While the Patient Slept

Front matter

WHILE THE PATIENT SLEPT

BY MIGNON G. EBERHART

AUTHOR OF THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I

Twice, possibly, I had had occasion to travel the rather deserted and out-of-the-way road along which the old Federie house looms desolately magnificent amid the somber clusters of evergreens that surround it.

At any rate, I recognized the place at my first glimpse of it through the fog, knowing that I had seen it at some previous time, though, until I arrived there that cold February day to nurse old Mr. Federie himself, I did not know even the name of the family that owned it. It is a rambling place, built of worn red brick, with a long wing extending from the middle of the house back. The front of the house, which faces west, juts out at each corner in a three-sided tower; these two towers end in ugly cupolas above the second-floor windows and were probably the very height of architectural elegance when the house was built. The southwest tower is lined with windows on both floors, but the northwest tower has no windows at all. Add to this many chimneys bristling from the slate roof that needs repairing, narrow windows securely inclosed with shutters, rags of vines clinging to the old walls but not concealing the numerous places where the masonry is in need of mending, and you have Federie house.

The whole of it, rambling stables, evergreens, and all, is inclosed by a high brick wall, somewhat dilapidated, but remarkably solid nevertheless: entrance to a weed-grown walk leading to the massive balconied front door is provided by a grilled-iron gate.

It is not a cheerful place. There is a kind of morose secretiveness about the narrow shuttered windows and iron gate and rearing chimneys and blind tower wall that is not attractive. And its secluded location along that little-traveled road does not improve matters.

The affair at Federie house began for me one blustery day in early February. I had been off duty for several days, and when Dr. Jay telephoned, asking me to take a case for him, I promised with an alacrity that, looking back upon, seems the very essence of irony.

"It isn't a hard case," said the doctor reassuringly over the telephone. "The patient is old Mr. Federie. He has had a stroke and hasn't recovered his speech yet. You'll find the chart there and orders for the night, and I will call in the morning. Thank you, Miss Keate."

"Just a moment," I said hurriedly as he was about to ring off. "Did you say Federie? What is the address?"

He chuckled.

"A mile out Aufengartner Road from O Street corner. Then turn to the left. It's the first house after the turn." He clicked the receiver hastily upon that as if he were afraid I would change my mind. And it was not a propitious address: a nurse on private duty is supposed to have her four hours off in the afternoon, and cases that do not offer an easy and rapid means of transit into town are not looked upon with any favor on the part of the nurses. I was positive that there was no trolley line out Aufengartner Road and taxi fares are exorbitant in B——.

However, I called a taxi and by the time it had arrived I had packed my bag with fresh uniforms and other essentials, donned coat and hat, and was ready to go. The taxi driver's naturally truculent expression took on a happier aspect as I gave him the address. The robber!

It must have been close to five o'clock by that time, for it was rapidly growing dusk, and the wet pavements caught dismal gleams from the early lights of passing automobiles that loomed out of the heavy fog and passed us with a swishing of tires. We left the lights behind, however, as we took our way out Aufengartner Road, and nothing but cold and fog-drenched landscape met my eyes. It was a long mile before we swerved suddenly to the left, off the pavement and onto a muddy, little-used country road. The outlook for a pleasant case looked less and less favorable, especially as the taxi dropped into a mudhole and out again with a precipitancy that brought my head smartly into contact with the top of the car and then thrust me with some force into the seat again, with my umbrella athwart my ankles, my traveling bag in my lap, and my hat over one eye. In growing irritation I leaned forward, pushed aside the little glass window, and spoke to the taxi driver.

"Can't you drive more carefully?"

He did not appear to hear my inquiry, and I was obliged to poke him with my umbrella. Owing to the taxi giving a particularly frantic lurch just then I believe I poked him harder than I had intended. At any rate, he remarked "Urgh!" very distinctly and turned a startled face toward me.

