Читать книгу The Secret of Dr. Kildare - Max Brand - Страница 6

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THE head of the hospital, Dr. Walter Carew, had only two facial expressions—one weary and one ferocious. This evening he looked merely weary as he regarded Kildare across the shimmer of his great desk. He kept his chin on his fist and his face inclined, which exaggerated the likeness between him and Cicero; it was a trick which he had used for so many years that he was unconscious of it now.

"How often have you been here on the carpet, Kildare?" he asked. "I mean, how often has your medical career faced a firing squad in this office?"

"Twice, sir," said Kildare.

"Twice—twice—" nodded Carew. "It seems more often than that. Most of our young men get out of the hospital before I have a chance to know them, and I suppose they thank God for it; but I've had occasion to know you, my friend."

This speech suggested no ready answer, so Kildare was silent. Carew went on with his reflections.

"A hospital is like a family of children, a preposterous, huge, sprawling, bawling family of brats, always out at the toe and the elbow, always with empty bellies, winter coming on and no coal in the cellar. For twenty-five years I've been growing more and more tired of dodging and stealing and fencing and fending for this damned institution. It's enough of a public hospital to make it subject to every twopenny politician in the town; and it's enough of a private hospital to send it begging to every rich man's table in hope of scraping together a few crumbs of charity. As sure as my name is Walter Carew, I've been a beggar. I wear my trousers out at the knee. If I'd said as many prayers for the good of my soul as I have for the sake of this place, I'd be too good for the earth; I'd be in heaven already."

He lifted his head and looked upon Kildare more wearily than ever. "Directly or indirectly, you've been a source of benefactions or a cause that has attracted them to this hospital directly or indirectly." He was repeating himself like an after-dinner speaker. Now, however, as he came to the point, he faltered a little. "Do you think I can steal you away from Gillespie for an evening, my lad?"

"Doctor Gillespie is in the middle of an experiment..."

"The meningitis affair. I know. I know."

"He seems to need me for one thing or another most of the time."

"I know that too. He sharpens the claws of his ugly nature on you; he wipes the boots of his bad temper on you. That's his greatest need of you, isn't it?"

Kildare, looking back through his memories of the storms which recently had been blowing about his devoted head, smiled a little.

"He seems to find me useful—in one way or another," he said.

Carew stared at him, open-mouthed.

"And you don't mind him?" he asked.

"No, sir. Not a bit," said Kildare.

"I wish I could say that," sighed Carew. "For twenty-five years that great bully has harried me up and down and back and forth like an old rag of paper in a high wind. I'm the scapegoat of this hospital, not the head of it. Within its four walls everything good is attributed to Leonard Gillespie, and Walter Carew is damned day and night for everything that goes wrong. Admit that that is true!"

"No, sir," said Kildare. "I don't think so."

"Don't try to flatter me," sighed Carew. "There's not a suture that breaks except through my fault; if an ambulance tyre goes flat it's because I buy the wrong sort of rubber; if a resident or an intern gets a bellyache it's because Walter Carew is too stingy to buy decent food...But the point is: Do you think that I can beg or borrow or steal you from Gillespie for this one evening? I mean to say: Will you ask him for the time off?"

Kildare hesitated.

"You have it coming to you," insisted Carew. "By a freak of circumstance it becomes highly probable that you could be useful to this institution, Doctor Kildare, if I can dispose of you for one evening. And you have time off coming to you. It's the talk of the whole place that Gillespie works you like a dog—like a dog—day and night—he's making an old man of you."

"I'd hate to ask him for time off," said Kildare slowly.

"I know," nodded Carew. "You're afraid that he'd blow your head off."

"No, sir. He'd give me as much time as I want—if I ask him seriously."

"Now you amaze me!"

"But the fact is that when I'm not here he does the work of two men. He doesn't sleep. He burns himself up. And he's not young, you know."

A smile appeared on the face of Carew like the twisting grain of a knot in hard wood. "You take care of him, eh? Run his errands, take his beatings, and love him for the trouble he gives you?"

Kildare said nothing.

"If you'll do nothing about it, I'll try to borrow you myself from Gillespie," said Carew impatiently, and picked his telephone out of its cradle. He was saying presently: "There's a bit of work called for outside the hospital, a bit of work that may be important for the hospital's whole future, and the absurdity is that your young intern Kildare seems to be the only man for the job. I want to borrow him from you..."

Made electrically thin and sharp, like a far-off rooster in a winter dawn, Kildare heard the voice of Gillespie answering: "The hospital's whole future is not the slightest damned importance to me. Men are what matter, not machines. You can't have Kildare. That's flat."

His phone crashed up. Carew, after a sour moment of patience, called again. "A job well done, such as I have in mind, Leonard," he said, "might mean the modernisation of our whole laboratory facilities."

"We haven't any laboratory facilities to modernise!" shouted Gillespie. "We've nothing but one tin sink and two Bunsen burners. Take Kildare and do what you can with him...But get him back here fast."

Carew rang off in a sweat of relief. "I've got you for this evening, Kildare," he said, "and now I want you to make every instant count. Down on the street you'll find a limousine waiting; ask for Mr. Messenger's car; go where it takes you...Kildare, you know about Paul Messenger?"

"No, sir. Only that he's a very rich man."

"Rich man? There are thousands of rich men, Kildare, but there's only one Messenger. Why, he's the fellow who built the whole observatory at San Jacinto in New Mexico. Millions of dollars to observe the stars...to observe the infernal stars, mind you, when we're still fighting hand to hand with disease! And now Paul Messenger needs help. I'm not permitted to say one word to you about the case; I can only say that at the present moment Messenger thinks you may be the only man in the world capable of helping him. I say that I can't talk about the case, but I can talk about your manner of approach to it. Doctor Kildare, you are a fellow with an admirable character for honesty and patience and medical insight; but I beg you to remember that there are also qualities such as tact and gentleness of approach and a willingness to favour the other fellow's point of view...Hurry along now...Every minute may be important...But try to remember that out of this case the hospital might receive benefactions so important that its ability to serve the world may be doubled. And you yourself may be founding a rich practice for the future."

He took Kildare as far as the door of his office, holding his arm in a nervous grip. But even when the door was open, he could not let him go for an instant, repeating: "Straightforward honesty is an admirable quality—but when in Rome, remember to do as the Romans—and diplomacy has moved mountains in the past, young man—a light touch may do more than a sledge-hammer stroke..."