The Death-Doctor/04
CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH I EARN A BIG FEE
DURING my first two years of practice in Okehampton I worked fairly hard, but only made about eight hundred pounds a year, which was not nearly enough, especially as my tastes and habits became increasingly extravagant.
I wanted good horses, good wine, good cigars, plenty of holidays, and a thousand and one other things and luxuries, which rapidly absorbed more money than I was making.
I cannot imagine any worse feeling than that of an empty pocket to a man who has been accustomed to a full one.
My wife and I had a large circle of acquaintances and kept almost open house to those who liked card-playing.
I was at this time the delight and the "much admired" of ladies, both young and old, for whom I invented ailments, to cure which I provided necessary medicines and the, to me most essential, resulting accounts.
I was getting very unhappy, however, when one day, much to my gratification, I was called to Scoriton Manor, a fine country residence about five miles distant from our little town, to see the youthful heir to the estate and ten thousand a year.
He was seven years old; his father was dead, and his mother lived at the Manor, which with the whole estate was entailed. His uncle, the next-of-kin, spent most of his time there, and it was through his influence that I was asked to attend the sick boy. He and I had played billiards together at the County Hotel on several occasions, and I might say that he won every time, and, conversely, that I judiciously lost.
Jack Chalmers was a bright, nice little chap, and I did not find much the matter with him, and so I told his mother, at the same time carefully hedging in case anything might develop later. She and I did not hit it off; there are some people, the sort you call really honest and straightforward, don't you know, who have a natural antipathy to those who are not of their way of thinking.
Captain Chalmers, the uncle, asked me into his room to smoke a cigar before I left, and of course inquired after the boy.
"I managed to rush you in here this time, my dear d'Escombe," he said, in his slow, drawling manner, "but I'm doubtful, very doubtful. 'Madam' does not like you, I fear, and is almost sure to find some excuse for sending to London next time. What a pity I'm not Lord of the Manor; I could put plenty of work and good fat fees in your way. Is there anything the matter with the boy? His heart quite sound, eh?"
Of course these remarks had the effect they were calculated to have; little Jack Chalmers' death-warrant was signed in the few seconds which passed before I answered.
"I can't say that I should be exactly sorry, don't-yer-know," he continued, and looked very straight at me through his monocle.
Then I started in to prepare my ground. I talked about the hard times, lack of work, shortness of money, and heavy expenses, and ended up by asking the Captain point-blank if he could lend me a hundred pounds for a month.
"My dear boy," he answered, "I wish you could do the same for me."
Oh," I said pointedly, "you and I are in the same boat and experiencing the same bad financial weather, eh? I suppose if you were to come into the estate you would be glad to lend a helping hand?"
"I should just think so, old chappie; not a paltry hundred, but ten times the amount."
"Or perhaps even more?"
"Yes, perhaps twenty times."
"Is that a promise?"
"Yes, in the very unlikely event of anything happening."
"More unlikely things have happened, Chalmers," I answered with a grin. "Well, good-bye, I shall be up again to-morrow to see how the boy is going on."
I thought furiously as I drove home, and by the time the carriage drew up at my door my plan was decided.
At this particular time I was attending a child who was in the last stage of scarlet fever, the desquamating stage we call it; really a peeling off of innumerable small flaky bits of skin, each of which is capable of giving scarlet fever to someone else.
What was easier than to convey this infection to the boy up at the Manor?
Next day I visited the infectious case first, and whilst examining him, I managed to scrape off enough of the little fragments of skin under two of my finger-nails to give scarlet fever to twenty children.
I had often manufactured cases, but now two thousand of the "best and brightest" were being dangled cleverly before me.
I had not only to communicate the disease, however, but it was needful also to render it fatal—not such an easy business, yet I could not think of any better plan. You see, such an enormous amount of care was taken to keep the boy from running any risks. He was always carefully watched and guarded.
I drove directly home from the fever case and covered the two infected fingers with rubber points cut from a glove, which could be slipped off under cover of my handkerchief, or even the bed-clothes, if necessary.
I intended to plant my disease-carrying atoms at the moment when I took the boy's temperature, and I was a good deal taken aback to find that since my departure the day previously, Mrs. Chalmers had persuaded a friend of hers, who was a nurse, to pay her a short visit, and help look after Jackie; at the same time, consequently, I found that the temperature had been already taken
Adopting a rather pompous and fussy manner, however, I said that I should prefer to take it again, and walking to the window pretended to be looking at the thermometer, instead of which I was of course removing the rubber nail covers, one of which I was clumsy enough to drop as I returned to the bedside.
