Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1880 — THE DOCTOR’S WATCHMAN. [ARTICLE]

THE DOCTOR’S WATCHMAN.

- “Tell you what, doctor; you’ll begetting robbed mid murdered one of these days ; you will, upon my wortl!” “Hardly, my boy. You ought to know, by this time, that it’s the province of us doctors to kill other people, not to be killed ourselves.” And, with a thick chuckle at his own wit, Dr. John Hunter Bistoury settled himself comfortably in his chair, and began to peel his third orange as carefully as if he were taking off a limb. When the doctor first came to New York, thirty years before, he had been in no way burdened with riches ; but his face had proved his fortune in a different sense from that of the over-candid milkmaid in the song. The mere sight of that round, florid, jovial visage, in every crease of which a joke or a good story seemed to bo lurking, was a cordial in itself, and appeared capable of reviving the most hopeless invalid without the aid of medicine at all. Mindful of the human weakness which makes so many worthy people regard their own ailments as a kind of personal distinction, the lessening of which in any way is a direct insult to themselves, Dr. Bistoury skillfully took a middle course between alarming his patients, by an overserious view of their ease, and offending them by jippearing to make light of it. In this way ho had acquired an enormous practice, and his reputation now stood so high that the mere eclat of his name had sufficed to sell an entire edition of his great work upon “The Mutual Relations of Mind and Body,” in which he proved to his own satisfaction, if not to that of all his readers, that all criminal impulses whatever, and indeed the very existence of sin itself, are wholly due to “ a morbid action of the physical system”—that a murder may be prevented by the timely use of Epsom salts, and an unbeliever converted by a judicious contemplation of the virtues of quinine.

“lean assure you, my dear Harry,” resumed the genial doctor, “that it’s amazing flattering to me to find myself considered worth robbing at all. No thief would have thought me worth a center-bit in the days when your poor father—as fine a fellow, Harry, as ever breathed—used to come and sup with me upon biscuits and toasted cheese in my little snuggery down town. And then, as surely as the time came to go, he’d turn to me and say: * Now, Jack, old boy, won’t you think better of it, and let me write you a check—just to give you a fair start, you know? ’ But, although I knew well enough that he’d have been only too glad to do it, I had to refuse ; for my motto is, ‘ Heaven helps those who help themselves ! ’ ”

“A motto which you’ll find some black-masked gentleman exemplifying in this very house one of these nights,” growled Harry Everett. “ Look here, doctor, I'm not joking—l’m not, indeed. Everybody knows you’re a rich man, and it’s got abroad that there’s a room in your house which is always shut up ; the very thing to make people think there must be something very valuable stowed away there, and yet, after all that, you go living in this big house without a sold near you except the cook and old Sam yonder, who wouldn’t be worth a cent in a real scrimmage ! ” “ Well, my boy,” said the doctor, with a curious smile ; “ would it tranqnilize your mind if I were to engage a nightwatchman ? ” “I should think so. That would be just the thing.” “ Very good. Consider it done.” This room, of which Harry had spoken as being “always shut up,” was a standing puzzle to the doctor’s few intimates. Not a man of them had ever crossed its threshold, and its master, when questioned on the subject, answered only by some joking evasion. Rumor whispered that one adventurous gentleman, rendered desperate by his wife’s threat to give him no peace till he found out “ what Dr. Bistoury kept hid in that room of his,” had actually attempted a burglarious entrance ; but the attempt, if ever made, had been unsuccessful. It is needless to say that countless conjectures, and not a few heavy bets, likewise, were being constantly made respecting the contents of this Bluebeard chamber. Many declared that the doctor had fitted it up in the hope of discovering the Philosopher’s stone. Others were equally positive that it contained the hoardings of his whole life in American gold, his opinions being notoriously of the “ hard-money ” order. A rival practitioner, of a somewhat cynical turn, suggested that it must contain the remains of the unfortunate patients who had perished under that fellow Bistoury’s ministrations, and one imaginative lady, deeply read in “Jane Eyre,” stoutly maintained that the doctor, in imitation of the hero of that famous work, had immured his wife in that mysterious oubliette, in order to enjoy unchecked the freedom of a bachelor life. Against this ingenious theory there was only one thing to be said—the doctor had never had a wife to immure. This flagrant treason against the sex was the more unpardonable inasmuch as he had had abundant opportunities of changing his condition, had he but chosen to avail himself of them. To most of those who questioned him on the subject he replied that he was wedded to his profession, and that any other union would be flat bigamy ; but to his friend Harry Everett, in a moment of after-dinner confidence, he told a very different story. ‘‘ My medical cousin Alice was the woman who ought to have been Mrs. Bistoury, and an admirable fellow-prac-titioner she would have made for me. The way in which she once cut a splin-

