by June Wright
“Mother!” said Todd Bannister reproachfully.
Marsh turned her back and spoke to the stranger. “There is a sick man lying on the links. Judging by his clothes he must have been there all night. I would be glad if you could help me bring him to shelter.”
“What is the matter with him?” Shane asked, following her down the passage.
“I don’t know. I haven’t examined him yet. Pneumonia, maybe.”
She paced up and down outside the hotel impatiently until Todd Bannister arrived with a car almost as old as the one he had left on the road outside Matthews. He kept the engine running as Marsh and Shane got in.
“I see you two have met. Sorry about your breakfast, Bruce, old man, but it is better to start the day off with a good deed. Succour the wounded, you know.”
Marsh said seriously, “There was no wound that I could see.”
Mrs Bannister came to the window to thrust in an armful of blankets and nearly burned Marsh with a hot-water bag.
“Todd!”
“Mother mine?”
“Now, be sensible, Todd, and help Dr. Mowbray.”
“Don’t think that I have dragged myself out of bed just to take her for a joy-ride,” he retorted.
Mrs Bannister stood back with a nod, and the car moved off.
“Follow the car-track through the golf-links. I will tell you when to stop,” Marsh said.
Shane asked: “What do you propose to do with this man? Where are you taking him?”
“Where is the nearest hospital, Mr Bannister? We’d better go straight there.”
“Thirty-odd miles away, my fair physician. We don’t need hospitals in Matthews. The place abounds with doctors holidaying with their pretty nurses. Didn’t you find that out last night?”
“Then we’d better bring him back to your hotel,” she declared.
“Mother will be mad at you.” Todd shook his head at her in the mirror.
“I’m sorry about dragging you into this, Mr Shane, but I could not manage alone. You do understand?”
Shane, who had been whistling absently under his breath, brought his gaze round to her. “Quite,” he said.
“Absolutely. Definitely. Indubitably,” Todd Bannister said in mincing tones.
Having exacted a certain retribution for the stranger’s churlishness, Marsh did not rebuke him. She was busy picking out the shelter in the distance.
“Stop here,” she ordered. “Now, Mr Shane, just bring one blanket. I will roll the patient in it. It will make him easier to carry. Follow me and quickly, please.”
Bending her head against the rain Marsh ran in a direct line towards the tee. The dog had disappeared but the man was lying where she had left him. One hand had moved free of the jacket she had tucked under his chin. She marked the alteration with a slight thrill. It gave evidence to some sign of strength in the condition. She bent her head over the region of the heart, longing for a stethoscope.
“In here,” she called, as Todd Bannister and Shane climbed up the hillock. She took the blanket and rolled the sick man over expertly to spread it beneath him. Shane knelt on the opposite side, anticipating her plan of a cocoon wrapping.
A smothered exclamation from Todd Bannister, standing at the man’s feet, caused Marsh to glance up. “What?” she asked.
Bannister’s face was very white. She noticed the dark grooves under his eyes.
“The King of Matthews! Didn’t you know? It’s Kingsley Waring.”
Marsh’s hands stopped still for a moment. She glanced from Todd to Shane, who had eased his hand into Kingsley Waring’s shirt. He was frowning heavily.
“There is still a faint heart-beat,” she told him curtly.
“Quickly now. You take this end. And bring those clothes with you. I think they must belong to Mr Waring.”
She had the other blankets ready in the car as the two men came up with their burden. They were panting slightly. Beads of sweat stood out on Todd Bannister’s forehead. Kingsley Waring was heaved into the back seat. Marsh climbed in after him and began to unlace the brogues. She held the hot-water bag against the stockinged feet.
Out of nowhere Rex the dog appeared. He came up at long loping strides holding some object in his mouth which he dropped on the running-board of the car.
“Get going,” Marsh ordered impatiently. “The dog can find his own way home.”
Todd Bannister hurried to the driver’s seat, but Shane paused to pick up the dog’s find before he climbed in beside him.
