where he likes. In this particular branch, too, patients do not always regard seclusion as a disadvantage.

It was only ten o'clock. The dull roar of the traffic which converged all day upon London Bridge had died away now to a mere confused murmur. It was raining heavily, and the gas shone dimly through the streaked and dripping glass, throwing little circles upon the glistening cobblestones. The air was full of the sounds of the rain, the thin swish of its fall, the heavier drip from the eaves, and the swirl and gurgle down the true steep gutters and through the sewer grating. There was only one figure in the whole length of Scudamore Lane. It was that of a man, and it stood outside the door of Dr. Horace Selby.

He had just rung and was waiting for an answer. The fan-light beat full upon the gleaming shoulders of his waterproof and upon his upturned features. It was a one, sensitive, clear-cut face, with some subtle nameless peculiarity in its expression, something of the startled horse in the white-roomed eye, something too of the helpless child in the drawn cheek and the weakening of the lower lip. The man-servant knew the stranger as a patient, and a bare glance at those frightened eyes, such a look had been seen at that door many times before.

Is the doctor in? The man hesitated. He has a few friends to dinner, sir. He does not like to be disturbed outside his usual hours, sir.

Tell him that I must see him. Tell him that it is of the very first importance. Here is my card. He fumbled with his trembling fingers in trying to draw one from his case. Sir Francis Norton is the name. Tell him that Sir Francis Norton, of Dean Park, must see him without delay.

Yes, sir. The butler closed his fingers upon the card and the half-sovereign which accompanied it. Better hang your coat up here in the hall. It is very wet. Now, if you will wait here in the consulting room, I have no doubt that I shall be able to send the doctor in to you.

It was a large and lofty room in which the young baronet found himself. The carpet was so soft and thick that his feet made no sound as he walked across it. The two gas-jets were turned only halfway up, and the dim light with the faint aromatic smell which filled the air had a vaguely religious suggestion. He sat down in a shining leather armchair by the smouldering fire and looked gloomily about him. Two sides of the room were taken up with books, fat and sombre, with broad gold lettering upon their backs. Beside him was the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece of white marble. The top of it strewed with cotton wadding and bandages, graduated measures and little bottles. There was one with a broad neck just above him, containing bluestone, and another narrower one with what looked like the ruins of a broken pipe stem, and caustic outside upon a red label.

Thermometers, hypodermic syringes, bisturis and spatulas were scattered about both on the mantelpiece and on the central table on either side of the sloping desk. On the same table, to the right, stood copies of the five books which Dr. Horace Selby had written upon the subject, with which his name is peculiarly associated, while on the left, on the top of a red medical dictionary, lay a huge glass model of a human eye the size of a turnip, which opened down the centre to expose the lens and double chamber within.

Sir Francis Norton had never been remarkable for his powers of observation, and yet he found himself watching these trifles with the keenest attention.

Even the corrosion of the cork of an acid bottle caught his eye, and he wondered that the doctor did not use glass stoppers. Tiny scratches where the light glinted off from the table, little stains upon the leather of the desk, chemical formulae scribbled upon the labels of the files. Nothing was too slight to arrest his attention. And his sense of hearing was equally alert. The heavy ticking of the solemn black clock above the mantelpiece struck quite painfully upon his ears. Yet in spite of it, and in spite also of the thick old-fashioned wooden partition, he could hear voices of men talking in the next room, and could even catch scraps of their conversation.