CHAPTER XIX
DOCTOR O’NEILL CALLS IN A SPECIALIST
‘Some that do plot great treasons.’
――_Webster._
Doctor O’Neill, by what he considered great good luck, found young Dorset alone on the croquet-ground. He at once seized his opportunity.
“Put away your mallet,” he said abruptly, “I want to talk to you. Shall we be disturbed if we stay here?”
“Very likely.”
The doctor had expected him to betray some surprise, but judging from his manner Palmer might have been granting mysterious interviews all his life. His unruffled serenity, indeed, slightly took the wind out of the doctor’s sails.
“Well, where will we not be disturbed? I want to speak to you in private.”
“There’s Jonah’s Bower,” the boy remarked, pointing to the ash-tree. “Nobody will interrupt us there, unless Ann routs us out, and if she does we can send her away.”
“All right.”
They retired to the bower, and the doctor found it contained a seat which had been put up for Ann by Palmer himself, who included carpentry among his many accomplishments. He took the seat, and the red-haired boy, facing him, sat upon the ground cross-legged, like a Turk.
“I want to talk to you about Grif.”
“Yes.”
Doctor O’Neill looked gravely into Palmer’s pleasant countenance, while he tried to think of a way to induce him to commit himself. “Or rather I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell me everything you know.”
Palmer’s expression did not alter. “So far, I only know that there is some particular thing you are uneasy about.”
“Don’t be cheeky.”
“No, sir.”
The doctor frowned. “Well then, fire ahead, and tell me what you think.”
Palmer only gazed at him with wrinkled forehead, as if slightly at a loss. “I don’t see how I’m to fire ahead, when you won’t even tell me what you would like me to fire at.”
The doctor hesitated. “You aren’t surprised that I should ask you about Grif?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you _do_ know something.... Now, I’m going to take you into my confidence.”
He paused as if to allow Palmer time to acknowledge this favour, but the boy retained his attitude of silent imperturbability, and his faint smile struck the doctor as being even slightly cynical. It was at all events quite apparent that he believed he had very few confidences to bestow.
“I’m not satisfied about Grif’s illness. I believe there’s something more in it than we are aware of; something behind it; some reason for it of which I know nothing.”
Palmer nodded slowly: he quite understood.
“Now I want you to tell me _your_ ideas on the subject, if you have any.”
There was a perceptible silence, during which Palmer appeared to be turning the matter very carefully over in his mind.
“If I had been allowed to listen to what Grif said when he was ill, I think I could have helped you,” he at last produced cautiously.
“How do you know he said anything?”
“Don’t people always talk when they are delirious?”
“They usually talk a great deal of nonsense.”
“Based on something else?”
“Possibly.”
“It’s the nonsense, isn’t it, that you want to find out about?”
The doctor eyed him sharply. “I want to find out if there has been any influence at work upon his mind――any unhealthy influence.”
“And you suspect somebody, sir?”
“I don’t say that.... At any rate I haven’t mentioned my suspicion to anyone but you.”
Palmer received this compliment somewhat coolly. “If I speak, I suppose there is no danger of what I say going any further?”
“My dear boy, the greatest danger you run at present is that of developing into a prig,” said the doctor, a little ruffled.
“It’s a very remote one, isn’t it?”
“Not nearly so remote as you appear to imagine. But I agree to your terms: I’ll not give you away, if that’s what you mean. Don’t you see that I have only given myself away, by taking it for granted that you have thought of the matter at all?”
“Well, you weren’t mistaken,” the boy admitted. “In fact, if you hadn’t spoken to me I should probably have spoken to _you_――in a few days.”
“Why in a few days?”
“Because I might have had more to say then.”
“You are investigating the case?”
Palmer’s small brown eyes regarded him with quiet amusement. “I have given it a few hours, sir,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear it. You haven’t, I suppose, reached a definite conclusion?”
“No. But I know where to look for one.”
“The deuce, you do!” the doctor murmured.
“Also I dare say I can tell you one or two things even now that may interest you:――always, of course, speaking in confidence.”
The doctor eyed him somewhat grimly, but Palmer went on, quite undisturbed:
“First, however, I want to _ask_ a question. How long have you known Mr. Bradley, sir?”
“For several years――ever since I’ve been here.”
“But you don’t know him very well, perhaps?”
“No, I can’t say I do. I called on him once, but he didn’t seem anxious that there should be any intimacy.... Why do you ask? What has Mr. Bradley to do with――――”
“Has it never struck you that nobody _does_ know him?” Palmer interrupted. “Nobody knows, for instance, except me and Grif whom I told, that his name isn’t Bradley.”
“_Isn’t_ Bradley! What is it then?”
“His name is Tennant.”
Doctor O’Neill stared. “You aren’t――――? This isn’t a game, is it?”
Palmer shook his head. “Not so far as I am concerned.”
“Then why on earth――――?”
“For the same reason that brought him here――among strangers. He doesn’t want to be recognized. Have you ever heard of his having had a friend to stay with him――I mean anyone who knew him before he came here?”
“I don’t remember. I was never particularly interested in the matter.”
“Canon Annesley says he has never had a visitor.”
The doctor considered. “But what has all this to do with Grif?”
“I think it has something to do with what you want to know,” said Palmer.
“And is that all you have to tell me?”
