The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
in earnest now. The shrill, insistent whistling of a dozen quail,
calling and answering each other under my window, effectually barred me
from further rest. The high-pitched, monotonous call rang through my
aching head maddeningly.
At last, it might have been seven o’clock, I did doze off, to waken with
a start an hour later. I rose then and dressed. Dorothy was just coming
from her rooms; she gave me a brave smile.
“Good morning, my dear! You’re fresh as a rose.”
She was wearing a little blue morning gown, her mass of black hair
neatly dressed, and she was smiling. One of the many things I found to
admire in Dorothy McGregor was this: that she was always good-natured,
even in the morning. No matter how early one saw her, she was never
peevish or sullen, in spite of a hot, flashing, little temper.
“Good morning, Uncle George. Did you get any rest at all?”
I sighed. “Oh, a little. Where’s Somers?”
“I haven’t heard anything of him. Tired out, I suppose.”
There was no need to ask where Peter was, for I could hear his lusty
snores through his bedroom door. So we two went downstairs together.
“We’ll have our breakfast,” declared Dorothy. “Aunt Mary’ll be waiting,
and she hates to eat alone. The others can eat when they get up. They
had a hard night, poor boys!”
But, as we came through the big living room, the front door opened and
Doctor Somers entered. His lean, sallow face wore its customary look of
acute dissatisfaction with the universe; it was neither more nor less
saturnine than when I had first set eyes on it, scarcely more than
twelve hours ago. The strain of last night had left no visible mark upon
him.
We gave him a good morning, to which he replied with a sour grunt. “Been
to the post office,” he explained. “They’re poor stamps your postmaster
sells here; no stick to ’em at all. Had to buy a bottle of mucilage.”
“You poor man! And did you stamp and mail all those notes?”
Somers shrugged. “It had to be done,” he declared ungraciously.
We went on into the dining room. Before we could be seated, the creaking
of her wheel chair announced Aunt Mary’s coming. Dorothy rang the bell.
“Quick, Rosina! Get auntie’s coffee!”
Miss McGregor appeared, the patient nurse at her back. The old lady’s
face wore its usual pathetic smile, and she inclined her head to us with
sad graciousness.
Somers’ eyes traveled past her. “Good morning, Miss Christie!”
The nurse bowed shyly; her big, violet eyes dropped, and a tinge of
color crept into her cheek.
Aunt Mary’s stately head came up. Her thin eyebrows arched. “I don’t
think I’ve had the honor----”
“Oh, forgive me, auntie! I’d forgotten you didn’t come out to supper
last night. This is Doctor Somers, Aunt Mary; Dr. Somers, my aunt, Miss
McGregor. The doctor is--was to be--Lewis’ best man, you know.”
“Ah, of course! And how do you do, doctor?” Miss McGregor’s tone was
cool, to say the least. Her manner implied that Somers would have done
much better to stay in his lunatic asylum. “It’s so unfortunate that you
made that long trip for nothing; you’re from New York, I think? Quite
so. You won’t be able to get back to your practice before Wednesday,
even by starting to-night, will you? It’s a great inconvenience, but
then this dreadful affair has inconvenienced everybody. It has upset me
terribly--though that, of course, amounts to nothing!”
Her tone, however, suggested that it was the most important consequence
of Doctor Gaskell’s death; and that we others had deliberately planned
the killing to annoy her, Mary McGregor. It was truly remarkable, the
unpleasant suggestions Aunt Mary managed to convey by a turn of the eye,
an arching of her high, thin brows, a pathetic inflection of her sweet,
plaintive voice, and all with the kindest, bravest, most
self-sacrificing manner in the world. I could still understand how
casual visitors considered her an uncomplaining heroine, a saint on
earth; but I was no longer inclined to share their opinion.
Doctor Somers smiled at her in his sudden, heartwarming fashion, no whit
ruffled by her attitude. “But I’m not going back just yet,” he
explained. “The hospital will do very well without me; I wrote this
morning for a month’s leave. I shan’t go back until we’ve got poor old
Parker safe out of jail.”
Aunt Mary looked dubious. “Can you make them think he did it in
self-defense?”
He smiled again. “Something like that. But tell me, Miss McGregor, how
did you rest last night?”
She softened visibly. “Very poorly indeed. I’m a great sufferer, doctor,
a great sufferer. I worry so about my niece.” She cast a bitter glance
at Dorothy, who winced. “I lay awake for hours, just thinking about her
troubles, until the knots came in my neck so terribly that I could have
screamed. You know, being a doctor, of course.”
Aunt Mary looked at Somers eagerly, a bit apprehensively, I fancied. But
he nodded gravely. “I know,” he assured her. _“Torticollis ephemeralis!_
Yes, indeed, a very painful ailment.” His air of serious sympathy was
admirable.
“Yes, isn’t it? Well, I kept thinking, I must be patient; I must try to
comfort poor Dorothy in her trials. She’s not used to suffering, as I
am. I mustn’t notice it if her worries make her heedless and
self-absorbed; she doesn’t mean to be inconsiderate. I won’t make it
harder for her by complaining. I was so sorry, dear”--turning to the
poor girl, who looked supremely uncomfortable--“so sorry that I had to
wake Miss Christie and send her out last night--this morning, rather. I
knew, if you hadn’t been so upset, you’d have remembered that I never
can sleep when there’s so much going on in the house. I know you didn’t
mean to be selfish, and so I stood it just as long as I could.”
Dorothy sighed deeply. “Here, auntie, try this piece of toast; it’s
crisper. Rosina, fill auntie’s cup. Yes, dear, drink another cup of
coffee. It’ll do you good.”
