The House of Dr. Edwardes

by Francis Beeding

  Nurse Baxter did the same for the women patients, whom Mr. Deeling had always resolutely refused to overlook, maintaining, as was her wont, a running commentary on their activities. These did not, however, amount to much—in fact they were all “quiet-like,” she said. Miss Truelow, usually the most restless, was apparently engaged in the study of a large book propped up in front of her in bed, the title of which was invisible.

  The men patients were equally tranquil. Mr. Clearwater was reading in bed; the Reverend Mark Hickett was as usual on his knees at his prie-Dieu in the corner of the room; the Colonel, in his pyjamas, was doing his physical exercises with the aid of a rubber chest expander. The only one who attracted any attention was Mr. Curtis, who was crouching by his window looking out at the night. Mr. Deeling watched him for a moment, wondering whether to enter and ask whether he wanted anything. But Mr. Curtis shifted his position, so that his face became clearly visible. He was smiling happily, evidently enjoying some private thought, and Mr. Deeling decided to leave him undisturbed.

  Mr. Deeling, having completed his round, returned at once to his accounts. He was tired, but he was also obstinate, and he was determined not to allow mere physical fatigue to seduce him from his routine. He continued, therefore, doggedly to total up his drugs, and presently he came to his stock of hyoscin, the powerful sedative used to reduce troublesome or violent patients.

  He noted with satisfaction that according to his entries very little of the drug had been used during the past month, none at all in fact, except apparently for the Honorable Geoffrey Godstone, the maniac who had murdered the unhappy Jules. It was not over three weeks since Mr. Godstone had entered Château Landry, and throughout that time he had been kept continually in his room, suffering, so Mr. Deeling understood, from the effects of the blow which Doctor Murchison had been forced to deal him in self-defense. During the last week Mr. Deeling had twice been asked to make up a prescription containing hyoscin, presumably for the benefit of Mr. Godstone.

  Half an hour later, the accounts were finished. Mr. Deeling rose wearily from his desk. All that now remained for him to do was to check the quantity of drugs left in the bottles against the amount shown in the big ledger as having been consumed, so as to make sure that they tallied. He crossed the room and began to unlock one by one the glass cases screwed to the wall.

  Quickly he checked the various bottles. The work was mechanical enough, but, when he came to the bottle containing hyocsin, Mr. Deeling paused in surprise. He picked up the bottle and looked at it. There was appreciably less of the drug than there should be. He moved across to his desk and consulted his original entries in the notebook for hyoscin. There was no doubt about it. There should have been considerably more of the drug in the bottle than there was.

  Mr. Deeling was puzzled. Such a thing had never happened before throughout the whole eleven years in which he had been at Château Landry. He moved to the center of the dispensary, and held the bottle up to the light.

  As he did so, a step sounded on the gravel of the terrace outside.

  Mr. Deeling wheeled round sharply towards the long French window. It was open, for the night was sultry, and the light from the dispensary shone upon a bright triangular patch of gravel. Again there was a step on the gravel, and something black fluttered for a moment on the edge of the triangle of light, something like the edge of a sable cloak.

  Mr. Deeling went at once to the window, and through it, to the terrace outside. He looked into the night, very soft and dark. On the edge of the lit triangle he paused, straining his eyes and ear. From far away down the valley came the tinkle of a cowbell, liquid and passionless. He took a dozen steps forward, bringing him to the edge of the terrace, and paused again. Still he could see nothing, hear nothing, but, even as he began to wonder what he should do, he became aware of a sudden illumination behind him. He turned round. Three rooms on the first floor of the castle were brightly lit, and at each of the barred windows a dark figure stood in silhouette. Two of them were motionless.

  “Mr. Clearwater and Miss Truelow,” said Mr. Deeling to himself, “and the third is Mr. Curtis.”

  The figure at the third window stirred. It leaned far out, pulling itself forward by the bars till its face was pressed between them. From the unseen mouth came the appeal of a man forsaken:

  “Master, Master!” it cried.