“Where to, please?” asked Todd. “While I don’t mind succouring the sick at my place, I do think His Majesty, and not to mention Mother, would dislike it heartily. The Bannisters and the Warings never did see eye to eye.”
Marsh watched the sick man’s face. “It really is Mr Waring?” she asked. “Dr. Katherine Waring’s husband?”
“Sure is. He looks muchly the same as usual. Bit pale about the gills, of course. But surely that doesn’t disguise him.”
“Disguise him? Oh, I see. You are wondering why I had not recognized him. I missed being introduced last night. Drive straight on to Reliance.”
Waring’s head moved slightly and she lifted one drooping eyelid. The pupil was enlarged.
“Todd,” Shane said suddenly, “where is Saracen?”
“Who, old boy?” Bannister asked, steering the carefully.
“My horse. I stabled him at the hotel last night.”
“Sure you did. Isn’t he there still?”
“No. I went to see him before I came into the hotel.”
“Must have broken stall, Bruce. Don’t worry, he’ll turn up. But you know the old one about locking the stable door?”
“I do, and Saracen was in the stable when I locked it.”
“Very odd. Very odd, indeed. Must ask Mother about it. Still, the place is fairly decrepit. Your nag might have kicked the bolt somehow.”
Shane was silent for a while. “Yes, probably that is what happened. He must have tried to find his way back to the cottage. He cast a shoe on the links. The dog found it.”
He lifted up the relic Rex had brought to the car. Marsh gave it a cursory glance and turned her attention back to Kingsley Waring.
The car turned into the track which led to Reliance. The heavy rain of the previous night had changed the sandy surface into a quagmire. Todd Bannister continued as far as he dared. As the car pulled up Marsh awoke from her abstraction to ask sharply: “What are you stopping for? Don’t you know this is a matter of life and death?”
“Don’t be terse, my querulous quack. No can do. Look at that mud. We’ll be bogged. And not even for the King of Matthews can I let that happen to Scott’s car. He has an uncertain temper before breakfast.”
Marsh gave one look and got out of the car. “I’ll go on to the house and get a stretcher brought back,” she said, banging the door.
She squelched along, keeping as much as she could to the drier sides of the track. It was impossible to run. The mud was like a quicksand. She reached the house with her shoes caked.
III
Betty Donne was standing on the verandah looking out over the courtyard, but when Marsh called to her she started violently.
“Where is Dr. Kate?”
“She hasn’t come downstairs yet,” the girl replied. She looked at Marsh again and came forward quickly. “Where have you been? You look shocking. What has happened?”
She gripped Marsh’s arm, her fingers biting through the thick cloth of the ancient overcoat she still wore.
“I found Mr Waring out on the golf-links. He is in a pretty bad way.”
“Dead?” Betty Donne asked, in a fierce voice.
“Not yet,” Marsh said, shaking off the girl’s hand as the grip loosened. “I had him brought home in a car. We couldn’t come any farther because of the mud. Is ther
e a stretcher anywhere?”
“There is one kept in the lab, but it is locked. Mr Waring has the key.”
“There is no time to go back and search his pockets now,” Marsh said, irritated by the nurse’s negative attitude. “Here! Take one of those deck-chairs to the car. It will serve. I must find Dr. Kate.”
Betty Donne watched her go to the door of the house. “Hurry!” snapped Marsh, as she saw the girl pause. “The man may be dying.”
Suddenly Betty Donne began to laugh. It was a low sound, but held a threat of hysteria. Marsh came back with a menacing tread. When the nurse saw her eyes she stopped laughing, picked up the folded canvas chair and hastened down the steps.
Half-way up the stairs to the bedroom floor she met Laurence Gair. He was wearing dapper sports clothes and surveyed Marsh’s dishevelment with one raised brow.
“Good morning, colleague,” he began.
She seized his arm. “Larry, ask Miss Jennet to prepare hot-water bags and to bring them up to Mr Waring’s room. He is very ill. Don’t ask any questions. Just do as I ask, like a good chap.”
Gair opened his mouth, then shut it and went downstairs with a shrug.
