Beaumaroy Home from the Wars Part 6

A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT

As Mary brought her car to a stand at the gate of the little front garden of Tower Cottage, she saw, through the mist, Beaumaroy's corrugated face; he was standing in the doorway, and the light in the pa.s.sage revealed it. It seemed to her to wear a triumphant impish look, but this vanished as he advanced to meet her, relieved her of the neat black handbag which she always carried with her on her visits, and suggested gravely that she should at once go upstairs and see her patient.

"He's quieter now," he said. "The mere news that you were coming had a soothing effect. Let me show you the way." He led her upstairs and into a small room on the first floor, nakedly furnished with necessities, but with a cheery fire blazing in the grate.

Old Mr. Saffron lay in bed, propped up by pillows. His silver hair strayed from under a nightcap; he wore a light blue bedroom jacket; its colour matched that of his restless eyes; his arms were under the clothes from the elbows down. He was rather flushed, but did not look seriously ill, and greeted Doctor Mary with dignified composure.

"I'll see Dr. Arkroyd alone, Hector." Beaumaroy gave the slightest little jerk of his head, and the old man added quickly, "I am sure of myself, quite sure."

The phrase sounded rather an odd one to Mary, but Beaumaroy accepted the a.s.surance with a nod. "All right, I'll wait downstairs, sir. I hope you'll bring me a good account of him, Doctor." So he left Mary to make her examination; going downstairs, he shook his head once, pursed up his lips, and then smiled doubtfully, as a man may do when he has made up his mind to take a chance.

When Mary rejoined him, she asked for pen and paper, wrote a prescription, and requested that Beaumaroy's man should take it to the chemist's. He went out to give it to the Sergeant, and, when he came back, found her seated in the big chair by the fire.

"The present little attack is nothing, Mr. Beaumaroy," she said.

"Stomachic--with a little fever; if he takes what I've prescribed, he ought to be all right in the morning. But I suppose you know that there is valvular disease--quite definite? Didn't Dr. Irechester tell you?"

"Yes; but he said there was no particular--no immediate danger."

"If he's kept quiet and free from worry. Didn't he advise that?"

"Yes," Beaumaroy admitted, "he did. That's the only thing you find wrong with him, Doctor?"

Beaumaroy was standing on the far side of the table, his finger-tips resting lightly on it. He looked across at Mary with eyes candidly inquiring.

"I've found nothing else so far. I suppose he's got nothing to worry him?"

"Not really, I think. He fusses a bit about his affairs." He smiled. "We go to London every week to fuss about his affairs; he's always changing his investments, taking his money out of one thing and putting it in another, you know. Old people get like that sometimes, don't they? I'm a novice at that kind of thing, never having had any money to play with; but I'm bound to say that he seems to know very well what he's about."

"Do you know anything of his history or his people? Has he any relations?"

"I know very little. I don't think he has any--any real relations, so to speak. There are, I believe, some cousins, distant cousins, whom he hates. In fact, a lonely old bachelor, Dr. Arkroyd."

Mary gave a little laugh and became less professional. "He's rather an old dear! He uses funny stately phrases. He said I might speak quite openly to you, as you were closely attached to his person!"

"Sounds rather like a newspaper, doesn't it? He does talk like that sometimes." Beaumaroy moved round the table, came close to the fire, and stood there, smiling down at Mary.

"He's very fond of you, I think," she went on.

"He reposes entire confidence in me," said Beaumaroy, with a touch of a.s.sumed pompousness.

"Those were his very words!" cried Mary, laughing again. "And he said it just in that way! How clever of you to guess!"

"Not so very. He says it to me six times a week."

Mary had risen, about to take her leave, but to her surprise Beaumaroy went on quickly, with one of his confidential smiles, "And now I'm going to show you that I have the utmost confidence in you. Please sit down again, Dr. Arkroyd. The matter concerns your patient just as much as myself, or I wouldn't trouble you with it--at any rate, I shouldn't venture to, so early in our acquaintance. I want you to consider yourself as Mr. Saffron's medical adviser, and--also--to try to imagine yourself my friend."

