She had already started writing when another idea occurred to her. By chance she had looked up and caught sight of her ebony stick, and her mind had jumped back nearly 25 years to when she was a nurse in France. That sergeant! She had known the ambulance would break down one night when they were alone together. And she had been quite right about the sergeant! Only the sergeant hadn’t known how handy she was with a spanner. He was unconscious all the way back to camp, and the doctor there had congratulated her, saying she couldn’t have chosen a more scientific place for her blow.
She remembered the exact spot now, and thought of Dr. Hussman bending over to plug in the cord. Of course, she was older, not as strong, and the ebony stick wouldn’t be as easy to handle as a spanner. Still, it ought to work.
There and then she rang up and asked for an appointment the next day. She chose the last appointment before lunch — not much risk of being interrupted at that time. She sat down again at the desk and brought her diary up to date.
It was a quarter to one when Miss Featherstone walked into Dr. Hussman’s consulting room the next day. She noticed with dismay that the portable apparatus was already plugged into the wall. Dr. Hussman wouldn’t have to bend down. She would have to think again — and think quickly.
She sat down at the desk.
“I hope you’ve quite recovered,” Dr. Hussman said pleasantly.
“Quite,” Miss Featherstone replied, looking warily around. “I’m really ashamed of myself for giving such an exhibition.”
The doctor made no reply. He was already adjusting the machine.
“All ready now, Miss Featherstone. If you’ll just take off your hat.”
Miss Featherstone took off her hat.
“Now if you’ll step over to this chair.”
Miss Featherstone had her left hand on the desk. There were two heavy medical books there; as she rose, her sleeve caught in them and tipped them onto the floor.
“Oh, dear, how clumsy I am!” ‘Miss Featherstone murmured.
The doctor was at her side at once, suave and polite. “Please allow me.”
Miss Featherstone allowed him. She took careful aim and brought the heavy ebony handle down on his skull. He fell, grunting, only half knocked out, and she gave him another blow before he could recover. He lay still then, and Miss Featherstone examined him. Not such a good job as she had done on the sergeant! The doctor was barely unconscious, so she gave him a third blow for luck. Then she locked the door.
After that she set to work methodically. She dragged him across to the chair and pulled him up onto it. She arranged his head on the chin-rest just as he had arranged hers. Then she focused the machine on the spot at the back of his head, and finally she switched it off. By this time it was 12:55. She wondered how long it would be before he regained consciousness. It didn’t really matter, so long as he thought he had been out a long time. She opened the face of the clock on the wall and turned the hand to 1:20.
She pulled a chair close to Dr. Hussman and sat watching him. When the clock hands pointed to 1:30 she saw his eyelids flutter and switched on the machine. But it was a false alarm, so she switched it off again. Finally, when the clock showed 1:50, he groaned and stirred. Miss Featherstone switched the machine on and watched intently.
He came to slowly. First, his eyes opened: they opened but he didn’t seem to see anything. Next, he was looking at her, at first blankly, then with a dawning bewilderment. He lifted his hand vaguely to feel his head and it touched the barrel of the machine behind him. Suspicion and fear came into his eyes — but most of all, fear. He turned his head slowly, as though he hardly dared to look. When he saw the machine he tore himself loose, staggered whimpering to the opposite side of the room, and cowered against the wall.
Miss Featherstone watched him with an idiotic smile. The machine had crashed to the floor with the jerk he’d given it in his frenzied effort to get away from it. Even now, he didn’t seem to see her. He was staring at the clock.
At last he looked at Miss Featherstone. “Who are you?” he whispered. “Why have you done this to me?”
Miss Featherstone smiled her idiotic smile. “I was only playing doctor and patient,” she explained. “Such a nice game! Now I suppose they’ll put me away again.”
Things happened quickly after that. Dr. Hussman seemed to lose his head entirely. He rushed out into the hall shouting for help, and in a moment the consulting room was crowded with nurses and servants. Soon after that came the police, two of them. Dr. Hussman was still beside himself and could hardly give a coherent account of what had happened, but he had the bruises on his head, and he pointed to the ebony stick.
But Miss Featherstone noticed he gave her in charge for knocking him unconscious. Nothing else was mentioned. He seemed unwilling to call attention to the mechanism on the floor.
Miss Featherstone had never been charged in a police court before, and she found it interesting. The policemen really were very kind. Even the inquisitive man from Scotland Yard was kind. Curious how interested he seemed to be in Dr. Hussman.
Meanwhile Miss Featherstone was in the dock. The magistrate was looking bored and the police were applying for a remand. Somebody mentioned bail, but the police opposed it because, they said, she wasn’t responsible for her actions. But now Sir Gilbert was saying he would be responsible for her. The magistrate murmured something inaudible, and presently she was in a taxi alone with Sir Gilbert.
And before she realized it they were in a sunny room in a nursing home, and Sir Gilbert was standing in front of her. “Now, Miss Featherstone,” he began, “it’s time you told me what all this means.”
“I think it’s a touch of schizophrenia,” Miss Featherstone said calmly.
“Nonsense!” Sir Gilbert was impatient. “You’re as sane as I am and you know it.”
Miss Featherstone gave a derisive snort. “I hope I’m a great deal saner than that!”
He looked at her sourly. Then he tried pleading. “Don’t you see this puts me in a very awkward position after what you told me the other day?”
“I don’t see why this should have anything to do with what I said the other day,” Miss Featherstone replied.
“Are you trying to persuade me that you didn’t go to Dr. Hussman because you thought he was mixed up some way in your niece’s death?”
“I’m not trying to persuade you of anything. Dr. Hussman has charged me with hitting him over the head with a stick. If I said or did anything more than that to him, it’s for him to say, isn’t it?”
Sir Gilbert gave up the unequal contest. “Very well, if you won’t tell me, you won’t; but you’re not going to have it all your own way. I’m in charge, and I’m going to order you senna pods and a milk diet.”
Miss Featherstone poured the senna pods down the basin. As for the milk diet, she had been intending for some time to do a little slimming, and this was a splendid opportunity.
For the next few days she was being continually asked questions by Sir Gilbert and the detectives and even the Assistant Commissioner himself. She wouldn’t tell them a thing. The proper place to tell her story was in court, where she intended to tell it from beginning to end — when Dr. Hussman was there and they could all watch his face.
The one thing she longed to know in the meantime was what Dr. Hussman was doing and thinking. As far as she was concerned, her suspicions had been proved by Dr. Hussman’s behavior when he first came to. The terror in his eyes could have meant only one thing: that he thought she had done to him exactly what he had done to Sybil. Further proof had been added when he avoided all mention of the machine.