It was unfortunate that he turned from the wheel and, as I pointed out later, entirely his own fault. Left to itself the taxi swerved crosswise the narrow road, bounded lightly over the ditch, and I was never sure just what happened until I found myself crawling out from a mêlée of broken glass, leather seat cushions, and my own bags and umbrella, the taxi driver keeping up an exceedingly passionate monologue all the while. Neither of us was hurt, and standing in the muddy road I stared at the wheels of the taxi, gayly spinning in the air, and for a few sharp moments the taxi driver and I engaged in a somewhat lively dialogue. But mere words, no matter how vigorous, cannot force a recumbent taxi to its feet, so to speak, and I soon realized that I should have to walk the rest of the way to Federie house. Hoping that it might not be far, I took my traveling bag in one hand, my handbag and umbrella in the other, and started out.

It was hard going through the mud, and I soon began to search the country about with anxious eyes for a glimpse of the house that was my destination. Suddenly I saw it, a great bulk of a house, looming dimly through the fog about a quarter of a mile ahead.

This, then, was the Federie place!

I recall that I paused for a moment there in the road, my pulse quickening a little as I strained my eyes to follow its forbidding outlines, and the strangest feeling of—well, it was not entirely apprehension and not entirely depression, but a kind of vague mingling of both swept over me. But if I put any thought into definite words it was simply that dusk of a dismal February day was not the best time to penetrate the interior of that dreary-looking place.

The house was set some distance back from the road and was yet a long walk from the spot where I stood, and in spite of my heavy ulster I was chilled to the bone. I looked dubiously at the field that lay to my right. If I could cut across that field it would make a sort of hypotenuse to the triangle and shorten my walk considerably. And as if in answer to my wish I saw a stile over the fence inclosing the field, and beyond it a path that apparently wound through the field, down into a little valley, small but thickly wooded, and thence, I had no doubt, to some side gate of Federie house. Without hesitation I mounted the stile—and was to wish most fervently that I had remained in the road.

For it was just as I entered the small wooded strip and stepped upon a little bridge that crossed a stream that the thing happened which was to haunt me through weary days and fearful nights.

My bag had grown heavy and I set it down on the floor of the bridge to shift it to the other hand. In the very act of doing so a voice came clearly from somewhere near me:

"I can't! I won't! I'm afraid to!"

It was a woman's voice, young and vibrant now with a repugnance that approached terror.

I straightened up and looked about me. Just ahead of me the path curved sharply around a little thicket of cedars, and it was from there that the voice must have come.

"Don't be a little fool!" This was a man's voice, easy, lazy, yet carrying with it more than a tinge of arrogant demand. "You must do it, March. According to the doctor he may die at any moment. Afraid? Nonsense. A Federie afraid!" He laughed with a kind of easy scorn. "A Federie hand is born to fit the curve of a revolver."

"But—this2" faltered the woman's voice and broke.

"This is nothing if you look at it in the right way. If he were not so desperately sick—but he is! There's no time to be lost. It must be to-night. Everything's at stake." He ended on a note of urgency and there followed a short silence. I dare say I should have made my presence known, but I'll not deny that this extraordinary scrap of conversation caught my interest, and I am not a stickler for the niceties of convention at such a time.

"Very well, then," said the other voice suddenly and with indescribable reluctance. "I'll do it. But I think there could be some other way."

"This is the only way. You can arrange the whole thing, March, and no one will know anything about it. And you'll do it to-night?"

"Yes."

"Good girl! I knew you wouldn't fail me. To-night, then. Be careful no one sees you."

"Yes."

"Good girl," he repeated. There was a rustle, the unmistakable sound of a kiss, and then the muffled sound of footsteps and twigs and branches brushing against each other as if the speakers were departing by way of the shrubbery. I picked up my bag, advanced a step or two along the bridge, rounded the little curve beyond it, and came upon a girl who turned a startled white face toward me.

