"Try it!"
"If we fail in this," continued the Dago Duke evenly, "there's the case
of Antonio Amato, whose hand the nurse, acting under your instructions,
held after thrusting a pencil in his limp fingers and signed a check
when he was dying and unconscious. Which check you cashed after his
death, in violation of the State banking laws from which perhaps even
you are not exempt if this man's relatives choose to bring you to
account for the irregularity."
"It is a lie!"
"It is not impossible," he continued, "to get the nurse who left you
before Nell Beecroft came, saying that she knew enough about you both to
'send you over the road.' It is not too difficult to bring to light the
examples of your incredible incompetency which prove you unfit to sign a
death certificate, nor is your record in Nebraska hard to get."
She moistened her colorless lips before she spoke.
"And where is the money coming from to do all this?"
She had touched the weak spot in his attack, but he replied with
assurance.
"It will be ready when needed."
"This is persecution--a plot to ruin me on the trumped-up charges of
irresponsible people."
The Dago Duke's keen ear detected the faint note of uncertainty and
agitation beneath the defiance of her tone.
"These things are true--and more," he returned unemotionally. "But
consider, even if you beat us at every turn through personal influence,
you will pay dearly for your victories in money, in peace, in
reputation. These things will leave a stigma which will outlast you. It
will arouse suspicion of your ability and skill among your private
patients who now trust you. You'll have to fight every inch of the road
to retain your ground, or any part of it, against the new and abler
physicians who must come with the growth of the country. You'll not be
wanted by your best friends when it comes to a case of life and death.
You'll become only a kind of licensed midwife rushing about from one
accouchement to another, and, even for this, you must finesse and
intrigue in the manner which has made the incompetents of your sex in
medicine the bete noir of the profession."
The sneering smile she had forced faded as he talked. It was like the
deliberate voice of Prophecy, drawing pictures which she had seen in
waking nightmares that she called the "blues" and was wont to drive away
with a drink or a social call outside.
She raised her chin from her chest where it had sunk, and summoned her
courage.
"You have taken a great deal of trouble to inform yourself upon the
subject of the medical profession and my unfitness for it."
The Dago Duke hesitated and an expression which was new to it crossed
his face, a look of mingled pride and pain.
"I have gone to less trouble than you think," he answered finally. "I
was reared in the atmosphere of medicine. My father was a beloved and
trusted physician to the royal family of my country. I was to have
followed in his footsteps and partially prepared myself to do so. The
reason that I have not is not too difficult to guess since it is the
same which sends me sheep-herding at $40 a month."
"But my identity is neither here nor there." The Dago Duke threw up his
hand with a characteristic, foreign gesture as though dismissing himself
from the conversation and half regretting even so much of his personal
history. "It serves but one purpose and that is that you may know that
the degrees which I have earned, not bought, qualify me to speak of your
ability, or lack of it, with rather more authority than the average
layman's." He arose languidly and sauntered across the room where he
stood looking up at her framed diploma, and added, "To judge, too, of
the value of a sheepskin like that. How much did you pay for it, Doc?"
Seeming to expect no reply, he continued serenely, "Well I'll have to be
going. Stake me to a cigarette paper? I haven't talked so much or been
so strongly moved since my remittance was reduced to $100 a month. I
can't get drunk like a gentlemen on that--you couldn't yourself--and
it's an inhuman outrage. It may drive me to reform--I've thought of it.
You're such a sympathetic listener, Doc. It makes me babble." His hand
was on the door-knob. "Since you've nothing to say I suppose you mean to
stick to your story, but you must admit, Doc, I've at least been as much
of a gentleman as a rattlesnake. I'm rattling before I strike."
The door had closed upon his back when she tore it open.
"Wait a minute!" She was panting as though she had been running a
distance. He saw, too, the desperation in her eyes. "Give me--a
little--time!"
The Dago Duke's tone was one of easy friendliness.
"All you need, but don't forget the suspense is hard on Essie Tisdale."