The House of Dr. Edwardes

by Francis Beeding

  Mr. Deeling crossed the room. At the door he returned.

  “I have never had any doubt as to your identity,” he said, “and I am now more than ever convinced that you are Doctor Murchison. The Honorable Geoffrey Godstone, sane or insane, would never have addressed me in the tone which you have seen fit to adopt. Only my long association with Doctor Edwardes and the fact that I have some small reason to believe myself to be of value to him induces me to withhold my resignation. I have the honor to bid you good afternoon.”

  Doctor Murchison gave no heed to this, but waited till Mr. Deeling had closed the door. Then he turned to Constance.

  “Is it true, Miss Sedgwick,” he asked, “that you not only encouraged the delusion of my patient in Number 17, but that you were actually inclined to share it?”

  “It was all a hideous confusion,” began Constance, “I was taken by surprise.”

  “I’m afraid that will hardly do,” said Doctor Murchison coldly.

  “If Mr. Deeling was speaking the truth, you actually went so far as to believe—”

  “No, no,” said Constance, “I never believed it.”

  “You did not, in fact, know what to believe?” Constance flushed, and then faced him suddenly. “Yes,” she admitted. “For a moment I was in doubt.

  But that moment is past. I beg that you will forget it.”

  “I don’t think you quite realize what you are asking,” he said. “I feel that, in the circumstances, I have no alternative but to ask Doctor Edwardes to return immediately to Château Landry, so that he may deal with the situation himself. You will agree that after what has happened it is hardly possible for us to work together.”

  “Let me explain,” said Constance.

  “I should be interested to hear your explanation,” said Doctor Murchison, “though I do not see how it can possibly affect us now.”

  “My communication with Mr. Godstone was an accident,” said Constance hurriedly. “Colonel Rickaby broke the window of Number 17 with a golf ball, and Mr. Godstone spoke to me through the broken pane. He knew at once that I was Doctor Sedgwick.”

  Dr. Murchison pressed a button on his desk.

  “One moment,” he said. “I propose to deal with your difficulties as they arise. You apparently considered it strange that Mr. Godstone, who came here before you arrived, and whom you had never seen until today, should have addressed you as Doctor Sedgwick. Let me first dispose of that.”

  “Is this necessary, Doctor?” said Constance, flushing. “I have admitted my mistake.”

  “I prefer to put the matter beyond all doubt,” said Doctor Murchison. “I shall refrain from making any appeal to your confidence. I propose to give you the facts. Mr. Godstone is suffering, among other things, from two fixed delusions—the first that he is myself, and the second that every woman he encounters in this establishment is Doctor Sedgwick. You will remember that it was I who brought Mr. Godstone to Château Landry. Unfortunately, I told him on our journey from London to this place that a woman doctor would shortly be joining our establishment. It was foolish of me to do so, and I have several times regretted it, for it has started in him another fixed idea.

  “The delusion that he is Doctor Murchison is not in the least abnormal, and should have been familiar to you. It very frequently happens that a patient imagines himself to have changed places with his doctor. Jones alluded to a case that was here in 1923. I shall, therefore, make no further reference to that delusion for the present. The second delusion is merely incidental, but I will demonstrate to you in a moment that it is as strong and just as involuntary as the first.”

  As he spoke, Nurse Webster entered the room.

  “You rang for me, Doctor?” she said.

  “Shut the door, please, Nurse,” he answered, “and sit down, won’t you? I want you to give Doctor Sedgwick an exact account of what happened when you attended Mr. Godstone, the patient in Number 17. If I remember rightly, you attended him only once, when I asked you to change the dressings on his head. Afterwards I did them myself, if you recollect.”

  “You want me to remember just what he said?” Nurse Webster inquired.

  “Yes, Nurse, if you will be so good.”

