# The Strange Patient

From Colliers, Nov 27, 1909
    Mary turned from looking after the professor to the little creature beside her with a sense of absurd contrast. As she did so, she saw that he, too, was looking after the professor, and his empty face had suddenly become intent; it was hardened and vicious, with the parted lips and narrow eyes of hate. The man had discovered some spring of life within his listless body. It lasted only while one might draw a full breath; then he saw her scrutiny and sank again to his still dreariness
THE STRANGE PATIENT
The Celebrated Professor, the Doctor's Daughter, and the Empty Little Man
By PERCEVAL GIBBON
THERE were only two arrivals by the train from London when it stopped at the little flower-banked station of Barthiam; and Mary, who was waiting for it, had no difficulty in deciding which of them was Professor Fish. That great man never failed to look the part. His tall, lean figure, stooping at the shoulders, his big, smooth-shaven face mildly abstracted behind his glasses, but retaining always something of a keen and formidable character, his soft hat and great, flapping ulster, made up a noticeable personality anywhere. He seemed alone to crowd the little platform; the small man who accompanied him was lost in his shadow.
"Professor Fish?" accosted Mary, primly, at his elbow.
He turned upon her with a movement like a swoop.
"I am Mary Pond," she explained. "My father was called away to a case, so he sent me to meet you and bring you up to the house. I have a fly waiting."
"Ah!" The professor nodded and was bland. "Very good of you to take the trouble, Miss Pond. I am much obliged." He stepped aside to let his companion be seen. "This," he explained, "is your—er—guest."
Mary put out her hand, but the little man who had been standing behind the professor made no motion to take it. He was staring at the planks of the platform; he lifted his eyes for an instant to glance at her, and dropped them again at once. Mary saw a listless, empty face, pale eyes and pale hair, a mere effect of vacuity and weakness. The man drooped where he stood as though he were no more than half alive; his clothes were grotesquely ill-fitting. A little puzzled, she looked up to the professor, and saw that he was watching her.
"How do you do?" she asked gently of the little man.
The professor answered for him. "He does very well, Miss Pond," he said robustly. "Much better than he thinks. Between ourselves," dropping his voice and nodding at her with intention, "a most remarkable case. Very remarkable indeed. And now, if I can find a porter, we might as well be moving."
He seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaving them; then he set off down the platform. He walked with long strides, in great spasms of energy, as he did everything. Mary turned from looking after him to the little creature beside her with a sense of absurd contrast. As she did so, she saw that he, too, was looking after the professor, and his empty face had suddenly become intent; it was hardened and vicious, with the parted lips and narrow eyes of hate. The man had discovered some spring of life within his listless body. It lasted only while one might draw a full breath; then he saw her scrutiny and sank again to his still dreariness. It was a startling thing to see that flabby little insignificance strengthen to such a force of feeling, and Mary was conscious of a sort of alarm. But before she could frame a thing to say, the professor was back again, and the atmosphere of his vigor had enveloped them.
Professor Fish sat next to her in the cab, and the new patient, who was to be an inmate of her house for some time to come, leaned against the cushions opposite, with eyes half-closed and his coarse hands folded in his lap. The professor talked without ceasing, gazing through the open window at the fat lands of Kent unfolded beside the road and torpid under the July sun; but Mary found more of interest in the still face before her, cryptic and mysterious in its utter vacancy. So little it expressed besides weakness that Mary wondered what illness could thus have cut the man off from the world. She was used to the waste products of life; one "resident patient" succeeded another at her father's house, and to each she was a deft nurse and a supple companion. They had in common, she found, a certain paltriness; most of them had been overtaxed by easy burdens; but this man's aspect conveyed suggestions of a long struggle with a burden beyond all strength. The meanness of him, all his appearance of having begun in the gutter and failed there, touched her not at all; Mary had had too much to do with human flesh in the raw to be greatly concerned about such matters as that.
DR. POND was at home to meet them when the cab drew up at the door, an elderly, good-natured man, white-haired and sprucely white-bearded. He greeted Professor Fish with some deference, and helped the new patient carefully forth from the cab. It was Mary's duty to see the one trunk of new shining tin carried in and placed in the room that was prepared for the house's new inmate. This done, she went to the others in the little drawing-room. Her father and Professor Fish were seated in the window, busy with talk; the new patient had an upright chair against the wall, and sat in it with the same lassitude and downcast gaze which had already drawn Mary's wondering compassion. The professor rose at her entry.