ter out of my thumb did equal honor to her hand and her heart; and, when she was only 13, she bought a skeleton with her uncle’s birthday gift of $5 ” (a, fact), “and articulated it in a manner that was really masterly. But in an evil hour she became tainted with a fancy for homeopathy ; and after that, of course, all was over between us. Such is life !” The doctor’s agreement to engage a night-watchman quieted Harry’s apprehensions for the time being ; but a few weeks later he returned to the attack once more. “ I say, doctor, have you got that night-watchman yet ?” “ Yes ; some time ago.” “ Well, he don’t seem to do his duty, then, for I’ve passed this way at all hours of the night, and never seen him. Are you quite sure he’s to be trusted ?” “ Wait and see !” replied the doctor, oracularly. And Everett waited, but did not see. The invisible watchman remained as invisible as ever, and Harry, out of patience with his old friend’s seeming infatuation, had almost decided to take some decisive step on his own authority, when a new complication introduced itself into the drama. This was nothing less than the temporary retirement of the doctor’s veteran man-servant, popularly known as “Old Bam,” whose health had begun to give way so manifestly that his master insisted on sending him into the country for a three months’ holiday, replacing him with another man, who had volunteered as promptly as if he had been keeping his eye on the place for a year past. The new-comer was a grave, smooth faced, taciturn man, who moved as noiselessly as a shadow, and seemed a living combination of the two proverbial requisites of a good servant—silence and obedience.

But, although the doctor and his friends highly approved of this model domestic, there was one man who did not. That one was Harry Everett, who lost no time in announcing his opinion. “Look here, doctor. I don’t want to be always bothering you about this robbery idea, but it’s a fact that that new fellow of yours is up to some mischief. I was coming home pretty late last night when I caught sight of him standing at the garden gate talking to a couple of men. Ono of them happened to turn his face to the lamplight as I passed, and I knew him at once for a noted thief, who goes by the name of ‘ Badger Bill.’ ” ‘ ‘ Indeed ! Are you sure of that ? ” “ Quite sure. You know I never forget a face I’ve once seen. ” “Ah! In that case, it’s time for me to act! ” The last word was so curiously emphasized that Harry, who was not wanting in shrewdness, began to suspect that his persistent warnings to the doctor had been superfluous, after all, and that the old gentleman was quite equal to the emergency. The suspicion was confirmed one evening about a week later-, when the doctor dropped in upon him unexpectedly, saying : “Give me some dinner, my boy. You’ve no engagement this evening, I know ; so I’m going to be very benevolent, and find you some amusement myself. Have you ever read * The Count of Monte Christo ? ’ because you’re going to see a chapter of it dramatized tonight, and pretty effectively, too, I flatter myself.”

“ What do you mean? ” asked Everett, staring. “ Why, you see, I told my servants a few days ago that I should be away from home to-night, and my cook naturally seized the chance for getting an ‘ evening out;’ consequently, the house will be under the sole charge of that worthy man-servant of mine, against whom you’re so unaccountably prejudiced. It’s quite possible that the two lionest gentlemen with whom you saw him talking the other night may be kind enough to enliven his solitude with a visit; and so—”

Harry sprung to his feet, and cut a caper worthy of a dancing dervish, snapping his fingers by way of accompaniment. “Capital! first-rate! I see it I all now ! But come, now, doctor; why on earth couldn’t you tell me before that i you were’up to the whole game, instead of letting me make a fool of myself by preaching to a man as smart as any six of me?” “ Never mind, my boy,” said the doctor, laughing. ‘ * Your warning was kindly meant, all the same. Eat your dinner—you’ll want it before the evenI ing’s over, I can promise you—and then we’ll have our talk.”

