An Old Heart Goes A-Journeying (21 page)

“Ha!—burglary too,” grinned Paul. “There’ll be plenty on that bill. How did the boy get out?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped with a return of ill-temper. “I had just gone to milk the cows, and the stable door slammed. I thought it was the wind, but when I heard the bolt rattle, I knew what had happened.”

“And you didn’t see or hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“It must have been Marie.”

“No,” insisted Frau Schlieker, “she wouldn’t have taken my dresses.”

“Perhaps she was in a hurry and didn’t notice. What did you do then?”

“I shouted for you out the window. But the window overlooks the lake, and anyone who heard would only have jeered. Then I felt I was going to have a fit. I tried to get out of the stall, but I didn’t have time.”

“Yes,” he said darkly, “and now I suppose you’re going to have fits again.”

“Paul!” she cried imploringly. “That was the very first. I shan’t have another, I’m sure, if only we can get Marie back. It was just because I got so excited over her.”

“Can you drive?” he asked. “I couldn’t hold the horses, my arms feel as if they were dropping off.”

“Of course,” she exclaimed. “Shall we start now?”

“It’s after seven. We must go to the doctor and get a certificate, and then to the police and maybe to the magistrate. We must start at once.”

“I’ll hitch the horses,” she said. “You keep quiet and have another glass of schnapps. Don’t you worry—Listen! What was that?”

“Stop!” cried Schlieker, who had also heard a cry, and leapt to his feet. “There’s someone in the trap—come on!”

Both ran. The dog was barking frantically and a voice cried out in pain.

“Take a stick,” cried Mali, “there are several of them, Paul.”

The dog cleared the wall with a leap. Two shadows dragged a third through the yard gates.

“Stop!” yelled Schlieker, brandishing his stick, “stop—or I’ll shoot.”

The shadows vanished.

“Run, Mali!” he cried. “I can’t. Catch ’em. They’re only children. Marie was there!”

But it was too late. They had disappeared in the darkness. Not a sound, not a cry.

“No good?” he asked as she came back breathless.

“No!”

“A trap’s gone; it was Philip that was caught, from the sound of the scream.”

“Yes,” she said savagely, “and we’d have got Marie too. She’d never have left him in the trap.”

“Hang it all!” he cried in a fury. “Everything goes
wrong at once. Here—here are your dresses. They were lying in the yard. The kids must have let the dog loose when they brought them back. However, that little beggar won’t run much farther for a long time, his leg’s surely broken.”

“Oh, if we’d only been a minute sooner.”

“My God, yes—” and he ground his teeth. “Hitch the horses, we don’t want to waste any more time.”

Ten minutes later they drove into the night.

In which Dr. George Kimmknirsch acquires some patience and becomes involved in a conspiracy

T
HERE WERE TWO
doctors in Kriwitz: old Dr. Faulmann, medical officer for the district, familiarly known as Doc, and Dr. George Kimmknirsch, who could hardly be said to be known at all.

In point of fact, Kriwitz, with eighteen hundred extremely robust inhabitants, set in a countryside that was even healthier still, did not offer very promising prospects for a doctor. Old Faulmann had, in fact, a good deal more time on his hands than he wanted, and had certainly not made a fortune out of his practice. However, he managed to support himself and his family, though he had often earned their dinners by his willingness to accept payment in kind: ducks’ eggs, a couple of honeycombs, a hare, a basket of raspberries, and on one occasion—from a patient who suffered from an obstinate reluctance to pay cash—a fat calf, whose antics in the doctor’s carriage on the way home nearly led to an accident.

Everyone was accordingly much taken aback one day when a white enamel plate appeared outside Frau Postmistress Bimm’s house, bearing the legend:

What could it mean? The Kriwitzers, inside and out the town, shrugged their shoulders and grinned.

Consulting hours twice a day—as busy as all that, eh? And a real porcelain button connected with a real electric bell, when all Kriwitz was used to tapping on old Faulmann’s second ground-floor window on the left. This young man would not last long.

But Dr. Kimmknirsch did last. No matter how few patients he had, no matter what his feelings might be—and the Kriwitzers had no illusions on this score—a bronzed and rather freckled young man, grave but not unkindly, appeared every morning, mounted a very malodorous motorcycle, and honked and clattered out of the town, usually taking the road along which the senior resident had ambled on his brown mare an hour or two before.

Kriwitz laughed. “He can’t fool us that way!” they said.

Perhaps he did not want to fool them. Perhaps Dr. Kimmknirsch merely wanted to get out into the fresh air away from his impeccable surgery at Frau Postmistress Bimm’s for a few hours, where six cane chairs stood and gaped at him in a row. Which was natural enough, for as the son of Sheepmaster Kimmknirsch from Upper
Pomerania, near Belgard on the Persante, he had been used to a great deal of fresh air from his boyhood.