Even in the twilight that filled the small hollow I saw that she was remarkably lovely. She was of slight figure, I thought, though I could tell little of that because of the heavy folds of a long blue cape that completely enveloped her. The cape had a scarlet-lined hood that fell back over her shoulders, capuchin-like, and her dark hair, close cropped and falling in soft little curls, was beaded with mist. She had an arrogant, straight little nose, a willful chin, and a rather sulky mouth that kept its soft crimson even though her face had apparently lost every shred of color at my unexpected advent. But her eyes were the most arresting feature of her face. They were blue, a very deep, sapphire blue that looked directly at you from between extravagant black lashes and from under brows that were very black and straightly penciled and rather heavy and at that moment wore a frown that intimated displeasure rather than anger.

"Can you tell me if this path leads to Federie house?" I asked somewhat hurriedly, feeling, in truth, a little bothered as I recalled the bit of conversation I had overheard, with its tender and abrupt conclusion.

She did not reply at once, studying me instead with those incredibly blue eyes.

"Yes," she replied finally. "It does. I am March Federie. Are you the nurse Dr. Jay was to send out?"

"Yes. My name is Sarah Keate. Is it your father who is ill?"

"My grandfather." She continued to survey me with a steady look that I found a trifle disconcerting.

"My taxi broke down," I found myself explaining. Instantly she was full of hostess-like concern.

"Why, you poor thing! Did you have a long walk? From Aufengartner Road? Come, we'll hurry to the house, and I'll make you a hot drink while you get into dry clothes." A pretty color flared into her cheeks as she spoke, but the momentary vivacity lapsed into a frowning and troubled silence as she walked along beside me, following the wet path. It was dusk by this time, and objects were growing blurred and indistinct before we emerged suddenly at a gate set in the brick wall that surrounded the house. I was much concerned with my wet feet and the pangs of neuralgia that were already beginning to shoot up my right elbow and paid little attention to the enormous dark bulk, with lights showing here and there in bright bars through the shutters that the opening of the gate disclosed. The girl led me through a desolate and uncared-for garden, where vines of the previous summer must have madly overrun the paths, around the southwest tower corner and toward the great old door. There was no porch, only steps, and above the door was a hideous arch of many-colored panes of glass through which a faint light streamed in eerie greens and reds and purples.

It was at the step that I dropped my umbrella, and as I stooped to recover it there was a sudden rush of feet, a low growl, and then March Federie's voice, as sharp as a whiplash.

"Down, Konrad!"

I grasped the umbrella and turned. A German shepherd dog, looming enormously tall and lean through the dusk, stood as if checked in mid-charge, not six feet from me, his head low, his ears back, and a growl rumbling in his great throat.

"It is Eustace's dog," said the girl. "He is unchained at sunset. We are somewhat isolated here, you know," she concluded somewhat wearily, and then added as if at an afterthought: "Eustace is my cousin."

She turned to the door, fumbled for a second with a latchkey she must have had, and then the great door swung slowly back, a thin light streamed through the foggy shadows, and at her gesture I entered the wide hall. I blinked a little, although the light was not strong, and then my eyes fell upon a man at the far end of the room. It was not the man so much as his position that caught my eyes, for he was standing on a stepladder, engaged in the somewhat singular pastime of smoothing the walnut wainscoting with his bare hand.

"Grondal!" said March, in much the same tone she had used in speaking to the dog. He was either a little deaf or so much engrossed in his curious occupation that he was oblivious to our entrance until the girl spoke. And when he turned it seemed to me that the barest hint of consternation crossed his face. Then he got down from the stepladder quite deliberately and approached us.

"The walnut panels need waxing, Miss March," he said.

