Mortmain Part 1

Mortmain.

by Arthur Cheny Train.

I

Sir Penniston Crisp was a man of some sixty active years, whose ruddy cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, and convincingly innocent smile suggested forty. At thirty he had been accounted the most promising young surgeon in London; at forty he had become one of the three leading members of his profession; at fifty he had ama.s.sed a fortune and had begun to accept only those cases which involved complications of true scientific interest, or which came to him on the personal application of other distinguished physicians.

Like many another in the medical world whose material wants are guaranteed, he found solace and amus.e.m.e.nt only in experimentation along new lines of his peculiar hobbies. His days were spent between his book-lined study with its cheery sea-coal fire and his adjacent laboratory, where three a.s.sistants, all trained Bachelors of Science, conducted experiments under his personal direction.

His daily life was as well ordered as his career had been. Rising at seven, Sir Penniston partook of a meager breakfast, attended to his trifling personal affairs, read his newspaper, dictated his letters, and by nine was ready to don his uniform and receive his sterilized instruments from his young a.s.sociate, Scalscope Jermyn, a capable and cheerful soul after Crisp's own heart. An operating theater adjoined the laboratory, and here the baronet made it a point to perform once each week, in the presence of various surgeons who attended by invitation, a few difficult and dangerous operations upon patients sent to him from the City Hospital.

When Jermyn was with his familiars he was wont to refer to his master as the "howlingist cheese in surgery." This was putting it mildly, for, although Sir Penniston was indubitably, if you choose, quite the "howlingist cheese" in surgery, he was also a pathfinder, an explorer into the mysteries of the body and the essence of vitality in bone and tissue. He could do more things to a cat in twenty minutes than would naturally occur in the combined history of a thousand felines. He could handle the hidden arteries and vessels of the body as confidently and accurately as you or I would tie a shoe string. He had housed a tramp for thirteen months and inserted a plate-gla.s.s window in that gentleman's exterior in order that he might with the greater certainty study the complicated processes of a digestion stimulated after a chronic lack of food. He experimented on men, women, children, elephants, apes, ostriches, guinea pigs, rabbits, turtles, frogs, and goldfish. He could alter the shape of a nose, or perfect an irregular ear in the twinkling of an instrument; remove a human heart and insert it still beating without inconvenience to its owner; and was as much at home among the vessels of Thebesius as he was on Piccadilly Circus.

He was single, kept but one servant--a j.a.p--neither smoked nor drank, attended the worst play he could find every Sat.u.r.day night, and gave ponderous dinners to his professional brethren on Wednesdays. He was the dean of his order, and bade fair to remain so for a long time to come--a calm, pa.s.sionless craftsman in flesh and bone. His rivals frequently were heard to say that there was nothing surgical in heaven or earth that Crisp would not undertake. A faint odor of chloroform followed his well-regulated progress through existence.

On the morning upon which this narrative opens Sir Penniston had entered his laboratory with that urbanity so characteristic of him. A white frock hung jauntily upon his well-filled, if slenderly nourished, proportions, his blue eyes sparkled with good-natured activity, and his long, muscular hands rubbed themselves together in a manner which signified that they were anxious to be at the skilled work in which their owner took so keen a pleasure. Scalscope was already on hand, and with a bundle of dripping instruments in his grasp met his master halfway between the minor operating table and the antiseptic bath.

"Ah, good morning, Scalscope! How is the Marchioness of Ches.h.i.+re this fine morning?"

Scalscope smiled deferentially at the little joke.

"I presume you mean Lady Tabitha? Her ladys.h.i.+p is doing splendidly--better, I fancy, than could be expected under the circ.u.mstances."

"Excellent, Scalscope! Delightful! Where is she?"

At that moment a large Maltese cat, cognizant by some unknown instinct that she was the subject of this matutinal conversation, stalked slowly out of a patch of suns.h.i.+ne and rubbed herself between Sir Penniston's broadcloth-covered calves. The surgeon bent over and felt carefully of her foreleg, but the feline did not flinch; on the contrary, she screwed round her head and thrust it into the doctor's hand.

