K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXV

  On the evening of the shooting at Schwitter's, there had been a lateoperation at the hospital. Sidney, having duly transcribed her lecturenotes and said her prayers, was already asleep when she received theinsistent summons to the operating-room. She dressed again with flyingfingers. These night battles with death roused all her fighting blood.There were times when she felt as if, by sheer will, she could forcestrength, life itself, into failing bodies. Her sensitive nostrilsdilated, her brain worked like a machine.

  That night she received well-deserved praise. When the Lamb, telephoninghysterically, had failed to locate the younger Wilson, another staffsurgeon was called. His keen eyes watched Sidney--felt her capacity, herfiber, so to speak; and, when everything was over, he told her what wasin his mind.

  "Don't wear yourself out, girl," he said gravely. "We need people likeyou. It was good work to-night--fine work. I wish we had more like you."

  By midnight the work was done, and the nurse in charge sent Sidney tobed.

  It was the Lamb who received the message about Wilson; and because hewas not very keen at the best, and because the news was so startling, herefused to credit his ears.

  "Who is this at the 'phone?"

  "That doesn't matter. Le Moyne's my name. Get the message to Dr. EdWilson at once. We are starting to the city."

  "Tell me again. I mustn't make a mess of this."

  "Dr. Wilson, the surgeon, has been shot," came slowly and distinctly."Get the staff there and have a room ready. Get the operating-roomready, too."

  The Lamb wakened then, and roused the house. He was incoherent, rather,so that Dr. Ed got the impression that it was Le Moyne who had beenshot, and only learned the truth when he got to the hospital.

  "Where is he?" he demanded. He liked K., and his heart was sore withinhim.

  "Not in yet, sir. A Mr. Le Moyne is bringing him. Staff's in theexecutive committee room, sir."

  "But--who has been shot? I thought you said--"

  The Lamb turned pale at that, and braced himself.

  "I'm sorry--I thought you understood. I believe it's not--not serious.It's Dr. Max, sir."

  Dr. Ed, who was heavy and not very young, sat down on an office chair.Out of sheer habit he had brought the bag. He put it down on the floorbeside him, and moistened his lips.

  "Is he living?"

  "Oh, yes, sir. I gathered that Mr. Le Moyne did not think it serious."

  He lied, and Dr. Ed knew he lied.

  The Lamb stood by the door, and Dr. Ed sat and waited. The officeclock said half after three. Outside the windows, the night world wentby--taxi-cabs full of roisterers, women who walked stealthily closeto the buildings, a truck carrying steel, so heavy that it shook thehospital as it rumbled by.

  Dr. Ed sat and waited. The bag with the dog-collar in it was on thefloor. He thought of many things, but mostly of the promise he had madehis mother. And, having forgotten the injured man's shortcomings, hewas remembering his good qualities--his cheerfulness, his courage, hisachievements. He remembered the day Max had done the Edwardes operation,and how proud he had been of him. He figured out how old he was--notthirty-one yet, and already, perhaps--There he stopped thinking. Coldbeads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

  "I think I hear them now, sir," said the Lamb, and stood backrespectfully to let him pass out of the door.

  Carlotta stayed in the room during the consultation. No one seemed towonder why she was there, or to pay any attention to her. The staff wasstricken. They moved back to make room for Dr. Ed beside the bed, andthen closed in again.

  Carlotta waited, her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.Surely they would operate; they wouldn't let him die like that!

  When she saw the phalanx break up, and realized that they would notoperate, she went mad. She stood against the door, and accused them ofcowardice--taunted them.

  "Do you think he would let any of you die like that?" she cried. "Dielike a hurt dog, and none of you to lift a hand?"

  It was Pfeiffer who drew her out of the room and tried to talk reasonand sanity to her.

  "It's hopeless," he said. "If there was a chance, we'd operate, and youknow it."

  The staff went hopelessly down the stairs to the smoking-room, andsmoked. It was all they could do. The night assistant sent coffee downto them, and they drank it. Dr. Ed stayed in his brother's room, andsaid to his mother, under his breath, that he'd tried to do his best byMax, and that from now on it would be up to her.

  K. had brought the injured man in. The country doctor had come, too,finding Tillie's trial not imminent. On the way in he had taken itfor granted that K. was a medical man like himself, and had placed hishypodermic case at his disposal.

  When he missed him,--in the smoking-room, that was,--he asked for him.

  "I don't see the chap who came in with us," he said. "Clever fellow.Like to know his name."

  The staff did not know.

  K. sat alone on a bench in the hall. He wondered who would tell Sidney;he hoped they would be very gentle with her. He sat in the shadow,waiting. He did not want to go home and leave her to what she might haveto face. There was a chance she would ask for him. He wanted to be near,in that case.

