The Devil's Caress

by June Wright

  “What is that you have?” Gair asked, as she removed the stethoscope to around her neck again. He had been quiet during the examination. Marsh had almost forgotten he was still in the room.

  “Mr Waring’s record,” she replied, running her finger along the closely written lines.

  “Where did you get it?” Gair demanded.

  “Dr. Kate gave it to me,” Marsh said, without looking up. “She got it from the laboratory. I do wish you’d go, Larry.”

  “I’m not going until I find out a few things. Firstly, how did Dr. Kate get into the laboratory? I locked that door last night and gave the key to King. You might recall my going out suddenly.”

  “Dr. Kate had a duplicate.”

  “Why didn’t she produce it earlier, then?”

  Marsh did not reply. She began to scribble on the prescription pad to still the tiny tremor of doubt that was moving around in her mind again. There was silence for a moment before Gair spoke quietly: “These are the rest of his clothes. They had been left on the verandah. When you came in, Marsh, I was making another search for the lab key. I wanted it because, surgeon or not, I fancy those oxygen tubes will be wanted. Look at this!”

  He was holding up a bunch of keys on a ring. “Marsh, I swear to you I returned these to King last night after I had locked the lab. But the key I used is not among these.”

  “Dr. Kate said she had a duplicate,” she said quickly. “Do you want me to doubt her word?”

  “The key is not the only thing missing,” he went on. “You, as a physician, must know that all careful diabetics carry with them a supply of glucose in some form or other to ensure against a loss of consciousness from an overdosing of insulin. King is more than careful. Why, he even keeps to an unnecessary diet.”

  “Of course I know,” Marsh interrupted shortly. “Well?”

  “King always carried his in a small silver box. I believe it was once a snuff-box. He was rather proud of it. Where is it now, Marsh?”

  “What are you trying to say, Larry?” she asked, looking at him squarely.

  He shrugged and turned aside. “I am trying to give you some sound advice, but I know I am doomed from the start. Katherine Waring is up to no good, Marsh. I am convinced of that. Be a sensible girl and let me look after King. If he were conscious he would want it.”

  “No, Larry. He is my patient.”

  Gair sighed. “Marsh, you fool! Don’t you realize what I am trying to tell you? You are only a tool of Dr. Kate’s. You will do everything she says. Do you want to become implicated in such a scandal?”

  “Stop talking ambiguous nonsense,” she said, keeping her temper in check. “If you can’t come to the point, get out.”

  “Very well, Marsh, if you want it straight. I think Katherine Waring is attempting to murder her husband.”

  Marsh dropped her eyes to the pad under her hand. She was thinking of the correct and the most non-committal reply to make. Had she not been the confidante of Katherine Waring, this no less astounding accusation would have been easy to meet.

  “Well?” Gair asked impatiently. “What do you say to that?”

  “I repeat—get out! I have been ordered to do a job, and I intend to do it.”

  Gair ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Marsh, are you blind or so besotted with Katherine Waring that you would help her kill her own husband?”

  Her temper was rising. Discretion, more familiar to her than wrath, was forgotten.

  “The job I intend to do is to make her husband well again,” she said fiercely. “I am the only physician in Matthews Dr. Kate can trust. And if you knew what she was suffering you would hold that vile tongue of yours. Why should she want to murder her husband? Kingsley Waring tried to kill himself last night.”

  Gair glanced frowningly from Marsh to the patient in the bed and back again.

  “Now, for the last time,” she said, taking advantage of his lowered guard, “get out.”

  He moved to the door. When he turned round he had recaptured his customary suavity.

  “You poor simpleton, Marsh. Do you really believe that? And she wants you to save the man she loves, I suppose. Don’t you know what everyone else knows? They haven’t lived together for years.”

  “There are other things besides physical love. Companionship and their work.”

  “They haven’t even worked together for years. They are two separate magnificent entities that happen by chance to share the same house.”

  Marsh did not speak again. She tried to think she was not interested in what Gair was saying.