"I've every inclination to be your friend, but I hardly know you, Mr.

Beaumaroy."

"And feel a few doubts about me? From what you've heard from myself--and perhaps from others?"

The wind swished outside; save for that, the little room seemed very still. The professional character of the interview did not save it, for Mary Arkroyd, from a sudden and rather unwelcome sense of intimacy--of an intimacy thrust upon her, though not so much by her companion as by circ.u.mstances. She answered rather stiffly, "Perhaps I have some doubts."

"You detect--very acutely--that I have a great influence over Mr.

Saffron. You ask--very properly--whether he has relations. I think you threw out a feeler about his money affairs--whether he had anything to worry about was your phrase, wasn't it? Am I misinterpreting what was in your mind?"

As he spoke, he offered her a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece.

She took one and lit it at the top of the lamp-chimney; then she sat down again in the big chair; she had not accepted his earlier invitation to resume her seat.

"It was proper for me to put those questions, Mr. Beaumaroy. Mr.

Saffron is not a sound man, and he's old. In normal conditions his relations should at least be warned of the position."

"Exactly," Beaumaroy a.s.sented, with an appearance of eagerness. "But he hates them. Any suggestion that they have any sort of claim on him raises strong resentment in him. I've known old men--old monied men--like that before, and no doubt you have. Well now, you'll begin to see the difficulty of my position. I'll put the case to you quite bluntly. Suppose Mr. Saffron, having this liking for me, this confidence in me, living here with me alone--except for servants; being, as one might say, exposed to my influence; suppose he took it into his head to make a will in my favour, to leave me all his money. It's quite a considerable sum, so far as our Wednesday doings enable me to judge.

Suppose that happened, how should I stand in your opinion, Dr. Arkroyd?

But wait a moment still. Suppose that my career has not been very--well, resplendent; that my army record is only so-so; that I've devoted myself to him with remarkable a.s.siduity, as in fact I have; that I might be called, quite plausibly, an adventurer. Well, propounding that will, how should I stand before the world and, if necessary" (he shrugged his shoulders), "the Court?"

Mary sat silent for a moment or two. Beaumaroy knelt down by the fire, rearranged the logs of wood which were smouldering there, and put on a couple more. From that position, looking into the grate, he added, "And the change of doctors? It was he, of course, who insisted on it, but I can see a clever lawyer using that against me too. Can't you, Dr.

Arkroyd?"

"I'm sure I wish you hadn't had to make the change!" exclaimed Mary.

"So do I; though, mind you, I'm not pretending that Irechester is a favourite of mine, any more than he is of my old friend's. Still--there it is. I've no right, perhaps, to press my question, but your opinion would be of real value to me."

"I see no reason to think that he's not quite competent to make a will,"

said Doctor Mary. "And no real reason why he shouldn't prefer you to distant relations whom he dislikes."

"Ah, no real reason; that's what you say! You mean that people would impute----?"

Mary Arkroyd had her limitations--of experience, of knowledge, of intuition. But she did not lack courage.

"I have given you my professional opinion. It is that, so far as I see, Mr. Saffron is of perfectly sound understanding, and capable of making a valid will. You did me the honour----"

"No, no!" he interrupted in a low but rather strangely vehement protest. "I begged the favour----"

"As you like! The favour, then, of my opinion as your friend, as well as my view as Mr. Saffron's doctor."

Beaumaroy did not rise from his knees, but turned his face towards her; the logs had blazed up, and his eyes looked curiously bright in the glare--themselves, as it were, afire.

"In my opinion a man of sensitive honour would prefer that that will should not be made, Mr. Beaumaroy," said Mary steadily.

Beaumaroy appeared to consider. "I'm a bit posed by that point of view, Dr. Arkroyd," he said at last. "Either the old man's sane--_compos mentis_, don't you call it?--or he isn't. If he is----"

"I know. But I feel that way about it."

"You'd have to give evidence for me!" He raised his brows and smiled at her.

"There can be undue influence without actual want of mental competence, I think."