Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/349



EAN FRANÇOIS ISEZ, the famous surgeon, had retired to his apartments after a professional round, and had hardly begun to eat the dinner which his old servant, Manette, served to him, when a note was brought to him. He inquired who had brought it, but the concierge had not noticed the messenger. It was one afternoon early in April, 1727; the place was Paris; and Isez was the most fashionable doctor of his day, and much in request among the fine ladies and gentlemen of France.

The note, a sheet of white paper written on in pale ink, and in a very small, uncharacteristic handwriting, contained these words—

"M. the surgeon J. F. Isez is prayed to betake himself this afternoon, at six o'clock, to the Rue du Pot-de-fer, near the Luxemburg."

There was no signature.

M. Isez threw on him his cloak with the velvet collar, called a sedan chair, and hurried away to his unknown patient.

By the time that Isez arrived at the Rue du Pot-de-fer it was quite dark. The oil lamps, swinging here and there, gave but little light. On one side of the street were the doors of old-fashioned houses; on the other a few shops and cabarets, succeeded by a long, high blank wall. As Isez' chairmen picked their stumbling steps over the cobbles, they sounded loud in the silent street, and they saw no living creature save a few dogs and cats prowling about and sniffing at the heaps of refuse thrown in the road.

But when they had proceeded about half the length of the wall, they became aware of a man's figure, standing motionless. This man, as soon as he saw Isez' chair, approached and said, "Do I speak to M. Isez?"

"Yes, I am he," replied the surgeon.

"You are late. It is long past six o'clock."

"I have only just received the note. I came at once. I did not even wait to finish my dinner."

"Dinner!" the man repeated, in a tone of infinite contempt. "Follow me."

The stranger led the way. He was plainly clothed in black, and Isez could judge nothing from his manner as to the meaning of this adventure.

They went a few steps along the street, and then the stranger opened, by some secret means, a narrow door in the wall, and motioned to Isez to enter. The surgeon did so, the door closed behind him, shutting out the man who had acted as his guide.

He found himself in a small courtyard, and facing him was the entrance of a house, a porch with a row of pillars, showing white through the darkness.

A porter appeared, and ushered Isez into a wide hall paved with marble, from which a fine staircase led to the upper stories.