  “The patient was very weak and didn’t seem to be taking much notice of anything when I started. But then he comes suddenly to himself and stares at me a bit, wildlike. Then he seizes me by the arm and lifts himself up. And then he says to me, ‘For God’s sake,’ he says, ‘tell me quick. You must be Doctor Sedgwick.’ Then he shakes me by the arm. ‘You are Doctor Sedgwick, aren’t you?’ he says. And that was all, for suddenly he came over queer and fainted right off again.”

  “And that, I think, was the only time you ever saw him,” suggested Dr. Murchison.

  “That was the only time, Doctor, seeing as you thought it would be best if you changed the dressings yourself so that the patient should not be encouraged in his ideas.”

  “Thank you, Nurse,” said Doctor Murchison.

  “Is that all?” said Nurse Webster, rising from her chair, “because if it is, Doctor, I think I ought to be getting back to Miss Archer.”

  Doctor Murchison nodded. “Yes, thank you, Nurse,” he replied. “Get back to your patient by all means.”

  He turned to Constance as the door closed.

  “Well,” he said, “are you satisfied?”

  “Why do you treat me like this?” said Constance in a low voice. “I have admitted my mistake.”

  Doctor Murchison rose swiftly from his chair and went towards her. He seized her almost roughly by the arm.

  “Miss Sedgwick,” he said, “on almost, no ground at all you have allowed yourself to entertain a monstrous suspicion. You could never have believed such a tale unless you had wished to believe it. I must, therefore, assume that for some reason or other I have failed to win your confidence. That, however, is neither here nor there. Quite apart from anything personal as between you and me, I have the right, as head of this establishment, and as a fellow doctor, to demand that you shall not allow your private dislikes to affect the performance of your duties. I put it no higher than that. You have been false to me as the person in charge of Château Landry, and you have been disloyal to your profession.”

  He released her arm and walked abruptly from her to the window.

  “You wish me to resign,” she said after a short pause.

  He turned back from the window.

  “How can we continue to work together after what has happened?” he asked.

  She looked at him for a moment in silence.

  “Very well,” she said. Her voice was creditably even, and she looked him full in the face, wondering, however, how long she would be able to do so.

  Then suddenly, to her amazement, she found him again beside her, and he had taken her gently by the arms.

  “Miss Sedgwick,” he said. “I must ask you to forgive me.”

  “Forgive you,” she stammered, “I don’t understand.”

  “I lost my temper just now,” he continued, “I said more than I need have done—more than I intended. My responsibility here is very great, and the strain, perhaps, is beginning to tell. And then I suppose—”

  He broke off, and Constance felt his grip tighten, as though involuntarily, on her arm.

  “I suppose,” he went on, “that I was more hurt by your attitude than I cared to confess. In fact, I have been something of a hypocrite. My feeling was not wholly professional, though, when I came downstairs just now and saw what had happened and felt that all my patient work on Godstone had been undone, you will realize that I found it a little difficult—”

  “Please,” said Constance, “this is worse than before.”

  The pressure on her arms was urgent. She realized with a faint shock that she was almost in his arms. Almost imperceptibly she drew back, being aware, as she did so, of a faint tremor that shook him from head to foot. Abruptly he released her, and they stood facing one another.

  Then mastering himself with an
effort, he smiled winningly and said in a tone that was as light and friendly as she could possibly desire:

  “I shall not accept your resignation, Doctor Sedgwick.”

  VI

  The night was oppressive, and Constance had flung wide the window of her room where she was reading. The whole valley was very silent. The earth, breathing warm, lay like a huge animal asleep.

  Doctor Murchison, following that interview in the library, had seemed anxious to show that he had in her now the completest confidence. He had talked to her frankly and in detail concerning his plans, and he had handed to her that evening the file containing the history of the two most difficult cases with which they would have to deal, those of Mr. Curtis and of the Honorable Geoffrey Godstone. For the last half-hour she had been reading the first of them.