Now a man is to blame for his manner, but not for his face, and while Grondal's manner left nothing to be desired I am bound to admit that he had the most villainous cast of countenance I have ever seen in all my life. He was dark and swarthy, with thin iron-gray hair, small eyes of which you only caught the glitter under overhanging eyebrows, and heavy features that were not improved by a wide purple scar that ran slantwise across his face and made of his mouth a cruel and twisted line. If there was ever bandit and jailbird written in anyone's face it was in this man, Grondal's, and though I have about as lively and sprightly imagination as that of a cow I involuntarily took a firmer grip on my handbag as he drew near.

The girl at my side cast a fleeting glance toward the dully gleaming walnut panels that lined the hall.

"I think it can wait," she said dryly. "Did you light a fire in the nurse's room?"

"Yes, Miss March."

"Then take her to her room, please," the girl directed crisply. "I shall send up something hot for you to drink presently," she added, addressing me.

Grondal advanced, grasped my bag, and took his way very sedately up a vast stairway that appeared at our right, and I followed, admiring as I went the walnut paneling, the slenderly carved newel post, and the broad, thickly carpeted steps. It was a little too shadowy, however, to suit my taste, as our sole illumination, once we got beyond the light cast by the hanging lamp in the hall, was from a candle thrust into a queer old wall bracket at the head of the stairs. The light from this flickered and wavered and cast elongated shadows from the figure of the man before me. Our footsteps were not audible on the heavily padded steps, and the stairway seemed interminable. But we did reach the top step, where Grondal turned to the left. Ahead of us and behind us stretched a long hall, papered and carpeted in a somber green that lost itself in shadows, Here and there were heavy doors of some dark wood, all closed, and over the whole place hung a thick silence and that chill, musty atmosphere that the walls of an old house seem to hold. I took a step forward and trod on something soft that galvanized itself into a squalling, yellow whirlwind and fled down into the shadows of the hall, shattering the silence as it yowled hoarsely at every bound, It was very disconcerting,

"What is it?" I cried.

"It is the cat," said Grondal with what, I think, passed for a smile. "It was the cat, Genevieve. You must have stepped on his tail, and he's very sensitive, if I may say so, as to his tail." There was a touch of satisfaction in his voices whether at the cat's discomfiture or mine I did not know. He pushed open a door, beyond which a light appeared, and placed my bag on a chair. "A bathroom is the next door to the left. If there is anything further, please ring." He indicated a red plush rope that ended in a frayed tassel and hung beside the door, bowed briefly, and backed out, closing the door softly. Owing, I suppose, to the well-carpeted hall floor, I did not hear his footsteps departing and for a moment experienced the absurd feeling that he was lingering just outside my door.

The days of Federie prosperity must have predated electricity and centralized heating, for an old-fashioned, oil-fed lamp hung from the ceiling amid many bangles and gave a mellow but wavering light, and what heat. there was came from a small, round-bellied heating stove whose fat sides were already growing red with its exertions. Back of the stove lurked a skimpy fireplace that looked as if it had not held a fire in thirty years. The room was high ceilinged, not too large, and was crowded with massive black-walnut furniture, dusty red curtains, and a padded carpet, and lugubrious steel engravings with tarnished gilt frames hung from the walls. I was to find that if Charles I and Mary Queen of Scots lost their heads once in that house they lost them a dozen times.

I had little time to consider my surroundings. In fifteen minutes I had got into dry clothes, figured out. how the marvelously ancient plumbing in the bathroom worked, downed the hot and disagreeable drink that March Federie brought to me, and clad in a fresh white uniform, with my starched white cap concealing the gray streak in my abundant red hair, was descending the stairway.

No one was in the great hall and I paused irresolutely, looking at the numerous curtained doorways leading from the hall and wondering how and where I should find my patient.

Most of the doorways were dark, but from one under the stairs came the gleam of light and the sound of voices. As I started toward it, someone—a man—laughed loudly and unpleasantly, and through the dark green velvet curtain came a burst of furious music. It was the first time I heard that particular composition; it was a wild, eerie tune that made little shivers start from inside my elbows, and it was curious that I immediately and definitely disliked the thing.

