Chapter 3

I had prepared a stern lecture for Pete while I was shaving next
morning, but I was destined not to give it. While I was yet in my
room Mrs. Searle called me from below stairs.

"You're wanted over to the Bend, doctor, for Mr. Lessing."

I finished my dressing quickly and went downstairs. Coffee was on
the table. Mrs. Searle sniffed as she set a cup before me.

"You'd best take something to eat before you start, doctor. It's a
two'n-a-half-mile drive.

"Who is this Mr. Lessing? Did they say what it was for?"

I fancied she looked at me rather curiously.

"He has the new bungalow in the woods there. It's just before the
turnin' to Sliefer's dam."

She spoke as though with a reluctance to name either the house or its
owner, and there flashed across my mind instantly a remembrance of
the first day Peter had driven me to the Bend, a few clustered
cottages, hardly enough to be called a village, situated some few
miles up the road. We had passed near the house then, just visible
through the trees, and I had asked him who lived there. He had
answered with the same reluctance I traced in Mrs. Searle's reply.
Evidently this Mr. Lessing had for some reason managed to make
himself unpopular in the district.

Peter had the buggy ready, and I started off. The mare was fresher
than usual this morning, and covered the two and a half miles at a
brisk pace.

The road ran level for some distance, then dipped to the little
hollow known as Dutchman's Hollow, where it crossed a shallow stream,
nearly dry in the summer. At the top of the hill, when you had
crossed the stream, was the turning to the new bungalow.

The woods were emerald with early sunlight, and the dew hung heavily
on brambles and undergrowth. Birds were everywhere, and I saw a
Baltimore oriole, a rare flash of black and orange, fly across my
path as we neared the stream. Above the marshy space at the foot of
the hollow many dragon-flies were glancing, jewelled and wonderful,
and a small spotted turtle flopped from his stone in midstream at the
near crunch of wheels.

I let the mare take her own pace climbing the hill. The morning was
too fine for hurry, even on an unknown errand. When we reached the
top a glint of unpainted timber through the trees led me to the left,
and a few yards up the cross-road I came out on a little clearing in
which the house stood.

It was an ordinary one-story cottage, newly built, and as yet with no
attempt at garden or enclosure. What struck my eye immediately was a
curious sort of annex, standing near it. It was a rather high,
square building, windowless, but with one big skylight like an
artist's studio. Yet it had not the look of a studio, and the
skylight was so raised on four glass sides as to suggest a rude
attempt at an observatory.

I tied the mare to a sapling in the shade, and went up to the house.
The front door stood open, and the interior showed the usual
living-room of a summer cottage. It was furnished scantily but
artistically. There were a few good rugs on the floor, a divan
heaped with cushions, a piano, and a set of low bookshelves
supporting a great bronze jar filled with wild-flowers. There were
few ornaments about, but those few were chiefly of Eastern origin and
good of their kind. It looked a room belonging to people of taste
rather than wealth.

The divan was so placed in one corner, near a window screened by
drawn curtains, that it was a full moment before I realized that it
was occupied. A man lay there face downward among the tumbled
cushions, in what seemed the apathy of complete exhaustion. He was
clothed only in a suit of thin woolen pyjamas, that showed the
meagreness of his frame. He was so thin and slight that he seemed to
fill scarcely any space on the wide couch. He was evidently not
asleep, but he had not turned his head at my entrance--I could see
only a patch of rumpled dark hair against the pillows--and I crossed
the room and paused beside him.

"Mr. Lessing...."

He moved, looking at me with petulant, questioning eyes from a face
that showed every sign of physical and nervous exhaustion.

"Who are you? I sent for Doctor Lennox."

"My name is Haverill. I am taking Doctor Lennox's place for a few
months."

"The devil you are!" He lifted his head, regarding me again intently
with those queer dark eyes, the eyes of a boy set in a prematurely
worn face. "Then Lennox has bolted!"

"He has gone to Europe for the summer," I said, looking him full in
the face. "He told me he needed a change, and I gathered from his
looks he was pretty overworked. So I'm afraid you'll have to put up
with me for a while."

"That's like old Lennox! I thought he'd do it some day." He slipped
back again among the cushions. "Where are you from?"

I told him. He repeated the name of the hospital after me
mechanically. "I didn't know Lennox had gone when I sent over."

The tone was ungracious, but it was more the ungraciousness of a
child than a rational being. I could see that the man's nerves were
fairly on the raw. Judging roughly, I should say that he had not
slept for several nights. I ignored the hint.

"As I'm here," I said pleasantly, "I might as well look you over,
don't you think? What's the trouble?"

For a full minute he did not answer. I fancied he was turning me
over very closely in his mind.

"The usual thing," he said then. "Overwork--like Lennox's!" A grim
smile flashed momentarily on me. "I've been scratched up. That's
what I want you to see to."

