Читать книгу The Mystery of Fell Castle - Arthur Gask - Страница 4

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FROM the very beginning Sister Norman's small private hospital was an undoubted success, and so it ought to have been, as the sister was most capable and up to date in her methods. She had been well trained and, in the middle thirties, was a woman of pleasant personality and full of energy.

All the local doctors liked her and sent her as many of their patients as they were able to. She specialised in maternity cases, and it was a poor week when the stork did not drop at least one baby at the hospital.

One morning a respectable and quietly-dressed woman came to interview Sister Norman. She stated she came from the country, from the village of White Easter in Essex, and wanted to put her niece under the sister's care to have her baby. She said the baby was not due for nearly a. month but her niece, being of a very nervous temperament, wanted to come up as soon as possible so that she could have perfect peace and quiet and not be bothered by the visits of her friends.

Sister Norman was quite agreeable but said the charge would be the usual five guineas a week. The woman said that would be quite all right, but asked to see the room her niece would have. The inspection being satisfactory, it was arranged the patient should come up in three days' time. The woman said her niece was a Mrs. Hunt, whose husband was a clerk employed by a big tea company and at present abroad. She asked Sister Norman to engage the best doctor, but did not enquire what his fee would be. She paid down in advance two weeks' hospital charges. The patient duly arrived and with two big trunks and, rather to the sisters surprise, was of a very different appearance to her aunt. She was refined and aristocratic and very good-looking. Of a reserved and distant manner, however, her face was sad and unsmiling. She was very well dressed and every article of clothing she took out of her trunk, which she always kept locked, was of the finest quality.

She gave no trouble and, because of the little attention she required, Sister Norman congratulated herself upon the acquisition of a very profitable patient. She engaged a Dr. Nelson to attend her and the doctor came to see her. He was a busy, bustling man, well on in middle age, reputed to be very good at his work but with little to say for himself. He advised the expectant mother not to make an invalid of herself, but to get plenty of sunshine and fresh air and take lots of walking exercise.

His patient, however, ignored his advice and never went out until dark had fallen, and then only for short walks and, apparently, to buy papers and expensive society magazines of which there were always a good quantity lying about her room.

The weeks passed quickly and then, upon one of his evening visits to the hospital, Dr. Nelson stopped to chat for a few minutes to Sister Norman in the latter's private room.

"Neither of those two patients will be long now," he remarked. "Both Mrs. Hunt and Mrs. Fontaine should be ready any day, almost any hour, now."

Sister Norman hooded her eyes significantly. "But what do you think of this Mrs. Hunt, Doctor?" she asked.

"She's perfectly healthy," he replied, "and everything should be quite normal. We should have no trouble there."

"Oh, I didn't mean that," said the sister quickly. "I meant what do you think of her as a woman?"

The doctor's face was almost expressionless. "She's of a better class than we usually get here," he said. "She's a gently nurtured woman."

"Of course she is," nodded the sister. "She's never done a day's work in her life from the look of her hands." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Do you know, Doctor, I think there's something very mysterious about her. She's been here a whole month now and never had a single visitor except that woman from the country who brought her here and calls herself her aunt. She's not had a letter, either, though she's always writing letters herself. She writes reams of them and on most expensive notepaper, too. Nurse Smith says the paper's got a monogram or something and an embossed address upon it, but she's never been close enough to see what they are."

The doctor's interest was stirred a little. "Who does she write to?" he asked.

The sister shook her head. "We don't know. We never see the letters. She posts them all herself when she goes out at night." She nodded vehemently. "And she gets plenty of letters, too, though they don't come addressed here. That aunt brings them to her. After she's been, and she comes at least twice a week, there's always a whole heap of ashes in the grate, all crumpled up so that no one can read anything."

Dr. Nelson smiled a grim smile. "A romance, you think?" he asked.

"I'm sure of it," replied the sister, "and, as you say, she comes of a very superior class." She spoke scornfully. "That aunt's no more her aunt than I am. Why, it's hard for the woman not to speak deferentially to her, and when she calls her Mary she always makes a sort of gulp at the name, as if she didn't like to use it. As for Mrs. Hunt's clothes, they're all of the most expensive quality,"—she sniffed—"with all the markings where they were bought cut out."

The doctor's smile broadened. "Well, at any rate she's a most polite woman to talk to."

