“Very good, sir,” replied Harold, and forthwith started on his quest.
He could not guess the purpose for which the Professor required this
information, but it could obviously have nothing to do with these
intriguing murders in Praed Street which Hanslet had described.
Unless, perhaps, the Professor had seen some parallel between the
methods of the unknown criminal and those of this vague doctor whose
name began with an M. You never could predict the direction from which
the Professor would approach a problem. All that you could be certain
of was that it would be different from the one you anticipated.
Arrived at the Museum, where he was a frequent visitor on similar
errands, he went carefully through the index to the Law Reports. It
was not until he came to the year 1906, that he met with anything
which corresponded to the data which the Professor had given him. Then
he found a reference to the trial of one Doctor Morlandson for the
murder of Lord Whatley. This must be the case to which his employer
had referred. He turned up the records, and proceeded to make a
careful abstract.
It appeared that Lord Whatley had been a man of middle age, and of
some considerable wealth. Dr. Morlandson was his regular medical
attendant, and in 1905 he had been compelled to warn his patient that
he was suffering from cancer, and that though an operation might be
successful, there was grave doubt that it would permanently remove the
source of the trouble. However, Lord Whatley consented to undergo the
operation. He was removed to a nursing home, and a specialist was
called in. The patient went through the ordeal satisfactorily, and
after a while he returned home.
But, by the beginning of the following year, the symptoms reasserted
themselves, and Dr. Morlandson informed his patient, who insisted that
he should be told the truth, that nothing more could be done, and that
Lord Whatley had nothing to look forward to but perhaps a year or two
of suffering. The relations between the two men were rather those of
close friendship than of doctor and patient, and, subsequent to Dr.
Morlandson’s pronouncement, they saw a great deal of one another.
Morlandson devoted as much time as he could spare from his practice to
sitting with Lord Whatley, who was a childless widower and did not
encourage the visits of his friends and relations.
By the end of February it appeared that the disease was progressing
even more rapidly than Dr. Morlandson had anticipated. He administered
frequent injections of morphia, and his patient was rarely conscious.
Morlandson continued to spend the greater part of his time with him,
and in Lord Whatley’s brief intervals of consciousness his doctor, and
the nurses who had been called in, were the only people he spoke to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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