Dr. Stone

“ Stone left the young women knelt in prayer, but the mother would not join them.
Later, with her mother's consent, Yu Kuliang went to the hospital, and there spent four of the ten last days of her life, in the companionship of her cousin. Dr. Stone gave her every minute that could be spared from her hospital duties, telling her of the glad new life which she was soon to enter, and praying with her. Many times Yu Kuliang tried to leave the bed to kneel with Dr. Stone, but the doctor explained to her that her prayers were just as acceptable where she was, and that she was too weak to kneel. ”

“ All talk and speculation lay dead and in the past. The gathering was seated with a rustling sound that echoed dully and impatiently.
Stone reached the podium and paused, looking frightened. Surely the pretense of enlightenment and self-importance in which he characteristically wrapped his 'fellow Americans' would ring false in those halls, sullen and filled with ghosts.
He laid down his papers, despairing to speak. Never before had he felt himself so plainly laid out on the surgeon's table, under the unblinking eye of the camera, waiting for the knife. He wrestled back the lump in his throat. ”

“ As the work grew, it became evident that larger accommodations would soon be imperative, and Dr. Stone succeeded in securing some additional land. The first addition was a lot which she had long desired to enclose within the hospital grounds. For some time she was unable to do this because of a road which ran between, but in 1905 the road was moved to the other side of the lot, at her petition, and the land was included within the hospital compound. "Most of the neighbours have been patients and are friendly," one of her letters reports. ”

“ Eyes behind almost opaque lead-glass goggles, head and body encased in a multi-layered suit each ply of which was copiously smeared with thick lead paint, Stone studied the raging monster of the heavens from the closest viewpoint any human being had ever attained – and lived. ”

“ I had to put one in our linen room, one in the sewing room, one in a bathroom, and finally, as a last resort, we had to put one in the nurses' dining-room.... We generally have to put patients on the floor in summer, but I am afraid we will not have enough room to accommodate more even on the floor."
Dr. Stone's dispensary patients soon averaged a thousand a month, and as the people's confidence grew, her surgical work also became much heavier. In 1906 she reported: "In looking over the record for the year we realize that we have advanced decidedly in gaining confidence with the people. ”

“ I didn’t kill that man—”
“Wait a moment, Miss Austin,” Stone feared if he let her go now, he would lose his chance, “since you are admittedly the last person who is known to have seen Doctor Waring alive, you cannot avoid, or evade the strictest questioning. You were here,” he spoke very gravely, “late at night. Next morning he was found dead. There are no footprints in the snow but your own. ”

“ Don’t worry about that, Crawford. I’ll look out for your friend. He may have spent the night at Follansbee’s house. At any rate, the doctor is a marked man, and if Stone has gone anywhere with his companion, it ought to be a comparatively easy matter to trace them. ”

“ You can talk openly and freely, Stone, and your secrets will be guarded.”
Stone nodded, and the glitter in his eyes became more pronounced.
“You are right, Doctor Follansbee,” he said. “I can’t figure out how you know, but I want to get rid of Win Crawford. I—I want to get rid of him before he gets rid of me.”
His heavy face was wrinkled into a mask of cunning—the foolish, vacant cunning of the insane.
“He thinks he’s clever,” Stone went on; “thinks I don’t know what he’s going to do. But I’m as cute as he is, and I’ve tumbled to him.” ”

“ The same thought had crossed the surgeon's mind. He grasped the wounded lip with his forceps, and with two swift cuts he took out a broad V-shaped piece. The woman sprang up on the couch with a dreadful gurgling scream. Her covering was torn from her face. It was a face that he knew. In spite of that protruding upper lip and that slobber of blood, it was a face that he knew. She kept on putting her hand up to the gap and screaming. Douglas Stone sat down at the foot of the couch with his knife and his forceps. ”

