The Moon by Night (34 page)

“Darling,” Dev agreed in his somber way. “Anyway, Cheney, I think Dr. Gilder should assist me, and Miss Nilsson's a good trauma nurse. She'll be good with emergency surgery. Why don't you take a break. Go take a walk with Shannon and have something to eat. You look exhausted.”

“I can't think why. I've only been here a few hours,” Cheney said. “But this thing with Mr. Green is enough to exhaust the patience of all the saints. You're the only one he respects, Dev. No one else can handle him. He's upsetting the other patients with his temper tantrums. Not to mention the staff.”

Dev nodded. “I'll figure out a way to put a stop to it, Cheney. I regret the problems he's caused you, and I'll speak to the attendants too.”

Cheney sighed, looked furtively around, and quickly kissed Dev on the cheek. “You are the most honorable, the most reassuring, the most considerate man I've ever known. Except for my husband, of course. And our father. And Walker Baird. And maybe Shadrach Forrest Luxton, and even General Forrest, in his own way—”

“I think I get it, Cheney,” Dev said dryly. “Thank you so much.”

“Mrs. De Sille, have you been drinking?” Dev asked sternly.

Her eyes were heavy lidded and reddened, and her gaze was so dull that she looked more like a daguerreotype than a live woman. “Drinking? Do you mean spirituous liquors?”

“Yes.”

“Why, no, Dr. Buchanan. I don't drink alcohol except for an occasional glass of sherry. Why should you ask me such a thing?” she said with the petulance of a patient who feels very ill.

He stared hard at her. She dropped her eyes and picked at the lace border of her top sheet. “Never mind. It's not important,” he finally answered. Leafing through her file, he said, “Mrs. de Sille, there is no mention in your file of a comprehensive respiratory examination today. Did Dr. Pettijohn examine you?”

“Of course.”

“Did he do a respiratory examination?”

Querulously she answered, “I don't know what that means, Dr. Buchanan, but I can assure you that I trust Dr. Pettijohn implicitly.”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. de Sille, but I was not implying that Dr. Pettijohn is untrustworthy. It's just that I'm concerned about your condition, and I would like more information than what I see here in your file. So with your permission I'm going to examine you. I'd like you to sit up if you can, Mrs. de Sille,” Dev said firmly, slipping his arm around her. “I'll help you.”

“Oh, very well,” she said but sounded vaguely pleased.

She sat up, and Dev began a thorough examination. He needed her to talk so he could listen to the underlying sounds in her voice, and also so he could feel the vibrations—called
vocal fremitus
—which are palpable on the chest wall. He asked courteously, “Please, Mrs. de Sille, describe exactly the symptoms you're experiencing and how your medication is affecting you.”

Obediently she described in detail how she felt, describing almost to the letter the symptoms of influenza complicated by pneumonia. Dev could hear, as she spoke, the abnormal respiratory sounds called rhonchi in the bronchi due to mucus, along with the dull percussion note of consolidation, or decreased volume of air in the lungs. Then suddenly the words she was speaking burned themselves into his brain.

“—so upset when I heard that Dr. Duvall had been seen kissing a patient that I'm certain I went into a decline—”

“What?” Dev interrupted. “What did you say?”

Primly she repeated, “Dr. Duvall was seen kissing one of the patients. A romantic embrace.”

Dev stared at her with an expression that was so menacing that Mevrouw de Sille immediately became defensive. “It's true, Dr. Buchanan. I know it's true.”

“Did you see this alleged embrace?” Dev finally managed to ask.

“I did not. But I know it's true.”

“Excuse me, ma'am,” Dev said in his most forbidding manner, “but it seems to me that you would be the last person to listen to idle vicious gossip.”

A small spark lit in her fever-muddied eyes. “If you're referring to the gossip about my husband, you've made an unfortunate choice in your defense of Dr. Duvall. For, you see, idle vicious gossip about Peter it may be, but it's also true.”

Dev blinked, and then the anger in his expression faded. “You're exactly right, Mrs. de Sille, and no matter what the truth of the situation is concerning Dr. Duvall, it was very rude of me to confront you so brazenly. I do most humbly beg your pardon, ma'am.”

Dev was an extremely charming man, all the more so because he was so plainly honest. Mevrouw de Sille's self-righteous and bitter expression faded, and she managed a weak smile. “Pardon granted, sir,” she said graciously. “We shan't speak of it again.”

