Читать книгу The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin - Henry M. Hunt - Страница 4

DR. CRONIN'S APARTMENTS IN WINDSOR THEATRE BUILDING.

"Is Dr. Cronin in?" he demanded, in a hurried, nervous manner.

"Yes," was the reply, "but he is busy with a patient."

"Well," responded the stranger with increasing nervousness. "I want to see him. It is a matter of life or death."

Some fragments of the conversation had penetrated to the office where the physician was giving a final injunction to his patient. He threw open the door and came out into the vestibule.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Doctor" said the strange visitor as he presented a card, "one of the workmen at P. O'Sullivan's ice house at Lake View, has met with an accident and been terribly injured about here" (indicating the abdomen by a wave of his hand). "Unless a doctor sees him at once," he went on in his hurried, nervous, manner, "he will die. O'Sullivan is out of town, but he has spoken so often of you and said that you should be called in case of an accident that I thought I'd better come to you."

Dr. Cronin glanced at the card. It was a fac-simile of this.

For a moment he twirled it between his finger and thumb. Then he looked at his watch. It was near the hour for the meeting, in the proceedings of which he was liable to take a prominent part. But the humane instincts of the profession quickly overcame all other considerations.

"One moment" he ejaculated, "and I will be with you."

"I have a buggy and fast horse down stairs" called out the stranger.

Dr. Cronin darted into his office. Hastily gathering up his surgical instruments, he packed them into their case. A package of lint and absorbent cotton was pushed down into his pocket. Then he reappeared and with the remark "I am ready," made for the stairs. The unknown went down in advance and the doctor followed. At the curb, with a white horse in the shafts, was the buggy that was to take the physician on his supposed errand of mercy. As he reached the street, he came vis-a-vis with Frank T. Scanlan, Jr., a prominent young Irish-American, who had previously arranged to call for and accompany him to the meeting.

"Are you ready" the latter asked.

"No," was Dr. Cronin's reply. "I'm called away on an accident case."

The stranger was already in the buggy. "There's no time to lose," he called out, and the ejaculation caused Scanlan to turn his head in that direction. He was startled for a moment by the look of fiendish rage with which the fellow was regarding him. Before he could say a word, however, Dr. Cronin had taken his seat in the vehicle. A whip cut through the air and descended on the animal's back, and as it started off the physician called out to his friend, who still stood on the sidewalk:

"I may get down town in an hour, but don't wait for me. I really don't know how long this case may occupy me."

Man proposes, but God disposes. It was the physician's last farewell to his home and his friends. The white horse sped into the darkness and each revolution of the wheels of the vehicle carried one of its occupants nearer his doom.