  He sat in the shadow, on the bench. The night watchman went by twice andstared at him. At last he asked K. to mind the door until he got somecoffee.

  "One of the staff's been hurt," he explained. "If I don't get somecoffee now, I won't get any."

  K. promised to watch the door.

  A desperate thing had occurred to Carlotta. Somehow, she had not thoughtof it before. Now she wondered how she could have failed to think of it.If only she could find him and he would do it! She would go down on herknees--would tell him everything, if only he would consent.

  When she found him on his bench, however, she passed him by. She had aterrible fear that he might go away if she put the thing to him first.He clung hard to his new identity.

  So first she went to the staff and confronted them. They were men ofcourage, only declining to undertake what they considered hopeless work.The one man among them who might have done the thing with any chanceof success lay stricken. Not one among them but would have given of hisbest--only his best was not good enough.

  "It would be the Edwardes operation, wouldn't it?" demanded Carlotta.

  The staff was bewildered. There were no rules to cover such conduct onthe part of a nurse. One of them--Pfeiffer again, by chance--repliedrather heavily:--

  "If any, it would be the Edwardes operation."

  "Would Dr. Edwardes himself be able to do anything?"

  This was going a little far.

  "Possibly. One chance in a thousand, perhaps. But Edwardes is dead. Howdid this thing happen, Miss Harrison?"

  She ignored his question. Her face was ghastly, save for the trace ofrouge; her eyes were red-rimmed.

  "Dr. Edwardes is sitting on a bench in the hall outside!" she announced.

  Her voice rang out. K. heard her and raised his head. His attitude wasweary, resigned. The thing had come, then! He was to take up the oldburden. The girl had told.

  Dr. Ed had sent for Sidney. Max was still unconscious. Ed rememberedabout her when, tracing his brother's career from his babyhood to man'sestate and to what seemed now to be its ending, he had remembered thatMax was very fond of Sidney. He had hoped that Sidney would take him anddo for him what he, Ed, had failed to do.

  So Sidney was summoned.

  She thought it was another operation, and her spirit was just a littleweary. But her courage was indomitable. She forced her shoes on hertired feet, and bathed her face in cold water to rouse herself.

  The night watchman was in the hall. He was fond of Sidney; she alwayssmiled at him; and, on his morning rounds at six o'clock to waken thenurses, her voice was always amiable. So she found him in the hall,holding a cup of tepid coffee. He was old and bleary, unmistakably dirtytoo--but he had divined Sidney's romance.

  "Coffee! For me?" She was astonished.


  "Drink it. You haven't had much sleep."

  She took it obediently, but over the cup her eyes searched his.

  "There is something wrong, daddy."

  That was his name, among the nurses. He had had another name, but it waslost in the mists of years.

  "Get it down."

  So she finished it, not without anxiety that she might be needed. Butdaddy's attentions were for few, and not to be lightly received.

  "Can you stand a piece of bad news?"

  Strangely, her first thought was of K.

  "There has been an accident. Dr. Wilson--"

  "Which one?"

  "Dr. Max--has been hurt. It ain't much, but I guess you'd like to knowit."

  "Where is he?"

  "Downstairs, in Seventeen."

  So she went down alone to the room where Dr. Ed sat in a chair, withhis untidy bag beside him on the floor, and his eyes fixed on a straightfigure on the bed. When he saw Sidney, he got up and put his arms aroundher. His eyes told her the truth before he told her anything. She hardlylistened to what he said. The fact was all that concerned her--that herlover was dying there, so near that she could touch him with her hand,so far away that no voice, no caress of hers, could reach him.

  The why would come later. Now she could only stand, with Dr. Ed's armsabout her, and wait.

  "If they would only do something!" Sidney's voice sounded strange to herears.

  "There is nothing to do."

  But that, it seemed, was wrong. For suddenly Sidney's small world, whichhad always sedately revolved in one direction, began to move the otherway.

  The door opened, and the staff came in. But where before they hadmoved heavily, with drooped heads, now they came quickly, as men with apurpose. There was a tall man in a white coat with them. He ordered themabout like children, and they hastened to do his will. At first Sidneyonly knew that now, at last, they were going to do something--the tallman was going to do something. He stood with his back to Sidney, andgave orders.

  The heaviness of inactivity lifted. The room buzzed. The nurses stoodby, while the staff did nurses' work. The senior surgical interne,essaying assistance, was shoved aside by the senior surgical consultant,and stood by, aggrieved.

  It was the Lamb, after all, who brought the news to Sidney. The newactivity had caught Dr. Ed, and she was alone now, her face buriedagainst the back of a chair.

  "There'll be something doing now, Miss Page," he offered.

  "What are they going to do?"

  "Going after the bullet. Do you know who's going to do it?"