Guessing wildly at Katherine Waring’s room, she knocked at a door at the front of the house. As the evenly modulated voice answered she went in. Katherine Waring sat in front of her dressing-table coiling her long hair into the nape of her neck. Her eyes met Marsh’s in the mirror, and the girl had one awful glimpse of her own appearance. Her face was pale and her eyes enormous under straggling wet ringlets of hair.
Dr. Waring turned round quickly. “My dear Marsh, whatever have you been doing? Where did you get those dreadful clothes?”
“At the hotel,” she said hurriedly. “Never mind them. Dr. Kate—”
Katherine got up. “What is the matter? Why did you go out?” There was something in her tone that reminded Marsh of what Miss Jennet had said. She sounded reproving.
She made a gesture with her hands as though to say explanations could come later. “It’s your husband, Dr. Kate,” she burst out. “I was out for a walk, but I did not know it was Mr Waring. He looks terribly ill.”
Katherine Waring put down her brush and moved to the door. “King? Where is he?”
“They are bringing him up from the car. He must have been out all night. Didn’t you know? Didn’t you wonder where he was?”
The older woman gave her a fleeting glance. “No, I did not know. King goes for a walk every night. That is his room on the other side of the passage.”
“Oh,” said Marsh, “I see. Excuse me, I’ll go and tell the men where to come. Larry is getting hot-water bags.”
They came up the stairs as she spoke, Betty Donne leading the way. Shane had been relieved of his part by Laurence Gair, who carried the farther end of the improvised stretcher with the patient’s feet pressed against his chest. Katherine Waring watched the scene from her doorway. She did not move or speak, and her face was quite blank.
Betty Donne went ahead into the room to prepare the bed. She looked up at Marsh through the open door. “High or low, Doctor?” she asked, in a brisk nurse’s voice.
“High,” said Marsh and Gair together. Marsh glared at him.
The patient was propped high with pillows. His breathing had become more audible but he was still unconscious. Marsh detected a hoarse note which sounded ominous. Then Miss Jennet came running up the stairs, her arms laden with hot-water bags, Marsh’s own amongst them. Her face was troubled and she glanced in a concerned way at Katherine Waring.
Gair had been bending over the sick man. He straightened up and came to the door. “Dr. Kate, where does Kingsley keep his glucose? We will have to give it inter-nasally.”
Glucose? Marsh thought. He must be a diabetic. I should have guessed. He must have had too much insulin.
“Glucose, Dr. Kate,” Larry snapped impatiently. “Do you want King to go out under your eyes?”
But still she did not move, nor did she make any sign of having heard him.
With a muffled sound of exasperation Gair strode into the adjoining bathroom, Marsh at his heels.
“What about the laboratory?” she suggested, watching him search through cupboards and drawers.
He pounced on a coil of rubber tubing. “We’ll need that,” he said, taking it back into the bedroom. Then he began a search through Kingsley Waring’s discarded clothes.
“I locked the lab myself last night,” he answered Marsh, “and gave King the key. He always carries it with him.” He held up the sodden slacks by the ends, shaking them vigorously.
“Damnation!” he exclaimed. He shot another anxious glance at the patient and strode to the door. “Dr. Kate—” he began.
Katherine Waring had left her position at her bedroom door, and was rapping gently at another one farther down. She held up one hand at Gair for silence.
“Delia, are you awake? Can I come in for a moment?” She opened the door.
Presently she came out again, with a jar in her hand.
“Here you are, Larry,” she said, giving it to him. “Marsh, go and change your clothes. You have done your part for the moment.”
IV
Marsh went back to her room, relieved and happy. Hitherto she had felt that Kingsley Waring’s life depended on her and that the responsibility was hers. But now Dr. Kate was arranging matters and all would be well.
She stripped off her ludicrous clothes, wondering if her grey suit would find its way back to her. Todd Bannister had gone without a word after he had left Waring on his bed. The skirt would still be at the Tom Thumb. Somehow Marsh knew Mrs Bannister would see that it was dried, pressed and returned folded to avoid creasing. She looked the type. But the jacket and the trench coat—she could not remember if they had brought them in the car still wrapped around the sick man, or whether they had been abandoned in the shelter.