  “If King gets better it will be amusing to see what he does; not that I think for one minute he will be allowed to recover. His death is going to be the perfect murder, because no one who knows about it will be able to do anything—even if they were willing to risk the scandal. Dr. Kate will see to that. Yes, Marsh—I, too, will hold my tongue. What good would it do me to do otherwise? But I intend with all the persuasion and coercion I can muster to make you realize just how rotten Katherine Waring is under her high-bred exterior.”

  The girl continued to ignore him. “Marsh,” he said abruptly, “you funny little loyal creature, I think I could almost love you.”

  She looked up at last, but Gair had slipped out of the room before she could speak.

  IV

  In the bed Kingsley Waring was showing faint signs of consciousness.

  Marsh watched him anxiously. The task Katherine Waring had set her was going to be difficult. She wished desperately for her to appear to check the plans for treatment. If the patient had been an ordinary one at the hospital, just a sick body with no background or personal associations, she would not have felt like shirking responsibility. But the patient was a well-known figure and this was his own home.

  She took out her thermometer. In spite of his desperate state, Waring seemed to understand what was required of him. He did not fight against her touch, but rather co-operated eagerly; or so it seemed to Marsh, who noted the struggle with a slight frown. She took the temperature and the respiration count and marked them on the chart. Then she went to the door.

  Outside, the passage was empty. “Miss Peterson,” she called.

  Someone was moving about in Katherine Waring’s room opposite. She crossed the hall and tapped at the door. “Dr. Kate? May I come in?”

  Evelyn Peterson opened the door. “Were you wanting me?” she asked coolly. “What are you doing in Dr. Kate’s room?” Marsh demanded.

  The nurse was quiet for a moment. She was deliberating an answer which was obviously going to be a lie. “Dr. Waring asked me to tidy her room.”

  “I did not hear her come upstairs.”

  “You don’t hear everything, Dr. Mowbray.” The girl’s tone was impudent, but held an underlying significance which stopped Marsh from delivering a rebuke. She tore a sheet off the pad and handed it to her.

  “Get this from the laboratory immediately.”

  Evelyn’s lower lip pouted at the peremptory command.

  “I am not used to being spoken to like that. I volunteered for this job, and I don’t intend to be pushed around.”

  “You are nursing for me now,” Marsh answered. “You will have to get used to my manners.”

  Kingsley Waring and Larry had ruined the girl as a nurse. She could do with a term at the hospital.

  When Evelyn had gone downstairs, Marsh could not resist a glance into Katherine Waring’s room.

  “Tidying it!” she exclaimed to herself, surveying the open drawers, and the bed a litter of books from the bedside table. The nurse had been searching for something amongst Katherine Waring’s belongings.

  Marsh straightened the room. Dr. Kate was going through enough without adding this new disturbance to the list. She experienced an odd sense of impropriety as she folded and laid away clothes, and replaced the
books. Footsteps came up the stairs and then along the passage. Thinking it was Evelyn Peterson back again she continued with her work. Presently she glanced up to the doorway. Delia Arkwright stood there, watching her suspiciously.

  Caught unawares, Marsh made a halting explanation, not unlike the nurse’s cooler reply. “Dr. Kate’s room was so untidy. I thought I’d straighten it.”

  “Henry said you have the care of my brother,” Mrs Arkwright said. “Do you think that is wise?”

  “What do you mean?” Marsh asked sharply.

  Mrs Arkwright ignored her question. “Henry is agreeable to relieve you of the task. It would be better for everyone concerned.”

  Marsh looked around the room to satisfy herself that everything was in order, and then walked towards Mrs Arkwright with purposeful steps.

  “Listen,” she said, in a firm voice, “Dr. Waring asked me to attend her husband. I accepted her invitation. That is all. Would you do me the favour of making that quite clear to everyone below-stairs?”

  For a moment Mrs Arkwright’s expression of perpetual disdain vanished and she looked more like an irate fish-wife. She struggled against an inclination to behave like one.

