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Mrs. Mercado laughed disagreeably.
“Normal? I should say not. Frightening us to death. One night it was fingers tapping on her window. And then it was a hand without an arm attached. But when it came to a yellow face pressed against the window—and when she rushed to the window there was nothing there—well, I ask you, it is a bit creepy for all of us.”
“Perhaps somebody was playing a trick on her,” I suggested.
“Oh, no, she fancied it all. And only three days ago at dinner they were firing shots in the village—nearly a mile away—and she jumped up and screamed out—it scared us all to death. As for Dr. Leidner, he rushed to her and behaved in the most ridiculous way. ‘It’s nothing, darling, it’s nothing at all,’ he kept saying. I think, you know, nurse, men sometimes encourage women in these hysterical fancies. It’s a pity because it’s a bad thing. Delusions shouldn’t be encouraged.”
“Not if they are delusions,” I said dryly.
“What else could they be?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. It was a funny business. The shots and the screaming were natural enough—for anyone in a nervous condition, that is. But this queer story of a spectral face and hand was different. It looked to me like one of two things—either Mrs. Leidner had made the story up (exactly as a child shows off by telling lies about something that never happened in order to make herself the centre of attraction) or else it was, as I had suggested, a deliberate practical joke. It was the sort of thing, I reflected, that an unimaginative hearty sort of young fellow like Mr. Coleman might think very funny. I decided to keep a close watch on him. Nervous patients can be scared nearly out of their minds by a silly joke.
Mrs. Mercado said with a sideways glance at me:
“She’s very romantic-looking, nurse, don’t you think so? The sort of woman things happen to.”
“Have many things happened to her?” I asked.
“Well, her first husband was killed in the war when she was only twenty. I think that’s very pathetic and romantic, don’t you?”
“It’s one way of calling a goose a swan,” I said dryly.
“Oh, nurse! What an extraordinary remark!”
It was really a very true one. The amount of women you hear say, “If Donald—or Arthur—or whatever his name was—had only lived.” And I sometimes think but if he had, he’d have been a stout, unromantic, short-tempered, middle-aged husband as likely as not.
It was getting dark and I suggested that we should go down. Mrs. Mercado agreed and asked if I would like to see the laboratory. “My husband will be there—working.”
I said I would like to very much and we made our way there. The place was lighted by a lamp, but it was empty. Mrs. Mercado showed me some of the apparatus and some copper ornaments that were being treated, and also some bones coated with wax.
“Where can Joseph be?” said Mrs. Mercado.
She looked into the drawing office, where Carey was at work. He hardly looked up as we entered, and I was struck by the extraordinary look of strain on his face. It came to me suddenly: “This man is at the end of his tether. Very soon, something will snap.” And I remembered somebody else had noticed that same tenseness about him.
As we went out again I turned my head for one last look at him. He was bent over his paper, his lips pressed very closely together, and that “death’s head” suggestion of his bones very strongly marked. Perhaps it was fanciful, but I thought that he looked like a knight of old who was going into battle and knew he was going to be killed.
And again I felt what an extraordinary and quite unconscious power of attraction he had.
We found Mr. Mercado in the living room. He was explaining the idea of some new process to Mrs. Leidner. She was sitting on a straight wooden chair, embroidering flowers in fine silks, and I was struck anew by her strange, fragile, unearthly appearance. She looked a fairy creature more than flesh and blood.
Mrs. Mercado said, her voice high and shrill: “Oh, there you are, Joseph. We thought we’d find you in the lab.”
He jumped up looking startled and confused, as though her entrance had broken a spell. He said stammeringly: “I—I must go now. I’m in the middle of—the middle of—”
He didn’t complete the sentence but turned towards the door.
Mrs. Leidner said in her soft, drawling voice: “You must finish telling me some other time. It was very interesting.”
She looked up at us, smiled rather sweetly but in a faraway manner, and bent over her embroidery again.
In a minute or two she said: “There are some books over there, nurse. We’ve got quite a good selection. Choose one and sit down.”
I went over to the bookshelf. Mrs. Mercado stayed for a minute or two, then, turning abruptly, she went out. As she passed me I saw her face and I didn’t like the look of it. She looked wild with fury.
In spite of myself I remembered some of the things Mrs. Kelsey had said and hinted about Mrs. Leidner. I didn’t like to think they were true because I liked Mrs. Leidner, but I wondered, nevertheless, if there mightn’t perhaps be a grain of truth behind them.
I didn’t think it was all her fault, but the fact remained that dear ugly Miss Johnson, and that common little spitfire Mrs. Mercado, couldn’t hold a candle to her in looks or in attraction. And after all, men are men all over the world. You soon see a lot of that in my profession.