"Ah, Miss Pond," he said, in his cheerful, booming voice; "I was just giving your father a few particulars about our young friend."
"I should like to hear them," she answered, taking the chair he reached for her. "You see, I shall have a good deal to do with him."
Old Dr. Pond nodded. "Mary," he said, "is my right hand, professor."
"Of course," agreed the professor. "I can see that."
HE WAS seated again, and he leaned across to Mary confidentially, with an explanatory forefinger hovering.
"As I told your father, Miss Pond, it isn't necessary to go far back in the case," he said. "As a matter of fact, I took this case up—experimentally. The subject was a good one for a—well, call it a theory of mine, a new idea in pathology. You see? I wanted to try it on the dog before publishing it, and our young friend there"—he nodded at the back of the room and sank his voice—"he was the dog. You understand?"
Mary nodded, and the professor smiled.
"Well," he said. "I have succeeded. The patient is convalescent, but—you see how he is. He has very little vital force and also, occasionally, delusions. Merely ephemeral, you know, but—delusions! He wants quiet, chiefly, and very little else—just that atmosphere of repose and—er—peace which you can create for him, Miss Pond."
"These delusions," put in Dr. Pond; "are they of any special character?"
"H'm." The professor stroked his chin. "No," he said. "Curious, you know, but not symptomatic." His hard eye scanned the old doctor purposefully. "Sometimes," he said slowly, "he thinks he has been dead, and that I brought him back to life."
"And he hates you for it?" suggested Mary.
The professor stared at her in open astonishment.
"How on earth did you know that?" he cried.
"I saw him looking after you in the station," Mary explained. "He just—glared."
"I see." Professor Fish was always rather extravagant in manner and speech; his relief now seemed a little exaggerated. He drew a deep breath and glanced past Mary to the patient on his chair at the far end of the room. "Yes," he said, "at such times he is distinctly resentful. I don't wonder you noticed it."
"Your letter didn't mention his name," said Mary.
"I should call him Smith," answered the professor. "It's a good name, and that. I think, is all there is to tell. Oh, by the way, though! He has no suicidal tendency, of course, or I shouldn't put him here, but all the same—"
Mary nodded. "Quite so," she said. "No razor."
"Exactly," said the professor. "And no money. Give him the things he needs and let me have the bill."
He rose and reached for his hat.
"But you'll stay and have something to eat," protested old Dr. Pond.
"Can't," answered the professor. "Got an engagement in town. I've just time to catch the train back. Now you quite understand about this case? Just quietness and soothing companionship, you know; fresh air and sleep, and all that."
"We quite understand," said Mary. "We'll do our best."
"I'm sure you will," said Professor Fish cordially. He moved over to where the patient sat; he had not moved at all. He continued to gaze at the carpet while the tall professor stood over him.
"Now, Smith," said the professor in his loud voice; "I'm off. You're in good hands here, you know. You've only to take it easy and rest."
"Rest?" Smith repeated the word in a hoarse whisper; it was the first he had spoken. He looked up and his eye went to the professor's face with a sort of challenge.
"Yes," said the professor. "Good-by."
Smith continued to look at him, but answered nothing. Professor Fish shrugged his shoulders and turned away sharply.
"He'll soon pick up," he said to Dr. Pond. "And now I really must go."
He shook hands with Mary with a manner of cheerful vigor, beaming at her through his gold-rimmed glasses, big, whimsical, and quick. A moment later Dr. Pond was showing him out and Mary, alone with her patient, had another glimpse of hate and contempt animating and enlivening that weak and formless face.
She waited till she heard the front door close and the professor's departing feet crunch on the gravel of the garden path. Then she went and put a hand on the little man's shoulder.
"You look very tired," she said quietly, in her level, pleasant voice. "Would you like to go to your room and lie down? And I will send you up some tea."
There was a long pause, and she thought he was not going to answer. But she waited restfully, and at last he sighed.
"Yes," he said wearily, "that's what I want."
His voice had the flat tones of cockneydom, but Mary took no note of it.
"Then let me show you the way," she said, still gently, and he rose at the word and followed her upstairs.
