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
Cæsar’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.”