“It is all I have a definite proof for. I have only a theory of what the rest may be.”
The doctor waited.
“Would you like to hear my theory?” asked Palmer sweetly.
“I would like to pull your ear,” answered the doctor.
Palmer smiled. “Mr. Bradley is peculiar,” he said slowly, “and peculiar in a very unpleasant way. I had an interview with him in the church, and found him a good deal too handy with that stick of his. In fact I don’t mind admitting that at one time, when he got me cornered, I was pretty badly scared.... I thought over it afterwards and added it to one or two other things I had picked up about him, and I tried to find an explanation which would cover everything.”
“I see.... Well?”
“It mayn’t be the right explanation of course, but it does cover a good deal.”
“And what is it?”
“Perhaps you will only think it silly,” said Palmer, “but it seemed to me that a man who had been put under restraint for something he had done in a fit of insanity might, on coming out, want to live in a place where nobody would know anything about him, and might even want to drop his surname. Also, after a time, he might begin to drift back again towards the condition he had been in before, and under such circumstances he might want to talk to somebody――to talk about things more or less bordering on the subjects that interested him.”
The doctor nodded, and Palmer, encouraged by the attention with which his theory was received, developed it still further.
“There would be no use talking to you, or even to me. He would have to find a listener with whom he would be safe; a listener whom he might possibly bring round to look at things in his own way. You’ll get chaps like that at school, as of course you know.... And he naturally would be delighted when he found such a person――even if he was only a kid.”
“Grif?”
Palmer’s small eyes narrowed craftily. “Grif, perhaps. Almost any quiet, thoughtful kind of kid would do, so long as he wasn’t the kind that blabs.”
“And Grif doesn’t blab?”
“He hasn’t blabbed to you,” Palmer smiled. “Mr. Bradley was with Grif most of the afternoon last Saturday, and on Saturday night Grif walked in his sleep. I came down and let him in, and he spoke to me afterwards, up in his own room, in a very peculiar way about some danger.”
“What sort of danger?”
“I didn’t quite understand; but not a very nice sort:――a danger that would come from a dead person.”
The doctor drew in his lips, but he said nothing.
“Mr. Bradley was also with him on Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday night Grif was taken ill. I have an idea that on Sunday afternoon they talked pretty freely――about the interesting subjects――because Mr. Bradley told Miss Annesley they hadn’t talked at all, that Grif had been asleep most of the time:――which was a lie.”
“How do you know? Did Grif say so?”
“No; he didn’t give his pal away. He was even anxious to believe he _had_ been asleep;――which probably means that the subjects were a little _too_ interesting.”
“And what were they?”
“I don’t know: I can only guess. He may have told him what he had done, and what made him do it. If I had been allowed to sit up with Grif, as I wanted to, I believe I should know at this moment what he _had_ done. I believe Grif knows, but he will never tell.”
Doctor O’Neill had watched Palmer, as he produced these explanations, with an ever increasing curiosity. He now grunted, “I wonder!”
“He’s been here since then,” Palmer went on, “but he hasn’t seen Grif. I saw him instead.”
“And――you have kept all this to yourself?”
“Yes.”
The doctor was silent. Then he said simply, “You’re a wonderful boy, Palmer! I shall give myself the pleasure of calling again upon Mr. Bradley.”
“Hadn’t we better find out first what it was he did before they shut him up? It seems to me very likely that he gets dangerous.”
“And how do you propose to find out?”
“I’m going to try your way: but I’ll call when he’s not at home. There’s always a chance of picking up something on the spot.”
“And if he comes back and finds you?”
“That will be exciting, won’t it? You see, he knows already that I’m watching him, and he hates me like poison.”
“And you’re willing to undertake this――to try to carry it through by yourself?”
“I haven’t anybody to help me.”
“And you won’t be afraid?”
“Not too much――when the time comes. I’d rather have had my revolver, of course, but it was sent back to the shop and the man was told not to let me get it again. I’ll just have to make sure Bradley doesn’t catch me.”
“But suppose, for a moment, everything you say to be true. The man may be homicidal!”
“I think that’s what he is.”
The doctor pondered. He rejoiced in this Palmer, though he might not perhaps have been able to give a very good reason for doing so. Still, the fact remained, that he rejoiced in him exceedingly. “I tell you what,” he said, “we’ll take on this job together. I’m not sure that I shall be free to-night, but if I can’t manage to-night I’ll arrange for to-morrow. I’ll let you know. What’s more, I’ll have your revolver for you:――though for heaven’s sake don’t use it,” he added hastily. “We’ll call on Mr. Bradley when he is out, and wait for him. For one thing, I’m extremely curious to watch your methods of work. I’ll promise not to interfere, and you must promise me on your side not to do anything without my knowledge.”
“All right.”
Doctor O’Neill still gazed earnestly at the boy seated like a Buddha on the ground before him. Then a smile passed across his face, to which Palmer instantly responded. “I don’t suppose we can do anything more at present,” he said, getting up.
Palmer also rose, and peeped through the green drooping branches of the ash-tree.
“Don’t go out that way,” he cautioned his companion. “The others are on the lawn, and they might see us and begin to ask questions. If we go out at the other side they’ll imagine we’ve just been for a bit of a stroll.”
“You think of everything, Palmer,” the doctor murmured, as he profited by this advice.