The Secret of Dr. Kildare

by Max Brand

  * * *

  The voice of Carew as it had shrilled over the telephone kept sounding and resounding in the ears of Messenger all the way to the hospital. When he reached the place, Carew in person met him at once.

  Carew said: "A most extraordinary piece of work, but then we're used to extraordinary work from Kildare. You know the quality of the genius, Mr. Messenger? He seems more commonplace than the most ordinary person—until he turns the trick again. He's just another batter at the plate until he knocks the home run."

  "You've seen Nancy?" said Messenger. "Is it actually true that her sight is gone?"

  "The present symptoms," said Carew, "seem to indicate blindness. But let's not be too absolute. Doctor Kildare is right in here. Right through this door, Mr. Messenger."

  "I don't think I can face him," said Messenger. "I've been too frank with him—too brutally frank."

  "Ah, I understand perfectly," said Carew. "You think that, being offended, he won't forget. The quality of the genius, on the other hand, is that he is aware, not of you or of me, but only of the case in hand. You'll see at once!"

  Messenger, entering the small office behind Carew, saw a surprisingly pretty nurse who came to attention with level, bright eyes.

  "Where's Kildare?" asked Carew.

  "He's in the next office, sir," said Mary Lamont.

  "Call him here at once," directed Carew.

  "Yes, sir," said the nurse with a troubled face, and disappeared into the next room.

  Messenger heard the voice of the girl speaking, and then that of Kildare answering: "Tell them to go hang...Look, Mary! I think I've got it! See those mice in there? They were getting too much interval between injections. I've cut it down to a quarter, and now look at 'em! They've had enough of the stuff to kill them ten times over, but not a one of them is drooping even."

  "You're right," said the girl. "Would Doctor Gillespie—"

  She stopped herself.

  "Oh," said Kildare, "he'd be glad even if I turned the trick. There's no malice in him, Mary, where medicine is concerned."

  "I know there isn't," she said, "but now there's Doctor Carew and Mr. Messenger waiting for you in the outer office..."

  Kildare came out suddenly. He overlooked Carew and went up to Messenger.

  "The police—the newspapers—the boy scouts—the whole of them failed," said Messenger. "But youdidn't fail, Kildare. If you'll permit me to unsay certain things that..."

  "We have one interest in common, and that's Nancy," broke in Kildare. "Why humiliate yourself making excuses? I don't want them. If we can help her, we'll be helping one another. And we're ready to do that, aren't we?"

  "I was frightfully wrong," said Messenger.

  "You were dealing with a very sick girl," said Kildare. "And because you're not a doctor, you had a right to be wrong...Excuse me a moment..."

  He hurried back into the inner office.

  "He seemed deeply depressed. Is it because of the condition of Nancy?" asked Messenger of Mary Lamont.

  "No, it's not that," she said, and looked at Carew.

  Carew explained, shrugging his shoulders: "I suppose being in the office depresses him. It was here that he was being taught by Gillespie until he gave up all that."

  "It seems to me," said Messenger forcefully, "that that young man needs the teaching of no one. He seems to be able to go on by himself. Am I wrong?"

  "Yes, sir," said Mary Lamont.

  "You mean that this Gillespie is a sort of god from the machine—a kind of prophet for Kildare?"

  "Yes, sir," said Mary Lamont.

  "Will he take me up to see Nancy now?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Will you kindly tell me what's keeping him in there just now?"

  "Some white mice, sir," said Mary Lamont.

  Kildare leaned over the X-ray plates and pointed out the details to Messenger. He had drawn a crude sketch of the course of the optic nerves to make the ideas clearer.

  "They come from back in the brain in two branches," said Kildare, "and they converge toward this shadow, which is the pituitary gland. The pituitary is an out-pocketing of the brain fitted into a sort of cup, the pituitary fossa. If you look very closely here, you'll see two small projecting shadows."

  "I see them," nodded Messenger.