Doctor Somers came to the rescue with a deft question, and presently
Aunt Mary was beaming upon him, discussing her symptoms with infinite
relish. The charm of an intelligent and sympathetic listener brought
unwonted color to her delicately faded cheek; her rigid pose relaxed;
her eyes shone brighter. Absently she finished her second cup of coffee
and ate three more slices of toast, talking all the while. Aunt Mary was
enjoying herself thoroughly.
We others rose and slipped out, leaving her in the midst of an animated
account of the strange sensations in her limbs. “You see, doctor, I’ve
been paralyzed in both limbs for fourteen years now, never able to leave
my chair except for bed. I have to be lifted and carried about like a
baby. And for years my limbs were perfectly numb and dead; but lately
I’ve had the queerest feelings--creepy, prickly feelings. Do you suppose
it’s atrophy?”
Somers nodded gravely. “No doubt! Your muscles are wasting away, and the
spinal cord is affected, I think.”
“Oh, he’s making her out worse than she is!” whispered Dorothy,
horrified. “He’ll scare her to death!”
“Hush!” I told her. “Can’t you see she loves it?”
“I resigned myself to that long ago, doctor--not being able to stand on
my feet ever again. But the queer feelings, and those terrible knots in
my neck----”
We slipped out. Doctor Somers listened attentively, nodding at
intervals, but his keen, gray-green eyes were all for the silent nurse.
CHAPTER XV
A FISHING TRIP
Dorothy, Peter, and I set off at once for the lockup. “I’ve just got to
see my poor boy,” said the girl tearfully. “Think what an awful time he
must have had last night!”
She trotted about the house, busily ordering the fat Rosina here and
there, and presently she called us to her aid.
“There!” said she proudly, pointing out two huge bundles. “Clean sheets
and pillowcases in that one, and a blanket--you know, Uncle George,
Rosina found your blanket and counterpane this morning, the ones the
Poltergeist took? They were down in the coal bin, wadded up, and they
were just filthy! Oh, dear! I wish the horrid thing wouldn’t break and
destroy and dirty everything it touches. It’s a perfectly wretched
ghost, Uncle George, so malicious!”
She carried it off gayly enough, but her big eyes were restless, and I
fancied a hint of fear in their depths. After all, though familiarity
may make a ghost less terrible, no one really enjoys its repeated
visits. And, though she pretended so much courage and jested so gayly
about the tricks of the Poltergeist, I saw that she was haunted by a
very real fear of its comings. The poor child was near the breaking
point.
“There, there, dearie,” I comforted her. “Don’t you fret; everything’ll
come right yet. We’ll have you married off and settled happily in a
bright little red-and-white bungalow, without any ghosts to bother you.
Be brave just a little while longer, child!”
She huddled against my shoulder and wept quietly. “I c-can’t help it,
dear,” she declared. “I’ll be a-all right p-presently. But things are so
darn twisted! And that was my very best counterpane, and I was s-saving
it for our h-house--and I’m a-f-fraid of ghosts. I am so! And my beau’s
in jail, and the wedding put off--and it’s unlucky to postpone weddings,
Uncle George. And Aunt Mary’s just m-mean to me, and I’m s-so unhappy!”
What could I say? I patted her shoulder silently, and presently she
dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, rolled up into a damp ball, and
smiled up at me bravely.
“I’m all right now, dear,” she told me and ran off to powder her nose.
So I shouldered a huge bundle of bedding and took a basket of eatables
in my left hand and descended the steps to Lewis’ flivver, while Peter
followed, even more heavily laden. “Time we get through and old Parker’s
out, we can advertise: ‘Apartment to rent, luxuriously furnished; apply
at the jail.’”
I went back after another load and on the way peeped into the dining
room. Aunt Mary still held forth, as fresh as if she had just begun.
Rosina’s face peeped around the edge of the kitchen door. She was
wondering, no doubt, if they’d ever give her a chance to “cl’ar away.”
Somers still listened with courteous attention, but the eye he turned to
me held a comical appeal for aid.
“We’re going down to see my nephew now, Somers,” I said. “Want to come
along?”
Aunt Mary sighed, her thin eyebrows arched high. “That’s always the
way,” her expression said; “if ever I’m enjoying myself somebody has to
spoil it!” But aloud she declared: “Yes, doctor, don’t let me keep you.
I’ve enjoyed our little chat so much, but of course Dorothy’s wishes
come first. I realize that; and it’s quite natural. I’m used to being
alone!”
Somers gave her a sympathetic glance. “I suppose I ought to go,” he
replied reluctantly; but he rose with suspicious alacrity. “Perhaps when
I get back, Miss McGregor--yours is a very interesting case--I’d like to
hear more about it.”
Aunt Mary shrugged, as much as to say: “Why go away then?” “I always lie
down after breakfast,” she replied.
Somers looked relieved. “Well, some other time then.” His greenish eyes
rested significantly upon the silent nurse. “You ought to get out of
doors more,” he told her. “You need exercise.”
Miss McGregor sniffed. “Oh, she’s healthy enough! You should see her
sleep!” Aunt Mary always resented the suggestion that any one else was
not well; she felt that she had a monopoly of invalidism for the
McGregor family.
Our guest bowed and came out with me. “My,” he exclaimed, “what a
talker!”
“Well, come along!”
He shook his head. “I’m not coming, thanks. Tell old Parker I’ll see him
later. I’ve got other things to do.”
So I left him and went out to the racketing flivver, whose rear seat was
heaped high. I squeezed in beside Dorothy and Peter in front.