“ You do not know. It is deadly. I know, and I give you my assurance that an operation is absolutely necessary. Only the knife can save her."
"And yet I am inclined to wait," said Douglas Stone.
"That is enough," the Turk cried, angrily. "Every minute is of importance, and I cannot stand here and see my wife allowed to sink. It only remains for me to give you my thanks for having come, and to call in some other surgeon before it is too late." ”

“ Hayden marked you for life, and he might have killed you when he struck with that knife; in return you gave him just what he deserved. There is nothing in the world I despise more than a fighter who is a bully, and nothing I admire more than a fighter who fights for his rights. I don’t believe there is the least atom of a bully about you, Stone. Put me in your place and I might have gone farther than you did.”
“Thank you, Eliot—thank you!” exclaimed Ben huskily, as he also rose. ”

“ But it gave no hint as to where the hiding-place might be.
Stone pondered long and deeply over the statement that the gems were in some crypt, and, as he thought, a great inspiration came to him.
"Of course!" he said to himself, "it is that! It can be nothing else!"
But he confided his new theory to nobody; he only began to ask more questions.
He quizzed Iris as to her Chicago visit, and [Pg 236] wanted a detailed account of every minute she had spent there. Then he asked her more particularly about the house where she was taken in the little motor car. ”

“ They did not know the nature of this descent until Stone switched on his torch and they saw all about them, strewing the floor of the place, the crumbled remnants, dried-up heads that leered at them, broken off from the brittle trunks, bits of brown bone sticking out from what had once been flesh. Stone saw Healy swiftly cross himself while Larkin shuddered and Harvey leaned over and was frankly sick. Stone felt inclined to emulate him. ”

“ ON THE THRESHOLD. “On the contrary,” declared Roger earnestly, as he once more rose from his chair, “I hold quite a different opinion of you, Stone. You have had a tough time of it, and any fellow in your place with an ounce of real blood in his body might have done just what you did. Every chap is human, and if you had submitted to insults and injury without resentment you would have been a soft mark. ”

“ Little more than five minutes later Doctor Follansbee accompanied Stone to the door, shook hands with him, and watched him depart. Stone had suggested the use of the doctor’s phone to call a taxi, but Follansbee had advised against it.
“If you’re wise, you’ll walk; at least, a part of the way,” he had said. “You’ve been through a great deal to-night, and the exercise will be good for you. If you can get physically tired, so much the better. [136] You’ll be more apt to sleep when you reach your room.” ”

“ His eyes had widened back of their lenses at the tone and manner of Stone's speech, hardly to be expected from so uncouth an object.
"My name, by the way, is Stone," said the latter. "Harvey here is guide and mining expert for Healy there on the bed, Larkin, and myself. I am not trying to set aside your splendid kindliness, doctor, but we shall be glad to pay for any trouble and expense we have put you to."
The doctor nodded.
That's all right," he said, shortly but courteously. "You go up to the house. I may have to amputate. Depends upon whether he responds to treatment. ”

“ This view of Roger’s domestic life, this glimpse of his home and its seeming luxuries, together with a knowledge of his unassuming ways, led Stone’s respect and admiration for him to increase boundlessly.
“Do you box, Stone?” asked Roger, as he removed from another chair a set of boxing gloves and tossed them aside before sitting down. “I suppose you do?”
“No,” answered Ben, shaking his head; “I know nothing about it.”
“So? Why, it’s a good thing for a fellow to know how to handle the mitts. I thought likely you did when they told me how you biffed Hunk Rollins. ”

“ As he was leaving the academy on the afternoon of his third day at school in Oakdale, Ben Stone was stopped by Roger Eliot, the captain of the football team. Roger was a big, sturdy chap, singularly grave for a boy of his years; and he could not be called handsome, save when he laughed, which was seldom. Laughter always transformed his features until they became remarkably attractive. ”

