Juggernaut Part 34

"I know nothing. He always say he hope one day to stop work again, I cannot tell you. And then he speak yesterday to the Captain and say he think he will--how do you say?--_sous-louer_ the house."

"Sub-let the house! Then he does mean to go away. How extraordinary!"

"To you, mademoiselle, not to me. I know the doctor for a long time.

_Il fait toujours des betises!_"

"Well--I'm glad to have seen you, Jacques. Good-bye and good luck."

She leaned out of the car and shook his hand warmly, an attention which delighted Jacques's soul beyond measure.

"_Au revoir, mademoiselle! Au revoir, monsieur! Bonne sante!_"

When they had gone on again Roger remarked:

"Your Sartorius is a queer card. No one, to look at him, would think he could be so temperamental."

"Yet he's first and foremost a scientist. I believe he would almost starve in order to pursue his work in the laboratory."

The thought in her mind was that the Cliffords must indeed be paying the doctor well if he could afford to drop his practice in this casual fashion. A few weeks was one thing, a matter of months was another.

In spite of what Jacques had always told her, she felt there must be some mistake about it. Perhaps it merely meant the doctor was thinking of moving to another part of Cannes; she had more or less wondered why he had chosen the Route de Gra.s.se.

As for Lady Clifford, whether her symptoms were prompted by hysteria or not, she kept her bed for two days, frequently visited by the doctor.

On the afternoon of the third she emerged from her room, still pale and wan, but otherwise quite herself. The anti-toxin had done its work, the typhoid was routed. As she went about pa.s.sive and subdued, with pensive eyes and a pathetic droop to her mouth, it was hard to believe in her insane outburst of only a few days ago. One would not have believed it possible that she could work herself up into such a rage over a trifling matter. Indeed, to Esther at least, the cause of Lady Clifford's fury seemed so inadequate that more than once she found herself turning it over in her mind with a growing sense of bewilderment.

Both the old lady and Dr. Sartorius remained in ignorance of the regrettable happening. Since the patient, miraculous though it appeared, suffered no bad effects from the shock, Esther had deemed it the wise course to say nothing about it. After all, it was not the easiest thing in the world to tell tales on your patient's own wife, and to do so could only increase the latter's dislike. Better let well alone.

Two days more went by uneventfully. About three o'clock on the second afternoon, Esther put on her coat and hat and set out for a walk.

Roger had not been home for lunch, but to her surprise she found him in the hall, wearing an old tweed overcoat, and engaged with a somewhat angry air in ramming tobacco down into the bowl of a pipe. It was the first time she had seen him smoke a pipe. It gave him a different sort of look.

"h.e.l.lo! Going for a walk?"

"Yes, I need exercise."

"So do I. I'll come with you if I may. I was just going to start out alone."

"Wouldn't you rather go alone?"

He looked at her, scorning to reply, then jammed the pipe in his mouth and reached for his hat and a stick. His chin was particularly aggressive, his blue eyes smouldered ominously. She forebore to question him, and they left the house and walked briskly along the road for two hundred yards before either attempted to break the silence. At last, with his pipe-stem between his teeth, he spoke.

"I wish," he said in a hard voice, "that people would not tell lies simply for the sake of lying. A good, thumping lie in the right place is a thing I thoroughly uphold. But pointless untruths irritate me beyond measure."

She stole a look at him.

"Perhaps," she ventured, "the person who has incurred your displeasure believes in the saying of Pudd'nhead Wilson--'Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economise it!'"

His face relaxed for a moment, then stiffened again.

"No, but hang it, Esther, I'm d.a.m.ned annoyed."

"That's quite apparent."

He strode on again in angry silence, then, with a sudden laugh, became more communicative.

"It's nothing much. I might as well tell you. By the way, I suppose as a nurse you are quite in the habit of having people confide in you, aren't you? Though I hope you realise I don't bare my soul to you because of your official position. It's more because you happen to have lashes that turn back in a certain way."

"Many thanks!"

"Well, then, it's about my stepmother--Therese. Gad, how that woman does rub me the wrong way!--A little while ago I came back from the courts, earlier than usual; it began to rain. I went up to my room to change, and, what do you think? She was there."

"Lady Clifford in your room? Why?"

"You may well ask. She has never been near it before, to my knowledge; there's no reason why she should, especially as she's not particularly fond of me."

"What was she doing there?"

"I'm blessed if I know. When I threw open the door she was in the middle of the room, I should say on the way out. She looked startled, naturally. Then she smiled and said she hoped I didn't mind, that she had slipped in, thinking I was still away, to get a book out of my bookcase."

"So that was it, was it?"

"Wait till I tell you. I said, certainly, go ahead and help herself, and she kneeled down in front of the bookshelves and took out a book.

I should have thought no more about it--only I happened to see the book."

"What was it?"

"You'd never guess. It was _L'Abbe Constantin_."

"_L'Abbe Constantin!_"

"Yes. Can you see Therese reading a thing like that, a sweet little sentimental tale they give young girls in an elementary French course?'

"Oh, so you think that was an excuse?"

"What do you think? I know it was. The point is, why should she have to invent an excuse for being in my room? No doubt she had a perfectly good reason for being there, why not say so? I daresay she likes to see herself in my mirror; it's in rather a good light. Something of that sort. What exasperates me is that she should think it worth a lie. Now I shall go on bothering my head as to why she really was there. I shall be wondering whether she came to read my letters, or something absurd like that."

He laughed lightly, his good nature restored.

"I suppose," said Esther slowly, "that there are people whose minds work in devious ways, who'd rather not give their reasons for doing things."

"You may be right. It doesn't matter a hoot what she does. Oh, by the way--did you happen to see these items in the Paris _Daily Mail_? They may interest you."

From the depths of a side pocket he fished up a folded newspaper, which he handed to her.

"Read these," he said, pointing to a couple of bits in the social column, juxtaposed.

Following his finger, Esther read aloud:

"Arrivals at Claridge's include Senora Toda and her daughter, Senorita Inez Toda, who, after spending the winter in the Riviera, are now returning to their home in Argentina."