IN THIS manner the new patient was installed in the household of Dr. Pond. He slipped into his place like a shadow, displacing nothing. The doctor, swollen with the distinction of a visit by Professor Fish in person, would willingly have made a fuss of him if it had been possible. But Smith was not amenable to polite attentions. To attempts to render him particular consideration he opposed a barren inertia; one could as easily have been obliging to a lamp-post. The man's consciousness seemed to exist in a vacuum; he lived in a solitude to which the kindly doctor could never penetrate. Once, certainly, his persistent geniality won him a rebuff. It was at breakfast, and he was following his custom of endeavoring to trap Smith into conversation. Smith sat opposite him at the table, staring vacantly at the tablecloth.
"It is a fine morning," the doctor observed. "I wonder now, Mr. Smith, if you would care for a little drive with me. I have some brief visits to pay here and there, and I could drop you here again before I go on. The fresh air would do you good; freshen you up, you know; put a little life into you. Come now! What do you say to accompanying me?"
Smith said nothing, but his cheek twitched once.
"Come, now!" pressed the doctor, persuasively. "See what a lovely day it is! Sun, fresh air, the smell and sight of the fields—it'll put fresh life into you."
Smith's white face worked slightly. "'Ere," he said, and paused. The doctor bent forward, pleased. "Go to 'ell!" said Smith, thoughtfully.
MARY had much more success with him; a slender link of sympathy had established itself between the healthy, tranquil girl and this dreary wisp of a man. She asked him no questions, and in return for her forbearance he would sometimes speak to her voluntarily. He would emerge from his trance-like apathy to watch her as she went about her household duties. Professor Fish had spoken truly when he said that Mary Pond knew how to create about her an atmosphere of serenity. The tones of her quiet voice, the gentleness of her movements, the kindly sobriety of her regard, seemed to fortify her patient. For her part, a genuine compassion for the little man was mixed with some liking; he was a furtive and vulgar creature at the best, but his dependence on her, his helplessness and trouble, reached to the maternal in her Honest heart. She could manage him; but for her strategy he would have lived in his bed, day and night, in a sort of half-torpor.
"It's remarkable what a control you have over these low natures, Mary," Dr. Pond said to her. He had come home one afternoon to find that she had actually sent Smith out for a walk. "I confess, it's a case that's beyond me altogether. There doesn't seem to be anything to take hold of in the man. It would be better if he felt a little pain now and again; it would give one an opening, as it were."
Seated in a low chair in the window, Mary was hemming dusters. She looked up at him thoughtfully.
"Father," she said, "what do you think was the matter with him in the first place? What was the disease that Professor Fish cured?"
Dr. Pond shook his white head vaguely.
"Impossible to say," he answered. "It looks like a mental case, doesn't it? And yet— You see, Fish has had so many specialties. He was in practise in Harley Street as a nerve man. Then next thing one hears of him in heart surgery. He's had a go at electricity lately. And between you and me—he's a great man. of course—but if it wasn't for his position and all that, we'd be calling him a quack."
"Then you can't tell what the disease was?" persisted Mary.
"No," said Dr. Pond. "Nor even if there was a disease. For all I know, Fish may have been vivisecting him. He wouldn't stop at a thing like that, if I know anything about him."
"He ought to have told us," said Mary.
"Yes," agreed the doctor. "But Fish always does as he likes. How long has Smith been out now, Mary?"
"He went out at three," she answered, "and now it's half-past five. He ought to be in. I think I'll put my hat on, father, and go after him."
Dr. Pond nodded. "I would," he said.
THE road along which Smith had departed ran past the village, and Mary walked forth by it to seek her patient. It was a splendid, still afternoon; the trees by the wayside stood motionless in the late heat, their shadows in jet black twined and laced upon the white road. Far ahead of her she could see the land undulate in easy green bosoms against the radiant west; the sun was in her face as she walked. She had no fear that Smith had wandered far; for one thing, he had no strength to do so, and for another, she knew intuitively that the man lacked any purpose to carry him away. Therefore she walked at her ease, keeping cool and comely, and at the first corner in the road met a slim youth on horseback who stopped to salute her. It was Harry Wylde, son of the great man of the neighborhood.
"Afternoon, Miss Pond," he called, cheerfully. "Have you lost a little thing about the size of a pickpocket?"
"A little bigger than that, I think," she answered. "Have you seen him, Mr. Wylde?"
"Yes," said Harry Wylde. "I've seen him before, too, I'll swear. I knew the little beast at once. I say, Miss Pond, how the dickens did you manage to get mixed up with him?"
"He's my patient," said Mary. "Where did you see him, please?"
Harry Wylde pointed down the road. "I passed him just now," he said. "He was in the churchyard."
