"I see my way back to London," I said, "to consult Mr. Bruff. If he
can't help me----"
"Yes, sir?"
"And if the Sergeant won't leave his retirement at Dorking----"
"He won't, Mr. Franklin!"
"Then, Betteredge--as far as I can see now--I am at the end of my
resources. After Mr. Bruff and the Sergeant, I don't know of a living
creature who can be of the slightest use to me."
As the words passed my lips, some person outside knocked at the door of
the room.
Betteredge looked surprised as well as annoyed by the interruption.
"Come in," he called out, irritably, "whoever you are!"
The door opened, and there entered to us, quietly, the most
remarkable-looking man that I had ever seen. Judging him by his figure
and his movements, he was still young. Judging him by his face, and
comparing him with Betteredge, he looked the elder of the two. His
complexion was of a gipsy darkness; his fleshless cheeks had fallen into
deep hollows, over which the bone projected like a pent-house. His nose
presented the fine shape and modelling so often found among the ancient
people of the East, so seldom visible among the newer races of the
West. His forehead rose high and straight from the brow. His marks and
wrinkles were innumerable. From this strange face, eyes, stranger still,
of the softest brown--eyes dreamy and mournful, and deeply sunk in
their orbits--looked out at you, and (in my case, at least) took
your attention captive at their will. Add to this a quantity of thick
closely-curling hair, which, by some freak of Nature, had lost its
colour in the most startlingly partial and capricious manner. Over the
top of his head it was still of the deep black which was its natural
colour. Round the sides of his head--without the slightest gradation
of grey to break the force of the extraordinary contrast--it had turned
completely white. The line between the two colours preserved no sort
of regularity. At one place, the white hair ran up into the black; at
another, the black hair ran down into the white. I looked at the man
with a curiosity which, I am ashamed to say, I found it quite impossible
to control. His soft brown eyes looked back at me gently; and he met
my involuntary rudeness in staring at him, with an apology which I was
conscious that I had not deserved.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I had no idea that Mr. Betteredge was
engaged." He took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to
Betteredge. "The list for next week," he said. His eyes just rested on
me again--and he left the room as quietly as he had entered it.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"Mr. Candy's assistant," said Betteredge. "By-the-bye, Mr. Franklin, you
will be sorry to hear that the little doctor has never recovered that
illness he caught, going home from the birthday dinner. He's pretty
well in health; but he lost his memory in the fever, and he has never
recovered more than the wreck of it since. The work all falls on his
assistant. Not much of it now, except among the poor. THEY can't help
themselves, you know. THEY must put up with the man with the piebald
hair, and the gipsy complexion--or they would get no doctoring at all."