"Well, I suppose the people here have precious little to gossip
about, and they like to make a mystery of whatever does happen!"
"That's about as I take it, sir." She moved toward the door. "An'
now I think, it was funny your asking me about Jake Menning, just
this moment. That was Aaron as came round to the back door a while
ago, as you drove up. He wanted to know if we'd like any chickens,
so I took one for Sunday, seen' he only gets round once a fortnight
now he has the whole business to attend to. I don't know whether
it's thinkin' over it, but it seems to me he's getting to look more
like Jakey every day. If it wer'n't for his stutterin' I could take
him for a ghost myself!"
So that was Aaron Menning. Well, he might be a good chapel member,
but he had a face that would hang him if my impressions went for
anything. All the same, this put me no nearer to clearing up the
mystery at the Bend, which was what interested me at the moment.
Jake Menning and the alleged ghost of Dutchman's Hill were ordinary
enough features in a village drama, but they could have no direct
bearing on the problem that occupied my mind.
After lunch I told Peter to put the mare in. He lingered about the
buggy when I came out, making unnecessary adjustments to the harness.
I could see he was anxious to learn the outcome of yesterday's visit,
and where I was going now.
"Is yoh gwine by de village, doctah?" he asked finally, with the air
of one with a commission to request.
"No, I'm going to the Bend. There is no need for you to drive me," I
added as I took the reins up.
I could have sworn the old sinner looked relieved as he went back to
the coach-house. When I reached the bungalow I found Lessing himself
on the porch. As he rose to greet me I saw that he was taller than I
had thought; there was a certain wiry strength about him when he
stood upright. What amazed me was the man's extraordinary endurance
and resiliency; his face showed scarcely a sign of the exhaustion of
yesterday. He was dressed in corduroy trousers and a soft silk
shirt, under which the outline of the bandaging was visible as he
moved.
"Well, how are you?" I asked as we shook hands.
"All right. Come into the house--or shall we stay here?"
"I'll have a look at you first." I followed him into the room. "A
bit stiff?"
"Nothing much."
"Sleep?"
"Like a log."
I need hardly have asked him. He stripped up his shirt and I made a
brief readjustment of the dressings. The wounds were going on all
right. He must have had a magnificent constitution despite his
slightness of build. We sat down on the divan, and Lessing produced
a box of cigarettes.
There was a small wooden table near the window, littered with
test-tubes and odds and ends, and I nodded toward it.
"Been busy?"
"I was just working out something. I have a sort of laboratory
fitted outside, though. I had it built."
"That sort of studio place?"
"It's just like a workshop--where I muddle occasionally! I'll show
you sometime, if you like."
"I should be delighted."
"My experiments have, unfortunately, given rather a bad name to the
place. They had a bad effect on old Lennox, too. I believe I was
too progressive for him. You wouldn't expect that from a medical
man, would you? Did you know Lennox very well?"
He knocked the ash off his cigarette, waiting for my reply. If he
was guarded, so was I.
"I knew him at the University, a good while ago. Since then I had
not seen him till the other day."
"He's a queer old bird! I used to tell him he made the ideal country
practitioner. It made him mad because it was so exactly true. We
used to disagree frightfully, you know. It's the only relaxation in
a place like this. I shall miss Lennox...."
It struck me he was trying, in a casual way, to find out how far
Lennox had spoken of him to me, and whether we had been at any time
since his departure in correspondence.
"Lennox has quaint theories," he went on, leaning back against the
cushions. "One of them is that nothing exists outside the
pharmacopœia and Burton's 'North American Fauna.' We used to
argue it at great length. I don't believe he's convinced yet."
"He was never an easy man to convince."
"So? It's habit that survives. How do you like it down here, by the
way?"
"Oh, I'm putting in a good time," I smiled. "I fish a little, tramp
a little. There ought to be good shooting in these woods by and by."
"They are interesting," said Lessing drily.
"Have you been here long?" I asked.
"Over a year." He rose and went into the kitchen, whence he returned
a moment later, saying: "I thought I heard my wife there. We might
as well have some tea."
It was Miss Lessing who brought the tea in, a few minutes later. She
greeted me pleasantly, setting the tray down on the little table I
pulled forward for her.
"Kate is lying down for a while," she said to her brother. "She has
a headache. Do you take sugar, Doctor Haverill?"
I sat chatting there for nearly an hour. Lessing seemed at all
events disposed to be friendly. All the while I was trying to
reconcile this man who sat talking boyishly on trivial subjects with
the outstretched figure I had seen twenty-four hours ago. If I had
felt any resentment for his treatment of me yesterday it would have
vanished utterly, and his complete absence of restraint now showed
me, if I had needed it, how all memory of that mood had changed with
his physical condition.
When I rose to go it was under promise to dine with them the
following week. I fancied that Miss Lessing glanced hesitatingly at
her brother before she seconded his invitation. It might have been
only fancy; she was certainly cordial enough as we shook hands.
"Next Thursday, then," Lessing called after me from the doorway. I
drove home no less mystified than before.
V