I shook my head. “I hate to think of all the boys who’ll die over there. But what can I do for you, Sheriff?”
“You’ve got a patient named Julius Finesaw?”
I gave a silent groan. “I suppose you could call him my patient. I set his broken leg a few weeks ago when his tractor rolled over. But the man needs more help than I can give him. He needs a psychiatrist.”
“Don’t have any of them in Northmont,” the sheriff pointed out.
“I know.”
“So you think he’s crazy?”
I shrugged. “Deranged, certainly.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so. What’s he done now?”
“Says he’s going to kill Ralph Cedric for selling him that defective tractor. His wife Millie was so upset she called me out to talk to him.”
“Did you convince him to behave himself?”
“Far from it. Says we can’t stop him, that he can make himself invisible and walk down the road to Cedric’s place.”
“He’s not likely to do it with a broken leg, invisible or not.” I glanced at the day’s schedule. “Tell you what — I’ve got a house call this afternoon out at the McGregor farm. One of their kids is in bed with chicken pox. On my way back I’ll stop at Finesaw’s place. I should check on that cast anyway, make sure there’s no swelling.”
“Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Doc.”
The McGregor lad was coming along fine as the chicken pox ran its course. When I’d finished with him I cut across to Chestnut Hill Road. The old Buick was still running pretty well, and I hoped it would last till the war ended. I pulled into the driveway at the Finesaw farm, once more admiring the main house, even though it was an old place dating from the last century and badly in need of a paint job. As I left my car I saw Millie Finesaw come to the door. She was a petite blonde a bit younger than I was who had never seemed the right match for the tall, brooding Julius. Their son had fled home as soon as possible, joining the army when he turned eighteen. He was somewhere in Italy at that time.
“Hello, Millie. I was over at the McGregors and thought I’d stop by to see how Julius’s leg is coming along.”
“I’m concerned about him, Dr. Hawthorne. He’s been acting even crazier than usual. I had Sheriff Lens come out and talk to him yesterday.” I followed her into a living room cluttered with tables and bookshelves lined with plants and china figurines. “I’ve been giving him the painkillers you prescribed and they make him dopey at night, but during the day he just rants and raves.”
“I’ll see if I can do anything for him.”
She led the way up the creaking staircase to the second floor. He’d stayed up there to be near the bathroom, though I was glad to see he was seated in an armchair by the window, his immobilized leg supported by a footstool. A bare right foot stuck out from the bottom of his cast. The room was sparsely furnished, with not even a bookshelf in sight. A Sears catalogue on one table seemed to be his only reading matter.
“How are you feeling, Julius?” I asked, opening my black bag.
“I’ll feel a lot better after I’ve killed that bastard Cedric. He sold me a tractor damn near killed me, and now he says it was my own fault.”
“You two have been feuding for as long as I can remember. Isn’t it time you called a truce?”
“When he’s dead.”
“And when will that be?” I asked to humor him.
“Tomorrow midnight.”
“You can’t do that, Julius. You’ve got your right leg in a cast.”
“That won’t stop me.”
“Do I have to get a sheriff’s deputy to park outside your house all night?”
He gave a sly, twisted smile. “Wouldn’t matter. I can be invisible.”
I sighed. “Julius, you need to see someone who can help you. I’m just a general practitioner.”
“Don’t believe me, do you?” He held up his right hand, showing me a gold ring with a gem of some sort in it. “This is a genuine shepherd’s ring, described in Book Two of Plato’s Republic. It was found by Gyges, a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. If I turn it so the stone is inside my hand, I become invisible.”
“I’d like to see that,” I told him, playing along.
“Not now. Tomorrow midnight, when I kill Ralph Cedric.”
“Where’d you get the ring? Something like that must be valuable.”
“It was a gift,” was all he’d say.
“Julius, suppose I bring Ralph Cedric over here in the morning, so the two of you can straighten this out like civilized people.”
“Bring him here and I’ll kill him. Save me having to walk over there.” He emphasized his words by lifting a gnarled walking stick leaning against his bed.
I glanced at Millie and saw that she was beyond dealing with him, her face frozen into a helpless mask. I dropped the subject and went about examining his cast and leg. “You’re coming along pretty well,” I told him. “Another few weeks and the cast can come off.”
He raised his eyes to mine, and in that instant I had no doubt that he was mentally ill. If it was physically possible, he would indeed walk down that road tomorrow midnight and kill Ralph Cedric. “See my ring, Doc? Pretty, isn’t it? Going to make me invisible.”
I stopped by the sheriff’s office on my way back, giving my opinion. “The man’s deranged, Sheriff. He may not be capable of making himself invisible, but he’s certainly capable of bashing Cedric’s head in if he gets close enough.”
Sheriff Lens grunted. “Doesn’t really need to get close, does he? Every farmer on Chestnut Hill Road owns a hunting rifle. How far is it — about a hundred yards or so? — between the houses. He could sit in his bedroom window and pick off Ralph Cedric when he comes out the door.”
“His window’s on the other side,” I pointed out.
“He could crawl to the other side of the house, or limp over with his walking stick and rifle.”
“You can’t arrest a man for making crazy threats, Sheriff, especially not if he’s crazy to start with.”
“I’ll have a deputy check the area tonight, in case he decides to go a day early.”
I nodded. “And I’ll find some excuse to call on Cedric and his wife tomorrow. Whatever happens, Julius Finesaw isn’t going to become invisible and kill anyone.”
The following morning was exceedingly mild for the eighth of December and I was beginning to wonder if we’d have a white Christmas. I parked in front of Ralph Cedric’s house and rang the bell. His wife June came to the door and greeted me with a smile. She was a tall, attractive woman in her thirties, with only a few gray hairs showing among the waves of brown.
“Dr. Hawthorne! What brings you to our doorstep? Are you giving free samples today?”
“Afraid not, June. I’m helping your neighbor Finesaw with an insurance claim for his busted leg. I was thinking Ralph could give me some information about that tractor.”
June bristled a bit. “It wasn’t the tractor caused that accident! Any sane person knows you don’t run a tractor along the side of a hill that steep. The man is crazy.”
“Is Ralph around? I see his car’s in the driveway.”
Ralph Cedric appeared from the kitchen holding a cup of coffee. He was a stocky bald man somewhat older than his wife. He’d been running Cedric Tractor Sales for the past ten years and doing pretty well until the war made new farm equipment almost as hard to come by as new cars. Still, farming was necessary to the war effort and he was in business on a limited scale, even though his main supplier was now building tanks. “You want me, Doc?”
“Just what happened with that tractor and Finesaw’s broken leg? I set it for him at the time but he was next to incoherent about how it happened. He seemed to blame the tractor you sold him.”