The Bachelors

  ‘There’s an ambulance coming,’ said the policeman. ‘He could bite his tongue in the meantime,’ Ronald said. ‘There could be a lot of damage. I’d shove in the wedge if I were you.’

  The policeman knelt and grasped the man’s head. He tried to thrust the wedge into the frothing mouth, but the man’s convulsions kept throwing the policeman off.

  The policeman looked up at Ronald. ‘Would you mind trying to get his boots off, then, sir?’

  ‘I doubt if I cam do it,’ Ronald said. He was greatly agitated, for if there was one thing he did not like to see it was another epileptic. The thought of touching the man horrified him. ‘Matthew!’ he called out. ‘Come and lend a hand.’

  Matthew approached and, as Ronald instructed, threw himself upon the man’s jerking knees. The policeman jammed the wedge between the teeth. Ronald felt for the shoes as one thrusting his hands into flames. He shut his eyes, and felt for the laces, loosened them, threw the shoes aside so violently that one of them nearly hit an onlooker, and sprang back from the kicking figure.

  The man was still jerking when the ambulance arrived, and he was lifted up by two men in hospital uniform and taken away.

  ‘Did it upset you?’ Matthew said as they went down to look at the river.

  ‘Yes,’ Ronald said.

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ll be all right.’

  Matthew went off to telephone to his sister and then to read a novel called Marie Donadieu in Lyons’ Corner House until it should be time to go and meet Alice, while Ronald walked part of the way home, and then, feeling unsafe, took a taxi the rest of the way. There, he resisted taking his phenobarbitone, shaky though he was, for on occasions of extra stress he rather cherished the feeling of being more alive and conscious than usual, he cherished his tension and liked to see how far he could stand it. This evening he got ready for bed without any intimations of an approaching fit, and although he had his little drugs ready to take, he did not take them, and managed to get a living troubled sleep instead of a dead and peaceful one.

  Chapter VII

  ‘WHAT is the size of the chalet?’ Patrick breathed indifferently.

  Dr. Lyte said, ‘Oh, large enough for two. There are four or five rooms, but as I say it is very difficult of access. You are only a kilometre and a half from the frontier on the one hand and only three from the bus stop on the other, but that’s as the crow flies. If you aren’t a fairly good climber you would have to be a crow.’ He laughed. Patrick did not. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it, really I wouldn’t,’ said Dr. Lyte.

  ‘No, it sounds just our sort of thing,’ Patrick whispered. ‘Isolated. Mountains. We’ll take it on for three weeks as soon as this wretched case is either squashed or over.’

  Dr. Lyte reached across his desk, lifted the silver lid of his inkpot and let it drop again. He looked at his short white hands. He lifted his card-index box and placed it down again a quarter of an inch from its previous position. He fidgeted with his blotting paper. He said to Patrick, ‘Suppose the case does come off?’

  ‘Alice and I will go abroad immediately after the case.’

  ‘But if…’

  Patrick’s blue eyes looked out at the sky above the roof. So blue, he thought, so calm. A muscle in his small chin twitched. ‘I’m quite confident of being acquitted,’ he said in his murmur. ‘I may not be sent for trial, even. The police keep asking for time. No evidence. I’ve been remanded twice.’

  Dr. Lyte said, ‘I don’t know, really, why you haven’t skipped away in the meantime. Why don’t you go abroad?’

  Patrick coughed. ‘I feel I must stay and see this unfortunate occurrence through.’ His shoulders moved resentfully. ‘Do you think I’m afraid to — to — how shall I put it? — to stand trial?’

  ‘No,’ said Dr. Lyte.

  ‘We’ll take over your chalet then,’ Patrick said. ‘Alice and I. One way or another, that will be before the end of the year.’

  ‘I don’t recommend it in November or December, ‘said Lyte.

  ‘Alice likes the cold weather. Alice doesn’t like tourist seasons. Alice likes the snow. Will it be snowing?’

  ‘You’ll be cut off. Supposing Alice were to take ill, in her condition? Really, you must wait till the spring. March would be all right, perhaps. April, certainly. But November, December. Have you ever been to a lonely part of Austria in November?’