"The churchyard?"
"Yes, sitting on the grass, having no end of a time. Looked as happy as a trout in a sand-bath. I knew him at once."
"How did you know him?" demanded Mary.
Harry Wylde leaned forward over his saddle.
"Miss Pond," he said seriously, "there's hardly a man that goes to races in all England that doesn't know him. His name's Woolley—that's one of his names, anyhow. He was a kind of jockey once, and since then he's been the lowest, meanest little sharer in all the dirty little turf swindles that was ever kicked off a race-course. If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't say so; but you ought to know whom you're entertaining."
"But you must be utterly mistaken," cried Mary. "Professor Fish brought him to us. It's impossible."
"Case of Fish and Foul," suggested the youth. "But I'm not mistaken. The man I mean has lost the tip of his ear, the left one. Somebody bit it off, I believe. Now, have you noticed your chap's ear?"
He looked at her acutely, and she colored in hot distress.
"I see you have," he said. "I'd ask this Fish person for an explanation, if I were you, particularly as Woolley is supposed to be dead. The police want him pretty badly, you know. It looks queer, doesn't it?"
"I—I can't understand it," said Mary. "I'm sure there's a mistake somewhere."
Young Wylde nodded. "We'll call it a mistake," he said. "He was injured on the Underground in London and taken to St. Bridget's Hospital, where he died. I remember reading about it. Now, of course I sha'n't say anything to anybody, but you ought to have an explanation. Fish—is that his name?—seems to have played it pretty low down on you."
He gathered up his bridle and nodded to her with interest.
"Good afternoon, Miss Pond," he said. "Sorry to make trouble, but I couldn't leave you in the dark about a thing like this."
Mary walked on to the churchyard in considerable bewilderment. With the character of a patient who came under her care she had no particular concern; a nurse must be as little discriminating as death. But she did not like the story; it troubled and offended her, its connection with matters that interested the police, and all its suggestion that she and her father were being used as means of hiding, touched her with a sense of disgust. It did not occur to her to doubt Harry Wylde; he had been altogether too circumstantial to be doubted.
She reached the low wall that separated the churchyard from the road. The old graves, with their tombstones leaning awry, like gapped, uneven teeth, reminded her of her errand, and soon she saw Smith. He had found himself a seat where an old tomb with railings and monument was overrun with ground ivy; he sat among the coarse green of it. staring before him with his chin propped on one hand. All the glory of the western sky was beyond him; his profile stood out against it like a sharp silhouette. Mary stopped to look, and for the time forgot the wretched story she had just heard. The man was as motionless as the stone on which he sat—still with such a stillness as one sees not in the living. But it was not that which held Mary gazing; it came suddenly to her that in his attitude there was something apt and significant, something with a meaning, requiring only a key to interpret it. She wondered about it, vaguely and without framing words for her thoughts; it occurred to her that the stillness, the attitude, the mute surrender that spoke in every contour of the silhouetted figure, the very posture of rest, bespoke contentment, the welcome of relief which one gains on reaching one's own place, one's familiar atmosphere, one's due haven.
Minutes passed, and still she stood gazing; then, as though restive under the impressions that invaded her, she moved forward and entered the churchyard. It was not till she stood before him that Smith was aware of her; then, with a wrinkling of his brow and a sigh, he came back to his surroundings. Mary saw and noted how the raptness of his face gave way to its usual feebleness as he roused himself.
"You have been out a long time, nearly three hours," she said. "I think you ought to come in now."
HE SIGHED again. "All right," he said, slowly. But he did not rise, and Mary did not hurry him. She stood looking down at him while his slack lips fidgeted and his pale eyes flitted here and there over the ancient graves.
"Why did you come here, to this place?" she asked him presently. Her voice was very low.
He hesitated. "It's where I'd ought to be," he said, heavily. "Only I didn't have no luck." One hand went out uncertainly, and he pointed to the graves. "Them chaps is past bothering," he said. "There's no gettin' at them."
He shook his head; it was as though he shivered; and relapsed into silence again.
"You shouldn't think about things like that," Mary said.
He looked up at her almost shrewdly. "Think!" he repeated. "I got no need to think. I know."
"Know—what?"
