Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 4

by R. Austin Freeman

  After waiting quite a considerable time, I was about to repeat the performance when I heard sounds within; and then the door was opened, to my surprise, by the identical sour-faced woman whom I had seen in the shop. As her appearance and manner did not invite conversation, and as she uttered no word, I followed her in silence through a long passage, or covered way, which ran parallel to the side of the shop and presumably crossed the site of the garden. It ended at a door which opened into the hall proper; a largish square space into which the doors of the ground-floor rooms opened. It contained the main staircase and was closed in at the farther end by a heavy curtain which extended from wall to wall.

  We proceeded in this funereal manner up the stairs to the first floor on the landing of which my conductress halted and for the first time broke the silence.

  "You will probably find Mr. Bendelow asleep or dozing," she said in a rather gruff voice. "If he is, there is no need for you to disturb him."

  "Mr. Bendelow!" I exclaimed. "I understood that his name was Morris."

  "Well, it isn't," she retorted. "It is Bendelow. My name is Morris and so is my husband's. It was he who wrote to you."

  "By the way," said I, "how did he know my name? I am acting for Dr. Cornish, you know."

  "I didn't know," said she, "and I don't suppose he did. Probably the servant told him. But it doesn't matter. Here you are, and you will do as well as another. I was telling you about Mr. Bendelow. He is in a pretty bad way. The specialist whom Mr. Morris took him to—Dr. Artemus Cropper—said he had cancer of the bilorus, whatever that is—"

  "Pylorus," I corrected.

  "Well, pylorus, then, if you prefer it," she corrected impatiently. "At any rate, whatever it is, he's got cancer of it; and as I said before, he is in a pretty bad way. Dr. Cropper told us what to do, and we are doing it. He wrote out full directions as to diet—I will show them to you presently—and he said that Mr. Bendelow was to have a dose of morphia if he complained of pain—which he does, of course; and that, as there was no chance of his getting better, it didn't matter how much morphia he had. The great thing was to keep him out of pain. So we give it to him twice a day—at least, my husband does—and that keeps him fairly comfortable. In fact he sleeps most of the time and is probably dozing now; so you are not likely to get much out of him, especially as he is rather hard of hearing even when he is awake. And now you had better come in and have a look at him."

  She advanced to the door of a room and opened it softly, and I followed in a somewhat uncomfortable frame of mind. It seemed to me that I had no function but that of a mere figure-head. Dr. Cropper, whom I knew by name as a physician of some reputation, had made the diagnosis and prescribed the treatment, neither of which I, as a mere beginner, would think of contesting. It was an unsatisfactory, even an ignominious position, from which my professional pride revolted, but apparently it had to be accepted.

  Mr. Bendelow was a most remarkable-looking man. Probably he had always been, but now the frightful emaciation (which strongly confirmed Cropper's diagnosis) had so accentuated his original peculiarities that he had the appearance of some dreadful, mirthless caricature. Under the influence of the remorseless disease, every shrinkable structure had shrunk to the vanishing-point, leaving the unshrinkable skeleton jutting out with a most horrible and grotesque effect. His great hooked nose, which must always have been strikingly prominent, stuck out now, thin and sharp, like the beak of some bird of prey. His heavy beetling brows, which must always have given to his face a frowning sullenness, now overhung sockets which had shrunk away into mere caverns. His naturally-high cheek-bones were now not only prominent but exhibited the details of their structure as one sees them in a dry skull. Altogether, his aspect was at once pitiable and forbidding. Of his age I could form no estimate. He might have been a hundred. The wonder was that he was still alive; that there was yet left in that shrivelled body enough material to enable its mechanism to continue its functions.

  He was not asleep, but was in that somnolent, lethargic state that is characteristic of the effects of morphia. He took no notice of me when I approached the bed, nor even when I spoke his name somewhat loudly.

  "I told you you wouldn't get much out of him," said Mrs. Morris, looking at me with a sort of grim satisfaction. "He doesn't have a great deal to say to any of us nowadays."

