Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

“Dr. Tindle! I regret your services are no longer required. I shall look after the patient henceforth.”

Tindle barked a laugh. “Oh no, my good sir! He is my patient! You cannot presume to replace me in such wise, contrary to the ethics of our profession. His soul is now in my care.”

“His soul, Dr. Tindle, was never in your care. I remind you, sir, that you are a doctor of physic, not of divinity. In ordinary circumstances I should never interfere, but a simple glance at the patient is enough to assure me that you are not competent to prevent his demise. I am not at all convinced that we view the ethics of our profession in the same light; in my view the life of the patient always comes first! I will thank you to withdraw.”

“You have not the power to relieve me, sir,” said Tindle. “That is a decision for the patient.”

“Oh no, it is not!” interrupted Elizabeth. “His care was entrusted to me, sir. And I for one will not fail in my obligation. You are dismissed.”

“By what power?” Tindle smirked.

“By the power of attorney granted me by Mr. Treviscoe,” Elizabeth answered smartly. “I see you did not anticipate this action on his part. But it is true.”

She walked across the room and lifted a document from the writing desk. “Here it is, Dr. Tindle, should you care to examine it.”

“But you are a woman! How can you exercise the rights of a man?”

“Women are not without rights in England, Dr. Tindle, as you would be aware were you a doctor of law. Now let us end this discussion. Good day to you.”

Tindle grabbed the document from Elizabeth’s hands. He gave it a cursory look, and rage played across his features. He crumpled it in his hand and let it drop to the floor. “Labbett! We are leaving!”

“Eh? Very good, doctor.”

Tindle stormed from the room, and Labbett followed him unsteadily.

Merwood looked up at his daughter, pride radiating from his face. “Odd’s teeth, girl, that was well done!”

“Thank the foresight of Mr. Treviscoe,” she said. “He had the document drawn up after my return from the chymist’s, for what reason I cannot fathom. But it has served.”

“Served indeed!” replied her father. He mopped Treviscoe’s brow with his handkerchief. “I only hope it was not served too late.”

Sally continued to sob.

When Treviscoe awoke the next morning, feeble but coherent, he surprised Elizabeth by rejecting the gruel and porter appointed for his breakfast and insisting on milk.

Although she knew her father could scarcely approve, she was so ebullient with joy that he had taken some interest in his surroundings that she hastened to obey him. He drank an entire pint in a single draught. She could tell from his grimace that he was still in pain and feeling queasy. He took a deep breath. “I will have none of any emetic from this moment hence,” he told her flatly.

There was a firmness in his eyes that strongly contrasted with his normal affectation of ennui.

“I have discharged Dr. Tindle,” she said by way of reply, unsure of his reaction.

He simply nodded.

“I will have a nap now, if you’ll be so kind as to pardon me,” he announced, and within minutes was asleep again.

Sally had long since cried herself out, but Elizabeth suddenly felt tears brimming in her eyes as she realized that Alan Treviscoe might live after all.

Nevertheless, his convalescence was not rapid. Eight days after the ingrafting the danger he might pose to others had expired, and he was allowed to attend some of the amusements the city had to offer. He tired so easily, however, that a Bath chair was required wherever he went, and Hero wheeled him everywhere, even up and down the steep hills that separated the Upper Rooms from the Lower Rooms and the Crescent.

He took special pleasure in concerts and recitals. At one soiree he made acquaintance of an Hanoverian cellist, one Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; besides music, they discovered a common interest in optics, although Mr. Herschel’s fascination was with the macroscopic rather than the reverse. Still, Treviscoe found it refreshing to converse in the language he had used in his student days in Heidelberg.

Bath being a town filled with valetudinarians and others recovering from the ravages of various illnesses, his presence in the chair excited no comment, even when he attended a ball.

He was attended by Charlotte and Elizabeth. As a married woman, Charlotte politely refused offers to dance, smiling and politely curtseying with each refusal. Treviscoe reflected that although it must cost her dear to say no, at least she had the satisfaction of knowing her beauty drew every gallant in the room over to her.

Elizabeth was also inclined to refuse such invitations, which were fewer than her sister’s. She was dressed less resplendently than Charlotte, and she lacked her sister’s spectacular Grecian beauty, but she was still very pretty in her slender and delicate way.