"Ah!" he said, and sat brooding. "I'm alive, I am," he said at last; "but I been better off once. There's no way of tellin' it, 'cos it don't fit into words. Words wasn't meant to show such things. But I wasn't just a limpin', squintin' little welsher; I was something that could feel the meaning of things and the reason for them, just like you can feel 'eat and cold. Could feel and know things such as nobody can't feel or know till 'e's done with this rotten bustle of livin' and doin' things. That's what I know. Miss; that's what I found out when I died in that there 'orspital."
Mary stared at him; a brief vivacity was in his face as he spoke, a tone of certainty in his voice.
"But," she cried, "you're alive."
"Aye," he said, "I'm alive. That's the doin' of that Fish. He's the man; proddin' and workin' away there in that big room of his with the bottles and machines, anil bits of dead men on the tables. 'E thinks I'm a bit touched in the brain, but I know, I do! I remember all right that mornin', with the gray sky showin' over the wire blinds and the noise of the carts just beginnin' in the streets. There was sparkles in my eyes, flashes and colors, you know, and a feelin' as if I was all wet with warm water. I couldn't see at first, but by an' by I put up my 'and and cleared my eyes—all pins and needles, my 'and was. Then I got on my elbow and saw—the room and the bottles and all, and me naked on a table under a big light. An' against the wall, at the other side o' the from, there was him—Fish—in a white rubber gown and a face like chalk, shakin' an' sweatin' an' starin' at me. His eyes were all big an' flat; an' I lay there an' looked at 'im, while he bit his lip an' got a hold on himself. At last 'e come over to me. ''Ow are you feelin'?' 'e says. I'd been thinking. 'You devil, you've brought me back,' I shouted. He was shakin' still like a flag in the wind. "Yes,' 'e says. 'Unless I'm mad, I've brought you back.' I 'adn't the strength to do no more than lie still; so I just watched 'im, while 'e got brandy and drank it from the bottle. Oh, I remember; I remember the whole thing. That Fish can fool you an' old Pond, but there's no foolin' me—I know."
He leaned forward and spat; the gesture emphasized the hard deliberation of his speech. The look he gave her now was much more assured than her own.
"We must be getting back," Mary said, uneasily. She remembered what Professor Fish had mentioned of Smith's delusions. But the strangeness and assurance of what he had said were not in accord with what she knew of unstable minds.
HE ROSE and accompanied her docilely enough, but the strength that had furnished him with force to speak seemed to last only while he was in the churchyard. As they went along the quiet road he was again the flimsy, unlovely shell of a man she had first known. They went slowly, for Mary accommodated her gait to his; he walked weakly, looking down always. Where the road passed the end of the village a few people turned to look after them with slow curiosity. The village policeman, chin in hand, stared with bovine intensity; his big, simple face was clenched in careful observation. Mary recalled Hairy Wylde's story and his warning that the authorities had been seeking for Smith; she quickened her pace a little to get out of that mild publicity.
"What were you before you—before you met Professor Fish?" she asked him suddenly.
"A bettin' tout," he answered; "and a thief." He spoke absently and with complete composure.
"Well," said Mary; "will you do something for me if I ask you?"
He looked aside at her. "Don't ask." he said. "Don't ask me to do anything. 'Cos I can't."
"It's only this." said Mary. "What you told me in the churchyard was very wonderful and dreadful; but even if it was true, it would be a bad thing for you to think much about. It couldn't help you to live; it could only come between you and being well. So I want you, as far as you can, not to think about it. Try to forget it. Will you?"
He made some inarticulate sound with his lips. "Did Fish warn you?" he asked. "Did he tell you I was crazy and had notions? Ah!" he exclaimed, "I can see he did. He's as cunning as a fox, he is. He's got me tied hand and foot."
"Hush! Don't talk like that!" bade Mary. "Do as I ask you. You know I'm your friend, don't you?"
He shrugged uncertainly. "You would be if you knew how," he said slowly. "But Lord! You don't know nothing that matters. It's only us that knows what's what—only us."
"Who's us?" asked Mary, involuntarily.
He looked full at her. "The dead," be answered, and after that they went on in silence.
It was not easy for Mary to marshal her thoughts that evening when Smith, after a silent meal, had gone to bed and left her alone with her father. He had spoken with such an effect of intensity that the impression of it persisted in her memory like the pain that remains from a blow; the figure of him sitting on the grave, telling his strange story in words of impressive simplicity, haunted her obstinately. She could see easily the picture he had conjured for her of a big electric-lighted loom, silent save for remote noises from without, and its equipment of dissecting tables, bottles, and the machinery of an anatomist. Harry Wylde's story had sunk into the background of her concerns; yet it was of that she had to speak to her father, and she was glad, rather than surprised, when he made an opening for her himself.