  "Well," said I, "there is no need to rouse him, but I had better just examine him, if only as a matter of form. I can't take the case entirely on hearsay."

  "I suppose not," she agreed. "You know best. Do what you think necessary, but don't disturb him more than you can help."

  It was not a prolonged examination. The first touch of my fingers on the shrunken abdomen made me aware of the unmistakable hard mass and rendered further exploration needless. There could be no doubt as to the nature of the case or of what the future held in store. It was only a question of time, and a short time at that.

  The patient submitted to the examination quite passively, but he seemed to be fully aware of what was going on, for he looked at me in a sort of drunken, dreamy fashion but without any sign of interest in my proceedings. When I had finished, I looked him over again, trying to reconstitute him as he might have been before this deadly disease fastened on him. I observed that he seemed to have a fair crop of hair of a darkish iron-grey. I say seemed because the greater part of his head was covered by a skull-cap of black silk; but a fringe of hair straying from under it on to the forehead suggested that he was not bald. His teeth, too, which were rather conspicuous, were natural teeth and in good preservation. In order to confirm this fact, I stooped and raised his lip the better to examine them. But at this point Mrs. Morris intervened.

  "There, that will do," she said impatiently. "You are not a dentist, and his teeth will last as long as he will want them. If you have finished, you had better come with me and I will show you Dr. Cropper's prescriptions. Then you can tell me if you have any further directions to give."

  She led the way out of the room, and when I had made a farewell gesture to the patient (of which he took no notice) I followed her down the stairs to the ground-floor, where she ushered me into a small, rather elegantly furnished room. Here she opened the top of a bureau and from one of the little drawers took an open envelope, which she handed to me. It contained one or two prescriptions for occasional medicines and a sheet of directions relative to the diet and general management of the patient, including the administration of morphia. The latter read, under the general heading, 'Simon Bendelow, Esq.':

  'As the case progresses, it will probably be necessary to administer morphine regularly, but the amount given should, if possible, be restricted to 14 gr. Morph. Sulph. not more than twice a day, but, of course, the hopeless prognosis and probable early termination of the case make some latitude admissible.'

  Although I was in complete agreement with the writer, I was a little puzzled by these documents. They were signed 'Artemus Cropper, MD,' but they were not addressed to any person by name. They appeared to have been given to Mr. Morris, in whose possession they now were; but the use of the word 'morphine' instead of the more familiar 'morphia' and the general technical phraseology seemed inappropriate to directions addressed to lay persons. As I returned them I remarked:

  "These directions read as if they had been intended for the information of a medical man."

  "They were," she replied. "They were meant for the doctor who was attending Mr. Bendelow at the time. When we moved to this place, I got them from him to show to the new doctor. You are the new doctor."

  "Then you haven't been here very long?"

  "No," she replied. "We have only just moved in. And that reminds me that our stock of morphia is running out. Could you bring a fresh tube of the tabloids next time you call? My husband left an empty tube for me to give you to remind you what size the tabloids are. He gives Mr. Bendelow the injections."

  "Thank you," said I, "but I don't want the empty tube. I read the prescription and shan't forget the do
se. I will bring a new tube to-morrow—that is, if you want me to call every day. It seems hardly necessary."

  "No, it doesn't," she agreed. "I should think twice a week would be quite enough. Monday and Thursday would suit me best; if you could manage to come about this time I should be sure to be in. My time is rather taken up, as I haven't a servant at present."

  It was a bad arrangement. Fixed appointments are things to avoid in medical practice. Nevertheless I agreed to it—subject to unforeseen obstacles—and was forthwith conducted back along the covered way and hunched into the outer world with a farewell which it would be inadequate to describe as unemotional.