  His voice echoed the subdued excitement of the room--excitement and newhope.

  "Did you ever hear of Edwardes, the surgeon?--the Edwardes operation,you know. Well, he's here. It sounds like a miracle. They found himsitting on a bench in the hall downstairs."

  Sidney raised her head, but she could not see the miraculously foundEdwardes. She could see the familiar faces of the staff, and that otherface on the pillow, and--she gave a little cry. There was K.! How likehim to be there, to be wherever anyone was in trouble! Tears came to hereyes--the first tears she had shed.

  As if her eyes had called him, he looked up and saw her. He came towardher at once. The staff stood back to let him pass, and gazed after him.The wonder of what had happened was growing on them.

  K. stood beside Sidney, and looked down at her. Just at first it seemedas if he found nothing to say. Then:

  "There's just a chance, Sidney dear. Don't count too much on it."

  "I have got to count on it. If I don't, I shall die."

  If a shadow passed over his face, no one saw it.

  "I'll not ask you to go back to your room. If you will wait somewherenear, I'll see that you have immediate word."

  "I am going to the operating-room."

  "Not to the operating-room. Somewhere near."

  His steady voice controlled her hysteria. But she resented it. She wasnot herself, of course, what with strain and weariness.

  "I shall ask Dr. Edwardes."

  He was puzzled for a moment. Then he understood. After all, it was aswell. Whether she knew him as Le Moyne or as Edwardes mattered verylittle, after all. The thing that really mattered was that he must tryto save Wilson for her. If he failed--It ran through his mind that if hefailed she might hate him the rest of her life--not for himself, but forhis failure; that, whichever way things went, he must lose.

  "Dr. Edwardes says you are to stay away from the operation, but toremain near. He--he promises to call you if--things go wrong."

  She had to be content with that.

  Nothing about that night was real to Sidney. She sat in theanaesthetizing-room, and after a time she knew that she was not alone.There was somebody else. She realized dully that Carlotta was there,too, pacing up and down the little room. She was never sure, forinstance, whether she imagined it, or whether Carlotta really stoppedbefore her and surveyed her with burning eyes.

  "So you thought he was going to marry you!" said Carlotta--or the dream."Well, you see he isn't."

  Sidney tried to answer, and failed--or that was the way the dream went.

  "If you had enough character, I'd think you did it. How do I know youdidn't follow us, and shoot him as he left the room?"

  It must have been reality, after all; for Sidney's numbed mind graspedthe essential fact here, and held on to it. He had been out withCarlotta. He had promised--sworn that this should not happen. It hadhappened. It surprised her. It seemed as if nothing more could hurt her.

  In the movement to and from the operating room, the door stood open fora moment. A tall figure--how much it looked like K.!--straightened andheld out something in its hand.

  "The bullet!" said Carlotta in a whisper.

  Then more waiting, a stir of movement in the room beyond the closeddoor. Carlotta was standing, her face buried in her hands, against thedoor. Sidney suddenly felt sorry for her. She cared a great deal. Itmust be tragic to care like that! She herself was not caring much; shewas too numb.

  Beyond, across the courtyard, was the stable. Before the day of themotor ambulances, horses had waited there for their summons, eager asfire horses, heads lifted to the gong. When Sidney saw the outline ofthe stable roof, she knew that it was dawn. The city still slept, butthe torturing night was over. And in the gray dawn the staff, lookinggray too, and elderly and weary, came out through the closed door andtook their hushed way toward the elevator. They were talking amongthemselves. Sidney, straining her ears, gathered that they had seen amiracle, and that the wonder was still on them.

  Carlotta followed them out.

  Almost on their heels came K. He was in the white coat, and more andmore he looked like the man who had raised up from his work and held outsomething in his hand. Sidney's head was aching and confused.

  She sat there in her chair, looking small and childish. The dawn wasmorning now--horizontal rays of sunlight on the stable roof and acrossthe windowsill of the anaesthetizing-room, where a row of bottles sat ona clean towel.

  The tall man--or was it K.?--looked at her, and then reached up andturned off the electric light. Why, it was K., of course; and he wasputting out the hall light before he went upstairs. When the light wasout everything was gray. She could not see. She slid very quietly out ofher chair, and lay at his feet in a dead faint.

  K. carried her to the elevator. He held her as he had held her that dayat the park when she fell in the river, very carefully, tenderly, as oneholds something infinitely precious. Not until he had placed her on herbed did she open her eyes. But she was conscious before that. She wasso tired, and to be carried like that, in strong arms, not knowing whereone was going, or caring--

  The nurse he had summoned hustled out for aromatic ammonia. Sidney,lying among her pillows, looked up at K.

  "How is he?"

  "A little better. There's a chance, dear."