"Smith seems to be rather a mystery to the village." he remarked. "That manner of his is causing talk." He laughed gently. "White—you know Ephraim White, the policeman—he asked me what I knew about him."
"Yes," said Mary. "Well, young Mr. Wylde asked me the same thing, he was sure he had recognized him."
"Ah! And who was he supposed to be?"
Mary told him what Harry Wylde had said to her in the afternoon, not omitting the mention of the mutilated ear. Dr. Pond heard it without disturbance, nodding thoughtfully as She spoke.
"Ye-es," he said. "It's curious. It would explain the delusions, you know. Smith, bearing a marked resemblance to somebody who is dead—a resemblance that even extends to a certain wound—identities himself with that person. A rather dramatic position, isn't it? Still, I hope we are not going to have a police inquiry. I shall certainly let Fish know that people are becoming suspicious. What did young Wylde say the other man's name was?"
"Woolley," answered Mary. "Then, you will write to Professor Fish, father?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "he ought to know. I'll write to-night."
"I think I would," agreed Mary, thoughtfully, and rose to get him writing materials. But some inward function of her was uneasy, she felt as though she had failed the little man whose reliance was in her. "You know I'm your friend," she had said to him, and this reference to the professor had not the flavor of full friendship. The same compunction remained with her the next morning, and made her specially gentle with Smith. He had fallen back to his usual condition of vacuity and inertia: she had to rouse him to eat and drink when he sat at table with a face as void of life as a death-mask, and eyes empty and unseeing. Professor Fish was not slow to reply to the letter. A telegram arrived from him at lunch-time, stating that be would come down next day, and asking that his train might be met.
"That means you'll have to go down again, Mary," said Dr. Pond. "I've an appointment at that very hour."
Mary nodded, not displeased at having an opportunity of sounding the professor before anybody else. She saw that Smith had looked up at the mention of Fish's name with some quickening of interest. She smiled to him and helped him to salad.
The morning of the next day came in squally and wild, with starts of rain, a sharp interruption to the summer's tranquillity. Mary was rather troubled to dispose of Smith during her absence, but ensconced him at last in the room which was known as "the study," an upper chamber where Dr. Pond kept his books and those other possessions which were not in frequent use. Here was a window giving a view over the rain-blurred hedgerows clear to the swell of the downs, and an armchair in which Smith could sit in peace and wear undisturbed his semblance of a man in a trance. With some notion of leaving nothing undone, Mary rooted out for him a bundle of old illustrated magazines, and left them on the unused writing-table at his side; be did not glance at them.
"Now," she said when all was done, "I must go. I shall be back soon. Shake hands with me and say thank you."
She smiled down in his face as he looked slowly up at her, huddled like a lay figure between the arms of the big chair.
"Yes?" she said encouragingly, for his lips had moved.
"I feel—" he said in a whisper.
"Yes," urged Mary. "What?"
"Hope!" he said, aloud, and gave her his hand.
THE cab of the village bore her to the station over roads tearful with rain, and arrived there just as the London train came to a stop. The tall figure of Professor Fish, jumping from his compartment and turning to slam the door vehemently, struck her as oddly familiar; the man's personality stood in high relief from his surroundings. Yet there was a certain disturbance in his manner as he greeted her, a touch of the confidential, which added to her curiosity.
"This is a very annoying thing. Miss Pond," he began as the cab started back along the tree-bordered road; "a most annoying thing; privacy was absolutely essential. Here is something done, a big thing too; and when only privacy, reticence, quiet are essential, we have this infernal fuss on our hands."
He spoke with all his habitual force and volume, but something in him suggested to Mary that he did so consciously and of purpose.
"Well." she said, "there's nobody about here that is likely to guess at your experiment. That isn't the trouble, you know. The trouble is that people say they recognize Mr. Smith as a man who is wanted by the police, who is supposed, too, to be dead. So, you see, the only thing wanted is an explanation."
"Explanation!" He put the word from him with a gesture of his big smooth hands.
Mary nodded, scanning him coolly.
"Yes," she said. "I can understand that an explanation might be difficult."
Professor Fish laughed shortly, a mere bark of sour mirth, and turned to look through the rain-splashed window of the cab.
