Testimony Of Two Men (78 page)

“Don’t tell me,” said Jonathan, “that you have another girl whom you’ve knocked up and you can’t get rid of her.”

“Be serious for once,” said Phil. “This concerns you, not me.

Since his arrest Jonathan had become familiar with a sudden sick dropping in his middle, something which he had never experienced before in his brave life. He lit a cigarette and watched Phil Harrington. “Well, tell me,” he said.

“I wish to God I could come to you with facts and conversations and ‘he said’ and ‘they said,’ and all that, and with dates, but I can’t, Jon. I began to suspect something was in the wind when the other fellas would stop talking when I came up to them, because they know I am your friend, and once or twice I heard your name. It’s sticky. I keep getting side looks and smirks and questions about how you are these days, as if they don’t see you in the hospitals as much as I do.”

“Hum,” said Jonathan. “It’s even more obvious at the Friends’,” said Phil. “I wish to God there was something definite I could tell you, but I think there’s some danger in the wind for you, Jon.”

Jonathan thought of the malignant letter which had been delivered to him by messenger. He said, “I wouldn’t worry, Phil. After all, no matter what they say or what evidence they think they have, I can’t be tried the second time for the same crime. Double jeopardy. Anyway, I’ll be out of here in a few weeks, forever. That ought to satisfy them.”

“They know you’re going, Jon. But this thing has blown up very recently.” He paused and frowned at his big competent hands. “It’s worse than months ago, if that’s possible. There’s a kind of elation in the air among the fellas who never liked you. You know them. They were the ones who were almost out of their minds when you were acquitted.”

“I know.” The sick and fallen feeling in Jonathan’s middle became stronger. Then with it came a deep and bitter anger and the white folds sprang out about his mouth.

“There’s nothing anyone can do to me,” he said. “I’m financially independent of my profession. I’m a rich man, with sound investments and property. So, they can’t hurt me in my -pocket. They can’t injure my reputation, for I haven’t any here, and be damned to reputation anyway. They can’t take away my patients, because I have sold my practice. So, what can they do to me?”

“I hate conjectures,” said Phil.

“Well, what do you ‘conjecture’?”

“Jon, so help me, I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. Maybe I’ve developed an imagination since I met Elvira. She’s a very complicated girl and gives me books to read, books I never had time to read before or even knew existed.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of her favorites, and he’s mine now, too, and you can’t read Poe without getting your imagination all excited or developing one.”

“I bet you had fun with
The Pit and the Pendulum.”

“I sweated, I swear.” Phil smiled briefly. He got up and put his hands in the pockets of his untidy trousers and lumbered heavily up and down for a few moments, and Jonathan thought he would be one of the few people in Hambledon whom he would miss. Phil stopped in front of him and looked down gravely. “I smell danger,” he said. “It’s the kind of inner smell I get about a patient even before I pick up the scalpel. A feeling that something’s wrong, though all previous indications have suggested this is going to be a very simple and uneventful operation. I had a young woman last week with what all examinations seemed to show had just a cystic ovary, and the uterus was clean and healthy. But when I took the scalpel and looked down at her unconscious face—a nice healthy-looking face, plump, too-—I knew there was something not so pure and pretty going on here. And, by God, I was right. The poor girl had a carcinoma, and the damned thing had spread—way up.”

“So, you think there’s something cancerous going on around me.”

“Don’t smile, Jon, but that’s exactly what I think.”

“And not a single word or hint to prove it.”

Phil sat down, thrust out his legs straight before him, pushed out his big red lip and stared at his boots, which, since he had met Elvira, shone like the sun. A shaft of light touched his thick blond hair, and he looked like a troubled schoolboy, for he had round large features full of young health and vitality.

“Well there was just something a couple of days ago. I was passing old Louis’ office and he was talking to someone behind the shut door, and he was yelling, and we always try to listen when Louis yells. He was shouting, and I caught your name, but that’s about all, except that he did say ‘don’t believe it.’ If I hadn’t been uneasy for some time, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about it, but I went back down the hall and waited. And then out of Louis’ office came a sweet-faced old man with white hair and that scoundrel, Senator Campion. Old Louis just stood on the threshold and glowered at them, and then he slammed the door right on their heels.”

