Page:The Adventure at Heath Crest.pdf/3

Rh almost pulseless, his every movement seemed feeble; and although he was quite conscious, his voice was no more than a hoarse whisper; but, strange to say, I could find not the slightest reason for this alarming state of things, which appeared to be due to heart-failure pure and simple. In any case, his condition was most critical, and I lost no time in giving him a hypodermic injection of ether and prescribing some hot strong coffee. He was so far gone that he took a considerable time to rally. I even thought at one time of applying electricity to the heart; and it was quite an hour before I felt justified in leaving him.

When I got back Mrs. Walland had kept luncheon waiting. She was most curious as to what had detained me, and appeared quite nettled at my reticence. Although she returned again and again to the subject I managed to stave off her inquisitiveness, and at length, finding me inexorable, she ceased to catechise me. I have always made it a point (in common with any other man worthy of professional confidence) to refuse to discuss the affairs of patients with those outside their immediate circle; but from her behaviour on this occasion I feared that Mrs. Walland was accustomed to find her husband more pliable.

In the course of the afternoon I took the opportunity of being close by to look in again at Heath Crest. I found the patient fairly comfortable; but although he had been taking a prescription I ordered in the morning, Mrs. Fahbwerker told me that he had had another, although a slighter, attack not long before. I must confess that he puzzled me very much. As to the reality of his peril when I first saw him there could be no question; but now that he had mended he presented not the slightest sign of disease. Similar attacks are not unknown to arise from acute dyspepsia, but scarcely to such a dangerous extent as this; besides, I could find nothing of the sort about him. For the rest he was a fine, well-built man, of the florid German type, in the prime of life; and I could really advise little more than to continue the treatment and to keep plenty of stimulants at hand.

On my way downstairs I could not resist stopping to admire the magnificent view from the windows. On the one side was the Heath, with its glorious avenue of chestnuts merging in the woods, which stretched unbroken across the Weald to Harrow; on the other, its huge basin rimmed by the heights of Surrey, spread London, St. Paul's and Westminster showing like islands above the grey perpetual haze. I turned to congratulate Mrs. Fahbwerker, perhaps injudiciously, on so priceless an outlook; but she did not seem to notice my remark, asking me the senseless question which stirs in me fresh resentment every time I hear it: "Is there any danger, doctor?"

I took refuge in the historical reply of the physician—a mythical one, for aught I know, but it always satisfies:

"Illness is always dangerous."

I was in the thick of seeing patients that evening when there came an urgent message to visit Mr. Fahbwerker, and then, right on the heels of it, a second one to say that he was dead! I had not time to reflect upon it at the moment, but about an hour afterwards Mrs. Fahbwerker came herself; she said she had called for the death certificate. She did not seem very greatly distressed, and it occurred to me that perhaps the event so long threatened when it did come at last had been rather a relief in view of the perpetual alarms in which she must have been living of late. As I was momentarily expecting a distinguished literary man who was coming by appointment to be examined for life insurance, it was a relief to find her in so slightly sentimental a mood. While I dashed off the certificate she told me all about the fatal attack, of its sudden onset, and of its fatal ending before any remedies could take effect. As I have said, I was desperately busy; and as the literary man arrived, for a wonder, punctually to his time, I was very glad to see the back of Mrs. Fahbwerker. I made a strange discovery when the insurer succeeded the widow. I do not mean to imply that there was anything very remarkable in a literary man insuring his life, but I discovered that Walland did a very fair amount of insurance work; and when I picked up the book in which he laboriously noted the result of his examinations, it opened at a page on which the name of Fahbwerker was prominent. Running through the entry I found it to be the patient who had just died. Walland had passed him as a first-class life, the value of the insurance being five thousand pounds, and, most significant fact of all, the date of examination was a bare six weeks ago!

I hope the literary man was not unfavourably impressed with the manner in which I examined him, but as I gave him a clean