“Thank you, ma'am. Now, shall we continue…”

Dev finished his assessment and made notes in her file. Now he was determined to find Cheney and confront her with Mrs. de Sille's story. He scrubbed his hands carefully, then went to the nurses' station to leave Mrs. de Sille's file. Miss Nilsson and Mrs. Flagg were checking some files for prescriptive instructions when Dev came striding up. The look on his face sent both nurses scurrying off, Miss Nilsson to the women's ward and Mrs. Flagg toward the dispensary. Dev, oblivious to this, left the file and went directly to Cornelius Melbourne's room.

Officer Goodin was there speaking with Melbourne, so Dev just slipped into the cubicle and listened. Cheney was standing by the patient's bed, and Cornelius Melbourne was hanging on to her hand as if it were a lifeline. Watching this, Dev realized that if there was any truth at all to Mevrouw de Sille's charge, the patient involved must be Cornelius Melbourne.

“I managed to find out where she worked by the clothes she wore,” Officer Goodin said. “She was a dancer at the Beau Monde. Her boss said her name was Jeannie Gold. Is any of this coming back to you now, Mr. Melbourne?”

Melbourne's face was paper-white already, and his lips were colorless. He seemed puzzled, but slowly a dull light came into his eyes, and he clutched at Cheney's hand. Shutting his eyes, a tear squeezed out of one corner. In a choking voice he said, “Jeannie…Jeannie, I remember. I picked up my new phaeton at Columbia Coaches, and she worked at the Beau Monde right there on Suffolk Street, so I just stopped to show it to her. Jeannie…Jeannie's dead? I-I…killed Jeannie?”

“No,” Cheney murmured under her breath.

Officer Goodin was more matter-of-fact. “No, sir, you didn't kill anybody. Do you recall the accident now?”

“The accident? I know the phaeton…I crashed, didn't I?”

Goodin and Cheney exchanged glances. Cornelius Melbourne had not regained any memory of the accident; and now it sounded as though he was simply imprinting what he'd learned about it so that it seemed to be his memory. Victims of traumatic accidents were prone to doing this. Sometimes they never remembered the truth.

Evidently understanding each other, Goodin nodded to Cheney and said evenly, “Yes, sir, your buggy is a loss, but you weren't responsible. We have witnesses who say they clearly saw Miss Gold driving at the time the accident occurred. It was not your fault.”

“Not my fault?” he repeated, bewildered. “Not my fault?” He looked up at Cheney beseechingly. He was showing signs of agitation, and his breathing was beginning to be uneven and shallow. Quickly Cheney said, “Thank you, Officer Goodin. Mr. Melbourne needs to rest now.”

“Sure thing, Dr. Duvall. God bless you, Mr. Melbourne,” he added humbly, and left.

“Did I—did he mean I didn't kill Jeannie? Is Jeannie dead?” Melbourne asked plaintively.

“Please don't trouble yourself about it just now, Mr. Melbourne,” Cheney said soothingly. “Officer Goodin just needs to know all he can about Miss Gold, and that's why he was questioning you. I'm going to give you something to help you rest now.”

“Don't leave me,” he pleaded. “I'm not frightened…exactly…except I'm so confused.”

“I know,” Cheney said. She asked Dev, “Would you please find one of the nurses and have them bring Mr. Melbourne's night preparation?”

“I'll fetch it myself,” he said, picking up the man's file and heading for the storage closet. The cart used for making rounds with all the patients' prescriptives was there, but Dev searched in vain for laudanum. Muttering darkly to himself, he hurried downstairs. He didn't know exactly where the carboys were stored, but he thought they must be easy to get to, as laudanum was the most-used remedy for pain. As he rounded the corner from the stairwell to go down the rows of the storage shelves, he thought he saw something—a shadow, moving—behind the first row of shelving. He stopped, narrowed his eyes, and looked again, but saw nothing. He could have sworn he heard a slight sound, perhaps of a furtive soft step.

“Is someone there?” he called, his voice grating in the hollowness of the room.

No answer. No movement. No sound.

