“You are in a charming mood, today,” the Doctor said with mild irony. “Do you mind if I come in?”
Silas Harker shrugged.
“Come ahead if you care to. But if you’re here to borrow money, save your breath.”
The Doctor entered the room and closed the door carefully behind him. He seated himself on the spare chair.
“That is not the purpose of my visit,” he said.
“Then what’s the angle?” Harker asked, squinting cynically at him. “Don’t tell me yours is an errand of mercy, comforting the forlorn and needy, or something like that?”
“Hardly,” the Doctor said. “I’m not a philanthropist. My presence here is the result of a very mundane and materialistic idea. There is nothing noble or altruistic in my idea; but there might be a handsome profit in it — for both of us.”
Harker looked at him to make sure that he was serious. The Doctor’s small pinched face was perfectly grave and his eyes were as sharp as daggers. Harker sat up and swung his feet to the floor.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m listening. But I am not in the mood for jokes.”
“This is no joke. First, let me introduce myself. I am Doctor Henrich Zinder. During the last war I was with the Imperial German Army’s medical corps. Since then—”
Harker nodded. “You’ve been on your uppers.” His glance touched the Doctor’s frayed clothes briefly. “You look it. Now get to the point. What’s this profitable deal you spoke about?”
“You are right,” Doctor Henrich Zinder said. “I have been, as you say, on my uppers. But I have not been idle. I have continued to work on my experiments, but the stupid morons of the medical world refuse even to listen to what I have accomplished. And I have accomplished miracles.”
“Okay,” Harker said. “Granting all that, I’m still waiting to hear your proposition. The world is full of crackpots, Doctor, who think they’ve accomplished miracles; so you’re sales talk had better be convincing.”
Doctor Zinder smiled faintly.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, “but if you will hear me out I think I can change your opinion of me. First, let me ask you, Mr. Harker, what are your plans for the immediate future?”
“Why?” Harker said surlily. “My plans happen to be my own business. Oh, I guess it doesn’t make any difference anyway, though.” He lit a cigarette with a nervous hand. “I’m going into the army, I suppose. There’s nothing else to do. I’m thirty-five, in fair health, so I’ll be inducted in a few months.”
Doctor Zinder leaned forward. The light from the window gleamed on his high-domed bald head. His little eyes were sharp and speculative.
“Do you want to go into the army?” he asked. “Do you want to trade your freedom for a miserable pittance each month? Are you looking forward to wearing coarse woolen uniforms, eating slop, drilling under hot suns until you’re ready to collapse? Will it be pleasant to have some illiterate sergeant order you about like a dog?”
Harker sucked slowly on his cigarette.
“That’s dangerous talk in these times,” he said softly. “Supposing I reported you for what you’ve just said?”
“I don’t think you will,” Dr. Zinder smiled. “You see, I know you pretty well. I know how you feel about these things. And you may trust me, Silas Harker.”
“Why should I trust you?” Harker said coldly.
“Hear me out. It is true, is it not, that your father was a very wealthy man?”
“Yes,” Harker said with savage bitterness, “that’s true. My father’s estate right now is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I’m forced to live in a hovel like this, hardly knowing where my next miserable meal is coming from. But what’s that to you?”
“I feel for you, my boy,” Doctor Zinder said gently. “I appreciate what a grave injustice has been done you. So touched was I by your plight that I determined to do something about it. And I think possibly I have hit upon a scheme which might help you to regain what is rightfully yours. That is the profitable idea I have mentioned.”
“If you’re thinking about breaking my father’s will, it’s impossible,” Harker said. “I’ve seen the best lawyers in the country about that and none of them has given me the slightest hope. My father disowned and disinherited me for—” He broke off and glared at the Doctor. “Why he disinherited me is none of your business.”
“I know why he disinherited you,” Doctor Zinder said, smiling. “I mentioned that I knew you rather well. I have gone to considerable trouble to look up your background. It was that little matter of the disappearance of quite a sum of money from his wall safe, wasn’t it? That, plus your drinking and gambling and other ungentlemanly habits you picked up here and there.”
Silas Harker ran a hand over his slack jaw. The muscles in his pale face twitched uncontrollably. The strength seemed to flow from his veins. His thin courage melted and he stared nervously at the Doctor.
“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to look me up,” he said weakly.
“Yes,” Doctor Zinder said carefully, “I have. But do not be alarmed, my boy. My investigations were for our mutual benefit. Let me ask you this: Have you ever read your father’s will?”
“Yes. The entire estate is willed to an elderly couple who kept house for him. They are having rather a hard time getting along while the will is being probated, but in a few months they come into all of his money and they’ll be set for life. A stupid, senile pair of fools, that’s what they are.”
“That is right,” Doctor Zinder said. “And you are left, as you say, out in the cold. However, there is one important clause in the will which is interesting. If,” the doctor tapped his finger carefully on his knee, “you are in any way incapacitated and unable to earn a living for yourself, the property reverts to you. You are aware of that?”
“Of course,” Harker said irritably. “But there’s nothing wrong with me. Just my luck to be good army-bait and nothing else.”
“Now we are finally getting around to my little proposition,” Doctor Zinder said. “What would be your reaction if I were to tell you that it is possible for me to arrange things so that you will come into your rightful inheritance and stay out of the army?” Harker stared at the Doctor and a slow excitement crept through his thoughts.
“Do you realize what you’re saying?” he said hoarsely. “If you could fix things — but no! It’s impossible. It can’t be done.”
“I would not be so sure of that, my boy,” Doctor Zinder said. “I say definitely that it can be one, but—” He paused and studied Harker thoughtfully, a faint humorless smile curving his lips.
“But what?” Harker cried. He stood up, towering over the slight figure of the doctor, his fists clenched. “Tell me, damn you,” he said excitedly. “I won’t be played with like a baby.”
“Calmly, my friend,” Doctor Zinder said. “Listen to me carefully now. If you were to — ah — lose a leg you would thereby become eligible to benefit under the terms of your father’s will. Is that not so?”
Harker sank back on the bed, his eyes widening with horror.
“Yes,” he said thickly, “then I would—” His voice faltered and he stared at the doctor’s wrinkled face with sudden revulsion. “Is that your plan?” he cried. Panic rose in his breast as the doctor continued to regard him in silence. “Yes, that is your idea! You want to hack me up like a butchered hog, don’t you?”
“You are leaping to conclusions,” the Doctor murmured. “Part of what you say is true, I admit, but hear me out. In the years since I left Germany I have experimented exclusively with amputation and artificial grafting. The results I have obtained would rock the medical world were they known. I have perfected a technique of grafting human limbs onto live bodies. Skin grafting is common but I undertook to graft the muscles, bone and nerves together in the same manner. Do you see now what I am getting at?”