He rode over the green or brown or yellow countryside, leaned his motorcycle against a tree, flung off his clothes and went for a swim in a lonely pool, or searched a hedge for hazel nuts and cracked them between two stones (he had so far submitted to civilization that he no longer cracked them with his teeth). He even climbed a tree in his smart check suit, and fetched down a crow’s nest. Thus he passed his days, not at all ill-content—the son of a shepherd with three thousand sheep to mind can well afford to wait for a few patients.

But what was more important, he could afford to wait, because, though the Kriwitzers did not know it, he enjoyed a blessing that had never been vouched old Faulmann all his long life. Though he had no patients, he had a very comfortable allowance as the son of Kimmknirsch the sheepmaster.

Old Kimmknirsch was a well-known personage in Upper Pomerania. His fame as a healer whom men themselves might consult in a crisis reached far beyond the boundaries of that land, and indeed he did very well out of many thousand patients. But though he had prospered exceedingly, one burden weighed on his mind; his colleagues of the Faculty of Medicine, which alone administered salvation, called him a quack and a cow-doctor.

He was just as careful and conscientious as they were, but like all men in his position he wanted recognition just where it was beyond all sense and reason to expect it.

It was his heart’s desire to make his boy George a real doctor, and he had therefore thrown caution to the winds, spending his money without stint.

So Dr. George Kimmknirsch strolled through the streets and alleys of Kriwitz, paid his rent, to everyone’s surprise, punctually on the first of every month, ate his lunch at the Archduke, passed the time of day with Herr or Frau Stillfritz from whom he picked up all manner of useful information about the place and the people, and placidly submitted to a great deal of good-natured chaff when he dined there in the evening.

His one trouble was lack of work; however, he was well supplied with large tomes on medicine, and on that quiet October evening he was sitting over his books imagining, no doubt, that his life would proceed in this fashion until the next influenza epidemic.

But Dr. Kimmknirsch did not need to wait so long for his first patient, who was just clambering out of a cart, while Mali was saying in an encouraging tone: “Bear up—it’ll soon be over, Paul.”

To which he replied savagely: “Bear up!—Nonsense! I’ve borne a good deal or I wouldn’t be going to a sawbones. He can’t do me much good, I’ll bet my shirt on that; but perhaps he won’t ask so many questions as old Faulmann.”

But the Schliekers had no luck. Postmistress Bimm, who opened the door to them, was much more inquisitive than Faulmann. She eyed the pair very dubiously, and in her reluctant announcement described them as “two people,” with an air that clearly indicated they were very doubtful people indeed.

But the Herr Doctor told her to show them up. He switched on the ceiling light, so as to get a good view the moment they entered.

The man came in first with his black eye, swollen nose, and torn lip. He looked so alarming that the young doctor exclaimed: “Hullo—hullo! You’ve been knocked about a bit, haven’t you?”

“Will you put that in writing?” returned his visitor promptly.

“What?—that you’ve been fighting?”

“That I’ve been assaulted, young man!” said Paul savagely.

“I should have to examine you first,” retorted the doctor coolly. “And, by the way, I’m not a young man—I’m Herr Doctor Kimmknirsch.”

“And a very nice name, too,” said Paul, determined that this starveling medico should not look down on him, “almost as nice as mine. My name is Schlieker.”

“Schlieker?” said the young doctor, recalling what he had heard that day from Frau Stillfritz at the Archduke. “Schlieker from Unsadel?”

“That’s me,” nodded Schlieker. “So you’ve heard of me already? Then you’ll know I’m not the man to stand this sort of thing, so kindly examine me carefully, and give me a certificate; I’m going to make that rascal pay.”

“You must see the magistrate about that,” said Kimmknirsch. “I’ll examine you and give you a certificate—but I must attend to the young woman first.” And he turned to Mali: “You’ve had a fit today, haven’t you?”

“Well, I never!” shouted Schlieker, utterly dum-founded. “How did you know that?”

However, he said no more and let the other two talk,
more and more impressed not merely by the spotless consulting room with its white walls and shining instrument cases and glittering equipment, but also by the young doctor’s calm, kind face and steady eyes.

“Good—now swallow that,” said Kimmknirsch at length, and handed Frau Schlieker a glass. “You’d better stay in bed for a week.”

“Herr Doctor!” broke in Schlieker. “How can she do that? She has to help look after the cattle, and do the cooking, and . . .”

“Herr Schlieker,” interrupted Kimmknirsch, “I prescribe what I think fit—that is my business. And you obey such of my prescriptions as you think fit—that is your business. And now take off your coat and shirt; your wife says you have broken a couple of ribs.”

“He broke them for me, the rascal,” Schlieker exclaimed.

But the doctor merely replied: “Keep quiet, please, while I examine you,” and Schlieker said no more.

“No further damage,” observed Doctor Kimmknirsch, when he had finished, and laid some long strips of sticking plaster like roof-tiles across Schlieker’s chest. “It will heal up in three weeks. Three ribs broken and two cracked. You’d better stay in bed, too, for a few days. And, of course, you mustn’t carry any heavy weights, like sacks.”

“I’ve got a farm, Herr Doctor, and I must look after the cattle,” pleaded Schlieker, now completely mollified.