The Wheel Spins (23 page)

Trieste
.

The waiter managed to salvage some dinner for the professor and Hare, who ate through the courses in silence. As they were finishing their cheese and biscuits, the doctor entered the dining-car and seated himself at their table.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” he said, “but I want a little conference about the young English lady.”

The professor stifled an exclamation, for he feared that Iris had broken out in some fresh indiscretion.

“Coffee, please,” he said to the waiter. “Black. Well—what is the trouble
now
?”

“As a medical man I find myself faced with a responsibility,” explained the doctor. “The lady is in a dangerous mental state.”

“What grounds have you for your conclusion?” asked the professor, who never accepted a statement without data.

The doctor shrugged.

“Surely it is obvious to the meanest intelligence that she is suffering from a delusion. She invents some one who is not here. But there are other signs. She is highly excitable—suspicious of every one—inclined to be violent—”

As he noticed Hare’s involuntary grimace, he broke off and turned to the younger man.

“Pardon. Is the young lady your affianced?”

“No,” grunted Hare.

“But perhaps a lover—or a dear friend? Yet it would not surprise me to hear that she has been very angry recently with you. Has she?”

“I’m not really popular at present,” admitted Hare.

“Thank you for the confidence, for it confirms my diagnosis. It is always a sign of mental malady when they turn upon those they love best.”

He could tell he had captured Hare’s sympathy as he continued.

“There is no real danger if we can take a precaution. It is essential at this stage that her brain should be rested. If she could have a long sleep, I am confident she will wake up quite well again. But if we let her persist in working herself up into a fever, the mental mischief may be—irreparable.”

“I think there is something in that, professor,” agreed Hare. “It’s exactly what I’ve been thinking myself.”

“What do you propose?” asked the professor cautiously.

“I should suggest,” replied the doctor, “that you persuade her to swallow a harmless sedative which I can give you.”

“She will object.”

“Then it should be given by force.”

“Impossible. We cannot control her wishes.”

“Then, perhaps, you could trick her into taking it?”

As the professor remained mulishly silent, the doctor half rose from the table.

“I can assure you,” he said, “that I have more than enough responsibility of my own to shoulder, with my patient. I only felt it my duty to warn you. We doctors are pledged to the service of humanity—whether we receive fees or no. But now that I have explained the position, I can leave the decision to you. My own conscience is clear.”

The doctor was on the point of departing with dignity, when Hare called him back.

“Don’t go, doctor. I feel the same as you about this. I’ve had personal experience of delusions, with concussion.” He turned eagerly to the professor. “Can’t we wangle it somehow?”

The professor’s long upper lip seemed to lengthen in his disapproval.

“I could not be a party to such a course,” he said. “It would be gross interference with Miss Carr’s personal liberty. She is a free agent.”

“Then—you’d prefer to remain ‘good form’ and see her go bughouse?” asked Hare indignantly.

The professor smiled acidly.

“My own impression is,” he told them, “that there is not the slightest danger of that. I have had experience of such cases. My work brings me into contact with neurotic young women. To my mind, Miss Carr is merely hysterical.”

“Then—what do you propose?” asked Hare.

“I think a salutary shock will probably bring her to her senses.”

Reinforced by his meal, the professor felt master of the situation. He finished his coffee and liqueur, flicked a crumb from his waistcoat, and rose in a leisurely manner.

“
I
will reason with Miss Carr,” he said.

He strolled out of the dining-car and lurched along the corridors. As he passed the coupé occupied by the Misses Flood-Porter, he was tempted to resign his mission and join them in a little chat. The ladies looked so composed and immaculate—for they were well in advance of their preparations for arrival at Trieste—that he was hopeful that further conversation would reveal some mutual friend.

Resolute in his self-imposed duty, he entered his carriage and seated himself opposite to Iris. His first glance told him that she had been lighting cigarette after cigarette, only to throw them away, barely smoked. Although her action was merely a sign of nervous tension, he looked with distaste at the litter of spent matches on the floor and seats.