"Perfect!" exclaimed Sir Penniston, his face lighting with a smile of scientific satisfaction. "Absolutely perfect! Scalscope, you have lived to partic.i.p.ate in the highest achievement of modern surgery! Is the patient in the operating room? Very good. The gentlemen a.s.sembled?

Excellent! While you are administering the somni-chloride I will announce our success."

He bowed to the other a.s.sistants and, followed by the Marchioness of Ches.h.i.+re, opened the door which led to the platform of the operating theater. Some dozen or fifteen professional-looking gentlemen rose as he made his appearance and bowed. A young woman with her arm in a sling sat by the table attended by a couple of women nurses.

"Good morning, gentlemen! Good morning!" remarked Sir Penniston. "Mr.

Jermyn, will you kindly prepare the patient? My friends, I have the pleasure of being able to announce to you, and thus permitting you in a measure to share in, what I regard as the most extraordinary achievement of our profession."

A murmur of interest and appreciation made itself audible from the physicians who had resumed their seats upon the benches. If Sir Penniston regarded anything as remarkable, it must indeed be so, and they awaited his next words expectantly.

"The problem, gentlemen, of limb-grafting has been solved!" he announced modestly.

The a.s.sembled surgeons gazed at one another in amazement.

"You may perhaps recall," continued the baronet, "that it has for years been my particular hobby, or, I should more properly say, theory, that there was no reason in the world why, if a severed finger or a nose could be replaced by surgery, the same should not be true of a major part, such as a hand or leg; and why, if a limb once severed could be replaced upon its stump, another person's might not be used.

"Many gentlemen eminent in our profession, some of whom I believe I see before me, gave it as their opinion that such an operation was impossible. A few--and most of these, I regret to say, were upon the other side of the Atlantic--agreed with me that it could and would ultimately be accomplished. I studied the problem for years. Was it our inability to nourish a part once severed or so to reenervate it as to unite tendons, muscles, or bone? The latter surely gave no trouble.

Tendons were sutured every day, and under favorable circ.u.mstances their functions were restored, while nerves were frequently sutured and functional restoration recorded.

"The question, therefore, seemed to narrow itself down to whether or not it was impossible to restore an arterial supply once cut off. Veins, of course, were frequently cut and sutured, and performed perfectly afterwards. Was there no way to restore an artery? In other words, could a limb once severed be sufficiently nourished to restore it? This, then, became my special study--a fascinating study indeed, involving as it did the possibilities of untold benefit to mankind."

Sir Penniston paused and glanced toward the table upon which was extended the now almost unconscious form of the patient. There was still plenty of time for him to conclude his remarks.

"With a view, therefore, to observing whether a thin gla.s.s tube would be tolerated in a sterilized state within an artery (the only possible means I could devise to allow a continued flow of blood and contemporaneous restoration), I made a number of half-inch pieces to suit the caliber of a dog's femoral, constricted them very slightly to an hour-gla.s.s shape, and smoothed their ends by heat, so that no surface roughness should induce clotting. Cutting the femorals across, I tied each end on the tube by a fine silk thread, and tied the thread ends together. Primary union resulted, and the dog's legs were as good as ever! The first step had been successfully accomplished."

The a.s.sembled surgeons clapped their hands faintly in token of appreciation, and one or two murmured, "My word!-- Extraordinary!-- Marvelous!" Sir Penniston bowed slightly and resumed:

"I now added one more step to my experiments. I dissected out the trachial artery and vein near the axilla of a dog's forelimb, and, holding these apart, amputated the limb through the shoulder muscles and sawed through the bone, leaving the limb attached only by the vessels. I then sutured the bone with a silver wire and the nerves with fine silk.

Each muscle I sutured by itself with catgut, making a separate series of continuous suturing of the _fascia lata_ and skin. The leg was then enveloped in sterilized dressing, a liberal use of iodoform gauze being the essential part. Over all, cotton and a plaster jacket were placed, leaving him three legs to walk on. The dog's leg united perfectly."

The a.s.sembled gentlemen broke into loud applause. The patient was lying motionless, her deep inspirations showing that she was under the anaesthetic. But Sir Penniston was now lost in the enthusiasm of his subject.

