“The Haldorns know you are coming,” Andrews wound up. “It doesn’t matter what they think about it. I simply told them that Doctor Riese and I had decided that, until Gabrielle’s mind became more settled, it would be best to have a competent man on hand in ease of emergency, as much perhaps to safeguard others as her. There is no need of my giving you instructions. It is simply a matter of taking every precaution.”
“Does Miss Leggett know I’m coming?”
“No, and I don’t think we need say anything to her about it. You’ll make your watch over her as unobtrusive as possible, of course, and I doubt that she will, in her present state of mind, pay enough attention to your presence to resent it. If she does–well, we’ll see.”
Andrews gave me a note to Aaronia Haldorn.
An hour and a half later I was sitting opposite her in the Temple reception room while she read it. She put it aside and offered me long Russian cigarettes in a white jade box. I apologized for sticking to my Fatimas, and worked the lighter on the smoking stand she pushed out between us. When our cigarettes were burning, she said:
“We shall try to make you as comfortable as possible. We are neither barbarians nor fanatics. I explain this because so many people are surprised to find us neither. This is a temple, but none of us supposes that happiness, comfort, or any of the ordinary matters of civilized living, will desecrate it. You are not one of us. Perhaps–I hope–you will become one of us. However–do not squirm–you won’t, I assure you, be annoyed. You may attend our services or not, as you choose, and you may come and go as you wish. You will show us, I am sure, the same consideration we show you, and I am equally sure that you will not interfere in any way with anything you may see–no matter how peculiar you may think it–so long as it does not promise to affect your–patient.”
“Of course not,” I promised.
She smiled, as if to thank me, rubbed her cigarette’s end in the ash tray, and stood up, saying: “I’ll show you your room.”
Not a word had been said by either of us about my previous visit.
Carrying my hat and gladstone bag, I followed her to the elevator. We got out at the fifth floor.
“That is Miss Leggett’s room,” Aaronia Haldorn said, indicating the door that Collinson and I had taken turns knocking a couple of weeks before. “And this is yours.” She opened the door that faced Gabrielle’s across the corridor.
My room was a duplicate of hers, except that it was without a dressing-room. My door, like hers, had no lock.
“Where does her maid sleep?” I asked.
“In one of the servant’s rooms on the top floor. Doctor Riese is with Miss Leggett now, I think. I’ll tell him you have arrived.”
I thanked her. She went out of my room, closing the door.
Fifteen minutes later Doctor Riese knocked and came in.
“I am glad you are here,” he said, shaking hands. He had a crisp, precise way of turning out his words, sometimes emphasizing them by gesturing with the black-ribboned glasses in his hand. I never saw the glasses on his nose. “We shan’t need your professional skill, I trust, but I am glad you are here.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked in what was meant for a tone that invited confidences.
He looked sharply at me, tapped his glasses on his left thumb-nail, and said:
“What is wrong is, so far as I know, altogether in my sphere. I know of nothing else wrong.” He shook my hand again. “You’ll find your part quite boring, I hope.”
“But yours isn’t?” I suggested.
He stopped turning away towards the door, frowned, tapped his glasses with his thumb-nail again, and said:
“No, it is not.” He hesitated, as if deciding whether to say something more, decided not to, and moved to the door.
“I’ve a right to know what you honestly think about it,” I said.
He looked sharply at me again. “I don’t know what I honestly think about it.” A pause. “I am not satisfied.” He didn’t look satisfied. “I’ll be in again this evening.”