She lifted her head out of a towel with which she had been drying her hair and frowned at her reflection. There was something odd in the way Kingsley Waring’s outer clothes had been folded neatly and placed in a corner of the windbreak. He must have had a hypoglycaemic attack while out on his nocturnal walk. Knowing himself about to be overcome he must have made for the nearest protection. But why take off his clothes?
Footsteps had sounded in the passage outside Marsh’s door, and now a voice broke across her troubled thoughts.
“Miss Donne!” She recognized Evelyn Peterson’s husky voice.
Betty answered shortly: “Yes? What is it you want?”
Kingsley Waring’s nurse came along the passage so that the two girls were immediately outside Marsh’s room.
“What is the matter with everyone this morning? People rushing up and down have interrupted my beauty sleep.”
“Perhaps you should go to bed earlier,” Betty suggested, in a meaning tone.
Evelyn laughed softly. “Perhaps. Did I hear aright? Is King ill?”
“Very ill. Maybe dying. I shouldn’t know. I am only the nurse.”
“So you are the nurse, are you? I think not. I will attend him. After all, he is my chief. You keep to your own side of the fence.”
“Dr. Kate inferred—”
“I don’t care what she said. I am going to nurse King.”
Betty Donne spoke deliberately. “Mr Waring doesn’t need your type of nursing now. He is a sick man.”
Marsh heard a quick indrawn breath. Then Evelyn laughed again. It was a nasty sound. “You little devil, Betty Donne. I’d like to scratch your face for that.”
“Try—and see what happens.”
“I will one day. You’ve been asking for it. You and your sanctimonious Katherine and—yes, that frozen-up Mowbray wench.”
Betty said coldly: “Go and dress yourself. You are wasting your time on me.”
There was a slight scuffle of feet a
nd Marsh opened her door quickly. She had had experience with bickering nurses before. Betty was holding off Miss Peterson by the wrists. The latter was white with fury and her thin hands looked particularly claw-like.
“Stop that!” Marsh ordered. “Miss Peterson, go and get your clothes on. You may be needed later.”
Betty released her grip and slipped away without a word. The other girl retreated, rubbing her wrists and muttering angrily. Her dusky hair was tangled, not unattractively, half across her face, and Marsh could understand what had prompted Betty Donne’s suggestion that she should go to her room. The house might be alive with persons to whom the human anatomy was an open book, but there was such a thing as innate modesty.
Katherine Waring, coming down the passage from her husband’s room, nearly collided with her. Evelyn paused defiantly. Dr. Kate’s eyes went over her.
“Get into whites, please, Miss Peterson. I want you on duty in Kingsley’s room.”
The girl half turned towards Marsh and gave her a triumphant smile.
Marsh reopened her door. “One moment, Dr. Mowbray!” She paused.
Katherine Waring came into her room.
“Shut the door and sit down for a moment.” Marsh obeyed. “I think you will find working with Miss Peterson better than with Sister Donne. After all, she is my husband’s nurse. He thinks highly of her.”
Marsh stared at the older woman. “I?” she asked. “You mean you want me—”
“Yes, Marsh, you. I won’t and can’t attend King. Apart from ethics, I could not do it. Larry is essentially a surgeon. This case calls for a physician.”
“What about Dr. Arkwright or someone else? I was told Matthews was over-run with notable doctors.”
“I want you, Marsh. I have every confidence in you; more than in any other doctor here. I beg of you to do what I ask.” She paused and dropped her eyes. “This is very hard for me to say, but King has tried to kill himself. He wants to commit suicide.”
Chapter Three
I
Marsh tried to absorb this announcement before she thought or spoke. It was hardly credible that a renowned surgeon such as Kingsley Waring should want to take his own life. His name was famous, his career at its peak. Suicide was such an appalling mess of a death. Of course, there were some unfortunates who were mentally ill—Marsh had had two such experiences at the hospital—but a wealthy distinguished man like Waring! There seemed no reason for such an attempt.