“Will you take some advice offered in a friendly spirit?” he asked, speaking to her as though she were a fractious child.

“No,” replied Iris mutinously. “I want to hear the truth, for a change.”

“The truth may be a bit of a shock. But you’ve asked for it, so you shall have it. The doctor has just told me that, as a result of your sunstroke, you are—very slightly, and only temporarily—deranged.”

The professor honestly believed that he was dealing with a neurotic girl who was telling lies from a love of sensation, so he watched her reaction with complacent confidence. When he saw the horror in her eyes, he felt his experiment was justified.

“Do you mean—
mad
?” she asked in a whisper.

“Oh, dear, no. Nothing to be frightened of. But he is not happy about your safety as you are travelling alone. He may be forced to take steps to ensure it, unless you can manage to keep perfectly quiet.”

“What steps?” asked Iris. “Do you mean that nursing home? I should resist. No one can do anything to me against my will.”

“In the circumstances, violence would be most unwise. It would only confirm the doctor’s fears. But I want to make the position quite clear to you. Listen.”

The professor sawed the air with his forefinger and spoke impressively.

“You have only to keep calm and everything will be all right. No one will interfere with you in any way, unless you remind them of your existence. To be brutally frank, you’ve made yourself a public nuisance. It’s got to stop.”

The professor was not so unhuman as he seemed. His own unpleasant experience with his infatuated student had prejudiced him against emotion, but he thought he was acting in Iris’ interests.

Therefore he could have no idea of the hell of fear into which he plunged her. She was white to her lips as she shrank into the corner of the carriage. She was afraid of him—afraid of every one in the train. Even Hare seemed to have entered into the conspiracy against her. The whole world appeared roped into a league that threatened her sanity.

Lighting yet one more cigarette with shaking fingers, she tried to realise the position. It seemed clear that she had blundered into important issues and that, consequently, she had to be suppressed. The professor had been sent to bribe her with immunity in return for her silence.

Even while she rejected compromise angrily, she had to face the cold truth. She had not a ghost of a chance to fight these influential people. If she persisted in her hopeless quest to find Miss Froy, the doctor would merely pull wires and whisk her away to some nursing home in Trieste.

She remembered Miss Froy’s tale of the woman who had been held in a private mental asylum. The same might happen to her. Any opposition on her part would be used as evidence against her sanity. They could keep her imprisoned and under the influence of drugs, until she really crashed under the strain.

It would be some appreciable time before any one missed her. She was not expected in England, for she had not troubled to engage rooms at an hotel. Her friends would believe that she was still abroad. When at last her lawyers or the bank made inquiries, it would be too late. They would trace her to the nursing home, and arrive to find a lunatic.

In her distraught state, she plunged herself into a morass of distorted fears and exaggerated perils. But although her reason was nearly submerged by a tidal wave of panic, one corner of her brain still functioned on common-sense lines.

It convinced her that Miss Froy’s rescue was an utterly hopeless proposition.

“Well?” asked the professor patiently, as she tossed away her unsmoked cigarette.

Suddenly Iris thought of the familiar Calais-Dover express—the white cliffs—Victoria Station—with almost frantic longing. She felt homesick for England and the cheery casual crowd of her friends. Before her eyes, in letters of fire, flashed the familiar slogan—“
SAFETY FIRST
.”

“Well?” repeated the professor. “Have you come to your senses?”

Utterly worn out and paralysed with fear, Iris slipped into the trough of lost hopes. She reminded herself that Miss Froy was merely a stranger whom she had tried to help. To persist merely meant a double—and useless—sacrifice.

“Yes,” she replied dully.

“You’ll make no more scenes?” went on the professor.

“No.”

“Good. Now, will you admit to me that you invented Miss Froy?”

Iris felt plunged in the hell of Judas Iscariot and all traitors as she made her denial.

“Yes. I invented her. There’s no Miss Froy.”

The doctor looked after the professor as he went from the dining-car.

“That is a very clever man,” he said dryly. “He would cure illness by a scolding. Yet he may be right. Indeed, for the first time in my career, I hope I shall be proved wrong.”