"Oh, yes, she's all that," agreed Sister Norman instantly, "and she couldn't be nicer. She gives us no trouble at all—" she made a grimace—"very different to that Mrs. Fontaine, who's a nuisance all day and all night long. We shall be glad when her baby's come and she's gone."

"Ah, and that reminds me," said the doctor. "You've not let her have any alcohol, nothing at all?"

"Not a drop, Doctor, and she's been most unpleasant in consequence. She's a heavy drinker by habit, and what the baby'll be like I can't think with both parents like that."

"Very probably a beautiful child," laughed the doctor. "It often happens so." He frowned. "Has Monsieur Fontaine been here lately?"

"Yes, last night, well after midnight. He said he couldn't get away from the Opera before. He was half drunk, as usual, and brought his violin with him and wanted to play. Then he started abusing his wife and told us all, openly, that he didn't believe the child which was coming was his. We had quite a business in getting rid of him."

"I've heard him play," nodded the doctor, "and he's a real artist. If it weren't for the drink he'd be high up in his profession."

He seemed to remember something. "Ah, talking about drink—" he hesitated a few moments, "what about that Nurse Smith here? Does she drink? She seems quite funny to me to-night and smells strongly of cloves."

Sister Norman got very red. "She says she's had toothache, Doctor, and just rinsed out her mouth with a teaspoonful of brandy. That is all."

The doctor shook his head. "No, she's had much more than that. At any rate, you watch her."

Leaving the hospital, Dr. Nelson went straight to a nearby chemist. "Look here, Polson," he said sternly, "I'm going to speak straight to you. Have you been supplying Sister Norman with any cocaine lately?"

The chemist looked most uncomfortable. "Yes, Doctor," he replied with evident reluctance, "she had some from me last week."

"I thought so," nodded the doctor. "I've just come from her and her pupils are as big as saucers, but I've been suspecting her for some time now. And how long have you been giving it to her?"

The chemist considered. "About a year, Doctor. She said she wanted it for the hospital. She explained they used a lot there."

"And you believed her?" asked the doctor scornfully. "Then what amounts has she been having?"

"About a dram, say every fortnight or three weeks."

The doctor raised his hand warningly. "Then if you let her have any more you may be finding yourself the chief witness at an inquest any day. You understand? Don't give her another grain."

The chemist looked frightened. "All right, Doctor, I won't. I'll say an order's been made forbidding its sale except upon a doctor's prescription."

"And the order ought to have been made long ago," growled the doctor, "but we're only just realising what harm cocaine may do!" He nodded. "I'll speak to her, too, myself, the next time I see her. I'll have a quiet talk with her and tell her she'll have to be put away if she doesn't stop taking it."

It was not destined, however, that Dr. Nelson should have any time for a quiet talk with Sister Norman the next time he saw her, as just as he was getting into bed that night the telephone rang and her voice came over excitedly that he was wanted at once.

"For which patient?" he asked.

"Both," she replied. "I've kept from calling you as long as I could, but things are going to happen quickly now, and the matter is urgent."

So that night two babies were born in the hospital and their arrivals were so close together that Nurse Smith, in an adjoining room, had only just been given one baby to bathe and attend to when another was rushed in wrapped in its blanket. They were both girls.

The nurse was heavy and dull-witted, either from her supposed toothache or from the amount of the remedy she had taken to cure it, and she smelt more strongly than ever of cloves. Anyhow, she bathed the babies clumsily, bundled them anyhow into their respective clothes, and tucked them up into the respective cribs she was of opinion they were to occupy. Then she chewed vigorously upon a couple more cloves, devoutly hoping that the doctor would not be coming into the room.

So later, as Dr. Nelson had laughingly predicted, the drunken musician's wife was presented with a bonnie, vigorous baby, while poor Mrs. Hunt was told her little daughter had expired suddenly during the night.

A fortnight later both mothers had left the hospital.

Thus, upon what small things do great ones depend and how big a part does Chance so often play in all our lives! If Nurse Smith had not happened to take just a few sips too many of that brandy upon the night when those two babies were born she would not have placed them in the wrong cribs, much suffering would have been spared many innocent people and murder would not have lifted its ugly head. The results of her carelessness were to be far-reaching, and long after she herself had passed away were to reverberate thunderously down the years. Will it ever be given to us to learn why such things must be?