  ‘We shall be taking your chalet for a month.’ Patrick smiled a little at Dr. Lyte’s protests; and the doctor, who did not like to be smiled at in this way, said, ‘I’ve a good mind to refuse you.’

  ‘Have you now?’ Patrick said. ‘Have you?’

  Dr. Lyte thought of his practice and his wife and his house at Wembley Park, his daughter at Cambridge and his married daughter; he thought, also, inconsequentially, of the field attached to a Kentish Georgian rectory which he had recently acquired; he thought of his professional friends, his cottage in France and his chalet in Austria. There was nothing he could think of that he wanted to lose, and he regretted the evening he ever set foot in Marlene’s Sanctuary of Light. (‘One hopes it will become a Sanctuary of Lyte in every sense, ‘some man had remarked on hearing his name on that one occasion, but the remark had shocked Marlene.) To say this doctor thought of all he could lose is perhaps to put too blunt a point on it, for he felt these things deeply, and all in a second or two while Patrick smiled a little with melancholy.

  ‘You know,’ said Dr. Lyte, ‘that Alice can’t stand up to anything strenuous. Ober-Bleilach will be strenuous. The climbing—’

  ‘I’ll see she doesn’t do too much. I’ll see she takes her injection every day.’

  ‘You’ll have to take a supply of insulin with you, ‘Lyte said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A good supply,’ he said. ‘You can’t depend on local supplies. It’s a remote place.’

  ‘Yes. She knows how to look after herself.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were saying the other day,’ said the doctor, ‘that you thought Alice might be negligent about her insulin.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so now. At least, I’ll see that she isn’t. If she’s going to take too much of the stuff or too little she’ll do it whether we go away or not.’

  So she will, thought Dr. Lyte, and he actively dispersed an uneasy idea that had begun to form in his mind.

  ‘We’ll take that chalet,’ Patrick said as if his mind were on something else.

  ‘Let’s discuss the details, then, after the trial. You know, Patrick, I’ve got a roomful of patients waiting to see me.’

  Patrick discerned a touch of defiance. He was aware that Dr. Lyte possessed, in relationship to himself, a mixture of emotions, including various shades of fear, and so, to encourage them, Patrick said, ‘I keep on getting through to that control who is so familiar with the unfortunate occurrence in your past life. I can’t help it. I keep on getting — or rather he keeps on getting through to me. He keeps on reminding me—’

  ‘Are you short of ready cash?’ said Lyte, and already he had risen from his chair and was walking over to a cupboard in which he kept a black tin cash box.

  ‘The Chief hasn’t decided,’ Inspector Fergusson said. ‘It depends on a number of factors to do with our evidence.’

  ‘But when do you think this unfortunate occurrence will be settled, Mr. Fergusson?’ Patrick trailed on.

  ‘A month or two.’

  ‘I have some little news for you,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Now, Patrick, I must warn you, we’ll do our best but this time we can’t guarantee your protection. The Chief told me to tell you. So news or no news…

  ‘I’ve been helpful to you,’ Patrick said, shuffling his feet bashfully and looking down at them. ‘And I could go on being helpful, Mr. Fergusson.’

  ‘What’s the news, then?’ Fergusson said.

  ‘Well — after what you’ve just said, Mr. Fergusson, I don’t really feel
inclined—’

  ‘I’m surprised at you, Patrick!’ said Mr. Fergusson. ‘I really am surprised.’

  Patrick swallowed and looked frail and ashamed. His knees closed in together and he grasped the seat of his chair like a schoolboy.

  Inspector Fergusson offered Patrick a cigarette. Patrick took one; his hand was shaking.

  ‘Well, Patrick,’ said big strong Mr. Fergusson, ‘you haven’t ever let me down yet.’

  ‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘I thought you were going to bear that in mind with reference to Mrs. Flower, the unfortunate…

  ‘I’m being straight with you,’ said Fergusson, his square good shoulders blocking the lower half of the window-light, ‘and I’m telling you that we can’t promise to protect you this time. I can’t promise anything. You’ve always had a square deal for any information you’ve passed on.’

