Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

He hired a chair — a concession to his infirmity, since he was customarily a fine walker. Before rapping at Dr. Tindle’s door he consulted his watch. Hero should be en route to their rendezvous.

He was admitted to Dr. Tindle’s study. The blinds were drawn, but good wax candles burned everywhere, providing enough light to read by. And there was plenty to read. The room was strewn with books, open upon every available surface, showing scripts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic. A superficial survey revealed tomes on medicine, philosophy, religion, astrology, and history.

“Mr. Treviscoe,” said Tindle. “I had hardly expected to hear from you again.” The physician was in his shirtsleeves at his escritoire, a quill in his hand, his fingers stained with ink.

“I have come, Dr. Tindle, to offer my repentance.”

“Repentance, sir?”

“Did you not so urge me during the ingrafting?”

Tindle laid down his pen. “I did not know you had understood me. I spoke so softly.”

“And in the Latin, the comprehension of which you plainly did not allow me credit. You knew I was from Lloyd’s; doubtless you thought that I was a commercial citizen rather than a gentleman of information. But I was educated at university, and I were a poor Christian who should not recognize such an entreaty as you pronounced. The Latin was from the prophecies of Ezekiel, I believe, and the King James Bible has it so: ‘Thus saith the Lord God; Repent, and turn from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.’ ”

“You did understand! I did not think that you could, and yet you gave me the hint when you spoke of Lucy Phelps: exempli gratia and all.”

“So I did.”

“Do you truly repent of your sins, then? But of course you do: I see the Lord hath delivered you from the scourge.”

“Deliverance, I believe, is your vocation.”

“I can tell you it is not easy being the instrumentality of God.”

Treviscoe moved a large book from one of the chairs and sat down. “But before you were chosen, you too must have repented.”

“Yes! Yes! But not before I felt His wrath!” Tindle joined his hands together and squeezed them tightly, almost as if he were in an ecstasy of prayer.

“It was the wrath of God that required the tincture of mercury, was it not?”

Tindle dropped his hands. “How did you learn of that?”

“Why, it was communicated to me,” replied Treviscoe. “But I didn’t fully recognize the import of it until the night of the crisis.”

“Which crisis?”

“The night Miss Merwood terminated your services. Dr. Merwood called you a fool, and you quoted scripture.”

“The words of Christ are mightier far than my own.”

“Mightier than us all. It was from the Sermon on the Mount, according to St. Matthew: hos d’an, More, enochos estai eis ten gehennon tou pyros.[1] Have you ever felt yourself become the vessel of revelation, Dr. Tindle? You must have done.”

“To be filled with the Word of God,” Tindle said in awe, “is an experience not soon forgot.”

“I had a similar experience then, sir, to the words gehennon tou pyros — your reference to hellfire. ’Twas then I understood my danger. You see, Dr. Merwood told me you had been physician to Lord Le Despencer — the former Sir Francis Dashwood — and the Earl of Sandwich.”

“The thought of hellfire has oft reclaimed the errant lamb,” said Tindle, “but I know not what my personal history has to do with it.”

The bloodshot whites of his bulging eyes shone in the candlelight.

“Alas, ’twas not the thought of hellfire that moved me but the words themselves. Have you ever been to Medmenham Abbey on the Thames?”

Tindle gaped at him.

“I thought as much,” Treviscoe said. “It was your headquarters, your place of secret assignation, your temple of Satanic and orgiastic rites. Your society called itself the Order of St. Francis, but to all others you were known as the Hell-Fire Club. I learned of its existence in the year ’68, but we need not go into that now. Dashwood was your leader, and Sandwich one of your most eminent members.”

“Where have you learned this?”

“ ’Twas there you contracted the syphilis that moved you to repent, was it not? That is why you take mercury, to treat the same. It is also written in the Bible: therapeuson seauton.[2]”

“Aye!” Tindle’s voice near burst with agony. “Aye! A moment of pleasure with the harlot, a lifetime of torture! And at the end — madness, death, despair! Only two things stood between me and perdition: the tincture of mercury, the only effective medicine for the venereal pox, and God’s infinite mercy.”

“But swallowing mercury is not your only experience with the ingestion of poisons, I have cause to believe. For was it not a condition of membership, or rather a rite of initiation into the Monks of Medmenham, that you dose yourselves with arsenic, to learn the limits of your tolerance?”

“What of it?” Tindle demanded, clenching his fists.