  “You have excessively bad manners, young woman. I insist on seeing Kingsley.”

  “He is very ill. He will not know you.”

  “Hasn’t he regained consciousness?”

  The girl thought she detected a faint note of relief in the woman’s voice. “He has come out of the coma,” she admitted, reluctant to talk of the seriousness of Waring’s condition.

  “I will see him,” Mrs Arkwright repeated.

  “Very well. Come with me.”

  The patient was moving restlessly on the bed, and his eyes were open. Marsh watched for a sign of recognition as Delia Arkwright came up to her brother.

  “Kingsley,” she said authoritatively, placing her fingers on the sick man’s hand.

  The hand moved and he began to mutter. Marsh went to the other side of the bed, keeping a close watch on Mrs Arkwright as she bent over to catch the words. She did not like this at all. It was all so unprofessional. Lay people should know better than to demand entrance to a sick-room, even though they might be close relatives. Relatives were a nuisance.

  Evelyn Peterson came back with a covered kidney dish. She saw Mrs Arkwright and said quickly: “What is he saying? Can you hear anything?”

  “Nothing intelligible. Are you nursing Mr Waring?”

  “Any objection?” asked Miss Peterson truculently.

  Marsh broke in: “I must give the patient an injection, Mrs Arkwright. Will you go now, please?”

  She stepped back from the bed and withdrew as far as the end of the room, as though to show she would leave when she was ready and not before.

  “The old harridan,” Miss Peterson murmured, from her side of the patient.

  The muttering had started again, and now and then a word was distinguishable. The door opened quietly and Katherine Waring came to the foot of the bed. She watched her husband’s face without expression as he struggled to speak.

  “Every doctor . . . mistake,” he panted. “My duty . . . my duty,” and the voice lapsed again into a mutter.

  “There is no point in your staying, Delia,” Katherine Waring said. “Dr. Mowbray will keep you informed as to Kingsley’s progress.”

  “Progress? Isn’t he dying, Kate?”

  Marsh glanced up from her work quickly. She felt that by looking at Dr. Kate she could spare her the impact of the crude question. But Katherine Waring did not wince, neither did she reply to the untimely question. She merely moved across the room and opened the door. The action was significant enough and Mrs Arkwright went with as much dignity as she could assume.

  “And don’t come back,” Miss Peterson said under her breath.

  Marsh tried to think of something fitting to say to Katherine Waring and failed. Instead she discussed her plans for treatment just as though they were back at the hospital. The older woman listened attentively, nodding approval but rarely making a comment. When Marsh faltered slightly over her suggestion to have the oxygen cylinders on hand, she inclined her head more slowly. Presently she left the room, and Marsh heard her door shut opposite. It did not open again until a gong was touched softly on the ground floor, signifying lunch.

  She sent Evelyn to have something to eat, and the nurse and Dr. Waring went along the passage without a word between them. Marsh did not dare leave the patient. He had grown more restless and needed watching. He had become more talkative, too, and now and then a flash of full consciousness entered his eyes. She could see he was puzzled by her presence.

  Half an hour went by and Evelyn Peterson came back along the passage with Katherine Waring. This time a few low words were spoken outside the door before Dr. Waring went to her own room again.

  “You are to go down for some lunch,” the nurse said. “Dr. Kate’s orders.”

  Marsh got up. “The patient’s condition is unsettled. You must stay here all the time with him.”

  The girl reddened angrily. “Do you see this, Dr. Mowbray?” she asked, pointing to the badge pinned at the low neck of her uniform. “I did not earn that for nothing.”

  “See that you continue to,” Marsh retorted coldly, from the doorway. “And while you are under my instructions, please do not answer me back.”

  V

  She ate her meal in solitude. Once or twice Miss Jennet put her plump worried face through the servery to inquire after her wants, but beyond that she did not see any other members of the household. She had expected to be bombarded with questions regarding her patient’s progress and suspected that the reason for being left alone was due to Dr. Kate’s intervention. Presently, unaccosted, she returned to the sick-room.