“Good for Louis,” said Jonathan, but his voice was absent “That was all?”

“Thinking back, I heard Louis saying that something was ‘beamish,’ and that’s one of Lewis Carroll’s coined words, isn’t it, from
Alice in Wonderland.
Now, beamish means gladsome, if I remember, and smiling, and shining, all at the same time, and from the tone of Louis’ voice it didn’t seem right. He was bellowing then, and why was he doing that when things were so ‘beamish’?”

Jonathan suddenly sat upright. “Beamish?” he repeated. “Was he talking about a—a woman? A patient, perhaps of mine?”

Phil shook his head. “I don’t know, Jon. I just know that Louis looked as if he was about to have a stroke there on the threshold, and Campion was as rosy as could be, and grinning, and the old man—”

“You never met Jonas Witherby, did you?”

“Witherby?” Phil thought. “Oh. Once. A couple of years ago. I’ve seen his photograph in the newspapers when he’s been sponsoring something or other, or laying a cornerstone. Yes, by God, it was Witherby!” He paused. “Now, look, Jon, maybe it means nothing at all. Maybe I just thought I’d heard your name from Louis. I’ve been on tenterhooks about you for the last few weeks.”

“Perhaps,” said Jonathan. He shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’m not going in to old Louis and ask him anything and so get you in trouble. It could be nothing at all.”

“Sure,” said Phil. “Oh, the last thing Campion said before he had the door slammed on him was ‘Well bring you the depositions first. Thought it was only fair.’”

“Well, never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you, as the old saw is,” said Jonathan.

“If it weren’t for the smirks I’ve been getting and your enemies asking about you, I wouldn’t be so nervous, Jon. But maybe I’ve been building up something from nothing. You know how it is in a hospital among the staff and other doctors. They hear the slightest rumor, mostly without truth behind it, and they spread it all around fast. Never saw such gossips as doctors. They must do it to relieve the strain or something.”

“But it’s worse at the Friends’?” asked Jonathan, thinking of Humphrey Bedloe.

“Yes, thicker, but still just that—feeling. Do you want me to scout around?”

The thought of cumbersome Phil Harrington being subtle and indirect made Jonathan smile. “Don’t bother, Phil. Just keep your ears open, will you? Though damned if I can think of anything they can do to me now.”

“I will, Jon, I will. Don’t worry, yourself. By the way, that intern now specializing in neurology here: Moe Abrams, the smart Jewish boy. You remember him. He walked in your shadow until he decided to give up obstetrics and take up neurology. He’s with Newcome, and then he’s going back to med school for further study. Didn’t he help you with Hortense Nolan or something?”

“He did. He’d make a fine obstetrician, but he told me lately that it ‘hurt’ him to see young mothers suffer, and I couldn’t change his mind. Must have what the Freudians call ‘a mother complex’ or something just as silly. What about him?”

“Well, I’d almost forgotten. I never listen to stories much. He wanted to know if he should tell you something but was scared. After all, he’s having a hell of time getting along financially, and he’s terrified of being hurt himself, and you can’t blame him. He said he’d rather I told you myself and not use his name, but how can I?”

“I’d be the last person in the world to get Moe in trouble,” said Jonathan. “I won’t even let him know we’re having this conversation. What did he say?”

“Well, you know old Newcome, who looks like an elder British statesman, lean and lanky and dignified, and wears a monocle, and affects an English accent ever since he spent two years at Oxford. But a good neurologist just the same. Took it up five years ago. He called Moe in to listen to a case he just had, a little girl. He also called another assistant, in his last year, interning. You know him, too, Walt Germaine. Sharp as vinegar. The kid’s parents had brought her in. Name of McHenry—”

“McHenry!”

“You know them? God damn it, I’m sorry about that, Jon.’”

“Go on!” said Jonathan, and now his voice was more ugly than Phil had ever heard before.