  Mr. Deeling moved rapidly back towards the house till he stood once more in the triangle of light from the open window of the dispensary. Till then he had been invisible, but now suddenly the figures at the windows caught sight of him. All three turned simultaneously and disappeared, leaving the three squares of light brilliant and empty.

  A moment later the lights in the three windows went out and the upper floor of the castle was again in darkness.

  Chapter Six

  I

  “It’s a dashed fine lie, upon my word it is. I have never seen such a fine lie in all my life,” said Colonel Rickaby, as he gazed at his ball perched on a little wormcast in the middle of the fairway of the last hole.

  Constance hastened to agree with him. They were approaching the end of a close match. The Colonel, an erratic player, had won the seventeenth hole and was consequently all square. Unfortunately for him, however, he had cracked at the last hole, and he was now about to play five, his ball being still twenty yards from the green. Constance was on the edge in three and so could feel pretty certain of the hole.

  The Colonel, whom four bad shots had depressed, became suddenly triumphant. Such a good lie was really remarkable. He gazed at the ball earnestly from several angles, and then approached his bag, held upright by a patent arrangement of light sticks in the form of a tripod of which he was very vain, and began to select a club.

  Constance was a little tired. The day had been more strenuous than usual, and it was very hot. Doctor Murchison had, for the first time since her arrival, failed to put in an appearance either at breakfast or in the office immediately afterwards, and she had received a note about ten o’clock from one of the nurses informing her that he had contracted a slight chill and was keeping to his bed. He required no attention from any one, he said, and hoped, if he felt better, to get up for dinner in the evening. Would Doctor Sedgwick be kind enough to carry on without him during the day?

  The Reverend Mark Hickett, whose melancholia waxed and waned, had collapsed about eleven o’clock, and had been put to bed suffering from the physical effects of undernourishment. Constance blamed herself severely for this, for he was one of her patients, and she felt that she ought to have observed him with greater care. He had apparently been conducting a self-imposed fast for the last nine days, during which he had eaten practically nothing, though he had contrived to conceal this fact from all of them. It was only upon his collapse that Constance had realized what was the matter with him.

  She would have to report this occurrence to Doctor Murchison, and that would be another failure to her account, and it was not one to be lightly excused, for the reverend gentleman was notoriously liable to starve himself unless he were very firmly discouraged. He was awaiting some kind of revelation for which every now and then he would endeavor to prepare himself by fasting and prayer. She had often talked with him on this subject long but unavailingly. All she could get from him—and it recurred during their conversations with a maddening frequency—was that the time was at hand, and that now, more than ever before, it was necessary to be prepared.

  Miss Archer was still in bed, for she had not yet recovered from the crisis in the chapel. With these two patients laid up, and with all the ordinary routine work on her hands, Constance had been kept more than usually busy. She had not felt it wise, however, to break a long-standing engagement to play golf with Colonel Rickaby. It was a rule at Château Landry that promises made to a patient should, if possible, be kept.

  Now, as she waited for the Colonel to play his ball, she reflected that she would only just have time for a cup of tea before paying another visit to Miss Archer a
nd the Reverend Mark Hickett and settling down to two hours of necessary office work.

  The last hole was close to the castle, right under it, in fact, on the side away from the terrace and the rose garden, the castle wall rising sheer from the grass only ten feet or so away from the green. The wall here was blank except for two small windows.

  The Colonel had selected a club and was addressing his ball. Constance noticed that he was using either a driver or a brassie.

  “Don’t you think you will overrun the green, Colonel?” she called. Indeed he was not more than thirty yards from the pin.

  The Colonel looked up, a frown on his face. “How am I expected to make a good shot,” he replied, “if silence is not observed when I am addressing the ball?”

  “Yes,” said Constance patiently, “but wouldn’t it be better to use a mashie or a mashie-niblick?”

