“Why? Why on earth should he do that?”
“I wouldn’t know. Probably because he recognizes Voisier as his own brand of genius, with many years’ start on him. Without doubt he feels crushed by Voisier—feels that the world isn’t big enough for both of them. The ‘why’ of it isn’t important. The fact remains that if he is not doing such a fantastic thing, he isn’t in any danger and you needn’t worry about him. If he is, then he must be outdoing Voisier on the dirtiest of his rackets.”
“No, Mel—no! Robin wouldn’t do that!”
“Someone is. How many new addiction cases has your hospital admitted in the past three months?”
“Well, there is a decided upswing, but what has that—”
“Robin could be responsible. It would have to be a one-source deal—someone previously unknown, without a record that can be checked, with a tremendous organizing ability and personal compulsion, and a lot of scientific skill. Most of the drugs found on these poor devils are synthetic.”
“But Robin never did an evil thing in his life!”
“He has done many things recently he never did in his life. I tell you, Peg, the responsibility I feel in this matter is a far greater one than anything that could happen to Robin English. If I’m right in all this, I have been instrumental in loosing something rather terrible in the world. And if I’m right and he’s tackling Voisier by playing the man’s own game, the odds are pretty strong that Voisier’s too big for him. In which case—good riddance.” He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry, Peg. Truly I am. I’ve been going round and round in smaller and smaller circles over this thing, and I’ve had enough.”
Peg was feeling absolutely bewildered. “But I have only just told you about Voisier and this—”
“I’ve known about it for weeks, Peg. Let the thing take its course.”
She rose, trembling. “You’re wrong, Mel,” she whispered. “You’ve got to be wrong.”
“I’m afraid not,” he said sadly. “I sincerely wish I were.”
“I’ve got to see him.”
“No, Peg! He might… he… can’t you see that he’s turned into a man who takes what he wants?”
“Does that make a difference?” Peg asked in a strange voice. “I can’t let this happen to him. I’m going to find out where he is and see him. I’m responsible for this whole horrible thing and so are you. But through your stupid mulish jealousy you’ve argued yourself into blaming him!”
Warfield went white. “Responsible? He had the seeds of this in him all along. He simply never had the courage to do an honestly evil thing until we so generously matured him. Maturity is a strange thing, Peg. Like other riches, it is dangerous in unskilled hands. It isn’t something that can be achieved all in a lump. We gave him a kind of maturity which gathered all the loose threads of his personality into something monolinear—something productive. But we didn’t give him the power to use the years of experience he had had before we got to him. He’s a bulldozer with a skilled idiot at the controls. But he is no longer a glandular case. If you want me to change my attitude at all, prove to me that he is still suffering from imbalance of any kind. That’s in my field. That I can handle.”
“I’ll have to see him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Nobody does. But I’ll find him.”
“I know where he is. But I will certainly not tell you.”
“You know?”
“He came to see me four months ago.” Warfield wet his lips. “He—had a word or two to say about you. He was apparently suffering from some sort of a delusion. He explained carefully to me that he had no use for you, that there was no longer any reason for me to want to… to kill him, and… you don’t seem surprised.”
“He told me about that the last time I saw him,” she said, shaken.
“You knew about that?”
“Did you try to kill him, Mel?”
“It was an accident, Peg. Really it was. And he compensated for it. Splendidly. I don’t know how he found out about it—the man’s incredibly sharp.”
Peg felt turned to ice, and her voice was ice as she said, “It was the post-pituitrin excess, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but that couldn’t have anything to do with this Voisier business. I tell you it was an accident. I didn’t realize that I’d made a mistake in the solutions until after he’d left the office that particular day. It didn’t affect his progress, except temporarily; and when he stopped his treatments, he was practically normal.” He stopped and wet his lips again, and then suddenly ran to her. “Peg! Peg, what’s the matter?” For she had suddenly turned white, and was rocking on her feet. He put an arm about her shoulders and led her back to her chair. She slumped down, shook herself, and looked up at him with a swift, scornful glance that was almost a physical force.
“How do you dare to call yourself a doctor?” she breathed. She opened her handbag with shaking lingers and took out the photograph Voisier had given her. She handed it to him without glancing at it. “Look at that and tell me he’s not still glandular,” she said.
He looked, and then stared. “It’s Robin, all right,” he said, and then, with a ghost of his old grin, “Getting to be quite a glamour boy in his old age, hm-m-m?”
“He is? Have you noticed why?”
“What am I supposed to look for?”
“Look at his jaw.”
“Nice jaw.”
“You don’t remember Robin. You don’t remember that round baby face?”
“I wasn’t in love with the man,” Warfield said nastily.
“He didn’t have much jaw,” she said, her voice quivering. “Can’t you see what’s happening? That used to be Robin, with the charming, chinless face!”
Warfield’s breath sucked sharply. He walked over to the window and for a long moment stood with his back to her, staring out.
“What do you diagnose, doctor?” she said acidly.
“Ac—” he began, and couldn’t make it. He swallowed and coughed. He cleared his throat. He said, “Acromegaly.”
“Acromegaly,” she echoed sweetly. “His pre-pituitary has gone wild, he’s suffering from hypertrophy of the chin and probably of the hands, and you say he’s not glandular.” Suddenly she was across the room, had spun him about and was clutching his lapels. “What are you going to do? Are you going to let him go on doing whatever crazy thing a glandular imbalance is forcing him to, so that he’ll be killed by Voisier? Or are you going to stand by while he gets around Voisier some way and then turns into a monster and dies?”
“I have to think,” said Warfield. “Oh, Peg. Peg—”
“You can’t think,” she said wildly. “Why do you suppose Voisier stole that book? With what he knows, and with what that book contains, he’ll track Robin down in a matter of hours! Do you really know where he is?”
“Yes,” Warfield whispered. “A piece of his strange kind of braggadocio. He was defiant, and yet he seemed afraid of me. He promised to keep in touch with me whatever he did, so that if I ever wanted to… kill him I could come and face him with whatever it was. He swore to keep away from you. He has moved four times since he stopped taking the treatments, and each time he has called or written to give me the address. I don’t know why.” Warfield raised his eyes to hers. “I don’t know anything about any of this,” he said brokenly. “It’s all mad. We’re being played like chessmen, Peg, by a lunatic against a devil.”