Ivy stared fearfully at the speaker, and again there swept over her a strong feeling of misgiving, if not of fear.
Thus was effected the entrance of Dr. Berwick into the lives of Ivy Lexton and her husband.
In spite of his shrewdness and long professional experience, it took the new doctor some days to become even vaguely puzzled—so true is it that murder is the one chink in the armour of a civilised community—over certain unusual features in his patient’s case.
On the occasion of his first visit to Jervis Lexton, Dr. Berwick had been in a great hurry, and though he had seen his new patient’s wife for a few moments, he had impatiently dismissed her from his mind as a foolish, frivolous little woman. Indeed, considering the manner of man he was, he could hardly have told, after that brief interview in the dimly lighted hall, whether young Mrs. Lexton was pretty, or just ordinary, though he had noticed, with disapproval, that she was very much made up.
Ivy on her side, if feeling slightly surprised by the doctor’s lack of interest in her attractive self, was at the same time reassured by the fact that Dr. Berwick evidently thought her husband only suffering from a temporary, if obstinate ailment, brought on, most probably, by something he had eaten during the evening which had preceded the night he had first been taken ill.
And yet her feeling of misgiving prevailed so far that she deliberately tried to keep out of the new doctor’s way. This was quite easy, for she was out to most meals, and owing to Lexton’s illness she had stopped giving her pleasant little bridge-parties at the flat.
But as the days dragged on, as Jervis Lexton, instead of responding to treatment, grew steadily worse, Dr. Berwick began to feel really puzzled. He made up his mind one day to see Mrs. Lexton. On that day Ivy was going to be motored to Brighton by a new admirer, and she had said she would come in after lunch to fetch her fur coat. So the doctor, believing she would be back soon, waited for her. But the moments became minutes, and the minutes mounted up to close on half an hour.
Feeling very much annoyed, he was just about to leave the flat, when Ivy walked into the drawing-room, looking, as he instantly acknowledged to himself, charmingly pretty and gay.
“I waited to see you, Mrs. Lexton, because I am not satisfied with your husband’s condition. From what the nurse tells me, Dr. Lancaster was puzzled too, though he said nothing of that in the notes he sent me concerning the case.”
Then, almost in spite of himself, he was touched by the look of distress which at once shadowed her lovely face, and it was in a kinder tone that he went on:
“If he does not pick up in the next day or two, I should very much like to have another opinion. Will you try to persuade him to see a specialist?”
“Of course I will,” she said quickly. “Though he can’t bear any fuss made over him, poor old boy! He very much objected to our having a nurse; but she’s such a comfort to me.”
Dr. Berwick disliked Nurse Bradfield. He thought her slow and old-fashioned. So now he told himself that, though she might be a comfort to Mrs. Lexton, he would far prefer a different kind of nurse to tend one as ill as he now realised Jervis Lexton to be.
He looked fixedly at his patient’s wife, debating within himself whether he ought to impart to her a suspicion which was beginning, only beginning, to touch his mind. Now and again, during the last two days, he had felt a slight, half-doubting suspicion as to whether certain untoward symptoms could possibly mean that Lexton was absorbing some form of irritant poison. But even to hint or half-imply such possibility is a very serious thing to do from a doctor’s point of view, and so he fell back on what seemed the wiser course of recommending a second opinion.
“Do you think Dr. Lancaster will be away long?” asked Ivy. “He’s such an old friend of mine,” and she smiled, a pretty, disarming little smile. “I know you’re ever so much more clever than he is—”
Dr. Berwick interrupted harshly, “That’s quite untrue! Dr. Lancaster has had ten times the experience I’ve had, and I take my hat off to him every time. But I fear he’s not likely to be back for a long time. You see, he’s no longer a young man, and it is a great chance for him to be invalided away from home, and where he can’t be got at by the kind attentions of friends and—patients.”
The next day an untoward thing happened which, though it seemed at the time of very little account, was yet to prove of considerable moment.
Roger Gretorex ran across a Mrs. Horley, whom he had often met in Ivy’s company in the now faraway days when he would go anywhere, and everywhere, just to see her, and to hold her hand for a moment. Mrs. Horley naturally alluded to Jervis Lexton’s illness, and was evidently much surprised to find that it was all news to him. To everyone but Gretorex, Ivy constantly mentioned her husband’s unfortunate condition, and expressed some measure of anxiety.
Though only half believing Mrs. Horley’s tale, or rather believing that Lexton was suffering from some slight indisposition, Gretorex went off to the flat, only to find that Ivy was out, as usual.
The cook had opened the front door. She knew Gretorex quite well by sight, for in the early days of the Lextons being there, he had been an occasional visitor.
He listened to her wordy account of “the master’s” illness; and then the nurse, hearing voices in the hall, opened her patient’s door.
“Nurse! This is Dr. Gretorex, a great friend