  “Certainly not, Madam,” replied the Colonel. “It’s a dashed fine lie, and I am going to have a dashed good smack at it,” and, puffing out his mustache, he began once more to address the ball.

  Constance watched him in silence. He had been perfectly sane throughout the round, a bit garrulous, but that was all.

  Why, she asked herself, should he suddenly become so unreasonable?

  The club head swung up and described a swift halfcircle. She heard its impact with the ball. The Colonel, usually an indifferent performer, had timed this shot perfectly. The ball flew straight, rising in a long low curve. It passed high across the green, straight for the castle wall. An instant later there came a tinkle of glass.

  Colonel Rickaby had sent his ball through one of the windows.

  Constance could hardly refrain from laughing. The Colonel’s expression was ludicrous. Pride at the excellence of his shot struggled with discomfiture.

  “It’s a dashed awful confounded bunker,” he said at last. “I don’t know how I’m going to get it out. But I’m not beaten yet, not by any means. You don’t know how good I am with a niblick, Miss Sedgwick, upon my word you don’t,” and seizing the club in question he strode purposefully across the green towards the castle and the window in the wall, ignoring the fact that it was small, barred and quite out of reach.

  Constance walked after him, wondering how she could dissuade him from what was obviously impossible. They reached the wall of the castle together and looked up.

  As they did so, a face appeared and two white hands were thrust through the broken pane, gripping the bars.

  Colonel Rickaby dropped his niblick and stared aghast.

  “Good Gad, I have hit somebody!” he exclaimed. “Your hole and match, I’m afraid, Miss Sedgwick. But the dashed fellow is not going to get away with my ball. By George he’s not.”

  Whereupon the Colonel picked up his niblick again and strode off round the angle of the castle wall.

  Constance was still looking up at the man at the window. She saw him more clearly now, a man with tousled hair, wearing pyjamas as far as she could see, and in a flash she realized who he was. This must be Mr. Geoffrey Godstone, the dangerous lunatic who was under the special care of Doctor Murchison. The window was, it seemed, almost beyond his reach, for he was holding tightly on to the bars, as though he had with difficulty pulled himself up level with the broken pane.

  He was looking at her eagerly, a strained expression in his eyes.

  “Tell me,” he said huskily, and hurrying his words as though he feared to be cut short, “you are Miss Sedgwick, are you not? You were to join Doctor Edwardes, so it must be you—unless you are a patient.”

  His voice sank to a whisper as he said the last words, and his hands relaxed their grip on the bars. The sweat broke out on his face, which abruptly sank back out of sight.

  Constance was bewildered. How was it that this patient knew so much about her? How could he possibly be aware of her engagement at Château Landry?

  She had barely asked herself the question when Mr. Godstone reappeared, looking down at her, his face twitching with the effort he was making to hold himself up by the bars.

  “Quick,” he said. “You must get me out of this at once. Tell Doctor Edwardes that I must see him immediately.”

  “Doctor Edwardes is away,” said Constance. “You came here just after he had left, and you have been ill.”

  Mr. Godstone was staring down at her in horror. “Doctor Edwardes away!” he echoed. “Then who has taken his place?”

  “Doctor Murchison is in charge,” she replied. “I am only his assistant, you know.”

  “Doctor Murchison,” he said, “I don’t understand.”

  “Why, of course,” insisted Constance, “Doctor Murchison has been in charge for three weeks.”

  “But that is impossible,” said the man at the window.

  “Merciful God, I must be going mad.”

  “No, no,” said Constance soothingly. “You are already much better than you were. But you must be calm.”

  She could see in his eyes the effort it cost him to master his rising excitement. Outwardly he succeeded, for with quiet emphasis, speaking slowly and distinctly, he said:

  “It is impossible for Doctor Murchison to be in charge, Miss Sedgwick, and I will tell you the reason why.”

  And as she stood looking up into his white face, and at the hands which gripped the bars of the window, he added:

  “I myself am Doctor Murchison.”