"An accident?"

"You may call it a dog!"

He turned, with a visible effort. Until now he had been lying almost
upon his face. The light came obscured from the window, but as I
bent forward I realized with a thrill of what extraordinary physical
endurance that slight body was capable. The right sleeve of his
pyjamas had been torn down--it seemed at one single rip--and the
edges of the flannel were caked and sodden with blood. As he threw
open the jacket with the other hand I saw two long parallel scratches
of the same depth running transversely across his chest.

My first act was to draw the curtain aside. He lay there blinking at
me in the full light, watchful to see what change my face betrayed.

"What you think, eh?"

"I think," I said quietly, "that the sooner that dog is shot the
better."

I made a movement to draw the jacket down, but at the touch of my
hand on his shoulder he winced for the first time.

"I must have warm water," I said. "I suppose you are not alone here?"

Almost as I spoke a woman came into the room by a second door;
evidently his wife. She was young, and her face would have been
noticeably beautiful but for its expressionlessness. She had deep
eyes, well-moulded features, and a very clear pallid complexion, but
her whole appearance suggested a slatternliness, evinced in the
tumbled silk wrapper, the carelessly combed-back hair. I think I
have never seen a woman, least of all in any crisis, look so utterly
stupid and bewildered. Her eyes were pink about the edges, where
powder had been hastily dabbed to hide recent tear-marks. I imagined
that her first impulse in any emergency would be to weep.

"Have you warm water in the house?"

"I'll get it."

She disappeared toward the kitchen, and I followed her in. I wanted
for the moment to be out of range of the man on the couch, and I
thought it would give her a chance to say something to me herself of
what had happened.

She took up a bowl haphazard from the dresser, put it down again and
took another, always with the scurrying half-frightened movement with
which she had entered the room; went finally through a doorway into
what appeared to be an outer kitchen to fetch the water. There I
heard another woman's voice, clear-cut, decisive, with what seemed an
undertone of forced cheerfulness to it. Scraps of a conversation
reached me while I waited.

"They won't send it up. I'll have to go down later. And Scholl will
let us have bread if I fetch it. I thought I'd better bring three
now."

"Mary, it's awful!"

"Did that new man get here?"

Mrs. Lessing's voice was discreetly dropped, drowned by the
accompanying splash of water from a kettle. But I heard the other
say: "Is he any good?"

"Mary, sh-h!"

She fluttered back, and I took the bowl of water from her hands.
Lessing was stretched on the divan just as I had left him, waiting my
return. There was no chair near, and I looked about me impatiently
for something on which to set the bowl, while the woman stood by in a
sort of helpless indecision. Just as I was about to put it on the
floor someone pushed Mrs. Lessing gently but promptly aside and came
forward. It was the girl whose voice I had heard in the kitchen, and
I saw in the second's glance I gave her that it was she whom I had
seen on the road the first morning I came down.

"Give me the bowl," she said. "You can manage better if I hold it."

I stripped Lessing's jacket off as gently as I could, sponging the
sleeve where it adhered to the torn flesh. He must have been lying
untended there for some considerable time before my arrival. When I
had laid bare his chest and shoulder to the light I set my lips to an
involuntary whistle. The man looked as if he had been fighting with
some wild animal. No dog had made those wounds. They were not
bites; they were long raking cuts, as if the flesh had been torn by
heavy blunt-pointed claws. A bear might have done it, but there was
no sign of bruising or tooth-prints. The scratch on the shoulder was
a good half-inch deep in one place--it nearly laid bare the bone.

He had bled freely; the jacket sleeve was soaked and stiff. I set to
work to cleanse the blood from his chest, and as I did so I saw other
wounds of the same order, some old cicatrices, others newly healed
scars of perhaps a month old, but none so deep as the present ones.
I glanced sharply at the man's hands. They were well kept, the
fingers stained a little with acids as though in photography, the
nails smooth and closely trimmed.

The scratches were ugly. I had slipped an emergency case of tabloids
into my pocket on starting, and asking for fresh water, I dissolved
two in it. The girl watched me steadily, holding the bowl of
solution while I cleansed the cuts carefully, bit by bit, and I
fancied that in her presence Lessing was at particular pains not to
flinch. The man's endurance was extraordinary. I had noticed
something else on his arm, but of that I did not immediately speak.

"You want iodoform?" said the girl. "There is some in the house."

She fetched it, with diachylon and a roll of sterilized gauze such as
is used in hospitals, from the drawer of a Japanese cabinet. I
dressed the cuts--it took some little time--and helped him into the
clean shirt she brought me. When I straightened my back at last we
were alone.

"Do you mind," said Lessing, "going to the cabinet there and getting
me a bottle that's in the top left-hand cupboard? There's a glass
with it."

