The Secrets of Dr. Taverner (23 page)

It was not my custom to encourage the patients to accompany
me on these strolls, for I felt that I did my duty towards them
during working hours, and so was entitled to my leisure, but
Winnington was not quite in the position of an ordinary patient,
for he was a personal friend of Taverner's, and also, I gathered,
a member of one of the lesser degrees of that great fraternity of
whose work I had had some curious glimpses; and so the
fascination which this fraternity always had for me, although I
have never aspired to its membership, together with the amusing
and bizarre personality of the man, made me meet half way his
attempt to turn our professional relationship into a personal one.

Therefore it was that he fell into step with me down the long
path that ran through the shrubbery to the little gate, at the far
end of the nursing home garden, which gave upon the cross
roads where the pillar box stood.

Having posted our letters, we were lounging back across the
road when the sound of a motor horn made us start aside, for a
car swung round the corner almost on top of us. Within it I
caught a glimpse of a man and woman, and on top was a
considerable quantity of luggage.

The car turned in at the gate of a large house whose front
drive ran out at the cross roads, and I remarked to my companion
that I supposed Mr. Hirschmann, the owner of the house, had got
over his internment and come back to live there again, for the
house had stood empty, though furnished, since a trustful
country had decided that its confidence might be abused, and
that the wily Teuton would bear watching.

Meeting Taverner on the terrace as we returned to the house,
I told him that Hirschmann was back again, but he shook his
head.

"That was not the Hirschmanns you saw," he said, "but the
people they have let the house to. Bellamy, I think their name is,
they have taken the place furnished; either one or other of them
is an invalid, I believe."

A week later I was again strolling down to the pillar box
when Taverner joined me, and smoking vigorously to discourage
the midges, we wandered down to the cross roads together. As
we reached the pillar box a faint creak attracted our attention,
and looking round, we saw that the large iron gates barring the
entrance to Hirschmann's drive had been pushed ajar and a
woman was slipping softly through the narrow opening they
afforded. She was obviously coming to the post, but seeing us,
hesitated; we stood back, making way for her, and she slipped
across the intervening gravel on tiptoe, posted her letter, half
bowed to us in acknowledgement of our courtesy, and vanished
silently as she had come.

"There is a tragedy being worked out in that house," re-
marked Taverner.

I was all interest, as I always am, at any manifestation of my
chief's psychic powers, but he merely laughed.

"Not clairvoyance this time, Rhodes, but merely common
sense. If a woman's face is younger than her figure, then she is
happily married; if the reverse, then she is working out a
tragedy."

"I did not see her face," I said, "but her figure was that of a
young woman."

"I saw her face," said Taverner, "and it was that of an old
one."

His strictures upon her were not entirely justified, however,
for a few nights later Winnington and I saw her go to the post
again, and although her face was heavily lined and colourless, it
was a very striking one, and the mass of auburn hair that
surrounded it seemed all the richer for its pallor. I am afraid I
stared at her somewhat hard, trying to see the signs from which
Taverner had deduced her history. She slipped out through the
scarcely opened gate, moving swiftly but stealthily, as one
accustomed to need concealment, gave us a sidelong glance
under long dark lashes, and retreated as she had come.

It was the complete immobility of the man at my side which
drew my attention to him. He stood rooted to the ground, staring
up the shadowed drive where she had disappeared as if he would
send his very soul to illuminate the darkness. I touched his arm.
He turned to speak, but caught his breath, and the words were
lost in the bubbling cough that means haemorrhage. He threw
one arm round my shoulders to support himself, for he was a
taller man than I, and I held him while he coughed up the scarlet
arterial blood which told its own story.

I got him back to the house and put him to bed, for he was
very shaky after his attack, and reported what had happened to
Taverner.

"I don't think he is going to last long," I said.

My colleague looked surprised. "There is a lot of life in
him," he said.

"There is not much left of his lungs," I answered, "and you
cannot run a car without an engine."

Winnington was not laid up long, however, and the first day
we let him out of bed he proposed to go to the post with me. I
demurred, for it was some little distance there and back, but he
took me by the arm and said: "Look here, Rhodes, I've got to
go."

I asked the reason for so much urgency. He hesitated, and
then he burst out, "I want to see that woman again."

"That's Mrs. Bellamy," I said. "You had better let her alone;
she is not good for you. There are plenty of nice girls on the
premises you can flirt with if you want to. Let the married
women alone; the husbands only come round and kick up a row,
and it is bad for the nursing home's reputation."

But Winnington was not to be headed off.

