Round the Red Lamp: Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life Story 12 - Lot No. 249, Part 3

Arthur Conan Doyle (0:01)

Section 15 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.

Round the Red Lamp by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Section 15 Lot No. 249 There was one little indulgence which Abercrombie Smith always allowed himself. However closely his work might press upon him, twice a week on the Tuesday and the Friday it was his invariable custom to walk over to Filingford, the residence of Dr. Plumptree Peterson, situated about a mile and a half out of Oxford.

Peterson had been a close friend of Smith's elder brother, Francis, and as he was a bachelor, fairly well to do, with a good cellar and a better library, his house was a pleasant goal for a man who was in need of a brisk walk. Twice a week then the medical student would swing out of there along the dark country roads and spend a pleasant hour in Peterson's comfortable study, discussing over a glass of old port the gossip of the varsity, or the latest developments of medicine or of surgery.

On the day which followed his interview with Monkhouse Lee, Smith shut up his books at a quarter-past eight, the hour when he usually started for his friend's house. As he was leaving his room, however, his eyes chanced to fall upon one of the books which Bellingham had lent him, and his conscience pricked him for not having returned it. However repellent the man might be, he should not be treated with discourtesy. Taking the book, he walked downstairs and knocked at his neighbour's door. There was no answer, but on turning the handle he found that it was unlocked.

Pleased at the thought of avoiding an interview, he stepped inside and placed the book with his card upon the table. The lamp was turned half down, but Smith could see the details of the room plainly enough. It was all much as he had seen it before—the freeze, the animal-headed gods, the banging crocodile, and the table littered over with papers and dried leaves.

The mummy case stood upright against the wall, but the mummy itself was missing. There was no sign of any second occupant in the room, and he felt as if he withdrew that he had probably done Bellingham an injustice. Had he a guilty secret to preserve, he would hardly leave his door open so that all the world might enter.

The spiral stair was as black as pitch, and Smith was slowly making his way down its irregular steps when he was suddenly conscious that something had passed him in the darkness. There was a faint sound, a whiff of air, a light brushing past his elbow, but so slight that he could scarcely be certain of it. He stopped and listened, but the wind was rustling among the ivy outside, and he could hear nothing else. Is that you, Stiles? he shouted. There was no answer, and all was still behind him. It must have been a sudden gust of air, for there were crannies and cracks in the old turret, and yet he could almost sworn that he heard a footfall by his very side. He had emerged into the quadrangle, still turning the matter over in his head, when a man came running swiftly across the smooth-cropped lawn. Is that you, Smith? Hullo, Hasty! For God's sake, come at once. Young Lee is drowned. Here's Harrington of King's with the news. The doctor is out. You'll do, but come along at once. There may be life in him. Have you brandy? No. I'll bring some. There's a flask on my table. Smith bounded up the stairs, taking three at a time, seized the flask, and was rushing down with it, when, as he passed Bellingham's room, his eyes fell upon something which left him gasping and staring upon the landing.

The door which he had closed behind him was now open, and right in front of him, with the lamp-light shining upon it, was the mummy-case. Three minutes ago it had been empty. He could swear to that, and now it framed the blank body of its horrible occupant, who stood grim and stark with his black shriveled face towards the door.

The form was lifeless and inert, but it seemed to Smith as he gazed that there still lingered a lurid spark of vitality, some faint sign of consciousness in the little eyes which lurked in the depths of the hollow sockets. So astounded and shaken was he that he had forgotten his errand, and was still staring at the lean, sunken figure, when the voice of his friend below recalled him to himself. Come on, Smith, he shouted. It's life and death, you know. Hurry up! Now then, he added, as the medical student reappeared. Let us do a sprint. It is well under a mile, and we should do it in five minutes. A human life is better worth running for than a pot. Neck and neck they dashed through the darkness, and did not pull up until panting and spent they had reached a little cottage by the river. Young Lee, limp and dripping like a broken water plant, was stretched upon the sofa, the green scum of the river upon his black hair, and a fringe of white foam upon his leaden, hewed lips. Beside him knelt his fellow-student Harrington, endeavouring to chafe some warmth back into his rigid limbs. I think there's life in him, said Smith, with his hand to the lad's side. Put your watch-glass to his lips. Yes, there's a dimming on it. You take one arm hasty, now work it as I do, and we'll soon pull him round. For ten minutes they worked in silence, inflating and depressing the chest of the unconscious man. At the end of that time a shiver ran through his body, his lips trembled, and he opened his eyes. Three students burst out into an irrepressible cheer. Wake up, old chap, you frightened us quite enough. Have some brandy, take a sip from the flask. A look of fear came into his eyes, and he sank his face into his hands. How did you fall in? I didn't fall in. How, then? I was thrown in. I was standing by the bank, and something from behind picked me up like a feather, and hurled me in. I heard nothing, I saw nothing, but I know what it was for all that, and so do I, whispered Smith. Lee looked up with a quick glance of surprise. You've learned, then, he said. You remember the advice I gave you? Yes, and I begin to think that I shall take it. I don't know what the deuce you fellows are talking about, said Hasty, but I think if I were you, Harrington, I should get Lee to bed at once. It will be time enough to discuss the why and wherefore, when he is a little stronger. I think, Smith, you and I can leave him alone now. I'm walking back to college. If you are coming in that direction, we can have a chat. But it was little chat that they had upon their homeward path. Smith's mind was too full of the incidents of the evening—the absence of the mummy from his neighbour's rooms, the step that passed him on the stair, the reappearance, the extraordinary, inexplicable reappearance of the grisly thing, and then this attack upon Lee, corresponding so closely to the previous outrage upon another man against whom Bellingham bore a grudge. All this settled in his thoughts, together with the many little incidents which had previously turned him against his neighbour, and the singular circumstance under which he was first called to him. What had been a dim suspicion, a vague fantastic conjecture, had suddenly taken form, and stood out in his mind as a grim fact, a thing not to be denied, and yet how monstrous it was, how unheard of, how entirely beyond all bounds of human experience. An impartial judge, or even the friend who walked by his side, would simply tell him that his eyes had deceived him, and that the mummy had been there all the time, that young Lee had tumbled into the river, as any other man tumbles into a river, and that a blue pill was the best thing for a disordered liver. He felt that he would have said as much if the positions had been reversed, and yet he could swear that Bellingham was a murderer at heart, and that he wielded a weapon such as no man had ever used in all the grim history of crime.