“I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor,” said he, “but I have had a very serious accident during the night.  I came in by train this morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I might find a doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me here.  I gave the maid a card, but I see that she has left it upon the side-table.”

I took it up and glanced at it.  “Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor).”  That was the name, style, and abode of my morning visitor.  “I regret that I have kept you waiting,” said I, sitting down in my library-chair.  “You are fresh from a night journey, I understand, which is in itself a monotonous occupation.”

“Oh, my night could not be called monotonous,” said he, and laughed.  He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides.  All my medical instincts rose up against that laugh.

“Stop it!” I cried; “pull yourself together!” and I poured out some water from a caraffe.

It was useless, however.  He was off in one of those hysterical outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is over and gone.  Presently he came to himself once more, very weary and pale-looking.

“I have been making a fool of myself,” he gasped.

“Not at all.  Drink this.”  I dashed some brandy into the water, and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.

“That’s better!” said he.  “And now, Doctor, perhaps you would kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to be.”

He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand.  It gave even my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it.  There were four protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been.  It had been hacked or torn right out from the roots.

“Good heavens!” I cried, “this is a terrible injury.  It must have bled considerably.”

“Yes, it did.  I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must have been senseless for a long time.  When I came to I found that it was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly round the wrist and braced it up with a twig.”

“Excellent!  You should have been a surgeon.”

“It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own province.”

“This has been done,” said I, examining the wound, “by a very heavy and sharp instrument.”

“A thing like a cleaver,” said he.

“An accident, I presume?”

“By no means.”

“What! a murderous attack?”

“Very murderous indeed.”

“You horrify me.”

I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages.  He lay back without wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time.

“How is that?” I asked when I had finished.