THE DOCTOR was a small elderly man, nervous-looking, and a twitch that produced a hurt grimace was his only acknowledgment of Lewis. In contrast, he showed a deference towards Benevides that sometimes suggested a cringing. He spoke in Spanish, and Benevides translated. Lewis, rapidly recovering his own Spanish, could follow enough of the talk to realise that the interpretation was faithful.
“Your brother is dying, Mr. Page. The doctor says he has done everything possible, but the case has passed beyond the powers of medical science.” There was something like an eagerness in Benevides to disclose all of the cruel substance. “This is the last stage of a disease that has wasted away the body, and the end may be only a matter of hours. Unfortunately there is little hope that he will regain consciousness. But, if you would like to see him, there is nothing –”
He broke off and jerked his head up alertly at a sudden sound from beyond the room.
It was the ringing of a telephone.
Bidding the doctor wait, Benevides hurried to answer the call. Lewis walked to the window and looked out. The broken, tumbled mass of the Cordilleras was bleak in the moonlight, but he saw nothing of it. He wanted to disbelieve what he had heard. It could not be true that Julian was dying. This old fool of a doctor was mistaken. An incompetent bungler. . . .
The doctor fussed with his bag, looking down as though afraid to meet the gaze of the Englishman.
At the telephone in the next room the voice of Benevides rose in anger.
“All the devils! What does she do with Maria Josefa? Why are my orders not obeyed? You will act at once. How long do you think we can wait?”
Lewis listened, translating the words automatically. The man was shouting in his rage.
“She should have been here hours ago. . . . Yes, yes, yes. At once! I do not care what time of night it is.”
The receiver was smacked down violently on the cradle, and Benevides strode back into the room, his anger showing in his eyes.
“She has gone to the old hag,” he snapped at the doctor. “That is why. You understand?”
“Basta!” The doctor’s nervous reproof was accompanied by a slight gesture towards Lewis.
Benevides wheeled, his face expressionless again. “Mr. Page will pardon the interruption. It is my troublesome family.”
“I don’t understand.” Lewis felt his dislike of the man growing.
“But there is nothing to understand.” The voice undoubtedly had a sneer in it and the eyes were contemptuous.
“I am not concerned with your family.” Lewis was suddenly indignant. “When I wished to telephone my brother from the airport, I was told that the line was out of order.”
“To-day it was out of order. To-night it is working again. You wish to see your brother? I will ask Dr. Larreta to go with you. I think that will be best. You will be wise to control yourself when you enter. I will wait here, in case you have questions. The sick-room is too distressing for me. You will remember, please, that Julian is my dearest friend. Once he saved my life. That is why I do everything for him.”
Passing from the full light of the living-room, Lewis could see little at first in the faint rose glow of a neon bulb at the side of the sick man’s bed. An Indian woman rose from a chair, moved like a shadow, and halted before the doctor as if awaiting an order.
The air was heavy with the fragrance of flowers. Oleanders, perhaps; but no blooms were visible. There was something else, too; sickly, but faint. Lewis thought it was the seaweed smell of iodoform.
He felt Larreta’s hand at his elbow, guiding him, and it seemed, at the moment of contact, that the hand was shaking. He could make out the shape of a man under the coverlet; the darkness of a head against a pillow. When his eyes became used to the dim light, he could not believe that this man was his brother.
It was a corpse, he thought. Mummified.
He stared at the corpse. Then he saw the faint movement of breathing, and watched, scarcely breathing himself. There was no flesh on the face. The skin, blotched or shadowed, fell over the bones, and Lewis could see the pallor of it in the pink light of the low lamp.
“Julian!” He called the name loudly, losing control of himself in the agony of realisation.
The doctor’s restraining hand was on him, but he threw it off fiercely.
“Julian! Julian!”
He stood by the bed, not daring to touch his brother for fear that he would end that feeble breathing. When at last he turned, the doctor was gone. The Indian woman, returned to her chair, was leaning forward, her eyes fixed on the bed. Her lips moved. A rosary hung in a loop from her hands, the little metal cross glinting as it swung in the neon glow.
Lewis went from the room in dismay, a sense of impotence upon him. He saw in the face of death a final frustration and he closed his eyes against the enormity of it. The guilt would be his if he allowed it to happen, but he felt he could do no more than the Indian woman with her rosary. Pray. . . .