"Thus, gentlemen, I demonstrated that, if in an amputated limb an artery could be left, the limb would survive the division and reuniting of everything else, and had good ground for the belief that if an arterial supply could be restored to a completely amputated limb, _that_ limb also might be grafted back to its original or to a corresponding stump.

"The final experiment only remained--the complete amputation of a limb and its restoration--a combination of all the others--difficult, dangerous, delicate--and requiring much preparation, a.s.sistance, and time. I finally selected a healthy cat, amputated its foreleg, inserted a gla.s.s tube in the artery, and sutured bone, muscles, nerves, and skin.

Complete restoration occurred! And after four months you have here before you this morning the cat herself, fat, well, and strong, and as good as ever!--Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

The Marchioness of Ches.h.i.+re ran quickly to Sir Penniston and leaped into his lap, while the gentlemen left the benches and hastened forward to seize the master's hand and to examine the cat in wonder.

"There is nothing, therefore, in the way of grafting which cannot be successfully undertaken. A human arm or leg crushed at thigh or shoulder, and requiring amputation, would admit of Esmarch's bandage being applied to expel its blood and of being used after amputation. Why not another man's blood as well as its owner's? No reason in the world!

Had we here a suitable forearm ready to be applied I have no doubt but that I could successfully replace it upon the stump of the one I am now about to remove. Hereafter, so long as there are limbs enough to go round--so long as the demand does not transcend the supply--none of our patients need fear the permanent loss of a member!"

The surgeons overwhelmed him with their congratulations, but Sir Penniston modestly waived them aside. His triumph was the triumph of science--and its purity was not marred by any thought of personal glorification.

"The Crispan operation," some one whispered. The others caught it up.

"The Crispan operation," they repeated. A slight look of gratification made itself apparent upon Sir Penniston's rosy countenance.

"Thank you, gentlemen! Thank you! Mr. Jermyn, is the patient quite ready? Yes? We will proceed, gentlemen. My instruments, if you please."

Among those who left the operating theater an hour later was Sir Richard Mortmain.

II

The opalescent light from the bronze electric lamp on the mahogany writing table disclosed two gentlemen, whose att.i.tudes and expressions left no doubt as to the serious import of their discussion. At the same time the _membra disjecta_ of afternoon tea which remained upon the teak tabaret, together with the still smoking b.u.t.t of an Egyptian cigarette distilling its incense in a steadily perpendicular gray column toward the ceiling from a jade jar used as an ash receiver, showed that for one of them at least the situation had admitted of physical amelioration.

The gentleman beside the table had rested his high, narrow forehead upon the delicate fingers of his left hand, and with contracted eyebrows was gazing in a baffled manner toward his companion, who had extended his limbs at length before the heavy chair in which he reclined, and with his elbows upon its arms was holding his finger tips lightly against each other before his face. To those who knew Ashley Flynt this meant that the last word had been spoken, and that nothing remained but to accept the situation as he stated it and follow his advice.

His heavy yet shrewd countenance, whose florid hue bespoke a modern adjustment of golf to a more traditional use of port, had that cold, vacant look which it displayed when the mind behind the mask had recorded Q. E. D. beneath its unseen demonstration. The gentleman at the table twitched his shoulders nervously, slowly raised his head, and leaned back into his chair.

"And you say that there is absolutely nothing which can be done?" he repeated mechanically.

"I have already told you, Sir Richard," replied Flynt in even, incisive tones, "that the last day of grace expires to-morrow. Unless the three notes are immediately taken up you will be forced into bankruptcy. Your property and expectations are already mortgaged for more than they are worth. Your a.s.sets of every sort will not return your creditors--I should say your creditor--fifteen per cent. Seventy-nine thousand pounds, princ.i.p.al and interest--can you raise it or even a substantial part of it? No, not five thousand! You have no choice, so far as I can see, but to go into bankruptcy, unless--" He hesitated rather deprecatingly.

"Well!" cried Sir Richard impatiently, "unless----"

"Unless you marry."