  ‘There’s a lot that goes on in Spiritualism,’ Patrick observed with timid sociability. ‘From your point of view,’ he said.

  ‘Tell me, Patrick,’ said big Mr. Fergusson, ‘did you never think of getting married? It might have made a man of you. It might have kept you straight.’

  ‘I’ve always believed in free love. I’ve never believed in marriage,’ Patrick murmured. ‘Why should man-made laws…

  Fergusson tilted back his chair and heard him out: man-made laws, suppression of the individual, relics of the Victorian era…. Patrick’s thin voice died out ‘… and all repression of freedom of expression and self-fulfilment….’ It sounded good-class reading stuff.

  ‘You’ve certainly got ideas of your own,’ stated Fergusson, standing up. ‘I’m a married man myself,’ he stated. ‘Well, Patrick, I’ve got work here in front of me to do. Keep in touch.’

  Patrick stroked his hair. He stood up, opened his mouth to speak, and sat down again.

  ‘I’d like to be as helpful as possib…’ Patrick said. ‘Well, tell me the tale and get it off your chest.’ Inspector Fergusson drew a note-pad towards him and poised his pen.

  ‘There isn’t actually a tale. Only a name. There was an unfortunate occurrence the other night—’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Dr. Mike Garland.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He poses as a clairvoyant.’

  ‘A fraud.’

  ‘Oh yes. He attempted to question me while I was under the other night. He’s very friendly at the moment with Mrs. Freda Flower.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘I’ll find out, Mr. Fergusson.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘I’ll find out if you’re interested, Mr. Ferg…’

  ‘Only for the records,’ said the Inspector. ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘I’ll find out, Mr. Fergusson. I thought his name might be helpful,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Thanks.’ Fergusson was scribbling his notes. ‘Brief description, Patrick, please. You know what we want.’

  Patrick cast his pale eyes to the ceiling. ‘Nearly six foot, fairly stout, age about fifty, greying hair, fresh complexion, round face, blue eyes.’

  ‘Right,’ said Fergusson. ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘He goes about with a Father Socket.’

  ‘Who’s he — a clergyman?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr. Fergusson. I haven’t met Father Socket.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Mr. Fergusson.

  ‘Yes, Mr. Fergusson,’ Patrick said. ‘But I’ll find Out about him for you.’

  ‘Right. What does Garland do for a living?’

  ‘Mr. Fergusson, I hope you can do something for me with regard to the unfortunate___’

  ‘It’s in the Chief’s hands, Patrick. Defrauding a widow of her savings is a serious crime on the face of it.’

  ‘I was tempted and fell,’ Patrick said.

  ‘So you said in your statement,’ said Mr. Fergusson, tapping the heap of files on his desk.

  Patrick looked yearningly at the files as if wishing to retrieve the statement that lay in one of them.

  ‘Mrs. Flower still isn’t prepared to give evidence, though?’ Patrick said.

  ‘She’ll have to give evidence.’

  ‘Satisfactory evidence?’

  ‘We aren’t sure of that, as yet.’

  Dr. Lyte sat in his consulting room after the last of the evening surgery had departed and his receptionist had locked up and gone home. He was in a panic, and this caused him to lose his head so far as he was writing the letter at all; but it was the panic which, at the same time, prompted the lucidity of what he wrote.

  Dear Patrick,

  Please do not think I don’t want you to borrow my chalet in Austria for your forthcoming holiday with Alice, but I feel bound to repeat that I think it inadvisable, from the medical point of view, that Alice should be exposed to the certain inconvenience of this inaccessible place.

  I just want to put a few of the drawbacks on record. In fact, I feel bound to do so.

  You said previously that Alice was probably careless about her insulin injections. Although you told me to-day that your suspicions in this respect were unfounded, I feel bound to say that any carelessness in the administration of the injections (too much or too little) while Alice is in a condition of pregnancy, might prove fatal.

  In fact, I should feel bound to obtain an undertaking from Alice on the whole question of her injections, before permitting the use of my chalet.