  "They're at the top of the pituitary gland, you see, and they're called the clinoid processes. They're important to us just now. The point is that Nancy suddenly lost her sight. It wasn't a gradual dimming. One day she had full vision; the next day she was totally blind. That's extremely unusual unless there has been an accident directly to the eyes themselves. But one can imagine that a sudden enlarging of a tumour of the pituitary gland might interrupt the course of the two optic nerves at this point where they converge. That would explain the quick loss of vision. In case of such a tumour, one should see the two little growths of bone—the clinoid processes—pushed up. Now turn back to the lateral plate of the skull again. You see in fact that the clinoid processes are somewhat elevated..."

  "It means there is a tumour then?" demanded Messenger in a shaken voice.

  "There is a great deal against the idea of a tumour. The pituitary may be simply slightly enlarged, but not a malignant growth. If there were a tumour which had interrupted the optic nerve, an exterior examination of the eye should show that the heads of the nerves are in a pathological condition, dead or dying. However, the nerve heads seem perfectly normal. As for tumours in other parts of the brain, there would have to be two: one in each lobe, each suddenly increased in magnitude so that on the same day each branch of the optic nerve was damaged. This would be a miraculous improbability."

  "Then what is the explanation?"

  "I don't know," said Kildare. "There are no other signs of tumours except the headaches; there are no tokens of any paralysis in the muscles around the head and neck which are supplied by the cranial nerve. Mind you, we are not quite sure about the exact condition of the pituitary gland at this moment. We are taking more pictures."

  "There's only one definite fact, so far as I can understand the thing," said Messenger. "That fact is that she has lost her eyesight completely."

  "She has," agreed Kildare.

  "Is there the least hope?"

  "I don't know. To exterior examination the eyes are normal. That's the great point in our favour. I have hope; the others are non-committal."

  Messenger lighted a cigarette with a shuddering hand. He was trembling slightly from head to foot. "All we can do is wait?" he asked.

  "And work," added Kildare. "We have to find out the facts as absolutely as possible and then consider what is to be done next."

  "May I see her now?"

  "I'll find out," said Kildare, and went into the room. Mary Lamont was there arranging flowers in a great vase. The empty eyes of Nancy were turned to the other girl as she said: "Why do you bother? I can't see them, you know."

  "They make the air sweet," answered Mary, "and then you can hear the wind rustling in them."

  "Has someone just come into the room?" asked Nancy.

  "Only Doctor Kildare."

  "Ah, are you here again?" murmured Nancy. "Do I have to learn a new name for you, Johnny?"

  "No...I have to speak to you, Miss Lamont."

  "Are you going to leave me, Johnny?"

  "I'll be back in a moment."

  In the hall, Mary Lamont said: "Now I know why you left Doctor Gillespie. I was fool enough to think that it was money and all that; but now I know it was Nancy Messenger. And she's lovely. She's lovely, Jimmy!"

  "What are you talking about?" demanded Kildare. "Are you going to be a damned fool?"

  She stared at him. "It isn't..." she murmured.

  "It isn't what?" he snapped.

  "I don't know," she said faintly.

  "Try to make sense, will you, Mary?"

  "Yes, I'll try."

  "Tell me what she was doing when you came up."

  "She was staring at the ceiling and thinking.
If I'd been a lip reader I could have made out her thoughts."

  "Black, were they?"

  "Jimmy, she's going to die!"

  "Nonsense!"

  "She doesn't want to live."

  "That can be fixed."

  "How, Jimmy?"

  "By cutting out her will to die and transplanting a will to live," he said harshly. "Just a little operation. That's all. What's her appetite?"

  "She can't eat. She won't eat, Jimmy...Poor girl! She's so sweet, Jimmy!"

  "Stop crying about her, will you?"

  "Yes, Jimmy."

  "I want a bright attitude in that room. I want cheer and hope and all that sort of rot. You understand?"

  "Yes, doctor."

  "You can help because you're her kind."

  "Yes, doctor?"

  "Thoroughbred, I mean," said Kildare, and went back into Nancy's room.

