The Breaking Point Read online

  VIII

  Dick rose the next morning with a sense of lightness and content thatsent him singing into his shower. In the old stable which now housedboth Nettie and the little car Mike was washing them both withindiscriminate wavings of the hose nozzle, his old pipe clutched inhis teeth. From below there came up the odors of frying sausages and ofstrong hot coffee.

  The world was a good place. A fine old place. It had work and play andlove. It had office hours and visits and the golf links, and it had softfeminine eyes and small tender figures to be always cared for and lookedafter.

  She liked him. She did not think he was old. She thought his professionwas the finest in the world. She had wondered if he would have time tocome and see her, some day. Time! He considered very seriously, as heshaved before the slightly distorted mirror in the bathroom, whetherit would be too soon to run in that afternoon, just to see if she wastired, or had caught cold or anything? Perhaps to-morrow would lookbetter. No, hang it all, to-day was to-day.

  On his way from the bathroom to his bedroom he leaned over thestaircase.

  "Aunt Lucy!" he called.

  "Yes, Dick?"

  "The top of the morning to you. D'you think Minnie would have time topress my blue trousers this morning?"

  There was the sound of her chair being pushed back in the dining-room,of a colloquy in the kitchen, and Minnie herself appeared below him.

  "Just throw them down, Doctor Dick," she said. "I've got an iron hotnow."

  "Some day, Minnie," he announced, "you will wear a halo and with theangels sing."

  This mood of unreasoning happiness continued all morning. He went fromhouse to house, properly grave and responsible but with a small song inhis heart, and about eleven o'clock he found time to stop at the villagehaberdasher's and to select a new tie, which he had wrapped and stuffedin his pocket. And which, inspected in broad day later on a countryroad, gave him uneasy qualms as to its brilliance.

  At the luncheon table he was almost hilarious, and David played up tohim, albeit rather heavily. But Lucy was thoughtful and quiet. She had asense of things somehow closing down on them, of hands reaching out fromthe past, and clutching; Mrs. Morgan, Beverly Carlysle, Dick in love andpossibly going back to Norada. Unlike David, who was content that oneemergency had passed, she looked ahead and saw their common life aseries of such chances, with their anxieties and their dangers.

  She could not eat.

  Nevertheless when she herself admitted a new patient for Dick thatafternoon, she had no premonition of trouble. She sent him into thewaiting-room, a tall, robust and youngish man, perhaps in his latethirties, and went quietly on her way to her sitting-room, and to herweekly mending.

  On the other hand, Louis Bassett was feeling more or less uncomfortable.There was an air of peace and quiet respectability about the old house,a domestic odor of baking cake, a quietness and stability that somehowmade his errand appear absurd. To connect it with Judson Clark and histumultuous past seemed ridiculous.

  His errand, on the surface, was a neuralgic headache.

  When, hat in hand, he walked into Dick's consulting room, he had made uphis mind that he would pay the price of an overactive imagination for aprescription, walk out again, and try to forget that he had let a chanceresemblance carry him off his feet.

  But, as he watched the man who sat across from him, tilted back in hisswivel chair, he was not so sure. Here was the same tall figure, theheavy brown hair, the features and boyish smile of the photograph he hadseen the night before. As Judson Clark might have looked at thirty-twothis man looked.

  He made his explanation easily. Was in town for the day. Subject tothese headaches. Worse over the right eye. No, he didn't wear glasses;perhaps he should.

  It wasn't Clark. It couldn't be. Jud Clark sitting there tilted backin an old chair and asking questions as to the nature of his fictitiouspain! Impossible. Nevertheless he was of a mind to clear the slate andget some sleep that night, and having taken his prescription and paidfor it, he sat back and commenced an apparently casual interrogation.

  "Two names on your sign, I see. Father and son, I suppose?"

  "Doctor David Livingstone is my uncle."

  "I should think you'd be in the city. Limitations to this sort of thing,aren't there?"

  "I like it," said Dick, with an eye on the office clock.

  "Patients are your friends, of course. Born and raised here, I suppose?"

  "Not exactly. I was raised on a ranch in Wyoming. My father had a ranchout there."

  Bassett shot a glance at him, but Dick was calm and faintly smiling.

  "Wyoming!" the reporter commented. "That's a long way from here.Anywhere near the new oil fields?"

  "Not far from Norada. That's the oil center," Dick offered,good-naturedly. He rose, and glanced again at the clock. "If thoseheadaches continue you'd better have your eyes examined."

  Bassett was puzzled. It seemed to him that there had been a shade ofevasion in the other man's manner, slightly less frankness in his eyes.But he showed no excitement, nothing furtive or alarmed. And the openand unsolicited statement as to Norada baffled him. He had to admit tohimself either that a man strongly resembling Judson Clark had come fromthe same neighborhood, or--

  "Norada?" he said. "That's where the big Clark ranch was located, wasn'tit? Ever happen to meet Judson Clark?"

  "Our place was very isolated."

  Bassett found himself being politely ushered out, considerably more atsea than when he went in and slightly irritated. His annoyance was notdecreased by the calm voice behind him which said:

  "Better drink considerable water when you take that stuff. Some stomachsdon't tolerate it very well."

  The door closed. The reporter stood in the waiting-room for a moment.Then he clapped on his hat.

  "Well, I'm a damned fool," he muttered, and went out into the street.

  He was disappointed and a trifle sheepish. Life was full of queerchances, that was all. No resemblance on earth, no coincidence ofbirthplace, could make him believe that Judson Clark, waster, profligateand fugitive from the law was now sitting up at night with sickchildren, or delivering babies.

  After a time he remembered the prescription in his hand, and was aboutto destroy it. He stopped and examined it, and then carefully placed itin his pocket-book. After all, there were things that looked queer. Thefellow had certainly evaded that last question of his.

  He made his way, head bent, toward the station.

  He had ten minutes to wait, and he wandered to the newsstand. He madea casual inspection of its display, bought a newspaper and was turningaway, when he stopped and gazed after a man who had just passed him froman out-bound train.

  The reporter looked after him with amused interest. Gregory, too! TheLivingstone chap had certainly started something. But it was odd, too.How had Gregory traced him? Wasn't there something more in Gregory'spresence there than met the eye? Gregory's visit might be, like his own,the desire to satisfy himself that the man was or was not Clark. Or itmight be the result of a conviction that it was Clark, and a warningagainst himself. But if he had traced him, didn't that indicate thatClark himself had got into communication with him? In other words, thatthe chap was Clark, after all? Gregory, having made an inquiry of ahackman, had started along the street, and, after a moment's thought,Bassett fell into line behind him. He was extremely interested andincreasingly cheerful. He remained well behind, and with his newspaperrolled in his hand assumed the easy yet brisk walk of the commutersaround him, bound for home and their early suburban dinners.

  Half way along Station Street Gregory stopped before the Livingstonehouse, read the sign, and rang the doorbell. The reporter slowed down,to give him time for admission, and then slowly passed. In front ofHarrison Miller's house, however, he stopped and waited. He lighted acigarette and made a careful survey of the old place. Strange, if thiswere to prove the haven where Judson Clark had taken refuge, this oldbrick two-story dwelling, with its ramshackle stable in the rear, itssmall
vegetable garden, its casual beds of simple garden flowers set ina half acre or so of ground.

  A doctor. A pill shooter. Jud Clark!