I crossed to the curtain, thrust it aside, getting a whiff of the stale smell that clung to its heavy folds as I did so, and entered a book-lined room at the opposite side of which an open fire snapped and crackled. At one end of the room a concert grand piano of the massive style of the 'nineties loomed out of the shadows and at its yellowed keyboard sat a young man, dark, slender, and meticulously groomed, whose nervous fingers lingered for a moment on the keys, even as his narrow dark eyes sought mine with interest, and his thin mouth curved in a smile that held a kind of cruel amusement.

Then he sprang lightly to his feet, bowed with an exaggerated courtesy, and advanced with quick, lithe footsteps.

"I am Eustace Federie," he volunteered, his quick eyes missing not a curve of my rather ample figure, nor a lace of my sturdy black oxfords. "I presume you are the nurse."

There was something familiar about his voice, and I hesitated in replying as I tried to recall where I had previously heard it. He did not wait for my assent, but turned with a panther-like grace toward a wing chair in front of the fireplace.

"Deke," he said with the little mocking overtone that I was to find his words always held. "Have you no manners?"

There was a movement, and another young man rose somewhat reluctantly from the wing chair and turned to face me. He was a handsome young fellow in a clean-shaven, boyish way, with blond hair and nice blue-gray eyes, but his chief characteristic at the moment seemed to lie in a most remarkable sulkiness that completely enveloped him.

"Miss2" Eustace Federie paused, his brilliant dark eyes on mine.

"Keate," I supplied.

"May I present Deke Lonergan?"

Deke Lonergan bowed grudgingly and with a lack of interest that was not flattering. Eustace laughed.

"You find him at his worst, Miss Keate. He has been disappointed in a matter that lies near his heart. But he is a good friend. When the news of my grandfather's imminent demise brought me to this morgue of a house, Deke accompanied me. Volunteered, in fact, and insisted. Wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Oh, shut up!" growled the Lonergan man. His fists had doubled up and he thrust them viciously into the pockets of his brown tweed coat as if to hide this evidence of his feelings. Eustace's eyes glittered and he laughed again.

"Suppose you take me to your grandfather, young man," I suggested a trifle abruptly. Something very like a flicker of surprise crossed Eustace's face; I dare say he was accustomed to members of my sex addressing him with more deference. However, he murmured, "Assuredly," and swept the curtain backward for my passage. There was a shelf under the stairway that held matches, candles, and quantities of candlesticks, old and new. Several matches broke under his impa- tient fingers, and when the candle he finally lighted flickered feebly and went out he said something under his breath that I made no doubt it was as well I did not hear

The next time the flame held, and taking the candlestick in his hand he led me across the entrance hall and thence through a succession of dreary rooms that so far as I could see by the wavering candlelight were exactly like my room upstairs, save that they were drawing rooms instead of bedrooms and held a multitude of hideous sofas upholstered in shiny black haircloth or worn green plush, and numerous little cabinets crowded with the curio claptrap of forty years back. The candle cast a little circle of light around us, and it was only the furniture that lay near our path that was definitely visible. Somewhere along the way the cat, Genevieve, picked us up. The first intimation I had of his presence was when Eustace hesitated for a second and then kicked violently into the shadows ahead. There was a spit from the cat, a savage "Devil take that cat!" from Eustace, and I craned my neck to see beyond Eustace's shoulders. There ahead of us, just within the circle of light, marched the cat with his great orange tail hoisted triumphantly. There was masculinity rampant in the majesty of his long-legged stride, and I never knew why he had been given a name of such feminine frivolity.

Then Eustace held back another curtain, Genevieve and I passed through a doorway into a narrow and very dark passage, whose dankly musty air struck me unpleasantly, and thence around a curve where we brought up before still another curtain. I was to grow heartily to detest the many stifling curtains in Federie house, but at the moment I only gazed with interest into the room that the lifting of the heavy green velvet disclosed.

