The voice of Carew as it had shrilled over the telephone kept sounding and resounding in the ears of Messenger all the way to the hospital. When he reached the place, Carew in person met him at once.
Carew said: “A most extraordinary piece of work, but then we’re used to extraordinary work from Kildare. You know the quality of the genius, Mr. Messenger? He seems more commonplace than the most ordinary person—until he turns the trick again. He’s just another batter at the plate until he knocks the home run.”
“You’ve seen Nancy?” said Messenger. “Is it actually true that her sight is gone?”
“The present symptoms,” said Carew, “seem to indicate blindness. But let’s not be too absolute. Doctor Kildare is right in here. Right through this door, Mr. Messenger.”
“I don’t think I can face him,” said Messenger. “I’ve been too frank with him—too brutally frank.”
“Ah, I understand perfectly,” said Carew. “You think that, being offended, he won’t forget. The quality of the genius, on the other hand, is that he is aware, not of you or of me, but only of the case in hand. You’ll see at once!”
Messenger, entering the small office behind Carew, saw a surprisingly pretty nurse who came to attention with level, bright eyes.
“Where’s Kildare?” asked Carew.
“He’s in the next office, sir,” said Mary Lamont.
“Call him here at once,” directed Carew.
“Yes, sir,” said the nurse with a troubled face, and disappeared into the next room.
Messenger heard the voice of the girl speaking, and then that of Kildare answering: “Tell them to go hang…Look, Mary! I think I’ve got it! See those mice in there? They were getting too much interval between injections. I’ve cut it down to a quarter, and now look at ‘em! They’ve had enough of the stuff to kill them ten times over, but not a one of them is drooping even.”
“You’re right,” said the girl. “Would Doctor Gillespie—”
She stopped herself.
“Oh,” said Kildare, “he’d be glad even if I turned the trick. There’s no malice in him, Mary, where medicine is concerned.”
“I know there isn’t,” she said, “but now there’s Doctor Carew and Mr. Messenger waiting for you in the outer office…”
Kildare came out suddenly. He overlooked Carew and went up to Messenger.
“The police—the newspapers—the boy scouts—the whole of them failed,” said Messenger. “But youdidn’t fail, Kildare. If you’ll permit me to unsay certain things that…”
“We have one interest in common, and that’s Nancy,” broke in Kildare. “Why humiliate yourself making excuses? I don’t want them. If we can help her, we’ll be helping one another. And we’re ready to do that, aren’t we?”
“I was frightfully wrong,” said Messenger.
“You were dealing with a very sick girl,” said Kildare. “And because you’re not a doctor, you had a right to be wrong…Excuse me a moment…”
He hurried back into the inner office.
“He seemed deeply depressed. Is it because of the condition of Nancy?” asked Messenger of Mary Lamont.
“No, it’s not that,” she said, and looked at Carew.
Carew explained, shrugging his shoulders: “I suppose being in the office depresses him. It was here that he was being taught by Gillespie until he gave up all that.”
“It seems to me,” said Messenger forcefully, “that that young man needs the teaching of no one. He seems to be able to go on by himself. Am I wrong?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mary Lamont.
“You mean that this Gillespie is a sort of god from the machine—a kind of prophet for Kildare?”
“Yes, sir,” said Mary Lamont.
“Will he take me up to see Nancy now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you kindly tell me what’s keeping him in there just now?”
“Some white mice, sir,” said Mary Lamont.
Kildare leaned over the X-ray plates and pointed out the details to Messenger. He had drawn a crude sketch of the course of the optic nerves to make the ideas clearer.
“They come from back in the brain in two branches,” said Kildare, “and they converge toward this shadow, which is the pituitary gland. The pituitary is an out-pocketing of the brain fitted into a sort of cup, the pituitary fossa. If you look very closely here, you’ll see two small projecting shadows.”
“I see them,” nodded Messenger.
“They’re at the top of the pituitary gland, you see, and they’re called the clinoid processes. They’re important to us just now. The point is that Nancy suddenly lost her sight. It wasn’t a gradual dimming. One day she had full vision; the next day she was totally blind. That’s extremely unusual unless there has been an accident directly to the eyes themselves. But one can imagine that a sudden enlarging of a tumour of the pituitary gland might interrupt the course of the two optic nerves at this point where they converge. That would explain the quick loss of vision. In case of such a tumour, one should see the two little growths of bone—the clinoid processes—pushed up. Now turn back to the lateral plate of the skull again. You see in fact that the clinoid processes are somewhat elevated…”
“It means there is a tumour then?” demanded Messenger in a shaken voice.
“There is a great deal against the idea of a tumour. The pituitary may be simply slightly enlarged, but not a malignant growth. If there were a tumour which had interrupted the optic nerve, an exterior examination of the eye should show that the heads of the nerves are in a pathological condition, dead or dying. However, the nerve heads seem perfectly normal. As for tumours in other parts of the brain, there would have to be two: one in each lobe, each suddenly increased in magnitude so that on the same day each branch of the optic nerve was damaged. This would be a miraculous improbability.”
“Then what is the explanation?”
“I don’t know,” said Kildare. “There are no other signs of tumours except the headaches; there are no tokens of any paralysis in the muscles around the head and neck which are supplied by the cranial nerve. Mind you, we are not quite sure about the exact condition of the pituitary gland at this moment. We are taking more pictures.”
“There’s only one definite fact, so far as I can understand the thing,” said Messenger. “That fact is that she has lost her eyesight completely.”
“She has,” agreed Kildare.
“Is there the least hope?”
“I don’t know. To exterior examination the eyes are normal. That’s the great point in our favour. I have hope; the others are non-committal.”
Messenger lighted a cigarette with a shuddering hand. He was trembling slightly from head to foot. “All we can do is wait?” he asked.
“And work,” added Kildare. “We have to find out the facts as absolutely as possible and then consider what is to be done next.”
“May I see her now?”
“I’ll find out,” said Kildare, and went into the room. Mary Lamont was there arranging flowers in a great vase. The empty eyes of Nancy were turned to the other girl as she said: “Why do you bother? I can’t see them, you know.”
“They make the air sweet,” answered Mary, “and then you can hear the wind rustling in them.”
“Has someone just come into the room?” asked Nancy.
“Only Doctor Kildare.”
“Ah, are you here again?” murmured Nancy. “Do I have to learn a new name for you, Johnny?”