I put the thermometer into the boy's mouth with my left hand, making sure that both his lips and tongue touched the two fingers which I had infected.
"You've dropped a rubber finger-cover, doctor," said a soft voice, and turning, I found the nurse holding it out to me, looking meantime with some interest at my hands to see, I supposed, why I needed such protection.
"Thank you, nurse," I said; "I ran a needle into my finger to-day, and I always take great care of my hands."
"How is Jackie this morning. Dr. d'Escombe?" inquired the boy's mother, as I followed her downstairs.
"I don't think that he's quite so well," was my previously thought-out answer. "Although he has not any serious rise of temperature, still there's something I'm not quite satisfied about—the kind of intuition which we doctors get, you know."
"Would you like a consultation?" she asked.
"Nonsense, Jane—there's nothing the matter," interrupted the drawling voice of the gallant Captain, who had just entered. "You leave d'Escombe to look after the little chap. He'll be well in a couple of days."
The lady looked at him, a very straight, almost inquiring look, and I could see by the momentary flash in her eyes and the firmer set of the mouth that she distrusted her relation; perhaps simply because he was the next heir to little Jackie.
"You'll tell me at once if there's the slightest danger, won't you. Dr. d'Escombe?" she said to me, ignoring the Captain's remark altogether. "He is all I've got, and it would break my heart if anything happened to him. I can trust you, can't I?"
This kind of interview was none too pleasant, and I was glad to get away and drink a large whisky-and-soda with the prospective Lord of the Manor.
"How is he really?" he asked, looking keenly at me.
"I don't quite know, Chalmers. I shouldn't wonder if he were sickening for something," I replied, with a smile.
"Gad, you're a cold-blooded devil!" he blurted out, and then, "I mean all doctors seem to be naturally hard-hearted and unfeeling—eh, what?"
"Not all, not by a long way; some are different. I, personally, practise to make money, not for the sake of curing the sufferer, if that's what you mean."
Next day the boy had a headache, and two days later his temperature jumped up, and when I told his mother she openly deplored the recent death of her regular medical attendant, and practically insisted on a consultation with one of the leading physicians in London.
He came in the evening, but could throw no light on the case; the rash had not yet appeared. Luckily for me he regarded the illness very lightly; but when on the following day the typical red rash did come, and he was again sent for from the hotel, he changed his opinion, and diagnosed a virulent attack of scarlet fever.
"You were right, d'Escombe," the Captain remarked to me later, with a curious look in his eyes.
He knew well enough that the illness was my doing.
The child got rapidly worse, and I must confess that when I went in to see him, and that was several times a day, the sight of his little, red, flushed face, bright, suffused eyes, and pretty, tousled fair hair, made me—even me—feel uncomfortable and anxious to see the finish so that I might get away.
The most searching inquiries failed to discover the source of his infection; nobody, of course, thought of me—nobody ever does suspect the doctor, although Mrs. Chalmers did ask me if I had any scarlet fever cases, to which I said "No."
Despite the most unremitting attention and nursing, the frequent visits of the great man from London, and my constant presence in the house, the boy died on the sixth day; but it is possible that if I had not kept a close watch, he might have recovered.
Captain Chalmers inquired constantly and eagerly after the invalid, and as the days went on his manner to me changed; he became patronizing and arrogant, already seeing himself the possessor of the Manor and its land and income.
Would he pay? That was my worry. I had no means of making him, and if he chose to back out he could.
On the day of little Jackie's death the Captain asked me into his room, and said: "I shall be able to lend you the money we mentioned very shortly, but one thing I insist on, and that is that you never enter this house again; and I should also like to inform you that when I make a new will, your name will not appear, so my death will not advantage you. I thought it would be well to mention it, because it seems to me that you are the sort of man who might act on the chance, and I hope to live for many years yet."
For the moment, I felt like letting him have it straight from the shoulder, but it wouldn't do, and so I answered, smiling: "You speak in enigmas, Chalmers, but anything to suit you; however, you must not appear any different to me in the town. Then I shall hear from you soon?"
"In a day or two," he replied; and I left the Manor, never to enter it again except on the occasion of poor little Jackie's funeral.
The two thousand came in notes with never a word, and very soon Chalmers appeared to take an intense dislike to the Manor, and went to live in London, and abroad.
This windfall put me straight for a time, but, as usual, matters came to a bad pass again, not so very long after.