"Difficult!" be repeated, and turned his face to her again. "Not at all difficult, my dear Miss Pond. But awkward—Lord! It wouldn't do at all!" His eyes behind his glasses became keen and lively. He looked at her carefully.
"He's talked to you, eh? You've heard his story?"
"Yes," answered Mary. "Once. It was very wonderful."
He nodded, still scrutinizing her. "I wish I could make him talk." he said, thoughtfully. "However—" he shrugged his big shoulders and was silent. There was a pause, then, while the wheels squelched through the mud below, and the rain beat rhythmically on the windows and roof of the cab. The professor stared intently through the wet glass, and Mary remembered, with a touch of amusement, her first meeting with him, when she had sat beside him and occupied her thoughts with the flabby phantom of Smith.
"You know." she said at length, "there'll have to be some sort of explanation."
"Well?" demanded the professor.
"If I knew what you had done to Mr. Smith," she went on. "I could help you to keep things as quiet as possible."
He beard her with a frown and shook his head. "If you knew you'd do anything but keep it quiet," he answered shortly.
"Then it was something horrible?" asked Mary quickly.
He smiled. "I expect to have many patients for the same treatment," he replied; "very many; I expect half the world. Where is Smith now?" he asked abruptly.
"At home by himself." replied Mary. "We'll be there in two minutes. You'd like to see him first?"
"Yes, please," he said. "I must have a word or two with him."
DR. POND had not returned when they drew up at the house, and as soon as the professor had rid himself of his ulster and bat, she led him upstairs to "the study."
"You'll find him in here," she said when they came to the door. "I shall be downstairs when you want me."
The professor nodded absently and turned the handle. Mary was at the top of the stairs when he entered. She turned even before he cried out, conscious of something happening.
"Stop!" cried the professor sharply. "Put that down!"
Mary ran to the open door and uttered a cry. Near the window stood Smith, erect and buoyant. The contents of desk-drawers were littered on the floor—papers, old pipes, various rubbish—and in his hand he held something which Mary recognized with a catch of breath.
"Father's old pistol," she said, and shuddered.
The professor had advanced as far as the middle of the room; the desk was between him and Smith, who was looking at him with a smile. Even in the weakness of fear that came over her. Mary wondered at the change in him. His very stature seemed to be greater; there was a grave power in that face she knew as a mask of witlessness and futility. He held the revolver in his right hand with the barrel resting in his left, and looked at the tall professor with a smile that had no mirth in it, but something like compassion.
"Drop it!" said the professor again. "Drop it, you fool!" But his voice of authority cracked, and he cried out: "For God's sake, don't make a mess of it now."
Smith continued to look at him with that ghost of a smile on his lips, and answered with slow words. He patted the pistol.
"This'll put me out of your reach," he said. "This is what'll do it. You won't be able to patch up the hole this'll make."
He raised the pistol; Mary, powerless to move, clenched her hands and whole being for the shock of imminent tragedy.
"Wait!" cried the professor, and cast a furtive, deprecating glance back at Mary. "Wait! I tell you it's no use; you can hurt yourself and disfigure yourself and weaken and impair your body—but not the life! Not the life! I tell you—it's no good!" He flung out a long arm, and his great forefinger pointed at Smith imperatively. "I'll have you back," he said. "I'll have you back. You're mine, my man: and I'll hold you. Put that pistol down; put it down, I tell you! Or else—" his arm dropped, and the command failed from his voice. He spoke in the tones of tired indifference. "Do it," he said. "Shoot yourself, if you want to. I'll deal with you afterward."
There was a pause, measured in heart-beats; Smith showed yet his face of serene gravity. When he spoke, it was strange to hear the voice of the back-streets, the gutter's phrase, expressing that quiet assurance.
"If it wasn't you," be said, "it wouldn't be nobody else. It's only you as can do it." he paused with lips pursed in deliberation. "If you knowed what I know," he wont on, "you'd see it wasn't right. I reckon you'll have to come too."
"Eh?" the professor looked up quickly, and threw up an arm as though to guard a blow. Mary screamed, and the noise of the shot startled her from her posture, and she fell on her knees. The professor took one pace forward, turned sharply, and fell full length on his face. She heard Smith say something, but the words passed her undistinguished; then the second shot sounded, and the fire-irons clattered as he tumbled among them.
Those that ran up to the room upon the sound of the shooting found her kneeling in the door with her hands over her face.
"Bury them! Bury them!" she was crying. "Bury them and let them go!"
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1926, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 97 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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