  As I turned away from the door I cast a passing glance at the shop-window; and once again I perceived a face above the half-blind. It was a man's face this time; presumably the face of Mr. Morris. And like his wife, he seemed to be 'taking stock of me.' I returned the attention and carried away with me the instantaneous mental photograph of a man in that unprepossessing transitional state between being clean-shaved and wearing a beard which is characterized by a sort of grubby prickliness that disfigures the features without obscuring them. His stubble was barely a week old, but as his complexion and hair were dark the effect was very untidy and disreputable. And yet, as I have said, it did not obscure the features. I was even able, in that momentary glance, to note a detail which would probably have escaped a non-medical eye: the scar of a hare-lip which had been very neatly and skilfully mended and which a moustache would probably have concealed altogether.

  I did not, however, give much thought to Mr. Morris. It was his dour-faced wife with her gruff, overbearing manner who principally occupied my reflections. She seemed to have divined in some way that I was but a beginner—perhaps my youthful appearance gave her the hint—and to have treated me with almost open contempt. In truth, my position was not a very dignified one. The diagnosis of the case had been made for me, the treatment had been prescribed for me and was being carried out by other hands than mine. My function was to support a kind of legal fiction that I was conducting the case, but principally to supply the morphia (which a chemist might have refused to do) and, when the time came, to sign the death-certificate. It was an ignominious role for a young and ambitious practitioner and my pride was disposed to boggle at it. But yet there was nothing to which I could object. The diagnosis was undoubtedly correct and the treatment and management of the case exactly such as I should have prescribed. Finally, I decided that my dissatisfaction was principally due to the unattractive personality of Mrs. Morris; and with this conclusion I dismissed the case from my mind and let my thoughts wander into more agreeable channels.

  V. Inspector Follett's Discovery

  To a man whose mind is working actively, walking is a more acceptable mode of progression than riding in a vehicle. There is a sort of reciprocity between the muscles and the brain—possibly due to the close association of the motor and psychical centres—whereby the activity of the one appears to act as a stimulus to the other. A sharp walk sets the mind working; and, conversely, a state of lively reflection begets an impulse to bodily movement.

  Hence, when I had emerged from Market Street and set my face homewards, I let the omnibuses rumble past unheeded. I knew my way now. I had but to retrace the route by which I had come and, preserving my isolation amidst the changing crowd, let my thoughts keep pace with my feet. And I had, in fact, a good deal to think about—a general subject for reflection which arranged itself around two personalities, Miss D'Arblay and Dr. Thorndyke.

  To the former I had written suggesting a call on her, 'subject to the exigencies of the service,' on Sunday afternoon, and had received a short but cordial note definitely inviting me to tea. So that matter was settled and really required no further consideration, though it did actually occupy my thoughts for an appreciable part of my walk. But that was mere self-indulgence, the preliminary savouring of an anticipated pleasure. My cogitations respecting Dr. Thorndyke were, on the other hand, somewhat troubled. I was eager to invoke his aid in solving the hideous mystery which his acuteness had (I felt convinced) brought into view. But it would probably be a costly business and my pecuniary resources were not great. To apply to him for services of which I could not meet the cost was not to be thought of. The too-common meanness of sponging on a professional man was totally abhorrent to me.

  But what was the alternative? The murder of Julius D'Arblay was one of those crimes which offer the police no opportunity; at least, so it seemed to me. Out of the darkness this fiend had stolen to commit this unspeakable atrocity, and into the darkness he had straightway vanished, leaving no trace of his identity nor any hint of his diabolical motive. It might well be that he had vanished for ever; that the mystery of the crime was beyond solution. But if any solution was possible, the one man who seemed capable of discovering it was John Thorndyke.

  This conclusion, to which my reflections led again and again, committed me to the dilemma that either this villain must be allowed to go his way unmolested, if the police could find no clue to his identity—a position that I utterly refused to accept—or that the one supremely skilful investigator should be induced, if possible, to take up the inquiry. In the end I decided to call on Thorndyke and frankly lay the facts before him, but to postpone the interview until I had seen Miss D'Arblay and ascertained what view the police took of the case and whether any new facts had transpired.