A lamp was on the table by the stairwell, so Dev lit it and began searching for the carboys of laudanum. He found them, just as he had supposed he would, on the first shelf, middle row. He grabbed one by the neck and was surprised to feel that the neck of the bottle was wet. He put his hand to his nose and knew the sour smell of alcohol. He felt the other three bottles and found no moisture on them. Taking the one, he brought it back to the table and turned the lamp up high to look closely at it.

Laudanum was made from saffron and a tincture of opium. A tincture is made using an alcohol base, so there was nothing unusual in the smell; laudanum always had the distinctive alcohol fume. But Dev was concerned that the bottle might be chipped and was perhaps leaking. Certainly if any bits of glass were in the liquid, it should be filtered through cheesecloth before use. He could see no chips or cracks in the bottle, but the light was not the best. Impatiently he left the bottle on the table and got another one, reflecting that Melbourne's state was such that he probably needed the sedative now instead of later. As he went back up the stairs, he thought again that he heard a noise down in the lab, and he stopped. But reminding himself of his urgent mission, he returned to Melbourne's room.

Cornelius Melbourne was still agitated, but he was so weak and confused that he took the large laudanum dosage gratefully and sank back on the pillows to give himself up to sleep. Cheney and Dev stood silently by his bedside for a few minutes, just watching him breathe. Finally, nodding with understanding to each other, they tiptoed out. The ward was very quiet. It was now dark, and Timothy hadn't yet lit the lamps. She started down the hall to the nurses' station, but Dev gently took her arm to pull her aside, down a very small hallway that led to an emergency exit. With an economical usage of space, the small hallway had shelves on either side and was used to store linens and medical supplies.

“What is it?” Cheney asked warily.

Dev said in a low voice, “I have to ask you something, Cheney, and I hope that you won't get upset with me.”

“This doesn't sound good,” she muttered, “but go ahead.”

He hesitated for a moment, then decided to just keep it simple. “Mevrouw de Sille said that you were seen kissing a patient. Is this true?”

She stared at him, her eyes wide and dark in the shadowy hall. “Kissing…Oh, for goodness' sake! So that's why she fired me! He told her!”

“Now you're the one who doesn't sound so good,” Dev said darkly. “Who told her? The kissing patient?”

“No, no, Dev, that's—there's no kissing patient! I mean, there's no patient I kissed. I mean—he kissed me, but he didn't know he was doing it,” she said earnestly.

Dev crossed his arms and frowned. “Cheney, you're not making sense. And I'm afraid that I do have to ask you for a full and
sensible
explanation. Not because I'm your brother—I would never intrude on your private affairs unless you asked me to—but because I am chief physician of the hospital and it's my responsibility to deal with these things.”

Cheney flushed so crimson that Dev could even see the color in the dimness. “Your responsibility? Dev, how could you think that I would ever do such a thing? It's just malicious, self-serving gossip! Dr. Pettijohn told Mevrouw de Sille so that she would fire me and retain him!”

“So Dr. Pettijohn just made this up?” Dev asked coolly.

Now Cheney, startled, blinked quickly. “No. No, he didn't make it up. But it wasn't like…like that. I wasn't kissing a patient. A patient, under heavy sedation, in a half-asleep, half-dream state, sort of did kiss me,” Cheney finished lamely. “Accidentally.”

To Cheney's surprise, Dev nodded. “People can do and say very strange things when they're under the influence of powerful drugs. I assume you were close to him and it just happened?”

“Exactly!” Cheney said with immense relief. “I was leaning over him, and he turned, and it happened. I didn't want to frighten him, so very slowly I moved away. I looked up, and Dr. Pettijohn was standing there.”

“Was it Mr. Melbourne?”

“Yes, it was.”

Dev looked very troubled. With some difficulty he asked, “Cheney, do you have feelings for this man?”

“No! Dev, don't you believe me?”

“Yes, I believe your explanation, Cheney. But it seems to me that you have a special regard for him. And that, along with this accidental kiss could be important in a way that even you yourself don't comprehend.”

“No, no! Dev, listen to me!” Cheney almost shouted. Then taking a deep breath, she went on more calmly, “You're right, Dev, I suppose I do have a special concern for Mr. Melbourne, for two reasons. One is that while I was preparing him for his surgery, I witnessed to him, and he was saved. You know how that gives you a certain extra desire for the person to do well. And second, I…Dev, I don't think Mr. Melbourne is doing well. It's some instinct, some vague sense of foreboding, I think.”