CHAPTER XV

There is little that is beautiful in death, save, perhaps, in the faces of children, and those taken in the heyday of their youth. As in life the majority of mortals are ugly and grotesque, so in death the body grows in repulsiveness as it nears the grave. The lily corpse with the angelic smile is rarely seen, save perhaps by irresponsible poets. Blotched and stiff, shrunken or inflated, the nameless thing welcomes putrefaction and decay. Beauty of outline is lost to the limbs, the bones show at the joints, the muscles stand out in stiff and unnatural relief. Nothing but the glamour of sentiment preserves this ruined tabernacle of the flesh from being designated as a “carcass.”

At Boland’s Farm the house had that sickly and indescribable smell of death. Farmer Baxter’s bullocks grazed peacefully in the great fourteen-acre lot to the east of the garden; the hens clucked and scratched in the rickyard; the pigs sucked and paddled in the swill. The laborers were at work as though their master was still alive to curse them across fields and hedgerows. The soil pays no heed to death; it is a natural occurrence; only we human beings elevate it into an incident of singularity and note. The farm-hands who passed through the yard cast curious and awed looks at the darkened windows of the house. Mrs. Baxter had given them their orders, and they knew there would be no shirking where that lady was concerned.

A couple of traps were standing before the garden gate, and in the death-chamber two intent figures bent over the bed that had been drawn close to the open window. The sun shone upon the body, a mere mountain of flesh, loathsome, gaping, flatulent, lying naked from loins to chin. In death this carcass seemed to dishonor all the higher aspirations of the race. A myriad organisms were usurping the tissues that had worked the will of what men call “the soul.”

Dr. Brimley, of Cossington, a little, spectacled cherub of a man, held back the yellow flaps of fat-laden skin while his confrère groped and delved within the cavity. There was a wrinkle of disgust about Parker Steel’s sharp mouth. He had never vanquished that loathing of contact with the nauseous slime of death. The cold and succulent smoothness of the inert tissues repelled his cultured instincts. Yet even the superfine sneer vanished from about his nostrils as he drew out a black and oozing object from the dead man’s body.

“Good God, Brimley, look at this!”

The spectacled cherub peered at it, puckered up his lips and gave a whistle.

“A sponge!”

“Nice mess, eh?”

“Relieved that I haven’t the responsibility.”

Steel’s delicate hands were at work again. A sharp exclamation of surprise escaped him as he drew out a pair of artery forceps, and held them up to Brimley’s gaze.

“This is a pretty business!”

Dr. Brimley’s eyes seemed to enlarge behind his spectacles.

“Confoundedly unpleasant for the operator. The man must have lost his head.”

“Put your hand in here,” and Parker Steel guided his confrère’s fingers into the cavity, “tell me what you feel.”

Brimley groped a moment, and then elevated his eyebrows.

“Good Lord!—what was Murchison at? A rent in the bowel three inches long!”

“We had better have a look at it.”

And the evidence of the sense of vision confirmed the evidence of the sense of touch.

Both men perched themselves on the bed, and looked questioningly into each other’s eyes. Success demands the survival of the fittest, and in the scramble for gold and reputation men may ignore generosity for egotistical and self-serving cant. Parker Steel did not determine to act against his rival, without a struggle. He remembered his wife’s words, and they decided him.

“What are you going to do?”

Parker Steel looked Dr. Brimley straight in the face.

“There is only one thing to be done,” he retorted.

“Well, sir, well?”

“I have no personal grudge against Murchison, but before God, Brimley, I can’t forgive him this abominable bungling. Professional feeling or no, I can’t stretch my conscience to such a lie.”

Dr. Brimley stared and nodded. He was somewhat impressed by Steel’s cultured indignation, a professional Brutus waxing public-spirited over C?sar’s body. Moreover, he was no friend of Murchison’s, and was secretly pleased to hear another man assume the moral responsibility of injuring his reputation.

“So you will tell the old lady?”

“I take it to be a matter of duty.”

“Quite so; I agree with you, Steel. But it will about smash Murchison.”

Parker Steel moved to the wash-stand and began to rinse his hands.

“I cannot see how I can give a death certificate,” he said; “the man must have been drunk. It is a case for the coroner.”

Dr. Brimley puckered his chubby mouth and whistled.

“There is no other conclusion to accept,” he answered.