Dinner over, the doctor lit one of the incomparable cigars which were his sole luxury, and proceeded to expound his plan of action. ‘ ‘ I’ve locked up the outer room that opens into my mysterious chamber, which puts two strong doors between it and the robbers; My estimable servant will warn them of this, and they’ll try the window instead. He’ll let them in by the garden door, and give them the old ladder that lies beside it to mount by. We'll hide in the stable, which, thanks to my keeping my brougham elsewhere—has been unused so long that no one would dream of suspecting it; but I can open the door easily enough. And then—” “And then,” broke in Harry, eagerly, ‘ ‘ we’ll go for them the minute they appear. It’ll be a line chance to try my new revolver.” “Better leave it at home,” said the doctor, quietly ; “we shall w ant no weapons for this job.” “ Why, are you going to mesmerize the fellows ?” asked Everett, completely mystified. “Wait and see,” chuckled the doctor. “We needn’t be there till 11, for my honest domestic will make sure, before giving the signal, that I’m not coming back ; and beside an experienced burglar seldom begins work till after midnight. The only tiling to be sure of is that nobody sees us getting in. ”

But in this fortune favored them; and, as the doctor had foretold, the lock of the stable door, rusty as it looked, moved without difficulty, and the two conspirators glided in, unseen and unheard. Weary, weary work, crouching there in the darkness, with ear and eye strained to the utmost for the first sign of the coming danger. Dr. Bistoury’s practiced nerves bore even this prolonged trial easily enough; but to the impulsive, excitable Everett it was absolute torture. Like all young soldiers, he found the suspense before the action infinitely more trying than the fray itself. The stable opened on the street close to the garden-door, and its farther window, at which the two watchers had posted themselves, commanded the whole side of the house, the blackness of which was relieved only by a solitary light in one of the upper windows. Suddenly the light vanished, and reappeared a moment later—a performance repeated three times in quick succession. “That must be the signal,” whispered the doctor. “Keep your ears open, Harry.” Courageous as Everett was, he felt his piilse quicken, and his hand went instinctively to the revolver which, despite the doctor’s verdict, he had persisted in bringing with him. “ Hark! Was that a stealthy footstep outside?” The next moment came a low whistle, instantly answered from the house ; and then a shadowy figure, issuing from the building, glided noiselessly to the gar-den-door, and opened it to admit two others. “ They’ve got the ladder,” whispered Dr. Bistoury, as the three phantoms crossed the garden. “Be on the lookout, my boy ; you’re going to see something worth seeing! ” The ladder was soon placed against the mysterious window, and Badger Bill, after whispering to his comrade to “keep an eye ” on their worthy confederate, as-.

cended, and, cutting out a pane so dexterously that the sound was barely audible, put his hand through and shot back the hasp. His two assistants mounted after him ; and Bill, stepping cautiously into the rootn, turned the ‘‘bull’s-eye” of his lantern upon its interior. Instantly the treacherous servant recoiled with a stifled cry. “ Ain’t that a—a coffin over yonder ? ” whispered he, tremulously. “Good gracious! suppose there snould be a dead man in it, and ” “ S’pose you should be a thunderin’ big fool! ” growled Bill, savagelv. “Shut your mouth, will yer, or thar’ll be another dead man somewhar round soon. I’m a-goin’ right in— l am ! ” And he stepped resolutely forward. Crash ! the coflin-lid burst op«n, and a skeleton, thrown out in ghastly relief by the red light that flamed in its eyeless sockets, started Up with a hideous rattle, thrusting forward its bony arms and grinning jaws as if about to spring on them. The “»S'awue*/Hipeuf”of Napoleon was not more decisive. The lionest servant gave one yell sufficient to wake the whole neighborhood, and rolled on the floor in convulsions. The second burglar, leaping backward, dashed his head with such force against the corner of a bureau that he dropped as if felled with an ax, while Badger Bill, making a frantic rush for the window’, overturned the ladder, and fell crashing along with it, breaking his leg in the fall. ‘ ‘ You see now, Harry, ” said the doctor, as they went up-stairs after seeing their unbidden guests marched oft’ by the police, “that my night-watchman did know his duty, although there’s nothing more unearthly about him than a few concealed springs, which are released upon the approach of any one, and a little phosphorus. As for this wonderful room, you see it’s only a laboratory, after all. But the stories that people told about it amused me so much that I must plead guilty to havinggiven them a good deal of encouragement. Now, let us be-off to bed; and I think you may sleep in peace after this, for it strikes me it’ll be some time before anybody robs my house again. ” And, indeed, no one has ever attempted it since.