I found both. I drew the glass stopper from the bottle and smelled
it. It contained a familiar cardiac stimulant.

"It's all right. It's the stuff Lennox gave me."

I poured him a dose and he drank it. Then he dropped back on the
cushions again, watching me. I drew a chair up, but on second
thought remained standing.

"Well, Mr. Lessing," I said, "I don't know that I'm able to do
anything more for you under the present circumstances. If you feel
like wanting me you know where to send."

"What are you in a hurry for?"

"I am in no hurry."

"Then sit down."

"If you think there is anything to be gained."

I sat down. I had dealt with his type before, and I waited.

"Well?" he said.

"You must know, my good fellow, that there's no use calling a medical
man in to tell this kind of nonsense! I'm not a fool."

"Then there," he answered, "you differ most charmingly from old
Lennox!"

I could no more be angry with him than with a sick child.

"No dog made these scratches!"

"I said you might call it a dog," he reminded me.

"I might call it an ourang-outang and be nearer the mark! Am I to
conclude that you keep a menagerie in your house, Mr. Lessing?"

"Suppose I told you I did it myself?"

"I should call you a liar," I said. "I have seen your hands."

"Old Lennox swore I did. I told you he was a fool."

"We'll drop the scratches," I said, walking to the window. "I don't
know that it really matters if you choose to tell me they were done
by a tame mud-turtle in the back yard. But one or two things you'll
have to stop if I'm looking after you."

"Such as?"

"You want sleep, man! You look as if you hadn't seen bed for a week."

"I sleep in the daytime. I have to work at night."

"What--photography?"

"Chemistry ... of sorts."

"Chemistry doesn't have to be done at night, of necessity," I
answered. "You're overworked and you're using yourself up. You know
you've hardly a whole nerve left in your body at this moment."

"I've plenty in my shoulder," he returned drily, and I smiled
involuntarily as our eyes met. There was a fascination in the man,
despite his eccentricity, his absurd persistence in what seemed to be
a tissue of childish and reasonless lies, to which I held no clue.

"That won't hurt you long. I'll look in again tomorrow." I wheeled
on him abruptly, of purpose. "How long have you been taking morphia?"

I expected denial. Instead his eyes merely narrowed, appreciatively.

"A year, more or less. I take it when I can't sleep."

"Lately?"

"Not for several weeks."

"Yes, you have," I thought. Aloud I said: "I'll make you up
something else, for a change. Can you sleep now?"

"I'll have a try."

"Better get to bed."

"I sleep better here," he said, and without more ado turned over with
his face to the wall. I waited a moment, but he took no further
notice of my presence, and I went out.

The girl who had helped me with the dressing was outside, feeding
sugar to the mare. The two seemed old friends. I saw, as I drew
near, that she bore a strong resemblance to Lessing himself,
sufficient to proclaim her his sister. She had the same deep hazel
eyes, but her hair was lighter; it showed a bronze glint as she stood
bare-headed in the sunshine. It would have been an attractive face
but for a look of cynicism, almost a hardness, in the lines of her
mouth. I was glad that it was she I encountered instead of Mrs.
Lessing. Here was at least one practical person in this puzzling
household.

She turned as I came near, but without moving.

"Your brother will do all right," I said without preamble. "Keep him
quiet today, and if possible make him sleep. He wants rest badly."

She nodded, brushing the crumbs of sugar from her hands.

"How long has this been going on?"

"The not sleeping?" She looked at me sharply. "About four or five
nights."

"I thought so. Can't you make him?"

She looked at me almost contemptuously, as though wondering that my
interview with Lessing had taught me so little. "Does he look as if
I could?"

"You can do it if anyone can," I said. "I shall be back tomorrow.
If by any chance I am wanted..."

"I'll come and fetch you," she said.

"Good." I turned to unfasten the mare, then paused. "You have a dog
here, I think. May I see it?"

For a moment she seemed about to hesitate. "If you like," she said
then.

I followed her round to the side of the house. A small sort of
tool-shed stood not far from the odd building I had noticed, and
which I saw now was not an annex, but separate from the house. The
door of the shed was closed, and from within a whining and scratching
greeted our approach. Without a word she turned the key and threw
open the door.

A magnificent orange setter rushed out nearly knocking her down.
There was nothing savage in his demeanor; he licked her hands and
face and even tried to include me in the demonstration, but what
caught my attention was his inexplicable behavior the next moment.
He bounded straight toward the big outbuilding, but within a few
paces of it he stopped, whining and sniffing, his ears laid back, his
body trailed near to the ground, as though in some abject fear.
Whining still, he dragged himself back to our feet and crouched
there, trembling. Miss Lessing's voice broke the silence.

"Do you advise," she said, "that he should be destroyed as dangerous?"