“Moe said that Newcome examined the kid and looked at the reports of two nerve doctors in Pittsburgh about the little girl. Pretty kid, Moe said, and very quiet and dignified. There was also a report from Dr. Berryman, the G.P., you know, a sound man, here in town. Doc Berryman had said the child was anemic and needed more sun and fresh air and maybe the seaside, and then the parents had taken the girl to Pittsburgh for a more complete examination. Moe read the reports. ‘Mild anemia, as approaching puberty. No pathology anywhere. Child unusually reserved but equable of temper and devoted to parents, and generally liked at her school. No nerve damage. No sign of any mental aberrations. No hallucinations. Mentally considerably above normal. A little constrained, but that is the result of fine breeding. Obedient. No troublesome traits.’ That’s the way it went on from the Pittsburgh boys. And the mother cried and kissed the child. It was the father who lost his head. He demanded to see Louis, and so he snatched up the reports and made old Newcome go down to Louis’ office with him, and he was raving mad, Moe said, and he said he’d have you up for something or other. Incoherent. And they stamped down to Louis’ office. That’s all.”

Jonathan’s cold black rage stood in his eyes. He told Phil briefly about his encounter with the McHenrys. “I’m not an alienist,” he said. “I told McHenry that at the very beginning. I was kidnaped into that house by that fool of a priest. I told them all I could be mistaken. I suggested to McHenry that he go to Philadelphia with the child and consult competent alienists and consider a sanitarium.”

Phil was a doctor and so he said, “You really thought the child had dementia praecox, as McHenry alleged you had said?”

“Yes, I did. But, again, I could well be mistaken. That isn’t my line. But neurologists. Why didn’t the idiot follow my advice and take her to an alienist? Well, I could be mistaken. Who among us hasn’t made mistakes in his practice? The girl isn’t my patient. I was called to examine her sick mother— who is being driven out of her mind by her daughter’s—peculiarities. I should have minded my own business, suggested to McHenry that he take a holiday with his wife—alone—for a while, and left it at that. But not Jon Ferrier, the soul-healer! No, indeed, God damn me! Well, Louis knows I’m no alienist, so he can’t call me on that. What did Louis say, by the way?”

“Moe wasn’t invited to join the conference. But he heard McHenry raving in the hall that he was going to sue for damages, or something, punitive damages against you for mental anguish and suffering, and there was something said about suing St. Hilda’s too, because you are on the staff, a member of the Board.”

“Oh, shit,” said Jonathan. “Let the bugger sue me, the big

Mick. I should have punched his nose in when he insulted me in his house, and while I was at it I should have punched that priest, too. Moe’s a good boy for telling you this, Phil, and I appreciate it, and I won’t say a word to anyone.”

“I think,” said Phil, “that the word got around about the McHenrys and you. Not from Moe. He was terrified of even telling me. Maybe Newcome’s assistant or Newcome himself. He never liked you, you know.”

“No, he didn’t. He was all for going into a man’s skull after a ‘tumor’ one time. The man was crazy with head pains and pressures and was scared to death about a brain operation, and I don’t blame him. So his wife brought him to me.” Jonathan gave a short and ugly laugh. “Do you know what was wrong with him? He was forty-eight years old and refused to wear glasses for reading! He was quite a beau around this town, and still is, in spite of being married. He wanted to give the impression of being a romping boy, and he was afraid glasses, even for reading, would spoil that pretty vision. He also had hypertension, 188 over 110, nothing to fool with. One of the drivers, rushing to the top in his work, wanting to retire ‘while I’m still young.’ So I had a talk with the lad, told him he needn’t wear glasses except in the bosom of his family and behind locked doors in his office, and advised him to calm down or he’d have a coronary soon or a stroke, and then where would the girls be? I also gave him a mild sedative, put him on a salt-free diet, told him to lose ten pounds and take more exercise—restore his beauty and put the roses back in his cheeks—and sent him on his way, blessing me. He never forgets me at Christmas or any other time he can think of.

“The stupid bastard, though, not only called Newcome to tell him the operation was off but gloated over the fact that Newcome had been wrong, and lavishly misquoted me. New-come’s never forgiven me the insult, and in a way I don’t blame him. I never complain and never explain—an old aphorism of my mother’s, and she is right—so I didn’t drop my dignity long enough to tell Newcome what I’d actually said to that ass.”