FOES OF JUSTICE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LV, Issue 14131, 10 February 1910, Page 5

FOES OF JUSTICE.

(Published by Special Arrangement.)

By HEADON HILL, Author of “Unmasked at Last,” “The Hidden Victim,” “Her Splendid ■ Sin,” “A Traitor’s Wooing,” Etc., etc., CHAPTER I. THE WARNING. The single gas-jet, turned low for economy’s sake, scarce served to gain an answering gleam from tho phials and jars on the shelves of tho dingy dispensary. From tho Blackfriars Road outside there drifted in through the open doorway a blond of many odours —of fried fish, of petrol and of decaying greengrocery. And, to tickle the ears as well as the nose, there .resounded through tho same hungrily expectant portal the ceaseless tramp of pedestrians on the broad pavement, varied by scraps of conversation mostly carried on in raucous, gin-sodden voices, and at not infrequent intervals scintillating with a sometimes ingenious but always lurid blasphemy. The young man who sat swinging his heels on the counter of the dispensary was vaguely conscious that some of the scrappy talk that floated in upon his solitude might have been quite interesting if it had not been clipped so suddenly as it passed out of earshot. But he was more intimately concerned with the unending footfall, and with tho question whether one of those who’ tramped heavily, or one of those who shuffled along, would turn aside and enter that open door. Dreamily as be seemed to listen, he was really on the alert to jump down from the counter turn up the gas and assume a professional demeanour the moment- such a happy consummation was secured. For Julian Penfold, Doctor of Medicine by right of diploma in tho schools of Oxford and London, possessed nothing but the drugs on the sparsely furnished shelves and a little loose silver in his pocket. His rent "was six weeks overdue, and in default of payment on the morrow his landlord was going to distrain and put him out into the street. In fact Julian was at tho end of his tether, wjth only the last slender chance of an answered advertisement between him and starvation.

Yet his pleasant, honest face was not that of one who had deserved such a fate at seven-nnd-twenty, nor had he. After a university and hospital career, during which hjs only fault had been the preference, of outdoor pursuits to more legitimate studies, the supposed rich uncle who had promised to buy him a practice had died insolvent, and he had been compelled to turn his hand to anything that came along. He had acted as assistant and locum tenons i” nearly every county in the kingdom, till ,-i longing for indcnendeiici? had tempted him to invest his paltry savings in the dispensary from which he was now + o be ejected. The thing had been n 'fraud from the start. The district was already overstocked with establishments where the motto was “advice and medicine for sixpence,” and as a newcomer he was the first to he crowded out. It was a poor game at the host, requiring a great number of patients for the earning of nr hare- livelihood, and thei patients of the locality preferred the down-at-heel medicos with whose bibulous faces they were familiar (o the young stranger who wore clean linen however threadbare his coat might be, and who objected to being cursed in the South London vernacular.

Lean as a greyhound, yet with the deep chest and muscular biceps of a gladiator, Julian Penfold’s one pleasure in his sordid struggle for existence had been to keep himself in perfect physical training. He had rowed in his ’Varsity eight, had been champion heavyweight boxer, and had carried off prizes 'nnumerable in athletic contests; and lie was loth to re|ax his grip on the only quality that had brought him fame. As he often reflected ruefully, if his name was as well known to tho editor of The Lancet as it was to the gentlemen who preside over the sporting papers ho would be making his ten thousand a year in Harley Street.

He stifled some such thought now, as ho jiullcd from his waistcoat pocket for tho twentieth time that day a slip of printed matter. It was an advertisement which he had cut out of the previous_ day’s Daily Telegraph—the sole remaining bulwark between him and financial shipwreck. A half-humorous and rather wistful smile flitted across his clean-shaven, tanned face as he read once more tho anonymous invitation which had caused him to seize pen and paper for reply.

To Young Medical Men.—An elderly gentleman requires the exclusive services of a fully qualified medical man. Tho selected applicant will bo expected to reside in advertiser’s house. He must bo under thirty, of irreproachable character, and of stalwart and vigorous frame. This is not a mental case, but the circumstances of the jiost will only be described to applicants whose title to the above qualifications is beyond doubt, —Apply X.Y T .Z., Office of this paper.