"I think," I replied, "that is hardly necessary, at present. What's
the matter with him?"

Her lip curled a little as she looked at me. She shrugged her
shoulders.

"He is frightened. Do you believe in the instinct of dogs, Doctor
Haverill?"

"What is that building used for?" I asked curtly.

"It is my brother's laboratory."

"Then what in heaven's name----?" I checked the exclamation on my
lips. She was looking at me as her brother had done, but she seemed,
at all events, to make up her mind more quickly. "Come with me," she
said quietly.

We walked to the building. There was a door at the side fitted with
a Yale lock, but it stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open. The
interior consisted of one single room, that seemed from its fittings
half laboratory, half workshop. There were shelves around,
containing bottles, chemical apparatus, a few books stacked together.
A long table, littered with tubes and glasses, stood almost directly
under the skylight. One corner of the room, to the right of the
table, was screened off to form a dark-room, with the ordinary square
of red glazed fabric let into the door.

I looked around the place with curiosity. There was nothing here to
account for the dog's behavior. The contents of the table at one end
were confused and overthrown, and a strip of cocoa matting, which had
evidently lain under or near the table, had been rolled and flung in
one corner. The boards were noticeably cleaner where it had been
lying, and near the edge of this clean space there was a stain,
smudged as though purposely by someone's foot, but to my eyes an
obvious blood-stain.

Directly under the skylight, which was some four feet square, was the
apparatus that for the moment puzzled me. It was mounted on a high
stand that brought it near to the glass, and it looked like an
acetylene lamp with very powerful concave reflectors; the kind of
reflector, on a smaller scale, that is used in some lighthouses. The
size of the lamp was quite outside the requirements of the room for
ordinary lighting purposes, and the reflector seemed planned to throw
the light outside the building, and in any desired direction. As I
looked at it there flashed across my mind the recollection of the
curious sort of searchlight I had seen the night before from my
porch. Here was the solution of it, but I was puzzled to imagine
what Lessing could be doing with an apparatus of this kind in such a
place.

I turned to Miss Lessing.

"Was it here that your brother spent last evening?"

"Yes. He came out here about nine o'clock, after dinner. He often
works late, and we never sit up for him. My sister-in-law went to
bed soon after; she had one of her bad headaches that she has been
subject to for the last eighteen months. I sleep in the room next to
hers, and I went to bed about eleven. I am an early riser, as a
rule, and when I came out of my room this morning I met my brother
just coming into the house." She paused, and I could see that she
was struggling with the recollection. "He wouldn't let me touch him,
and he only said something about wanting to sleep, and that I should
send Doctor Lennox up to him. I left him in the sitting-room and
went straight off."

"Cycled?"

"No, walked. I have no cycle here. My brother doesn't like me using
one. If I had, it would have saved time. I came through the woods."

"You were quick, anyway," I said approvingly. "Now listen, Miss
Lessing. Your brother has had a severe shock; of what sort I know no
more than you. He will probably tell us in his own time. For the
present, I don't want him worried in any way. I shall come again
tomorrow. If I may advise you, I would lock this place and keep the
key until he asks you for it. Have you touched anything in the room
since this morning?"

"No. It is as he left it."

Then Lessing himself had removed the tell-tale carpet. I thought a
moment.

"Was your brother wearing pyjamas when he went out last evening?"

"He changed into them after dinner, I remember. It is hot in here of
an evening, and he nearly always wears them to work in."

"Did you hear any noise last night?"

"No." She hesitated a moment. "My sister-in-law was very restless
last night, and she was talking in her sleep. She seemed to be in
pain, so I went in to her, but she was sound asleep and I went back
to bed. I heard nothing outside."

"Where was the dog?"

"Shut up. We used to have him loose, but he's sometimes noisy at
night, and lately my brother has taken a fancy to have him shut up."

"It doesn't seem likely that he would trouble him here," I said.

She bit her lip.

"Doctor Haverill, what is it?"

"My dear young lady," I said, "I can know nothing until your brother
is able to give us some account." I had almost said "chooses," but I
changed the word on a look at her face. "After all," I said lightly,
"you must remember I am here only as a doctor, and a stranger at
that!"

I turned back to where the mare was waiting, and she followed me,
locking the door behind her.

"I shall be at the house all day, if I'm wanted, but I don't think I
shall be. Meantime, you'll remember what I've told you. Your
brother will have to make up sleep before he can tell us anything at
all."

She seemed to take it quite as a matter of course that I should be
giving my directions to her instead of Mrs. Lessing. It was as if
she took the responsible place instinctively in the household. I
climbed into the buggy, turning the mare around, and she nodded a
good-bye to me. My last glimpse, as I left the house, was of her
slim bare-headed figure, wistful in its very air of self-reliance,
standing there in the sunshine with the setter by her side.