  II

  Mr. Deeling was taking tea on the terrace outside the library. He was glad to be taking it alone, as this was the first occasion on which he had been able to consider, in what he called “suitable circumstances,” the events of the preceding night. Suitable circumstances as defined by Mr. Deeling consisted in an absence of noise, a comfortable but not too comfortable chair, and, above all, the knowledge that work could conscientiously be forgotten for half an hour.

  He looked tired in the strong sunlight. It had really been a very hot day, and he had slept badly the night before, not at all, in fact, until dawn, when he had fallen into a doze fitful with dreams.

  What exactly had happened last night? Had he really seen or heard anything on the gravel? And why had the lunatics come like that to the windows? He could still see the three lighted panes which had so swiftly gone dark again. Then there was that matter of the hyoscin.

  There were only three people in the world, besides himself, who as far as he was aware had keys of the dispensary, and thus had access to the drugs—Doctor Edwardes, who was absent, Doctor Murchison and Doctor Sedgwick. He concluded that either Doctor Murchison or Doctor Sedgwick must have taken an extra supply—Sedgwick or Murchison, Murchison or Sedgwick, which would it be? Why, Sedgwick, of course. Possibly the girl had wanted it for herself. He remembered her saying that she had not been sleeping well. It seemed that nobody had of late been sleeping well at Château Landry. Yes, it must have been Miss Sedgwick, and she had a guilty conscience. That must have been Miss Sedgwick last night on the gravel. She had been watching him at his accounts, and then, on seeing that he had discovered the loss, she had run away into the darkness. But why had not Miss Sedgwick taken the drug openly, as she had a perfect right to do? Secretive, he thought, naturally secretive; she had hoped he would not notice it. The woman must be a perfect fool.

  That was an odd dream that had come to him last night: something about a bird—a large black bird, with flapping wings. It had perched on the window sill of his room, and would not go away, though he had thrown one of his ebony-backed hairbrushes at it. Then of a sudden it had changed into Miss Collett, in her white frock and bow, with her battledore and shuttlecock. She had jumped down from the sill and had sat on the bed and asked him to tell her a story, for she would not go away till he did. He had felt so shocked. A lady, even as old and mad as Miss Collett, in his room in the morning when it was quite light—quite light, and he had been feeling sleepy then. Just when you ought to wake up. You should only feel sleepy in the dark.

  Mr. Deeling’s head nodded once, then fell forward on his chest. The hot
tea, the warm afternoon, his broken night, had proved too much for him. He slept.

  He woke with a start, a childish treble in his ears.

  “Poor little birdie,” the voice was saying. “Look, Mr. Deeling.

  It hasn’t got any head!”

  Mr. Deeling opened his eyes and sat up with a jerk. In front of him stood Miss Collett in her girlish frock, bearing in her arms a dead cockerel, its feathers spattered with blood and a red stain where the head should have been.

  “I found it in the woods,” she said, as Mr. Deeling gazed at her. “We must have a funeral. Come and help me, Mr. Deeling.”

  Mr. Deeling rose to his feet. The sight of this grown woman in her girlish frock, crooning over that dreadful trophy, disturbed even his unimaginative soul.

  “Drop that disgusting thing at once,” he said sternly. “Go to your room and wash your face and hands.”

  For answer Miss Collett dropped the bird, and seizing the apron which she wore round her waist, burst into tears.

  Mr. Deeling took a step forward, uncertain what to do, but at that moment Constance appeared round the corner of the castle. She was in tweeds and carrying a bag of golf clubs. She walked straight up to him, and, taking no notice of Miss Collett or the thing at her feet, threw down her clubs on to an empty chair.

  “Come at once, Mr. Deeling,” she said in a curiously tense voice: “I urgently need your advice.”

  III

  Mr. Deeling paused a moment and then followed Constance rebelliously. This was no way to behave. Things should be done decently in a scientific institution. Presumably this was a crisis, but a crisis should be met without excitement. There was no need to be dramatic and intense, whatever might or might not have happened. But that was so like a woman.