The Pleasant Adventures Of Dr. Mcdill
by
It was twelve o’clock on a blustery winter night and Dr. James McDill was where a married man of forty ought to be at such an hour in that season, sleeping soundly by the side of his beloved wife. But his wife was not sleeping. At the stroke of the hour, she had suddenly awoke from refreshing slumber and become aware of sounds as of persons moving softly about the room, and after a little, seeing against the windows faintly illuminated by a distant street light, two dark figures, she perceived her ears had not deceived her. Shaking her husband unavailingly for a considerable time, in her terror she finally cast discretion to the winds and shouted:
“Burglars, Jim, burglars!”
Hardly had these words ceased, when the electric lights were turned on and Dr. McDill sat up in bed to find himself staring into the muzzles of three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over the footboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with two revolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the other began to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if not eloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitous conditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed to obtain by force, if they obtained at all, any share in the privileges and riches of the wealthy. As he discoursed, at times carried away by his theme, he gave over his search and paused to enforce his points with earnest gestures. This caused the other robber some disquietude and he cursed his compatriot and the doctor and his wife with a use of epithets that will not bear repeating and which showed him to be none other than a low ruffian. At last all the treasure in the room being taken and the doctor being forced to accompany them and disclose the repository of other valuables, the robbers took their departure.
Some weeks after this, two persons suspected of being responsible for certain robberies were taken into custody and the doctor called into court to identify them if possible.
“I noticed,” said he, “that the shorter of the two masked men was prone to gesticulation and that he had a fashion of holding his arms close to his body, as if tied at the elbows, and with hands fully open, fingers apart, thumbs extended, and palms upward, waving his forearms—-“
At this juncture, the smile on the face of the defendant’s counsel, occasioned by thus putting his client upon his guard, was dispelled by an angry exclamation from the person in question, and denying with some loquacity and even more vociferation that he ever made such a gesture, at the close of his statement, behold, he made the gesture!
By the doctor’s testimony was a chain of incriminating evidence established that led to a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment being imposed upon the robbers. When he had heard the sentence, he of the gestures turned fiercely toward the doctor and cried:
“You’ll be killed for this, like other dogs before you for the same cause. If you’re not killed before I am discharged or escape, I’ll kill you. But I am only one of many, a tried band who avenge;” and hereupon he smote the rail in front of him, “Knock, knock–knock; knock, knock–knock.” And from several parts of the silent room came answers, faint, but distinct, two quick taps, a pause, and a third, then all repeated. “Tap, tap–tap; tap, tap–tap.”
The evidence of confederates, the quick response to the appeal of their comrade, the taps that came from everywhere and nowhere, manifestation of the desperate men surrounding him, might well have daunted the soul of any man. Three sentences had been pronounced that day, a term of years upon Jerry McGuire and Barry O’Toole, but death upon James McDill. You may depend upon it that the doctor was none the more reassured when on the morrow he learned that McGuire and O’Toole had escaped. With their anger and resentment yet hot within them, these men would doubtless at once set about to encompass his destruction, and he knew that when once one of these societies had decreed the death of a person who balked or incensed them, every endeavor was used to put the decree into effect. But, after a little, he took courage from the very fact that was most threatening. If these men, these desperate and despicable scoundrels, could escape from the barriers of stone and steel and the guardians that surrounded them, why might not he fight for his life and win in the struggle which both reason and instinct told him was inevitable?