Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927
The Black Capsule
by Don H. Thompson
Being the swift adventures of young Dr. Waring, who sought romance and found it in a torn letter and a pretty girl in a green dress
Chapter I
An Invitation — Refusals Not Accepted
It was raining, a dull monotonous drizzle. The window panes wept incessantly. A steady stream of water gurgled in the spout and ran into the street, while the high wind rumbled in the chimney and raised its voice in a triumphant whoop as it swirled between the houses.
I sat contentedly in my study toasting my shins before a fire in the grate as I prowled absently through a dozen back copies of the Medical Journal. Clad in an old smoking jacket, a worn pair of trousers and ancient slippers, I was enjoying a luxury for a busy young physician — a night to myself indoors. A night to puff my pipe, to think my thoughts, to read my books. A night—
My mind suddenly snapped back into the world of realities. I heard voices in the hallway. A door closed sharply against the wind. A knock.
“Well?” said I irritably. “What is it?”
“There’s a man out here,” came the voice of Mrs. Barkley, my housekeeper, “who says he must see you immediately. I told him you were out, but he says he knows better, and he won’t leave the house. It’s a matter of life and death, he says, and—”
“Yes, I know,” I growled impatiently. “It’s always a matter of life and death. Well, if he’s as determined as you say I may as well be rid of him quickly. Show him in.”
So much for my evening of peace and contentment at my own fireside. I closed my book, laid down my pipe resignedly, and got up to greet my caller.
He sidled into the room furtively, a small, weather-beaten little man in sodden clothes. His face was long and narrow, and I noticed numerous scars that showed through the sparse gray hair on his bulletlike head.
“Dr. Waring?” he asked, fixing me with eyes like twin gimlets and cocking his head to one side.
I nodded curtly. What could this strange fellow have to say to me? What had brought him to my door on such an evil night? He was not seeking my services for himself, and I felt certain that none of my patients had sent such a ragamuffin to me as a messenger.
“What can I do for you?” I inquired.
The little man stared at me for a moment, then his head turtled toward my housekeeper, who remained in the doorway, looking in dismay upon the pools of water which ran from my guest’s clothing to the fine rug.
“I’d rather talk to you alone.”
A smile fluttered at the edges of his thin mouth as the disdainful woman departed hurriedly.
“Mad, ain’t she?” he asked. “Well, don’t know as I blame her. She probably never saw a scarecrow like me before.”
“What do you want?” I demanded sharply. “Speak up.”
He grinned.
“Ever hear of Bill Copeland, doc? Huh?”
I shook my head.
“You know him, doc. Sure you do. Well, sir, I got a little letter here from Bill and he says it’s right important, a matter of life and death, and he told me to get it to you no matter what happened.”
He shot a skinny hand under his ragged coat and fished out a dirty piece of paper which he handed to me.
“Are you sure you have the right man?” I asked.
A queer little gleam came into my guest’s eyes. It gave his lean face a crafty, dangerous look.
“It’s for Dr. Hugh Waring,” he said, “and that’s you, ain’t it?”
“It is.”
Relief came into the little man’s face.
“Then go ahead and read the letter,” he replied.
I moved over to a lamp, unfolded the paper carefully, and this is what I read:
Dr. Hugh Waring:
Six months ago you rescued a drunken wretch from the horrors of the inebriate ward at the City Hospital. You bought him clothes and gave him money. His name was William A. Copeland. He is now in a position to repay you. He must see you immediately. The bearer will show you the way. Do not fail to come, please.
I looked up from the note.
“There,” said the ragged messenger triumphantly. “Now you remember Bill, don’t you?”
Yes, I remembered Bill. I had found him on one of my trips through the hospital, a dirty, drunken wretch, half dead from the effects of a debauch on rotten whisky. I had talked to him. There was something about him, some wistful appeal in the fellow’s eyes, that got inside of me.
He had been, at one time, a gentleman of some refinement. But he would tell me nothing of his past. I took him out of the ward, got him a bath and a shave, gave him money and sent him forth in search of a job. I made him promise to inform me as to his progress. Six months had passed. Not a word from my protégé.
I decided that my venture in salvaging souls had been the usual failure, the fellow had most likely spent my money on one grand bout and had gone his old evil ways. I had dismissed him from my mind.
Now this letter, brought to me on a stormy night by a derelict who had all but forced his way into ray house. The chances were, thought I, that my friend was down again and sought another lift out of the mire. It was probably a neat ruse to gain my sympathy and pave the way for another loan. I hesitated.
The little man seemed to follow my thoughts, and they made him acutely uneasy.
“Come on, doc,” he urged. “Bill’s on his last legs. He ain’t tryin’ to put anything over on you. He’s got something valuable that he wants to give you. And, believe me, it must be valuable, ’cause Bill guards it with a big pistol and won’t let nobody near it. And at night sometimes he raves about plots and gunmen and sometimes he yells for the police.”
“I do not want any reward for my effort to make Copeland into a human being,” said I. “If it’s money he wants I might stand for a small loan, but I don’t feel like traveling through a rain storm to console him. I will not go.”
“Aw, doc, listen—”
“No.”
My guest’s eyes searched my face for an instant and then his long hand flashed into his bosom and came forth holding a nickel-plated pistol which he pointed at me.
“Doc,” he said softly, “I hate to do this, but Bill says to bring you, whether or no, and if you won’t come of your own accord I’ll have to persuade you, get me?”
“Why the melodrama?” I demanded hotly. “Don’t you realize that I could call for help and have enough policemen here in a moment to make an end of you?”
The little man grinned.
“But you won’t,” said he, “and there’ll be plenty of melodrama around here if you start anything.”
“Put up that weapon,” said I, but the little man only stared at me from his queer eyes and shook his head.
“Well,” I said, “I may as well go willingly, I suppose. Will you trust me out of your sight while I change my clothes?”
“Sure, doc.”
The little man made another motion and the pistol disappeared.
“You see,” he hastened to explain, “I promised Bill I’d bring you back, and I had to make good. Sure, doc, go ahead and get ready. I’ll take your word for it that you won’t call the coppers.”
I changed quickly, and a few minutes later I was driving my curtained roadster through the storm at the direction of my strange guest, who sat hunched at my side.
“Market Street,” he said, and I tinned toward the river front. Darkness was deep over this part of the city, a district of cheap rooming houses and factories. Here and there a line of light edged a shutter, the only relief in the blocks of blind, wet buildings. My powerful headlights picked up a sodden roister or two, a vagrant doubled up in a doorway, a policeman charging through the rain, his black rubber coat gleaming like the hide of a wet hippopotamus.