  Her reading had been desultory, for every now and then she would lean back in her chair and allow her thoughts to wander. During her talk with Doctor Murchison she had for the first time been brought into intimate touch with the subliminal world in which the modern alienists were groping for a solution of their problems. He had discussed in the curious language of Freud and the later school of Zurich the secret forces which lie beneath the threshold of consciousness.

  Standing now by the window, she brooded on that hidden life which lurked within herself, of which she would never be aware, which would never give any sign of its activity except in dreams, or some unbidden fancy when the conscious mind was asleep or relaxed its vigilance. Doctor Murchison had discussed at length the Zensur of Freud, describing it as the Warder who stood perpetually on guard at the gate which separated the unconscious self from the intelligent and regulated activities of the mind. Beyond the gate, blindly dynamic, moved and worked, insentient and with no knowledge of good and evil, the primitive will of the human creature to persist, to develop, to fulfill an unknown purpose, a darkness that stirred with primeval memories.

  He had talked much of the Warder and his office, for it was in his attitude to the Zensur that he differed from Doctor Edwardes. Doctor Edwardes had set his face against the method of Freud, which sought to lure the Warder from his post so that the secrets of the unconscious mind might come into the open and there be destroyed. Doctor Edwardes argued that this process of introspection and analysis merely encouraged the madman in his delusions, and that better results could be obtained by firmly and gently leading the patient away from his fancies and by giving him interests and occupations which would exercise that part of the mind which was unaffected. Doctor Murchison had admitted that for most practitioners this was undoubtedly the safer way; but there were others, he had said, who might claim to have special powers. And at this point he had used a simile which had deeply impressed her. She could see him still, sitting in his chair, gazing in front of him, a confident, proud smile on his lips.

  “You remember,” he had said, “the legend of the sorcerer’s apprentice. He stole the spells of his master and raised a horde of demons whom he was unable to control.”

  He had gone on to tell her of a case in which a doctor, who was endeavoring to effect a cure by the Freudian method, and who had thereby concentrated upon himself all the dormant evil of the sufferer, had been murdered by his patient in an access of dementia. He had added that those who raise the whirlwind must be prepared to ride it. Personally, he had no misgivings.

  She came back to the table, and began to read again the file of Mr. Curtis. Much of the later notes of Doctor Edwardes and those added by Dr. Murchisoa himself were almost beyond her comprehension, but there were many suggestive details. She read of dreadful acts of cruelty, committed by him as a child on animals. There was a revolting story of a cat, and of a chicken plucked alive. Another curious detail was his abnormal readiness, amounting almost to craving, to be punished for his abominable acts.

  She laid the file aside and took up that of the Honorable Geoffrey Godstone. For the next half-hour there was no sound or movement in the room, except for the occasional rustle of a page that was turned.

  But at last there was a breath in the valley. Distantly it stirred the forest and came whispering over the meadow till it reached the open shutter of the window, which grated back upon its hinges and hit the stone sill with a clap.

  Constance started. She rose and went to secure the shutter, and her hand trembled slightly upon the latch. The air that met her as she went to the window was hot upon her cheek. She turned back to the table and took up the file which she had been reading.

  Then suddenly with a shiver she let it fall. She would not look at it again that night. Already she had looked it through completely from beginning to end, and she was appalled by what she had read.

  Chapter Seven

  I

  At half-past two on the following afternoon Mr. Deeling left the castle, a stout ash plant in his hand. He was proposing to take one of his constitutionals. These were of two kinds. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he allowed himself thirty-five minutes for exercise. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, however, some two hours and fifteen minutes were at his disposal. Today was Thursday, and Mr. Deeling intended to walk as briskly as advancing years and a sedentary habit permitted until a quarter to five, when he would return, refreshed in body and mind, to his laboratory.

  It was very hot that Thursday afternoon, really extraordinarily hot, even for the time of year and at that height. He could feel on his face the glow from the chapel walls as he passed them on his descent from the terrace to the meadow.