It was a large room, as gloomy and dreary as any of its predecessors. Its northwest corner was a sort of alcove with three sides, along which climbed an angular, narrow stairway, with a banister that was thickly hung with tapestries and rugs. The stairway made two sharp turns at the angles of the tower, and from the steps to the floor below there was an elaborate paneling of some dark wood like that in the entrance hall. A wood fire smoldered under a mantel of dismal black marble, and near it was a great curtained bed. The old-fashioned curtains were pushed back, and my patient, an old man, was lying there, his face darkly flushed against the white pillows and his unseeing eyes half open. As I started toward the bed a man arose from somewhere in the shadows.

"Why, Uncle Adolph!" There was a faint jeer in Eustace's voice and his laugh grated on my nerves. "Still faithful? Such touching filial devotion!"

Adolph Federie advanced into the mellow circle of light from a shaded lamp that stood on a table in the middle of the room. He was dark like Eustace, but years of good living had given him a puffy bulkiness; his face was sallow, and there were great bags under the turgid whites of his eyes; his lips lacked Eustace's thinness, too; they were pale and hung loosely with an unlighted cigarette clinging to the lower one.

"That's enough from you, Eustace," he said in a tone that held quite unconcealed animosity. "Is this the nurse?"

With much flourish Eustace gave us an elaborate introduction, during which Uncle Adolph's eyes studied me rather closely from under their drooping lids, and my fingers itched to come into smart contact with Eustace's ears.

"You can leave the patient with me now," I hinted, interrupting Eustace.

"Hear that, Uncle Adolph? Your loving attention is no longer needed. Come, let's leave the lady to her duties." With an airy gesture of farewell Eustace departed.

But Uncle Adolph lingered, his darkly opaque gaze not leaving me for an instant. Resolving to ignore the gentleman, I walked to the bedside table, picked up the chart, and began to study it. I was still conscious, however, of that still regard which lasted for a long moment or two before he spoke.

"I am deeply concerned about my father's condition," he said at last. "He has not spoken yet, Miss Keate. When he does speak—" the man paused while he walked over to stand beside me at the table—"when he does speak, have Grondal call me at once."

Well, that was a perfectly reasonable request, and it was only the man's ingratiating manner that affected me disagreeably. While I hesitated in replying he bent closer to me. My hand lay on the chart, and he pressed his own hand, clammy and soft, upon it. A large diamond of dubious color and set too elaborately winked at me.

"Beautiful hand," he murmured softly in my ear. His tone was very suave and smooth.

I jerked my hand away.

"A man in your condition of health had better look to his liver and forgo the study of hands," I said sharply.

"Coming, Uncle Adolph?" It was Eustace at the doorway smiling with a kind of malicious amusement into Adolph Federie's livid countenance.

For the space of possibly fifteen pulse beats Adolph Federie's eyes held mine. Then he, too, smiled.

"We'll meet again, Miss Keate," he said in a voice that held as much threat as promise, and the next moment the green curtain fell and I was alone with my patient, wiping on my skirt the back of my hand on which the touch of those clammy, soft fingers still clung, and wishing for the first but not the last time that I was safely out of Federie house.

The cat, Genevieve, with a flash of tawny tail, vaulted lightly to the mantel and sat down, curling his tail around his gaunt haunches and fixing me with an unwinking stare from his great topaz eyes that seemed to hold incalculable secrets. The fire below him sighed. The fog outside had turned to sleet, and I could hear it beating gustily against the shutters. A rug from the banister of the tower stairway slithered to the floor, and at the whisper of its fall I whirled, my heart leaping to my throat. Then I laughed a little nervously and turned resolutely to the charts. But I gazed at the red temperature line without seeing it, for all at once I knew why Eustace Federie's voice had seemed familiar to me.

It was the voice I had heard down by the little bridge, not an hour ago, wringing that reluctant promise from March Federie. What was it March had promised to do? What was it he had urged with such anxiety and determination? She had promised to do it "to-night."