. . . Dick was in his own room in the hotel reading The New York Herald when the swallow-like nun rushed in—simultaneously the phone rang.
“Is he dead?” Dick demanded of the nun, hopefully.
“Monsieur, il est parti—he has gone away.”
“Com-MENT?”
“Il est parti—his man and his baggage have gone away too!”
It was incredible. A man in that condition to arise and depart.
Dick answered the phone-call from Franz. “You shouldn’t have told Nicole,” he protested.
“Kaethe told her, very unwisely.”
“I suppose it was my fault. Never tell a thing to a woman till it’s done. However, I’ll meet Nicole . . . say, Franz, the craziest thing has happened down here—the old boy took up his bed and walked. . . .”
“At what? What did you say?”
“I say he walked, old Warren—he walked!”
“But why not?”
“He was supposed to be dying of general collapse . . . he got up and walked away, back to Chicago, I guess. . . . I don’t know, the nurse is here now. . . . I don’t know, Franz—I’ve just heard about it. . . . Call me later.”
He spent the better part of two hours tracing Warren’s movements. The patient had found an opportunity between the change of day and night nurses to resort to the bar where he had gulped down four whiskeys; he paid his hotel bill with a thousand dollar note, instructing the desk that the change should be sent after him, and departed, presumably for America. A last minute dash by Dick and Dangeu to overtake him at the station resulted only in Dick’s failing to meet Nicole; when they did meet in the lobby of the hotel she seemed suddenly tired, and there was a tight purse to her lips that disquieted him.
“How’s father?” she demanded.
“He’s much better. He seemed to have a good deal of reserve energy after all.” He hesitated, breaking it to her easy. “In fact he got up and went away.”
Wanting a drink, for the chase had occupied the dinner hour, he led her, puzzled, toward the grill, and continued as they occupied two leather easy-chairs and ordered a high-ball and a glass of beer: “The man who was taking care of him made a wrong prognosis or something—wait a minute, I’ve hardly had time to think the thing out myself.”
“He’s GONE?”
“He got the evening train for Paris.”
They sat silent. From Nicole flowed a vast tragic apathy.
“It was instinct,” Dick said, finally. “He was really dying, but he tried to get a resumption of rhythm—he’s not the first person that ever walked off his death-bed—like an old clock—you know, you shake it and somehow from sheer habit it gets going again. Now your father—”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” she said.
“His principal fuel was fear,” he continued. “He got afraid, and off he went. He’ll probably live till ninety—”
“Please don’t tell me any more,” she said. “Please don’t—I couldn’t stand any more.”
“All right. The little devil I came down to see is hopeless. We may as well go back to-morrow.”
“I don’t see why you have to—come in contact with all this,” she burst forth.
“Oh, don’t you? Sometimes I don’t either.”
She put her hand on his.
“Oh, I’m sorry I said that, Dick.”
Some one had brought a phonograph into the bar and they sat listening to The Wedding of the Painted Doll.
III
One morning a week later, stopping at the desk for his mail, Dick became aware of some extra commotion outside: Patient Von Cohn Morris was going away. His parents, Australians, were putting his baggage vehemently into a large limousine, and beside them stood Doctor Ladislau protesting with ineffectual attitudes against the violent gesturings of Morris, senior. The young man was regarding his embarkation with aloof cynicism as Doctor Diver approached.
“Isn’t this a little sudden, Mr. Morris?”
Mr. Morris started as he saw Dick—his florid face and the large checks on his suit seemed to turn off and on like electric lights. He approached Dick as though to strike him.
“High time we left, we and those who have come with us,” he began, and paused for breath. “It is high time, Doctor Diver. High time.”
“Will you come in my office?” Dick suggested.
“Not I! I’ll talk to you, but I’m washing my hands of you and your place.”
He shook his finger at Dick. “I was just telling this doctor here. We’ve wasted our time and our money.”
Doctor Ladislau stirred in a feeble negative, signalling up a vague Slavic evasiveness. Dick had never liked Ladislau. He managed to walk the excited Australian along the path in the direction of his office, trying to persuade him to enter; but the man shook his head.
“It’s you, Doctor Diver, YOU, the very man. I went to Doctor Ladislau because you were not to be found, Doctor Diver, and because Doctor Gregorovius is not expected until the nightfall, and I would not wait. No, sir! I would not wait a minute after my son told me the truth.”
He came up menacingly to Dick, who kept his hands loose enough to drop him if it seemed necessary. “My son is here for alcoholism, and he told us he smelt liquor on your breath. Yes, sir!” He made a quick, apparently unsuccessful sniff. “Not once, but twice Von Cohn says he has smelt liquor on your breath. I and my lady have never touched a drop of it in our lives. We hand Von Cohn to you to be cured, and within a month he twice smells liquor on your breath! What kind of cure is that there?”
Dick hesitated; Mr. Morris was quite capable of making a scene on the clinic drive.
“After all, Mr. Morris, some people are not going to give up what they regard as food because of your son—”
“But you’re a doctor, man!” cried Morris furiously. “When the workmen drink their beer that’s bad ‘cess to them—but you’re here supposing to cure—”
“This has gone too far. Your son came to us because of kleptomania.”
“What was behind it?” The man was almost shrieking. “Drink—black drink. Do you know what color black is? It’s black! My own uncle was hung by the neck because of it, you hear? My son comes to a sanitarium, and a doctor reeks of it!”
“I must ask you to leave.”
“You ASK me! We ARE leaving!”
“If you could be a little temperate we could tell you the results of the treatment to date. Naturally, since you feel as you do, we would not want your son as a patient—”