  There was something happening in the meadow. A chattering group, headed by Colonel Rickaby, was making hay, tossing the great swathes which had been cut two days ago, but which were already almost dry enough to carry. The sight of the inmates of Château Landry thus engaged was displeasing to Mr. Deeling.

  “Most inappropriate,” he thought, as he continued on his way.

  It was all part and parcel of this new system which the unspeakable, the quite unspeakable. Doctor Murchison was introducing. Doctor Edwardes would never have approved of it—people with weak heads working like that in the hot sun.

  Doctor Edwardes would disapprove of a good many things when he came back. This Doctor Murchison would then be put very properly into his place. Let him wait. Let him only wait. Sooner or later Doctor Edwardes would return, and then this fellow would sing pretty small—very small indeed.

  “Making hay while the sun shines—that’s what he is doing,” muttered Mr. Deeling savagely to himself, and he gave a short laugh at his own joke.

  For a night and half a day since his last encounter with Doctor Murchison, Mr. Deeling had brooded ceaselessly, continually discovering a new aspect of the indignity to which he had been subjected. The man was literally intolerable—not any too strong a word in the circumstances. He had dared to speak to Mr. Deeling, who had been eleven years at Château Landry, eleven years of devoted service, as though he had been no more than a servant. Thank God, he had kept his temper. Yes, he had left the room with dignity. He had remonstrated in a few well-chosen words, extremely well chosen considering that he had been taken by surprise, and then the door had closed behind him. Since then, except at meals, when he had maintained a lofty silence, he had not set eyes on Doctor Murchison.

  Mr. Deeling paused in his walk and wiped his brow. It was certainly hot, most appallingly hot, in the open, but there, before him, stretched the dark shade of the belt of firs. It would be cool in there, and he would be able to consider his position more calmly.

  He ran a finger round his soft collar which was sticking unpleasantly to the back of his neck, and moved forward into the shade.

  Doctor Murchison had insulted him. He must do something about it. Should he write to Doctor Edwardes? Dear Doctor Edwardes…. I regret to inform you of a most regrettable incident…. No. That wouldn’t do. He had used the word “regret” twice over. But the incident was certainly regrettable. Should he ask Doctor Edwardes to return, hinting perhaps at resignation? That was one way, but it was hardly fair to his
old employer. Doctor Edwardes had gone away for a rest cure, on his recommendation too, and it would be most inconsiderate to recall him at the end of a bare month. Besides, how was he to justify such an appeal? There was nothing obviously wrong. The patients were all quite happy—happier than he had ever known them to be. The man Murchison was certainly efficient—damned efficient. There was little hope of ever catching him out. Everything was just as it should be. On the surface, at least—except perhaps for that little matter of the hyoscin.

  Mr. Deeling paused to rest beside a tree, and moodily drummed upon the trunk with his fingers. There came from the right as he did so a prolonged rustling, though there was no wind or any life in the forest, but Mr. Deeling did not notice it.

  There could be no doubt about the hyoscin. Doctor Murchison had taken it. But he must have proof, and then, perhaps, one thing would lead to another. There must be something queer about a doctor who stole his own drugs. There was no sense in it.

  He moved forward again. Was there anybody who would be likely to help him? Should he consult Miss Sedgwick? Mr. Deeling permitted a short laugh to escape him. Of all courses that would be the last. For the wretched girl was quite under the thumb of the new doctor. An hysterical creature. Only yesterday she had believed the man to be mad, and now she was eating out of his hand. There could be no possible reliance on a girl like that. In any case, she and the doctor were now as thick as thieves. Or perhaps she was not so stupid as she seemed. Suppose she had never really believed the doctor to be mad at all, but had just wanted him to believe it, so as to discredit him and expose him to the insult which he had received. Or suppose that the whole thing was a put-up job, a plot between the two of them to bring about his discomfiture. That, perhaps, was a little far-fetched. But when people behaved so unreasonably, one did not know what to believe.