FOLLANSBEE HITS THE NAIL.
It was little after eleven o’clock in the morning when a
broad-shouldered man turned into Amsterdam Avenue and began to move
slowly along the pavement, glancing now and then at the houses as he
passed. His tanned face suggested that he was a man from a warmer land,
and the stubborn chin and hard, sour look about the eyes were mute
tokens of the surly temper that ruled the stranger. He was wearing a
soft hat with a wide brim, and he had tilted it forward to shade his
eyes from the sun. Once he took a slip of paper from his pocket and
studied it for a moment. Evidently he was looking for an address.
Presently he caught sight of what he sought—the big bulk of St.
Swithin’s Hospital, which occupied an entire block. He quickened
his pace and approached the great building. In the reception room,
however, a disappointment awaited him. When he asked for Doctor Stephen
Follansbee, he was told that that distinguished individual had not yet
arrived at the hospital that day. But after some argument he obtained
Follansbee’s private address, which proved to be also on Amsterdam
Avenue and not more than half a dozen blocks away.
The stranger retraced his steps, therefore, and sought the new number.
He soon found it over the door of a house that was one of a row of
solid but by no means impressive residences.
A maid admitted him and asked if he had an appointment with the doctor.
When informed that he had not, she invited him into the empty reception
room and told him Doctor Follansbee was busy, but that he would be free
in a few minutes. The visitor seated himself, picked up a magazine, and
began mechanically glancing it over. After ten or fifteen minutes,
the folding doors at the rear of the reception room were opened and a
patient emerged. Over the latter’s shoulder the waiting man caught a
glimpse of a stern, repellent figure in the doorway.
The caller rose expectantly, but before he had a chance to step forward
or utter a word he was greeted in an unexpected, almost uncanny,
fashion.
“Come in, Mr. Stone!” were the words which came from the man in the
doorway.
With a start, James Stone grasped his hat and stepped forward. He could
not imagine by what black art the master of the house knew his name,
and he eyed his host apprehensively as he passed him and entered the
room beyond.
He was doubtless face to face with the famous Doctor Stephen
Follansbee, but it was hard, indeed, to believe it. The man before him
could not have been more than five feet high. His head was as bare as a
billiard ball and curiously elongated in shape. The vulturelike face,
the almost fringeless eyelids, and the long, thin, hawklike nose held
him mute.
Into the black, beady eyes there flickered a sudden mirth, and the thin
lips twisted into what was the ghost of a smile.
“It’s all right, Stone!” the extraordinary individual declared. “You
have come to the right place. You may not think it, but I’m Doctor
Follansbee.”
Was it possible? The man looked like some sinister bird of prey, and
yet he was at the head of a celebrated hospital and enjoyed the most
enviable reputation as an authority whose fame was countrywide.
In response to a gesture from Follansbee the visitor dropped into a
chair close beside a small desk that stood by a window. The specialist
crossed the room with quick, birdlike steps and took his seat behind
the desk. In the momentary pause that followed, the two men eyed each
other, but what their thoughts were remained their respective secrets.
At least, Stone could not read the physician’s.
“You expected to see some one very different, I suppose?” Follansbee
remarked, with a mocking smile. “A big, well-groomed figurehead with an
impressive manner and a carefully trimmed Vandyke beard? Confess, now.”
Stone relaxed and laughed. It was a short, grating laugh, and the
physician’s eyes dilated slightly as he heard it.
It was hardly the laugh of a sane person, and as Follansbee leaned
forward he noted that the pupils of Stone’s eyes were fixed and round,
a sign which the initiated always searches for in mental cases.
“That’s about it,” the visitor admitted, in his harsh voice. “The—the
young man who spoke to me about you told me that you were the head of a
big hospital, and I’ve just been there.”
Follansbee nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “I can assure you that your friend was quite
correct, as you’ve doubtless found out for yourself, if you’ve been at
St. Swithin’s. I’ve never been called handsome, but I haven’t found
that a drawback, and I suspect that you didn’t come to see me for my
looks. Did you have a pleasant voyage on the _Cortez_?”
Stone looked at him in open-mouthed amazement.
“What do you know about me?” he demanded. “You nearly floored me by
calling me by my name, and now you——”
“Oh, that isn’t all I know about you,” Follansbee assured him
maliciously. “I can tell you all about the Condor Mine and of your
partner, Winthrop Crawford—or shall we call him your ex-partner? I know
that you and he recently sold the Condor for a million, and that you
have both come back to your old stamping ground after an absence of a
quarter of a century or so. I know several other things, too, but we
won’t speak of them just yet.”
Stone bit his lip and paled a little under his tan.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he muttered. “I suppose Floyd must have written
to you about me. How in thunder you knew me, though, when I came in, is
more than I can understand.”
“Who may ‘Floyd’ be?” queried Follansbee, as if he had never heard the
name before.
His visitor looked at him in bewilderment, but again failed to read
that baffling countenance.
“Why, he’s the young American doctor down in Brazil who advised me to
come to you,” he explained wonderingly. “He said he had studied under
you in medical school.”
“Indeed! That’s very interesting,” murmured the specialist. “Hundreds
of young men have studied under me, however. I suppose I might say
thousands. It is gratifying to be remembered by one of them, of
course, but I cannot be expected——”
“Then how in the world——”
“Let’s not waste time over things out of our immediate concern,”
Follansbee interrupted. “Please remember that my time is valuable, very
valuable. You seem to be slow in getting to the point. I’ll help you
out. I happen to know the nature of your errand, but am also perfectly
well aware that your heart isn’t in it. Your real desires are of a very
different sort. Isn’t that so?”
James Stone looked alarmed, as well he might. His conscience was by no
means clear, and the conversation seemed to be getting on decidedly
dangerous ground.
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he faltered, moistening
his lips. “Doctor Floyd had a fool notion that I was going crazy,
or something like that. I naturally didn’t take very kindly to the
idea, but I was more or less under obligations to him, and he was so
insistent that I promised to look you up. He said you would help me. Of
course, I don’t think I need any help—of that sort—but I’m a man of my
word, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Very commendable!” murmured the head of St. Swithin’s. “Doctor Boyd,
or whatever his name is, was quite right. I can help you, in more ways
than one, and I perceive that what you really want is to be rid of your
former partner, Winthrop Crawford. Have I hit the nail on the head?”
A meaning smile crossed the sinister face, and Follansbee leaned back
in his chair, the glance from his hard little eyes playing over his
caller’s face.