He watched Hare’s frowning face closely and asked, “What is your opinion?”

“I know he’s making a damnable blunder,” growled the young man.

“‘He that knows, and knows that he knows,’” quoted the doctor, “‘he is wise.’ Well—what then?”

“Hanged if I know.”

“Ah, you feel, perhaps, that the professor is cleverer than you?”

“I feel nothing of the kind. Our lines are different.”

“Then probably you are not used to exert authority?”

“Oh, no. I’ve only got to control hundreds of toughs—and some of them ready on the draw.”

“Then, frankly, I do not understand your hesitation. Unless, of course, you fear the young lady’s anger when she discovers she has been tricked. She has what you call ‘spirit,’ and what I call ‘temper,’ since I have a very sweet wife myself. Well, it is for you to decide whether you prefer the angry words of a sane woman to the gentle smile of an imbecile.”

“Don’t rub it in,” muttered Hare. “I’ve got to
think
.”

“There is not much time left,” the doctor reminded him.

“I know. But—it’s the hell of a risk.”

“Not at all. Here is my card. I will write a declaration on it that the drug is harmless, under penalty of heavy damages, should the lady be ill afterwards as a direct result. I will do more. You shall have a sample to take back to England, so that you may have it analysed.”

Hare pulled at his lip. He knew that the doctor’s offer was fair, yet he could not shake off his distrust of the unknown.

The doctor seemed to read his thoughts.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you hesitate because I am not Dr. Smith, of London, England. Yet, if you were in a strange city and had a raging toothache, you would seek relief from the first dentist. Remember, a man’s name on a brass plate, with certain letters after it, is a profession’s guarantee of good faith to the public.”

He let the argument sink in while Hare continued to maltreat his face and hair. Presently he glanced at his watch, and then thrust his wrist before the young man’s eyes.

“See the time. I must go back to my patient.”

Hare sprang up as though galvanised.

“One minute, doctor. How could we give the stuff?”

The doctor knew that the bridge had been crossed as he hastened to explain.

“That poor young lady has had no dinner,” he said reproachfully. “Surely you will bring her a small cup of soup, since there will be no opportunities on the Italian train, until they couple the breakfast-car.”

“Chump,” exclaimed Hare, hitting his head. “I never thought that she’d be hungry. But if she is asleep, how will I manage changing trains at Trieste?”

“Ah, my dear sir, you must not expect miracles. You are too impatient. The drug will not take full effect until she is in the Italian train. Then, she will sleep and sleep. But at Trieste she will merely be very dull, very heavy, very docile. And”—the doctor’s eyes narrowed—“she will be far too torpid to worry about any phantom lady.”

“Suits me all right. I’ll take a chance.”

The doctor accompanied him to the kitchen-car and fought a battle with the protesting chef. In the end medical authority won the day. Not long afterwards, Hare, with anxious eyes and tightly compressed lips, began his fateful journey along the corridors, holding a half-filled bowl.

But he carried so much more than soup. Within the narrow circle of the cup lay the destiny of a woman.

As he staggered on his way—by a coincidence due to the time, in a small stone house in England, Mrs. Froy’s thoughts turned to nourishment.

“I do hope Winnie will eat something before she gets to Trieste,” she said to Mr. Froy. “Her dinner won’t stand by her all through the night. Besides she is always too excited to eat on a journey. She merely pecks her first supper at home.”

Her husband gave a guilty smile, for he knew the reason for Winnie’s lack of appetite.

Meanwhile, Hare was still scared by the responsibility of his step. While he assured himself that he was actually carrying a gift of sanity to Iris, he could not rid himself of apprehension. Tormented by indecision, he proposed a foolish test for himself.

“If I don’t spill any it’s going to be O.K. But if I do, I’ll cry off.”

He crabbed slowly along, with utmost care and caution while the train seemed to put on an extra spurt of speed. The soup splashed furiously against the rim of the cup—for ever on the point of brimming over. Yet, in some extraordinary manner, it always whirled within its confines.