"I don't care whose wife she is; she's the woman I--I--
never thought I should see," he finished lamely. "Hang it all,
man, I am not going to speak to her or make an ass of myself, I
only want to have a look at her. Any way, I don't count, I have
pretty nearly finished with this sinful flesh, what's left of it."

He swayed before me in the dusk; tall, gaunt as a skeleton,
with a colour in his cheeks we should have rejoiced to see in any
other patient's, but which was a danger signal in his.

I knew he would go, whether I consented or not, so I judged
it best we should go together; and thereafter it became an
established thing that we should walk to the cross roads at post
time whether there were letters or not. Sometimes we saw Mrs.
Bellamy slip silently out to the post, and sometimes we did not.
If we missed her for more than two days, Winnington was in a
fever, and when for five consecutive days she did not appear, he
excited himself into another haemorrhage and we put him to
bed, too weak to protest.

It was while telling Taverner of this latest development that
the telephone bell rang. I, being nearest the instrument, picked it
up and took the message.

"Is that Dr. Taverner?" said a woman's voice.

"This is Dr. Taverner's nursing home," I replied.

"It is Mrs. Bellamy of Headington House who is speaking. I
should be grateful if Dr. Taverner would come and see my
husband; he has been taken suddenly ill."

I turned to give the message to Taverner, but he had left the
room. A sudden impulse seized me.

"Dr. Taverner is not here at the moment," I said; "but I will
come over if you like. I am his assistant; my name is Rhodes, Dr.
Rhodes."

"I should be very grateful," replied the voice. "Can you come
soon? I am anxious!"

I picked up my cap and went down the path I had so often
followed with Winnington. Poor chap, he would not stroll with
me again for some time, if ever. At the cross roads I paused for a
moment, marvelling that the invisible barrier of convention was
at last lowered and that I was free to go up the drive and speak
with the woman I had so often watched in Winnington's
company. I pushed the heavy gates ajar just as she had done,
walked up the deeply shaded avenue, and rang the bell.

I was shown into a sort of morning room where Mrs. Bellamy
came to me almost immediately.

"I want to explain matters to you before you see my husband"
she said. "The housekeeper is helping me with him, and I do not
want her to know; you see the trouble--I am afraid--is drugs."

So Taverner had been right as usual, she was working out a
tragedy.

"He has been in a stupor all day, and I am afraid he has taken
an overdose; he has done so before, and I know the symptoms. I
felt that I could not get through the night without sending for
someone."

She took me to see the patient and I examined him. His pulse
was feeble, breathing difficult, and colour bad, but a man who is
as inured to the drug as he seemed to be is very hard to kill,
more's the pity. I told her what measures to take; said I did not
anticipate any danger, but she could phone me again if a change
took place.

As she wished me goodbye she smiled, and said: "I know you
quite well by sight, Dr. Rhodes; I have often seen you at the
pillar box."

"It is my usual evening walk," I replied. "I always take the
letters that have missed the post bag."

I was in two minds about telling Winnington of my interview,
wondering whether the excitement into which it would throw
him or his continued suspense would be the lesser of the two
evils, and finally decided in favour of the former. I went up to
his room when I got back, and plunged into the matter without
preamble.

"Winnington," I said, "I have seen your divinity."

He was all agog in a minute, and I told him of my interview,
suppressing only the nature of the illness, which I was in honour
bound not to reveal. This, however, was the point he particularly
wished to know, although he knew that I naturally could not tell
him. Finding me obdurate, he suddenly raised himself in bed,
seized my hand, and laid it to his forehead.

"No, you don't!" I cried, snatching it away, for I had by now
seen enough of Taverner's methods to know how
thought-reading was done, but I had not been quick enough, and
Winnington sank back on the pillowless bed chuckling.

"Drugs!" he said, and breathless from his effort, could say no
more; but the triumph in his eyes told me that he had learnt
something which he considered of vital importance.

I went round next morning to see Bellamy again. He was
conscious, regarded me with sulky suspicion, and would have
none of me, and I saw that my acquaintance with his household
was likely to end as it had begun, at the pillar box.

An evening or two later Mrs. Bellamy and I met again at the
cross roads. She answered my greeting with a smile, evidently
well enough pleased to have some one to speak to beside her
boorish husband, for they seemed to know no one in the district.

She commented on my solitary state. "What has become of
the tall man who used to come with you to the post?" she
enquired.

I told her of poor Winnington's condition.
Then she said a curious thing for one who was a comparative
stranger to me, and a complete stranger to Winnington.

"Is he likely to die?" she asked, looking me straight in the
face with a peculiar expression in her eyes.