  The train of reflection which brought me to this conclusion had brought me also, by way of Pentonville, to the more familiar neighbourhood of Clerkenwell; and I had just turned into a somewhat squalid by-street which seemed to bear in the right direction, when my attention was arrested by a brass plate affixed to the door of one of those hybrid establishments, intermediate between a shop and a private house, known by the generic name of open surgery. The name upon the plate—Dr. Solomon Usher—awakened certain reminiscences. In my freshman days there had been a student of that name at our hospital; a middle-aged man (elderly, we considered him, seeing that he was near upon forty) who, after years of servitude as an unqualified assistant, had scraped together the means of completing his curriculum. I remembered him very well: a facetious, seedy, slightly bibulous but entirely good-natured man, invincibly amiable (as he had need to be), and always in the best of spirits. I recalled the quaint figure that furnished such rich material for our school-boy wit: the solemn spectacles, the ridiculous side-whiskers, the chimney-pot hat, the formal frock-coat (too often decorated with a label secretly pinned to the coat-tail and bearing some such inscription as 'This style 10s. 6d.' or other scintillations of freshman humour), and, looking over the establishment, decided that it seemed to present a complete congruity with that well-remembered personality. But the identification was not left to mere surmise, for even as my eye roamed along a range of stoppered bottles that peeped over the wire blind, the door opened and there he was, spectacles, side-whiskers, top-hat and frock-coat, all complete, plus an oedematous-looking umbrella.

  He did not recognise me at first—naturally, for I had changed a good deal more than he had in the five or six years that had slipped away—but inquired gravely if I wished to see him. I replied that it had been the dearest wish of my heart, now at length gratified. Then, as I grinned in his face, my identity suddenly dawned on him.

  "Why, it's Gray!" he exclaimed, seizing my hand. "God bless me, what a surprise! I didn't know you. Getting quite a man. Well, I am delighted to see you. Come in and have a drink."

  He held the door open invitingly, but I shook my head.

  "No, thanks," I replied. "Not at this time in the day."

  "Nonsense," he urged. "Do you good. I've just had one myself. Can't say more than that, excepting that I am ready to have another. Won't you really? Pity. Should never waste an opportunity. Which way are you going?"

  It seemed that we were going the same way for some distance and we accordingly set off together.

  "So you've flopped out of the nest," he remarked, looking me over—"at least,
so I judge by the adult clothes that you are wearing. Are you in practice in these parts?"

  "No," I replied; "I am doing a locum. Only just qualified, you know."

  "Good," said he. "A locum's the way to begin. Try your prentice hand on somebody else's patients and pick up the art of general practice, which they don't teach you at the hospital."

  "You mean book-keeping and dispensing and the general routine of the day's work?" I suggested.

  "No, I don't," he replied. "I mean practice; the art of pleasing your patients and keeping your end up. You've got a lot to learn, my boy. Experientia does it. Scientific stuff is all very well at the hospital, but in practice it is experience, gumption, tact, knowledge of human nature, that counts."

  "I suppose a little knowledge of diagnosis and treatment is useful?" I suggested.

  "For your own satisfaction, yes," he admitted; "but for practical purposes, a little knowledge of men and women is a good deal better. It isn't your scientific learning that brings you kudos, nor is it out-of-the-way cases. It is just common sense brought to bear on common ailments. Take the case of an aurist. You think that he lives by dealing with obscure and difficult middle and internal ear cases. Nothing of the kind. He lives on wax. Wax is the foundation of his practice. Patient comes to him as deaf as a post. He does all the proper jugglery—tuning-fork, otoscope, speculum and so on, for the moral effect. Then he hikes out a good old plug of cerumen and the patient hears perfectly. Of course, he is delighted. Thinks a miracle has been performed. Goes away convinced that the aurist is a genius; and so he is if he has managed the case properly. I made my reputation here on a fish-bone."

  "Well, a fish-bone isn't always so very easy to extract,' said I.

  "It isn't," he agreed. "Especially if it isn't there."