LITMIR.BIZ

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Fingal Raughty,” he said, “Mr. Adrian—” but to his astonishment Sorio intervened, “The Doctor and I have already become quite well acquainted,” he remarked, shaking the visitor vigorously by the hand. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as polite as I ought to have been on that occasion,” he went on, speaking in an unnaturally loud voice and with a forced laugh, “but the Doctor will forgive me. The Doctor I’m sure will make allowances.”

      Dr. Raughty gave him a quick glance, at once friendly and ironical, and then he turned to Stork. “Mother Lorman’s dead,” he remarked with a little sigh, “dead at last. She was ninety-seven and had thirty grandchildren. She gurgled in her throat at the last with a noise like a nightingale when its voice breaks in June. I prefer deaths of this kind to any other, but they’re all pitiful.”

      “Nance tells me you were present at old Doorm’s death, Doctor,” said Adrian while their host moved off to the kitchen to secure glasses and refreshment.

      The Doctor nodded. “I measured that fellow’s skull,” he remarked gravely. “It was asymmetrical and very curiously so. The interesting thing is that there exists in this part of the coast a definite tradition of malformed skulls. They recur in nearly all the old families. Brand Renshaw is a splendid example. His skull ought to be given to a museum. It is beautiful, quite beautiful, in the anterior lobes.”

      Baltazar returned carrying a tray. The eyes of Dr. Raughty gleamed with a mellow warmth. “Nutmeg,” he remarked, approaching the tray and touching every object upon it lightly and reverently. “Nutmeg, lemon, hot water, gin—and brandy! It’s an admirable choice and profoundly adapted to the occasion. May I put the hot water on the hob until we’re ready for it?”

      While Baltazar once more withdrew from the scene, Dr. Raughty remarked, gravely and irritably, to Sorio that it was a mistake to substitute brandy for rum. “He does it because he can’t get the best rum, but it’s a ridiculous thing to do. Any rum is better than no rum when it’s a question of punch-making. Are you with me in this, Mr. Sorio?”

      Adrian expressed such complete and emphatic agreement that for the moment the Doctor seemed almost embarrassed.

      On Baltazar’s return to the room, however, he hazarded another suggestion. “What about having the kettle itself brought in here?”

      Stork looked at him without speaking and placed on the table a small plate of macaroons. The Doctor glanced whimsically at Sorio and, helping himself from the little plate, muttered in a low voice after he had nibbled the edge of a biscuit, “Yes, these seem perfectly up to par to-day.”

      The three men had scarcely settled themselves down in their respective chairs around the fire than Adrian began speaking hurriedly and nervously.

      “I have an extraordinary feeling,” he said, “that this evening is full of fatal significance. I suppose it’s nothing to either of you, but it seems to me as though this damned shish, shish, shish, shish of the sea were nearer and louder than usual. Doctor, you don’t mind my talking freely to you? I like you, though I was rude to you the other day—but that’s nothing—” he waved his hand, “that’s what any fool might fall into who didn’t know you. I feel I know you now. That word about the rum—forgive me, Tassar!—and the kettle—yes, particularly about the kettle—hit me to the heart. I love you, Doctor Raughty. I announce to you that my feeling at this moment amounts to love—yes, actually to love!

      “But that’s not what I wanted to say.” He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, stretched his legs straight out, let his chin sink upon his chest and glared at them with sombre excitement. “I feel to-night,” he went on, “as though some great event were portending. No, no! What am I saying? Not an event. Event isn’t the word. Event’s a silly expression, isn’t it, Doctor—isn’t it—dear, noble-looking man? For you do look noble, you know, Doctor, as you drink that punch—though to say the truth your nose isn’t quite straight as I see it from here, and there are funny blotches on your face. No, not there. There! Don’t you see them, Tassar? Blotches—curious purply blotches.”

      While this outburst proceeded Mr. Stork fidgeted uneasily in his chair. Though sufficiently accustomed to Sorio’s eccentricities and well aware of his medical friend’s profound pathological interest in all rare types, there was something so outrageous about this particular tirade that it offended what was a very dominant instinct in him, his sense, namely, of social decency and good breeding. Possibly in a measure because of the “bar sinister” over his own origin, but much more because of the nicety of his æsthetic taste, anything approaching a social fiasco or faux pas always annoyed him excessively. Fortunately, however, on this occasion nothing could have surpassed the sweetness with which Adrian’s wild phrases were received by the person addressed.

      “One would think you’d drunk half the punch already, Sorio,” Baltazar murmured at last. “What’s come over you to-night? I don’t think I’ve ever known you quite like this.”

      “Remind me to tell you something, Mr. Sorio, when you’ve finished what you have to say,” remarked Dr. Raughty.

      “Listen, you two!” Adrian began again, sitting erect, his hands on the arms of his chair. “There’s a reason for this feeling of mine that there’s something fatal on the wind to-night. There’s a reason for it.”

      “Tell us as near as you can,” said Dr. Raughty, “what exactly it is that you’re talking about.”

      Adrian fixed upon him a gloomy, puzzled frown.

      “Do you suppose,” he said slowly, “that it’s for nothing that we three are together here in hearing of that—”

      Baltazar interrupted him. “Don’t say ‘shish, shish, shish’ again, my dear. Your particular way of imitating the Great Deep gives me no pleasure.”

      “What I meant was,” Sorio raised his voice, “it’s a strange thing that we three should be sitting together now like this when two months ago I was in prison in New York.”

      Baltazar made a little deprecatory gesture, while the Doctor leaned forward with grave interest.

      “But that’s nothing,” Sorio went on, “that’s a trifle. Baltazar knows all about that. The thing I want you two to recognise is that something’s on the wind—that something’s on the point of happening. Do you feel like that—or don’t you?”

      There was a long and rather oppressive silence, broken only by the continuous murmur which in every house in Rodmoor was the background of all conversation.

      “What I was going to say a moment ago,” remarked the Doctor at last, “was that in this place it’s necessary to protect oneself from that.” He jerked his thumb towards the window. “Our friend Tassar does it by the help of Flambard over there.” He indicated the Venetian. “I do it by the help of my medicine-chest. Hamish Traherne does it by saying his prayers. What I should like to know is how you,” he stretched a warning finger in the direction of Sorio, “propose to do it.”

      Baltazar at this point jumped up from his seat.

      “Oh, shut up, Fingal,” he cried peevishly. “You’ll make Adrian unendurable. I’m perfectly sick of hearing references to this absurd salt-water. Other people have to live in coast towns besides ourselves. Why can’t you let the thing take its proper position? Why can’t you take it for granted? The whole subject gets on my nerves. It bores me, I tell you, it bores me to tears. For Heaven’s sake, let’s talk of something else—of any damned thing. You both make me thoroughly wretched with your sea whispers. It’s as bad as having to spend an evening at Oakguard alone with Aunt Helen and Philippa.”

      His peevishness had an instantaneous effect upon Sorio who pushed him affectionately back into his chair and handed him his glass. “So sorry, Tassar,” he said. “I won’t do it again. I was beginning to feel a little odd to-night. One can’t go through the experience of cerebral dementia—doesn’t that sound right, Doctor?—without some little trifling after-effects.

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