“You speak with personal feeling,” said the man with the monocle, with an agreeable air of interest.
“I do,” said the thin-faced man, emphatically. “If I had behaved like a man of the world instead of a zealous citizen, I shouldn’t be hunting about for a new job today.”
The man with the monocle glanced round the little Soho restaurant with a faint smile. The fat man on their right was unctuously entertaining two ladies of the chorus; beyond him, two elderly habitués were showing their acquaintance with the fare at the “Au Bon Bourgeois” by consuming a Tripes à la Mode de Caen (which they do very excellently there) and a bottle of Chablis Moutonne 1916; on the other side of the room a provincial and his wife were stupidly clamouring for a cut off the joint with lemonade for the lady and whisky and soda for the gentleman, while at the adjoining table, the handsome silver-haired proprietor, absorbed in fatiguing a salad for a family party, had for the moment no thoughts beyond the nice adjustment of the chopped herbs and garlic. The head waiter, presenting for inspection a plate of Blue River Trout, helped the monocled man and his companion and retired, leaving them in the privacy which unsophisticated people always seek in genteel tea-shops and never, never find there.
“I feel,” said the monocled man, “exactly like Prince Florizel of Bohemia. I am confident that you, sir, have an interesting story to relate, and shall be greatly obliged if you will favour us with the recital. I perceive that you have finished your dinner, and it will therefore perhaps not be disagreeable to you to rmove to this table and entertain us with your story while we eat. Pardon my Stevensonian manner- my sympathy is none the less sincere on that account.”
“Don’t be an ass, Peter,” said the nondescript man. “My friend is a much rational person than you might suppose to hear him talk,” he added, turning to the stranger, “and if there’s anything you’d like to get off your chest, you may be perfectly certain it won’t go any further.”
The other smiled a little grimly.
“I’ll tell you about it with pleasure if it won’t bore you. It just happens to be a case in point, that’s all.”
“On my side of the argument,” said the man called Peter, with triumph. “Do carry on. Have something to drink. It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. And begin right at the beginning, if you will, please. I have a very trivial mind. Detail delights me. Ramifications enchant me. Distance no object. No reasonable offer refused. Charles here will say the same.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “to begin from the very beginning, I am a medical man, particularly interested in the subject of Cancer. I had hoped, as so many people do, to specialise on the subject, but there wasn’t money enough, when I’d done my exams., to allow me to settle down to research work. I had to take a country practice, but I kept in touch with the important men up here, hoping to be able to come back to it some day. I may say I have quite decent expectations from an uncle, and in the meanwhile they agreed it would be quite good for me to get some all-round experience as a G.P. Keeps one from getting narrow and all that.
“Consequently, when I bought a nice practice at…- I’d better not mention any names, let’s call it X, down Hampshire way, a little country town of 5,000 people- I was greatly pleased to find a cancer case on my list of patients. The old lady-”
“How long ago was this?” interrupted Peter.
“Three years ago. There wasn’t much to be done with the case. The old lady was seventy-two, and had already had one operation. She was a game old girl, though, and was making a good fight of it, with a very tough constitution to back her up. She was not, I should say, and had never been, a woman of very powerful intellect or strong character as far as her dealings with other people went, but she was extremely obstinate in certain ways and was possessed by a positive determination not to die. At this time she lived alone with her niece, a young woman of twenty-five or so. Previously to that, she had been living with another old lady,the girl’s aunt on the other side of the family, who had been her devoted friend since their school days. When this other old aunt died, the girl, who was their only living relative, threw up her job as a nurse at the Royal Free Hospital to look after the survivor- my patient- and they had come and settled down at X about a year before I took over the practice. I hope I am making myself clear.”
“Perfectly. Was there another nurse?”
“Not at that time. The patient was able to get about, visit acquaintances, do light work about the house, flowers and knitting and reading and so on, and to drive about the place- in fact, most of the things that old ladies do occupy their time with. Of course, she had her bad days of pain from time to time, but the niece’s training was quite sufficient to enable her to do all that was necessary.”
“What was the niece like?”
“Oh, a very nice, well-educated, capable girl, with a great deal more brain than her aunt. Self-reliant, cool, all that sort of thing. Quite the modern type. The sort of woman one can trust to keep her head and not forget things. Of course, after a time, the wretched growth made it’s appearance again, as it always does if it isn’t tackled at the very beginning, and another operation became necessary. That was when I had been in X about eight months. I took her up to London, to my own old chief, Sir Warburton Giles, and it was performed very successfully as far as the operation itself went, though it was then only too evident that a vital organ was being encroached upon, and that the end could only be a matter of time. I neednt go into details. Everything was done that could be done. I wanted the old lady to stay in town under Sir Warburton’s eye, but she was vigorously opposed to this. She was accustomed to a country life and could not be happy except in her own home. So she went back to X, and I was able to keep her going with visits for treatment at the nearest large town, where there is an excellent hospital. She rallied amazingly after the operation and eventually was able to dismiss her nurse and go on in the old way under the care of the niece.”
“One moment, doctor,” put in the man called Charles, “you say you took her to Sir Warburton Giles and so on. I gather she was pretty well off.”
“Oh, yes, she was quite a wealthy woman.”
“Do you happen to know whether she made a will?”
“No. I think I mentioned her extreme aversion to the idea of death. She had always refused to make any kind of will because it upset her to think about such things. I did once venture to speak of the subject in the most casual way I could, shortly before she underwent her operation, but the effect was to excite her very undesirably. Also she said, which was quite true, that it was quite unnecessary. ‘You, my dear,’ she said to the niece, ‘are the only kith and kin I’ve got in the world, and all I’ve got will be yours some day, whatever happens. I know I can trust you to remember my servants and my little charities.’ So, of course, I didn’t insist.
“I remember, by the way- but that was a good deal later on and has nothing to do with the story-”
“Please,” said Peter, “all the details.”
“Well, I remember going there one day and finding my patient not so well as I could have wished and very much agitated. The niece told me that the trouble was caused by a visit from her solicitor- a family lawyer from her home town, not our local man. He had insisted on a private interview with the old lady, at the close of which she had appeared terribly excited and angry, declaring that everyone was in a conspiracy to kill her before her time. The solicitor, before leaving, had given no explanation to the niece, but had impressed upon her that if at any time her aunt expressed a wish to see him, she was to send for him at any hour of the day or night and he would come at once.”