“ After that you can go back to the hotel.”
He did not know that Nick’s ruse in regard to the bell had spoiled Stone’s alibi. Had he been aware of the fact, it would have given him much food for thought, but it would not have affected his words to Stone, for they were spoken merely for effect.
“And in the morning,” he added, “you will find Mr. Crawford as well as he ever was in his life.”
“You are sure of that?” Stone asked eagerly. “The drug can’t possibly do him any permanent harm?”
“On my professional honor, it cannot,” Follansbee assured him. ”

“ You always think small. This is about more than mere medicine. It's about doing the one thing mankind has never been able to do. I am this close. Nothing is going to be allowed to destroy this chance. Not even you, my own flesh and blood."
"Am I that?" Stone asked, feeling an unexpected satisfaction. "Your own 'flesh and blood'?"
"That is something," Bartlett said, "we are about to discover. Whether we are made of the same thing. The best way for you to understand what's going on here is to do what I've done. Have the Beta procedure. Show me you've got the balls."
"The 'Beta procedure'? ”

“ Roger’s father had called Ben by his Christian name, and Stone felt his heart swell. Seated in the tonneau of the automobile with Amy beside him, he was borne out of Clearport and away over the brown, winding road that led to Oakdale. Often he had longed to ride in an automobile and wondered if he would ever have the privilege. ”

“ His picture hung between the windows, looking straight across the room to the other portrait, which hung at the side of the bed. At that I looked next, and as I looked I felt once more the horror of nightmare seize me.
It represented Mrs. Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams: old and withered and white-haired. But in spite of the evident feebleness of body, a dreadful exuberance and vitality shone through the envelope of flesh, an exuberance wholly malign, a vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed from the narrow, leering eyes ”

“ To Douglas Stone this was already an interesting case, and he brushed aside as irrelevant the feeble objections of the husband.
"It appears to be that or nothing," said he brusquely. It is better to lose a lip than a life."
"Ah, yes, I know that you are right. Well, well, it is kismet, and must be faced. I have the cab, and you will come with me and do this thing."
Douglas Stone took his case of bistouries from a drawer, and placed it with a roll of bandage and a compress of lint in his pocket. He must waste no more time if he were to see Lady Sannox. ”

“ Doctor Stanton suspected, or at least feared to suspect some member of the Carrington household.
Of course, this was not a new idea to Fleming Stone. He had mentally gone over the possibility of every one in the family and all of the servants at Garden Steps, but so far he had held his mind open for impressions rather than to formulate theories himself.
“Then, to sum up, doctor,” he said, as he rose to go, “you assure me that you consider it out of the question that Miss Carrington took the aconitine herself, say, as a headache cure, or something, intending only a small curative dose?” ”

“ His voice broke, and he saw the kind face of the professor through a blurring mist.
“I hope I am not making a mistake in this, Stone,” that same soothing voice went on. “I hope you will try to prove to me that I am not.”
“I will, sir—I will!” Ben eagerly promised.
“That is all I ask of you. If you have a vicious disposition, try to overcome it; if you have a violent temper, seek to control it. Learn to be your own master, which is the great lesson that every one must learn in case he wishes to become honored and respected and successful in life. ”

“ The big chest laboured, was convulsed, and then quiet.
"He's gone!" said Healy, his voice sharp with greed and anger. "Gone—and he never told us where it was. Wasted his time talking about his fool wife and kid."
"Forget that," said Stone, crisply, himself trembling with excitement. "He was trying to tell us in his own way. Keep the women out of it, Healy. Give me that whisky. Lefty."
The Cockney did so, his eyes still glittering as he watched Stone's efforts to get some liquor between the old prospector's teeth, worn and stained, but stubbornly resisting. ”

“ Stone prepared to make the best of it.
He gave a final glance around before he made the irrevocable move. He caught sight of the clock, and he saw that it was twenty-two minutes after midnight. He reached forward, and he found that the space was wider than he had thought. It was with the tips of his fingers only that he could touch the tin pipe; it was beyond the reach of his grasp. Yet to seize it was the one way to the street below. He did not hesitate. He stood on his left foot on the very end of the ledge, with his right foot dangling in space. ”