  She paused outside for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door opposite. Was Dr. Kate still convinced that her husband had tried to kill himself? Marsh knew that the possibility of his recovery was remote. It seemed a waste of time and energy to go through the form of treatment when he wanted to die and would most probably do so. She gave herself a little shake, ashamed of her musings.

  Kingsley Waring’s breathing was audible even through the door. He must have rallied slightly, for Evelyn Peterson was speaking to him.

  “Where did she put them?” the nurse was asking.

  “King—answer me. Where did your wife put them? In her room? King, I beg of you—it’s Evelyn. Try to remember.”

  Marsh opened the door quickly. The girl was bending low over the sick man, her hands on either side of his head. She was shaking it to and fro.

  “Are you crazy?” Marsh demanded furiously, running forward. “What are you doing to him?”

  She pulled her away roughly, and sent her reeling across the room. Waring’s appearance was shocking. She felt for his pulse.

  “Send someone for the oxygen,” she shot at the nurse. “And don’t you come back. Tell Donne I want her.”

  Evelyn Peterson’s voice rose sharply. “I must get him to speak. Let me near him. Please, Dr. Mowbray.”

  “Are you a fool? This man is dying. Get that oxygen at once.”

  “If he dies she will ruin me. He must tell me what she has done with the papers.” The nurse’s face was desperate as she made a move to get past.

  Pushing the girl out of her path Marsh went to the door. Laurence Gair was mounting the stairs and she called to him in relief.

  “Larry, the cylinders in the lab. Get someone to help you with them quickly. Mr Waring is nearly gone.”

  She crossed the passage. “Dr. Kate,” she called, rapping at her door. Without waiting for a reply she went back to Waring to do what she could for him.

  The next half an hour was a nightmare to Marsh. She barely raised her eyes from the bed and Kingsley Waring’s face, but she knew Katherine Waring was ther
e and Betty Donne. While somewhere on the outside Laurence Gair hovered. Then she felt Dr. Waring’s hand on her shoulder and she realized that the immediate danger had passed.

  All through the afternoon her attention was fixed on the gauges on the cylinders. Betty Donne went down for her dinner, but when she came back there was no instruction for Marsh to do the same. Dr. Kate knew she could not leave the patient now. It was only a matter of time.

  At the hospital, with the patient an unknown personality, the situation was viewed cynically. The sooner death came the sooner one could get one’s meal. It seemed so futile to Marsh to keep checking the cylinders and injecting stimulants, when she knew for certain it was of no avail. She had only to remove the oxygen mask for a longer interval and all would be over. Then Kingsley Waring would be happy and she, Marsh, could go about the business of living.

  She endeavoured to shake off this defeatist mood. While there was a flicker of life it was her duty to encourage it. Waring’s life was neither his own nor his doctor’s to be thrown away like a disused mechanical instrument.

  He was conscious enough now to obey her instructions. One hand clutched feebly at the long tubing as though clinging to a lifeline. He seemed to Marsh to be regretting his attempt at suicide. Once or twice he tried to speak and she called Katherine Waring from her room. Each time she stayed at the foot of the bed, not uttering a word and without attempting to touch her husband. The intervals she spent in the room were brief, but she came quickly when Marsh sent Betty Donne to call her.

  With nightfall the wind rose again, and the rain rattled against the window-panes. The surf below the house seemed to boom and break in time with Waring’s breathing.

  Marsh was very tired. The sheer monotony of the two sounds wore her down. She began to wish desperately for the end, but when Betty Donne offered to relieve her for a brief spell she answered her sharply and stayed where she was.

  It must have been about ten o’clock when the music started. The sound of someone playing the piano broke in on Marsh’s consciousness slowly. Waring had started to mutter again, and in trying to catch his word she was irritated by the waves of music that floated up from the living-room. It was music that she was familiar with, the same movement she had played the previous night. It opened with sombre diatonic chords and then drifted into a slow and poignant andante.