  "If you don't eat," said Kildare, "I'm going to force-feed you like a Strasbourg goose. You hear?"

  "I'll never see him, again," said Nancy. "Never, never, never!...Will you come over to me a little closer, Johnny?"

  "I'm not going to let you cry all over me," said Kildare. "I won't have any of this damned nonsense."

  "Ah, I wish the old Johnny were back with me!" sighed Nancy. "He understood—everything:"

  "I have some news for you," said Kildare, standing over the bed and staring down at her. She felt this nearness and touched him with a groping hand and smiled faintly.

  He went on: "We've completed the X-ray pictures and the tests practically. There's only one thing we're sure about. There is no brain tumour, malignant or otherwise."

  She caught her hands back to her face and gasped, looking into the darkness of her world with bewilderment.

  "But that's not true," she said at last. "You'd say anything to make me happy. You can't fool me with your grimness, Johnny. I've looked so far into you that I've seen your heart."

  "Damn my heart," said Kildare.

  He took a quick breath, set his teeth, and then said: "I give you my professional word of honour—whatever is wrong with you, it's not what caused your mother's death. Think that over and try to stop acting like a half-wit."

  He turned his back on her and got hastily into the adjoining room where Messenger waited. Carew was there, with the eye-specialist, Landon, and the great brain man, McKeever.

  "They tell me it's a very dark mystery, doctor," said Messenger anxiously. "May I go in to see her only for a moment?"

  "No," answered Kildare. "She needs a bit of time to digest some good news."

  He looked straight across the room at McKeever. "I've just told her," he said, "that there is no brain tumour."

  "But, my dear fellow," protested McKeever gently, "can you go as far as that? Can you be sure of that at the present moment? Admitting the general indications are favourable..."

  "I've given her my professional word of honour that there is no brain tumour," said Kildare.

  "But is that ethical?" demanded Landon with suddenly rising anger.

  Messenger, deeply troubled, looked from one of them to the other.

  "I'm not thinking of ethics. I'm thinking of Nancy Messenger," said Kildare.

  "Young man—I wonder if you always remember how very young you are?" asked Carew darkly.

  "I know your instinct and your way, Doctor Kildare," said the gentle voice of old McKeever, as he smiled on the boy. "You fight with the point and with the edge and you give no quarter. You'll take big chances if you think the patient may profit by it. But...considering this entire case..."

  He allowed his voice to die out.

  Kildare gestured to Messenger.

  "You've put this case in my hands," he said. "Technically, that's impossible. An intern can't have absolute control of anything in a hospital. I think I see my way a step or two ahead through the fog of this case, but only dimly. I've not much more than instinct to go on just now—but I've made a definite statement to your daughter. If you want that statement retracted, you can take the authority away from me with a single word."

  He turned his back on all of them and went to stare out the window.

  "With all due respect to young Doctor Kildare," said Carew, "and considering how very young he is, I cannot help pointing out to you that in this room with you are two of the finest specialists that can be..."

  "No, Carew. No, Walter," said old McKeever. "The boy has a great heart and a fine mind. Why not let him have his chance? The rest of us have little or no light to throw on the problem."

  "It's a hard decision for me to make," said Messenger. "I realise that Kildare is not the oldest man in the world, but it's my habit in business to put my trust in the people who win. When I had the whole world searching for Nancy, he reached into the dark and brought her back to me...Kildare, the case is entirely in your hands."

  "Thank you," said Kildare, suddenly facing them again.

  Old McKeever went up and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  "Use me in any way you can, my dear boy," he said. "I'm at your service."

  * * *

  But a greater help than even McKeever could give was what Kildare needed. He went to find Gillespie.

  Staten Island, which seems a hundred years behind the times, is not famous for its beaches. Nevertheless there is a stretch of seaside that looks out over blue water toward the jumbled heights of Manhattan. Dr. Gillespie sat in his wheel chair on the edge of the sand with the rush and foaming of the waves just before him. Conover held an umbrella over him.