Mrs. Baxter was awaiting the two gentlemen in the darkened parlor, dressed in her black silk Sabbath gown. She had a photograph-album on her knee, and was chastening her grief by referring to the faded pictures of the past. Each photograph stood for a season in the late farmer’s life. Tom Baxter as a fat and plethoric-looking youth of twenty, in a braided coat and baggy trousers, one hand on a card-board sundial, the other stuffed into a side-pocket. Tom Baxter, ten years later, in his Yeomanry uniform, mustachioed, tight-thighed, nursing a carbine, with an air of assertive self-satisfaction. Tom Baxter and his bride awkwardly linked together arm in arm, toes out, top hat and bridal bouquet much in evidence. Tom Baxter, fat, prosperous, and middle-aged, smoking his pipe in a corner of the orchard, his Irish terrier at his feet; a snapshot by a friend. The widow studied them all with solemn deliberation, glancing a little scornfully at her sister Harriet, who was snivelling over a copy of Eliza Cook’s poems.

They heard the voices of the two doctors above, the sound of a door opening, and footsteps descending the stairs. Parker Steel, suave, quiet, and serious as a black cat, appeared at the parlor door. Mrs. Baxter rose from her chair, and signalled to her sister to leave her with Parker Steel.

“Harriet, go out. Sit down, doctor,” and she replaced the album on its pink wool mat in the middle of the circular table.

Harriet absented herself without a murmur, Miss Cook’s volume still clasped in her bony fingers. From the direction of the stables came the plaintive howling of a dog, Tom Baxter’s Irish terrier, Peter, who had been chained up because he would haunt the landing outside his dead master’s room. Mrs. Baxter had fallen over the poor beast as he crouched at the top of the stairs, and poor Peter’s loyalty had not saved him from chastisement with the lady’s slipper.

Parker Steel seated himself on the extreme edge of an arm-chair, a great yellow sunflower in a Turkish-red antimacassar haloing him like a saint. He had assumed an air of studied yet anxious reserve, as though the matter in hand required delicate handling.

“Well, doctor, it’s all over, I suppose.”

Steel nodded, hearing Miss Harriet’s voice in the distance rasping out endearments to the dead man’s dog.

“Dr. Brimley and I have completed the examination.”

“Poor Tom! poor Tom!”

“I can sympathize with you, Mrs. Baxter.”

“Thank you, doctor. How that dog do howl, to be sure! And now, sir, let’s come to business.”

The widow sat erect and rigid in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap, an expression of determined alertness on her face. Steel, student of human nature that he was, felt relieved that it was Murchison and not he who had incurred the resentment of this hard-fibred woman.

“Will you be so good as to tell me, doctor, just what my husband died of?”

Parker Steel fidgeted, and studied his finger-nails.

“It is rather painful to me,” he began.

“Painful, sir!”

“To have to confess to a brother-doctor’s misman—misdirection of the case.”

His tactful disinclination reacted electrically upon Mrs. Baxter. She leaned forward in her chair, and brandished a long forefinger with exultant solemnity.

“Just what I thought, doctor.”

Parker Steel cleared his throat and proceeded.

“You understand my professional predicament, Mrs. Baxter. At the same time, I feel it to be my duty—”

“Just you tell me the plain facts, doctor; what did my husband die of?”

Steel rose from his chair, walked to the window, and stood there a moment looking out into the garden, as though struggling with the ethics and the etiquette of the case.

“Frankly, Mrs. Baxter,” and he turned to her with a grieved air, “I am compelled to admit that this operation hastened your husband’s death.”

Mrs. Baxter bumped in her chair.

“Doctor, I could have sworn it. Go on, I can bear the scandal.”

“Dr. Murchison made a very grave mistake.”

“He did!”

“A sponge and a pair of artery forceps were left in your husband’s body. As for the operation, well, the less said of it the better.”

Mrs. Baxter rose and went to the mantel-shelf, and taking down a bottle of smelling-salts, applied them deliberately to either nostril.

“Then this man Murchison killed my husband!”

Parker Steel gave an apologetic shrug.

“I have to state facts,” he explained. “I cannot swear to what might have happened.”

“Let the ‘might have’ alone, doctor. I’ve pulled the pease out of the pod, and by the Holy Spirit I’ll boil my water in Murchison’s pot!”

Parker Steel attempted to pacify her, confident in his heart that any such effort would be useless.

“My dear Mrs. Baxter, let me explain to you—”

“Explain! What is there to explain? This man’s killed my husband. I’ll sue him, I’ll make him pay for it.”

“Pardon me, one word—”

The widow raised her hands and patted Steel solemnly on the shoulders.

“You’ve done your duty by me, doctor, for I reckon it isn’t proper to tell tales of the profession. Now, listen, I’ll relate what Jane Baxter’s going to do.”

Steel’s silence welcomed the confession.

“Well, I’m going to order the market-trap out, the trap my poor Tom used to drive in to Roxton every Monday, the Lord have pity on him!—”

“Yes.”

“I’m going straight to call at Lawyer Cranston’s.”

“Indeed!”

“And just set him to pull Dr. Murchison’s coat from off his back.”