Benevides was alone in the living-room, looking out through one of the windows, his back to the door.
Lewis saw again the familiar things that Julian had collected for his comfort, and his dismay turned to anger.
“Where is the doctor?” he demanded.
“By now he is on his way home.” Benevides wheeled slowly. “He does not come to stay all night. He has many miles to go.”
“Then send after him. Bring him back.”
“One moment, Mr. Page.” Benevides put a sorrowful note into it. “I can understand that you are upset, but there is no occasion for this excitement. Dr. Larreta has not spared himself in his service to Julian and I must insist on consideration for him. If you have questions to put, I will make the answers.”
“Then tell me why Julian has been allowed to remain in this house. Why hasn’t he been sent to a hospital in Trajano? He needs the best attention that can be given.”
“What makes you think that he has not had the best of attention? What more do you imagine Trajano could do for him?”
“Are there no modern hospitals there? Bogota, then? It’s no more than an hour or two by plane. If you are afraid to move him, I will take the responsibility.”
“You are a specialist, perhaps, that you can diagnose his needs at a glance?”
“I can see that he is dying, and everything possible must be done.”
“The first thing is to curb your own rash ideas, Mr. Page. How do you know what has or has not been done?” Benevides voice was sharp in protest. “Your brother remains in his own home by his own wish. More than a wish, it was a demand. Before he fell into this coma, his last word was an order. He refused to go to a hospital.”
“A man so sick is not able to give such an order. How can you stand there and do nothing when you know he is dying?”
“Mr. Page, I try to make all allowances for you, but I am not going to listen to this sort of thing. Julian is in the hands of Dr. Larreta, and this again was his own wish. Dr. Larreta is an extremely competent man. None the less, he has not acted on his own judgment alone. I saw to it myself that he had the advice of the best minds in the country. We have had them here from Trajano for consultation, and they are in accord with Dr. Larreta entirely. They agree in one voice that nothing more can be done by the best hospital in the world. Julian is sick of an obscure tropical disease, and Dr. Larreta is the great specialist in that disease.”
“I am not satisfied. I intend to call in a specialist myself. I will see that Julian is moved to the best clinic without delay.”
“Is it to make trouble that you have come here?” The man’s tone was quieter but more ominous. “Is it your wish to hasten your brother’s death?”
“You need not worry yourself, señor.” Dropping his voice in turn, Lewis put an icy edge on it. “Now that I am here you may consider your responsibility at an end.”
“By what authority do you dictate to me?”
“Isn’t the authority obvious?”
“The presumption is. You will remind me, of course, that you are Julian’s brother. For myself, that is enough. I make no challenge. But there is another who has the duty to see that Julian’s wishes are obeyed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There seems to be quite a lot you do not know, Mr. Page. I am talking about the one who must have the final say. I am talking about Julian’s wife.”
“His wife!”
The words jerked from Lewis expressed but a small measure of his amazement. He stared at Benevides, disbelieving but confounded.
“His wife,” Benevides repeated. “No doubt he would have written to you had he been able, but nothing here has gone normally. He became engaged to my sister four months ago. When he fell ill, he insisted on an immediate marriage.”
“Your sister?”
“You seem to be shocked, Mr. Page, but I do not see why you should be. Julian and Leite were very much in love, and I think Julian realised that he would never recover from his illness. Naturally he wanted to make sure that Leite would inherit the estate, and she wished only to please him. It had to be arranged rather hastily – a civil marriage at the bedside – so there was no time to inform anyone.”
Lewis heard only part of it as he struggled through incredulity to an acceptance of the probability. This, he had to admit, was just what the impulsive Julian might do. His whole history was made up of wild decisions, and, of course, he had reached a dangerous age when, as a bachelor, he might yield to allurement. Even a confirmed widower with a grown-up daughter could suddenly be set dreaming by the lovely face of a fellow-passenger on a plane.
“Are you listening to me, Mr. Page?” Benevides inquired. “I hope you are not too distressed.”
“Where is your sister?” Lewis demanded. “I must speak to her.”
Benevides shook his head. “Not at the moment. She was so worn out with nursing that the doctor sent her to bed. In the morning you will see her. Then you may be able to convince her that her husband should be moved.”