Julian carefully replaced tho cutting, laughing a little as ho did so. “I fill all those conditions to h tick, but it’s hardly like my luck to got so much as a nibble,” ho muttered. “It would be a queer billot, I fancy. Some hypochondriac with an enlarged liver end a morbid fear of death hopes to prolong his existence by having a tamo physician on tho premises. But where does tho stalwart and vigorous frame ci mo in, I wonder?” He swung himself down on the reverse side of the counter, speculation as to remote contingencies driven into Hie background by tho immediate prospect of raking in a certain sixpence—’ a sum insufficient to stave off impending ruin, but which would postpone for twenty-four hours the necessity of joining the homeless brigade which “dosses” on the Embankment. For his quick oars had caught tho-sound of footsteps slackening, and then diverging from tho stream of traffic towards tho open door of tho dispensary. Before the doorway was darkened ho had turned nn the gas and .fallen into tho pose of tho busy healer doing mysterious things, with a pestle and mortar. Glancing up, in his bo.sf professional manner, which somehow with Julian Renfold was never quite, the real thing, he nearly gasped with astonishment at tho apparition before him. Never in his life had he looked upon such wondrous beauty as that of tho girl who had entered. As she crossed the floor her large lustrous eyes wore fixed on him as she were striving to gauge his capability, or olso could it bo, to learn the, impression she herself was making on him. A slight flush mantled in tho pure pallor of lior cheeks, lending a warm glow to the contour of the jierfoct oval. She was dressed like an assistant in one of the cheap drapers’ shops near by, in a shabby black coat and skirt of the ready-made order,

but Julian felt that such sorry garb was an insult to those gracious curves and to that queenly carriage. “You wish to consult mer” he said, trying to address her with the hrusqueness which he found was most appreciated thereabouts.

“Yes, I want something for headache —chronic headache,” replied the girl rather diffidently. Julian looked at the unblemished skin and the clear eyes and concluded that the malady could by no possibility have a bilious origin. It sprang, more likely, . from neuralgia caused by draughts in tho stuffy atmosphere of some crowded work-room or shop. Tho answers to the few questions he put as to her symptoms struck him as vague and evasive, but on the whole they bore out the view he had adopted of the cause of her trouble, and he made up a simple mixture in accordance with his diagnosis. “There,” he said as he handed her the bottle; “if you will take that as directed I think you will find relief. If not” —and he was conscious of a hope that the contingency might arise—“you must come and see me again. If f am hero,” he added, remembering his landlord’s threat.

The fair patient took the bottle, looking at it with a strange dislike,'as if she suspected that, the contents were nasty. “How much do I owo you for this:'” she asked, giving him the full benefit of her beautiful eyes. The phrasei rang oddly, seeing that the dispensary walls were plastered, with half a dozen notices in staring capitals that advice and medicine wore “for strict cash” at a uniform price of sixpence. Julian essayed to be flippant. “If I were whore I ought to be —in a West End consulting room —I should charge you two guineas,” he said. “In the Blackfriars Road, as von see hv these placards, I am compelled to allow you a cash discount of two pounds ono shilling and sixpence off that sum.” “You moan that vour charge is sixpence,” the girl smiled shyly. “Well,to Do quite candid, I—l1 —1 am even too poor for that. I have only twopence with' me, and there is tho ’bus home. With which she put the medicine down on the counter and stood waiting his verdict with an anxiefv so apparent thatit. touched Julian’s heart —also his sense of humour. It was really too ridiculous that Wns charming girl and ho should be at loggerheads over a few pennyworth of drugs which morally • belonged to his landlord, and which that irate individual would in any ease have annexed on the morrow. Tho wistful pleading in the sweet face across the counter prompted him to match his patient’s rank confession of impecuniosity with one of his own. “Then I must be generous at some one else’s expense,” ho said gaily. “I am really not so solvent as you, for I haven’t even twopence that 1 can rightly call ray own! I am going to be sold lip to-morrow, and I suppose that that stuff, which I sincerely trust will do you good, really belongs to my creditors,”

Ho expected that she would take, up the bottle and gratefully depart, but a thrill shot through him when she ignored it, the divine light of pity shining from her wonderful eyes. Yes, there could be no doubt about it, the girl had forgotten her own ailment in sympathy for his distress. “1 am so sorry,” she murmured gently. “Cam you do nothing to put matters right?". Forgive me, but you do not looli like one to accept misfortune without an effort to overcome it.”

Julian laughed a little bitterly. “A torrent is sometimes too strong for the strongest swimmer,” he said. “My troubles arc;not 'beginning to-night. I have stood a good many huffetings from the waters of fate before throwing up my arms ail'd going under.” “And have you no prospect of starting afresh—of taking up other and per-, haps more congenial work amid pleasanter surroundings?” 1 Julian glanced at his pretty crossexaminer, flattered by her interest in his poor affairs, and willing to prolong •i discussion that was in itself so pleasant as to distract his mind from its subject. Her interest appeared to be perfectly genuine, and he saw no reason why he should not humour it. He was not a vain man, and possibly all the more because of that he surrendered to a sympathy he was unable to account for. He told of the last chance that stood between’ him and complete penury—vaguely at first, merely mentioning that ho had answered an advertisement which might’lead to employment. But urged by those seductive eyes and an innocent inquiry thrown in hero and there, ho grow more explicit, and finally in a burst of confidence he extracted the cutting from his pocket once more and spread it out on the counter. (To he continued.)