  "The legend of the seventh wave being the largest," said Gillespie, looking up from a notebook in which he had been making marks, "is definitely wrong."

  "Yes, sir," said the big negro.

  "It must be dismissed from all minds as pure tradition and bunk," insisted Gillespie.

  "Yes, sir," said Conover.

  "Tradition and legend," said Gillespie, "is the embalmed idiocy accumulated by the ages."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It is the enemy of science."

  "Yes, sir."

  "There is a man," said Gillespie, "heading directly toward us. It is probably a reporter."

  He relaxed in his chair.

  "Make signs to him," said Gillespie, "that I'm asleep."

  He closed his eyes.

  "It's no good sir," said Conover.

  "What the devil do you mean it's no good?" demanded Gillespie angrily.

  "He'll see right through your closed eyes," said Conover. "There ain't any fooling him. Not about you, sir. It's Doctor Kildare."

  The footfall came through the whispering sands of the beach.

  "Doctor Gillespie," said the voice of Kildare, "may I speak with you for a moment?"

  "You may not," said Gillespie.

  "How are you, Conover?" said Kildare.

  "I'm fair to middling, sir," said Conover.

  "Can I do anything to make him talk to me?" asked Kildare.

  "The doctor ain't taken a very full breakfast, sir," said Conover. "Maybe if you was to wait till after lunch..."

  "Conover, shut your mouth!" commanded Gillespie.

  "Yes, sir," agreed Conover. "If you was to wait up at the hotel till lunch time, Doctor Kildare..."

  "The Messenger girl is back in the hospital, sir," said Kildare. "She's convinced that she has the same disease that killed her mother—a malignant tumour of the brain. The evidence is against that, but the fact is that something has made her blind."

  "Conover," said Gillespie.

  "Yes, sir," replied the negro.

  "Tell this damned interloper that I prefer to be alone."

  "The doctor says that he'd like to take a nap, sir; I'm sorry to say, sir," interpreted Conover.

  "If you possibly could spare the time to look at her," said Kildare, "I will have her brought to you here, sir."

  "Conover!" roared Gillespie.

  "Yes, sir?" asked Conover.

  "Wheel me down the damned beach! Get me away from this."

  He turned
the wheel chair as he spoke.

  "Why don't you go on, Conover, you jackass?" cried Gillespie.

  "Doctor Kildare has gone got his hand on the back of the chair, sir."

  "A damned impertinent outrage!" said Gillespie. "Strike his hand away and march on."

  "I'm terribly sorry, sir," said Conover. "Maybe I ain't man enough to do that."

  "Did you wink at this fellow when you said that, Conover?" shouted Gillespie.

  "Oh, no, sir!"

  "You lie!" thundered Gillespie. "You're a liar and the father of liars."

  "The best advice in the hospital, sir," said Kildare, "is that the optic nerve seems entirely normal and the reactions show no signs of any deterioration of the corneal nerve. If you'll permit me to bring her to you..."

  "Conover!"

  "I beg your pardon, Doctor Kildare," said Conover.

  "All right," said Kildare.

  The wheel chair began to move slowly over the sand, impelled by Conover.

  "You don't need me any longer, young Doctor Kildare," cried Gillespie. "You don't need the advice of any man. You've found your way into the long green that means so much to you. You can bed yourself down in it now! And God give you comfort in it. But don't come with your whining questions to me again as long as you live!"

  There was no answer.

  "Are we far from him, Conover?" the diagnostician asked.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then get me back to the hotel and find out the next ferry for New York. Hurry, Conover! You black scoundrel, you're fired. I won't have you any longer. I'm going to get me a young man with some life in his legs and brains in his hands. You hear me?"

  "Yes, sir," said Conover.

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  YOUNG Doctor Kildare stood in line and took his chances in front of that office door where he had so often assisted or presided. Conover said at last:

  "You're next, sir."

  And Kildare entered and found himself looking down into the formidably bent brows and eyes of Gillespie.