“My name is Randall. I — ”
“Oh — Mr. Randall. The doctor left for your home about fifteen minutes ago. He should be there any minute now.”
“But he doesn’t have my address!”
“What? Oh, I’m sure he has — if he didn’t have he would have telephoned me by now.”
He put the phone down. It was damned funny — well, he would give Potbury three more minutes, then try another one.
The house phone buzzed; he was up out of his chair like a punch-drunk welterweight. “Yes?”
“Potbury. That you, Randall?”
“Yes, yes — come on up!” He punched the door release as he spoke.
Randall was waiting with the door open when Potbury arrived. “Come in, doctor! Come in, come in!” Potbury nodded and brushed on by him.
“Where’s the patient?”
“In here.” Randall conducted him with nervous haste into the bedroom and leaned over the other side of the bed while Potbury took his first look at the unconscious woman. “How is she? Will she be all right? Tell me, doctor — ”
Potbury straightened up a little, grunting as he did so, and said, “If you will kindly stand away from the bed and quit crowding me, perhaps we will find out.”
“Oh, sorry!” Randall retreated to the doorway. Potbury took his stethoscope from his bag, listened for a while with an inscrutable expression on his face which Randall tried vainly to read, shifted the instrument around, and listened again. Presently he put the stethoscope back in the bag, and Randall stepped forward eagerly.
But Potbury ignored him. He peeled up an eyelid with his thumb and examined her pupil, lifted an arm so that it swung free over the side of the bed and tapped it near the elbow, then straightened himself up and just looked at her for several minutes.
Randall wanted to scream.
Potbury performed several more of the strange, almost ritualistic things physicians do, some of which Randall thought he understood, others which he definitely did not. At last he said suddenly, “What did she do yesterday — after you left my office?”
Randall told him; Potbury nodded sagely. “That’s what I expected — it all dates back to the shock she had in the morning. All your fault, if I may say so!”
“My fault, doctor?”
“You were warned. Should never have let her get close to a man like that.”
“But…but…you didn’t warn me until after he had frightened her.”
Potbury seemed a little vexed at this. “Perhaps not, perhaps not. Thought you told me someone had warned you before I did. Should know better, anyhow, with a creature like that.”
Randall dropped the matter. “But how is she, doctor? Will she get well? She will, won’t she?”
“You’ve got a very sick woman on your hands, Mr. Randall.”
“Yes, I know she is — but what’s the matter with her?”
“Lethargica gravis, brought on by psychic trauma.”
“Is that — serious?”
“Quite serious enough. If you take proper care of her, I expect she will pull through.”
“Anything, doctor, anything. Money’s no object. What do we do now? Take her to a hospital?”
Potbury brushed the suggestion aside. “Worst thing in the world for her. If she wakes up in strange surroundings, she may go off again. Keep her here. Can you arrange your affairs so as to watch her yourself?”
“You bet I can.”
“Then do so. Stay with her night and day. If she wakes up, the most favorable condition will be for her to find herself in her own bed with you awake and near her.”
“Oughtn’t she to have a nurse?”
“I wouldn’t say so. There isn’t much that can be done for her, except to keep her covered up warm. You might keep her feet a little higher than her head. Put a couple of books under each of the lower feet of the bed.”
“Right away.”
“If this condition persists for more than a week or so, we’ll have to see about glucose injections, or something of the sort.” Potbury stooped over, closed his bag and picked it up. “Telephone me if there is any change in her condition.”
“I will. I — ” Randall stopped suddenly; the doctor’s last remark reminded him of something he had forgotten. “Doctor — how did you find your way over here?”