  "I have been so mixed up. All the time I was sitting waiting, I keptthinking that it was you who were operating! Will he
really get well?"

  "It looks promising."

  "I should like to thank Dr. Edwardes."

  The nurse was a long time getting the ammonia. There was so much to talkabout: that Dr. Max had been out with Carlotta Harrison, and had beenshot by a jealous woman; the inexplicable return to life of the greatEdwardes; and--a fact the nurse herself was willing to vouch for, andthat thrilled the training-school to the core--that this very Edwardes,newly risen, as it were, and being a miracle himself as well asperforming one, this very Edwardes, carrying Sidney to her bed andputting her down, had kissed her on her white forehead.

  The training-school doubted this. How could he know Sidney Page? And,after all, the nurse had only seen it in the mirror, being occupiedat the time in seeing if her cap was straight. The school, therefore,accepted the miracle, but refused the kiss.

  The miracle was no miracle, of course. But something had happened to K.that savored of the marvelous. His faith in himself was coming back--notstrongly, with a rush, but with all humility. He had been loath totake up the burden; but, now that he had it, he breathed a sort ofinarticulate prayer to be able to carry it.

  And, since men have looked for signs since the beginning of time, he tooasked for a sign. Not, of course, that he put it that way, or that hewas making terms with Providence. It was like this: if Wilson got well,he'd keep on working. He'd feel that, perhaps, after all, this wasmeant. If Wilson died--Sidney held out her hand to him.

  "What should I do without you, K.?" she asked wistfully.

  "All you have to do is to want me."

  His voice was not too steady, and he took her pulse in a mostbusinesslike way to distract her attention from it.

  "How very many things you know! You are quite professional aboutpulses."

  Even then he did not tell her. He was not sure, to be frank, that she'dbe interested. Now, with Wilson as he was, was no time to obtrude hisown story. There was time enough for that.

  "Will you drink some beef tea if I send it to you?"

  "I'm not hungry. I will, of course."

  "And--will you try to sleep?"

  "Sleep, while he--"

  "I promise to tell you if there is any change. I shall stay with him."

  "I'll try to sleep."

  But, as he rose from the chair beside her low bed, she put out her handto him.

  "K."

  "Yes, dear."

  "He was out with Carlotta. He promised, and he broke his promise."

  "There may have been reasons. Suppose we wait until he can explain."

  "How can he explain?" And, when he hesitated: "I bring all my troublesto you, as if you had none. Somehow, I can't go to Aunt Harriet, and ofcourse mother--Carlotta cares a great deal for him. She said that I shothim. Does anyone really think that?"

  "Of course not. Please stop thinking."

  "But who did, K.? He had so many friends, and no enemies that I knewof."

  Her mind seemed to stagger about in a circle, making little excursions,but always coming back to the one thing.

  "Some drunken visitor to the road-house."

  He could have killed himself for the words the moment they were spoken.

  "They were at a road-house?"

  "It is not just to judge anyone before you hear the story."

  She stirred restlessly.

  "What time is it?"

  "Half-past six."

  "I must get up and go on duty."

  He was glad to be stern with her. He forbade her rising. When the nursecame in with the belated ammonia, she found K. making an arbitraryruling, and Sidney looking up at him mutinously.

  "Miss Page is not to go on duty to-day. She is to stay in bed untilfurther orders."

  "Very well, Dr. Edwardes."

  The confusion in Sidney's mind cleared away suddenly. K. was Dr.Edwardes! It was K. who had performed the miracle operation--K. whohad dared and perhaps won! Dear K., with his steady eyes and his longsurgeon's fingers! Then, because she seemed to see ahead as well asback into the past in that flash that comes to the drowning and to thoserecovering from shock, and because she knew that now the little housewould no longer be home to K., she turned her face into her pillow andcried. Her world had fallen indeed. Her lover was not true and mightbe dying; her friend would go away to his own world, which was not theStreet.

  K. left her at last and went back to Seventeen, where Dr. Ed still satby the bed. Inaction was telling on him. If Max would only openhis eyes, so he could tell him what had been in his mind all theseyears--his pride in him and all that.

  With a sort of belated desire to make up for where he had failed, he putthe bag that had been Max's bete noir on the bedside table, and beganto clear it of rubbish--odd bits of dirty cotton, the tubing from a longdefunct stethoscope, glass from a broken bottle, a scrap of paper onwhich was a memorandum, in his illegible writing, to send Max a checkfor his graduating suit. When K. came in, he had the old dog-collar inhis hand.

  "Belonged to an old collie of ours," he said heavily. "Milkman ran overhim and killed him. Max chased the wagon and licked the driver with hisown whip."

  His face worked.

  "Poor old Bobby Burns!" he said. "We'd raised him from a pup. Got him ina grape-basket."

  The sick man opened his eyes.