  I should also wish to make certain that you took with you sufficient supplies of insulin, because the nearest town has no druggist.

  Alice, I believe, would certainly die within a few days or even sooner, if deprived of her insulin. You know she has two sorts which she administers just before breakfast.

  (a) Insulin soluble for immediate effect.

  (b) Protamine zinc for more prolonged coverage throughout the evening and the following night. She needs 8o units.

  But Alice understands all this. I understand she tests her urine for sugar and acetone first thing in the morning, and she can adjust the dosage accordingly. You must see that this is done.

  The last time I saw Alice she told me she was still visiting the diabetic clinic every six months for routine assessment of progress.

  If Alice were to take too much insulin and then, say, went for a hearty climb or long walk, she might easily die on the mountainside. Most…

  Dr. Lyte stopped writing. What am I saying, what am I doing? he thought. It came clearly to him, then, that he suspected Patrick of an intention to kill the woman, if you could call it an intention when a man could wander into a crime as if blown like a winged leaf.

  What evidence have I got? Lyte thought. None at all. He wrote on, nevertheless.

  … diabetics carry glucose or even lump sugar in their pockets to be taken at the first onset of the symptoms of hypoglycarmia — a dangerously low blood sugar-content, which the patient can check from the urine-test ….

  Dr. Lyte put down his pen. If Patrick were to add a little sugar to her urine specimen so that she would take a hefty dose of insulin, and then to make her take a good walk without her little tin of glucose — Patrick might say to Alice ‘Oh, you don’t need your handbag’ — she would probably pass out on the mountainside. Or suppose he substituted his own urine in the test tube so that she would take an under-dose? Or suppose he himself gave her the injections? Insulin was used in the concentration camps as a method of execution. Insulin, said Dr. Lyte to himself, is a favoured mode of suicide amongst doctors and psychiatrists, it is rapid in effect. He looked round the room which he had furnished so carefully to match the red carpet and to be suitable to himself, and it seemed, in retrospect, that when he had chosen the furnishings of this consulting room, he must have been pretending all the time that the world is not a miserable place. It was sometimes not easy to establish death by insulin. He wrote on:

  Therefore I feel bound to warn you of the dangers…

  Then he stopped. I feel bound. I feel bound to
warn you. In what position, he thought, am I to issue warnings to Patrick Seton? It is he who comes with his unspoken warnings to me.

  Dr. Lyte read through his letter. Clearly if he had any suspicions of Patrick’s intentions towards the girl, this letter betrayed it. Such a letter might — it certainly would — provoke a man like Patrick. One never knew where one was with a man like Patrick Seton. Patrick knew a lot about his early career. Patrick was dangerous.

  And then, what evidence was there for his suspicions? Patrick had said, ‘How long would it be before she died if she neglected to take insulin?’ That was no ground for suspicion.

  Lyte tore the letter up into little bits, placed the little bits, a few at a time, in his ash-tray and set fire to them with his cigarette lighter until they were all burned up.

  Then he recalled that Patrick had said, ‘She won’t let me give her the injections. She won’t let me see her taking the injections.’

  Then he recalled quite clearly that Alice had told him, ‘Patrick does the injection for me every day. Patrick is so good at it, I don’t feel a thing.’

  And then the whole problem was too much. The doctor was indignant at being subjected to it. The one incident in his career which he needed to hush up, Patrick had somehow got hold of. This one mistake had occurred twenty-seven years ago when he was still a single man, a different person altogether. You change when you marry and establish yourself, everything that happened previously had nothing to do with you any more. But Patrick sitting in his so-called trance had said plainly that night at the séance, ‘There is a new visitor to our Circle, a man of the medical profession. Gloria wishes to tell him that she is watching over him, and remembers every detail of the incident in 1932 about which there was a certain amount of mystery at the time. Gloria sends this message to the visitor in our midst who is a member of the medical profession: he should become a spiritualist and attend séances weekly. She is exhausted, now, and has no more to say for the present. Gloria wishes to say she is exhausted. The effort of speaking from the other side is exhausting. Gloria is tired. She feels weak. She is exhausted….’