: The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII no. 251 new series May 1917) by Various - England Periodicals; Short stories English Periodicals; English literature Periodicals

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BOOK I

BOOK II

BOOK I

THE CAVE OF WHISPERS

DR. BELDEN'S ESTABLISHMENT

The establishment of Dr. James Belden was pleasantly situated upon the southern shore of Long Island, some ninety odd miles from the city. The spacious house was fitted with every modern convenience and comfort, and stood in extensive, well-wooded private grounds. There were good fishing and boating to be had and the white, well-kept Long Island roads afforded excellent facilities alike for riding and driving.

The establishment was in reality a cross between a sanatorium and a physical culture resort. The doctor-proprietor carefully examined each person upon arrival and kept his directing eye upon him during his stay. He prescribed the diet and the exercise suited to each case and saw to it personally that his instructions were carried out. Many a wreck of the city's storm and stress had the Doctor sent back to the metropolis renovated and renewed, and many were the haggard devotees of late hours and city dissipation who had returned, after a sojourn at the retreat, with vigor in their limbs and the hue of health in their cheeks. In a word, the Doctor was a philanthropist, at a hundred a week, who extended a haven of rest for human wrecks and turned them out again on the high seas of life staunchly refitted to renew the struggle. The Doctor himself, in fact, often referred to his establishment as a haven of refuge, which nautical expression was, perhaps, not inapt, inasmuch as the harbor in question was not infrequently visited, in popular parlance, by "swells" and "high-rollers."

Dr. Belden himself was an exceedingly genial person, who well knew how to keep his various guests amused and in good humor with themselves and the world in general. The one subject which disturbed the Doctor's equanimity was the presence in the neighborhood of a recently established private asylum for the insane maintained by a Dr. Weldon. The similarity between the names Weldon and Belden had led upon certain occasions to various distressing and distinctly embarrassing mistakes. Thus, when distinguished visitors had at times mentioned that they were staying at Dr. Belden's establishment, rustics of the neighboring villages had been known to tap their heads significantly and adopt either attitudes of alarm, or patronizing airs, as the case might be. While little Reggie Smithers had been sojourning at Dr. Belden's the rumor had been circulated at his club that he was incarcerated in an asylum for lunatics and a friendly wag had written him a letter of condolence, in which he took occasion to remark parenthetically that he had always entertained an innate conviction that Reggie would eventually so wind up, at which Reggie had been exceedingly wroth and had felt impelled to cut short his stay and return as quickly as possible to the city, so as to give the lie to the rumor.

The early summer of nineteen hundred found the sanatorium fairly well filled with guests, not the least notable among whom was Mr. Thomas Kearns, the widely-famed head of New York's Secret Service Bureau, who had selected this quiet retreat at which to build up his magnificent muscular development and repair the ravages upon his general system incurred by his exciting and somewhat irregular mode of life in the city. To describe Mr. Kearns as widely famed was certainly not overstating the case, for he was conceded to be the ablest detector of crime in the country. So many were the great mysteries which he had unraveled and with so many important cases had he been connected that his fame had stretched far and wide, extending beyond the confines of the United States and reaching into foreign lands. In a word, his reputation was international and his achievements had been lauded in many countries and in many tongues.

His fellow-townsmen of the great metropolis--in fact, his countrymen at large--were proud of Thomas Kearns. When Americans traveling abroad heard of some mystery which the secret police of European capitals were unable to solve, they were wont to smile in a superior way and exclaim: "They ought to send for Kearns over here--our Kearns. He would show them what's what!"

Everybody from the doorman at Police Headquarters to the Police Commissioners and the heads of the city government treated Mr. Kearns with distinguished consideration; he was regarded as one of the Institutions of the city. No one ever dreamed of interfering with Mr. Kearns. And well he justified this trust. Under his administration the criminal classes were kept in a subjection and awe which rendered life and property more secure in New York than in any other great city of the world. No criminal from other cities dared seek abode in the metropolis without first reporting to Mr. Kearns as to his advent, his place of domicile, the causes of his visit, and the duration of his stay, and no man of criminal record might, under any circumstances, by day or by night, venture to put foot south of Fulton Street, into the great financial centres where the heaped-up wealth of the city was stored.

Possessed of ample means, no breath of suspicion had ever touched Mr. Kearns. The vicissitudes of his calling had enabled him upon many occasions to be of inestimable service to various financial powers, and these powers had gladly placed at his disposal information which had enabled him to build up a handsome private fortune. He was a man of some forty years, of medium height and well-rounded figure, with blue eyes, a ruddy complexion and the general appearance of a prosperous merchant; but the blue eyes had a very keen look at times and the lips a peculiar way of pursing themselves under the heavy, well-kept brown moustache.

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